Haven Timeline: Chronology of Events and People Chapter 5: 1974 to 1981, a haven fanfic

This is a timeline/chronology of characters and events for the TV show: Haven

For Disclaimer and information see Chapter 1…

Chapter 5

'Spring 1975' – most likely 20th May:

Duke Crocker is born; in S4 he tells Jennifer (in Nathan's presence) that he is a Gemini* – the zodiac period for Gemini "runs" from 20th May to 21st June, and 20th May is the general trail end of the Eta Aquarids meteor shower, which may be significant.

It appears that Duke's parents' relationship, or marriage, fails almost immediately after he is born (possibly even when he was in utero), as he appears to have been raised largely by Simon albeit with some maternal contact. Duke calls his mother "ma" and appears to have had somewhat distant relationship with her.

* Duke Crocker is not actually a Gemini, but a Taurus. In real life, Most Western horoscopes use the Tropical Zodiac based on the original Sumerian and Babylonian originals, rather than the Indus Valley Civilisation Sidereal Zodiac. The signs of the Zodiac take their names from the path (the orbit) along which the Sun takes its yearly journey through the heavens. Obviously the Sun is stationery and Earth is the one orbiting, but from the perspective of us as humans standing on Earth, it is the Sun that appears to move.

The Western/Hellenistic Tropical Zodiac is named after the constellations, but is calculated on the annual four-season cycle divided into convenient 30-degree "segments" of the sky (as you would look up at it from Earth at night). Those became standardised as the "12 signs" we are most familiar with today in our newspapers (and screen shots show that the Haven Herald prints horoscopes), even though when "leaving" Scorpius, the Earth travels for 19 days through the constellation of Ophiuchus (Asclepius) before entering the constellation of Sagittarius.

However, because planets and stars have constant orbits, the planetary bodies do not stay static; as the orbits continue, essentially zodiac signs are like 12 people standing in a circle around planet Earth who periodically take one step to the "right". Unfortunately, the Zodiac horoscopes have never been updated from when they were used during the time of Christ in the 1st Century AD, so basically, the horoscope you read in your newspaper is 2000 years out of date. A person born 30th October in 525 AD, the year Denis the Little invented "BC" and "AD" dating, would have been a Scorpio (just about). A person born 30th October 1975 would grow up reading horoscopes in newspapers that described him or her as a Scorpio, except for the fact that they are actually born under the constellation of Libra. Eventually a person born 30th October will be "two steps" out and be born under the constellation of Virgo, and so on. So Duke was born under the constellation of Taurus, even though the horoscopes still list it as Gemini.

The Eastern/Indus Sidereal zodiac is calculated based on the actual constellations "above" at the time of the event, which is why many Eastern horoscopes contain thirteen signs (the 12 most well-known, plus Ophiuchus), in order to deal with the 19 day/three-week period that the Earth passes through Scorpio, Ophiuchus and Sagittarius.

1975:

Birth of Jenny Myers, mentioned in S2:13, Sins of the Fathers, and apparently also Jack Driscoll (S4:8) and Ben Harker Junior (S4:12)

c. June 1975 or June 1976:

Nathan* Thaddeus Hansen is born; Duke is older than Nathan by a short period of time. The Haven wiki states 1976, but it also lists the sledding accident as February 1981 when in Season 4 Wade Crocker tells Jennifer Mason it was Christmas 1981 so I err on in-show information.

In Season 3:12, Reunion, when Duke is de-aged to his High School self, we see that Nathan and Duke went to school together. In the UK, by law, a child must begin full-time elementary (primary) school education in the first school term "after" his or her fifth birthday. In practice, the school year for UK children runs from 1st September to 31st August, so every child born between those dates of 1st September 1975 to 31st August 1976 would start First Grade (Year 1) in the first week of September 1980.

However, I am aware that in the USA, there are differences between States in terms of when they consider the school year period to run to and from and that some States allow children to start earlier or delay a year depending on their birthday. If the Maine school year runs from September to August, then Nathan must have been born in June 1975, not June 1976, because we know Duke was born May-June 1975, meaning he was part of the school year of September 1974 to August 1975, and we see in Season 3 that Duke and Nathan were close enough in age to go to school together.

If Nathan was born in June 1976, he would have been of the school year September 1975 to August 1976, that is, the school year below Duke – I don't know about the US, but in the UK, children are extremely "grade conscious" and even one year/grade "below" is viewed with derision as being "babies" whilst just one year/grade "above" is viewed with envy at the "big" kids. There is no way that Duke would have acknowledged the existence of, never mind formed any sort of childhood friendship with, any child who was a full grade/year below his own.

We also see in Seasons 1-3 that peers of Nathan and Duke are Bill and Jeff McShaw and Julia Carr, all of whom went to school with them, as well as Jenny Myers (S2:13) and also Hannah Driscoll who in May 1994 went to the High School prom with Nathan Wuornos against her father's wishes. It seems in S4:8 and S4:12 that Jack Driscoll and Ben Harker Junior were also born in 1975, with Aiden Driscoll being born around 1977 or 1978.

* There is already a clear parallel between the relationship of Vince Teagues and his adopted brother Dave Teagues and between Duke Crocker and Nathan Wuornos, which has been mentioned already – see '20th to 22nd October 1956' in Chapter 4 under the *** paragraph.

We see that despite the often contentious relationship between Duke and Nathan (just as with Vince and Dave), there is a complicated but genuine friendship. The French philosopher Alphonse de Lamartine wrote: Grief joins two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger bindings than common joys, which of course is a neat summary of why despite all their mutual angst, both Vince and Dave and now Duke and Nathan have that underlying relationship of respect, trust and love – they have "walked through the fire together" – on occasions almost literally. Much as they try to ignore that, flashes come out:

When Duke begins to age and die in S1:6; Nathan's collapse as a firstborn son in S2:1; Nathan unhesitatingly shooting Ian Haskell when the former was about to shoot Duke in S2:2; Duke being killed in S2:9; how dangerous Duke is in S3:8 when he warns that Noelle and Moira better be able to resurrect Nathan; the distress Duke shows as he comforts Nathan in S3:13, Nathan's joy at Duke being alive in 4:1; Duke's anguish in S4:4 when Nathan is about to have "Audrey" (Lexie) shoot him to end the Troubles, Nathan's fear for Duke in S4:4 over the blood; Nathan's guilt over Duke's grief for Wade in S4:8; Nathan's fear as he demands Mara heal Duke in 4:13.

These are the "big emotion" scenes and there are many more minor ones that are "sweet" (like when Audrey says she feels safe because "I have my boys") and also "funny" when Nathan and Duke are bickering or snarking at each other – like in Season 4:12 when Duke "helpfully" points out that even as a child Nathan was emotionally "limited" to which Nathan retorts, "sponge!" in reference to Duke absorbing people's Troubles literally in the same way that the Crocker family's traditional job of being bartenders does emotionally – there is a long history of bartenders being viewed as de facto therapists. A minor example of both "sweet" and "funny" is in S2:2 Fear & Loathing, when Duke is genuinely delighted for Nathan that his Trouble (inability to feel anything) has suddenly gone away (sweet) and then promptly offers (funny) to set Nathan up – gratis – for an epic "date night" (hur-hur) with a couple of Duke's female prostitute friends (Duke does not judge).

However, I did keep pondering over Nathan's extreme reaction to Duke's Trouble being activated accidentally by our own beloved "sasquatch" Dwight Hendrickson – not to the fact that Duke was Troubled (shocker, not) but the nature of Duke's Trouble – there was plenty of hostility and accusation but precious little tolerance and understanding – except in brief flashes.

This seemed unusual, given the fact that although Nathan and Duke are clearly estranged in Season 1, their attitude is one of sarcastic snark rather than actual enmity – they are clearly "frenemies"** - for that edge to the relationship to not be there. At this time, there has been nothing that would hint one way or another, but I would speculate that there were two reasons for Nathan's volatile emotional and verbal reaction resulting in his hostility and suspicion of Duke.

