Part 4 The Death of the Author Before I go into the fourth part of this review I would like to step back and mention a term coined by Roland Barthes in his 1967 essay called “The Death of the Author”. Previously in this paper I’ve used a combination of my own analysis of the events in the show as well as using the creators’ comments from podcasts, discussion panels, interviews and so on. Darlton were in constant dialogue with the viewers and it would be futile to not include that. However Barthes argues against the use of the author’s intentions in literary criticism. The origin of the text’s meaning lies exclusively in the fabric of the text and not from a single author. In popular culture we saw instances of this concept in the re-releases of the original Star Wars-trilogy with fans disagreeing with George Lucas’ changes to the films when he released them on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray as explored in the documentary The People vs. George Lucas (Philippe, (Philippe, 2010). Fans still wants the original, unedited films to get released on Blu-Ray Blu-Ray as remastered remastered editions.1 Even the director behind Ant-Man have pleaded to Disney to release release them. them.2 Another Another film is is Blade Runner where it is ambiguous whether Deckard is a replicant or not. A decision Blade Runner 2049 also respected. However, Ridley Scott has said that Deckard is a replicant, even though Harrison Ford disagrees with it. it.3 Should we accept Ridley Scott’s comment comment as the truth or not? This This discussion has come up again very recently (fall of 2018) with J.K. Rowling confirming or denying elements from the Harry Potter -series -series (a book series that was finished in 2007) with new information on Twitter. Twitter.4 This is regarding Warner Bros. Fantastic Beasts -film -film series and the revelations we get here that ties it into the already existing Harry Potter -stories. -stories. The reason why I’ve mentioned this is because I have used comments from Darlton to prove my points earlier in this paper. Either to a question not asked on the show (like the “why wasn’t it automated?”-question automated?”-question that was clarified by them on a later occasion) or if there was something you could interpret and piece together from the show, that I used quotes from the writers to enhance the answer I have given to a particular mystery. Reetae also used some quotes and comments in his review-series as well. However I am well aware of Barthes’ concept. And it seems like Darlton does too, after commenting several times that the true canon is the mothership (the show) alone. One of the very first mysteries that I talked about was the one regarding Richard Malkin, where they wrote, shot and edited an answer and decided not to include it in the episode. Whether or not you consider it the truth (that Malkin was a fraud) or not wouldn’t matter, because the show makes it ambiguous. Darlton was even jokingly telling us in the March 10th 2008 podcast that “the podcasts are not in canon”. I am mentioning this now because it will come into play much later. *
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Reetae says that the WGA-strike made the 4th season 14 episodes long. When the showrunners negotiated an end deal they were supposed to have have 16 episodes per season.5 Like I said in part 3, they were supposed supposed to cram eight planned hours into five. So we presumably lost the stories about Libby, flashbacks to one/more of the freighter-people and a revisit of the four-toed statue. The five hours were then turned into six, so they managed to squeeze out an additional hour into the finale. Reetae says that the WGA-strike helped the writers to hurry it up and that is why he thinks the fourth season is great. But that only applied to the remaining five/six episodes. The first eight were written before the strike. And the pacing would be faster anyway, which is something they were thriving about after they had negotiated negotiated the deal many months before the strike happened. The faster pacing of the fourth season was primarily due to the new deal with ABC, not the strike. Then he says that the additional three hours that were lost in the fourth season was supposed to go to something pointless and makes a joke about the characters simply meeting a clown in the jungle. j ungle. If Reetae had done any research, he would’ve known what they were cutting out of the fourth season. He says that the 4th season has its share of unanswered mysteries and presents them. “What’s up with this random woman that suddenly appears?”
Picture 4.1
She (Harper) is not a random woman. In the very same episode we learn that this is the therapist in The Others’ community. The Others were very good at sneaking around and The Whispers were also following them in many occasions. It’s not really more mysterious than that. On the March 10th 2008 podcast Darlton said that she’s still alive and with The Others6. On the April 25th 2008 podcast Darlton also said that it really was Harper in the the jungl jungle. e.7
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However, you are more than free to speculate it beyond that if you want to. I have previously backed up the answers in the show with clarifications from the podcasts, interviews or video panels. However there is also the concept of “Death of the author”. If you believe that the author’s voice shouldn’t be heard and that you should be able to interpret things in the show without their input, then be my guest. In this situation I’ve always liked the theory that Harper died and it was The Man in Black that Juliet encountered in the jungle instead. If Juliet had done as MIB-Harper told her and stopped Daniel and Charlotte, the gas would get released. Most people on DarkUFO also theorized that it was MIB before we learned about it in the podcast.8 If it wasn’t MIB, then she could’ve been one of the Whisperers and that she could easily appear in front of Ben as a Whisperer, since he is locked down in the basement. However, if we take Damon and Carlton’s word for it, then the Harper character is much harder to solve. It would mean that she overheard Daniel and Charlotte going to The Tempest. That she knows that they have taken Ben to the basement (where he would possibly be safe from the poisonous gas?) and she is lying about her taking instructions from Ben. She has every right of being mad at Juliet for ruining her marriage with Goodwin. I don’t think it was a wise decision by Darlton to confirm that she was alive and present when she appeared to Juliet in this episode and never appeared in an episode again. There are certain things it helped a lot with the writers’ confirmation, but think the ambiguity would be a better option in this situation. “Who is the R.G. on Naomi’s bracelet?”
The R.G. isn’t revealed. The reason the bracelet is in the episode is to show that Naomi had a relationship with someone else and this is an object Sayid is reminded of in his flashforward. It says “N, I’ll always be with you. R.G” . It creates an emotional moment for Sayid when he sees Elsa wearing one. It was Sayid who questioned Naomi and then was in charge of the plan with the satellite phone and the radio tower. Now he’s in Berlin and working for Benjamin Linus. This is similar to Sayid being reminded of the cat in his Paris when he encountered Mikhail’s cat. What is the mystery in the R.G.? That someone had a relationship with Naomi?
The Rules What’s up with these “Rules”?
