I strongly believe that Jack Shephard is a covert agent for the Dharma Initiative, and his distinctive tattoo marks him as such. In retrospect, the clues are scattered throughout all three seasons of the show. The implications for season 4 (and beyond) are immense.

Alot of the following information has already formed the basis of posts I’ve made elsewhere on the ‘lage, but I think that this theory is so integral to unlocking the mysteries of Lost that it deserves its own thread. Still - apologies to those reading this for the umpteenth time.

This is still very much a theory in progress. I have an idea where things might be headed when season 4 begins, but there are still a number of very big questions remaining. Including whether Jack was aware of his actual real identity whilst on the island, what the true nature of his mission for Dharma was, and whether any of the other losties were in on it too. I’d therefore appreciate any feedback or suggestions you may have. Anyway, here goes ...


THE TATTOO IS JACK’S DHARMA LOGO!

Note the similarity of the upper arrow-like portion of Jack’s tattoo to the archetypal Dharma logo based on the Bagua (many thanks to Lucidity for providing the links):-

Jack’s tattoo: http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image%3AJacktattoo.jpg
Dharma logo: http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image%3ADHARMAlogo.jpg


THIS BAGUA MOTIF WOULD TIE IN WITH EASTERN TEXT BELOW:

The tattoos are obviously Matthew Fox’s own but the makers have always been very open about wanting them to make them an integral part of Jack’s story. Up until now, the suggestion has been that they gave his character of the caring doctor an added edge. I think they’ve just been keeping quiet about just what that “edge” was.

MF has never explained what his tattoos mean in any press interviews. Up until now, we’ve been led to assume that this is because they have a very personal relevance to him and that it’s understandably not something he’s willing to share with the rest of the world. However, I now think he’s never explained what they mean because the arrow is actually taken from the Bagua which, as we know, forms part of the Dharma logo. The Bagua would certainly tie in with the Eastern theme of the text beneath. But if MF came out and said this, it would blow the surprise of Jack’s covert involvement with Dharma.


LOST HAS FOCUSED ON EVERY TATTOO APART FROM THIS ONE:

Throughout Lost, the emphasis has always been on every aspect of Jack’s tattoos apart from that distinctive Bagua portion. I now think the Lost creators intended to hide the true relevance of this particular tattoo by teasing us with snippets of information about what the others meant.

The ‘5’ was initially explained in the pilot, with Jack’s story to Kate about counting to five as a way of dealing with panic. And we returned to this story several times as the show progessed - when Kate was hiding from Smokey; when she was lowered into the Swan Hatch; and when Jack asked her to relate the same tale as proof that she’d safely escaped from the Others.

As season 3 progressed, we were treated to an increasing number of shots of the colourful stars tatooed inside Jack’s elbow. Another attempt to deflect attention from the really important one?

When it emerged during a poker game that Jack had spent time in Thailand and possibly got his tattoos done there, I think we all assumed (and perhaps more importantly, were led to believe) that it was the Oriental text below the 5 which was more relevant. Stranger In A Strange Land seemed to confirm the assumption. However, Isabel’s definition wasn’t a correct translation - “He walks amongst us, but he is not one of us” rather than the actual “Eagles high, cleaving sky.” Jack’s true Dharma status would certainly distinguish him from (most of?) the other innocent losties. However, I think Isabel’s incorrect translation was actually a subtle clue that this explanation as to the overall importance of Jack’s tattoo was also incorrect and that we should in fact be looking elsewhere.

Isabel failed to mention the Bagua tatoo in her overall appraisal - “the 5 and the stars are very cute. But the Chinese I find a bit ... ironic.” Strange that she didn’t comment on the boldest and most unusual part of his tattoes. Or were the writers hoping we wouldn’t notice in our excitement at finally learning what the Chinese characters meant?

In his dvd commentary for Tale of Two Cities, director Jack Bender questions why no-one is more interested in Jack’s tattoos before quickly changing the subject. If the tattoos are that important, how come every single official promo shot for Jack’s character for seasons 1, 2 and 3 shows him with the tattoos covered up by sleeves?


THE SHARK WITH THE DHARMA LOGO:

I now believe that the shark with the Dharma logo was a metaphor (or VERY clever Easter Egg!) for Jack’s hidden Dharma status. Especially when you consider that a shark is something dangerous and menacing, hidden from view in the murkey depths of the ocean. Keep in mind this idea of something dangerous hidden from view, because I’m going to come back to it.

And don’t forget that, in Flashes Before Your Eyes, Sawyer was singing “Show Me The Way To Go Home” (as featured in classic shark movie, Jaws) just before he and Kate discussed why they’d left Jack behind on the Others’ island.


JACK SHEPHARD AND HOWARD WOLLSTEIN:

So far, the only Dharma employee we’re fairly sure we’ve witnessed is Marvin CANDLE, otherwise known as Mark WICKman and Edward HaliWAX. This made me wonder whether Jack, as a fellow Dharma employee, also had any other names which could be subtly inter-related.

During the Lost Rewind for Walkabout, a number of us noticed that Claire mentions the name of a crash victim called Howard Wollstein during the memorial service. And that he was supposedly sitting in seat 23C at the time of the crash - the only seat mentioned during her tribute, and conveniently one of the Numbers. However, we’ve never seen a ‘Howard’ in any of the in-flight flashbacks. And, despite telling Rose that he was sitting in 23A and Ana-Lucia that he was in 23B, Jack was actually sitting in 23C at the time of the crash. Add to this the fact that Claire mentions Howard Wollstein just after Kate asks Charlie if she knows where Jack is. Could Jack be Howard Wollstein?

Kerstin80 then pointed out that Wollstein means WOOL-stone. Which brings me back to the Dharma Shark. I was trying to come up with a snappy phrase which, like a shark, would imply someone dangerous hidden from view. I came up with A WOLF IN SHEEPS CLOTHING. And what is sheeps clothing - wool. And what would sheep not be afraid of - a shephard. Jack’s secret Dharma identity would certainly tie in with the central Lost theme of hidden menace and things not being quite as they seem. But could this imply that the losties are LAMBS being led to the slaughter?!


JACK’S DHARMA STATUS MAY EXPLAIN FLASHFORWARD:

Let’s assume I’m right and that Jack was in fact a dangerous Dharma assassin, placed on the island for some as-yet undisclosed mission. I must admit I found this disconcerting because he’s such a heroic character, and my favourite on the show! How could it be possible that someone who has
always been shown trying to help or protect the losties will turn out to have been trying to harm them all along?

I think that Jack’s true identity will be revealed by whoever is on Naomi’s boat. The big question now is, was Jack aware of his hidden Dharma status whilst on the island? Was he consciously deceiving everyone that he befriended on the island, and that’s why he later told Kate he was “sick of lying”? Was Kate’s unwillingness to meet with him a sign of her disgust at his betrayl?

Or was the revelation as much of a shock to him? Had Jack been a “sleeper” assassin, who’s memory had been manipulated to provide him with the false backstory of a doctor who would care for and protect the losties, whilst his actual unwitting intentions were far more murderous? If so, perhaps the poker scene with Sawyer was a clue to this since you could interpret it as an oblique reference to the Manchurian Candidate. (In the movie, Laurence Harvey’s character is a sleeper assasin who’s memory has been tampered with by Communist agents. He is “awoken” with a secret signal to assasinate a presidential candidate, triggered by a playing card).

If Jack was unaware, would this explain why the eventual revelation of his true nature was so shocking that he turned to drugs and alcohol in guilt and shame, and even attempted suicide (“Lord forgive me”)? Or why he was then so desperate to return to the island to make ammends? It would certainly tie in with another central Lost theme - redemption for past wrongs.

Roll on season 4!

I really hope you're wrong, but I will read your post anyways! Sounds alright so far. 100%
Where's this Edward Halliwax name coming from? I dont remember that, and only recently am I reading that name on the 'lage.

Edit: Okay, I just found this new Dharma video on You-tube, but where did it come from?

Edit Version 2: Okay, I'm up to speed. Hadn't seen that vid from Comic-Con yet. Quite...comical.

Thanks JS! Have alot more angles to add to this argument which I'll be posting as soon as I've had some more initial feedback.

H x

Great post, Hildy.

I like the Kate idea - the fact that she was so reluctant to meet Jack is definitely something to be factored into all theories now.

I was thinking about the Tattoo. And this is a bit complicated, so apologies. It's probably a good idea to read it with the Bagua (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image%3ADHARMAlogo.jpg) in front of you.

I had suggested that as an arrow the tattoo would be pointing towards the top right segment of the Bagua. But, then it hit me that the shape of the tattoo - wide at the base going to narrow - fits better with the bottom left segment. And then I was thinking about the three unbroken lines thing that I mentioned the other day, which is the bottom right segment. So, a mirror image of the tattoo would match EXACTLY with that bottom right portion, three unbroken lines, base wide going to narrow, and pointing in the right direction. And with all of the Mirror Images talk, I wonder if there might be some significance to that.

Dr Suds talks a lot about Jack's tattoos changing arm, if I'm not confusing things. A tattoo on the opposite arm would probably match what I was just saying perfectly.

Guys, is there a main thread somewhere that's discussing the Dharma video (Orchid) that was released at Comic-Con? I can't find one anywhere...aside from Casimir Island.

Grr! I hate this theory. I hate it even more because it seems to be so damn right!

So let me add my two cents about Jack's tattoo. It looks like a star. Not a regular star -- not even really like a bagua to me. It looks more like the star of a compass, and the arrow points at a bearing of 325 degrees!

Damnit Jack! You're a doctor, not an assassin!

325 degrees is the bearing given by Ben for how to escape the Island. This could mean a couple of things, if we step back from Jack being a super DHARMA plant.

Jack was fated to have the compass bearing of 325 on his shoulder either guide him home from the Island, OR, Ben saw Jack's tattoo on the Pala Ferry dock and on a whim lied to Michael about which way to head from the Island to find rescue. Actually, there could be a third, being that Ben saw the tattoo, lied to Michael intending to send him into the open ocean with no hope for survival, but instead, there is Jack's THF freighter. OOPS.

Of course, how does this relate to the painting in the Swan?

Jack Sawyer,
They're in the Spoiler sections - the Mods consider the vid a Spoiler.
If you go to Spoiler Theories or Spoilers and you'll find plenty of stuff.

It looks more like the star of a compass, and the arrow points at a bearing of 325 degrees!



The "arrow" in the tat is pointing slighly up torwards his back. If the top of the shoulder was North (0/360 degrees), this would make it pointing around 45 degrees. 325 degrees would have the arrow pointing to his front pointing slightly upwards. :undecide:

We don't know yet when/where Jack got the logo/graphics part of the tattoo.. Achara only put the chinese characters there, the graphics were conspicuously missing when her brother yanked up the sleeve.

I like your shark / wolf connection. I've long advocated that Jack is a member of some secret society or agency. I don't yet see that it ties him to Dharma, though. I don't think we know enough yet to say he's a "good" guy or a "bad" one, and I don't believe he's brainwashed. Jack's behavior while captured by the others seemed to me to be that of a man experienced with the type of mind games they were playing.

Not all Jack's secrets have been revealed. I just hope Achara won't be in the fb revealing the story of the rest of the tattoos.

Jack Sawyer:
The whole Orchid orientation film is discussed in a piece just published in new issue of Entertainment Weekly. Can anyone confirm whether its HallIwax or HallOwax?
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0%2C%2C20050425%2C00.html?xid=email-alert-lost-20070809-item1

Lucidity:
Great to see you on here! And thanks for talking us through your interpretation of which section of the Bagua Jack’s tattoo represents (was hoping you’d do that!) because this could be very important. I’m still slightly confused as to which section it represents though, because to me it looks like the TOP left section which has a broken bottom line (sorry!). Whatever. I still think its interesting that it brings in the whole “mirroring” issue again, which a few people have been commenting on in other threads, and not to mention that the S3 finale was called Through The Looking Glass (or mirror). It certainly makes that infamous instance of Jack’s tattoo changing arms during his tussle with Ethan seem a bit more significant now, doesn’t it? Do you think it could perhaps be a reference to the “two sides” of Jack - one bad (Dharma assassin), one good (on-island doc)? And why dd that last sentence sound creepily like Locke explaining Backgammon to Walt?!

42ndFloor:
Glad you hate my theory for seeming so right! Have to admit that it freaked me out when I realized I might’ve stumbled upon the key to Jack’s true character - how can “my” heroic Jack turn out to be not so nice?! VERY nice suggestion that the arrow is pointing to 325 degrees and home.

VeryLost”
Can see what you mean that the arrow actually points to 45 degrees, but if we consider it a mirror image (see Lucidity) wouldn’t it then be 325 degrees?
100%
lostmio:
Sorry I missed you out before - you posted whilst I was writing my reply! Thanks for pointing out that we still don’t know where Jack got all his tattoo from - remember that Jack failed to reply when Sawyer asked him if he’d got his “arm art” done in Thailand, so its highly possible that only one section of it was. I’m presuming you’re hoping that Achara didn’t do all of it then?!

As for Jack’s captivity, I really like your comment that he seemed used to the mind games being exerted by the Others. Could this suggest prior military experience? A slight side-step here, but the thing that struck me about Jack whilst he was in captivity was how dreadful he looked - almost like someone going “cold turkey” - whilst Kate and Sawyer looked reasonably perky in comparison, even though all three had presumably been given the same drug when first captured. So this always made me wonder whether maybe Jack had been taking (or was being given, without his knowledge) something to keep his true nature under wraps. I’m kiinda leaning towards the idea that it could be something in that water bottle that he kept swigging from throughout season 2, if only because no other character was shown drinking anything so constantly or so conspicuously.

I think I was clutching at the “brainwashing” straw as a possible explanation of how such a seemingly good man could have a hidden bad side. Plus a few of us have been playing around with the whole memory manipulation angle over on Lucidity’s Soul Catcher thread. I’m sticking by it as a plausible explanation until I see otherwise on the show.

Thanks for pointing out that we still don’t know where Jack got all his tattoo from - remember that Jack failed to reply when Sawyer asked him if he’d got his “arm art” done in Thailand, so its highly possible that only one section of it was. I’m presuming you’re hoping that Achara didn’t do all of it then?!.

I was snarking Achara, don't want to see her again in ANY context.
I'm very sure she only did the chinese characters, though, because the logo and graphics weren't there at the end of the TOTC fb (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image:3x09-jack-tattoo.jpg).

The "arrow" in the tat is pointing slighly up torwards his back. If the top of the shoulder was North (0/360 degrees), this would make it pointing around 45 degrees. 325 degrees would have the arrow pointing to his front pointing slightly upwards. :undecide:

Ah yes, you're right. My bad, I got carried away and didn't confirm my observation.

Hildy, Perhaps not a mirror world, but if Jack was to simply look at his tattoo in a mirror, he would see it reversed.

Considering Sayid's assessment of the compass's strange behavior, it could be possible that while looking in a mirror at his tattoo and seeing a bearing of 315 degrees represented (the opposite of 45 degrees), the 315 degrees would actually align at 325 degrees according to Earth's true magnetic North. i don't remember what Sayid said about how far off the compass was from defining a true bearing.... But I do remember him saying it was rather slight. Does 10 degrees ring a bell?

Any thoughts on that?

Instead of Jack's tattoo representing a mirror world, it could be that he is destined to be standing beside a mirror when he, or someone else (I imagine Sayid) sees the reflection of his tattoo and it dawns on him.

Jack's (Fox's) tattoo is most definitely a compass star.

I was snarking Achara, don't want to see her again in ANY context.

Is this because her name sounds like someone clearing their throat, or is there something else she's done to offend?!

Is this because her name sounds like someone clearing their throat, or is there something else she's done to offend?!

The character, like Pikki, seemed to be hastily conceived and poorly written. Hard to assess the acting, since the writing was so poor.

The character, like Pikki, seemed to be hastily conceived and poorly written. Hard to assess the acting, since the writing was so poor.

Glad you mentioned the Pikki fiasco because I think the Exposé episode actually contained some useful "Jack is Dharma" related clues. Gonna take me some time to pull these together but I will get back to this topic.

All right, I thought it was time to add my two cents because a couple of things have got me thinking.
First up, I'm no big fan of the falselsy-implanted memories-theory, that would just personally ruin the show for me, and I also don't believe in the long and elaborate con à la Doc Suds. But I do firmly believe that there is a lot going on on that island which we still need to see, or for which we still need some little clues to put it into perspective.
And while I always found the various theories about Jack (being an Other, being on the island for the 2nd time around,...) interesting and intriguing, so far there has been no "there is more to Jack than meets the eye" theory that couldn't immediately be shot down by something else that was mentioned in the show.
But here, I think, we got something that can stand up scrutiny, even though a lot of pieces of the puzzle are still missing.

I do see the similarities of the tatoo and the Dharma logo (and believe me, it took a while to get what you were talking about, I was constantly looking at the part below the 5). However, I don't think that the fact that Isabel mistranslated the Chinese characters was supposed to be a hint. After all, the writers had to work with MF's tatoo, and I really think that they only gave it a meaning that would fit in better with Jack's character than the original Mao-line he has there, despite the fact that people who can read Chinese characters would be able to recognise the mistranslation. "Walks among us but is not one of us" does also seem to fit your theory, Hildy ;)
As far as why Matthew Fox doesn't comment on his tatoo in interviews, I don't think he could blow anything about Jack's character. After all, if Jack truly is a Dharma agent in disguise, MF will probably be the last person to get to know about it. But it's an interesting thought. With a tatoo this prominent, it's obvious that he'll get asked about the meaning. And if the tatoo doesn't play an important part for the character, then there is no reason why the actor shouldn't comment on it. My guess is that MF was told to stay quiet about the tatoo not so much because he could let "real information" slip, but because it would be strange if he kept telling people in interviews "oh, and the 5 is there because of Pary of Five, and the characters mean this and that,..." and later on LOST, the tatoos suddenly are meant to mean something different. That would only cause confusion, and would start huge discussions.

In his dvd commentary for Tale of Two Cities, director Jack Bender questions why no-one is more interested in Jack’s tattoos before quickly changing the subject. If the tattoos are that important, how come every single official promo shot for Jack’s character for seasons 1, 2 and 3 shows him with the tattoos covered up by sleeves?
Interesting, I never paid attention to the promo stills. But what has me even more confused is how you know what JB say in the dvd commentary of a season three epi for which the dvd hasn't been released yet??? :confused:

The thing about this theory that really made me start believe is the mysterious Mr. Woolstone who was so explicitly mentioned, yet so suspiciously absent. That and Jack's name tie in very nicely.

There's only some small points that still make me doubt:
1) The writers would have had to come up with the whole storyline about Jack rather quickly, seeing that they originally planned to have Jack die in the pilot episode. But as we don't really know how much time passed between them canning the idea that Jack died and them filming the pilot/writing the outline for the show, it is possible.

2)The flashbacks. If Jack isn't really Jack Shepard, then his flashbacks can't have been right. After all, the flashbacks introduce Christian Shepard, Mrs. Shepard, and they also connect Christian Shepard to Claire. So if Jack Shepard is not real, the flashbacks are implanted memories and that I don't buy (for personal reasons:rolleyes:). Brainwashing I can accept, especially since it was already introduced into the show, but not that.
Of course, Jack's name can be real and he can still be a Dharma agent, which would make his flashbacks believable. But then why would there need to be Mr. Woolstone on the manifest?

3) The manifest. Jack definitely has to be Jack Shepard at least for the flight of Oceanic 815. I think Hurley would have noticed quite quickly that Jack wasn't on the manifest if that was the case.
So what is this mysterious Mr. Woolstone all about? It is strange that Jack is sitting in his seat and that he is never seen. If he is just the big clue, and not a real person, then why is he on the manifest? That I can't wrap my mind around right now, but maybe somebody else can give some more input on that, maybe it's just my own brain not being at its height in the morning.
I definitely need to start my own Rewind, which means I need to get the Season 2 which I borrowed a colleague back as soon as possible! :biggrin:
--------------------------------
Well, I just rewatched the pilot, and Jack is not sitting in Mr. Woolstein's seat until he wants to get up, Charlie brushes past and he has to sit back down. So I guess I've been looking at this all wrong and it doesn't really matter who Mr. Woolstein is or isn't, just that his name is mentioned so explicitly in connection to the seat Jack occupied during the crash.
Hmmm, need to think about that some more.

42ndfloor:
Really like your suggestion that perhaps Jack needs to look in a mirror to read his tattoo correctly. I was thinking something along those lines too. Maybe that’s why title of season 3 finale referred to a Looking Glass? Maybe the implication is that Jack looking in a mirror is the key to revealing why he was in such a mess in the flashforwards? I dunno, just tossing a few ideas out there. And whilst I admit you could be right that the tattoo could well be a compass star, I still think it’s based on the Bagua.

Kerstin80:
Welcome, and thanks for your invaluable work in de-coding Harold Wollstein! You raised alot of points, so here goes:-

I) Sorry you’re not a fan of the false implanted memory theory, but I’m sticking with it until the show tells me that I’m categorically wrong. I’ll explain further as I go on.

2) I totally get what you’re saying about why MF has stayed quiet about his tattoos, but I still think it’s relevant. Your argument is that it would be weird if he explained what they meant to him, and then the show revealed a totally different explanation for them. Well, we’ve already had two cases of that. The 5 IS most probably a reference to the actor’s days on Party of Five, but I think we were all happy to accept that on the show it refers to Jack counting to five in overtly stressful situations. And any hardcore Lost fan with internet research access was immediately aware that Isabel’s translation of the chinese characters was incorrect. The point I was trying to make is that I think the arrow portion is based on the Bagua, since it bears an uncanny resemblance and it would tie in with the Eastern theme of the text beneath. Therefore, if he came out and said that it was based on the Bagua, questions would undoubtedly be asked as to why the mysterious and potentially dangerous Dharma Initiative just happened to have the same motif as its logo.

3) re Jack Bender’s dvd commentary. Sorry, my mistake. It’s the commentary for the first episode of season two, not three! But there are still no official promo shots of Jack’s character showing his tattoos.

4) You say its unlikely that the writers would’ve come up with the whole storyline about Jack beforehand. I think that’s the whole point! It was obvious from the start that this was never going to be your average “stranded on a desert island” story. And I’m sure one of the creators has recently said something along the lines of how they always knew that leaving the island wouldn’t be the end-point of the show, and that flashforwards would figure in somehow much later along the line. So whether or not they had every single minute detail in mind beforehand, I still think they knew the basics right from the start.

I also have serious doubts about that well-known piece of Lost lore that Jack’s character was intended to be killed off in the pilot. I admit that it would’ve been a very daring and innovative move, but I still think that regardless of whether one central heroic character had been killed off immediately, there was always going to be another major one who would eventually be revealed as the so-called baddie. (I hate calling Jack a baddie, especially since I think he’ll eventually redeem himself).

5) You say that if Jack’s not Jack, then his flashbacks can’t have been right. Again, that’s the whole point! There have already been so many inconsistencies between what’s shown in the flashbacks and how they are then referred to on the island (Sayid spent time in Paris but can’t understand French; he was willing to sacrifice a friend’s life to find out Nadia’s safe whereabouts but then tells Rousseau she’s dead; Charlie is shown cramming his guitar in a locker onboard the plane but tells Locke he was forced to check it; the Marshall is shown being told he can’t take the halliburton of guns onboard but it later turns up under the seats of the couple in the lake). I really seriously doubt the validity of the flashbacks, and I am convinced that they will eventually be revealed as false implanted memories.

I have no idea why they would’ve introduced the whole idea of Claire being Jack’s half-sister if the flashback events are only false memories. But the reveal just seemed so predictable, so hackneyed, so soap opera-ish, so darned un-Lost! I hate to bombard you with so many “what if” theories, but I really do wonder whether Kate is Jack’s sister. There are so many clues hidden amongst in the first two seasons including countless Star Wars parallels (a hint that Jack and Kate are Luke and Leia?), and the fact that Kate’s favourite Patsy Cline track was playing in Christian’s car when he went to see Claire’s mother in Australia. I could be wrong but ...

6) The Wollstein thing. I think it was a clue that Jack is indeed a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”, especially since he was sitting in “Wollstein’s” seat at the time of the crash. After all, the makers have said that every single name on the show is relevant. Your point about the manifest is interesting, but I think it had to have been planted on the plane by Dharma to provide a list of everyone who was supposedly on that plane. If only because every plane carries a manifest of all the passengers on board, and the losties would therefore expect to find one amongst the fuselage. You see, I think the crash was staged. Otherwise, how else would Dharma be sure that their covert agent would actually arrive on the island if Flight 815 was really headed for LA?

I think the post-crash setting the losties found themselves in at the start of the pilot epi was staged, and that they’d actually been placed there beforehand. Everyone had been given false memories of their lives up to and including the crash, so waking up in a post-crash setting would confirm that they’d been in a crash even if they hadn’t. Juliet has already provided an example of someone who was transported to the island in a drugged state. And don’t forget that Sayid told Kate he couldn’t understand how they could survive such an apparently dreadful crash. Plus it’s always puzzled alot of people how Jack could end up relatively unharmed after being hurtled from a whopping big airplane that was apparently cartwheeling through the jungle! And the fact that he awoke in the jungle away from the beach kind of singles him out as being somehow different from the rest of the so-called mid-section survivors. Also, that vodka bottle in his pocket wasn’t broken even though other bottles of alcohol taken from the plane broke when Kate tripped whilst carrying them in her rucksack - unnbelievable that a bottle could survive being thrown hundreds of feet but not such a minor fall. Which suggests to me that Jack was placed rather than hurtled at top speed into the jungle.

Phew! That’s alot to absorb. But I really do recommend the big Lost Rewind to everyone because there seem to be a heck of alot of clues which only make sense with the retrospective knowledge of all three seasons at your disposal. Happy viewing!

H x

I wouldn't exactly call "decoding" Wollstein's name work since it only implied using my native language, but I'm glad it fit into a theory which is intriguing me more and more.
Just remember Exposé, aside from giving us the incredibly great battle cry of "Razzle-Dazzle", it also threw the bone of the TV series in which during season 4 the viallain was revealed to be the ultimate good guy of the previous three seasons. The Pikki disaster aside, that episode merits some good mulling over in context of the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Concerning what I said about the writers being quick in developing Jack's storyline. It's more than mere Lost-lore that Jack was supposed to die in the pilot. It's said in the dvd commentary of the pilot episode that Jack (played by a well-known guest star) was supposed to die instead of the pilot, and that Kate was supposed to become the heroine of the show. But actually you're right, it's not that important because if the basic plan for the show was to have the protagonist later to be revealed a secret Dharma agent, it wouldn't at first glance so much matter who that protagonist was, meaning it could as well have been Kate.
And as I don't know much about timeframes in the production of a TV show, it can just as well have been an early idea to have Jack die, an idea they threw overboard pretty early in favour of having him stay on the show, and then his whole storyline was developed before shooting the pilot. It's just that if they overthrew the idea of him dying a week or two before they started shooting that they were quick. :biggrin:

It's true that for a believer in implanted memories, the theory you developed about Jack fits. There are still holes (like whether or not Jack even knows what's going on), but it fits. The thing why I don't believe in it is of a more general nature.
Right from the beginning, LOST was promoted as a castaway show with openly admitted elements of mystery. Right from the very first episode it was obvious that it wasn't an ordinary castaway story by the appearance of the monster.
Under that premise I made a few concessions to the show. Of course the plane crash was unrealistic, which is the basic assumption of most people who believe it was staged (or that they did in fact die and are now in some sort of purgatory). A plane falling from I don't know how many feet, and such a huge numer of people surviving nearly unscathed? Jack falling into the jungle without being seriously injured? A highly pregnant woman surviving unscathed? I admit it's unrealistic.
But if you're about to make such a castaway show, you basically need the people to strand. And as you can't have them strand just a few miles off a populated coast, you need to have them crash on a deserted island, which means they have to crash in mid-flight from a high altitude. And if everybody died in that horrific crash, then of course there wouldn't have been a show at all. So I granted the producers the unrealistic crash because it was necessary to set up the show.
I don't know if I can find the words to describe why the implanted memories theory striked such a negative chord with me, but for the sake of understanding each other I'll try.
I totally get what you're saying about the things in the flashbacks that don't add up, and I agree that in a show like LOST, so many inconsistencies can't just be put up to human error on side of the writers.
To me, and that is a totally personal opinion, revealing that everything that was set up in the previous seasons (in the flashbacks) was not even real, would stray too far from what the show originally set out to be. I know a lot of people who stopped watching LOST after the first season because it simply threw open new questions and mysteries which weren't answered. I myself stopped watching the show after half of the first season until I restarted watching it earlier this year. The thing I'm trying to say is that most viewers of any TV show aren't like the viewers here on the fuselage. Not everybody wracks their mind about every single sentence, sound and image, trying to figure out what it means. Of course some shows demand more mental activity on side of the viewers than others, but a show can't just expect all their viewers to keep up with the show like the people here on the fuselage do.
And from the view on an "average viewer", the idea of introducing a show like that, with the means of flashbacks, only to have it at one point throw it all into the face of the viewers like "all you previously saw was not true" is a dangerous line to walk. I can imagine that a lot of viewers wouldn't take too well to that. It's a concept that workds well in movies, in a very limited timeframe. With a TV show, I'm just not sure.
Besides that, it would also mean the turn of a castaway/mystery show into something that suddenly involves technical elements that border on SciFi (just how do you implant memories?).
To make a long argument (sorry 'bout that) short, what I want to say is the whole implanted memory theory would mean that LOST pretended for at least 3 seasons to be something that it in fact isn't. And that idea just doesn't sit too well with me.
But I don't close my eyes to the fact that the show is going into that direction. The revelation of the monster to be something man-made, something that cannot quite be scientifically explained (just how did Dharma create a cloud of smoke that can shape-shift and seems to have something of a mind of its own?) points a big red arrow into that direction. I just don't like it:biggrin:
Nevertheless, I still like the idea of Jack not being Jack (to finally come back to the topic). And it surely won't hurt if I occasionally throw in my two cents from the point of view of somebody who wants to believe in the Jack part, just not in the part about people implanting memories.

Hi Kerstin. I absolutely appreciate that we’re not in total agreement about every aspect of this theory. In fact, I think it’s a really healthy attitude to adopt because differing opinions often throw up vital alternative viewpoints to consider. Everyone takes away something different from Lost, or spots different things which strike them as odd or relevant so visiting the ‘lage helps me consider the things that I missed in the first place.
I’ll admit that there are still loads of holes in my theory, and that’s why I started this thread in the hope that someone else out there might be able to point me in a direction I hadn’t previously considered. So all criticism is welcome, and absolutely necessary!

Agree that many viewers would probably be disgruntled if three season’s of flashbacks were eventually revealed to have been totally bogus. But I can’t see that it would be any worse than a tv show which originally portrayed itself as a straightforward “desert island survival” story turned out to be something to do with time travel! Now that really does my head in!

Many thanks for bring up again the whole Pikki issue. I’m working on a whole load of Jack-related information which arose in their Expose episode. I’m hoping to post on here early next week. So please don’t anyone start without me!

Finally, it doesn’t matter how easy it was for you to translate Wollstein - you came up with the goods whilst the rest of us were still scratching our heads trying to make sense of it. I just wanted to give credit where it was due.

H x

I think, as you do Hildy, that there is more significance to Jack than just his leadership of the Lostaways. I wonder if the original proposed title of the show, and the Shepard Tone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone) sound effect that is part of the title animation, are additional clues?

If there is a kind of experiential loop that can explain the irregularities in the memories of the Lostaways, I wonder if, rather than implanted memories, it has more to do with our brain's inability (or inexperience) to process "memories" out of sequence in time?
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Time is, according to theorists, a maleable thing that is specific to individual experience and is even thought to be flexible enough to contain futures as well as pasts. Imagine the struggle your brain would have when presented with a "vision" of time that is not continuous, but rather episodic, and non-sequential.

Additionally, using the uncertainty principle as a guide, imagine "seeing" such visions including variable possibilities rather than the absolute "truths" with which we usually deal. This might look like brainwashing or manipulation to an outside viewer, when in fact it is merely the natural reaction of a common "fool" whose concept of reality is "enslaved by space and time" as we normally view it.

The way the show has illustrated this loop so far is via flashbacks containing inconsistencies that we notice (e.g., Charlie "doesn't swim" but is a champion swimmer) and now, with "future Jack" as flashforwards, or Desmond's bursts of prescience.

Is Jack a DHARMA operative who is, perhaps, not aware of this precisely because his brain is struggling to integrate the "memories" of past and future? Is it significant that he is the first character we saw, and is also the first character for which we have been shown a significant flashforward? Will he be the first one to integrate these experiences and determine what is really happening?

Are the Others aware of the phenomenon and somehow able to integrate such awareness? Does their extensive knowledge of the Lostaways indicate that they are operating as a control in the experiment, or perhaps as observers of the Lostaways progress towards integrating the memories?

Finally (to keep the post manageable, but certainly not the last of my "I wonders?") I wonder if the purpose of the whole "project" is to "create" a human being with the capability of "remembering" forward as well as backward in order to somehow defeat the doom predicted by the Valenzetti equations? What if such awareness of spacetime was all it took to allow humans to choose a future free of such a doom, thus saving the race?

Hildy, excellent post! Be careful the others don't get you, lol, I once said something 'negative' about Jack not being 'jack' etc. and I was almost blacklisted,lol:biggrin:

This is nothing on its own, but it might fit in to some other aspect of what we're discussing, so here it is : just looking at something for the Sewing Kit and I was looking at the numbers and hatches, and noticed the 5th number (as in Jack's "5" tattoo) is 23, as in all the discussion of his seat number.

Like I say, meaningless on its own, but might come into play.

edit :
Just looking for a screencap for the Sewing Kit and stumbled upon a much clearer picture of Jack's tattoo. Looks less like the Dharma segment than we might have liked, but at least it's a better version to work with. Here it is (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1283-41.html).

Yeah, no matter how long I look at that, or try to imagine a Bagua there on Jack's arm, I just can't. It's not there. And if I can't see it, then how would tptb expect millions of American viewers to see it, or to even buy it after a contrived show and tell?

If the topmost portion weren't a triangle but another short line, the resemblance would be there...
But that alone surely isn't a reason to discard the theory yet.

I think that Jack’s true identity will be revealed by whoever is on Naomi’s boat. The big question now is, was Jack aware of his hidden Dharma status whilst on the island? Was he consciously deceiving everyone that he befriended on the island, and that’s why he later told Kate he was “sick of lying”? Was Kate’s unwillingness to meet with him a sign of her disgust at his betrayl? Or was the revelation as much of a shock to him?

If there is truly more to Jack's role than meets the eye, then I doubt that he was (entirely?) aware of it. If we take the Exposé hint (and no, Hildy, I won't start the discussion without you), then we would be talking about somebody who appears the hero but is consciously betraying everybody and only acting his part. I can't see that in Jack.
True, there is a different side to him and he's not all the good-guy-hero. Stranger in a Strange Land showed that when he forced that woman to tatoo him. It was shown in season 1 when he sanctioned Sayid's torture of Sawyer. There is something a shade darker to Jack which he doesn't show often.
But even if he is a Dharma sleeper, it would take one he** of an actor to fake all of Jack's sometimes purely emotional reactions. I just don't see him consciously acting as a Dharma agent, at least not right from the start. I just re-watched the pilot, and to me there was nothing indicating that Jack was in any way more aware of what's going on than anybody else.
So I think whatever role Jack is playing, he wasn't aware of it from moment one on. However, there is still a lot about his time with the Others that we don't yet understand (the shell-casings, the football game,...)

ALOT of information for me consider from the posts you’ve made whilst I’ve been away this weekend, so apologies if I don’t manage to address everything this time.

LUCIDITY: thanks for new screencap of Jack’s tattoo. I’ll admit that it is looking a bit less like the Bagua here (ok, 42ndFloor?!) but I’m still convinced I’m on the right track here. Maybe MF drew a STYLISED version of a section of the Bagua as the basis of his tattoo - or maybe I’m just clutching at straws! I dunno, I’m just not ready to disregard the relevance of that pesky arrow-shaped tattoo quite yet.

KERSTIN80 - yup, absolutely agree with you that Jack HAD to have been unaware of his covert Dharma status throughout. I readily admit that this could just be because he’s my fave character and I can’t bear the thought of his having consciously deceived all his friends on the island since the show began. He seems so much more honourable than that. Plus his guilt and shame in the flashforward seemed so genuine and sincere as to suggest that he was as shocked as anyone by the discovery of what he’d actually been up to on the island.

HEARINGVOICES: a really fascinating post! Have to admit that the Shephard Tone info kinda left my head in a spin, but I’m absolutely willing to take your word for it that it could be relevant! But I was much more interested in your comments about jack possibly being a Dharma operative who’s brain is struggling to integrate the “memories” of past and future. I wonder whether one key example was his initial reticence to enter the Swan Hatch even though at that point, it seemed to offer the only safe haven for the losties who were in danger of being attacked by the Others. Was his brain trying to handle a real-but-obscured memory of a past bad experience down there, whilst his “fake” memory couldn’t recall ever having been in the Swan before? I think so - and I’ll explain why on my next mega-info post because otherwise things could get a little too complicated here!

As for whether the Others are aware of this phenomenon and are trying to take advantage of it, I’m really not sure. It is totally possible - if only because of Ben’s previous involvement with the real Dharma. But I do wonder whether perhaps the Others are the target of Dharma’s mission here, and they really are the “good guys” that Ben keeps insisting they are. You see, I’ve been wracking my brains all weekend trying to think of a reason why Jack would be sent on this theoretical mission in the first place. At first I wondered whether it was all part of some complex experiment into special powers - if only because so many losties seem to exhibit them (not least Walt). But then I remembered the Pearl hatch notebooks full of useless date - an experiment which was not quite as it seemed, where those doing the observing were actually the ones being observed. This made me start to question whether the ones doing the victimizing are actually the ones being victimized - in other words, are the Others Jack’s actual target? Don’t forget that far more Others have been killed at the hands of the losties than the other way around.

Try this on for size: Dharma have been looking for a way to rid their island of the Others, who massacred their people some years previous. They (somehow!) manage to get a whole load of people transported to the island as bait, and then stage a plane crash overhead in the expectation that the Others will see it and go to investigate. Amongst the so-called survivors is a pregnant woman - obvious bait for a group unable to produce children of their own; a man who has miraculously regained the ability to walk - obvious bait for a man with a spinal condition; a woman who has miraculously recovered from cancer - again, bait for a man with cancer; and a top-notch spinal doctor - need I say more?!

Apart from the fake surgeon (heading the secret mission, but unaware of this because his mind’s been tampered with), all the survivors are absolutely dispensable - “a sacrifice the island demands”. All have been given fake memories of their lives up to and including the crash a) to provide them with assorted basic skills necessary to survive in the harsh conditions for as long as it takes Jack to complete his mission; and b) to explain why they’ve suddenly found themselves in a post-crash situation.

However, things start to go wrong because the fake “good guy” persona they’ve given Jack seems to be working a little too well and he is not carrying out his mission as planned. The losties were meant to be bait for the Others, but Jack felt it was his responsability to protect them and help them to escape. He was meant to make contact with the Others so that he could kill their leader during a necessary operation - but he ended up saving him so that Kate and Sawyer could escape. Kinda liking this possibility because it plays on the whole idea of whether a bad man will always be bad, or whether he can become good in the right circumstances - sort of reflected in the psychological work of BF Skinner and the philosophies of Locke and Rousseau (I think!). But it still needs a little work ...

OK, I’ll admit this is where things get hazy! If Dharma had the ability to put a group of people on the island, why couldn’t they just go in there and kill the Others straight off? Could the radio jamming have something to do with it? And how does Desmond fit into all of this? All suggestions gratefully received!

Hope that’s enough for you to be getting on with. But coming soon - the Pikki clues; the Boone clues; and some hidden movie references which may confirm the “false flashback” angle.

H x

I think the tattoo looks less like a Bagua segment than we had originally thought, but that was just a potentially cool find - it wouldn't prove Jack was anything in particular, and so even if it isn't anything to do with the Bagua that doesn't disprove anything either. For me, the most significant find was the whole seat number / Wollstein thing anyway.

