Minor Miscellaneous Mysteries, Part I

Understanding that five hours remain in which any mystery can be solved, I here present several minor league mysteries. I can live without a response to these, but I say that only because time is scarce and I highly recommend more time being devoted to the marquis mysteries.

For my own part, I would put the 'who are the skeletons in the caves?' question in the 'minor' category as well. If the answer is a side note or a minor consequence of a much wider, greater mythological reveal then I am happy to applaud it. But if not, I think that part of the notoriety attached to this question has simply to do with the length of time they've paid the question forward. After 'the numbers' were addressed, I think the skeletons are the one remaining question, major or minor remaining from Season 1. I just want to be on record that time spent addressing, for instance, the Widmore:Hawking overall goals and revealing what they actually knew, and kept from the audience and other characters, throughout the show is a much better use of time than coming up with a subplot for the sole purpose of explaining the skeletons.

MINOR MYSTERY DOSSIER: QUESTIONS:

1. Season 5: In the hotel room where Jack shaves his beard and Ben flushes his [Jack's] pills down the toilet, Ben makes a point of hiding, and then removing, a box in the ceiling duct. What was in there?

2. Season 5: After 316 lands on Hydra Island, Cesar is rifling through the file cabinets in Ben's old office. One of the documents he finds is clearly a page from Faraday's journal. How and why did the Other's obtain it?

3. Seasons 5 and 6: Why is Ilana in the hospital? What happened to her?

4. Season 5: How did Charlotte know about the well?

5. Seasons 2 and 3: Did Kelvin Inman begin his Swan hatch duties before or after the purge? Was the 'sickness' he warns Des about real?

6. Season 2 (I think): What was the source of the DI food drops?

7. Seasons 4, 5, and 6: Did Jack ever tell Kate (or has she ever discovered through another source) that Claire is his half-sister?

8. Seasons 4-6: How did Miles acquire his 'talents'?

So sad, so true

Sure, MiB kills people, but Jacob is a total bastard

In working out a theory of some possible ramifications of the Incident over at Bigmouth's site I let my propensity to produce overlong comments go daffy. So, here's a repost of that comment in a venue that requires a wee bit less scrolling to get through. The thread started talking about possible causes of the pregnancy sickness, which led Darkprose to comment: "Indeed, the whole reason the Swan site was there [when Locke found it in S1. --ab42] was because of the Incident, which was the bomb being detonated. When Juliet got the Island to work with the Others, she had already detonated the bomb decades ago. Whatever happened, happened."

I kind of haven't explicitly thought through the time travel mechanics of the Incident, but darkprose's proposed scenario motivated me to do so. Here's me doing the blog-commenting equivalent of thinking out loud:

You're proposing that Miles was right in season 5 when he warned the others that Jack's H-bomb detonation plan may end up causing the very incident he's seeking to prevent.

The corollary is that Faraday was, tragically, wrong. Forgive me for quoting at length, but here's Faraday's speech to Jack in 'The Variable':

"In about four hours, the DHARMA folks at the swan work site--they're gonna--gonna drill into the ground and accidentally tap into a massive pocket of energy. The result of the release of this energy would be catastrophic. So in order to contain it, they're gonna have to cement the entire area in, like Chernobyl. And this containment--the place they built over it--I believe you called it "the Hatch." The Swan hatch? Because of this one accident, these people are gonna spend the next 20 years keeping that energy at bay... by pressing a button... a button that your friend Desmond will one day fail to push, and that will cause your plane--Oceanic 815--to crash on this island. And because your plane crashed, a freighter will be sent to this Island--a freighter I was on and Charlotte was on and so forth. This entire chain of events--it's gonna start happening this afternoon. But... we can change that. I studied relativistic physics my entire life. One thing emerged over and over--can't change the past. Can't do it. Whatever happened, happened. All right? But then I finally realized... I had been spending so much time focused on the constants, I forgot about the variables. Do you know what the variables in these equations are, Jack?"

So...you're saying Faraday was, ultimately, incorrect about his 'realization' of variables, and that his focus should have remained on the constants.

It would then follow that James's disappointment upon waking up at the ruin of the Swan hatch in 'LA X' is one more example of "how little he knows". He'd gone along with Jack's H-bomb plan to *avoid* the incident, and following Faraday, the subsequent construction of the Swan Hatch. Nothing of the sort had happened.

Interesting. This reinforces that the sideways universe has existed since at least 1977. But why would the bleed-through between the S1-S5 timeline and the sideways universe only begin after the sideways 815 flight? But that's entirely another topic.

Per the original topic, the pregnancy sickness, if it is simply a byproduct of radioactivity on the island emanating from the 1977 H-Bomb...why the hell did Richard not once mention it to Juliet in her recruitment or in her years of research??? He was there in 1977 and would have watched the bomb go off.