** The word 'frenemy' is a portmanteau of the words 'friend' ad 'enemy'; it was originally invented pre-1914 and was initially used to describe an enemy pretending to be a friend, such as a Fifth Columnist or enemy spy. However the meaning soon evolved by the 1950s and since into the modern meaning of two individuals where they are sort of/more of a friend than not but a bit too much of a rival in some way (politics, business, relationships, other friendships, etc.)

I think the main reason was because Nathan did understand exactly what Duke was going through, not because he didn't – because Nathan knows what it is like to be addicted to something.

Since Nathan's Trouble was reactivated in 2008, he has been unable to feel any real bodily sensations, though he has some ability to detect spatial awareness and nerve ending response as he doesn't bump into things, isn't doubly incontinent (an effect of real-life medical idiopathic neuropathy) and as we see in Season 4, is capable of experiencing sexual arousal and full penile tumescence. But other than that his life is very limited – imagine living a life where chocolate and cabbage were equally tasteless mush, where there was nothing between silk and sackcloth, where you can't feel a punch in the gut, but you also can't feel the sensual caress of a hand.

In S3:9 Sarah when Nathan is frogmarched out of the hospital by Sarah by the ear his expression is not one of anger or pain but a sort of besotted Submissive adoring his Dominatrix – again we see the reason Nathan has obviously developed sadomasochistic tendencies is because extreme bodily contact (violence, sexual or otherwise) is the only way he can feel any sensation good or bad at all – it was most likely the case that apart from Audrey, Nathan could actually feel the touch of Jordan McKee, not as excruciating pain like everyone else, but most likely as pleasurable tingles and frissons of sensation across his skin, like 'pins and needles' which to Nathan would have been arousing not excruciating.

Nathan's astonishment when he could feel Audrey's touch in S1 was obvious, and the simple fact is that Nathan is addicted to physical contact with Audrey – even if that touch never amounted to more than a touch of her fingers on his hand or arm. Nathan understands the desperate, gnawing, constant craving "for" the object of addiction. After Duke kills Harry Nix at Audrey's request in S3:3 The Farmer (unwittingly paralleling Simon Crocker killing Vince's father-in-law at his request in 1981) in S3:4 Over My Head when Audrey defends Duke's actions and points out he only did so because she outright asked him to, Nathan retorts harshly, "That doesn't mean he's not going to learn to like it!" There are hints in Season 1 and in Season 4 by Vince that this is what happened, eventually, to Simon Crocker, though he fought the craving sincerely and bravely for some time as we learn in S2:12.

Unlike "instant" addictions like heroin or crack cocaine, some types of addiction are very insidious in how they take hold and those are the most difficult to break free of – one example is the steady increase in paedophiles and serial killers since the 1960s; this is not because more paedophiles/psychopaths exist than before the 1960s, but because pornography and sexual licentiousness is now endemic and championed by Political Correctness, addicts to it don't realise for months or even years that they are addicts, and as with any addiction, the addict always requires "more of" and "more frequent" hits of the addictive thing to achieve the same level of "high" that once a lower "amount" and a less "frequent" hit achieved. Similarly it is implied that Simon Crocker went from total revulsion at his Trouble to reluctantly acting on it at the request of Vince Teagues to using it more and rationalising his actions to needing the "hit" more and more often.

In the 1990s, Australian criminal psychologist Dr Robert D. Keppel (who is co-credited along with FBI Agent Robert Ressler as simultaneously but independently coining the term "serial killer) was asked as to the reason for his "social pessimism" in believing that prison populations in the 21st Century would soar as a result of big increases in sex and violent crime prisoners, rather than decease drastically due to the "civilising" effect of "equality" campaigns and "diversity" legislation. His answer quite simply was that it was as a result of his decades of experience interviewing and monitoring psychopaths, sociopaths, rapists, paedophiles, and serial killers in prisons throughout the 1970s and 1980s: (paraphrased):

Because the material that inflamed their warped lusts and drove them to perversion and murder is now whole family early evening entertainment; Because what was then under-counter filth purchased slyly in brown bags is now eye-level to your tweens – too old for toys too young for boys - on the supermarket shelves; because even far more vile perversions are now socially accepted as mere "kinks" that are nobody else's business but that of the individual who has that "fetish". The result is a spiralling increase of young adolescent males, not even men, and even young adolescent females, not even women, getting the "social message" from our Western culture that the abnormal and the horrible are normal and only edgily risqué at best and still tolerable-if-you-must at worst. Hence the sharp increase in the number of people who become serial killers, rapists and paedophiles, including an increasing number of women. Unless the current "all kinks are good as long as they're consensual" permissiveness of our culture changes, then I am confident that our prison population of sex and violent criminals is going to spiral steadily and depressingly up not down.

Obviously Duke's condition is not as extreme, but the problem with insidious addictions is that 99.9% of the time they are the "internal brain" addictions – gambling, sex, pornography, over/under-eating, thrill-sports – that are emotional and psychological in nature rather than "external body" additions – legal or illegal drugs, alcohol, etc. – which are physical and bodily in nature.

There are three areas of the brain that cause a "pleasure" response/instigate a craving for whatever the addiction is: the Ventral Striatum (VS) processes "perceived reward and motivates to attain a repeat", the Dorsal Anterior Cingulate (DAC) "stimulates anticipation of reward by triggering cravings for it" and the Amygdala "interprets the significance of the event and associated emotions in order to tell the DAC whether it is 'worth' stimulating the craving again."

You can reduce your presence or remove yourself entirely from places where you are more likely to encounter alcohol, or a drug, even if your addiction is to legal narcotics. You can treat pancreatitis/replace a cirrhosis-damaged liver or treat HIV caused by injecting drugs or sexual promiscuity.

But you cannot take your brain out of your skull, whip out the VS, DAC, and A., then winnow through the rest to remove all the memory engrams that have pornography or gambling pleasure sensations "recorded" on them and then pop it back in after a bit of brain bleaching all cured. That is why pornography and gambling addictions are vastly harder to treat than heroin or alcohol abuse. Both Nathan and Duke have a Trouble that causes insidious "internal brain" addictions, i.e., gradually developing to need more to achieve the same result which a lower dose at fewer intervals once managed. An insidious "internal brain" addiction is far harder to resist and to avoid encountering a "trigger" situation than in one of them being an alcoholic or heroin addict. Nathan understands that only too well, which is why he has such difficulty in dealing with the revelation of Duke's trouble.

The second reason – and I admit I am speculating more here – is because I would hope that Nathan is being smart enough to use "reverse psychology". Nathan might have realised that if he were to be empathetic, understanding, conciliatory and supportive to Duke, then Duke might in turn start to self-rationalise, to justify "occasional lapses", to go for the spurious claims of "the end justifies the means" and "it's for the greater good" because he has Nathan, who is in the same "boat", metaphorically speaking, making excuses for him. It appears in Season 4 that is what happened between Vince and Simon, when Vince's guilt over coercing Simon to act in the first place led to him making excuses for Simon's later actions and "enabling" Simon's self-justifications for a time.

We see in Season 3 particularly how offended, insulted and indeed, hurt, Duke is by Nathan's reaction and his attitude to Duke now that Duke's Trouble is manifest, and Duke responds by being determined both to "rub Nathan's face in being wrong" about how Duke reacts to his Trouble, but also to prove himself to Nathan by being on the side of the angels rather than giving into his devils of self-pity and "Victimology" (it's always somebody else's fault).

And we also see in Season 3 and 4 that if so, Nathan's reverse psychology has worked; Duke is surprised when Dwight offers his support after Dwight's initial bad reaction, and when Dwight tells him that it is precisely because Duke is so distressed and rejecting of his Trouble* rather than hyped up and gloating about it, this is another reason for Duke to continue doing the right thing and pull off a "hah, Wuornos, see, nyah-nyah!"

We also see in Season 4 how Nathan's attitude, intentional or not, gives Duke the moral high ground when Nathan fails to follow through on the self-righteous judgmental attitude he showed towards Duke in Season 3.

The key expression of this is the episode Season 4:8 Crush, which begins within hours after Duke's brother Wade* essentially commits 'suicide by Crocker' (like Kyle Hopkins did in S2:13) in order to cure Duke and their family** from the Crocker Trouble.

