This thread will contain spoilers from Seasons 1-5. If you haven't finished watching all the seasons and don't want the spoiled, don't read this thread.
The thread may also contain any information about season 6 as it becomes available so if you don't want any clues about season six, don't read on.
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It's premature I know but I thought I'd start the thread now so we can start start discussing our hopes, fears, wishes, rumors and predictions for the 6th and final season of Lost.
And maybe if I'm lucky, this thread will actually survive until the season starts and I'll get to be the IP of a long lived multi-page thread that mostly stays on topic.
So to start things off, let me state my number 1 wish for the final season (which I'm fairly confident won't be fullfilled).
I wish they would start the new season in September and not wait until Jan. or Feb this time. I'm pretty sure they've lost a lot of viewers with all the long hiatuses. Plus, six years is a seriously long time to expect people to wait for the outcome of a mystery. I've stayed up reading all night on plenty of occasions because I couldn't wait until morning to find out what happens. This is seriously trying my patience.
Get on with Guys!! Finish it up and give us a conclusion before next May.
[ May 15, 2009, 11:35 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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Patience... enjoy the journey. Stop and ponder what has come before before looking forward to what is to come. The end will come too soon and then it will be over. Just like BSG.
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I think they've messed with the characters enough that no one could reasonably expect the series to survive on the merit of those individual story-lines alone. Jack and Kate have always been "cornerstones" of the series and their character plots and arcs have been consistantly dodgy since Season 2. Newer characters have meatier storylines with not a lot of pay-off (Faraday, Hawking, Juliette etc.) and there's no guarantees that any of the initial questions that the series postulated will be answered, as Craig Childs pointed out in the Season 5 thread. (Food drops, Widmore, Whispers, etc.)
If they choose not to answer *some* of the mysteries, I could see it lasting. If they choose not to answer *most* well, then, they're just jerks. Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:I'll get to be the IP of a long lived multi-page thread that mostly stays on topic.
Do you mean OP, or do I just not know what IP stands for?
I myself have been pretty saddened with what's happened to Jack and Kate. I went from caring a lot about them to thinking they're both whiny @#$$%s and wishing they'd just die so someone else could become the main character. The only thing I like is the reversal of which characters I expected to care about vs which I actually did.
As for the haitus... people complain about that for just about every show, and never seem to realize it happens for EVERY SHOW. That's just the way the television industry is set up. It's annoying, but I think there are plenty of financial and scheduling reasons it has to be that way. (I'm not sure what they are but I trust that there's a reason for it or it wouldn't be an industry standard). The alternative to waiting till January is having the season split up in the middle, which is even worse.
Among other things it gives the actors time to do other things, which probably helps prevent them from getting bored.
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quote:Patience... enjoy the journey. Stop and ponder what has come before before looking forward to what is to come.
What journey? We are sitting in a parking lot until they start moving again. There isn't enough meat in this show to keep me pondering for 9 months until we get more of the story.
Lost is the modern equivalent of the 19th century serial novel. I'd be happy with monthly installments rather than weekly, but can you imagine the uproar people would have made if Dickens had taken a 9 month break in the middle of one of his novels.
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quote:As for the haitus... people complain about that for just about every show, and never seem to realize it happens for EVERY SHOW. That's just the way the television industry is set up. It's annoying, but I think there are plenty of financial and scheduling reasons it has to be that way. (I'm not sure what they are but I trust that there's a reason for it or it wouldn't be an industry standard). The alternative to waiting till January is having the season split up in the middle, which is even worse.
bah! Yes every show takes a haitus during the summer and then another haitus during the holidays. No other show I've ever seen has taken a 9 month haitus expect perhaps during a strike. And I simply don't agree that it's worst to have the season split in the middle. The last two season of Lost have been short seasons. They haven't started until January because they haven't made enough episodes to fill a full season. It has little to do with not splitting the season up.
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i prefer the longer hiatus in exchange for the more consolidated airings. Also, I appreciate the fact that they chose to shorten the season length to 16 episodes and set an end date. I think we're getting higher quality programming because of that decision.
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Season 3, they split the season up, and people complained a lot. Then they tried consolidating the season, people still complained. It sucks either way.
