I think we as viewers suffer from what I dub The Matrix solution issue. When the first matrix movie came out, everyone online was coming up with all these theories and exploring in depth what the story was in the movie. Well with several million people talking about it and cross checking ideas, what was likely to happen in the second movie was already talked to death by the time it came out…so the scriptwriters were pretty much screwed. Same thing with Lost. We have days and days of talking and reading and cross-pollinization of ideas…on the island, it’s like…the next day. Sure in the 3 years we’ve been watching the series it seems obviouse to try and do something with that cable, but to Sayid, two days ago he was handcuffed to a swingset…and for the 2 or 3 days before that he was hicking in the jungle…or trying to torture the guy at the Flame station. So I try not to blame them for not taking actions that seem ‘obvious’ to us…because to them it really hasn’t been that long a period of time. Heck, I think it took Robinson Crusoe longer than this to make something of his situation.
Question: Someone (Desmond?) said something to the effect that more “others” had benn killed by “losties”, than “losties” had been killed by “others”.
Is this true?
I don’t recall but even so, the romance languages are similiar enough that Hurley should’ve known. I don’t know. It just bothered me because I knew she didn’t say “thank you.”
I meant to add that I used to be fluent in Spanish and since learning it I can understand Italian, French, & Portuguese just enough to catch the basic gist of what someone is saying.
Well, so far the Losties have killed Colleen, Ethan, and Goodwin.
The Others have killed Scott (or was it Steve?). And Nathan.
One of the Others also killed another Other… Juliet and Picket.
But the Losties kill each other a lot. Boone killed himself (sorta). Ana Lucia killed Shannon. Michael killed Ana Lucia and Libby. Hurley and Sawyer killed Nikki and Paolo (sorta).
Am I leaving anyone off my death list? Obviously the marshall was killed by Jack, but I count that more as injuries from the original plane crash. Same with the Tailie’s old guy with the broken leg, whatever his name was.
Charlie responded to Desmond by saying “They started it!” Desmond sort of sneered at him. But I was thinking, well, they did start it. They started the killing. That does seem relevant here. Not sure why Desmond thinks it should be discounted.
Oh, I forgot about Eko killing those nameless Others. Was it 2 he killed?
Yeah, it seems like the Losties have killed way more Others than vice-versa. By my count, the Others have only killed Nathan and Scott (Steve?!) directly.
We were discussing this at my office yesterday and I went to the effort to check it out. Here’s what I came up with:
Ana-Lucia Cortez - Killed by Michael (Two for the Road)
Artz - Blew himself up (Exodus, Part 2)
Bea Klugh - Killed by Mikhail (At her request) (Enter 77)
Boone Carlyle - Killed when the plane he was in fell (Do No Harm). (Locke is at least partially to blame.)
Charlie Pace - “Killed” by Ethan. (All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues) He got better.
Colleen Pickett - Killed by Sun (The Glass Ballerina)
Danny Pickett - Killed by Juliet (Not in Portland)
Edward Mars (The Marshal) - Mercy killed by Sawyer and Jack (Tabula Rasa)
Eko - Killed by Smokey the Monster (The Cost of Living)
Ethan Rom - Killed by Charlie (Homecoming)
Gary Troup - Sucked into Engine (Pilot, Part 1)
Goodwin - Killed by Ana-Lucia (The Other 48 Days)
Joanna - Drowned (White Rabbit)
Kelvin - Killed by Desmond (Live Together, Die Alone)
Libby - Killed by Michael (Two for the Road)
Mikhail - “Killed” by Locke (Par Avion). He got better.
