# Lost 5:14 "The Variable" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 29, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746 "2009-04-29T18:12:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MyFootsZZZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/myfootszzz/32/12580_2.png) [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/21 "2009-04-30T02:11:27Z")
But his mother said she didn’t know how things will turn out with Desmond, right? ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/22 "2009-04-30T02:16:34Z")
> [@MyFootsZZZ](#): > > But his mother said she didn’t know how things will turn out with Desmond, right? There is no reason to believe she would have any idea. She would know in general when Daniel would die, of course…but unless another time traveler tells her something, she won’t know anything else. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![MyFootsZZZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/myfootszzz/32/12580_2.png) [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/23 "2009-04-30T02:19:38Z")
Wouldn’t they, themselves know that? ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/24 "2009-04-30T02:21:29Z")
> [@MyFootsZZZ](#): > > Wouldn’t they, themselves know that? …what? ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/25 "2009-04-30T02:27:12Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > …what? Clearly. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![MyFootsZZZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/myfootszzz/32/12580_2.png) [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/26 "2009-04-30T02:33:39Z")
He’s trying to change the future, right? If you go back in time changing variables, wouldn’t the whole equation be different? As in the butterfly effect? Each one of their parents would have to meet and fornicate and all that stuff the exact same time… At least the ones not born yet ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/27 "2009-04-30T02:36:41Z")
> [@MyFootsZZZ](#): > > He’s trying to change the future, right? If you go back in time changing variables, wouldn’t the whole equation be different? As in the butterfly effect? > > Each one of their parents would have to meet and fornicate and all that stuff on the exact same time… and such and such. Sure, which is probably one of the reasons that Daniel had always operated on the “what happened, happened” theory. However, I think all of our cast was over 30, which means that they were all already conceived. So, no chance of interrupting Daddy Widmore at exactly the wrong moment… -Joe ---
**Author:** ![MyFootsZZZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/myfootszzz/32/12580_2.png) [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/28 "2009-04-30T02:37:34Z")
ok, thanks ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/29 "2009-04-30T02:49:18Z")
I am going to miss Daniel. Juliet & Sawyer - yes. stay together. let true love conquer. In other words, I really like them together. ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/30 "2009-04-30T02:55:10Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > Second, Desmond remembered Daniel’s message at the time that DANIEL was doing it, if Daniel had been in his right time. > > So, it’s T+3 hours, meaning Our Heroes have been bouncing around time for 3 hours (from their perspective). At that point, Daniel talks to Desmond in 2001. But, while Daniel is back in time, for him, T+3 SHOULD be 2007+3 hours. So, Desmond remembers it at T+3, which for him is now 2007+3 hours. > > Hmm… > > Maybe I need to draw someone a diagram? Just starting the show now – had to record it, so I’m a few hours behind you guys. So I don’t know if anybody has yet addressed the above or not – but it sounds like what **Meltdown** was proposing in Post #6. However, I don’t think the relative timelines match up that way. T+3 should not be 2007+3 hours, because they started bouncing around in time at the end of 2004 (100 or so days after the Oceanic crash). Daniel and Desmond were both in the “present” during season 4 – when the freighter was docked off the coast. This was 100 days after the crash. Desmond left the island at the end of 2004 with the Oceanic 6. Daniel stayed on island and started bouncing in time. However, the island folks were just bouncing around for a matter of hours or perhaps days, when Daniel knocked on the hatch door to encounter Past-Desmond. Call this T+3 hours. Desmond, at “T”, is still in 2004, perhaps getting rescued by Penny’s boat. Instead he remembers this past incident three years later in 2007. I was going to come in and propose the same kind of relative timeline idea – but the problem is that even the relative times don’t seem to sync up. ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/31 "2009-04-30T02:57:03Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > Second, that was the crappiest preview…“Kirk runs from monster one and it gets eaten by monster two and then Kirk runs from monster two.” Seconded. All that made me think of was two Jedi and Jar-Jar in the underwater speeder, running from the sea monsters. I have no need for that in Trek. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/32 "2009-04-30T03:57:56Z")
> [@Monstre](#): > > Just starting the show now – had to record it, so I’m a few hours behind you guys. > > So I don’t know if anybody has yet addressed the above or not – but it sounds like what **Meltdown** was proposing in Post #6. > > However, I don’t think the relative timelines match up that way. T+3 should not be 2007+3 hours, because they started bouncing around in time at the end of 2004 (100 or so days after the Oceanic crash). > > Daniel and Desmond were both in the “present” during season 4 – when the freighter was docked off the coast. This was 100 days after the crash. Desmond left the island at the end of 2004 with the Oceanic 6. Daniel stayed on island and started bouncing in time. > > However, the island folks were just bouncing around for a matter of hours or perhaps days, when Daniel knocked on the hatch door to encounter Past-Desmond. Call this T+3 hours. Desmond, at “T”, is still in 2004, perhaps getting rescued by Penny’s boat. Instead he remembers this past incident three years later in 2007. > > I was going to come in and propose the same kind of relative timeline idea – but the problem is that even the relative times don’t seem to sync up. Curses. You’re right. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/33 "2009-04-30T03:59:45Z")
