The X-Files Gives Mulder A Key Fear Straight From Series Creator
In The X-Files, we know that Agent Mulder’s chief trauma comes from the abduction of his sister by aliens when he was younger. However, a season 1 episode gave the character a new fear, one that he shares with showrunner Chris Carter. We find out that Mulder has a phobia of fire in the appropriately-named episode “Fire,” but this is a plot point that everyone from the fandom to David Duchovny thought was deeply stupid because the phobia was never addressed before or after this.
Mulder Confessed His Fear To Scully
To understand the weirdness of Mulder’s fear, it’s important to recap what “Fire” is all about. An old flame shows back up in Mulder’s life to help him and Scully investigate a pyromaniac. Mulder is worried about his old girlfriend playing mind games, but the revelation that the criminal they are hunting has pyrokinetic powers makes it clear that old flames are the last thing our favorite agents can afford to worry about.
Over the course of the investigation, Mulder admits to Scully that he has a fear of fire. This phobia stems from the agent’s childhood when a friend’s house burned down, and Mulder had to spend the night in the rubble to scare looters away. Because of this, he had nightmares about being trapped in a burning building, and investigating this pyromaniac started dredging all his old fears up to the surface.
Based On Chris Carter’s Real Fear
You probably noticed that the story behind Mulder’s fear of fire is weirdly specific, and that is because it is taken straight from Chris Carter’s life. He had a similar experience growing up, and he similarly developed a fear of fire. Never one to shy away from basing his characters on himself, the showrunner went ahead and gave Mulder a fear of fire, right down to the story of having to scare looters away.
Never Came Up Again
The decision to suddenly make Mulder frightened of fire weirded multiple people out, including series star David Duchovny. At one point, he went on Late Night With Conan O’Brien and described getting annoyed with the episode all over again after he recently caught a rerun of “Fire.”
He rightfully called out how weird it was to make Mulder’s fear of fire a major plot point because it never came up before or after this episode, and as faithful X-Files fans know, his character was very close to flames in the pilot episode, and had no visible reaction.
Fire Confused Fans
Fans were similarly perplexed by Mulder’s fear of fire, something we were apparently expected to forget about in subsequent seasons. In this respect, this plot point is like that one flashback scene where Mulder inexplicably had a wedding band on. The character possibly being married before similarly never came up again, so fans are quite accustomed to the show giving Mulder seemingly important background info and then dropping the matter altogether.
The Girlfriend Everyone Rejected
Aside from Mulder’s fear, another thing the show dropped after “Fire” was trying to make his old girlfriend Phoebe Greene a recurring character. She never appeared again, paving the way for Mulder and Scully to eventually hook up. That’s all for the best: after all, the sexual tension between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson was always hotter than the flames fanned by this episode’s resident pyromaniac.
