Ye gods, what a long, agonizing wait! Did they have to move the Island so many months into the future in the real world, too? (I know, I know..bitch bitch, moan moan.)
But the wait is over at long last, and we have a whole new smorgasbord of Little Things™ for me to look at for you. Also, watch this space for fun new stuff from me. I’ll help you look all stylin’ in your very own DHARMA Jumpsuit, for example.
But let’s get on to the nitpickery, shall we? Fair warning, though…this is going to be a double-length post (if not more!). Ready? OK. Let’s start with “Because You Left.”
Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey
I know this isn’t a “little thing,” but bear with me because it actually does tie into my precious theme. In the grand tradition of Lost’s many recontextualizations (Is that a word? It is now!) of “past” events, we now officially have not one, not two, but three entirely separate ways in which the audience needs to keep track of time in the story…
1. Objective time. What date is it in the real world?
2. Subjective time. Where in a given character’s personal timeline are we seeing them?
3. Even more subjective time. Are certain characters engaging in Slaughterhouse-Five/”The Constant”-style consciousness-hopping along their personal timeline in a given on-screen moment? (Well, maybe this is sort of a “2a,” but still…)
So, for example, where along Locke’s personal timeline is he when he fells a mysterious (to us) army-looking guy in the jungle, saving Sawyer and Juliet? (Oh, dear…that was “The Lie”…I must have time-skipped!) Where was Richard Alpert along his (and Locke’s) personal timeline when he handed 11/04 Locke the dossier on Anthony Cooper and his relationship with one James “Sawyer” Ford? Hell, where is Alpert along his personal timeline any of the times we’ve seen him looking so decidedly ageless? Do I even need to mention the always plan-ful Ben? Didn’t think so.
We’re going to have to be watching very carefully for clues in the environment for objective time and in anachronistic-seeming knowledge or reactions on the part of our characters when gauging subjective or “even more subjective” time. We’re also going to have to go back and re-watch pretty much everything again under this new lens for clues left in seasons past.
I can honestly say that not since Primer or Futurama: Bender’s Big Score have I seen a time-skein quite so deliciously tangled. Why, you’d need a Doctor to sort it all out! Luckily, our involuntary chrononauts happen to have just such a man with them in the person of action-physicist Daniel Faraday. More on him in a minute, though. First…
This is mutiny, Mr. Christian!
This little thing comes right out of the delightful opening sequence. When Pierre Chang (he of the many candle-related pseudonyms) was handed the x-ray/MRI/sonogram/whatever showing the frozen donkey wheel in a chamber behind the Wall of DHARMA Work Man Death™ on the site of The Orchid’s construction. OK, yes, we knew it was there and we knew that at least the higher-ups at DHARMA knew it was there, but this scene crystalized a thought that had been brewing in my head for quite some time.
Namely, how is it that both DHARMA and the Others/Hostiles knew about the wheel and the temporal mechanism it controls? Clearly, DHARMA knew exactly where to build the Orchid station and why. Equally clearly, this knowledge was not known by everyone in the DHARMA Initiative…why else give it the cover of a botanical station? It’s not like they were fooling the Hostiles. They already knew. The only people they could have been fooling at the time were DHARMA personnel who for some reason didn’t have “need to know” or any unexpected and unwanted visitors to the Island.
To me, this smacks of Widmore and his need to control. I’m going to go way out on a limb here and say that Widmore is a lot older than he seems. My current working theory is that the men we know as Charles Widmore and Alvar Hanso were on board on the Black Rock at the time it ended up in the middle of the Island, and that Alvar is in reality Captain Magnus Hanso and Widmore the mysterious First Mate whose ledger was later bought by Widmore at auction (thus reclaiming his own possession).
Furthermore, I posit that Widmore, Hanso, Alpert, and others joined and lived with the rest of the “indigenous” population (castaways all from various points in history, no doubt) of the Island, becoming privy to its secrets, before eventually falling out into a civil war of sorts. I expect they were defeated and banished (probably by means of a turn of the wheel) by the group we would eventually come to know as The Hostiles or The Others, led by Alpert and whoever was the predecessor to Ben Linus…probably Jacob. And that’s the grand chess game into which our poor survivors crashed thanks to dear, “special” Desmond failing to press the button in time on that fateful day.