This is a very big subject on the show and I decided to give its own title. They are not introduced in this episode, but in what many call the weakest of the show: Stranger in a Strange Land. Juliet was sentenced to death death by the Rules of the Others Others because she killed one of their own: Danny Danny Pickett. In other words: An "Other" is not allowed to kill another "Other". "Other". These rules are ancient. We learn later on that they were set up by Mother when she says that the brothers can’t harm each other. But they are breakable, unlike The Island’s physical laws of nature. (The Island won't let you die until you have done something). They aren’t the same rules, but throughout the years it seems like The Others adopted them. In the same vein that Law of war have changed throughout history, the rules of The Others have also changed. Of course Ben and Widmore can, technically, kill each other, but maybe maybe they have so much belief in The Rules 8
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that they think they can't or that they will be punished by The Island. Ben had a lifelong faith in The Island and yet it made him sick in 2004. The Lost Encyclopedia mentions their rule system as a gentleman’s agreement, agreement, 9 which is also something that that Lost-fans guessed at when when the episode aired. Another layer to the rules rules comes from how powerful Widmore Widmore and Ben are. Widmore has has the ability to fake a plane crash. Ben has vast resources with a big off-island network of Others. Their rules also remind me of the Rules of Engagement, and in this case I would point out the Geneva Conventions. It seeks out to protect people not part of the armed conflict. Especially the fourth treaty that was about the humanitarian protection of civilians. “When the Second World War broke out, civilians were not provided with effective protection under any convention or treaty. The Regulations annexed to the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907 certainly contained some clauses which applied to civilians (A rticles 42 to 56), but their protection was only considered in connection with the occupation of a territory by an enemy army. The Regulations confined themselves to a statement of the principle that the Occupying Power must maintain law and order, and to a few elementary rules enjoining respect for family rights, for the lives of persons and for private property; property; there was also a clause prohibiting collective punishments. If these rules had been applied in good faith, faith, they would, it is true, have represented a real safeguard. But they had been drawn up at a time when hostilities hostilities were confined to the area close to the front. What significance could they have u nder conditions of "total" warfare, which exposed the civilian population of whole countries to the same dangers as the armed forces?” (The Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, Volume IV, p. 3)
Although Alex is part part of The Others, Penelope isn’t. isn’t. However, Ben and Widmore Widmore had their own rule system in regards to that. Because Ben doesn’t say that Widmore broke the rules, but changed them. “I'm here, Charles, to tell you that I'm going to kill your daughter. Penelope, is it? And once she's gone... once she's dead... then you'll understand how I feel. And you'll wish you hadn't changed the rules.” Ben is fueled with revenge and consider Penelope fair play. The rules have changed. Family and innocent civilians are not protected by their own system of rules. At least not anymore. This episode is also one that has a game scene in the beginning. The characters are playing Risk, a strategic game where the goal is to occupy every territory of the world, in an episode where Ben did the mistake of calling Alex “a pawn” to Keamy. Keamy. One that means means nothing to him. Although The Others Others might’ve been very good at keeping the rules similar similar to the Rules of Engagement. Engagement. Even giving trials when someone broke them, we still have situations where they broke the rules. Widmore killed his friend in 1954. Mikhail kills Klugh (although on her instructions), Greta and Bonnie. Maybe this act by Widmore caused them to start having trials for this? Mikhail wouldn’t have much time for a trial since he was presumed dead after Klugh was shot and after he returned he was almost sent out on a mission again. Which means that “Other can’t kill an Other” isn’t derived from a force by The Island that prohibits it. However, when Widmore killed his friend in 1954 and Locke hesitated to shoot him, that could be The Island at play. Locke hesitated and said he was “one of his people”. But The Island would have prevented his death anyway. If they 9
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had stopped Widmore and put the rifle to his head, the gun would probably jam. This is however a rule of time travel. But what about indirectly? Juliet found a loophole. She gave Jack instructions to kill Ben through the operation. Can an "Other" kill another "Other" indirectly (through another person that is not one of them)? That sets up a new layer to the rules. Ben blames Charles Widmore for Alex' death even though Keamy killed her. Does Widmore consider it as a loophole in The Rules, since Keamy isn’t an Other? But since Alex is still one of Others and a non-combatant (an innocent civilian like in the Geneva convention), it would still be a violation of The Rules.
“Why does the cabin move throughout the forest?”
I mentioned in part 3 that the concept around the cabin was changed. They had to change the plans for the cabin because the network didn’t like the idea that was written and filmed. The cabin isn’t the only thing that moves and disappear. Later this season we see that The Island does this and it seems to have a way of cloaking/hiding itself (unless you build up the electromagnetism in The Swan, so that Penny’s listening post could pick up that signal). It can even hide itself from the world and it seems to do the same thing with other places on The Island. Jack commented on how they've never encountered the lighthouse. Or The Man in Black saying that: "I've spent 30 years searching for that place you brought me as a child--that...waterfall child--that...waterfall with that beautiful light. I've walked this island from end to end, not once coming close to finding it", but when he is along with The Protector (Jack) he can see it. He says in The End: "we're here". Maybe The Island plays tricks this way, because people aren't "ready" or have to "talk to The Island" first before they can accomplish something. The reason why I talk a lot about The Island is that the cabin seems to have the same abilities. It can "present itself" at certain times for certain people when they are ready. In part 3 I addressed that the cabin works in many ways as a symbol for The Island. Almost like an omen. The next time we will see the cabin, we will learn that The Island can move. Just like the cabin. Some things can be introduced to a story to tell a concept in a different way. In the next season we have the compass (which is an impossible object) but there to illustrate a theme.
Picture 4.2
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The cabin was a very vague concept on the show and it wasn’t developed more after the 4th season. It certainly was one of the most Twin Peaks -ian -ian elements of the show and it has certainly been a headscratcher. “Who is Ben referring to when he says a different leader of the Others ordered the Purge?”
We knew that the leader of the Others when Danielle Rousseau got to The Island was Charles Widmore, as evident by the flashbacks in Dead is Dead. Eloise Hawking had already left The Island years ago to raise her son Daniel. Widmore was also shown as extremely hostile towards the DHARMA Initiative. Whether or not the orders officially came from Jacob (through Richard) we don’t know, but the leader of The Others at the time was Charles Widmore. “Why was Desmond Faraday’s constant?”
Because Faraday knew he would be with him in the future (2004) and ask him to go back to Oxford. This is answered in the very same episode. Daniel Faraday listed Desmond as his constant for the same reason Desmond selected Penny as his. Daniel knew Desmond both in the past (1996 in Oxford) and in the present (2004 on the island). Daniel’s inscription in his journal wasn’t necessarily to make viewers wonder why Daniel selected Desmond. It was to show that Daniel had written this in his journal in 1996 (after he first met Desmond) but didn’t recall writing it because of his memory issues. Why did Charles Widmore’s agent want Locke to go on a walkabout before Locke had ever been to The Island? (Yeah yeah - Locke had technically been there through time travel. But still -- the Widmore from 1954 had no idea that Locke came to the Island via a trip from Australia OR that he had been crippled. So setting him up a walkabout makes no sense).
The sentence in the parenthesis was shown on screen for a split second. I think he almost answers it there. The events in 1954 had profound meaning for The Others. They did as Daniel told them and carefully placed the bomb under the ground. Richard Alpert also went to Tustin, California when John was born. Why wouldn’t they follow Locke’s life after he told them that Jacob sent him and vanished right in front of them? Widmore would have known that John became a paraplegic in 2001. He still wasn’t bald, like he and Richard remembered him, and they probably deduced that The Island would be the factor that made him walk again. Even Richard could’ve gotten this info from Jacob, since Jacob was on that same site. So, in short, Widmore was trying to get John Locke to the island in order to replace replace Ben as the leader of the Others. Others. The interesting thing thing about this is that Richard gave up on Locke and focused on Ben instead. In 1974 he tried to get a teenage Locke to the Island (this was during the spring). He didn’t go. The very same year Richard meets Ben, who seems to be special. s pecial. Three years later Jack would convince Richard to not give up. In the early 90’s Widmore was banished, but like he said: “I'm deeply invested in the future of the Island, John. So, yes, I've been watching them.” He could try to set him on a Walkabout, or a trip, or something s omething else. Whatever it would be, other forces (destiny) would make sure that John Locke would wind up on The Island.
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Abaddon was subject to a lot of theories. theories. One that I enjoyed a lot was the theory that Walt Walt was Abaddon. I used these points to convince myself of this theory. 1) The name Abaddon. Abaddon was described in Revelations as the angel of the abyss, and Walt was very connected to death on the show. Protestant commentator Matthew Henry (1708) believed Abaddon to be the Antichrist, whereas the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary Commentary (1871) and and Henry H. Halley (1922) identified identified the angel as as Satan. Latter-Day Latter-Day Saints Saints believe that that the use of “Abaddon” “Abaddon” in Revelation Revelation 9 refers to the devil.10 2) Walt changed his identity in the future. He was known as Keith Johnson in 2004-2010. 3) He has a "sense" of future events. Just like Abaddon guides people where they need to be. 4) He visits Hugo at Santa Rosa, just like Walt did. I enjoyed how they framed the shot of Abaddon with the blackboard in the background. It shows an island, a raft and a shark. (In season 1 Walt was concerned that a shark would attack them on the raft). In this scene with Abaddon, all the objects are crowning around his head, as if they all came from his imagination (picture 4.3).
Picture 4.3
5) He calls Locke for Mr. Locke, like Walt did. 6) How he gave Locke and Walt some privacy during the meeting in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham . 7) Abaddon first meets John Locke in Cabin Fever after after he wheels him around a poster that says: “Get back in the game”. He asks Locke: Abaddon: “Let me ask you something. Do you believe in miracles?” Locke: “No. I don't believe in miracles.” Abaddon: “You should. I had one happen to me.”
