This is a timeline/chronology of characters and events for the TV show: Haven
For Disclaimer and information see Chapter 1…
Chapter 4
Between 7th May 1956 to 31st May 1956:
Birth* of James Vernon, son of Sarah Vernon and Nathan (Hansen) Wuornos; with the advice/help of Vince and Dave Teagues, Sarah picked Paul and June Cogan (lived Nederland, Colorado, but were members of The Guard and had Haven ancestry), as the adoptive parents of her son. He was raised in Colorado, hence why he is called "the Colorado kid" - it appears the capital 'T' and 'K' as if the phrase was a nickname or title (The Colorado Kid), rather than a description (the Colorado kid), is either a mistake or a deliberate "red herring" intended to confuse - in Haven, probably the latter.
* On the Missing Persons report at Haven PD in S3, James' birthdate is given as 31st August 1956, yet this is medically impossible**, as it is known he was conceived on the afternoon of 16th August 1955. A healthy, full term human pregnancy is between 38 weeks (8th May 1956) and 40 weeks (22nd May 1956). It is a minimum of 36 weeks (24th April 1956) and a maximum of 42 weeks (5th June 1956). James would have been born in mid-May 1956, at the absolute latest by the first week of June.
** It is possible, but highly unlikely that this is a "continuity error". Throughout the series, Vince and Dave Teagues have been open with the cognoscenti characters like Audrey and Dwight (i.e., those 'in the know') that their role in editorship of the Haven Herald is to cover up not to reveal. The Haven Herald is not a "news" newspaper, Vince and Dave do not work to expose and explain or investigate and inform; the Haven Herald is published to confound and confuse, mislead and misdirect, obfuscate and obscure, deflect and deny; it is to "spin" and "misinform". In short, its raison d'etre can be summarised as: Great Big Fibs.
Although the show has not yet mentioned who founded the paper, it seems likely that Vince Teagues' ancestor did in 1684. This would be logical if that particular Teagues ancestor was the firstborn Teagues of his generation, which means he would have been born with the birthmark designating him Hereditary Protector of Haven and therefore leader – back then the more authoritative 'Commander' title would have been used – of The Guard.
The Guard existed to protect the Troubled and tried to make Haven the refuge and sanctuary its name suggests it originally had been and periodically still was – even if only for 24 years at a time, you can pack a lot of achievement and progress into 24 years if you are sufficiently motivated.
The Haven Herald was founded only 8 years' prior to the hysteria of the Salem Witch trials (1692-93) in nearby Massachusetts, and general witchcraft mass hysteria had been rippling out across New England for decades, which the founder of Haven Herald would certainly have been aware of - although much less well known today than the 20 direct victims of the trials, at least 12 women were hung (effectively legally murdered) for witchcraft and demonism/Satanism 'crimes' in Connecticut and Massachusetts from 1647 to 1688. In the opening credits of Season 4, you clearly see an elderly woman being grabbed and held by several scowling men in the garb of petty officials – town clerk/verger/selectman – clearly the old woman had been arrested for "witchcraft".
During the same period of the Haven Herald's founding, there was King William's War (1688-1697) between the English settlers in Eastern Maine and New Hampshire and the French-allied Wanabeki Confederacy of Indian Tribes (notably the Iroquois). In 1689, the Wanabeki destroyed the English Fort Permaquid (now present-day Bristol, Maine). In May 1690, the Wanabeki won the Battle of Fort Loyal (present day Portland) and the result was nearly the depopulation of Maine by English settlers, as the Wanabeki could then sweep down unopposed and attack English settlers in New Hampshire.
Further confusion was caused because in 1688, King William had usurped the English throne of his uncle, James II, in support of his wife, James's elder daughter Mary II, to establish a Protestant monarchy. New England was Puritan/Protestant but William and Mary were rejected by Scotland, though most traditional histories ignore the fact and present a smooth transition where none existed. King James II remained King James VII of Scotland; like most inhabitants of Maine today, James II was Catholic, and the French-allied Wanabeki practiced a fusion of Catholic-Amerindian religious interfaith, which may be a reason why the Wanabeki allied with the French (supporters of James II/VII) rather than the English (ruled by William III and his wife Mary II, who had usurped James II, his uncle and her father).
If we assume a 17th Century "Vince Teagues", living in the middle of this political turmoil, religious extremism, social unrest and economic depression (the practice of both sides in scorched earth/burning stuff down led to food shortages, and no investment in businesses like fur trading, gold prospecting, etc.,) then it is highly likely he and his family founded the Haven Herald in 1684 for exactly the same purpose that Vince and Dave follow in running it in the 20th Century – to cover up the Troubles.
The absolutely last thing the townsfolk of Haven needed in the middle of all that turmoil was some extremist Puritan "witch-finder" whack job descending on the town and then returning to the scene with a hysterical mob/militia convinced that Haven was a veritable vortex of Satanism (dare one say it, hell-mouth).
The job of The Guard was to protect the Troubled and Haven itself existed for the purpose of being a sanctuary and a haven for the Troubled – if it failed then anyone could rightly challenge as did "Lexie de Witt" in S4:2 'Why would anyone live here?' The episode S4:11 Shot in the Dark, is all about what those In the Know do – have always done – to protect Haven so it remains, as much as possible, a haven for the Troubled. Early on in S4:11 at the hospital, when Vince, Duke and Nathan are with the injured Audrey, she gets Nathan to go help Duke with the Trouble by pointing out that if the Darkside Seekers capture any genuine footage and post it online, 'every Government agency we know of and those we don't will come to Haven getting in the middle of deadly Troubles.'
After they save Jennifer from William's Rougarou attempt to kill her, Seth Byrne explicitly states that is the reason why the Darkside Seekers are never going to release the footage, telling Vince (and Nathan), '…you and your brother [Dave]…what you do for this town, it's really important. What all of you do is. These people, they didn't ask to be [Troubled], they just are, and turning a group of innocent people into a sideshow attraction is not why I set out on this search. I found out the truth, that's enough for me.' And of course, in terms of Jennifer, and therefore James, obscuring the details of their births served as a protection for them (see '12th June 1981').
