About "Fedora"

Avilos

Active member
Stoo said:
Ha Ha! Too funny! Herman sits on Fedora.:D
More questions: Does Fedora have a fedora in the novel?
Does he ever realize that Indy is the kid from 1912?

I am curious about this as well!

I have had some ideas about Indy meeting Fedora again. My take would be that Fedora would barely remember Indy. While the Cross of Coronado was very important to Indy, it was just another job to Fedora. The other thing is that Indy would want to know about where the hat came from. Thinking there is a great story behind it. But either Fedora does not remember or its a very mundane story. All of this would **** Indy off of course!!! LOL! Because the Hat is very important to HIM. It would show a contrast between the two.

So maybe "Fedora" does not usually wear a hat like that. Otherwise he would not have given it away.

Of course these are just my ideas!
 

Icybro

Member
I was really curious about Fedora's appearance, so I dug up my copy of Verschwundene Volk. I don't know know German, but I found what I think is Jake's first appearance on page 236. My amateur translation using a variety of online tools:

It was Jake, the Half-Breed! The same man, whom Indy would recognize anywhere, from a long time ago and another place, but in a situation not dissimilar to this one. At the time, Indiana surprised Jake and his cronies while they were looting a grave containing the famous Cross of Coronado. And it was perhaps the first time that Indiana received a taste of what his life would later become.

This man had taught Indy his first major defeat. But it had also changed his life, perhaps more than any other before or after it...

This sounds like Jake might actually be one of Fedora's buddies, the one identified as Half Breed in the Last Crusade credits. Can anybody point to another passage that more clearly identifies Jake as Fedora?

Also, flipping through the pages I wasn't able to find any reference to Herman Mueller. There is a similar character (former scout, whom Indy remembers as a fat kid who couldn't stay on his horse), but he's named Herbert Wozcinski. :confused:
 

Flannery10

New member
Yes, Jake is definetely identified by the following sentence: "It was him, no doubt. The face had aged over the decades but not as much as Indy had expected. It still expressed toughness and a little sympathy, something Indiana only remembered too well. On his head there used to be an old fedora, the same one that had accompanied Indiana on so many adventures from that day on." I think that clearly identifies Jake/Garth as Fedora.

As for Herman, "Das verschwundene Volk" was published in 1991 and back then, the extensive chronology that now exists for the Indiana Jones world hadn't been established, yet. Hohlbein, the author, probably made up Herman's last name, but it is definetely the same person, the description leaves no doubt for that.
 

Icybro

Member
Thanks for hunting down that quote, Flannery! Sounds like Jake is Fedora, end of story . . . I'm not quite as convinced that Herbert is Herman, though. The character is called Herman explicitly in Last Crusade, and by 1991 the young adult novels had established his last name as Mueller.

The similarities sure are hard to dismiss, though. Maybe Hohlbein intended Herbert to be Herman, and the Lucasfilm continuity people dropped the ball.
 

Flannery10

New member
Even though you're right and Herman's name is different, the description really fits with the fat kid from Last Crusade.

Many books that were written and published in America, were not published in Germany (that includes all of the Young Indiana Jones books). I'm not sure if Hohlbein would have had the same resources as the American writers. But even the books written by McGregor, Caidin and McCoy sometimes contradict each other or, more importantly, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. I can't give you any specific lines, but there has been some discussion on this board about when Indy started college, and I remember reading a couple of lines, that made me go: "Wait a minute, that's not right."
 

Darth Vile

New member
This may be fanciful thinking on my part, but I thought I read something official (about the time LC was released) that alluded to the fact that “Fedora” was actually Abner Ravenwood???
 

No Ticket

New member
Darth Vile said:
This may be fanciful thinking on my part, but I thought I read something official (about the time LC was released) that alluded to the fact that ?Fedora? was actually Abner Ravenwood???

I think in early drafts of LC he was "Abner" but they changed it to Fedora and I doubt he is Abner because I am assuming they mean for this random stranger to have been a big influence on Indy.

Think about it... it would be kinda laaame if he dressed just like Abner. It's much cooler his inspiration for the get-up is some grave robber, haha.
 