Whew! That’s a lot from a scan printout, isn’t it? I’m full of those right now, actually.
Buh-ba-ba-bapa, buh-ba-ba-bapa…I wanna be sedated
Next up, the tranq darts in the guns of the men who lurked in the “safehouse” waiting for Sayid. Why not regular, deadly bullets instead of drug-induced stupor?
To me, this indicates that they’re working for Ben rather than Widmore. Ben’s the one who wants to ensure that all the Lostaways make it back to the Island, while Widmore’s the one whose men Sayid was rubbing out in Ben’s service for about two years.
Now, some of you may be thinking that Widmore would conceivably want Sayid alive as a bargaining chip with Ben or because of the importance of the Oceanic Six to the Island, but I don’t find myself swayed by that logic. If Widmore were going to send men after Sayid at all, I expect it would be to kill him in order to destroy Ben’s plans. Otherwise, a man with Widmore’s resources would have already known that Sayid was no longer Ben’s bag-man and would have just as soon let someone as resourceful as Sayid lead Ben in a merry chase rather than try to hold onto Sayid himself.
Hell, Widmore may very well have been the one to finally convert Sayid from Ben’s service. Or, perhaps, as I have theorized since “The Shape of Things to Come,” Sayid did Widmore a solid by refusing to kill Widmore’s daughter, Penny, preventing Ben’s revenge for Alex from being carried out. Though I suspect that had to do with Sayid’s affection for Desmond (his comrade) and Penny (his rescuer at sea) rather than any consideration for Widmore himself.
Destiny’s calling collect…will you accept the charges?
Every recapper I’ve read so far seems to think that the lawyers who turned up on Kate’s doorstep can only have been the catspaws of either Ben or Widmore. But I don’t think that either is actually the case. No…it was the timing of a subsequent, unexpected phone call in “The Lie” which gives away the mysterious client: Sun.
After all, is it even possibly coincidence that, all of a sudden and out of the blue, Sun reaches out and touches Kate almost immediately after she goes on the lam with Aaron? Not bloody likely.
Sun knew exactly the response that that sending Dewey, Cheatham & Howe to Kate’s doorstep would provoke, and that Kate would seek the safe harbor of any familiar port in a storm as provided by her friend and co-conspirator.
And why? Revenge, pure and simple. Kate told Sun that she would go back to get Jin and never did. So please disregard any soothing words spoken by Sun to the contrary. No, it’s just that her revenge doesn’t stop with Kate. It has a distinct hierarchy and Kate is at the lowest level, followed in ascending order by Jack for insisting on getting them off the Island and therefore putting Jin in a position to be blown up, and Ben for being the point of origin of the bomb itself.
Our own version of Lady Vengeance has become something of a badass, and I have to say I’m rather liking it. I just hope she finds her way onto the side of the angels because of finding Jin still alive, which I’m both hoping and thinking will happen before too long. I’d lay odds that he managed to hop overboard from the freighter before it blowed up real good, and either managed to swim into “the radius” described by Faraday or get picked up some other way since he didn’t end up on the Zodiac raft with dear old Dan.
With a bit of a mind-flip, you’re into the time-slip…and nothing can ever be the same
All of which brings us right back to Faraday and to Desmond. Two of Lost’s many, rich literary allusions come into play with Dan and Des: Slaughterhouse-Five and the works of Charles Dickens. I’ll tell you how Dickens figures in when we get properly into “The Lie,” but for now, let’s stick with the Vonnegut.
“Flashes Before Your Eyes” and “The Constant” had established Desmond as being not just Lost’s Odysseus, but also its Billy Pilgrim. But now, Faraday’s trying to make him more of the anti-Billy Pilgrim.
First, he spins an eerily familiar version of how little time travelers can affect the course of events—one of which the Tralfamadorians would no doubt approve—but then he turns right around and tells us that our very own Desmond is the lone exception to this fact, providing us with proof in the form of altering Des’ own memories retroactively so that future-Des would know to track down Faraday’s unnamed mother at Oxford.
OK…now on to “The Lie” because I’m just about to do something in my pants if I don’t get on to this next bit.