Projecting back to the founding of the Haven Herald, in exactly the same manner as Vince and Dave still do today, a "respectable" newspaper full of authoritative misinformation would be the ideal wide-reaching method of covering up the Troubles in 17th Century Maine. Presumably a lot was made of "noxious ethers" and "marsh gas" in lieu of Dwight Hendrickson's favoured modern "gas leak".
Examples of this might be two found in the opening credits: the destruction of the Maggie in 1725 in a calm harbour, despite the fact that the last THMS had been in 1713 and the next would not be until 1740 and in 1934 the mysterious vanishing of the Halleck's family farmstead although the previous THMS had been in 1929 and the next was due in 1956. Essentially neither event should have happened when it was reported that it did. However, this was quite likely to be a false trail deliberately laid by the Haven Herald:
If the paper was founded to cover up the Troubles, then the last thing the Teagues or any family running it wanted to do was give anyone the opportunity to keep editions of the newspaper and back-track through old copies; that is exactly what Duke did in S3:2, Stay which is how he discovered from a 1983 back-copy that the "hunter" was not a person but an annual meteor shower.
Anyone checking back-copies would Spot the Pattern of the Troubles: 3½ years of Weird, always starts at The Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower mid-April, partly involving Mysterious (but hot like fire) Woman, always comes to an end at The Hunter Meteor Storm in mid-October.
With that, every 24 years, Haven could have ended up being swamped by demon hunters, witch-finder generals, exorcising priests, law enforcement officials, alchemists, magicians and all sorts of "mad, bad and dangerous" to know types during those critical three years until the THMS when the Troubled were at their most vulnerable to attack or exploitation and when The Woman was trying to fly under the radar and implement damage control.
In contrast, by reporting the events but falsely spacing them out as having happened across months or years, or conflating two separate incidents into one (as appears to have happened in 1725), Haven is reduced to just another folksy, quirky, slightly over-egging the embellishments eccentric little town. A nowhere blip which must be "obviously" over-compensating for the fact that "nothing must ever happen there", rather than reporting as-it-happened and thus exposing to those shrewd enough to notice that every quarter-century, the place goes psycho on steroids for two or three years.
In all likelihood, the Haven Herald has been used for over 300 years to hide what is really going on – in short, if a banner headline in the Haven Herald declares that Night follows Day, readers are advised to pull up a chair and watch to see what happens.
Either June 1956 OR Spring 1958:
Vince Teagues (with Sarah Vernon's help?) rescues a woman named Mara Kopf from her burning house – Mara's Trouble was that she froze anything she touched.
This is a storyline only referenced on Twitter, but I have included it due to the name of the woman (Mara). On Twitter it is listed as being Spring 1958 but this can only be correct if Vince saved Mara on his own, and falsely credited Sarah Vernon as yet another Haven Herald red herring.
Sarah Vernon entered the Barn c.22nd October 1956, and the Troubles ceased for another 24 years (1980) so she wasn't there in Spring 1958 to save anyone, and if Vince Teagues did rescue Mara in Spring 1958, her Trouble would not have been active (which may explain why he had to save her from a burning house when her Trouble made her not actually need rescuing).
If the rescue took place in 1956 and involved Sarah Vernon, then it most likely happened in June 1956 where you could just qualify it as still being Spring - winter is mid-Dec, Jan, Feb, mid-March; Spring is mid-March, April, May, mid-June; summer is mid-June, July, August, mid-September; autumn (fall) is mid-September, October, November, mid-December.
The reason for this is that by March 1956 Sarah Vernon would have been heavily pregnant with her and Nathan's son James, as in the butterball, water retention, swollen ankles and backache stage, and most certainly would not have been "running" and exerting herself by entering burning buildings. Since James was born in May, she could have been back in action and a physically actively participant in a house-fire rescue in June 1956.
July-September 1956:
The Novelli Curse is reactivated. (See S2:18 Roots) High school senior Beverley Keegan does not know that Dominic Novelli is in love with her; her two older brothers, one of whom is Ben Keegan, know that if she marries, they will lose control over her inheritance, so they attack Dominic Novelli, but as they do, trees and roots suddenly attack them, badly injuring Dom and killing one of the Keegan brothers. Dominic is hospitalised and discovers on discharge that Ben has lied to his sister that Dom attacked them and killed their brother. (Beverley believes this until her niece Maura Keegan, Ben's daughter, is due to marry Dominic Novelli's nephew, Peter Novelli, and they are again attacked by the plants until they unite – it is unity in love that stops the attacks.)
13th October 1956:
The opening credits show the banner headline of the Haven Herald, 'Baffling Murder?' So far there is no indication of what this could be, but since it happened only a week before the peak of the HMS, it is doubtless highly significant.
There is no way to know, but it could be that the "murder" was that of Sarah Vernon faking her own death – from August 1955, she had been interacting with Havenites, unlike previous incarnations, and clearly in a wider circle than just Vince and Dave – the attitude of Garland Wuornos in Season 1 to Audrey Parker hinted that as an 8-9 year old in 1955-1956, he had positive social contact with Sarah Vernon. This means that unlike previous Incarnations, she simply couldn't vanish one day and nobody notice she was gone or had ever been there – it was possible a non-Troubled Havenite unaware of or disbelieving of the Troubles might have called the state police or even a federal agency with suspicions about Vincent and David Teagues being the last people to see the attractive* redhead alive. Unlike previous Incarnations, Sarah Vernon was presumably the first Incarnation of The Woman to need an "exit strategy" so that her disappearance could be plausibly explained away when it was noticed she wasn't there anymore.
