RoundTable Mondays: Aaron Hotchner

[ficdirectory.livejournal.com]

Aaron Hotchner grew up suffering physical abuse at the hands of his workaholic, lawyer father. (Season 1). It's strongly implied that his mother did little to stop the abuse. Hotch has a younger brother named Sean, who is a chef in NYC. Their father survived cancer, but later died of a heart-attack at 47, while Sean was still a child.


Hotch married his high school sweetheart, Haley Brooks, soon after high school, and he worked as a prosecutor for the District Attorney's office. The first case Hotch ever worked with the FBI involved the Boston Reaper, in 1998.

Hotch's son, Jack, was born in 2005. Haley begins to resent all the time Hotch spends at work as early as Season 1. Haley filed for divorce in Season 3. In early Season 4 Hotch suffered acute acoustic trauma and a shrapnel wound to his leg after being too near an explosion. At the end of Season 4, George Foyet (The Reaper) breaks into Hotch's apartment and stabs him 9 times before delivering him to a local hospital, and stealing Haley and Jack's address. Hotch's family is then put into protective custody.

However, in Season 5, The Reaper got to the US Marshall assigned to Hotch's family and tortured him, trying to get him to tell where Haley and Jack were located. He withstood everything that Foyet had, according to fellow agent, Spencer Reid, but The Reaper used the Marshall's cell phone to contact Haley. He posed as someone with Witness Protection and told her that Hotch had been killed and her location had been compromised. Unaware that Hotch was alive, and she was speaking with a killer, Haley lets Foyet in. She gets in contact with Hotch and they have a final conversation. Hotch is able to issue a code to Jack telling him to "work the case", and Jack was able to hide in the house. Haley was (possibly) shot and also stabbed.

Hotch arrived to find her body and fought Foyet to keep him from locating Jack. Hotch ends up beating Foyet to death to keep this from occurring. He takes custody of Jack, and Haley's sister, Jessica, takes care of Jack when Hotch is away on a case.

In Season 6, he is reluctant to allow Erin Strauss to promote fellow FBI teammate Jennifer Jareau, against JJ's will. Hotch promises he will work on getting her back. In her absence, Hotch takes over part of her job as media liaison, despite his busy schedule. When co-worker, Emily Prentiss is threatened by an international criminal, Hotch makes the decision to bring JJ in to help find Emily. When it's clear that she will not be safe, Hotch and JJ fake Emily's death and get her out of the country through covert exfiltration. Though he is quite serious, Hotch takes moments to talk to his team and make sure they are coping with the demands of the job, or to discuss a potentially dangerous moment on the field. He and Derek Morgan often discuss the importance of trust between the team, and encourages Morgan to trust the others on the team. He tells Penelope Garcia that he knows when she has to step out of her comfort zone, it's very difficult for her, but that he would not want her to change herself for the job. He makes sure Reid gets respect despite his young age, and reassures him that he does not have to give answers others want to hear, while he is grieving Emily's loss. He also helps Rossi cope with the loss of his first wife in Season 7.

Prior to Season 7, Hotch was working in Pakistan, but came back in time to reaveal to the team that Emily Prentiss is alive. He tells the team it was his decision and any "issues" should be directed at him, and not fellow conspiritor, JJ. Hotch has also been promoted to Section Chief, because the former (Erin Strauss) was dealing with alcoholism and needed to go into treatment after drinking on the job. In what little free time Hotch has, he goes to Jack's school conferences, tries to help him through issues of potential bullying. We learned recently that Hotch is also an athlete and has been training for a triathlon, during which he meets a woman named Beth. Hotch is concerned initially because he only lost Haley two years ago, and it may be too fast. But the episode ends with Hotch smiling.


What is your favorite Aaron Hotchner episode?

Is there a part of Aaron's life that you wish got more focus?

What is Hotch's most striking character trait?

What is your favorite Hotch scene?

What do you think makes Hotch an integral part of the BAU?

For writers, how do you portray Hotch? Are there aspects of his life that are not on the show that you incorporate into your fiction? Do you stick pretty close to what the show portrays with regard to his character?

