Self-Conscious Emotions

 

          

  Self-conscious emotions are a root in everyone’s lives and make up a large part of the other emotions and motivations that they feel. These self-conscious emotions usually have a negative connotation because they consist of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride, with pride being the only “positive” emotion. People experience these emotions consistently throughout their lives, whether by something that is internal or something external that they might have done or have no control over.

            Dean has experienced most of these emotions quite frequently throughout the seasons of Supernatural, which is an emotional rollercoaster of a show. Dean is a very prideful person, he believes that he is the best at what he does, hunting down monsters and other supernatural creatures. This pride that Dean feels also morphs into hubris from time to time in the show, which led him into some rather unsavory situations. As the show goes on Dean and his brother end up running into angels, something that they didn’t even believe existed. These angels take on human hosts in order to walk the Earth, allowing them to interact with humans. Dean ended up making friends with an angel named Castiel, or Cas to them. Throughout the show Cas helps Dean and his brother on many occasions, whether by killing monsters or healing mortal wounds. This association with angels plays into Dean and his emotion of hubris, he begins to believe that all his success made him better than some of the angels that he had run into. One could even say that this success gave Dean quite the god complex because he believed that he could kill any monster or supernatural creature that came his way. Towards the end of the show Dean’s hubris grows because he ends up killing Death with his own scythe. This kill was one above many of the others he had ever made because Death had been around since the beginning of time, and no one had ever been able to kill him before.

            It could also be said that Dean is guilt-prone because he always feels like he has to take it upon himself to fix everything that happens around him. This is shown when he and his brother run into a very old witch who used his power to either give or take years of someone’s life. In order to do that the witch would convince the person to play a game of poker with him, the chips representing years of life. Bobby, who was like a second father to the brothers, had found out about the witch and went to him trying to win some years back so that he could walk again and not be stuck in a wheelchair. Bobby ends up losing the poker game and loses years off of his life. So, Dean takes it upon himself to go and win back those years for Bobby because he feels like it is responsibility to fix the situation. Dean ends up losing which makes him feel guilty because he couldn’t win back the years that Bobby had lost. Since Dean lost he ended up also losing years of his life, making him age well into his elder years. This guilt ate at Dean, not allowing for him to rest or think clearly for the remainder of the time that they were battling with the witch.