It’s Bobby’s turn this week in the final individual character poll for Supernatural. Thank you all for participating so far. All of terms in these polls have been nominated by fans and selected based on the number of nominations and their standing in qualifying polls.
You get three choices in today’s poll. Voting will be open for a week. The topic of discussion is Bobby’s character, characterization, and why you chose what you chose. Character polls were previously run for Sam, Dean, and Cas.
The answers listed in the poll scored top in the number of nominations, but there were many great submissions that unfortunately I could not include. Here is the full list of submissions for Bobby:
Balanced
Calm
Caring
Clever
Comfortable with himself
Compassionate
Content
Curmudgeonly
Damaged
Direct
Faith
Father figure
Fatherly
Friendship
Gruff
Grumpy
Helpful
Heroic
Honor
Humble
Kind
Knowledgeable
Level-headed
Lonely
Loving
Loyal
Loyalty
Mature
Melancholy
Moral
Passion
Paternal
Patient
Perseverance
Practical
Protective
Realist
Realistic
Reliable
Resourceful
Sad
Sarcastic
Self-reliant
Snarky
Strength
Strong-willed
Trustworthy
Willingness
Wise
My favorite writing of Bobby was in the moments when we saw his vulnerability. He was a lonely, melancholy man who had lost his wife under tragic circumstances, but who, and as the Reaper reminded him, helped people. “You got handed a small, unremarkable life, and you did something with it.” While “Death’s Door” lost some points with me because I wasn’t a fan of the turn of events that would follow – Bobby choosing to stay behind as a ghost – the episode won me over by showing Bobby’s relationship with Sam and Dean from Bobby’s perspective, rather than Sam's and Dean’s, I had always accepted that Bobby meant a lot to Sam and Dean, but I hadnever stopped to consider what they meant to Bobby. That episode was a perfect example of showing Bobby’s human side.
ReplyDeleteMy least favorite writing of Bobby was what appeared to me to be an attempt in later episodes to turn him into something of a superman. The writers of season 7 seemed determined to convince us that Sam and Dean would fall apart without Bobby to guide them, and to be honest, that turned me off from his character somewhat. He was smarter than Sam and a better hunter than Dean. Bobby could be credited with all of Sam and Dean’s positive attributes and victories because he “raised them.” And he seemed needed to steer them to the right direction in almost every episode.
So I like the humbler, flawed man better, who was seen by neighbors he could never really get to know as a town drunk, was cranky and insulting at times, but who had a heart of gold and could always be trusted to be there when you needed him. What are your thoughts?
I agree with you. I did not like what was done to Bobby after his death. It should have ended there. It was more honorable. I loved Bobby as he was. I love that he loved the boys.
ReplyDeleteI think Bobby was loving in his own way. The boys knew he loved them. His taking control from the demon and stabbing himself to save Dean proves that. He was reliable. Bobby was always there for the boys and the other hunters he helped. I loved his sarcasm at times. He was a great character. Some of the ones you have on here don't suit him. He was all alone, except for the boys. He was melancholy. He drank too much. He was wise. He was smarter than Sam. There was no doubt of that. I regret the lost opportunity for him with Sheriff Rhodes. It's sad. Still, he raised those boys much of the time. He fought for them.
ReplyDeleteBobby was fatherly / paternal, he was the dad that John could never be, he was resourceful and usually able to find an answer, even if it was by accident..Jody and cleaning fluid comes to mind. lol He was snarky and I loved him for it. In fact all of these could apply to Bobby and I am so sad he is not with us any longer.
ReplyDelete..balance,.knowledgeable,.resourceful..fatherly/paternal,wise,.reliable,.loyal,.loving,.direct,.helpful,.self-reliant,. and snarky
ReplyDeleteI dont believe he raised those boys much of the time , that was retconning to paint Bobby more than he was in later seasons and paint John a little worst than he needed to be .
ReplyDeletefatherly/paternal,balanced and realistic :)
ReplyDeleteyou forgot to add annoying as hell and load mouthed
ReplyDeleteKnowledgable, sarcastic, and loving in his own way. He filled the gap when John died and times before when John couldn't be there. He was gruff, but the boys knew he cared as they got closer to him after John's death. He was lonely, spent most of the time at his house and it seems he rarely hunted when he wasn't with the brothers in less the hunt was nearby because he was the go-to-guy. I wish he and Jody would have more time to be together. Better yet, he not have died at all. :( The brothers could use his directness right about now. He was always great getting Sam and especially Dean to cut the cra*.
ReplyDeleteYou serious?
ReplyDeleteI agree that much of Bobby's history with the brothers was retconned. It is just happens to be one of the few retcons I love. John sucked as a father even before they retconned Bobby.
