gwendolyngrace (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gwendolyngrace) wrote2007-10-04 03:50 pm
gwendolyngrace) wrote2007-10-04 03:50 pm
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Really, Really Long Meta: Dean Winchester Physical Contact Matrix
Dean Winchester - Physical Contact Matrix
I have been working on this for over two months. It's long, but contains scientific study of Dean and touching other people - how often, with whom, what kind of contact, and why.
Purpose of Study
The purpose of this study is to look at how and why Dean establishes physical contact – what kind of contact it is (intimate or affectionate vs. aggressive or violent), with whom (family, non-family, or the Supernatural), and why (for purposes of protection, to show affection, etc.). I wanted to check the correlations, in particular, to see if there’s a decent predictor of whether Dean is statistically more or less likely to touch certain people or populations in certain ways. I also would like to run a test of statistical significance for these factors for Season One vs. Season Two, and now that I’ve completed the first two seasons, I will also provide some individual episode fun!statistics. I have calculations for Season One (in isolation), Season Two (in isolation) and some calculations for Seasons One and Two Combined.
Why this study?
So, over the summer, etakyma and I were working on projects and watching the Supernatural Reruns, and I was writing fic, and really cresting my Supernatural Conversion High. And we got to talking about Dean and his extreme “Don’t Touch Me” vibes (in “Playthings,” in particular). This led me to think about how often he *really* touched anyone, and under what circumstances. So I decided to conduct a little research, and flex my statistical skills in the process. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish up in time, but I wanted to get this in under the wire for Season 3!
Assumptions
1. The primary people with whom Dean will initiate contact will be Sam and John
2. Dean rarely if ever initiates affectionate/intimate contact, such as a caress, hug, etc., and when he does it’s usually with Sam.
3. Dean’s primary form of contact with others (non-Winchester) is violent (sex excepted)
4. Dean’s secondary form of contact (initiated) with others (non-Winchesters) is protective (sex excepted, see Exceptions and Limitations)
5. Dean’s contact with the supernatural meets or exceeds his contact with humans.
Methodology
Over the last three months, I watched all the episodes and wrote down a description of any physical contact Dean sustained. This included many pausings, going back, watching again, etc. – especially during fight sequences and other times when the contacts came in quick succession. I entered each contact into an Excel database, categorized according to the following criteria:
A. Does Dean initiate the action?
B. Is the contact with another Winchester (John, Sam, or Mary)?
C. Is the contact aggressive (defined as anything like a slap or an intense motion, not intended to hurt or escalate but not gentle or sedate)?
D. Is the contact violent (by definition aggressive, but with intent to harm specifically)?
E. Is the contact with something Supernatural (such as a demon, possessed!human, ghost, or other entity)?
F. Is the contact in the context of protecting someone (such as pushing a victim out of the path of an oncoming poltergeist)?
G. Does the contact signify an affectionate or intimate touch (a caress, a hug, a kiss)?
Then I plotted a matrix of the conflation of these things. For example, cuffing Sam’s head in the Pilot is an initiated, aggressive, non-violent, affectionate Winchester-contact. Jo putting her arm around his waist in “No Exit” is a non-initiated, non-Winchester, aggressive (for her), non-affectionate contact. I’d love to produce Venn diagrams of these but I’m not sure I have the Excel-fu for that. (If anyone is really all that interested, I have the raw data, but will not post it here because this is already long enough!)
Exceptions and Limitations
For purposes of this study, Sam and the “special kids” are *not* considered to be supernatural contacts.
“Contact” through telekinesis (demonic or ghostly), such as being thrown into a wall by the power of a ghost’s or demon’s mind, is also not counted, nor is any contact with an object (such as a rifle butt or billy stick). However, contact with corpses (such as murder victims) does count as “human” contact (and not Supernatural unless it’s a corporeal ghost).
I have included instances where Dean contacts someone he believes to be human but who is actually a possessed!human. This occurs in Season One when John is possessed by the YED, and again in Season Two when Sam is possessed by Meg. These count as supernatural contacts, but in the case of John and Sam, also as Winchesters (because that’s who Dean thinks he’s touching).
Violent contact and initiating violent contact: The actions in this study are on a “per action” basis – that is, the question is whether Dean controlled the contact in each instance, not necessarily one of motivation. For example, when Dean incites Tiny to fight him in “Folsom Prison Blues,” he is instigating the fight, and thus could be said to be the aggressor. However, in the context of the fight itself, the punches that Dean threw count as initiated violent/aggressive actions, whereas the punches that Tiny threw are still violent and aggressive, but not initiated by Dean.
