petals on the wind – shipcestuous3

So mrsariayoureakiller and I have been discussing over the past week or so the theory that in the movie series Chris might be Jory’s biological father. Even though the possibility does not exist in the books, and ostensibly it’s otherwise in the movies as well, there’s a strong(ish) case to be made that it could be true, and that there is nothing incontrovertible that precludes it.

Our discussion (with some contributions from others as well, and I take very little credit for most of the ideas in this post) was getting quite lengthy so I decided to compile all of the reasons why it could be true and why it might actually make more sense. Some of these reasons suppose intentional hints on the part of the writers, directors, and cast. I suggest this may be possible but I am not saying that this is definitely what was done. Even if Chris’ paternity is only a headcanon I think it’s a worthwhile discussion.

While I would love for this to be true and have enjoyed speculating about it, the fact of the matter is that Chris is Jory’s father in every important way no matter what, regardless of DNA, and this isn’t intended to minimize in any way Chris’ relationship with Jory as his adoptive father and his uncle.

There are two facts which make Chris’ paternity of Jory possible: first is that Chris and Cathy have unprotected sex, and the second is the timing of that event with regards to when we find out that Cathy is pregnant.

We can tell from the scene that the sex between Chris and Cathy in Petals on the Wind is spontaneous and thanks to how much they let us see, we know that Chris doesn’t put on a condom. We can also deduce that Cathy is not using any other kind of contraceptive. Chris says that Cathy doesn’t need to give herself to the first guy that looks her way, which implies that Cathy has not been dating at all. Her behavior towards Julian when he first comes over to speak to her, and her behavior on their date, also suggests that Cathy has not been romantically involved with anyone. And she didn’t anticipate having sex with Chris, so almost certainly there was no contraception used. Furthermore, Cathy could not have been on the pill or else she could not have become pregnant from Julian either.

(Admittedly it’s possible she used some kind of morning-after/plan B pill, but that first came out in the 70′s, after this scene would have taken place. It was probably not an option Cathy would have turned to even if it had been legalized at that point because it would be brand new, and I don’t know, but there would probably be a social stigma attached to using it that would make procuring it a challenge, especially in a small southern town.)

Now the timing. Chris and Cathy have sex, and then Cathy leaves with Julian for New York. It’s unclear how much time has passed between these two events, but it’s my impression that it’s a matter of a couple of days, no more. It’s likely Julian only has a short break from his ballet company, and once Cathy has decided to go she has no reason to stay around except to pack. (In fact, given what happened between her and Chris, she probably feels motivated to leave as soon as possible.) Cathy and Julian have sex immediately after arriving in New York. This means that if conception of Jory happened around this time, Cathy would not be able to know for sure which man was the father.

The question of timing remains important, because we have no idea when Cathy learns that she’s pregnant, how far along she is when she learns that she’s pregnant, how much time has passed between when she had sex with Chris and that point, nor how far how much time has passed when she tells Julian that she’s pregnant, or how far along she is then. Is all of this obscurity of time significant, intentional?

Hiding the fact that Cathy is pregnant from the audience is clearly intentional. Her announcement to Julian and the subsequent crash are intended to be shocking, and make for a great act break. It’s very different for Cathy’s second pregnancy, because there are indications that Cathy intends to get pregnant with Bart’s child, so it’s not a good candidate for an OMG moment.

So how long has Cathy known that she is pregnant? Since it is being kept from the audience in order to shock us later, and Cathy is forced by the moment to reveal the secret, not by choice, we can presume she has known for a while. How pregnant is she? We only know that she’s not noticeably showing and that it’s not a problem for her to be dancing strenuously all day.

Julian asks, “I’m the bastard, am I? Then why are you still here?” and Cathy answers, “Because up until this moment I thought that our child should know his father.” This always makes me think of when Cathy came back to Julian after she went to Chris’ graduation. Julian dropped her on purpose during practice, then cheated on her, then pushed her against a column giving her a black eye, plus she wasn’t cast as one of the principals in the ballet. And yet she still goes back to him after all that. It’s my guess that she already knew she was pregnant at that point. When she arrives back at her and Julian’s apartment, she’s not happy to be there. Her choice to go back is based on something else.

