Bernard and Rose

It looks like Jacob’s intercession wasn’t necessary to bring Bernard and Rose together. Even Bernard’s bowels behave just as they would in the Jacobless universe as they did in the Jacobful universe. Off the top of my head, the most salient changes to the flight of Oceanic 815 in a world without Jacob are the presence of Des—but he’s special, the rules don’t apply to him, blahblahblah—and Cindy’s liquor dispersal policy. Well, as a Lost blogger trying to become worthy of their salt, a post on Des is most certainly upcoming—but a post on Cindy’s liquor bottles…? I hadn’t considered it, but obviously it must be added to the list.

In retrospect, the talents of J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof for creating unconventional versions of familiar characters (i.e., the rebel, the hero-doctor, the self-important rockstar) are really at a level above and beyond the writers of much of the TV I’ve seen. I haven’t ever watched ‘Alias’ or any other Abrams shows, so I can’t guess as to whose more responsible. Lesser writers might have taken Bernard, the oldest man among the survivors, and given him the default role of ‘experienced old wise man’, but JJA and DL instead do a nice inversion of expectations, and write him as a character not far removed from a guest-starring role on ‘Seinfeld’. Bernard’s a favorite character of many Losties, but I think especially of those who have become progressively more disappointed as the show’s focus shifted towards the rules of time travel and weird physics. For much of the second half of the series, I’ve come across the repeated complaint from these quarters of, “Where’s Rose and Bernard?”

Well, where are they??

We know that whatever qualifications one must have to start time traveling when the FDW begin to spin, Rose and Bernard have. And we know they found nice little house by the shore in the late 70s, and lived an idyllic 3 years, just the two of them. The final time traveling event we know of was Juliet’s detonation of Jughead right on top of the breached Swan site. Every 815er in immediate proximity was instantly ported to 2007. The question is, was the Incident of the same time traveling class as the FDW’s wobbly turns? The effective radius of the FDW extends far out to the surrounding ocean. We can only guess as to the effective radius of the Incident. If it was Island-wide, Rose, Bernard, and presumably Vincent have been scavenging mangoes and fish in some isolated corner of the Island for days.



And if the Incident only transported those in close proximity, and Rose and Bernard remained in 1977, they would have had to navigate the perhaps obliterated, perhaps not Island of immediate post-Incident times. If this is/was the case, then I hereby nominate Rose and Bernard as candidates for…the cave skeleton couple. They were both already well past 60 in 2004, so that would put them close to 100 by the time they reached 2004 again. Their cottage setup was pretty chill, so I wouldn’t be surpised if Jacob himself stopped by from time to time. Upon their death (likely together, and in their sleep) Jacob then tenderly (also a little perversely) arranged their bodies in the caves their comrades would later find.

An even cooler possibility would be for a super-ancient Bernard and Rose to amble out of the 2007 Island jungle and impart some wisdom to our Losties.

Also...hasn't like NOT A SINGLE PERSON wondered where they are in 2007 or expressed some worry on their behalf...even Sawyer or Kate, who saw them in 1977 only hours before the Incident???

I think there's a couple potential happy endings for Bernard and Rose. But however it happens, these two are not going to make it to the end of the finale—at least in the crash timeline.

THE NADLER DOSSIER: QUESTIONS:

1. Where are Bernard and Rose? Were they transported to the Island in 2007 like the rest of the 815ers? Were they left in 1977? If so, what was their eventual fate?

2. Will they be allowed to pass away together, in peace?

Amazing visons of 'Lost'

The image above is one of a collection of posters, a new one for every single episode of 'Lost'. I sometimes think of 'Lost' as a finely crafted LP, providing a richer, realer experience than the endless stream of cheap disposable crap filling the TV show discount bin.

This artist has designed the album covers 'Lost' deserves. See the entire collection (already up to 5x02) at their flickr stream here.

The Rules

The first rule of The Rules is that we don't speak of The Rules.

That rule has been broken by the following individuals: Ben Linus, Charles Widmore, the Man in Black, and forest boy of undisclosed origin. Are they all talking about the same rulebook?