My take on the Jack situation would be more Fate-based. I think that rather than him being on a mission, it was more that someone or something knew that he would be the deciding factor in resolving whatever situation it is that the Losties need to resolve - tipping the balance of power away from Ben, Purging the Others, helping Jacob . . .
And so all that was needed was for Jack to be there.

The other thing I don't think you've mentioned yet is Jack's not being on Jacob's list. That would work well with the idea that someone arranged for Jack to gatecrash this otherwise pre-arranged group.

OK, I’ll admit this is where things get hazy! If Dharma had the ability to put a group of people on the island, why couldn’t they just go in there and kill the Others straight off? Could the radio jamming have something to do with it? And how does Desmond fit into all of this? All suggestions gratefully received!

Don't know how Desmond fits into all of this, but this throws up another important question. Correct me if I'm missing something, but from all we've seen on the show so far, we're led to believe that Dharma doesn't necessarily know that something is wrong on the island.
Granted, the purge probably took place quite a number of years ago, and in that time it should have been noticed by Dharma that something was wrong. But then I ask myself why they keep supplying the island with food drops. Most of the stuff we see in Ben's fridge (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1267-578.html) is Dharma food. And while whatever they do drop is surely stuff that doesn't perish easily, the food drops definitely continued after the purge. Our losties even witnessed one.
So either Dharma didn't know anything was wrong at all until Desmond turning the failsafe, or they did know something was wrong because their people weren't responding/sending results, whatever. That would throw open the question why they continued supplying the island even if they knew something was wrong. And, as Hildy pointed out, why they would send an airplane full of people instead of a "Dharma-SWAT-team" to get rid of the others. Maybe an open fight would have involved a risk Dharma wasn't willing to take, so they tried to do it with a covert agent - something like minimising the risk of the island taking damage if Jack simply takes out the Others' leader during surgery.
My head spins a little.

So either Dharma didn't know anything was wrong at all until Desmond turning the failsafe, or they did know something was wrong because their people weren't responding/sending results, whatever. .

A simple scenario is that Ben's group was - barely - maintaining the illusion to Dharma that their people were still in control on the island.
Then Radzinsky quit reporting in, the hatch implosion knocked down comms, the Flame explosion left Mikhail without a way to continue his charade with them.
So the gig is up. Dharma is coming to reclaim what they consider theirs.

I'm not sure where Ben's jamming order comes in but it may have been just an incidental plot point to facilitate the TTLG story.

If Dharma can get to the island, there's no need for them to have staged the crash.

I think the tattoo looks less like a Bagua segment than we had originally thought, but that was just a potentially cool find - it wouldn't prove Jack was anything in particular, and so even if it isn't anything to do with the Bagua that doesn't disprove anything either. For me, the most significant find was the whole seat number / Wollstein thing anyway.

My take on the Jack situation would be more Fate-based. I think that rather than him being on a mission, it was more that someone or something knew that he would be the deciding factor in resolving whatever situation it is that the Losties need to resolve - tipping the balance of power away from Ben, Purging the Others, helping Jacob . . .
And so all that was needed was for Jack to be there.

The other thing I don't think you've mentioned yet is Jack's not being on Jacob's list. That would work well with the idea that someone arranged for Jack to gatecrash this otherwise pre-arranged group.

Must admit that I’m faltering a bit with this whole Bagua tattoo thing now that so many people are doubting me. But I still think it’s weird that, unlike the rest of them, the most unusual and distinctive of MF’s tattoos hasn’t ever been given even a cursory mention, if only to show that it doesn’t have any relevancy in the grand scheme of things. And my suggestion does tie in so nicely with the Dharma-branded shark and my Wollstein/wolf in sheep’s clothing idea! So maybe I’ve picked up on the right clue but simply am not reading it in the right way. Maybe 42ndfloor is heading us more in the right direction with his comment that it looks like a compass setting.

Like your take on Jack’s situation being more fate-based than anything more actively sinister, although I’m not totally convinced - sorry! Unless you can prove that it ties in directly with our false memory angle (and I’ve got a doozy of a new film reference which would seem to support this, which I’ll post next week!). Also, I can’t see how mere coincidence would justify Jack’s “tired of lying” comment, or why he would’ve ended up quite so guilt-ridden and suicidal as a result. Would someone still feel that guilty even if whatever catastrophe happened really wasn’t their fault, they just had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? I think that level of shame implies Jack had to have had some active role in whatever mysterious wrong was done on the island, even if it was unwitting at the time. And I don’t think it can be as simple as the evil folk on Naomi’s boat exterminating the Others whilst Jack looked on totally innocently and powerlessly.

Thanks for picking up on the Jack not on Jacob’s list thing. Haven’t mentioned it until now because I’m still trying to come up with a good angle. But did you know that the French version of Jack is derived from Jacob?! Hmmmm - what do we think of the possibility that Jack could be Jacob? Still on the fence about this one, although it would explain why someone wasn’t on his own list.
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Don't know how Desmond fits into all of this, but this throws up another important question. Correct me if I'm missing something, but from all we've seen on the show so far, we're led to believe that Dharma doesn't necessarily know that something is wrong on the island.
Granted, the purge probably took place quite a number of years ago, and in that time it should have been noticed by Dharma that something was wrong. But then I ask myself why they keep supplying the island with food drops. Most of the stuff we see in Ben's fridge (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1267-578.html) is Dharma food. And while whatever they do drop is surely stuff that doesn't perish easily, the food drops definitely continued after the purge. Our losties even witnessed one.
So either Dharma didn't know anything was wrong at all until Desmond turning the failsafe, or they did know something was wrong because their people weren't responding/sending results, whatever. That would throw open the question why they continued supplying the island even if they knew something was wrong. And, as Hildy pointed out, why they would send an airplane full of people instead of a "Dharma-SWAT-team" to get rid of the others. Maybe an open fight would have involved a risk Dharma wasn't willing to take, so they tried to do it with a covert agent - something like minimising the risk of the island taking damage if Jack simply takes out the Others' leader during surgery.
My head spins a little.

Your head’s spinning a little?! I think Dharma had to know that something had gone wrong if only because their people were massacred in the purge and they would’ve wondered why they weren’t still in contact. But you’re right to bring up the Dharma food drops. How the heck can they still be sending food supplies if they’re unaware their people aren’t still running the show?! Unless they’re trying to lull the Others into a false sense of security until they’re ready to send in their Jack-led SWAT team. Maybe they’re doing it to prevent Ben simply destroying an island-ful of valuable research facilities in retaliation at the first sign of attack. B.t.w anyone got any timescale ideas on how far back the purge was? And do you think the Others’ ragged disguises were camouflage to hide their presence from Dharma rather than the losties?

Just had a thought. I wonder if the Greek mythology references (Apollo, Penelope etc) are a nod towards the story of the Trojan Horse. Maybe Flight 815 was intended as the ultimate Trojan Horse. Would certainly back up my suggestion that Jack (at least) was sent there to destroy the Others. Any takers?
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A simple scenario is that Ben's group was - barely - maintaining the illusion to Dharma that their people were still in control on the island.
Then Radzinsky quit reporting in, the hatch implosion knocked down comms, the Flame explosion left Mikhail without a way to continue his charade with them.
So the gig is up. Dharma is coming to reclaim what they consider theirs.

I'm not sure where Ben's jamming order comes in but it may have been just an incidental plot point to facilitate the TTLG story.

If Dharma can get to the island, there's no need for them to have staged the crash.

Blimey lostmio - cracking suggestion! And the Razdinsky and Mikhail elements tie in beautifully. But I still think the crash was staged and Jack, at least, is there for more sinister motives than we’ve been led to believe. Can you try and work that into your explanation? What do you think of my Trojan Horse idea, or that Dharma were simply trying to protect an island-ful of valuable research facilities from being destroyed by the Others in retaliation?

Must admit that I’m faltering a bit with this whole Bagua tattoo thing now that so many people are doubting me. But I still think it’s weird that, unlike the rest of them, the most unusual and distinctive of MF’s tattoos hasn’t ever been given even a cursory mention, if only to show that it doesn’t have any relevancy in the grand scheme of things. And my suggestion does tie in so nicely with the Dharma-branded shark and my Wollstein/wolf in sheep’s clothing idea!

Hildy, the heart of your theory - that Jack has a "secret" and that it might have sinister overtones - doesn't need a Dharma conspiracy involving a staged crash and memory implants.
I've long speculated there could be a big hunk missing in the Jack-Christian story, and that possibly Christian had some knowledge of or prior association with Dharma.

But I believe Jack went to OZ to look for Christian, discovered him really and truly dead there, and he ended up on 815 for exactly the reason we saw in White Rabbit: he talked his way onto it because he wanted to get home and be done with burying his father.

Instead, he ended up on the island as the reluctant defacto "leader" of the Losties, with his unburied father and his unknown sister. That's a powerful story right there, that still leaves room for further Jack revelations and story arc twists. And theories.
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What do you think of my Trojan Horse idea, or that Dharma were simply trying to protect an island-ful of valuable research facilities from being destroyed by the Others in retaliation?

815 could have been a Trojan Horse. But I don't think Jack was part of the plan.

It makes perfect sense that Dharma was/is trying to protect their research facilities. And the Others were/are trying to protect the island's natural mysterious resources. Technology v. Nature: one of the major Lost themes.

But as I said before, that still doesn't explain quite why Jack was suicidally guilt-ridden in the flashforward. Unless he had played a major and active part in whatever tragedy happens as a result of, or during, the rescue. Would he really mind that much if Ben and co were killed by whoever is on Naomi's boat, considering how much they'd terrorized the losties whilst they were on the island?

But even if he is a Dharma sleeper, it would take one he** of an actor to fake all of Jack's sometimes purely emotional reactions.
No more of an actor than is Mr. Fox playing him. And acting really isn't so hard anyway. He can play poker, can't he?

I think almost everything we've seen Jack do has been an act. He and Sarah collaborated in acting to make people think she'd been seriously injured and miraculously cured. Then he pretended to meet Desmond accidentally. On the island he pretended to meet Desmond accidentally again. He pretended to take an arrow and then a tumor out of Benry. He pretended Boone died.

Killing the Marshal was real, after Sawyer doomed him. Otherwise that was going to be fake too.

But I can't believe people are dwelling so on that part of Jack's tattoo, rather than the volar area that rarely gets displayed. The question is, is only one Jack a wolf in sheep's tattoos, or are both Jacks wolves?

Robert

Like your take on Jack’s situation being more fate-based than anything more actively sinister, although I’m not totally convinced - sorry! Unless you can prove that it ties in directly with our false memory angle (and I’ve got a doozy of a new film reference which would seem to support this, which I’ll post next week!). Also, I can’t see how mere coincidence would justify Jack’s “tired of lying” comment, or why he would’ve ended up quite so guilt-ridden and suicidal as a result. Would someone still feel that guilty even if whatever catastrophe happened really wasn’t their fault, they just had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? I think that level of shame implies Jack had to have had some active role in whatever mysterious wrong was done on the island, even if it was unwitting at the time. And I don’t think it can be as simple as the evil folk on Naomi’s boat exterminating the Others whilst Jack looked on totally innocently and powerlessly.
But don't forget that if there is one defining thing we've been shown over and over again about Jack, it's that this is exactly what he does. He definitely has a saviour-complex, and he does readily take responsibility for all things that go wrong - basically because he thinks that everything can be fixed. Interesting that he was hesitant to take the "factual" leadership position when it included making decisions for the entire group of survivors, yet he did never seem to be averted to taking the blame whenever something went wrong.
So I don't think it is entirely impossible that the flashforward Jack was not actively involved in whatever catastrophe happened on the island. But it would be the more interesting twist if he did help bring that catastrophe about. Whether by something as innocent as making a phone call, or whether by something much more sinister.

But as I said before, that still doesn't explain quite why Jack was suicidally guilt-ridden in the flashforward. Unless he had played a major and active part in whatever tragedy happens as a result of, or during, the rescue. Would he really mind that much if Ben and co were killed by whoever is on Naomi's boat, considering how much they'd terrorized the losties whilst they were on the island?
He might. If the Others turn out to be "the good guys" in the end, like Ben always claimed (and this is once instance where I believe him; from his point of view it is true). If that's the case, then I can very well imagine that Jack gets all guilt ridden about harm coming to Ben and the Others, never mind that they did in fact terrorize the survivors. Isn't it always that way that when faced with a common threat, it makes you see the good in people you previously considered your enemies?

Your head’s spinning a little?!
A lot, actually, the more I start thinking about things...

B.t.w anyone got any timescale ideas on how far back the purge was? And do you think the Others’ ragged disguises were camouflage to hide their presence from Dharma rather than the losties?
The timeline over at Lostpedia (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Pre-crash_timeline)puts the purge in 1987. I don't know how they came up with December 21st, but then again I've only seen TMBTC one time. Their reasonable argument for that date is that Ben doesn't have Alex yet, and as she's around sixteen in 2004, the purge must have taken place before 1988.
Of course it is possible that the purge took place later, Mikhail claims that he arrived on the island 11 years ago and that he witnessed the purge in Enter 77. I remember TPTB stating that he was saying the truth about everthing except ever working for Dharma, but so far I'm inclined to believe that the purge took place at some point in the 1980s. It would also explain why all the Dharma-material seems so outdated. Surely they would have sent new equipment (computers...) during all those years, if only to improve the research being conducted on the island.
Hmmm, leads me to believe more and more that Dharma knew something was up.

Kerstin,
The date comes from Ben's birthday. We know what date it was from the real-time Island events, and it was his birthday when he did the Purge.

No more of an actor than is Mr. Fox playing him. And acting really isn't so hard anyway. He can play poker, can't he?
I don't doubt that a good actor can fake those emotional responses. I only find it extremely hard to believe that Jack (and, according to what I understand of your theory, quite a number of other protagonists) are acting all the time, that's all. It isn't exactly like a game of poker, where the player is trying, with focus, for a limited amount of time, to keep his face impassive. It would be just the other way around, and with a constant, 24-7 focus on not slipping.

But I can't believe people are dwelling so on that part of Jack's tattoo, rather than the volar area that rarely gets displayed. The question is, is only one Jack a wolf in sheep's tattoos, or are both Jacks wolves?
Robert
By volar area you mean the inside of his left elbow, where the tatooed stars are? Were there ever any scenes in which that tatoo wasn't there which would lead you to believe that there are two Jacks on the island? Because I wouldn't remember such an occurrence.

By volar area you mean the inside of his left elbow, where the tatooed stars are?
I refer to the area that runs from the middle of his arm on the part that normally faces his own body past the elbow into his forearm. They've been very stingy with shots showing that area, such that when they want to show it, it's usually a showy gesture. You'll see it if he abducts his left arm with his palm facing the audience, provided it's not covered. One such time they made it harder for us by positioning other people or things in the way in the foreground, and another they had his arm extend beyond the 4:3 frame.

Were there ever any scenes in which that tatoo wasn't there which would lead you to believe that there are two Jacks on the island? Because I wouldn't remember such an occurrence.
Get out the DVDs (season.episode minute:second) and compare:

1.16 9:22 (putting away pistols with Kate)
1.19 36:52
1.21 at Boone's burial (before or after surreptitiously checking Boone's carotid pulse at 7:03, then Jack & Locke fought as misdirection to cover Boone's escape)
1.23 17:15 (handing pistol to Sawyer)
1.24 19:10 (with case of dynamite) & 58:15
2.1 18:45 (cave "tribal council") and later entering Swan
2.3 12:16 (in Swan)
season 3, Locke's view of Jack thru binoculars (Othersville/Levitationtown/Barracks)There may even be 3 versions: nothing, blue/black stars, and red/orange birdlike thing. The red/orange was visible during the pilot episode. Locke's remark while seeing Jack thru the binocs may relate to Locke's having expected a different Jack at that location.

Robert

Suds,
Looking at your "examples", I understand you're saying these are scenes in which we're seeing a Jack without tattoos :
1.16 The tattoo is clearly visible here (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-255-172.html).
1.19 Don't know which scene you're thinking, but here (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-358-480.html) it is towards the end.
1.21 Not a great angle, but the tat is visible at the funeral (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-382-86.html), and fighting with Locke it's a blurred shot but there it is (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-382-164.html).

I'll stop there for now, but perhaps the way to do this is for you to find 1 screencap in which there is no tattoo.

First off, great theory!

Secondly, if Jack IS working for Dharma, wouldn't that mean that the Dharma Initiative planned the crash? If so, I am strongly against this theory, but I've always thought that there's something strange about him.

I think almost everything we've seen Jack do has been an act. He and Sarah collaborated in acting to make people think she'd been seriously injured and miraculously cured. Then he pretended to meet Desmond accidentally.

I’m still not convinced that everything we’ve seen Jack do has been an act. If only because, as Kerstin80 points out, wouldn’t it be difficult to maintain the deception 24-7 for three months, and under such stressful circumstances? I think it’s more a case that he’s been behaving genuinely (and, in his mind, honourably) but his actions are based on the fake persona he’s been brain-washed into believing by Dharma. So whilst he think’s he’s trying to do the best thing for his fellow “survivors”, he’s actually been set up to do something much more sinister without his being conscious of it. In other words, he’s a bad man made to think he’s a good man, and therefore genuinely acting as he thinks a good man should. (Hope that makes sense!) And whilst I’m intrigued by your suggestion that Jack and Sarah were pretending, I don’t think we should use anything taken from the flashbacks as “evidence” because I’m convinced the flashbacks are fake - and I think I might’ve stumbled on some more clues to prove this.

Over the weekend, and by pure coincidence, I happened to watch an old Alfred Hitchcock movie called Stage Fright. It’s one of his lesser-known films (I’d certainly never heard of it before anyway), and features a high-camp performance by Marlene Dietrich as a cabaret singer who has supposedly murdered her husband. The movie was very controversial upon its initial release because the shocking hidden identity of the real murderer hinged on his “false flashback” in the opening scenes. Audiences felt cheated because, it was argued, you are meant to be able to trust any flashbacks shown in a movie as being the truth. Sound familiar? Certainly reminded me of the outcry I cause on here whenever I try to promote my own “false flashback” theory!

Anyway, here are some possible “Stage Fright” references on Lost which could confirm the false flashback angle, related to when Jack stumbled upon the cave with its mysterious Adam and Eve skeletons, and the dolls lying in the water. In the movie, the plucky heroine (Jane Wyman) is called EVE. And her father tries to provoke Dietrich into revealing more about her role in the murder by presenting her with a DOLL in a blood-stained dress (since her own blood-stained dress is a major clue). I could be wrong - but kudos to the writers if these were hidden clues about Jack’s (if not all the losties’) flashbacks being false. Very clever.
100%

But I can't believe people are dwelling so on that part of Jack's tattoo, rather than the volar area that rarely gets displayed.

OK, let’s run with this idea that maybe the star tattoo is the one we should be focusing on. Do you think that it perhaps ties in with the Apollo references in S2, since Apollo is the name of a constellation of stars? Try these on for size ...

1) Apollo was the god of medicine and healing, as well as God of Shephards, and patron defender of flocks and herds. So far so good. A definate Jack parallel. So is Jack’s very own Apollo?

2) Apollo was the God of the Sun. If we consider that “everything revolves around the sun” (or Apollo), and Jack is Lost’s Apollo, does that mean that everything that’s been happening on the show actually revolves around him?

3) Taking this sun reference a step further, don’t forget the sun mural in the Swan Hatch. And the Apollo constellation of 6 stars includes Cygnus (The Swan); Sagita (The Arrow) and Ophiuchus (The Serpent Handler - similar to the logo for the Staff medical station). Plus, Apollo was born on an island which wasn’t visible to the outside world. So could the Apollo references and Jack’s star tattoo be telling us that Jack’s ties with the island go back much further than we’ve been led to believe?

4) Apollo has a link with the Trojan War - he shot arrows infected with the plague into the Greek encampment. Could this tie in with my earlier suggestion that Flight 815 was perhaps some kind of Trojan Horse?

5) The (Greek?) verb “apollyo” means “to destroy”. Could the Apollo references on Lost therefore imply that Jack’s role on the island is, as I suspect, far more sinister than we’ve been led to believe?

Looking at your "examples", I understand you're saying these are scenes in which we're seeing a Jack without tattoos....
No. They're all scenes in which that part of his arm (and sometimes forearm) is visible, and some have the tattoo and others don't.

I'll stop there for now, but perhaps the way to do this is for you to find 1 screencap in which there is no tattoo.
Screencaps I don't have, but if you have DVDs or other access to the material, 1.23 at 17:15 has Jack handing Sawyer a pistol with no red volar tattoo. (Why would someone tattoo a pistol? Possibly to shoot an elephant in his pajamas.) Similarly in 1.24 at 19:10, Jack with the dynamite case, and 58:15.

Maybe someone has a database of screen captures indexed by time. I can't get a good view of them online with my video driver mismatched to my Windows; I have to reboot offline into Linux after downloading to get a good view. So I wouldn't be a good one to do the searching.

Robert

Dr. Suds >
No. They're all scenes in which that part of his arm (and sometimes forearm) is visible, and some have the tattoo and others don't.


I don't understand. That's a list of times the tattoos ARE visible? I could add another hundred and eight examples of when they are visible, if you like. Kirsten had asked when they're NOT visible.

I'll look at the scenes you just mentioned, but before I do I'll say that there's every chance they're not visible simply because they're on the underside of his arm.

edit :
1.23, here (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-469-332.html)'s your tattoo.
1.24, and again (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-486-237.html).

I’m still not convinced that everything we’ve seen Jack do has been an act. If only because, as Kerstin80 points out, wouldn’t it be difficult to maintain the deception 24-7 for three months, and under such stressful circumstances?
Not really, because other than the stuff we see on the TV show, it's almost all just ordinary activity that anyone would do under the circumstances. When Jack takes a drink of water, it's because he's thirsty, like anyone. The same goes for all the other con artists on the show -- which is most of the characters. The overwhelming majority of the time they're not acting. And the circumstances aren't so stressful when you know that many of the dangers are fake.

But I think the deception went on a lot longer than 3 months -- that it started years earlier, and continued afterward. Ana Lucia remarked to Jack before the flight that the hardest part was over. But in the flashforward, he's tired of lying. Or at least one of the Jacks is.

I happened to watch an old Alfred Hitchcock movie called Stage Fright. It’s one of his lesser-known films (I’d certainly never heard of it before anyway), and features a high-camp performance by Marlene Dietrich as a cabaret singer who has supposedly murdered her husband. The movie was very controversial upon its initial release because the shocking hidden identity of the real murderer hinged on his “false flashback” in the opening scenes. Audiences felt cheated because, it was argued, you are meant to be able to trust any flashbacks shown in a movie as being the truth. Sound familiar?
Very much so. I had the same argument once with Damon's father about the more recent movie, Dead Again, which he objected to for similar reasons (it had a passage which was a lie), while I thought it was OK for a movie to lie to the audience some of the time.

Anyway, here are some possible “Stage Fright” references on Lost which could confirm the false flashback angle, related to when Jack stumbled upon the cave with its mysterious Adam and Eve skeletons, and the dolls lying in the water. In the movie, the plucky heroine (Jane Wyman) is called EVE. And her father tries to provoke Dietrich into revealing more about her role in the murder by presenting her with a DOLL in a blood-stained dress (since her own blood-stained dress is a major clue). I could be wrong - but kudos to the writers if these were hidden clues about Jack’s (if not all the losties’) flashbacks being false. Very clever.
Interesting, and another movie alluded to by Lost.

OK, let’s run with this idea that maybe the star tattoo is the one we should be focusing on.
I'm focusing more on the red part. I'm Apolloed out for now.

I don't understand. That's a list of times the tattoos ARE visible? I could add another hundred and eight examples of when they are visible, if you like. Kirsten had asked when they're NOT visible.

I'll look at the scenes you just mentioned, but before I do I'll say that there's every chance they're not visible simply because they're on the underside of his arm.
No, and that's why I used the word "compare". All the references I gave were to scenes in which that part of the upper extremity is visible. In some of them the tattoo is there, and in others there is no tattoo there. I was not the first to remark about this variation here.

Robert

But when you just said :

"Screencaps I don't have, but if you have DVDs or other access to the material, 1.23 at 17:15 has Jack handing Sawyer a pistol with no red volar tattoo. (Why would someone tattoo a pistol? Possibly to shoot an elephant in his pajamas.) Similarly in 1.24 at 19:10, Jack with the dynamite case, and 58:15."

: those examples are supposedly times "with no red volar tattoo", right?

And as you'll see from the screencaps I added at the top of this page, the tattoo is very visible.

Here is a good look...

http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image:008.jpg

Check out the small stars, remind you of anything.

Dr Suds:
Thanks for your encouraging comments regarding the Stage Fright angle. Must admit I thought it was too good to be true when my dear old dad put on an old movie which just happened to be all about a false flashback, and that it then had two definate parallels in Lost. And it stands to reason that if the writers were intending to include a false flashback angle in a show which constantly references movies and literature, then they’d include a nod to perhaps the most infamous example of false flashbacks in movie history.

Whilst many on here seem willing to disregard the false flashback angle on Lost, because it would mean that they’d been lied to, I don’t think that’s the case. Some critics, including revered French film publication Cahiers du Cinema, argued that Stage Fright audiences hadn’t been lied to because the “false flashback” was merely the murderer’s deluded interpretation of what had happened. So whilst it was false for the audience, it wasn’t false in his mind. Same with Lost, I think, that the flashbacks will be revealed as the losties’ deluded impression of what has happened to them in the past.

Gonna check out those instances of Jack’s tattoo, if only so I know what we’re leading onto here. And also because I’m very intrigued by your suggestion that Boone’s burial was fake! (Like Pikki’s?!) What’s the relevancy of the red part? What do you think it depicts?

Comfortably Numb:
What do the small stars remind you of? My mind’s drawing a blank at the moment.

Check out the small stars, remind you of anything.


No....?

Ah, the SMALL stars. Yeah, I know what you're getting at now.

What?! Tell me! A compass?

Hildy,
Jack's small stars look a bit like Juliet's mark (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image:Julietmark.jpg). I'd guess that's what CN is referring to.

Hildy,
Jack's small stars look a bit like Juliet's mark (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image:Julietmark.jpg). I'd guess that's what CN is referring to.

Yes, When Jack arrives in Thailand he has no tattoo's...

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1256-89.html

Juliet's mark is a brand meaning a "traitor and killer" according to the Others. Perhaps Jack was attacked on the beach because of the tattoo on his under arm, not the Chinese symbols on his upper arm.
Juliet and Jack carry the same mark, "bird's of a feather flock together".

Yes, When Jack arrives in Thailand he has no tattoo's...

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1256-89.html

Juliet's mark is a brand meaning a "traitor and killer" according to the Others. Perhaps Jack was attacked on the beach because of the tattoo on his under arm, not the Chinese symbols on his upper arm.
Juliet and Jack carry the same mark, "bird's of a feather flock together".

It would appear, in that picture, that Jack has no tattoo on his underarm either.

Hildy,
Jack's small stars look a bit like Juliet's mark (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image:Julietmark.jpg). I'd guess that's what CN is referring to.

Blimey - so they do! What's all that about then?!

I’m off on vacation this weekend, and won’t be back until end of August. I have quite alot of new information to add to this thread - do you want me to post it now so that you all have plenty to discuss in my absence, or should I hold fire and wait until I get back so we can all go through it together?

H x

So whilst it was false for the audience, it wasn’t false in his mind. Same with Lost, I think, that the flashbacks will be revealed as the losties’ deluded impression of what has happened to them in the past.



I can't find it at the moment, but recall reading that TPTB stating that flashbacks are always from the point of view of the character experiancing them... that's what they remember, and interpret as happening. A second party experiancing the same thing might have noticed something different happening, or attribute a different tone of voice/attitude/etc.

That is to say that what you see happened as best that character recalls, but it may not be the actual 100% truth. Mostly I think they said that to quite all of the fans that find mild discrepancies between different character's flashbacks and wanting to brush them off, but at least in theory it's stated as a possibility.

Interesting that the star-like tattoos which so resemble Juliet's mark came after that visit to Thailand. After all, they could have done it with Jack having all/some of MF's tattoos (except for the Chinese characters) when he came there.
Of course his having no tattoos then emphasises the importance of the "walks among us but is not one of us" meaning of the tattoo which he forced out of that woman, seeing as it's not just another tattoo amongst many. But it makes one wonder...
It of course opens up the possibility that the similarities to Juliet's mark are not coincidental, which is an interesting thought. A thought which, on the other hand, opens up the question that if they're basically the same thing meaningwise, why does Jack have those star-like thingies as an aesthetically somewhat pleasing tattoo (with additional stars) on his arm while Juliet gets the ugly ol' branding on her back.
Of course it could just as well be nothing, but then again this is LOST...

I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Juliet’s mark bears a startling ressemblance to the stars inside Jack’s elbow. But whether it’ll turn out to be a major plot point or merely a diversionary tactic on the part of the writers is a moot point. The thing is, our attention is still being directed away from the arrow-like tattoo (which was the one I opened this discussion with in the first place!) Doesn’t anyone think it’s funny that it’s never been given even the slightest passing comment over three seasons, unlike every other element of his tattoos, and despite the fact that it’s the most unusual and distinctive of them all? I was just looking at the Dharma logo in Kerstin’s sig, and it still reminds me of that pesky arrow/compass/whateve tattoo. But I’m prepared to be alone on this one!

Anyway, I’m going to change the subject slightly and move on to some more clues which I think could prove that Jack’s role on the island is not all that it seems. And they’re hidden in or lead off from the dreadful Pikki-centric episode, Exposé. Quite clever if you think about it - hide (possibly!) vital information in a storyline devoted to arguably the two most unpopular characters in the history of Lost! (B.t.w apologies to anyone who’s already read some of this before in posts I’ve made on other threads, but I’m trying to assemble all relevant information in one place).

1) THE COBRA = SNAKE IN THE GRASS?

In Exposé, Hurley is shocked to discover that the good guy in his favourite tv show turns out to be the villain of the piece, codename The Cobra. I admit I’m wary of using this as a clue because it just seems too obvious for it to be taken seriously. But the makers are well aware that there are tons of fans out there who scrutinize and analyse every single bit of Lost in search of hidden clues. Maybe they were counting on us ignoring this one because it was just a bit too much in the open rather than being obscured by layers of ingenious subtext.

Also, remember that the big twist in the season 3 finale was referred to by the makers beforehand as the “rattlesnake in the mailbox”, and that it eventually related to Jack. Rattlesnake? Cobra? Snake in the grass? Another metaphor for something dangerous hidden from view?

Plus, of course, the Cobra’s hidden identity is revealed in season four of the show. I’m still convinced that Jack’s true identity will be revealed by whoever’s on Naomi’s boat. And I’m presuming season four will kick off with them landing on the island to “rescue” the losties.


2) THE PEARL STATION CIGARETTE:

Exposé seemed to imply that there was something relevant about smoking, since much was made of Paulo’s habit and his need for nicotine gum on the island. Plus at one point Nikki berates him for lighting up because “ashes are evidence”. And don’t forget that the storyline centred around stolen diamonds, which Paulo secreted in a Matroyshka doll that he then hid in the Pearl hatch. I therefore think that Exposé intended to raise the issue of who’s half-smoked cigarette was left on the table in the Pearl.

Up until now, the only smoker we’re aware of who entered the Pearl was Paulo. But I don’t think the stub was his because he was chewing nicotine gum when he went down there to hide the doll (ie. the gum would’ve prevented cravings at that time), and anyway the stub is already on the table when he finds the walkie talkie left behind by Ben and Juliet. Also, if memory serves me, he had to search around for a good place to hide the doll which implies that this was his first time down the hatch. So if it wasn’t his cigarette stub, who’s was it?

I think that the cigarette was Jack’s. I realise that we’ve never seen him smoking on the show, but there are a couple of off-show things which struck me about Matthew Fox’s actual smoking habit. Firstly, in season 1 dvd interviews, there’s a shot of MF sitting on the back of a truck discussing the pilot epi. It’s obvious to a smoker like me that he’s holding a cigarette but that it’s been digitally removed. I originally thought they maybe wanted to hide the fact that their leading actor smoked (terrible habit, I know!) but then there are further shots of Josh Holloway puffing away between scenes, and Naveen Andrews is shown cigarette in hand for his dvd interviews for season 2. So why is it ok to show one actor smoking and not the other one? So far so strange. Then Dominic Monaghan appeared on a UK chat show last year and was talking about how great Matthew Fox was in the role of uber-heroic Jack “even though” he smokes. Seemed a really odd comment to make - what does it matter if an actor smokes or not? Unless he was referring to Jack rather than the actor playing him. Then, a small item appeared in lost-media earlier this year about Matthew Fox saying he’s going to give up smoking. Who cares?! It seemed to be a totally non-story story to be released by the studio. All of which makes me think that it’s important that MF smokes, or rather that his character actually smokes.

Still need more proof that Jack could be a smoker? According to lostpedia, cigarette stubs can be seen in the ashtray in Christian Shephard’s hotel room in White Rabbit. Christian has never been shown smoking in any flashbacks, including the bar scene in Outlaws where other people are smoking. Also, the maid said the room had not been slept in for three days which implies that she’d been in to clean the room (and empty any dirty ashtays) in the interim period. The cigarettes therefore had to have been smoked in there since her last time in the room. Which suggests to me that they belonged to Jack. (Am wary of including this evidence because it’s from a flashback, and I’ve been insisting all the flashback information is false. But it does seem to offer startling proof that Jack smoked in the past - maybe “bad Jack” smoked but “good Jack” doesn’t because he’s been given the fake persona of a non-smoking surgeon!).

So if Jack is the secret Pearl Hatch smoker, when was he down there and what was he doing? Can anyone tell if the ciggie is relatively new, or whether it could’ve been down there for months if not years?

RECENTLY-SMOKED CIGARETTE = JACK AWARE HE’S DHARMA

If the cigarette stub was relatively new, this would mean that Jack had been in the Pearl hatch at some point since the “crash”. It’s obvious that there are cigarettes to be had on the island since Paulo still needed nicotine gum when he entered the Pearl hatch to hide that doll roughly 49 days after the crash - ie. Paulo had to be still smoking secretly otherwise he would’ve got over the addiction by now and wouldn’t still need the gum. And I’m sure we saw cartons of duty free cigarettes in amongst Sawyer’s hidden cache in early episodes: since nobody else seems to smoke, there must still be loads of cigarettes available if anyone wanted them.

However, I really hope this isn’t the case because it would mean that Jack has been consciously deceiving the other losties as to his true intentions on the island (Grrrr!). It would also blow my whole Manchurian Candidate-type theory that he is unaware that he’s a sleeper agent, and that’s why he was so guilt-ridden in the flashforwards because the truth had come as just as much of a shock to him.

I also can’t think what he would’ve been doing down there. To monitor the other losties? Why bother, seeing as he seemed to be aware of what was happening with them anyway? To monitor the Others? Possible. Especially if he was looking for a way of making contacting with them, ostensibly to rescue Walt but pehaps for more sinister Dharma-related motives. Don’t forget that we still haven’t had an adequate explanation for what Jack got up to whilst he was in Othersville.

contd ...

OLD CIGARETTE = JACK ON ISLAND BEFORE “CRASH”

I’m hoping that the cigarette is old because that could signify that Jack had been in the Pearl prior to the events in the pilot episode, and that he’s therefore been acting in good faith since the show began (phew!). In which case, we need to work out what he would’ve been doing down there in the past.

It’s possible it was nothing more than taking his turn, as a Dharma employee, at monitoring the on-screen footage and filling those notebooks with ultimately useless data. Maybe it was only one of many Dharma stations he spent time in. In which case, maybe he’d also been down the Swan hatch previously.

Think back to the CCTV footage of Jack in the Swan hatch that Locke and Eko viewed on the Pearl Hatch monitor in “?”. Is it possible that this was pre-recorded rather than a live feed, and had been filmed months if not years previously? Don’t discount this idea just because “it’s unlikely” that Jack would’ve been wearing the same t-shirt - it’s a Gap “classic pocket tee” which has been in more or less constant production since the company started in San Francisco back in 1969. But can anyone get a close enough look at that shot for me, and tell me whether the broken pieces of Virgin Mary statue are on the table behind Jack as he walks across the shot? If they are, then it’s another theory shot down in its prime! If they’re not, well ...

Also, remember that when Locke first opened the Hatch, Jack seemed very reticent to go down there. Sure it looked scary, but at that moment it offered the only potential hiding place for the losties, who were currently in danger of being attacked by the Others. And it can’t be because he’s claustrophobic because he did eventually go down there and seemed happy enough to shower, eat and sleep in its confines. Perhaps “bad Jack” had had a previous (ie.pre-crash) bad experience down there but, due to his memory manipulation, was unable to put his finger on just what was making him feel such discomfort.

So if it’s possible that Jack had been down in the Swan before this point, isn’t it also possible that he knew Kelvin? And isn’t it just a bit too convenient that Kelvin was stationed down there with Razdinski, who had a photographic memory much like Jack’s?

1) From “Live Together, Die Alone Part Two”, scene where Kelvin is painting the “invisible” map:

KELVIN: You should have seen Radzinski do this. He had a photographic memory. I mean, this whole baby was his idea.

a) From “Orientation”, scene where Jack catches up to Desmond in the jungle:

DESMOND: Listen carefully. If by some miracle you manage to get the computer working again you've got to enter the code: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, hit execute. Again, 4, 8, 15...
JACK: Shut up!

Even though Desmond told him this entire long sequence of numbers just the once, Jack was able to remember them perfectly when he returns to the hatch to find Locke attempting to enter them in the computer:

JACK: It's not 32. It's 42. He just told me... Desmond. The last number's 42.

b) From “The Long Con”, when Locke tells Jack the combination to the armoury:

LOCKE: Right 7, left 33, right 18. You need to write it down?
JACK: Nope. I got it.

Of course, the only glitch in this argument is that Kelvin tells Desmond that Razdinski blew his head off, and shows him the blood stain on the ceiling as proof! So Jack can’t possibly be Razdinski, right? Or can he?!

But when you just said :

"Screencaps I don't have, but if you have DVDs or other access to the material, 1.23 at 17:15 has Jack handing Sawyer a pistol with no red volar tattoo. (Why would someone tattoo a pistol? Possibly to shoot an elephant in his pajamas.) Similarly in 1.24 at 19:10, Jack with the dynamite case, and 58:15."

: those examples are supposedly times "with no red volar tattoo", right?

And as you'll see from the screencaps I added at the top of this page, the tattoo is very visible.
I reviewed my DVDs, and darned if you aren't right. Every scene where I didn't see the volar tattoo before -- even though I'd been freezing the frame to note the time -- it was there this time, but faint. Seems like they deliberately alter how strongly it shows up, maybe Kevin Blank's work or maybe in makeup. This speaks to my friend Alley's supposition that it represents some sort of technology like a mood ring, a way of indicating something about Jack that changes, other than actually his identity. Besides the faintness, they make it very difficult for us in many scenes with the aforementioned foreground objects, framing, and his turns of his arms, like it's choreographed to obscure so we have to be Matlock to spot it.

I can't find it at the moment, but recall reading that TPTB stating that flashbacks are always from the point of view of the character experiancing them... that's what they remember, and interpret as happening.
Could they also represent lies told by the character? I've had that suspicion about Claire's flashback/recollection of the medical bunker -- i.e. that it's a lie she's telling Libby.

Are the flashbacks privileged in that way? What about events in the chronologic main line? On reviewing season 2 material, now I'm wondering whether the first two of Walt's apparitions to Claire were just Claire's story -- i.e. scenes she imagined to lie about to Sayid.

Exposé seemed to imply that there was something relevant about smoking, since much was made of Paulo’s habit and his need for nicotine gum on the island.
I forgot, did anyone here bring up that it would likely mean that he would metabolize a nicotinic drug, as most paralytic agents are, faster than a non-user of nicotine?

Think back to the CCTV footage of Jack in the Swan hatch that Locke and Eko viewed on the Pearl Hatch monitor in “?”. Is it possible that this was pre-recorded rather than a live feed, and had been filmed months if not years previously?
That wouldn't be much of a problem for me. Would it be a problem for you if it was elsewhere in addition to elsewhen? I think there's a mock-up of Swan elsewhere, maybe in London, maybe in Iraq, where Desmond was "programmed". That accounts for the variations in some props observed in scenes in Swan.