2x20: What Is and What Should Never Be
Season 2 numbers are calculated both *with* and *without* the hallucinogenic contacts in “What Is and What Should Never Be”. There is more physical contact in this episode than any other episode (68 distinct instances of contact!) – and since it is all in Dean’s head, I had to calculate the numbers both ways so as not to throw things off completely. But the episode tells us some extremely important and probably predictably significant things about who Dean wishes himself to be.
This episode also contains two exceptions within exceptions. When Dean hugs Jessica, I considered that to be a “Family” contact (due to his attitude toward seeing her alive and accepting her as part of Sam’s life). There is also a moment where Dean reaches out to (Hallucination!)Sam, but Sam steps backward so that Dean’s hand falls short. This is the only instance I can find of this type (where Dean tries to contact and is denied), but because of the clear impulse and desire to touch, I included it as if the contact had succeeded.
Extrapolations
Much of his contact is extrapolated from the situation, not shown on screen. For example, if he is arrested, we can extrapolate that the officers took his prints, etc., and so sometimes these are reflected as a “contact” even though they are not shown on screen. I usually only count this once, though some contact (such as nurses when he's in the hospital) could be many times. What I haven’t really included in the calculations are times when the show indicates that Dean had sex – because it’s just impossible to figure out how many distinct instances of contact there are in Dean’s average sexual encounter, and while I’d love to sit here thinking about it…it’s not exactly scientific. :^D
So the results are skewed *away* from intimate contact of a sexual nature.
Inter-Rater Reliability
I did this all myself, within time constraints, and viewing iTunes versions with varying degrees of brightness. The show, as we know, is somewhat darkly lit, so it was very difficult to see at times. But I tried to be consistent about certain things, like what counted as contact and what did not, and counting aggressive and protective and intimate motions by as objective a definition as I could. In general, Dean’s initiating the motion is what makes his motivations count toward the correlations. Thus, if someone is acting upon him in a protective or aggressive way, it is not going to be reflected (except in overall numbers). When necessary, I viewed the scene again to make sure that I was categorizing consistently, particularly in terms of motivations.
Season One Statistics
Season One contains 284 discrete points of contact with another being. He initiates 179 of the 284 total contacts, and 91 of those are to a family member. This means he initiates 51% of all his physical contact and 66% of all his contact with family. One hundred and six of his contacts are with a non-supernatural non-family member (another human), or 37%.
Analysis of Assumptions: Season One
1. Of the 284 contacts, 138 of them are with a family member (115 of those are with Sam). This means Dean only establishes contact with a family member for 49% of his physical contacts. Conclusion: Dean’s contacts with family do not quite exceed his contact with outsiders. However, Dean primarily initiates contact with family (especially Sam), and Dean initiates most of the physical contact between himself and his family members (66%).
2. Dean experiences 56 intimate contacts in Season One (20% overall). Intimate or affectionate are defined as a hug, a pat on the cheek, etc, as well as kissing or sexual acts. Just over half (30) of these affectionate touches are with a family member (11 are with Cassie). This is probably a low number, since we can extrapolate that he is intimate with women often, but this is off-screen (see Exceptions). However, 11% of all his contact is intimate contact that he initiates with family members (22/284) - and of all his intimate contact with his family members (30), only 39% are contacts that he initiates (in whole or part). Conclusion: Dean rarely initiates intimate contact, and more often with family (Sam) than anyone else.
3. Only 30% of Dean’s total contact with others is violent. However, he is more likely to initiate violent contact than to receive it. Out of 85 violent contacts, he initiates 47 of them (55%). Fifty-eight of his 85 violent contacts are outside the Winchester family (68% of his violent contact). Not surprisingly, Dean initiates only 10% of the violent contact within his family and only 16% of violent contacts outside it. Violent contact that he initiates within his family constitutes 21% of all his violent contacts, as opposed to the 34% representing that violent contact which he initiates outside his family. Conclusion: The majority of Dean’s contact with others outside of his family is violence that he initiates (55%), but only one-fifth of his contact within his family (21%) is also violent.
3a. I separated “aggressive” contact from “violent” contact (see Methodology), because so many of his actions can be considered forceful or assertive without necessarily indicating an intent to do harm. Aggressive actions include things like slapping Sam’s chest or grabbing a witness by the arm to bar them from leaving. Aggressive actions constitute 57% of his overall contact, and he initiates 34% of aggressive actions in the first season. As with violent action, Dean is slightly more likely to engage in aggressive contact with outsiders (30%) than family (27%), but less likely to initiate aggressive contact outside the Winchesters (16%) than inside the family unit (18%). By contrast, Dean initiates 57% of the contacts within his family in some aggressive way. This is also not surprising, given the number of times he punches or slaps Sam to get his attention, assert his seniority, or otherwise “reassure” Sam of their status as men and brothers. Conclusion:Dean’s primary forms of contact consist of some form of aggression, and Dean is the likely initiate of aggressive contact within his family, but not necessarily outside it.