I believe they are not. Ben and Charles are discussing a set of guidelines that have their origin in the related-by-Richard missives of Jacob. Over Richard's time on the Island (and I sincerely wish we could see more of that era) Jacob's wishes have gently shaped the Others. As biblical as Jacob's name and lifestyle are, I like to consider his political philosophy as a sibling of the spirit underlying the U.S. constitution's Bill of Rights, the original charter of negative liberties. The Bill of Rights doesn't say an American has the right to a house. It just says that if an American does have a house, the 3rd amendment protects her from having to house soldiers within it.

On 'Lost', Jacob will bring you to the Island, but once there, you have no explicit right to knowledge of what you should do. Yet, Jacob does offer protection from the influence of your past life, so that when you get to the Island, your past 'doesn't matter'. Jacob is a bit trickier than the founding fathers though, because unlike acquiring a house, knowledge of what you should do on the Island is (to mix my political metaphors)an unknown unknown.

Ben, Widmore, and other Others likely had to pay attention to a few other similarly formulated edicts, perhaps: 'None of you have any right to be the Leader, but if you do, you are under my protection', or 'I force no obligation on you to do anything in particular on this Island, but if you leave you may not return'. I believe its a rule of this type that Ben accuses Widmore of breaking in 'The Shape of Things to Come'.

The rules that jungle boy reminds Man in Black of in 'The Substitute'? They exist on an entirely different level. I believe Jacob and the MiB have rules, and are thus motivated to search for loopholes to avoid those rules, because the order of the Island/World/Universe is sensitive to the dynamics of both entitites. For it to survive, their conflict must be bound by law and executed by proxy.

Jacob and MiB's rules = Speed of Light
Ben and Widmores rules = Speed Limits

The puzzling aspect of all this to me is that the MiB obviously believes that at some crucial point in the distant past, Jacob deceived him. Now, MiB seems like a somewhat arrogant individual. If his opponent tricked him, what stopped him from considering the 'Rules' broken at that point? Why did he respect and follow them for so long that it took the Lockean loophole to accomplish his long sought Jacobean homicide?

THE RULES DOSSIER: QUESTIONS:

1. What is the origin of Ben and Widmore's rules? Which rule did Ben accuse Charles of breaking?

2. What is the origin of Jacob and MiB's rules? Why does MiB follow them, even after Jacob deceived him?

3. Are there consequences for breaking Jacob and MiB's rules? Who determines/doles out the punishments?

Miles

To get a little meta, it seems to me like the Miles of Season 6 would enjoy watching Lost. The Miles who arrived on the Island in 2004...not so much.

Ken Leung has one of the most actorly blank faces that I've seen. When Bram--fine guy, I'm sure, but not really a master of strategy and subterfuge--attempts to woo Miles to his cause by reminding him of that darn old hole in his soul, Miles just stares blankly at him for a long beat. Could he be just a second away from tearing up and falling helplessly into the comforting embrace of Bram's ample bosom? Errr, no. Miles delivers that awesome, deadpan "It's sad. Isn't it?". But he precedes his reluctant lines to Sawyer when asked to 'talk' to dead Juliet with the exact same blank-face beat. Weirdly, he sells it in both situations! Two completely different emotions, and one blank face.

I also have Miles to thank for one of my top 5 flashback episodes of the whole series, 'Some like it Hoth'. At this point (a couple days away from 'The Candidate'), I think that the major reason for Miles joining Richard and Ben is the equal distribution of deadpan comedy among the Island factions. But besides this welcome function, what might be his purpose in the remainder of Season 6? In the premiere this season, I thought that Miles would eventually 'speak' to dead Jacob, and that would be a crucial event--but that's already happened and the revelations were fairly minor (though a question of mine was answered). Really, some of Miles's greatest contributions of past seasons have been the moments when his no-bullshit observations have slowed the steps of a group of characters hell-bent on some crazy mission. I cite his 'Has it occurred to any of you that your buddy's actually gonna cause the thing he says he's trying to prevent? Perhaps that little nuke is the incident? So maybe the best thing to do... is nothing?' speech as one of his finest moments.

I wouldn't mind a little more specificity on how Miles acquired his talents. At this point, the explanation is simply: he was on the Island as a baby. That will suffice, but...do all Island babies have secret powers? Why that particular ability? But really, I'm just hoping my man doesn't become cannon fodder before his time. As long as Claire gets to survive...Miles at least deserves to make it that far.

