Ok, so I’m a little bit late because my internet is flaky (thank you very much, Charter) but I’ve got a doozy. Stick with me.
First, before I recap tonight’s episode, read Hunter’s comment on last week’s post concerning Confirmed Dead. He lays out a pretty convincing case for some form of time travel.
Go now and come back here. Most of tonight revelations are built on his (and my assumptions).
- What’s in a name?, part I
- What’s in a name?, part I
- 31 Minutes, 20 seconds
- Freighties Swap
- The Oceanic Six
Who is the RG of Naomi’s bracelet and why would Elsa either a) have the same/similar bracelet OR b) have been given the same bracelet from Sayid?
I think it’s clear that those marked for death are literally marked. Maybe they belong to some organization that uses/requires such marks.
So everyone that seeks Ben is marked?
The gentleman in the Seychelles certainly had a gaudy watch and I need to see if Matthew Abbadon has any jewelry.
They’re on to Sayid (and were even on the golfcourse) so Sayid got fooled TWICE this episode by trusting someone he thought was a friend who actually betrayed him, Elsa AND Hurley.
Who was The Economist or Sayid’s first victim? What is their relation to Abbadon and/or Naomi?
Also, what song played right before the fateful firefight between Sayid & Elsa?
Ben’s Swiss passport, which Sayid finds in the hidden room, is for a Dean Moriarty. There’s even a textual reference to Hanso in the ID#: HNS012153. He was born on March 3rd, 1962 apparently.
Dean Moriarty is a central character in Kerouac’s On The Road. If you’re unfamiliar with the work, hit Google.
Dean Moriarty of the book is based on the beat icon Neal Cassady, but I’m unclear on what parallels to draw from this revelation. Were the other passports similarly historical or literary in nature?
I’m open to suggestions.
That’s the difference in time between the payload Regina fires and the time on Daniel’s clock. I think it’s a clear sign that time and space are being altered on the island.
I can’t stress it enough: Read Hunter’s comment!
I also think we’re hearkening back to an earlier episode where Hurley talks about the radio transmission being from another time.
“When” is the island?
Why was Ben dressed in 70’s attire in last week’s episode?
Why would Ben have multiple passports, currencies and clothing from seemingly different eras?
Does Charlie’s quote last week about being “dead but also here” lead you to any new conclusions.
An email from a coworker:
Maybe there’s something to your theory of they all died AND they’re on the island?
TVGuide.com: What are we to make of the fact that Hurley’s pal there also saw Charlie? Does that make it harder to write off Charlie as a mere figment of Hurley’s imagination?
Garcia: I think it does. What exactly the real-world explanation is, I don’t know. It’s somewhere in when Charlie says, “I am dead, but I am here as well.” Somehow both are true.
Something to think about. Do your own research and mulling and leave a comment.
I still think NPB 4 is better than Freighties as a descriptor, especially considering they mirror the Fantastic Four.
Why is their no honor among thieves/mercenaries/rogue scientists? I suppose it’s perfectly plausible that some wanted to stay and work, others didn’t care for Naomi and Frank didn’t like Miles.
I think there’s a TON left to be learned about Regina and Minkowski and how each of the crew play off one another.
Also, Ben’s spy on the boat is Sayid. If we buy the whole time travel angle (and I’m buying it) then Sayid’s work on the boat is the first mission that lays the groundwork for his future endeavors in the Seychelles and Berlin.
Plus, if the boat is in the past/future and the island is somehow in stasis or out of phase with real time, then his communications with Ben might have made it to the island PRIOR to the helicopter’s arrival.
Think about that while chanting “88 miles an hour” and some nonsense about “1.21 gigawatts”.
Hurley, Kate, Jack, Sayid.
Hunter thinks at least one of the other two is Locke, but I’m not so sure.
I do think that the man in the coffin from last season is most assuredly Ben. I’ll have to check the name, but it may be Dean Moriarty (see above). If so, Ben must have still been moving freely to and from the island.
