Why 16 Children Were Born In Umbrella Academy’s Sparrow Timeline
WARNING: Spoilers ahead for The Umbrella Academy season 3
How come only 16 super-powered children were born in The Umbrella Academy's Sparrow timeline rather than the usual 43? The opening scenes of The Umbrella Academy season 3 deliberately mirror season 1's opening, with a teenage girl spontaneously giving birth in public, Sir Reginald Hargreeves chasing her down, and seven children subsequently adopted as his own. Even the voice-over remains identical… more or less. Whereas the mysterious detached narrator from The Umbrella Academy season 1 uttered the line, "On the twelfth hour of the first day of October 1989, 43 women around the world gave birth," season 3 updates the quote to, "On the twelfth hour of the first day of October 1989, 16 women around the world gave birth."
The Hargreeves siblings' trip to 1963 Dallas changed the future — this much we know. Meeting Sir Reginald in the past prompted the eccentric businessman to adopt entirely different children and replace his Umbrella Academy with the Sparrow Academy, but that shouldn't directly impact how many of the children were actually born — especially such a drastic reduction from 43 to 16.
Related: The Umbrella Academy: Why Five Doesn't Have A Real Name
The answer lies with Harlan Cooper, or Lester Pocket, as he's now known. Viktor believed he'd removed Harlan's accidental powers in The Umbrella Academy season 2's finale, but the transference was a total failure and Harlan has struggled to tame his fearsome abilities ever since. As Harlan describes, his power connects to other super-powered children via vibrations, and is amplified by strong emotions. Few emotions could be stronger than the death of his mother, which strangely occurred on October 1, 1989. When
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