Sam is good with someone dying in the place of Dean in Faith. He storms out of the car to find John in Scarecrow. He rages at John until right before John dies.

He's impassioned and emotional but definitely also angry and willing to be dark.

I was thinking about the change in Sam. I think you get a sense of Sam's naivete through his early reactions to Dean's hustles and lies. He's slightly disapproving. Then his reaction to what he has to do in Heart--gah. Poor Sammy is devastated. Today's Sam, even before he jumped in the hole, wouldn't bat an eye at Dean's lies in the line of duty. I don't think he would have had the heartbreak from killing his new girlfriend if he had met her last season. He wouldn't have been gleeful, but he would have pulled the trigger faster than the Sam of Heart.

I think it brought it into focus for me with the wishing well episode. Dean still saw Sam as the cute, innocent boy and encouraged him to wish back to Jessica. But by then Sam had changed and said, that wasn't him anymore. Oh Sam.

So the short answer is yes, I think Sam was happy, cute, and innocent (as a Winchester can be) and I think that changed and he wasn't happy, cute or innocent even before he was in the cage.

Or, does Sam superficially come of as still innocent and sweet and naive in canon if you forget the shows origins?

I never got that Sam was sweet and innocent. Well, sweet, sure, with Jessica in the pilot, but most of S1 is angry, resentful, grieving Sam. He's compassionate with victims, and more willing to play the game politely than Dean usually is (also pilot: kicking Dean when he mouths off to the cops), but it was pretty clear to me from the outset he had lost his innocence a long time ago.

I think you see a certain naivete later on from time to time, even as late as last season, when he's asking if Bobby will be all right at Karen's second funeral pyre. There is a little kid still in there, one who seems to show up when Dean and/or Bobby is present and he's looking for a sort of reassurance that's easy to ask for, when someone is around who will give it (and Dean was that guy, for a long time).

does Sam superficially come of as still innocent and sweet and naive in canon if you forget the shows origins

Going with canon, from the age of 8 or so onward, he knew all about the things that go bump in the night, and he knew exactly how precarious their situation was... his mom had died and his dad kept disappearing for days at a time and he was already worried about him. Somewhere along the line there John handed him his first gun when Sam said he saw something in the closet, and we have to assume he was training soon after and hunting along with the others after that. He had years immersed in the lifestyle before the show ever started, even though he had a break while at Stanford. But whatever innocence he may have had was lost way back when he was a toddler.

Maybe that is it. Being naive instead of an innocence. Amy, do you think this Sam would have been messy tears Sam before having to shoot Madison? Or has there been a change there?

Amy, do you think this Sam would have been messy tears Sam before having to shoot Madison? Or has there been a change there?

S5 Sam, you mean? Because Robo!Sam, no, no way.

S5 Sam, maybe not so many tears. But I also don't think S5 Sam would have let himself get emotionally invested with Madison, so.

No, not RoboSam. S5 Sam, I agree probably wouldn't have shed as many tears. Innocence may be the wrong word, because I agree with Morgana about things he was exposed to as a young boy, but there was something still intact in Sam that is no longer there. It may not have the name innocence, but it was something.

Today's Sam, even before he jumped in the hole, wouldn't bat an eye at Dean's lies in the line of duty.

I think a lot of Sam's... hardening, for lack of a better word, started in the year after Dean made his Crossroads Deal. You see him becoming more and more desperate as time grows shorter and he's trying to find a way to save Dean. He starts showing less patience with witnesses, for example. He becomes more of a man on a mission, more about expediency.

For me the big difference is the Sam who thinks he can have a normal life, or that he deserves one, and Sam now.

He wasn't naive, he wasn't innocent. He had known about shit and killed shit and seen death aplenty before he went off to Stanford. He was also a headstrong and angry kid who was very willing to take broad actions that might hurt other people, so he wasn't all emo and fluffy.

But he was still fighting for normalcy with Jessica, and I think the first time he let that down and connected again with Madison it was even more highlighting how abnormal this whole thing was. Cara? He coulda shot her a bit coldly, although surely regretfully. But he wasn't reaching out anymore, and he'd given up on being a real little boy.

eta: I also think he never had a problem lying to people--he adopted the personas really deftly. He had a problem with Dean being an ass, and he had a moral problem with theft.

Do you suppose that's what wrong with everything? That one deal that Mary made, that had John living past his time, enshrouded them in disturbance? And that each successive resurrection (whoah nellie, what a family) just amplifies it?

That seems like the core lesson of Appointment in Samarra to me, but how can that possibly be fixed?