Robert

That wouldn't be much of a problem for me. Would it be a problem for you if it was elsewhere in addition to elsewhen? I think there's a mock-up of Swan elsewhere, maybe in London, maybe in Iraq, where Desmond was "programmed". That accounts for the variations in some props observed in scenes in Swan.

Robert


Now there’s an interesting proposition! Hadn’t even considered that there could be another Swan hatch elsewhere in the world. It would definately stand to reason if Dharma was a worldwide organisation, that they’d use the same blueprints for its other research stations. As for the prop variations, I’m aware of the two different versions of the record player but what are the other examples? Is there anything noticeable about when the changes occur, or who is in the room at the time?

There are multiple examples of prop variation. Earlier this week, someone posted about Jack's backpack in one episode. I think the prop variation is done on purpose, and it was never done only in the Swan. This hints at more than just conditioning. I think it has more to do with either how other characters remember something, or perhaps even differences between dimensions, and tptb have been taking us thru many different ones right under our noses.

OK, this is very interesting! I decided to do a little research into those changing props and, according to screencaps I found on one website, they change noticeably from the initial opening scenes of a faceless person we assume to be Desmond in “Man of Faith, Man of Science”, to later present-day scenes in “Adrift.

a) “MoF” - Faceless person puts a record on silver-fronted record player. Beside it is a neat stack of new records, and a glistening lava lamp.

> “Adrift” scene with Desmond and Locke - the record player has changed to a wooden-fronted model, and the pile of records beside it are old and tatty. Plus there’s no lava lamp.

b) “MoF” - faceless person passes the dining table which has an old-fashioned 70s-style lampstand with lampshade.

> “Adrift” scene - when Locke is by the same table the lamp has changed to a sleek black 80s-style anglepoise.

c) “MoF” - pristine new medical locker on the wall behind the faceless person.

> “Adrift” scene of Desmond - the medical locker is now filthy and old.

d) “MoF” - there’s no lamp on the coffee table in the living area.

> “Adrift” scene with Desmond and Locke - there’s now a lamp on the table.

I think this could imply that the faceless person we see in those first opening scenes in “Man of Faith” isn’t actually Desmond, and they occured some time previous. I’ve thought this for quite along time actually, because I’m sure the initial “opening eye” doesn’t even look like his - same colour iris but different surrounding coloration. And Jack also has dark brown eyes. So I think the person down there in those opening scenes was Jack’s.

If you want to see pix of the changing props, check out this link:

http://www.losttv-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18733

The thing is there are changes like this, which might imply questions of memory, differences in timeline, or different locations. But there are also examples of things popping up in people's memories that simply shouldn't be there - the best example is the painting at Widmore's office, which, according to timelines, shouldn't even have existed at that point in time. And I think that of our three options (memory, time, place) only memory could explain that. Also, Gregg Nations once said about a spelling mistake in a flashback that it might have been deliberate and representative of the character's flawed memory of those events, confirming memory might be reflected in such a way.

Hildy, last night I posted a thought on Jack on Soul Catcher that you might like to take a look at.

I think this could imply that the faceless person we see in those first opening scenes in “Man of Faith” isn’t actually Desmond,

I thought the same for ages, but Cusick said in an interview that it's him..

I no longer have the link to the interview, but he was clear enough on it to cause me to abandoned one of my most cherished theories.

And Jack also has dark brown eyes.Jack's and Fox's eyes are dark hazel; depending upon the light they can appear to be any color from dark brown to bottle green.

Well, technically, the fact that they got Cusick to play the part doesn't mean it wasn't Jack in storyline terms. Perhaps they didn't want Jack to film the part because they felt too many people would find out through leaks and things.
It's not the same thing, but, for example, on the Pilot commentaries they explain that in one scene when Jack's talking to Charlie, the person we see from behind is actually Sawyer, or vice versa, I forget.

Well, technically, the fact that they got Cusick to play the part doesn't mean it wasn't Jack in storyline terms.

That Cusick played Jack makes extraordinarily flimsy support for a theory...
If you're going to go there, then he could just as easily have played Locke, which supports MY old pet theory.

a) “MoF” - Faceless person puts a record on silver-fronted record player. Beside it is a neat stack of new records, and a glistening lava lamp.

> “Adrift” scene with Desmond and Locke - the record player has changed to a wooden-fronted model, and the pile of records beside it are old and tatty. Plus there’s no lava lamp.
[/URL]

TPTB stated at the time that the changing record player was a prop error due to no one realizing that the audience was paying such close attention.


These errors happen all the time. Here's a bunch of them.

[url]http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Bloopers_and_continuity_errors (http://www.losttv-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18733)

It's not my theory, but I think that had they wanted to have someone down there that people assumed was Desmond without actually revealing it WAS Desmond because they later wanted to reveal it was actually Jack, then getting Cusick to play the part would be the logical thing to do.

I'm going to mention something very similar which happens in a film, but I don't want to spoil the film because it's one of the best, and just seeing the title will spoil it all (because people will then be able to guess the ending). So, I'm going to Spoiler the title and then the relevance.


The Usual Suspects


Even though in the end it is revealed that Keyser Soze was actually Verbal Kint, because the story was building up to it being Dean Keaton (played by Gabriel Byrne), and even the actors didn't know for most of the filming, in the opening scene in which we see Keyser Soze in the shadows he is actually played by Gabriel Byrne, not Kevin Spacey.



But like I say, I'm not saying I think that's what has happened in Lost, just that if that were where the story is headed then Cusick playing the part would make sense.

TPTB stated at the time that the changing record player was a prop error due to no one realizing that the audience was paying such close attention.
TPTB lie.

It’s all just a bit too convenient for TPTB to explain away the countless mistakes as genuine continuity errors. Call me an old conspiracy theorist, but my mum used to work in tv and her job included continuity. If she’d let half as many errors slip by as they seem to on Lost (which has a far bigger budget than anything she ever worked on), she wouldn’t have lasted as long as she did in the job. I’m sure that some of them are genuine mistakes, but there are too many to simply dismiss as being all accidental errors. Some of the “mistakes” might be intended to throw us off the trail, but I’m sure others are hidden clues. Of course, now we have to work out which is which!

Lucidity:
Thanks for your spoilered comments - seems to add strength to my argument that it was really Jack in those opening scenes, regardless of which actor supposedly played him. And thanks for mentioning that typo in a flashback - it’s when Kate is visiting her mum in hospital in “Born to Run”. The sign on a door reads “imagining” instead of “imaging”. Which could definately fit in with our tampered memory theory. I'm currently putting together a list of all the inconsistencies and mistakes in the flashbacks which I'll try and post before I head off at the weekend. Oh, and I’m going to check out your new Jack comments over on Soul Catcher - thanks for letting me know.

Lostmio:
If you can track down that interview it would be brilliant - is it absolutely clear that he’s referring to every single bit of those opening scenes, or could it be misconstrued and he was actually referring to the slightly later part of the opening where we see his face? Not quite willing to give up on this one yet! Oh and sorry for being unclear (ok, just plain wrong!) about Jack’s hazel eyes - brown schmown, you get the idea.

H x

Hildy - I just printed off some of your long posts and read them; they were a great read. I don't have anything intelligent to add, but a few comments and questions for you and everyone else about your post.

About the idea that someone on Naomi's boat will reveal Jack's true identity, etc. - What if it's Jack himself from another timeline? I know. I know. That's kind of corny, but the idea of different timelines happening on the show has become a pretty heated topic.

The cigarette that was in the Pearl - I think that this was debated a lot, too, but wasn't the cigarette still smoking? Well, I mean to ask, "Wasn't the cigarette still burning a bit?"

Jack's time with the Others - There's got to be more about his time in Otherville that TPTB aren't telling us. I think that we're missing more than a few chunks of time from that situation. What happened?

The blood stain on the ceiling in the Swan Hatch and Kelvin's comments that it's from when Razdinski killed himself/Razdinski = Jack - It's possible that Kelvin was lying about where and whom the blood came from, right? For all we know, it might not even be real blood. I suppose, though, that we have to have some of the "supposed facts" of the show be real facts.

I do think that there's more to Jack's identity, and some of the other Losties, too, that we don't know about - and it will be awhile until we do. I have always had the feeling that there's more to everyone's true identity and purpose and connection to the Island than what we've seen. Seemingly, a lot of viewers get the feeling that they, the Losties, have been there before...

While reading Wolf In Sheep's Clothing, and thinking about the many worlds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many_worlds) concept of potential realities and how they might apply to the multiple Jacks being talked about here, I ran across a cool, but long essay (http://www.hb.se/bhs/ith/23-01/js.htm) about Philip Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

It included some great ideas about science fiction stories (and literature) in general, and specific thoughts that seemed to apply to the narrative of LOST as it is being interpreted here.

Other types of science fiction are more philosophically radical than the elementary forms described above. The boundaries between different kinds of "realities" are dissolved, so that it becomes impossible to determine what is "reality" and what is "dream". When the border between "reality" and "illusion" disappears, the writers make use of a narrative technique that can be called "ontolepsis", seepage between different levels of reality. Thus they make room for alternative lives to exist side by side as simultaneously occurring simulations, joined to each other in a network of possibilities. Here, life is a dream from which there is no awakening; the human being is the prisoner of his consciousness. Such stories are like hypertextual nightmares, conveyed by the monosequential narrative of the printed book or film.

The whole thing had me wondering about the idea of trying to overcome determinism through offering humanity the power to choose, yet being limited in the choices that could be offered, either by the nature of the experiment, or by deliberate intent.

What I mean is, imagine an experiment, bankrolled by Widmore/Paik and designed by Hanso (who later regretted his role) in which the Lostaways, and other subjects, are "given" the power to alter their fates, but from amongst a limited palette of options. The goal is to test control of individuals and/or populations, to breed more compliant consumers or employees. What if such a system derailed into a "shootout" between alternate-reality versions of individuals?

Lostmio:
If you can track down that interview it would be brilliant - is it absolutely clear that he’s referring to every single bit of those opening scenes, or could it be misconstrued and he was actually referring to the slightly later part of the opening where we see his face?

It was on his original official website, the one that predated Lost. That's gone now, replaced by the sanctioned fan Cusick Portal, which mentions it but doesn't give the url so I can't get to it on wayback.

When Cusick made his Lost debut on S2E1, he put up a few stills from that episode and labelled them to indicate they were him. (Remember this was in the early days when he was far less famous.) At least a couple were the faceless man. I especially remember the one where he's doing sit-ups in front of the washer/dryer.
This was long before we knew he'd appear again. In fact, the site became a gathering place for fans petitioning to make Des a regular.

There was a forum for fans to ask questions, which Cusick would answer.
Someone asked if that was really him in all those opening hatch scenes. He said yes. Take that anyway you want it, but there was no ambiguity for fudging in the question or his answer.
I was soooo disappointed because at the time I was convinced that at least some of the faceless shots were Locke.

Many of us on another board had already done some back, arm, and hand comparisons. They're definitely not Jack or Sawyer or Ethan (some of the specs floating around at the time). We thought it possible that the person drinking the blender grog could have been Locke, based upon the arms and hands. We were wrong.

Trying to get caught up on this thread...

I can't help but love the idea that Flight 815 is being viewed as a Trojan Horse... bet if it isn't, the writers wished they had thought of it!

I don't buy into the idea of implanted memories... it just doesn't set well with me, even though the references given for filmmakers and the art of deception are great, I still don't want to see it, its so confusing as it is!

Reading the thread did bring up Sphere by Michael Crichton...
book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_%28novel%29) better than the film (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_%28film%29).
Spoiler for those who don't want to read or who haven't seen the movie.

Over the course of the film various members of the team are killed off until only Harry, Norman (Dustin Hoffman) and Beth (Sharon Stone) remain. At this point, they realize that the three of them all entered the sphere, which gave them the power to manifest their thoughts into reality, and that all the disasters that had been plaguing them were the result of manifestations of the worst parts of their own minds. The entity 'Jerry' turns out to be Harry's subconscious communicating with them through their computer system while Harry is asleep.

I've kind of discounted that, I like that even less than planted memories!

I've read somewhere some of the ideas that Juniebun has brought up, thoughts about computer programs. (Think it was on the Orchard Thread in Spoilers, the only one I read, which should be in the Speculation Threads if you ask me.) Watching Jacob's image fade out reminded me of the scene where the image of Princess Leah's communication image faded in and out in Star Wars...

Briolette >
Watching Jacob's image fade out reminded me of the scene where the image of Princess Leah's communication image faded in in out in Star Wars...


Oooh. I like that idea. Very cool. :cool:

More from the book/Sphere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_%28novel%29):
While in the decompression chamber, the three survivors ponder what they are going to tell the navy happened underwater. Eventually, they decide to use their power to literally get rid of their power, changing reality so that the whole thing never happened and that a leak of toxic gas killed the crew as well as destroyed the habitat instead. They agree it can work only if they all do it together and think it and make it happen. As the novel concludes, it is clear that Norman and Harry have done so. However, Beth's decision is left in doubt.
I think my original thought was a reflection of Jack and Kate in the flashforward. Jack was so intense and Kate so laid back, I was thinking did someone chose to forget and someone deceptively chose to remember? Or what... So many theories!

Lucidity, I thought that instantly seeing the episode again and then reading Juniebun's posts brought it back up!

Juniebun:
Glad you’re enjoying my lengthy ramblings! Here (briefly!) are my thoughts on your last post. I think there was initially some confusion as to whether or not the Pearl hatch cigarette was still lit, but it definately looked out to me (in original UK transmission which I videoed, and in the dvd box set). Like you, I’m also hoping we’ll see what happened during Jack’s missing time in Othersville - as well as how Kate’s wrists got so cut up by the handcuffs. The Razdinski/Jack parallel is intriguing, isn’t it? I also wondered whether Kelvin was lying to Desmond - but then I also think ALL the flashbacks are lying! However, since the mural was also in “present day” scenes, it’s obvious that someone had to have painted it previously - and it’s sheer complexity suggests the artist had a high intellect if not a photographic memory. Finally, maybe all the losties have been on the island for much longer than they think.


Hearingvoices:
Thanks for posting the link to that cool piece on Phillip K.Dick’s work. It threw up some interesting ideas - not least, how the heck can I be against all the Lost alternate reality theories doing the rounds if I don’t even understand what is meant by alternate reality?! The wikipedia listing is very confusing because it seems to offer a variety of definitions: a chance to view life as it would’ve happened if the protagonist had altered one key aspect of his past (eg. Butterfly Effect, It’s A Wonderful Life); a parallel reality co-existing with ours, but with certain noticeable and often adverse variations (eg. bad Spock in Mirror-mirror episode of Star Trek); time travel (eg. H.G.Wells’ The Time Machine); or simply a far away fantasy place (eg. Gulliver’s Travels, Star Wars, Narnia books). So which one are we talking about with regard to Lost?!
(B.t.w interesting that wikipedia listing includes the phrases “Stranger in a strange land” and “here there be dragons”, and not in relation to Lost!).

Lostmio:
Thanks for putting my “it was Jack in the Swan!” theory out of its misery. Darnit!

Briolette:
Welcome to the thread, glad to have you onboard! Yeah, I like my Trojan Horse idea too - definately works for me. Shame you don’t like the implanted memory angle but don’t feel too bad - at the moment, I think it’s probably just me and Lucidity hanging onto this one for dear life! Oh, and very cool stuff about Sphere.

H x
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Frecks has just raised an interesting idea over on the “final key to the deception” thread:

“Maybe the twins thing is being taken too literally? Perhaps it is something more along the lines of how Jack and Sawyer are called different sides of the same coin...good side bad side. Same coin...twins...good twin bad twin.”

This “two sides of the same coin” angle made me wonder whether the infamous instance where Jack’s tattoo changed sides during his 2nd fight with Ethan was a hint that we were seeing the flip-side of the good doctor. Especially since Jack seemed so angry and ferocious this time around, compared to their first fight when he was easily pummelled into submission. Thoughts please. And can anyone think of any other times where we’ve seen Jack behave seemingly out of character?
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Hey guys - I
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OK, lets try that again ...

I’ve just posted some fascinating new information about MKULTRA over on my Psychedelic Theory thread (link below). I think it could prove that events on the island are some kind of Project MKULTRA, and more specifically that Jack’s (if not all the losties’) memory has been tampered with.

http://www.thefuselage.com/Threaded/showthread.php?p=1636840#post1636840

One of the reasons I think we struggle with alternate reality concepts is that we insist on seeing each reality as a full narrative, that there is this "other" person living out this long, convoluted, linear thing we call life, separate from us.

I suspect it's much more "digital" or granular than that. At any moment we're surrounded by possibilities that have a relative reality, they propagate out from "now" in an ever less-real sea of possibilities. Each moment in time is floating in such a sea. If you pluck someone out of the sea, and dump them in another sea, the probable realities will be radically different, dependent on the circumstances of that moment.

I think that, in part, illustrates the struggle future-Jack had in his flashforward. And, I think that's why it is entirely possible that Jack is someone completely different from who we think he is, and possibly who he thinks he is.

When we see disconnected segments of the narrative, we don't know enough about the intended continuity (what the writers want to tell us), because we have to look at all the possibilities (or, probabilities, if you like) before we get it.

I wonder how the audience would react to Jack as a villain, and Ben really being one of the "good guys"? This stuff may make for too confusing a narrative, but I think the idea is to reserve your judgement until you've really seen the character in action... perhaps over a lifetime (or six seasons of LOST, whichever comes first.) I think most of us would have regarded Charlie as sort of a wastrel, and easily mislead and sort of gullible sod for much of the show. But, he turned out to be a rather heroic sort after all, and without the narrative we might not have found his heroism nearly as inspiring. We "found" Charlie, much as he "found" himself. If Jack ends up finding himself as a villain, I'll be more intrigued with his character. Jack the hero seems rather hackneyed now.

I think that, in part, illustrates the struggle future-Jack had in his flashforward. And, I think that's why it is entirely possible that Jack is someone completely different from who we think he is, and possibly who he thinks he is.


Absolutely agree with you there, Hearingvoices, although isn’t this what I’ve been saying right from the start in this thread?! I definately think that Jack is unaware of who he is. In his mind, he’s the good doctor trying to protect his friends. In reality, he’s something much more sinister. And the shocking revelation left him the guilt-ridden and suicidal shell of a man that we saw in that flashforward. I read that there was a US promo with the tagline “they’re not the survivors they think they are” - which seems to add further strength to our argument. And I agree that the possibility of villainous Jack is far more intriguing than sticking with virtuous Jack.
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When we see disconnected segments of the narrative, we don't know enough about the intended continuity (what the writers want to tell us), because we have to look at all the possibilities (or, probabilities, if you like) before we get it.


Again, I absolutely agree with you! The Lost Rewind has made me even more aware of this, as we gradually get to place the losties’ backstories into context. Even if I do think those backstories are fake!

On a slight tangent, Bigmouth has just pointed me in the direction of a fascinating essay by Ron Patton, on an MKULTRA-related mind-control project called MONARCH (see link below). I was particularly struck by the following two parallels with this whole Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing theory that Jack is a “sleeper agent”:-

1) “Monarch may have culminated from MKSEARCH subprojects such as operation SPELLBINDER, which was set up to create ‘sleeper assasins’ (ie. Manchurian candidates)...”

2) Patton also comments that “butterfly or occult tattoos” are common physical identification characteristics on victims/survivors.

http://www.aches-mc.org/monarch.html

It would completely suck if he were a covert agent, but I have to admit you all have good arguments...now I am thinking about it.

Fear not, frecks! Whilst I agree that it’d be a big shock if Jack was revealed as a covert agent, I do think he’d take steps to redeem himself - after all, redemption is a major theme on the show. In fact, I think this is why he was so desperate to get back to the island in the final scene of TTLG.

Anyway, off on vacation tomorrow but thought I’d leave you with this to ponder on in the meantime ...

“YOU NEED TO SERIOUSLY THINK ABOUT GIVING THAT LICENCE BACK” - OR, WAS JACK REALLY A DOCTOR BEFORE THE CRASH?

TEN clues which suggest that perhaps Jack wasn’t a doctor before the “crash”, and that his flashback story could therefore be fake:

1) DOESN’T KNOW WHEN A BABY CAN BE SAFELY DELIVERED (“Raised by Another”)

JACK: Claires due in a little more than a week, maybe two, but if she stays stressed out like this, or has another panic attack it could trigger an early labor. And out here, with no instruments, no monitors, no anesthetic... that would not be good.

As Nikki Stafford points out in ‘Finding Lost’: “Claire’s due date is one or two weeks away, meaning she’ll be 40 weeks at that point. A baby is considered full term at 37 weeks, and any baby born after that time will usually have no complications at all. Jack’s comment is a little ridiculous, as he seems to be insinuating that if she gave birth now, the baby would be grossly premature. Of course, Jack is a spinal surgeon, and not an OB-GYN, but this is pretty basic knowledge to anyone with a baby, much less a medical degree.”


2) GAVE SAWYER WRONG DOSAGE OF MEDS (“Whatever The Case May Be”)

When Jack is trying to get Sawyer to give him the halliburton, he threatens to withold the cefalexin he’s been giving him for his arm. This antibiotic is prescribed on a 7-10 day cycle, whilst these scenes occured about 12 days after Sawyer was wounded by Sayid. So why was Jack still giving him meds?


3) TOTALLY WRONG ADVICE REGARDING CLAIRE’S BIRTH (“Do No Harm”)

JACK: Tell Kate to wait until the contractions are 60 seconds apart, you got that? Now, she's going to need to make sure that Claire pushes, but not too hard, not too fast... just until the head is clear and then, as hard as she can. When the baby is out make sure she clears it's nose and it's mouth.

According to Nikki Stafford in ‘Finding Lost’: “When giving birth, a woman has to push as hard as she can to get the baby’s head out, but once the head comes out she must resist pushing to prevent the baby from shooting out of the canal suddenly. Jack’s instructions to Kate are the opposite”.


4) TERRIBLE MEDICAL ASSISTANCE FOLLOWING LIBBY’S SHOOTING (“?”)

First off, as Sawyer rightly points out, Jack is more interested in heading off to find Ben than tending to Libby, even though at that moment she’s in the next room slowly bleeding to death! Secondly, he’d managed to successfully treat Sawyer’s previous gunshot wound so why wasn’t he also able to treat Libby’s? Or did he have an ulterior motive for euthanising her so swiftly?


5) DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO ADMINISTER ANAESTHETIC (“Not In Portland”)

TOM: Juliet. Ben's awake.
JULIET: How!?
TOM: Shepherd says he's a spinal surgeon, not an anesthesiologist. Ben's asking for you.

If Jack wasn’t an anesthesiologist, what was he doing putting Ben under in the first place? The wrong dosage could’ve left him brain damaged. And wouldn’t a surgeon have at least a basic knowledge of anesthesiology?


6) WRONG ADVICE WHEN CLAIRE COLLAPSES (“One Of Us”)

JACK: Right, right. Put her head back. Put her head back.

If Claire’s head was held back whilst she was coughing up blood, couldn’t she choke on the blood? Or choke on her own tongue? I dunno, I’m not a doctor but it seems kinda off.


6) INFAMOUSLY BAD BEDSIDE MANNER, (“Man of Science, Man of Faith”)

HURLEY: What's that thing where doctors make you feel better just by talking to you?
JACK: Bedside manner.
HURLEY: Yeah, that. Yours sucks, dude.

(and again in “Stranger In A Strange Land”, 3.9)

BEN: Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired, Jack.
JACK: Well, then it's too bad you're stuck with me.


7) WRONG ANALYSIS OF AN X-RAY (“The Cost Of Living”)

According to lostpedia: “Jack asks Ben if he is having symptoms of numbness and tingling to his fingers and toes, yet the tumor on his X-ray is assessed to be over the L4 vertebra and is clearly lumbar (would only have paraesthesis in upper extremities if it was a cervical tumor).”


8) LOUSY ON-ISLAND TRACK RECORD:

Couldn’t save Boone. Couldn’t save the Marshall. And Ben was almost left paralysed after Jack operated on the tumour on his spine.

In fact, if you think about it, the only times he has been really successful at treating people, it’s been with skills also exhibited by other NON-doctor characters. He administered CPR on Rose and Charlie - but so did policewoman Ana-Lucia on the little girl in “The Other 48 Days. He treated Sawyer, Charlie and Ben for fleshwounds - but military men Sayid and Mikhail have both been seen treating fleshwounds as well (Charlie’s headwound and Sayid’s shoulder, respectively).


9) THOSE “FEW FLYING LESSONS”

Jack told Kate that he’d taken a “few flying lessons”. When?! He was supposedly so focused on his brilliant medical career that it destroyed his marraige to Sarah. So when would he have had time to take flying lessons?


10) GUN PROFICIENCY

Jack’s weirdly handy with a gun for a surgeon, and a surprisingly good shot too. Plus in ‘Homecoming’ (1.15), Jack tells Kate that he won’t hand out the halliburton guns to everyone because “I’m not putting guns in untrained hands”. Since he’s willing to have a gun in HIS hand, doesn’t that imply that he himself is trained? But when would an overly-focused surgeon find time to learn how to handle a gun? And why? Or again, does it reflect a previous and as yet undisclosed military background?


Thoughts please. And can you think of any instances where the other losties have exhibited traits which seem to conflict with their pre-crash personas? For example, Boone said he was a lifeguard but didn’t know how to administer CPR, and almost drowned whilst attempting to rescue Joanna.

Bye for now - back late August.

H x

I don't agree with any of your premises.

Early labor brought about by stress is not good for the mother or child. Even more so when there are no available medical facilities.

Jack wanted the guns, he got them. We know he's a superb bluffer.

There's no consensus on when and not to push during labor; every case is different. However, when the mother pushes, it's disruptive to her and the baby's oxygen flow, so Jack's advice - not too push too hard, too fast, too early - is sound. Once the baby's head is clear, attending med personnel often pull the baby free. That's the safest time to push. Babies don't usually suddenly shoot out of the canal, but if one does, what's the harm?

Libby and Mars had lethal abdominal wounds; Boone's leg was gangrenous. No other doctor could have done more with Mars, Libby, or Boone, given the conditions. Sawyer had a shoulder wound that had become infected. Jack was treating his infection.

The script made it quite clear why Jack decided to operate on Ben. He and Ben and Juliet had to deal with the primitive OR conditions, which included lack of a trained anesthesiologist. Surgery and anesthesiology are related but different disciplines. Jack was able to put Ben under but wasn't able to deal with an anesthesiology complication while trying to keep the kidney from bleeding out and also orchestrating an escape plan. Makes sense.

Many busy doctors with families have poor bedside manners, take flying lessons, and shoot guns. I've long thought the gun skills mean there's more to Jack's story, but it doesn't at all preclude his being a doctor.

There's no consensus on when and not to push during labor; every case is different.
That may be, but Jack's advice did seem to run contrary to what I was taught 30 yrs. ago in Obs-Gyn.

However, when the mother pushes, it's disruptive to her and the baby's oxygen flow, so Jack's advice - not too push too hard, too fast, too early - is sound.
I think we just disagree on when "too early" is. If the head is at what we called "station +2 cm", that would be OK time to push by what I was taught; maybe even station 0, I forgot.

Once the baby's head is clear, attending med personnel often pull the baby free. That's the safest time to push. Babies don't usually suddenly shoot out of the canal, but if one does, what's the harm?
The harm in a so-called "precipitant delivery" is too rapid a reduction in pressure on the baby's head. I was taught that that can result in a suction at the base of the brain, possibly reverse-herniating it. Maybe that was only a hypothetic danger that turned out not to be true in practice, but I don't know if anyone has disproven it. (I was taught that gestational diabetes had no bearing on the pregnancy in progress, but by a decade later they had good evidence otherwise. I was taught to give an IV bolus of MgSO4 and then a drip of it for pre-eclampsia, and they really thought Mg was prophylactic against eclampsia, but I've heard that that belief has fallen out of favor.)

But if you mean by head is "clear" that it's actually out, then sure. Still usually need to rotate to get the shoulders clear, but ISTR Jack's having mentioned that. But even if Jack's a fake doctor, I think he knew Claire's pregnancy was fake & "delivery" would be accomplished by Kate's sleight of hand, so no harm. Have I mentioned here that you can see the umbilical cord terminate at the side of the belly between Kate's thumb & forefinger, instead of attaching in the midline where the real thing would?

Libby and Mars had lethal abdominal wounds; Boone's leg was gangrenous. No other doctor could have done more with Mars, Libby, or Boone, given the conditions. Sawyer had a shoulder wound that had become infected. Jack was treating his infection.
Heh -- I liked the line where he asked Sawyer to teach him the bare handed bullet removal some day. But my take on all these procedures involves fakery anyway. That is, I think Boone's death was faked with Jack's & Locke's help. I think Mars's death was supposed to have been faked, but that Kate double crossed him by getting Sawyer to attempt to euthanize him, and even if the gun had only a blank round (which it may have had), at that range it was deadly. Libby's death I once thought was real but am now about halfway between that and believing it was fake.

The script made it quite clear why Jack decided to operate on Ben. He and Ben and Juliet had to deal with the primitive OR conditions, which included lack of a trained anesthesiologist. Surgery and anesthesiology are related but different disciplines. Jack was able to put Ben under but wasn't able to deal with an anesthesiology complication while trying to keep the kidney from bleeding out and also orchestrating an escape plan. Makes sense.
I think the whole thing was fake, as was the arrow removal and the procedures on Sarah. But Juliet doesn't know.

If Jack is a phony doctor, it adds even more meaning to Locke's telling Jack in 1.11 that if he meets up with Ethan, he (Locke) didn't want anything to happen to the only trained physician on the island. Ha-ha, thought he meant Jack, but he meant Ethan, get it? Only trouble with that gag is that Juliet & Goodwin, at least, also appear to be physicians. But was Goodwin dead by then?

Robert

The harm in a so-called "precipitant delivery" is too rapid a reduction in pressure on the baby's head.

Jack's advice for Claire not to push too hard, too soon, and to wait until the head was clear would have helped avoid precipate delivery.

I've been musing about mathematicians...

Juliet's mark (www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Juliet%27s_mark (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Juliet%27s_mark))
Minkowski diagrams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_diagram)

lostmio:

I wanted to let you know that I'm about to post these links in the LOyal to the queST Thread because I think that they're very interesting. Also, wasn't the guy on Naomi's boat that Jack talked to on the cell phone thingy named something like Minkowski? Very interesting similarities between Juliet's mark and M's diagrams. Hope that you don't mind the cutting and pasting. I thought that I found these links and this post of yours in this thread, but now I can't find it again...

Great ideas, everyone...some pretty clever thinkers around these parts!

lostmio:
I wanted to let you know that I'm about to post these links in the LOyal to the queST Thread because I think that they're very interesting. Also, wasn't the guy on Naomi's boat that Jack talked to on the cell phone thingy named something like Minkowski? Very interesting similarities between Juliet's mark and M's diagrams. Hope that you don't mind the cutting and pasting. I thought that I found these links and this post of yours in this thread, but now I can't find it again...

Juniebun, you caught the post here before I deleted and reposted in the Lost Time thread. I didn't want to muddle Hildy's thread too much while she's away, and it fits in with the Lost Time discussion. Feel free to post it anywhere.
Yes, the SAT phone guy was Minkowski.

... and I’m back!

Lostmio:
Totally appreciate that we don’t totally see eye to eye on this one, and I’ll happily admit that some of my examples were a bit tenuous to say the least (can we just draw a veil over “bad bedside manner”?!). But I still think it’s worth noting that alot of Jack’s so-called medical expertise on the island could reflect an undisclosed military background since Desmond, Mikhail and Sayid all successfully treated other wounds on the island too. And I still think it’s weird that he’s so handy with a gun!
B.t.w cool catch on the Minkowski diagram/Juliet's mark thang. And thanks to Juniebun for posting the link.

Dr Suds:
Never realized you were a real doctor - how cool! Thanks for confirming my suspicions about Jack’s dud birthing advice. Was he also wrong to tell Charlie to keep Claire’s head back whilst she was coughing up blood? Not sure I’m totally on board with your “everythings a fake!” angle, but I’m willing to be convinced ...

OK guys, a few new thoughts to hurl at you. First off, I was thinking back over our Harold Wollstein/Jack discovery and was wondering whether there could be any other hidden significance in Jack’s name which could could confim my suspicion that he’s been subjected to MKULTRA-style brain-washing. There was a film out recently about the CIA called The Good Shephard, which apparently touches on MKULTRA (not seen it, just read about it). Does anyone know why it was called The Good Shephard - is there any significance in the word “shephard” here which relates to the CIA or covert missions? Help, please!

Also, remember that certain MKULTRA-related mind-control experiments involved the use of hypnosis, and ELF signals to prompt certain reactions or emotions. Do you think it’s possible that TPTB have been transmitting hidden messages across the island, to hypnotise Jack (if not all the losties) to remain “in character”? I’m thinking of some kind of radio transmission which could contain a secret prompt that is inaudible to human ears (like a dog whistle) but can still be absorbed on a subconscious level. Bearing this possibility in mind, I’m wondering whether Rousseau’s distress signal actually contained a hidden hypnotic message - and whether the losties could start to remember who they really are now that it’s been turned off. Am I crazy, or is it possible?!

H x

Thanks, lostmio. I think that the two symbols look a lot a like and how interesting that time travel has become an issue of discussion on LOST (at least amongst the LOST-obsessed fans that come to the Fuselage a lot). Is it more than a coincidence that her branding on her back looks oh, so much like one of the Real Minkowski's time travel-related symbols? If so, what's the connection? Maybe, the Others just branded Juliet a criminal, literally, with that mark and that's it. Or, maybe...it means more than that...

And Hildy...I've heard around the 'Lage that some people think that Jack and the Losties are programmed, for lack of a better word. Interesting. I don't know what I think about that idea. I think that I'll need some convincing, but I don't think it's impossible...

Hildy,

I posted this (http://www.thefuselage.com/Threaded/showpost.php?p=1640625&postcount=41) in Bigmouth's Lost Time thread because BM had urged me to read the book Ilium, by Dan Simmons.

In light of your discussion of Jack being "programmed", I thought you might be interested in a literary take on memory and consciousness, specifically the phenomenon of involuntary memory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_memory).

Was he also wrong to tell Charlie to keep Claire’s head back whilst she was coughing up blood?
If you're lying on your back and coughing up anything, head sideways. If you have room to drop your head lower, theoretically you facilitate coughing material straight out, but practically speaking I think head sideways is safer, because if material doesn't come out, the subject is likelier to pick the head up and aspirate material.

Robert

DrSuds:
Thanks for that. So it sounds like Jack’s advice was kind of wong, or at least not the safest option at that moment.

HearingVoices:
Fascinating stuff on involuntary memory. I’m presuming that this means certain outside influences can prompt a memory without the person being aware of actively recalling that memory - kind of like when we hear a song and we’re immediately transported back to a happy time or place when we first heard it. Perhaps a good example of this would be the ice-clinks Jack heard when he had the vision of Christian in the jungle (or was the ice clink an audio overlap from the ensuing flashback, I can’t remember).

So taking this idea a step further, can anyone think of any specific examples where a flashback has been directly prompted by something happening or seen on the island (rather than the f/b simply being used to bisect on-island scenes). And is it possible that the events shown in that flashback then related to the character’s behaviour in the following on-island scenes? I hope this makes sense - I guess what I’m trying to find out is just how the flashbacks function. Was a character’s action or decision affected in anyway by the f/b immediately preceding? In other words, could TPTB be prompting certain memories to ensure a specific outcome?

For example, those ice clinks arguably prompted Jack’s memories of his father and made him curious to follow the vision which ultimately resulted in his discovery of vital water supplies and safe shelter.

For example, Charlie’s ability or non ability to swim. When he “didn’t” swim, a woman drowned. But it also led indirectly to Jack finding water and shelter. So was this a fake memory designed to ensure that Jack found what was necessary for everyone’s survival, and make everyone trust him as their leader? Similarly, was Charlie’s sudden re-ability to swim prompted by TPTB’s need to make contact with the losties? (Mere speculation here, but I strongly suspect they’re on Naomi’s boat).

I think we could be onto something here. Can you think of any other examples where a flashback memory has prompted certain on-island behaviour or resulted in a positive (or negative) outcome?

I think we could be onto something here. Can you think of any other examples where a flashback memory has prompted certain on-island behaviour or resulted in a positive (or negative) outcome?

To me, a lot of the flashbacks end up revealing additional facets of a character and relate to their subsequent behavior, though they can be subtle.

One of the best examples is the Locke flashback where he was involved with the "family" that was cultivating pot. For one of the few times in his life, we see him happy. Then he accidentally brings in a Federal Agent and destroys the very group that had nurtured him. Not only that, but when he has the chance to kill the agent to make the problem go aaway, he (wisely) doesn't take the option. Still, he's carrying a load of guilt about betraying his "family."

This happens in an episode where he's still recovering emotionally from the mess he made with the hatch, and he has his sweat lodge vision where he's being led around an airport by Boone (another character he feels terribly guilty about...) who tells him his "family" needs him. This time, it refers to his island family, and for a little while, he takes charge of the group, leaving his self-pity behind, and makes his "We're gonna bring them back" speech.

His reminder of his "betrayal" of one family in a flashback by Boone, whose death he feels responsible for, plays a dirtect role in turning him from The Hatchwife into a leader, at least temporarily until he loses interest...

Nice insights on Locke, wesb!

I wonder if that is what is fueling his determination "now"? Is Naomi like the agent/cop that Locke didn't kill earlier, only this time he did choose to kill to protect his "family"?

While I'm fascinated by Locke, I still find his failure to communicate his intentions irritating. Whether it's a personality trait of the character, or a weakness in the plot, it's maddening to me.

Nice insights on Locke, wesb!

I wonder if that is what is fueling his determination "now"? Is Naomi like the agent/cop that Locke didn't kill earlier, only this time he did choose to kill to protect his "family"?

While I'm fascinated by Locke, I still find his failure to communicate his intentions irritating. Whether it's a personality trait of the character, or a weakness in the plot, it's maddening to me.

I hadn't thought about the killing of Naomi as a counterpoint to his not killing the federal agent, but that's a really interesting comparison!

My own view on Locke is that while some complain of how the character has "changed," I think he's been completely consistent to his core motivations right from the beginning, but that he's a complex character (possibly the most complex in the storyline) and different aspects of his personality came out, depending on the situations around him.

First and foremost, he's deeply insecure because he has an intense and unsatisfied longing to find validation, meaning and purpose. Secondly, he's very much a mystic and looks ouside himself to connect to fate or some higher power to help gain that sense of meaning. Thirdly, he's quite gullible, and is easily persuaded that some New Thing can be the solution to his search, and he'll drop everything to follow it once persuaded. These seem to almost completely explain the man.

His obsession with his father to the point of becoming almost a stalker is part of that search for validation. He so desperately needed that connection that he had no reservation about donating a kidney to someone he hardly knew. His impulsiveness left him frustrated.

He apparently spent a lot of time learning about wilderness survival in preparation for the walkabout. Even though in a wheelchair, this was something to prove his strength and inependence. Clearly, an intensely rugged journey that wouldn't be possible even for many who can walk normally was no place for a man in a wheelchair, but he was blind to this. His impulsiveness left him frustrated.

Crashed on the island he found immediate purpose and meaning when his survival skills learned for the walkabout became essential. The fact that he regained the use of his legs at the same time probably made the whole experience an unimaginably beautiful paradise for someone with his mystical outlook. He even managed to gather a couple of "disciples," in the form of Boone & Charlie, who he sought to help. Later on, Charlie was abandoned when he found greater "meaning" in the hatch. Earlier on, his immediate need to have someone check out the plane stuck in the jungle canopy when he was having trouble walking got Boone killed. His impulsiveness left him guilty and frustrated.

Finding the hatch brought on a whole new obsession in his desperate quest for purpose. First he had to find a way to get it open, and then became obsessed with pressing the button. This became the total driving force in his life until he saw the Pearl station video that immediately turned his attentions around. Suddenly he was devastated to hear that The Thing that was giving him purpose was once again meaningless. He immediately accepted the Pearl video without thinking that if there might have been a deception in the button, there might also be a deception in the pearl video. His impulsiveness left him frustrated.

He then jumped into an obsessive turnaround in insisting that the button not be pressed. This appears to have beeen exactly the wrong choice, ended up in the destruction of the hatch, and an event that probably gave better direction to the people behind not-pennys-boat, in locating the island. He knows he's made a huge mistake here. His impulsiveness left him guilty and frustrated.

