I always just assumed it was the collection of dead as a whole that always seem to be dropping by on our Losties.
I thought the whispers were revealed to be somehow tied to the inhabitants of the Temple?
I also think Ricardo’s wife appearing in the boat was a manifestation of Smoky and everything she said to him at that time was smoky manipulation that Ricardo is now parroting because he’s flailing around not able to reconcile Jacob’s death with what has gone on for the past 100 years of his life.
Sure, that’s how things turned out. But I agree with Ellis Dee that in retrospect it’s pretty obvious from the first two seasons that they were leading towards Dharma being the “prime mover” behind most of the mysteries. Remember how much ado was made about the Orientation films? All the confusion over the nature of the experiments in the various Dharma stations? Remember “Dr. Candle’s” different aliases, and the pneumatic tube system leading to nowhere? The whole “Lost Experience” game, which centered on the shadowy Hanso Foundation and Dharma? The mysterious drawings on the blast doors in the hatch? The description of the clearly mechanical-sounding Smoke Monster as “a security system” to protect the Island? The food drop indicating Dharma was still active on the Island and maybe even secretly observing the Losties? (I even suspect the Others were originally going to be agents of Dharma.)
I’m not saying they made a mistake by shifting the emphasis from Dharma to the Others/Jacob/Man In Black. That has yet to be seen. I’m just saying it’s pretty clear they were headed one direction, then changed their minds/hit a creative roadblock/whatever and started to concentrate more on the mystical/fantasy aspects of the story. In the process, a lot of what we were originally led to believe was important turned out to be, most likely, a metric buttload of red herrings.
That part of the pilot didn’t really guarantee “supernatural” from the get-go. It wasn’t that it was “invisibile” – it was simply something that they didn’t see. Their first glimpse was from far off, trees rustling and going down off in the forest – could have been anything, blocked from view by other trees (as Hurley said, “maybe it’s a pissed off giraffe… I don’t know”).
Of course, as soon as they revealed it as billowing smoke – that kind of threw “reasonable scientific explanation” to the wind. The only reasonable theory I heard once we saw the “smoke” was that it was a form of nano-technology. (certainly not current technology, but more reasonable from a future tech point of view).
I don’t think it’s all that “obvious.” The Dharma Initiative was introduced at the beginning of Season 2, and from the time we first meet the Others in mid-Season 2 (when Michael runs off to look for Walt), they make it pretty clear that they are not Dharma.
It’s certainly easy to tell from very early that the Black Rock pre-dates Dharma.
Dharma is not a complete red herring, but they were never meant to be the reason why the island is a special place. They were a vehicle for exploring what makes the island a special place, and to some degree, a plot device to allow the characters the use of certain modern conveniences rather than spending every other episode figuring out how to live like pioneers with fewer and fewer remnants of the Oceanic airliner to exploit.
The Dharma “crap” isn’t irrelevant if “The Incident” that we saw at the end of season 5 ended up played a major role in bringing the Jacob/MIB conflict to an important resolution. That wouldn’t have happened without Dharma. Some would apply to any other Dharma specific events that did a similar thing, as well as the motivations/involvement of specific characters (like Ben, and/or Widmore), if they have an important role to play in the final “big” conflict.
I’m gonna bring this up again, but when did the writers say there would be a scientific explanation to everything? I can’t seem to find that anywhere.
Sorry, no cites, but I remember that was pretty early in Season 1. When asked about it later when it was obvious that it was not the case, they said they lied, because they were not sure people were invested enough in the show to stay with it if they knew what direction it was going to head into.
It’s probably linked in one of the first episode threads. I remember in addition to them specifically denying it was aliens or purgatory, they also denied it was dinosaurs. At the same time they also said there would be a rational – as opposed to mystical – explanation for the strangeness on the island.
I just went paging through some old interviews, and found one where they specifically said, “It’s not time travel.” So, I don’t think we can put much stock in what they said in early interviews. Which is somewhat annoying to me, because I really bought into the whole, “There will be a rational explanation” thing.
I know my posts in this thread probably sound like I’m ragging on the show pretty hard. Don’t get me wrong; I’m still into it, I’m still watching, and I hope to enjoy the final bit of the final season. It’s just that there have been disappointments along the way, and the apparent abandoning of “There will be a rational explanation” is one of them for me.
No, they really weren’t, which is what makes it annoying. There’s nothing that Dharma did for the plot that couldn’t be done with something else. And that something else could have been covered in a handful of episodes. As it stands now, what is it exactly that Dharma did?
Dharma brought flight 815 to the island via Desmond’s failure to hit the button. Did we need several seasons for that? The Black Rock getting on the island was more mysterious and intriguing than flight 815 and they knocked that out in a single episode.
Dharma brought many of the characters to the island, like for example Ben and Charlotte. Well, Charlotte was mostly a throwaway. So Ben, and…? Again, Richard was brought to the island in a single episode, no need for a years-long overly complicated backstory just to bring Ben there.
And it’s not like they need backstory on what they bring there anyway. Sure it was mentioned before, but it definitely felt like the temple and a whole bunch of new characters just magically appeared out of nowhere at the start of this season.
