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Information About

Dana Scully




  name Dana Scully
  affiliation FBI
  start Pilot
  finish The Truth
  portrayed Gillian Anderson


Dr. Dana Katherine Scully ( February 23 , 1964 -) is a Fictional Character on the Television series '' The X-Files ,'' played by Gillian Anderson . She is an FBI Special Agent and partner on the X-Files with Special Agent Fox Mulder . These two work out of a cramped basement office at FBI Headquarters to investigate unsolved cases labeled "X-Files". In contrast to Fox Mulder's credulous "believer" character, Scully is the Sceptic (a role-reversal of sorts for television characters at the time the X-Files first aired). She is also Catholic , which often creates moral dilemmas for her.

As with Mulder, work takes up a major part of her life, and she rarely dates or spends time with friends. In fact, she is given the nickname ''Mrs. Spooky'' early in the show for her close association with Mulder , and the two are often mistaken for a romantic couple. She usually wears a small Crucifix necklace which was given to her on her thirteenth birthday, and she lives alone in a small apartment (Apt 35, 1419 of an unknown street, in Georgetown , a neighborhood of Washington, DC ).


BIOGRAPHY


Early life and education

Scully was born on February 23, , but while finishing Med School , she was recruited by the FBI, which she accepted, mostly because she felt she could establish herself there. Her father, however, felt strongly against her joining the FBI, and the two became somewhat estranged.


Joining the X-Files

Scully initially worked for the FBI at the Academy in Quantico , teaching classes, a position she returned to on occasion when the normal functioning of the X-Files office was placed on hiatus. The X-Files themselves are unexplained and unsolved cases that were shelved by the FBI for various reasons. Prior to Scully joining the X-Files, Mulder had worked for a short time with another agent, Diana Fowley . She, however, was soon transferred, and for about a year, Mulder was left alone to use the X-Files to pursue his goals. The Syndicate , the dark shadow government that served in ''The X-Files'' as the behind-the-scenes puppet masters, knew of Mulder's consuming drive to reveal the truth about the existence of extraterrestrial life, mostly through high ranking member, The Cigarette Smoking Man , the series main Antagonist . Because Mulder had become too high profile, they could not simply kill him, and so devised a strategy to invalidate his work by using Scully to debunk his investigations into the Paranormal , because she had a great understanding of hard science as well as a naturally skeptical personality. Scully, who although was not directly advised to invalidate Mulder's work, immediately understood why she had been assigned to the X-Files. However, Scully did not follow through as the Syndicate had hoped she would, but observed, as a scientist first, the evidence objectively and honestly. The Syndicate soon dropped this endeavor, and Scully remained part of the X-Files office, providing an intelligent, down to earth, empirical opposite to Mulder's more maverick character. Over the years of working as a team, a deep bond of respect and affection would develop between the two.

During the first season, her father Bill died of a massive Coronary in the critically-acclaimed first season episode '' Beyond The Sea '' (1x13).

In the season 2 episode '' Ascension '' (2x06), Scully is kidnapped by an ex-FBI mental patient named Duane Barry , and gets kidnapped by a military covert operation that were working with the alien conspirators, and is later returned (''One Breath'', 2x08). She later finds out that a super hi-tech microchip was implanted in the back of her neck. After having it removed, she developed Cancer in the fourth season (''Memento Mori'', 4x14). She is hospitalized after her cancer becomes terminal (''Redux'', 5x02). She is saved when Mulder breaks into the Department Of Defense to retrieve another chip to be implanted back into her neck. (It should be mentioned that, at the time, Scully was also undergoing experimental medical treatments and was having a dramatic renewal of her faith.)

After being pronounced infertile, Scully became pregnant in the show's seventh season finale, '' Requiem '' (7x22). The child, named William after his grandfathers (Fox Mulder is presumably the child's father; see the Mulder entry for more information), was born at the end of season 8. It was around this time that Mulder was fired from the FBI by Deputy Director Kersh , and Scully left the field to teach Forensics at Quantico . William was given up for adoption during the ninth season after Scully felt she could no longer provide the safety that William needed. William was a "miracle child", of some importance to the Alien Conspiracy. He demonstrated extraordinary powers, including Telekinesis .

In the 9th and last season, Scully admits that supernatural phenomena can be a valid explanation to some facts, thus changing the radical scientific position that she maintained since the beginning of the series.

As of the end of the series, she and Mulder are currently on the run from the New Syndicate to protect themselves and their son William.


IMMORTALITY


There are hints given throughout the series that Scully may actually be immortal. The earliest known reference to this occurs in Season 3, during the episode '' Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose ''. Mulder and Scully investigate a man ( Clyde Bruckman ) who can predict how people are going to die. When Scully asks Bruckman how she is going to die, he replies, "You don't."

The immortality thread picks up three seasons later in '' Tithonus ''. Scully investigates a man (Alfred Fellig) who takes photographs of dead people. We learn that he also has the ability to predict death. His ability, however, is very different from Bruckman's. Bruckman could predict how people die, but cannot predict when it will occur. Fellig can predict that someone will die soon, but he cannot predict how. Fellig tells Scully that he himself is immortal. Death came for him once and missed; it took someone else instead. At the end of the episode, Scully is shot by her new temporary partner. Before she can die, Fellig asks her to look away (from Death). Scully passes out. When she wakes up, we find that Fellig has died. Mulder suggests that Fellig took her place in death. Death missed her just as it missed Fellig years ago. If that is true, she may be as immortal as he was. Fellig lived to be over 140 years old.


