A new fringe fan has a silly question....

[anotherfringefan]

Hello everyone!
I´m a female new german fringe fan and before I will ask my question I excuse myself for my bad english. :ninja:
I love the character of Olivia Dunham and I saw all Fringe episodes, too, but there is one thing I don´t understand.
Why is Olivia so emotional? Is the reason for this her past(with her stepfather and her mom)? Or has this to do with the cortexiphan experiments and the other cruel things walter has done with her?:confused0066:

[Albert]

Hello everyone!
I´m a female new german fringe fan and before I will ask my question I excuse myself for my bad english. :ninja:
I love the character of Olivia Dunham and I saw all Fringe episodes, too, but there is one thing I don´t understand.
Why is Olivia so emotional? Is the reason for this her past(with her stepfather and her mom)? Or has this to do with the cortexiphan experiments and the other cruel things walter has done with her?:confused0066:
All of the above. Olivia has has a very difficult life. As a child, she was abused by her step-father. She was also given the experimental drug cortexiphan which has also made her life difficult, and this has made her mind very different from most other people. She also lost the great love of her life, John Scott, in the first season. And these are not the only bad experiences which has made her life difficult. She lost her mother at a young age, 13, which makes her experience very different from Alt-livia who still has her mother. I could go on, but you get the idea. Olivia has had a very difficult life, but she is a VERY strong person, and always tries to do the best that she can with what she has.

The difference between Olivia and Alt-livia are very interesting because Alt-livia has lived a very DIFFERENT life. Alt-livia apparently was not abused by her step-father, and may not even have had the same step-father as far as we know. She was not experimented on as a child, and so she did not have any traumatic experiences of "crossing over" to another strange universe, setting things on fire with her mind, or other things which a child cannot understand. So, we see that Alt-livia is a very happy, very social, smiles and makes lots of jokes with her friends, while Olivia is less happy, less social, and does not smile as much or make many jokes. Olivia is usually very serious, and is almost always focused on how to solve the most recent problem.

[Ophelia's Hamlet]

Hello everyone!
I´m a female new german fringe fan and before I will ask my question I excuse myself for my bad english. :ninja:
I love the character of Olivia Dunham and I saw all Fringe episodes, too, but there is one thing I don´t understand.
Why is Olivia so emotional? Is the reason for this her past(with her stepfather and her mom)? Or has this to do with the cortexiphan experiments and the other cruel things walter has done with her?:confused0066:
Your English is great; don't worry! I agree with Albert that both the Jacksonville trials and the abusive stepfather lead to her emotion, but the Cortexiphan trials have been almost forgotten until she relearned about them as an adult, so that has just started to deeply affect her psychologically. Her abusive stepfather has, on the other hand, impacted her mind for her entire life. Her stepfather has had effect long term, but the Cortexiphan trials are a new blow. Overall, in very different ways, they both inflict a lot of pain.

[emiLIE]

Given all the crap she's been given so far, I think she's handling things pretty damn well.

[Mutsie]

When you go back and watch the first view episodes of Season 01 Olivia told Broyles that her emotions makes her a better agent....

:observer::tiphat:

[anobserver]

Cortexiphan trials have been almost forgotten until she relearned about them as an adult, so that has just started to deeply affect her psychologically.

While I agree with your overall idea, I have to disagree with this particular statement. I think the Cortexiphan trials have always had a huge impact on her psychologically (like her ability to trust others, her relationship with authority figures, her inability to tolerate helplessness, etc.), it's just that she repressed the memories, and so never fully understood some of her issues and probably attributed them to her step father. It's only since discovering what happened that she has begun to understand more about herself and where some of her issues come from.

[Joeyyyy]

I like this TV series very much and i like Olivia Dunham character very much Olivia Dunham (played by Anna Torv and, as a girl, by Ada Berker and Karley Scott Collins) is a young FBI agent assigned to a multi-agency task force of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security called the "Fringe division". She is brought aboard the Fringe division after her boyfriend and fellow agent, John Scott, dies in a Fringe-related case.As the series progresses she comes to learn that, as a child, she was a test subject for Walter's Cortexiphan trials, giving her some weak psycho-kinetic abilities including the ability to cross between the universes. Over the course of the show Olivia develops a romantic relationship with Peter.

[crolmac]

She is herself when she chooses to relax, and the only time she does that is with her family, and especially her niece. Then she is totally funny and happy. I think also she has to be strong in a man's world (fbi), and that demands that she not allow her emotions to show, so guys can take her seriously (sad but very true) It probably is difficult, seeing as she is very empathic, and not necessarily in the fringe kind of sense. Sorry if this doesn't make sense. take care