Personal Canon: G Callen (part 1)
Feb. 16th, 2012 12:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_lucy21Below is the first part of the really long winded personal canon I've been working on for awhile for Callen. It's pretty much just timeline. I've got more to say (which is why this is part 1) but it might be awhile before I get that stuff fleshed out. I'm putting this out here mostly as reference for me, but also because I get a little obsessive about this stuff and heck, it's my LJ and I wanna share :o)
A lot of this is speculation. I think I'm pretty clear on what I speculate and where what I think diverges from what other people have said, but I know there's some overlap and I may not have cited where I got all my ideas (can you tell I used to be a history grad student. Sometimes it really shows). Where I knew an episode that backed up something I said, I generally put in the title, but I think I did not get all of them. Anyway, feel free to ask me to cite my sources.
[Edited 2/23/2012 to add information and correct an assumption]
[Edited 3/31/2012 to correct an assumption in light of new information]
G Callen is an enigma wrapped in a mystery stored in a black hole. And there's a lot that does NOT make sense about what canon is suggesting and some that is starting to make more sense now that we know a few more key details. This is what my personal canon says. It's influenced by conversations with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thefannishwaldo and hagar_972 in particular and probably matches up with their timelines/canon in places, but probably also diverges in places.
It seems to be relatively certain that G was born in 1969. This would match up with him being 14 in 1983 when he lived with the Rostoffs. However, I think it's possible that G doesn't know his exact birthdate and may actually be slightly older or slightly younger- maybe born between 1968 and 1970 (2/23/2012- see edits below). It's pretty clear that he's never seen his birth certificate and it's not uncommon for kids in long term foster care to not have good birth records.
We know now that he was most likely born in Romania and that his mother, Clara (Callen?) was a CIA operative. He has an older sister, Amy, who's apparently now deceased. If we take the date on Hannah Taylor's ID to be Amy Callen's birth date, she was born in 1967 (I think), so she's probably about 2-3 years older than G. Hetty tells G that she has no idea who his father is, that the CIA doesn't know.
Clara is murdered on a beach in Romania. Judging by G's flashbacks, he was there on the beach, probably just a few yards away. That's a pretty key point and one thing that makes a number of discrepancies make more sense. I thought it was somewhat ludicrous that a five year old wouldn't know his name or remember a sister or know about his parents, but a deeply traumatized five year old who's just seen his mother killed and then is somehow brought to from Romania to the United States may be confused and scared enough to suppress that information. Or not understand what he's being asked. It's also possible that G was slightly younger at this point- maybe just 3 or 4- because apparently he's five when Hetty finds him again and he says something about having been in an orphanage prior to the first foster home. That seems to be a discrepancy in math somewhere, because I think we do know what year it was that Clara was killed, because I think Hetty does say what year she went to Romania and that she was off the grid for six years (although right this minute, I don't know what year that was…)
[ETA, 2/23/2012 that I found the clip on the CBS website where Hetty explains what she knows to G, which means I don't have to wait for the Season 3 DVDs. Thank you, CBS. Anyway. Hetty met Clara in 1966, everything was fine for a year, then Clara goes off the grid for 6 years. I'd speculate that she dropped off the radar when she's pregnant with Amy for some reason, which probably gives Amy a birth year of 1968. Therefore, the earliest possible birthday for G is probably November or December of 1968, and that is very, very unlikely. There would have to be an absolute minimum of 10 months between them and that's highly unlikely, because even moms who don't breastfeed (and I think it's pretty likely that Clara would, because would they really have ready access to formula in the late 1960s in Romania? In the US, sure, but I'm thinking it's less likely in Eastern Europe) usually take a couple of months to get their cycle back. Breastfeeding delays it, but it's not exactly a reliable form of birth control. See: "Irish Twins", or kids who are 12-13 months apart. Amy and G could easily fall into this category, although it's also possible they're up to 2 years apart. So, I retract my earlier statement about G possibly being born in 1968 because and say its more likely 1969 or 1970. Reading the 6 years off the grid as starting in 1967, Clara is killed somewhere in 1973, which would make G 4 at the oldest and possibly more likely still 3, depending on the time of the year and G's actual birthdate. This also tallies with Hetty finding him in the orphanage and him entering foster care when he's 5.]