I’m not saying the whole series has been an irrelevant hijack that has no underlying purpose. The Oceanic 6 getting “rescued” and then dealing with the aftermath and then having to go back to the island, for example, was rock solid. (And, perhaps unsurprisingly, they didn’t need a speck of Dharma for that.)
By the way, I love the idea posted upthread about how the candidates collectively act as a stopgap after Jacob got killed. That’s a rock solid story reason for all the mysterious “you all have to go back, every single one” that permeated off-island season. I’m loving that so much I’m choosing to believe it regardless of what the writers decide to make up. Of course they won’t even bother to address it, and I’d bet money they never even gave it any thought. The only reason everyone needed to go back is because they wanted to keep the actors on the show. (Not that they’ve bothered to give Sun anything meaningful to do.)
Dharma was not necessary to any of that. It’d be like if in the second half of Return of the King, the elves, dwarves, orcs, and even Middle Earth itself became irrelevant, like Frodo teleported to another planet with a furnace he used to destroy the ring.
The dead that drop by were the smoke monster/Man in Black, who has never been shown to be a whisperer.
On another subject, where did we come down on who spoke to Locke in the cabin lo those many seasons ago? I’m leaning strongly toward Man in Black, not Jacob. I know there was an ash circle, but mercenary chick said it looked like it had been broken for a long time. Also, we know Man in Black was in the cabin shortly thereafter as Christian Shepherd with Claire sitting on the couch.
EDIT: Unless Jacob shapeshifts too? Do we think he can? I’m leaning toward no.
The ash might have been to keep him in the cabin.
Yeah, I know they weren’t meant to be the actual source of the Island weirdness, but they were definitely implied to be more than a hippie commune of mostly incompetent scientist-types who didn’t even know what they were dealing with. As it turns out, they were almost a McGuffin to build conflict around for a couple of seasons.
I guess I imagined it would be the other way around: that the Island weirdness would be the McGuffin. As I said in an earlier thread, I never really expected to get an explanation for why weirdness happens on the Island any more than I expected an explanation for why weirdness happens in The Twilight Zone. Watching the Jacob/MIB thing pan out is a little like seeing Rod Serling step into the screen and say, “Now, folks, I’m going to show you what’s causing all this freaky crap to happen to these people.” It’s fun now, but I hope they don’t spend too much time explaining the mystical stuff while leaving some of the more factual questions unanswered. By which I mean things like: Why did the Others want Walt? Who was Libby? How did Faraday’s mom know so much? And what was the motivation behind the actions of 80% of the characters through the entire series? We got a pretty good explanation for Richard, but with less than 10 episodes left, I’m afraid we won’t see too many more like that.
I think the DI’s Lamp Post Station was pretty instrumental in the O6’s return to the island.
Probably told by Jacob that he might be a candidate.
We don’t have full answers to any of these, but we do have quite a lot: few of these are entirely mysteries.
Walt had special powers, and the Others have always been interested in such people because they think they are somehow blessed by, or important to, the Island. Same reason the Others were supposedly so excited by word of John Locke. We don’t yet know where powers like Hurley, Miles, or Walt’s came from, and we may never know, but certainly it’s not crazy that the Others would want to know about them (though exactly why ties into whatever their mysterious final purpose is).
Libby was who she said she was. We don’t know what brought her into the mental ward, though it could have had something to do with crippling shock over her husband’s death. We may have more to learn about her, but it’s all filling in her backstory, none of which has so far been hinted to be especially important or mystical.
Faraday’s mom knew so much because a) she was an Other/Leader and privvy to plenty of Island Secrets as well as a life of research after leaving the Island and b) she shot her own time traveling son, and realized it, and kept track of everything Faraday knew (I may be mistaken, but doesn’t she end up with his journal?). She pretty much knew what was going to happen right up until she sent the Losties back in time to the Island. And she was, rightly or wrongly, extremely fatalistic about it all. The really strange thing, on the other hand, is exactly what was going on in Desmond’s “flash.” How could she know she would meet him, or what has happening to him? Daniel knew a little about Desmond, but as far as we know, he never knew exactly where or when Desmond had a flashback too. Unless Eloise was a sort of phantom Eloise and not the actual one, this seems really bizarre no matter how you slice it.
I do hope we get more info about Daniel, and his mom, Eloise, and the various characters that she interacted with, especially Desmond.
Even if the writers have been making it up as they go along (and I don’t necessarily think they have been) I have definitely been enjoying the ride. They have also had some unforeseen circumstances come up with various actors. Remember that Libby and Ana Lucia both had their own individual DUIs? I can’t remember what if any effect the writers strike had other than the gap and shortened season, but they managed to endure that obstacle as well.
However they’re doing it, I’m loving it so far. It is possible to sour my affection if the endgame is absolutely yak-cock-engulfing, but so far the koolaid still tastes sweet to me.
I was talking about Richard, not Jacob. Did Richard witness Locke’s birth? Maybe? I don’t remember.
He did. Locke told him to when he was in the past.