Had a Lost marathon this weekend with some friends that had never watched the series. Of course, they're in love now.

But when I was rewatching Sayid's ep, Solitary, something occured to me. It was always a curiousity that Danielle never refered to "Alex" with a gender pronoun. Only by the name, or as her child.

So here's what I'm thinking now:

Danielle doesn't know if her child was a boy or a girl.

She only discovered she was pregnant after she killed off her crewmates and husband. Alone in the jungle, the only company she had was the baby she was carrying. She talked to it, named it a genderless name (Alex could become Alexander or Alexandra upon birth) and personified the growing child into the companion she hoped it would be.

But shortly before she gave birth, the "Others" captured her. They took the child, without ever showing it to it's mother and somehow Danielle either escaped or was released.

Sixteen years later, she's still looking for her child. She doesn't use gender pronouns, because she doesn't know if she had a boy or a girl.

So simple, yet so complex....

sounds fine, but once again not a spoiler

This is odd... I could have sworn I posted this in the theories section. Many apologies... I must have been more tired than I thought last night.

Mods: Please move this topic to Theories. It was never intended to be here. Sorry.

That would make a lot of sense, because the corpses that Kate, Locke, and Charlie found were a male and a female, and had to be forty, fifty, or so. They could be the parents of a child, and every sixteen years or so they take a child. That would make sense to me.

We've speculated this before and it makes good sense. She wouldn't have intentionally brought a child on a dangerous research mission (they brought guns). She also probably wouldn't have gone if she was already pregnant. So, if she has a child on the island, it was born well after she was marooned. Also, if the "Joanna didn't drown" theory is correct, the others have already shown a great deal of interest in women of child-bearing age.

She could have been very early term and not known about the pregnancy. Or maybe she was aware of it but didn't think the research would take long and perhaps was looking to leave afterwards as a one last thing before I take a leave of absence from my work. I do think the latter is a bit strange but it could be a possibility as well. Perhaps just to tie it all up she killed the research team because she took them as responsible for the disappearance of her newborn child.

I think the gender of Alex although a question that has been raised with no answer is somewhat irrelevant in the big scheme unless Claire's child has some type connection as in must be female children etc... By the way there is a similar thread going right now about the gender of the child.