G has no memory of how he got from Romania to the United States and it appears that Hetty either does not know or does not want to tell him. At some point, G and Amy were split up- my guess is that happened either before they even left Romania (Amy apparently was not with G and their mother on the beach for whatever reason) or very shortly after they arrived in the US, given how little G remembers of his sister. Amy was probably somewhere between 6 and 8 when her mother was killed. She apparently died when she was 11 in an accident, so that would be 3-5 years later. Hetty mentions she could never find Amy when she went looking and that is apparently the explanation for why Amy was in an orphanage that whole time and G went into foster care when he was about 5.
G and foster care is a somewhat...odd...thing. 37 foster homes is a weird number. That seems like a lot of shifting around even before you take into consideration that he apparently never had stayed anywhere as long as he stayed with the Rostoffs, and he was only there for three months. Nate mentions when he's looking through the book of addresses that some of the addresses change after just a few days, which either means 1) G was in a lot more than 37 foster homes in a 13 year period, and it's just the 37 that Hetty knows about, 2) someone (i.e., the writers) can't do math (entirely possible) or 3) that same someone doesn't know what they're taking about (most likely). I'm not a social worker and I don't know a whole lot about the foster care system, but something in this entire thing does not pass face validity. That being said, let's go with it because it's the number that's been stated several times.
However, the sheer number of homes, the rapid shifting around, and the fact that if you look closely at when they show the text of the book of addresses you can see that the addresses listed aren't even in the same state, makes me suspect that Hetty was manipulating things in a way that is non-standard for foster care (at least in the way I understand it). Witness protection seems the most likely explanation to me. For the sake of argument, let's just say that G spent his childhood in California and maybe more specifically the LA metro area. That seems to be what the show is implying (crazy address books notwithstanding) and it makes more sense, so I'm going with that.
[ETA 2/23/2012 that![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
keeperofqkeys.livejournal.com makes the argument in the comments that it's entirely possible that G became an emancipated minor when he was 16 or 17 in order to get himself out of foster care. That's an idea that I had also been tossing around in my head but forgot to include here, so I'm glad she(?) mentioned it]
So, from about age five to about age 18, G's a foster kid. What happens next?
[ETA 3/31/2012] My argument about G in the military has been Jossed by "Vengeance". So, yeah, no military, but I still think a traditional 4-year college experience was probably not how G got his education, for the reasons I state below.
I think that [the usual college experience] isn't likely, for several reasons. I have the impression that G is not a college kind of guy- I think he'd get too impatient with the classroom stuff and the dealing with professors and other students. He's clearly smart, but it seems more operational smart- street smart- not book smart. If it's practical, if he can use it, he'll learn it fast and learn it well. If not, then he's not going to put forth the effort. And that kind of attitude doesn't always make for a smooth college experience, particularly when you've already got financial and probably social challenges to deal with. There's a number of ways to get a degree that doesn't necessarily involve going to a 4 year college full time and given these constraints, I imagine G got his degree in a fairly round-about way and without a lot of external support.
I can also see someone pointing out to him early on when he's learning to be an operative that it's helpful to know a little bit about a lot of things and be able to at least fake your way through an intellectual conversation and G picking up a reading habit to be able to do that.
[ETA 2/23/2012 that the comments should be required reading for this section, becausekeeperofqkeys.livejournal.com makes an excellent argument below for G not being a military guy and how it's more likely he's got a degree. I can still see the argument going either way, but I definitely agree that G would see knowledge as power and do everything possible to get as much education as he can regardless of how he gets it.]
After college, I imagine he got recruited by some law enforcement/intelligence agency. I'm undecided about which agency- he seems to have worked for the entire alphabet soup. We do know he was with the DEA in 1999, and Hagar makes the argument that he could have been with the DEA from about 1992 onward to that point, which I can accept. Although, it does depend on when he meets Gibbs, because we know he was in Eastern Europe when he works with Gibbs. I've been assuming he was with NCIS at that point (and then left and came back later), but he could well have been CIA and it was a joint operation. Or with the DEA, seconded off to the CIA. Or with the FBI at some point in there- Fornell knows him, although it's not been stated explicitly that he worked for the FBI. So, somewhere between 1992 and 1999, he starts working for the DEA and gets loaned out to the CIA. It would make sense that after that joint op in Russia, he may have jumped ship to the CIA. We do know he was with the CIA immediately before joining NCIS and it's pretty clear that he joined NCIS around 2006 (he mentions in the first episode that he's known Hetty for three years and we know Hetty recruited him for OSP). We know he's been partnered with Sam since 2007. G has seniority over Sam at NCIS, but probably not much more time in, which makes the 2006 date make sense. I think G's got the higher security clearance, too, given his previous experience.