There are several reasons why she might keep her pregnancy secret for such a long time. And one of those reasons might be that she knew that Chris was possibly the father and she just wasn’t sure what to do. She might have thought that even if Julian wasn’t her child’s father, she couldn’t raise her child with Chris (especially since she has just learned that Chris has a girlfriend, which is something he had always said would be impossible for him and which was something she had always wanted for him). Cathy is haunted by everything that went wrong with her parents. She’s going to do everything she can to avoid that. And that’s on top of the regular impracticalities of having a child with your own brother. (Chris’ reputation is also at risk, as we see later.) So Cathy makes this decision to stay with Julian for the child, but she’s not happy about it, so I can see her holding on to that secret until the last minute, just hoping something might change.

Now, obviously when Cathy confirms with the doctor that she’s pregnant she’ll also be told how far along she is. If the conception of Jory happened after Cathy had been with Julian for a matter of weeks or months, then she would know for sure that Julian was the father. But we’re not privy to any of the information we would need in order to know for sure. So it’s entirely possible that when Cathy finds out she’s pregnant, and finds out how far along she is, that she does the math and realizes it’s a possibility that Chris is the father.

There’s more to discuss with the timing. Chris asks Sarah out on a date one week before Valentine’s day, and this happens immediately after Cathy leaves for New York. Then we have Chris’ graduation. This graduation was most likely in May, just judging by when graduations usually are. So that’s three months. Carrie leaves to stay with Cathy after this, but it’s before her spring cotillion and before the school year is over. So presumably this all takes place in May, and the opening night of Romeo and Juliet, when Cathy tells Julian that she’s pregnant, is not long after all of this. We can’t know for sure, but it’s probably in June, possibly in May as well. February, March, April, May – four months and change. It’s entirely possible that the baby is Chris’. Cathy wouldn’t be putting on much weight because of how active she is with her dancing and how much she has to watch her diet because of her dancing.

Now, I don’t know the science about this, but it has been suggested that it’s likely Cathy was fairly far along when she was in the car accident because she probably would have miscarried if the pregnancy had been in an earlier stage. So there’s another point.

But wait, there’s more timing to consider! When we catch up with Cathy, 10 months have passed, and Jory is born. I don’t know how old that baby is for sure, but it’s obviously not a newborn.

That baby could be definitely be six months old. Then we have Sarah’s dad, who says that Chris and Sarah have been dating for “over a year”, and this is after Carrie’s death and after Cathy leaves for Virginia. So we have one year after Valenine’s Day, plus an extra month or two for the “more than” (any more than that and he would have rounded up to a year and a half, or almost two years), then minus 10 months, gives us May or June, which is just further confirmation that this is all possible.

Another thing to consider is that this series has a lot of time inconsistencies. Chris says that Cory died when he was six, but actually he was 8. Cathy says they were in the attic for three years in If There Be Thorns, but it’s stated to be less than that earlier on. The age difference between Bart and Jory and Bart and Cindy seems to fluctuate. Chris and Cathy joke about being romantic with each other when Chris was 12, but Chris was 16/17 before anything happened between them. So my point is that sometimes this series doesn’t pay very close attention to the timing of things, and more importantly that if they wanted to ignore the past timing in favor of something else they might just do it.

Now I’d like to talk about Jory’s appearance. In the book, Jory has a strong resemblance to his father Julian – dark hair and dark eyes. Movie!Julian has blue/green eyes and dark hair.

Jory is played by four different actors throughout the series. Baby Jory has dark hair and dark eyes.

Child Jory, seen briefly at the very end of POTW, has dark hair but blue eyes.