4. Dean initiates protective contact in 25% of his contact instances in Season One. Only 7% of those contacts are to a non-family member (compared to 14% to a family member). His initiated actions distribute mostly as expected: 54% aggressive, 34% protective, 26% violent, and only 22% intimate or affectionate. However, not counting supernatural encounters, 80% of his overall contact outside his family is aggressive, 55% is violent, 25% is intimate, and only 20% is protective. We can account for this skew because people outside his family make contact with him intimately more than they do protectively, such as when Layla strokes his hair (and interaction with Cassie, though this is mostly mutual). Conclusion: Dean initiates protective contact less than aggressive, but more than intimate, contact. However, he comes into contact with other people slightly more often in intimate ways than in protective ways.
5. Out of 285 contacts, 138 are with Dean’s family, 106 are with other humans, and only 52 are with supernatural beings (bearing in mind that some of his supernatural contacts are contacts he believes to be family members). This represents only 18% of all his contacts. He only initiates supernatural contact in 12% of his actions (18% of his initiated actions). Conclusion: Dean’s contact with the supernatural does not meet or exceed his contact with humans.
Season Two Statistics
There are 434 distinct instances of physical contact for Dean in Season Two, including the actions in “What Is and What Should Never Be” (and 380 actions without the hallucinations in that episode). Of the 434, Dean initiates 217 actions overall. He makes contact with a family member 165 times (143 of those are Sam). One hundred and fifty-six of his contacts are violent; 312 are aggressive; 112 are protective; 152 are intimate or affectionate.
Analysis of Assumptions: Season Two
1. Including the hallucinations of “What Is and What Should Never Be,” 38% of Dean’s contact in Season Two is with his family. He initiates 60% of his family contact (99/165), which represents 46% of all his initiated contact – but this includes all the times that “Mary” touches him during his wishverse experience. Without the hallucinations, this changes to 34% (129/380) of his total interactions, 61% of initiated family contact (Sam), and 41% of all the contact he initiates throughout the season. Conclusion: With the loss of John, Dean’s contact with people outside his family is much higher than with family members.
2. Including “What Is and What Should Never Be,” 35% of Dean’s contact is affectionate or intimate. Without the hallucinations, affectionate contact is only 28% of his total interaction in the season. Again, this is presumed to be a little low as we do not have accurate information about sexual encounters. However, if he’s going to be intimate, he initiates the activity 65% of the time, and 76% of his intimate contact is among family members. (These numbers change to 58% and 72% respectively when including the contact with Mary and Carmen in his wishverse.) Twenty-one percent of all Dean’s contacts are affectionate contacts that he initiates with a family member, but this represents 62% of his contact with family members within the season. Conclusion: Dean’s intimate contact is increased from Season One, but is still a very small proportion of his overall human contact and smaller than his violent or aggressive forms of contact.
3. In Season Two, 41% of Dean’s physical contact is violent in nature. He is still more likely to initiate violent contact than receive it (55%), but his violent contact within the family unit is a little lower than in Season One at only 7% of his violent contact, only 3% of which he initiates. Conclusion: Dean’s tendency to initiate violence is unchanged, but his willingness to initiate violent behaviour within the family has diminished.
3a. Aggressive contact is a whopping 75% of all his contacts within the season. Dean initiates 38% of these contacts, which is roughly 50% of all the aggressive contact within the season. However, he only initiates 19% of his aggressive contact within the family, and the aggressive contact that he initiates constitutes only 41% of his family contact. Conclusion: Dean’s aggressive tendencies were on the rise in Season Two, but declining within his family dynamic.
4. Protective contact constitutes 27% of Dean’s physical contact this season. The 86 protective actions he initiates make up 46% of his initiated action. Twenty-two percent of his family contact is of a protective nature, which is 47% of all his protective action throughout the season. Once again, Dean’s initiated protective contact exceeds the times he initiates intimacy, but his overall intimate contact just surpasses his overall protective touching. Conclusion: Dean is still more likely to initiate protective contact than intimate contact, and others are more likely to touch him in intimate or affectionate ways than in protective ways.
5. Discounting the hallucinations in “What Is and What Should Never Be,” Dean makes contact with the supernatural 93 times out of his total of 380 interactions. This does include instances where Dean thought he was touching a human when in reality that human was possessed or otherwise not actually human. This constitutes only 24% of his overall interactions. By contrast, he establishes contact 159 times with people who are neither supernatural nor family (42% overall). Dean initiates contact with the supernatural for only 17% of his initiated actions (8% overall). Conclusion: Dean’s contact with the supernatural still does not meet or exceed his other non-family human contact.