* In terms of human biology, we instinctively seek to "fit" people into our community. If someone knew comes to our village or town, they are "noticed" according to how they affect our society. So, older adults would be vaguely noticed but not much more – they aren't likely to insert their genome surreptitiously into our native DNA even if there are some libidinous Mrs Robinsons and roguish silver-tongued silver foxes. And if they've got the funds and health to move to a new town, they aren't likely to be a drain on resources. Handicapped/disabled people are noticed but negatively – our town has limited financial and practical resources of food, medicine, shelter, care-givers; these are more likely to become a burden on our community than contributors to it.
A young, able adult female, particularly if she has a curvaceously attractive** body and a reasonably pretty face is noticed and watched more keenly: although it is known that women aged 15-25 tend to be hyper-feminine, engaging in sexual promiscuity, which is detrimental to social order, she is likely to have good genes to add to our native pool, and will be an economic and social contributor – she will be monitored most closely by the town's social leaders/elders. A young, able adult male, particularly if he has a honed, attractive** body and a reasonably handsome face is noticed and watched more keenly: although it is known that men aged 15-25 tend to be hyper-masculine, engaging in violence, which is detrimental to social order, he is likely to have good genes to add to our native pool, and will be an economic and social contributor – he will be monitored most closely by the town's social leaders/elders.
So, if Vince Teagues, Ben Harker's Down's Syndrome granduncle and Sarah Vernon were all to move to Haven independently of each other in a similar period of time, Vince Teagues would be able to fade into the background almost immediately – the Down's Syndrome granduncle would be tolerated rather than accepted because of worries about who would pay for care/monitoring as he aged/became ill but again, not really that noticed. As a young, attractive woman, who could be integrated usefully into Haven on several levels, Sarah's sudden absence would be noticed, queried and followed up.
** The most attractive (to others) body shape for a woman is that of Marilyn Monroe, or Jane Russell, or Amber Benson (Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) or Christina Hendricks (Mad Men). The modern trend for walking skeletons a la "heroin chic" and size zeroes is a direct result of two things: the invention of the camera in the 19th Century, and the advent of fashion designers in the 20th Century.
Anything that is viewed through glass appears to be older, darker, taller and weightier than in real life. When "moving pictures" were initially made this meant that actors and particularly actresses had to be underweight and under-height to appear "normal" size and shape on screen. They also had to have very pale-skin and fair hair as early exclusions of non-Caucasians was only partly due to racism but mainly because the "moving pictures" technology simply was a poor imitation of the human eye and good coloration was decades away. Even in the 1980s, Don Johnson's breakout TV show Miami Vice was a classic example of the problems: due to the temperatures in Miami (reaching 140° in the shade), as much filming as possible was done at night, but quite simply, this rendered Don Johnson's far more handsome co-lead, mulatto actor Philip Michael Thomas invisible on-screen, especially during seasons 4-6 when for some reason he decided to sport a full beard and the camera technology simply was not up to "seeing" a black man with full facial hair at midnight on the Miami waterfront dressed in a dark-coloured suit holding a black-coloured handgun as he and Johnson fired back at the bad guy drug runners. The famous TV show The A-Team (1983-1987) invented as a vehicle for black American "personality" Mr. T., only worked because the plotlines were mostly set in daylight and Mr. T was highly visible due to the mass of highly polished, bejewelled gold necklaces that he wore as his trademark. Even in the 21st Century it is possible to compare the "look" of Haven as a TV show (because they are fortunate enough to be able to shoot it on film) with other TV shows less fortunate that have to shoot digital.
The depth and richness of skin tones, clothing textures, scenes, etc., etc., is much better when shot on film, but early "moving pictures" and Television cameras did not have the ability other than to catch movement on film – it is why the early "greats" such as Rudolph Valentino, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, etc., wore hideously garish outfits (Harold Lloyd's candy-striper coat) and were caked in snow-white make-up thick enough to qualify as wall plaster or a circus clown (Buster Keaton) to maximise the contrast to the fullest extent so the viewer could actually see them and make out what they were doing.
Additionally, as moving pictures became the No Business Like Show Business, by the 1920s the early fashion houses/haute couture were taking shape, but the fact that by far the majority of women's fashion designers have been homosexual men means that the gay ideal: snake-hipped, small-bottomed, flat-chested, has become not just the social arbiter of what is viewed as the "desirable" female body shape but even propagandised as "medically" healthy to the general public.
In a series of seminal research studies done in the early 2000s looking at why "modern relationships" tend to fail so frequently, men all said they wanted slim women and that they would split up with a woman who put on weight. Their girlfriends and wives confirmed the men had subtly or directly pressured them to "diet" and stay "thin".
The male partners then had brain activity scans whilst being shown a series of random images: the three pleasure/reward/craving areas of the human brain (the Ventral Striatum the Dorsal Anterior Cingulate and the Amygdala) showed that the men experienced as intense a pleasure hit/rush/craving for "more" from viewing images of voluptuous women with the classic "hourglass" figure (not obese) as they did when viewing images of alcohol, contact sports, cigarettes or legal and illegal drugs (if they used these).
Photographs of the slim/thin woman body-shape they had stated they wanted their wife/girlfriend to achieve and maintain produced no pleasure response, even when photographs of their actual wife/girlfriend were included in the image sequences without pointing them out – most of the men never even noticed who they were and lingered significantly longer over and went back to the "hourglass" images – even more than they returned to the images of a Scotch on the rocks, a popular brand of cigarettes, their favourite sport or a line of cocaine, etc.
Within two years, over 90% of the couples in the experiment had split up, although the males moved on to equally slim new partners – the researchers theorised that the only relationship including new ones that was likely to last long-term was the male whose partner made a living as a professional Marilyn Monroe impersonator and who of course had the body size proportions to match (36-23-26 and about a 30E cup brassiere, clothing size 10 (USA)/size 14 (UK)), and this proved true.
