(short?) biography
Sam Winchester is the second son of Mary and John Winchester, born in Lawrence, Kansas in 1983. And that's when things started to go wrong. (No, really. Well, actually it started ten years earlier, but that only comes up once and no one actually mentions it to Sam, so far as we know.) Anyway! When Sam is six months old, a demon with yellow eyes (his name is Azazel) comes romping into his nursery and feeds baby Sam a few drops of his demonic blood. This will be a Problem. But the bigger problem is that Mary comes in and interrupts this feeding, so she gets killed dead, and the house lights on fire. John, Sam's older brother Dean (four at the time) and Sam all escape, but their mom is toast, literally.
John goes a little ballistic and learns that in fact, all those myths you learn about? Pretty much actual factual. He decides to hunt down Mary's killer and get Revenge. (This will be a theme.) So he pulls up roots and starts traveling with boys all over the country, fighting crime evil sons of bitches. Dean ends up raising Sam because John is a) kind of alcoholic and b) gone all the time. How good of a parent John is really depends on who you ask, anywhere from abusive on up. Or down.
Sam grows up ignorant of all this monster shit, though, until he is eight and Dean finally spills the beans about what the deal is with all those business trips Daddy goes on. Sam is not terribly happy with this. He becomes the Rebellious Son, doesn't like to hunt, wants to do Homework and Go To School and basically Be Normal. This does not go over too well with John, who expects total obedience, and Dean just plain doesn't get it. All of this comes to a head when Sam gets accepted to Stanford University with a full ride scholarship and he and John have the fight to end all fights. Sam says he's leaving, and John says that if Sam leaves he shouldn't ever come back. Sam is stubborn like a little bitch, as is John, so Sam leaves for California and doesn't look back, more or less.
FOUR YEARS LATER and a girlfriend almost fiancee named Jessica has entered the picture. Sam is on the cusp of interviewing for law school, crazily successful and ridiculously smart and everything. Lo and behold! Dean turns up asking Sam to help him look for their father, who has been oh shit missing for three weeks. On a hunt. This does not bode well, since hunter life expectancy is basically 30 years or less. So Sam goes off with Dean, they go on a hunt and discover that they still work well together (a woman in white, for the curious) and then head back to Stanford. Dean is glum, and Sam is determined to return to his girlfriend and normal.
Oh shit, wait.
Jessica is on the ceiling! The apartment catches on fire! And Sam is left without a girlfriend.
Oh yeah, and by the way, he was having really vivid dreams about this happening for days. And never told Jess about the whole hunter thing. Therefore, obviously, it is completely his fault. A furious and depressed Sam set on Revenge (see?) takes off with Dean without another word, to go fight crime monsters and hunt for the thing that killed both his mom and now his girlfriend.
Things happen, they learn that said thing is a demon (!), Sam has precognitive powers (!!) and John is an ass sometimes (--wait, no surprise.). Dean and Sam Bond with a capital B, and are pretty much inseparable. They meet up with John eventually, and find Azazel just in time for him to possess John and inform everyone Very Ominously that he has plans for Sam. He then proceeds to nearly kill Dean. John regains control long enough to ask Sam to shoot him (this will also become a theme) and Sam doesn't, because Dean says not to (and also, it's Daddy). The demon departs, Sam is driving them all to the hospital.
WHAM SEMI-TRUCK.
End Season One.
At the beginning of S2, then, Dean is comatose and apparently dying, and Sam is trying desperately to fix things, because that is what he does. John makes a deal with Azazel and gives his life for Dean's (this will also become a theme). Dean is really broken up and Sam is trying to hold things together and is now determined to stick with hunting because he doesn't think he can do anything else and Daddy Would Have Wanted It. More shit happens, there is lots of hunting and the FBI is on their trail, which is kind of a problem. (Oh, PS, John told Dean a secret before he died. And accused Sam of being at fault for everything.)
So there is a demonic virus in this one town, and it is revealed that ho shit Sam is apparently immune to it. Well that's interesting! And spurs Dean to reveal that John said that he would have to save Sam OR KILL HIM WAIT WHAT. This gives Sam a complex the size of New Jersey, and he flat out asks Dean an episode later while totally smashed that if he becomes something he's not, Dean has to kill him. And then a couple episodes later, it seems like he does. Sam kills a hunter, molests family-friend Jo, and basically is romping around in high dudgeon after unsuccessfully telling Dean to shoot him (which makes...three times this season? so far) until Dean figures out that Sam is possessed. They get rid of the demon, but Sam is even more screwed up in the head about his Dark Destiny.