A Word about 2X20: What Is and What Should Never Be
As I mentioned, this one episode contains more contact in a single episode than any other so far – a total of 68 contacts, 54 of which occur in the context of Dean’s hallucination. But the nature of those contacts tells us some interesting (if not surprising) things about Dean’s psychology. In the hallucinations, only 20 out of the 54 contacts are initiated by Dean. He only initiates violent contact once (although there are 17 aggressive actions). He initiates intimacy 20 times, or 37%, and is touched intimately by a family member (mostly Mary) just less than half of the time (14/29 or 48%). Intimate contact with family members constitutes 81% of his total family contacts in this fantasy world. Dean still initiates more than half his family contact (56%), but a lesser amount of that contact is aggressive (44%) or violent (only 3%). Note also that this episode is the only one where Dean attempts to touch Sam and is rebuffed, as well as (I believe) the only one in which we see Dean consciously crave touch (with Mary in particular). This makes intuitive sense, but it’s good to see the data support the conclusion that Dean yearns for more tender contact.
Seasons One and Two Combined
Just for an overall sense of where we are going into Season Three, here’s the breakdown for both seasons combined (without the hallucinations):
Total Contacts: 718
Contacts Dean Initiates: 396 (55%)
Contact with Family: 303 (258 of which are Sam) (42%)
Violent Contact: 241 (34%)
Aggressive Contact: 474 (66%)
Protective Contact: 184 (26%)
Supernatural: 145 (20%)
Intimate/Affectionate: 208 (29%)
Dean initiates contact with family roughly 63% of the time, and this type of contact represents 48% of his initiated contact. Fifty-three percent of violent contact is contact he initiates, and 54% of aggressive contact is contact he initiates. Eighty percent of the protective contact is contact he initiates (in order to protect someone else) and he initiates 62% of his affectionate or intimate contact. However, 56% of the protective contact he initiates is to protect a member of his family, compared to only 44% initiated to protect an outsider. His initiated intimate contact within his family unit represents 51% of all the contact within his family that he initiates, compared to only 16% of contact outside the family that he initiates.
A little bit about the comparison between the two seasons:
I ran some t-tests (a test of statistical significance) to see if any of the changes really signal a major change in Dean’s attitude toward touching and being touched. It’s been a long time since Statistics class, but basically the higher the t-test value is, the more deviation there is in the mean of the statistic, and therefore the more significant the change.
Dean’s biggest t-test values were in the categories of “Family contact” (overall), “Aggressive contact” (overall), and “Violent” and “Aggressive” contact with non-family members. Not surprising, since generally speaking Dean gets into more fights in Season Two. The top ten episodes for number of contacts per episode are:
2x20 (WIAWSNB) – 68
2x19 (Folsom Prison Blues) – 48
2x12 (Nightshifter) – 40
1x01 (Pilot) – 33
1x22 (Devil’s Trap) – 30
2x03 (Bloodlust) – 30
2x10 (Hunted) – 26
2x15 (Tall Tales) – 26
1x12 (Faith) – 25
2x21 (AHBL Pt. 1) – 25
Note that of these ten, with the exception of the 54 hallucinogenic contacts in “WIAWSNB,” six of the episodes involve some major fighting. “Devil’s Trap” includes a number of instances where Dean is supporting or caring for John (actually the YED, but believing him to be John), “Faith” includes a lot of Sam taking care of Dean (and of course the faith healing activities itself), and “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1” includes the scene where Sam is stabbed.
Some fun trivia about that moment: Dean initiates 23 separate actions to touch Sam between his stabbing and the end of the episode – 23 actions in 75 seconds. Outside of fighting, I think that’s the most tightly packed collection of touch Dean has in the show so far. And well he should.
Conclusions: What does all this mean?
So if you’re still with me, you’ve probably figured out that we can draw some fairly confident conclusions about Dean’s attitude toward touching and being touched, which we should see at work in Season Three.
First is that Dean tends to be the one controlling how and when and for what purpose he is touched.
Second is that he does not actually touch his family members more than other people, but that he is much more likely to be affectionate within his family than outside it, and more likely to be aggressive outside his family than within in.
Third: Since John’s death, his willingness to engage in violent contact with Sam has diminished slightly.
Fourth: Dean will protect his family more frequently and reliably than outsiders, but is more likely to touch a person for protective reasons than intimate reasons. On the other hand, other people are much more likely to touch Dean for intimate reasons than protective ones.
Fifth: Dean’s physical contact with the supernatural has been limited. I expect that this may well change, but possibly not.
Additional Study
I would like to begin viewing Season Three for the corroboration of these data. In addition, a deeper study could be conducted to investigate the relationships between Dean’s motivations behind touching, beyond whether the action is objectively aggressive, affectionate, etc.
Still with me? God love you.
