tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9611352.post4921196902643863771..comments2024-02-19T19:53:01.688-08:00Comments on Cathode Tan: TV Watch: Lost, Ab AeternoJoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260309971152360156noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9611352.post-39761347722480181232010-03-25T13:51:21.163-07:002010-03-25T13:51:21.163-07:00Which makes me wonder if they'll do a Widmore ...Which makes me wonder if they'll do a Widmore flashback episode.Joshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04260309971152360156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9611352.post-55731515672273178372010-03-25T13:45:11.999-07:002010-03-25T13:45:11.999-07:00I have a theory on the army. Two things we know a...I have a theory on the army. Two things we know about the island relevant to this:<br /><br />1) The Island has, at least once, become unhidden though it seems like this has happened more than once.<br />2) The Island's power is all connected into strong electromagnetic fields<br /><br />So I would posit that the Island became visible, at least partially shortly after World War 2 due to the Nuclear testing that was going on in the pacific. So they set off a bomb at say Bikini Island and the EMP from that interfered with the Island's cloaking. Thus the Army, looking for another place to blow some shit up, sent some folks to the island with a bomb.sternohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02245940881311545520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9611352.post-11925512655983190162010-03-25T13:10:48.556-07:002010-03-25T13:10:48.556-07:00Yeah, I guess technically the army's arrival i...Yeah, I guess technically the army's arrival is the even more oddball one, since it predates it. Seems weird that they just found it for testing when the island is so well hidden.Joshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04260309971152360156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9611352.post-59013307436900233912010-03-25T13:05:52.310-07:002010-03-25T13:05:52.310-07:00Did Jacob bring DHARMA to the island or did they s...<i>Did Jacob bring DHARMA to the island or did they stumble on it? If he didn't bring them, they represent a very unique group of people. If he did bring them, the whole Purge thing seems pretty odd. More like they were interlopers which neither Jacob nor the Man In Black appreciated.</i><br /><br />Remember DHARMA is Whitmore and Whitmore was on the island when he was in the military. So we do know that Whitmore brought them there, but we don't know what lead him to doing that or why the army was there in the first place. Though it seems the army's arrival could have been largely accidental, just looking for an empty island for bomb testing.sternohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02245940881311545520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9611352.post-90940650104034074302010-03-25T12:13:14.057-07:002010-03-25T12:13:14.057-07:00One thing that sits right fat in the middle of thi...One thing that sits right fat in the middle of this? DHARMA.<br /><br />Did Jacob bring DHARMA to the island or did they stumble on it? If he didn't bring them, they represent a very unique group of people. If he did bring them, the whole Purge thing seems pretty odd. More like they were interlopers which neither Jacob nor the Man In Black appreciated.<br /><br />Hence their might be a kind of chain of events from Jacob, to Richard, to Widmore, to DHARMA, to Ben, to the Purge to the present. With a nuclear bomb in the middle.<br /><br />Again, right - saying one is evil and one is not is probably not correct ... and also there's more than just the two forces at work. So you've got "God" and "The Devil" and "Man" in between.Joshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04260309971152360156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9611352.post-80960480777335953752010-03-25T11:44:15.014-07:002010-03-25T11:44:15.014-07:00-Ben-
My sense is that the dynamics of the island...-Ben-<br /><br />My sense is that the dynamics of the island had already gotten pretty complicated by the time Ben came along. You had a permanent settlement of Dharma folks on the island, and they clearly knew of the powers of SmokeLocke, etc, as they had a way to contain it. <br /><br />Ben was basically the final round of the game. He grew up on the island, had influences from both directions, etc. In Ben, SmokeLocke was able to finally find somebody he could sufficiently manipulate to do what he wanted to have done. The only reason Ben was successful was that Jacob let him do it to see if he really would. Having said that, it is perhaps true that Jacob is still right in the end because Ben has clearly woken up to what went wrong.<br /><br />It is worth noting here though that Ben got into the situation where he would kill Jacob because of Jacob's intervention. Had Jacob not tried to make Ben some kind of leader, none of that dynamic plays out and Jacob's still alive. So a bit of Karmic whiplash there I suppose :)<br /><br />-Dead People-<br /><br />One thing to note about Hurley, Richard, and Isabella's interaction is that it's not clear that Hurley got the message to stop SmokeLocke from Isabella. She disappears, then Hurley delivers the last bit of the message. That could have been from Jacob or it could even be Hurley being a bit manipulative. Not that it matters much, but just figure it's worth pointing out.<br /><br />-Fate and Free Will-<br /><br />My sense of things is that Jacob and SmokeLocke have similar powers, but it's more of a matter of how they choose to manifest them. Jacob might be able to do the smoke monster thing if he really wanted to, but he doesn't have a reason to do so. He wants to take a hands off approach as much as possible because he wants the choices of people to be as true to themselves as possible. <br /><br />I think up to the point of Richard coming to the island, SmokeLocke was also willing to be more hands off. He wanted to show that Jacob was wrong and demonstrate that people were ultimately evil and corruptible. So some new player would show up, SmokeLocke and Jacob would bat them around a bit until they made their choice, then they'd move onto the next game. With Richard, that changed, and both of them started intervening more and changing the game.sternohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02245940881311545520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9611352.post-51987874830970475702010-03-25T11:44:02.461-07:002010-03-25T11:44:02.461-07:00Richard - Just have to say it's an unbelievabl...Richard - Just have to say it's an unbelievably dick move to give last rites to a guy accused of murder then, when he confesses to the murder saying, "oh yeah sorry not enough time to work that out". Maybe you should show up a bit earlier for the murderers, eh? :)<br /><br />- Jacob - <br /><br />There's a lot to say about this one. First of all, the evolving relationship between Jacob and SmokeLocke is really fascinating. The dynamic clearly was that they are both condemned to the island, with SmokeLocke being the prisoner and Jacob being the prison guard. Seemingly they were both okay with this for a very long time.<br /><br />To say that Jacob is good and SmokeLocke is bad is, I believe, quite wrong. Jacob is perhaps more leaning towards good but both of them suffer from the ego that comes with being a superior being. Clearly Jacob has no moral qualms with dragging people onto this island and putting them through torment to prove his point. It seems that for some undetermined amount of time SmokeLocke and Jacob were both content to treat the island as their little lab experiment.<br /><br />However, this all changed when SmokeLocke finally got so sick of being on the island playing these games that he tried to turn one of the players, Richard, against Jacob. Jacob deals with Richard easily, and then Jacob also changes the dynamic by setting up Richard to intercede on his behalf going forward. I don't get the sense that Jacob wants Richard to convince people to be good, but rather just wants to help him keep the game going. Also, it's worth noting that Richard made this suggestion, not Jacob, so this could also just be Jacob letting Richard play out his own free will. <br /><br />Jacob has the feel of a kind of mild mannered version of the old testament God. Having a little back and forth with the devil, proving that people are good and what crazy BS they'll put up with. He's capricious but doesn't seem to demonstrate a lot of that vengeful fire and brimstone vibe.<br /><br />What I'm really left wondering about though is how everything evolved after Richard. Specifically a lot more people were winding up on the island. Some of them seemed to end up there without any involvement by Jacob (The army, the dharma initative, etc). It seems that Jacob was content to keep playing the game while SmokeLocke was trying harder and harder to rig the game to end his imprisonment.sternohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02245940881311545520noreply@blogger.com