If understanding the motivations of multifaceted, charismatic villains wasn’t complicated enough, Amy Berner asks what happens when we are confronted with a “hero” whose morals are more monstrous than those of a not-so-evil villain? Enter Supernatural’s Gordon Walker, vampire hunter who becomes the very monster he hunts. Rather than a villain who shows promising flashes of good, Walker is part of that contradictory minority of heroes-turned-villains: the cautionary tales that so clearly remind us that sometimes unchecked “upholders of good,” bent on destroying what they deem as evil, unwittingly end up turning into what they worked so hard to destroy.
“I love this life because it’s all black and white. There’s no maybe. You find the bad thing, you kill it. Most people spend their lives in shades of gray, but not us.”
—Gordon Walker, “Bloodlust” (2-3)
LET'S SAY THAT you have a demon hunter who is dedicated, smart, resourceful, focused, and who makes the world safer for ordinary folks day in and day out. Let’s say that this guy will do whatever it takes to rid the world of demons, monsters, and other nasties. Let’s say this guy falls at the hands of a traditionally awful sort of creature, a vampire, but although he becomes one himself, he somehow keeps a remnant of himself and tries to carry out one last mission to save the world. Sounds like a great guy, right? Maybe even a hero?
Not if he’s Gordon Walker. For a character who only appeared in a whopping four episodes (“Bloodlust,” “Hunted” [2-10], “Bad Day at Black Rock” [3-3], and “Fresh Blood” [3-7]), this character developed into one of the most complex that we’ve seen on the show: a bad guy who honestly believed that his efforts led toward a better, safer world.
Why have a villain who isn’t, well, supernatural? Because a character like Gordon is essential, both for establishing who hunters are as a group and for taking a closer look at the Winchesters themselves.
For the structure and mythology of demon hunters to be fully established, the series needed to show what rules hunters follow as they pursue their targets . . . and, more importantly, what rules they should follow. And to understand what a hunter should do, we need to know what they shouldn’t do. There is no governing body for hunters (as far as we know), so each acts as an independent agent with carte blanche to hunt as they see fit. However, hunters have a brotherhood (and sisterhood) of sorts, and their loose society has a code of conduct. This code isn’t enforced, so only social pressure can change behavior . . . at least in the case of hunters who care about the opinion of their fellows. Gordon, of course, didn’t care. Above all else, it was the hunt that mattered.
But more importantly, we the viewers needed Gordon so that we could better understand our heroes. The Winchester brothers are different enough from one another—in a complementary way—that there are opportunities for conflict galore every week. However, to fully understand the nature and extent of those differences we need exposure to someone who is the complete opposite of one of them-in this case, Sam. Gordon’s presence highlights not only who Sam is (by showing us clearly who he is not), but also where Dean falls in the spectrum between them. Sam and Gordon both became hunters because of the death of a loved one, but they took very different paths afterward, and Dean, well, he’s a bit more like Gordon at times than we might like to admit. And he knows it.
DEAN: (to Gordon) I might be like you, and I might not. But you’re the one tied up right now. (“Bloodlust”)
Thanks to Gordon, we understand both of the brothers better, as hunters and as people. When we see Dean pushing ethical limits in pursuit of the evil of the week, or when we see Sam acting somewhat un-Sam-like after his return from the dead, we have a way to measure how close to the line they are and whether they have crossed it. Without Gordon the ethical barometer isn’t quite as easy to read. Gordon is the Winchesters’ dark mirror; he shows us what could happen were the Winchesters to travel down the wrong path, a path that both of them approached during the third season thanks to their respective brushes with death.
What drove Gordon down that path? If the details of his background are a bit fuzzy, not to worry, his backstory was fairly straightforward: His sister was captured and turned by vampires when he was eighteen, and his efforts to save her failed. Driven by revenge, he became a hunter, eventually finding both his newly vampiric sister and the vampire that turned her and killing them both. After that, killing vampires and other monsters filled a “hole” within Gordon, a hole ripped out when his sister was turned, and nothing mattered more to him. He became known in hunter circles as a great hunter but, well, I think Ellen said it best:
SAM: I-I thought you said he was a good hunter.
ELLEN: Yeah, and Hannibal Lecter’s a good psychiatrist. (“Bloodlust”)
In other words, being good at something doesn’t at all mean being in any way “good.” The other hunters respected Gordon’s abilities, certainly, but they were also wary of this member of their loose society. The knowledge and skills that hunters possess give them a sort of power and Ellen believed that Gordon misused that power, although not to a point that she actively worked against him.