In any event, if you're right the main timeline of 'Lost' is a cruel, cruel story. Both Locke and Faraday came to the island, and both gave the ultimate sacrifice in service of something they believed to be greater than themselves--for Locke, it was the Island itself, and for Faraday it was the 815ers whose lives had been so altered by the island. Jacob told Richard that he brought people to the island because he believed that they were capable of 'knowing the difference between right and wrong'. If willingly throwing yourself into a fatal task completely for the benefit of others isn't evidence of having satisfied Jacob's stated reason for manipulating the lives of others, than what is?

But let's look at Locke and Faraday's reward: For Locke, it was to be murdered in a state of profound bewilderment, and later to provide the bodily means by which the enemy of all that he held dear might destroy what he (Locke) meant to sacrifice his life for. For Faraday, it was to be murdered by his own mother, and to have his dying thought be 'My mother acted as if she pushed me so hard out of love, but really she did it so I would eventually come to this island and die by her hand for a reason that I don't even know.' And following his murder, his great sacrifice was put into motion by Jack...the end result being to cause the very thing he'd given his life to prevent.

That is profoundly, absolutely, and utterly cruel. The Man in Black may kill people on a whim, but the fate of Locke and Faraday is just...sadistic. And if Jacob's responsible, since he brings people to the island in the first place, then he's worse, a thousand times worse than MiB.

The only way Jacob can redeem himself is if his endgame is to engineer the complete negation of the Island reality, and let Faraday, Locke and the others exist free of his and MiB's manipulations in the sideways reality.

And sideways Faraday needs to get a clue. Sure, that redhead was hot, and you loved her in another life...but in that other life *your soul was destroyed for the benefit of others who couldn't care less*.

DHARMA DHARMA DHARMA

I explained here that I'm constraining the contents of this blog to meanderings about ABC's Lost. As I am neither as brilliant or as lucky as some, I must spend some small part of my days on things I am paid to do--that is, working on non-Lost related tasks. Because of these duties, it turns out that I know a little bit about the lives of graduate students pursuing arcane research without immediately realizable real-world benefits. Y'know, people like Gerald and Karen DeGroot: Just a couple of kids working on their PhD's at a prestigious Big Ten research university. Getting by on a research fellowship one year, maybe scraping together a summer salary by acting as teaching assistant in remedial summer classes, sharing cramped living and office spaces with like-minded junior laborers in the academic vineyards.

But once Gerald and Karen landed a benefactor with endlessly deep pockets, modified their dissertation research into the basis for a genuine alternative society, and colonized a magic island...did they ever finish those dissertations?? I've heard of thesis projects sprawling beyond what was expected...but this is ridiculous. In any event, it would be awesome to run into the DeGroots in the Sideways Universe.

Still, a couple issues remain concerning their underlings, the Dharma Initiative. In the main timeline, they must have known that the hostiles were eventually victorious after the purge ended all on-Island DI activities and communications. But Kelvin Inman was pushing the button, sealed into the hatch *after* the purge. And of course, Radzinsky was doing it before him. Given '77-era Stu's obsession with the Swan site, it's totally believable that he would develop into the crazy hermit locked in his precious hatch, pressing his buttons and drawing blast door maps. Even Lostpedia can't confirm if Inman arrived prior to, or after the purge to join Radzinsky. This is pretty key, because if Inman arrived after the Purge, the DI HQ knew that despite the Hostiles having knocked them off the Island, they'd have to ensure button-pressing continuity in the face of the dire consequences of failure. Even if Inman arrived before the purge, the DI continued to send food drops afterwards. My guess is to keep the button-pushers supplied. In addition, I'll bet that the 'sickness' aboveground so feared by Inman and Dez was just a kind of psychological tool the DI used to keep the button-pushers continuing their very unnatural task. So...

THE DHARMA INITIATIVE DOSSIER: QUESTIONS:

1. When did Inman arrive on the island, before or after the purge? Was the mainland DI active after the purge, even up until current 2007 times?

2. Who was responsible for the DI food drops after the Purge?

3. Was the 'sickness' real, or just a Dharma mindgame?

4. (Also asked in my Jacob post) Did Jacob bring Dharma to the Island, or did they use science to bypass Jacob's invitation-only Island visitor policy? Did Jacob really order Ben to execute (tee hee) their mass murder?

