Has anyone else noticed the lack of influence of fathers among the profilers? Emily apparently has a father but we know nothing about him. (granted they were working on a case but she never asked her mother where her father was or how he was in "Honor among thieves.") Reid's father left. Hotch's father died. Morgan's father died. Elle's father died. (and they were all quite young when they lost their fathers) Garcia's father - she said Garcia was her step-father's name. And we don't know about J.J. or Gideon.

Would this be a normal statistic for this many people to not have a father figure growing up? Or is this a comment on society today?

Do you think that could be a possible factor in why a person could choose a profession like the FBI or am I just reading way too much into it?

It was just a thought..... <_<

Definitely, four dead fathers of a total of eight it´s statistically improbable. Above all if another one is left

I think that people do go into a profession like the FBI just for the reason usually it could be because one of their parents were murdered and they want justice they don't usually go in just cause their parents died, it's just uncommon. But I will say that most people do go into the FBI becuase of it. Others just want to catch the little bastards before they hurt anyone else.

It's an interesting point...and I hope more people will come to this thread to discuss the concept!

Shawn....where are you? Calling Shawn! I know on a different forum you made a comment on having a theory that J.J.'s parents are dead, but I didn't catch what that theory really is (just your comment that in the last episode when J.J. was trying to talk the sheriff through breaking the news that his son had died she made a comment which made you think your theory might be right.) Wheeew! That was a long explanation.....to basically explain nothing except you have a theory! :D

I'd love to hear more about that and why.

Heya-

Ok- it's a long percolating theory of mine, one I'm currently turning into fic.

Anyway- here it is in a nutshell-(and it's long so bear with me)

We've heard details about everyone on the team's parents EXCEPT JJ.

Gideon- Frank mentioned his folks in NO WAY OUT. Sure, we didn't get details, but they were mentioned. And Gideon seemed to have no reaction to it.

Hotch - We know his father is dead, whether of cancer or a heart attack, we can't be sure because it's changed from THE TRIBE to ASHES AND DUST. We know that Hotch's mother was an active part of his life and upbringing.

Garcia - No idea as far as her real father, but she was raised by a step-father, even took his last name. We know that she has four brothers.

Reid - We know the most about him. Mom in an asylum, dad walked out, single child.

Morgan - Dad died in the line of duty, mom raised him and his sisters.

Prentiss- I think her dad was mentioned, but we know her mom is an Ambassador. She's likely an only child. It's never been specifically said, but it seems obvious.

Elle - Dad died in the line of duty, raised by mom.

JJ - All we know of her family is that she has an aunt and an eight year old niece, which means that she has at least one sibling.

Ok- that's what we know of their families, now of their reasons for joining the FBI:

Reid, Garcia: Likely recruited
Morgan: Joined because of what Carl did to him
Hotch: A former DA, I tend to believe his reasons that he told JJ about why he joined
Prentiss: Wanted to break away from her mother's influence would be my guess
Gideon: My guess is recruited like Reid and Garcia, but he's been with the FBI so long that why he joined in the first place might no matter any longer.
JJ: Not a clue.

What we do know is that not one of our people seems to have a violent crime in their past.

Now my evidence- admittedly not as solid as I'd like - but interesting(I think):

(1) In NORTH MAMMON - her aunt gives Polly's mom a picture of JJ with two soccer friends. The picture is strange because how many aunts would have a photo like that. Sure, when I was in HS, I have my softball pics to fam and friends - but the singles. Because my friends? They didn't know them and they didn't care about them. That kind of photo is one that a mother would have. Or someone who might have been playing mom.

(2) By her own admission, JJ's not an academic. She said that soccer was her only way out of a small town. Which means that it's not likely she was recruited like Reid and Garcia would have been. It means she would have had to have chosen to go down the FBI path. What makes a college athlete decide to go into government police work? Something has to trigger that and I don't think it's idolization of Dana Scully.

(3) We know next to nothing about JJ. That suggests to me that what we'll eventually find out will be explosive and fascinating.

(4) Finally - the scene in OPEN SEASON - when Alex's father says "don't you understand, he's all I've got"(or something like that) - JJ looks down and away. It goes beyond empathy. We've seen her empathize several times with victims and survivors - her eyes never leave their face. They absolutely did here. That seemed like a very persona moment.