He found happiness for a short time with "the family" that cultivated pot that took him in. His accidentally bringing in a federal agent and then (wisely) letting him go once his identity was unmasked left him feeling intensely guilty.

So that's the portions of the story that are reasonably-well resolved. The result of each is that his life is one unending stream of guilt and frustrations. Ironically, Helen was the one person in his life who cared enough to help him, and he might have at least found purpose and meaning in her life. But his impulsiveness in continuing to stalk his father destroyed that, leaving him alone as well as frustrated. After what Helen put into the relationship for him, he ought to feel a little guilty about it as well...

After all that, an island with unknown terrors and that's killing people off, one by one can actually be the brightest spot in his life. So he' s desperate to stay on the island where he has a sense of meaning. This led to his destruction of The Flame & possibly the destruction of the sub. It led to his interference in Sayid's triangulation on the radio tower. He took on the role of the group's leader temporarily, with his "We'll bring them back" speech, until he found going off on his own to be a more effective path to his "self realization."

In the end, Locke is as much an addict as Charlie was, but instead of doing anything necessary to get his next fix, he'll do anything to give him even a moment of feeling he has meaning and purpose. And yet, while Lock may come across as The Ultimate Loser in this analysis, his huge weakness may yet be his greatest strength...

My postings elsewhere outline my theory that the island is alive, can imperfectly read minds, can heal and create things, and is using these in an attempt to communicate with Our Heroes, or at least get their attention and help. Locke, in his desperate attempt to reach out to "fate" to find his sense of purpose has made him the one most receptive to the island's attempts to communicate. He may be doing things for the wrong reasons, but he's one of the few people who's doing the right things. I think this reaching out and the further connection to the island that will result are what makes him an important character in how the story will resolve. He may be annoying, but he's stumbling along in the right direction without knowing he's doing it.

Wesb:
Wow - what a fantastic analysis of Locke! I must admit that he’s one of the few characters I feel I haven’t quite got a “handle” on yet, but your comments certainly help put things in perspective for me.

Locke is such a complex character, a real enigma. His on-island hunter seems so totally at odds with his flashback “boxman” persona. He seems destined to always be very much the loner since, every time he tries to make a connection with someone or something, it ends up going wrong and he’s left alone to try and pick up the pieces. It’s almost like he’s being shown that he should somehow remain apart, different, “other” - or that he should be taking the negative role since every time he tries to do something positive, it blows up in his face.

It’s strange because, with his history, you’d expect Locke to be much weirder, insular or geeky than he is - he can be quite a charming “fella” at times, and doesn’t seem to have any difficulty conversing with people (even if it does sometimes freak them out!). Wouldn’t someone with his abusive background be really shy or timid? In other words, “if I never open up to people, then I can never get hurt”. Or is it simply that his island experience is allowing his true personality to shine through? I can’t decide.

I've got to chuckle, because I think wesb et al. are going to be really surprised to learn that Locke has just been pretending to be how they think he is. But then, I think that of a great many Lost characters. But not Benry; he wears it on his sleeve!

I wonder whose denouement will hit the fans the hardest: Locke's, Jack's, Hugo's, Claire's, Sun's, Bernard's, or Walt's? I figure they're already suspicious of Charlie, Kate, and Mr. Eko. But if some characters are wolves in sheep's clothing, they and others can also be seen as sheep in wolves' clothing. What if you find out that a character was a total fraud, but then you found out that it was in service of a noble goal?

Robert

Absolutely agree with you there, Robert. In fact it’s kind of the whole point of my argument in this thread - that none of the losties are who we think they are. I’m looking forward to the final shocking reveal. Like you, I wonder who’s true identity will come as the biggest shock to fans - Jack and Locke would be no big surprise to me personally since they’re such complex characters anyway. I’m kinda leaning towards Hugo since he seems so lovable on the island - but then that shows I’m already expecting a big shocker so it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise!

As I said previously, it does seem like Locke is constantly being forced to remain separate from the rest of the group - whether because of his weird behaviour (eg. Hurley’s desperation to get away from his as soon as possible whilst taking his census info; the creepy orange peel incident in pilot epi), or because he doesn’t agree with their line of action (eg. Jack and Locke, especially in the Swan hatch episodes). He seems to be very much the outsider, and I wonder whether this will turn out to be intentional for some reason.

B.t.w it’s interesting that Jack and Locke are constantly at loggerheads and yet both has saved the other at one point (Locke saved Jack when he was dangling from the cliff; Jack saved Locke when he was in danger of being dragged down a hole by Smokey). The dynamics between the two are very interesting (one is “ying” to the other’s “yang”?), and I think it will prove to be increasingly relevant as the show progresses.

However, getting back to my idea that the losties’ behaviour is somehow being prompted to ensure a certain outcome, I would suggest that some of Locke’s negative actions could be construed as indirectly helping TPTB - destroying the transceiver meant the losties were forced to remain on the island; blowing up the sub meant Jack couldn’t escape on his own and was forced to return to the beach to help everyone make contact with not-penny’s-boat.

H x
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Two more thoughts leading on from Locke, relating to my theory that all this is somehow connected to an MKULTRA-like project.

I’ve never been convinced that Locke really was paralysed, despite what we’ve seen in the flashbacks (since I think they’re fake memories!). I wonder whether his flashback persona was created specifically to tie him to the island, since he obviously feels that IT was responsible for his “miraculous” recovery and he’s therefore not keen to leave for fear of losing the use of his legs again. It’s interesting that a 1955 document outlining the intentions of MKULTRA included “produc[ing] physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs”. This idea of creating real or imagined ailments or cures to tie someone to the island could also apply to Rose, Jin and Ben since the same document outlined MKULTRA’s intention to “produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so that they may be used for malingering, etc."

Secondly, one key thing which struck me about the Further Instructions episode Wesb mentioned previously was how easily Locke slotted into the role of temporary leader, and how everyone seemed to warm to his willingness to involve them all in the quest to help their friends. Hurley’s reaction seemed to imply that everyone felt resentful that Jack often excluded them from similar missions. This then made me wonder why Jack had become their leader in the first place. Obviously he’d been calm and had taken control in the desperate situation immediately following the “crash”, and his (supposed) medical skills would’ve placed him in a position of authority within their community. But it wasn’t as if he was keen to assume the role and its attendant responsabilities.

Similarly, I remember that at one point very early on Sayid was trying to get everyone organised into groups to search for firewood, food etc. He seemed calm and focused. Surely he would’ve made a better leader since he had military experience and would therefore be used to organising and ordering large groups of people. And he’d have vital practical skills in surviving in dangerous terrain. Obviously there’s the whole “Iraqi terrorist” suspicion that Sawyer voiced (inevitable in these post 9/11 days), but Hurley’s example showed that most people seemed willing to discount the possibility. So why did Jack become leader if there were better candidates within the group?

That same MKULTRA document mentions its intention to “alter personality structure in such a way that the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced.” So if my theory is correct and TPTB always intended Jack to lead the losties, is it possible that everyone was somehow manipulated into looking to him as their leader?

Wesb:

That's one of the most succinct, on-point descriptions of Locke I've yet seen -- nicely done!

Taking your thoughts as a leaping-off point, I would even go so far as to say that if all of these character traits hold true (that is,unless some of these wolf-in-sheep's-clothing theories pan out), Locke's final moment of true enlightenment may be when he realizes that in order to "save" the island, all of the Losties must in fact leave it behind ... including him.

Wesb:

That's one of the most succinct, on-point descriptions of Locke I've yet seen -- nicely done!

Taking your thoughts as a leaping-off point, I would even go so far as to say that if all of these character traits hold true (that is,unless some of these wolf-in-sheep's-clothing theories pan out), Locke's final moment of true enlightenment may be when he realizes that in order to "save" the island, all of the Losties must in fact leave it behind ... including him.

Thanks for the kind word. You've put Locke's redemption story in a very succinct form. I think that Locke's real redemption will involve his finding that his value comes from who he already is. This comparison may sound a little goofy, but Locke's story is a more adult version of the story of Dumbo. What Dumbo eventually learned when he lost the magic feather was that he didn't need it to fly; he could fly all along, because the magic was in him. That was a concept that was probably lost on much of a juvenile audience; it belongs in an adult story, but the story has to have a somewhat mystical bent, which you don't find in huge numbers of serious adult stories. The Locke character is ready-made to make this kind of self-discovery.
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Wesb:
Wow - what a fantastic analysis of Locke! I must admit that he’s one of the few characters I feel I haven’t quite got a “handle” on yet, but your comments certainly help put things in perspective for me.

Locke is such a complex character, a real enigma. His on-island hunter seems so totally at odds with his flashback “boxman” persona. He seems destined to always be very much the loner since, every time he tries to make a connection with someone or something, it ends up going wrong and he’s left alone to try and pick up the pieces.

Great points. I'm suspecting that all of the characters have facets we haven't seen yet, but that most of the facets are subtle. Most every flashback set has given me some new insight into the character (I selected the Locke flashbacks in my example, because with Locke they're just so much more blatant...) Well... I take that back... the Jack-and-his-tattoo flashbacks didn't offer the same kindsd of insights, but since the actress Bai Ling said she'd filmed "three episodes" of Lost, I'm suspecting that the Jack-and-his-tattoo flashbacks may have more meaning when the other two pieces of the picture are put together.

Wesb: absolutely love your “dumbo” analogy. I have to say that you have some brilliant insights into Locke and I’d really be interested to hear your take on some of the other characters. So PLEASE keep posting on this thread, as I think we could all learn something.
B.t.w I wonder whether the report that Bai Ling had filmed three episodes of Lost was just a fake spoiler, or whether we really do have more of her to "look forward" to! I'm sure we haven't seen the last "flashback" concerning Jack's tattoos - in fact I hope there is more to come seeing as they kinda kicked off this thread in the first place!

Tramp: really like your suggestion that, in order to save the island that he loves, Locke will ultimately be forced to leave it. Nice one!

Wesb: absolutely love your “dumbo” analogy. I have to say that you have some brilliant insights into Locke and I’d really be interested to hear your take on some of the other characters. So PLEASE keep posting on this thread, as I think we could all learn something.
B.t.w I wonder whether the report that Bai Ling had filmed three episodes of Lost was just a fake spoiler, or whether we really do have more of her to "look forward" to! I'm sure we haven't seen the last "flashback" concerning Jack's tattoos - in fact I hope there is more to come seeing as they kinda kicked off this thread in the first place!


Well, that's remarkably kind of you. I have written lots of character analyses in the past, posted elsewhere, though I wasn't smart enough to save them to save work later on. Mostly I'll comment on a character when it's somewhat appropriate to the topic at hand. I'm sure there will be comments on other characters, in time. I am a little concerned about overdoing the character analysis thing in this thread, though.

I think most of us were disappointed with the Bai Ling/Tattoo story, but I'm semi-confident that that story will bear fruit in time. Fact is, while younger people will get tattoos today as a fashion statement, to men Jack's age, particularly if they're not trend-sensitive, getting a tattoo tended to be more of an emotional reaction to some really significant event in the man's life. (Either that, or they were too drunk to think straight, but that wasn't Jack's situation...) And while we saw the emotion, we didn't see the significant event. There's more to the story, and Bai Ling's comment suggests to me that they filmed it all at once, because of the significant costs and logistical problems the set people had in converting a Honolulu street to a street in downtown Phu Ket. And while it may cause a groan to think of having to endure another flashback set like that episode had, I think the flashbacks were so unsatisfying because of the way they fragmented that story.

If you're gonna tell only a fragment of a story for the time being, you've gotta show the parts that will generate audience interest, so that the missing parts will be percieved as a mystery. If you first show parts that don't generate immediate interest, there's just a sad pile of story fragments that appear to have no purpose. Even a good story has to be broken up properly, and Lost does this all the time, and they're pretty good at it. But suppose a particular story has parts that can't be revealed too early, and without them you don't generate as much interest as you thought you'd get? You might just get what we saw in that episode. I have no way of knowing whether that's what happened there, but looking at the writers' track record so far, and knowing that eventually they may come up with a storyline that has unique problems in slicing it up, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. For now.

Bai Ling said she'd filmed "three episodes" of Lost, I'm suspecting that the Jack-and-his-tattoo flashbacks may have more meaning when the other two pieces of the picture are put together.

Entertainment Weekly said she only filmed scenes for the one episode. By episodes, apparently she meant her 3 scenes in SISL. Her english is very poor. She may be back, but I hope not. Fans reacted negatively to her. She scored even higher on the dud meter than Pikki.

She didn't do Jack's tattoo graphics; at the end of SISL, he had only the chinese characters, so there's another tattoo artist in his past.

I think we'll see more of Jack in Phuket, though. He was there at least a month so likely picked up some Portugese. It's the dominant language, along with Chinese. That's part of the basis for my unpopular theory that the Challah was a flashforward, and Len Cordova was the wolf in Jack's clothing that placed that call to Penny. Eventually they'll reveal it was Jack speaking that poorly accented Portugese and oddly unaccented English.

Lostmio: I always wondered why they had a guy that looked so much like Jack do that scene. And...when look at a picture of the guy outside of the LOST character that he was playing in that episode, yes, he does look like MF, but he looked more like MF in that episode than in real life. When I found out that it wasn't MF (at least according to TPTB at that time), I wondered why even get a guy that looks like MF at all? It would have come out pretty quickly that it wasn't MF playing that character, I'd say, however the obsessed fans at the Fuselage interpreted that scene...

Also, how do you figure that we'll see Jack arrive at that point in the story? I wonder what Len Cordova is doing these days?

I wondered why even get a guy that looks like MF at all?

I've always wondered that myself.

If they had used Fox, then they'd have immediately tipped their hand.
I agree that Cordova doesn't look that much like Fox - they worked at it. The heavy hat, glasses, beard, gloves, turtleneck, etc. seem to me to be planned to conceal distinguishing characteristics.

This is why I started my how Jack might find the island
thread. The theory so far has been a bigger dud than Bai Ling but I like it more and more. It ties in with other theories floating around, and I mentioned it here because of the Phuket connection. It also ties in with Tramp's good vibrations theory.

I know it appears I'm pimping my theory all over the place, but it's just that I'm really really excited that we seem to have so many divergent theories linking up. I don't remember that ever happening before!

Yeah, it just seems like a waste of time to get a guy that bears a resemblance to MF, mold him into an almost identical clone of MF/Jack (they even had him grow some stubble that has a few pieces of gray in it like MF) to only fool the fans for a day or so. How would that progress the story? What would the point be - just for kicks? Nah, I don't think so. There's got to be more to that situation, IMHO...

I'll have to go check your other thread out, lostmio...

Entertainment Weekly said she only filmed scenes for the one episode. By episodes, apparently she meant her 3 scenes in SISL. Her english is very poor. She may be back, but I hope not. Fans reacted negatively to her. She scored even higher on the dud meter than Pikki.

She didn't do Jack's tattoo graphics; at the end of SISL, he had only the chinese characters, so there's another tattoo artist in his past.


Ah, I see... that explains a lot then. While a second visit might have been reasonable, three seemed an awful lot. And a second visit to the story may well be with yet another tattoo artist. I have been mildly expecting a followup for that story, if only because it's so out of place as-is in the Lost storyline. Either it's awaiting further visits or they cut too much out of it due to time constraints. Either way, it seems incomplete. Thanks for the clarification.

Wesb:
I really hope they do show more (hopefully Achara-less!) scenes relating to when and why Jack got his remaining tattoos done - if only because I’m STILL convinced that pesky arrow-like one is based on the Bagua/Dharma logo. B.t.w your remark that alot of people get tattoos done whilst drunk really made me chuckle - if you only knew how close I came to getting one done when I was in Phuket, hic!

Lostmio:
What does “Challah” refer to, and why could it be a possible flashforward - Hildy is confused! Also, I never realised Portuguese language was common in Thailand. VERY interesting. But do you know this from experience, or is it something you’ve read about - because it’s not something I came into contact with whilst there.

Glad you’ve bought up the whole Len Cordova thing because I wasn’t a Fuselage regular when that episode aired. What was the final general consensus on here - was it MF or just a freaky doppelganger? Here’s a few points I raised on another Lost fansite at the time:-

I thought it really looked like MF, the two men shared the same mannerisms/way of walking, and any vague physical differences were relatively easy to explain - ie. possible prosthetic nose (funny how Hurley says the word “prosthetic” for no apparent reason in same episode); possible specs with magnifying lenses to make eyes look bigger. And whilst they had different voices, that would be easy to dub on later. Added to which, the S2 dvd special features include mentions about make-up/prosthetics, changing eye appearances and dubbing dialogue in post-production. (Incidentally, checking out assorted fansites at the time didn’t make things any clearer - one stated that it had to be MF because the Portuguese bloke had exactly the same beard hairline, whilst another concluded it definately wasn’t him by comparing earlobes!)

The makers’ assertion that they’d never noticed Len Cordova’s distinct similarity to Matthew Fox throughout casting or filming was just plain unconvincing. I have some experience with casting and we often describe someone we want to use in relation to someone else more famous (eg. she a Nicole Kidman type), if only because it makes it easier to remember what they look like. So why deny the obvious?

The Len Cordova listing on IMDb was a bit fishy as well. It was suspiciously vague with no biographical details, only one “out of character” photo which didn’t bear any ressemblance to his Lost role, and three stage names (a bit confusing for casting directors, surely?) All in all, that listing just seemed a bit too unconvincing to be genuine, to such an extent that it was almost as if it was intended to arouse fan suspicion. Oh, and any attempts to “google” Len Cordova always led back to that one IMDb listing - there was simply no other information available about him. Funny, that.

Then, someone on my then-forum pointed out that there was a photograph of a young blond child in the background of the scene - MF has a blond daughter who was a similar age at that time. Unfortunately none of us could ever find a screencap clear enough to determine whether it was Fox’s actual daughter or not. But it’s a freaky coincidence.

Conclusion? I personally think that it WAS Matthew Fox. Whether it was an actual clue related directly to Jack’s character, a smokescreen to hide another subtle but more vital clue within the scene, or merely an in-joke on the part of the makers is another matter entirely. I never could decide.

Lostmio:What does “Challah” refer to, and why could it be a possible flashforward - Hildy is confused! Also, I never realised Portuguese language was common in Thailand. VERY interesting. But do you know this from experience, or is it something you’ve read about - because it’s not something I came into contact with whilst there.

Glad y you’ve bought up the whole Len Cordova thing because I wasn’t a Fuselage regular when that episode aired. What was the final general consensus on here - was it MF or just a freaky doppelganger?

Challah was Darlton's moniker for the last scene in the S2 finale, in which the arctic guys called Penny.

Portuguese is without question one of the two major languages in Phuket. No, I haven't directly experienced it, but any search engine, database, or print travel guide (Frommers is who I checked) will confirm it, if you're skeptical.
No consensus about MF in the role needed, since TPTB, and later Jorge Garcia, gave unequivocal testimony that MF did not appear in the Challah. The actor was Len Cordoba. However, tbtb artfully dodged the big question: was the character merely a doppleganger, portrayed by Cordoba, or was he playing Jack?

As to why it's a flashforward, I've addressed this on multiple threads, as have many other posters.

Thanks for that, lostmio. Wasn't doubting that Portuguese was spoken in Thailand, I was just interested because I never realised it whilst I was there! (Possibly explains why my irony-fuelled nickname in high school was "bullet"!)

Was aware of TPTB and Jorge's comments regarding Len Cordova. So I'm "kind of" willing to accept that it was him. Although I still think it was weird that none of them was willing to acknowledge his obvious similarity to MF. I’m looking forward to seeing how this one pans out eventually.

Thanks also for explaining Challah - I guess I have alot of catching up to do around here, since I’ve only been a regular visitor to the Fuselage since the beginning of this year. Totally possible that it was a flashforward now I think about it - if only because I’m sure that alot of the storyline order has been jumbled to disguise what order things have happened in. I’d be interested to hear whether you personally believed that the season 3 finale flashforward was indeed a flashforward, or whether it was actually a flashback. I can’t decide, although Jack and more specifically Kate’s “off” appearance could be a result of them being much younger, and the newspaper clipping was on page B4. Of course this then opens a whole other can of worms, not least how could Jack and Kate then not know each other in the pilot if that occured later! Hmmm...

Hey guys - here’s a recap of what we’ve uncovered so far, together with some new potential clues and real-life parallels, and a slightly revised conclusion to my theory that NOTHING is quite what it seems on the island ...

ARE WE SURE THAT DHARMA IS BEHIND ALL THIS?

Up until now, all my theorizing has been based on the suspicion that there’s some powerful and sinister organization manipulating what’s really happening on the island, presumably Dharma or some as-yet-unseen remnant of it. But does Dharma truly exist or are all those logos, hatches, films, hidden splices, videos, branded foods and other evidence of their previous presence on the island merely a complicated smokescreen to disguise the identity of the REAL powers-that-be? Is Dharma actually as fake as the Pearl Hatch observation task, Tom’s beard and the Other’s tented settlement?

AN INCREDIBLE NUMBER OF APPARENTLY MKULTRA-RELATED CLUES

As you know, I’m convinced that what’s happening is somehow related to or inspired by MKULTRA, a notorious CIA-operated mind-control programme conducted during the Cold War era. And there seem to be a staggering amount of clues and real-life parallels to support this theory:-

1) Government funding of university research programmes was common in the Cold War era (ie. when the DeGroots supposedly founded the Dharma Initiative at the University of Michigan).

2) MKULTRA drug tests were largely conducted on doctors, military personnel, and the inmates of certain prisons and psychiatric hospitals - usually without the subjects’ prior knowledge or consent. Related mind-control programme MONARCH took subjects from Catholic orphanages, foster homes, or families affiliated with government or military intelligence agencies. (ie. would explain the involvement of most if not all of the losties, and their apparent unawareness of this fact).

NB/ I realise that our understanding of who the losties are is based on their flashbacks, and that I’ve been arguing that those flashbacks are false implanted memories. But that doesn’t really matter here - if the flashbacks are real, it would explain how they were selected; if they’re false, it would still explain the content of their contrived backstories.

3) There’ve been countless direct or indirect references to LSD and psychedelia on the show (ie. MKULTRA is most well known for its research involving LSD and other psychedelic drugs). See my Psychedelic Experience thread for full run-down of the references I’ve spotted so far.

4) A similar mind-control programme would explain a heck of alot of what has been happening on Lost, including:-

a) Locke’s supposedly cured paralysis - see MKULTRA’s use of paralytic drugs.

b) Rose’s supposedly cured cancer - MKULTRA experimented with drugs that merely mimicked the symptoms of recognizable diseases in a reversible way. But it also used mind-control drugs on terminal cancer patients to test their efficiency (*)

c) Charlie’s heroin addiction - MKULTRA tested the effects of assorted drugs including heroin.

d) Dave as a symptom of Hurley’s unhinged and possibly schizophrenic mental state - until banned in the late sixties, LSD was widely used in the psychiatric treatment of schizophrenia. However, there’s also been the suggestion that many schizophrenics were actually misdiagnosed victims of mind control since physical implants have been retrieved from the brain tissue of certain case studies.

e) the radiation reasons behind the cemented-up areas of the Swan Hatch - MKULTRA conducted failed experiments into the use of radiation.

f) the appeal of an island with alleged strange magnetic properties - MKULTRA researched the use of magnetic forces to suppress certain thought processes.

g) the countless Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland references - both used as themes in early MONARCH mind-control experiments.

h) Jack’s tattoos - tattoos are apparently common on victims of mind-control.

i) misleading purgatory clues - the purgatory-themed plotline of An Occurence at Owl Bridge Creek was reworked for the movie Jacob’s Ladder, about a drug-related mind-control progamme conducted on unwitting soldiers in Vietnam (inspired by actual BZ trials which led on from MKULTRA).

j) the relevance of ‘Geronimo Jackson’ - the movie Conspiracy Theory was about an MKULTRA victim and included mention of ‘Geronimo’ in the final revelation.

k) possibly Rousseau’s distress signal, since MKULTRA used ELF signals to implant certain states of consciousness in subjects. (I’m still attracted to the idea that it actually contained a hidden signal to keep Jack, if not all the losties, in a constant state of hypnosis. So I’m intrigued to see what will happen now it’s been turned off).

l) preponderance of religious references including Aaron’s potential Messianic status, “Father” Eko, Locke’s mystical visions, Charlie’s Fire+Water visions, and themes of purgatory and redemption. LSD and other psychedelics played a key role in the 60s counterculture’s quest for spiritual enlightenment, largely inspired by the related writings of Aldous Huxley (“Island” most probably inspired “Pala” Ferry; ‘Doors of Perception’ possibly inspired Jack’s “Live together, die alone” mantra)

(*) NEW EVIDENCE! Early LSD experiments conducted by Harvard’s Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert focused on the relationship between drug-induced and naturally occuring religious experiences. Although these tests weren’t part of MKULTRA, they did spark the interest and disapproval of the CIA, which (allegedly) prompted the FDA to prohibit the use of LSD for academic research and psychiatric purposes. Leary and Alpert’s failure to halt their drug-induced research resulted in them being ejected from Harvard. (ie. could explain Alpert’s “Hostile” status since real-life Alpert opposed CIA-monitored academic establishment and was banished from it - ie. Lost’s Alpert opposed island’s ruling establishment and was banished from it?)

(*) NEW EVIDENCE! I was interested to learn that Leary’s mother wanted him to become a priest whilst his father wanted him to become a career military officer - the religious vs. military angle reminded me of Desmond’s supposed backstory. It could also be argued that Desmond became something of a spiritual guru for Charlie as season three progressed - much like Leary became a spiritual guru (or self-proclaimed “High Priest”) for the counterculture. So is it possible that Desmond is intended as Lost’s version of Timothy Leary?! And is Charlie a metaphor for the counterculture?!?!

5) MKULTRA and related programmes would also explain alot of theories regarding certain characters (ie. “sleeper” agents; tampered memories; special abilities - Stephen King’s Firestarter is about a child with special powers as a result of her parents’ involvement in an MKULTRA-type research programme whilst at college).

6) the mention of Canada in the S3 finale (by which time the losties have supposedly been on the island three months) could also be relevant, since MKULTRA experiments at Montreal’s Allen Memorial Institute included erasing existing memories and rebuilding the psyche; the use of various paralytic drugs; and keeping certain patients in a drug-induced state for up to three months.

SO COULD THE CIA BE BEHIND ALL THIS?

Bearing in mind all these clues relating to CIA-operated mind control programmes, I’m now starting to wonder whether the CIA itself is actually manipulating events on the island. Don’t forget that we’ve already had one direct reference to them during Sayid’s pre-crash experiences in Sydney, which allegedly resulted in him being on the plane in the first place.

The whole “island as Dharma’s commune” angle would tie in since it seems to thow up distinct parallels with real-life commune, Jonestown - rumoured to have been secretly operated by the CIA as part of their MKULTRA progamme. This 70s commune for the People’s Temple cult ended tragically when over 900 members died in a mass suicide-and-murder ordered by its leader, Jim Jones. Bloody events were sparked by the arrival of an investigation committee, massacred in an ambush when they landed at the commune’s airstrip. (All of this could explain TTLG references to “the temple”; Ben’s fear and distrust of the people on not-penny’s-boat; and the inspiration for the airstrip ambush which resulted in Yemi’s death. It could also provide a macabre clue to forthcoming events in the opening episodes of season four).

NEW EVIDENCE! Artz’s weird “the pigs are walking” comment in Exposé could be another clue to CIA involvement, since it’s a reference to George Orwell’s allegorical novel, ‘Animal Farm’. According to the latest issue of British movie magazine Empire (October, p.118), the 1954 animated film version was secretly financed by the CIA’s psychological warfare department.

The new Orchid film is another possible clue, since the head of the CIA at that time was James Jesus Angleton who was noted for his passion for cultivating orchids. And he headed a disinformation campaign known as the Wilderness of Mirrors - which could explain the real “smoke and mirrors” relevance of The Prestige-inspired duplicate bunnies, and the naming of the Looking Glass. It could also imply that all evidence of Dharma’s existence is actually a complex disinformation campaign designed to obscure who’s really in charge of the island (and, perhaps more controversially, that all those time travel indications are merely red herrings!).

I have to say that there seem to be so many CIA or MKULTRA clues and parallels emerging on Lost, that I’d be really amazed if this turned out not to be the ultimate explanation - but hey, what do I know?!

Thoughts please.

H x
.

(*) New info taken from “Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, The Sixties, and Beyond” by Martin A.Lee and Bruce Shlain. It’s taking me a while to plough through it but I’ll continue to post any relevant info as and when I find it.

Those ostensible air drops of supplies without apparent concomitant supervision are pretty good evidence of Hildy's and my contention that Dharma is just a facade.

Hey Robert:
Yup! I doubt the continual food drops were simply to ensure that nobody starved to death before TPTB’s ultimate mission had been completed since there are obviously other forms of sustenance available on the island (fruit, fish, boar etc). So I’m thinking that the food supplies were contaminated with some sort of mind-control drug. Although this would, of course, imply that the Others are innocent pawns in this as well since they’ve obviously been profiting from the food drops for some time.

B.t.w been doing a bit more research into MKULTRA-related mind control programmes tonight and found the following juicy snippets of information over on wikipedia:

1) Project BLUEBIRD was a preceding CIA mind control programme which ran from 1951 to 1953. Assorted experiments were conducted by licenced psychiatrists and included (amongst other things) erasing memories; inducing amnesia; creating new identities; creating false memories; creating multiple personalities; inserting hypnotic access codes in subjects’ minds; and placing brain electrodes in people in order to control their behaviour from remote transmitters. Which seems to confirm the plausability of my theory that the losties have had their memories tampered with, and that their on-island actions are somehow being manipulated by unseen forces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_BLUEBIRD

2) Project ARTICHOKE was a previous incarnation of Project MKULTRA (ie. arose from Project Bluebird in 1951, and was renamed MKULTRA in 1953), and drew together the intelligence divisions of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and FBI. It studied hypnosis, forced opiate addiction and subsequent withdrawal; and assorted methods, including chemical use, to produce amnesia and other vulnerable states in subjects. This one may also explain The Prestige references, since magician John Mulholland was a consultant on Project ARTICHOKE. And it might also explain poor old Jack’s predicament (and subsequent guilt) if I’m correct in thinking that he’s somehow being manipulated to do something against his (on-island “good”) will: a 1952 memo outlining the scope of the project states “Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against the fundamental laws of nature, such as self preservation?”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_ARTICHOKE

Can anyone think of anything on Lost which CAN'T be explained by this theory? I want to see if it feasibly applies to every aspect of what we've seen on the show. So far, just about the only element which still has me scratching my head is Smokey.

H x

All in all, that listing just seemed a bit too unconvincing to be genuine, to such an extent that it was almost as if it was intended to arouse fan suspicion. Oh, and any attempts to “google” Len Cordova always led back to that one IMDb listing - there was simply no other information available about him. Funny, that.

Add some of his work to verify from outside sources. "out of the woods"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GGLJ%2CGGLJ%3A2006-35%2CGGLJ%3Aen&q=%22Len+Cordova%22+%22out+of+the+woods%22[/URL]

http://www.newenglandfilm.com/news/archives/2006/05/dowesandes.htm (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GGLJ%2CGGLJ%3A2006-35%2CGGLJ%3Aen&q=Len+Cordova+%22out+of+the+woods%22)

[URL]http://www.aspenfilm.org/index.cfm?S=6:3:2&EID=38

http://audience.withoutabox.com/festivals/event_item.php?id=800&fetch=details

"horrorvision"
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-35,GGLJ:en&q=%22Len+Cordova%22+horrorvision

http://www.amazon.com/Horrorvision-Special-Michelle-Mellgren/dp/B000056AYK



There are a lot of people that have a limited "web presence." The fact that he's a second-rate actor playing primarily 2 bit extra roles certainly doesn't help. Len Cordova is an actual actor though.

The next stage of your conspiracy theory is that Len didn't actually appear in the show, and that it was actually Matthew Fox but they hired a no-name actor to attribute the part to. *shrug*

Koralis:
Many thanks for posting those links to Cordova’s body of work - I guess the man really does exist then?! (Sorry for ever doubting this, Len!)

I think we’ve now moved on from debating whether it was MF in disguise playing that part since lostmio seems to have provided fairly conclusive proof from the makers that it wasn’t him. However the question still remains whether they intentionally cast someone bearing a strong ressemblance to their central character, whether any vague similarities were deliberately enhanced or emphasised - and, perhaps more importantly, their possible reasons for doing so.

I’m going to direct you over to lostmio’s fascinating “How Jack might find the island” thread because it’s offering up some interesting suggestions related to Jack/Portuguese man parallels and timeline clues. Hope that whets your appetite!

http://www.thefuselage.com/Threaded/showthread.php?t=84002

Hildy,

I've been messing around with some ideas about quantum mechanics and began to wonder if the sheep's clothing is what we're hung up on.

We see bodies, animated by "souls", which could be interpreted as a sort of energy pattern or field. Now, imagine that "reality" is truly quantum, that matter exists in multiple states simultaneously. What would the world(s) be like if you could swap from one body to another? If this happened unconsciously, what would it be like if you became conscious of that possibility?

Is this why Alpert is immortal, or Mikhail invulnerable?

What if the island hosts a field that facilitates quantum tunneling in the form of being able to switch from body to body? How many real wolves are there that can do this consciously?

As much as i'd hate it, and considering that this is "Lost", I can't throw this possibility out the window. Maybe Season 3 and the trust issues that the losties had with Jack was all a conditioning process for the viewer. They wanted to build it up so as to avoid a backlash...I dunno!!

HearingVoices:
Yet another fascinating post which makes me doubt my own intelligence! But I’m very attracted to your suggestion that souls can switch from one body to another, much like swapping clothes. I’m wary of accepting it as a possible explanation if only because I wonder if the quantum angle would be too “out there” for most viewers to comprehend. Although its potential relevance to Alpert’s apparent immortality and Mikhail’s indestructability is definately intriguing. Plus this could kind of tie in with the whole “parapsychological research” angle mentioned in the Swan Orientation video - we’ve already seen one key example of this when Wayne inhabited Sawyer’s body back in S2, not to mention the whole “fake psychic and his daughter” storyline.

As much as i'd hate it, and considering that this is "Lost", I can't throw this possibility out the window. Maybe Season 3 and the trust issues that the losties had with Jack was all a conditioning process for the viewer. They wanted to build it up so as to avoid a backlash...I dunno!!

You could be right there, Beir. It’s certainly a possibility I’d considered as far back as season 2 when Jack’s character seemed to be becoming increasingly unpopular with the other losties and viewers alike. Plus there’s a new on-set pic of the cast just posted on lostmedia which shows MF awkwardly distanced from the rest of the gang which could add further fuel to the fire ...
100%
A few random thoughts about things not being as they appear to be on the island ...

1) Are the show’s numerous references to “Light & Dark” actually a clue that things REALLY aren’t what they appear to be on the island? Redemption (another key Lost theme) is sometimes referred to as “seeing the light” - but this same analogy is also used to suggest final understanding or meaning of something that’s previously been obscured. Conversely, not knowing what’s really going on is referred to as “being in the dark”. Could also tie in with Adam and Eve’s black and white stones.

2) Artificial/glass eye found by tailies in abandoned hatch. Did someone place it there as a clue that what people are seeing on the island (ie. Dharma) is also artificial?

Fact that this would be such a cryptic clue could tie in with crosswords - we’ve seen Shannon, Locke and Jack filling them out so far although I’m focusing on the two men as possible candidates since I’m assuming their crosswords would’ve been rather more complex and brain-taxing than hers! However, the fact that Jack was able to complete his crossword without mistakes in pen, whilst Locke’s answers weren’t all compatible, makes me think that Jack was the one responsible - ie. Jack is the “right answer” whilst Locke is the “wrong” one.

There’s also a lostpedia theory that Razdinsky placed the glass eye there - so this would tie in with my theory that Jack was the real Razdinsky. We already know both men had photographic memories, but interesting that both also had suicidal tendencies.

However, are we really sure that “Razdinsky” did kill himself? Kelvin admitted that he was asleep at the time - ie. “Razdinsky” may have faked the shooting as a way of getting out of the Swan, and Kelvin simply believed what he thought he saw as the aftermath. Check out wikipedia’s listing on ASH CONFORMITY EXPERIMENTS as proof of the plausability of this idea - it was a series of psychological studies conducted in the early 1950s which successfully demonstrated the power of conformity in groups, namely that a participant would usually accept what he was told he was seeing, rather than relying on his own perception of what he was seeing. (This idea could apply to a heck of alot of Lost, actually!). Interestingly, this same idea was also featured in George Orwell’s 1984 - “see two plus two makes five” - which means it could also explain Jack’s 5 tattoo!

Adding further strength to the suggestion that “Razdinsky” might not actually be dead, even though he appeared to be when Kelvin apparently buried him - Ben drugged a rabbit to make it only appear dead to Sawyer; MKULTRA experimented with paralytic drugs; and the Pikki episode featured a spider with a paralytic venom that made the victim only appear dead. Perhaps even more relevantly, that same episode showed that people aren’t necessarily dead when they’re buried. (Am now wondering if the whole Pikki fiasco was merely contrived so that vital clues could be safely hidden in their episode, since so many seem to be emerging now!) However, if entire Kelvin flashback scene was a fake memory, perhaps Razdinsky is just a made-up persona to explain who painted the map originally.

Can anyone think of any other possible “props” on the island which may have been placed there by someone to show that the whole Dharma thing is a fake?
100%
However, if entire Kelvin flashback scene was a fake memory, perhaps Razdinsky is just a made-up persona

Don’t know if this statement needs some clarification. I meant that Jack is actually the one responsible for everything attributed to Razdinsky including Swan hatch duty, painting the map and the bloodstain on the ceiling. In other words, there never was a person called Razdinsky - it was just a name made up to hide Jack’s previous identity and activities.

Two other thoughts which struck me about the possibility that Jack was previously military. In TTLG showdown with Ben (ie. when we think Sayid etc are shot), Jack says “And what’s to stop me from just snapping your neck”. Would a normal person be able to do this? Or is it relevant that we later see Sayid do just that to one of the Others?

Also, regarding that Swan hatch footage of Jack which Locke saw in the Pearl - still think it’s possible that it was pre-recorded some time previous rather than a live feed. And I didn’t mention before that Jack’s t-shirt was khaki so it could’ve been part of a uniform. (Maybe it’s also relevant that Locke dresses mainly in khaki and that his flashback nickname was “the Colonel”).

Adding further strength to the suggestion that “Razdinsky” might not actually be dead, even though he appeared to be when Kelvin apparently buried him - Ben drugged a rabbit to make it only appear dead to Sawyer; MKULTRA experimented with paralytic drugs; and the Pikki episode featured a spider with a paralytic venom that made the victim only appear dead. Perhaps even more relevantly, that same episode showed that people aren’t necessarily dead when they’re buried. (Am now wondering if the whole Pikki fiasco was merely contrived so that vital clues could be safely hidden in their episode, since so many seem to be emerging now!)

That's what we in Germany call a pink elephant. In the former GDR when musicians feared that their lyrics were going to be censored, they put in something outrageous of which they knew it would be censored out and which would make the part they were originally worried about seem harmless. Exposé definitely proves more and more interesting in that regard. Everybody (including myself, I have to admit) were so enraged about the Pikki disaster that nobody looked twice at all the other small things at first.
Is Radzinsky really dead, or might Jack be him? I'm not yet convinced, but Kelvin did sayexplicitly that he buried him (which leads us to assume that he is, in fact, dead). But he also only had 108 minutes to bury him, and if he didn't take three or four tours of digging, fetching body, putting body in grave, shovelling close, then it must have been a really shallow grave.
Now, anybody know about convincingly faking gunshot wounds to the head? And surely Kelvin would have checked for a pulse, wouldn't he?
(on a short side-note, I'm not yet convinced that Kelvin is dead, either;))

Can anyone think of any other possible “props” on the island which may have been placed there by someone to show that the whole Dharma thing is a fake?
Don't know if that's what you mean, but the "pneumatic tube into nowhere" certainly didn't serve any real purpose for quite some time, even though the Orientation video said otherwise.