I’ve read everything Mr. Charles Dickens has ever written…every wonderful word
Charles Dickens just loved himself a great big coincidence. And that’s one of the two biggest reasons I’ve come to what I imagine to be the same conclusion as most of the rest of you, which is that Mrs. Hawking is Faraday’s mum in Oxford. The second reason is that they’re the only two characters on the show known to be named specifically for famous scientists (for the record, Minkowski’s namesake was a mathematician).
I realize that sounds like much flimsier evidence than the in-show manipulations of Desmond’s timeline in “Flashes Before Your Eyes” and her obvious work in “The Lie” to locate the Island and otherwise analyze the interconnectedness of all things, but hear me out.
Those are certainly strong points. Clearly, Mrs. Hawking (and her catspaw, Brother Campbell) was making sure to put Desmond on the Island and into the Swan to push the button, turn the fail-safe key, etc. And, yes, that can obviously include his conversation with Daniel in the past during his stint as the Swan’s sole caretaker.
But literary references on Lost are important. They wouldn’t have made Desmond such a big Dickens fan, as evinced in the quote above, for no good reason. Darlton knew full well that Desmond’s path would be strewn with coincidences of Dickensian proportions, and one of Dickens’ favorite coincidences was to have just about everyone in a given novel somehow end up related to everyone else. Anyone ever forced to slog through Great Expectations as a frosh in high school is actively repressing this fact!
And that, more than anything else, is why I don’t think they’re pulling a fast one on us and just leading us to think that Hawking is Faraday’s mother before pulling a bait and switch. Don’t forget that some of the people who watch Lost aren’t as eagle-eyed or obsessed as those of us who read (or, um, write for…*looks around all innocent*) blogs like this one. They’re the ones who actually needed to see that Virgin Mary statue to be reminded of just which plane it was that Locke saw crashing in “Because You Left.” They’re the ones who’ll actually be gobsmacked by that reveal.
That said, I still think it’s very cool even if not surprising to most of us anymore, and has the effect of casting Faraday’s participation in the mission of the doomed ship, Kahana, in a whole new light. I suspect I’m inordinately proud of my reasoning on this one given that it ties back to my college major (comp. lit.), unlike most other things in my life. We’ll just have to see if I’m right.
(Author’s note: This got published before I meant it to…so, there was a bit more. I wasn’t done yet!)
…they always wore red shirts. And they always got killed.
Pardon this aside…I know it’s a truly little thing, but I have to say that I really love the fact that so many meatsocks on Lost have been killed while wearing a red shirt. And now its was poor Frogurt’s turn to suffer this deeply ironic fate. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, either. And, yes, it was perhaps a little trite that he’d just made a snarky remark about fire before being hit with a flaming arrow, but it still drew a chuckle out of me anyway.
Let us take a moment of silence for all of Lost’s redshirts, past, present, and future.
Right. Done. On to more important things…
Smooooooke on the waaaater, and fire in the sky!
So, like I was saying earlier, I have to ask whether the version of Locke we saw saving Juliet and Sawyer from the roughly mid-20th-Century vintage Army men after the rain of fire-arrows (presumably from the Hostiles) is the same Locke who’d just been shot by Ethan in the previous episode or a more clue-ful Locke who’d undergone a few more time-skips. Why? Well, mainly because he was certainly looking a lot more like the swaggering, boar-hunting Locke of old than the confused Locke who got a compass, some deadpan snark, and a rushed explanation from Alpert shortly before (or at least “shortly” before in subjective time from the main group of Lostaways’ point of view, anyway).
Also, we’d just had in that encounter with Alpert a sterling example of a character who was clearly a hop or three ahead of the Locke he found by the Beechcraft with a bullet in his leg.
The threads of this skein are crossing over one another repeatedly now, and I can only imagine that before even a single full Season 5 script was finished by Darlton & crew that they relentlessly mapped out those crossings and which iterations of which characters were meeting when.
Of course, the age of the uniforms and guns should incline us to believe that there have been repeated armed conflicts over the “ownership” of the Island. I count at least four now (though we only have direct on-screen evidence for only three of them)…
1. My hypothetical Widmore/Hanso vs. Alpert/Jacob battle (but I’m telling you, something like this has to have happened!)