Gordon’s hunting philosophy was in stark contrast to Sam’s initial style of hunting (although Sam moved closer to the middle as time went by, especially when his brother was in danger), with Dean’s falling somewhere in the middle (though he leaned closer to Sam’s side as they continued to fight together). Sam was a reluctant hunter rather than one who embraced it like Gordon did, someone who could see shades of grey rather than dealing only in absolutes. Dean understood and bonded with Gordon at their first meeting, but Sam and Gordon were oil and water from the very beginning.
Yes, Gordon did some incredibly awful things while trying to be a good guy: torture, murder, and a near Winchester-cide. But as a hunter, he “embraced the life” (“Bloodlust”). He became single-minded and ruthless, but also incredibly effective at killing vampires and demons. Doesn’t he get points for that?
Not really. But do remember that Gordon Walker did try to leave the world a better place every day. He didn’t want others to fall victim to his sister’s fate. His problem was that his methods weren’t what you’d call moral. Just efficient. Eliminating something (not “someone”) that was more likely a threat than not and more likely going to kill innocents than not seems, on the surface, like the practical, reasonable thing to do. Walker was a “greater good” sort, the type who is okay with leaving a few bodies in his wake if it means more people are saved in the long run. Problem was, his methods of doing “good” made him as bad as, if not worse than, those naturally predisposed to evil.
Horror audiences are normally in favor of vampire slayers. After all, conventional wisdom states that monsters are bad and those who hunt monsters are good.
Pitting Gordon against non-evil vampires made for a great character introduction. What happens when the monsters aren’t evil and the hunter isn’t good? A vampire struggling for redemption isn’t a new concept (which is one of the joys of Supernatural, how they take familiar concepts and revisit them the Winchester Way. So what if you’ve seen an idea before on another television show? Horror traditions, legends and folklore are great for storytelling). Such vampires are the reluctant heroes fighting the monsters within themselves every day. But in all of these vampire stories, “good” vampires are the exception to the rule. Supernatural, too, has not revealed any way for vampires to become permanently good and productive members of society. No matter what their intentions or how many cows they may snack on, Supernatural vampires can slip at any time and kill humans again. To Gordon, someone else’s sister could be their next victim. His version of a kindness to a vampire was killing with a well-sharpened weapon, making it “perfectly humane” (“Bloodlust”).
Gordon took a hard-line view on the world of demons. Evil was evil. Period. Concepts like redemption, mercy, and compassion didn’t enter into the equation. To him, monsters were all creatures of evil bent on death and destruction, and vampires were nothing but “mindless, bloodthirsty animals” (“Fresh Blood”). And 99.9 percent of the time, he was probably right about that. After all, his sister was given no mercy. The guy was bitter due to his history and understandably so. He could not accept shades of gray in his view of the world. A vampire trying to get by as harmlessly as possible could still do harm and therefore must not be allowed to survive.
Of course, going after a poor waiflike vampire named Lenore and her cohorts, who were just trying to get by on a human-free diet, was nothing compared to going up against the Winchesters. Sam defended the cow-drinkers, Dean reluctantly backed him up despite having bonded with his new buddy, and thus Gordon first became their enemy when he fought back. Dean tied Gordon to a chair after the two fought over the issue, even though Dean did and does agree that, when all is said and done, a vampire is still a vampire.
But was Sam right on this count, or were Gordon and Dean? Lenore could have gone back to her old ways at any time. Innocent people could have been killed. Did Lenore deserve to be treated as more than a monster, or was that all she was? To Sam, Lenore proved that she could be more by her actions, just like Ruby proved in the third season. Gordon, however, believed that she would ultimately be true to her nature, and that the danger she posed was too great to risk treating her as anything but what she was. And Dean, without Sam there, probably would have agreed.
SAM: You didn’t kill Lenore.
DEAN: Yeah but every instinct told me to. I was gonna kill her, I was gonna kill them all.
SAM: Yeah, but Dean, you didn’t. That’s what matters.
DEAN: Yeah. ‘Cause you’re a pain in my ass. (“Bloodlust”)
Dean, for all of his anti-vampire sentiments, knows where the all important line is and knows not to cross it. This line (when his brother draws it) has become more and more important as the series has progressed, especially as both brothers have found themselves approaching it—mainly in order to save each other. Thanks to Gordon, they were forced early on to face that line, recognize where it lay. Gordon’s actions threw up a red flag that made the brothers evaluate what they believed and why.
