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randomfoggytiger · 2 days

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Dreamland II: Golf Clubs, Diana Fowley, and Mulder's Father

(Courtesy of: @theparadigmshifts)

Dedicated to @goodshipsmulder~

I started out this post trying to draw parallels between Mulder's golf clubs and his past relationship with Diana. Yet, nothing about the Fowl One screamed "golf" or even upper-class country club to me; not enough, at least, for Mulder to spend money on and continually reuse a pair of clubs at her insistence.

However, I stumbled into another entirely other theory-- one that connects directly back to the late Bill Mulder.

Here we go~

DIANA FOWLEY, GOLF CLUBS, AND ORIGINAL THEORIES

Diana Fowley and golfing don't seem to fit in the same sentence: ease and relaxed calculation doesn't quite jive with bold and determined manipulation.

She's career driven: her work ethic caught the eye of the Consortium either before or after she and Mulder discovered the X-Files; and she took trips back and forth from Europe to Tunisia weekly to report her findings. Not to mention, she and Mulder were partners during his first couple months to first year on the files (if my timeline is accurate), and she's shone to fix his singular focus more firmly to "the work" in service of her own end goals. Diana's compliments and wheedling in The End imply she's not slackened her pace years later, and that she believes she can pick right up where Scully left off and do more and do it better.

Perhaps she and Phoebe Green were sporty types, more inclined to low cardio workouts to keep active and in shape. This would be an interesting juxtaposition to Scully (a tomboy Navy brat who had better things to do than hit horsehide with a stick); meaning, she lacked the sporty inclination of Mulder's previous exes.

Or, perhaps, the golf clubs are another manifestation of Mulder's fleeting interests after moving back stateside. Perhaps he took it up briefly, memories of his blueblood years leading him to that low impact sport first before he switched to swimming (maybe golfing was too mind numbing or it wasn't mind-numbing enough with other people interrupting his focus.)

Perhaps he took it up because Diana suggested it; or maybe he was trying to "find himself" in the wake of Phoebe cheating or Diana leaving.

However, speculations with maximum Fowley influence don't quite fit into the timeline suggested by the room's "design."

WHAT WE KNOW

(Courtesy of: @amplifyme)

What we do know is: the bed had to be the first neglected item in this room, surrounded as it is by piles of boxes, knickknacks, and junk. The golf clubs were a more recent addition-- more to the front of the line-- and look older and used. There is also upturned plastic totes, old boxes separate from the neat storage boxes in the back, a basketball hoop, a punching bag, a bowling pin-- all a bit used-- and Cougar's sports memorabilia, as well as fuzzy dice, a flat bat or rowing paddle, and newer magazines and file folders.

The bedframe is blocked in by boxes and junk on three of its sides, meaning it was the first item placed into this room. Next to it are boxes stacked professionally, and high. It's unlikely that Mulder would have done so neat a job. And the overturned totes, sports gear, and assorted mess are more recent additions-- hastily packed or thrown together, toppling and spilling out easily with one swing of the door: in other words, Mulder's work.

Thus, the stages are revealed.

The bedframe was placed first; at an undisclosed time later, the boxes were professionally placed around it; and at an undisclosed time after that, Mulder chucked in at least two totes, a lamp (he wedged into the second layer of boxes), fuzzy dice, and sports gear on top of a pullout or loveseat or fabric chair. The golf clubs fall into that addition. And lastly but also undisclosed (and likely on-going), he stuffed in light, assorted papers or shirts or whathaveyou he was too lazy to put away properly right then.

Let's break this down in layers.

EXAMINING THE EVIDENCE: BEDFRAME, BOXES, AND TIMELINES

The bedframe and boxes must be tackled first.

His bedframe is empty (though intact) and neatly set aside in the corner of the room. That seems to be stage one of unpacking and rearranging-- meaning, in my opinion, Mulder crammed the boxes in right after his and Diana's relationship ended. Mulder chooses smaller spaces to sleep (the couch, the bed he bought after Monday); and he also tends to collect but never unpack his hoarded loot. Those boxes can't be casefiles from the FBI since they'd never let him keep them longer than required for a case; and his most treasured valuables are kept in the basement, anyway. Leaving one to believe they're his belongings: things he brought over from Oxford (if he did) or things he bought after moving out of the dorms.

And when was Mulder no longer living in dorm rooms? Post his education, likely around the time he and Diana were dating.

Two theories present themselves: Mulder's things were moved from Diana's apartment after she left, and he never unpacked them; or Mulder himself recently moved into this apartment after Diana left.

The latter would have to mean he had somewhere else to live for the five years he and she were together. However, there's a few in-canon points that negate this theory, broadly pointing to a close or working relationship that spanned two apartments rather than one house:

Mulder tells Scully in Home that if he could "settle down" it'd be "in a place like this." Settling down, in his case, meant the home as well as the environment-- living in that location with those people in that kind of a house was still a fantasy without any tempered reality. Mulder would have lived in his parents' home on the Vineyard then in dorms in Oxford and back in other dorms in the States. Afterwards, the commute to the FBI would have excluded a house if in included his focus; and both he and Diana were very focused on work back then. To Mulder, owning a house was still a fantasy, not yet a practical reality, something he associated fondly with better days and better dreams for the future.

