Sam's Wounds

Hey The Leap Back is ending right now and I just noticed something regarding the wound discussion. Sam probably would take his wounds with him between leaps and then get healed because Al took his wound back to the imaging chamber when they switched back.

Al: *rubbing his head* oooooh
Tina: Al honey, are you ok
Al: Am I ok? I'll tell you about it later when we're in bed
Tina: Oh Al

So Al was still feeling the pain of being hit upside the head by cliffard.
 
Sam Beckett Fan said:
Hey The Leap Back is ending right now and I just noticed something regarding the wound discussion. Sam probably would take his wounds with him between leaps and then get healed because Al took his wound back to the imaging chamber when they switched back.

Al: *rubbing his head* oooooh
Tina: Al honey, are you ok
Al: Am I ok? I'll tell you about it later when we're in bed
Tina: Oh Al

So Al was still feeling the pain of being hit upside the head by cliffard.

Using this same episode as an example, if you look closely, you can see that the skin of Sam's temples are still red from when he had the shock therapy. I never noticed this until I got the DVDs, which are much clearer than an old VHS recording. Guess it's further proof that they are, indeed, Sam's wounds.
 
oh yes, LadyKayoss I remember that, I noticed it even on my bootleg before season four came out, and Dr. Beaks even touched one of them when she was trying to take his pulse. She touched one of the wounds slightly and then he pulled away.
 
asearcher said:
Now...one COULD make an argument (hey, this is fiction...anything is possible) that GFTW decides on a LEAP BY LEAP whether it's spirit/soul or body. That would, of course, make it clear that GFTW really WANTED Sam to have a child with Abigail since GFTW COULD have prevented the ability for it to happen. It would solve a LOT of the concept issues...of course it creates a whole new set of them...but what the hay...this IS just fiction. Great and wonderful fiction but fiction none the less.

I agree with Helen on this; once we started seeing episodes that contradicted the 'it's Sam's body that leaps' statement, I decided that, at least in my mind, the individual circumstances of each Leap dictated whether Sam's body Leaped in (i.e. being able to walk in Nowhere to Run) or whether his soul switched with that of the the host body (giving birth in 8 1/2 Months). I think it adds an interesting spin to things.
 
EmmaCMF said:
or whether his soul switched with that of the the host body (giving birth in 8 1/2 Months). I think it adds an interesting spin to things.

But Sam's soul didn't switch with the leapee in "8½ Months." The baby did not stay behind; it was just Billy Jean's symptoms that merged with Sam's mind which made him think the baby stayed behind.

In fact, what episdoes/examples did we ever actually have that suggested it was Sam's soul that leaped and not his body? "Blind Faith" would be the official confirmation that it's Sam's body that's always been there because he could see. The episodes before that are ambiguous at best.

As to why the wounds on Sam's temples stayed and why Al still felt pain from the blow to his head, it may have something to do with each of them returning to their correct time. Sam's clothes were duplicated from Sam Bederman's hospital clothes, and therefore so were the wounds. Every time Sam leaps, his wounds miraculously disappear, exept for when he returned to the present. He also experienced the "reverse Swiss cheese effect" only when he returned.

And it was the same scenario with Al, who also returned to the present when he was in pain. We should also emphasize that this was never a "normal" leap in the first place. The lightning bolt caused the simul-leap, which caused the overload at the Project, etc. In other words, the leap was a fluke and the regular ground rules of leaping did not apply.
 
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The fact that the doctor could see 'a head of curls trying to get out' would suggest that Sam was in Billie Jean's body; surely the illusion of Billie Jean's aura would not extend to creating the aura of a baby? As Sam doesn't have a birth canal, it would be impossible for him to give birth and for the doctor to see the baby crowning. The baby would be stuck inside his abdominal cavity with no exit. Al said that the baby had disappeared from Billie Jean's womb back in the waiting room; it had to go somewhere. I was merely citing that episode as a possible evidence of Sam's soul leaping into a body in situations that would require it.

In a lot of Leaps, Sam needed his own body to put right what went wrong; In Nowhere to Run, he was able to save Billy because he could swim and support Billy's weight at the same time, something Ron couldn't do (and he was also able to freak out the mean orderly); in The Wrong Stuff, he was able to use the height and weight advantage his body gave him to escape, something that BoBo wouldn't have been able to do.

Off-hand, the only episodes that I can think of that give any proof whatsoever of Sam having to Leap into someone else's body is 8 1/2 Months, for reasons given above, and, uh, not many others, which is where the theory falls down ;) I guess Blood Moon to an extent, with Sam having no reflection at the end would kind of fit into that category; if Sam was only in the aura of a vampire, not the body, there was no reason for him to not be able to see a reflection. So, really, it's kind of a weak argument, but that's the only way I've ever been able to get my head around 8 1/2 Months, which is one of my favourite episodes.

That's the beauty of being a fan - we can follow Don B's lead and apply PCR to come up with whatever reasoning we want to!
 
I agree with Chris Sam was just feeling the symptoms however the baby moved when Sam was about to leap
Al: Ah Sam, there's a slight problem in the waiting room, the baby has disappeared from Billy-Jean's Woom.

This suggests that the baby in a sense "leaped" back just slightly before her mother.

Plus if it were Sam's soul than we might have seen his stomach as bigger but we didn't, only Billy-Jean's reflection showed a stomach.
 