Ultimately, Sam is kidnapped by demons and brought to Cold Oak, where the other psychic wonders (with powers, most more awesome than precognition of people's deaths) are gathered for no apparent reason. Except oh wait it's a fight to the death. Sam manages to keep his hands clean and argues for working together and shit, but Jake the soldier doesn't think this is a good idea. Fighting ensues, where Sam beats Jake down and considers killing him, but decides against it because he doesn't want to become a killer.
Meanwhile, Dean (and Bobby, who is sort of like an uncle) have arrived and Sam starts toward them.
WHAM STAB IN THE BACK.
Sam dies.
Wait, what?
No, honestly. Really dead. Only Dean can't deal with it, so he goes to a crossroads and makes a deal of his own - he'll go to Hell and Sam can come back. Demon accepts, though Dean does get a stay of one year. This can't be good. Everyone goes to the middle of nowhere, a gate into Hell is opened, they close it and Dean kills Azazel. (Meanwhile, Sam plugs Jake with eight bullets, which everyone seems startled by. Admittedly, Jake did stab him in the back.) With a bunch of demons on the loose, Sam figures out what Dean did and is royally displeased. He insists that he will find a way to get Dean out of the deal.
So Season 3 is basically that. Dean doesn't seem terribly excited about it, though, because the deal is that if Dean tries to get out of anything, Sam dies again, and Dean thinks for some reason that Sam isn't ridiculously co-dependent and will do just fine without him. Sam is not so much on that train track, and gets increasingly desperate until things peak when Sam gets trapped in a time loop where Dean dies repeatedly for 100 days. And then gets out of the time loop and Dean dies one last time. For a while.
Sam goes a little cold and insane and scary, and eventually the thing that did it brings Dean back, for a month or two, but Sam is never the same. He used to be relatively innocent and nice, but not so much after that point. This is the beginning of a serious downhill.
And oh yeah, Dean dies anyway. Despite all of Sam's best efforts.
In the meantime, a demon named Ruby has attached herself to the boys. So while Sam is drinking himself into a stupor and basically aiming for suicide by demon after Dean's death, she drags him back to life and gives him a purpose. REVENGE who is surprised. She offers to help Sam hunt down the demon (Lilith) that made the deal for Dean's soul. Sam is totally on board with this, and learns that his magic mind powers can oh wait exorcise demons. That's handy! Except it gives him a serious headache and doesn't always work.
Unless he drinks demon blood.
And considering that Sam is a Winchester and stupidly sacrificial, he goes ahead with that, figuring something like "well I'm dead sooner rather than later anyway, might as well kill a few demons, eh eh?" Only then Dean comes back from Hell. Surprise!
Apparently he has been dragged back by an angel. A brief interlude - Sam has always been the praying one, and the faithful one, between Sam and Dean. However, angels don't like Sam very much. And basically flip him off. This is not so much a happy time. So Sam goes on working with Ruby (but secretly!) and Dean is broken from Hell and doesn't get what's going on and generally everything is just fucked up and over and things. Oh and also! Lilith is breaking the seals that hold a lock on Lucifer's cage, so she's trying to let him free and start the apocalpyse. Things get progressively worse between them until it culminates in Dean locking Sam down for an excruciatingly painful detox from demon blood.
Castiel (Dean's angel friend) lets him out halfway through, though.
Then there is a beatdown where Sam almost kills Dean and Dean tells him never to come back. Sam goes off to destroy Lilith. Dean learns that they have all been set up and Sam destroying Lilith will free Lucifer and start the apocalypse and shit, and this does not sound like so much good fun. So he calls Sam to apologize, because he has not been very nice or understanding perhaps, and Sam sees a message, after starting to doubt himself and think that maybe Dean was right. He picks it up and hears: “Listen to me, you blood-sucking freak. Dad always said I’d have to save you, or kill you. Well I’m giving you fair warning. I’m done trying to save you. You’re a monster, Sam. A vampire. You’re not you anymore, and there’s no going back.”
Which is not what Dean said, but it makes Sam's mind up and he goes through with it, essentially believing that he's probably going to die and it doesn't matter and shit like that, because that's Sam for you. But anyway! Lilith dies via Sam's mind power, Dean is too late though he gets there soon enough to kill Ruby with Sam's help because oh right she was playing him all along, and Lucifer is free.
Oh shit.
Start S5, with Sam and Dean still on the rocks, and Sam trying to figure out how he can fix things, and it's not going so well. He and Dean end up splitting up because Sam doesn't trust himself and Dean doesn't trust Sam, and they go their separate ways, which is a bad idea. Sam ends up tending bar, gets found by hunters who try to force him to drink demon blood, everyone's favorite addictive substance. (It does cause Sam to level up by about ten, admittedly.) It doesn't work, but that night while sleeping, Lucifer visits him in the form of Jess (remember her? she's dead) and informs Sam that he's going to be Lucifer's vessel (essentially, Lucifer is going to possess him. Although Sam has to agree to it.)