Also, regarding that Swan hatch footage of Jack which Locke saw in the Pearl - still think it’s possible that it was pre-recorded some time previous rather than a live feed. And I didn’t mention before that Jack’s t-shirt was khaki so it could’ve been part of a uniform. (Maybe it’s also relevant that Locke dresses mainly in khaki and that his flashback nickname was “the Colonel”).
I'm pretty sure that it's the exact same scene that we've seen "real-time" in Episode 9 or 10 in season two, when Sawyer is lying unconscious in the bunk-bed and Jack is treating to him. I think during that scene he's talking to Kate. I remember that when I saw the scene as the Pearl video feed, I immediately recognised it as that. Not to say I'm never wrong;), but I was very worried about Sawyer and saw those episodes quite a number of times. Okay, more than was healthy, but that's beside the point.:biggrin:

Wow, Hildy! I just finished reading the last few or so of your posts and I must say that I was thoroughly entertained. The backup information that you have for your arguements are incredible! In all honesty, I felt like I was reading an analysis of a real event. Well, what I mean is that while I know that the CIA, etc., information is essentially true, I felt like the LOST storylines were coming to life in your words. Ah, what a great way for a LOST-obsessed fan to spend her day off from work! Thanks!

That being said, I wish that I took notes (what a geek I am, but I'm sure that you understand) so that I could respond with some intelligence. I might have to go back and reread everything and do that later...

Well, I have to say that I have thought for awhile that Dharma is a fake, a total ruse, that was made up to use as a cover for whatever is really going on on the Island - and elsewhere. The best symbol of this arguement is the whole Pearl Hatch versus Swan Hatch situation. There's an intereting parallel there, IMHO. Personally, I think that all the people that we saw jump off the boat and be welcomed to the DI weren't actually the experimenters that they thought that they were; they were some of the test subjects. God knows what was really going on or what they were subjected to or how Ben's/Alpert's/the Hostiles' murder of the supposed DI staff played into all of this, but something is definitely fish about the whole set-up.

Speaking of the DI and whomever is behind what's really going on, I have also always thought that Christian Shepherd was somehow involved in it, as were some of the other Losties' parents, like Kate's dad and maybe even Sayid's "military hero" father. I think a lot of the guilt that we see Christian feel is over his own actions in relation to this connection and how it affected Jack - unbeknownst to Jack, though...

So, the Len Cordova thing...there has GOT to be so much more going on with that than what meets the eye, I totally agree there, too. Why even cast someone that looks like MF for such a seemingly small role at the time? IRL, Len Cordova does look like MF (tall, dark-hair and handsome, IMHO, for both of the guys), but TPTB with LOST really accentuated the similarities to the max in that episode. In other words, they seemed to do stuff to Len Cordova's face that made him look, IMHO, even more like MF. It's still definitely up in the air as to what the significance of all of that really is. It makes me think of the twins/clones/dopplegangers/lookalikes on Tom's boat that took Walt in Season One. I often think about those guys because I think if we knew why they were such lookalikes, well, I think it would be a big puzzle piece found and would answer a lot of interesting questions...

Thanks for the great posts, Hildy. Keep them coming!

Plus there’s a new on-set pic of the cast just posted on lostmedia which shows MF awkwardly distanced from the rest of the gang which could add further fuel to the fire ...

Hildy, do you have that link?

Is Len Cordova why "Shephard wasn't even on Jacob's list"?

In the parallel world model of LOST, each person could have an analog in the parallel world. Imagine a group trying to exploit this situation for some gain, perhaps using the method of quantum teleportation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Teleportation) to transfer identities between worlds.

If the parallel world model is what we're working with, then it's possible some of the Lostaways were recruited specifically as "hosts" for such identity swapping.

Perhaps Jack's analog had not been located because he was in an isolated research station conducting surveillance/monitoring.

Hildy, do you have that link?

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1141-2.html

I think that this is the picture that Hildy is talking about. I saw it in LOST magazine's most recent edition and thought the same thing. Everyone is smiling and close to each other and MF is away from the group in an awkward way. I'd draw the line here, though, as far as what we should talk about in terms of what it means. We don't want to get too close to the personal lives side of things...

Hey everyone - lots to comment on here so sorry if I don’t get round to mentioning absolutely everything otherwise we could be here all night!

Kerstin:
Loved the pink elephant info and now definately think the whole Pikki thing was designed to hide highly relevant clues. Regarding Razdinsky’s burial, thanks for picking up on the fact that Kelvin only had 108 minutes to complete the task. So it’s highly probable that the grave would have been shallow enough to escape from. And don’t forget that someone checked Nikki’s pulse and she was still buried whilst alive. Loved your vivid recollections of Sawyer’s convalescence (bless!), but there’s nobody else from those “current time” scenes in the Swan footage - just Jack. I keep putting out a request for someone to please provide a screencap of that footage since it could decide this matter once and for all - are there shards from the broken Virgin Mary statue on the table behind him, because there should be if it’s “now”. PLEASE can someone put me out of my misery?!

Juniebun:
Wow, what can I say?! Thanks SO MUCH for your glowing review. I really enjoy researching and writing all this stuff, but it’s still nice to know that it’s appreciated.

Definately think the Swan hatch vs. Pearl Hatch scenario could be a clue, and I love your suggestion that some of the folks arriving on the island by boat were the test subjects. Also like your suggestion that some, if not all, the dads might be involved here. And Lostmio came up with a cool suggestion as to the potential relevance of obvious similarity between Len Cordova and Matthew Fox over on his “How Jack Might Find The Island” thread, so do check it out if you haven’t already done so. http://www.thefuselage.com/Threaded/showthread.php?t=84002)

Finally, thanks for posting link to that cast pic I was talking about. Definately agree with you 100% that it should be handled with caution. I’m choosing to take it as a sign that there’s something different about Jack in relation to his fellow losties, nothing more. Guys, please let’s leave the unnecessary, unsavoury and totally unfounded accusations of cast animosity to other so-called fansites.

Hearingvoices:
Sorry luv, but I just don’t think this is going to turn out to be something about parallel worlds - I have a feeling it’s going to be something much more “down to earth” than that. Although the “swapping identities” angle is something I’m willing to entertain.

In fact, I’ve just posted something sort of related to this over on lostmio’s thread (see link above and look for my post on page 3 which starts “LOST IS SET IN THE FUTURE - KIND OF!” - if that title doesn’t whet your appetite, nothing will!). It’s about timelines, “time travel” and the potential implications. I’d really appreciate it if you could all check it out and give me your opinion. Cheers.

H x

Also, regarding that Swan hatch footage of Jack which Locke saw in the Pearl - still think it’s possible that it was pre-recorded some time previous rather than a live feed. And I didn’t mention before that Jack’s t-shirt was khaki so it could’ve been part of a uniform. (Maybe it’s also relevant that Locke dresses mainly in khaki and that his flashback nickname was “the Colonel”).

edit: This below doesn't have anything to do with the Jack theory. But I too think he was in the military.

It didn't look like a simultaneous feed in terms of what was going on in the Swan.

The feed that Locke & co. saw shows a clean sink area (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1064-396.html). and here (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1064-432.html).
But the sink should have been messy (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1064-184.html).

The background table has the same stuff on it throughout, so the video and what was going on in the Swan appear to show the same day, with no more than a few hours' difference at the most.

I think it was a live feed, though, and that there was a slight time difference between the Swan and the Pearl, until Des turned the key.
The original Pearl crew were "observing" the near future in the Swan, altho they didn't know it..
(That's part of my theory about time running slower on the island, so I won't go into it here.)

Thanks very much for those picture links, lostmio. Bit confused that you say that “it didn’t look like a simultaneous feed in terms of what was going on in the Swan” and then that “I think it was a live feed” because this seems to be a contradiction- although it’s late and maybe I’m just not reading it properly.

Anyway, the thing that struck me was your pix seemed to prove that it WASN’T a live feed. Not only does the miraculously clean n’ tiday kitchen sink seem to prove this (thanks, babe!) but also if eyesight serves me right, I’m sure that there’s the same old lamp on the table as there was in the opening scenes of “Man of Faith ...” - unlike the sleek black 80s-style anglepoise that’s there when Locke passes the same table in “Adrift”. I’m gonna have to check out the epi featuring this footage again just to make sure the lamp hadn’t changed back again though! Here’s the link to the lamp pix I’m referring to.

http://www.losttv-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18733

Don't suppose you're able to get a close-up on those pix? Can you tell if the statue remnants are there too? I can't tell on my computer and don't know how to enlarge pix (or even if it's possible, come to think of it!). Sorry to keep banging on about this but I'm sure we're onto something here.

H x

Anyway, the thing that struck me was your pix seemed to prove that it WASN’T a live feed. Not only does the miraculously clean n’ tiday kitchen sink seem to prove this (thanks, babe!) but also if eyesight serves me right, I’m sure that there’s the same old lamp on the table as there was in the opening scenes of “Man of Faith ...” - unlike the sleek black 80s-style anglepoise that’s there when Locke passes the same table in “Adrift”.
If that's true, then it says to me that, whether the video feed was live or not, it was not of Swan but of the mock-up of Swan that exists probably in London or Iraq on which Desmond was "programmed".

Robert

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=68108&fullsize=1
http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=68111&fullsize=1

Well that's cleared that up then... :blink: *sigh* I'm going back to bed.

(but when I get up I'm going to get my Season 1 Rewind done so I can get stuck into this - you guys ROCK! :biggrin: )

I'd draw the line here, though, as far as what we should talk about in terms of what it means. We don't want to get too close to the personal lives side of things...

Agreed. It seems to be an "outside the Lost plot pic" to me.

Thanks for enlarged screencap, SamG, VERY much appreciated! So it definately is the "old" lamp on the table. I'll check the episode again and see if everything else on the table is different from the surrounding "now" scenes and get back to you.

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1141-2.html
I'd draw the line here, though, as far as what we should talk about in terms of what it means. We don't want to get too close to the personal lives side of things...

I just want to point out Jorge and where most of the girls are.

HIC also doesn't seem to be in the group either, like MF.

Bit confused that you say that “it didn’t look like a simultaneous feed in terms of what was going on in the Swan” and then that “I think it was a live feed” because this seems to be a contradiction- although it’s late and maybe I’m just not reading it properly.
That's an allusion to my separate theory that time runs slower on the island in the outside world, and that the EM thingy and button in the Swan may have kept the Swan in sync with real world, rather than island time. I really shouldn't have thrown that in here, so don't worry about it.

I’m gonna have to check out the epi featuring this footage again just to make sure the lamp hadn’t changed back again though! Here’s the link to the lamp pix I’m referring to.
http://www.losttv-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18733
Don't suppose you're able to get a close-up on those pix? Can you tell if the statue remnants are there too? Sorry, I'm no help with close-ups, or the lamp thing, which like many things in the hatch has baffled me. Some of them are due to things being moved around during the passage of time. Others are just weird.

Re the state of the table during the Pearl video: what's on it is the medical stuff Jack used to patch up Michael's shoulder after he shot himself. That's consistent with what SHOULD have been on the table during a simultaneous live feed. I haven't been able to tell if the statue (which they broke to get the heroin for Libby) is on the feed or not.

I've just this week rewatched this episode multiple times to try to get a better grasp of the timeline between the Swan live events and the Pearl video. The only definitive things I can make out are the sink areas and the background stuff on the table. The clean/messy sink contradiction tells us Locke is not seeing a simultaneous feed; the stuff I can see on the table tell us it's within a close time frame.

If thie follwoing confuses you, ignore it, it's back to my time discrepancy theory: The clean sink area in the Pearl video feed does have a folded dish towel on it. When we see that folded towel on the sink from the Swan perspective, Locke and Eko have already exited the Pearl. Therefore - in my biased mind - it's one more supporting piece to my theory that folks in the Pearl were watching "future" events in the Swan. The Pearl and Swan stations were a trial and/or training ground for observers to be able to monitor the "future" in the outside world.

Reading those posts I just realised that we weren't talking about the same thing. Concerning the scene in the Swan as seen from the Pearl, I wasn't talking about what Locke and the others saw when they discovered the Pearl, which all of you supplied with screencaps.
Rather, I was talking about the scene from Exposé, where Ben and Juliet are in the Pearl and watch the Swan-feed of Jack. While not the exact same shot and angle, the shot they saw was simliar to this one (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-829-157.html) from season 2, Episode "What Kate did". I'm fairly sure, but the Exposé screenshots seem out of order on Lost-Media and I couldn't find the corresponding picture.
Not that it's all that important, because we don't have an exact timeframe for Ben's and Juliet's visit in the Pearl anyway. But now at least I know what caused my confusion when you guys were talking about broken Holy Marys, dirty sinks and tables :biggrin:

That's an allusion to my separate theory that time runs slower on the island in the outside world, and that the EM thingy and button in the Swan may have kept the Swan in sync with real world, rather than island time.

it's one more supporting piece to my theory that folks in the Pearl were watching "future" events in the Swan. The Pearl and Swan stations were a trial and/or training ground for observers to be able to monitor the "future" in the outside world.

This seems like a key insight, Lostmio! In the context of this thread, is it possible that the Losties, through their experiences on the island, are being trained for some task in the future? After they are trained, they are re-injected into "outside world time" to accomplish whatever their hidden task is.

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=68108&fullsize=1
http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=68111&fullsize=1

What I noticed, and I don't mean it from a superficial POV, is that the stuff around the sink is exactly the same in both pictures, but Jack/MF is only in one of them. Why would the exact same dishes and silverware be there in the two shots that were not in the same timeframe?

Thanks for enlarged screencap, SamG, VERY much appreciated! So it definately is the "old" lamp on the table. I'll check the episode again and see if everything else on the table is different from the surrounding "now" scenes and get back to you.See my above comment. Can someone explain what I'm missing here?

I just want to point out Jorge and where most of the girls are.

HIC also doesn't seem to be in the group either, like MF.Jorge seems like he's "just one of the girls". Lots of physical closeness in the picture - for the most part.

This seems like a key insight, Lostmio! In the context of this thread, is it possible that the Losties, through their experiences on the island, are being trained for some task in the future? After they are trained, they are re-injected into "outside world time" to accomplish whatever their hidden task is.If this or something like this is true, HV, is the task in the future going to be accomplished on the Island or off of the Island? Are the Losties being trained in a past version of what's going on on the Island only to redo it, so to speak, in a future "clean slate" version of everything? Like a do-over or something?

If this or something like this is true, HV, is the task in the future going to be accomplished on the Island or off of the Island? Are the Losties being trained in a past version of what's going on on the Island only to redo it, so to speak, in a future "clean slate" version of everything? Like a do-over or something?

I don't know, Junie. But, the insights in this thread have me thinking far more critically about the sequencing of the scenes we're being shown. I think we've been shown that, according to TPTB, there is no way to truly change fate (ala the experiences of Desmond and Charlie), which would normally leave people with a sense of futility once they were confronted by fate (e.g., they were aware of what their future held in store). However, I think that through the example that Charlie set, TPTB have set the philosophical tone that even if you know your fate, it is your choice how you deal with that knowledge. Will you use it for good or for ill, or will you just roll over and accept it?

However, I think that through the example that Charlie set, TPTB have set the philosophical tone that even if you know your fate, it is your choice how you deal with that knowledge. Will you use it for good or for ill, or will you just roll over and accept it?You know, HV, this statement really struck a chord with me. If we take what you just said and apply it to what Jack in the FF seemingly wants to do, then, well, I think that he's doing, or wanting to do, just what you said. The trouble is, though, he seemingly needs Kate (and possibly some of the other Losties) to do it with him (so to speak). At the end of this thing, I think we will see Jack and Kate (and possibly some of the other Losties, but I'm thinking just Kate and Jack right now) make the ultimate sacrifice (TPTB have said that Jack and Kate have the ultimate relationship) for the benefit of the world. In other words, they will sacrifice themselves to save humanity. They will do what Charlie did, but on a bigger scale, and they will willfully Choose to do it...

What I noticed, and I don't mean it from a superficial POV, is that the stuff around the sink is exactly the same in both pictures,.

The two pics you linked are both from the Pearl video, so of course they're the same!
They DON'T show what was happening in the Swan when that video was coming through.

Undeniably the Pearl video showed a clean, tidy sink area, with a folded dishtowel.
Yet the sink area was not in that state at the time Locke & Eko saw it.
The clean sink area and the folded dishtowel did not appear until after Locke & Eko left the Pearl.
That's the point I was making.

I posted links to the LostForum screencaps, because that's all we have online. They're a treasure, but they miss a lot, and they don't really show all that went on in "?".

If you'll rewatch that pertinent parts of that episode, you'll see the difference between the Pearl video and the happenings in the Swan, and also get the timeline.

If you've got the dvd - which is what I used to review, contrast, and compare - then the difference will jump out at you, and you'll wonder "how did I miss that?". Ditto a dvr of the episode.

JACK SHEPHARD AND HOWARD WOLLSTEIN:

So far, the only Dharma employee we’re fairly sure we’ve witnessed is Marvin CANDLE, otherwise known as Mark WICKman and Edward HaliWAX. This made me wonder whether Jack, as a fellow Dharma employee, also had any other names which could be subtly inter-related.

During the Lost Rewind for Walkabout, a number of us noticed that Claire mentions the name of a crash victim called Howard Wollstein during the memorial service. And that he was supposedly sitting in seat 23C at the time of the crash - the only seat mentioned during her tribute, and conveniently one of the Numbers. However, we’ve never seen a ‘Howard’ in any of the in-flight flashbacks. And, despite telling Rose that he was sitting in 23A and Ana-Lucia that he was in 23B, Jack was actually sitting in 23C at the time of the crash. Add to this the fact that Claire mentions Howard Wollstein just after Kate asks Charlie if she knows where Jack is. Could Jack be Howard Wollstein?


This seat 23C/Howard Woolstein thing is the most fascinating tidbit I have seen on these boards in quite a while. And, Hildy, I like your Manchurian Candidate inspired scenario.

But the thought did cross my mind, that Howard Woolstein could have something to do with someone else who has a seat on row 23. Then it hit me;

Ooh, wow! It's Nadler!!!

(Okay, so that is a cheap anagram for Howard Woolstien. Still, what was Bernard Nadler's seat? Was it 23E or 23C?)

So, the possibility of Jack as a "Sleeper Cell" DHARMA agent is interesting, to say the least. Maybe, it isn't DHARMA that he's connected to, but someone else? I think that the DI was cover for something else, for whatever is and was going on. There was a rumor last year that someone's mother's father's hairdresser's dog watcher's boss' grandmother saw MF/Jack in a full, crazy beard being pulled/guided by the arms out of a strange building or cave. Someone saw this, supposedly, being filmed. Does anyone else remember this rumor? Funny that it was said last year and it talked about Jack in a big beard...
Sorry for the confusion, lostmio. Thanks for the clarification, too!

Sorry this is such a lengthy post but I’ve got TONS of new ideas to hurl at you guys. But first a quick reply to comments made in my absence:-

Juniebun:
That spoiler sounds like it was referring to Jack’s flashforward - nothing more. I don’t think they’d be filming anything for future seasons that far in advance, as it sounds like they have enough on their plates as it is (although I could be wrong).

Mr_Find:
Glad to have you on this thread! Interesting comment that 23C could’ve been Bernard’s seat but surely he would’ve been sat directly next to her, not across the aisle?

Lostmio:
Oh dear. I’ve rewatched the epi containing Swan footage of Jack and despite unexplainable “suddenly tidy sink” EVERYTHING on the table seems to match what was on it in scenes happening concurrently in the Swan. Darnit! So can we just call a halt to this particular conversation and agree that it most probably WASN’T pre-recorded. Otherwise I might get embarrassed that I was so right-royally WRONG!

OK, onto new stuff:

Despite Hildy’s ****-up with the Swan footage (thought we were glossing over that!), I’m still convinced that Pearl Hatch scene was relevant so perhaps I’ve simply been focusing on the wrong aspect. After all, it seems that someone was providing numerous clues that the Pearl hatch and its contents were important in some way - bloomin’ enormous makeshift “?” marking its location; video monitor left on, ready and waiting for viewing; computer also left on, ready and waiting to print out data concerning keying in the numbers. So what could it all mean ...?

The “?” could be a clue that the “Dharma” identity of the hatch beneath is also questionable. Or that entire “Dharma” presence on the island is questionable since the “?” is only visible from a distance (ie. need to take a step back and look at the “bigger picture”). It’s quite a cyptic clue so it could tie in with my previous crossword suggestion.

The orientation video seemed to confirm that the Swan hatch task was bogus, merely part of some observational research. And the end-point of the pneumatic tube later revealed that the Pearl task was also most probably bogus (or at least abandoned at some point). So this could be a complicated clue that the computer data and any orientation films/videos found in the Pearl were also bogus - and that someone was trying to alert the losties to this fact since compute and monitor were on and waiting to be used.

Still think its relevant that we only saw Jack in that Swan hatch footage - ie. a clue to viewers that Jack is also not what he seems? (Not giving up on this one yet!). Also think its relevant that we later saw Paulo in the Pearl hatch - ie. his presence on the show is also a sham, and his unpopularity was intentionally designed to obscure vital clues in the Exposé episode? (b.t.w I think I’ve uncovered another one too - but more on that later).

Another admission of failure - Desmond IS faceless man in opening shots of epi 2.1 (you get a fleeting glimpse of his face as he gets down from the bunkbed). Darnit! But I STILL think the opening shot of the eye is Jack. And I STILL think it’s possible that Jack was previously stationed in the Swan. In fact, this could be the simple explanation as to why he didn’t need to be told the entire sequence of numbers more than once by Desmond in order to remember it - ie. had been involved in the task previously and had subconscious memory of this. So if he’d previously been in the Swan, it’s possible he’d also previously been in the Pearl as I suspect - could explain why he was so convinced that the numbers procedure wasn’t real, since the Pearl occupants were also aware of this. And I’m still convinced the whole “entering the numbers” business was merely a form of mind-control to tie participants to the Swan hatch since it effectively prevented them from attempting escape for fear of the (non-existent) consequences.

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM = POSSIBLE JACK PARALLELS?!

Have slightly revised my initial theory that Jack is a Dharma mole on a secret if unwitting mission that could seriously harm the losties. I saw The Bourne Ultimatum yesterday and it seemed to throw up some interesting possible parallels with Jack’s story. The entire Bourne trilogy is based on the premise that the hero (“good”) had a hidden previous identity (“bad”), and follows his attempts to uncover the disconcerting truth. Apologies to anyone who hasn’t seen the latest film yet, but it’s eventually revealed that military man David Webb had volunteered for a mind-control programme which turned him into CIA assasin Jason Bourne. I now think this is kind of what Jack is all about too. Any badness hidden in his identity relates to what he was previously trained to become - NOT what he is now (phew!)

Also, mention of the CIA in this film made me think of this ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image%3ACIA.svg
http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image%3AJulietmark.jpg
http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image%3A008.jpg

CIA logo is based around a “COMPASS STAR”. Which could also explain previous suggestion (by 42ndfloor?) that Jack’s arrow-like tattoo is a compass setting. Plus Sayid couldn’t get compass to work properly because of island’s magnetic properties but could this be subtle clue to hidden CIA involvement? (ie. the “bad” compass = something else bad which looks like a compass).

Originally thought that TPTB had branded Jack with the tattoo - either as a form of ID or punishment, much like Juliet was branded by the Others with a similar marking as punishment. But I’m now wondering whether Jack’s tattoo was a clue to himself in anticipation of having his memory tampered with - much like the character in the movie ‘Memento’ who is unable to remember his immediate past so tattoos any clues on his own body. It would certainly tie in with my suggestion that Jack had previously left assorted clues on the island as to what was really going on there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_%28film%29

YET ANOTHER PIKKI CLUE?

This one relates to my theory posted over on lostmio’s thread, that events in the pilot happened after Jack’s so-called flashback. (http://www.thefuselage.com/Threaded/showpost.php?p=1644632&postcount=24) I suggested that IF this was true, it proved that the post-crash scenario the losties woke up in had to have been staged because it obviously couldn’t have happened on the same day as the “real” crash (reportedly Wednesday 22nd September 2004). One key piece of evidence would be the newspaper clipping taken from a 2007 edition of the Los Angeles Times since it effectively dated Jack’s “flashforward”.

Then I remembered the newspaper that Paulo had in the “pre-crash” airport scenes of Exposé. It’s dated Thursday September 24, 2004 but two things wrong with this - it doesn’t match the date the crash supposedly happened, and there WASN’T even a Thursday September 24th (ie. the 24th was a Wednesday). In other words, Paulo’s newspaper was from a day which didn’t actually exist.

Now, I realise that Script Coordinator Gregg Nations has confirmed that this was a prop error which “somehow” slipped everyone’s attention until after the episode was aired. But I wouldn’t put it past the makers to tell “little white lies” in order to maintain the Lost mystery for as long as possible - and I certainly wouldn’t mind or blame them for doing so. Especially since the newspaper date probably wouldn’t even be noticed by the vast majority of “regular” viewers. I never noticed the date at the time and only read about it later.

So ... is it possible that Paulo’s newspaper was a hidden clue that none of the losties were ever on the plane, since the day they supposedly got on it didn’t actually exist?!

H x

Coming soon - Jack and Christian!

Still think its relevant that we only saw Jack in that Swan hatch footage - ie. a clue to viewers that Jack is also not what he seems? (Not giving up on this one yet!). Also think its relevant that we later saw Paulo in the Pearl hatch - ie. his presence on the show is also a sham, and his unpopularity was intentionally designed to obscure vital clues in the Exposé episode? (b.t.w I think I’ve uncovered another one too - but more on that later).


Jack's also the one seen in the other Swan footage viewed by Ben & Juliet. The image shows him from the back, apparently sitting and tending to Sawyer, when Sawyer was out from the infection.
I'm like you - why just show Jack? Both times there were other Losties in-the-box.
edit: And for that matter, how did Juliet and Ben know he'd be there? They came specifically to see him.. it's all so confusing.

Now, I realise that Script Coordinator Gregg Nations has confirmed that this was a prop error which “somehow” slipped everyone’s attention until after the episode was aired. But I wouldn’t put it past the makers to tell “little white lies” in order to maintain the Lost mystery for as long as possible - and I certainly wouldn’t mind or blame them for doing so.I long ago decided that all these date/prop errors are done on purpose, for the very reason you say.
100%
I STILL think the opening shot of the eye is Jack. And I STILL think it’s possible that Jack was previously stationed in the Swan. In fact, this could be the simple explanation as to why he didn’t need to be told the entire sequence of numbers more than once by Desmond in order to remember it -

Or - to come at it from a different direction: Jack also instantly memorized the combination to the armory, when Locke gave it to him. So, maybe he's got a photographic memory. Kelvin said Radzinksi had a photographic memory.
Did Radzinkski really die? Was he Jack, teamed up with Kelvin on some sort of undercover military thing?

Yeah, I think I’ve mentioned that Razdinsky photographic memory angle in relation to Jack before. Am SURE Jack was Razdinsky, or at least the person responsible for anything accredited to Razdinsky.

Not convinced R did die - read earlier post on my staged suicide angle. Another possible clue to this? The fake suicide reminded me of Romeo’s fake suicide in Romeo & Juliet - which could explain Juliet's name!

Not sure that Kelvin ever did exist since we’ve only seen him in flashbacks, which I think are all fake implanted memories. But by same token, this would imply that Des and Jack hadn’t met each other in the stadium if those memories were also fake, so how could they recognise each other on the island. Unless they were previously stationed together in the Swan ....

By the way, now think it’s probable that Jack had previous psychiatric experience. Partly because it’s the only way to tie my various theories together (any excuse, eh?!) but also because it could explain why he was so convinced that the Swan Hatch task was merely some form of mind control. (Think he says as much to Locke tho need to check). The irony could be that current events on the island could be a result of a series of mind-control tasks that he originally set in motion, and now they’re being turned against him.

The orientation video seemed to confirm that the Swan hatch task was bogus, merely part of some observational research. And the end-point of the pneumatic tube later revealed that the Pearl task was also most probably bogus (or at least abandoned at some point). So this could be a complicated clue that the computer data and any orientation films/videos found in the Pearl were also bogus -
I think you can scarcely go wrong figuring something on Lost is fake.

So ... is it possible that Paulo’s newspaper was a hidden clue that none of the losties were ever on the plane, since the day they supposedly got on it didn’t actually exist?!
Sure, it's possible. However, I think far more likely was that the newspaper he was given was fake, like the one in Robert Anton Wilson's Masks of the Illuminati.

Where else have we seen someone on Lost reading a newspaper obit? That was Helen, reading of the ostensible death of the soi-disant Anthony Cooper. What would be the easiest way for Cooper to have faked his death? Simply to plant a phony newspaper saying so in the hands of Helen, who is known to read obituaries regularly. No need for anyone else to think a certain Anthony Cooper had died.

I'm sure that's how Mr. Zuckerman "died" too. To quote Robert Heinlein's Job, "You didn't check history. You checked history books." Even if you had the powers of a god to change the universe, if all you have to do is convince a particular person, you don't change the universe, you just plant some documents.

Robert

At the end of this thing, I think we will see Jack and Kate (and possibly some of the other Losties, but I'm thinking just Kate and Jack right now) make the ultimate sacrifice (TPTB have said that Jack and Kate have the ultimate relationship) for the benefit of the world. In other words, they will sacrifice themselves to save humanity. They will do what Charlie did, but on a bigger scale, and they will willfully Choose to do it...

Maybe they are Adam and Eve in the cave then. The story will have to come back around in some way, but maybe that's why they were going to call it "The Circle" in the first place?

Hildy, in your second to last post you got the day wrong, September 24th 2004 was a Friday, not a Wednesday. Just in case you come around and find the time to edit, it confused me quite a bit ;)
And just on a side-note: I'd have appreciated you putting the end of the new Jason Bourne movie in spoiler tags. Normally I don't mind people making movie comparisons, but I'm going to see the movie tomorrow, and by the time I realised I had already read it.
But, now let's put all the nagging aside because I just realised something in your last post which I hadn't realised before.
You know that I'm not a buyer of the falsely-implanted memory-theory. Still am not, but Jack and Desmond are an interesting fact. If the memories and flashbacks are fake, there is nothing to explain how Jack and Desmond know each other when they first meet. So there needs to be another explanation for their knowing each other, which would give a boost to your Radzinsky theory. Not only that, it would also explain why everybody else didn't recognise the people they met in their flashbacks. And TPTB effectively made the entire second season about six degrees of separation and about our Losties already having met before being on the plane.
True enough, one could also argue that they don't remember each other because their meetings were so short (like Ana-Lucia meeting Sawyer when Christian opens the car door into him). Interesting thought. Not convincing enough for me yet, but worth pondering over. I'm going to go and check whether there are any Losties who probably should remember their flashback-meeting but don't, maybe something will come out of it. Off to the connections-thingie on my DVD. Or on the net.

You know that I'm not a buyer of the falsely-implanted memory-theory. Still am not, but Jack and Desmond are an interesting fact. If the memories and flashbacks are fake, there is nothing to explain how Jack and Desmond know each other when they first meet. So there needs to be another explanation for their knowing each other, which would give a boost to your Radzinsky theory.

Kerstin, I'm not much for false memories either. I figure if someone can abduct groups of people and implant memories en masse, they don't need to do all the other complex scheming associated with that theory.
I'm not ruling out a few selective mind control attempts, as suggested by some, but I've yet to see any evidence of success. The Karl brainwashing video was laughably crude and ineffective, imo intended to show us the futility of such efforts. As late as Claire's abduction, we saw that at best the result is exceedingly fragile.

I'll point out though that Des and Radzinksy never met. Imo, the Des / Jack meeting and reunion storyline worked beautifully, just as we saw it. Whether the intitial meeting was accidental, we'll see.
If Jack is the Radzinksy that Des heard so much about, it strains suspension of disbelief - but in a very Lost-like way. The writers tend to favor coincidence and 6th-degree separation things.

I will get round to Jack and Christian, but first - I think I’ve made an important discovery whilst trying to interpret what Jack’s fake memories of his father could represent. It’s complicated and I’ve tried to address this issue from every angle so please excuse the length. And bear in mind that all this hinges on my theory that the losties have been brain-washed, the flashbacks are false memories, and events in the “flashforward” happened BEFORE the pilot. Because everything is starting to come together nicely ...

THE BODY IN THE COFFIN WAS MICHAEL - SORT OF.

I think “Michael” was a close friend of Jack from way back when, and that Jack’s fake flashbacks provide the clue to this. In the childhood bullying scene, Jack has a friend Marc Silverman who is hurt because of, in his view, his inability to help him. I think Silverman represents Jack’s subconscious memory of Michael, and this particular incident represents Jack’s sense of guilt towards him - either because he was unable to protect his friend or because he felt responsible for him being hurt. Obviously the bullies represent TPTB. The fact that both men are children in this memory may reflect a childhood connection, or a more recent past alliance (Michael designed or built the Dharma hatches?!), but more likely it’s simply representative of their innocence and vulnerability in their current predicament.

The fact that Silverman is shown as a friend into adulthood (ie. best man at wedding) shows that the relationship was a strong one. Also wonder whether “flashback Sarah” represents Jack’s desire for a normal life and all that that entails (ie. Jack is being prevented from leading a normal life and Christian has played a role in this - think about it). So Silverman playing a role in their wedding (ie. start of a new “normal life”) suggests Michael was helping Jack once he initially escaped from the island following his “fake suicide”. Same analogy could confirm my “fake suicide” theory since Sarah almost died when they first met, and was apparently left paralysed for a short while after (ie. Jack used a paralytic drug to make him appear dead, in his efforts to escape the island and attain a normal life). Blimey - Hildy is considering taking up psychiatry!

So how does M. Silverman become M. Dawson? SILVER is a precious metal and D’OR is French for “of gold” - so it seems to reflect a “treasured” friendship. SON = next generation or new incarnation of a MAN. Which kind of implies that “on-island Jack” was subconsciously still aware that “Dharma” test subjects were being brain-washed into thinking they were somebody else. (ie. now think Project DHARMA something to do with re-incarnation, by giving people new identities based on memories taken from dead people). Silver > gold. Man > Son. Clever, eh? Don’t forget the makers have said that every single name is relevant.

I think Michael’s real name was “J...antham” and he was tortured and abducted by TPTB in their attempts to track down Jack. Jack was horrified to read about his friend’s apparent death and realised TPTB were close to finding him.

Fact that “Michael” appeared dead when found also relates to my “fake suicide” theory - he’d actually been drugged to appear dead (like Pikki, or Ben’s bunny), and the doorman either misinterpreted what he was seeing or was part of the cover-up. B.t.w I lurve that Harold Perrineau was previously in movie ‘Romeo + Juliet’ because it also ties in lovely with my “fake suicide” theory. Apart from the fact he’s a brilliant actor (esp. in that movie), I wonder whether this made him even more appealing for the role. Especially since he played Mercutio, a close friend of Romeo’s who dies as a result of that friendship! I just bet this was the inspiration for Jack and Michael’s actual relationship. (Also think this analogy explains Juliet’s name).

Eko’s flashbacks relating to the fake psychic’s daughter show that it was possible for a coroner/funeral parlour worker to be fooled into thinking a subject was dead when they were still alive. Although it’s also highly possible that the staff of Hoffs Drawlar Funeral Parlour were part of the conspiracy. (Think the “flashforward” anagram was a red herring, especially since the place was probably a front - it’s the page the newspaper clipping is on, B4, that’s the important clue to the timescale of these scenes!) Either way, the “corpse” in that coffin was Michael - or was meant to be. Jack had to deny that he was either friend or family because he had to hide his actual connction. Also, the men obviously (?) weren’t blood related, but perhaps Jack felt that he no longer deserved to be called a friend because he felt responsible for his death. This would also confirm why he was so upset when he read about it in the newspaper and, perhaps, why he attempted to kill himself soon after (“Lord forgive me”).

I initially wondered whether Jack’s return to the island was simply to find his friend. But I don’t think it was because he was already a guilt-ridden drunken addict before he read the newspaper, and was already taking as many flights possible in a desperate attempt to get back to the island. Flashforward dialogue implies that he felt directly responsible for whatever wrong had to be righted, but it’s doubtful it was the fate of the “survivors” of Flight 815 because he says he didn’t care who died in the plane crash he hoped would get him back. I therefore think he was trying to help the Others - the victims of some terrible psychological experiment which had gone wrong, who were now starting to kill innocent people in the misguided belief that Dharma was all real (ie. the Purge). It’s beautifully ironic, isn’t it?!

I think Jack realised that “Michael’s” death was actually some kind of cover-up - the man had been living in a very expensive area of Los Angeles so why else would he be taken to a funeral home in an impoverished run-down part of the city? This explains why Jack didn’t bother to open the coffin - he knew it would be empty. In other words, Michael had already been revived and was being brain-washed so that he could take part in the peverted events on the island. (TPTB could’ve just murdered him to keep him quiet but why waste a valuable potential research “bunny”?).

This would explain why Christian’s coffin was empty on the island - it was just a vision, Jack’s disturbed psyche’s way of interpreting actual previous events in his now muddled mind. Especially since this particular vision was prompted by Jack’s inability to save Joanna from drowning - ie. yet again he felt responsible for somebody’s death. I also think Christian’s death wasn’t real, just Jack’s subconscious depiction of his wishing his father was dead for what he’d done to him. (Definately think Christian was actively involved in his son’s brain-washing now.) Anyway, this would explain why the coffin debris wasn’t there when Jack returned to the caves later - and why he never attempted to look for his father’s corpse to bury it. Which obviously means Christian is still out there somewhere! (Phew - if I’m right, you’ve got to hand it to the makers for coming up with something so spectacularly clever and twisted!).

Only glitch in this theory is that “J. -ntham” was reportedly survived by a teenage son and we’re presuming that would be Walt. But in the pilot events he’s reportedly only around ten, and I’m convinced the flashforward took place before then. Plus Jack had the memory of Marc Silverman whilst on the island, which proves that Jack knew and felt responsible for something which happened to Michael BEFORE the “crash”. I seriously doubt that Jack’s memory of Marc Silverman was a psychic vision of something which would happen to his friend in the future. Apart from anything else, I think the whole FAKE psychic episode was a clue to this NOT being a possibility (interesting I took the Hoffs Drawlar explanation from same episode. And that Claire is linked to the fake psychic. I don’t think Claire’s related to Jack in the way that we’re being led to assume, or that Desmond’s psychic either - but more on that another time!) So how else can we explain Walt’s age discrepancy?

It’s highly probable that Walt DID have special powers. Maybe this explains the “Dawsons” previous link with the island. In which case, if TPTB had been experimenting on children, it’s possible that it could’ve affected their growth. So whilst Walt physically and mentally appeared to be much younger, he was actually a teenager (ie. like a mirror version of young woman with reproductive organs of someone much older, in Not In Portland). Could explain makers’ comments regarding how they’re going to explain child actor’s actual growth in relation to the show’s timeline. And could explain why Michael appeared not to know how old his son was.

Another possibility is that Walt wasn’t even his real son, merely another test subject given the fake identity of “Michael Dawson’s” son. This would explain why Walt says in flashback “you’re not my father” (ie. because he wasn’t), but why mention the teenage son in the newspaper clipping? It has to be that Walt was Michael’s real son, but Walt didn’t regard him as his father. In Walt’s subconscious, “Michael Dawson” wasn’t his father - “J. -ntham” was.

(B.t.w I can also tie all this in with Kate’s refusal to attend the funeral but it hinges on my suspicion that Jack and Kate are related so I’ll leave that one for another time!).

If my theory is correct, it would prove that the flashforward occured before the pilot scenes and the post-crash scene we witnessed was staged. I rest my case. Again.

H x

Kerstin:

First off, I’m REALLY sorry for not using spoiler tags for that Bourne revelation. But I thought it was obvious from the first film what had been going on. And the movie’s been out ages so I thought it likely that everyone would’ve already seen it anyway if they were intending too. Can’t apologise enough. If you only knew how much it bugged me when people ruin the endings of films for me, you’ll appreciate how distraught I am about this. So please forgive me.

And thanks for pointing out error in my posting about Pikki newspaper. I got the info from lostpedia and didn’t bother to check it against the calender on my computer - my wrong! Previous attempts to edit posts have all gone disasterously wrong so I'm not even going to attempt to rectify it, but please feel free to edit if it you want.

H x

Then it hit me;

Ooh, wow! It's Nadler!!!