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What is the first thing Locke tells Walt on the island (after the Backgammon-discussion)? He tells him a secret. Walt later tells Michael that Locke told him a miracle happened here. What is the miracle that happened to Abaddon? That’s also also up to your interpretation. I'm coming coming back to mine. 8) Walt was on his own walkabout when he was on The Island and was taught how to only use his "mind's eye". After Locke taught him that, he told Michael Michael that “As long as as we're here, I think Walt should should be allowed to realize his potential”. Abaddon: “Is that what you are, Mr. Locke? I went on my walkabout convinced convinced I was one thing, but I came came back another. I found out what I was made of, who I was.” He knew of himself, his superpowers and learned how to actually use them. He had trouble with that his first time on The Island, but Hurley recruited him to help his father. Locke: “And here you are, an orderly”. Abaddon: “Oh, I'm a lot more than just an orderly, John”. I am Walt. Abaddon also says that the the next time they meet meet each other, John will owe him one favour. Would it be the dog whistle to bring back Vincent? Or teaching him to reach his potential? We can’t ignore the most obvious part. Matthew Abaddon is much older. Something must’ve happened that caused Walt to become stuck in the past and realized that he can’t go back. Whatever happened happened. Locke: “She loved me. If I had just... [sighs] we could've been together”. Abaddon: “Maybe you could have. That wouldn't change anything. She'd still be gone”. Locke: “Would she?” Abaddon: “Helen is where she's supposed to be. As sad as it is, her path led here. And your path, no matter what you did or what you do, your path leads back to the Island”.
Abaddon knows his path leads back back to The Island, because he was was recruited by Ben and Hugo, who who probably told them everything that happened. Isn't it tragic? Ben kidnaps Walt. Walt gets recruited back by Ben, who is sorry about the whole thing. Ben kills adult Walt. Locke: “You say that like it's all det--inevitable”. Abaddon: “Mr. Widmore told me Richard Alpert said that you were going to die. die. So you tell me, John. Is that inevitable, or is it a choice?”
Some of this is very far-fetched, but the vague nature of some of Lost’s elements fueled the imaginations of its audience. The audience could use screenshots, literary references, quotes and other elements to tie up their “head-canon” story. In my opinion that has a much more everlasting power than a definitive answer, which is what Denis Villeneuve respected when he directed Blade Runner 2049 .
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“How did Locke drew a picture of the Smoke monster as a kid, when he had not only been to The Island, but was deemed by Richard that he was not special”. special”.
Picture 4.4
He drew the picture using black crayons. And I’ll answer the last part first. Richard didn’t think Locke was special at that point in time, but Jack told him otherwise much later. Over time Richard really did turn around: “'Cause when word got back here that there was a man with a broken spine on the plane, w ho could suddenly walk again...well, people here began to get very excited because that...that could only happen to someone who was extremely special.”
Richard has seen The Island heal for over 130 years. The quote implies that it is a first time The Island has cured a paraplegic. And The Island had to cure him, because he was walking in The Island’s past. Ben confirms this to Locke in the afterlife when he confesses to him that John Locke really was special. Throughout Locke’s life there weren’t anything special about him. That was part of his character from the moment he was created. A sad, pathetic office-drone. The Man in Black didn’t think he was special either. However there was a glimpse of The Island reaching out to him when he was little. In the same vein that Walt knew things before they happened when he was a kid, Locke had something similar. What disturbs me even more is that not only did Locke draw it, but that it was hanging on the wall. This is pure speculation, but he might’ve gotten angry when his foster mother took it as meaningless scribble and made sure that it was hanging on the wall. “Oh why was Farraday [sic] involuntarily involun tarily crying when he saw a FAKE report that the Oceanic 815 passengers were all dead”
Why does Reetae capitalize the word fake? Daniel (and the rest of the world) didn’t know it was fake. We knew later in season 4 and 5 that Daniel continued with the time experiments without using a protection for his head. His mind became scrambled. With Theresa (the one he experimented on) s he wasn’t exactly aware of where and when she was. Daniel was not that severe. He told Widmore that: that: “I don't know why it's bothering me so much. It's just so sad. They're dead” and the dialogue hints that it’s the dead people that makes him cry, not the disaster. In the future he will get to know several of the passengers of Flight 815. He spent three years with some of them in the past (before the events in this one), but for him it was the future. 9
* Reetae asks why Jacob didn’t intervene in the mortal peril The Island was in. He was the Protector of The Island, yet Keamy came in there with RPG rockets and a plan to “torch The Island”. Why didn’t he do anything, Reetae asks. Why didn’t he prevent the innocent bystanders getting mowed down by the mercenaries? This is actually a very good question and one we are supposed to be asking. Why didn’t God intervene during the Holocaust? If he’s so powerful why didn’t he prevent the innocent bystanders getting mowed down by the nazis? We are introduced to Mark Pellegrino (the actor that plays Jacob) in the season 5-finale. In Ab Aeterno we have a scene between Ricardo and Jacob about this exact problem. This will be highlighted in future parts in this document, but we learn that Jacob and the Man in Black aren’t the absolute good and evil. Jacob wanted Richard to be his intermediary and intervene in these cases. And The Others did. They enlist Kate and Sayid to help them stop and kill the mercenaries in the season 4-finale. And then Ben moved the Island so that Widmore couldn’t find it again. “We never find out what the goal of the freighter assault was? (...) But if the mercenaries were successful in torching the island, how would it be his (Widmore’s) again? What was the point of all this?”
No, we learn about the goal. Miles says in Confirmed Dead that they are there to locate Benjamin Linus and take him off. Widmore tells Locke that Ben once fooled him to leave The Island. Widmore told Ben at the end of The Shape of Things to Come that The Island is his. “It always was”. Reetae brings up Keamy’s line about “torch The Island”, but should add in the line that comes after that. Keamy: “'Cause he's a very smart man, and if Linus knows that we're gonna torch the Island, there's only one place that he can go.” Gault: “What do you mean, "torch the Island"? Is land"? That was not the agreement. I agreed to ferry you here for an extraction mission.”
Keamy is obviously acting out of his element here. He even commands his superior on the freighter. He and his team was attacked by the Smoke Monster. He takes this a step further. Seeing how extremely large this island is, I doubt that they even had the equipment and time to burn it all. It works much better dramatically if Keamy seems threatening towards everyone on The Island instead of just Ben. Reetae also compliments Keamy on this. He’s certainly a threatening figure. It is also my theory that this isn’t the first time he tried to find it. In season 2 we learn about Henry Gale and his balloon trip around the world. It was sponsored by Widmore labs, one of Charles Widmore’s companies in the Widmore Corporation (as seen in picture 4.5). In the August 2nd 2007 podcast Damon Lindelof said that Ben and Henry Gale Gale “had words”.11 This makes sense, since Ben knew about the name name Jennifer, but didn’t think of 11
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digging out Henry’s wallet where the 20 dollar bill was (that exposed Ben’s lie about Henry being dead on arrival). We can also deduce the date when he arrived if Gale didn't allow his license to expire and that Minnesota has a four-year license renewal period (meaning the balloon crashed in 2003). The $20 bill that Gale had on him was issued on October 9, 2003, according to the serial number on the bill. My personal theory is that this was one of Widmore’s attempts to find The Island. One year later he took more drastic measures with a group of mercenaries.
Picture 4.5
“Why does Widmore want everyone killed? What was the masterstroke? This is one of those instances where a cliched villainous monologue would be helpful, because, seriously, what was his plan here?”
I already covered part of this. Widmore cares about “his people”. The man even ordered Ben and Ethan to exterminate Danielle Danielle Rousseau, even suggesting to Ben that the child should be killed. He has no problems killing people that stand in his way of achieving what he wants. He dug up 324 corpses, dressed them up and put them in this plane that he chopped into three pieces. Then he made sure that it ended up on the bottom of the Sunda trench, a pit deep enough that made sure no rescue party would be able to identify the bodies or pick up the wreckage. He doesn’t want anyone else to find The Island. Of course he would have a motivation to kill the 815 survivors because if they got off The Island, he would risk them telling the public the truth. Reetae compliments the show for giving the villain-role to Keamy, who is pure evil. I agree on this. He is working for Widmore, but since Widmore is back in England, it would serve much better if he had a representative on The Island.
