When was the purge mentioned as being in the 1970’s?
BTW, I am as frustrated as anyone with this show and completely agree that they should have given us more answers to mysteries and that the “it’s all about the characters” line they kept giving us was just a cop-out. But some people read way too much into this show and come to see their own pet theories as fact. We were never told the Others kidnapped Walt because of their fertility problems. We were never told Dharma or the Others made a practice of having polar bears turn the frozen donkey wheel. We were never told that Jacob built the lighthouse. It’s hard enough to discuss this show without people bringing ungrounded assumptions into the discussion as facts.
Note–due to the weird formatting, I’m putting >> before my comments. Arcite’s comments don’t have anything before them and the poster he’s responding to has a - in front.
- The numbers. Why were Jacob’s numbers used for The Swan’s computer? Why were they broadcast by a crazy scientist? Why did they end up being Hurley’s lottery numbers?
Jacob had a thing for numbers.
>> And why did they give Hurley good/bad luck? Why did they show up on completely unrelated things? Why did they give unrelated people in the outside world good or bad luck?
- What’s the deal with Walt? Why was he special?
He wasn’t really special in the end. Speculation, the Others really just wanted him because they couldn’t have kids.
>>Except that he can appear out of nowhere and speak backwards warnings to people. He can make birds die. His powers freaked out his foster-dad. And The Others wanted Walt because he was on that list that Jacob gave to Richard who gave it to Ben. Remember the list?
- The creepy Aaron prophecy. Why was it so important that he wasn’t raised by another / an Other?
Because it drove Claire mad.
>>What?
- The sickness. Why did it infect people like Sayid and Claire? Was it the same sickness that the hatch people were worried about? What causes it?
There was no “sickness” per se. Sayid was just fucked up by his near death experience. Claire was just driven nuts like Rousseau. The hatch sickness was either a Dharma fucking with them experiment, or precaution against the poison the hostiles used to wipe out most of the Dharmites.
>> Explain Rouseau’s people then. And Sayid. And Ben (and how did Ben get his soul back? We were told in S5 that he would live but be soulless (or something to that effect)
- Why was Eloise so omniscient? What did she know? What was the lamppost station, and who built it?
Eloise had Daniel’s notebook, which spelled out a lot. She also flat out stated the lamppost was built by Dharma, IIRC.
>> I like the idea of Daniel’s notebook being Eloise’s source of knowledge. That’s remarkably tidy. 
It wasn’t established out loud, but clearly in seasons 1-3 (or 4) Dharma had been gone since the '70s. EVERY bit (without exception) of their tech, their cultural stuff, their clothing (such as we saw), their furniture and hell, their taste in music was 100% '70s. Until they screwed up and showed grown-up Ben leading the massacre, I’d always assumed he’d done it as a kid
Arcite? Looks like you’re responding to my post.
I’ll * my responses to your responses, okay?
- The numbers. Why were Jacob’s numbers used for The Swan’s computer? Why were they broadcast by a crazy scientist? Why did they end up being Hurley’s lottery numbers?
Jacob had a thing for numbers.
>> And why did they give Hurley good/bad luck? Why did they show up on completely unrelated things? Why did they give unrelated people in the outside world good or bad luck?
- Jacob’s manipulations. Had to get Hurley in place somehow, and it just so happens putting the numbers all over the place got Hurley to be where he needed to be.
- What’s the deal with Walt? Why was he special?
He wasn’t really special in the end. Speculation, the Others really just wanted him because they couldn’t have kids.
>>Except that he can appear out of nowhere and speak backwards warnings to people. He can make birds die. His powers freaked out his foster-dad. And The Others wanted Walt because he was on that list that Jacob gave to Richard who gave it to Ben. Remember the list?
- It’s a freaky island, weird shit happens. Bird thing could’ve been a coincidence. The “list” Walt was on wasn’t from Jacob, it was from Ethan. Ben tells Ethan and Goodwin as part of their infiltration instructions that he wants a list after they’ve gotten in.
- The creepy Aaron prophecy. Why was it so important that he wasn’t raised by another / an Other?
Because it drove Claire mad.
>>What?
- Kate taking Aaron away and raising him made Claire go cuckoo bananas.
