#2x19 shows his emotional reaction to the devastation of fire but some of the others show his fear more directly

[maschotch]

I'm rewatching the series and for the first time, I'm going in order which means I hit episodes I skipped over before. So, this was the first time I actually watched 2x19 and what is Hotch's deal with fire? Cause he seems close to it in the way that he's close to abuse cases. And Gideon is aware of this because he calls Morgan and makes sure to not tell Hotch that they can't do anything once the place is on fire. Even Lt. Vega knows something is up with Hotch and fire. And it's a shame, but like with most thing Hotch centric, the show underdevelops it. Like I've always skipped the fire episodes, but I'm pretty sure this is a continuing trend, so what's Hotch's deal with fire? Did he lose his mother to a fire? I'm headcanoning that his mother passed away from a fire once he was in the BAU, because Gideon is familiar with Hotch's reactions. (Also I think that his mom remarried and that is the discrepancy between fathers, the abusive one and the one that he talks to Sean about in 1x16, but that's a headcanon as well. It's a shame they never expanded on Hotch's backstory)

a while back i was asked a similar question, but i spent most of the response gathering evidence rather than actually explaining my own headcanon, so i’ll do that here. they explore hotch’s backstory the least out of our core characters, and what little they sprinkle in, all of it is contradictory. hotch’s dad has died three different ways by now (i love your interpretation of his mom remarrying—i’ll definitely have to explore that at some point). as much as that sucks, it allows for a lot of creative freedom for us to play around with when exploring his past.

of all his interactions with fire, he seems most disturbed in 2x19 when he’s watching the woman die in the burn unit, and i’ve always interpreted that as an implication that his mom died in a fire. and every time a building burns in front of him, he tries, with various degrees of success, to run inside and save whoever is in there. my #edgelord #WattPad hc is that his mom was mentally unwell shortly after sean’s birth (either from postpartum, the death of hotch’s father, the mental/emotional turmoil brought on by years of abuse, or a culmination of various factors) and set the house on fire while her children were in it as a sort of mercy kill—saving her sons from a fate worse than death—and that hotch was only able to save baby sean, but not their mother. hotch’s father is either dead or soon dead, but whenever the two hotchner boys are orphans, they get sent to their grandparents, who them send hotch off to boarding school (idk if you’ve watched brothers hotchner, but boarding school is another wrench in the arena to be dealt with)

the reason i think it happened when he was a teenager is because of how visceral his reactions are. if this traumatizing event hit him later in life by the time he joined the bau, i think 1. he wouldn’t have as much direct fear of fire and 2. he would’ve been sliiiightly more open to talking about it with the others. even if he doesn’t talk about his personal life much, he seems more willing to discuss his past relevant to his early days at the bau. i think gideon is simply perceptive enough to recognize that this is an extremely unpleasant subject for him—something hotch was likely much worse at hiding when he first met gideon.

id love to hear more of your thoughts! since the writers didn’t give a shit about giving hotch a cohesive backstory, there are as many backstories for him as there are fans. there’s lots of room for interpretation