Nathan - Killed by Goodwin (The Other 48 Days)
Nikki - Killed by greed, stupidity and pointlessness (Expose)
Paulo - Killed by greed, stupidity and pointlessness (Expose)
Scott - Killed by Ethan (Homecoming)
Shannon Rutherford - Killed by Ana-Lucia
The Pilot - Killed by Smokey the Monster (Pilot, Part 1)
Other Other 1 - Killed by Ana-Lucia (The Other 48 Days)
Other Other 2 - Killed by Eko (The Other 48 Days)
Other Other 3 - Killed by Eko (The Other 48 Days)
Other Other 4 - Shot by Sawyer (Live Together, Die Alone)
Survivors killed by Survivors - 3 (up to 7 depending on how you count the Marshal, Boone, Nikki and Paulo)
Survivors killed by Others - 2 (3 counting Charlie)
Survivors killed by Smokey - 2
Others killed by Survivors - 7 (8 counting Mikhail)
Others killed by Others - 2
DHARMAs killed by DHARMAs - 1
Blown up - 1
Drowned - 1
Sucked into jet engine - 1
So, yeah, the Losties have killed more Others than the Others have killed Losties. For that matter, the Losties have killed more of their own people than the Others have.
True, but the situation is actually a bit vague for some of them. For example, the Others kidnap 12 Tailies off their beach, including two children, then Cindy disappears when they are nearing the Losties camp. Later, we see Cindy and the two children at the Hydra station where they don’t seem to be prisoners. We don’t know how willing or unwilling some of them are. They also at various times kidnap and take prisoner Charlie, Claire, Hurley, Jack, Kate, Michael, Sawyer and Walt.
Of course, the Losties aren’t above taking their own prisoners. They had Ben (and tortured him), Mikhail and Ms. Klugh for a while, but mostly they are taking their own people prisoner. Jin was handcuffed to the fuselage by Sayid for attacking Michael. Sawyer was tied up (and tortured) when they thought he had Shannon’s medicine. Locke tied up Boone and left him in the jungle. Eko knocked out Locke and dragged him into the jungle looking for the Pearl Station. Ana-Lucia alone managed to make prisoners of Nathan (who she tortured), Michael, Sawyer, Jin and Sayid at various points. Michael locked Locke into the storeroom when he went off after Walt. Sawyer and Charlie kidnapped Sun briefly (as part of their con).
And, of course, Rousseau took Sayid prisoner for a while and kidnapped Aaron.
So, yeah, in straight numbers the Others have kidnapped or taken prisoner more Losties than Losties have of the Others, but (IMHO anyway) the Losties don’t exactly have a whole lot of moral high ground of their own to stand on. It may slope in their direction, but that slope looks pretty slippery to me.
Tanstaafl,
I agree that the Losties’ moral high ground really isn’t all that high. However, on their first night on the island things start getting weird. As if being stranded on an island isn’t enough, they get harrassed, kidnapped, infiltrated, murdered by these people inhabiting the island. Hell, what were they supposed to do?
I would consider Libby and Ana-Lucia to have been “killed by the Others.” Michael was working as an agent of the Others when he killed them, even if he did reach the island as an 815 survivor.
I’m not sure we have any evidence one way or the other for who killed the real Henry Gale. For all we know he was killed when his balloon crashed on the Island.
And fair point on Michael. The point I would make there though is that Ana-Lucia and Libby were killed as part of the Others’ rescue of Ben (who was a prisoner of the Losties who had been torturing him). If Kate, Sayid and Locke had killed a few Others while rescuing Jack (from playing football) would that have been different?
I’m not denying that in terms of justifying their actions most of the evidence is on the side of the Losties. I’m just saying (IMHO of course) that the situation is far from being as clearly black-and-white as Charlie and some others (as opposed to Others) think it is. There’s more than enough moral ambiguity to spread around on both sides.
Yes. Sayid found a twenty-dollar-bill on Gale’s corpse on which Gale had written a letter to his wife telling her about the balloon crash.
And said corpse’s apparent cause of death was a broken neck.
No, he was ordered to kill Ana-Lucia by the Others. There’s some wiggle room in the case of Libby, but Michael was definitely made to understand that Ana-Lucia had to die if he wanted to get Walt back.
