#I don't actually mind Silver being naive and gullible! I really like that it's a good trait that's taken to such an extreme it becomes bad

[true-blue-sonic]

Silver says that he can't lie in his Sonic Channel intro story, I don't know if I agree that he's supposed to be gullible since he's been shown to be both paranoid and perceptive at times and even the specifics of Mephiles deceiving him and Blaze have been debated. Outside of comics no one has tried to deceive him since the Rivals games so I can't say for certain.

In '06, while I think a large part of Silver's actions can be explained by his desperation about the world being destroyed and his frustration about Iblis being undefeatable, I do feel that he simply is gullible there. A complete stranger shows up and rattles about chickens and eggs and origins, and what he says checks out and provides Silver the exact solution he's been looking for! And Mephiles furthermore never tells Silver any actual lies or direct misinformation! But Silver is not shown to question anything about Mephiles' motives, why he only shows up now, why he is interested in saving the world, and why he suddenly disappears when Silver and Blaze are sent to the past to strangely reappear later and not even offer them more help. And to me, that does indicate a sense of naivete and gullibility. It's what I described in this post as well: the way I interpret is is that Silver is so honest and straight-laced and direct, he expects everyone else to be the same, for no other reason than that he is and he wants the world to be just and fair. Because he wants to save the world and undo Iblis, he expects Mephiles to share those exact same desires, just simply... because. Because it's the right thing, for him, and his line of reasoning at that point in '06 seems to be that if he thinks it is right, it is right. And that comes off as naive and not at all grounded in reality to me.

As for whether Silver is gullible in Rivals 1 and 2, I'd say a little bit yes and a lot more no than in '06. I've remarked before that Silver in the Rivals games can definitely be shrewd: he deduced correctly that "Eggman" was actually Eggman Nega based on context clues, paying good attention to what got actually said, and "Eggman's" own strange behaviours that were too familiar to the Nega he knows. He does let "Eggman" goad him into unnecessary fights with the promise that he'll be given answers if he defeats his opponents, which is then not fulfilled when he wins. But, well, the entirety of both Rivals games is built around that premise, so it wouldn't be fair to blame solely Silver for it if the manner of excuses used to start fights is nothing much deeper than "Rouge tripped Shadow", lol. So for Rivals, Silver seems to be less gullible, but his straighforward honesty mindset is definitely still present. He enters agreements with people (heroes and villains alike) who promise him information if he can fulfil their requirements multiple times despite nothing ever coming from it, and a simple "I believe you" from Espio with no further clarification for this change of heart is enough for Silver to immediately suggest a team-up despite the earlier antagonising between them. So not outright gullible and definitely more on top of the facts than in '06, but still not giving some of the situations he's in the thinking-over they require, I see it as.

The only two attempts of someone trying to 'deceive' Silver in the more recent 2010s that I can think of are Sonic in Generations where Silver states he thinks Sonic might be an imposter trying to get the Chaos Emerald, and Infinite in Forces waxing about crushing heroes and hopelessness. The former is solved easily enough with a battle ending in Sonic's favour, the latter is shot down by Silver accusing Infinite of lying and going on to the attack. But I quite like how Sonic Channel says that Silver cannot lie in his story (I believe he even specifically says it himself, right?); it aligns very well with his honest mindset, in my opinion! But overall, I figure Silver has actually become less gullible over the course of the games; he's a lot less trusting of whatever Eggman tells him in TSR and goes to his friends for help immediately after gathering information. So I do think he's come a long way from that specific bit of characterisation in '06!