2. The Hostiles and these soldier-boys sometime between 1936 & 1963, when their gear was current
3. The Hostiles vs. The DHARMA Initiative in the ’80s
4. The Others vs. Widmore’s mercs in 2004
There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.
Moments of silence in the face of a perfectly valid question are often very informative in Lost. And even by this show’s standards, few people are as eloquent in their evasions and non-answers as Ben Linus. And ol’ Ben dropped a doozy of a non-answer in “The Lie.”
The moment was when Jack asked Ben why he needed to keep Locke”safe” when the man was a corpse, and Ben simply moved along toward his butcher friend, Jill, while letting that one hand out there in the air.
And in that moment, I feel more convinced of ever of a theory I developed about 0.1 microseconds after seeing that it was in fact Locke in the box at the end of “There’s No Place Like Home.” I’m betting more than a few of you share this particular theory, too.
Simply put, I think that Lost’s resident miracle man is being set up for the absolute sine qua non of miracles: Resurrection.
Everything about Locke’s story points to this. He miraculously survived as a preemie at a time that was all but unheard-of. He survived his fall from eight stories up. He got up and walked after being in a wheelchair for years and being in a plane crash. He survived being shot in the gut by dint of the fact that his father had conned him out of the kidney that should have been there, ensuring his death had it remained in place. He saw and heard Jacob.
Further, from a literary standpoint, fellow DocArzt blogger MerlboroMan has made a very strong case for Locke being the Island’s version of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero With 1,000 Faces,” and a return from the underworld or death is an absolute necessity to the Western monomyth. (e of Long Live Locke is gonna plotz…and I think I will, too, since Locke has always been a big fave of mine!)
So, mark my words. Locke won’t stay dead for too long. Sometime in Season 6, he’s going to go all Gandalf the Sparkly White on us.
And, to close out this monster of a post…
Tiiiiiime is on my siiiide, yes it is!
OK, maybe not. 70 hours to spring Hurley and gather the whole Oceanic Six? Woof! That’s a tight schedule even for an International Man of Mystery™ like our Ben.
But at least we have a definitive answer as to who Mrs. Hawking is working for (or at least as definitive as an answer gets on this show). I also think we have an answer about at least a small part of the DHARMA Initiative’s off-Island infrastructure. I’ll lay dollars to donuts that the facility in which Ben met Hawking was the mysterious DHARMA station with the lighthouse-themed logo. I suppose it’s only natural that the Others would have taken it upon themselves to staff the off-Island as well as on-Island (or near-Island) stations, but I also have to wonder why whoever was behind DHARMA wouldn’t have taken it back.
It’s purpose, though, is clear…it’s there to keep contact with and, in cases like the “last resort” moving of the Island, to find it again. And, for those of you doubting that an off-Island DHARMA station would have kept its Apple ][-based computer systems, let me assure you that in my day job as a techie, I’ve seen equipment easily that old functioning as dedicated control hardware for mission-critical instruments. It ain’t broke, so there’s no need to fix it.
Now, the big question is whether or not Hawking, and by extension her suspected son, Faraday, are truly working for Ben or are only in an alliance of convenience. We’ll just have to keep watching and following those lovely pendulum chalk-scribblings to find our answer.
I really can’t wait for next week!
(PS: In case anyone was wondering, this is all my personal speculation and is 100% spoiler-free. I could be completely wrong about some or all of it.)
Tags: Because You Left, Looking at the Little Things, the lie, Time
37 Responses to “Looking at the Little Things — 5.01 “Because You Left”/5.02 “The Lie””
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I think I love you for using Doctor Who reference to explain the timelines.
I avoid most of the articles not written by the good DocArtz, but you got the Doctor to get my attention. Well played. XD
I’ll use any excuse to actually get to say, “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey.”
We don’t know the fate of Jin yet….
True…we don’t. That’s why it’s a theory.
What is the black object laying beside Jack in the very first scene of Lost in the pilot episode??? Have the writers addressed this or not?? Sure resembles Ben’s weapon of choice, that he handed to Jack just before surrendering to the freighter folks at the Orchid last season. Any thoughts?
Actually, Ben gave it to Locke and he took it back later when they both were inside The Orchid.