For readers, how do you like your Hotch portrayed? Stoic and serious? A family man? Do you prefer him in danger or saving the day?

What do you think makes Hotch tick?

Feel free to add any other thoughts about Hotch's character in this post, but keep it respectful, please. Disagreement is part of life, but don't put another person down to make your point.

Comments

[chreesko.livejournal.com]

What is your favorite Aaron Hotchner episode?
I don't know if it's my favorite, but the one I rewatch most often is Omnivore. I love 100 and Slave of Duty, but those are too unpleasant to see again and again. Omnivore has the Hotch moments I want without the unrelenting pain and unhappy endings. There's still hope, at that point, that it won't all go to hell in a handbasket. Plus, his interactions with Foyet are brilliant, and you can see why and how Foyet developed his Hotch-fixation.

Is there a part of Aaron's life that you wish got more focus?
Not really. I'm pretty happy with how his character has developed over the years, and I think spelling out parts of his backstory in more detail or giving it too much focus would actually ruin it. I guess, if I absolutely had to choose something, I would like to see more Hotch-in-biking shorts scenes. For the story, you understand.

What is your favorite Hotch scene?
My favorite Hotch moment is in Minimal Loss, where he's the only one to keep his headphones on as Cyrus beats Prentiss. Aside from demonstrating his position as team “Mom”, as someone mentioned above (Moms are usually the ones who do take care of the unpleasantness and day-to-day nastiness that children encounter), Hotch said in Revelations that he never puts himself above the team, and you can see that here. As leader, he can't give himself even the small comfort of not listening, because as leader, it's his job to take on that burden. And the one thing Hotch would never do is shirk his duty to the team.

For readers, how do you like your Hotch portrayed? Stoic and serious? A family man? Do you prefer him in danger or saving the day?
In danger, I guess? Except I think that's a lot harder to write well, since it requires getting inside his head and accurately gauging his reactions beyond what we've seen onscreen. As someone who doesn't write very much, it seems like there's a huge wealth of experience and onscreen reactions to draw from when writing Hotch rushing in to save the day, but only a few instances of in-danger!Hotch (and even those have been somewhat cursory). Still waters run deep, but it can be hard to accurately portray that depth when what we see 95% of the time is the calm surface.

As far as calm and serious vs. family man, again, I think family man is one of those things that's hard to do well because it requires going outside of the parameters we see 95% of the time. There are a lot of authors out there who do do it well, but that's more a testament to their talent than anything else. Generally, I'd much rather read a casefile than a fic that could be portraying some generic sitcom family.

(I don't know if I'd call Hotch stoic, though. He's cried onscreen more times than anyone else on the team.)

What do you think makes Hotch tick?
A desire to stop bad guys. And, in cases where bad people have already done bad things, to mete out justice. What the team does is very, very unpleasant, and I think he knows how rare it is to have an ability to take on the badness and absorb it in a way that doesn't destroy you. Hotch deals with the badness so that other people don't have to (we kind of saw it in that scene with Prentiss' beating, too). There have been hints that he had a very nasty childhood. I guess utilizing the tools his upbringing gave him to make the world safer for others by catching serial killers is his way of turning lemons into lemonade.

[ficdirectory.livejournal.com]

We'll have to agree to disagree on Team Mom. I just don't see it. :) And I have to disagree again about Hotch crying more than anyone else on screen. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that Garcia has cried more than anyone else...

[nwjarvis.livejournal.com]

OK, well, let's try this approach...

In general, how would you define a Team Mom? And who, if anyone, in the CM team fits the description?

[ficdirectory.livejournal.com]

I see him as Team Dad, perhaps...not Team Mom. I would define a Team Mom first as a woman. And then as someone who's calm, caring and fiercely protective of their team. If anybody would fit the role of Team Mom, for me, it would be JJ.

[nebula99.livejournal.com]

I disagree that the "Mom" has to be a woman. In my view, Hotch is most definitely the Mom as he takes care of other characters and puts their needs before his own. It was summed up for me when he came to clean the blood off Elle's wall in Fisher King. I don't see "mothering" as something that is exclusively female.