Also, I could go for a completely gonzo twist to Miles story--like he becomes the new Richard to Jack's new Jacob!

THE MILES DOSSIER: QUESTIONS:

1. Why and how, exactly did Miles acquire his abilities?

'Lost' and Thomas Covenant, Part II

Enter a mysterious world of unspoiled richness and spiritual purity: The Land. Our hero is a physically ravaged and broken, yet enormously stubborn man of the everyday 'real' world. He finds himself, through circumstances he does not understand, transported to this magical and verdant place. A sickness that had previously defined his existence and isolated him from any modicum of happiness is, in this new land, completely healed. He is awed by the lore and wisdom of the land's inhabitants, yet that awe is dwarfed by discomfort, as the land's people are convinced that our hero is a prophesied savior upon whom the fate of the land depends, a notion he finds ridiculous. The land is troubled by a sort of 'dark lord' who thrives upon the defilement of the land's spirit. The corrupt servants of the dark lord were not always so, but succumbed to his will by means of arrogance and temptation. The dark lord's highest wish? To escape the land.

Now class, can anyone who has watched 'Lost' for these 5 13/18 seasons note a parallel between the above story and the narratives of 'Lost'? The foregoing was a brutal and brief summation of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever.

Covenant, in our world, is a leper. His disease has robbed him of any sense of touch, and thus pain, forcing him to constantly repeat a fixed regimen of 'VSE'--visual surveillance of extremities--to ensure he does not mortally injure his already corrupted body in the course of everyday life. He loses consciousness in our world and wakes up--healed of leprosy--in a place simply called 'the Land'. The land is peopled by a collection of races (giants, goblins, etc) familiar to readers of Tolkien-influenced literature. The humans of the land are a pre-scientific society whose lives are immersed in a sort of nature-religion absent any particular deity, and to a greater or lesser degree all wield an earth-derived magic. Repeated magic ritual constitutes daily life, and performing mundane daily tasks using machinery or overly complex tools instead of magic is seen as abomination.

The inherent magic of the Land seduces Covenant into (in someone else's words) believing it to be 'not just an island!' while simultaneously goading his skepticism and bitterness regarding the truth of such a sensual place. After all, he has survived his adult life only by rigorously denying and mistrusting feeling. Covenant oscillates between 'Jack-like' and 'Locke-like' poles of belief and unbelief.

Arrayed against the land, wishing only to desecrate its nature and people, is ghoulish Lord Foul, the Despiser. Covenant is not only healed by the Land, but hailed by its people as a prophesied savior, possessor of unique powers that will be the key to defeating Lord Foul. Foul's contention though, is that through manipulation and intimidation, he will force Covenant to use his Land-bestowed power to sicken rather than save. The psychological drama of the series draws from Covenant's attempts to escape the clutches of either a benevolent (assuming the role of the Land's savior) or fiendish (succumbing to Foul's manipulations)destiny and find a way to retain his autonomy without denying the land's reality for the benefit of Foul.

The prime enemy of both Covenant sequences, Foul is also the entity responsible for bringing Covenant to the Land. Though he is a demigod-like being, he cannot achieve his final goal--***escape*** from the bounds of the land--until he utterly corrupts (claims?) Covenant. Foul works by humiliating the prideful, turning hope to spite, and manipulating the naive into desecrating what they'd formerly thought holy. The portrayal of 'evil' in such emotionally familiar terms, rather than black capes and dark castles elevate the Covenant sequence above cosmetically similar fantasies content with only costume metaphysics.

There are other books more apt for complementing the time-travel, multiple dimension aspect of 'Lost', but the Covenant sequence is a fantastic read for those touched by the heroism, foolishness, tragedy,and redemption all embodied in John Locke, surely the most original creation of the 'Lost' writers, regardless of how (un)fulfilling the finale turns out to be.

Discussing the end of the Chronicles in an attempt to reason out the possible conclusion of 'Lost' just isn't possible without spoiling the 'Chronicles', something I just can't do.

Man No. 2

It is sentimental to consider the Man in Black as a ‘bad guy’. There are perfectly reasonable and moral stances by which one of our characters may choose to consider Jacob as less than a ‘good guy’.

