John Winchester

## John Eric Winchester

"*You gotta understand somethin'. After your mother passed, all I saw was evil. Everywhere. And all I cared about was, was keepin' you boys alive. I wanted you prepared. Ready. So somewhere along the line I uh, I stopped being your father, and I, I became your, your drill-sergeant. So when you said that you wanted to go away to school, all I could think about, my only thought was, that you were gonna be alone. Vulnerable. Sammy it just, it never occurred to me what you wanted. I just couldn't accept the fact that you and me... we're just different.*"
—John Winchester[src]

**John Eric Winchester**, also known as Johnny, is a character on The CW's *Supernatural*. He débuts in the first episode of the first season. He is portrayed by guest star Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

## History

### Early Life

John Winchester was the son of Henry Winchester. Born in Normal, Illinois, he was four when his father disappeared. John thought Henry had simply left, not knowing that his father was one of the Men of Letters and that he had fled through time to escape the Demon Abaddon. Had Henry not left, John would've been been initiated into the Men of Letters. Nothing is known of John's mother, but he moved at some point to Lawrence, Kansas. After returning from the Vietnam War from where he served as a marine, John worked as a mechanic and was eventually co-owner (with Mike Guenther) of a garage. He described himself as "a mechanic from a family of mechanics," so it may be assumed that either his mother remarried, or he was adopted by a family of mechanics, or that there were mechanics on his mother's side.

John and Mary Campbell did not initially get along when they met. However Heaven was interested in bringing together the lines of hunters and Men of Letters, and so a Cupid intervened and they fell in love. At one point John went to a car yard to purchase a beige VW van but was persuaded by Dean who had come from the future to save him to get the Impala instead. In 1973, John was about to propose to Mary in when Azazel kills him. Mary makes a deal with Azazel for John's life, in exchange for a promise to allow Azazel into her home in ten years time.

John was unaware of Mary's life as a hunter. He did learn of this when Sam and Dean return to 1978 protect their parents from the angel Anna, but his memory is wiped of this information by Michael, following Michael's possession of John in order to kill Anna.

John and Mary's marriage was not always happy, and at least once he moved out of the family home.

Mary and John Winchester put Sam and his older brother, Dean, to bed. In the night, Mary, his mother, goes and investigates a noise coming from Sam's cot. After she sees a figure standing over it, she assumes its John and goes downstairs. Once she gets to the bottom of the stairs, she sees John watching TV and rushes back upstairs to Sam's cot. John, who was asleep in the living room, hears Mary's screams and rushes to the nursery, only to find her pinned to the ceiling with a deep wound across her belly. As he stares in shock, flames engulf Mary and the room. John hands the baby to Dean and tells him to run outside before trying in vain to save his wife. Outside, John and the boys sitting on the hood of their Impala as firemen tend to their burning house.

After, Mary died in 1983, John raised their two sons, Sam and Dean alone. Due to the nature of her death, John sought revenge, taking up the occupation and lifestyle of a hunter, which created a unique childhood for his two young sons. John moved his family from town to town following leads on supernatural creatures (telling Sam that he was a traveling salesman), often leaving the boys for days or even weeks to fend for themselves. Though he never settled anywhere for very long, John did establish a lock-up where he stored weapons (including landmines and grenades), curse boxes and mementos from Sam and Dean's childhood.

In 1990, unbeknownst to Sam and Dean, John fathered a child with nurse Kate Milligan. Though Adam Milligan didn't meet John until he was 12-years-old, John had sporadic contact with Adam from 2002 until John's death in 2006. As John raised Sam and Dean in a very militant and non-conventional environment, it seemed he used his time with Adam to do more traditional father-son activities, such as going to a baseball game, that he either couldn't or wouldn't do with his older two sons.

John cut off contact with Sam after Sam chose to leave the family and hunting and attend Stanford, although he regularly visited Palo Alto to check up on Sam. In 2005, John got a lead on the demon that was responsible for Mary's death, and he left Dean in order to pursue it.

## References

1. ↑ "As Time Goes By", *Supernatural*, The CW
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "In the Beginning", *Supernatural*, The CW
3. ↑ "My Bloody Valentine", *Supernatural*, The CW
4. ↑ "The Song Remains the Same", *Supernatural*, The CW
5. ↑ "Dark Side of the Moon", *Supernatural*, The CW
6. ↑ "Pilot", *Supernatural*, The CW
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Jump the Shark", *Supernatural*, The CW
8. ↑ "A Very Supernatural Christmas", *Supernatural*, The CW
9. ↑ "After School Special", *Supernatural*, The CW
10. ↑ "Bugs", *Supernatural*, The CW