Anyway, that's what I got.

Ooo...wow...yummy!

This is precisely the sort of analysis I was looking for!

*devours it happily*

Thank you, Shawn, for sharing and thank you to ILtS for bringing her/him in to share her/his theory!

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing......hopefully some day we'll find out how close you are.

Wow, very smart and in depth. Thanks for all that info. :)

Suffering characterizes heros ;)
It wouldn't have had the same emotional impact if all characters have had happy family^^

I would like to see a meeting between Reid and his father :rolleyes:

I would love to see if Reid has anything to do with his father anymore. In Revelations he says he has a father and a mother so I assume he's still alive. That would be very interesting.

I wonder too about Gideon's relationship with his father. In Fisher King he talks about going to see Nellie Fox (baseball card guy) a lot, I wonder if he went to the games with his father. And I wish that they would tell us more about his son. It's interesting that he's a father figure to Reid but his own son doesn't seem to have anything to do with him. (I wonder if his son just always felt like he was too busy at work to be a father) Gideon also talked about the movie reels he got from his grandfather and the greatest gift he gave him was laughter so it sounds like he was close to him anyway. We've never been given any reason to think there were family problems of any kind with Gideon the way they've sort of hinted at that with everyone else.

Outside of the obvious fact that there were enough problems for him to get a divorce.

~)~

On a side note, has anyone noticed whether or not Mandy remembers to take off his wedding ring? I ask that, because I've noticed several times on House that Hugh Laurie either doesn't take his off or switches hands, so I wondered if there was the same thing with Mandy.

I was thinking family problems while growing up...relationship problems with his parents. We know he's had some problems with his son. And we don't know for sure that he is divorced. His wife could have died......he has only said he isn't married.....not why he isn't married so he could be a widower.

I never thought about that being Mandy's own wedding ring....I just know as Gideon he wears the mysterious rings.

Didn't they have Gideon having a conversation with his wife in the original pilot script? I guess they could have changed their minds and decided she was dead instead of course...

I don't know.....I've never heard about that. The fact that he does still wear a wedding ring makes me think it's more likely that she died than they got a divorce though. Maybe he's been married twice before and that's why he wears two wedding rings.

Yeah...wasn't it a "pillowtalk" convo, or am I thinking of a convo between the Hotchners?

If I remember rightly he called her from the plane, its been ages since I read it so I can't remember what it was about but you could be right! I think her name was Karen, that's about all I can remember...

I haven't seen the whole series - missed almost the whole firsth season - but if you allow me some expeculation:
I'm about to say JJ had a nice daddy she was close to - she just seems the type - that I believe is still alive. as for Gideon, his is probably dead by now, but normally the grumpy boss is the one with daddy issues, so i'd say he had a nice relatioship with him, That may change once I see his son, but by now...

I'm going to have to rewatch "secrets and lies" from Season 1. I don't really remember what Gideon said but I remember thinking he made a comment that made me think that was why he didn't seem very close to his family.

Where did you read the original pilot script?

I read the original on a transcript site, there are quite a few out there. I think there's a copy on kilohoku.com.....

**spoiler**

Just updating the list.....after the episode "Penelope" Garcia's father - dead. And she also lost him at a young age; she said she was 18 when he died.

But now we have Rossi to add to the list. Is his father dead too???

I've still not taken to Rossi yet so i don't much care about him but that might chage as the season progresses....

Anywho i'd love if we got more insight into JJ's life and past,we've had glimpses into almost all the others but know next to nothing about JJ!!!

yeah!!! I agree with you!

i think rossi's father is most probably dead. if not, his father's one oldd man :D

He would be pretty old but not neccessarily dead. He said he was 53 (I think I just read that Joe Mantegna is 60) but if his father was say 25 years older than him that would put him close to 80. Actually I was wondering more if he had been killed or died when Rossi was young (like the majority of the team) But his backstory seems to be that he had a pretty solid upbringing so maybe his father didn't die when he was young.

And I would like to know more about JJ too. I'm very curious to know if Shawngf's theory is correct and JJ grew up with her aunt or some other family.

Whats cool is, Gideon and Donavan mean pretty much the same thing. Donavon (in Gaelic) means Dark Warrior, adn Gideon (in Hebrew) means Mighty Warrior (According to Reid).

