Somewhere in S5 (I wanna say Two Minutes to Midnight), Bobby mentions how Sam has been running into burning buildings ever since he was twelve and Dean agrees.
As for the Pilot...well, I don't think John would have given baby Sammy a gun if he actually thought there was a monster under his bed, so it might very well have been a 'toughen up, we can't coddle you forever' kind of thing. It's not like Sam would have necessarily associated guns with hunting at that point. They were just something that was around all the time.
Oh yeah, good catch with Bobby. So he possibly might not have hunted until 12. Big stuff anyway. I kinda doubt the boys could keep it from John that Sam knew about hunting for four years though, so even if he didn't outright hunt, he'd be training.
I think, honestly, the writers changed their minds about how much wee!Sam knew about hunting between s1 and s2-3; he was right there in the room and awake in the flashback in Something Wicked while John was shouldering his gun and giving Dean instructions, so I don't think that at that point the writers envisioned Sam as effectually unaware of hunting as they later made him. So, I think the Pilot reference does imply that John gave Sam a gun to tackle something; "the thing in my closet" is pretty specific, it suggests to me that there really was a thing, especially since nine would be a bit old for vague monster under the bed fears. But later canon would make 12 a reasonable figure
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Good thoughts. The fic I'm writing about Sam's first training hunt has him young, around ten, but I'm thinking maybe he should be older.
I think you're right about the writers changing their minds so it's hard to get a fix on. I probably shouldn't worry about it and stop being so anal when it comes to sticking with canon.
Can I just say that I seriously thought wee!Sam in Something Wicked was in some kind of waking coma or like recently lobotomized or something? So it makes total sense to me that he'd see all this stuff going on around him and yet be totally unaware of it. (Okay, I'm being silly, but I swear there was something wrong with that version of Sam...)
I think the idea was that it was completely routine -- wee!Sam isn't reacting to what's going on because to him it isn't abnormal or shocking. The viewer sees a father checking a loaded gun and giving an eight or nine year old kid directions about barricading himself in a motel room and being responsible for his little brother, and the viewer is shocked at exactly how far over the line John's parenting was. But wee Dean and Sam accept it as normal because kids do accept pretty bizarre realities as normal. Sam just zonks out in front of the TV like any kid would when his parents were doing the dishes or setting out for work or whatever because it's just the usual background action.
In the pilot, Sam says he was nine when John gave him a gun.
Sam: When When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45.
Dean: Well, what was he supposed to do?
Sam: I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark.
Dean: Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there.
-- Whether you interpret that as Sam actually hunting at that age is kind of up to you. But we know when Sam found out John was a hunter: it's in the flashbacks of A Very Supernatural Christmas. That's Christmas 1991, which would make Sam eight.
Oh thank you for looking that up (or just having amazing brain cells for recalling things). Nine years old does fit in the canon, whether John had figured out he knew by then or not.
We do know that Dean was nine or ten on his first hunts, so I imagine John would stay on the same timeline with Sam too, whether he told Sam about hunting or just learned that Sam already knew.
I imagine once the cat was out of the bag, John would start training him, possibly at an even younger age than Dean, given what John suspected about the YED and wanting Sam.
I actually have the graphic novels when the young kids. Guess I need to pull those out and see if there's any new light shed there.
It's only four lines, but of everything in the show, that's my favourite exchange. Everything you need to know about the Winchesters is in there. Brilliant writing.
If you take the comics as canon, there is something of a conflict there. In Rising Son we saw John begin training him to hunt (though not the supernatural - it was deer). According to super-wiki, Sam is 7 in that story, though IIRC (and it has been a while since I read them) it wasn't specific in the actual comic.
Kay, I just scanned through Rising Son and Sam definitely doesn't know anything about hunting. John even comes home wounded and tells him he burned his arm on an engine block.
It starts when he is seven and the next section begins in the fall when he's eight. With all the shiz that happens to him, no wonder he puts it all together a few months later.
I'm thinking 12+. That even when John found out that Sam knew, Sam wasn't allowed to participate in hunts until he was about 13/14, he just rode around in the car with them until that point.
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As for the Pilot...well, I don't think John would have given baby Sammy a gun if he actually thought there was a monster under his bed, so it might very well have been a 'toughen up, we can't coddle you forever' kind of thing. It's not like Sam would have necessarily associated guns with hunting at that point. They were just something that was around all the time.
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I think you're right about the writers changing their minds so it's hard to get a fix on. I probably shouldn't worry about it and stop being so anal when it comes to sticking with canon.
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Sam: When When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45.
Dean: Well, what was he supposed to do?
Sam: I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark.
Dean: Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there.
-- Whether you interpret that as Sam actually hunting at that age is kind of up to you. But we know when Sam found out John was a hunter: it's in the flashbacks of A Very Supernatural Christmas. That's Christmas 1991, which would make Sam eight.
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We do know that Dean was nine or ten on his first hunts, so I imagine John would stay on the same timeline with Sam too, whether he told Sam about hunting or just learned that Sam already knew.
I imagine once the cat was out of the bag, John would start training him, possibly at an even younger age than Dean, given what John suspected about the YED and wanting Sam.
I actually have the graphic novels when the young kids. Guess I need to pull those out and see if there's any new light shed there.
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If you take the comics as canon, there is something of a conflict there. In Rising Son we saw John begin training him to hunt (though not the supernatural - it was deer). According to super-wiki, Sam is 7 in that story, though IIRC (and it has been a while since I read them) it wasn't specific in the actual comic.
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It starts when he is seven and the next section begins in the fall when he's eight. With all the shiz that happens to him, no wonder he puts it all together a few months later.
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