Line #3 Fridge/YoungSheldon


1	[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
2	* A number of aspects of Sheldon's childhood are substantially toned down from what he describes in ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''. His father is a much more reasonable and supportive figure, his parents' fights are fairly unremarkable domestic squabbles, and his small town is neither as rural or as backwards as adult Sheldon portrayed. But we also see Sheldon's rather extreme reactions to these fairly minor issues (such as asking if his parents are getting divorced after he hears them arguing). Possibly, his immaturity and sensitivity caused him to exaggerate things in his own mind, causing the clear disparity between his adult recollections and the actual events.
3	** In the Season 1 finale, we discover why. The narrator Sheldon, is NOT the Sheldon from ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' era, but from that show's future. It's an older and apparently much more mature Sheldon who can now perhaps have a better understanding of his family's dynamics.
4	*** Also, in "Family Dynamics and a Red Fiero" the narrator Sheldon blatantly admits that if he ever understood the sacrifices his father made for his family's happiness, he would have been a more compassionate and understanding son. Given that in ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' it took his marriage with Amy to mend his relationship with Georgie (strained when Sheldon left for Europe, leaving Georgie to care for his now widowed mother and orphan sister alone) and the worries about his Nobel to realize how similar George Sr. and him were and how much he taught to him, Future!Sheldon is a Sheldon who learned long ago to appreciate his family more and [[spoiler: as he became a father and a family man himself,]] had a better understanding of how a family should work.
5	*** Not only that, but future!Sheldon has had the HeelFaceTurn caused by the events of the last episode, and has watched Howard and Bernadette, Leonard and Penny, and Missy raise their own children (and possibly Stuart and Denise, and maybe even Raj as well). So he has a broader basis for comparison and understanding of family dynamics than he would've before.
6	*** Sheldon's description of his brother Georgie on ''Big Bang Theory'' is pretty at odds with how Georgie is actually shown here but it makes a lot more sense when Season 5 has Georgie kicking off a series of events that puts the family in pretty bad straits. Sheldon likely latched onto this and it mixed with his already low opinion of his brother at the time to create a much more negative view of Georgie than how he was really like.
7	** Some of it may be intentional UnreliableNarrator on Sheldon's part. For example Billy Sparks is portrayed as a DecompositeCharacter with his bullying of Sheldon passed onto his younger sister. It's possible that Sheldon was embarrassed by being tormented by a little girl, so told his friends that it was Billy instead, as the others were unlikely to be in a position to find out, making the Billy that Sheldon describes in the main show is a CompositeCharacter with Bobbi.
8	*** Speaking of Billy Sparks, he did indeed bully Sheldon in the pilot, calling Sheldon "doofus" and exploiting his fear of chickens. From the next episode onwards, the two are on friendly terms. Seeing as how Sheldon used the techniques he read in ''How to Win Friends and Influence People'' on Billy in the second episode, it's a bit more obvious why Billy's nicer to him now.
9	** Sheldon's easy willingness to lend Penny money in the main series makes sense when you consider that this series reveals the Coopers didn't have much money when Sheldon was a kid. He knows what financial insecurity is like, and now that he's in a more comfortable position, he's glad to help out a friend in a tight spot.
10	** Sheldon's seeming asexuality makes a ''lot'' of sense after seeing both how his first crush thought of him as just a kid, and how Paige messed with him instead of kissing him. That kind of thing would make anyone feel a little reluctant to get involved in relationships again. It also specifically explains why he was so reluctant to call Amy his girlfriend even after they've spent time together and had a date at the end of Season 3/between Season 3 and 4.
11	*** His attitude toward sex would be compounded by his mother's moralizing, his father's cheating, and his brother's sexual escapades putting the family in dire straits. Not only does his mother continually pontificate about the sinfulness of sex outside of marriage; the truth of her words has been demonstrated to Sheldon by his father's and brother's actions. It's only when he comes into contact with the group in ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' that he sees healthy sexual relationships, leading him to loosen up in later seasons.
12	** Older Sheldon's disdain towards religion makes a lot more sense after Pastor Jeff fired his mother and kicked the entire family out of church over Georgie getting Mandy pregnant.