But Bart Jr., whose very dark eyes and dark hair are important in the books (and the actors in ITBT and Seeds of Yesterday were clearly cast with that in mind), is blondish in this scene. There’s no close-up of the baby, or of the children in that short scene which isn’t about them and in which they are only in the background, so my conclusion is that Jory and Bart were not cast in POTW for their coloring.

The actors we are really concerned with are Jedidiah Goodacre, who plays Jory in ITBT,

and Anthony Konechy, who plays him in SOY.

Both of these actors have dirty blonde hair and light brown/dark olive green eyes.

It seems like we can write the eyes off. It’s unlikely two blue eyed people would have a brown eyed child. And eyes are often hard to see in movies anyway unless there’s intentional focus on them. (Plus Bart Jr. has very dark eyes, and Bart Sr. has blue eyes.) While we’re at it, Kiernan Shipka doesn’t even have blue eyes, hers are brown.

However, it is very interesting that Sarah remarks that baby!Jory has Carrie’s eyes, and Chris says that they’re “more like Cory’s”. So canonically, Jory has an eye resemblance to Cathy’s side of the family. Now obviously that’s not evidence of anything, but it is, say it with me now, interesting.

Now, is it possible that a blonde-haired Cathy and a brown-haired Julian had a dark-blonde-haired son like Julian? Yes, very much so. But Jory is the only member of the family (not counting Melodie) who is not cast according to his description in the book, and that could be significant. He doesn’t resemble Julian in any noticeable or ostentatious way. And there is some darker hair in the Foxworth family tree – in the movies, both Malcolm and (it seems to me) Olivia have darker hair, Jory’s great-grandparents, and we don’t know about Alicia and Malcolm’s father, Jory’s other great-grandparents.

Plus Kiernan Shipka’s Cathy in Flowers in the Attic has dirty blonde hair,

and Mason Dye (Chris in FITA)

and Jason Lewis (Chris in ITBT and SOY)

doesn’t have that bright pure golden blonde either. They all have a very similar bronze-y cast of blonde. So Chris and Cathy could also have had a child with hair like this.

There was speculation back before ITBT and SOY came out that Jory might be Chris’ biological son because of the casting choices. That just goes to show that Jory having blondish hair really stands out. I’ve spent some time studying Jory’s hair in both movies (that sounds silly, but it’s the truth), and even though I have seen that it’s a little darker than the typical Dollanganger blonde, I still come away with the impression that he’s blonde. Especially compared to the actors who play Bart.

No one in the movies ever remarks upon Jory’s resemblance to Julian. Not even Marisha, Julian’s mother. If a comparison is made, it’s because both are ballet dancers. But Jory didn’t have to inherit his ballet dancing from Julian, it could have come from Cathy. And whose to say he even inherited it at all? He had plenty of reasons to go into ballet dancing because that’s what his parents did. He didn’t have to have natural talent, though presumably he does since he’s so good.

Aside from his appearance and ballet skills, in the books Jory is also described as having inherited Julian’s temper. But movie!Jory does not have a temper. He takes after Chris in personality. Now Chris raised him, and he is related to Chris, so there are plenty of reasons why this could be so. But it’s worth remarking upon. Jory is like Chris – levelheaded, forgiving, optimistic, easygoing. Of course he has moments when he’s not those things, but saying that Jory takes after Chris, except with regards to ballet, where he takes after Cathy, is probably the best description of him. He’s the perfect combination of the best characteristics of both of them. Whereas Bart seems to have inherited the worst of everyone. Cindy does take after Chris in some ways as well. This obviously isn’t conclusive proof of anything. But it is interesting that all of the ways in which Jory was like Julian have been removed from the story, except for his ballet dancing, which, again, likely has more to do with Cathy and his own sense of legacy than anything else.

For example, Jory is very angry with Melodie when she doesn’t visit him in the hospitable in the books, and he speaks often of suicide while he’s still in the hospitable. (In the books, Julian survived the car crash and killed himself later in the hospitable because he couldn’t dance anymore.) But in the movies, Jory is forgiving towards Melodie and doesn’t experience the same depression. (Though obviously he does make a suicide attempt later, but that’s after Melodie stands him up in the worst way.)

