For the love of Scully

"We observe the principles of reincarnation everywhere in life: the cycles of nature, day and night, the cyclic motion of the sun, earth, moon and solar system. We also see the principles of reincarnation reflected around us each day: a plant grows, dies and releases its seeds. Its seeds burrow into the earth, begin to sprout, and new life is reborn once again." (cf. Past Lives: 11 Signs Your Soul has Reincarnated many Times)

If the quote above is the basis of the idea of reincarnation, then having a child is reincarnation, for what difference is there in the planting of the male seed, it's gestation in the female's womb, only to be born into the world nine months later? It seems no different to the idea of the plant. Or day and night - really? - today is just yesterday done differently?

The cyclic motion of the planets proves nothing other than one planetary body circling another continuously, aeon upon aeon. When one of those bodies die there will be no reincarnation.

It isn't, however, the reincarnation of Mulder that I find offensive - well, not entirely!

There are good episodes of the X Files, some which even make the list of best ever TV episode, and there are bad episodes - and then there is 'The Field where I Died'.

If we take this episode at face value then all that exists between Mulder and Scully is pointless. His declaration of love/dependence in 'Fight the Future’ [1998] is meaningless. She is a mere object to keep him entertained through this incarnation while he awaits his next encounter with Melissa.

Oh, and Scully's sister?

The great irony of the X Files is that it is ostensibly about Mulder's quest for the truth. In reality, it is about Scully's journey of individuation. It is Scully who carries the show through to the end of Season 9 and, let's be honest, we stayed with it because of Scully. Think about the alternative. Would Mulder really have been able to carry the burden, would we have stayed around to watch?

Whatever one may think of those later seasons, they were worth watching to see Scully adapt to a different role, to see how far she had come on her own personal journey. This could simply not have been done with Mulder. E.M. Forster would likely describe Mulder as a 'flat' character and Scully as 'round'.

Maybe there is some feminist lesson to be learned here. Despite the writing team being overwhelmingly male, they could not help but depict a truth lurking somewhere sub-conscious. The male of the species draws attention by his obsessions and foolhardy bravery but it is the female that carries the burden of the future.

'The Field where I Died’ panders to this positioning of the male in the prominent position, with the females relegated to the shadows. Even the character Melissa, Mulder’s always long lost love, appears only as an appendage to the male, serving no purpose other than to bring to light this aspect of Mulder’s character. This is nothing less than a travesty for a show that may have started with Scully deferential to the more experienced Mulder but only for so long as it took her to develop and grow into a role within the FBI that, let us not forget, was only created because of Mulder’s dedication to the X Files. That said, at no point in their history together, has Scully been made to believe herself a mere bit candy; there only to please the male gaze. She has always been an individual equal to Mulder - she is as obsessed with science every bit as much as Mulder is with ‘extreme possibilities’. So why is she treated with such gross disrespect?

Contrary to the premise of this episode, I like to think of Scully and Mulder as a union of souls. Their relationship is nothing but that which exists between any two people: I am black, you are white. I am female, you are male. I am science, you are spirit. I am knowledge, you are experience. But only together are we whole.

To suggest that Mulder could exist without Scully is to suggest that day could exist without night; that up could exist without down; that story could exist without reason.

There are worse episodes of the X Files than this - 'Teso dos Bichos', for instance. Or 'Teliko'. There is no other episode that insults the characters of the show quite like 'The Field where I Died'.