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Reetae says that the Others have a rebirth at the end of this season and that they are there for a grand purpose. This is also true, but the rebirth comes from change in leadership. This time they step in, because like I mentioned earlier, Richard’s role is to step in. Reetae brings up the pregnancy issues again that he feels like The Others forgot. That’s not really true, because it is still part of Juliet’s character arc. This is what she was brought to the Island for. We develop more with the relationship she has with Sun and her pregnancy both at the end of the third season and in this season as well. It comes back in season 5 with Amy’s pregnancy. Reetae brings up a scene in Eggtown where Kate asks if it would be the worst thing in the world if she got pregnant. Reeta mocks the dialogue here, because it seems like they don’t care about the pregnancy problem anymore. Yes, Kate will die if she stay on The Island. She was going to leave The Island anyway. That has been one of the trademarks of Kate all the way since season 1 when she didn’t want to settle at the caves or tried to take Sawyer’s spot on the raft. Like I’ve mentioned in the last part. If Sawyer got her pregnant, she would be able to give birth outside The Island just like Sun. “Suddenly The Island is just no longer an island. It now has a barrier or a force field or something that prevents people from entering it”
This isn’t something sudden. We knew that it wasn’t just an island already from the pilot with the supernatural being that is The Monster. The barrier around it was something we learned in the season 2-finale, when Desmond told us that he was heading for a straight line to Fiji, but never made it outside the barrier. This was also foreshadowed in season 1. A very popular theory in season 1 involved The Island being in some sort of dome or force field12, after the the camera showed us this this page (picture (picture 4.6) from the Spanish Comic Book.
Picture 4.6
In season 4 Daniel mentions that on The Island the light doesn’t scatter quite right. Just like if you lived inside a bottle, the light would not go in a straight line through the glass. In this moment Daniel have probably deduced that The Island is inside a dome. 12
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The discrepancy of 305 and 325
Picture 4.7
Reetae wonders why there is a discrepancy, since Daniel Faraday is adamant on it being 305 and no other. The show seems to hint that there could be different bearing at different times, because when they time-travelled back in time, Juliet says that they should leave The Island with the Zodiac raft. Daniel says that: “For us to leave, I need to calculate a new bearing”, which means that it wasn’t the only bearing to get of The Island safely. There’s a lot of time that has passed since Michael left. If we use the Lostpedia timeline he left on November 27th and the freighter-people arrived there on December 21st. We also know that The Island is moving all the time. The characters had a specific window of time to fly over the Pacific ocean if they were to arrive on The Island in 316 . The bearing was 305 from The Beginning of the End to There’s No Place Like Home , a span of only nine days. In 2007 Widmore came to The Island and passed the beach camp before heading to Hydra island (going East). People have arrived to The Island at different bearings as well, and in season 5 we learn that there are windows that open for where The Island is currently located. Guam is not north of Los Angeles at all, all, yet they still came came in. For all we know, the Island’s Island’s moves could rotate the the whole place. In January January 1991 the bearing could be 49 degrees and then 77 the next month. However, since this is a good place to put it, the show had a lot of discr epancies. Especially in terms of the geography of The Island. It certainly felt more smaller in season 1 than in season 2, but that is also understandable. It was expanded with more mythology. Hydra island became a much more important place after the mini-season in season 3. In the writers room they had a timeline of all the crucial events of the show as well as room on the wall for the character that were either alive, dead or “undead”. They had room for all the episode titles of the season and a big whiteboard that broke the current episode into six acts. One thing I wish they would have was a gigantic map of The Island. In season 1 they did provide us a perfectly good template for 13
it. Rousseau’s map has all the mountain ranges. It has the crater, some references references to future events: radio transmitter, “the ruins of unknown origin” that we saw in The Brig and and even a couple of smaller islands of the coast. The maps we’ve gotten after has given us a lot of errors and discrepancies between each other. Especially the one we saw in Through the Looking Glass. 13 Popular cartographers amongst the Lost-fandom were Jonah Adkins14, Yung2315, TheLostMap16, LostySmurf17 and the Tumblr-user Theislandmap Theislandmap18 used Rousseau’s map as the default and then tried to work around everything else. In the end, the official map was Rousseau’s since it was also the one they used when they distributed the Lost Complete Collection. The change that was made was (obviously) to make one of the smaller islets on the east coast much larger, since Hydra island changed in size and form throughout Lost . The majority of the discrepancies came in the dialogue in the show. The Barracks was always north from the beach camp, as we learned when they were trekking at the compass bearing from Eko’s stick. Or when Kate gave directions to Sun about going Northwest for a day and a half. But the barracks were “due south” in Confirmed Dead . Also one of the biggest inconsistencies are the distances between the submarine dock and the barracks, barracks, which which TheLost TheLostmap map covered covered on his his blog: blog:19 “A. The view of the barracks in episode 03x01 “The tale of Two Cities”. This view clearly shows the barracks to be landlocked. B. The cabling map Sayid uncovered in episode 03x12 “Par Avion”. The cabling map, as well as the map supplied in the Dharma Initiative Initiation Kit (Blu Ray extra), shows that the barracks are completely surrounded by sonic barriers, placed approx. 20 ft apart. These maps do not show the dock within the sonic barrier. C. The view of the submarine leaving dock in episode 05x15 “Follow the Leader”. This view clearly shows the submarine leaving the dock and traveling into the open ocean. Therefore the dock must be located on the coast. D. There is a small boathouse seen in episode 04x04, “Eggtown”, we believe this be outside of the sonic barrier but fairly close to the barracks. We believe the boathouse lies on a small lake and may have a small dock, but this boat house/dock is not the same as the submarine dock. The position of the boathouse has little to do with the distance distance between the barracks and the submarine dock.”
But the distances between the submarine dock and the barracks have varied throughout the show. I must compliment the show about a lot of consistency as well. I mentioned in the last part about the areas surrounding the beach camp being very consistent in regards of the crater. The tailies were hiking the beaches from the East side, while Michael was heading north towards The Others in The Hunting Party . The raft was also heading north, since they had The Island on their right hand side. They were heading “North by Northeast”, as mentioned by Michael in Exodus , and they bumped into The Others at sea. It would be 13
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wik http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ben's_maps i/Ben's_maps https://ew.com/article/2010 https://ew.com/article/2010/06/16/lost-ma /06/16/lost-map/ p/ 15 http://www.losttv-forum. http://www.losttv-forum.com/forum/s com/forum/showthread.php?t= howthread.php?t=29143 29143 16 http://thelostmap.blogspot.c http://thelostmap.blogspot.com/ om/ 17 http://lostmap.blogspot.com http://lostmap.blogspot.com// 18 http://theislandmap.tumblr.c http://theislandmap.tumblr.com/ om/ 19 http://thelostmap-referenceit http://thelostmap-referenceitems.blogspot.c ems.blogspot.com/ om/ 14
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impossible to be 100% correct, since The Island is fictitious and the landmarks would never weave together. A filming location on the North shore of Oahu might be intercut by a filming location on the West coast, that has a different mountain range and nearby jungle. The mountain range at The Barracks are the same as the mid-section crash site or the background at Ben’s breakfast with Kate on Hydra Island, because they are all shot at Mokuleia, but they are not at the same place on The Island. All in all. The discrepancy discrepancy with the bearing was was answered by Daniel Faraday Faraday in The Lie , when he said that he had to calculate a new bearing since they were in a different time, but I can’t defend the fact that the show had discrepancies. Time dilation difference
Picture 4.8
Reetae asks why there is a time dilation on The Island, but they still have the ability to talk to each other on satellite phones. Damon Lindelof addressed this in Popular Mechanics : “According to the rules of our show, a communication between sat phones is not affected by temporal distortion, but if you were to send a radio broadcast and/or and/or a telegraph telegraph message, it would be affected by temporal distortion.” distortion.” 20
You can accept this answer or just chalk it up as a side effect of the weird dome around The Island. If you enter it at the wrong bearing you might get on the other side at a different time. That happened to the body of Doc Ray that entered the dome at a time that shifted him two days prior to his death. Interestingly enough, the idea of a time dilation was there much earlier. They hinted at it at the 2006 Comic-Con. Carlton Cuse: And that was sort of… that, that was a signpost that the history of the Island may be a lot of um… more extensive than we’ve already dealt with on the show… so I think, by the time the show is done, we’ll have covered a lot of time. And um… in terms of how many days on the Island specifically, I dunno? 117? Damon Lindelof: It’s interesting that you should ask about time because… you know… you’re making a basic assumption that they’ve been there, y’know, as long as they think they’ve been
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there. [Crowd murmurs, someone says “Oh, no.”] I would say by the end of Season 3… that very different idea… Carlton Cuse: Stop right there, Damon, stop right there.
