Disclaimer: Ownership, lawful claim, possession, control, deed, or any other synonym for "This is mine" would be wrongly applied to the characters/title of the Pretender. They belong to someone that's not me. Consider it like this, the characters and situation of the Pretender are paperdolls, I merely provide a new costume for them from time to time. I'm the friend next door who likes to come over and play with your stuff…sorry if that bothers you, I promise I'll help clean up afterward. In other words, no infringement is intended blahdy blahdy blah, my apologies to anyone who is offended.
Summary: This is a Preamble to the fiction "What's My Age Again," which is yet to be written. It merely deals in a complex theory of how old Parker and Jarod are, using various dates throughout the series. It's not actually a story, but if you've got the time, check it out.
Author's Note: The following may become intensely confusing as you continue to read it, so feel free to stop at any point in time. This is merely an introduction and is not necessary to read the story and fully understand it, when I finally finish writing the story.
Note: Any dates that you have to offer will help immensely! Correct me on anything I've miscalculated or misrepresented.
And The Winning Date Is…
By Bec-Bec
In 1963…Who Knows What Happened?
Okay, upon watching the episode "Bloodlines" again, I noticed several things. One is that Jarod's file does say 12-072463-01 (Thanks Happy 1!). In theory, it could mean that Jarod's birthday was July 24th,1963. However, again, it doesn't fit with Jarod's being brought to the Centre February 4th, 1963; he wouldn't have been born yet. Just to make sure, I watched closely to see if we saw the number codes on any of the other red files…we didn't. If we had seen the number of the mysterious eighth file maybe we could have proven this (it would have said something like 12-010363-01 for Parker's birthday.) The only numbers we can come close to seeing on any of the red files belong to the new three children being considered for Prodigy. However, we can't read them because of the camera angle. Too bad because it was an awesome idea. (Happy 1, you're a genius because I never would have even noticed…be careful, they might try to kidnap you for the Pretender project…)
I also thought about Jarod's being isolated in 1963 (courtesy of the idea from Kilby and Happy 1) meaning that he wasn't necessarily born before 1963. Yet, again, I was faced with that pesky date of February 4th, 1963 as the day Jarod came to the Centre. Also, in "Bloodlines" Jarod remembered that they took his blood to test it. They were obviously testing to see if he had the Pretender gene. If they had known before he was born, or right when he was born (possibly 1963) why would they not test him for the abilities until he was four?
Lyle's graduation date opened up a whole new can of worms. Yes, Happy 1, Parker being younger than Jarod and born in 1965 would fit better with Lyle's graduation date…but it would also mean that when Jarod and Parker kissed, they were between the ages of 6 and 4…yuck. RRP, Ginger, and Pyroangel3228 brought this up. Besides the fact that the idea is nasty, they look far older than that in the DSA. There is one date that they didn't screw up though: in "Crash" it says it's Lyle's 15 year reunion, which, given the 1998 airdate of the episode, actually fit with 15 years. Who knew they had any idea of consistency? Though, it all leads me back to wondering if Lyle is in fact Parker's twin, and if he isn't is Angelo her twin? I think that Angelo is younger than Parker as well…so, there's a possibility that another person entirely is her brother. With the Centre, anyone can be family. Maybe, it's Eddie…or Alex… who knows?
There are eight red files. If Jarod, Parker, Lyle, Angelo, Eddie, Alex, and Kyle make up seven of them, who's the eighth? I think there's an unidentified player to this game…anyone wanna take that on for a fan fiction?
I checked "Dragon House" again, thanks to a suggestion from Kat Tru about Emily's exact age. Harriet Tashman tells Jarod that his parents went to stay with her in 1969 and had Emily a month later, this would mean Emily's about 33/34 now. I'll assume she's 33 because Catherine sent Margaret and Charles to Harriet before she died, in April, and the month of April hasn't come yet. Emily should be about ten years or so younger than Jarod.
Ethan's age can only be determined from Catherine's time of death. After the evidence I've seen, I'm gonna side with Catherine's having died in 1970. After all, that's what we see in "Toy Surprise" (DSA), "Red Rock Jarod" (Centre ID [thanks to Ginger and RRP for that one] ), and "Hope and Prey" (Lockbox holding the weapon that killed her). This means the date of 1979 on her headstone in "Someone to Trust" is wrong. I think the 4-13-70 date appears elsewhere as well, but not on anything I've got on tape (Ginger mentioned that it shows up in "Every Picture Tells a Story," something which is not currently in my collection.) Let's just assume that somewhere between 6 and 9 months later, Catherine was shot by Raines after giving birth to Ethan. So, Ethan is about 32, and will turn 33 around October/November/December.
By now, I'm also inclined to believe that Sydney's statement about Parker and Catherine's being the same age when they inherited the inner sense is false. If Catherine died in 1970, she was 34 at the time. If Parker was 34 in 2001, she was born in 1967. 1967 just doesn't work for obvious age reasons regarding kisses in 1969… I'm not saying this disproves the fact that Lyle could have been born in 1967, I'm just saying that Parker wasn't.
I've also got new dates here. Such as, Faith's age and the date on Fennigor's "death" certificate.
In "At the Hour of Our Death" we get to see Faith's gravestone. She was born January 13, 1962 and died May 12th or 13th year not given, I can't quite read the stone. Regardless of that fact, given her birth date and that Jarod and Parker met her just a few months after her mother's death, Faith was about 8 when she died. This once again disproves Catherine's death in 1979 because Faith would have been 17 in 1979, it also proves that Parker wasn't born in 1965-1967 because otherwise Faith would have been older than her, which she wasn't.
Now, the date on Fennigor's "death" certificate is June 13th 1980. I can't read the print above that, but if that's his date of death, something else is wrong. It can't be his birth date for obvious reasons, but what exactly is the date for then? Just another mystery to add to the heap I've created.
Oh, I forgot to mention that in "Keys," Ms. Parker recieves the medical report about her mother's beating with the date November 27th, 1969 on it. When she confronts her father later in the episode, she says that a few months later, Catherine was dead. Which (drum roll please) means that Catherine died in 1970.
I would like to apologize for anyone's head that I've caused to explode form all of this, my own brain is currently strained at this mystery. Once again, thanks for reading, I highly appreciate having people to discuss this with. If you find anymore date inconsistencies, send them right along, none of this ends until we've solved it all! In other words, it's never going to end…unless they decide to humor us with a third movie…though, at this point in time, I'm starting to think that they wrote themselves into a corner that they can't crawl out of. With all of the storylines that they never finished off, we'd need a 10 hour miniseries to clear it all up…not that I'd complain if they made a 10 hour miniseries, it's just unlikely that they would even with all of the Pretender's fans. Sigh. Anyway, I love you all for reading this and responding. I'll write more chapters if you find more problems, so keep your eyes glued to your television set to find something we've all missed that explains everything that makes no sense. Good luck! Buh Bye!
PS. I'm no closer to writing my story "What's My Age Again"…someone wake up my muses, they're sleeping on the job.