Burying his brother secretly in the same flower meadow that the ghost of Simon showed him Mrs Holloway's Third Grade class died in, an angry, embittered Duke is determined to leave Haven forever: when Jennifer Mason, whom Wade was about to murder on the Cape Rouge when Duke killed Wade, tells him he is a hero, 'you're the guy who sacrifices himself for other people,' he harshly retorts, 'That is why I have to leave. Where have any of these sacrifices gotten me, or this town? I'm done here. Let Nathan and Lexie be heroes and just let me be me.' Even at that point, he is demonstrating loyalty the ability to keep confidences, as Duke knows that Lexie is really Audrey, and even in a most of distress, doesn't let slip.

At the docks, we see Nathan and "Lexie" (really Audrey) who want Duke's help with "this case" but who are both more focussed on trying to keep the fact that they have become lovers hidden from everyone, a self-seeking motive that has already resulted in harm to other innocent people. Duke, still tormented over 'killing' his brother, verbally lambasts them for this lack of care for the welfare of others: 'I'm supposed to be the selfish one, now all I do is put my ass on the line for the two of you. You're supposed to be the cops that protect this town, but lately the only people you seem to be protecting are yourselves!'

At this Duke walks away and drives off, leaving Nathan and "Lexie" staring after him. At this point, we see subtle hints of Mara's cruelty, though overlaid with Lexie's shallow self-interest. Whereas Audrey would be upset and shame-faced at the accuracy of Duke's diatribe, Lexie/Mara/Audrey's only concern is that Duke might have figured out she's having sex with Nathan, 'Do you think he knows about us?'

Nathan, in contrast, is more taken aback and properly abashed, 'I don't know, he might…but what he said – he's not entirely wrong.'

At this point, it's a pure mix of callow, self-gratifying Lexie and indifferent, uncaring Mara who looks at Nathan, drawls callously, 'Yeah, he is,' and sashays off to the next crime scene of the case with no concern for the obvious anguish of her best friend, Duke. The person they go to is Jack Driscoll, who without hesitation insists they must get Duke to kill him, which he believes (wrongly) will end the curse and protect not only his brother Aiden and his unborn nephew, but the town as well.

At that point, we see Duke alone by his brother's grave, his bitter soliloquy encapsulating why he is leaving: 'in Haven you always lose, so why even try?' This is, ironically, a similar point to Lexie de Witt's astonished question in S4:2, 'Why would anyone ever live here?' When Duke angrily answers the call from Nathan's phone but it is Jack, he responds, but when Jack asks him in front of Nathan and Lexie to kill him, Duke refuses point blank; because of course he is no longer Troubled.

When Duke turns on his heel to leave, Nathan follows him, and infuriates him by saying, 'Duke, I don't love the idea either but we –' The point being of course is that Nathan started off Season 3 by hypocritically talking Wesley Toomey into effectively committing suicide because he was only focussed on Audrey (which Duke, with justified derision, calls him on: 'You're a hypocrite, Nathan') only to be hypocritically furious with Audrey shortly thereafter for getting Duke to kill Harry Nix (for the greater good), and he then spent most of Season 3 after that again hypocritically treating Duke like a pariah and a walking unexploded bomb. Now in S4:8 that it once again suits Nathan's agenda, Hypocrisy is in Da House for its comeback tour as Nathan is immediately on board with Jack Driscoll's quick-and-easy-solution of Suicide by Crocker.

Duke, understandably, cuts him off at the knees: 'Who are you to talk! That man is willing to die to end one Trouble, while you – you decided that your life was worth more than all the Troubles, so don't!' When Nathan reaches out his arm again, Duke punches him, splitting Nathan's lip and getting Nathan's blood on the back of his knuckles – Lexie gasps in alarm (incidentally revealing she is Audrey, as only Audrey would know the significance of why Troubled person's blood should not touch Duke's skin) and Nathan backs away from Duke in a posture of conciliation – but nothing happens. 'Your Trouble's gone? How?' But Duke, distraught just drives away.

Of course, Duke has not abandoned them – shortly thereafter Jack Driscoll*** says he can't believe that Duke refused to kill him or that Duke has abandoned Haven, 'whatever cruel God gave us the Troubles, they**** designed the Crocker curse exactly for this situation.' This is the moment the cavalry arrives in the form Duke – bringing deep-sea pressure suits to reach Jack's brother Aiden and turn off his Trouble. When Nathan's suit begins to lose air, Duke saves his life by helping him out of the pressure zone.

Nathan, who has clearly been feeling guilty more than not all along, has realised that the only way Duke can be free of his Trouble is if he has killed Wade, and asks Duke bluntly, 'What you said before, Do you really think that Audrey should kill me?'

Duke, of course, is in love with Audrey, but has made the conscious decision to "detach with love" and move ahead in his life, 'How I feel about Audrey…it's complicated…but no, I was angry. I'm selfish, but not that selfish.' Nathan of course realises the morality of Duke's stance, 'In so many ways you're the least selfish person I know.'

This is what makes Nathan realise that Duke is not merely correct, but right in the moral sense in that he and Audrey are causing suffering to other people and that they are being hypocritical; if they really do love and care about their friends, about the town of Haven that, as police officers they swore an Oath to protect, then they can't just indulge their selfish desire for each other and to have their own Happy Ever After and damn the consequences visited on everyone else – as we see in flashbacks in S4:13, that is exactly how Mara and William behaved, although Nathan and Audrey and of course others do not know that.

That evening, we see Audrey and Nathan together in her rooms above The Grey Gull, and Nathan tells Audrey that she needs to follow through and kill him, as he promised The Guard and everyone he would get her to do. Nathan had made a great big public fuss over the fact that his only reason to return to Haven was to find Audrey and get her to kill him to end the Troubles, yet he and Audrey were spinning their wheels in full on star-crossed-lover emoting whilst people were dying because of the Troubles:

'Some truths are hard for people to accept, but they need us to do it for them. Haven needs us to do it for them…Jack Driscoll wanted to sacrifice himself to end one Trouble, my death ends them all. How can we walk away from something like that, especially now that someone is altering the rules…we can make everything better with one bullet. You're meant to help people with their Troubles, what better way than to cure them all forever? Duke…he had to kill Wade, his brother, because the Troubles haven't ended, because you haven't killed me, and his pain….the pain of everyone in this town is on us…this is the most loving thing we could possibly do.'

This scene between Nathan and Audrey in S4:8 is revisited again in S4:13 in a flashback to William and Mara being hunted for their inflicting the Troubles on the Havenites, but the contrast is obvious because William cares about nothing else but his being able to stay with Mara – he doesn't give a damn about their myriad victims or anyone they have hurt or killed, there is no suggestion even for a second that he will sacrifice himself for Mara's safety, only the determination to escape what appears to be justified punishment. There is a huge gulf between Nathan's guilt and shame, and William's psychopathic arrogance, his determination not to be "gotten the better of" by those pursuing him and Mara.

* Ironically in Season 4, egged on by Jordan McKee, who is determined that Audrey be manipulated into killing Nathan at the earliest point, it is Wade Crocker who acts as they feared Nathan would, nihilistically giving into a lust for the "blood rush" sensation. This was perhaps because he has no emotional bonds in Haven – family, friends; wife – to measure himself against in terms of keeping their respect, friendship, approval, etc.

We learn that he came to Haven out of a sense of duty in October 2010, rather than any close fraternal affection, when Duke "disappeared" and was supposedly killed and the result of his commuting back and forth and spending long periods in Haven is that his rocky marriage breaks down altogether when in The Grey Gull he has "nanny cam" proof that his wife Marcy is committing adultery with their house renovator contractor. Marcy's betrayal triggers an obvious depression and a resentment of Duke because Duke seems only interested in getting him to leave now Duke isn't dead after all. Wade wants to be part of Duke's life, to have an emotional relationship with his brother, and is hurt and angry when Duke pushes him away and is obviously hiding something. Just as Nathan was afraid Duke would do, Wade reacts without any self-restraint and cares only about satisfying his craving for the "rush" of absorbing Troubled blood.

