Lost - The Full Series Thread

[Goose]

I still wasn't clear about why Daniel starts crying or why he goes in waving a gun around

Is it possible, knowing that Daniel experimented on himself, that he somehow travelled in to the future and saw the chain of events that are now taking place? Once back he couldn't quite remember anything but perhaps seeing the wreckage kicked off something in his subconscious?

[Kramer]

Am I only one who likes Jack's character?

No, I like Jack - it's just that in terms of 'fave status' he's competing with Sawyer, Ben, Locke and Desmond (plus Faraday), so he's on to a loser.

He is more heroic than those others though, but he's just not quite as likeable.

Ultimately, he is one of the most interesting characters which is what Lost is about and he's surely got a massive part to play between now and THE END.

[zxcvbnm]

it was obvious she was sacrificing him for something bigger than what she wanted...

The way I see it she HAD to sacrifice him. She'd shot him in 1977, and she had to make that happen and if it didn't then she knew the consequences of what would have happened, and was pretty damned scared of it. It also means that she's due to meet up with Kate, Jack etc. (or they are going to do something important on the island in 1977) as she said to Ben that he had to get them back to the island and when he asked what if he couldn't get them all she said "then god help us all". She must know that if you fuck the time line up then something very bad is going to happen, but it also means it IS possible to change the time line if there are consequences for doing so.

[Blu3Flame]

Is it possible, knowing that Daniel experimented on himself, that he somehow travelled in to the future and saw the chain of events that are now taking place? Once back he couldn't quite remember anything but perhaps seeing the wreckage kicked off something in his subconscious?

I like this theory.

[mercenarri]

That's what I can't understand either - why did she WANT to kill him?

Jeebus already answered this but its important to stress that she didn't want her own son dead, but it was more of a reluctant necessity for a bigger picture we're yet to find out. This all casts Eloise as an evil villain, but I'd bet that's very far from the truth when we find out the said bigger picture.

[Capwn]

Just been listening to the Claude and Justin podcast. It's insane stuff, they talk for 6 hours...yes....SIX hours JUST on the last episode, 'the variable'. If you're on a pc at work all day it can be quite good, they really go in depth while going through each scene. It's quite amusing, always referencing to older episodes in the entire show and finding flaws and plot holes while most of all being fans of the show.

http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-21826/TS-220434.mp3

HARDCORE!

[Goose]

Something else - Perhaps nothing, but remember when Faraday went to see Chang and was outside of the Swan hatch (I think) - he knew from his journal that Chang would appear just then, he says something like "Right on time". Does that mean he's lived through this chain of events, a la Desmond and joining the army etc and knows what will happen next?

I agree with other too, Eloise HAD to make that sacrifice for the greater good. She didn't want to make it but she sacrificed her son so that many others may live. Just one question - how does she KNOW that something bad would have happened, had he lived? Is she also able to see further ahead in time? I still maintain the Eloise who shot Faraday was almost determined to do it. She went against motherfucking immortal Alpert! Unless...by doing so would get her banished from the island and she knew it, and she knew that she must be banished for killing him to enable her to put everything else in place?

We demand an Eloise Flashback Episode!

[Broker]

Any news on an ARG this year in the gap between seasons?

[Tom*]

I agree with what you and everyone has said Goose. But if future Eloise knows all that must happen, did 1977 Eloise NOT know anything yet? Because she was determined to shoot Dan without listening to Richard, but then she had no idea who Dan was until he said "I'm your son". Then she looked shocked/surprised.

Also - Jack has been somewhat of a dick recently, but deep down I really want him to win (whatever win means)

[Sponge]

Maybe she recognised Farady from their meeting in 1954 and thought she was protecting them. Remember the last time they met he was all talk about time travel and then he and his gang vanished into a puff of smoke (or a puff of white light). If that were me I'd be reluctant to let someone like that walk around pointing a gun at my leader.