My bad. I messed up on the spelling of the last name of Howard W. It is, of course, Howard Wollstein, not Woolstein. Therefore, I actually exclaimed (in my little mental coversation with self):

"Who? Wow, It's Nadler!!!"

Just wanted to clear that up. Anyway, I have a question for Hildy: If Claire formulated the list of deceased passenger through wallets provided by Sawyer (what a big heart!) and perhaps through surviving passengers who talked with the deceased during the flight, then how is it possible the man we call Jack Shepherd is the same person as Howard Wollstein? It seems these are two different people, from what I can tell, but I may not be understanding your thesis correctly.

__________________


On another person mentioned in the eulogy by Claire:

CLAIRE: ....Emmanuel Rafael Ortiz, Los Angeles. Turned 32 just last week... must have had children... video store receipt lists her overdue charges for Willie Wonka and Little Princess. Looks like he uh... hadn't traveled much... as far as I can tell from his passport.

I'm a little fuzzy here on if Ortiz was a male or female. But either way, that person's bio reminds me of Hurley or Ana Lucia (Hispanic, from Los Angeles and age possibly in early thirties). As far the anagram (sorry, folks):

Emmanuel Rafael Ortiz = Funeral Memorial Zeta

Zeta is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. So if there are time loops going on, then that means this is the sixth time they are holding this funeral memorial for the passed Oceanic passengers.

That's all.

Lostmio: I still don't buy into the false-memory theories as a whole, and I agree with the points you made. I just think that if there is something to that theory, it would explain those meetings which the people involved don't remember. But personally, I still find the concept of six degrees of separation far more fascinating, maybe also because it's something I can wrap my mind around, as opposed to the false memories.

Hildy: No harm taken about the movie spoiler. I wrote the post in the heat of the moment. The movie hasn't been out for a full week in Germany yet. I've seen the other two some time ago, but in all honesty I don't remember much of them, anyway, so the movie is going to be a big puzzle to me no matter what. :biggrin:
Concerning your long post above, all I can say is: it was nice until this point, but I can follow you no further :biggrin: Don't get me wrong, I still find your theory interesting to read, but by now it's simply too far off rom what I can or want to accept as a possible way for the show to go. I'll still keep my eyes on this thread, though, you can rest assured of that. Jack not being what he seems is too interesting a thought to give it up.

My bad. I messed up on the spelling of the last name of Howard W. It is, of course, Howard Wollstein, not Woolstein. Therefore, I actually exclaimed (in my little mental coversation with self):
"Who? Wow, It's Nadler!!!"

I didn't quite get how you made the jump from Wollstein to Nadler in your first post, I have to admit.
However, no matter if you say Woolstein or Wollstein doesn't make all that much of a difference since "Woll-" is a German short form of "wool", the way it would be used nouns contracted of two individual nouns. If you translate the name you end up with "Woolstone".
Interesting, and I only noticed this now, is that Nadler, which is Bernard's last name, is also of German origin.
Nadel, which I'm sure was at some point part of the origin of the word, is the German word for "needle". Needle, Wool, Shepard?
Not convinced it means something, since I don't know what Bernard's got to do with Jack, but I just thought I'd mention it here.

I didn't quite get how you made the jump from Wollstein to Nadler in your first post, I have to admit.

Just having fun with the anagramming of Howard Woolstein...or is it Wollstein?

Or Wollstien?

:)

kerstin:
Sorry my latest post tipped you over the edge but hope you’ll come back to visit us from time to time!

Mr_Find:
Original Mr Wollstein perished in the real crash, but I think he became a “victim” in the faked post-crash setting too in order to make it seem as realistic as possible. Jack was never on plane (as physical entity or memory), just given fake memory of being there in seat 23C. Certain other losties had to be fed additional info to back up this wrong perception. Only problem was, they might’ve started to wonder what Harold’s corpse was doing in seat 23C since Jack was sat there at the time as far as they remembered. So TPTB manipulated Jack to get the wreckage burned as soon as possible to hide the evidence. Have sneaky suspicion Harold’s hand was visible hanging down from the wreckage over the pilot episode credits.

Am not going to even try to explain the can of worms this theory now opens up - it’s all too deep and complex for me! Suffice to say it involves what really constitutes a person - their physical form or their memories. And it kind of explains all those psychedelic references since Timothy Leary believed our ultimate memories were locked deep within our DNA and they could be accessed with LSD. Far out, man!

Wish I could see the manifest Hurley used for his census. Debateable whether Hurley even looked for Jack’s name on the list, or just automatically assumed he’d be on it because he saw him in the “immediate” aftermath.

Your Emmanuel Rafael Ortiz character does sound like a man, and very like Hurley - right down to assumed taste in films. Interesting H interacted with Walt, who I think was put there along with Michael as part of the Jack cover up. Also interesting that “his” numbers play such a key on the island. So is it possible Hurley is also unwitting Dharma agent who previously played key role in setting up the numbers task?!

Need to go lie down in a darkened room now. My brain’s hurting.

H x

Suffice to say it involves what really constitutes a person - their physical form or their memories.

Earlier this year I read Douglas Hofstadter's I Am a Strange Loop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop), that talked very eloquently about precisely this!

On the wiki page there is a quote:

In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.

Fascinating stuff (I recommend it. He's chatty, but very approachable.) Very simply (caveat: my interpretation of what I remember reading), we create loops in our consciousness that get "shorthanded" or simplified as we accumulate more loops and more details for the loops. Our memories are really just a series of mirror reflections, a sort of illusionary hall of mirrors, that extend backward into our awareness. Imagine that each "image" is an experience; they're piled one atop the other, fading into our pasts.

In the context of LOST, and who these people really are, it seems plausible that someone could project false images, or signals that interfered with existing images, in the minds of our Lostaways. Imagine how disorienting that would be! Your "old" shorthand routines would malfunction (e.g., you might hallucinate, being unable to comprehend what you were seeing) or false shorthand-codes would ring hollow to your sense of what is "true".

Recovering your true self -- all the memories, codes and shorthands that make you a "self-perceiving, self-inventing, little miracle of self-reference" would be a herculean task! (And would make a cracking good yarn, don't you think?) :biggrin:

Hey HV:
Exactly! I think the whole point here is, regardless of what fake memories the losties have (possibly!) been given, their instrinsic memories or “true selves” may still come to the surface in some way, even if it is a convoluted subconscious version of that true self. I previously referred to this in relation to Jack’s subconscious memories of a past friendship with Michael (ie. memories of an actual past friendship with Michael are represented in his psyche as memories of a contrived past friendship with Marc Silverman). But he’s probably a bad example to use because I suspect his memories are almost entirely “man-made”.

So leading on from my suggestion that the remaining losties have had the memories of the real crash victims implanted in their minds, can you think of any other characters whose on-island behaviour or attitudes doesn’t seem to match what we know about them from their “flashback” personas?

The whole scenario raises complex questions with relation to what actually constitutes a person - their memory, or the vessel which houses it. For example, did "Charlie" die in the crash or in the Looking Glass? Which part of him is the real “him”. Compare Jack’s “it doesn’t matter who we were” to Charlie’s “memories are all i’ve got”. Who is right? And is there a right answer?

Mr_Find:
Original Mr Wollstein perished in the real crash, but I think he became a “victim” in the faked post-crash setting too in order to make it seem as realistic as possible. Jack was never on plane (as physical entity or memory), just given fake memory of being there in seat 23C. Certain other losties had to be fed additional info to back up this wrong perception. Only problem was, they might’ve started to wonder what Harold’s corpse was doing in seat 23C since Jack was sat there at the time as far as they remembered......

....Wish I could see the manifest Hurley used for his census. Debateable whether Hurley even looked for Jack’s name on the list, or just automatically assumed he’d be on it because he saw him in the “immediate” aftermath.

In the original post you wrote, "Could Jack be Howard Wollstein?" But from your reply here I am concluding they are two different people and Jack's connection to Wollstein is that the latter's ticket has his seat where former was actually seated (or so was in the implanted memory).

My questions: Was Wollstein's body brought to Lost Island or not? Did Claire eulogize a body that was not on the pile?

As for the census, I would assume Jack's name would be on the manifest. If this was a manipulation and Jack and Woolstien are the same, then wouldn't the manipulators make sure to include Jack's name on it?

Hildy, pease take me asking all these question as a sincere compliment. I wouldn't bother if I didn't think a theory interesting.

Thanks.

In the original post you wrote, "Could Jack be Howard Wollstein?" But from your reply here I am concluding they are two different people and Jack's connection to Wollstein is that the latter's ticket has his seat where former was actually seated (or so was in the implanted memory).

My questions: Was Wollstein's body brought to Lost Island or not? Did Claire eulogize a body that was not on the pile?

As for the census, I would assume Jack's name would be on the manifest. If this was a manipulation and Jack and Woolstien are the same, then wouldn't the manipulators make sure to include Jack's name on it?

Hildy, pease take me asking all these question as a sincere compliment. I wouldn't bother if I didn't think a theory interesting.

Thanks.

Erm ... it was a theory in progress?!

When we originally spotted the “Wollstein in seat 23C” thing in the memorial service, alot of us thought it was weird that this was the only passenger whose seat was mentioned and that, despite telling Rose and Ana-Lucia that he’d been sitting in either seat 23A or 23B, Jack was actually sitting in seat 23C at the time of the crash. As if to emphasize the point, Claire’s mention immediately precedes Kate asking Charlie if she’s seen Jack. Add to this the obvious parallels between Wollstein (literally “wool-stone”) and Shephard, and I began to suspect that one name or identity was a disguise for the other.

I now have serious doubts that the flashforward was a glimpse at the future (actual or possible), and wonder instead whether it was showing what happened BEFORE the pilot. In other words, the show started with Jack’s eventual success in returning to the island. Which would kind of explain all the “time travel” and “lost time” references, because it would mean that we’d been glimpsing into the future (ie. to events after 2007) when we started watching the show back in 2004 and had, in effect, been doing the time travelling ourselves.

If this were true, it would mean that Jack obviously couldn’t have been in a crash which we’re told happened in 2004 because everyone on that plane died (re: Naomi and Anthony Cooper’s comments) and he was still alive in 2007. Which means he can’t literally be Wollstein because Wollstein allegedly died in the crash. Also, Jack’s name has to be genuine because its referred to repeatedly during the flashforward - “Dr Jack Shephard” saved the people from the burning car, and Kate says she’s seen the reports on the news. All of which means Jack has to have somehow assumed the identity, or position on the plane, of Wollstein.

I doubt the body retrieved from the fuselage was the real Wollstein, although I’ve said before that I wonder whether we saw the “prop” Wollstein’s hand hanging down from the wreckage at the end of the pilot episode opening credits. But of course, this still raises the question of the manifest which you rightly point out should’ve contained Jack’s name if it was meant to be a thoroughly convincing “prop” - in which case, what was Wollstein’s name still doing on it? The only thing I can think of is that it was a prop error on the part of TPTB. Which would be deliciously ironic because it would mean that all the so called prop-errors on the show are actually a clue that the fake crash setting itself also contained a prop error or two.

One final point. People have been rightly questioning my suggestion that the losties are mind-control test subjects who have been set up to assassinate Ben - after all, why not just send in the heavies and be done with him? But if this is all set on some complex and morally questionable research station, it stands to reason a) that they’d try to avoid any risk of destroying it in the process and b) that they’d take advantage of any further opportunity to test their work. It’s easy just to send in the heavies, but much more useful (and perverted) if they can test how successful their mind control programme has been in the process. In other words, it’s a case of “killing two birds with one stone” - which could explain the two “Hurley birds” we’ve seen.

Of course, all of this could just be wishful thinking on my part and my theory is completely wrong, but I’m convinced I’m on the right track. So please do keep asking those questions because it helps me to get things straight in my head, and ensures I’m getting my point across correctly.

H x

My questions: Was Wollstein's body brought to Lost Island or not? Did Claire eulogize a body that was not on the pile?
.

Claire apparently got the eulogy info from a variety of sources. An attempt was made to say *something* about each person. If personal belongings - (movie tickets, photo album, passport, drivers license) - were found, they used those.
If not, they used the manifest. Anyone whose name was on the manifest and who wasn't on the beach was presumed to be dead. It's doubtful they attempted to match bodies (numbers or names) to manifest. A point was made that the fuselage interior was a grim place, and they had other priorities.
Attempts to match bodies to manifest would be futile since there were many bodies presumed fallen when the plane fell apart first over water, then again over land.

Jack told Ana Lucia his seat number was 23B, so that's what was on his ticket and the manifest. I don't think Jack would have purchased two adjoining seats, in two different names.

The manifest showed Wollstein in 23C.
We know he was wasn't seen on Jack's row during the flight. Jack moved over to vacant 23C.

However, I think Wollstein WAS in 23C, on a different plane. In the Exodus boarding scene, one of the clips shows a man - not Jack - sitting in 23C.
The plane(s) we saw, both boarding and in the air - was lightly loaded, with vacant seats beside every Lostie. One theory is that the manifest combined the seating for both planes.
That's one of a few dozen pieces of evidence that made many of believe Exodus showed two different planes, a theory I've just revived on the Two Planes Redux thread.

Erm ... it was a theory in progress?! When we originally spotted the “Wollstein in seat 23C” thing.........


Claire apparently got the eulogy info from a variety of sources. An attempt was made........

Kate asks where is Jack and Claire then announces Howard Wollstein and the seat 23C, which is where we saw Jack seated in the flashbacks. I'm pretty sure this odd juxtopostion of character lines was intentional. It's what does it mean that gets our brains in nots. (I hear ya' about sometimes needing respite in a dark room, Hildy. :) )

My alternative take on this is Bernard was seated in 23C across the aisle from Rose, and not 23E. They intended to sit next to each other, but erred in buying their tickets not realizing there would be an aisle between them. Bernard went to use the bathroom. Jack takes seat 23C to talk with Rose, so the the odd juxtoposition of lines at the Eulogy make sense. Where (was) Jack? Answer, seat 23C.

Remember my anagram: Howard Wollstein = Who? Wow, it's Nadler!!! I don't even buy that this was intentional by the producers. But, by coincidence, I can buy into that Benard Nadler is an alias used by Howard Wollstein, and this will be explained in a flashback we are yet to see. Rose might not even know her husband's real name. I think Bernard/Howard may turn out to be key character (I have a theory I've discussed on these board's before, that has Bernard as the mysterious man in the coffin.)

My theory accepts there was one flight. But I look forward to seeing your theory, lostmio, on the two flights. Why only certain characters are seen in other character's flashbacks from the flight (in the Pilot and Exodous episodes) has crossed my mind before, and I have thought about there being two flights for a long time now, but never could come up with a theory to explain it. I look forward checking out that thread next.

Keep up the good work, Hildy. I'll be reading this thread regularly as your theory evolves.

Thanks.

MORE: Thanks, lostmio, for your take on Claire's eulogy. I was wondering if Claire eulogized names from the manifest when she didn't have wallets and so on. Apparently all she had was Howard Wollstien's seat number from the manifest, and not a wallet. Perhaps that is because Wollstein was one of the passengers who fell out of the plane when it broke up....or he was a presumed dead Tailie. (You know who I am talking about. :biggrin: )

Mr_Find:
Love your idea that Wollstein could’ve been Bernard. But there is definately an empty seat to Rose’s right and I’m sure that he would’ve wanted to sit directly next to his wife. Especially since they were recently married and she was, as far as he was aware, recently miraculously cured from cancer. Plus your “Who? Wow it’s Nadler!” anagram doesn’t work. You don’t get “who”, you get “wol” with Wollstein or “woo” with Woolstein. Sorry.

Lostmio:
You suggest that the names mentioned during the eulogy were either taken from the assorted remains they found on the beach or taken from the manifest. But how do we know the manifest had been found by this point? There’s no indication that it had. And if someone had already used it to match survivors to the names on it, why would Hurley then need to repeat the task for his census later? It would already be marked with who was dead and who was alive (we know there were plenty of pens on the island, since Boone collected them up for Jack). And someone presumably would’ve told Hurley who was dead and who was alive when he questioned them and explained what he was doing. It definately seemed to me that all the evidence was based purely on the belongings they retrieved (like the wallet Sawyer gave to Claire), or perhaps from the corpses themselves no matter how gruesome the task. Just a suggestion, but perhaps the manifest was planted in the wreckage at a later date specifically to arouse suspicion about Ethan.Strange it materialised soon after Hurley had explained his census idea to Jack!

Am still trying to reconcile the “Jack and Wollstein both in 23C” thing. Could it be something to do with the fact that Jack was meant to be sitting in 23A but later moved to 23C when Charlie brushed past him? I dunno, this one’s got me stumped for the moment. But I’m still convinced that there’s something important about this even if we can’t work out exactly what it is yet! However, I’m really intrigued by your comment that there’s a man sitting in seat 23C in one of the Exodus scenes so gonna check it out.

Regarding your intriguing two planes theory. Could this tie in my with suggestion that the losties have been given the memories of dead passengers from previous crash(es)? Considering my theory that Jack was never actually on Flight 815, I initially wondered whether perhaps one plane-load was “genuine” passengers (ie. crash memories kept intact) and the other was people who’d interacted with Jack at some point (ie. given manipulated memories to explain his “alien” presence). The main people in the first group you list do seem to follow this idea - Jack interacts with Locke, Charlie and Rose plus Charlie runs across Shannon and Boone’s aisle. However, I’ve previously suggested that Michael is really “J.-antham” and he was put on the island as part of the Jack cover-up. In other words, “Michael” wasn’t on the real flight either, just made to think he was. Which would mean that, as another “alien presence”, all the people on his list would also had to have had their memories manipulated to accomodate the presence of someone who wasn’t really there at the time of the crash. (ie. Michael boards with Walt who interacts with Hurley). Any suggestions as to how to tie our two theories together?

B.t.w don’t know if this fits in with your two plane theory. I re-watched the pilot episode again earlier and can confirm that the position of the fire extinguisher in Charlie’s in-flight flashback definately doesn’t match it’s position when Jack later retrieves it to open the cockpit door. In the flashback it’s at the bottom right-hand side of the fold-away seat (visible for just a split-second in the episode but clearer in the making-of documentary), but Jack later retrieves it from above the “same” seat. Could this confirm your two planes theory? Or does it confirm my own theory that the post-crash setting is all a fake?

Also - everybody, I need your help! During this same repeat viewing, one fairly major thing struck me:-

THE CORPSE IN THE TREES IS NOT THAT OF THE PILOT!

I watched this episode on my laptop so was able to turn the screen around to get a better look at the face and it looks nothing like the character we’d just been introduced to as the pilot. I initially wondered if this was just a case of prop dummies rarely looking like the person they’re meant to, as any of you who’ve ever visited a Mme Tussaud’s Waxworks will probably be able to testify. But the hairstyle is totally different too. The corpse’s hair is long enough to hang down at the back onto the collar, but the pilot we saw previously in the cockpit had a very short, neat hairstyle which simply isn’t long enough to do that. I seriously doubt this is just a sloppy prop error.

http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image%3APilot_Part_1_Pilot_Dead.jpg
http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Image%3AThePilot.jpg

Do you think I’m right, or am I simply seeing clues where there aren’t any? Because if I am right, it could explain the long-held rumour that there’s “a vital clue in the pilot”. Although it still leaves these unanswered questions:-

1) If the corpse isn’t the pilot’s, where is he now?

2) Who’s corpse is it? It can’t be the co-pilot because his body fell from the cockpit when the door was opened. And the cabin-crew wore blue shirts, not white.

3) Is the corpse actually a real person? It’s too high up to judge for Jack etc to judge and the arrival of Smokey prevents further investigation. If it’s just a “prop dummy” it would confirm that the entire post-crash setting is indeed just a set-up.

4) Why did Jack say it was the pilot? Possible that he automatically assumed it had to be him because of what he’d just seen back at the wreckage, especially since the eye is drawn to all that blood on the torso rather than to the head. But he kind of evades the question when Kate asks him if he witnessed what happened:-

Charlie: What is ...
[ie. about to say “it” in reference to the bloody mess in the trees]

Jack: It’s the pilot.
[ie. confirms “it” is indeed the corpse in the trees]

Kate: Did you see it?
[ie. strong implication she’s referring to what just happened to the pilot, as in “did you see it happen?”]

Jack: No. It was right behind me, but I dove into the bushes.
[ie. note Jack turns “it” around to mean Smokey]

5) In which case, is Jack deliberately deceiving Kate and Charlie knowing that they’d be unable to check the corpse to confirm its identity?

6) In which case, did Jack kill the real pilot and that’s why he disappeared when they were being chased by Smokey, only to emerge from the bushes with suspiciously hand-like muddy marks on his t-shirt?!

7) In which case, does this prove that Jack really is aware of what’s really happening on the island?!?!

So many questions ...!

But how do we know the manifest had been found by this point? Hurley got it from Sawyer. It makes more sense than not that Sawyer retrieved it from the fuselage, back in the earlier episode (before the eulogy scene), when Jack went in after medicine and caught him looting. (Flight attendants usually keep the manifests, so it makes sense that it would be with the fuselage, and not the cockpit wreckage.)

And if someone had already used it to match survivors to the names on it, why would Hurley then need to repeat the task for his census later?They did it roll call style, which is different from census.
A roll-caller starts with a list, i.e. the manifest. When a name is called and no one says yo,that person is marked absent. Ethan's name wasn't "called", but no one was looking for extra people, they were looking for absent people.
A census-taker starts with the person, asks them their name, then looks on the list to see if their name is there. That's how Ethan was caught.

And someone presumably would’ve told Hurley who was dead and who was alive when he questioned them and explained what he was doing.Again, Hurley would say "what's your name?", then look at the list. If he'd found some person marked dead/missing, his reaction would likely have been as extreme as when he found Ethan, who was not on it.

Strange it materialised soon after Hurley had explained his census idea to Jack! It didn't just materialize. Hurley went straight to Sawyer and asked for it, knowing Sawyer had looted the plane.

Am still trying to reconcile the “Jack and Wollstein both in 23C” thing. Could it be something to do with the fact that Jack was meant to be sitting in 23A but later moved to 23C when Charlie brushed past him? Jack was assigned to 23B. He moved to 23C when the turbulence started. Actually he was standing up, looking like he was going somewhere (many of us think he was going to see Ana Lucia, per their airport bar conversation). When the first big bump came, he sat down abruptly.

Regarding your intriguing two planes theory. Could this tie in my with suggestion that the losties have been given the memories of dead passengers from previous crash(es)? Any suggestions as to how to tie our two theories together?I'm not at all on board with any implanted memory theory. I know folks like to suggest memory implants as an explanation for actions, but to date there's been no script or screen evidence to suggest or support it.

B.t.w don’t know if this fits in with your two plane theory. I re-watched the pilot episode again earlier and can confirm that the position of the fire extinguisher in Charlie’s in-flight flashback definately doesn’t match it’s position when Jack later retrieves it to open the cockpit door. IGood point. I've long thought the mismatched fire extinguisher and the backwards logo thing on the glass were frame reversals done for aesthetic or action purposes. But I'll rethink that.

can you think of any other characters whose on-island behaviour or attitudes doesn’t seem to match what we know about them from their “flashback” personas?

My quick answer to that would be Locke (para-military survivalist vs. box-maker) and Sawyer (con-man vs. dabbler in literature). I haven't rewatched any episodes, so I'd probably need to spend some time thinking about other characters, but I think that is a great question!

Mr_Find:
Love your idea that Wollstein could’ve been Bernard. But there is definately an empty seat to Rose’s right and I’m sure that he would’ve wanted to sit directly next to his wife. Especially since they were recently married and she was, as far as he was aware, recently miraculously cured from cancer. Plus your “Who? Wow it’s Nadler!” anagram doesn’t work. You don’t get “who”, you get “wol” with Wollstein or “woo” with Woolstein. Sorry.


Hildy, I'm glad you cued me on the error in my anagram before I kept on propagating it over and over again. (Scratch my brilliant plan for a Who.WowItsNadler.com). But, taking a mulligan on that first one, here is my second (or third) shot:

Howard Wollstein = "Wow, it's Nadler! Hol-"

In that anagram, the speaker stops himself before making something unholy out to be holy. I call that good manners (and maybe a bit of a stretch as far as anagrams go. :) )

As for Rose and Bernard, I would think they would want to sit next to each other, as well. But airlines don't look kindly on seat switching, so maybe Bernard figured he might as well sit in the seat he bought.

One more argument for Bernard Nadler being Howard Wollstein is that these are both names that could be for a Jewish person. I know if I were to adopt an alias I would pick one that closely matched my ethnicity or background. Just a thought.

Thanks.

7) In which case, does this prove that Jack really is aware of what’s really happening on the island?!?!
Actually I think each of Jack, Kate, and Charlie had been told that they would be the only ones who knew what was going on. Each was playing dumb for the other two.

S1E10 Boone: You know, your life would be so much easier if you just had the manifest. We crossed out all the names of the dead after we burned the fuselage, so it should be a full roster of the rest of us.
S1E10 Hurley: Sorry, dude. Lots of names and faces. It's pretty pathetic, huh? You'd think after a couple of weeks on the island with the same people we'd all know each other.
S1E10 Hurley: Uh, we're doing this list, you know, survivors, names, home addresses, stuff like that.


Jack was getting up to leave when Charlie ran by and the turbulence started

Rose: Oh, I know. I've just never been a very good flyer. My husband keeps reminding me that planes want to be in the air.
Jack: Well, he sounds like a very smart man.
Rose: I'll be sure and tell him that when he gets back from the bathroom.
[Severe turbulence]
Jack: Well, I'll keep you company until he does. Don't worry it's going to be over...

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-3-387.html Jack started out at the window seat

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-3-389.html got up and Charlie passes

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-3-404.html turbulence and keeping Rose company.

My take on it.
23A and B. When Jack went to Australia he was expecting to bring Christian back. He did not know when he purchased the tickets that Christian was dead. If he bought a refundable ticket, you can cancel up until the time of your flight, that's how stand-by people get their seats. Jack would still have Christian's ticket and no one stand-by people used that seat on the flight.

Whenever I've flown the flight attendents have been very accomdating in switching seats after everyone has checked in.

LostHatch (http://www.losthatch.com/transcripts.aspx) has great searchable transcripts.

Lostmio:You suggest that the names mentioned during the eulogy were either taken from the assorted remains they found on the beach or taken from the manifest.

Hildy, I closely rewatched the episode, and it appears Claire did indeed take most of the names from effects: she either holds or mentions things like passports, boarding passes, etc.

Found something weird when I played the dvd. Claire says: "John Wollstein, Howard Wollstein, 23C". I had captions on, and they show 23C but not either name. I've never heard anyone mention the part about John Wollstein. The John is kind of faint, but I replayed it many times, there's definitely two Wollsteins in there, right together.
Also, it's not 100% that the 23C is associated with Wollstein. Her intonation is such that the 23C could go with the next - unheard - name.

That IS an odd cut, tho, from Claire to Jack, as she reads it. Along with Kate's "where's Jack?"

Even more odd, imo, is the cut in the Exodus boarding scene: the quick switch from Arzt to Jack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIzvXLw07-A&mode=related&search=) (at about 2:40) as they're putting their stuff in overhead bins. Each one is standing in the same place (by row 23) on the plane and makes the same move.
Further, Arzt means "physician" in German, and the writers made sure we got the correct spelling on it, by having him spell it out for Hurley.

23A and B. When Jack went to Australia he was expecting to bring Christian back. He did not know when he purchased the tickets that Christian was dead. If he bought a refundable ticket, you can cancel up until the time of your flight, that's how stand-by people get their seats. Jack would still have Christian's ticket and no one stand-by people used that seat on the flight.



Makes sense. Jack told Ana what seat was his ticket, which technically was 23B. The seat for Christain (23A) was unoccupied, of course, so Jack sat in it. Jack told Kate where he sat, seat 23A -- nothing factually wrong there.

Where was Jack at the time of the plane's downing? Seat 23C. Which brings us all back to who had the ticket for seat 23C, that being Howard Wollstein. Still can't totally rule out him being Bernard (though even I concede it may not be probable). Can't rule out someone else. Someone we saw in the terminal in Exodous maybe? Was he using the middle bathroom, so that is why Bernard had to use the tail bathroom? Did Bernard, Charlie and Wollstein flush their toilets at the same exact time which, combined with Desmond's screw-up, caused the downing of the Oceanic 815??? :eek:

Simul-flush theory in development. Don''t touch. It's all mine.

SamG:
Thanks so much for posting that dialogue from episode 10 relating to the manifest. It’s obvious now that someone found it early enough to use when they were identifying the corpses, and that Sawyer then took possession of it until Hurley needed it for the census later. Another Hildy conspiracy thankfully bites the dust!

Lostmio:
VERY nice catch on the John Wollstein thing! Hadn’t noticed that before since, as you say, the surrounding memorial dialogue is indistinct (and “John” isn’t mentioned in losthatch transcripts), but will definately check out the scene again. So it does seem to imply that there was a possible father-son duo sitting in row 23. And the dialogue immediately following does seem to tie them to Jack in some way.

One thing which struck me was that perhaps the initial Wollstein father-son duo were sitting in seats 23A and 23C. Since the original actual Flight 815 was long-haul, it’s quite possible that they’d asked to have a vacant seat between them - I usually make the same request when travelling long-haul with colleagues just because it’s more comfortable than being crammed together for hours, and airline staff are usually willing to accomodate the request wherever possible. So perhaps Jack rightly refers to having a ticket for Seat 23A because that’s the seat allocated to John Wollstein. We simply jumped on the 23C thing because that’s where Jack was when the flight supposedly crashed. But it was actually his “father’s” seat and he’d gone to the bathroom at the time (like Bernard’s example, like Mr_Find highlighted).


So perhaps we’ve been coming at this one from the wrong angle. Maybe John Wollstein was used as Jack’s cover-story (since Jack is a derivative of John), and the clearer mention of Howard Wollstein was intended to refer to his father. Lostmio: does the person sitting in 23C in Exodus scenes look old enough to be an adult character’s father? It’s not Christian, is it?!

Two ways to take this now, depending on your answer. Either Christian was killed as part of the cover-up, put on the fake plane as the fake “real dead father of John Wollstein”, and any remains were later innocently burned in the memorial service. Or the mention of Howard Wollstein is a clue that the FATHER of the person who adopted the identity of “Howard Wollstein’s son” is the real “wolf in sheep’s clothing”. I personally think this is the more likely scenario, although I still think Jack is not all that he seems hence the shared Wollstein surname. I now think it’s highly probable that Christian was involved with TPTB and was directly responsible for Jack’s current predicament. I also have a feeling that Jack’s FAKE “flashback memories” of Christian’s death, and his later VISION of Christian’s empty coffin in the jungle provide clues to this. But it’s a lengthy process analysing and clarifying their potential hidden meaning so I’ll have to get back to you on this one ...

Meanwhile, NONE of you have been able to confirm my suspicion that the corpse in the trees wasn’t that of the person we’d previously been introduced to as the pilot! Please can you take a look at those pictures or the actual episode and tell me what you think. If only to put my mind at rest.

Cheers, H x

Meanwhile, NONE of you have been able to confirm my suspicion that the corpse in the trees wasn’t that of the person we’d previously been introduced to as the pilot! Please can you take a look at those pictures or the actual episode and tell me what you think. If only to put my mind at rest.

Could be real, could be fake.

Back in S1 there were massive threads on all the forums debating and analyzing this . The discussions pretty centered around whether it was a dummy. Not many folks proposed it was an altogether different corpse.
If you take a poll (and many have), you'll get different results depending upon when you take it. Right now, after all the new stuff we've seen hinting at a conspiracy, you'd get more people saying the death was faked.

Long post short: it's impossible to know until tptb gives us something new on it.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060827043447/www.pressexecute.com/scripts/102_walkabout_goldenrod.pdf Wollenstein isn't mentioned in it. All Claire's dialogue was probably added later on anyway.

Hildy, on the commentary for the Pilot Episode they mention the body in the tree. No, it's not Gregg/the pilot, the tree wouldn't support a real body, it is a dummy, they think looks resonably (Actually they think it relly looks like Greg) like Gregg/Pilot. (It's on the very end of the commentary on the Pilot 1 disc.)

This looks enough like Gregg/Pilot for me. If they expect us to believe in the polar bear, they thought we should believe this is the pilot.

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage.php?pid=13083&fullsize=1

Another thing, I don't think this plays into the story in a big way, we heard from people in the UK that the "pilot in the tree" scene was completely cut out when LOST aired at an earlier time, it was too bloody.

I listened to the DVD I didn't hear John Wollenstein, everyone needs to listen for themselves. I heard

"Wollenstein, Harold seat 23c..... that all he had...was his name on a boarding pass..." (If there were 2 people sitting next to each other, with the same name, Claire probably would have commented on it, she commented on each of the other people, trying to honor them in some small way.)

Jack told Ana Lucia his seat number was 23B, so that's what was on his ticket and the manifest. I don't think Jack would have purchased two adjoining seats, in two different names.

The manifest showed Wollstein in 23C. We know he was wasn't seen on Jack's row during the flight. Jack moved over to vacant 23C.

However, I think Wollstein WAS in 23C, on a different plane. In the Exodus boarding scene, one of the clips shows a man - not Jack - sitting in 23C.
The plane(s) we saw, both boarding and in the air - was lightly loaded, with vacant seats beside every Lostie. One theory is that the manifest combined the seating for both planes. That's one of a few dozen pieces of evidence that made many of believe Exodus showed two different planes, a theory I've just revived on the Two Planes Redux thread.Funny that we've never seen or heard Jack's real or formal first name. That, among other little mysteries in LOST, has always bugged me. I love the idea that Wollstein was on a different plane. That possibility really intrigues me for some reason and it makes me feel like it's the tip of a real, legitimate theoretical iceberg! I really do think now that there were two planes and although I don't know why she really said her piece about flight 815 being on the bottom of the ocean, everyone dead, I think that Naomi's comments were a clue to this theory being right. One other thing - the guy in Exodus in 23C - why didn't we see him in the Pilot at all? Another clue to two flight 815s?

My quick answer to that would be Locke (para-military survivalist vs. box-maker) and Sawyer (con-man vs. dabbler in literature). I haven't rewatched any episodes, so I'd probably need to spend some time thinking about other characters, but I think that is a great question!So, does this just show that any person can have different sides to them, to their personality, or does it mean more, like one type of personality represents the person's real self and the other one is the man-made persona? I don't know if the differences that we saw in Jack and Kate in the FF mean anything related to this question, but wasn't it interesting to see them so different from their Island persona? How will we see the other Losties (if there are any) in the FF from Season Four? Locke as a traditional family man, but he ends up being mean to his kids? Sawyer as the victim of some serious crimes or con activities?

Even more odd, imo, is the cut in the Exodus boarding scene: the quick switch from Arzt to Jack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIzvXLw07-A&mode=related&search=) (at about 2:40) as they're putting their stuff in overhead bins. Each one is standing in the same place (by row 23) on the plane and makes the same move. Further, Arzt means "physician" in German, and the writers made sure we got the correct spelling on it, by having him spell it out for Hurley.So, what does this mean or what are you inferring, lostmio?

Two ways to take this now, depending on your answer. Either Christian was killed as part of the cover-up, put on the fake plane as the fake “real dead father of John Wollstein”, and any remains were later innocently burned in the memorial service. Or the mention of Howard Wollstein is a clue that the FATHER of the person who adopted the identity of “Howard Wollstein’s son” is the real “wolf in sheep’s clothing”. I personally think this is the more likely scenario, although I still think Jack is not all that he seems hence the shared Wollstein surname. I now think it’s highly probable that Christian was involved with TPTB and was directly responsible for Jack’s current predicament. I also have a feeling that Jack’s FAKE “flashback memories” of Christian’s death, and his later VISION of Christian’s empty coffin in the jungle provide clues to this. But it’s a lengthy process analysing and clarifying their potential hidden meaning so I’ll have to get back to you on this one...The whole seating situation is a little bit above my paygrade, although I have to admit that I find it very cool! One thing that I can say that I believe for sure, whether it's right or wrong, I don't know, is that Christian Shepherd is connected to the core of the story: why the Losties are on the Island, what's gone on and is going on on the Island, etc. I don't mean to say that he single-handedly orchestrated everything, but that he was, at one time, involved with the DI or THF....somehow...and might of had a change of heart...

Lostmio and SamG:
I think we’re gonna have to designate the true identity of the body in the trees as “case unsolved” for the moment. I personally believe that it wasn’t the “pilot” because of the obvious hairstyle differences. And Sam’s mention of the makers’ offical explanation for the corpse could actually confirm that it really was a dummy which TPTB planted for the losties to mis-identify. (ie. it was a dummy which looked reasonably like Greg/Pilot, and the tree wouldn’t support the weight of a real person - could be taken both as real-life explanation and real-show explanation). But I’m prepared to put this “clue” to one side until we get any further evidence one way or the other.

Juniebun:
I also definately think Christian is a key part of what is happening on the island. Currently putting something together on this one so watch this space. And thanks for bringing up the apparent inconsistencies between certain losties’ flashback personas and their on-island traits, notably Locke and Sawyer as mentioned by HearingVoices. I was just about to get round to this topic when I read your post ...

Let’s assume that you’ve been brain-washed and given a new identity based on the memories of someone else who has died. You now totally believe that you are that other person. But would your own original personality be completely consumed by that new identity, or would traces of “the real you” still remain deep in your subconscious?

I believe that traces of “the real you” would still remain, and I think we’re seeing this with the losties. So no, I don’t think the inconsistencies between their flashback personas and on-island behaviour are a simple reflection of the different sides of one person - it’s more a case of reflecting different sides of TWO different people.

I’m convinced TPTB harvested memories from the DNA of dead people (ie. actual victims of real Flight 815 crash, as referred to by Naomi and Anthony Cooper), and implanted them in the minds of our innocent losties. All of them seem to have very vivid recollections of events on the plane up to a certain point when they apparently blacked out - most probably the point when the original owners of those memories died. (Kate is a notable exception since she allegedly didn’t black out and “saw the whole thing” but I’ll explain this one more fully another time).

Whilst the losties THINK they’re those crash victims and have many of their memories and characteristics, subtle traces of their own original personalities are still hidden deep within their psyche. And those traces are being unwittingly revealed in their “unusual” on-island behaviour, or disguised in the flashback memories which aren’t actually their own. Sawyer provides a very good potential example of this idea, so I’ll start with him:

Let’s assume that Sawyer wasn’t always Sawyer, but was simply (!) given the memories of one “James Ford”, a ruthless conman who actually died on the plane which was deporting him from Australia. So who was the real Sawyer? This is all totally theoretical but let’s play around with a few outrageous possibilities ...

1) On-island, Sawyer is a scavenger, a hoarder of “useful things”, keenly interested in the power of words and language (ie. constant reader), has an apparently encyclopedic recall of the zeitgeist, and a very succinct way of summing up people (ie. all those catchy nicknames taken from a vast range of cultural references, which so aptly sum up a person in just a few choice words). All of which makes me suspect that he could’ve been an investigate journalist previously!

2) He has memories of a girlfriend called Cassidy. I’m going out on a limb here, but I think her name is a reference to the actress Joanna Cassidy (they’re very similar physical types actually). She appeared in Blade Runner (1982), which was about “replicants” who have been given false memories and genuinely believe that they’re someone they’re not. She also appeared in Under Fire (1983), where she played the journalist girlfriend of fellow journalist Nick Nolte. Both are on the run because he is capable of unmasking a major conspiracy involving the Nicaraguan army, related to a photograph he’s taken of a guerilla leader who is supposed to be dead.

False memories. People thinking they’re someone they’re not. Journalists in danger because of their attempts to unmask a major conspiracy - I hope you can see where I’m leading ...

3) He has memories of Cassidy telling him he has a daughter called Clementine. This could be a reference to the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, which was about memory erasure and featured a heroine called Clementine. So Sawyer and Cassidy’s “Clementine” could be a subtle reference to their actual “baby”, an article they were working on which was attempting to uncover the true horrific “memory erasing” extent of Project DHARMA. (B.t.w the movie also features a complex distorted timescale so also ties in with my theory that the flashforward occured before the pilot).

4) Cassidy also appears in Kate’s memories, which indirectly ties Kate to Sawyer before the crash happened. I’m still working on this one but it’s possible that Kate alerted the press when Jack was apparently abducted by TPTB. Or they approached her since she was connected to a key Dharma witness who could assist them with their story.