The only line that Gordon saw was a finish line, and he’d do whatever it took to get there. He had no moral compass to guide him; Dean, luckily, had his brother. As Dean said, “Come on, man. I know Sam, okay? Better than anyone. He’s got more of a conscience than I do. I mean, the guy feels guilty searching the Internet for porn” (“Hunted”). And that conscience does a lot more than cause porn guilt; it makes both brothers better.
Do it. Show your brother the evil killer you really are, Sammy. You’re no better than the filthy things you hunt.
—Gordon Walker, “Hunted”
If you believed that someone was evil and would wreak havoc on all of humanity—the Antichrist, a demon power, whatever—what would you do? Gordon, true to form, took action. Gordon began hunting our boy Sam when he found out that he was a part of the upcoming war. How did he learn this nugget of information? By torturing a possessed teenage girl to death. Dealing with the possessed is tricky ground, to be sure, especially as the human may already be dead. Sam and Dean have had to deal with their share of possessed people, and haven’t exactly been pleasant to them by any means, but they seem to save whom they can, using holy water whenever possible and exorcising rather than killing. Gordon apparently didn’t consider that option.
He’s probably a fan of waterboarding too. But I digress.
When Gordon learned that the human leader of the demon legions would spring from a small group of people, he began eliminating the threat one possibly evil human at a time. Maybe he didn’t go quite as far as styling himself a Herod, killing children to prevent the rise of a king, but it’s a pretty good comparison. After all, he was trying to kill the Antichrist.
These people were still human, even if some of them (like Ava) chose to use their paranormal powers to become monsters. Unlike the vampires, who were predisposed to evil, all of these humans were able to choose. But Gordon never even considered that they were not required to use their powers for evil. He believed that it should be official hunter policy—if such a thing could exist—that “Sam Winchester must die” (“Bad Day at Black Rock”), and he doubted that Sam was even still human. In Gordon’s mind, there was no hope of redemption for Sam; he was already a monster and therefore had to be destroyed.
GORDON: I’m not a killer, Dean. I’m a hunter. And your brother’s fair game. (“Hunted”)
Gordon truly believed that the world would be better and safer without Sam in it. In his black and white worldview, Sam was the enemy no matter what, and his actual role in trying to stop the gate from opening was dismissed.
But a quick reminder: John also thought that his youngest son might need to be killed if he became the Antichrist. He even saddled Dean with that responsibility when he died, believing the danger that Sam posed was very real. And Gordon believed that John would have done what Dean refused to do:
Here’s the thing: It would have wrecked him, but your dad, if it really came right down to it, he would have had the stones to do the right thing. You’re telling me you’re not the man he is? (“Hunted”)
The thought that anyone needs to die for the “greater good” is stomach-turning, especially if that particular “anyone” is a character, like Sam, we like. But imagine if the world of the Winchesters was our world instead, and then think about all the innocent people who ended up dying because Gordon was stopped. Had Gordon succeeded in eliminating all of the “special children,” Jake the Marine wouldn’t have opened the portal to Hell and all of those pesky demons wouldn’t have escaped. Think of the innocent folks who died despite never being part of the fight, and then add to them the number of people possessed by demons, their independence and identities ripped away in order to give those demons legs and arms and voices. Then, add on the murders and torment by pint-sized superdemon Lilith, made even worse by Sam’s continued status as possible demonic leader because she didn’t like the idea of competition.
None of that would have happened had Gordon been allowed to succeed in his task. Knowing all the awful results of opening the gate, all of that pain, that torture, that death, his motivation to kill the lot of them starts to make a little more sense.
“You got a lot of people fooled, but see, I know the truth. I know what it’s like. We’re the same now, you and me. I know how it is walking around with something evil inside you. It’s just too bad you won’t do the right thing and kill yourself. I’m gonna . . . as soon as I’m done with you. Two last good deeds. Killing you and killing myself.”
—Gordon Walker, “Fresh Blood”
Gordon’s fate was certainly ironic; after all, he became the creature he hated most. As his actions pushed him further and further from his own humanity, it was fitting that he eventually lost it altogether and became an entirely new kind of hunter. And it was only as a monster, not as a man, that he could be defeated and eliminated by the brothers Winchester.
