some Winn Schott Jr. meta
I found a continuity error in Supergirl (surprise, surprise) that I'm basically just going to fit into some headcanon so it doesn't bother me anymore. This post also features other Winn!Content with a heavy dash of Meta and Trauma, so be warned:
Okay, so. In the episode “Childish Things”, in Winn’s first confrontation with his father, he says “I watched my dad get dragged off to prison when I was eleven for murder.” <<<pay close attention to the wording of that, as we’re going to revisit it twice.
Howeverrrrr, in the s2 episode "City of Lost Children” he says, in typical Winn fashion, “if somebody had given me action figures when they interrogated me about my dad, when I was ten? I would have sung like a canary.” Ten, folks, not eleven.
Is this merely a continuity error?
Well, it’s highly probable. I’ll save my rant against CW/DC writing for the sake of this post, but let’s just leave it at the fact that continuity errors in even the fairly important (and simple) details are definitely not out of the question.
It could also be, in the Supergirlverse, that the events leading up to Winslow Sr.'s incarceration did not occur in as timely a manner as we immediately assume. We’re quite accustomed to dramas showing us crimes being committed and the perpetrator getting arrested, convicted, and sentenced in the span of 40 minutes. But that’s not how it often works irl, and not the way it necessarily has to go in fiction.
Consider the Toyman. He's a clever guy, and obviously he was smart enough to spend time planning the attack on his boss, even if it was still ill-conceived and ultimately did not work. But if he played his cards right, it's entirely possible that the investigating law enforcement did not have enough evidence to convict him right away. Because yeah, the angry employee who got slighted is the first person the feds would seek to convict, but that doesn't mean they had evidence to do so.
On the surface level this would in the least explain the age difference: a young Winn may very well have been interrogated by police when he was 10 and his father was not ultimately arrested until up to a year later when he was 11.
Now, if this is true, what it means potentially for the character is that there was a period of 1 month to 12 months where an angry and unhinged father who has crossed the line and snapped and actually killed a minimum of 6 people (during that first supervillainy event, although a 7th is later confirmed by Agent Chase and I’m gonna talk about that too), is still living at home, with his wife and kid. Hence the Schott family having to live through that legal and emotional nightmare on top of the crime itself and no wonder his mom just took off.
The idea that Mr. Schott’s arrest and conviction was not immediate would also help explain the fact that the cops had to interrogate a 10 year-old-boy:
Winn doesn't say "question" or anything that implies this was a chill "we're here to protect you from your dad and we just need to hear it from you so we’ve crossed all our T’s" kind of conversation. He uses the word “interrogated” very deliberately, and in fact makes this reference to his childhood during a time when his coworkers are being pretty (albeit mostly unintentionally) cold in questioning a young boy, stating as a kid he might have been more inclined to be cooperative if someone had just been kind to him.
On the OTHER hand, it is slightly possible that Winn Schott is like most of us and doesn't remember childhood events all that well when it comes to the passage of time. (I had years growing up I wasn't even sure exactly how old I was until I counted but I'm a nincompoop so) However, being as old as he was and the events being as big and traumatic and memorable as they were, this is doubtful.
Okay, now ONE MORE THING:
Going back to that first line (”I watched my dad get dragged off to prison”), because I only realized this when I went back to the episode to check and see if I was right about the inconsistency-
During the raid at the docks, Agent Chase tells Kara they’re not taking any chances (which they’re actually taking like a lot of chances with this terrible plan of action they have, like, wow, they are the worst agents ever, somebody fire them). Why is she so uptight about all this? Because Winslow Sr. “killed an agent the last time we apprehended him.”
Go back and read the lines again.
Winn was heckin there when his heckin dad was hecking getting arrested and being dragged off to prison immediately following an event in which he heck hecking killed an agent, if not literally in front of, in the very near vicinity of, his small son. (!!!)
I am. very calm. writing this now. I was not. calm at all. when I first realized it earlier.
Don’t you talk to me about any of the other characters’ traumas or excuse their behavior because of their childhood or family history - ever again. Appreciate Winn Schott Jr. folks. The purest sunshine child, who constantly overcomes so much, always forgives, automatically seeks the good of others first, is seldom thanked and always called upon to show up, and has so much empathy and caring he’s about as opposite from his dad as he can be. He deserves nothing but to be valued, cared for, and loved.