I think that's one of the great aspects of CM - they challenge gender stereotypes in a beautiful and subtle way.

[ficdirectory.livejournal.com]

nebula99, the same arguement could be made for Team Dad with Hotch cleaning the blood off Elle's wall...for me, at least...I think that's a total Dad thing to do. To me, it was similar to fixing something, which dads do a lot :)

And again, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.

[citjara.livejournal.com]

I just deleted a long comment before it posted. Sucks. Well, here we go again...

While I'd agree on Hotch being the team mom, I'm not sure it's necessary to attach a label to him at all, especially if "Team Mom" or "Team Dad" invokes the wrong image within us. For me, there are "Parent-like" qualities in him, and I (gender roles imprinted in me, too), would say there's more Mom than Dad stuff, but really, the qualities he shows are more important than the label.

Characters evolve and change over seven years (THANK GOD!) but that aspect has been a part of Hotch's character from the beginning. Really, the flowers for Garcia were only one piece of the puzzle, also him going to see the burn victim in "Ashes and Dust" was telling (even though Gideon offered to do it). He was the one to hug Reid in Revelations, when Gideon stood back...

I just think he's a very caring man and yes, he does put the team before his family in "In Blood and Name" (to put it simple. I don't think it was as simple, but for the sake of this discussion, we can say it). He certainly is the one who makes sure no one gets lost in the havoc around them (esp. Reid, as he's the youngest team member), he makes sure they're all okay and challenges them about their emotional state at times if they seem to be running the wrong direction, he'll raise a scolding finger if necessary... and they all confide in him. He provides guidance when needed.

What I said about the Mom/Dad Label goes for the Family Label, too, though again, I'm tempted to agree - they are a family, in a way. It just shows in the way they look out for each other, and at least on one occasion, Morgan referred to them as a "kind of family".

[nwjarvis.livejournal.com]

Hotch isn't female, true, but CM is one show where the genderfuck runs rampant...

F'rinstance - Reid tended, especially early on, to fill the "damsel in distress" role you would expect one of the women to be in. Elle, when she broke, didn't curl up and cry; she blew the guy away in cold blood, a hyper-aggressive response you might expect from a male. The rape survivor on the team is male. The card-sharp is female. And so on.

To me, the "Team Mom" is more one who fills the role, not necessarily a female. Lemmie quote some bits from tvtropes.org; they say it pretty well:

"is someone to hold this... bunch... together before they kill each other or wander off into the woods.

Not always the leader in action or adventure, but the leader the team needs in everyday life and practical matters. Quells fights, makes sure everyone cleans behind their ears and eats their greens.

Their absence (be it emotional or physical) will most certainly put the team on edge as their ability to function as, well, a team, comes into jeopardy. Thus these instances serve as a reminder of [Mom's] value when the team grows complacent. And by the way? Villains should NOT threaten or harm [Mom]. Ever. [The] family 'will not be pleased' [TV Tropes code for 'Unstoppable Rage'].

Hotch makes excuses for Gideon's lack of manners. Hotch thinks to wash the blood off Elle's wall. Hotch is the emotional center of the team - you can really tell this more by the way the team acts when he's not there. And in "Scared To Death", when Morgan and Reid are briefly stuck in an elevator, their cries of "Hoooootch!" sure sound a lot like "Mooooooooommm!" Hotch sent Garcia flowers because he didn't think it would occur to Gideon to do so - does that sound more Mom or Dad? (Gideon did send a gift, but Hotch was clearly surprised to hear that.)

Gideon, OTOH, is much more self-centered. He hands out praise so seldom that even an approving nod from him causes them to grin like an idiot. He's always come across to me as the gruff mentor rather than the nurturing type.

So, thanks for listening. If you disagree, that's cool. They have menus in restaurants for a reason. Maybe we just see the roles of Moms and Dads differently.

[chreesko.livejournal.com]

Hotch makes excuses for Gideon's lack of manners. Hotch thinks to wash the blood off Elle's wall. Hotch is the emotional center of the team - you can really tell this more by the way the team acts when he's not there. And in "Scared To Death", when Morgan and Reid are briefly stuck in an elevator, their cries of "Hoooootch!" sure sound a lot like "Mooooooooommm!" Hotch sent Garcia flowers because he didn't think it would occur to Gideon to do so - does that sound more Mom or Dad? (Gideon did send a gift, but Hotch was clearly surprised to hear that.)