The Sea Captain

According to IMDB and Wikipedia, Jeff Fahey (prior to 'Lost', at least) was best known for his starring role in 'Lawnmower Man'. I've seen that movie. Granted, I think it was in somebody's basement during Junior High, but I have seen it. Honestly, it's a second-rate adaptation of a fourth-rate Stephen King story. Starring in such a work is no doubt a more notable achievement than I'll be able to etch on my gravestone, but that doesn't change the fact that even Timothy Hutton's been allowed to star in better King vehicles. Jeff Fahey deserves better. The man has led a seriously remarkable life (summarized in a couple of paragraphs here)that I won't go into except to say that when the producers wanted to cast him as they prepared for Season 4, they had trouble getting in touch to offer him the job because the guy was somewhere in Afghanistan working in an orphanage.

I'd say that in the role of Captain Frank Lapidus, he's got a fantastic role, worthy of what he's got coming to him after a journeyman's career. When Frank's onstage, even with few or no words of dialogue, his presence alone can elevate the whole scene above a focus on a single person's (over?)acting and ground the viewers focus squarely within the island's frame of reference, not our own couches--we see not Mathew Fox and Josh Holloway (or whoever), but Doc Shepard and Sawyer. And Frank's a very sly audience surrogate, as effective as Jorge Garcia's excellent characterization of Hurley, but not as winkingly clumsy. I think that Fahey and Garcia are really the only actors on the show capable of pulling this off. For instance, I consider Josh Holloway's performance, especially in seasons 5 and 6, to be an example of an incredibly focused and versatile talent. But when he's not talking (as in way, way too many episodes this season)you can almost sense his chomping at the bit to get in the scene. Like a lot of TV actors, he's most comfortable when he's in motion.

So, from Jeff onto the Sea Captain (as Frank is so named by a redoubtable Lost blogger). What questions remain concerning Frank? What final outcome is most desirable for our grizzled blue-eyed adventurer with a knack for the ironic quip? Well, for one I don't want to see him die while say, Claire, remains alive for screentime. I vote for Captain Frank making it to the end. And while I know he's not been specifically designated as a candidate, the guy would be a shoo-in. Who'd vote against him? And if it came down to it, I think Frank would just turn to us and repeat his words when aboard 'Searcher':"Whatever you guys decide...I'll just roll with it."

I read one crazy theory that the Locke-thing is actually a total decoy and that Frank is actually the Man in Black, working through subterfuge and deceit to escape the island. Obviously there's a ton of evidence against this interpretation. But it would still be really awesome.


THE FRANK LAPIDUS DOSSIER: QUESTIONS:

1. Will Frank die before the story's over

2. Will Frank ever have more than two lines of dialogue in any remaining episodes?

'Lost' has more than a little in common with 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant'. Could this aid in thinking about the finale? (Part I)

At least since the release of the Lord of the Rings films, Tolkiena of all sorts has become as mainstream a portion of good, clean, consumerist escapism as Lucas's Star Wars toy-cartoon-comic-film fusion. J.R.R. Tolkien though, began creating the world of 'Rings' long before Lucas (and maybe even Lucas's parents!) were born. The volume that modern-day Tolkien heads usually begin only after first reading the Rings Trilogy--'The Silmarillion'--was started long before the trilogy, during Tolkien's convalescence from wounds suffered in the First World War. Tolkien continued to expand the myth, language, and stories of Middle-Earth in the continuing decades, eventually publishing the Rings trilogy in the mid 1950s. Upon publication, the trilogy was met with a relatively quiet reception relative to its current Dark Lord-esque power and reach. Something happened in the 60s though, and eventually 'Frodo lives!' was found among NYC subway graffiti, and the Tolkien family found itself well-off enough that son Christopher was able to become the full-time scholar and archivist of his father's massive, but disorganized, corpus of Middle-Earth literature--enabling the later publication of 'The Silmarillion' and the dozen or so succeeding volumes of 'The History of Middle-Earth'. The enormous success of the Rings franchise likely led publishers of the era to happily flood the market with too many undistinguished tales of elves and swords and castles, hoping that when the critical and commercial dust settled, their entry would be the one anointed as 'the New Tolkien'. Some of these prospective heirs were entertaining, innocuous, and though an awesome read for kids (I count myself!), don't stand up to re-reading the way, say, Tolkien does. In retrospect, one can empathize with the scorn that adults of the 70s era speculative fiction world heaped on these books-- derivative, kid-oriented pabulum was making millions while trading off the legacy of far better writers.

Fast forwarding to the late 90s, I must not have been the only fantasy/sf oriented reader in their late 20s with an adolescent heritage of Lloyd Alexander, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Tolkien himself, to open the Potter books for a clunky, stale chapter or two and feel the same disgust, right?

Side note: no better encapsulation of the wretchedness of a culture that endlessly lessens the value of imaginative work by flooding the market with clones of good or even half-good ideas exists than author, and film reviewer, Lucius Shepard's dissection of the post-Tolkien phenomenon here (registration required, but its free) in his review of the first 'Rings' movie.