Yet even as a monster he held on to one thing from his old life: his mission to kill Sam, hunting him with single-minded determination that would make any obsessed vampire proud. Was it that his goal was so monstrous that made it easier to retain so entirely? He was certainly monstrous in his efforts to complete his mission, ripping out the heart of his buddy Kubrick so that he could continue tracking Sam and then kidnapping a girl to serve as Winchester bait.
Or did he believe that his goal was so important to the world that even his new vampire self accepted the mission, willingly allowing it to take precedence over the hunger for new prey? Sam leading a demon army might not bode any better for vampires than for humans.
In Supernatural’s world, vampires aren’t mindless killing machines. They appear to have free will in addition to their blood hunger. As a vampire, Gordon didn’t have to pursue people who knew how to kill his kind. He could have started his life (well, an undead one, anyway) anew, leaving his responsibilities behind. He didn’t. He chose the much more dangerous course: to hunt a hunter.
GORDON: You have to let me do one last thing first.
KUBRICK: What?
GORDON: Kill Sam Winchester.
KUBRICK: Gordon.
GORDON: It’s the only . . . it is the one good thing to come out of this nightmare. I’m stronger, I’m faster. I can finish him. (“Fresh Blood”)
Of course, he didn’t. And in the end, the only appropriate candidate for killing Vampire Gordon was Sam, his longtime prey. Had Gordon not been turned, the brothers might have let him live yet again, despite their previous attempts to control him (leaving him tied to a chair for a few days and sending him to jail) not having been all that successful. Had Sam killed him as a human, he would have taken a step toward becoming the same sort of monster Gordon was . . . although Sam did seriously consider killing Gordon even before they knew he had been turned, both a testament to how bad Gordon had become and a reflection of how much Sam had changed. Plus, from a pure storytelling perspective, we do like to see the pursued turning the tables on their pursuer, even if Sam did say during his and Gordon’s first meeting that “decapitations aren’t my idea of a good time” (“Bloodlust”).
But Sam has changed. Sam from the first season might not have been able to slowly decapitate anything, let alone someone who used to be a human that he knew; that was a disturbing death even by Supernatural standards. In the end, Sam did what he had to do, and we’ll never know if he would have done the same had Gordon still been human.
The hunter becoming a monster might have happened most literally to Gordon, but he isn’t the only one we have to worry about. In season three, both Winchester brothers were on a slippery slope to monsterhood themselves. As of this writing, we still don’t know if Sam is the Antichrist or not, and although his powers are not of his choosing, how he uses them will be. There could be a monster waiting within him, one with the power of our old buddy Yellow Eyes, the one creature that Sam hated most. And Dean has been dragged off to Hell, on the way to becoming a demon himself-exactly what he hates most-thanks to the bargain he made to save his brother. The demonization was a surprise, but Dean probably would have taken the bargain even if he’d known, so long as it saved Sam. Gordon showed us the path, but the brothers walked it all season long.
As for Gordon Walker . . . He was a guy with morally questionable hunter policies, there’s no denying that. But he did try to save the world in his own twisted way. To Gordon, saving a hundred people’s sisters was worth the collateral damage his hunting caused, and destroying monsters like the ones that destroyed his life excused his destruction of anyone who stood in his way.
Here’s the point that Gordon missed: If you lose your humanity to defend humanity, you’re not much better than the vampires and demons that you fight. Becoming a monster for the “right” reasons still makes you a monster. Gordon knew that some of what he did was wrong, but he was a soldier in a war, and he was willing to get his hands dirty in order to serve the greater good. To save humanity, he was willing to lose his own, and losing his humanity, literally, by becoming a vampire, underlined that point. He chose actions that he thought best served the big picture, no matter how each individual action might be judged. But do we know for certain that he was completely wrong?
AMY BERNER might be an event planner by day, but she’s obsessed with pop culture and she just can’t stop writing. She pops up in various places with reviews and essays, primarily covering genre television and books. She has appeared in several Smart Pop anthologies, including Five Seasons of Angel, The Anthology at the End of the Universe, Alias Assumed, Farscape Forever, Neptune Noir, In The Hunt, Getting Lost, and the upcoming Filled with Glee. She also co-wrote The Great Snape Debate with Orson Scott Card and Joyce Millman for BenBella Books/Borders Press. She lives in San Diego, which is perfect for her geekish tendencies.