There is a possibility they wanted to have an even bigger time dilation, but the network worked against it. This wouldn’t be the first time, since they were very afraid to put anything too sci-fi s ci-fi at this stage. “The climax should’ve been them getting off The Island. That’s what every episode u p until now have been built up to. That’s what brought all of these characters in the first place”
That’s his opinion, but the show was never about that. “This show is about people who are metaphorically lost in their lives, who get on an airplane, and crash on an island, and become physically lost on the planet Earth. And once they are able to metaphorically find themselves in their lives again, they will be able to physically find themselves in the world again. When you look at the entire show, that's what it will look like. That's what it's always been about." - - Damon Lindelof, IGN , January 16, 2007
Reetae tells a fan-fiction ending on how he would’ve ended the show. In summary, he wanted it to re-write the season finale of season 4 that it would end on that season. They get rescued by Penny, Hurley uses his money to ferry boats to The Island (that he for some reason knows where is in this fan-fic ending) and rescues the rest. Some stay on The Island. Jack and Locke have a heart-to-heart conversation after Daniel Faraday says that the time dilation between the real-world and The Island is getting worse, so this would be the final time they see this place. Jack wonders if it was all worth it and it ends with Ben visiting Widmore before it cuts to black (insinuating that he kills him there). This is also his opinion, but this is an ending rooted in a show that was just Cast Away or Gilligan’s about survival on a deserted island. It would’ve been a very predictable show. It’s a very Cast Island-ending. That is what the show was in the Nowhere-script, which ABC despised and commissioned to J.J. Abrams to turn it around. He He and Damon Lindelof blew blew them away and and ABC greenlit the project from from the outline (Marxuach, 2015, p. 3). The Pilot -script -script afterwards changed that so the show was something more unique. This is what made the show successful. The Pilot does have Sayid and Jack in focus, with their determination to find a way to contact any form for rescue. But Part 1 and Part 2 ends with the following questions that opens this universe to more than finding coconuts and shelter: - “Guys? How does something like that happen?” - “Guys. Where are we?” It doesn’t end with a hopeful tune, that the French woman got rescued. It ends with “It killed them all” and includes hidden clues about Brennan and The Black Rock as well. Even our o ur main character Jack said in the first episode after the Pilot that this island was their chance to start all over. That three days ago they all died. Why would the show s how throw out all those themes with a simple ending that they eventually found rescue? I find it very odd that Reetae doesn’t even mention the monster in this fan-fiction or the reason why all these characters were connected and brought to this place. This was established in the Pilot . “The show in some sense is about how we are all intertwined in our lives” (Darlton, Lost: The Answers ). ). And something else that was established in the first season was that The Island was the one that put them through the test. The obstacles they had to go through for their 16
character development. Reetae ignores everything supernatural supernatural about the show and just focuses on the survival and the characters would be whole again just by leaving it. It wasn’t what the writers wanted. When talking about the phases of the show s how it was supposed to be that the final phase (after some so me characters have left) would be the final phase. The third and final phase would be the people who left the island realizing it's a mistake and want to go back to help the ones that they left behind and save The Island.21 In the end going going back to what what Locke told Jack, Jack, that this this place is special. The conversation in What They Died For summarizes summarizes the show (and what it was supposed to be) in many ways:
Jacob: “You call him "The Monster." But I'm responsible for what happened to him. I made him that way. And ever since then he's been trying to kill me. It was only a matter of time before he figured out how, and when he did, someone would have to replace me. And that's that's why I brought you all here”. Sawyer: “Tell me something, Jacob. Why do I gotta be punished for your mistake? What made you think you could mess with my life? I was doin' just fine til you dragged my ass to this damn rock”. Jacob: “No, you weren't. None of you were. I didn't pluck any of you out of a happy existence. You were all flawed. I chose c hose you because you were like me. You were all alone. You were all looking for something that you couldn't find out there. I chose you because you needed this this place as much as it needed you”.
Another thing about Reetae’s Reetae’s fan-fic-ending is that that he wanted Jack to think think about either Juliet or Kate Kate as who he wanted to spend time with. Not only did Reetae complain about this earlier in the video (about Juliet and Jack’s small relationship relationship being a weak part of the show. show. Which I agree with), with), but making it part of the the vital decisions in Jack’s character arc is baffling. In The End he instead has a moment with Christian Shephard, his father, telling him that the most important time he spent in his life was with the LOST characters. In a way breaking the 4th wall and acknowledging the audience and Jack. I think people would be more furious if Jack only acknowledged “either Kate or Juliet” at the end of the show. * Reetae didn’t like the ending of Cabin Fever when when Locke says: “He wants us to move The Island”. That’s also his opinion. In the Live Threads on The Fuselage and Lostpedia the reaction was quite opposite (Cabin Fever is is 22 a popular Locke-episode). Locke-episode). On Lostpedia several several fans felt the ending was was the best part of the episode saying: “I thought this episode was just ok o k until the last 2 minutes with claire and then "move the island". then I thought it was the best all season!”, “whoa, “whoa, what an ending” ending”23 and “WOW!!!!!!!! Move the island!!! Thats awesome!!!”. And there was enthusiasm enthusiasm in the Mysteries-section Mysteries-section at DarkUFO.24 Of course, in the big picture those users don’t represent the vast audience that saw the episode. But Reetae doesn’t provide any sources on the fan reactions anyway, so I could provide at least some of them. Many were making connections after this episode aired that The Island might’ve might’ve moved during the purple-sky purple-sky event25 although Darlton Darlton said it didn’t at a later event (but it 21
https://www.youtube.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYC8 watch?v=XYC8Apc62gw Apc62gw https://forum.lpedia.com/sh https://forum.lpedia.com/showthread.php/14027owthread.php/14027-04x11-quot-Cabin-Fev 04x11-quot-Cabin-Fever-quot-(Questions er-quot-(Questions-Theories-Discussion -Theories-Discussion)) 23 https://forum.lpedia.com/sh https://forum.lpedia.com/showthread.php/14026owthread.php/14026-04x11-quot-Cabin-Fev 04x11-quot-Cabin-Fever-quot-(In-show er-quot-(In-show-Analysis-amp-C -Analysis-amp-Chat)/page22 hat)/page22 24 https://lostmysteries.blogs https://lostmysteries.blogspot.com/2008/0 pot.com/2008/05/how-is-locke-sup 5/how-is-locke-supposed-to-move-is posed-to-move-island.html land.html 25 https://forum.lpedia.com/s https://forum.lpedia.com/showthread.php/144 howthread.php/14467-The-Violet-Light-The 67-The-Violet-Light-The-Island-quot-Mov -Island-quot-Moving-quot ing-quot 22
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made The Island Island visible). The The immediate reactions on DarkUFO DarkUFO were fantastic. fantastic.26 For the “Love it” it” vs. “Didn’t Love it”-threads on The Fuselage, there were more replies for the former than the latter. And after reading the seven pages on the “Didn’t Love it”-thread, the main criticism for this episode is that it feels disjointed, some people didn’t like Christian being in the cabin, that Desmond didn’t go with Sayid on the Zodiac raft and that it overall felt to mythological and sci-fi (where the the “moving the the island”-bit comes comes in).27 There were more more concerns after There’s No Place Like Home Part 2 , not this episode. And the main concerns on the finale wasn’t just the island being moved. It was also the death of Michael, that fans felt abrupt. He was hyped since the summer of 2007 as a character coming back (he was even on the panel at Comic-Con) and starred in a lot of the mobisodes as well. Due to his main cast-contract, he had to be credited for every episode until he was revealed at the end of the seventh episode. Guest actor Kevin Durand were in more episodes than Harold, and the finale left a bitter taste with some fans and with Harold Perrineau himself. Oscar Dahl from BuddyTv wasn’t pleased with that part in the season 4-finale and said: “Put yourself in Harold's shoes: the writers made a big hullabaloo about bringing Michael back to the show, only to stow him away on the freighter, have him get beat up a bunch and then killed in an episode filled with emotional reunions. It can't feel good to have your character killed off on a major TV show. If I was Harold, I too would be pissed off. There was a lot more story that could have been told with Michael and Walt.” 28
Anyway, let’s get get back to the idea of the line line uttered by Locke at the end end of Cabin Fever . The idea and theories of The Island moving had been there since season 1. For instance, a comparison was made with the 90’s animated show Noah’s island which was a moving island that came through after a meteorite strike cut it out of the mainland (picture 4.9). And the one controlling the island was a polar bear. If the Island moved, maybe it could “pick up” polar bears from the north.