Here’s a last bit of trivia to send you off: I gave you the top ten episodes.
What’s the fewest number of contacts Dean makes in any given episode, and which episode(s) contain them?
I have been working on this for over two months. It's long, but contains scientific study of Dean and touching other people - how often, with whom, what kind of contact, and why.
Purpose of Study
The purpose of this study is to look at how and why Dean establishes physical contact – what kind of contact it is (intimate or affectionate vs. aggressive or violent), with whom (family, non-family, or the Supernatural), and why (for purposes of protection, to show affection, etc.). I wanted to check the correlations, in particular, to see if there’s a decent predictor of whether Dean is statistically more or less likely to touch certain people or populations in certain ways. I also would like to run a test of statistical significance for these factors for Season One vs. Season Two, and now that I’ve completed the first two seasons, I will also provide some individual episode fun!statistics. I have calculations for Season One (in isolation), Season Two (in isolation) and some calculations for Seasons One and Two Combined.
Why this study?
So, over the summer, etakyma and I were working on projects and watching the Supernatural Reruns, and I was writing fic, and really cresting my Supernatural Conversion High. And we got to talking about Dean and his extreme “Don’t Touch Me” vibes (in “Playthings,” in particular). This led me to think about how often he *really* touched anyone, and under what circumstances. So I decided to conduct a little research, and flex my statistical skills in the process. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish up in time, but I wanted to get this in under the wire for Season 3!
Assumptions
1. The primary people with whom Dean will initiate contact will be Sam and John
2. Dean rarely if ever initiates affectionate/intimate contact, such as a caress, hug, etc., and when he does it’s usually with Sam.
3. Dean’s primary form of contact with others (non-Winchester) is violent (sex excepted)
4. Dean’s secondary form of contact (initiated) with others (non-Winchesters) is protective (sex excepted, see Exceptions and Limitations)
5. Dean’s contact with the supernatural meets or exceeds his contact with humans.
Methodology
Over the last three months, I watched all the episodes and wrote down a description of any physical contact Dean sustained. This included many pausings, going back, watching again, etc. – especially during fight sequences and other times when the contacts came in quick succession. I entered each contact into an Excel database, categorized according to the following criteria:
A. Does Dean initiate the action?
B. Is the contact with another Winchester (John, Sam, or Mary)?
C. Is the contact aggressive (defined as anything like a slap or an intense motion, not intended to hurt or escalate but not gentle or sedate)?
D. Is the contact violent (by definition aggressive, but with intent to harm specifically)?
E. Is the contact with something Supernatural (such as a demon, possessed!human, ghost, or other entity)?
F. Is the contact in the context of protecting someone (such as pushing a victim out of the path of an oncoming poltergeist)?
G. Does the contact signify an affectionate or intimate touch (a caress, a hug, a kiss)?
Then I plotted a matrix of the conflation of these things. For example, cuffing Sam’s head in the Pilot is an initiated, aggressive, non-violent, affectionate Winchester-contact. Jo putting her arm around his waist in “No Exit” is a non-initiated, non-Winchester, aggressive (for her), non-affectionate contact. I’d love to produce Venn diagrams of these but I’m not sure I have the Excel-fu for that. (If anyone is really all that interested, I have the raw data, but will not post it here because this is already long enough!)
Exceptions and Limitations
For purposes of this study, Sam and the “special kids” are *not* considered to be supernatural contacts.
“Contact” through telekinesis (demonic or ghostly), such as being thrown into a wall by the power of a ghost’s or demon’s mind, is also not counted, nor is any contact with an object (such as a rifle butt or billy stick). However, contact with corpses (such as murder victims) does count as “human” contact (and not Supernatural unless it’s a corporeal ghost).
I have included instances where Dean contacts someone he believes to be human but who is actually a possessed!human. This occurs in Season One when John is possessed by the YED, and again in Season Two when Sam is possessed by Meg. These count as supernatural contacts, but in the case of John and Sam, also as Winchesters (because that’s who Dean thinks he’s touching).
Violent contact and initiating violent contact: The actions in this study are on a “per action” basis – that is, the question is whether Dean controlled the contact in each instance, not necessarily one of motivation. For example, when Dean incites Tiny to fight him in “Folsom Prison Blues,” he is instigating the fight, and thus could be said to be the aggressor. However, in the context of the fight itself, the punches that Dean threw count as initiated violent/aggressive actions, whereas the punches that Tiny threw are still violent and aggressive, but not initiated by Dean.
2x20: What Is and What Should Never Be
Season 2 numbers are calculated both *with* and *without* the hallucinogenic contacts in “What Is and What Should Never Be”. There is more physical contact in this episode than any other episode (68 distinct instances of contact!) – and since it is all in Dean’s head, I had to calculate the numbers both ways so as not to throw things off completely. But the episode tells us some extremely important and probably predictably significant things about who Dean wishes himself to be.