13	** After seeing how obnoxious Constance is to George Sr, a lot of Sheldon's behaviors in the parent show take on a new light. He idolizes Meemaw, imitates her, and would never (at least as a child/young adult) consider that her behavior is unpleasant and only weakens family bonds. He probably thinks of what Constance and George do as friendly bickering rather than being truly hurtful, and so copies that behavior with his own friends.
14	*** For that matter, why does Constance hate George Sr so much? Well, given that he got Mary pregnant out of wedlock, meaning that Mary never got the opportunity to go to school and make more of herself than Constance did.
15	* Georgie is treated as TheUnfavourite in the future by Mary. Considering how he quits school, gets an older woman pregnant after lying to her for months, and has the entire family both ostracized and kicked out of the church, it is understandable how an overly religious woman could hold a grudge over this for years.
16	** It also explains Sheldon's later behavior towards him on ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''. Sheldon's a big Mama's boy, and doesn't like it when bad things happen to her. Seeing that Georgie's actions are the cause of major strife in the home (Mary's job loss, the family being shunned, etc), he probably holds him responsible for all of this. The fact that he walked in on his father cheating on his mother doesn't help either.
17	** Similarly, it also explains why Sheldon didn't speak of his father too flatteringly in the parent show. We know that sooner or later the marital spats will take a turn for the worse, and George will eventually cheat on Mary. And, while he's certainly aware of her flaws and willing to point them out, at the end of the day Sheldon ''adores'' Mary. Furthermore, Sheldon also adores his Meemaw, who never thought George was good enough for her daughter. The messy breakdown of the marriage probably poisoned his view of his father for a long, long time, the affair overshadowing George's good qualities in his memory, ''especially'' if George dies before he gets a chance to properly make up for it or reconcile with Mary. Meanwhile, the narrator version of Sheldon has had lots of CharacterDevelopment, exposure to other people and interpersonal relationships, and enough time to be able to reflect, let go of his grudge, and see his father as the complicated but ultimately decent man he was. Not only that, but he's now a father himself. As any parent can attest, your own parents' actions often make a lot more sense once you've started raising kids.
18	*** He also has more knowledge of the situation than his child self did; witness, for example, his commentary on his mother losing the fetus and George turning down the job offer. Whether through his mom telling him about it or some other way, even aside from his own development and maturity, Sheldon now has a much more nuanced view of his parents' actions and his father's good points than his child self could ever have gotten.
19	** Notably, Sheldon also is not there to see his mother (ahem) befriend Pastor Robb. While Missy sees them holding hands, and (not entirely incorrectly) thinks there's something more there, as does George Sr seeing the two of them smoking together, Sheldon as a child/teenager assumes that his mom is totally blameless, rather then being able to understand that the relationship is already falling apart.
20	* Sheldon is apparently laughed at for suggesting the idea of exoplanets that can support life. They haven't been confirmed to be discovered yet - the first two exoplanets were discovered in 1992.
21	** Exoplanets weren't exactly some fringe weird idea either - just that they had little to no idea how to ''find'' them. The method depicted (the transit method, where they looked at numbers) was of course one of the early methods.
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24	[[AC:FridgeHorror]]
25	* Sheldon in many ways acts ''more'' mature than he did in ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' - meaning that all the lessons he learns about empathy and humility either didn't stick or he ''completely decided to ignore them''.
26	** Speculating a bit here, but it's highly possible that moving to a completely different region of the country and losing his father led to Sheldon (fairly understandably) becoming more closed-off and nasty for a while. This would've made it more difficult for him to make friends, which he was never very good at to begin with. This in turn led to him burying himself in his work and pop culture, which in turn led to him having trouble making friends...a vicious cycle that was only truly interrupted when Leonard and later Penny moved in and began pulling in their friends.
27	* In "A Tornado, A 10-Hour Flight, And A Darn Fine Ring" had Georgie, Mandy, baby Ceecee, Connie, and Dale been at home during the tornado, they could have all been KILLED since their house was destroyed.
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29	[[AC:FridgeLogic]]

Context Fridge / YoungSheldon