[Tom*]

Yeah true, Faraday's subtle wave-gun-around-frantically plan wasn't very smart

[Straps]

I'm still very confused about what is 'supposed' to be happening, and who is trying to ensure these things are happening, or whether there is anyone trying to make what needs to happen, er, not happen. Why did Eloise say "for the first time I don't know what's going to happen" when she knew what was supposed to be happening ie. her killing her son. What doesn't she know about what's going on anymore? She got everyone back to the island. Is the Ben vs. Widmore feud what's causing the problems? Oh, and is there any indication as to what would happen if they hadn't gone back? "God help us all" seems pretty ominous but I don't remember hearing what happens. God, Lost ain't half got confusing in the last season or two.

[son_of_helvetica]

The latest episode has totally confused me. I don't understand any of it now. I *thought* I had a handle on it, but nope. As soon as they put time travel into the mix, it's all fucked up.

[jon_cybernet]

I'm still very confused about what is 'supposed' to be happening, and who is trying to ensure these things are happening, or whether there is anyone trying to make what needs to happen, er, not happen. Why did Eloise say "for the first time I don't know what's going to happen" when she knew what was supposed to be happening ie. her killing her son. What doesn't she know about what's going on anymore? She got everyone back to the island. Is the Ben vs. Widmore feud what's causing the problems? Oh, and is there any indication as to what would happen if they hadn't gone back? "God help us all" seems pretty ominous but I don't remember hearing what happens. God, Lost ain't half got confusing in the last season or two.

Surely it's that she now got dan's journal (presuming it's on him) in 77, so reading ahead meant that she "knew the future". But by the time Desmond's been shot, the present day material has run out, so she no longer knows what's going to happen. It's also how she knew what journal to buy for her son.

[mercenarri]

Yep, I also think she doesn't have any supernatural psychic ability, she was just getting all her information from Faraday's journal, which has now ran its course.

It looks to me like Ben is trying to sagotage what Charles Widmore/Eloise are trying to protect.

[Pob]

If Eloise was just working from Faraday's journal, how did she know the guy in the red shoes was going to get flattened by scaffolding during Desmond's flashback, in the episide where she first appeared? Surely that wasn't in Faraday's journal?

Maybe she and/or Faraday found a way to predict the future using science, or just key events, such as people's deaths. I still reckon they are going to come back to the Valenzetti Equation (i.e the Numbers) and the prediction of the end of the human race.

[Daley]

Surely the thing that Eloise said to the Losties about the pendulum was about Faraday and his three years off the island? What was it she said "a clever man and his team"? So Farday and the other people at Ann Arbor?

Just going back to the Jack character for a minute, I think it is good to have a steady "ordinary" character as our hero, someone for us to relate to. It's no wonder that he gets overshadowed and seems boring due to all the crazy stuff going on around him but when he was needed in series 1 to be a leader he stepped up and I am guessing that to "rescue" all the Oceanic losties he will be the hero again in this series.

I googled "Jack Hero" and this made me laugh:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_(hero)

Jack is an archetypal English hero and stock character appearing in legends, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes, generally portrayed as a young adult. Unlike moralizing fairy heroes, Jack is often portrayed as lazy or foolish, but through the use of cleverness and tricks he usually emerges triumphant.

So he stupidly left the island but will triumph in the end.

And just to say again that I love Lost and it is fast becoming my favourite show ever. What an amazing amount of brilliant characters they have created. Everytime they introduce new ones I think "these aren't as good as the originals/previous characters" and every time I am wrong.

[Goose]

I think the best thing they ever did for the show was twofold - Announce an end meaning a cut down on the amount of filler episodes/stretching one story out longer than needed and end to the massive gaps in the show's schedule. Those 3,4 or 6 week gaps killed any tension that seeing the show weekly can build up. Remember the insanity of 6 Eps in Oct/Nov then a gap until End of Feb!?