This episode also contains two exceptions within exceptions. When Dean hugs Jessica, I considered that to be a “Family” contact (due to his attitude toward seeing her alive and accepting her as part of Sam’s life). There is also a moment where Dean reaches out to (Hallucination!)Sam, but Sam steps backward so that Dean’s hand falls short. This is the only instance I can find of this type (where Dean tries to contact and is denied), but because of the clear impulse and desire to touch, I included it as if the contact had succeeded.
Extrapolations
Much of his contact is extrapolated from the situation, not shown on screen. For example, if he is arrested, we can extrapolate that the officers took his prints, etc., and so sometimes these are reflected as a “contact” even though they are not shown on screen. I usually only count this once, though some contact (such as nurses when he's in the hospital) could be many times. What I haven’t really included in the calculations are times when the show indicates that Dean had sex – because it’s just impossible to figure out how many distinct instances of contact there are in Dean’s average sexual encounter, and while I’d love to sit here thinking about it…it’s not exactly scientific. :^D
So the results are skewed *away* from intimate contact of a sexual nature.
Inter-Rater Reliability
I did this all myself, within time constraints, and viewing iTunes versions with varying degrees of brightness. The show, as we know, is somewhat darkly lit, so it was very difficult to see at times. But I tried to be consistent about certain things, like what counted as contact and what did not, and counting aggressive and protective and intimate motions by as objective a definition as I could. In general, Dean’s initiating the motion is what makes his motivations count toward the correlations. Thus, if someone is acting upon him in a protective or aggressive way, it is not going to be reflected (except in overall numbers). When necessary, I viewed the scene again to make sure that I was categorizing consistently, particularly in terms of motivations.
Season One Statistics
Season One contains 284 discrete points of contact with another being. He initiates 179 of the 284 total contacts, and 91 of those are to a family member. This means he initiates 51% of all his physical contact and 66% of all his contact with family. One hundred and six of his contacts are with a non-supernatural non-family member (another human), or 37%.
Analysis of Assumptions: Season One
1. Of the 284 contacts, 138 of them are with a family member (115 of those are with Sam). This means Dean only establishes contact with a family member for 49% of his physical contacts. Conclusion: Dean’s contacts with family do not quite exceed his contact with outsiders. However, Dean primarily initiates contact with family (especially Sam), and Dean initiates most of the physical contact between himself and his family members (66%).
2. Dean experiences 56 intimate contacts in Season One (20% overall). Intimate or affectionate are defined as a hug, a pat on the cheek, etc, as well as kissing or sexual acts. Just over half (30) of these affectionate touches are with a family member (11 are with Cassie). This is probably a low number, since we can extrapolate that he is intimate with women often, but this is off-screen (see Exceptions). However, 11% of all his contact is intimate contact that he initiates with family members (22/284) - and of all his intimate contact with his family members (30), only 39% are contacts that he initiates (in whole or part). Conclusion: Dean rarely initiates intimate contact, and more often with family (Sam) than anyone else.
3. Only 30% of Dean’s total contact with others is violent. However, he is more likely to initiate violent contact than to receive it. Out of 85 violent contacts, he initiates 47 of them (55%). Fifty-eight of his 85 violent contacts are outside the Winchester family (68% of his violent contact). Not surprisingly, Dean initiates only 10% of the violent contact within his family and only 16% of violent contacts outside it. Violent contact that he initiates within his family constitutes 21% of all his violent contacts, as opposed to the 34% representing that violent contact which he initiates outside his family. Conclusion: The majority of Dean’s contact with others outside of his family is violence that he initiates (55%), but only one-fifth of his contact within his family (21%) is also violent.
3a. I separated “aggressive” contact from “violent” contact (see Methodology), because so many of his actions can be considered forceful or assertive without necessarily indicating an intent to do harm. Aggressive actions include things like slapping Sam’s chest or grabbing a witness by the arm to bar them from leaving. Aggressive actions constitute 57% of his overall contact, and he initiates 34% of aggressive actions in the first season. As with violent action, Dean is slightly more likely to engage in aggressive contact with outsiders (30%) than family (27%), but less likely to initiate aggressive contact outside the Winchesters (16%) than inside the family unit (18%). By contrast, Dean initiates 57% of the contacts within his family in some aggressive way. This is also not surprising, given the number of times he punches or slaps Sam to get his attention, assert his seniority, or otherwise “reassure” Sam of their status as men and brothers. Conclusion:Dean’s primary forms of contact consist of some form of aggression, and Dean is the likely initiate of aggressive contact within his family, but not necessarily outside it.