So, that's the timeline as I've figured it.
A lot of this is speculation. I think I'm pretty clear on what I speculate and where what I think diverges from what other people have said, but I know there's some overlap and I may not have cited where I got all my ideas (can you tell I used to be a history grad student. Sometimes it really shows). Where I knew an episode that backed up something I said, I generally put in the title, but I think I did not get all of them. Anyway, feel free to ask me to cite my sources.
[Edited 2/23/2012 to add information and correct an assumption]
[Edited 3/31/2012 to correct an assumption in light of new information]
G Callen is an enigma wrapped in a mystery stored in a black hole. And there's a lot that does NOT make sense about what canon is suggesting and some that is starting to make more sense now that we know a few more key details. This is what my personal canon says. It's influenced by conversations with
thefannishwaldo and hagar_972 in particular and probably matches up with their timelines/canon in places, but probably also diverges in places. It seems to be relatively certain that G was born in 1969. This would match up with him being 14 in 1983 when he lived with the Rostoffs. However, I think it's possible that G doesn't know his exact birthdate and may actually be slightly older or slightly younger- maybe born between 1968 and 1970 (2/23/2012- see edits below). It's pretty clear that he's never seen his birth certificate and it's not uncommon for kids in long term foster care to not have good birth records.
We know now that he was most likely born in Romania and that his mother, Clara (Callen?) was a CIA operative. He has an older sister, Amy, who's apparently now deceased. If we take the date on Hannah Taylor's ID to be Amy Callen's birth date, she was born in 1967 (I think), so she's probably about 2-3 years older than G. Hetty tells G that she has no idea who his father is, that the CIA doesn't know.
Clara is murdered on a beach in Romania. Judging by G's flashbacks, he was there on the beach, probably just a few yards away. That's a pretty key point and one thing that makes a number of discrepancies make more sense. I thought it was somewhat ludicrous that a five year old wouldn't know his name or remember a sister or know about his parents, but a deeply traumatized five year old who's just seen his mother killed and then is somehow brought to from Romania to the United States may be confused and scared enough to suppress that information. Or not understand what he's being asked. It's also possible that G was slightly younger at this point- maybe just 3 or 4- because apparently he's five when Hetty finds him again and he says something about having been in an orphanage prior to the first foster home. That seems to be a discrepancy in math somewhere, because I think we do know what year it was that Clara was killed, because I think Hetty does say what year she went to Romania and that she was off the grid for six years (although right this minute, I don't know what year that was…)
[ETA, 2/23/2012 that I found the clip on the CBS website where Hetty explains what she knows to G, which means I don't have to wait for the Season 3 DVDs. Thank you, CBS. Anyway. Hetty met Clara in 1966, everything was fine for a year, then Clara goes off the grid for 6 years. I'd speculate that she dropped off the radar when she's pregnant with Amy for some reason, which probably gives Amy a birth year of 1968. Therefore, the earliest possible birthday for G is probably November or December of 1968, and that is very, very unlikely. There would have to be an absolute minimum of 10 months between them and that's highly unlikely, because even moms who don't breastfeed (and I think it's pretty likely that Clara would, because would they really have ready access to formula in the late 1960s in Romania? In the US, sure, but I'm thinking it's less likely in Eastern Europe) usually take a couple of months to get their cycle back. Breastfeeding delays it, but it's not exactly a reliable form of birth control. See: "Irish Twins", or kids who are 12-13 months apart. Amy and G could easily fall into this category, although it's also possible they're up to 2 years apart. So, I retract my earlier statement about G possibly being born in 1968 because and say its more likely 1969 or 1970. Reading the 6 years off the grid as starting in 1967, Clara is killed somewhere in 1973, which would make G 4 at the oldest and possibly more likely still 3, depending on the time of the year and G's actual birthdate. This also tallies with Hetty finding him in the orphanage and him entering foster care when he's 5.]
G has no memory of how he got from Romania to the United States and it appears that Hetty either does not know or does not want to tell him. At some point, G and Amy were split up- my guess is that happened either before they even left Romania (Amy apparently was not with G and their mother on the beach for whatever reason) or very shortly after they arrived in the US, given how little G remembers of his sister. Amy was probably somewhere between 6 and 8 when her mother was killed. She apparently died when she was 11 in an accident, so that would be 3-5 years later. Hetty mentions she could never find Amy when she went looking and that is apparently the explanation for why Amy was in an orphanage that whole time and G went into foster care when he was about 5.