Sam freaks out a little and calls Dean, who says that it's not safe for them to be together and informs Sam that they should each "pick a hemisphere." Dean hangs up, and this is the point at which, because the typist is mean, Sam is going to arrive at the Mansion.
John goes a little ballistic and learns that in fact, all those myths you learn about? Pretty much actual factual. He decides to hunt down Mary's killer and get Revenge. (This will be a theme.) So he pulls up roots and starts traveling with boys all over the country, fighting crime evil sons of bitches. Dean ends up raising Sam because John is a) kind of alcoholic and b) gone all the time. How good of a parent John is really depends on who you ask, anywhere from abusive on up. Or down.
Sam grows up ignorant of all this monster shit, though, until he is eight and Dean finally spills the beans about what the deal is with all those business trips Daddy goes on. Sam is not terribly happy with this. He becomes the Rebellious Son, doesn't like to hunt, wants to do Homework and Go To School and basically Be Normal. This does not go over too well with John, who expects total obedience, and Dean just plain doesn't get it. All of this comes to a head when Sam gets accepted to Stanford University with a full ride scholarship and he and John have the fight to end all fights. Sam says he's leaving, and John says that if Sam leaves he shouldn't ever come back. Sam is stubborn like a little bitch, as is John, so Sam leaves for California and doesn't look back, more or less.
FOUR YEARS LATER and a girlfriend almost fiancee named Jessica has entered the picture. Sam is on the cusp of interviewing for law school, crazily successful and ridiculously smart and everything. Lo and behold! Dean turns up asking Sam to help him look for their father, who has been oh shit missing for three weeks. On a hunt. This does not bode well, since hunter life expectancy is basically 30 years or less. So Sam goes off with Dean, they go on a hunt and discover that they still work well together (a woman in white, for the curious) and then head back to Stanford. Dean is glum, and Sam is determined to return to his girlfriend and normal.
Oh shit, wait.
Jessica is on the ceiling! The apartment catches on fire! And Sam is left without a girlfriend.
Oh yeah, and by the way, he was having really vivid dreams about this happening for days. And never told Jess about the whole hunter thing. Therefore, obviously, it is completely his fault. A furious and depressed Sam set on Revenge (see?) takes off with Dean without another word, to go fight crime monsters and hunt for the thing that killed both his mom and now his girlfriend.
Things happen, they learn that said thing is a demon (!), Sam has precognitive powers (!!) and John is an ass sometimes (--wait, no surprise.). Dean and Sam Bond with a capital B, and are pretty much inseparable. They meet up with John eventually, and find Azazel just in time for him to possess John and inform everyone Very Ominously that he has plans for Sam. He then proceeds to nearly kill Dean. John regains control long enough to ask Sam to shoot him (this will also become a theme) and Sam doesn't, because Dean says not to (and also, it's Daddy). The demon departs, Sam is driving them all to the hospital.
WHAM SEMI-TRUCK.
End Season One.
At the beginning of S2, then, Dean is comatose and apparently dying, and Sam is trying desperately to fix things, because that is what he does. John makes a deal with Azazel and gives his life for Dean's (this will also become a theme). Dean is really broken up and Sam is trying to hold things together and is now determined to stick with hunting because he doesn't think he can do anything else and Daddy Would Have Wanted It. More shit happens, there is lots of hunting and the FBI is on their trail, which is kind of a problem. (Oh, PS, John told Dean a secret before he died. And accused Sam of being at fault for everything.)
So there is a demonic virus in this one town, and it is revealed that ho shit Sam is apparently immune to it. Well that's interesting! And spurs Dean to reveal that John said that he would have to save Sam OR KILL HIM WAIT WHAT. This gives Sam a complex the size of New Jersey, and he flat out asks Dean an episode later while totally smashed that if he becomes something he's not, Dean has to kill him. And then a couple episodes later, it seems like he does. Sam kills a hunter, molests family-friend Jo, and basically is romping around in high dudgeon after unsuccessfully telling Dean to shoot him (which makes...three times this season? so far) until Dean figures out that Sam is possessed. They get rid of the demon, but Sam is even more screwed up in the head about his Dark Destiny.
Ultimately, Sam is kidnapped by demons and brought to Cold Oak, where the other psychic wonders (with powers, most more awesome than precognition of people's deaths) are gathered for no apparent reason. Except oh wait it's a fight to the death. Sam manages to keep his hands clean and argues for working together and shit, but Jake the soldier doesn't think this is a good idea. Fighting ensues, where Sam beats Jake down and considers killing him, but decides against it because he doesn't want to become a killer.