Although research studies have been far less widespread from the female perspective, the few that have been done consistently demonstrate that while women consistently state they want a Politically Correct New Man who co-shares hands-on parenting, the same areas of their brain showed a greater pleasure/craving response when looking at images of masculine men than metrosexual men – old style movie star types such as Clint Eastwood, George Clooney, James Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, William Shatner, than such as David Beckham, Will Wheaton, Gok Wan, Daniel Radcliffe, etc.)
20th to 22nd October 1956 – THMS (peak night of the shower was between 20th to 22nd October, Saturday to Monday):
Sarah Vernon goes into the Barn* (she will emerge in 1983 as Lucy Ripley). She gives Dave Teagues a ring that Dave and Vince give to Audrey in 2010 – in S1:12 we see that the ring Garland Wuornos wore on a chain around his neck – gold with three small greenish stones set in it – looked very similar to the one that Vince gave to Audrey, suggesting the two rings were a pair? If Sarah had a pair of matching rings she presumably gave one to Garland Wuornos in 1955 and the other to Vince and Dave in 1956 at the Barn, because in 1983 Garland was grown up and married to Nathan's mother. There is no way to know but maybe Sarah wanted Garland to pass the ring she gave to him on to Nathan but didn't know how to explain to an 8-year-old (who would?) that his future "son" was her baby's father – remember that except for Vince, Dave, Garland and Max himself, nobody seemed to know that Max Hansen was Nathan's genetic father (ergo, James's grandfather).
* This is significant in that we see (S3:13) that this is – or appears to be - the first time The Woman has had emotional relationships with the Havenites she helps, and that because of this change, triggered by Nathan and Duke, for the first time someone tries to break the 27-year-cycle and avoid The Woman going into the Barn – in that case, Dave and Vince try and blow it up, but when that fails, Sarah is polite and fatalistic and enters the Barn voluntarily.
It is not known how and when she comes to understand that she goes into the Barn and the Troubles cease for 27 years, 'Agent' (then Captain) Howard** is not present at the Barn, apparently because Dave and Vince take her there as her supporters and friends***, but presumably he made contact again in 1956. It cannot be stated with any certainty but it seems highly unlikely that even if they had discovered the possibility, that Vince, Dave or even Agent Howard would have let Sarah know that the Troubles could be ended permanently by killing the person she loved the most.
The condition of 'kill the person you love the most' allows for several options: romantic love (husband, lover) and filial love (parent, child, (grand)parent/child) and platonic love (friendship).
Love is not dependent upon genetic relationship, as shown by the fact that none of the above require any degree of genetic relationship – Garland Wuornos loved Nathan, and Nathan loved his Dad, bad though they were at expressing it, so an adoptive parent, child, 'grand' would be equally as valid if he or she were loved the most – for example, suppose for a second instead of The Woman, Nathan Wuornos had to kill the person he loved the most to stop the Troubles forever, and Audrey Parker didn't exist and his mother was deceased – would he have had to kill Max Hansen (his biological father), or Garland Wuornos (his stepfather)? The answer is obvious.
However, despite her platonic love for Vince and Dave, the only "person you love the most" candidate was filial love, in the form of her 5-month old son, James 'Cogan' whom she had given to Paul and June Cogan to adopt. This would have been utterly unacceptable to Sarah, Vince, Dave and, hopefully, even Howard. This moral dilemma is revisited in Season 4:12, when it appears that the only way to stop the Harker Curse is by killing four-month-old Aaron Harker.
It would be very interesting to have seen Howard's reaction to both The Woman making real relationships with people for the first time, like Vince and Dave in 1955, and to her pregnancy – as both these things presumably broke The Pattern and therefore affected why The Woman was in the Barn and the procedures that operate within it. In Season 2, Vince Teagues tells Dave, 'It's different this time…she is different this time.' Obviously something has changed that Vince has picked up on – this presumably originated with Sarah Vernon breaking a long-established pattern by being the first Woman to make friends and moving on from an impersonal/non-personal life that existed in a perpetual lonely "now" by having a one-afternoon stand with Nathan resulting in becoming a mother. Lucy may have disrupted the pattern further in that she only came to Haven in April 1983, whereas we see both Sarah and Audrey arrived over a year before THMS – perhaps traditionally The Woman did arrive about 12-18 months before THMS and Lucy's "late" arrival was another aberration.
There is also the fact that in Season 3, Howard tells Audrey that her "problem" is that she very human, yet we learn that she is not an Earthling, but was born in Otherworld. So, does that mean the population of Otherworld are also human, and if so, did they originate here, or did we originate there? If both worlds have human inhabitants, why can't there be general travel between the two, like an interchange station? Nathan was born Earthside, yet procreates effortlessly with Sarah, born Otherworld, suggesting both populations are human.
We know that the Barn appears not just to accept but protect James (he is healed in 2010), but is less "tolerant" of others – Audrey deliberately allows Arla into the Barn knowing the Troubles don't work in there, and despite the fact that James is in love with her, the Barn fails to hide the scars from her multiple murders to look like the woman she was in 1983 causing James to reject her in horror – not at her appearance, but that she murdered half a dozen innocent people without conscience or remorse. Is this because James is a good person, or because he is half-Otherworld genetically?
Additionally the Barn initially allows Nathan to enter with Audrey and wander about the place – the Barn allows Nathan to meet his son even before Audrey gets to meet James, which is a nice bit of equality given how bigoted our misandrist society is due to the poison of political correctness against men as husbands and especially fathers, brothers, uncles and grandfathers. However, in S3:13, the Barn does not allow Nathan get back in after Audrey goes in, though it does not harm him when he touches the Barn door as it "harmed" the real Audrey Parker in Season 2 (giving her complete amnesia, though that may have been an accident)
Then when Duke Crocker (full-blood Earthling) dived into the Barn and was then "sucked" out of the Barn as it appeared to be hurtling through some sort of Great Void at impossible speed whilst "breaking apart" or "imploding", he would have been killed instantly due to the velocity of his ejection, had he not landed in something that cushioned his fall – the Boston Aquarium. Was that a very lucky accident, or did the Barn, or someone/thing associated with it somehow direct his landing in order to leave him not only alive but unharmed? Also, the Barn did not erase his memories of whom he was or why he was inside the Barn, as it apparently did to him and Nathan when they were 8-year-old boys in 1983. If the Barn existed to facilitate Mara's "punishment" why did it help her heal her son, expose her daughter-in-law as a monster, allow a touching reunion between her son and his father and allow Duke, whose aim was to get Audrey back out of the Barn regardless, to remain unharmed?
