When Ben was tutoring Alex, he asked a question which flustered her. It was never answered on screen but may have some clues in it. Then again, I may be grasping at overly analyzed straws again...lol

Ben asked "Now, moving on to the Charter Act of 1813. At the time of the Charter, the East India Trading Company's power extended to all of India, except for..."

To the best of my knowledge that would have been Punjab, Sind and Nepal. Punjab and Sind are now part of Pakistan while Nepal is further east. Using Google as my favorite personal assistant, I tried to find some relevance in this. I did find that Little Orphan Annie's friend "Punjab" rescued her by helicopter at the end of the 1981 Broadway play. I didn't find any other significant similarities to the Lost story, though. :frown:


Does anybody have any other ideas about this? I figure most dialog either has a meaning or is crucial to advance the story. Otherwise, why not make Dr. Linus an expert in Polynesian mythology or something relevant to the story. I am betting there is something to this if only I was smarter...lol

Is there a connection between the East India Trading Co and the Black Rock?

I'm thinking it was to foreshadow Widmore's arrival, since Widmore was interested in The Black Rock, which was a British trading ship... also we saw The actual Black Rock in this episode. It's been speculated before that Widmore's interest in the island was commercial. Maybe they will all tie in together or maybe it was just to inject another hint of the island into the sideways storyline.

I think the relevance in the episode was more Ben's lecture about Napoleon and the Island of Elba.

I'm on board with it being significant. I just don't know whether it's strictly in the details or whether it's a broader reference. I'm at least going to start with the premise that this is TPTB's way of hinting to us to go read up on the East India Trading Company, & maybe start to think about the general 1813 timeframe.

I think it's a good possibility that the Black Rock was part of the East India Company. That picture of the ship in the history book looks very Black-Rock-ish to me.

My rudimentary takeaway of the whole East India Company thing was a matter of a company moving into an area, acquiring the resources of the area, increasing in political power until the roles of corporate & government were all mashed together, & destroying the indigenous culture. In the Lost context, Widmore is absolutely a corporate mogul, & he wants to acquire the Island because of its special resources. He'll take it by coercion, by money, by force or any other way he can.

In the unspoken details :), I'd think Nepal is the most interesting of the 3 regions. Katmandu; Siddharta, who became the Buddha; Hinduism vs Buddhism. There's got to be somebody around here who actually knows something about all this stuff!!

Oh, & the lecture about Elba was absolutely pertinent!

I thought it was foreshadowing about what we would discover about Richard, since the very next scene opened with Richard. I assumed that that was the time period when Richard came to the island, and he had something to do with the East India Trading Company.