Which brings us to a VERY interesting proposition. Bear in mind that I’m suggesting Sawyer’s pre-crash involvement with Kate effectively “killed” him, because his own “self” was seemingly obliterated when he was brain-washed into believing he was somebody else. Now think back to “What Kate Did” (epi 2.9), when a delirious Sawyer is apparently inhabited by the spirit of Kate’s dead father. He says “Why did you kill me?!” I’m now wondering if this was actually the real Sawyer speaking in his semi-conscious state, and not the spirit of Wayne as we originally assumed due to the surrounding circumstances.

5) He has memories of being an innocent child who was turned into a ruthless conman as a result of a death (ie. his parents). Now wonder if this actually happened, or whether it’s his subconscious’ interpretation of what happened to him at the hands of TPTB. Innocent child = himself as innocent victim at the hands of TPTB / tried to meddle with a sinister organisation which was far more powerful and ruthless than he’d realised. Death = the real him was “killed” during the brain-washing process which turned him into a conman. Killer father = TPTB. Killed mother = TPTB murdered Cassidy?

6) He has memories of an altercation in Australia involving insulting someone in a position of power and authority, and of breaking the mug of the arresting officer, and of the incident resulting in his being on the plane. I’m clutching at straws here but this could imply that Sawyer really is called Sawyer. He’s so cocky and irreverent, with an obvious lack of respect for those in positions of power. Maybe his psyche was too strong for them and he still goes by his actual real name? Maybe the “mug breaking” represents his psyche’s refusal to adopt the entire identity (or face since “mug” is slang for face) which TPTB were attempting to install in his mind?

7) On-island antagonism with Jack from day one. Sawyer seems to hold a major grudge against “Dr Giggles” for some reason. And perhaps the battle for Kate’s affections isn’t the only reason. Maybe he’s subconsciously aware that Jack is responsible for his being on the island in the first place, and he hates him for it. Probably clutching at straws again with this one, but it’s still worth bearing in mind.

So where does this leave us? Here’s a possible scenario. Sawyer is an investigative journalist who is working on a story about a covert and morally dubious CIA mind control initiative, which involves harvesting the memories from the DNA of dead disaster victims and implanting them in hapless test subjects. And he’s getting dangerously close to revealing the truth. In order to silence him, he’s abducted by TPTB who brain-wash him into believing he’s “James Ford - conman”, and place him on the island as part of their evil plan to assassinate Ben.

Thoughts please!

I also have a feeling that Jack’s FAKE “flashback memories” of Christian’s death, and his later VISION of Christian’s empty coffin in the jungle provide clues to this.
I don't know if I've been over this with you yet, but what kind of "vision" of Christian would be depicted in part (as on Lost) by having him appear to us behind Jack's back?

Meanwhile, NONE of you have been able to confirm my suspicion that the corpse in the trees wasn’t that of the person we’d previously been introduced to as the pilot! Please can you take a look at those pictures or the actual episode and tell me what you think.
I'm not exactly prosopagnosic, but I'm bad at recognizing people. Just today I saw someone in a crowd I thought I recognized, but he said he wasn't who I thought.

Robert

Juniebun, re my clumsy attempt to draw a line between Jack and Arzt:
So, what does this mean or what are you inferring, lostmio?. That's a fair question, one that deserves a spec, since I brought it up.
My best guess is that the tenuous connection between Arzt (aka "physician", who in Exodus seemed to be settling in or very close to row 23) has to do with the planes and seating arrangements. In Exodus, he was assisting Claire, another - admittedly tenuous - connection to Jack .
You've asked to climb out on the limb so I will:
Arzt, along with Claire, may have boarded a different plane than Jack.
Arzt and Claire were both Group 2 on the "two planes" theory, re my thread here and many others swirling around since S1.

Tonight I listened to the eulogy by Claire. Below is what I heard. The bold part is a line omitted on every Lost transcript website I have ever seen, but is more or less corroborated by Sam G's post from earlier today. The lines that are bold and underlined are not corroborated and difficult to decipher because the music swells up at that point:


"Judith Martha Wexler from Denton, Texas. I guess she was going to catch a connecting flight. Um, she wore corrective lenses and she was an organ donor, or at least would have been. Steve and Kristen, I don't know their last name, but they were really in love and were going to be married. At least, wherever they are now, uh, they're not alone... Emmanuel Rafael Ortiz, Los Angeles. Turned 32 just last week... must have had children... video store receipt lists her overdue charges for Willie Wonka and Little Princess. Looks like he uh... hadn't traveled much... as far as I can tell from his passport... Wollstein, Harold. Seat 23-C. That's all we have for Harold. A name from a boarding pass. Um , I just received something. Goodbye, now... Millicent, Louise..."

At that point, Claire continues but her lines are indecipherable due to Locke and Michael's coversation. I heard Claire say one line, during a pause in their exchange, that sounded like "picture of her past", but I wouldn't stake my Fuselage membership on it.

On its face, the line, "I just received something. Goodbye, now ", doesn't make much sense. Maybe Claire was reading a note scribbled on the boarding pass. But then why does Claire say it so matter of factly? She was't taken aback by it at all. Maybe it's not from a note, but then it makes even less sense.

I hope others can listen to all of Claire's eulogy, and post what they hear because I may not be hearing it all right.

Thanks.

Good stuff in this thread. Does anyone consider the possibility that there were multiple planes from multiple realities - parallel universes or something?

Het_genie, I personally don't believe that any of this is to do with parallel universes or multiple realities - I think it’s all grounded in an admittedly far-fetched version of real life or fact. But everyone is entitled to their own interpretation or opinion, and I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise.

Lostmio:
Could the Artz angle be related to someone being called “physician” (or “doctor”) when they’re actually not? He’s a school teacher, isn’t he? Pehaps it could imply that Dr Jack Shephard isn’t necessarily a doctor of medicine. We know that has to be his real name because of the flashforward (ie. news footage mentions him by name plus Kate’s seen it and doesn’t query why they’re calling him that). I wonder now whether maybe he’s a psychiatrist (would tie in with mind control experiments on the island), but has been made to think he’s a spinal surgeon. Would make him ultimate unwitting assassin if he’s placed in a situation where he inadvertently kills someone by not possessing the actual specialised surgical skills required (ie. Ben op - ultimate intention of mission?). Realise that Ben survived (only barely though, and was left paralysed as a result) but this could be down to magical properties of the island. Hate using mystical explanations in this theory (because I think it’s all grounded in “fact”) but this one could apply if only because I can’t think of anything else to explain how Locke’s broken leg healed so quickly. Any thoughts?

I don't know if I've been over this with you yet, but what kind of "vision" of Christian would be depicted in part (as on Lost) by having him appear to us behind Jack's back?


DrSuds - presume you’re referring to Christian’s appearance in Claire’s flashback, and not the vision Jack had of him whilst on the island? Please can you clarify before I proceed with this one?

H x

I hope others can listen to all of Claire's eulogy, and post what they hear because I may not be hearing it all right. Thanks.

I've listened to it several more times since my post above, and I agree there's more on the soundtrack. Are you listening to the dvd?

edit: I did a search on the Whispers threads and didn't find this mentioned, so I posted it up there.

what are people hearing? i can't listen where i am now...

DRSUDS - THIS ONE IS SPECIFICALLY FOR YOU!

How many years medical training is normal for a doctor? What's the average age that someone would graduate from medical college? Yes, it's related to Jack and it possibly ties him to someone else on the island. Theory in progress at the moment but I'm a bit excited at what I think I've discovered.

SamG - keep an eye on this one, babe, because your Numbers thread prompted it!

Lostmio: Could the Artz angle be related to someone being called “physician” (or “doctor”) when they’re actually not? He’s a school teacher, isn’t he?

Hildy, Arzt was a teacher, but may have had a Phd.
In which case, he was a doctor but not a physician. That's why I think name, which the writers had the character spell out for us, might mean something.
Your guess is as good as mine re what that something is.

Lostpedia shows Arzt's bio (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Leslie_Arzt), reportedly written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach.

p.s. I still don't care for the implanted memories theory, but I like YOUR version better than any I've read, so I'll open my mind to it...

Hildy, Arzt was a teacher, but may have had a Phd.
In which case, he was a doctor but not a physician. That's why I think name, which the writers had the character spell out for us, might mean something.
Your guess is as good as mine re what that something is.

Lostpedia shows Arzt's bio (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Leslie_Arzt), reportedly written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach.

p.s. I still don't care for the implanted memories theory, but I like YOUR version better than any I've read, so I'll open my mind to it...lostmio

That's exactly what I was going to say. Many teachers now have Phd's. Good 'ole Sawyer would poo-poo that.

Hildy, Arzt was a teacher, but may have had a Phd.
In which case, he was a doctor but not a physician. That's why I think name, which the writers had the character spell out for us, might mean something.
Your guess is as good as mine re what that something is.

p.s. I still don't care for the implanted memories theory, but I like YOUR version better than any I've read, so I'll open my mind to it...


Erm, thanks - I think! I'm sticking by my theory until the show proves me wrong. And yes please stick around because I really value your opinion. If it makes you feel any better, I don't really agree with your two planes theory (!) but I'm keeping a close eye on it because I think people are uncovering some very interesting information which could tie our two theories together.

Definately now think the Artz thing is to show us that someone can be a "doctor" but it doesn't necessarily have to relate to medicine. Think it also shows that Jack is "Dr" but not of medicine. And of course, Artz's interaction with Claire on the plane indirectly links her to Jack - ie. one was a clue about the other, related to Claire and a doctor who wasn't a medical doctor. Got some theories on this one that I'm working on and will get back to you as soon as I've got something concrete to present.

DrSuds - presume you’re referring to Christian’s appearance in Claire’s flashback, and not the vision Jack had of him whilst on the island?
I was responding to
Jack’s...later VISION of Christian’s empty coffin in the jungle
by pointing out that it followed a vision of Christian itself which I think was not a hallucination. Does it make sense that the coffin vision would be unreal after we were shown Christian appearing on the island behind Jack's back, which to me is unmistakable evidence that Christian was really there?

edit: I did a search on the Whispers threads and didn't find this mentioned, so I posted it up there.

Good idea to get the ears on the Whispers thread working on this one.

what are people hearing? i can't listen where i am now...

My last post, a few up on this thread. Here's a shortcut:

http://thefuselage.com/Threaded/showpost.php?p=1647820&postcount=173

Hildy, Arzt was a teacher, but may have had a Phd.
In which case, he was a doctor but not a physician. That's why I think name, which the writers had the character spell out for us, might mean something.
Your guess is as good as mine re what that something is.

Lostpedia shows Arzt's bio (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Leslie_Arzt), reportedly written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach.


In the Arzt bio it says, Arzt's last name, which is German for "doctor of medicine" or "physician". Link below

http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Leslie_Arzt#Name_confusion

Sounds to me like maybe Arzt failed as a medical doctor, which is why he entered teaching.

How do we know for sure that the "Christian" that Jack saw on the Island was really a real human being versus a hallucination that came naturally from his mind or something man-made?

How many years medical training is normal for a doctor? What's the average age that someone would graduate from medical college?
It's 4 years, after a bachelor's degree. But there's also postgraduate training for MDs.

How do we know for sure that the "Christian" that Jack saw on the Island was really a real human being versus a hallucination that came naturally from his mind or something man-made?
Because at one point they were shown back to back, which means we weren't seeing Christian as someone who Jack was seeing, and not even as the sensation that one may perceive when someone is looking at you. There was another scene in which another figure accompanied by the ice clinking in the glass sound was shown behind Jack, though that time it wasn't clear it was Christian.

It doesn't prove that it was really Christian rather than an impostor, but it shows it wasn't just in Jack's head. Why would they have shown them back to back if they didn't want to indicate this?

Robert

How do we know for sure that the "Christian" that Jack saw on the Island was really a real human being versus a hallucination that came naturally from his mind or something man-made?

I don't think we really know what the Christian apparition was, just yet. But if we connect it to Ben's comment to Locke about imagining a "box" that creates what you really, really wish for, perhaps The Island (or something on the island) created the apparition of Christian... as well as Kate's horse, the Nigerian drug plane, the apparitions of Walt, the apparition of young-Ben's mother, the apparition of Yeni, and other things.

These were all things that people wanted or could have wished for. If we have some sort of entity on the island that can at least partially read minds, and can manipulate matter, both to create things, modify things (the Nigerian drug plane was burnt up in one episode, and was then "unburnt" in a later one) and even heal physical damage, many things can be explained. If we consider that its mindreading is imperfect, we can explain even more, as hungry people will wish for food, the entity will have seen "food" having been brought in for years in Dharma packaging, and so could create food in that form, even though Dharma has long since been driven from the island and would not likely be making food drops to its enemies.

Some people may have better rapport with the entity/island, and so some can converse with what they see, Eko with Yemi, Ben with his mother. Locke and Rose may also have this deep connection, explaining their healings. But Locke's communication with the entity/island was through dreams and visions, until lately, when he was able to see and speak with the olderWalt apparition.

Others have less rapport, and may be able to interact only weakly, as Kate with the horse, or Shannon not able to understand the wetWalt apparitions. Some have even less rapport, and can't interact at all, like Jack with the apparitions of Christian.

Then there may be those with intense rapport, who don't even need to be on the island to produce things, as Walt managed to "conjure up" the exotic bird that he was reading about.

Considering Arzt's interest in bugs and other sciences (yes, he is a science teacher), not something you need for an MD, the study of bugs, this all falls into the Phd category. Knowing the genius and species off the top of your head and knowing that you have found 20 new species, means you have a very good knowledge of entomology. Doctorate doesn't mean he dropped out of med school. This is a term used for Phd work. (Highest degree awarded by a graduate school or other approved educational organzation.)

Also, if Arzt had any medical training at all, when we did the F/B of the crash, he didn't medically help any of the Losties.

S3E14 Leslie Arzt: Uh...ah...ah...um...that is uh...Latrodectus regina. Very dangerous. They call her the Medusa spider. Her pheromones are very strong. One whiff and every male of the species would be here in seconds. [Smiling] Not unlike you I guess

Pilot Episode (http://web.archive.org/web/20070209163741/www.pressexecute.com/scripts/100_pilot_final.pdf) page 46 for the body in the tree.

Considering Arzt's interest in bugs and other sciences (yes, he is a science teacher), not something you need for an MD, the study of bugs, this all falls into the Phd category. Knowing the genius and species off the top of your head and knowing that you have found 20 new species, means you have a very good knowledge of entomology.
Or simply that you're an actor/con man who's memorized his lines well. And I don't mean Daniel Roebuck, although he is good too. (Loved him in Bubba Hotep.)

Thanks for the link Sam - it says there are TWO entities in the woods loud and clear to me.

Terrific! :biggrin: (to quote Charlie though not his sentiment)

Regarding Christian, in that "Lost Survival Guide" they specifically told us that things like Christian Shephard, Yemi, and Kate's horse were from the Losties' pasts, and that the Island is able to manifest them. There was a big debate on my "dnalsI ehT" thread because people said "Well, of course they're Visions. We knew that all along". And I explained that a Vision is purely visual and only the person having the vision can see it, and, like Suds was saying earlier, a Vision can't be behind the person having the vision. But a Manifestation, that's totally different. It's physically there, and everyone can see it. It can be there even when no-one else is around.

There was another comment on one of the PodCasts (around the time of them meeting Mikhail), when Carlton joked that we'd also be seeing a manifestation of Sayid's cat, meaning that was a manifestation too.

For me, that then raises the question of why Mikhail would claim that the cat was his (do the Others interact with these manifestations?), but that's another question.

But yeah, for everyone except Dr Suds (who believes Darlton lie to us) Christian was definitely a Manifestation.

Thanks for that Luc. Nice to see you back on this thread, I've missed you! Am currently working on something about what all the memories (as opposed to visions) could represent but it's taking me longer to put together than I anticipated. B.t.w does my memory serve me right in thinking that you've previously linked Juliet to 9/11? Can't remember the thread so would appreciate link. Not sure if it's directly relevant to what I'm working on at the moment but could be.
Cheers.

Hi, Hildy,
I've been following the thread all along. Just didn't really have anything to add.
Right now my overall concept of what might be going on is changing quite a bit, and so it's hard to "get into" a lot of the discussions that are going on round the board because I'm not really sure what I think.

And yeah, Juliet + 9/11 was something I tied into my Jaws of Death (http://www.thefuselage.com/Threaded/showthread.php?t=67760) idea. But you'll probably find a lot more ideas and details on the ep-specific Not in Portland board.

Hey Hildy. I found a weird coincidence while surfing the net the other day. Maybe you can make something of it.


The author John Varley was previously brought up when similarities between his novel Millenium and Lost were noticed.


posted by Bigmouth on his blog (http://eyemsick.blogspot.com/)
That reminds me of John Varley's science fiction novel Millenium, which was also made into a B-movie starring Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd. Two planes collide in mid-air, falling to Earth in a fiery crash that kills everyone aboard. When FAA investigators recover one of the cockpit voice recorders, they discover something strange. Even though the fire didn't begin until after the planes had crashed, a crew member is heard screaming that all of the passengers are already dead and burned. It turns out that time travelers from the future have been abducting people from doomed airliners and replacing them with dead duplicates. The cryptic comment on the voice recorder was because the passengers had been abducted and replaced with burnt corpses in anticipation of the crash.
The reason for taking people who are about to die is that the dead have no future. Changes to the past create temporal paradoxes that ripple through spacetime, causing future "timequakes" as the timeline shifts to compensate. Millenium's timequakes strike me as an interesting metaphor for course corrections, though I doubt the latter are similarly physical.




While looking up connections between Howard Wolstein and Christian Shepherd, I came across another one of John's novels called Mammoth (http://www.amazon.com/phrase/Howard-Christian) which has a character by the name of Howard Christian!!!




I found the following similarities between Mammoth and Lost

Page 10 - He worked for Howard Christian, who was a complex man of many interests, but none of them exceeded his interest in money, so Warburton immediately ... = Haliburton case Sawyer found at the waterfall

Page 61 - Howard Christian held up the shrink-wrapped box and regarded the toy robot inside. It was a rare Bandai X-56 MechMan = Liam's Voltron he got for christmas the year Charlie recieved his piano.

Page 64 - little plastic pillbox with a hand holding an eyeball on top. = bible with film inside and the eyeball they found in the Arrow? hatch



P.S. I once found that echo is the name of a type of sheep. :rolleyes:

HELLO people you are ingnoring or avoiding the truth, Hurley is the wolf in sheeps clothing, he is the money man behind the whole think he found these extraordinary people was able to manipulate situations to get them on the plane, with the help of some associates mainly Widmore and Paik. ;)

Caforrest2047:
I SO totally don’t agree with you there, dude! Sorry. But we’re all entitled to our own opinions so please feel free to explain your theory further, as long as you can provide actual or potential evidence from the show itself.

Luc:
Thanks for the link to your Jaws of Death thread, I’ll definately check it out although I have changed my opinion slightly since I made that request. Now think the whole 9-11 angle is probably more to do with it being a kind of “mnemonic” or memory aid. (see below)

Waltisfuture:
Cheers for that info on Millenium. I loved the movie when I first saw it on tv eons ago, although I can’t for the life of me remember much apart from Cheryl Ladd’s outrageously 80s shoulder-padded gear, fabulously bouffant hairdo, and her penchant for puffing on a ciggie throughout every meal - it obviously had a great impression on me!
Someone’s brought this one to my attention before, actually, altho I’d originally discounted any potential parallels apart from the obvious shared plane crash element. But now I’m interested by the suggestion that passengers were plucked from the a plane and replaced with burnt corpses - because it could kind of tie in with my memory harvesting theory. Replace “souls” with “vital essence of a person” or “their memories” and you’ll see where I’m heading. That apparent Mammoth parallel is interesting too, isn’t it?

EVERYONE - HILDY NEEDS YOUR HELP WITH A FLASHBACK INVESTIGATION!

At the moment I’m really struggling to put something together for you on what the flashbacks represent so please bear with me if my appearances on here are a bit scarce at the moment because I promise you it’ll be worth it. However I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with the task so it might be easier and more enjoyable for everyone if I divide it up amongst us. I’m taking Jack and Kate’s flashback memories (sorry, but it is “my” thread!). Choose whoever you want out of who’s left, although it’s probably advisable to pick your favourite character or whoever you think you’ve come to know best because an in-depth knowledge of all aspects of their storyline is vital here. DON’T choose someone who’s ONLY appeared in flashback, they must be someone who’s had a flashback of his/her own on the show. So this means it’s ok to choose any central character who’s died, like Eko. It’s probably a good idea if you post your chosen character IN CAPITAL LETTERS on this thread as soon as you decide, just so we don’t get lots of people working on the same character. Please honour everyone’s choice, even if they beat you to the winning post with your original preferred selection - I’m sure there are plenty of characters to go round.

I want you to imagine that your character has had his/her memory tampered with, specifically to make them believe that they were on a flight which they were never really on, or to make them believe they were part of the Dharma Initiative past or present. Now I want you to imagine that all their flashback memories are some kind of “mnemonic” or memory aid or mental shorthand, intended to help them keep hold of some trace of their original true memories before they were totally destroyed by TPTB during the brain-washing process. In other words, this is your character trying to fight back and prevent the “real them” from being totally obliterated by the brain-washing process. Any element of their flashbacks might contain a hidden meaning, relevance or clue, it’s up to you to highlight it and point out what it could be. Try to avoid any “deleted scenes” flashbacks from the dvds unless absolutely necessary for your argument. Although I don’t mind if you use continuity or prop errors as long as you can give a reason as to why they might be relevant.

Please consider other people, places or situations, talents or interests, jobs, emotions and inanimate objects - any aspect of a flashback could represent your own character, someone else they knew previously, or what happened to either of them. Remember that this is a distorted version of their actual past. Please feel free to highlight any possible past connections they may have had with ANY other characters (so this includes Christian), although specifically Jack because I think this quite literally does all revolve around him. Obviously mention why they were connected to that person, rather than just saying “they might’ve met once”.

To help you work out the potential relevance of flashback elements, it’s probably worth checking on wikipedia for anything related to dreams (since they represent a subconscious version of reality), memory aids, psychology etc. I’d also suggest you check out the dream analysis website www.thecuriousdreamer.com because that might prove helpful too (I found it fascinating!). Also consider any potentially relevant books or movies they might’ve referred to on the island, or which are referenced in their flashbacks. And the potential relevance of any names of people or places, dates or numbers.

See if you can work out what could’ve happened to your character prior to the “crash”, or why they were chosen for inclusion by TPTB. And, more interestingly, what they could’ve been up to on the island if they were there beforehand as well (eg. my suspicion that Jack was a psychiatrist on the island, with direct responsability for Others current predicament). If possible, wait until you’ve put together a well-rounded selection of information, rather than posting any findings in small dribs and drabs.

Obviously make sure your posts have relevant back-up evidence rather than just stating a series of outlandish theories - you don’t need to reproduce tons of dialogue, just give a brief-ish summary together with references to which season and episode (eg. 1.1 “Pilot”). If you want to use quotes from the actors or makers to back up your theory, PLEASE post a link to where you found the interview online, or give details of the publication and issue date so we can try and track it down for ourselves if necessary (ie. don’t just put “I’m sure I once read an interview somewhere where Damon described Sayid as ...”). And if you’re getting laden down with too much research info to regurgitate on here, just post a link preceded with a mention of anything specific that we should be looking for when we read it. Similarly, if you need help or anything isn’t clear with what I’m requesting, please feel free to ask advice either on this thread or via a private message.

Hope you don’t mind me asking you all to do this, but I thought it might be fun if we tried to sort this one out together. And it saves me any more sleepless nights trawling through wikipedia in the wee small hours! It is a big task but I think it will be worth it, and it’ll certainly give us all something to do during the long wait for season four. I’m really looking forward to reading what you discover.

H x

OK, here goes:

HILDY CHOOSES JACK & KATE

Hildy, I was somewhat kidding about the whole Hurley thing but if you can offer proof that he isn't involved I'd be more than happy to hear it.

Regarding Christian, in that "Lost Survival Guide" they specifically told us that things like Christian Shephard, Yemi, and Kate's horse were from the Losties' pasts, and that the Island is able to manifest them. There was a big debate on my "dnalsI ehT" thread because people said "Well, of course they're Visions. We knew that all along". And I explained that a Vision is purely visual and only the person having the vision can see it, and, like Suds was saying earlier, a Vision can't be behind the person having the vision. But a Manifestation, that's totally different. It's physically there, and everyone can see it. It can be there even when no-one else is around.
So I'll make the same point I just made in alt.tv.lost about this: If there's an intelligence capable of manifesting an imitation of Christian, wouldn't that intelligence have an awareness of the geometric positions of Jack vs. the manifestation of Christian? Then why would that Christian be unable to follow Jack, such that they wind up temporarily back to back? I've heard of gods with feet of clay, but it looks like this manifesting entity would have to have a head of Silly Putty! That's why I believe Christian had to have been there bodily.

Robert

If there's an intelligence capable of manifesting an imitation of Christian, wouldn't that intelligence have an awareness of the geometric positions of Jack vs. the manifestation of Christian? Then why would that Christian be unable to follow Jack, such that they wind up temporarily back to back? I've heard of gods with feet of clay, but it looks like this manifesting entity would have to have a head of Silly Putty! That's why I believe Christian had to have been there bodily.

I usually disagree with you, Robert, but when you're right, you're right.

A blogger posted an analysis of Expose (http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=1956), one I think you might enjoy reading. It's not about magic so much as con games. But in the end both are the same...

The blogger suggested that Paolo might have poisoned Zukerman with puffer fish venom.
Reading it, I remembered Zukerman and Christian died within a few days of each other, each supposedly with a heart attack.
Paolo smoked at Zukerman's house; someone smoked in Christian's hotel room.

When I read the blogger's description of how puffer fish venom is used, I thought "who/what have I seen on Lost that acts this way?" duh: island Christian.

Italics mine:
The powder is so potent that a little on the skin will get into the blood stream and cause paralysis, slowing the heart rate to such a degree the person seems dead. To psychically break the victim, the unlucky sucker is then buried alive, as if he were dead. The bokor knows how long to leave a victim buried — they're no good dead — and will dig up the person for later use. But being buried alive leads to, among other traumas, a lack of oxygen to the brain, which can cause brain damage. Recover the brain-damaged victim from the ground, use some hallucinogens to cement the shock and cause memory loss, and you have yourself a zombie, a living being without will or the capacity for focused thought.Bodily, with a silly putty head. Indeed.

Hildy, I was somewhat kidding about the whole Hurley thing but if you can offer proof that he isn't involved I'd be more than happy to hear it.


Me too, luv, so no harm intended just as no harm taken. I think Hurley IS involved in what's happening on the island actually, but I don't think it's intentionally malicious - he's just another hapless and unwitting victim. Kind of the whole point of this thread really so do please keep visiting and posting. Since Hurley has obviously struck a chord with you, perhaps you'd like to join my flashback assignment and use him as your character?

Dr. Suds >
Then why would that Christian be unable to follow Jack, such that they wind up temporarily back to back?


What a funny way of looking at things !
Not saying you're wrong, or anything like that, but it's a really unique way of reading the situation.
My understanding was that "they" ("they" meaning whoever or whatever) weren't trying to locate Christian in front of Jack and failing - I'm imagining it now "Left a bit, up a bit. Fire ! Damn, he's ended up out in the sea. And his White gym shoes are getting wet !".
I think the idea was to lure Jack in a certain direction, perhaps to the Water. Or lead him "mentally" to a certain frame of thought.
And that's why he was drifting in and out around him. Not because they couldn't find Jack or because he was lost.

Me too, luv, so no harm intended just as no harm taken. I think Hurley IS involved in what's happening on the island actually, but I don't think it's intentionally malicious - he's just another hapless and unwitting victim. Kind of the whole point of this thread really so do please keep visiting and posting. Since Hurley has obviously struck a chord with you, perhaps you'd like to join my flashback assignment and use him as your character?
I would but it seems like a lot of work and I do not believe in the implanted memory theory, or any sort of brain washing. My initial thought was Hurley was involved but indirectly, more so his accountant had involved him, Hurley didn't know he owned a box company after all, it was something I tried to run with several months ago but I just couldn't sustain a thought that the lovable Hurley was actually going to turn out to be a bad guy, it made me sick.

What a funny way of looking at things !
Not saying you're wrong, or anything like that, but it's a really unique way of reading the situation..My understanding was that "they" ("they" meaning whoever or whatever) weren't trying to locate Christian in front of Jack and failing - I'm imagining it now "Left a bit, up a bit. Fire ! Damn, he's ended up out in the sea. And his White gym shoes are getting wet !".

I don't see anything funny about it at all.

Jack and Christian stood back-to-back in the jungle. This was not a jerky action shot, it was a planned film frame. Viewers could see Christian behind Jack at a time when Jack couldn't see him.
Christian - or something that looks exactly like him - exists independently of Jack's perspective.

One popular theory is that it was Smoky. But there are other possible explanations, some more fanciful, and some less fanciful.

lostmio,
What struck me as funny was the idea that Christian being behind Jack would have to be a mistake on Christian's part in some sense. That a manifestation wouldn't make such a human error. The times I've stood behind someone it hasn't been because I was lost, astrally misplaced, or confusing the back of their head with their face. :biggrin:

As for "popular theories", they're popular because that's what Darlton told us. Are you in the Suds camp too on the idea that TPTB deliberately mislead us?

lostmio,
What struck me as funny was the idea that Christian being behind Jack would have to be a mistake on Christian's part in some sense.

He didn't say it's a mistake. He was commenting on whether the Christian entity was exhibiting intelligence and chasing Jack.

That scene is carefully executed and shot. They are back-to-back for a long pause. We see Christian and Jack, but they don't see each other. Jack slowly turns his head, sees Christian over his shoulder. Then there's a very nice 360 shot of Jack turning. Then Jack starts after Christian but immediately slips and falls down the slope, the opposite direction.

I agree with him that this is evidence the entity was not chasing Jack in an intelligent matter.
The question of whether Christian was trying to lead Jack to the water is still up for debate.
If so, then yes, there was some intelligence at work, and that intelligence was trying to help Jack and the Losties.

At this point, we can only speculate what Jack and we saw. But it seems certain he wasn't hallucinating.

I would but it seems like a lot of work and I do not believe in the implanted memory theory, or any sort of brain washing. My initial thought was Hurley was involved but indirectly, more so his accountant had involved him, Hurley didn't know he owned a box company after all, it was something I tried to run with several months ago but I just couldn't sustain a thought that the lovable Hurley was actually going to turn out to be a bad guy, it made me sick.

This is OT but does Hurley own Mr.Cluck's or did he just buy that one store that got hit by the meteorite? I only ask because Mr.Cluck's was one of the sponsors (along with Widmore Labs) of Henry Gale's balloon trip, and we all know where that ended up.

Slightly more OT (but related to the idea of Widmore Labs sponsorship of Gale being a way of finding the island somehow), it still bugs me that Penny Widmore was calling the island in TTLG, that was an incoming transmission?

Hurley could be mixed up in the whole "Get Desmond to The Island" scheme that Ms. Hawking & Brother Campbell seem to play a part in?

The question of whether Christian was trying to lead Jack to the water is still up for debate.

I thought it might have been leading him to the empty coffin?

Jack's on-island search for whatever it was that appeared to him in the form of his father paralleled his off-island search for Christian in Australia.

A big theme of this episode was Jack coming to believe that he "has what it takes" to be a leader...

CHRISTIAN: Don't choose, Jack, don't decide. You don't want to be a hero, you don't try and save everyone because when you fail. . . you just don't have what it takes.

JACK: How are they, the others?

LOCKE: Thirsty. Hungry. Waiting to be rescued. And they need someone to tell them what to do.

JACK: Me? I can't.

LOCKE: Why can't you?

JACK: Because I'm not a leader.

LOCKE: And yet they all treat you like one.

JACK: I don't know how to help them. I'll fail. I don't have what it takes

LOCKE: Why are you out here, Jack?

JACK: I think I'm going crazy.

LOCKE: No. You're not going crazy. Crazy people don't know they're going crazy. They think they're getting saner. So, why are you out here?

JACK: I'm chasing something -- someone.

LOCKE: Ah. The white rabbit. Alice in Wonderland.

JACK: Yeah, wonderland, because who I'm chasing -- he's not there.

LOCKE: But you see him?

JACK: Yes. But he's not there.

LOCKE: And if I came to you and said the same thing, then what would your explanation be, as a doctor.

JACK: I'd call it a hallucination. A result of dehydration, post traumatic stress, not getting more than 2 hours of sleep a night for the past week. All of the above.

LOCKE: All right, then. You're hallucinating. But what if you're not?

JACK: Then we're all in a lot of trouble.

LOCKE: I'm an ordinary man Jack, meat and potatoes, I live in the real world. I'm not a big believer in magic. But this place is different. It's special. The others don't want to talk about it because it scares them. But we all know it. We all feel it. Is your white rabbit a hallucination? Probably. But what if everything that happened here, happened for a reason? What if this person that you're chasing is really here?

JACK: That's impossible.

LOCKE: Even if it is; let's say it's not.

JACK: Then what happens when I catch him?

LOCKE: I don't know. But I've looked into the eye of this island. And what I saw was beautiful.

[Locke gets up to leave.]

JACK: Wait, wait, wait, where are you going?

LOCKE: To find some more water.

JACK: I'll come with you.

LOCKE: No. You need to finish what's you've started.

JACK: Why?

LOCKE: Because a leader can't lead until he knows where he's going.

This is OT but does Hurley own Mr.Cluck's or did he just buy that one store that got hit by the meteorite? I only ask because Mr.Cluck's was one of the sponsors (along with Widmore Labs) of Henry Gale's balloon trip, and we all know where that ended up.

Slightly more OT (but related to the idea of Widmore Labs sponsorship of Gale being a way of finding the island somehow), it still bugs me that Penny Widmore was calling the island in TTLG, that was an incoming transmission?

Hurley could be mixed up in the whole "Get Desmond to The Island" scheme that Ms. Hawking & Brother Campbell seem to play a part in?


If Charles Widmore has known about the island in detail all along, and has people coming and going from there (Ben's people, for instance...) then there's nothing at all surprising about Penny calling the island when she did. And there's nothing surprising about how she knew to have the people in the Arctic Listening Post looking for a magnetic anomaly, either. For both, she'd gotten leaked information from people in her father's organization. For the incoming call to The Looking Glass, she also had people monitoring for radio signals from the island, and they found them as soon as the jamming went down. Notice that she didn't seem to be calling in to talk to anyone in particular. A radio signal became available, and she was there to see who it was, in hope of getting any information about Desmond. It just happened to be Charlie, who at least gave her something hopeful.

As far as people wanting to get Desmond to the island, once again Charles Widmore also had a great motivation for doing so. Primarily, he wanted to separate Desmong once-and-for-all from his daughter, who seemed "hopelessly" attatched to him.

lostmio >
He didn't say it's a mistake. He was commenting on whether the Christian entity was exhibiting intelligence and chasing Jack.



Dr Suds said :

If there's an intelligence capable of manifesting an imitation of Christian, wouldn't that intelligence have an awareness of the geometric positions of Jack vs. the manifestation of Christian? Then why would that Christian be unable to follow Jack, such that they wind up temporarily back to back?


By asking if such an entity wouldn't be aware of Jack's position, and then, as a continuation, pointing out that at one point Christian is behind Jack, Suds is most certainly suggesting that Christian's being behind Jack would be involuntary, a mistake, a lack of "awareness of geometric positions".

I've stated on several occasions that Widmore fully knows about the island I even posted my own theory about it here (http://www.thefuselage.com/Threaded/showthread.php?t=82331&highlight=henry+gale) , I'd be happy to argue my theory with you because as you can see if you read it, I don't believe Widmore is working with Ben, I think Widmore is the "ultimate" bad guy perhaps even making Ben look like a good guy, or more of a neutral guy.

Hey guys - sorry this is a bit of a long one but once I started to tackle the Christian “vision” topic and Exposé blog, so much inter-related info seemed relevant that it seemed sensible to just keep going and present my findings in one big burst.

CHRISTIAN VISION = A GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE?

Re: Jack’s ‘White Rabbit’ vision of Christian: Lost Survival Guide implication that the Island was able to manifest certain elements from the losties’ pasts (eg. Christian, Kate’s horse etc) does seem to contradict the idea that Christian was physically on the island at that point. Not really convinced it is the island doing the manifesting, think it’s more the losties’ own addled minds but I could be wrong. However, Dr Suds rightly questions how something you’re only imagining can be behind you ... unless you add in the idea that an already traumatised Jack merely senses that (his vision of) Christian is snooping up behind him - ie. metaphoric suggestion that he’s the chaser being chased, to imply that he’s on the island to participate in something which is all about a game of Cat and Mouse. Could be relevant that Locke f/b showed toyshop scene with Mousetrap game. And that Claire and Kate’s previous loves were both called Thomas/Tom (ie. Tom & Jerry cartoon) - I think both women were previously involved with Jack and necessarily not in the way we think. (I’m currently putting together some evidence to support this idea so keep it in mind and watch this space.)

Anyway, if Jack = Tom = cat, then the Christian vision could represent the idea of a mouse being chased by a cat; or imply that Jack is subconsciously aware that he’s being set up to be chased by someone that he’s actually chasing (ie. Ben/Others = “the mouse” = Christian vision). In other words, everything on the island is ALL a Big Con, with everybody but most especially Ben being set up to think they’re doing something out of their own free will. Which would tie in with my Trojan Horse idea that the losties’ were bait for the Others, and not-surgeon-Jack was meant to unwittingly assassinate Ben during a “vital” operation. If, as I strongly suspect, the dream-like flashbacks show the losties’ minds struggling to retain some trace of the “real them” whilst being force-fed their new fake personas, it could be relevant that the coroner had to use both medical and layperson’s terms when describing to Jack what had “killed” Christian - almost as if Jack’s mind was still stuggling to absorb unusual medical terminology for his bogus “miracle surgeon” persona. See link to Lost Podcast at the bottom of this mega-post because comments about Walt’s comic and super heroes with “alien powers” could confirm this bit of my theory (ie. Jack is hero with surgical abilities which are actually alien to him). But anyway, back to that so-called vision of Christian behind Jack ...

This idea of “he’s behind you!” has definate panto connotations, a theme already echoed in Artz’s death - quite literally him disappearing in a puff of smoke. For any US members unfamiliar with the “panto” concept - pantomines are a traditional part of Christmas here, a family entertainment show usually based on a fairytale. They feature extremely stereotypical goodies and baddies, with female actors playing the male “juvenile lead” (eg. Prince Charming in Cinderella), and actors from popular tv shows portraying an extreme version of their onscreen persona (eg. soapstar baddy becomes Captain Hook). The baddy normally sneaks up behind the hero at various points, prompting the entire audience to yell “He’s behind you!”. Since Christian is also behind Lost’s hero at this point, it seems to suggest he too is the baddy - ie. quite literally the one “behind” all this. As such, it’s entirely possible that Jack’s very first “vision” of Christian silhouetted Magritte-style against the sky is THE ONLY TIME we’ve seen him PHYSICALLY on the island - it’s not John Terry since he “hadn’t been cast yet”. Also note that I DON’T think Christian is Jack’s real father anymore - he’s either the person who did this to him, or even merely his own subconscious interpretation of what the ultimate baddie is or is capable of. This concept of someone only representing the “idea” of someone/-thing else most probably applies to almost EVERYTHING in all those flashbacks (hence my flashback assignment!), and has been previously tackled in Vanilla Sky. I’ve mentioned this one countless times before, but it’s still worth noting that the hero’s subconscious’ version of the ultimate father-figure is based on Gregory Peck’s character in To Kill A Mockingbird - the film Juliet pretends to show Jack on the video! But back to panto ...

SMOKE & MIRRORS, PART ONE:

Any pantomime story with a magical character (eg. Aladdin’s genie) tends to feature them disappearing in a puff of smoke (like Artz), but actually through a hidden trapdoor (like The Prestige, referenced in new Orchid footage). So this brings in the idea that “smoke and mirrors” might be being used to make things on the island seem different to what they really are (ie. like CIA’s “wilderness of mirrors” disinformation campaign). Which seems to suggest that the Dharma Initiative probably never existed and it was all a front for a complex government-funded mind-control operation. (b.t.w see hilarious possible confirmation of my original Jack’s Dharma tattoo theory at the bottom of this post!).

