Terminally Incoherent

Warning: Major Spoilage for Lost: Enter 77 below.

Color me confused. All up to this point I was entirely convinced that the Others were either descendants of the original DHARMA initiative, or that they were people who came in later picked up where DHARMA left off. I thought that their work on the island was connected to the Valenzetti equation. But if we are to believe Mr. Patchy McRussian this is not the case.

We got some answers, but it seems like they only opened more questions. Now we know that Others predate DHARMA and that there was open hostilities between the two groups. What were they doing on the island in the first place though? Are Others and DHARMA just two independent groups working on the Valenzetti riddle on their own? Or did they have an entirely different purpose.

Why was the Flame station rigged with explosives? Why was it important to destroy it in case of an incursion of “hostiles”? My theory is that this was the main DHARMA communication array used to operate the satelite dish, and the sonar. If it was overrun the “hostiles” could feed the mainland fake data, or interrupt submarine communication my messing with the sonar. It also seemed to be the entrance to the hidden underground complex of tunnels. So perhaps blowing it up was a way to prevent “hostiles” from reaching the underground communication lines.

It seems that Others won and eliminated DHARMA planting their own operatives at the Flame. Did they also find the Swan hatch? Was Inman an Other? I vaguely remember him talking about “the hostiles” at some point. How about Radzinsky? Was he DHARMA? Did Inman kill Radzinsky and take over his place in the Swan?

We can be sure that either Radzinsky or Inman (or both) knew about the Flame because it was featured on the blast door map.

Of course if Inman was an Other then why no one showed up at the Swan when he died. If he was reporting to the base camp, someone would notice that he was MIA after some point and sent an expedition to Swan and run into Desmond. Unless of course Inman was a rouge Other and he took the job in Swan so that he could stay below the radar, and work on the sailboat that would help him escape from the island. We know that at least Juliet is on the island against her will, so it is safe to assume others are in a similar situation.

So if Inman was a known recluse, and took the Swan job to stay out of reach of Ben, Juliet and their politics, it’s possible that no one noticed him missing. As long as the button was pushed they assumed Inman was doing his job.

Another possibility is that Inman and Radzinsky were indeed last DHARMA operatives on the island and Others simply missed them. But that would be a little strange. Others took over Hydra station, the Staff and the Flame so it is safe to assume they had maps that would show them location of Swan. If they were actively exploiting the DHARMA stations then it would only be logical to assume they would try to check out Swan at some point…

Or perhaps they also got fooled by the quarantine signs, and decided not to open the sealed hatch? Could the quarantine hoax was there to keep the Swan crew indoors at all times to minimize the chance of them running into “hostiles”?

I have so many questions it’s not even funny. This was a good episode though. Once again Sayid shows that he is the most clueful of the lot and asks Patchy some questions before the shit hits the fan. Jack, Kate and Sawyer should fucking be taking notes. All this time they spent in Hydra and they have zero vital intel on the Others other than “they have backyards”. Sigh…

I’m waiting for someone at lostpedia to transcribe the annotated text that Locke saw in the Flame.

The Lost Blog has a translated version of the russian dialog between Patchy and the black woman if you are interested, although you can probably figure out what they said from the context.

Hurley is teh ultimate ping pong champion!

This is an actual conversation I had at lunch today (note we all watched the latest episode of BSG - if you didn’t you may get spoiled):

So, what are your thoughts on the untimely demise of Ms. “I make my own destiny! Oh wait, maybe I don’t”?

Lost fans assemble! Seriously, Work kicked my ass, and I don’t have anything useful to post, so I’m just gonna go and play HL2 for a while to unwind. In the meantime you people go read this interesting post on symbolism in recent episodes of Lost. Or if you are lazy I will give you a super condensed version (my information compression is lossy, so go read the whole thing for more):

J. Wood notes that Juliet’s mark looks a little bit like the Rosicrucian Cross. Rosicrucians were a secret esoteric, mystical order established in 17th century. The served as a model for many later secret societies such as free masons and etc.. I’m still processing this stuff but it is very interesting.

Also, this is Rosicrucian chart:

And here is the map from the Swan blast door. Note that if you remove all the writing and markings, the lines drawn in the background create a shape very similar to the chart above:

What does this all mean? I have no clue. Possibly nothing, or perhaps something very significant. From J. Wood:

The Rosicrucians also were followers of the Greek mathematician Pythagoras, who also held to a very mystical cosmology. Pythagoras believed in the transmigration of souls, sacred geometry, and that concepts and matter could be represented numerically. At this point, the Valenzetti equation should come to mind, because that’s exactly what each of the 4 8 15 16 23 and 42 numerals are meant to represent.

Both DHARMA and Rosicrucian order had similar goals - to aid humanity in it’s growth and development through their secret work on the esoteric mysteries of the universe.

Of course I realize that many of these theories are just wild goose chases… Even if these references are completely unintended, I still enjoy reading them. They help me to experience the show on a completely different level than than a casual viewer.

And you have to give credit to the creators of the show for giving us all this material to meticulously analyze, and theorize about each week - intentionally or not.

Apparently, if you play the brainwashing scene from Not in Portland backwards, you can hear a woman’s voice saying: “only fools are enslaved by time and space”:.

yourube link

Has anyone else confirmed this? I just want to make sure this is not a hoax. What is the significance of this line? Why was it streamed backwards?

According to the lost blog this is a paraphrase of an old Buddhist saying:

The wise know how to use time and space perfectly; they lead free and harmonious lives. Fools are enslaved by time and space; they are busy running around all day. Wise or foolish, the difference is obvious

Any thoughts on this?

If you are a LOST fan like me, go read the Lost and Found article on Entertainment Weekly website. It certainly lifted my spirits regarding the direction the show is taking. I think the gist of it can be summarized by the following quote:

”I feel like we’re playing a chess game,” analogizes Lindelof [the exec. producer], ”and in the first six moves, we’ve lost our queen and two bishops, and the audience is saying ‘They are the worst chess players in the world!’ What they don’t realize is that we’re nine moves away from checkmating you. If we lose, we lose. But that’s the play, and we’re standing by it.”

The creators of the show acknowledge the fact that the show is changing direction, but they promise that it will only get better as the story unfolds. And I believe them because they have spilled some juicy spoilage. Here are some of the things we can look forward to in the remainder of the season: (highlight the text with your mouse to read it)

– BEGIN SPOILER BLOCK –

– END SPOIER BLOCK –

Writers also promise that they will do something useful with Nikki and Paulo who annoy the shit out of me. There is a way these characters could be made interesting and legit though. That is: if Hurley would go over his Flight Manifest again, and didn’t find them on it. That would be an interesting twist, and much easier to swallow than the “no, seriously, they’ve been on the island all along” bullshit we got so far.

Lindelof claims that once we are done with their story they will become iconic characters. I don’t buy it. I fucking hate retcons and no amount of epic bullshit is going to change this. I may learn to tolerate them, but they will always be retcons to me - iconic or not.

Either way, it’s a good read.