Yet again with the irony, how Wade justifies his murders to Duke – that by killing one person he is helping dozens, sometimes hundreds of others – is exactly how Audrey justifies to Nathan having gotten Duke to kill Harry Nix, which is a nice little parallel in the show highlighting the "end justifies the means" moral debate. This moral debate rears its head again in S4:12, when Ben Harker Junior points out that by Duke killing him, the Crocker Curse will save hundreds of lives in the future and dozens of Harkers – Aaron has eight cousins under the age of ten alone.

In actual fact, if we go back a step, it was Vince Teagues (who murdered their father Simon) sending Dwight to the Cape Rouge to find Fitzwilliam Crocker's larger casket before Duke could that led directly to Duke's Trouble being activated in the first place, and it was Vince Teagues' fault that Simon was activated in 1981, so it could be argued that although Wade committed the murders, Vince Teagues in particular shares "vicarious culpability".

** Killing Wade ends the Crocker family curse. In the mythology of Haven, killing one person supposedly ends the Trouble afflicting all those who are genetic relatives. When Duke killed Harry Nix, he essentially cured the dozens of donor children the man had created; it would appear this cure extends to genetic relatives – lateral and collateral - rather than just lineal (direct) descendants. Likewise in S4:12 Ben Harker Junior knows that Duke killing him would "cure" his entire family, including various cousins and nephews, in so it would appear that all living genetic relatives of the dead person are cured of the Trouble, which would include parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, not just direct line descendants such as children and grandchildren.

However, the converse is that the "cure" would not include legal relatives – in S2:12, Kyle Hopkins did not know he was Troubled. He killed himself by impaling himself on Duke's knife so his and Marisa's unborn son would not be Troubled. But it was possible that Marisa herself might have a Trouble, and if so she would not be cured as she was unrelated to Kyle genetically. Therefore it might be that her son inherits any Trouble she has. Spouses, lovers, step-, foster-, adoptive- and "honorary" parents, children, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, mentors, best friends, will not be cured.

In this vein, it also means that as of May 2011, Duke should be able to see his daughter Jean – killing one person kills the "Trouble" in all their genetic relatives, and while it is true that Jean Mitchell has a different Trouble, she is Duke's biological daughter, and as such, her Trouble should also disappear. As a matter of fact, since humans inherit 50% of their genes from the mother and 50% from the father, when a Crocker kills one person, he is actually getting rid of at least two Troubles each time.

It is true that the Troubles tend to go along gender lines, for example it appears that only Crocker males inherit the Trouble, begging the question: what of female Crockers? Do they inherit the Trouble of the mother, if the mother is Troubled? Similarly, the nightmare Trouble only affects the women in Carrie Benson's family, so what Trouble, if any, is/was suffered by her brothers, uncles, grandfathers (both) and great-grandfathers (four of them) and so on?

But that is only part of the story. We have seen that while Troubles are hereditary in families they do also "skip" generations and "cross" gender lines:

In S2:5 Roots we have an example of both in that the Trouble "originated" in ancestral Novelli twins. One twin "married into" the Keegan family and the feral foliage can only be neutralised when the Keegan and Novelli families come together in a loving way (e.g., marriage). This event happened so many generations ago that nobody actually remembers it in either family and there was no "Trouble" with ferocious flora attacking people until the Troubles of 1953-1956. We also know the historical Novelli twins had to be fraternal (non-identical) and that they had to be one boy and one girl – in the aftermath of the vicious vines being dealt with it is discovered that the reason Keegan and Novelli together worked was because one twin had married into the Keegan family. Since the twin who married into the Keegan family had descendants named Keegan, that twin had to be a female Novelli marrying a male Keegan. Since the descendants of the other twin remain named Novelli, that twin had to be male to maintain the surname. Ergo, the Trouble affects both the female and male twin.

Again, in S2:13 Silent Night Hadley Chambers was a female generation after three generations of male Chambers, but still inherited the Trouble of her paternal great-grandfather Arthur Chambers; Jackie Clark in S2:2 Fear and Loathing inherited her Trouble from her father, not her mother. In S2:11, Dwight tells Duke that he inherited his Curse (bullet magnet) from his father, 'he let me go to a war zone rather than admit what he was.' But if Dwight's father never admitted his Trouble does Dwight know conclusively that his father, rather than his mother, was the Troubled parent? In the "webisodes" online content we see that Dwight's Trouble was inherited by his only child, Lizzie Hendrickson, who was female, again crossing a gender divide. A final example is that of Harry Nix, whose family Trouble in S3:3 The Farmer affected every child born of both sexes, as we saw in the episode.

Therefore, the Crocker Trouble must have a "universal" effect on everyone genetically related to the person that Crocker Man kills, regardless of sex difference, age difference or degree of relationship difference, e.g., grandaunt as well as nephew, etc. An example was when Simon Crocker killed Jenny Myers' grandfather in 1983 – he doesn't specify the man's name so we have no idea whether it was her maternal or paternal grandfather, but Grandpa went to Simon Crocker to die specifically because he understood that Jenny had inherited his Trouble, and Jenny was both female and one generation removed from him. So, although Wade only destroyed the Crocker Trouble per se, because Jean Mitchell is Duke's biological daughter, the Mitchell curse would have been destroyed in Jean, but not in her mother Beatrice/Helena or her half-brother and half-sister who were fathered by different men.

I have also included Jack Driscoll under this ** because Jack wants Duke to kill him to save his younger brother Aiden and Aiden's unborn baby son from the Trouble. However, this would require retrospective genetics, which even with paranormal context, is pretty much impossible. In real life hereditary goes only one way, descendants, never ancestors, so, whilst Jack and Aiden and any future children of theirs would inherit the Trouble that William gave them when he abducted them the previous night, Aiden's foetal son, conceived before his father was afflicted with a Trouble, will not have inherited it.

As far as I can tell this is different from Wade in that Wade and Duke both inherited the same Trouble from their father, which is why the cure works on all the Troubled person's genetic relatives, including those of previous and "lateral" generations, because the Trouble has originated from way in the past, usually at least 150-200 years before. Jack and Aiden don't fit this scenario because they haven't inherited any Trouble that Aiden passed to his son – they are each one effectively the Point of Origin or Patient Zero, so Aiden's unborn son, conceived before his dad was "infected" will be unaffected, as will their cousin, Hannah Driscoll (Season 1), in contrast to Duke Crocker and Beatrice Mitchell's daughter Jean, both of whose parents were suffering from the supernatural equivalent of a serious hereditary "disease" when they conceived her. Additionally, this means that had Duke killed Jack, it wouldn't have worked on the Driscoll Curse because Jack and Aiden hadn't inherited it from a prior common ancestor - Aiden Driscoll was also a Patient Zero in his own right.

Likewise, when Duke gets Audrey to re-Curse him in S4:12, he becomes the "new" Patient Zero of the Crocker Curse. This means that his still unnamed older half-brother and his daughter Jean remain "cured" of their Trouble. From the point of June 2011 onwards, if Duke dies childless, the Crocker Trouble dies with him again. Logically, this would also apply to "donor" eggs and sperm stored in an egg donor/sperm donor facility. If Jack or Aiden Driscoll had deposited donor sperm prior to being Afflicted by William's goons, any of children born from that sperm would be Trouble free, because that sperm would be unaffected by the genetic changes caused to his DNA after that point; the same applies to Duke – if he had donated sperm in the brief period after killing Wade (S4:7) but before Audrey re-afflicted him (S4:12), children born from that sperm would be Trouble-free because Duke was cured of his Trouble during that period so the DNA would have changed.

Fortunately for Haven, this was a minor point of continuity that can be ignored for that episode, but for fan fiction writers of Haven, or any show, bear it in mind that retrospective hereditary is like temporal mechanics – fiendishly complicated, nigh on impossible, not really worth the angst of getting there and does real "plot plausibility" damage if it is not done with extreme care.

As an example, being a genetic genealogist, my "suspension of disbelief" went "poof!" in the Doctor Who episode Tooth and Claw, when an evil cabal of monks intended to infect Queen Victoria with lycanthropy to create a hereditary lupine royal dynasty – in 1879, nearly 20 years after the death of Albert, and when her nine children are adults – in which case, the lycanthropy would die with her, if she did not have further children, as the nine she already had existed beforehand. Basically – no genetic relationship, no hereditary, and hereditary is only ever mono-directional, from our ancestors to us, never vice versa.