G and foster care is a somewhat...odd...thing. 37 foster homes is a weird number. That seems like a lot of shifting around even before you take into consideration that he apparently never had stayed anywhere as long as he stayed with the Rostoffs, and he was only there for three months. Nate mentions when he's looking through the book of addresses that some of the addresses change after just a few days, which either means 1) G was in a lot more than 37 foster homes in a 13 year period, and it's just the 37 that Hetty knows about, 2) someone (i.e., the writers) can't do math (entirely possible) or 3) that same someone doesn't know what they're taking about (most likely). I'm not a social worker and I don't know a whole lot about the foster care system, but something in this entire thing does not pass face validity. That being said, let's go with it because it's the number that's been stated several times.
However, the sheer number of homes, the rapid shifting around, and the fact that if you look closely at when they show the text of the book of addresses you can see that the addresses listed aren't even in the same state, makes me suspect that Hetty was manipulating things in a way that is non-standard for foster care (at least in the way I understand it). Witness protection seems the most likely explanation to me. For the sake of argument, let's just say that G spent his childhood in California and maybe more specifically the LA metro area. That seems to be what the show is implying (crazy address books notwithstanding) and it makes more sense, so I'm going with that.
[ETA 2/23/2012 that
keeperofqkeys.livejournal.com makes the argument in the comments that it's entirely possible that G became an emancipated minor when he was 16 or 17 in order to get himself out of foster care. That's an idea that I had also been tossing around in my head but forgot to include here, so I'm glad she(?) mentioned it]So, from about age five to about age 18, G's a foster kid. What happens next?
[ETA 3/31/2012] My argument about G in the military has been Jossed by "Vengeance". So, yeah, no military, but I still think a traditional 4-year college experience was probably not how G got his education, for the reasons I state below.
I think that [the usual college experience] isn't likely, for several reasons. I have the impression that G is not a college kind of guy- I think he'd get too impatient with the classroom stuff and the dealing with professors and other students. He's clearly smart, but it seems more operational smart- street smart- not book smart. If it's practical, if he can use it, he'll learn it fast and learn it well. If not, then he's not going to put forth the effort. And that kind of attitude doesn't always make for a smooth college experience, particularly when you've already got financial and probably social challenges to deal with. There's a number of ways to get a degree that doesn't necessarily involve going to a 4 year college full time and given these constraints, I imagine G got his degree in a fairly round-about way and without a lot of external support.
I can also see someone pointing out to him early on when he's learning to be an operative that it's helpful to know a little bit about a lot of things and be able to at least fake your way through an intellectual conversation and G picking up a reading habit to be able to do that.
[ETA 2/23/2012 that the comments should be required reading for this section, because
keeperofqkeys.livejournal.com makes an excellent argument below for G not being a military guy and how it's more likely he's got a degree. I can still see the argument going either way, but I definitely agree that G would see knowledge as power and do everything possible to get as much education as he can regardless of how he gets it.]After college, I imagine he got recruited by some law enforcement/intelligence agency. I'm undecided about which agency- he seems to have worked for the entire alphabet soup. We do know he was with the DEA in 1999, and Hagar makes the argument that he could have been with the DEA from about 1992 onward to that point, which I can accept. Although, it does depend on when he meets Gibbs, because we know he was in Eastern Europe when he works with Gibbs. I've been assuming he was with NCIS at that point (and then left and came back later), but he could well have been CIA and it was a joint operation. Or with the DEA, seconded off to the CIA. Or with the FBI at some point in there- Fornell knows him, although it's not been stated explicitly that he worked for the FBI. So, somewhere between 1992 and 1999, he starts working for the DEA and gets loaned out to the CIA. It would make sense that after that joint op in Russia, he may have jumped ship to the CIA. We do know he was with the CIA immediately before joining NCIS and it's pretty clear that he joined NCIS around 2006 (he mentions in the first episode that he's known Hetty for three years and we know Hetty recruited him for OSP). We know he's been partnered with Sam since 2007. G has seniority over Sam at NCIS, but probably not much more time in, which makes the 2006 date make sense. I think G's got the higher security clearance, too, given his previous experience.
