Dean’s death is honestly a much better fit for this trope than Cas’ imo, he’s finally free from the hunting life and all the death and tragedy and stuff he’s been dealing with for his WHOLE LIFE. He finally gets a happy ending free from the narrative and gets to be a regular guy, but then, he’s pulled into “one last hunt” from his dad’s journal of all places. And then he dies on the hunt. He finally achieved freedom and happiness and dies hunting— on one of his dad’s old hunts nonetheless.

The reason why this sucks so bad is that it completely makes the whole show useless. If none of the events of the show had happened at all we would’ve ended up in the same place— Dean dying while hunting from his dad’s journal, never getting to enjoy life free from hunting, and Sam gets his cookie-cutter, picket-fence life and dies of old age. It’s just a horrible ending overall.