Supernatural: 5 Times Dean Was An Overrated Character (& 5 Times He Was Underrated)
Dean Winchester has been both heroic and a complete failure throughout Supernatural. He is full of cheeseburgers and snark and often puts up walls to cover his emotions. Other times, he comes through with a power-forward plan that saves the day just in time. His heroics have saved the world many times over but his mistakes have cost him dearly.
Sam and Dean are not just brothers but also partners in the “family business,” which is “saving people, hunting things.” But Dean doesn’t always operate as a partner and his independence has yielded both great success and colossal failure.
10 Overrated: Big Brother Status
In several flashback episodes, Dean is shown taking care of Sam. John tells him that it’s his job to take care of Sam. They grow up in the life, with their father hunting for days or weeks at a time and Dean being the one to take care of Sam. But he doesn’t do a very good job of it.
Many of their stories are about cereal for dinner and Sam being left alone while Dean is off on some mission or another. As adults, in season 2, Dean makes a deal to save Sam’s life in which he will be checking out and going to hell within a year. As a big brother meant to take care of Sam, Dean left him alone when Sam needed him most.
9 Underrated: He Took Hell In Stride
Dean went to Hell and the days turned into years while he was tortured. Castiel pulled him up from perdition and he went right back to living his life like he hadn’t just been tortured for what felt like decades.
It is later revealed that he took the place of his torturer and began flaying souls after 30 of the 40 years he was there. All of this is traumatic, to say the least, but Dean takes it all in stride.
8 Overrated: Michael’s Sword In The Apocalypse Fight
For two whole seasons, the angels tell Dean about how he is meant for a big role in the apocalypse, and eventually, they tell him that he is Michael’s ideal vessel. The buildup over all of these episodes is aggressive and Dean puts more importance on the idea of his refusal to participate. He believes that if Michael can’t use him, there will be no fight between archangels to destroy the world.
When the time comes, the Winchester’s secret half brother steps up to the plate and Michael uses him as a vessel instead of Dean. In this instance, Dean’s character is completely overrated.
7 Underrated: Love For Lisa & Ben
After the apocalypse is averted, Dean goes to live with Lisa and Ben as a construction worker in a suburban neighborhood. A year later, Sam (without his soul) calls on him for help and pulls him back into the hunting life.
Dean does everything he can to protect his new family, but monsters and demons get to them anyway. Lisa is severely injured when she is possessed by a demon and has to undergo treatment in a hospital. While she’s there, Dean instructs Castiel to wipe her and Ben’s memories of him completely. He loved them so much that he was willing to give them up to keep them safe.
6 Overrated: Finding & Killing Dick Roman
Dean lost Lisa and Ben, Castiel, and Bobby in the fight to get to Dick Roman, Leviathan leader. His focus becomes obsessive and he’s even willing to keep ghost Bobby around after seeing him begin to turn vengeful. He risks Charlie when they barely know her and gets her arm broken by letting Bobby go along with her. In the end, he kills Dick Roman without thinking about the aftermath, and he and the newly returned Castiel are trapped in purgatory for that mistake.
5 Underrated: Loyalty To Benny In Purgatory
The spell that killed Dick Roman also blew Castiel and Dean into Purgatory, along with all the Leviathans they’d killed. The monsters were after them and it was a fight for Dean’s life every day he was there.
Dean and Castiel meet up with a vampire named Benny who helps them fight the Leviathans and other monsters. He becomes a loyal member of their team, which is unusual considering that monsters and hunters are almost always on opposite sides in this world. When they finally reach a way out, Dean takes Benny’s soul through the portal with him and returns Benny back to his body, even though he knows he’s returning a vampire to the world of the living.
4 Overrated: Resisting The Call Of The First Blade
Without knowing the full extent of its power or side effects, Dean agrees to take Cain’s mark and the First Blade in order to be able to kill Abadon, a Knight of Hell.
After obtaining the First Blade, Dean can’t stop killing and he completely underestimates the effect that it will have on him if he does. He finds that he gets sick if he doesn’t keep killing with the blade. This leads to his death and him turning into a demon.
3 Underrated: The Dean & Crowley Bromance
When Crowley first comes on to the scene, he is “King of the Crossroads.” But he quickly rises to the title of “King of Hell.” He is a fan favorite “frenemy” of Sam and Dean and his deals are often helpful, even if he does double-cross on a regular basis. When Dean turns into a demon, he and Crowley “howl at the moon” on a road trip that builds their bond even more.
Dean has many chances to kill Crowley but never does and convinces Sam not to on a regular basis. In season 13, Crowley sacrifices himself once and for all to save everyone and attempt to trap Lucifer in Apocalypse world. His and Dean’s friendship was highly underrated until this moment.
2 Overrated: Possessed By Michael
Lucifer steals his powerful Nephilim son Jack’s powers in season 14 and the archangel Michael from Apocalypse world makes a deal with Lucifer to take everything else in their world. The incredibly powerful Lucifer was never happy as a lesser being and Dean agrees to let Michael use him as a vessel in order to defeat Lucifer, and together they do it.
But Michael reneges on their deal and doesn’t leave Dean’s body. Instead, he locks Dean away in his own mind and uses his vessel to create a new breed of monsters. Dean sits back in the loop Michael created for him until Sam and Castiel come to his rescue.
1 Underrated: What He’ll Endure To Save The World
On more than one occasion, Dean is beaten to a bloody pulp. Possessed by Lucifer, Sam beats him before he jumps into the pit. Castiel beats him up a few times. Other angels and demons beat him up. Metatron beats him to death. Every time it happens, Dean gets back up and he keeps going.
When the world and people he loves are at stake, he will stop at nothing to save them. He is willing to endure every terrible thing in order to keep the world turning and the people that live on it have no idea.