The Few, the Proud, the Clay

[BiblioRook]

Well...the original idea of a golem is a symbol of life without spirit...as seen in the stories of the Golems of Chelm and Prague. A common trait of such stories is that the created being is limited in intelligence--in some versions, being only "programmable" with simple commands, in others being a thing of base nature--impulsive, crude, reactive.

In most cases, probably so. I'm hardly trying to say that golems with independent will should be a common occurrence and/or that all golems need to do is wise up and throw off their shackles of servitude, going back to the robot example you hardly expect an automotive assembly robot to suddenly want more out of it's existence. If you notice I'm not really arguing with any of your definitions of what a golem is, just in the absolutism in what is literally an entirely fictional concept.

Thing about programing though, if it's implied golems lack intelligence and will or are simple and crude due to programing then it can also be implied that that programing could be advanced. I find it hard to believe that somewhere in the grand fictional history of golems some wizard or so didn't decide that instead of just a clay human shaped shovel or metal guardsman that only did exactly as told and nothing else he would want something that could anticipate his instructions within some ballpark of his original order or even (gods forbid) give the golem the capacity to learn from past failures and mistakes. I don't find ether concept very unusual but both could possibly develop further into some sort of conscious or will that would set the stage for what I'm getting at well enough. Again, I'm not saying all golems should be expected to develop sentience, but off the 99 that never deviate from their original program that there might be 1 that does.