Sophie

"Oh my goodness, we're late! If we don't leave right now, we're gonna miss the tea and cookie presentation."

―Sophie to Indiana Jones^[src]

Sophie^[5] was the daughter of Indiana Jones,^[3] the sister of the late Mutt Williams,^[3][6] and the apparent mother of Spike and Lucy.^[3][4]

Biography[]

One day in 1993, Spike and his band were playing music in the garage. This prompted a group of neighbors to complain. They knocked on Jones' door, and he went to the garage to investigate. He pulled the plug, and proceeded to compare Spike's efforts to that of some of his Chicago friends in 1920. By the time Jones was finished, his daughter had joined the group in listening to the story.^[3]

Later that year, she and Jones were due at Lucy's school. However, Jones got caught up in a soap opera while vacuuming, which prompted his daughter to turn off the television. He protested, and she referred to the program as "trash". Although she wished to leave, Jones told her the story of how he participated in the Easter Rebellion in April 1916—relating this back to the issue at hand. After he had finished, he hoped to return to his soap opera, but the program had ended. He and his daughter then went to Lucy's school.^[4]

Behind the scenes[]

A daughter for Indiana Jones was first written into Rosemary Anne Sisson's teleplay for The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episode "Peking, March 1910" (scripted as "China, March 1910") where "A daughter, SOPHIE[,] and SON-IN-LAW in their late forties sit at the head and foot of the table" during Thanksgiving 1991.^[5] In the bookends of the finished episode, a woman wearing an apron follows Jones's granddaughter Caroline into the room with food before taking her place at the foot of the table.^[1]

The episode was filmed as the eleventh of the first season of the television series but broadcaster ABC, unhappy with the show's ratings, took The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles off the air after six episodes to re-evaluate the schedule.^[7] "Peking, March 1910" instead became part of the show's second season,^[8] with the unnamed Sophie character's first appearance becoming a single panel image which included the back of her head for Dark Horse Comics' adaptation of the episode.^[9]

"Old Indy's Daughter" was written into the bookends for "Chicago, May 1920", intended as episode 18.^[10] However, in the US, "Chicago, May 1920" and the preceding "Chicago, April 1920" dropped the initial bookend segments and were edited together to become the feature-length Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues framed by Harrison Ford.^[7][8] Some overseas markets broadcast the original Old Indy segments,^[8] where the filmed episode's end credits list Susan Bigelow as playing the role,^[3] although she's not the original Sophie performer in "Peking, March 1910",^[1] and appears only briefly at the end of the episode,^[3] as the part was cut down from the teleplay where the character is involved in the introductory segment.^[10] Bigelow reprised the role uncredited for "Ireland, April 1916", in which her character is a more substantial element of the framing device.^[4] In the end, "Peking, March 1910" was broadcast after both Bigelow episodes aired.^[8]

During the development of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, screenplays considered giving Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood a 13-year-old daughter. However, Spielberg objected to the idea, finding it too similar to The Lost World: Jurassic Park.^[11] Instead, a son was developed for Indy and Marion. According to Crystal Skull screenwriter David Koepp, the son (Mutt Williams, played by Shia LaBeouf) was developed by Jeff Nathanson and George Lucas.^[12] LaBeouf himself said he would have preferred Indiana Jones had a daughter in the film (who was long-rumored to be played by Natalie Portman, who portrayed Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy) instead of a son.^[13]

Relationship with Indiana Jones[]

The precise relationship Old Indy's daughter had with Mutt Williams is not known, since he was later established in the Indiana Jones canon with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,^[6] then killed off during the Vietnam War before the events of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.^[14]

It is possible that she is Indy's daughter with a woman other than Marion, making her Mutt's half-sister (through Marion's marriage to Indiana Jones, it would make Sophie Marion's stepdaughter). In the bookends for the episode "Vienna, November 1908", Old Indy mentions having multiple children.^[15] While Dial of Destiny indicates that Mutt was his only child,^[14] it does not shut down the possibility of Jones learning about Sophie's existence later on as Mutt himself creates a precedent of Indiana Jones getting a woman pregnant, then first learning about the child's existence decades later.^[6] Neither Old Indy or Sophie makes any mention of her childhood in the bookends, nor indicates that Indiana had been present during it,^[3][4] leaving room for the possibility that Sophie is another Mutt-type situation.

Indiana Jones started being sexually active in 1916^[16] and was shown still being sexually active 22 years later in 1938,^[17] having numerous sexual partners,^{[16][18][19][20][21][17]} before marrying Marion in 1957 (with Indiana having been involved with "a few" women, since Marion had previously exited his life in 1937).^[6] The ending of Dial of Destiny indicates that Indiana is still sexually active by 1969 (though, now limited to his wife of 12 years, Marion), 53 years after he started being sexually active.^[14][16]

The teleplay for "Peking, March 1910" identifies Sophie as being in her late forties, during the events of the episode's bookends,^[5] which is set in 1993. This would suggest Sophie's birth was somewhere in the mid-1940s, a period when Marion Ravenwood was explicitly not part of Indiana's life as established by later sources.^[6]

Appearances[]

• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Peking, March 1910"
• Peking, March 1910 comic (First appearance)
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Ireland, April 1916"
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Chicago, May 1920"

Notes and references[]

External links[]

• Pic of Indy's daughter in TV series? please? - discussion thread at TheRaider.net
• Daughter - discussion thread at TheRaider.net