Line #7 Headscratchers/YoungSheldon


1	* Just why does Missy bully Sheldon so much? Why does she want Sheldon to be miserable and lonely all the time? Sheldon hardly even acknowledges her presence and she's always out to get him.
2	** It isn't easy having a sibling who's vastly more intelligent than you, especially when they're an InsufferableGenius to boot. So, she's partly jealous, partly sick of him being such a smug, condescending know-it-all.
3	** She might be jealous that Sheldon is [[ParentalFavoritism mom's favorite]] for all his academic achievements and high profile as a child prodigy. Though all Missy does at home is watch TV, eat candy and be incredibly rude to her family (including Mary) so of course Mary prefers Sheldon over her.
4	** Ever have a sister? If yes.... there's your answer.
5	*** Probably a mix of these. Sheldon's a very demanding kid to look after, and dealing with his needs takes more time than Mary and George spend on Missy and Georgie. They went on a spontaneous road trip for Sheldon. This on top of Sheldon's general attitude. Of course Missy's going to be more inclined to act out, since their parents barely take any notice of her outside the usual routines. She's got to get her digs in against Sheldon when she can, like ratting him out about the Watchmen graphic novel after Mary catches her with a Cosmopolitan.
6	** In addition to all of the above, while Missy does torment Sheldon, she has often shown that she does genuinely love him. When Sheldon is in the hospital she sleeps in his bed because she misses him so much, she finds it hard to sleep when he's not there, and she comforts him when George scolds him for breaking the refrigerator. In contrast, Sheldon is cold and condescending towards her at best which can be chalked up to his AmbiguousDisorder but would also be hard for a kid Missy's age to understand. In short? In Missy's mind, she loves him (even if she won't ever admit it out loud) but Sheldon shows few signs of loving her in response.
7	** I think Missy does understand Sheldon loves her, in his own way. She just accepts that he really, ''really'' sucks at showing it. There are moments (such as dedicating his graduation speech to her and telling her to play good baseball) that he does show he cares. It's just that he's really bad at handling emotions, which Missy seems to understand. She seldom gets upset at him for not expressing his emotions; usually when she gets upset at him, it's either because he was being unintentionally insensitive or else because of him always getting his own way.
8	* If Tam said that the Americans were the "wrong" side of the Vietnam War (which I highly doubt given the oppressive Communist regime of Vietnam is guilty of numerous human rights abuses), why did he run away from Vietnam to live in the United States?
9	** I've just watched this episode; Tam said that the Americans were on the "wrong" side of the war from the point of view of the Vietnam government, which is why Tam's father was sent to a re-education camp. "My father was sent to a re-education camp because they (the government) said he fought on the "wrong side" of the war.". So Tam himself doesn't think this.
10	*** I'm sure Tam ''does'' think this, given that George pointed out "Don't you mean our side?" and then he rudely snaps, "I was being polite!"
11	* Missy told Sheldon, "You only speak one [language]" as a means of bullying him in "A Stunted Childhood". Actually, many episodes shows that Sheldon clearly knows Spanish and he earned 100% on Spanish vocabulary quizzes in elementary school as shown in "A Math Emergency". That means Sheldon knows at least ''two'' languages. Why doesn't he tell Missy off that?
12	** As someone relearning Spanish as a second language, there's a big gap between knowing a language and speaking it. It's one thing to know how to conjugate a verb or which nouns mean what, but actively putting it into practice is trickier than it seems. Sheldon, pedantic as he is, might not want to claim to speak a language he's in the process of learning until he knows it front, back, and sideways.
13	* Why is Sheldon good at acting in Young Sheldon but loses the ability completely in The Big Bang Theory?
14	** The implication is that Older Sheldon would be capable of acting if he'd just take the stick out of his ass long enough. As he aged his ideas about what a certain type of academic (and genius) became more set, and therefore his prejudices solidified. There seems to be a large element of anxiety involved too, as part of the end of that school play episode so the memory of that informs his character too. Most of the problems and character growth achievements Older Sheldon goes through in ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' involve either loosening him up or reframing the situation to suit his worldview.
15	** Same reason his friend didn't attend his wedding - ContinuitySnarl.
16	*** Actually, it's later implied that Sheldon didn't invite Tam due to holding a grudge against him.
17	** As the emotional gap between Sheldon and his peers grows, perhaps he draws himself into pop culture like Star Trek, comic books and video games, as well as his eventual career in physics. By the time we meet him in the Big Bang Theory period, or at least the flashback when he and Leonard first met, his whole world is science and pop culture, and has been living away from his emotional touchstones enough he's not as human as he is in Young Sheldon. Time and time again his anti-social habits and air of superiority alienate people, to the point where he has to be coached to behave in a socially acceptable way. It's a vicious cycle--the more lonely he feels, the more he buries himself in pop culture and physics, which cuts down on his socializing time, which makes him feel more lonely, etc.
18	** The fact that he lost his father may well also have had something to do with it. Grief for losing a parent is hard enough to process as it is for fully mature adults surrounded by strong, loving communities. For a not particularly mature teenager? He would naturally have retreated into pop culture and physics and lashed out at anyone close to him, further feeding into the vicious cycle.
19	* Why does Missy have a lower-pitched voice as a child than she does as an adult?
20	** Missy's voice as an adult is still fairly low pitched for a woman. Though if you want a reason for it, studies have shown that speaking with a higher pitch comes across as being more friendly and appealing. Missy is very much a social butterfly and thrives when she has attention, so she could have subconsciously adopted a higher pitch because of this.
21	** Same reason George Jr. has a higher voice as an adult in ''Big Bang'' than as a teen in ''Young Sheldon'': different actors and they expect the audience to just roll with it.
22	* How come Sheldon dresses like a mini adult/old man as a kid, but as an actual adult he dresses like a teenager at best?
23	** As a child he is dressed mainly according to his mother's tastes, and Mary is ''very'' conservative, that coupled with Sheldon's natural sense of habit and avoidance of the new means he has just not challenged that style. As he gets older he is going to have to go through clothes quicker as he hits his growth spurts, and that will probably coincide with him coming under a different peer group pressure. Sheldon wants to conform, first to his mother, later to the college group. He'll probably adopt a new style which he will again be reluctant to change because he hates change and loves routine.
24	** Also, as a kid he wants to be taken seriously, which is hard for a young genius. As an adult, he can walk into a room with a T-shirt and jeans and still be the smartest person in the room.
25	** Maybe he changes his look as an emotional response to his father's death.
26	** All jossed, he changed fashion in the season five finale as a way of embracing adolescence.
27	* How does Missy not have a Texan accent in this show while having a noticeable one in ''The Big Bang Theory''?
28	** Out-of-universe, they cast an actress who wasn't a native Texan and she probably couldn't put on a convincing fake Texas accent. In-universe, it could have something to do with her spending so much time around Sheldon, who deliberately shed his Texan drawl to sound smarter, leading to Missy adopting a similar way of speaking (people's accents do change based on who they interact with most, especially when they are children). Once Sheldon left the family and Missy wasn't around him on a regular basis, her accent shifted to the one that her remaining family and friends spoke with.
29	* Why wasn't Missy punished in "A Race Of Superhumans And A Letter To ALF" for punching Sheldon? Yes, he was about to destroy her favorite toy, but assaulting your sibling is wrong, too.

Context Headscratchers / YoungSheldon