Thoughts while watching… hahahaha – “Welcome to the meeting, Twitchy.” Radzinsky is really eager to shoot people… ever since we met him earlier this season. Doesn’t seem like Kate would be interested in going along with Daniel’s plan to stop the current chain of events from occurring (and having their plane never crash). After all, on Flight 815, Kate was in custody of a U.S. Marshall (Mars), and who knows if her trial then would have turned out the same way as it did when she was one of the Oceanic 6. I would think that her current life is better, even if she’s on the island. Who’s the redhead in the hospital? (“Your husband is in the recovery room, he’s doing fine.”) She looks familiar. Have we seen her before? Did Widmore say “He’s my son, too”? So why are there three last names in the family, then? Wow… Mom shot him. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/34 "2009-04-30T04:02:09Z")
> [@Monstre](#): > > Wow… Mom shot him. Gives a whole new meaning to mom saying, “Daniel Faraday, I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it!”, don’t it? Oh, and a little advice for anyone in a similar situation - don’t stick your gun in the face of the unarmed guy and turn your back on a CAMP FULL OF ARMED PEOPLE. This has been Joe’s “basic survival for non-fools” lesson of the day. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/35 "2009-04-30T04:06:22Z")
> [@MyFootsZZZ](#): > > Why? Even the smallest change could alter everything. Right? Only if somebody steps on that butterfly that was flapping its wings over there. And wow, assuming Daniel is definitely toast here (hey, we saw little Ben get shot the other week), that’s going to be a pretty pointless death. He came back to accomplish something, and all he accomplished was taking a bullet. I was really wondering why he was going with the point-the-gun-at-the-Others-and-threaten-them-even-though-they-are-already-surrounding-me-and-I-can-only-look-in-one-direction strategy, and not lower the gun and talk to Richard, because he would be sure to remember Daniel after he threw out the “hydrogen bomb I told you to bury” comment. ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/36 "2009-04-30T04:07:26Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > Curses. You’re right. I know. Sometimes, it IS a curse. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/37 "2009-04-30T04:11:32Z")
> [@Monstre](#): > > Doesn’t seem like Kate would be interested in going along with Daniel’s plan to stop the current chain of events from occurring (and having their plane never crash). After all, on Flight 815, Kate was in custody of a U.S. Marshall (Mars), and who knows if her trial then would have turned out the same way as it did when she was one of the Oceanic 6. I would think that her current life is better, even if she’s on the island. I think one of the points they’re going to make is that all their lives are better because of the island, (except for, you know, all those dead people) so they’ll end up not doing it. ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/38 "2009-04-30T04:13:02Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > I think one of the points they’re going to make is that all their lives are better because of the island, (except for, you know, all those dead people) so they’ll end up not doing it. Well, THEIR lives are better, yes. And I suppose folks like Shannon and Boone just aren’t going to get to cast a vote. after all, ACORN has no island chapter… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/39 "2009-04-30T04:21:39Z")
Oh, Daniel Faraday, how I’ll miss your non-explanatory explanations…if the writers let you die that is. The wound was right in the Hollywood “semi-quick death zone”…not close enough to the heart for sudden death, but not far enough away so that the character can’t get any last words off. Can Otherization raise the dead? Perhaps we’ll find out later in the season. I was trying to figure out Daniel’s age during the episode…he was a professor in 1996 when he met Desmond. His super-genius perhaps allows that he got his doctorate at around age 18, …meaning Daniel could have been conceived after he was shot…but the timeline is pretty tight. His gift from being born on the island must be his super-math skills much like Miles’ ghost skills… ---
**Author:** ![TooSchoolforCool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tooschoolforcool/32/19621_2.png) [@TooSchoolforCool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TooSchoolforCool)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746/40 "2009-04-30T04:21:55Z")
Can’t decide whether that was a game changer or not. I think given the fact that Eloise does NOT try to warn Daniel that he will die, that this means that the past cannot be changed, and Daniel’s babbling about variables was just his sad desperate hope to change things. In which case, I can’t really say that this ep measured up to the Constant in the way that the producers promised. It was a really fun ep, as most of this Season has been, but it didn’t really have enough time to build the sort of emotional resonance that The Constant did because it had too many other things to accomplish at the same time. Very sad for Daniel though. And Eloise now seems like less of a nasty, horrid bitch: or at least now she has a good excuse for it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-5-14-the-variable/494746.md?page=3)