Picture 4.9 26 27 28
https://darkufo.blogspot.com https://darkufo.blogspot.com/2008/05/what/2008/05/what-did-you-think-of-ep did-you-think-of-episode-411-cabin.htm isode-411-cabin.htmll http://thefuselage.com/show http://thefuselage.com/showthread.php?t=9379 thread.php?t=93792&page=5 2&page=5 https://web.archive.org/web/ https://web.archive.org/web/20090223061122/htt 20090223061122/http://www.buddyt p://www.buddytv.com/articles v.com/articles/lost/harold-perrin /lost/harold-perrineau-upset-with-lo-20 eau-upset-with-lo-20058.aspx 058.aspx
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And a little later later in the first season a small beechcraft beechcraft ended up on The Island. Island. Boone asked the correct question: “What is a Nigerian priest doing on an Island in the South Pacific?”. By the time this episode aired and someone posted “Island moving” moving” in The Fuselage Fuselage thread29 it had earlier earlier been covered in the now taken-down-section taken-down-section called “Wild theories” by the user Chronicycle that said: “Yeah, I posted this back when the "Wild Theories" board was still up. Basically, B asically, the island could be travelling along the cable we forst [sic] [s ic] met in Solitary. Just like cable cars. This would explain the polar bears, Joanna drowning (the island could have been moving away from her), the changing star patterns, and the tides”.
And this is something fans have have rediscovered later on with rewatches, rewatches, where the scene of the the tide washing up 30 being a clue and a user called called “the tide washing up the fuselage” the 6th best foreshadowing on the show on a SpoilerTV countdown.31 Later in season season 1 we see the Black Rock that set sail from the the Eastern coast of Africa and suddenly winds up in the jungle. (Some theorized that The Island moved to a location where The Black Rock was sailing). A moving island was a popular theory after the first season. On the November 6th 2006 podcast we had a fan that asked the showrunners this question: Carlton Cuse: I would like to know, Damon. And this is called "Moving" from "Marvelo18": "I was thinking… does the island move? How does Eko's short range plane…" (well, it says "plans", I assume he means "plane")… "go from somewhere near Africa to somewhere somewhere near Australia? Maybe the island is forever moving. Just a thought." Damon Lindelof: I think that's a fascinating thought. And I couldn't possibly answer that question, 'cause if we were to reveal something so ginormous as if the island were moving us… Carlton Cuse: In a podcast. They would fire us. Damon Lindelof: They would fire us instantly. And also, it would be much cooler if they would reveal something like that on the show.
For a lot of fans the ending of Cabin Fever fueled fueled their imagination because a theory that was there for 3-4 years was confirmed. “A station dedicated to research time travel. Because, why not”
This station wasn’t introduced here, but one year in advance. We knew about The Orchid from the outtakes presented to us at Comic-Con 2007. I can understand the criticism towards the introduction to it, because they didn’t mention time travel as one of the studies in the first orientation film. But then again I have to repeat something I said much earlier. There were multiple times the network and the writers weren’t agreeing on stuff. The network feared the inclusion of science-fiction. They said no to the real purpose of the scientific s cientific expedition 29
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in season 1 (Danielle Rousseau was supposed to say: “time” as their field of study when Sayid asked her). However, as time went by they managed to work that into the show. They snuck in a tiny reference to it in The Long Con when they pick up a radio station playing “Moonlight Serenade”. Hurley says that it could come from “any time” as a joke, but this was also a foreshadowing. If the show were to end in season 3, it would still be a joke. But since they negotiated negotiated a deal and could do the show they they always wanted, wanted, it had more relevance to to it. If a group of scientists (anywhere in the world) found a place that could be important in the study of time travel, why wouldn’t they want to build a research r esearch station and try to learn what it was?
Referring to The Island moving in the finale “This is it, folks! This was the moment when Lost officially jumped the shark”
Picture 4.10
I will once again refer him to the first part where I explain why Reetae has misinterpreted the term “jump the shark”. And it’s not “officially”, but “subjectively”. None of the TV critics called it a “jump the shark”-moment. The Guardian nominated Stranger in a Strange Land , because that is what the fans consider to be the weakest episode, but said that it couldn’t be the episode that “jumped the shark”, because it helped them negotiate and end end dea deal. l.32 Ev Even en The Rolling Stones Magazine , that said that the show disappointed them many times, pointed out that there there isn’t a single single or clearly defined defined “jump the shark”-moment shark”-moment because because no fans can agree agree on that.33 If you go through all articles, forum posts and comment section you will have a repeating “in my opinion it jumped the shark when …” from several several users about several moments. moments. Even TV critics have have many different arguments on when it happened. This isn’t only for Lost . Other shows can also be just as hard to pinpoint. Half a year after the season 4-finale aired, Darlton were interviewed by Fanbolt about the phrase and Carlton Cuse said. 32
https://www.theguardian.com https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/201 /tv-and-radio/2017/mar/20/lost-a 7/mar/20/lost-abc-stranger-str bc-stranger-strange-land ange-land https://www.rollingstone.com/ https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-lists/jum tv/tv-lists/jumping-the-shark-1 ping-the-shark-10-great-tv-shows 0-great-tv-shows-that-took-a-t -that-took-a-turn-for-the-wors urn-for-the-worse-156728/the-off e-156728/the-office-3435 ice-3435 9/ 33
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“We actually TRY and jump the shark s hark all the time. The last thing we want to do is feel like the show is falling into a tired paradigm. In fact this season we start out with a new narrative narrative approach. Not the now traditional flashbacks or flashforwards. We always are trying to keep keep the storytelling surprising.”34
Reetae found it too silly that you had to go down to a frozen chamber and turn a donkey wheel to move the island. This is also subjective. I liked this scene because it ties some mysteries from the 4th season. To bring up Peirce sign system, the polar bear is an index of winter and snow. They’ve surprised us once by having it in the jungle in the first season, then then in the desert, but the one in the the desert was probably in this cold chamber chamber at some point in time. We also had the cold breath and parka Ben wore in The Shape of Things to Come. The frozen chamber seems “out there”. It’s that weird and strange part of Lost that J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof wanted to shine in the Pilot . And the wheel Ben pushes is also reminiscent of the wheel of dharma (picture 4.11), the symbol symbol and summary summary of the Buddhist’s Buddhist’s Eight-fold path to nirvana.35 This cycle is also also the emblem emblem of Chakravatin, “the “the wheel turner”, turner”, which is a Sanskrit term for a universal ruler. ruler.36 I also like that that the place is frozen, not just because of the writers’ interest in challenging the show, but that it is frozen in one location until someone frees it and gets it moving. While moving it shines a bright, yellow light (which I will come back to, since it has a relevance in season 6), but most importantly is the moment Ben has realized he has lost his position as the leader of The Others. MIB originally built it not to move the island, but to leave it. And Ben is prepared to never see the place again.