- The sickness. Why did it infect people like Sayid and Claire? Was it the same sickness that the hatch people were worried about? What causes it?
There was no “sickness” per se. Sayid was just fucked up by his near death experience. Claire was just driven nuts like Rousseau. The hatch sickness was either a Dharma fucking with them experiment, or precaution against the poison the hostiles used to wipe out most of the Dharmites.
>> Explain Rouseau’s people then. And Sayid. And Ben (and how did Ben get his soul back? We were told in S5 that he would live but be soulless (or something to that effect)
- Good point on Danielle’s people. I did explain Sayid. What about Ben? They didn’t say he’d be soulless, they said he’d be changed, one of them (hostiles/others). And he was. Doesn’t mean he’s “sick”. He was already well on the road to being one of them anyway, so maybe Richard was just being theatrical.
- Why was Eloise so omniscient? What did she know? What was the lamppost station, and who built it?
Eloise had Daniel’s notebook, which spelled out a lot. She also flat out stated the lamppost was built by Dharma, IIRC.
>> I like the idea of Daniel’s notebook being Eloise’s source of knowledge. That’s remarkably tidy.
-
It’s not just my idea, in case you are saying that. We flat out see her with the notebook after she shoots him in S5.
>>It wasn’t established out loud, but clearly in seasons 1-3 (or 4) Dharma had been gone since the '70s. EVERY bit (without exception) of their tech, their cultural stuff, their clothing (such as we saw), their furniture and hell, their taste in music was 100% '70s. Until they screwed up and showed grown-up Ben leading the massacre, I’d always assumed he’d done it as a kid -
EVERY bit, except the washer and dryer in the Swan… And just because they had a lot of 70’s tech around, doesn’t mean they weren’t there longer, just they didn’t upgrade a lot. Hard to fit some of that stuff on a submarine. Hey, the computer in the Swan would’ve fit right in to some of the computer labs at my college, and I was there in the mid to late 90’s.
here’s a response, as well as a larger stab at answering everything…
“Why do those returning to the island need to recreate the circumstances of their first arrival?”
“So a squinting island will be like, “Eh, close enough,” and snatch our heroes back.”
Heheh.
From the article:
Those are not answers.
I think the key here is that it’s two separate mysteries: Walt, and polar bears.
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Walt, as seen with the bird book, can accidently summon things.
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Polar bears were already on the island due to Dharma.
So Walt didn’t create the bear. He Summoned it. That wouldn’t have worked if the bears hadn’t already been on the island. If Green Lantern was on the island, or some other random thing that also happened to be in what Walt was reading, that might have been brought to him or him to it.
I think there is no hard linkage between the comic book image and the real bear, even though there was a very deliberate shot to show us the comic book page. I think this was just a literary motif. The polar bear did not appear anywhere remotely close to Walt, unlike the two bird episodes.
OK, my two unanswered questions:
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What happened to the ‘Magic Room’ Ben discussed with Locke? The room where what you want will come true? When it existed there seemed to be real motivation for people wanting to control the island. Was Ben just blowing smoke? Because the glowing cave sure didn’t seem like the magic room.
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If all on the island derives from the glowing cave, and all that does it leave lame side effects on other parts of the island, then why are so many folks determined to control the island? Sure the island can cure cancer (sometimes) but it seems like a lot of effort to control a place you cannot find and is not doing what was advertised anyway.
This one has been dispelled for a long time. Way back in season 3, only 6 episodes after Ben mentioned the “magic box,” he told Locke it was a “metaphor.” See the transcript for the episode The Brig. Around the same time, Cuse and Lindelof said in a podcast or something that they only intended it as a metaphor.
It still implies there is something on the island with much more potential than ‘glowing cave that kills people or turns them into smoke monsters’.
When Ben let Locke into the “magic room,” there was Anthony Cooper. The underlying assumption was that Locke wanted to kill him, although when it came down to it, he couldn’t do it himself. BTW that seems to be foreshadowing for FLocke getting Ben to kill Jacob.
I saw this a couple days ago and didn’t think to post it here until now. It’s a pretty clear description of the over-all storyline of Lost in 3 minutes.