[jon_cybernet]

If Eloise was just working from Faraday's journal, how did she know the guy in the red shoes was going to get flattened by scaffolding during Desmond's flashback, in the episide where she first appeared? Surely that wasn't in Faraday's journal?

Maybe she and/or Faraday found a way to predict the future using science, or just key events, such as people's deaths. I still reckon they are going to come back to the Valenzetti Equation (i.e the Numbers) and the prediction of the end of the human race.

Well Desmond is his constant, so maybe he told Faraday about it at some point or sommat. It would certainly explain that whole scene.

[emps]

I agree with other too, Eloise HAD to make that sacrifice for the greater good. She didn't want to make it but she sacrificed her son so that many others may live. Just one question - how does she KNOW that something bad would have happened, had he lived?

I suspect it's simpler than that. She sacrificed him because she (in the past) knows that she (in the future) will sacrifice him. There's nothing she can do to stop that from happening, because she's already killed him. No matter what she does in her future, he will go to the island. On the notebook, presumably the one she gave him was blank and he filled it in as he went, given what we previously knew about Faraday. But his actions in this episode imply the notebook was already filled in, that he was following its content, suggesting the one she gave to him when he graduated was the same one she (presumably) takes from him after killing him.

[Pob]

I suspect it's simpler than that. She sacrificed him because she (in the past) knows that she (in the future) will sacrifice him. There's nothing she can do to stop that from happening, because she's already killed him. No matter what she does in her future, he will go to the island. On the notebook, presumably the one she gave him was blank and he filled it in as he went, given what we previously knew about Faraday. But his actions in this episode imply the notebook was already filled in, that he was following its content, suggesting the one she gave to him when he graduated was the same one she (presumably) takes from him after killing him.

So you're saying it's like the compass - it exists in a loop, and was never actually written by anyone?

But this still doesn't make sense to me:

No matter what she does in her future, he will go to the island.

If that's true, then when does she put so much effort into making it come about?

[Sponge]

I don't think it's a case of "what ever she does, he goes to island" (implying him going to island happens regardless of her actions) but more of "she does that, and he goes". It's kind of self-fulfilling, she acted like that because she thought she needed to, but she only thinks that because he went back, when in fact he went back because she acted like that, but she only acted like that because he went back...

Errrrm... you know, more loops and stuff.

Nanobots!

[emps]

So you're saying it's like the compass - it exists in a loop, and was never actually written by anyone?

But this still doesn't make sense to me:

If that's true, then when does she put so much effort into making it come about?

It could be just like the compass, yes. But I don't remember Faraday ever using it like a 'predictor' of the future before, though that could just be my bad memory.

The 'no matter what she does' is, in a sense, moot, because there's only one set of things that she will do i.e. what she will (or 'did') do. That doesn't explain why she, so to speak, 'chooses' to behave the way she does, but issues of free will under this view of time travel are murky at best. In a sense, it doesn't matter if there is or isn't a greater issue that Faraday's death permits because whatever happened, happened. Maybe she knows her son plays an important role and is just trying to ensure he fulfils that. But there is a very real sense in which her motives don't matter. As Tim's post indicates, it's all built into the atemporal sequence of events anyway: she behaves that way because she (tenselessly) did behave that way, and maybe she realises this and so puts the effort in to ensure the future-past happens as it did, as if she can make any difference, or maybe there is some great significance to his death and she 'does' it for that, as if she could do otherwise. Maybe his notebook details some of the things she did/said or otherwise implies them, and she works from that. I would suppose, given the way she does behave, that at the very least she doesn't believe there's any way to avoid her killing her son, to avoid his going to the island. She perhaps has a fatalist attitude to everything that's going to happen to him (and her) until the time she goes to see Penny, and that alone could explain the way she is toward him. In short, who knows?