We don’t get to know Julian as well in the movies as in the book, but he does have a few salient characteristics: drinking, philandering, poor anger management, violence, jealousy, paranoia, ambition, aggression, mommy issues, etc. Does any of that sound like Jory? Plus he says to Cathy that she doesn’t want a family and a white picket fence (and he’s speaking about himself), but Jory is the one who wants Melodie to get pregnant and he has talked about choreographing instead of dancing. So he’s really not like Julian at all.

There are some absences that could potentially support this case as well, things that might have been included for clarirfication, but weren’t. They could have easily made it clear that Chris was not the father (through protected sex, no sex at all, precise timing, a medical event concerning blood types or something like that, etc.) but all we have to go on is what Cathy has told everyone. We never have a conversation between Chris and Cathy discussing her pregnancy, a conversation where Chris might have asked if he could be the father. And we never have a conversation between Jory and his parents where he asks if Julian really was his father. (If he had been aware of the close timeline and the fact that Chris and Cathy had had a sexual relationship with each other long before he was conceived, then he would probably want to ask.) All of these conversations that might have closed the discussion for sure, none of them happen. Were they intentionally skipped over? Or is just convenient for us?

Also absent is any commentary on how much Jory is like Julian. Not even Marisha compares them.

One thing we also see in ITBT is that Cathy discourages discussion of the kids’ biological fathers (and obviously her parents as well, etc.). This is not the case in the books, where Cathy is frequently bringing up Julian, Paul, and Bart, and loves that her children resemble their fathers. When Bart asks Jory if he ever wonders about Julian, Jory of course responds that he does, but then quickly says that he thinks of Chris as his father. I get the impression he really doesn’t think about Julian that much at all, and a lot of that probably has to do with Cathy’s influence. Bart Jr. is much more hung up on his “real father”.

There is one scene in POTW in which Cathy responds very oddly to a comment about Julian’s paternity of Jory. The mother at the ballet school says to Cathy about Jory: “I bet he’ll be a wonderful dancer, just like his father was.” And Cathy’s reaction to this comment is more than a little strange.

As you can see, she doesn’t even answer, she changes the subject.

Now I had noted her reaction before, but I assumed it was a combination of Cathy not wanting Jory to turn out like Julian (because Julian was a douchenozzle) and Cathy feeling guilt over the role she played in Julian’s death (not that it was her fault at all). But once it was pointed out to me that her reaction could be due to the fact that Julian isn’t Jory’s father, I could see how well that explanation fit! Her reaction matches up with that idea perfectly.

In a similar vein, there is a scene in SOY when Cathy is speaking to Melodie, and she relates the tragedy of Jory’s accident to when she lost Julian before Jory was even born. There is something about her dialogue/acting here that always struck me as very false. Cathy is lying. Now is she lying just because losing Julian wasn’t particularly hard on her? Or is the lie even bigger than that?

There is another scene in SOY where there is the opportunity for Cathy to respond in a certain way and she doesn’t. After Jory’s accident, while he is still unconscious, Melodie is freaking out and saying, “He’s going to die young like dad, I know it.” Cathy interrupts her and tells her that she’s exhausted and needs to rest. She doesn’t pick up the thread about Julian at all, not even to deny it or say that it’s a different situation or anything like that.

Next I want to talk about what goes down with Jory in ITBT as he discovers Chris and Cathy’s secret. Unlike Bart, who gets all of his information from Corrine and John Amos, Jory develops some suspicions from Chris and Cathy’s behavior themselves. He overhears their discussion in the attic when Chris finds Cathy making up the beds.

“I’m not Mother.”
“I’m not suggesting you’re Mother.”

He’s probably more alarmed by all the talk of being taken away, but he must have found that wording very strange.