Picture 4.11: The dharmacakra
“But to a lot of people this was the first sign that the show was veering towards disaster. And you know what, those people were 100% right”
I would like to see the polls or references to the audience reactions to the season 4-finale. However, this is also a subjective opinion. The reason why Reetae didn’t like this moment is that it meant that the show could no longer explain things in a science-fact-way. He pulls out two sources where the Lost producers said there’s a logical explanation for 34 35 36
https://www.fanbolt.com/ https://www.fanbolt.com/5869/interview-dam 5869/interview-damon-lindelof-carlton-c on-lindelof-carlton-cuse-from-lost/ use-from-lost/ https://www.ancient-symbo https://www.ancient-symbols.com/buddhistls.com/buddhist-symbols.html symbols.html https://www.exoticindiaart.c https://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/sym om/article/symbols/aff10490/ bols/aff10490/
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everything in 2005. But that is what the answers to a show look like in 2005. The show grew and developed. The network intervened, new writers came on board, the fans voiced their opinion on the show (and the fans were much more into the sci-fi-elements we got. The reception to Flashes Before Your Eyes were were phenomenal). And some things didn’t work out when writing or some things worked. And as a result of a living and breathing organism that the show was, the answers changed. The quotes Reetae brings up comes from a time they weren’t allowed to do time travel. It comes from a time where the show could be two seasons or 13. In that case I can understand the frustration of the viewers that thought the show (with all the questions and answers) was set in stone from the first minute. But that’s not really how it works, which I have made abundantly clear in the previous parts. I don’t think Reetae even read the entire New York Times article article from 2005 that he presented, because they also say this in the very same interview: “But we don't know and we can't know. For ABC, this is a very financially successful enterprise, and rightfully their goal is to have to it go along as long as they can have it go along.” 37 In the very same interview they also embraced the model of X-Files where where Frank Sponitz was a writer for eight out of the nine years: X-Files creator Chris Carter, did not think the series series would go past five years and planned accordingly. When ratings and financial success demanded otherwise, the producers producers had to improvise. (...) Both Mr. L indelof and Mr. Cuse embrace Mr. Spotnitz's theory that the show is about the journey, not the ending, and sound resigned resigned to mixed reviews no matter how they resolve the various mysteries.
Yes. “No matter how they resolve the various mysteries”. I’ve already covered that creativity and writing is a growing process that changes along the journey. And the series finale highlighted the journey as “the most important time”. It was the one we spent with “these people”. So it is true what Reetae says that over time they were pushing the envelope on what could be considered logical, because the show really was changing. The answers and mysteries had more nuances over time. They experimented with more genre conventions. Some episodes felt like Hitchcock-specials, some like film-noir. We had adventure-tropes, horror-tropes and in season 4-5 a lot of elements that were more prominent in science-fiction. If the show were to end in the 2nd season the answers would be different, yet still stick to the core (that I mentioned in part 1). “It was harder for fans to explain what was happening each week”
I am also puzzled by his sources here as well. There are some mysteries in season 1 many fans had a hard time trying to figure out, while there were mysteries in later seasons that were easily puzzled together. Fans knew for an instance that the baby in season 5’s Because you Left had had to be young Miles, but had much harder time trying to figure out Sayid’s triangle on the map in season 1’s Special . I would like to see more sources from Reetae on this claim. The fans were very creative and brought quite intelligent conclusions. (Not always. Apophenia is something I’ll address in a later part). Reetae begins to list up elements from the show that “the fans” viewed as bad/weird, but accepted, because they felt these things were going to get a logical explanation in the end:
37
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“Ben kidnap Jack so that he can operate on him, when he could’ve easily asked him. Okay, that’s really stupid, but I’ll go with it”
Where’s the tension and dramaturgy in that? Like Hitchcock once said: “They don’t go to the police because it’s dull.”38 Ben wanted to do it his way. Manipulate Manipulate Jack to think think that he wants to save Ben’s life. Sawyer and Kate Kate were pawns in this mind game, which succeeded. Even though there was a hiccup in the plans. “Desmond’s vision about Claire getting in a helicopter was completely wrong even though every one of his visions were 100%. I’ll go with it”
No, they weren’t. Only two of the visions of Charlie’s death was 100% accurate and that was Locke’s speech and the one where Charlie died in The Looking Glass. In every other case, something happened so that Charlie’s death was prevented. Charlie didn’t die in the ocean, by the lightning strike, getting slammed by the rocks while catching the birds or with an arrow in the throat. Something happened that changed the picture in the box. The same thing in this situation. Aaron got in the chopper with Kate. But the end result got the same. Claire was destined to leave The Island, and three years later she left The Island, just on a plane instead. Everyone can come up with their theory on what element changed “the picture in the box”. It seems very likely that it was The Man in Black. Sawyer, Miles, Claire and Aaron were heading towards the beach. Claire and Aaron would’ve been on the first ride to the freighter, along with Sun (who was pregnant). MIB appeared as Christian and lured her away from this situation. “Mikhail was somehow able to swim underwater and pull a grenade even though he had been harpooned in the chest by Desmond? I’ll go with it”
Most people would go with it, since this is a classical trope in villains for TV and film. Just watch an action movie. It’s the “Not quite dead”-trope. They do the same trick with Keamy in the next season. And it has been established in the show that wounds heal quickly anyway. Charlie having a lot of time to get out of the room instead of sacrificing himself.
Charlie decided, in that moment, to sacrifice himself so that Desmond’s vision of Claire and Aaron being rescued would come true. Seeing as it wasn’t Penny’s boat didn’t matter, because he knew (from Catch-22 ) that Naomi came on a chopper. Charlie believed in Desmond’s visions, because they still happened even though something changed the picture in the box. He knew he was going to die very soon, since Desmond couldn’t keep saving him forever. Charlie decided to make his death mean something. Naomi being able to walk around with a knife in her back, climb a tree and then bleed to death.
In the same vein as Mikhail. But in this case I agree with Reetae. This was my least favorite part of the episode, since I felt the pacing was off. It was obvious that they had to stall a little bit after “Hell “ Hell yeah we can. Sit tight. We'll be right there” that went to “we're getting some RF interference. We're gonna need to re-jigger some of the 38
http://www.thebluegrassspecial. http://www.thebluegrassspecial.com/archive/20 com/archive/2010/june10/hitchcock 10/june10/hitchcock-truffaut-inte -truffaut-interview.php rview.php
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settings on your sat phone.” It’s obvious (and understandable) that this episode had to center around Charlie, so the episode in itself didn’t have the same drive. They had to write that they are introduced to Daniel Faraday at the cliffhanger of the episode, so that the next episode is entirely devoted to the freighter-people. Miles having a live grenade in his mouth for days and the show never came back to it
Picture 4.12
The grenade was also bothering me in the 4th season, but not so much in the next. It would’ve been impossible for Miles to die, because he existed in the past. In my head-canon, Locke went back to Miles after a while and saw that the grenade was on the ground and nothing had happened. Miles was still alive. He saw that it hadn’t detonated. Miles could probably think that it was a trick with a faulty grenade or the firing pin was removed, but Locke could believe that The Island intervened. Miles wasn’t supposed to die. R eetae eetae didn’t like the addition of The Island magically disappearing and that the writers couldn’t adhere to the science-fact-explanation science-fact-explanation they gave in 2005. This is also a situation where you can add the death of the author. Someone watching this on a streaming service or buying it on physical media will not be subjected to these quotes. And with internet sites going down (which makes this study even harder, since forums aren’t accesible and news articles have to be dug out by archives), then the Los t-audience t-audience of 2018 will never have heard of the writers’ ideas for what the show was in 2005. “The moment that magic seeped into the construct of the show was w as the moment that Lost stopped being Lost”
If Lost stopped being Lost in this moment is a matter of opinion, but the supernatural aspects have been there from the start. Even things like The Numbers appearing throughout the flashbacks, wouldn’t be pos sible to explain with a logical mindset in season 1. And even the most rational man on The Island said this about the crash: SAYID: No worse than the odds of our surviving that plane crash. KATE: People survive plane crashes all the time.
