Dana Katherine Scully.
Role in show: Scully is very much the straight man to Mulder's wild theories and beliefs. Her role is very much secondary to Mulder, but I think she is meant to be the everyman, the person thrown into a very strange world which the audience is unfamiliar with.
Family: Scully's father was in the navy while she was growing up, meaning that the Scully family was always living in a naval base. Bill Sr., Scully's father, was always putting work before everything else, but still managed a loving but respectful relationship with his daughter. Scully's mother seems to have been somewhat inconsequential during Scully's childhood, but was one of the main bastions for support for both Scully and Mulder during times of difficulty during their work on the X-Files. The main thing Scully took from her mother is her religion, which is often discussed throughout the show.Scully's eldest brother, Bill Jr., is in all honesty a bit of a prick. He was a bit of a bully to Scully as a child, was skeptical of her beliefs as an adult and just despised Mulder, making him difficult to like. He seems to be just a bit of a push jock, following his father into the navy. Scully's sister, Melissa, was possibly the closest sibling to Scully. Melissa's beliefs were very new age and accepting, embracing beliefs that even Mulder is a little skeptical of initially. The similarities between Melissa and Monica Reyes go a long way to showing exactly why Scully is so quick to trust Reyes, especially in the season 8 episode "Existence". I'll go into this more when I look at Reyes separately. Scully's final sibling, Charles, is a non-event, only appearing directly in flashback. I just wanted to cover my arse here by mentioning him. The main thing to be taken from Scully's family and childhood is how safe she was. She was raised in a close community, with a loving family who never had any real troubles and with a father and elder brother always willing to protect her. Compare and contrast to Mulder. Mulder lost his only sibling at a young age, which basically tore his family apart, and exposed him to the cruelties of the world. I think this is the main reason Scully has faith and science and Mulder has paranoia and the supernatural.
Pre-1994: Scully trained as a doctor, but decided top join the FBI instead of practicing medicine. Immediately prior to here appointment on the X-Files, Scully was an instructor at the FBI academy. Scully was appointed to work with Mulder so as to apply scientific reasoning to his theories and to report upon them.
Personality: As with Mulder, I think I'll just take three important elements of Scully's personality and give them a quick analysis.
I find Scully's faith is one of the most fascinating parts of her personality. Where Mulder has his famous UFO poster, Scully has her gold crucifix, given to her by her mother. Scully, being both a scientist and a believer has a great deal of difficulty taking Mulder's theories as fact. What I initially felt was an inconsistency, Scully believing in God without proof, but demanding it for any of Mulder theories, is actually not poor writing. It instead shows how Scully represents the normal. She is meant to be the average American, faithful but intelligent and able to distinguish fact from fiction. Most importantly, she is used to the world as we know it. In the world of the X-Files, often I find myself staring at the screen thinking "But you've seen so much! Why can you not believe that Mulder is right?!" The truth is that the world to pre-X-Files Scully was black and white, set up the same way the world as we know it is understood. Scully can't easily believe in aliens or other supernatural phenomena because it's not the world she can accept. God? Yes, because that is something she grew up with. Honestly, I think the idea of Scully having faith is more important to how her character developed than her skepticism, but I'll cover it too.
OK, Scully's skepticism can be broken up into three distinct and completely made up be me right now phases. Firstly, we have season 1, or "There has to be a scientific explanation". I'm not saying this phrase or phase goes away completely, but during Scully's initial forays into the odd with Mulder show exactly how Scully thinks. She isn't unbelievably unbelieving, but leans much further towards the logical and real. Secondly, seasons 2-7, or "But I need proof, Mulder!". In a nutshell, Scully has seen things that she can't explain away and is more accepting of what Mulder says, but is still unwilling to take every one of his ideas as absolute fact. Finally, there are seasons 8 & 9, or "Damn it, Doggett, I'm not making this up!". In this period, there is a complete role reversal. Scully becomes the believer, desperately trying to convince the skeptical, specifically Agent Doggett. This shows just how far Scully has come and how convincing Mulder has been. There isn't much to say on this topic, as it doesn't really need any interpretation. It's evident and the show is hardly in need of analysis for this to be evident.
I think the third most striking aspect of Scully's personality is her incorruptible loyalty. This loyalty is obviously bestowed upon Mulder, but occasionally it is shown how strong Scully becomes when she is protecting those she loves and trusts or protecting those wishes. I've already mentioned it before, but the episode "Dreamland" is a great example. When Mulder, the driving force behind the X-Files investigations, has sleeping with secretaries and playing Tiger Woods' golf on his computer become his highest priorities, Scully is torn between the history of herself and Mulder and the fact Mulder is being a dick, which I think is an aspect not explored nearly enough. Her unmovable faith in her former partner in the episode "Lazarus" demonstrates that Scully is loyal to almost everyone she has ever held dear to her.
Motives: Scully's motives are nowhere near as clear as Mulder. Whereas Mulder is driven by his belief, Scully is ultimately just dragged along. This changes in seasons 8 & 9, where her motives become much more about protecting herself and her family, although protecting Mulder is always present in her mind. I can't say as much about this as Mulder, but Scully has much more an urge for "justice" than Mulder, an urge to catch the bad guy and close the case rather than working out the science of everything.
In conclusion, despite being driven as an investigator, Scully is very careful about who she surrounds herself with, as she is willing to trust everyone she knows with her life. In "The Blessing Way", when Scully believes Skinner is attempting to kill her, the fact that she cannot comprehend this is really clear.
Feedback welcome.
H. Rourke
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