Any references to Wizard of Oz also strengthen this idea of magic and concealing the truth. In the original book, the mighty wizard turns out to be an ordinary American man who has been using his tricks-of-the-trade as a magician showman to make himself appear “great and powerful”. In the 1939 movie version, his real identity is revealed when Dorothy’s dog Toto pulls back the curtain which has been hiding him from view. So far, the implication has been that Jacob is “the man behind the curtain” so the obvious parallel suggests that Jacob isn’t really as great or as powerful as Ben thinks he is either.

JACK IS “JACOB”?!?!

Consider my theory that Jack was previously conducting psychological experiments on the island, and that they somehow involved Ben and others/Others being made to think that they were someone they weren’t (ie. members of non-existent Dharma). To Ben’s mind, whoever was the brainpower behind this experiment would be “his Jacob”. Which leads me to strongly suspect that Jack really is “Jacob”. Or rather Jack is the basis of Ben’s distorted understanding of the concept of “Jacob” as representing the person who was powerful enough to control his destiny and place him in his original “Dharma” predicament (much like “Christian” could represent the ultimate baddy in Jack’s mind). Note that NOBODY else has seen Jacob, and it’s doubtful whether Ben has too since being brain-washed. And my suggested mind-control angle would explain why neither man recognized the other when they “first” met on the island.

If Jack is Jacob, then it stands to reason why he wouldn’t be on his own list since the people on the list were those who could be manipulated in order to manipulate Jack. I DON’T think this implies that Ben is now working in direct conjunction with Jack/Jacob, but rather that Ben still regards himself as a minion of Jacob. This specific name also seems to suggest that Jack was merely at the bottom of a long ladder of command, or was merely “their” servant - ie. Jacob’s Ladder biblical story.

contd ...

SMOKE & MIRRORS, PART TWO:

Interestingly, the original 1900 book version of The Wizard of Oz was inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (ie. Jack-centric episodes White Rabbit and Through The Looking Glass), and features a deadly spider in the forest (ie. another darn Pikki clue!). The wizard appears differently to each of the main characters (as a beautiful fairy, a ball of fire, a giant head, and a horrible monster). Which kind of reminded me of Smokey since he also seems to appear differently to different characters - “beautiful” to Locke, “deadly” to Eko. Since I’ve already concluded that Jack could well be Jacob (ie. Lost’s/Ben’s “man behind the curtain”), I should point out that I’m NOT saying that Jack is necessarily Smokey (although the possibility is intriguing!). More that he is somehow linked to what it really is or who created it. Although it’s worth noting the whole pilot’s corpse issue could suggest a closer connection, since it still hasn’t been established if Smokey really did kill him (nobody saw him do it - see my next post for more on this one) It’s also probably worth noting that Jack’s dilating iris in the very first opening shot looked suspiciously like smoke dispersing or moving away from him.

Smokey has been described as a kind of “security system” so it’s very possible that it’s a similar concept to the “monster” in movie The Village, in that it’s intended to keep people from venturing from where they shouldn’t. In movie, it transpires that the monster doesn’t really exist and has been invented as a terrifying excuse to prevent people from going too far into the surrounding forest (Lost’s jungle?!) and discovering where they really are (won’t spoil it, but it’s really cool!)
Obviously there’s “something” malevolent out there because we saw Smokey kill Eko (or did we?!), and it appeared to be large enough to move any trees in its path (or did it?!), so it can’t be a total figment of the imagination. But what is it trying to prevent the losties from finding - their real location?!

I could be wrong, but once I started thinking about this possibility, it struck me that we don’t really know that they are on an island. Have we EVER seen any aerial shots to show it as such? I can’t remember if it was obvious that it was an island when Ben showed it to Sawyer from the other smaller island - could it just be part of a mainland somewhere?

The idea that maybe they’re not as far away from “home” as they think could be relevant - especially since it would echo the ending of ‘Wizard of Oz’ 1939 movie adaptation. Plus the makers have mentioned that the show’s main beach location is actually right next to a highway! And they “joked” that, when it was still unclear whether the show would be picked up, they considered and then quickly discarded the idea of having everyone discovering that they were in some exotic resort (S1 dvd extras).

Going out on a limb here but is it possible that “the island” is actually in Hawaii?! It would definately toy with our existing knowledge that all those beaches and jungles are “actually in Hawaii” Plus it would tie in with something I’ve mentioned previously over on my Psychedelic Theory thread. Namely that Locke’s Eureka Commune linked him with real-life serial killer Charles Manson, since Locke referred to everyone at the commune as “his family” and Manson headed a cult called “The Family”. In addition, Manson associates tried to kill off a former cult member who was in danger of testifying against him in the trial following the infamous Manson murders. They sent her off on a “free holiday” to Hawaii and fed her a hamburger laced with what they mistakenly supposed was enough LSD to kill her. Which could explain those cheeseburgers that Juliet fed to Jack during his incarceration!

This possible Manson-Hawaii link could also explain Claire’s all-expenses-paid-for trip to Los Angeles on Flight 815. Furthermore, my previous suggestion that Jack/Jacob is some kind of “wizard of oz”-figure could tie in with Claire’s encounters with the fake psychic. In the movie version, the wizard was originally a fake fortune teller! Which again seems to imply Claire had some pre-crash involvement with Jack, if only because she remembers a psychic (“confirmed” to Eko as a fake) was responsible for her being on the plane in the first place! Ooh-er!

EXPOSÉ BLOG:

Many thanks to lostmio for posting the link to that, it’s very interesting. Here are a few things which particularly struck me:-

1) Cool to note that Paolo smoked at Zuckerman’s house and someone smoked in Christian’s hotel room!

2) Had forgotten that Billy Dee Williams’ character in Star Wars was a con man. Another clue that this is all some Big Con? Relevant that he tricks Han Solo at end of Empire Strikes Back, which results in Solo being cryogenically frozen? Or that, according to S1 dvd extras, Sawyer is acknowledged as the show’s Han Solo/Harrison Ford-type? Wonder if it relates to Nikki being buried alive at the end?

3) Zuckerman (ie. director Pikki kills) also name of fictional autobiographical character of fictional character Peter Tarnopol in Philips Roth’s My Life As A Man. I like the idea of someone pretending to be someone they’re not - definate potential parallels to my theory. But could this also imply the losties’ AREN”T based on the original victims of Flight 815?!

4) VERY interested in author’s different take on Artz’s Animal Farm “pigs” comment, in relation to Mikhail’s later assertions that a former dictatorship run by proletarians will later become a dictatorship run by former proletarians. Definately think this could explain current status of the Others. Wonder if they were part of some experiment to create the perfect “social utopia” (term used in Swan Orientation film), but it went wrong and they took over from TPTB. Kind of like “the lunatics have taken over the assylum” - which would definately explain the Santa Rosa references. If Ben was a test subject, it could explain his name (ie. lab rat = Ben = cult film about intelligent rat. Bruce Davidson starred in the original, Willard, and also played the shrink in Dave). Also have definate feeling that any white rabbits shown or mentioned on the show somehow relate directly to Ben, to reflect his former status as little more than a “research bunny”. Sory, but I can’t help thinking that Ben is Beatrix Potter’s Benjamin Bunny now! Although this could be intentional and the name is meant to tell us that he’s harmless really.

5) Very cool link to The Serpent and the Rainbow. All those Dharlton jokes about Zombie Season 7 ARE true! Actually, I’m being serious about this one. Don’t forget that a zombie is someone who is kind of resurrected from the grave - and I’ve suggested that Jack as Razdinsky faked his own suicide and was most probably buried alive. So he’s kind of a metaphoric zombie at least. Plus don’t forget Locke tells Paulo that things don’t stay buried on the island for long - ANOTHER darn Pikki clue!

Another very cool possible connection here. Cult zombie film ‘28 Days Later’ started with animal activists breaking into a research lab but accidentally unleashed a virus (or “sickness” which turned most of the city of London into zombies. (Bear in mind these parallels about the “undead” and animal activists for a forthcoming post I’m preparing on Rousseau). And the sequel ‘28 Weeks Later’ co-starred Lost’s very own Harold Perrineau. Everything IS connected!

JACK’S DHARMA TATTOO:

Remember when I started this thread I suggested that Jack’s tattoo was his very own Dharma logo, and that the shark with the Dharma logo was a very clever easter egg or metaphor for his hidden “dangerous” status? I couldn’t believe the following quote when I found it on lostpedia the other day - Hildy could be right!

Damon: You know how much people love the episode where we found out how Jack got his tattoos, well wait ‘til you find out how Ezra James Sharkington got his Dharma tattoo. What if he got it… Wait… What if Ezra James Sharkington got his Dharma tattoo from Bai Ling? Then she could come back and finish that six episode arc she’s talking about. He can be like, “I will bite your face if you do not give me a Dharma tattoo!"
http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Official_Lost_Podcast_transcript/May_11%2C_2007

That’s all for now, folks!

H x

I'm not sure all of you quite get my argument about Christian's appearances on the island, so I'll elaborate. A priori there were 3 things the phenomenon could be:
1. a human being -- Christian or someone who looks like him;
2. a hallucination of Jack's, whether autochtonous or induced; or
3. something else manifested by another agency and visible to anyone who was watching.

#1 is what I think it was, and I think it was Christian. The argument that it couldn't've been Christian because Christian was supposedly dead fails for me because I think Lost is full of phony deaths. The remaining argument against is that it couldn't've been a human being because it did odd things, like standing in business attire in the surf and staring spookily -- as if people couldn't do odd things. As to his disappearances, there were various things to duck behind or under -- bushes or the water.

(Walt too appeared to Shannon strangely, dripping wet & ostensibly emanating backwards whispering. The irony is that until recently I've thought Walt also was there in the flesh, but now I'm not so sure about his 1st 2 appearances. I think maybe the 1st 2 times we were seeing a lie in Shannon's head -- i.e. the story she was prepared to tell about having seen Walt, like Claire's lies to Libby about Claire's experience at Caduceus. That is, if Sayid or others had questioned her further, Shannon would've given such details as that Walt had been dripping wet & whispering gibberish, but in reality she saw & heard nothing.)

#2 can be ruled out because we were shown Christian from other than Jack's POV. When they were facing away from each other, it could not even have been an extracampine hallucination of Jack's, because Jack didn't react to it, but merely happened to catch sight of Christian while turning around, searching. Nor could it have been the sensation that's been reported of feeling someone else's gaze, because they faced away from each other.

That leaves #3. Suppose some agent had the ability & will to produce something that looked like Christian. What purpose would that have been for? Obviously, for Jack to see, and possibly to lead him in some direction. For that purpose to be served, the manifestation of Christian would have to have been placed and kept before Jack. Clearly the agency knew how to get the manifestation into Jack's vicinity, so it should have been just as easy to keep them in sight of each other. Instead, we had this silly hide & seek which included an absolutely useless placement of the pseudo-Christian facing away from Jack & behind Jack's back.

The only other possibility I see to try to save #3 would be that Christian is a stupid golem, manifested at a given instant and then let loose. But it does not look as if Christian took a random walk. I refuse to believe that either the agency manifesting it or the pseudo-Christian itself could've been so alternately seeing & unseeing, smart & dumb.

Robert

Hey doc, can you read my previous post since it kinda relates to this ongoing, erm, discussion about "visions" or not of Christian. Definately think we've seen one actual physical person in one of Jack's "visions" of Christian - the very first one. Wondering if it's notable that it wasn't portrayed by John Terry. Supposedly he hadn't been cast yet, but maybe that's a white lie to hide fact that it's not the person Jack thinks of as Christian in his memories.

Think it's very relevant to take flashbacks with a pinch of salt. DON"T think they're totally accurate representation of anyone's pre-crash lives - rather a dream-like distorted version of reality. PLEASE all bear this in mind because I'm convinced it holds the key to unlocking Lost. I realise everyone's entitlted to their own opinions and don't expect you all to agree with me totally but just try looking at the flashbacks from this perspective and see what you discover. Things REALLY aren't what they seem in them.

H x

Dr Suds rightly questions how something you’re only imagining can be behind you ... unless you add in the idea that an already traumatised Jack merely senses that (his vision of) Christian is snooping up behind him - ie. metaphoric suggestion that he’s the chaser being chased
No, because then Jack would've turned around right away.

Just read that back and it sounds like I'm being bossy - sorry. Didn't mean to imply that I'm ordering you "DON"T" think the f/bs are accurate, I have a habit of missing "I" when I start a sentence and was referring to my own opinion.

That leaves #3. Suppose some agent had the ability & will to produce something that looked like Christian. What purpose would that have been for? Obviously, for Jack to see, and possibly to lead him in some direction. For that purpose to be served, the manifestation of Christian would have to have been placed and kept before Jack. Clearly the agency knew how to get the manifestation into Jack's vicinity, so it should have been just as easy to keep them in sight of each other. Instead, we had this silly hide & seek which included an absolutely useless placement of the pseudo-Christian facing away from Jack & behind Jack's back.

The only other possibility I see to try to save #3 would be that Christian is a stupid golem, manifested at a given instant and then let loose. But it does not look as if Christian took a random walk. I refuse to believe that either the agency manifesting it or the pseudo-Christian itself could've been so alternately seeing & unseeing, smart & dumb.


I think that you're presuming that this "agency" must think as we think, see what we see, and have all the information we have. Therefore, if it doesn't do what we might do, it isn't feasible.

Consider instead an agency that thinks very differently than we do and is trying to communicate with Our Heroes, but only having varying degrees of success with each. Eko was seeking communion with someONE higher than himself, and was very receptive to the "agency's" attempts to communicate. He was able to interact fully with the apparition of Yemi, right down to being able to converse. Locke, also searching to commune with someTHING higher than himself, was receptive, and has communicated earlier through dreams and visions, and later through the apparition of the older Walt. Again, to someone very receptive, even conversation was possible. Young Ben, alienated and alone, likely also sought help from someTHING outside himself, as there was little or no support from any real person. He was able to converse with an apparition of his mother.

Both Kate and Shannon would seem to have had less reason to be searching and reaching. They each have different reasons to be preoccupied mostly with themselves. If so, it would be consistent with Kate's seeing a horse, with which she could perform smaller interaction, and Shannon, seeing a wetWalt that she couldn't understand. Perhaps this is the best the "agency" can do with those who are not very receptive. Still, it's doing its best to communicate.

That brings us to Jack, the die-hard rationalist, who doesn't want to reach out to anything or anyone outside himself. To him, the "agency" was still able to bring up an apparition that could grab him emotionally, but the interaction was almost impossible.

Consider that the ability to communicate is a two-way process. An individual's unwillingness to reach out may also leave the "agency" blind or at least with limited information. Looking at examples from Jack who doesn't want to communicate, to Kate and Shannon who'd be more indifferent and middle-of-the-road about it, to those who had reason to be very receptive, like Ben, Locke, and Eko, we see a continuum of examples. In this continuum, the ability to see and interact rises directly with their willingness to be receptive, and the information received by the "agency" also rises in direct proportion.

Frankly, I'd have been more surprised if the incident between Jack and the Christian apparition happened any _more_ smoothly than it did. I'd ordinarily have expected it to be even more disjointed, and harder for them to connect. But if it did happen that way, it would have gone too slowly for the story's pace, and some viewers might not have understood what was happening at all. So the writers compromised and still made Jack's interactions with Christian's apparition the most awkward and disjointed of any shown, while still making it smooth enough to tell the story.

I think that you're presuming that this "agency" must think as we think, see what we see, and have all the information we have.
At least.

Therefore, if it doesn't do what we might do, it isn't feasible.

Consider instead an agency that thinks very differently than we do and is trying to communicate with Our Heroes, but only having varying degrees of success with each. Eko was seeking communion with someONE higher than himself, and was very receptive to the "agency's" attempts to communicate. He was able to interact fully with the apparition of Yemi, right down to being able to converse. Locke, also searching to commune with someTHING higher than himself, was receptive, and has communicated earlier through dreams and visions, and later through the apparition of the older Walt. Again, to someone very receptive, even conversation was possible. Young Ben, alienated and alone, likely also sought help from someTHING outside himself, as there was little or no support from any real person. He was able to converse with an apparition of his mother.

Both Kate and Shannon would seem to have had less reason to be searching and reaching. They each have different reasons to be preoccupied mostly with themselves. If so, it would be consistent with Kate's seeing a horse, with which she could perform smaller interaction, and Shannon, seeing a wetWalt that she couldn't understand. Perhaps this is the best the "agency" can do with those who are not very receptive. Still, it's doing its best to communicate.

That brings us to Jack, the die-hard rationalist, who doesn't want to reach out to anything or anyone outside himself. To him, the "agency" was still able to bring up an apparition that could grab him emotionally, but the interaction was almost impossible.
How is placing a figure behind Jack an attempt to communicate with him?

Robert

At least.
How is placing a figure behind Jack an attempt to communicate with him?


This makes my point exactly. Jack doesn't want to communicate, and so the "agency" can't communicate clearly with him. It created the apparition to get his attention. Without his cooperation, the communication is disjointed. His appearance behind Jack rather than right in front of him, as Yemi appeared to Eko, is quite a clear way for the writers to show this. The more receptive the character, the clearer and smoother the communication. The less receptive the character, the more disjointed and the less interaction. Jack's just not in tune with it.

Perhaps that's why he's not on Jacob's list....

Maybe if SmokeChristian had spoken in those early days it would have been all backwards?

But he wasn't dripping wet...

CHRISTIAN: Don't choose, Jack, don't decide. You don't want to be a hero, you don't try and save everyone because when you fail. . . you just don't have what it takes.Such a foreshadowing of Jack in the FF...and what he probably experienced before leaving the Island...trying to save everyone, but not being able to do it and then not being able to let go of the idea that he didn't and couldn't save everyone...so...he has to go back and fix it...

yeah - why was Walt dripping wet?! Is general consensus of opinion that he did have special powers and really was able to make himself materialise where he shouldn't be? Or was it just the person seeing him imagining things?

Have always wondered whether Walt set the raft on fire without using any matches or lighters, just his telekenetic ability - like in Stephen Kings Firestarter. Any takers?!
100%
Such a foreshadowing of Jack in the FF...and what he probably experienced before leaving the Island...trying to save everyone, but not being able to do it and then not being able to let go of the idea that he didn't and couldn't save everyone...so...he has to go back and fix it...

Sorry luv, I'm not picking a fight, but what makes you think he wanted to get back to the island to save "everyone"? Are you just assuming this because previous scene showed everyone making contact with "rescuers" and then all the other losties weren't in LA scenes? Cos it doesn't really prove anything. Check the dialogue - there's nothing to suggest that they'd left a whole group of people there. Still convinced my flashforward-then-pilot theory is correct even if nobody else does (sniff!). And I think I've worked out what Jack wanted to go back for ...

Oh, no worries, Hildy...:)

Well, the extent of his angst was so far and wide and deep that I felt that there was a human component to why he thought that he and Kate had to go back to the Island. I got the impression that he was feeling an agonizing responsibility for someone's or some people's life and well-being...

However...tell us your theories...I'd love to read them...

But he wasn't dripping wet...

Maybe Walt was wet because Smokey pulled that image from Shannon's mind?

SAYID: Walt is not out here. You're following a Labrador, not a Bloodhound -- in an effort to find a boy who's on a raft in the middle of the ocean.

SHANNON: He's not on the raft.

SAYID: What are you talking about?

SHANNON: We found the bottle on the beach.

I imagine Christian was in the same suit he was wearing in the coffin, Yemi appeared in his Priest garb.

The thing that I think will have to get explained at some point (and will probably be one of these "Wow, it was staring us in the face all along" moments) is his footwear. That there was a plimsoll hanging in that tree and then he pops up wearing a dark suit and plimsolls. I think there'll be an explanation.

And, regarding "We have to go back". On the one hand I agree with Junie that there has to be a human element involved, but I also agree with Hildy in thinking that there's no reason to believe they left anyone behind. I think if they had, then Kate would be up for it too. It has to be something that affects Jack but not Kate - first thing that comes to my mind, Juliet or the Others.

Hmmm...I still think there's a human element involved - well, I mean that I think that it's the major component in Jack's angst...I think that we will eventually see, in another FF, that Kate isn't too happy go lucky now that she's off of the Island...I think she'll be shown full of anxiety about whatever Jack's worrying about, too...nothing will be right with any of the Losties in the FF that we'll see...TPTB couldn't have Kate being so obviously distraught, too...it was Jack's FF...and it would give away too much...

This makes my point exactly. Jack doesn't want to communicate, and so the "agency" can't communicate clearly with him. It created the apparition to get his attention. Without his cooperation, the communication is disjointed. His appearance behind Jack rather than right in front of him, as Yemi appeared to Eko, is quite a clear way for the writers to show this. The more receptive the character, the clearer and smoother the communication. The less receptive the character, the more disjointed and the less interaction. Jack's just not in tune with it.
This makes no sense. He was looking for Christian at the time in question.
100%
Maybe if SmokeChristian had spoken in those early days it would have been all backwards?
Or maybe he'd've been mute like Locke, or like Ethan warned Juliet about.
100%
yeah - why was Walt dripping wet?! Is general consensus of opinion that he did have special powers and really was able to make himself materialise where he shouldn't be?
My opinion is that he's just a magician and has a double.

Or was it just the person seeing him imagining things?
In the sense of being fooled, no, now I don't think so of Shannon. Now I think his 1st 2 appearances to Shannon are likelier "her story", i.e. the lies she would tell if she were asked. His 3rd appearance was really him (or his double).

Have always wondered whether Walt set the raft on fire without using any matches or lighters, just his telekenetic ability - like in Stephen Kings Firestarter. Any takers?!
Not me. But he may have had ordinary human help with the fire.

Robert

yeah - why was Walt dripping wet?! Is general consensus of opinion that he did have special powers and really was able to make himself materialise where he shouldn't be? Or was it just the person seeing him imagining things?
Well, it wasn't just Shannon, Sayid saw him also.

Dr. Suds >
This makes no sense. He was looking for Christian at the time in question.


I think you've slightly over-simplified things there, Doc. When he met Locke he certainly seemed to me to be more of the opinion that it WASN'T his father he was chasing because he felt that would be impossible. I think he just wanted to know what was going on. And even as far into events as S3, Jack heard his father's voice on the Intercom and still had no doubt that it was just someone playing tricks on him.

And so I don't think it's fair to say wesb's interpretation is illogical.


And regarding Walt, it's funny, because I've been debating whether to start a thread for collecting together all the tiny "throwaway" clues, and for me one of the big ones is Charlie mentioining that "just about everyone has seen Walt wandering around the jungle". For me, that suggests Walt was the one doing it, i.e. it wasn't just a Smokey apparition, because why would "they" use Kate's horse for Kate, Yemi for Eko, Christian for Jack, and then Walt for everyone else. I think if it had been Smokey Charlie's line would have been that everyone's been having visions, or something like that.

Well, it wasn't just Shannon, Sayid saw him also.

This is true.

One thing I think backs up my position that that was Cerberus is that the vision of Walt they saw was wearing the exact same clothes that he had on when he went off on the raft, the last thing Shannon (and Sayid) saw him in*

Walt on the raft (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-486-175.html)

Walt in the jungle (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-775-791.html)

Personally I can't make any sense out of him being wet unless it's becuase Cerberus pulled the image of Walt from the mind of someone who was starting to think that Walt had drowned. The message he delivers is also consistent with what Yemi had to say to Eko.

*I'd need to go back and check all the visions to see how consistent this is but this happens in Eko's case too...

Emeka's thug in the church (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1191-431.html)

Emeka's thug in the jungle (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1191-213.html)

Emeka in the church (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1191-439.html)

Emeka in the jungle (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1191-216.html)

Daniel in the church (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1191-263.html)

Daniel in the jungle (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1191-219.html)

Ben of course is too young to have remembered his mother, but she appears dressed in the same clothes she has on in the one picture of her we see Ben look at, this is how Ben remembers her...

Picture of Emily Linus (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1287-236.html)

Emily Linus on the island (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1287-313.html)

I agree with you, Richardstone. In my Fate-thread I touched on the same matter and reached a similar conclusion. A good argument for this is that Hugo saw his imiginary friend. This could've only come from Hugo's own mind. This is what I posted:

One thing I’m convinced of it [I meant the device in the Hatch at the time, now I would say it would be the island] somehow makes telepathy possible, up to a level something (the hatch computer, the monster or both) can read minds and communicate (through dreams and visions, for instance). It would explain a lot – how Jack saw his dead father, how Hugo saw his imaginary friend and how Eko saw his dead brother. Remember – Christian lead Jack to a safe place with fresh water and Yemi lead Eko to Pearl Station – Jack’s father and Eko’s brother had knowledge about things on the island. And I don’t think they were ghosts.

Dave is the only one who I'm not sure about because Hurley saw the very same Dave off the island, he had the same agenda both times too which was essetially "lets get out of here man".

I think of all the survivors Hurley is the one who would have considered the Sci-Fi explanation for the island mysteries and Dave was just voicing these suspicions.

I think Dave was just Hurley's illness showing it's ugly bald head again. I'm glad that Hugo didn't follow him either out the window or over the cliff because I think that would have been the end of him.

And then there's the title of the episode, taken from the famous Cheech & Chong sketch ("Dave's not here man"), that was a big clue IMO, I think Smokey and the various incarnations of it that I'm suggesting we've seen were very much there.

Cheech Marin of course was later to play Hurley's dad.

Ben told Locke to imagine a box that will produce anything you wish hard enough for. Let's suppose that he's almost right -- that the things you think about with enough emotion might appear. To Ben, the two things might be identical. Perhaps he wished -- with deep emotion -- for his mother, and there she was. So he's found one way to make use of "the box," but is it the only way?

Eko wouldn't likely have wished for the drug plane, but there it was on the island, in spite of the fact that it couldn't have flown that distance. But it would have been part of a very emotional image in his mind, considering that his brother was shot boarding it. Shannon isn't likely to have wished for Walt, though after the bottle washed ashore, she may have had a rare moment-of-not-thinking-of-herself, with an emotional image of a drowning Walt. In an example that's more speculative, the gun case that contained Kate's toy plane appeared under water under a seat in a place it couldn't have been -- it had been checked and wasn't in the passenger compartment. Yet Kate's attatchment to the toy likely produced an intense emotional desire for it -- and the gun case appeared. Let's consider that these aren't just wishes granted by a Magic Genie, but instead are the attempt by something to communicate with the humans on the island. The something may not be an expert mind reader, but it's good enough to spot strong emotional images.

Locke's intense desires and wishes don't involve physical things, but are more likely to involve communion with powers outside himself. As a result, what he's getting in the form of communication are visions and dreams. Eko, who also wished to commune with someONE greater than himself, got some dreams, but what he received were more physical things, (Yemi, the drug plane) because he thought more of things. But both of these characters had the closest connection because they were receptive.

I said that Locke and Eko were closest... maybe there's one who's better... The most interesting appearance is the one of the exotic bird that flew into the window where Walt was reading about the very same rare animal. Walt seems able to do the little conjuring trick without being anywhere near the island. But then, we're told Walt has some special, but as yet not-described "abilities." Another useful bit of information came from Ms. Klugh's questions to Michael. She seemed amazed by what she knew about Walt, and asked Michael if he'd ever appeared in places where he couldn't have been. Perhaps if he can do off-island what even Locke and Eko had to be on-island to do, then when Walt was on the island, he could do even more. Perhaps that involves inserting himself into some of the apparitions that are created for other people, even if they weren't thinking of Walt. This last part is extremely speculative of course, but I'm looking for ways that the things we know about Walt could fit into this idea.

Isaac the faith healer said that his power came from the location he was operating from -- the area around Ayer's Rock; a place sacred to the native Australians. He said he couldn't heal Rose there, but that there were other places of power. I think we're to surmise that the island is such a place, only more so. Now, here's a big speculative leap...

The Island may be a place of very great power, where many individuals are attuned-enough to access it. Ayer's rock may have been a place of less power, where only a rare person like Isaac could access it. And here's the leap... the entire planet may be a place of much lesser power, where an extraordinary person like Walt can access it, as he was able to 'conjure" the exotic bird in a place that wasn't "special" at all...

Nice post, wesb. I think that this idea would successfully answer why Ben wanted Jack to want to do the spinal tumor operation...to really want to do the spinal tumor operation...

Dave is the only one who I'm not sure about because Hurley saw the very same Dave off the island, he had the same agenda both times too which was essetially "lets get out of here man".

Perhaps. The nagging thing about all the encounters (except for Walt, that one time) is that they occurred to a single person. No one else but Jack saw Christian. No one else but Eko saw Yemi. No one else but Hugo saw Dave.

I think of all the survivors Hurley is the one who would have considered the Sci-Fi explanation for the island mysteries and Dave was just voicing these suspicions.

Unless Smokey wanted to kill Hurley. Smokey killed Eko as well, when he posed as Yemi.

I think Dave was just Hurley's illness showing it's ugly bald head again. I'm glad that Hugo didn't follow him either out the window or over the cliff because I think that would have been the end of him.

That's a good bet, I agree.

And then there's the title of the episode, taken from the famous Cheech & Chong sketch ("Dave's not here man")

I know about Cheech & Chong, but this clue went right over my head.

----
Nice post indeed, wesb.

Good argument about "wanting to operate", Juniebun

het_genie >
The nagging thing about all the encounters (except for Walt, that one time) is that they occurred to a single person.


het,
You're forgetting Kate's horse - Sawyer saw that too.

Well, it wasn't just Shannon, Sayid saw him also.
Yes, but only the 3rd time. That's why I'm now willing to believe the 1st two times were a fabrication of Shannon's, to help set up Sayid for the appearance she knew was coming.

I think you've slightly over-simplified things there, Doc. When he met Locke he certainly seemed to me to be more of the opinion that it WASN'T his father he was chasing because he felt that would be impossible.
So? He was chasing someone. Everything else previous in the thread still applies.

And regarding Walt, it's funny, because I've been debating whether to start a thread for collecting together all the tiny "throwaway" clues, and for me one of the big ones is Charlie mentioining that "just about everyone has seen Walt wandering around the jungle". For me, that suggests Walt was the one doing it, i.e. it wasn't just a Smokey apparition, because why would "they" use Kate's horse for Kate, Yemi for Eko, Christian for Jack, and then Walt for everyone else. I think if it had been Smokey Charlie's line would have been that everyone's been having visions, or something like that.
I think that was just Charlie's hyperbole. Sayid & Shannon saw Walt, and Charlie's point was that lots of people were seeing things.

However, there is importance to such lines. Characters are trying to boost the credulity of others, so they're pointing to the seeming banality of the very strange.

Robert

het,
You're forgetting Kate's horse - Sawyer saw that too.
I still think the horse was real, there is polar bears, birds, cows a cat why not a horse on the island, yes it was a black horse like the one that "helped" Kate escape but there are probably thousands of black horses on the planet why not one on the island we know the others have horses klugh rode one to the flame, the horse was actually a horse not a manifestation.

Ben of course is too young to have remembered his mother, but she appears dressed in the same clothes she has on in the one picture of her we see Ben look at, this is how Ben remembers her...

Picture of Emily Linus (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1287-236.html)

Emily Linus on the island (http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1287-313.html)
Heh...his putative mother. Why do you think his ostensible "father" would answer a personal question with (approx.), "How should I know?"

Why can't a manifestation be solid and really there? Perhaps "the box" is able to produce real, functional items and living things. If so, it's no wonder that Hanso wanted to do research on the island and others are trying to find it. Controlling "the box" would be a huge source of wealth and power. I've been suggesting that the drug plane was a manifestation, and it contained a working radio. (It also "unburnt" itself when it was revisited after they set it aflame. It was not just created but re-created...)

I still think the horse was real, there is polar bears, birds, cows a cat why not a horse on the island, yes it was a black horse like the one that "helped" Kate escape but there are probably thousands of black horses on the planet why not one on the island we know the others have horses klugh rode one to the flame, the horse was actually a horse not a manifestation.

It's true that we've seen plenty of wildlife on the island, including Horses, but I'm with Kate, I think it was the exact same horse...

SAWYER: Do you know that horse, Freckles?

KATE: Yeah, I do.

...and that I think makes it a good candidate for a bit of Cerberus Related Activity.

Why can't a manifestation be solid and really there?

There's no reason why not, Kate touched the horse and the fact that Cerberus seemed to be effected by both the dynamite that was chucked down one of it's vents and the sonic fence strongly suggest that it has physical form, however it appears.

Heh...his putative mother. Why do you think his ostensible "father" would answer a personal question with (approx.), "How should I know?"

What question was that Suds?

I really believe that Emily is Ben's mum and I think Roger's indifference towards his son can be put down to the fact that he blames Ben for her death...

ROGER: It's your birthday? Sorry I forgot. Kinda hard to celebrate on the day you killed your Mom. She was just seven months pregnant, we went for a hike, but you had to come early. Now, she's gone, and I'm stuck here on this Island, with you. [Pauses] Happy birthday, Ben.

Ben told Locke to imagine a box that will produce anything you wish hard enough for. Let's suppose that he's almost right -- that the things you think about with enough emotion might appear. To Ben, the two things might be identical. Perhaps he wished -- with deep emotion -- for his mother, and there she was. So he's found one way to make use of "the box," but is it the only way?

Eko wouldn't likely have wished for the drug plane, but there it was on the island, in spite of the fact that it couldn't have flown that distance. But it would have been part of a very emotional image in his mind, considering that his brother was shot boarding it. Shannon isn't likely to have wished for Walt, though after the bottle washed ashore, she may have had a rare moment-of-not-thinking-of-herself, with an emotional image of a drowning Walt. In an example that's more speculative, the gun case that contained Kate's toy plane appeared under water under a seat in a place it couldn't have been -- it had been checked and wasn't in the passenger compartment. Yet Kate's attatchment to the toy likely produced an intense emotional desire for it -- and the gun case appeared. Let's consider that these aren't just wishes granted by a Magic Genie, but instead are the attempt by something to communicate with the humans on the island. The something may not be an expert mind reader, but it's good enough to spot strong emotional images.
All this is so funny to me, because I seem to represent a tiny segment who believes the much simpler explanation that all these persons & things were deliberately placed there by people who had knowledge of them by very ordinary means -- chiefly thru collaboration.

The most interesting appearance is the one of the exotic bird that flew into the window where Walt was reading about the very same rare animal. Walt seems able to do the little conjuring trick without being anywhere near the island.[/quote]
But not without being near his assistant who throws birds at windows, and his other assistant who helps distract his audience.

But then, we're told Walt has some special, but as yet not-described "abilities." Another useful bit of information came from Ms. Klugh's questions to Michael. She seemed amazed by what she knew about Walt, and asked Michael if he'd ever appeared in places where he couldn't have been.
I think she was just probing Michael to see if he knew Walt had a double. "We got more than we bargained for with Walt." Yeah, two of him!

Perhaps if he can do off-island what even Locke and Eko had to be on-island to do, then when Walt was on the island, he could do even more.
Yeah, like beat Hugo with loaded dice at backgammon, or hit a tree rigged with an electromagnet with a knife.

Robert

I think there's a more basic, more simple question that everyone needs to ask themselves :
Do you believe what Darlton tell us?

I do. If in a PodCast, for example, they tell us that both Christian and the horse were manifestations taken from the Losties' memories, then I really find it very hard to believe they're deliberately misleading us.

Dr Suds believes they are doing just that, and he sees that as feasible because it fits the theme of what he thinks is the basis of the story - a great big con. No smokey, no healing, just one big lie.

So, what do the rest of you think? Do you agree with Suds that Darlton are deliberately misleading us? That they're telling us one barefaced lie after another?
Because if not, Christian and the horse were manifestations. End of story.

No one else but Eko saw Yemi.

Locke saw Yemi in that bizarre dream, in which he himself seemed to be Eko.

The 23rd Psalm and The Cost of Living answered a lot of my questions regarding 'ol smokey.

I really believe that Emily is Ben's mum and I think Roger's indifference towards his son can be put down to the fact that he blames Ben for her death...
Then why when asked whether that's what he really thought does he answer, "How should I know?" Did you think X? Either you did or you didn't, or you have amnesia. Assuming it's not amnesia, he's saying, "I didn't create this character, how would I know this detail about him?" And then pretends to die, in the same manner as Bakunin pretended to die, with the same blood squibs.

Robert

Then why when asked whether that's what he really thought does he answer, "How should I know?" Did you think X? Either you did or you didn't, or you have amnesia. Assuming it's not amnesia, he's saying, "I didn't create this character, how would I know this detail about him?" And then pretends to die, in the same manner as Bakunin pretended to die, with the same blood squibs.

Robert

This is the scene your talking about, when they're up on the mesa...

ROGER: Well, you sure can't say it ain't beautiful.

[Roger drinks a beer]

BEN: Do you really blame me?

ROGER: What?

BEN: Do you really think its my fault that she died.

ROGER: What do I know.

I'd need to watch the scene back but I'm more inclined to think that Roger was ending a conversation that he just didn't want to have, I imagine it's the last thing he wants to talk to Ben about on Ben's birthday...

Alternatively, it could be another dig at the situation that Roger blames Ben for...

ROGER: What do I know, I'm no Doctor, I'm just a damn Workman!

I do. If in a PodCast, for example, they tell us that both Christian and the horse were manifestations taken from the Losties' memories, then I really find it very hard to believe they're deliberately misleading us.

In which podcast did they make this statement? What were the words and the context?

In the podcast following "The Cost of Living" (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Official_Lost_Podcast_transcript/November_06%2C_2006), they hedge a lot, don't even come out and say that Yemi and the smoke monster are the same.
Here's what they say about the Yemi apparition:

DL: So, um… so… uh, so let's talk about Eko's death itself, in terms of the show. Um, what is the relevance of Yemi's A) body being gone from the plane, we know that he burned it in "The 23rd Psalm" last year, now the body's MIA, not unlike Christian Shephard's body… secondly, Yemi says something very interesting before he goes wandering off into the jungle and Eko goes chasing after him, only to be bonked into trees repeatedly by the smoke monster… and what is it that he says, Carlton?
CUSE: He says"You speak to me as if I were your brother."
DL: And what is that inferring? Or implying? I always get the two confused.
CUSE: That might be inferring (or implying)… I think it might be implying that he's not his brother.
DL: What does that mean? If he's not his brother, then who is he?
CUSE: Well then, he might be a manifestation that the island has generated. Perhaps an incarnation of the Monster?
DL: That's interesting. I would assume that that's sort of a theory that people are tossing around. Um… there's several manifestations in that episode. All of them seem to have come from Eko's memory. So, could one assume that when they last faced off, that all those flashes that happened in the Monster cloud, that it was sort of "downloading information" that it might want to use at a future date?
CUSE: That's right, it could have been.
CUSE: And we know it could be a manifestation. It could manifest itself as people like Yemi.
DL: We don't know that definitively. If we were to say that to our bosses, for example, we'd probably be fired. And beaten. Not necessarily in that order.
CUSE: Yeah, that's true. But if the audience were to make an assumption that that were the case, that might not be incorrect…
DL: Yes… going back to your speech about assumptions earlier, I wouldn't want to make any assumptions. Because they make as**es… of you and me.

That's hedging?

I'll work on getting some transcripts up but for the time-being if you want answers, watch this...

LOST: The Answers Part I (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaiHXVgoPUs&mode=related&search=)

LOST: The Answers Part II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epjc6E_CrvU&mode=related&search=)

LOST: The Answers Part III (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B58Li5jAwBA&mode=related&search=)

The out and out statement that these things were manifestations taken from their pasts was on the Lost Survivors Guide - just looking, but can't find a Transcript anywhere.

I also remember Carlton Cuse joking about how we had seen all these things manifested and that in an upcoming ep we'd see Sayid's cat. Obviously he was referring to Enter 77, and it wasn't actually Sayid's cat. But it's obvious what he meant, and so, again, he confirmed that all these things are manifestations taken from their pasts.

I remember it all well because it confirmed a part of my dnalsI ehT theory.

The out and out statement that these things were manifestations taken from their pasts was on the Lost Survivors Guide - just looking, but can't find a Transcript anywhere.

Are you sure? I thought it was in LOST: The Answers?

LOST: Survivors Guide (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjBePyYghlo&mode=related&search=)

That might not be all of it, seems a little short?