Violet

Moderator Emeritus
No Ticket said:
I think in early drafts of LC he was "Abner" but they changed it to Fedora and I doubt he is Abner because I am assuming they mean for this random stranger to have been a big influence on Indy.

Think about it... it would be kinda laaame if he dressed just like Abner. It's much cooler his inspiration for the get-up is some grave robber, haha.

And that just makes Marion strange if Abner was Fedora and Indy was dressing like him.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
Anyone ever wondered about "Garth"/Fedora? Probably the most important person Indy ever crossed paths with in his entire life. What do we know of him? Nothing. Yet he was the prototype for Indy. The man Indy would become. A more grizzly, perhaps less cultured version; A guy who perhaps was an alcoholic, who literally had more scars than Indy. A guy who was going on adventures in a much more primitive and much more interesting time than Indy is. Can you imagine cheap, pulpy tales about him set in the Edwardian era? I certainly can.

One wonders - the guys with him, were they his really gang? Or just local hired guys?

Did he ever uncover anything supernatural like Indy?

Did his encounter with Indy mark his own last adventure?

Did they ever cross paths again?
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Mickiana

Well-known member
There are those enigmatic characters in a story that help set the tone and mystery. Fedora is very much a precedent and influence on Indy. Abney must have been too and he is even more enigmatic than Fedora.

Do we want to hear the story behind them, unravel the mystery and hear their tales? Will this lead on to the next layer of characters and influence and we thus have a genealogy of unravelling mysteries...?

Or do we keep the mystery of those formative but less central characters where we found them and give ourselves the indulgence of making up their stories for ourselves?

I don't know the right answer. I love their mystery and want to hear their story, or do I really? Do we reduce everyone to a set of influences in an ever spreading web of relationships? All I know is that these characters became real enough for us to wonder about their lives up until the story we saw on that big screen.
 

Drones33

New member
Better, I think, to enjoy the mystery than be disappointed by a mundane explanation.... ( Midichlorians anyone?)
 

Kamdan

New member
Wasn't this character originally going to be Abner Ravenwood? Always liked the idea that he was Indy's role model for the type of archaeologist he would become later in life, as opposed his book bound father.
 

Major West

Member
Drones33 said:
Better, I think, to enjoy the mystery than be disappointed by a mundane explanation.... ( Midichlorians anyone?)

Agreed.

Actually at the time this film came out I thought this whole opening sequence spoiled the mystery of Indy himself.
 

Udvarnoky

Well-known member
The opening sequence is definitely a bit problematic in that sense. The performance of River Phoenix and the zest of Spielberg's direction rescue it, but the whole business of Indiana Jones obtaining all of his trademarks during a single afternoon is a bit of a groaner under any amount of scrutiny.
 

MuttJones98

Member
I'm wondering, if Fedora instills in Indy the "Fortune and glory" mentality he has in Temple of Doom, then why does the young Indiana Jones Chronicles depict a morally upright Indy who believes artifacts belong in a museum?
 

Dr.Jonesy

Well-known member
I'm wondering, if Fedora instills in Indy the "Fortune and glory" mentality he has in Temple of Doom, then why does the young Indiana Jones Chronicles depict a morally upright Indy who believes artifacts belong in a museum?
I really feel like they tried to kinda...reform Indy, in a way with Last Crusade. They tried to add a nobility to his search for artifacts - rather than it being some form of fulfillment of searching for the unknown and/or trying to make a buck on selling to museums and backroom deals, he was in it for historical protection and preservation.

And even at the end of Temple of Doom, where he supposedly learned that it's wrong to pillage for profit - he dismisses the very idea of artifacts being in museums.

Yet, he's practically a boy-scout throughout the Young Indy series.
 

michael

Well-known member
He's literally a boy scout in TLC's prologue, sandwiched between the two eras of Young Indy.

He's also..... not a boy scout in the series??? Like there's no reference of it at all. Just the TLC prologue, which is probably something Indy would have done and grown out of immediately (based on how much he knew and traveled)

I'm not sure what show they were watching (my guess they didn't?)

If he's talking about the less literal definition....I mean yeah, the whole point of the young Indy show was that he was a naive kid learning along the way. One of the main concepts of the show.
 
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