Then, after some hints from Bart, he goes up to the attic and finds the letter that Chris had given Cathy (and which she had kept!!!) for her 13th birthday. Cathy’s 13th birthday was in the first year of their time in the attic (I think they should have chosen a later birthday, but that’s another topic) before anything romantic happened between them, but this is a love letter all the same. Isn’t this a trope one typically sees with parents? He find a love letter from his father to his mother? Now, Chris is his father, but still. Doesn’t this scene work so well – so much better – if Chris if Jory’s biological father.

And where does he find this letter? In the attic. The place where Cathy and Chris first fell in love.

This of course sends Jory over to Corrine to find out the truth. (And it’s important to note that we don’t actually see this scene, so Corrine could have told him anything, for all we know.)

And now we come to the subject of Jory and Melodie’s overreactions. Jory’s distress is understandable, of course. The truth is disturbing, the lie feels like a betrayal. But Jory’s all ready to pack up and leave with Marisha. He was very happy before all the drama happened. He’s going to leave everything behind and go with a woman like Marisha just because his stepfather is his mother’s brother? And he tells Melodie the secret, and asks her, “I don’t revolt you, do I?” Does that make any sense? And Melodie is so bothered by all of this that she can’t even speak to him for days. The truth about Chris and Cathy is quite the little secret, but isn’t this all a little much? I could see Melodie wanting nothing more to do with Jory if she barely knew him or his family, but Jory and Melodie are in a serious relationship. They have been dating for a long time and Melodie knows his family really well. For this reason she would be very shocked, but you would except her to be more forgiving. She has seen what kind of family Chris and Cathy have – loving and normal.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Jory has been told that Chris is really his father. He would have told Melodie that, and so Cathy’s lines to Melodie about Julian in SOY would not make sense in that context. Also, Jory’s behavior towards Marisha – agreeing to leave with her, saying he’ll see her at Christmas – would not make sense. But is it possible he suspects? Is this why he never asks? He doesn’t want to know.

Of course, it’s not as if they could tell Marisha the truth about Jory, it would be too risky. She would be furious, and she would have the proof she needed to out them. And Jory grew up loving Marisha, speaking with her regularly on the phone and spending holidays with her, it’s not a relationship he could discard lightly, especially if he only had suspicions.

Even if he doesn’t suspect, the fact that his and Melodie’s reactions are more in line with him being the product of incest (and not just Corrine and Chris Sr.’s, incest), is noteworthy. This is one of those reasons why Chris being Jory’s father would actually just make more sense.

And let’s compare Jory’s reaction to Cindy’s. Oh wait, Cindy had basically no reaction at all. And Cindy had even more reason to be upset because she is Chris and Cathy’s child equally in a way that Jory and Bart never were. But even though she finds the truth “insanely disturbing”, it really seems as if she couldn’t care any less. And then let’s look at how Chris and Cathy reacted when they found out that Corinne and Chris Sr. were uncle and niece. They were shocked, but pretty cool about it overall, especially Chris, who forgave Corinne instantly and moved on.

It’s also interesting to note that when Chris and Cathy are discussing what to do after Sarah has discovered their relationship and they are pariahs, they never mention Marisha. Chris wants to pick up and start over new in California, which they do at the end, even going back to their original last name (which there are some continuity issues with that in ITBT, but that’s another topic). Marisha is not a concern.

Another potential point from that same period is how little we see Chris and Jory together. There’s only one scene where he is paying attention to the baby – the one in which he says that Jory has Cory’s eyes. There’s no scene with Cathy, Chris, and Jory together, just the three of them. It just seems a little weird.

Going back to when Chris and Cathy have sex in POTW, Cathy says, “God already punished us once,” and Chris responds, “Cathy, lots of women have miscarriages”. It is very interesting that the narrative chose to point out that Cathy has gotten pregnant before from unprotected sex with Chris, and then they have just had unprotected sex again, and then Cathy gets pregnant not long after in a very obscured timeline.

This is also distantly followed by a scene in which Chris is staring at the babies at the hospitable. Sarah says, “Hard to believe they’ll all grow up someday.” And Chris answers, “Not all of them.” Presumably he’s talking about Cory, but he could be talking about Cathy’s miscarriage as well, and this scene could represent his longing for fatherhood. (Chris was obviously born a father. I’m pretty sure he was telling Cory and Carrie dad jokes when he was only 11.)