On top of that, Mulder is out of place in houses or suburbia, neither fitting in nor feeling in his own skin when prancing about in Arcadia. Yes, he was proving a point to the neighbors (and to Scully); but he wasn't comfortable there: it was too much, too spacious, too empty; and he found corners to wedge himself into-- hopping up on cabinets, hedging himself in with pillows, cramming in a chair up close to the door instead of other manners of surveillance, etc. (That's an entirely other meta post.) Mulder displayed discomfort above and beyond "proving a point": he wasn't used to the "stereotypical American life"-- he was weirded out by the austere space of it.

Mulder is further unsettled by suburbia in Amor Fati: in that case, he has command of his actions (to an extent), doesn't have to play to "the rules", has his sister, and is (seemingly) largely in charge of his life. And yet, it's "too perfect", leaving him to wonder why he's there. Mulder wasn't surprised to see Diana sweep in and seduce him (post here)-- he was shocked when she not only embraced a slower-paced life but wanted to also further domesticate it.

In Mulder's mind, settling down included a home and kids-- whether it was he and his sister riding bikes and eating bologna sandwiches or a distorted view of Diana wanting his babies and raising his sons-- and a rest from constantly running. Permanence. He looked upon it whimsically, not cynically or longingly like he would if he'd tried his best at that vision and failed (i.e. bought a home, had a "life", and lost it to work.)

In evidence of this, Mulder is shocked when Diana returns-- but not hardened against her or drawn back into a life with her. There are no ties beyond the past; and those ties weren't definitive enough for him to have closure or even completely sever, a classic Mulder move. There were five years between them; but nothing that would jeopardize or taint the idealistic world Mulder is trying to bring to fruition by recovering his sister and restoring that happy homelife lost to her abduction.

So, what does that mean for the bed and boxes? When Diana left, she probably emptied her apartment and sent over his share of the belongings-- assets of a partial but incomplete merger. Those stayed stored and cluttered around his bed while Mulder philosophically took the couch. They're not enough clutter to have filled a house, but more than enough to spill over into two apartments.

EXAMINING THE EVIDENCE: ASSORTED AND SPORTING ITEMS

But that leaves the clubs, the bowling pin, the basketball hoop, the punching bag, the rest of the etc ceteras, and the totes stacked (read: jammed) frontside.

Compared to the Cougars jersey, the golf clubs, bowling pin, punching bag, basketball hoop, etc., appear older, used, and worn.

Turns out, the Cougars are a Houston football team jersey-- and where were Mulder and Scully recently during the opening events of Fight the Future? Despite not attending yet another football game together, it would be like him to pick up memorabilia that had special significance to him about them. If that be the case, Mulder, it would seem, associates Scully with football. Perhaps she prefers it to other sports (until baseball ranked higher up her list after The Unnatural, that is)-- in fact, that would make sense: part and parcel of the stereotypical, all-American Navy family raised on Thanksgiving meals and afternoon football.

Meanwhile, the golf clubs and other sports gear can't be a recent Mulder purchase-- not only because of their wear and tear, but also because of the extent of their wear and tear in contrast to the general lack of time Mulder has to devote to sports other than a morning swim, a once-in-a-while basketball game, and the sports tv he ingests come rain or shine. We've seen him shoot hoops (Paper Hearts, later Two Fathers), we've even seen him sink a bowling ball dead center (Elegy), but we've never seen him take up golf or boxing.

So, if they aren't recent purchases... what were they?

THE REMNANTS OF CHILDHOOD

Bill Mulder was murdered in Anasazi and buried in The Blessing Way; but his house had to have been cleaned out and sold sometime after his death.

Tena Mulder always avoided peering into the past, avoiding it entirely whenever her son pressed her for memories (and ultimately burning her children's photos in Sein und Zeit to protect its secrets.) That leaves Mulder to pack up and sell or hire to have the house packed up and sold.

I believe the sports equipment was from his childhood. It would explain the wear and tear on the basketball hoop (referred to in a deleted Two Fathers scene here) and the bowling pin, as well as the presence of the unidentified sporting stick and fuzzy dice. (It would also explain why he stuck them with his new magazines and papers.)

But most importantly, I believe the golf clubs were his father's.

Golf requires a particular set of skills: silent calculation, strategic aim, and the ability to reposition oneself if the original swing goes wrong. While Mulder destresses through aggressive play (whether swimming alone or working alongside others he trusts will have his back) and Gibson Praise out predicts his competitor's next move and CSM plays by the blind hand of luck, Bill Mulder retires away from stress, decisions, and consequences, preferring to keep to himself (post here and here.) Preferring not to compete.

Perhaps the punching bag was Bill Mulder's, too: a solitary way to release his pent-up feelings of helplessness and rage.

CONCLUSION: A SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

Diana moves to Europe; and Mulder either moves out of her apartment with the bedframe (minus mattress) and boxes or moves her boxes into his bedroom (and sells the mattress he might not have liked to begin with.)

Years later, his father dies. Mulder, a packrat at heart, can't let go of the happier times he connects with his childhood gear. Tena likely wouldn't want it cluttering up her already cluttered basement; so, he shoves it into his unused bedroom, stuffing them all to the left. In the tote closest to the door, he put his easily retrievable items (i.e. magazines, rumpled shirts, fuzzy dice, a few assorted bats, and miscellaneous filing folders) that he retrieves at will.

After Mulder's return from Houston, he opens the door and chucks in the jersey. However, it disturbs the balance of his haphazard system, beginning an avalanche that he quickly closes the door against. With the door in place, disaster is avoided, for now.

A few months after that, Morris Fletcher flings the door open and watches in appalled indignation as Mulder's junk spills onto the floor.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

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