#spn needs john as an offscreen but wildly present side character in S1

[ladyluscinia]

Normally I just kind of roll my eyes at bad takes by bronlies, but the sheer cognitive dissonance in their approach to side characters has been really nagging at me recently.

I've seen too many "explanations" of why some non-Winchester is not worth attention and they tend to have pretty repetitive reasons: the character doesn't affect the plot, they have insufficient characterization, Sam and Dean barely know them / don't care, or they are random extra #6254. These points are usually exaggerated to absurdity, but that's the core of the problem with side characters. And bronlies will put it forth as reasoning why the show should have never bothered with side characters at all.

Ignoring, of course, that every one of those problems does exist, but as a direct result of Supernatural not treating its side characters like, well, normal side characters!

Side characters are supposed to affect the plot. They exist to fill supporting roles! Get called for backup. Deliver crucial info. Prompt protagonist actions. See Ruby and Cas in S4. It's impossible for two people + antagonists to move a story along.

Side characters are supposed to get minor character arcs. It's how you give the mains some breathing room and prevent the show from getting repetitive. It helps the viewers get attached. It's makes them more interesting. As a bonus, it often loops in the main characters, leading to...

Side characters should have well built relationships - platonic, familial, parental, whatever - with the main characters. Not necessarily structuring their lives around them, but friends should show up regularly. No one chooses to live in isolation just because. If you haven't established a strong in-narrative reason why your main characters wouldn't have any friends (and Supernatural doesn't) then it makes no sense for them not to care. And kinda makes them assholes for no reason.

And finally, not developing side characters normally and keeping them around still doesn't let you write a show without side characters. It literally just makes more of them. Every writer who needs a side character to fill a supporting role in their episode just makes one up if they don't have an established pool to pull from. Or they grab a character they liked from a previous one-off. Or they replace a character that got killed off, starting the development from scratch. Killing Kevin gives us Donatello. Ugh.

It's just... there is a reason shows do not have a two person cast. Can anyone point to any other show they think successfully pulled that off for more than a year or two??? Can they tell me how they think S4 would have worked as a plot with no Ruby or Cas (or Bobby or Anna or Uriel or-)? And why they think any season after that magically regained the ability?

Bronly hostility toward side characters (both in the fandom and the writing room) didn't change the necessity of having them, it just prevented the show from having good ones for most of it's run. And their frequent proposed solution is that the show should have given us more underdeveloped one-off characters instead of (rarely) bringing people back???

(And now I'm thinking how even the "good" side characters of Dabb era weren't allowed to do a lot of this either, despite getting more episodes. Society if Rowena was finally the replacement for Ruby's vacant supporting role and Sam actually got a Witch!Sam arc.)

Side characters exist for legitimate storytelling reasons. They aren't optional past a certain point. The only option is whether you handle them well, and why the hell would you choose bad decisions over good ones?