So, that's the timeline as I've figured it.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-22 03:14 am (UTC)I reeeaaaalllly don't see G as being the military type. He has a lot of authority and trust issues that, frankly, if he'd served any time, he wouldn't have. Or he'd have much less of. This is speaking as someone who hasn't ever been in the military, but has lots (and lots) of friends who are active duty. Also, I spent four years at a military college, so I got a lot of those things drilled into my brain. But he just doesn't have the right mannerisms, the right reactions to things. He doesn't react like a soldier. Also, if he did enlist in '87 and served for 5 years, he very likely would have ended up in Iraq during Desert Storm, and he does not have any of those tells. He doesn't think like a part of a whole the way a soldier would.
Also, for him to have gone into intel in the Army, he'd need a copy of his birth certificate to prove that he was a US citizen (per a quick search on requirements for different Army jobs). My facts might be wrong, but I thought at some point it was mentioned he'd seen it, but his birth certificate didn't have more than "G. Callen" on it either. He probably wouldn't be able to enlist, period, if he didn't have a birth certificate, unless he isn't a US citizen in the first place and has a green card, but if that was the case, he'd have known about it (or the naturalization paperwork, which would have told him he wasn't born in the US). Not being a US citizen would have limited his career choices, as well, since you need to be a US citizen to receive a security clearance, which he'd have with any of his various agencies he's worked for. So perhaps growing up he hadn't seen a copy of his birth certificate, but when he left "the system", he'd be given whatever records they had for him (possibly supplemented by Hettie).
I agree that he would want Out of the system ASAP--which to me means he would do his best to get legally emancipated by the age of 16. That requires proving he could support himself, so he probably would have dropped out of high school and gotten the first decently paying job he could find.
And this is the other big divergence--growing up the way he did, he would know that a solid education is the Very Best Defense against getting stuck in the sort of life he definitely doesn't want. Knowledge = power. So yes, he would drop out of high school to support himself, but he would work his butt off to get his GED.
I do agree that he doesn't seem the college type, but there are lots of sideways options here--AP classes, CLEP exams, community college, etc. He'd see a degree as something to be coveted, something that would set him apart and get him above and move him forward. He could survive college if it was a means to an end, and he was also working full time. That would give him all the independence he wanted (whereas the Army... wouldn't.)
And most government positions require a college education. Especially the type of job he's had working for various government agencies. Someone like Gibbs may have been grandfathered in, but he also worked MP while he was in the Marines, which would give him a leg up, plus getting a recommendation from Mike Franks.
His emancipation at age 16 would also put him in foster care for only 11 years, which would average out to one foster home every four months. There's the potential that Hettie didn't count the times he was staying in group homes versus foster homes; there's a very real difference between the two.
So, basically, he's just not the military type, and he'd view an education as a powerful tool. But those are just my two cents'.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-22 04:13 am (UTC)I agree, he's not the military type, although I also know some folks who've been in the military who are also not the military type. Seriously, one guy I know I have a hard time understanding how he could have possibly been a Marine, but he was for a full active duty enlistment. However, I've always felt a little unsure of that part of things. So, I'm willing to accept either argument as valid. I do believe he would understand that knowledge is power and education is important no matter how he got his.
I've also played around with the idea of G getting himself emancipated at 16 and getting a GED, and that works out with some other things I believe to be true about him, as well, that I haven't gotten fully fleshed out yet. So, I definitely agree with you there.
I can't remember if it's ever stated that he's seen his birth certificate or not, but I do know it's not uncommon (maybe perhaps particularly in the state of CA, which is where I've heard of this sort of thing a lot) for foster kids to not have access to their birth certificate or to not have a social security number, etc. So, whatever record he has is probably an after the fact document (which you can get if you don't have access to the original), particularly since I really do think he was not born in the US now. And that record would, of course, not have his name on it, because he doesn't know it.
As for naturalization paperwork, I'm fairly sure he wouldn't need it because his mother was a US citizen. Children born to US citizens on foreign soil are automatically US citizens. They're sometimes also citizens of the country they were born in (that varies from place to place), but they have US citizenship by virtue of their parent(s). Granted, we have no idea how he got to the US, and it may be that the person(s) who brought him and his sister over were unaware that his mother was a US citizen, but I think that's less likely, because otherwise, why would you bring the kids to the States? It's one of those things that's not resolvable until the show decides to give G some more information. At which point, all of us will have more to geek out over :o)