** The status of Byron Howard is unknown, in terms of what he was, and if he is really dead. We know he comes to support The Woman to enter the Barn on the date of the THMS. However, Howard tells Audrey that entering the Barn in of itself is not what stops the Troubles, it is that The Woman must WANT to enter the Barn. This implies that if she enters the Barn under duress or against her will, as Jordan and the Guard members intended to force her to do, she would still disappear with the Barn, but the Troubles would not stop. However, in S3:13, Audrey voluntarily enters the Barn BEFORE the attack on Howard, so the Troubles should have stopped, regardless of what happened next****.
*** There is a strong parallel between Vince and Dave Teagues with Sarah and Lucy, and between Duke Crocker and Nathan Wuornos with Audrey. In 1955, directed by Duke, Sarah makes contact with Vince and Dave Teagues. Both fall in love (unrequited) with her, despite her obviously being pregnant and an unmarried mother, and help her help the Troubled and support her to the Barn. Their "brotherly" relationship is clear, despite them not being genetically related (S4:12), although it is often contentious and argumentative – and indeed has periodic flashpoints of physical violence (Dave knocks Vince unconscious with a vase, Vince ties him up and stuffs him in the trunk of his car).
However, we see that Vince is the considered pragmatist of the two, and Dave the impulsive romantic – after Sarah enters the Barn, Vince moves on and marries (an as yet unidentified woman), whereas Dave has always been single, though as Jordan rightly identifies in S4, Vince has always 'carried a torch' for Sarah Vernon.
Likewise when Audrey comes back to Haven, Vince is prepared to look at the big picture and do what is best for the town, even if it costs lives such as and including that of Nathan – partway through S4:8, Crush, unaware that Lexie is really Audrey and has her memory back, he tells Nathan, 'I'm sorry I have to hurry you to your death, Nathan, but the Troubles are destroying this town…'. In contrast, Dave is tormented by his failure to save Sarah Vernon, with whom he is still in love. Much as Vince cares about Audrey, he is prepared that she should go into the Barn (S3:13) for the greater good.
Duke was born in Spring 1975, Nathan is slightly younger by a few months; however, despite no genetic relationship, the "brotherly" relationship is evident: in '301' Nathan yells at Duke 'you've been telling me what I can't do since we were kids!' which is the fury of little brothers everywhere, and Duke comes back with a barked, 'stop acting like a lovesick child!' which is just like a sibling argument.
Likewise, their relationship is often contentious, argumentative and has periodic flashpoints of physical violence. Nathan and Duke had two all-out physical fights that we know of, one of which we see at the start of S3:1 301, and one of which took place in 2008 for a full hour, which was how Nathan knew his Trouble had returned because Duke could feel the injuries Nathan had inflicted but Nathan couldn't feel those inflicted by Duke. There are also a variety of face-slaps, shoves, pinches, elbows, prods, grabs and assorted squabbling – just like Vince and Dave.
Duke is shown to be the pragmatist, whilst Nathan – outwardly the emotionally repressed – is the emotionally reactive one. As we had confirmed in S3:13 (shocker, not) both he and Nathan are in love with Audrey. However, much anguish as it causes him Duke will allow Audrey to go into the Barn for the greater good, whereas Nathan is so devastated as to be irrational and unable to bear Audrey leaving.
Likewise in early Season 4, though he is in love with Audrey and he loves Nathan, Duke will let Audrey kill Nathan to stop the Troubles forever. When it is revealed this is no longer an option, Duke makes the conscious decision to move on, acting on his friendship bond with Jennifer Mason (who also, ironically like Audrey, was born in Otherworld) to begin a new relationship. Then in S4:12, Nathan ignores his own common sense to urge Audrey to 'Trouble whoever you need to, to make this go away…' like William wants, whereas Duke presciently and rightly warns that: 'if you turn back into a female version of William – if that happens – forget the Troubles, forget babies that kill people – we are screwed on a whole other level!'
Despite Nathan having a relationship with both Sarah and Audrey, again in Season 4, it is to Vince Teagues that Audrey confides she secretly believes that William's allegations are the truth; it is Duke to whom she turns for advice and Duke who sees her momentary reaction as she attempts to Curse Lincoln and challenges her on the fact that her and their fears are being realised: 'you are not going to lie to me…you felt her…you felt your original self.' Whereas Nathan either does not see that or more likely is ignoring it out of wishful thinking, which is more similar to Dave Teagues' approach.
However, Nathan is equally as perceptive more than not, and also capable of "grasping the nettle", just like Dave Teagues – it was Dave, not Vince, who understood the importance of Sebastian Cabot's journal of his sojourn with the Mi'kmaq in providing advice and even solutions and persisted with it even when Vince tried to dismiss it. It was Vince who let desperation override his common sense in letting Audrey be "brought back" and Dave the one who was prepared to forcibly to stop them "opening the door", even though it meant "helping" Audrey return, to prevent greater harm to everyone else.
Also, despite Nathan's implacable opposition to Duke using his Trouble in Season 3, we see that it is what the Trouble does psychologically to Duke that is at the core of Nathan's issue – In S3:4, Over My Head, when Audrey grumbles about having no idea why Duke is dogging their investigation Nathan snidely but correctly rebukes her that Duke is still angry that 'you didn't trust him enough to tell him the truth' about how Audrey really wanted Duke to "solve" Harry Nix's Trouble (The Farmer).