25th August 1977:

Birth of Arlo McMartin (brought back by Kyle Hopkins in S2:12). Arlo is the masculine form of Arla, so it is possible that the two were related by Arlo being a lateral descendant of Arla; Arlo was born about 16-17 years approximately after Arla was born (to be of similar age to marry James Cogan in 1983) so it possible that Arlo's mother or Arlo's father was Arla's sister/brother and named their son after her/his sister.

A reasonably close genetic connection may also be inferred by their mutual emotional fragility and instability. In May 1983, James Cogan's apparent death causes Arla to have a complete emotional collapse that triggers her skinwalker Trouble. Her solution is to go straight to murder – of another young woman – within 24 hours (as Vince and Dave Teagues find out in S3 Reunion); clearly not the most mentally healthy person. The emotional shock of discovering his wife Sheila is committing adultery with their neighbour Bill (a diminutive of William) causes Arlo to have a fatal heart attack on the spot on 27th February 2010. That this is an extreme reaction to emotional upset similar to Arla's skin peeling off in strips is deductible because at the time Arlo was only 32 years old.

Likewise, in S2:12 when Kyle Hopkins inadvertently brings Arlo back, the first thing he does is trick Bill into going to Sheila's house to save her from an intruder, and whilst Bill is scrambling to get there he tricks Sheila in coming downstairs. When Bill runs in and sees the backside silhouette of a large male shape looming menacingly in front of Sheila he shoots the "attacker" three times – Arlo smirks as the bullets pass right through him and hit Sheila in the chest, killing her, before telling a shocked and confused Bill that it was payback for 'sleeping with my wife.' While it is immensely hard to have any sympathy for the faithless Sheila or Bill, by the same token it shows up the emotional extremism of Arlo (as with Arla) in that Bill and Sheila weren't cohabiting after his death, and indeed there was no sign that they were romantically involved at all – so what if the affair rumours had been wrong, just malicious idle gossip? We see this same unreasoning and unreasonable focus, refusing to see or consider anything that doesn't fit the "narrative" desired, in Arla.

c.1978:

Aiden Driscoll is born, younger brother of Jack, nephew of Reverend Edmund Driscoll and cousin of Hannah Driscoll

1978 or 1979*:

Max Hansen is sent to Shawshank State prison, allegedly for murdering "a family"; Garland Wuornos is instrumental in having him incarcerated, and almost immediately, Max Hansen's wife divorces him and marries Garland; either legally or more likely just by choice, they call Nathan "Wuornos" instead of Hansen.

* Human children begin to develop long-term memories between the ages of 2 to 3 years; since Nathan had no idea that Garland Wuornos was not his biological father (S1:13), Max** must have been out of the picture before Nathan's third birthday. At the same time, in S1:13 Garland refers to his rage at how Max treated his wife and their "little boy", suggesting that Max was around until Nathan reached toddler age.

** So far, it appears that Nathan is an only child. In S2:1, when he asks Duke if he has older brothers, for himself he references the Biblical Plagues of Egypt which culminate in the death of the firstborn son of the father***, and he was Max's firstborn son. However, given that like Simon Crocker Max Hansen was a drunkard and a ne'er do well it is highly unlikely he had the moral principles to avoid adulterous liaisons when married, or that he was a virgin when he married his wife, which could have resulted in other, illegitimate children, much like Simon Crocker. In S2:1, Nathan begins to die, indicating he was Max's firstborn son, but all that means is that if Nathan does have any older half-siblings, they must be half-sisters. Any that were either the same age or younger could be either half-brothers or half-sisters.

*** Across human cultures in ancient times (and still today) polyandry (one wife, concurrent husbands) and polygyny (one husband, concurrent wives) were and are widely practiced. In the Middle East, where the Bible events took place, polygyny was widely practised, both by the ancient Jews (Israelites) and such as the Egyptians. In the Bible books of the Pentateuch (the first five books) it is specified that "firstborn son" refers to the firstborn son of the father, not the firstborn son of the mother. In the Biblical plagues of Exodus, the firstborn son of the father died, who may or may not necessarily have been the firstborn son of the mother. For example, the Biblical patriarch Jacob had four wives – his firstborn son (and also that of his wife Leah) was Reuben. The firstborn son of his wife Rachel was Joseph, that of Bilhah was Dan and that of Zilpah was Gad.

Since Pharaohs traditionally had multiple queens (primary wives), princesses (secondary wives) and ladies (concubines) plus harem women (sex slaves) all these women bar one could have had sons unaffected by the last plague. In fact, one suspects that the wailing across the "land of Egypt" mentioned in Genesis was somewhat less than sincere in all those polygamous households where the mother/siblings/in-laws of Royal Son No.2 suddenly became the mother/family of the Eldest Surviving Heir.

By the same token, for many thousands of years, "warrior" and "warlord" (king, prince) have been synonyms – in the Old Testament, God is poetically termed "a manly prince of war" - so when Pharaoh, outraged at the death of his firstborn son, pursued the Israelites to the Red Sea with the crème de la crème of the Egyptian Army, that army would have included all his able-bodied adult sons. Regardless of their own private opinions and personality, no able-bodied Royal male could avoid pursuing some sort of military/warrior career without being deemed "unfit to rule" and in many cases at risk of execution or murder by brothers/half-brothers or his own parents, including mommy dearest.

Yet again, when Pharaoh and his army were all lost in the Red Sea, the "wailing" of Egypt was probably a great deal less than sincere from those women whose pre-pubescent sons were now the oldest surviving son, and firmly under maternal control.

The dating of ancient Egyptian history is so confusing and contradictory that there is no consensus, but it is interesting that one of the mooted chronologies puts the reign of the Eighteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Hatshepsut – who seized power as ruling Pharaoh in her own right without being successfully opposed by male counterclaimants – as beginning in the year 1513 BC, which is the year of the Israelite exodus from Egypt. Hatshepsut ruled in her own right following the death, in rapid succession, of her father, Thutmose I, and at least two of his adult sons, Wadjmose and Ramose, his firstborn heir, Amenmose, having predeceased him – Amenmose was the first Egyptian prince given the title "Great Overseer of Soldiers" (General).

There is no way to know due to the uncertainty of dating, but history indicates that Thutmose II was a neo-pubescent when "he" technically acceded the throne. If Amenmose had died in the tenth plague, then it appears that Thutmose II was the oldest of Thutmose I's sons who was – just – too young to join the Egyptian military, meaning that in order, Amenmose (prince) Thutmose I (Pharaoh), Wadjmose (prince) and Ramose (prince) all died in 1513 BC.

Across Egypt, with husbands and adult sons dead, real rulership lay with the mother of the oldest surviving son, just as in the Royal family itself with Hatshepsut, Thutmose II's half-sister wife, who as the daughter of Thutmose I and his "Great Royal Wife" or primary queen Ahmose was considered fully Royal, whereas Thutmose II's mother, queen Mutnofret was a secondary wife.

It may be entirely "above board" that despite his young age Thutmose II only lived a few years into his reign, fathering Neferure and a son, Thutmose III by a minor wife, Iset, before dying in his mid-teens and leaving Hatshepsut again in sole control as the adult "wife" of her half-nephew baby Thutmose III – even when he reached his majority, Hatshepsut ruled in her own stead for 22 years until her death and he became sole Pharaoh.

April – May 1980: TEAMS

C. June 1980 – the Troubles begin again

1980:

Birth of Ian Haskell, a lateral descendant of Tristram Carver through a female line (see '1960' in Chapter 4) In S2:2, Fear & Loathing, Ian Haskell is revealed to be a ne'er do well misfit who was shown generosity and kindness by Duke, which is why Ian was intending to get Duke to take him out to sea before using Tristram Carver's puzzle board to destroy Haven.

Like Tristram, Ian blamed everyone else for the consequences of his own poor judgement and bad choices; instead of working hard to make something of his life, he spent years tracking down obscure folklore to gather the puzzle pieces back together to spitefully destroy the town rather than face the real problem – the guy looking back at him in the mirror every morning.