4. Dean initiates protective contact in 25% of his contact instances in Season One. Only 7% of those contacts are to a non-family member (compared to 14% to a family member). His initiated actions distribute mostly as expected: 54% aggressive, 34% protective, 26% violent, and only 22% intimate or affectionate. However, not counting supernatural encounters, 80% of his overall contact outside his family is aggressive, 55% is violent, 25% is intimate, and only 20% is protective. We can account for this skew because people outside his family make contact with him intimately more than they do protectively, such as when Layla strokes his hair (and interaction with Cassie, though this is mostly mutual). Conclusion: Dean initiates protective contact less than aggressive, but more than intimate, contact. However, he comes into contact with other people slightly more often in intimate ways than in protective ways.
5. Out of 285 contacts, 138 are with Dean’s family, 106 are with other humans, and only 52 are with supernatural beings (bearing in mind that some of his supernatural contacts are contacts he believes to be family members). This represents only 18% of all his contacts. He only initiates supernatural contact in 12% of his actions (18% of his initiated actions). Conclusion: Dean’s contact with the supernatural does not meet or exceed his contact with humans.
Season Two Statistics
There are 434 distinct instances of physical contact for Dean in Season Two, including the actions in “What Is and What Should Never Be” (and 380 actions without the hallucinations in that episode). Of the 434, Dean initiates 217 actions overall. He makes contact with a family member 165 times (143 of those are Sam). One hundred and fifty-six of his contacts are violent; 312 are aggressive; 112 are protective; 152 are intimate or affectionate.
Analysis of Assumptions: Season Two
1. Including the hallucinations of “What Is and What Should Never Be,” 38% of Dean’s contact in Season Two is with his family. He initiates 60% of his family contact (99/165), which represents 46% of all his initiated contact – but this includes all the times that “Mary” touches him during his wishverse experience. Without the hallucinations, this changes to 34% (129/380) of his total interactions, 61% of initiated family contact (Sam), and 41% of all the contact he initiates throughout the season. Conclusion: With the loss of John, Dean’s contact with people outside his family is much higher than with family members.
2. Including “What Is and What Should Never Be,” 35% of Dean’s contact is affectionate or intimate. Without the hallucinations, affectionate contact is only 28% of his total interaction in the season. Again, this is presumed to be a little low as we do not have accurate information about sexual encounters. However, if he’s going to be intimate, he initiates the activity 65% of the time, and 76% of his intimate contact is among family members. (These numbers change to 58% and 72% respectively when including the contact with Mary and Carmen in his wishverse.) Twenty-one percent of all Dean’s contacts are affectionate contacts that he initiates with a family member, but this represents 62% of his contact with family members within the season. Conclusion: Dean’s intimate contact is increased from Season One, but is still a very small proportion of his overall human contact and smaller than his violent or aggressive forms of contact.
3. In Season Two, 41% of Dean’s physical contact is violent in nature. He is still more likely to initiate violent contact than receive it (55%), but his violent contact within the family unit is a little lower than in Season One at only 7% of his violent contact, only 3% of which he initiates. Conclusion: Dean’s tendency to initiate violence is unchanged, but his willingness to initiate violent behaviour within the family has diminished.
3a. Aggressive contact is a whopping 75% of all his contacts within the season. Dean initiates 38% of these contacts, which is roughly 50% of all the aggressive contact within the season. However, he only initiates 19% of his aggressive contact within the family, and the aggressive contact that he initiates constitutes only 41% of his family contact. Conclusion: Dean’s aggressive tendencies were on the rise in Season Two, but declining within his family dynamic.
4. Protective contact constitutes 27% of Dean’s physical contact this season. The 86 protective actions he initiates make up 46% of his initiated action. Twenty-two percent of his family contact is of a protective nature, which is 47% of all his protective action throughout the season. Once again, Dean’s initiated protective contact exceeds the times he initiates intimacy, but his overall intimate contact just surpasses his overall protective touching. Conclusion: Dean is still more likely to initiate protective contact than intimate contact, and others are more likely to touch him in intimate or affectionate ways than in protective ways.
5. Discounting the hallucinations in “What Is and What Should Never Be,” Dean makes contact with the supernatural 93 times out of his total of 380 interactions. This does include instances where Dean thought he was touching a human when in reality that human was possessed or otherwise not actually human. This constitutes only 24% of his overall interactions. By contrast, he establishes contact 159 times with people who are neither supernatural nor family (42% overall). Dean initiates contact with the supernatural for only 17% of his initiated actions (8% overall). Conclusion: Dean’s contact with the supernatural still does not meet or exceed his other non-family human contact.