Well, you could be right, but I want to work for the Bureau when I'm grown up as well, but then - I was adopted in the age of six months, sooo...

That's interesting, I didn't even know Gideon had a different name in the early versions of the script (although I should have guessed, they do that a lot on shows, don't they?).

Regarding JJ, I'm 99.9% sure both her parents are dead. I think they both died when she was young, and like someone else said, was raised by an aunt. A loving aunt, but nonetheless not her real mother, and so she's carried that around for years. I think she may have chosen the FBI and specifically her job, the go between for the team and the public, because she wants justice but doesn't want to lose the human connection and see everything the profilers see, burst into houses with her gun drawn very much (I'm aware she does occasionally, but keep in mind at the beginning of the series she didn't even go with them). But I may be totally off, so take that with a grain of salt.

My theory is that Rossi is the only one who actually had a father growing up because in Identity he said he is a catholic which makes me think he was brought up as one so therefore probably had a relatively normal upbringing. just a thought.

Yeah, I don't think Rossi's father died when he was young. I get the impression Rossi probably had a very "normal" childhood, probably with both parents and siblings....Of course, I could be totally wrong!

I'm the only one in my circle of friends (8 of us) that has a father. They are either all dead or they abandoned their kids a long time ago. I have no idea if that is a normal statistic or not...

We so need answers about JJ's family! I've read so many fanfics where she and her brother were raised by their aunt and uncle after their parents death that I now just accept that's the truth! It would be so funny if the writers tell us her parents are alive and well....

I also think Rossi was raised by both parents. His emotional baggage seems all job related, that case with the Galens, so that means he doesn't have family stuff to worry about. Besides, if we're all right about so many of these guys not having fathers, then TPTB would probably want to change it up a little and have at least one team member who didn't lose their dad, right? ;)

Rach, where are these fics? Me wanna read!

Have you seen ff.net?! Lol, they are full of them!

I have to say though that most of my reading these days is done on live journals...There's too much Morgan/Garcia and post Revelations JJ/Reid on ff.net! Some of them are awesome but I like the more unique stuff....

Yep, that's the theory! I wonder how Rossi ended up doing the job he does without the childhood trauma the rest of them seem to have!

Yeah, I'm on there all the time, but I only recall seeing the Morgan/Garcia and post-Revelations JJ/Reid....must go fic searching!

Hmm....if I were to guess, maybe the fact that he was raised in a good home made him want to help others that aren't? Or maybe someone he knew experienced the trauma....idk. I'm not very good at speculating these things. :rolleyes:

I wonder what Rossi did before he became a founder of the BAU? Maybe something he saw in a previous job triggered his need to hunt down killers? Or like you said, maybe something horrible happened to someone he was close too...See, these are the questions we need answered!

IMO, some of the best CM fics are the earlier ones! We need more JJ/Morgan! My lil fic is almost done :lol:

i think the guys have the worst dads...or at least male father figure type people in morgans case

Spencer's dad abandoned him and left him to care for a schizophrenic mother at the age of nine or something

Aaron's dad beat him up, if his little quote in Natural Born Killer meant anything

Derek's dad died, and his "Father figure" molested him!!

i mean BLOODY HELL, is there anyone on the team with a normal freaking childhood? :blink:

Just a theory

Maybe you feel the need to become an authority or defy authorities if you grow up without a father.
The standard look on parenthood is that the mother provides love and kindness while tha father
provides safety and authority. When a child lacks safety and authority he/she might either choose a path
that leads to criminal behaviour just because this person never had the strict rules a child needs or he/she
chooses to become an autority so he/she can feel safe and fill a hole in the heart that was created by the lack
of a father figure.
And because everyone (most of them anyway) have problems in the same area they have a deeper connection to eachother.
For exampel, me and my best friend both lack a father figure and we got a deep connection to eachother the first time
we met.
Sorry for my bad english, it's summer break and I become stupid during summer :P
But talk about the clash of the dysfunctional minds :blink:

Dude, JJ's mom is alive!! She was showing Garcia and Morgan pictures of Henry and she said "That is Henry with the clothes my mom made him"
It's in the fouth season when she comes back. Not cold comfort but the one after i think but i know she mentions her mom!!
Peace Out B)