Just like Vince and Dave, Nathan and Duke also have a won't-admit-it faith in each other, and a mutual need to be trusted by the other, even if not understood. In S2:12, at the cemetery, Duke does not hesitate to tell Nathan details of the Crocker Curse's workings and Nathan immediately "takes on faith" – at that point anyway - that Duke's genuine opinion of the Curse is "sucks big time" rather than – "oh what a lovely head rush let me get my serial-killer discount special axe!" It's not until he sees the silver-eyes (when Kyle Hopkins runs onto Duke's knife) and then later when Nathan goes to Audrey and finds her gone that he jumps straight into emotional hothead. Even then (301) we see that deep down Nathan knows (but doesn't want to admit) that Duke didn't really have anything to do with Audrey being kidnapped, but that he is the only tangible link Nathan has, and Nathan's brain is love-mush at that point, along with parts further south – rationality is not his bag.
Overall there is that Nathan accepts Duke's input and actively seeks his advice; beyond even that, in extremis it is Duke who can get through to Nathan and "talk him down" as we see especially in Season 2 and Season 3, for example S3:1 when Duke talks Nathan down on the Cape Rouge – and of course vice versa, for example in S4:4 when Nathan tells Duke, 'this isn't you, Duke...' causing Duke to push back the silver-eyes and let Dwight go. This mirrors how Dave largely follows Vince's lead even if he doesn't agree initially – but there are occasions when Dave talks Vince around just as Nathan does Duke. In Season 4:8, a chastened Nathan sincerely and straightforwardly asks Duke if the former believes Audrey should kill Nathan, as in Season 3 James and Arla Cogan both claimed that if The Woman killed the person she loved the most, the Troubles would end – forever. It is clear that Nathan will accept whatever Duke says as being what he himself should do.
In Season 4:9, when the black pebbles cause delusions of paranoia, activating the infected people's worst fears and resentments, Nathan's overwhelming jealousy is not directed at Duke, whom he knows to be in love with Audrey, but the seemingly innocuous stranger William. Earlier in the Season, when he still believes Audrey to be Lexie de Witt, Nathan reveals he remembers Duke admitting he was also in love with Audrey and is "okay with it" because he trusts Duke to take care of Lexie when she falls in love with Nathan and he persuades her to kill him for the greater good in ending the Troubles forever.
This reinforces how considerable the level of faith and trust between the two men is shown to be; in S4:11, it is to Duke, who "on paper" should be his love rival, that Nathan not only confides his jealousy over William and his fears about the "connection" between her and William, but also takes advice and counsel from about it. In S4:12, Nathan allows Duke to "direct traffic" with Audrey in stopping the Harker Curse, again showing his level of reliance on Duke's counsel and judgement.
And of course, just like Vince and Dave were Sarah Vernon's helpers, it is Nathan and Duke who are Audrey's two guardians and protectors – in 1983, it appears, that Lucy's guardians were again Vince and Dave, and also Garland Wuornos and her adult son, James Cogan. See also 'Spring 1975'.
**** The person responsible for the Troubles not stopping is not Nathan, but Jordan McKee. Audrey voluntarily goes into the Barn, whilst Duke stops Nathan stopping her, but also comforts the devastated Nathan. A few moments after Audrey has entered the Barn, Nathan tries to follow her in, but cannot. The point is that the instant Audrey voluntarily entered the Barn of her own free will the necessary conditions for the Troubles to end for 27 years had been met in full – irrespective of what anyone else subsequently did or did not do.
So, a few seconds later, at the end of S3:13, when the distraught Nathan aims his gun at Howard, this act should be irrelevant – Audrey has entered the Barn voluntarily and the conditions of ending the Troubles for 27 years have been met. At this point, although Nathan demands what would happen if he hurt Howard, he does not make any attempt to injure him – it is clear that Nathan is far more distraught than he is enraged. Nor does Howard seem particularly worried – regretful, certainly and somewhat irritated, but not fearful of Nathan shooting him. Duke is also present, and despite being armed, Nathan allowed Duke to stop him from stopping Audrey enter the Barn. It seems evident that Duke and Howard would have "talked Nathan round" had it not been for Jordan McKee: obsessed with ending the Troubles and determined nothing would get Audrey back out of the Barn she treacherously shoots Nathan in the back.
Momentarily confused, Nathan's furious expression clearly shows he believes that a stooge of Howard has just shot him (he doesn't look around to see it is Jordan McKee) and he shoots Howard twice at point blank range, causing Jordan to shoot him again – Duke then shoots Jordan and catches Nathan as he slumps down; as he attempts to help Nathan, Howard's body vanishes and the Barn begins to implode – the body of Arla, who inadvertently stabbed herself to death trying to murder Audrey, convulses and is suddenly yanked violently into the Barn, and Nathan yells at Duke to leave him and go in after Audrey, which he does.
In Season 4, everyone, including Nathan, blames Nathan for the fact that Audrey went into the Barn and the Troubles didn't stop – but it was Jordan McKee's actions that caused the disruption; if she hadn't cruelly, cowardly and treacherously shot Nathan in the back, everything would have been okay.
1960:
The last male Carver dies, making the family extinct in the male line, though the family bloodline survives through female descent from Carver women who have married into other Haven families, the three of which we know about are: Elliott, Robbins and Haskell – see also '1980'.
c.1961:
Probable birth year of Arla, whose maiden surname may have been McKee, possibly the paternal aunt of Jordan McKee – see 'After 4th May and before 28th May 1983'. Arla may also have been related to Arlo McMartin – see '1977'.
1962:
Harry Nix is born (Season 3:3, The Farmer)
25th August 1965:
Birth of Duncan Fromsley (S3)
c.1967 – aged 18, Simon Crocker probably fathered the first* of three children he knows about**, name as yet unknown, by an unknown woman.