ReplyDelete"...he was the dad that John could never be..." I love that phrase and that's kind of how I look at Bobby too. Bobby's at least somewhat healthier view on hunting plus his obvious love of the brothers helped make him a favorite of mine. I miss him too.
ReplyDeleteBobby was the best secondary character by far Supernatural has ever had, even if they did end up using him as a get-out-of-the-writing-corner-free card too much towards the end. There will never be anyone who can take Bobby's place. I agree with all of the most voted on choices thus far: paternal, knowledgeable, loyal, resourceful and reliable. He was the Winchesters' rock and he didn't let them down. He was often the voice of reason. However, he was also vulnerable in a way that made him more relatable and endearing. Some of my favorite Bobby moments were the ones where we saw his sadness and desperation which is odd for me since I tend to eschew emoangst. I don't want Bobby resurrected but I do think there is a Bobby-sized hole in this season and it's been very noticeable to me.
ReplyDeleteI think killing Bobby was the worse call ever made on this show, even worse than Bitten. lol
ReplyDeleteOw. That was harsh.
ReplyDeleteI'm mixed on killing him off because I think they wrote the relationship so strong that it became unrealistic for Sam or Dean to ever NOT consult Bobby when they had a problem or were having issues with each other. As bad as the communication is between Sam and Dean this season, it would be even worse if the two weren't saying these things to each other but were each just talking to Bobby, like it was last season. But on the other hand, it was a waste of a great character.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on this. I have a couple of big issues with the retcon. One is that I believe some of the poignancy behind the Sam/Dean relationship lies in their shared, tragic youth. They had a tough childhood in which they were raised in a military, paranoid manner. It made them bond closer than brothers normally would, and it also made them the tough, hungry fighters that were able to hold their own against YED, Michael, Lucifer, and all of the other bads they have faced, who would have eaten normal hunters for lunch. To introduce Bobby as a nurturing figure in their childhoods rewrites the foundation of the Winchester family relationship.
ReplyDeleteMy second issue is that I have sympathy for John. Despite his flaws, I think his heart was in the right place, and I hate that the show's trashing of his character seemed to get worse each season. Maybe the introduction of Grandpa Winchester will help correct some of this.
A lot of these are good so it was hard to just pick three. Wet with fatherly, knowledgable and realistic
ReplyDeleteBeloved.
ReplyDeleteAside from what the writers create of the character, I think a lot of Bobby's popularity has to be attributed to just how great an actor Jim Beaver is.
ReplyDeleteI dont agree about John that he sucked he certainly wouldnt win father of the year but he wasnt the ogre he has been made out to be be either the fans and the writers. I didnt like imo the trashing of John to give more legitimacy to Bobby and his role . He simply wasnt the figure in the boys life esp when they were younger that the show try to pretend he was. Retconning is ok when it is not changing fundamental's and the show have done that with both Sam and John.
ReplyDeleteWhat's a "load mouth"?
ReplyDeleteIn one word: dead ;P
ReplyDeleteJust kidding ;P
Anyone who does not call his dying son sucks out loud as a father. Even if he was chained up in a cave surrounded by demon guards while Dean was dying, he should have at least called the second he was free whether Dean was better or not. He started being a major douche of a father to me in Home and he got steadily worse until he thankfully died. Just how prominent a figure Bobby was or was not in the brothers' lives when they were young was undetermined in the early years of the show so you can't say the show is pretending. However it was established in Devil's Trap that there was a major break between John and Bobby years before (we don't know how long ago) which resulted in estrangement not just between those two but between the brothers and Bobby as well, resulting in a bond that needed to be built back up when they first started working together again. It is also canon since season 1 that John would leave the brothers with other hunters sometimes. While I do think the extent of the bond was a bit retconned, I don't think it is a massive one or one that doesn't fit within the canon on the previous years. It's certainly no Mary as a hunter retcon, Brady as Jessica's killer, or Sam not looking for Dean while he was in Purgatory. Those were major retcons that did change the fundamentals of the show.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I always took John's absence in Faith as an attempt to draw out the suspense around "where is John" longer than an attempt to say something about his character. If it was about his character, we would have at some point learned where he was so that we could draw our own conclusions. When we did see John, we saw him come when his boys called in Shadow even though he knew it was a trap for him and later trade his life for Dean's.
ReplyDeleteAnd not to nitpick, but is it canon that John would leave the brothers with other hunters? We know he would sometimes leave them with family friends, such as the priest, Caleb, and the woman babysitter, but I got the impression that these were civilians whom John trusted. Sam and Dean didn't know Ellen, they didn't know about the roadhouse, they hadn't met Gordon. My impression is that John had kept them pretty separate from the world of other hunters. Unless Bobby was a very close friend of John's, it seems odd that John would leave Sam and Dean with another hunter because he didn't want to bring them along on a hunt.