At the end of the episode, Nathan points out, 'It must have taken him years to track down the pieces…' After Ian dies, taking Jackie Clark's Curse with him, Duke says, 'We knew Ian our who lives….' Since Nathan and Duke did not meet until they were five years old, this suggests they met Ian Haskell at that age, but his and Duke's relationship is one of mentor (Duke) and more acquaintance/buddy (Ian) than friendship – certainly nothing like the obviously close, if complex, friendship between Duke and Nathan. It is therefore most likely that Ian was younger than Duke and Nathan, and that he "tagged around" after Duke like a little brother Duke took to.

c. June 1980 to August 1981:

Nathan tells Audrey he has known Duke Crocker "since I was five". Five is the age American children usually go to kindergarten prior to starting First Grade. We saw in 1955 that Roy Crocker Junior worked in Haven* but that his wife and son, Simon, lived in Derry. It may be that Nathan and Duke never met before kindergarten because Duke may have been born in and lived his early life in Derry, rather than Haven, just as it appears that Wade Crocker was born and lived in New York most of his life.

* Roy Crocker worked as a bartender, going back to the Crocker family Trouble, as a bartender is an emotional-psychological sponge, listening to the customers' troubles and advising how to make them go away, so too the Crocker males are supernatural bartenders, absorbing people's literal Troubles and making them go away. There is no way to know for sure, but it is quite likely that Fitzwilliam Crocker of 1786 was a publican/innkeeper/ tavern/saloon owner, however you want to term it, and that probably his ancestors who first came to Haven on his father's side were by trade brewers and/or publicans.

We don't know what Simon did for a living as such, but Duke essentially becomes a bartender/bar owner when he "buys" The Grey Gull from the McShaw family. Wade Crocker also works as a bartender at The Grey Gull from late October 2010 to April 2011, when Duke precipitously returns to Haven not-dead-actually with Jennifer Mason in tow. In S4:3, at Haven PD station, Jordan explains to Jennifer – spitefully but actually quite accurately – that Duke's Trouble with a Troubled person's blood basically makes him, 'He's a sponge for Troubled blood…an emo-sponge…'

c.1980:

Birth of Wesley Toomey, whose father's family ran the Altair Bay Inn; in S3:1, Wesley has greying hair but his lack of recognition and general attitude indicate that he is at least a couple of years younger than Nathan and Duke. However, he had to be old enough to remember his paternal grandfather, a UFO "believer", being abducted by aliens in 1983. Since children begin to develop long-term memories between the age of 2 to 3 years - and since witnessing your grandfather being beamed up by the Mothership tends to leave an impression - it is likely that he was closer to 3 years old than 2 years in 1983.

Birth of Jordan McKee? She appears to be slightly younger than Nathan and Duke, but older than Claire Callahan.

12th June 1981:

This is the official date of the Troubles Return, as on this date Vince Teagues and a friend (presumably Simon Crocker, since Vince specifies him to Jordan later in Season 4) were refereeing a Little League match when one of the kids "literally" threw his arm out.

However, we have seen that the Troubles do not go from "0 to 60" but that they begin again once, then again, and gradually increase in occurrence until it is "obvious" that they have returned – such as what happened at the Little League game on 12th June 1981. Additionally of course those that were Troubled have no desire to advertise what they are suffering, and the scattered nature of Haven means that discretion can be maintained for some considerable time – in 1983, nobody notices that the Nix family seem to have "disappeared" for quite some time, indicating they probably lived on a farm with some distance from near neighbours. Aerial and scene shots of the Nova Scotia coastline, Lunenberg, Chester, Halifax, etc., where Haven is filmed, show that they have a spacious, non-cramped approach to buildings.

On the same date, one of the children born at Haven Hospital was supposedly Jennifer Mason. However, there are discrepancies in this – in S4:5 The New Girl, and S4:8, Crush the information Vince and Dave have about her adoption (organised by Byron Howard of Child Protective Services!) lists Jennifer Mason b.1984. In S4:11, Shot in the Dark, Duke and Dwight each separately specify that Jennifer was born 12th June 1981 – the one thing the Rougarou's three previous victims have in common is that they were all born on 12th June 1981 at Haven Hospital, as "William" is seeking to kill the Child of Ruin (Jennifer) before she can open the Door that sends him back to Otherworld. In S4:13 we learn that Jennifer Mason is from Otherworld.

It is likely that these discrepancies are deliberate. As regards the conflict between 1981 and 1984, we know time moves differently in the Barn to Earth. In Season 3, James Cogan leaves the Barn believing it still to be 1983, 27 years earlier. So, although Duke was only in the Barn for fewer than ten seconds before falling through one of the holes, he found six months' had gone past Earthside. The reason that The Woman always looks the same is that in the Barn, only a few minutes pass, but 27 years pass outside, so as far as Mara/The Woman knows, she and William may only have been separated from each other for a few hours, maybe even a few days, at most, whereas Earthside centuries have passed.

This may mean that Jennifer was born on 12th June 1981, and was taken into the Barn by Howard, and brought out again in 1984 – when she would still have been a new born baby. Alternatively, it is likely that Howard "miss-recorded" her birth year to further make it difficult for any enemy to find her, especially since it appears she became the "Child of Ruin"* at birth. Her adoptive parents may even have colluded if they had been members of The Guard (like Paul and June Cogan, living in Colorado, were) as we know The Guard have what is at least a "national" North American network akin to the Underground Railroad helping people get to Haven or if necessary leave it – logically this network by the 20th Century should have become pan-global, or close to it.

This ploy certainly helped – of the Rougarou's three previous victims, before Dwight figures out that they were all born on the same date, the first, Hank, was male to the second and third victims being female. This shows that William had no information on the Child of Ruin other than the date and supposed place of birth, which is why the Rougarou is systematically killing all those born on that date at Haven Hospital regardless of their sex.

Another possibility comes back to genetics and how exactly do you define "from" Otherworld. For example, I was born in England. I am half Scots through one parent, and a quarter-Irish through a grandparent, and one eighth Jewish through a great-grandparent and one sixteenth Armenian through a great-great-grandmother. My nationality is English, my ethnicity is…not.

In terms of Haven, the four people Earthside who can open the portal capstone "lock" have to come "from" Otherworld. Does this mean they have to be born there (nationality) or is it that both parents have to come from there (ethnicity)? So far this has not been made clear.

In S4:8, Crush, thanks to research done by Vince Teagues, Jennifer has papers given to her at the Haven Herald, which list her birth year as 1984 and which list that one couple out of six couple possibilities were her birth parents: Justin & Maria Lewis, John & Nancy Stevens, Ryan & Alexis Peters, Bill and Mary-Ellen Phillips, Matthew & Roslyn Simmons and Steve & Anne Brooks.

As she tracks these addresses down one by one, she spots horseshoe crabs with human eyes – at the end of the episode, of course, the journal of Sebastian Cabot (fictional brother of the real John Cabot) warns that the Harbingers of the Great Evil are Horseshoe Crabs with human eyes – either the crabs manifest to warn the Child of Ruin (in 2010, Jennifer Mason) of the Great Evil's presence, or they are warning the Great Evil (William?) about the presence of the Child of Ruin. Logically, the first one is the right one: as we see in S4:11 Shot in the Dark, the actions of Agent Howard and presumably her birth parents was to hide the identity of the Child of Ruin from the Great Evil (William?), something which has succeeded very well – all that effort would not be much good if all William needed to do was watch and see which man or woman around Haven was suddenly being followed about the place by horseshoe crabs with human eyes.

A process of elimination leads Jennifer to John & Nancy Stevens, on 83 Tulip Drive, West Haven – only to discover that the couple left Haven "years ago" with no forwarding address and no information on where they had gone. Significantly of course, the couple living in the house give her a box of her birth parents' old junk from the attic. Included in the box is a copy of Unstake My Heart – the trashy vampire romance novel that Audrey was reading in her Boston apartment in the pilot S1:1 when Agent Howard called and assigned her to Haven to recapture the fugitive Jonas Lester (who at that point had already been killed by Marion Caldwell's weather Trouble).

