TV Guide “Supernatural: Your Burning Questions Answered!”
(...) Question: Was it always your plan to have John Winchester die in order to advance the plotline? — escapism101 Kripke: Yes, it was always in the cards. It was never a question of "if," it was a question of "when." We knew it would make the stories more intense and vital if the boys were chasing and fighting the Demon themselves, instead of simply chasing Dad. It makes the boys alone, scared, outgunned, overwhelmed, with the odds stacked against them — which will be good drama. And the overall emotional story for the series, after all, is how these boys become men, and for that to happen, their mentor has to die and they have to step up and take his place. (...) Question: Is it easier or more difficult to show and develop Sam and Dean's relationship, as well as tell the overall story, with only two regulars on the show? In terms of finding reasons for them to interact and talk, potential audience fatigue, etc.... — JenJenJen Kripke: It is challenging. Almost every episode, we need to tell an emotional or relationship story about the boys, or else some other kind of deeper thematic, so that it's not just about monster hunting or shallow horror-movie stuff. We always say it's not a show about monsters, it's a show about family, so yes, in the writers' room, we work very hard to find those emotional stories, and ones that we haven't told yet. Luckily for us (and unlucky for Sam and Dean), they've suffered so much tragedy and loss, and they're so wildly dysfunctional, that we haven't run out of emotional stories yet — and it doesn't look like we're going to anytime soon.
Question: Are you expecting the death of John to have a "significant" change on the personality of both boys — making Dean more capable of a relationship with Jo, for example — or does it go back to being Dean and Sam from Season 1 after a little while? — ugahill Kripke: On the surface, Sam and Dean will seem very much like themselves — Dean will be a smart-ass, Sam will be empathetic. However, on a deeper level, John's death had a major impact on them and in many ways caused them to shift roles. Sam, once reluctant to become a hunter, begins to accept his role in the family business, because he wants to respect his father's memory. Dean, on the other hand, begins to buckle under the pressure — from the pain of John's death, from the secret that John burdened him with before he died. Dean begins to act in more violent, more reckless, more hard-core ways. Don't worry, Dean will still be the charming, devil-may-care guy you know and love, but every so often you see a crack in the facade, and when you do, it's scary. (...)
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