I do believe the discussion of the miscarriage and Cathy’s belief that they were being punished for sinning against God serve in part to clarify why Cathy resists making a life together with Chris. She still believes that their incestuous relationship is sinful. She believes it would be wrong for them to have a child together. She fears being like their parents, and coming to the same end that their parents did.

All of these fears also serve as motivation why Cathy might lie about Jory’s paternity, or why she might repress any suspicions that Chris could possibly be the father. And why she would choose to stay with Julian and live that lie with him. The biggest unresolved question with regards to this theory is why Cathy would say that Julian was the father if he wasn’t. But I think there are plenty of reasons why she might do that, especially since, given the timing, she could never actually know for sure that Chris is the father.

And although I’m sure she hated the lie, it’s not the only lie that she has to live, because she’s in love with Chris but can’t be with him. That’s always going to be a struggle for her, so what’s one more lie if it’s better for the child and better for Chris.

When Julian died, she wouldn’t have had a lot of options. If Chris was the father, she couldn’t say that. She lives in a small southern town, everyone is going to be gossiping about who the father is if she doesn’t just say it’s Julian. (We saw how bad it was after Chris and Sarah’s wedding was called off.) And she can’t deny it to Marisha, who also lives in that town and whom she probably has to deal with regularly because they’re both in the same line of work. Plus we have to remember that she’s protecting Chris. At this point he’s in a serious relationship with Sarah and has a promising career as a doctor.

As for why she doesn’t tell the truth later on, circa ITBT or SOY. Well, maybe she has. Perhaps Melodie is the only one who doesn’t know. Given how she reacted in ITBT, it would be understandable if Jory didn’t tell her. Or even if he backtracked, and told her later that actually Chris wasn’t his father. Lied.

Or perhaps Cathy has told Chris, but they decided to keep it from Jory and to just let him be happy. (Jory probably takes a lot of pride in being Julian’s son because he’s in ballet professionally.) Also, we see how Melodie reacts to being pregnant in Foxworth Hall, and the things she says about the house being alive, and how they never should have gone back there. I could see Cathy withholding the truth because she feared Melodie and Jory wouldn’t have kids if they knew. Or, again, just keeping the truth from Melodie.

Perhaps they’re afraid of Bart’s reaction. Or perhaps Cathy still only has some suspicions and just thinks it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Now, if the movie series is hinting at this on purpose, then why not just go with it? Well, it’s possible that they felt it was too much of a departure from the books. It would be a huge change. Perhaps they felt it would alienate the audience a little, or make Chris and Cathy less sympathetic. (One of the reasons why I think V.C. Andrews never wrote Chris and Cathy having a biological child in the book series.) There could be feelings that it would be wrong of Chris and Cathy to have had a child together, that the risks of defects were irresponsible, and it was bad for Jory given the stigmas associated with incest. It’s also possible that they wanted it, but just thought it was a little too much.

But even if wasn’t intentional, and it’s just a lot of coincidences that add up to make it possible, that’s fine by me. It still functions as a canon-compliant headcanon, and a good one if you ask me.

Julian doesn’t deserve to be Jory’s father, and I want it for Chris so much, who deserves it x1000 (especially for putting up with Bart), so that’s why I really love this theory.

Also, can we talk about how great it would be for Jory to be Chris and Cathy’s son, while Bart is the one who is so messed up and hates the incest so much? I just love the irony there.

Also, Jory is supposed to be an equally important character, but he’s clearly overshadowed by Bart. Being Chris’ son would give him a new significance within the family, narratively.

I would love to hear your thoughts. I’ll update this post with any new ideas that support the theory. But of course if there’s anything working strongly against it I should love to discuss that as well.

shipcestuous3

Tag: petals on the wind

Jory = Chris’s Biological Son Masterpost