So, I do actually see the Hotch-as-Mom thing in the show, but reading that list, Hotch sounds an awful lot like the dad to Gideon's alcoholic mom, especially the making excuses part. Seriously, Gideon is Meg Ryan from that one movie and Hotch is Andy Garcia. OMG. (Following the movie, Hotch is totally an enabler, at least when it comes to Gideon.)

[ficdirectory.livejournal.com]

It's hard to think of anybody on the team as "Dad" or "Mom" because, maybe, to me, it implies that the rest are less mature or knowledgable or capable of taking care of themselves and doing their jobs. Just thinking out loud.

[citjara.livejournal.com]

Not less capable, I'd argue, but less experienced. The younger team members just need more guidance, and this is not to be confused with them being less capable.

This also is directly in proportion to the age/history the character has. His Parent qualities show more often with Reid (and in S6, Seaver) than with Morgan, especially as he matured over the years, or Emily, once she'd been on the team for a while.

[chreesko.livejournal.com]

Is that because you don't see the team members as each filling a “family” role? I go back and forth on whether I do, too, so I get that viewpoint. But for some reason Hotch's role within the team just reminds me of that refrigerator commercial with the kids and dad yelling “Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Honey!” because they can't find anything without her. I don't know.

I wasn't counting Garcia (or rather, to be perfectly honest, I forgot about her). ;) So I guess I'll amend it to say that other than Garcia, then, i.e., among the active field agents, Hotch has cried or almost-cried the most: Omnivore, Nameless, Faceless, 100, Slave of Duty, and The Bittersweet Science. That's a lot of cries.

[ficdirectory.livejournal.com]

No, I definitely don't see the team as actually filling any kind of family roles. I'm really canon-brained. So unless it's stated overtly that Hotch gave birth to the rest of the team, then I cannot reconcile it, LOL. The Team Dad thing is only something I stand by if forced to choose one or the other...

[chreesko.livejournal.com]

lol. I'm dying at the idea of Hotch giving birth to the team. ahahhaaa! He'd be totally emo about it, too, which makes it even funnier.

But! I do love the team dynamics. It's such a great example of how a team should function, with each person filling their role in a way that complements the others. They provide emotional support for each other when needed and stand back when needed. And I think it lessens the import of what they do have – a perfect team, which is really, really rare, despite what TV likes to tell us – to say that if they are that close, then they are automatically a family. As I said, I go back and forth on whether I see them that way or not, but even though it's a viewpoint I can get behind, I actually resent it a little when the show tries to actively push the idea of the team as family on me. (It's the same reason I don't want them to get too much into Hotch's backstory. The writers can be very ham-fisted on occasion; I'd rather they just didn't touch it.) For some of them at least, they already have a family. And that's not the same as “team.”

I genuinely believe that if Hotch had to choose between Jack and Morgan/Prentiss/Rossi/Reid, or if JJ had to choose between Henry and Morgan/Prentiss/Rossi/Reid, or if Morgan had to choose between one of his sisters or JJ/Prentiss/Rossi/Reid, they would choose their actual family member every time. (Of course, being the people they are, and because this is TV, they'd come up with a way to save everyone, so it's a moot point. But still.) That's the way it should be, and that's the way any of the team would want it to be. Would Morgan really expect Hotch to save his life over his son's? Of course not. Those relationships aren't equal. That doesn't make the team less important, it just makes them not family.

[ficdirectory.livejournal.com]

I like these thoughts, chreesko <3

[nwjarvis.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you'd regard it as canon, but in a 2006 interview, Ed Bernero (Seasons 1-6 Showrunner) said, "All good drama, all good shows, are family shows. So at the core of this show, our BAU profiers are a family."

So, not literally, no. But they fulfill the paradigm of a family, just as they function as the Knights of the Round Table.

