dufusbot
03-07-2008, 03:12 PM
Well here I am a long time occasional lurker finally getting in on the board here ...
While this episode was lame on a number of levels (perhaps intentionally cheezy in an Austin Powers kind of way with the Tempest?), it did at least add two important pieces to the puzzle, to wit:
(1) We see hat Ben is aware of the Widmore end of things and until at least relatively recently has a "man" on the outside taking surveillance as the video was shot well after the Sox game (although it is of course possible that this videotaped incident was staged). Ben says he doesn't know how Widmore KNOWS about the island though in the first place, which is interesting. Does this mean he doesn't know about Desmond then as well? Interesting, as I tend to assume the creep knows everything that takesp lace on the island.
(2) Ben has the power to create group hallucinations, 3-D Virtual Reality style ones. The Harper character is so obviously either Ben himself or some direct creation of his mind, given her ability to appear/disappear like that, have such a "direct" line of communication with Ben, her general aura and use of diction closely analogous to Ben's (Ben is "exactly where he wants to be"), and her whole role as a therapist ... I mean what better way to know what's on the minds of everyone else in Otherton than to have them all unload their thoughts to a "therapist." Of course, the trouble is making sense of Goodwin in all this, as presumably he'd know if he was "married" to a VR woman. Then again they don't seem all too close a couple, and we don't ever see the two even so much as looking at each other do we? (I could be wrong)
This latter point should make us reassess the "appearance" of other people such as Yemi, Boone, Walt, etc. perhaps, but that is assuming no one else/other force has a similar ability to induce VR group-style hallucinations.
All of this reinforces (along with points I have yet to post about last few episodes) that we're dealing with an Existenz/Matrix type situation in LOST. Anyone here ever seen Existenz?
Oh, and Ben Harper? Why not Ben Stanhope, or better yet, BS for short :)
DB
While this episode was lame on a number of levels (perhaps intentionally cheezy in an Austin Powers kind of way with the Tempest?), it did at least add two important pieces to the puzzle, to wit:
(1) We see hat Ben is aware of the Widmore end of things and until at least relatively recently has a "man" on the outside taking surveillance as the video was shot well after the Sox game (although it is of course possible that this videotaped incident was staged). Ben says he doesn't know how Widmore KNOWS about the island though in the first place, which is interesting. Does this mean he doesn't know about Desmond then as well? Interesting, as I tend to assume the creep knows everything that takesp lace on the island.
(2) Ben has the power to create group hallucinations, 3-D Virtual Reality style ones. The Harper character is so obviously either Ben himself or some direct creation of his mind, given her ability to appear/disappear like that, have such a "direct" line of communication with Ben, her general aura and use of diction closely analogous to Ben's (Ben is "exactly where he wants to be"), and her whole role as a therapist ... I mean what better way to know what's on the minds of everyone else in Otherton than to have them all unload their thoughts to a "therapist." Of course, the trouble is making sense of Goodwin in all this, as presumably he'd know if he was "married" to a VR woman. Then again they don't seem all too close a couple, and we don't ever see the two even so much as looking at each other do we? (I could be wrong)
This latter point should make us reassess the "appearance" of other people such as Yemi, Boone, Walt, etc. perhaps, but that is assuming no one else/other force has a similar ability to induce VR group-style hallucinations.
All of this reinforces (along with points I have yet to post about last few episodes) that we're dealing with an Existenz/Matrix type situation in LOST. Anyone here ever seen Existenz?
Oh, and Ben Harper? Why not Ben Stanhope, or better yet, BS for short :)
DB