Hunters' Journals: discuss

[ratherastory]

Okay, so I have a random thought about hunters' journals which has been rattling around in my head ever since Season 1, especially after "Dead Man's Blood" aired.

John has kept a journal for the past twenty-two years when the show starts. Daniel Elkins has a similar journal (and we are given to understand that he was John's mentor, which would explain the similarities), but much older, dating back to the sixties, if memory serves.

Given the amount of lore out there, and the fact that John himself appears to have not only documented his hunts but also at least occasionally used it as a personal journal, how the heck does it all fit into that teeny-tiny book?

Hell, when I'm doing research for a story, I can easily fill a 100-page notebook with my scribblings, and they're not all that extensive.

I would have thought that a hunter would end up with a string of journals, each filled to the brim with clippings, notes, photographs, and scraps of lore.

Can anyone explain this to me in a satisfactory manner? Please?

Or, y'know, feel free to have a debate in the comments.

Comments

[bellatemple]

Am I recalling correctly that John's journal is a refillable binder sort of thing, rather than a fully bound book? If I am, then I would propose that the journal is a continual work in progress, with eliminations of no longer pertinent material (sort of like my mp3 player). It has a limited storage capacity, so it's been continually audited to contain only the information that John thought he need/only those entries that he felt an attachment to (ie. "I went to Missouri and learned the truth"). Things that may, in fact, be important but which serve as difficult reminders might also be removed (ie. the Striga, which wasn't in the journal at all).

And, hey, maybe he and Elkins both kept all the other stuff tucked away in the giant storage lockers of Indiana-Jones-trap-filled doom. . . .

[tversan.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking the same thing, considering Sam and Dean seem to find very much in that journal, even though it's quite thin.
Maybe he just write very tiny. And the pages aren't thick. Or maybe there's more journals out there, hiding...
Eeeehm, not a very good answer I guess. I'm a bit confused by it too.
And do Sam and Dean have journal? Sam was writing stuff down in the first season.
(by the way, where is John's journal? Did I miss them using it the last few episodes, or has it been a while since we saw it?)

Sorry for jumping in by the way, hope it's okay =)

[liliaeth]

If I remember well, one of the boys mentioned that John wrote like Yoda. I'm inclined to think that his 'personal journal bits were one, maybe two lines a time. And that most of what he wrote in that journal was bits about the monsters he fought. And not repeating himself on the lore, if he'd already described a specific monster, he wouldn't rewrite the data on said monster.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

I was thinking along the lines of your last thoughts, myself. Maybe they have older journals tucked away in storage, but then, how can Sam and Dean STILL be finding relevant stuff years later? It's perplexing. ;)

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Dude, jump in at will! This is a public LJ and I asked for opinions and theories! :)

[bellatemple]

Well, clearly because they never sat down and just read the whole thing. They kept trying to skip to the good parts, but it's not like the thing has an index or even a Cliff's notes edition out there. . . .

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

True, but still. Twenty-two years of lore, and he only filled one notebook? It makes no sense to my OCD-esque self. ;)

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

If Sam ever settles down, I can totally see him creating a wiki for it and other lore on the internet, complete with scanned pages.

[sandymg.livejournal.com]

Easy. It's like the TARDIS. Um, bigger on the inside? [Hee...sorry, couldn' resist]

[bellatemple]

Kinda makes you wonder why no one's created a hunter's wiki, anyway. The super sneaky online extra material from season 2 has Jo at least being a member of a online hunting blog community. . . .

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

I suspect that the supernatural wiki serves that purpose in fandom...

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

I suppose it depends mostly on the nature of the writings. We know that John had additional research materials out there (the clippings from hotel room walls, the binder of documentation that Dean and Sam passed over to Ash for his analysis, etc.); so perhaps the journal really was a “journal” in the sense that it distilled only the most essential thoughts and impressions from a hunt, rather than every detail?

Then again, my grandfather kept a journal during his time in Europe during WWI - I believe he was there more than four years - and it does not even fill up all the pages in the tiny notebook (think of it as a small spiral bound stack of 3” X 5” cards and you’ll get an idea of the size I am talking about). However, the stories he described in it are vivid in their detail, with only a few words used.

[sothcweden.livejournal.com]

Maybe each hunt had its own journal for scribbling down anything and everything they found, but once the hunt was over, John would compile only the information that would possibly be relevent to other cases (feeding habits, habitat, methods of execution, etc.) and that's all that exists in the journal he carried with him through the years. After all, everything owned by a 3-person family had to fit into the Impala, and that included a lot of weapons.

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Waitaminute....

What super secret online extra materials from S2?

*looks utterly confusticated*

Seriously, I need to get that set of DVD's - STAT!

Seeing as it is the only season I am missing...of course...

[nwspaprtaxis.livejournal.com]

I've wondered this exact thing.... because REALLY?!

[bellatemple]

It's not tied in with the DVDs, it's part of the old official show website.

Honestly, there's bunches of ideas in that material that could have been awesome if they'd ever been fully realized. And you figure out through reading Jo's blog that she could have been a much deeper, more interesting character. . . .

[disneymagics.livejournal.com]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I have a related question of my own. If hunters all keep these extensive journals (as we are led to believe that they do) then how is it that all the knowledge from Grandpa Campbell and great-Grandpa Campbell with fantastical cures to being turned into a vampire and djinn poison get lost between generations. It seems that knowledge would have been available to hunters like Bobby and John expecially with Bobby's extensive contacts and library full of lore???

[jesseofthenorth.livejournal.com]

My theory? Very small printing.

Actually I have a journal for research and though there is a small amount of personal stuff referenced it is mostly observations taken over a ten year period. When it gets full i bundle the notes and add new pages. But I also keep the really interesting or relevant stuff in the binder.

[calamitycrow.livejournal.com]

personally? this kitty thinks John kept entries short and cryptic, because otherwise, the info in the journal could be used to incriminate him in court. Also, he would have to remove any info that talked about things that were blatantly illegal. Otherwise, if it ever fell into law enforcement hands, it could tie him to a lot of stuff. This would be consistent with the LEO's assessment of the journal in the pilot.

The bigger question is what happened to Elkin's journal? The boys stumbled on a valuable resource and then it DISAPPEARED. Unless John took it and the demon then possessed him and destroyed it?

[ianthe-echo.livejournal.com]

I have imagined that John's journal was like a TARDIS, with a large amount of space in a small package...but that's my inner Doctor Who fangirl talking.

I agree with calamitycow on this one.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

I love my flist. :D

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I suppose there is something to be said for concision.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, good point about the whole incriminating evidence thing.

I would like to know what happened to Elkin's journal too!

[authoressnebula.livejournal.com]

Agreeing with what the people above said regarding the type of journal it is. Easy to pop open and take out pages so you can put in new, better fitting ones. That'd be my guess, at any rate. The first picture we saw of it in the Pilot looked like it had a ton of tiny additional notes and things, stickies everywhere. From experience, though, those never last very long. At all. *isn't saying anything about having lost important information on said stickies*

Hmm. Now I'm all a'pondery.

~Nebula

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

I too, have lost tons of information on said stickies. It does make one ponder...