What's in a name?

With respect to the 12,623 Americans who, since 1880, have been gifted the name [up to 2015], in the world of the X Files, anyone called 'Donny' is likely to be less than meets the eye. The name itself signifies less, being a diminutive of the more popular 'Donald' [1,415,276 for the same time period, according to the Social Security Administration cf. names.org].

Entering into the spirit of the X Files, while there appears to be no alien connection to the name (this isn't a myth-arc episode), Kabalarian Philosophy informs us that the names we use create our "life experiences". The name 'Donny' creates a "most expressive nature", which is "idealistic and inspirational" and is "driven with a strong inner urge to be of service in some way that would uplift humanity as a whole".

Certainly, Donny Pfaster is driven by a strong inner urge. The only 'uplifting' in his case, though, is the uplifting of coffin lids.

To be fair, Kabalarian Philosophy also says that Donny is likely to experience problems at work due to "a tendency to be scattering and inattentive to details". In the teaser to "Irresistible", Donny does indeed experience such difficulties when discovered in the funeral home, late at night, holding a pair of scissors, which he has obviously been using to clip the dead girl's hair, not noticing the minor detail of her blonde hair clippings lying scattered on the floor.

Donny is, according to Mulder, an "escalating fetishist". Scully, in a voice over informs us that "a complete model or psychological profile of the death fetishist does not exist." Maybe it's just as well, as she's, digging in the wrong place.

A quick Google search reveals very little on the "death fetishist", apart from it being something quaintly referred to as a musical group - which sounds as you'd imagine a band with the name Death Fetishist to sound.

Fortunately, we have the great American philosopher, Robert C. Solomon - author of 'The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life' (another book that should be mandatory reading) - to turn to. In his book, The Joy of Philosophy: Thinking Thin Versus the Passionate Life' (2003), Solomon describes the death fetishist as someone who glorifies death as the ultimate experience. He claims that this type "flirts" with death "because death fetishism is undeniably an erotic if not sexual phenomenon" (p.158). The use of the verb 'flirt' is appropriate, according to Solomon, because, for all the fascination with death, one can never be sure of "one's intention to go through with it" (p.158).

Donny Pfaster, according to Solomon's explanation, is not a death fetishist.

It may be inappropriate to talk of necrophilia in a popular TV show and so some alternative had to be found. Understandable, if one depends upon Nielsen ratings for one's survival.

Donny Pfaster, however, is a necrophile. But Mulder is right when he describes Donny as 'escalating'.

Anil Aggrawal, who literally wrote the book on it - Necrophilia: Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects - identifies a ten-tier system of codification of necrophilia. When he's caught clipping blonde locks from the young corpse, Donny is a Class Vi necrophile. Classes I and II are harmless role-players or romantics. Class III necrophiles are somewhat less innocuous in that they may visit funeral parlours or funerals just to be near the dead, though they, apparently, don't indulge their fantasies in actual intercourse. Donny is just down the hall in a different class altogether. He is what Aggrawal calls a 'necromutilomaniac' - or someone who mutilates the corpse as they gain sexual gratification.

Mulder, who we must remember is an "Oxford educated psychologist" - as Scully informs us when asked if she's "familiar with an agent named Fox Mulder" in the Pilot episode - demonstrates his understanding of Pfaster when he warns Moe Bock that "his compulsion is growing. He may resort to homicide to procure his corpses. Once he gets a taste of a warm body, he's probably going to want more." (In all fairness to necrophiles, it should be pointed out that, though often grouped together as paraphilias, they are not necessarily cannibals - the Jeffrey Dahmer's of this world are rare creatures indeed.)

As Scully contemplates the nature of Pfaster's compulsion, he is in the process of skipping a few classes and heading straight into Class IX, the homeroom for homicidal necrophiliacs. He is, patently, escalating or, one could say, moving Pfaster along Aggrawal's scale. He is driven, according to Scully by "a misplacement of values and a deviation from cultural norms and societal mores".

It may be, rather, a case of Donny never acquiring the value system that keeps most people from acting out their wildest fantasies.

The connotations of Donny's surname are fairly obvious, as just alluded to. Mulder is likely to be right when he says that there is a "deeper psychosis" at work, born out of an anger towards women, specifically his mother.

As Rollo May says in 'The Cry for Myth', everyone "in learning to love, must confront the psychological remains of his or her mother's imprinting". We can speculate that the diminutive Donny was never good enough for his mother, always having to, in a sense, move ever faster to keep up with her demands. In continually striving to meet his mother's unattainable expectations, Donny missed out on the normal maturation process, never learning, probably due to a lack of interaction with others who weren't his mother, the values that one needs to lead a culturally and societally normal life.

Lacking the skills that would enable him to form loving relationships with the living, Donny seeks out those who, in Aggrawal's words, "cannot refuse, reject or resist" and who also "do not tell tales or talk back".

What's in a name? Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to snigger at Kabalarian Philosophy, after all!