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SAYID: Not like this one. The tail section broke off while we were still in the air. Our section cart wheeled through the jungle and yet we escaped with nothing but a few scrapes. How do you explain that? KATE: Blind, dumb luck? SAYID: No one's that lucky. We shouldn't have survived. KATE: Sorry, Sayid, some things just happen, no rhyme, no reason.
Even a few episodes before this scene we get a confirmation by Locke that this place is magical “I'm an ordinary man, Jack, meat and potatoes, I live in the real world. I'm not a big believer in magic. magic. But this place is different. It's special. The others don't want to talk about it because it scares them. But we all know it. We all feel it.”
To suggest that the supernatural and magic elements in season 4 “jumped the shark” and had no foundation in the rest of the series s eries is simply inconsistent with what the show s how told us from the very beginning. The show could veer down the science-fact-route if it was one season long. But it didn’t. Reetae claims that the show in season 5 and 6 is a very different show than it was before. Which is true, but this is the story the writers wanted to tell. I think it’s just that Reetae really liked that the series should end with a classical rescue. The remaining two seasons are part of the third phase that I mentioned earlier. “What was once a show that encouraged thoughts and theories and invited people to be smart and analytical, now demanded viewers to turn off their brains and blindly accept what crazy bullshit it was throwing at the screen”
No, it didn’t. Lost-fans were still theorizing and analyzing the show. That didn’t disappear. Not even after the show was over. You have to go to page 133 on Lostpedia to get to the discussion threads that were started on the day the finale finale aired.39 That means the show inspired users to create over 6600 6600 discussions after it was all over. And you have to go to page page 598 to return to the day There’s No Place Like Home Part 2 was aired. Which is where Reetae says that fans stopped theorizing and analyzing, yet Lost-fans created over 23.250 discussion threads from this point in time all the the way to the ending of the show. This is just based on Lostpedia and not the other discussion forums. On Lostpedia, the episode discussions for season 6 had more replies than episode discussions discussions for for season 3 and and 4.40 Fan-gathe Fan-gatherings rings has has been happen happening ing over over ten years years since since the show show premiered premiered..41 On The Fuselage, there was still a lot more discussion during the 2nd season, which is evident by the amount of posts and threads, but the theories and analysis never disappeared. The Fuselage has a pretty consistent amount of threads and replies for season 4, 5 and 6 with more than 3.000 threads per season. There was less activity for obvious reasons. It had lost a fair share of its audience in the US, so it makes sense that the activity peaked during the 2nd season. And it is true that the frozen donkey wheel-scene split made some viewers to give up, as evident by the reaction threads on The Fuselage in the “Didn’t love it”-thread and ratings for the subsequent two seasons. 39
https://forum.lpedia.com/f https://forum.lpedia.com/forumdisplay.php/ orumdisplay.php/2-Main-Forum/page1 2-Main-Forum/page131?order=desc 31?order=desc https://forum.lpedia.com/f https://forum.lpedia.com/forumdisplay.php/ orumdisplay.php/8-Episode-Discuss 8-Episode-Discussions ions 41 http://thelostcon.com/ http://thelostcon.com/ 40
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Popular sites such as DarkUFO came to fruition after the third season and became a highly popular site. wrote about it in 2008 (during the 4th season) and it grew even stronger with a new The Washington Post wrote interface. In 2009 it could report that it had page hits from numerous countries (here listed with name and page hits): United States - 7546803 United Kingdom - 1468403 Canada - 714552 Germany - 370475 Spain - 223505 Italy - 205644 France - 173583 Australia - 173220 Poland - 154637 Netherlands - 149389 Brazil - 142874 Greece - 112699 Ireland - 91074 Turkey - 86082 Sweden - 76283 Portugal - 75471 Argentina - 74765 Belgium- 71468 Norway - 58473
They even had had page hits from Tajikistan, Greenland Greenland and the Vatican.42 After season 5, Lost University was was created.43 Lost-fans participated participated in classes classes hosted by professors about hieroglyphics, time time travel, philosophy, foreign languages, physics and more. You even had homework. Reetae might not have read the literature that spawned after the fifth or sixth season either. Pearson Moore’s Lost books, such as Lost Humanity: The Mythology and Themes of LOST was released after the show was over. I don’t think Reetae remembers the long discussions about Sawyer’s rope in This Place is Death, if you can change the past, Eloise Hawking (which finally came back to the show), the oud in Jacob’s cave, the identity of the statue (which we saw the backside of in LaFleur. Discussion went through all Egyptian goddesses and people even suggested it was a statue of Juliet) and much more.44 The 6th season inspired inspired a lot of users users to study the religious aspect of the flash-sideways and the combination of different historical architecture for The Temple and the Lighthouse. On SpoilerTV fans created over 140 scripts for their own mobisodes45 Yung23 was one of the most popular cartographer from LostTV-Forum where he used a Sandbox2 engine to create the entire island, a project he had done from time to time since the beginning of the the show to years years after. He updated updated his site with with the Looking Glass Glass station in 2011,46 Smoke Smoke monst monster er cham chamber ber in in 2012 201247 and an an 8km x 8km 8km isla island nd in 2013 2013..48 42
https://darkufo.blogspot.com https://darkufo.blogspot.com/2009/07/lost-f /2009/07/lost-fans-even-in-antar ans-even-in-antarctica.html ctica.html http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wik http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Lost_University i/Lost_University 44 http://losteastereggs.blogspot http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com/2009/03/ .com/2009/03/episode-5x08-lafleur-f episode-5x08-lafleur-four-toed-statue our-toed-statue.html .html 45 http://www.spoilertv.co.uk http://www.spoilertv.co.uk/forum/viewtop /forum/viewtopic.php?f=147&t= ic.php?f=147&t=18737 18737 46 https://www.moddb.com/m https://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-the-r ods/lost-the-return/images/th eturn/images/the-looking-glass-previe e-looking-glass-preview#imagebox w#imagebox 47 https://www.moddb.com/m https://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-the-r ods/lost-the-return/images/sm eturn/images/smokeys-lair#imagebo okeys-lair#imagebox x 48 https://www.moddb.com/m https://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-the-r ods/lost-the-return/images/los eturn/images/lostthereturn-island-p tthereturn-island-preview#imagebox review#imagebox 43
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Picture 4.13
Picture 4.14
Saying that the show didn’t spawn theories and analysis is a lie as evident by the sheer number of theories and analysis that were produced after May 29th 2008 (when the season 4-finale was aired). It might’ve been too much of it at times. At least the obsessive study and research that the fans of Lost did was harmless. Breaking Bad had a bigger bigger problem with fans trying to to make meth49 or getting rid of a body in a bathtub.50
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https://www.bbc.com/new https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-b s/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-37318 ucks-herts-37318447 447 https://www.washingtonpost.c https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldv om/news/worldviews/wp/2016/12/1 iews/wp/2016/12/13/breaking-bad-super 3/breaking-bad-super-fan-tried-to-get -fan-tried-to-get-rid-of-body-like-w -rid-of-body-like-walter-white alter-white -using-a-bathtub-full-of-acid/?utm_ -using-a-bathtub-full-of-acid/?utm_term=.2d6f17e2d term=.2d6f17e2df90 f90 50
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