So, was Jennifer born in Otherworld and then Howard, or more likely her birth parents, brought her through the Barn (or through the portal) and sneaked her into Haven Hospital and "pretended" she was born there on 12th June 1981, before taking her back to Otherworld, or into the Barn, and bringing her out still as a baby for adoption in 1984? If her impending status as the next Child of Ruin was known prior to her birth this again was another ploy to protect her from William. It is entirely possible that all six couples were in on the "confuse and confound" plan with Howard and all came from Otherworld and went back there as none appear to still be living in Haven.

There is no way to know, but she could have been designated the Child of Ruin even at conception, or was deliberately conceived by her parents to be the Child of Ruin. In many countries there is the irony that a baby can be murdered with impunity right up to the point of birth as long as he or she is still in the womb/uterus at that point and the killer will get away with a slap on the wrist for late abortion; only once the baby is outside the mother's body is it classed as infanticide – of course, babies do not magically appear full grown inside the mother at the point of birth, so Jennifer being pre-designated the Child of Ruin well beforehand is possible – it may explain why her birth parents gave her up for adoption and why they appear to have moved away where they could not be found – the Child of Ruin could even be a hereditary Otherworld title in her family.

It is also significant about the unnamed couple living at No.83 Tulip Drive – how come they "happen" to have a box of belongings owned by Jennifer's long gone birth parents in their attic, including of course the critical novel? People don't keep other people's junk; the first thing they should have done when they moved in was to toss the box into the trash, so presumably they are also clandestinely involved in some way, probably being "guardians" of the book that the Child of Ruin would need?

The book itself is probably important: a quick check on confirms that no such authoress or novel exists in real life; in S4:11, we see that the authoress is Nikki Wile, and that the book was published by Stewart Books Ltd of New York, USA. It may be that Nikki Wile has some significance to the mythology of Haven, and Stewart of course is both a Celtic ethnicity and the surname of the Royal Family of Scotland & England, the last monarch to carry the Stewart surname (although the bloodline continued) being Queen Anne (d.1713). There is also a Craig Stewart amongst the Troubled on the list Stuart Pearce compiled.

As far as I can tell, the person must be fully genetically "Otherworld" – it is not specifically stated, but it would appear that even were he to be present, James Cogan, Nathan and Audrey's son, would not be able to open the lock because he is only a half-breed, having an Otherworld mother (Audrey) and an Earthside father (Nathan). But again, this is unclear, so I could be wrong.

* In S4:11 Shot in the Dark, at the end when Jennifer can see the guard tattoo on the book, Unstake My Heart, whereas even Audrey Can't, indicating the book is intended for Jennifer. Nathan, Duke and Audrey ask her to read the riddle aloud, which she does:

During times of Great Evil

The Child of Ruin

Must find the

Heart of Haven

And summon the Door

In the episode, the first line is not shown when the camera cuts to the page, though whether that has any significance is unknown. Since "times" is plural, it would seem that the Child of Ruin is a status or an ability that is passed down or, more likely, bestowed upon different people through time. If it were hereditary, there would be too much danger of William being able to target one family and wipe them all out; the fact that William's Rougarou kills both Hank (male) and Jemma (female) suggests that in the past, both males and females have had the status of being the then-current "Child of Ruin".

One thing that has not been explained is what exactly the Child of Ruin is, or represents, and even whether Jennifer has already done her "job" and opening the portal in S4:13 to shove William back through it to Otherworld was a mistake?

The fact that the Troubles did not end in October 2010 as they had done previously made it a time of Great Evil because, as Dwight pointed out to Nathan in 4:1, it caused people to lose the most important weapon they had – hope. People like Jordan McKee endured 3½ years of anguish and suffering because they knew an end was in sight – 23rd October 2010 when the Orionids, The Hunter Meteor Storm, was at its peak and visible over Haven, Audrey Parker would enter the Barn and the Troubles would peter out by the end of the Orionids period and vanish for 27 years (actually 24 years.)

When that didn't happen, for whatever cause, by mid-November 2010, the people of Haven fell into despair, which is far more destructive than many physical problems. An analogy would be a broken leg versus a chronic muscle disease, say Fibromyalgia. A person who breaks their leg is in a better place mentally because in three months the pot will be off and life will be back to normal. The person who is diagnosed with Fibromyalgia faces the rest of their life in general pain, with side effects of fatigue, depression and other issues to deal with.

The people of Haven were like someone patiently waiting for the "cast to be taken off" so they could get back to their lives only to be told they hadn't got a broken leg after all they'd got fibromyalgia and welcome to the rest of your miserable lives peons. In S4:4, the beginning of May 2011, Nathan says that since October 2010, 17 people have died (this number increases as Season 4 goes on) because the Troubles didn't go away – deaths for which he blames himself. These were as a direct result of the Troubles and don't include "collateral damage", such as Charlotte Gallagher, Mike Gallagher's late wife, who in S4:3 was revealed to have died in April 2011 after her cancer – in remission – returned in November 2010 when the Troubles did not end.

However, Jennifer has already summoned a door – she found and opened the door that let Audrey back through into Haven. But, having read Sebastian Cabot's journal, Dave Teagues tried to stop her, warning them that the Door mustn't be opened as it would be letting great evil in – of course they ignored him and went ahead. But, presumably by doing so, Jennifer also let through William (yes, he told Lexie he could not leave the Bar when she went through the Door, but at this point, are we really believing that?)

If that is what happened, Jennifer would be the Child of Ruin, in the sense that she would be the Haven equivalent of Pandora opening the box: the great evil was that the Troubles weren't gone, Jennifer was the Child of Ruin by inflicting ruin – disaster - on Haven by giving William a way through when she summoned the Door to the Barn and let Audrey back through.

The only thing that doesn't fit "at first glance" is the line: Heart of Haven, until you challenge what exactly the Heart of Haven is – in Season 4:12, everyone clearly believes that it refers symbolically to the portal beneath the Lighthouse (as it is not geographically the centre of the town), but what if the Heart of Haven is not the portal, or even an object, but a person – The Woman. In S4:12, this idea is briefly raised by the characters themselves when Jennifer suggests that because Vince's tattoo is pulsing in time with the one in the book, he could be the Heart of Haven. Having dismissed this idea, Duke, Jennifer, Vince and Dave don't pursue the notion that they might have the right idea but merely the wrong person. By using what she could hear in the Barn, Jennifer tracked down where Audrey was still in the Barn (S4:4). In essence, Jennifer did "find" Audrey, or the Child of Ruin did find the Heart of Haven (?) and summoned the Door that let Audrey back through.

If that were true, then Jennifer had already completed the first riddle in S4:4 Lost and Found before she ever found it was there in S4:11 Shot in the Dark.

Actually, this is one of the best things about Haven as a show – the fact that the cast are not "read in" to future plots – this is good because it keeps their reactions authentic – they don't know either, so there is a genuineness to the role and their reactions are authentically* 'what the…?!' rather than being studied/too knowing. In real life nobody gets the clues right the first time all round, especially the more ambiguous they are.

That kind of ploy makes for excellent*, if occasionally heart-breaking Television.

And of course, in between Jennifer finding and opening the door for Audrey in S4:4 and finding the Child of Ruin riddle in S4:11 we have the Cabot journal riddle of S4:8 – at the end of the episode, when Duke, Jennifer, Vince and Dave are trying to get hold of Audrey and Nathan to warn them about the Horseshoe Crabs, Vince, who has read Sebastian Cabot's journal, explains that the Mi'kmaq don't specify what kind of Great Evil will be caused. When Duke sarcastically points that some information on how to destroy the Great Evil would be helpful, Vince explains that the Mi'kmaq did give some information, but for some unknown reason: 'the Mi'kmaq only gave half of the riddle:

'What was your Salvation

Is now your doom.'

So is the other half of that riddle just two lines nobody appears to have found yet, or is the riddle in Unstake My Heart about the Child of Ruin the rest of the same riddle?