Sayid was running protection for the other five (whomever the unknown two are) but something compelled at least Jack and Hurley to want NEED to return.
Leave speculation in the comments.
Lostpedia should be rocking tomorrow with caps of the passport and maybe some stuff surrounding the payload from NPB to Daniel.
I’m also not buying that Penny isn’t somehow involved. Desmond is too important to the time travel narrative with his “shifting” to be there on accident.
Ooh and who else thought it was interesting that Sayid called himself a “recruiter”? Is his “other” job (besides killing) finding folks to take/send to the island? Is he a Dharma recruiter?
Bonus Links:
Five new eps of Lost coming (13 total this season)
G’night!
UPDATE: I failed to mention anything about the missing Jacob’s cabin. Could this be the link to the “Superposition” mentioned by commenter Hunter? What if the cabin is the way that Ben moves on and off the island? What if “Jacob” is/could be any of the people in the Oceanic Six/Dharma Recruiters/Ben himself?
I like that last idea? I think maybe Ben as Jacob said “Help Me” to Locke just before someone (Abbadon?) killed him off island. It means Ben was in the coffin and it *might* explain why Ben has thrown caution to the wind in this timeline. Just a thought.
UPDATE II: Unrelated, but the Lost game is coming out in February 28. FYI.
UPDATE III: Sorry for the OCD updating, but I just remembered that I haven’t mentioned Elsa’s beeper. I may be misunderstanding some of the time concepts, but doesn’t it seem odd that in the 21st century she had such a rudimentary device?
I don’t know who Hunter is, but damn his mind is working overtime.
First an apology…actually 2…
The theory, alas, is not my own. I wish it were, but it is not. Friends of my mine fowarded me what turned out to be a post from another LostTheory thread. In my haste to get the idea out to you, I did not have the time to find the original thread link to give to you.
So, the credit does not go to me.
Secondly, I had written a follow up to the original thread pointing out some additions/critiques/etc of what I passed on yesterday. Alot of is EXTREMELY intriguing and plausible, but the original poster misunderstands the bit about Schrodingers Cat, for example, so there is much to tackle even in that excellent theory.
I consider it a wonderful and exciting jumping off point personally.
Sort of a crazy morning here, so I’ll save some of my points on “my” post for later, but some quick notes:
1. I do not believe Sayid was “caught” on the golf course. I think the opposite is true. He put himself in a position to make the hit. Only when he admitted who he was did his target “freak out.”
2. I would offer that the hitlist are people responsible for NPD in some way.
3. Re: “The Theory” – I would posit that the bubble is exanding since Desmond turned the key
4. I am not convinced Locke is one of the 6…but that does not mean that he does not get off the island at some point to put his father in “the box”…which would be Door #1.
5. I need to watch it again, but Ben’s comments at the end seem to indicate that Sayid and Ben had some arrangment at some time on the island that led to deaths in some way. Whether that is something to come, or new information on something we’ve already seen (I have a theory, but it is too possibly spoiler-y to share just yet) remains to be seen.
6. Generally, “The Theory” needs critical adjustment in some ways. Some topc to fold in…Jacob, the Monster, the coincidences, etc..
7. Regarding the coincidences…while trying to explain the possible nature of the conseqences of a time paradox to my wife, it occurred to me that, for lack of a better explanation, Time might be trying to correct itself somehow…to close the loop to prevent catastrophe. If time-space is physical in some way – as quantum mechanics suggests – it might be, shall we say, elastic. In a way, the crash (and the coincidences attendant to it), might be part of a correction and contraction of time.
I’ll let you all run with this for a bit.
The Spy:
I’m going to say (1) Not Sayid, and (2) not a new character.
I think we need to be mindful of what kind of time travel we mean here. In fact, I would stress that it’s not some much time travel as time manipulation. The travel aspect is limited and fixed in this theory. The key is that the Island is anchored in time (or was before Des turned the key) while the world move on.
But most importantly regarding the spy are 3 clues, bth involving Walt, and 1 involving the phone.