Side note to the Side note: Shepard doesn't have the highest opinion of the first Potter film or the sequels either. Warning: Do not read while drinking something. Seriously, don't.

Return from side notes: Right, I'm writing an entry on my 'Lost' blog, soooo...one of the 'new Tolkiens' was one Stephen R. Donaldson, and his entry into the contest, in 1977, was entitled 'Lord Foul's Bane', marketed as 'Book One' in 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever'. This book, the subsequent two volumes, and a second trilogy--'The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever' are now million selling classics in their own right. And they are so not because they mindlessly ape Tolkien (though they do, as any fantasy series must, acknowledge him) for the benefit of fanboys, or because they're written in the elegant, 'high' prose style the scholarly Tolkien revered (though they are so--compare the more straight-forward 'Lord Foul's Enemy' to Donaldson's writerly use of the more archaic--in a good way--'Bane') but because in his version of the hero's epic quest, Donaldson subverts the genre's, and the reader's, expectations of plot and narrative, and in so doing creates something compelling and new. Very much like a particular serialized American drama just weeks away from ending a six-year run has done in the realm of television.

I really did not expect to write this much before even discussing the barest of the 'Chronicles' plot's bones, and their parallels in 'Lost'. So I'll do that in the next entry.

Final note: If you've read either 'Chronicles' sequence, you're in a wonderful position to comment...and if not, I'll be able to say what I want to say without any sort of spoilerage of the books.

Final Final note: If you like that sort of thing (trilogies, Tolkien, etc)the 'Chronicles' (especially the first sequence) are a superb work, a work of the very highest order...difficult, but very much worth it.

The Others, The Statue-Builders, and a new 'Lost' spin-off

So, I'm looking over my long list of Lost questions and near the top is: "Where do the Others really come from? What is the origin of the ruins on the island?". 'Happily Ever After' aired two days ago. The first half of my question has, apparently, already been answered. The history of the Others begins when Richard and Jacob talk on the beach, and Richard reminds Jacob that if he (Jacob) refuses to interfere in the lives of those he brings to the island, than the Man in Black most certainly will. Before this conversation, Jacob brought people to the island, and he brought them for the same reasons he did after the conversation: to prove the Man in Black wrong. But with Richard there to guide the new arrivals, and to act as an eternal source of guidance, the new arrivals coalesced around him to form a group.

Perhaps we'll not see any more footage of life among the Others, detailing the creation of Others culture: How the 'very specific' process for choosing their leadership came about, Why Latin became their private language, if they have always had no regard for the lives of those newcomers not on Jacob's lists? In fact, I think that's an awesome idea for a Lost spin-off. Life on the island during the first years of Richard's reign as Jacob's consligiere: it'll have swordfights, heavy duty 'Ab Aeterno' style religion, and center around the unsure progress of Richard's band of proto-others from raw Conradian gone-native in the jungle madmen to a strange and powerful culture bound by ritual and spiritual insight. At the edge of the action, taking a much larger role than they did in 'Lost' will be Jacob and the Man in Black: scheming, murdering, converting, and otherwise manipulating the puny humans who have wandered into their eternal battle. Titles? How about 'Heart and Darkness',or 'The Cork', or 'Cetera' (latin for 'the others' ;) ?

If the first part of my question has already been answered during Season 6, the second part remains a mystery. The statue of Tawaret, and thus all of the other ruins on the island (though not the well John Locke lowered himself into) were there prior to the Black Rock's arrival. So, before the Others existed, and given the Egyptian iconography, before even Jesus Christ existed, a decent sized population lived on the island and spent their time building stone structures, large and small. In the 2000 plus intervening Earth-historical years, the only other group of Island inhabitants who were interested in building structures of any sort were the Dharma Initiative. So what made the statue-builders different? To what end did they direct there labors, and why hasn't anybody since built as much as a log cabin? I have two hunches.



First, though millenia has passed on earth since the statue builders time, it hasn't been that long on the island. Following a yet unseen 'Incident' the island moved through time, from the Egyptian era, until closer to Ab Aeterno times.

Second, the culture of the Statue Builders was not devoted to either Jacob or the Man in Black. Both Jacob and Man in Black arose from this culture. Man in Black has already confessed that he was once a man, and because this information gives him no ability to manipulate the Lostaways, I believe him. We have no idea if Jacob was once a man. I'm guessing (with no evidence whatsoever) that he was. Both Jacob and the Man in Black became more than men during the time of the statue builders.

THE OTHERS DOSSIER: QUESTIONS

1. Where did the Others come from? What is their real origin? Answered, I believe, as of 'Ab Aeterno'

2. What is the origin of the Statue and the Ruins on the Island?