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laurelwen · 1 year

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Like Minds Analysis: Alex Forbes' Father

As Sally flips through Nigel's notebooks, we only get brief glimpses of the contents. A patient frame by frame examination of these shots does reveal some interesting information. I've already transcribed the passage Sally reads in which Nigel calls Alex an "egocentric megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur" (HERE).

After taking a closer look at the page pertaining to the Order/Brotherhood, where Sally sees Detective McKenzie's name, I found a few details regarding Alex's father. Throughout the film, he is referred to as Dr. Forbes, but his first name is never revealed. The credits themselves only refer to him as "Headmaster" despite giving last names to the other teachers in the movie.

The page featuring the symbol of the Order also contains some notes which seem to be information about other members of the Order and how they are connected to each other, along with a list of their names and what appear to be lines drawn from the name to the entry regarding that man.

McKenzie's name is highlighted because it's the detail that Sally notices, but we can also make out John Colbie's name at the top of the frame.

The most noteworthy of these entries is located on the bottom left side of the frame:

headmaster for seven teen years connected to [illegible name]

There is only one person to whom this could refer: Alex's father. This entry tells us that Dr. Forbes has been headmaster since just before or just after Alex was born (Alex is 17 in the movie), leaving us to speculate about whether he got that job before or after his wife died in childbirth.

If we go one step further, we can see a line connecting that entry to a name. In the frame above, the name isn't visible. However, going back a few frames, we can see a blurry glimpse of the this name as Sally turns the page.

The line from the headmaster entry clearly connects to a name in the bottom middle of the screen, the name at the very top of the list. We cannot make out the last name, but the first name appears to be "Ian".

The first letter of the second name could be an F, and this resemblance is slightly more apparent if you watch the scene as the page flips, but I have found it impossible to get a good shot that registers what the eye sees.

There is enough evidence here for me to conclude that Alex's father is Dr. Ian Forbes and he has been headmaster of the school for Alex's entire life. This supports the idea that Alex never had a home outside of the school and underlines why he makes the comment he does to his father:

Most of my fellow students have a real home away from this hellhole.

He's been living in this environment for the majority of his life, even when he's not in school. Unlike the other boys, he has no outside family home to return to during holidays and vacations. The school IS his entire world, and the dorm room is his only private space. In light of this fact, it is understandable that he would be resentful of Nigel's intrusion into his space (even though Nigel isn't to blame for that decision) and that he is so upset when his father refuses to listen to him.

One other detail to note: both pages are from the same notebook, but the page detailing the Order's members is earlier in the notebook than the page detailing Alex's habits. The fact that Dr. Forbes' name is at the top of the list is odd. Logic might dictate that Nigel would put his father at the top because John Colbie is the head of the Order. Dr. Forbes appearing at the top of the list seems to suggest that Nigel was already interested in and exploring the ways that Alex was connected to him through the history of their bloodlines and the shared history of the Order.

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