Screencap?
*sighs* I’ve been hearing about this for some time now, but no. A look at the screencap reveals an item much more the size of a large flashlight than Ben’s asp baton. That would never fit into a pocket without looking like Derek Smalls’ foil-wrapped cucumber in his pants in Spinal Tap.
Screencap: http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-3-2.html
Thanks for the correction kunal, I was going off my memory sorry for the bad info. I wish I had a screen cap but whatever the object is, it is there for a reason. It is noticable enough but Jack doesn’t actually acknowledge it.
Good review. I like the reasoning for Hawking being Faraday’s mother. I think these days on TV, everybody expects the bait-and-switch, so the real bait-and-switch is giving the audience what it expects. They did the same thing with Michael on the freighter last year.
Hey, a literature major has to come in handy SOMEtime in life, right? And yeah…they did the same with Michael last year and it was cold. I still get a chill re-watching the scene where Island Apparition Christian curtly says, “You can go now, Michael,” before the freighter’s big boom. Satisfying, but definitely cold.
‘Sides, like I said in the article, I’m sure that some people (probably those who’re more concerned with Jate vs. Skate than with quantum physics…*shakes head*) might still be surprised when Hawking is revealed as Faraday’s mother.
You’re absolutely right about regular folks being surprised. I often forget that most people who watch the show aren’t as crazy as some of us.
However, what I was referring to with Michael was the reveal about him being Ben’s spy. I thought it would be too obvious for him to be the spy, since there was all of that fanfare for him returning to the show, I kept expecting them to bring him back in an unexpected way.
Well, again…most average Lost viewers don’t necessarily follow things like the developments out of ComiCon or Kristin or Ausiello or Doc or Dark, etc etc
(Or, for that matter, even pay particular attention to the names in the credits for any possible spoilers there… >< )
So, to them, Michael was probably a *gasp* moment.
When did Sayid ever have the chance to kill Penny??
Well, we haven’t seen it on-screen, but we haven’t seen the vast majority of Sayid’s time as Ben’s assassin. However, we do know that Sayid was killing for Ben and that Ben wanted Penny dead. What’s more, it’s entirely possible Ben had no idea about Desmond’s place among the Lostaways which would cause Sayid to balk at that order. After the death of Nadia, I think it would have taken a really egregious order from Ben to make Sayid stop fighting that “war,” and ordering him to kill Penny might very well be just such an order.
Trival comments: 1) Why do both Dharma and The Others know about the frozen donkey wheel? Don’t forget Ben was Dharma. 2) And Widmore wants Sayid alive so that Sayid can lead him to Ben. 3) Seemed to me more like Ben was working for Hawking than the other way around. 4) I think you totally nailed the lighthouse Dharma station connection. 5) I thought “Ms. Hawking” was just a nickname — like “Mr. Friendly” – ?? 6) Very interesting discussion on Dickens – I think this has largely been overlooked until now.
Something I’m not clear on — Locke and the others (Juliet, Sawyer, etc.) aren’t skipping concurrently, are they? At the first skip, Locke was being drenched by rain, while the others were in a bright sun-shiney day. Not sure if I’ve seen any discussion on this???
Thanks for a great post!!!
1) Ben was a Work Man. He wouldn’t have learned anything that secret during his time w/ DHARMA. No, it would have had to be the Others who taught him that in the process of making him their leader and taking over the DHARMA facilities.
2) Maybe…but with Sayid having turned against Ben, tranq-ing him probably wouldn’t have been necessary. Hell, he could probably have just had Sun facilitate and Sayid would go willingly. The one person who would actually have to tranq Sayid at that point in the narrative is Ben.
3) I didn’t read it that way. It was the timetable that was inflexible more than anything. Hawking wasn’t ordering Ben to get everyone together in 70 hours…she was telling him that’s when the window would close and there was nothing anyone could do about that. Granted, she had a cold and commanding demeanor, but exacting people like scientists often do. She was still making her calculations on Ben’s behalf to get him back to the Island.
4) Thankee!
5) No. She identified herself by that name to Desmond in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” so it’s at least an alias of hers. “Mr. Friendly” was the name given by the writers to Tom before he was actually named in dialogue…it just stuck with the fans.