I want to start this entry—on questions concerning the Man in Black—with an explicit statement of these two postulates. I have seen nothing to convince me otherwise at this point (the off-week in between ‘The Last Recruit’ and ‘The Candidate’). I understand that the story of ‘Lost’ is not my story—it is the writers’—and thus, it’s possible that I may have to revoke my opening statements by the end of the series. If I must though, it will be the fault of writers with no compunctions for tromping through their own story, oblivious to the size of the footprints they leave behind. And that, for me, would not be a happy ending for ‘Lost’.

The Man in Black is the newest ‘main’ character in the Lost-o-verse. He is also the most bizarre, in terms of narrative construction, of any character ever on the show. Having ‘questions’ about him is a bit redundant, as the character himself is either a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma or the most notorious MacGuffin yet on ‘Lost’.

Side note: Is there a difference between these two possibilities?

Double Side note: ‘Lost’ may be read as meta-narrative in which MacGuffins transcend their own meaningless origins by threatening to remove themselves, and thus the element of fate, from stories of redemption. Or something.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m concerned about the ill effect of rewriting Season’s 1-5.9 as simply the deterministic outcome of the hidden hands of Jacob and his nemesis. The great issue with such rewriting is that due to the obligation to maintain dramatic tension, the true origin and goals of Jacob and his nemesis will not be revealed until the penultimate episode, or the finale of ‘Lost’. When writers find themselves with such a small amount of time to reveal such crucial character and plot beats, they are greatly tempted to succumb to the invocation of mealy-mouthed and trite ‘archetypes’ to substitute for original ideas. I’ll now briefly mention some details from the finale of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series to buttress this argument, so…

[MASSIVE BSG PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!!! BE WARNED]

The new BSG series was, for the most part, well written. It had fantastic potential, and that potential was comprehensively squandered by "the worst ending in the history of on-screen science fiction”. In brief, a drama full of conflicted, mature characters harboring complex and fluid motivations that were developed with care and honesty for the better part of the series was reduced to the after-effects of a ‘Big Bad’ introduced in the waning moments of the last act. Though the Big Bad had been seen before in the series, he was a relatively minor character whose true nature was never *shown* to the viewers in the course of storytelling, as it was for the half-dozen or so major characters of the show. Thus, upon the revelation of the Big Bad’s identity, the writers had no other choice than to *tell* us, in a brief scene or two of exposition what motivated the character who was now presented as the prime mover of the series long story arc. And what was this essential motivation? It consisted of one thing: the resentment of a machine towards its human creators. In one form or another, this ‘angry Pinocchio’ motivation has been around for more than 100 years. See Frankenstein, 2001, and Terminator for various twists. What the writers forgot is that the dramatic DNA of their show was the considered, ambiguous exploration of the conflicts that arise between men and sentient machines coexisting. Their lazy appropriation of a story that is, within s-f, an old and boring cliché, in order to tie up their loose plot ends ruined everything of originality and interest they had built before. But what could they to do pacify a broad audience? They’d left themselves no time.

[END MASSIVE BSG PLOT SPOILERS]

There you go. But, I’m guardedly optimistic about upcoming revelations of Man in Black, as a character and guiding force on the show. I feel like the writers have done a good job, so far, at distilling equal parts sympathy and suspense into the character. It’s clear that he has a long memory, and a firm conviction of what he deserves. There are no Jack-like ‘do I wanna be on the Island or don’t I?’ or Kate-esque ‘Jack’s such a good man, but Sawyer makes me horny’ dilemmas for this man. Whether we will agree with the Man in Black’s judgment of what he’s accorded when we know the whole story is besides the point. We know he won’t change his mind.

It’s also clear that, in his opinion, he was tricked into his current predicament. If there’s one thing ‘Lost’ viewers have sympathy for, it’s the resentment and powerlessness felt by victims of a manipulator with an agenda—let’s take a short break to pour a little drink on my man John Locke’s grave and salute him.