1. They have ackowledged he has aged. “Only he’s taller.” I would posit that Walt has AGED in relation to the island, as, let’s just say, I’m willing to bet that 100 day on the island has been longer off of it.
2. Again, Sayid has never seen anything like that phone before.
3. Ben’s reaction to Walt’s “projection.” He was only kind of surprised, but he also seemed to understand.
So, I’ll say it…Michael is on that boat.
Good stuff, Seth.
The time travel angle is something we’ve been cooking on for a while now. (The two skeletons in the cave, with the black and white stones, are almost certainly two characters we’re with now, before they go back in time to a period long before the crash.) To me, the first really glaring artifact (outside of Desmond’s time shenanigans) was the satellite phone from the freighter — that is a device from the future, from the perspective of the 815 survivors.
Plus, dramatically, flashbacks and flash-forwards are all narrative time travel — the subtext has been there all this while that time travel is a key component to the understanding of the series. Still, I’ll have to print out Hunter’s comments and keep it with me during some of the next episodes.
(I’m immersed in time-travel stuff lately. The game I’m working on now, Tomorrow War, involved Wheeler-like wormholes.)
What we’re also seeing, in the repeating themes of the narrative, though, are social splits occurring again and again. The Losties and the Others. The Others and the Natives. Hanso and Dharma. The Losties divide. Now, we see that Ben has another list of names (gathered from his knowledge of the past from the future?) and is in conflict with another group of bad people. Again and again.
For now, I’m maintaining my position that the Island moves through space-time. Sometimes it appears in the sea, suddenly cropping up underneath slave-ships (Black Rock). Sometimes it appears suddenly, revealing itself to Penny’s monitoring station.
Is the 815 in the ocean a cover-up… or an 815 from another timeline?
Are the Natives indigenous to the Island… or to the time from which the island originates?
If we stick with wormhole-style time travel (which I’m not sure we should be doing), maybe the Island simply floats back and forth from one event horizon to the next, except when it is kept in stasis by entering the numbers.
If the goal was to save the planet from its inevitable destruction, maybe the Dharma Initiative was seeking to create a wormhole (and an EM anchor and regulating station) for the whole planet, which would float back and forth between to ends of the wormhole, never quite reaching the end of humanity. Or something.
I’ll be sad when we know it all. And relieved.
Will, when I mentioned the technology of the sat phone being advanced for late 2004 (when the crash occurred) my wife scoffed. I think you’re on to something though since we both picked up on it.
I also think there may be something to the fact that Jack mentioned “100 days” and the Red Sox World Series and Frank sort of went with it by saying “don’t get me started”. You really have to wonder how much time has passed off the island.
I’ll give you space time as a possibility. As we saw from the numbers and the nature of longitude and latitude, that gives us four potential locations for the island to blink between.
See here: http://www.mostlymuppet.com/archives/2005/10/04/lost-numbers-are-gps-coordinates/
I have nothing insightful to add except that i love these recaps. Favorite thing about friday mornings.
Hunter, I’ll say that I could believe both Michael OR Sayid at this point, especially given last night’s narrative.
I’m intrigued by the concept of the elasticity of time or some sort of self-correcting time-related event, but I’m no Physicist. I think you’re right to think that I’ve probably conflated Back to the Future-style time travel with what’s happening here.
And the bit about the event horizon expanding because of Desmond’s actions (both the key and the “hopping”) makes sense. I just need to read some more Lostpedia and study up a little on my understanding of quantum mechanics.
Oh, and Faraday (the physicist) was on the British pound notes Sayid found last night. Just saying.
Hey! Love the recaps here as well!
No theories, but I found it very interesting that the Fantastic Four not only had memorized the manifest of flight 815, but also had pictures of Ben and Desmond with them. They knew exactly who to expect on the island even though Desmond and Ben arrived from seperate sources at different points in time. Ben may have someone on the boat, but the folks on the boat definitely seem to know what they’re getting into. Do they have someone on the island?