6) Thanks again! Obviously, I agree. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in Des’ more obvious similarities to Odysseus or Billy Pilgrim, but Dickens was the first overt literary allusion given with Des by the writers, and I can’t imagine that was a coincidence, despite Dickens’ own penchant for same.
As for Locke and the rest of the Lostaways time-slipping in sync, I’m really not sure and I’m betting that ambiguity is quite intentional on the part of the writers. On the one hand, Locke certainly seems to be wearing the same clothes, but on the other he didn’t move like someone who’d just had a bullet dug out of his leg. All I’m REALLY saying with that observation more than anything else is that we need to be paying very close attention to these kinds of cues now that time travel has started happening on such a massive scale and in such seemingly random fashion.
I’ve never posted before. I do watch the show but my brain doesn’t think as “deeply” as yours do. I’m a stay-at-home mom so the deepest things on my mind are ususally casserole recipes and Spongebob. I have a thought, though. If I’m WAY off-base…be kind.
Here goes: Ben tells Jack that he needs to keep Locke safe. Jack wonders why…”he’s dead, isn’t he?” Ben doesn’t answer. What if Locke is not dead but instead been poisoned by the same spider that bit Nikki and Paolo? The next scene is a scene of Hurley’s dad watching “Expose”…Nikki’s show. Just a thought.
Don’t laugh!!!
I’m not laughing at all. It’s actually not the first time I’ve heard that theory and I can definitely see the basis for it. That said, I don’t think so. Locke’s corpse certainly seems to have been immobile far longer than the 8-12 hours or so that was given as the period of paralysis induced by the Medusa Spider from “Exposé,” and if that were the case, then Ben wouldn’t have had much call to hide him in a meat locker. No, I’m still going with the “miracle” angle where Locke’s concerned.
I am ruminating on Matthew Abaddon’s role in all this.
There is a widespread belief that he works for Widmore or some remnant of Dharma.
He appears to have had a hand in putting Faraday on Widmore’s boat. His much earlier contact with John Locke suggests some connection with the island, itself, or whatever entity or force identified Locke as special or chosen. His more recent contact with Hurley suggests that Abaddon is not connected with the island because he does not know whether “they” are still alive.
I will be disappointed if it turns out that he is only Widmore’s bag man.
Mm…I really think he’s just Widmore’s catspaw. Perhaps an opposite number to Alpert…we’ve already established the Ben/Alpert Dalai Lama/Panchen Lama simile, so perhaps Abaddon is Widmore’s Alpert.
I dont think that Abaddon works for Widmore; I think he works with Mrs Hawking and all the “Others” off the island. I remember back when Darlton was interviewed for season 4 and they said they wanted his name to mean something like “keeper of the abbyss” or something like that. My personal opinion is that In exchange for allowing Widmore’s people to the island, whether by telling them the location mapped out by the dharma station on the mainland, or whatever other way, the agreement was that Widmore allow the Freighter Folk, Daniel, Charlotte, ect. on the island. They were assembled by Abaddon, not Widmore, if my memory serves me accurately.
I think Abbadon knew that Locke was going to get onto the island, and he provoked him into trying his Australian walk-about back when Locke was undergoing physical therapy after his fall from 8 stories. My question is this a time-travelling Abaddon? I think so.
I am a novice theorist and you may all have considered this already but something struck me today when I watched the season 4 finale and I thought I would share it…
I think there is a very strong connection between the need to physically move Locke’s corpse to the island to bring him back to life and the fact that Christian Shepherd’s corpse was physically moved by Jack in the pilot episode and is now alive. This seems to be the way to bring people (or certain gifted people) back to life.
If so, this could remove the coincidence of the plane crash, and instead shed light on the reason for crash, that Jack would carry Christian’s body to the island to be reborn, just as Locke needs now.
They’re thematically similar, yes, but I really think that Locke’s headed for a full-blown resurrection while Christian is more of an Island/Smoke Monster manifestation. Otherwise how could Christian just appear and disappear in places like the freighter, the hospital in LA, and all over the Island?
I also think the similarity is aimed at driving home a point to Jack on the Island’s part. In each case, he’s being the now-dutiful follower who (at least to a degree) wronged a mentor figure, first in Christian and then in Locke, by transporting each man’s corpse to the Island.
