I keep seeing people talk about how Dean's death was okay because he "went out the way he always wanted" or because "some stories have a tragic ending, it's like in real life" and I just... Honey, no

I mean, yeah, some stories end badly and not everyone who deserves a happy ending gets that. And it might have been an appropriate conclusion for SPN were we still in season 5, 6 or 7. But we're in season 15.

Supernatural evolved over the years and, what I feel is true especially for Dabb's era, they led us to believe it wasn't a tragic story anymore. Sure, there was still pain, suffering and death, but they made us believe it was for a reason, that it would all lead to something good

We had even more focus on free will and found family, but we also had those themes of healing, overcoming your trauma, breaking the cycle of abuse... Those were put there deliberately and so the tone has shifted to hopeful.

Dean went through years of beautiful character development. He was changing and growing, making new connections, opening up to people. Showing affection, showing who he was deep inside. Finally letting his true personality shine through

He was still struggling and making mistakes, but ultimately it was a big progress. He was starting to believe he really was more than his father wanted him to be. He was loving, selfless and a hero, but not a blunt instrument whose own life meant nothing

He was always ready to give up everything to save the world, but they also showed that it DIDN'T have to be his life. He was ready to die to kill Amara in season 11, but instead he saved the world by TALKING to her. And it was so much more powerful.

And then he saved the world once again by helping to raise Jack, by becoming a role model and a father figure to him. A father figure he never had because he was never allowed to be a child himself.

And the final season raised so many interesting questions. Why is Dean so angry? He said it had always been there, so it's not just because of the Chuck reveal. Is it anger or is it fear? A fear of what? And how does he overcome it if even getting his mother back didn't help?

Well, I had my theories, but I'll probably never know if I was right because guess what, they cut his final arc short and killed him before he had a chance to speak. This is where it all goes wrong and the narrative falls apart

This is your final season, so everything you put in there should be relevant to the ending. This isn't the time to ask questions you never plan to answer or at least acknowledge

So it's either the writing of a very good and consistent author inexplicably turning shitty in the last episode or someone interfered, forced them to change things and they had to come up with something quickly after 90% of the season was already finished

You know how the ending felt like to me? Like someone found that script at the bottom of a drawer no-one had cleaned in 10 years and thought "we're fucked anyway so we might as well film this"

And I just think their choice of the final villain is very interesting in this context. Vampires (like in Chuck's ending) hiding behind masks (so you never see their true faces) that tear families apart and silence people by cutting their tongues out. Who could that possibly be?

There's also the fact they brought back the most random character from season 1 for like a minute, literally just to have this throwback to a completely different era of the show and television in general

It's an ending that somehow manages to be the most predictable thing ever scripted on this show and yet at the same time it's so random after this particular season that it feels like a bad joke. It's baffling to me how it was even possible to achieve

I also saw one of the writers talking about how Dean "was always supposed to die saving some kids". This is wrong. Actually, I don't know how you can land a job like this and still say this shit seriously like?? Truly makes you think nothing is impossible so go chase your dreams

It's simply not good storytelling and "subverting expectations wow so impressive" when you tell someone you're writing a comedy (for example) but end up brutally killing all your characters

The expectations you SHOULD be subverting are the CHARACTER'S ones. You have a man who thinks he'll die on a job so the number one thing you're NOT supposed to do is to have him die on a job. It's literally that simple.

To take this beloved character so many people saw themselves in and watched for 15 years thinking "if he can improve, so can I"... And kill him this way so you can smugly say he was just "always supposed to die like this"? That makes you not only a shitty writer, but a cruel one

And it's not just the fact they killed him, they had him die for 7 minutes straight, in pain, crying and terrified as his brother watched. And then they sent him to a heaven where his abusive father lives down the street and told us "look how happy and at peace he can be now!"

This makes his story a tragedy and if you wanted it to be a tragedy, you should have made it clear before. You don't get to pose as an advocate for mental health and then pull this off in your LAST episode.

Genres exist for a reason. People should be able to know what they sign up for. Unless there was an interference, you lied to your audience, plain and simple. Because if you had been honest, you'd had never got to be on air for 15 years. No-one loves tragedy porn THAT much.

And no-one can say "this is just a TV show, get over yourself". This is affecting real life people. All fiction does! You carry those things with you long after you put that book down or turn your TV off. Especially if it's something you've been emotionally engaged in for years

And it's really saying something that after 15 years of pain and blood, it was that scene that gave people panic attacks. Affected them to the point that they're literally asking for trigger warnings on GIFs. This shouldn't have happened.

So if you feel hurt by this ending, I just want you to know that you're valid and loved. Dean deserved better and so do you

You're also 100% right to be enraged right know and want someone to answer for it. If this wasn't the ending the writers had planned, we deserve to know who fucked us over like this and why. Don't let them get away with this.