Duke almost instantly realises the significance: 'We think Nathan dying will end the Troubles – that's our Salvation. If that riddle is right Audrey can't kill him now.' This again raises the question of just how Jennifer is the Child of Ruin – if she has already fulfilled the riddle in S4:4 then she is the Child of Ruin in a twofold sense because she has a) Summoned the Door and let in the Great Evil (William) albeit inadvertently and b) by letting Audrey back Earthside she has apparently removed the Stop Troubles Forever Opportunity. Horrific through the method was – The Woman had to kill the person she loved the most whilst in that particular Incarnation (for Lucy, Sarah's son James, for Audrey, her lover Nathan) – at least it was Salvation for everyone, genuinely for the greater good – it appears that Jennifer "ruined" that opportunity (possibly permanently) by letting Audrey back through Earthside, even if she didn't let William through as well.

* Perhaps the finest example of what a show can achieve using visceral authenticity is from the series M*A*S*H, S3:24: Abyssinia, Henry when actor McLean Stevenson, who played Lt. Col. Henry Blake, decided to leave the series.

The script pages had him arriving home in Illinois, but only minutes before filming the final scene of the episode, the real scene that began with Gary Burghoff (who played Radar O'Reilly) announcing that Blake's plane had been shot down were distributed:

A visibly shaken "Radar" enters the O.R., where the surgeons are working and says, 'I have a message. Lieutenant Colonel (pause) Henry Blake's plane (pause) was shot down (pause) over the Sea of Japan. It spun in (pause) there were no survivors.' Burghoff's pauses were not dramatic effects, but genuine shocked speech by the man, not the character.

He leaves as the camera pans the stunned and silent staff, including Frank Burns (Larry Linville) and Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit), both of whom have tears on their cheeks, 'Trapper' John McIntyre (Wayne Rogers) and a teary-eyed Hawkeye (Alan Alda). Only Alan Alda was actually acting, having been in on the script beforehand, everyone else was in obvious shock and distress that was real.

It was an unprecedented act, never in US Television history had a series' main character died in a tragic manner. The impact – which shocked the entire country – was increased because it was filmed in 1975, and shortly thereafter (in the hiatus before Season 4 began) the US lost the Vietnam War effectively with the Fall of Saigon:

'If we turned on the [television] set we would see fifteen people [killed in Vietnam every night]. They don't complain about that because it is unfelt violence, it is unfelt trauma. And that's not good. I think that if there is such a thing as the loss of life there should be some connection. And we did make a connection. It was a surprise, it was somebody they loved. They didn't expect it but it made the point. People like Henry Blake are lost in war. Not everybody, not every kid gets to go back…Fifty thousand – we left fifty thousand boys in Korea – and we realized it was right for the show, because the premise of our show was the wastefulness of war.' Gene Reynolds, the show's producer explained the rationale.

It was a seminal moment in TV history, and one that allowed, fresh, innovative TV to be made; the concept was so revolutionary that there was similar astonishment even 13 years later in 1988, with episode S1:23 of Star Trek: The Next Generation when Tasha Yar [Denise Crosby] – a main character with her name on the credits, not a sudden cherished "best friend" who'd never been mentioned before or a "red shirt" extra – got killed in the opening scenes and wasn't saved by some nifty trick by Captain Picard/Commander Riker et al.

M*A*S*H gave TV shows the ability to introduce a flavour of authenticity and "realism", even in fantasy and science-fiction genres, in that the audience could no longer complacently assume that main character/made it to the credits equalled immortal/invulnerable and "will always find a way out of it somehow". Another example is the death of major characters Tara Maclay, and Anya in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. TV shows such as Supernatural have become notorious for killing off main characters every season (sometimes unwisely).

However, the sour note was that McLean Stevenson and Wayne Rogers (who was also leaving) were still on set during filming for a pre-arranged wrap party/goodbye party for McLean Stevenson; the final scene so upset the cast, who bar Alda had no knowledge of it, that everyone just went home, many in tears, and the party never happened. Stevenson was upset by the emotional turmoil inflicted on the cast that meant he never got to say a proper goodbye (the intention of holding the wrap party) and that nobody had forewarned him of his own character's fate. The producers Larry Gelbert and Gene Reynolds later admitted that it would have been better to find some pretext to have to "reshoot" the final scene with the relevant cast and crew members the next day after the wrap party was done.

June – July 1981:

Vince Teagues uses drops of his own blood (indicating he has a Trouble) to trigger Simon Crocker's curse. He does so deliberately and pleads with Simon to kill his own father-in-law to save Vince's wife from her family's Trouble, which he tells Jordan was "terrible, horrific," in S4. Because they are friends, Simon does as Vince asks, but Vince's wife discovers what has happened and is horrified and enraged by what Vince has had Simon do, and leaves him because of it.

In S4, Vince easily figures out that Jordan intends to use Wade to murder Audrey, in the belief that killing her will destroy all the Troubles; this prompts him to reveal the truth behind why Simon Crocker "went bad" and why in the end Vince murdered his former friend, "later, with Lucy's help, I had to kill Simon Crocker." He then confesses to Jordan that although he had the best of intentions, saving his wife and her family, what he did first to Simon, and then emotionally blackmailed Simon into doing, made him become a monster. Finally, Jordan realises that she has also become monstrous in her callous obsession with ending the Troubles no matter who is destroyed in the process, and resolves to leave Haven – however, whereas Vince Teagues murdered the monster he created in Simon Crocker, this time Jordan is murdered by the monster she created in Wade Crocker.

12th July 1981:

This is the birthdate of the real Audrey Parker. How the women are chosen whose minds will be "copied" is unknown at this time as there seems to be no common rationale for Woman A over B other than that the individual woman in question has no family to notice any discrepancies; another criterion may be that it is highly unlikely the "copy" will be exposed by the real woman turning up in Haven, Maine but we can't say this for sure – for example, the real Audrey Parker grew up in orphanages and foster care, with no knowledge of her birth parents. It is entirely possible that all six of the couples that Vince Teagues identified for Jennifer Mason as potential birth parents were ALL Otherworld couples who were "in on" Agent Howard's plan to protect the Child of Ruin from William by muddying the waters, which means one of the five couples not parents of Jennifer could well have been the birth parents of the real Audrey Parker (Justin & Maria Lewis, Ryan & Alexis Peters, Bill and Mary-Ellen Phillips, Matthew & Roslyn Simmons and Steve & Anne Brooks).

It appears that Sarah Vernon (and at that time, Vince and Dave) had no idea she was a copy. Lucy learns she is a copy of the real Lucy Ripley via Sarah's son James, and visits the real Lucy shortly before she enters the Barn – we see that The Woman and the women she copies are nothing alike in looks – the real Sarah Vernon was a redhead; the real Lucy Ripley is a gamine-faced woman with freckles and brown hair.

Likewise in 2009, Audrey has no idea she is a copy of the real Audrey Parker until S2:1, A Tale of Two Audreys, when the real Audrey Parker – an oval faced brunette who really is an FBI agent, shows up (alongside a real Agent Howard, suggesting that the real Sarah Vernon had a real Major Howard). In 2011, we know that somewhere there is a bartender named Lexie de Witt who has no idea she was temporarily Xeroxed onto another woman.

On saying that, the women chosen do appear to have some common criteria, which is calm competence "under fire" as it were and an ability for self-protection. In 1955, Sarah Vernon is a Women's Army Corps Nurse – she has medical knowledge, and is trained to use firearms. We don't know much about the real Lucy Ripley's youthful career, but when Audrey visits her in 2010, she is clearly a self-sufficient woman confident of living alone in a rural community, who is an expert fisherwoman and presumably can handle a shotgun and rifle at least. Likewise, the real Audrey Parker is a trained FBI Agent. Lexi de Witt appears to be the only anomaly in that she has never handled a gun, but there is a toughness in handling the rowdy bar elements the real Lexie must have gotten – although of course Lexie was "unintended" as a copy (see Chapter 6).

Christmas 1981:

In S4 Wade recounts to Jennifer how he was visiting his father Simon and Duke and was one of a group of children that go sledding, including Nathan Wuornos – "one kid" (Nathan) crashed his sled and badly breaks his arm, but didn't notice because he didn't feel the injury. It is likely that this accident triggered Nathan's trouble to manifest, as the pain would have been severe for a 5/6 year old.

Continued from 1982 in Chapter 6…

The Cat's Whiskers