#I just looked it up and padaleki was just 23 when the series started

[17yearslatewithlattes]

Ah man, when the airplane man in Phantom Traveller quips that having Sam there instead of John is an “even trade”, Sam’s “No, not by a long shot” sounds genuinely sincere (albeit not happy about it). And practically it makes sense—of the family he's the youngest, least experienced, was older when he started hunting than Dean was, and he’s been out of the game for a while. But if there have been signs of him being insecure in the earlier episodes I missed them, and with all anger and derision of their Dad, I hadn’t really considered the extent to which he might nevertheless feel overshaddowed by him, and might still buy into John’s myth of himself as a great hunter. 

It also makes me wonder how much of his ‘can’t we just leave???’ attitude in earlier episodes isn’t just driven by obsession, but also by him being scared and overwhelmed. Especially in light of what he says at the beginning of the episode about how much it’s all getting to him, perhaps he wants to find their Dad as soon as possible not just to get revenge (and sooth his worry for their Dad), but also to get all of this over with and spent as little time as possible in the terror and violence of this world. And he should be able to!! Even if hunting was as ethically simple as Dean presents it (kill bad things, save good people) no one should be forced into something like this!! Maybe Sammy would have hated normal life and come back to hunting in the long run, but that should have been his choice to make!!