TRIVIA

  • Scully has two children, Emily and William. Emily died at the age of three over the Christmas/New Year's holidays in "Christmas Carol/Emily" and Scully gave her and Mulder's son, William up for adoption in the ninth season episode "William" in order to protect him.


  • Scully is 5'3", has either blue or blue-green eyes, and is at least half Irish .


  • In the episode "Humbug", Scully accepts a bee from Dr. Blockhead and seemingly eats it. After she and Mulder leave, she shows Mulder that she had used a sleight of hand and hands the cricket to Mulder intact. In the scene, Gillian actually did put the cricket in her mouth and chewed it thoroughly, but did not swallow it. A different cricket was used for the later scene.


  • Scully had a small Ouroboros snake Tattooed on the small of her back in Philadelphia in 1997 (''Never Again'', 4x13) but had it removed shortly afterwards still in the same episode for health reasons, the red dye used contained a dangerous parasite (it cannot be seen when she is taken out of the Cryopod in the movie ''The X-Files: Fight The Future'' or when she is chained to a bed in ''Roadrunners'', 8x05). Gillian actually has a small tatoo on her right ankle, which was digitally removed in a scene from the 1998 episode, "Chinga", 5x10.


  • Gillian Anderson actually has several tattoos, one on her right wrist can be seen when she is on her call phone in several episodes, including "Chinga", 5x10



  • Most likely her favorite book is '' Moby Dick ''. Her father used to read to her from the book when she was young, and she came to nickname her father " Ahab " from the book, and in return, he called her " Starbuck ". She later named her Dog " Queequeg ", also after a character from the book (the dog later met an untimely demise in ''Quagmire'' (3x22), eaten by either an Alligator or a Sea Monster ). She also enjoys books by Jose Chung .


  • Scully speaks German (''Unruhe'', 4x04), which she learned in college, and a passing understanding of Greek (''Hollywood A.D.'' 7x18).


  • A surprising number of people have died in her apartment, and she has been kidnapped/taken hostage/abducted an equally surprising number of times.


  • Opposite of their character portrayals in ''The X-Files'', it is reported that Gillian believes in the existence of extraterrestrial life, while David Duchovny does not.


  • Scully also made an appearance with Mulder in the The Springfield Files episode of The Simpsons , and both Gillian and David provided their voices for the episode. In an episode of the ReBoot series, Mulder and Scully were parodied as agents "Fax Modem" and "Data Nully". Gillian provided her voice work for the episode, but David did not.


  • Inside the X-Phile fan community, Scully has developed her own cult following, named OBSSE - The Order of the Blessed Saint Scully, The Enigmatic ("The Enigmatic" part most likely comes from a nickname given to her by Max Fenig).


  • Agent Scully's phone number in the X-Files film is different from the one on the show. It's 555-0113




QUOTES


  • "What I find fantastic is the notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. The answers are there, you just have to know where to look." - ''Pilot'' 1x79


  • Mulder: Unidentified Flying Objects. I think that fits the description pretty well. Tell me I'm crazy.

  • :Scully: Mulder, you're crazy. - ''Deep Throat'' 1x01


  • Mulder: Don't you believe in the next life?

  • :Scully: I'd settle for a life in this one. - ''Shadows'' 1x05


  • Mulder: Whatever tape you found in that VCR, it isn't mine.

  • :Scully: Good, because I put it back in that drawer with all those other videos that aren't yours. - ''Excelsius Dei'' 2x11


  • "I've heard the truth, Mulder. Now what I want are the answers." - ''Paperclip'' 3x02


  • Mulder: I think you better get up here.

  • :Scully: What is it?

:Mulder: It appears that cockroaches are mortally attacking people.
:Scully: I'm not going to ask you if you just said what I think you just said because I know it's what you just said. - ''War of the Coprophages'' 3x12

  • Mulder: Modell psyched the guy out. He put the "whammy" on him.

  • :Scully: Please explain to me the scientific nature of "the whammy." - ''Pusher'' 3x17


  • "Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, just in contradiction to what we know of it" - ''Herrenvolk'' 4x01


  • Mulder: Dana, if um... early in the four years we've been working together... an event occurred that suggested or somebody told you that... we'd been friends together in other lifetimes... always... wouldn't it have changed some of the ways we looked at one another?

  • :Scully: Even if I knew for certain, I wouldn't change a day. Well, maybe that Flukeman thing. - ''The Field Where I Died'' 4x05


  • Priest: Has it occurred to you that maybe this, too, is part of what you were meant to understand?

  • :Scully: You mean, accepting my loss?

:Priest: Can you accept it?
:Scully: Maybe that’s what faith is. - ''All Souls'' 5x17

  • Mulder: He's over here, getting dating advice.

  • :Scully: From who?!

:Mulder: Yours truly.
:Scully: ...the blind leading the blind. - ''The Rain King'' 6x07

  • "The truest truths are what hold us together, and keep us painfully, desperately apart." - ''Trust No1'' 9x08


  • SCULLY: No, I don't see the horns right there. (Snaps on surgical glove)

  • :DET. WHITE: (After looking at Mulder.) I assume you'll call me if you need anything further. (leaves)

:MULDER: (To Scully) If it's no bother, if it's not too big a deal, maybe you can get me a few photographs of that thing which bears absolutely no resemblance to a horned beast.
:SCULLY: Sure, fine. (Snaps on other glove.) Whatever. - ''Syzygy'' 3x13