I guess the (best) thing right now, is that this theory leaves us with a great deal to consider and expand upon. Bearing in mind that there is a lot to absorb regarding a topic probably very much over our heads AND recognizing that, if it were to be “true” in terms of LOST (at least in some form), it would still have to be explainable to the masses within the structure of the show…
We have 3+ seasons of information to test against the hypothesis. Which is awesome in both senses of the word. My gut tells me that this is a foundation from which to build, and excuse me for this Einsteinian conceit, a Unified Theory of Lost, Time, and Space.
But I’m thrilled to have been abe to bring this theory to the discussion, even if it is regrettably not originally my own.
I obviously can’t help myself here…
Charlotte’s desert polar bear:
(a) a previous failed attempt at this experiment conducted in the hinterlands of Tunisia, or
(b) in some way connect to THIS experiment but illustrating some catastropic event for the island, or
(c) beats me?
Good stuff, Seth. My own theories (sorry if any are redundant to Hunter’s or other commenters–it’s too late for me to read all of that stuff):
1. Michael is Ben’s inside man on the boat, and is one of the Oceanic six, AND is the man whose funeral was depicted in the flash forward. I think Sayid reunites with him on the boat next episode, leaving us to debate “Locke or Sawyer” for the sixth member for the rest of this season.
2. I’m on the Sawyer side of that debate, btw.
3. Elsa had a similar bracelet as Naomi because they both worked for RC, the economist. And while we’re on Sayid’s storyline, he plotted to intercept his first victim at the golf course, he wasn’t discovered. Also, he told Elsa he was a “recruiter” only as an explanation of what a “headhunter” was since she didn’t seem to get the english slang (and he said “headhunter” as a joke to himself).
4. Ben has been getting on and off the island via the submarine, so no longer has that ability–and will have to use the boat to escape along with the oceanic six. And I don’t think the passport name means anything–except maybe that Ben had to resort to taking names from books to fill his many passports.
5. Maybe the connection between Desmond and the NPB Four is that Naomi’s boss–the economist, and possibly the leader of the shadow cabinet seeking to control the power of the island–is Penny’s dad. So none of the 4 have seen/met Penny, but have the pic because they were told not to harm the man in the picture, as he had value to the top dog.
6. I think all of Sayid’s targets are members of this shadow cabinet, who may or may not be the men behind Hanso–which would explain their animosity for Ben, the survivor/betrayor of their original group.
7. I think we’ll eventually find out that the island has some bizarre electromagnetic field that can heal/elongate life (the healing power of magnets!), give physical form to some thoughts, and also mess majorly with electronics (making the island invisible to detection and impossible to fly over without equipment malfunction). And the shadow cabinet is either the funders of Dharma or people who found/stole their research, and who want to use the island’s power for financial gain/world domination. So no time travel or supernatural, just a field that plays with minds/electronics. Jacob may turn out to be the mental manifestation of an island resident (Ben’s Id?) or the leftover electromagnetic energy from a former resident/group of residents.
I just think time travel is such a sticky wicket when it comes to fiction. I love time travel stories, but they get very easily contradictory, and they’re too often used as a cure-all or quick fix for plot holes and inconsistencies. Especially now that comic writer Brian K Vaughn is on staff (comics are a notorious abuser of this conceit), I hope the writers find another explanation beyond time travel.
Great site! Very interesting theories. My thought – well, if Heroes has H.R.G., maybe Lost’s R.G. just stands for Rimmed Glasses, H.R.G.’s younger stepbrother?
If Sayid was the spy on the boat, wouldn’t they have recognized him?
Lost: Eggtown…
I’m so stupid I had to have the title explained by my wife.
Locke gave Ben the last two eggs and killed a chicken.
Besides that being a reference to him being some kind of mystic/shaman/voodoo priest, it also illustrates his willingness not j…
Lost: Meet Kevin Johnson…
Like last week’s episode Ji Yeon [BONUS LINK: Powell’s discussion of that episode], we started out with some misdirection concerning flashbacks and flashforwards, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Meet Kevin Johnson:
Questions answere…