Oh, and Hotch already DID choose his BAU family over the home family. Which, hmmm, yeah, I'm pretty sure he regrets. Which isn't to say he wouldn't do the same thing again.

[ficdirectory.livejournal.com]

Families are also people who aren't necessarily best friends, but have each other's backs regardless. I see the team as this, if any, kind of family.

[chreesko.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more of a two people hanging off a cliff, which one do I save? scenario. But it's true that Hotch did choose the job over his family before. That was different to me, though, because (a) it wasn't a life-or-death situation and (b) having had someone he loved actually die because of his job (as opposed to just leave him) changed his priorities IMO. The Hotch of today is very different to me than the one of five years ago.

Plus, even when he chose the job over Haley and Jack, he was giving them up; they were never in any physical danger. When they were in danger, he tried to save them until the very last second, and even ran off on his own to do it when the team couldn't keep up with his mental leaps.

But I do think it's mostly a shift in perspective that he has had in the last couple of seasons, since Haley's death. Jack is a bigger part of his life now than he ever was when Haley was alive. For all that I believe he loved his family before Haley was killed, I don't think he valued family in the way he does now.

[citjara.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think it's a bit plain to say he just chose the team over his family. The team was virtually breaking apart with him being transferred, Prentiss leaving the FBI and Gideon vanishing. It was seriously insulting when Haley said the dicision itself was a "no-brainer".

[nannerz2cool.livejournal.com]

Just chiming in on the "Mom" debate...

My hang-up on calling Hotch the "Mom" of the team stems from Season 1, where Hotch & Gideon were often referred to as "Mom & Dad." Yes, Elle calls Gideon "Dad" on at least one occasion, but in my opinion he is much more maternal than Hotch. (And therefore, just because Rossi's there now and more harsh or whatever than Hotch, it doesn't follow that Hotch should be so ambiguous a character that he would be able to switch from "Dad" to "Mom," just due to the fact that his co-worker changed.)

Also, I agree with a comment below saying that JJ seems the team "mom." To me, the "parents" of the team are Hotch and JJ.

[chreesko.livejournal.com]

I just remembered that scene from his birthday party, too, where Haley says that his wife is on the phone.

When I do see them as a family, I cast Hotch as the mom because he's always seemed more protective to me than Gideon (or Rossi), and because he understands the team members better and on a deeper level than Gideon did. Those seem like maternal qualities to me.

JJ actually strikes me as the least maternal. Out of curiosity -- I love reading these different perceptions -- what about her makes her seem like the mom to you?

[nannerz2cool.livejournal.com]

JJ actually strikes me as the least maternal. Out of curiosity -- I love reading these different perceptions -- what about her makes her seem like the mom to you?

Well, JJ does have a few Mom moments - "Boys, behave, or I'll ground you both," sticks out. And I agree, we don't often see her soft side. I think, for me, the Mom/Dad roles are Hotch & JJ because of their relationship with each other. Especially when she was the liason, she and Hotch had a different connection with each other - conferring with each other on cases prior to briefing the team, saying things like "Did you see it?" "Yeah, I think everybody needs to see it." - and especially that just the two of them conspired to exfiltrate Emily and tell everyone else that she had died. It's the two of them making decisions for the team for their well-being, as parents do with children. That's my two cents, anyway. :)

[chreesko.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about the interactions they have that are just between the two of them, though I don't necessarily perceive them as mom-and-dad interactions. I see JJ as Hotch's mini-me, sort of, rather than his other half, like they share a lot of traits rather than having a complementary set of skills. But regardless, I love JJ & Hotch's relationship. There all these little shared things that separate them from the team.

Also, do we know who is doing the case-picking now? Has Hotch re-absorbed that duty from JJ? Garcia might be the one presenting the cases to the team, but I'm certain that she isn't the one picking them. If it is Hotch, that would be another thing that he and JJ share.

[ficdirectory.livejournal.com]

I agree with this, nannerz2cool!

[citjara.livejournal.com]

> I would like to see more Hotch-in-biking shorts scenes. For the story, you understand.

Oh, I understand ;-)

PS: Thanks for a "Good Morning Giggle"!