Let’s end this here with a listing of…

THE MAN IN BLACK DOSSIER: QUESTIONS:

1. Does Jacob’s ‘evil, malevolent, dark wine’ directly signify the MiB? Or is the ‘hell’ the island acts to contain something else, something independent of Jacob and the MiB? And MiB’s ‘trapped’ state a necessary corollary to the containment of ‘hell’?

2. What was the long-ago event between MiB and Jacob that MiB describes to Richard as ‘The devil betrayed me. He took my body. My humanity.’?

3. How is the story of Jacob and MiB connected to MiB’s mother (!), who was a ‘very disturbed woman’?

4. One assumes that when Flocke tells Sawyer that he’s ‘experience[ed] betrayal’, he’s referring to the same event I just mentioned in #2. But to what is he alluding to when he says he knows ‘what it’s like to lose someone you love.’?

5. Is the explanation simply that MiB is totally insane and has conflated the life experiences of those he ‘scans’ while in smoke form with his own long-forgotten past?

6. Is the MiB alluding to his own experience when he tells James, regarding Jacob: ‘He came to you, he manipulated you, pulled your strings like you were a puppet. And as a result, choices you thought were made, were never really choices at all.’

7. When MiB is in Smokey form, are Smokey’s actions entirely the will of MiB? Or does some other force, i.e. Jacob, influence or guide the behavior of Smokey.

8. Were any of the Lost characters (i.e. Hawking, Widmore, Ben) ever consciously in league with MiB?

9. Where is MiB’s home that he wants so badly to go to?

10. Does the MiB have any connection to the Sideways reality?

11. MiB has admitted that he benefitted greatly from Locke dying off the Island, and by Locke’s body returning upon Ajira 316, but did he benefit/have a stake in the H-Bomb/Swan site ‘Incident’.

12. Is the MiB connected to the strange EM activity of the Island?

13. Lots could be put in this question, but…Is there a ‘real agenda’ of the MiB’s that he hasn’t admitted to us yet?

Ellie accidently invented the Sideways world: A 'Lost' theory with (a little) predictive ability

Following another theorist’s proposal that the Island is a macroscopic place in which multiple quantum states can coexist: Just as Schrodinger’s cat is both alive and dead before an observer checks the experimental result, two states of the universe exist at the end of the events of ‘The Incident’: one in which Juliet detonated the bomb by hitting it with a stone, and one in which she failed to do so with the stone and died shortly thereafter at the bottom of the Swan drill-shaft. Juliet, in effect, committed quantum suicide. She was motivated to strike the bomb due to her regret over Sawyer's love for Kate (Fate), and she was able to ignite it due to the quantum behavior of the bomb (chance). The unpredictable outcome of the meshing of the Swan EM and Jughead energies is the sustained existence of the sideways universe.


Recall, for a moment, the Season 3 episode ‘Flashes before your eyes’ when Ms. Hawking told Desmond that pushing that button is the only really important thing that he would ever do? The button was ‘really important’ because it held at bay the profoundly important event that really did occur in the sideways universe—the sinking of the Island. The Island’s unique properties—its tendency to move within space and time, the buffer of warped space-time surrounding it (think Faraday’s projectile experiment, and the timeslip sickness experienced by Minkowski, Desmond, and others on the Kahana) emerge from a stable equilibrium between the real world and the unique EM sources underlying the Island, especially the massive source at the Swan site. When the DI drilled too deep at the Swan, they breached the anomaly, an act with massive, unforeseen consequences. The Island-world equilibrium was upset, and thus the Island fell to the bottom of the sea.


Let's talk about the universe where Juliet failed to set off the bomb. We'll come to know it as the Sideways universe. Though the bomb didn't go off, the chaos started by the Dharma drilling continued, leading to the island sinking to the bottom of the Pacific, as we saw it in the opening of ‘LA X’. Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Jin, Miles, and Sayid...they all died either at the Swan site, or in the aftermath of the EM anomaly breach. At least Ellie, Charles, Roger Linus and Ben Linus were able to escape the Island before it sunk. Richard...may have died on the island, or not. For now, let's assume he did. Penny was born before 1977, so she'd be a young girl awaiting Charles and Ellie when they return to the mainland from the doomed island in 1977.


