What Is Christopher In The Umbrella Academy? Where Did He Come From?

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for The Umbrella Academy season 3

Where does Christopher, the Sparrow Academy's resident floating cube, come from in The Umbrella Academy? When the obnoxious Sparrows debuted in the final moments of The Umbrella Academy season 2, they comprised entirely of silhouettes save for Ben Hargreeves and a mysterious levitating cube. In the build-up to season 3's premiere, Netflix introduced this cube as Christopher Hargreeves - the Sparrow Academy's Number Seven, capable of firing powerful psionic blasts. Annoyingly, marketing material revealed absolutely nothing about where Christopher originated from, nor why his physical form resembles an over-sized paperweight.

The Umbrella Academy season 3 has finally landed on Netflix... but isn't generous with Christopher details in the slightest. The Sparrow Academy treats its cube as a regular sibling, and while the Umbrella kids make a few comments about the weirdness of a sentient LEGO brick, there's never any proper discussion over Christopher's nature. The Umbrella Academy deliberately skirts around the issue like the murderous elephant in the room, but a few details can be gleaned. The Umbrella Academy season 3's opening sequence reveals Sir Reginald Hargreeves adopted a full complement of seven children in 1989, meaning Christopher was present from the very start. For obvious reasons, however, we can rule out Christopher being born to a human woman in his current form...

Christopher could be an alien. Because Harlan's outburst accidentally prevented most of the 43 children being born, Sir Reginald might've looked beyond Earth for his Sparrow Academy members. There's nothing in Umbrella Academy lore to suggest his magic jar of lights stayed on one planet, so a sentient cube from an alien land might've been among the 43 chosen mothers. Sparrow Reginald fails to fill the Number Seven spot on Earth, so visits this otherworldly planet and adopts its shiny metallic newborn.

Ben and Sparrow Academy in Umbrella Academy

If not from another planet, Christopher might've been artificially transformed like Luther. Perhaps "Christopher Hargreeves" was originally a regular human child, but suffered an accident during a mission. Rather than lose his precious Number Seven, Sir Reginald transferred Christopher's consciousness into a metal casing, and the child learned to communicate with his siblings via whoops and noises thereafter. Evidence of this theory might come in The Umbrella Academy season 3's premiere, when the camera rushes down through Hargreeves Mansion and shows an old photograph of a young boy hugging another child. Pre-cube Christopher, perhaps?

Where Was Christopher In The Original Umbrella Timeline?

Umbrella Academy Sparrow Christopher cube

Marcus, Fei, Alphonso, Sloane and Jayme evidently weren't selected for Sir Reginald Hargreeves' original Umbrella Academy, but they all existed somewhere within that timeline. Fortunately, those five all possess powers that can be hidden through keeping a low profile. A floating metal cube, on the other hand, might attract attention...

Christopher Hargreeves' whereabouts in The Umbrella Academy's original timeline depend entirely on his backstory. If Sparrow Number Seven was born on an alien planet, that's where he would've stayed during the Umbrella continuity, presumably among his fellow sentient blocks. Without Sir Reginald recruiting him, an alien Christopher never comes to Earth. If Number Seven was a regular child turned into a cube after a tragic accident, however, his Umbrella timeline counterpart would've very likely stayed human. Without Reginald adopting him, Christopher never gets injured during a mission, and never needs to be cube-ified. Since a strange metallic intelligence would inevitably grab headlines across the entire world, that seems logical.

Though Christopher implodes in The Umbrella Academy season 3, time has once again been shaken up ahead of season 4, with Sir Reginald Hargreeves reshaping the universe to his will. As teased by Ben's surprise appearance in the post-credits scene, deceased Academy members might still be alive in Reggie's remade reality. This would allow Christopher Hargreeves to return in The Umbrella Academy season 4, where the mystery behind his origin can finally be squared-off.

More: The Umbrella Academy's Complete Timeline (& Alternates) Explained

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