“Furthermore, I posit that Widmore, Hanso, Alpert, and others joined and lived with the rest of the “indigenous” population of the Island, becoming privy to its secrets”
Widmore, Hanso, Alpert… VERY appealing theory. Allow me to add another name to that list… Abaddon. Maybe he was originally one of the slaves that ship traded.
Not a bad notion. Abaddon certainly comes across as more of a right-hand man than a rank-and-file.
Right man to who? Oh no, I believe he’s powerful and aware enough to have his own kind of agenda. He wanted to get Locke there in the Island and I doubt tht would be Widmore’s biding. What would Widmore win of having his island taken back from him by a predestined leader? No, Widmore doesn’t seem to be into such subtle schemes. He’s more of the “take a ship full of mercenaries and explosives to find the island and kill your rival” kind of guy. When he does things, he’s pretty blunt about them. Whisky commentary, auction house, showing Desmond his letters and offering him money, getting Sun inside an interrogation room in the airport, caught beating up a guy in camera, not having enough security in his penthouse…. too many examples of a guy who’s all about displays of power meant to intimidate.
No, he’s not the one staging the more intrincate coups… subtly convincing Locke to et to the island… recruiting four unconventional crew meembers (Lapidus, Faraday, Lewis, Straume) with strong connections to the island (and Widmore’s men seemed to not care about them)…. that’s not Widmore. I believe that’s Abaddon. He’s still the more mysterious character, so… meanwhile Ben and Widmore fight their brains off, he might be staging the greatest coup of all.
Yes, Abaddon is working for Widmore. No, I don’t believe that’s the end of the story. I’m sure he has bigger plans that Widmore is not aware of.
[...] both it’s attention to detail and it’s too-crazy-not-to-be-true theories. Check out this site for a great comprehensive account of the two hour LOST premiere. Prepare for your brain to [...]
WOW, you really broke down many confusing things for me.
I like your theories and they are easy to understand for a
“non techie, non sci fi” girl like me. The only way I can
ever fully understand this most confusing show is to read these
blogs, so thank you very much for all your time and effort
And thank YOU for reading what I do with my entirely excessive number of spare mental CPU cycles.
Oh yeah…if anyone was interested in where I got my section-header text from:
“Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey” —Doctor Who, “Blink”
“This is mutiny, Mr. Christian!” —Mutiny on the Bounty
“Buh-ba-ba-bapa, buh-ba-ba-bapa…I wanna be sedated” —The Ramones, “I Wanna Be Sedated”
“Destiny’s calling collect…will you accept the charges?” —The Tick (Don’t remember which episode)
“With a bit of a mind-flip, you’re into the time-slip…and nothing can ever be the same” —Rocky Horror Picture Show, “The Time Warp”
“I’ve read everything Mr. Charles Dickens has ever written…every wonderful word.” —Desmond Hume, Lost, “Live Together, Die Alone”
“…they always wore red shirts. And they always got killed.” Boone Carlyle, Lost, “All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues”
“Smooooooke on the waaaater, and fire in the sky!” —Deep Purple, “Smoke on the Water”
“There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.” —Gertrude Stein
“Tiiiiiime is on my siiiide, yes it is!” —The Rolling Stones, “Time is On My Side”
[...] to poor, unequipped-to-cope Hurley was the difference between objective and subjective time (which I was busy defining way back at the beginning of the season, if you’ll recall). All of which makes me wonder why [...]
Like to watch Stargate Atlantis episodes and also Lost. I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
This is most definitely one of the better posts I have stumbled across on this topic. I would like to know if you have you looked into the other side of the topic of natural health? Personally, I think a solid argument could be made either way, but let me know if you have found more sources on the Internet that back up what you are saying.
Thank you very much for that. I was trying to find a filling stew recipe to help me get through the christmas month, and this looks just what I wanted. I found an entire stew recipes site here too that seems to have lots of good stuff, maybe you can get some more inspiration there. Anyway, thanks again, I will bookmark and read more another time
Hmm is anyone else experiencing problems with the pictures on this blog loading? I’m trying to determine if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog. Any responses would be greatly appreciated.