[Pob]

The confusing thing about Eloise's behavior is that it doesn't conform to how we'd expect people to act in this kind of situation. You would expect people to act in one of two ways: like Sayid - not understanding the unchangeable nature of events, trying to change things and then even inadvertantly causing the events you are trying to prevent. Or you'd act like Jack in that same episode - accepting that the future as you've seen it will happen no matter what you do, so you just get on with your life and wait for things to happen.

But Eloise is seemingly acting in an illogical fashion. If she understands that events are unchangeable, she should be resigned to the fact, and not be running around like Marty McFly trying make his parents meet. The only logical conclusions to draw from her actions are that 1) events are in fact changeable (perhaps via Desmond, and Desmond alone), and she is doing her best to ensure events occur in a certain way to avoid some kind of cataclysm, or 2) she doesn't know what she's on about.

I think the idea people don't have free will to act differently with foreknowledge of future events is false - it doesn't make sense. Of course knowledge of the future will affect how you act, even if you realise you can't change it.

[Goose]

Perhaps talking rubbish here (perhaps?!) but I wonder if him going to the island wasn't the only thing she was trying to get him to do? What if she kept on pushing him not only to go to the island but also to become the scientist/physicist because she'd need him to eventually find the island to allow Jack et al to return?

Edit: We know whatever happened, happened, so no matter WHAT, Daniel would end up going to die on that island. But what if Eloise could use Daniel for something more (i.e the stuff above) - even though she knew he'd die anyway.

I wonder why she's doing it all. Is it possible she has seen two versions of the past - one were Daniel lives and everything goes bad (in her opinion perhaps) and one were she kills Daniel and everything works out ok. I don't know why but I thought about Terminator 3, the ending specifically - that an awful event, no matter how bad, HAD to happen no matter what they tried to do to stop it. Perhaps The Incident is one such event. That Dan could have stopped the event but he had to die to ensure it did happen. My thinking is that we're going to be shit out of answers on this one until next season.

My wife has just said perhaps Daniel was born on the island and that's where his incredible mind comes from, like Ethan's seemingly exceptional strength.

[Goose]

Unrelated to the above post of mine

What caused the pregnant women to stop carrying to full term? I've always assumed it was something to do with the Incident but obviously that makes no sense since Juliet doesn't turn up to help with the fertility until after 2001, which is what, 24 years after The Incident.

It also couldn't have been caused by the purge either, because again that took place in 1992 (though according to Lostpedia the time line seems to point to it having taken place in the 80s, it is Dead Horace who told Locke the purge took place in 1992). Again, that's 8 years of not being able to conceive and killing the mother in the process before they go to Juliet.

So was there a third event, as yet unseen, that caused this?

Edit: My wife again, just said "Well maybe they tried other people between 1992 and 2001 before going to Juliet?" Given how the problem is not with the Dharma people (though that goes without saying as they're dead), the problem with the conceiving is with The Others.

Maybe a Fuck You from Dharma? I think it's safe to assume they've got people still alive and well off the island. So they killed the Dharma people on the island, Dharma couldn't get back, so figured they'd wait it out until all of the The Others died out before they tried to find it again.

[Goose]

Synopsis For Tonight

Follow The Leader : Jack and Kate are at odds over the direction to take to save their fellow island survivors, and Locke further solidifies his stance as leader of "The Others."

[Sponge]

I think the idea people don't have free will to act differently with foreknowledge of future events is false - it doesn't make sense. Of course knowledge of the future will affect how you act, even if you realise you can't change it.

Yeah. I think they have all the free will in the world, it's just that they've already seen the consequences of the choices they'll make played out in the past. It doesn't change the fact that they still have to make those choices.

[squirtle]

I'm gonna say that it's pretty clear why she had to send the rest back. I'm gonna hazard a guess that Faraday's death is the catalyst to get Jack to instigate the incident. Eloise knows this. She knows that the Losties have a big part to play in the history of the Island. It's pretty simple, really.

[Goose]

Just a word of warning - The sneak peaks for tonight's episode on AICN give away a pretty cool revelation. You're going to want to avoid it like the motherfucking plague.