A Word about 2X20: What Is and What Should Never Be
As I mentioned, this one episode contains more contact in a single episode than any other so far – a total of 68 contacts, 54 of which occur in the context of Dean’s hallucination. But the nature of those contacts tells us some interesting (if not surprising) things about Dean’s psychology. In the hallucinations, only 20 out of the 54 contacts are initiated by Dean. He only initiates violent contact once (although there are 17 aggressive actions). He initiates intimacy 20 times, or 37%, and is touched intimately by a family member (mostly Mary) just less than half of the time (14/29 or 48%). Intimate contact with family members constitutes 81% of his total family contacts in this fantasy world. Dean still initiates more than half his family contact (56%), but a lesser amount of that contact is aggressive (44%) or violent (only 3%). Note also that this episode is the only one where Dean attempts to touch Sam and is rebuffed, as well as (I believe) the only one in which we see Dean consciously crave touch (with Mary in particular). This makes intuitive sense, but it’s good to see the data support the conclusion that Dean yearns for more tender contact.
Seasons One and Two Combined
Just for an overall sense of where we are going into Season Three, here’s the breakdown for both seasons combined (without the hallucinations):
Total Contacts: 718
Contacts Dean Initiates: 396 (55%)
Contact with Family: 303 (258 of which are Sam) (42%)
Violent Contact: 241 (34%)
Aggressive Contact: 474 (66%)
Protective Contact: 184 (26%)
Supernatural: 145 (20%)
Intimate/Affectionate: 208 (29%)
Dean initiates contact with family roughly 63% of the time, and this type of contact represents 48% of his initiated contact. Fifty-three percent of violent contact is contact he initiates, and 54% of aggressive contact is contact he initiates. Eighty percent of the protective contact is contact he initiates (in order to protect someone else) and he initiates 62% of his affectionate or intimate contact. However, 56% of the protective contact he initiates is to protect a member of his family, compared to only 44% initiated to protect an outsider. His initiated intimate contact within his family unit represents 51% of all the contact within his family that he initiates, compared to only 16% of contact outside the family that he initiates.
A little bit about the comparison between the two seasons:
I ran some t-tests (a test of statistical significance) to see if any of the changes really signal a major change in Dean’s attitude toward touching and being touched. It’s been a long time since Statistics class, but basically the higher the t-test value is, the more deviation there is in the mean of the statistic, and therefore the more significant the change.
Dean’s biggest t-test values were in the categories of “Family contact” (overall), “Aggressive contact” (overall), and “Violent” and “Aggressive” contact with non-family members. Not surprising, since generally speaking Dean gets into more fights in Season Two. The top ten episodes for number of contacts per episode are:
2x20 (WIAWSNB) – 68
2x19 (Folsom Prison Blues) – 48
2x12 (Nightshifter) – 40
1x01 (Pilot) – 33
1x22 (Devil’s Trap) – 30
2x03 (Bloodlust) – 30
2x10 (Hunted) – 26
2x15 (Tall Tales) – 26
1x12 (Faith) – 25
2x21 (AHBL Pt. 1) – 25
Note that of these ten, with the exception of the 54 hallucinogenic contacts in “WIAWSNB,” six of the episodes involve some major fighting. “Devil’s Trap” includes a number of instances where Dean is supporting or caring for John (actually the YED, but believing him to be John), “Faith” includes a lot of Sam taking care of Dean (and of course the faith healing activities itself), and “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1” includes the scene where Sam is stabbed.
Some fun trivia about that moment: Dean initiates 23 separate actions to touch Sam between his stabbing and the end of the episode – 23 actions in 75 seconds. Outside of fighting, I think that’s the most tightly packed collection of touch Dean has in the show so far. And well he should.
Conclusions: What does all this mean?
So if you’re still with me, you’ve probably figured out that we can draw some fairly confident conclusions about Dean’s attitude toward touching and being touched, which we should see at work in Season Three.
First is that Dean tends to be the one controlling how and when and for what purpose he is touched.
Second is that he does not actually touch his family members more than other people, but that he is much more likely to be affectionate within his family than outside it, and more likely to be aggressive outside his family than within in.
Third: Since John’s death, his willingness to engage in violent contact with Sam has diminished slightly.
Fourth: Dean will protect his family more frequently and reliably than outsiders, but is more likely to touch a person for protective reasons than intimate reasons. On the other hand, other people are much more likely to touch Dean for intimate reasons than protective ones.
Fifth: Dean’s physical contact with the supernatural has been limited. I expect that this may well change, but possibly not.
Additional Study
I would like to begin viewing Season Three for the corroboration of these data. In addition, a deeper study could be conducted to investigate the relationships between Dean’s motivations behind touching, beyond whether the action is objectively aggressive, affectionate, etc.
Still with me? God love you.
Here’s a last bit of trivia to send you off: I gave you the top ten episodes.
What’s the fewest number of contacts Dean makes in any given episode, and which episode(s) contain them?