Meanwhile, Dean (and Bobby, who is sort of like an uncle) have arrived and Sam starts toward them.
WHAM STAB IN THE BACK.
Sam dies.
Wait, what?
No, honestly. Really dead. Only Dean can't deal with it, so he goes to a crossroads and makes a deal of his own - he'll go to Hell and Sam can come back. Demon accepts, though Dean does get a stay of one year. This can't be good. Everyone goes to the middle of nowhere, a gate into Hell is opened, they close it and Dean kills Azazel. (Meanwhile, Sam plugs Jake with eight bullets, which everyone seems startled by. Admittedly, Jake did stab him in the back.) With a bunch of demons on the loose, Sam figures out what Dean did and is royally displeased. He insists that he will find a way to get Dean out of the deal.
So Season 3 is basically that. Dean doesn't seem terribly excited about it, though, because the deal is that if Dean tries to get out of anything, Sam dies again, and Dean thinks for some reason that Sam isn't ridiculously co-dependent and will do just fine without him. Sam is not so much on that train track, and gets increasingly desperate until things peak when Sam gets trapped in a time loop where Dean dies repeatedly for 100 days. And then gets out of the time loop and Dean dies one last time. For a while.
Sam goes a little cold and insane and scary, and eventually the thing that did it brings Dean back, for a month or two, but Sam is never the same. He used to be relatively innocent and nice, but not so much after that point. This is the beginning of a serious downhill.
And oh yeah, Dean dies anyway. Despite all of Sam's best efforts.
In the meantime, a demon named Ruby has attached herself to the boys. So while Sam is drinking himself into a stupor and basically aiming for suicide by demon after Dean's death, she drags him back to life and gives him a purpose. REVENGE who is surprised. She offers to help Sam hunt down the demon (Lilith) that made the deal for Dean's soul. Sam is totally on board with this, and learns that his magic mind powers can oh wait exorcise demons. That's handy! Except it gives him a serious headache and doesn't always work.
Unless he drinks demon blood.
And considering that Sam is a Winchester and stupidly sacrificial, he goes ahead with that, figuring something like "well I'm dead sooner rather than later anyway, might as well kill a few demons, eh eh?" Only then Dean comes back from Hell. Surprise!
Apparently he has been dragged back by an angel. A brief interlude - Sam has always been the praying one, and the faithful one, between Sam and Dean. However, angels don't like Sam very much. And basically flip him off. This is not so much a happy time. So Sam goes on working with Ruby (but secretly!) and Dean is broken from Hell and doesn't get what's going on and generally everything is just fucked up and over and things. Oh and also! Lilith is breaking the seals that hold a lock on Lucifer's cage, so she's trying to let him free and start the apocalpyse. Things get progressively worse between them until it culminates in Dean locking Sam down for an excruciatingly painful detox from demon blood.
Castiel (Dean's angel friend) lets him out halfway through, though.
Then there is a beatdown where Sam almost kills Dean and Dean tells him never to come back. Sam goes off to destroy Lilith. Dean learns that they have all been set up and Sam destroying Lilith will free Lucifer and start the apocalypse and shit, and this does not sound like so much good fun. So he calls Sam to apologize, because he has not been very nice or understanding perhaps, and Sam sees a message, after starting to doubt himself and think that maybe Dean was right. He picks it up and hears: “Listen to me, you blood-sucking freak. Dad always said I’d have to save you, or kill you. Well I’m giving you fair warning. I’m done trying to save you. You’re a monster, Sam. A vampire. You’re not you anymore, and there’s no going back.”
Which is not what Dean said, but it makes Sam's mind up and he goes through with it, essentially believing that he's probably going to die and it doesn't matter and shit like that, because that's Sam for you. But anyway! Lilith dies via Sam's mind power, Dean is too late though he gets there soon enough to kill Ruby with Sam's help because oh right she was playing him all along, and Lucifer is free.
Oh shit.
Start S5, with Sam and Dean still on the rocks, and Sam trying to figure out how he can fix things, and it's not going so well. He and Dean end up splitting up because Sam doesn't trust himself and Dean doesn't trust Sam, and they go their separate ways, which is a bad idea. Sam ends up tending bar, gets found by hunters who try to force him to drink demon blood, everyone's favorite addictive substance. (It does cause Sam to level up by about ten, admittedly.) It doesn't work, but that night while sleeping, Lucifer visits him in the form of Jess (remember her? she's dead) and informs Sam that he's going to be Lucifer's vessel (essentially, Lucifer is going to possess him. Although Sam has to agree to it.)
Sam freaks out a little and calls Dean, who says that it's not safe for them to be together and informs Sam that they should each "pick a hemisphere." Dean hangs up, and this is the point at which, because the typist is mean, Sam is going to arrive at the Mansion.