* Cognitive and psychological research studies have demonstrated that children who lose a father between the ages of 3 and 12 or whom are raised without a father during that period are statistically far more likely to view pornography, be promiscuous, to engage in sexually higher-risk activities (kinks, fetishes, etc.,) and to suffer STDs including sexually transmitted cancers, HIV, Syphilis and Gonorrhoea. Since Simon was only 8 when he lost his father to a violent death that, of necessity, would doubtlessly have been covered up and thus made inexplicable to him, he appears to have been a textbook case of precocious over-sexualisation and emotionally self-destructive behaviours – like Vanessa Stanley but in a different arena – he created a self-fulfilling prophecy narrative of being abandoned, casting Sarah Vernon in the role of caricature supervillain that justified his own worldview.
** It is possible that Simon Crocker may have fathered children before the age of 18, as research studies have also demonstrated that children who lose a father between the ages of 3 and 12 or whom are raised without a father during that period are statistically far more likely to engage in underage sex, as well as underage abuse of both legal and illegal stimulants, drugs and alcohol and viewing pornography. Since all of these reduce memory and good judgement as well as inhibitions, it is entirely possible Simon had no memory of when, where, how or with whom he lost his virginity, or how many times he had actually had sex with someone.
Additionally, in the cold light of day, taking one look at the brunette deadly nightmare lying next to her, the girl/woman in question may have been so ashamed of her own bad behaviour that she slipped away with the intention of pretending it never happened and so he was never informed/never knew that she had had his child. In Season 2:1 A Tale of Two Audreys, when Nathan asks Duke if he has any older brothers, Duke answers flippantly, 'A couple that I know of…Dad liked to travel.' Underneath the insouciance is uncertainty, suggesting that Simon may have let slip during Duke's childhood that he suspected he had other children besides the three sons he knew about. In Season 2:1 when Duke has to introduce his wife Evi Ryan to everyone he is asked if she is "your sister" to which Duke replies he hasn't got a sister – in fact he simply doesn't know either way.
In 1996 when he "wins" the Cape Rouge from Ray Veigler, an old drinking buddy of his late father's, on his 21st birthday (later proven to have been set up by Simon prior to his death in 1983) – Duke immediately leaves Haven, sailing away on the Cape Rouge. It may well be that the reason why Duke left Haven was because given his father's own "precocious fatherhood", heavy drinking, promiscuity and shady propensity for mysterious travels along the New England coastline, Duke simply might not have dared have sex with any woman who was born between 1967 and 1984 in Haven, Derry, Castle Rock, Cleaves Mill, and the entire county/surrounding area for risk of accidental incest.
Since Simon was killed in late May 1983, children such as Claire Callahan (b.1982) would be an example of a child he could have fathered. The man only has to be involved at the point of conception, as demonstrated by World Tennis Champion Boris Becker, who famously fathered an illegitimate child during a drunken "five seconds" in a broom closet encounter with a groupie that he only acknowledged several years later. Simon could have been killed half an hour after fathering a child in May 1983 who was born posthumously nine months later in 1984. Since Simon died in late May 1983, that means to be "safe" Duke would have had to avoid sexual contact with any female born between 1964 (Simon would have been 16 in 1965) and March 1984 (the outside limit for a posthumous daughter), who could have been his father's daughter – that doesn't count further illegitimate sons in potential, should Duke have been bisexual.
c. 1970:
Wade Osborn Crocker is born, second son of Simon Crocker. It appears that Simon had married Wade's mother and that they divorced when Wade was very young – In S4 we learn that Wade was raised in New York by his mother, and in Season 4 Wade references with Duke "when mom brought me to visit", something that apparently happened at the emotionally contentious Christmas time as well as apparently in the summer school break.
Since the father of an illegitimate child has no parental rights, Simon had to have been through a divorce with Wade's mother in order to secure a custody arrangement that enabled him to have Wade visit Haven in probably alternate Christmas periods, which is very hard for the non-custodial parent (usually the father) to achieve. In S2:12, Duke tells Simon's ghost that he was a lousy husband and father, but does not specify that he is speaking about Simon's marriage to his own mother, if there was one.
Wade reveals in Season 4 that he was in Haven at Christmas 1981, when he went sledding with Duke and other kids and "one broke his arm" with the bone showing through, so much so that Wade "puked", but "the kid" didn't feel any pain. As Duke has earlier revealed, the child in question was Nathan, and Duke took him to the hospital, "then went back sledding".
c.1973:
Probable birth of Dwight Hendrickson, most likely in line with the real birthdate of Adam "Edge" Copeland, who plays the character. In S4:11 when Nathan asks "Jennifer can do that?" Dwight dryly admits, "Apparently, anyone younger than me can do that." Since it has been established in the episode that Jennifer was born in 1981, Dwight must have been born in 1980 or before.
Additionally, in Season 2:11, when Dwight accidentally triggers the initial part of Duke's twofold* Trouble (in that if the blood of a Troubled person gets on the bare skin of a Crocker male his skin "absorbs it" and it gives him temporary "superhuman" strength) Duke drops to his knees on the deck of the Cape Rouge, gasping and shaking – Audrey is frightened and confused, but we see from Dwight's face and body language that he knows what is happening to Duke, which is why he immediately grabs a tyre iron to attack Duke. At the end of S2:11 Dwight goes to the Haven Herald where the Troubled self-protection meeting Stuart Pearce intended to arrange is going and admits to Vince that Duke has the larger of the two silver caskets containing the Crocker journal and "trade" weaponry:
Vince: 'Does he have it?' (Evidently meaning the Crocker Trouble)
Dwight: 'Yes, why didn't you say anything?'
Vince: 'If I'd told you, you would have been scared, or just killed Duke.'
Then Nathan comes in and speaks to them both so the conversation is postponed; however, the word Vince uses, scared, is more usually applied to the feelings of a child rather than the more adult-oriented afraid. In terms of psycholinguistics this means that as he was speaking to Dwight, Vince was probably accessing a memory of an event that occurred when Dwight was a young boy and so unconsciously used a word that was more "child-friendly" to the child-Dwight of memory, even though the adult-Dwight of Here and Pissed was right there.
