Meta: What’s with Sam’s depressed, defeated attitude these days?

I’ve seen a lot of people talking lately about Sam’s depressed, defeated state of mind, expressing confusion and frustration about it--a frustration I used to share, until I wrote my last fic and suddenly got some insight into it. After certain episodes, I remain unconvinced the writers know what they’re doing or are truly taking Sam’s depression and Dean’s self-loathing anywhere other than deeper into both, but these insights did give me some hope that it all means something and is going somewhere and thus I thought I’d share them in case they did the same for others.
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