However, Ellie has brought with her from the island the notebook of the young man she shot who claimed to be her son. She will study it backwards and forwards in the years following 1977. She pieces together, from the notebook, some, but likely not all of the events of the life of Daniel Faraday as we knew him. She knows he was her son, that he was a time traveler, that he lived a post-1977 existence that was not happy, that 'Desmond Hume' was his constant, and probably a lot more—Faraday always said that everything he’d ever learned about the Dharma Initiative and about the Island was in his notebook! So, in the years following 1977, Ellie learns that she was, somehow, able to both kill her son and avoid doing so. She keeps this knowledge, very, very close. Perhaps she’s told her husband Charles, but just as likely she hasn’t.


Thus, when Desmond Hume starts asking about a 'Penny' (a name that may also have been in Faraday's notebook), she knows that this is an unnatural event, a violation, and wishing to preserve the gift she's been given of a 2nd life for her son, she attempts to quash Hume's questioning. All of the Sideways versions of the 815ers that we’ve seen in Season 6 are simply the grownup versions of the off-island child-versions of these characters that were growing up in the real world in 1977.

Let's move on to the alternate universe, in which Juliet successfully set off the bomb. We know this as the main timeline of Lost that the characters have experienced in Seasons 1-5. When Juliet ignited the bomb, Richard and the rescued Ellie were watching from afar. They knew that Jack, Kate, and Sayid (though I can't remember if they ever saw Hugo, Jin, Sawyer, or Juliet) were right at the site of the explosion.


Being at ground zero of a nuclear blast typically results in your death, and that’s why Richard tells Sun that he 'watched her friends die’ when she asks him about the Dharma yearbook photo at the end of Season 5. The bomb did not destroy the Island. In fact, it’s destructive radius is limited to a very small space around the Swan site due to its reaction/negation with the EM energy at the Swan. After the bomb was detonated, the DI eventually fills in the Swan site with concrete and builds the Swan hatch. It is the residual radiation of the bomb that leads to the problems that pregnant women face on the Island after 1977.


The Swan, until Desmond turned the fail-safe in 2004, acted as a ‘cork’ upon the EM energy beneath. In this timeline, Ellie leaves the Island knowing that it’s stable, but that its safety is very precarious. Unless the Swan site is constantly attended, the EM anomaly will escape and the Island will be destroyed. She is (for reasons that remain unrevealed at this point) absolutely dedicated to keeping the Island safe. As she reads the journal of the young man she shot, she realizes that he was indeed her son, and that it must be her heavy burden to guide him on a path that leads forward, and then back in time, so he can be sure to set off the H-bomb and prevent the DI from destroying the Island. From Daniel’s journal, she’s able to learn something of Desmond’s involvement with the Island.


It’s Ellie who passes this information to Charles, and it’s she he refers to when he tells Desmond ‘If everything I’ve been told about you is true, you’ll be perfectly fine.’ before he zaps Des.

WHACKADOO PREDICTIONS AND COROLLARIES ARISING FROM THIS THEORY:

1. Remember when a visibly distraught Ellie stepped into the living room where Daniel was playing piano in ‘The Variable’? I predict we’ll see this scene again from Ellie’s point of view. The reason she’s distraught is that she’s gotten off the phone with Charles, and they’ve agreed that Daniel is now old enough that he must be manipulated into becoming the man who will eventually return to the island and die at Ellie’s hand.

2. We will also see a scene in which Richard and a dazed Ellie watch a mushroom cloud arise over the Swan site. Ellie will be holding Daniel’s journal.

3. Ellie has fulfilled her 3 key tasks after she has (i) made sure Des doesn’t marry Penny, (ii) convinced Daniel to take Widmore’s Kahana offer, and (iii) sent (most) of the O6 back to the island on Ajira 316. This is why she tells Penny that ‘For the first time in a long time, I don't know what's going to happen next.’ She maintained the time-loop that kept the Island from sinking, presumably in the service of something that’s ‘bigger than her’.

4. The intersection of the two realities is the September, 2004 flight of Oceanic 815. It’s chance alone that leads Charlie to experience his vision, but it is destiny/Fate which motivates him to lead Des to a road to Damascus moment.

5. Main timeline Ellie *does not* know about the Sideways Universe. In fact, the only main timeline character (with the possible exception of Flocke or Jacob) to know of the sideways universe is Des.