Yeah and now its been made worse because all the novels seems to agree on his soul leaping and the show seems to suggest his body leaping. So it's kind of like the Capulets and the Montegues in a sense if you will lol. :D
 
EmmaCMF said:
The fact that the doctor could see 'a head of curls trying to get out' would suggest that Sam was in Billie Jean's body; surely the illusion of Billie Jean's aura would not extend to creating the aura of a baby?

Not necessarily. As I was explaining earlier in this thread, I believe that both the leapee and Sam's auras are synchronized with their actual bodies across time. For example: In "The Beast Within," Sam leaps into someone with a beard. Sam, obviously, has no beard. So if, for whatever reason, Sam needed to shave the leapee's beard, how would he? Sam has no beard to physically shave off. The leapee in the Waiting Room would have to physically shave his beard off, and his aura in the past would show the beard slowly fading away, accordingly. It would be the same thing for Billy Jean. As she was giving birth in the Waiting Room, the baby's head began to crown. Since her aura in the past is synchronized, the doctor would see the baby's head crowning despite the fact that the baby was actually still in the future. And since the baby had leapt with Billy Jean in the first place, this implies that the baby was still part of Billy Jean, and therefore would be part of her aura until after she gave birth. As for how Lana was able to feel the baby kick by touching Sam's body, I would say that the crisscrossing of emotions/feelings was coming through so intensely that it caused an actual physical movement in Sam's body. (OK, maybe I'm reading into that one too closely!) :lol

EmmaCMF said:
Al said that the baby had disappeared from Billie Jean's womb back in the waiting room; it had to go somewhere.

That's if the baby actually did disappear. Remember: the rest of the staff back at the Project would only see Sam's aura and not Billy Jean's. So they might not be able to know if the baby really disappeared or not. Al would be the only one who could see Billy Jean's aura (by that point in the series he was able to see Sam as himself), and he was in the Imaging Chamber helping Sam. Since it was Ziggy that told Al the baby had disappeared, this must mean one of two things: Billy Jean had already successfully given birth in the Waiting Room; or, the baby leaped back to 1955 before Billy Jean and into Sam's body. Sam himself told Al earlier in the episode that everyone in 1955 only saw the illusion of Billy Jean's physical aura. So that would mean that Sam and Al at least believed that it was always Sam's actual body that did the leaping.

My only explanation is that Billy Jean was in the process of giving birth in the Waiting Room, during which Ziggy sensed that the baby had left her womb, because the baby was leaving the womb. If the baby had physically leaped back and Sam was actually giving birth, the doctor would never be able to see the baby's head crowning! Ziggy never actually said that the baby leaped out and was in Sam's body.

It's either that, or the baby had physically leapt out and temporarily into Sam's body, in which Sam leapt out since he is physically unable to give birth. Billy Jean would leap back in and finish giving birth. But, since I believe it's always Sam's body that leaps, and as Sam obviously has no womb or birth canal, this would be impossible.

EmmaCMF said:
I guess Blood Moon to an extent, with Sam having no reflection at the end would kind of fit into that category; if Sam was only in the aura of a vampire, not the body, there was no reason for him to not be able to see a reflection.

Well, as this was pretty much the cheesiest episode in the series, it suggests that the leapee really was a vampire. So, let's say vampires really exist in the Quantum Leap universe for a second. Sam is simply taking the aura of the leapee, which is actually no aura at all. What's being shown (or not shown) in the reflection is what the leapee's aura would show if he were physically there.

EmmaCMF said:
This is one of those issues that people can never agree on; in my 17 years of QL fandom, the one constant has been debating the body/mind issue, and it's so much fun! ;)

I definitely agree with you that it's a fun debate! I know the whole deal with how Don Bellisario says not to examine this too closely. But one of the things I enjoy most as a fan is to try and make sense out of many of the technical details. I find that Deborah Pratt's episodes seem to pay more attention to the technical details, whereas Bellisario's episodes are more laid-back and are driven by character drama. :D
 
QL Nut said:
Not necessarily. As I was explaining earlier in this thread, I believe that both the leapee and Sam's auras are synchronized with their actual bodies across time. For example: In "The Beast Within," Sam leaps into someone with a beard. Sam, obviously, has no beard. So if, for whatever reason, Sam needed to shave the leapee's beard, how would he? Sam has no beard to physically shave off. The leapee in the Waiting Room would have to physically shave his beard off, and his aura in the past would show the beard slowly fading away, accordingly. It would be the same thing for Billy Jean. As she was giving birth in the Waiting Room, the baby's head began to crown. Since her aura in the past is synchronized, the doctor would see the baby's head crowning despite the fact that the baby was actually still in the future. And since the baby had leapt with Billy Jean in the first place, this implies that the baby was still part of Billy Jean, and therefore would be part of her aura until after she gave birth. As for how Lana was able to feel the baby kick by touching Sam's body, I would say that the crisscrossing of emotions/feelings was coming through so intensely that it caused an actual physical movement in Sam's body. (OK, maybe I'm reading into that one too closely!) :lol

Actually, that's a beautiful explanation! That sort of thinking can 'gap' the issues between whole body/mind leaping.

Now I just have to go sit in a corner and really think about it.
 
Don's method of writing was always what he called PCR - Post Creative Rationalisation, which I think is a great term for 'Oooooops, forgot that we said we'd never do that'!

Don was being waaaaay too optimistic telling fans not to examine things too closely. That's what fans do!!