It thus seems clear that Dwight's reason for reacting so badly and with such hostility to Duke is that Dwight somehow knew already that the Crocker Trouble is not painful but pleasurable – when the blood is absorbed into the Crocker man's skin, he experiences not pain but a "rush" of intense ecstasy, like the moment of orgasm or the "hit" high from a drug such as (injected) White Heroin. Since Simon Crocker died in 1983 and his Trouble was "active" for the two preceding years from 1981, Dwight must have been old enough to have both witnessed and intellectually understood (even if not experience-understood) the effect that the primary part of Simon Crocker's Trouble was having on the man and the bad results this was causing.
At the time of Simon's death, Duke himself was 8 years old, which is slightly too young, as well as the fact that Simon's death was clearly covered up (in Season 1 and 2 up to S2:12 Duke still believes his father's death was an accident - heart attack on a boating trip) and he was never told about the Crocker Trouble. But if Dwight were born in 1973, then by the time he was 10 in 1983 he would have had enough cognisance to understand more, especially since the most likely scenario is that Dwight witnessed Simon's reaction in a bad context – such as Dwight witnessing Simon kill a Troubled person.
One group of children we know were very badly affected by the Troubles in Lucy's era was "Mrs Holloway's Third Grade Class", 12 of whom died with her and another teacher because of Jenny Myers' Trouble. Did Dwight have a sibling or a relative child in that class and then witnessed Simon kill Jenny's grandfather and believed it was in revenge? There is no way to know, but since logically he most likely witnessed Simon behaving badly/was threatened and/or assaulted by Simon to keep quiet about it, then in the aftermath another adult, probably either Vince Teagues or Garland Wuornos or both, would have explained to him how the Crocker Trouble worked and what it felt like** to the Crocker man.
Children have feelings – they are intense but shallow, whereas adults have emotions – they are complex and deep. To a child, the idea that doing something "horrible" made Simon feel "good" would have been an incomprehensibility processed in a simplistic manner as Crocker = monster, with none of the subtext an adult would – or should, if they have any emotional maturity – be able to understand and factor in. The former reaction of childlike (but not childish, which is different) Crocker = monster response is what we initially see in Dwight. Hence Dwight's reaction to his fears about what Duke might do, and what Duke might become.
We see this again in Season 4:9 episode Lay Me Down – the black "pebble" stuff that William's goons infect people with make people hallucinate according to what they are most worried about or what they are most afraid of – since Jackie Clark had the same Trouble (anyone who looked in her eyes saw their worst fears in S2:2 Fear & Loathing) this is presumably another "hint" from William to prove his claim that he and Mara caused the Troubles.
For Jennifer Mason she is most worried that Duke is using her as a substitute for being romantically involved with Audrey, since she is the one who has taken the big risks – coming to Haven from Boston, giving up her Schizophrenia medication, accepting Duke's sexual overtures. For Dwight, his hallucinations centre around the fear that Duke is going to go on a mass murder spree, killing anyone with a Trouble to experience the "high" (a fear that was, ironically, entirely justified only focussed on the wrong brother, as Wade Crocker was the culprit in S4).
* Although a particular Trouble runs in families, some Troubles have more than one "component". For example, the Crocker Male Trouble has two components. The first and primary component is that if the blood of a Troubled person touches the bare skin of a male Crocker, his skin instantly "absorbs" the blood and he experiences a temporary state of superhuman strength simultaneously with an intense sensation of ecstasy/euphoria. The second component of the same Trouble is that if the male Crocker kills the Troubled person, he absorbs their Trouble along with their blood, and not just his Troubled victim but all their genetic relatives are "cured" of the Trouble forever from that point on.
In view of the fact that the Crocker family have been in Haven since at least before 1786, it may be that many non-Troubled families actually descend from a Troubled person who was murdered by a male Crocker – we seem to have at least one example in S4:12, with Gloria Verrano, who has always had a grateful soft-spot for Duke because one of his ancestors killed one of hers, to the extent that now nobody in her family knows what their Trouble even was. Other Troubled people have "committed suicide by Crocker" in order to ensure their family was free of the Trouble – as happened in 1983 when Jenny Myers' grandfather effectively committed suicide by persuading Simon Crocker to kill him and as Kyle Hopkins did in S2:12 and Ben Harker Junior does in S4:12 and Jack Driscoll intended to do in S4:8.
**The whole point of committing a sin, and/or a crime (not the same thing) is that at the point you are doing whatever it is, it feels good. Only afterwards – sometimes long afterwards – are the bad consequences experienced or felt. If committing adultery or being promiscuous (sin) or being a conman or robbing a bank (crime) made you erupt in huge, pustule-red boils on the spot, nobody would ever doing anything that was morally wrong (sin) or legally forbidden (crime). But the fact is that both usually give the guilty perpetrator a "rush" to the head – the thrill and euphoria of illicit passion (adultery), the brief high of orgasm (promiscuity), the excitement of fooling the "suckers" (scammer) and the scared-thrill-money-lust of managing to rob the bank (robber).
There is nothing more dangerous to a human than becoming addicted to the feel-good chemicals produced by his or her own brain as the craving is incredibly intense, extremely powerful and desperately difficult to resist once it has gotten hold quite simply because there is nowhere the addict can go to get "clean". Whereas they are able to avoid contact with the addiction problem in other circumstances such as drugs, alcohol, pornography, gambling, sex, not eating, binge eating, or whatever it might be, addiction to the brain's own biochemical output is hugely difficult to manage. All types of addiction also changes a person's entire personality much for the worse, as an addict is always the slave of his or her addiction, not its master: nothing matters, nothing is loved or even cared about, than satisfying the craving for how good it feels to experience that fleeting moment of "oh!"
Continued from 1975 in Chapter 5…
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The cat's Whiskers