There are considerations beyond the single show that need to be considered - how it fits among the other shows, how it fits into other marketing schemes. Lost seasons are particularly weird in that the newer ones are longer than the typical half season and shorter than a full season. I can't blame them for having a hard time fitting them into the schedule.
quote:No other show I've ever seen has taken a 9 month haitus expect perhaps during a strike.
Dexter (and I assume a lot of other shorter shows) have 12 episode seasons that they air all together starting September. It takes 3 months, and then 9 months until the next year.
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Now that I've vented my frustration at 9 month hiatuses and been told I'm unreasonable, here are some of the questions I want answered before the show ends. I've already said over in the other thread that they absolutely must give us a satisfying reason for why the Losties were brought to the the island and then brought back to the island. That's a must. Below, in no particular order, are some of the smaller questions I think most need to be answered to make that big question satisfying.
Why wasn't Sun brought back to 1977 with the rest of the Oceanic 6?
Who are Jacob and Esau and how do they relate to the ancient ruins on the island?
Why is Esau so intent on killing Jacob?
What are the rules and who has set them? Why did Ben say Widmore changed the rules? Why did Esau need to find a loophole to kill Jacob?
Why is it that Jacob seems to be alive and unaged in 2007 but Esau no longer seems to have a corporeal presence?
When and how did Eloise leave the island? How does her pregnancy relate to the pregnancy problems on the island?
What has happened to Claire? How does the whole "raised by another" thing fit in?
Why was it essential to send John's body back to the island? Why did he need to be wearing Christian's shoes?
What will happen to Aaron and Je Yeon?
What's with the ghosts?
Where does the Dharma food come from?
What was the purpose of the vaccine?
What about Walt? They've made of point in bringing him back into the story briefly twice now. I'm pretty sure that means he still has a role to play in the final season. If they were going to forget about him, they would have done it already.
What happened to the off island parts of the Dharma initiative?
Where did the Dharma initiative really come from? Were they brought to the island by Jacob or Esau or did they really manage to break the rules and get there against the island's will?
Similarly, how did the US army end up on the island?
What is the island? Does the island really have a will? Does the island really need to be protected?
Where did the other's come from? Are they a collection of survivors from various groups Jacob has brought to the island or are they all from one boat crash.
Also I'll add one speculation. I think the two happy couples in this show, Rose and Bernard and Desmond and Penny are going to be a critical key to what's going on.
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Ummm...it WAS made explicit it. Widmore said to Eloise in 2007, "he's my son too."
And we know she's pregnant in 1977 from a few different things. First off, didn't they already state it outright? Second, she was holding her belly at one point, Widmore put his hand on her belly, i think there was other stuff too.
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quote:Originally posted by Dobbie: Eloise is pregnant?
Depending on the year that Faraday was born.
And I don't think it was ever made explicit, but I bet that Widmore is Faraday's father.
Yes it was made explicit that Widmore is Faraday's father a couple of episodes back and yes is was clearly stated in the final episode that Eloise is pregnant. Jack, Sayid, Eloise and Richard are preparing to disassemble the hydrogen bomb. Richard says "Does this sound like a good idea Eloise, you're pregnant"
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I just added a spoiler warning since it became clear that some people weren't familiar with some of the events from this season.
Just to make it clear. This is not a thread for people who don't want any spoilers for the upcoming season. If you don't want to know what's in previews or floating around on the internet, don't read this thread. If you don't want to read cast lists or comments from the writers that might reveal something about season six, don't read this thread.
The rest of, feel free to post anything you hear or read about the upcoming season. If you think it might contain spoilers people don't want to read you can label your posts but don't feel its required or that you should refrain from posting.
This thread is for spoilers.
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I'm also curious about why Ethan remains on the island when all the other women and children are sent away.
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In general I agree with Rabbit's questions, but a few in particular I DON'T expect to get any more answers on:
quote:What's with the ghosts?
- I think it's close to established that those are just manifestations of the Smoke Monster. They might officially tell us, but I doubt there'll be a twist there.
quote:Where does the Dharma food come from?
This doesn't strike me as much of a mystery. There's some random mechanical system that distributes food to Dharma facilities. Do we really care exactly how said system is constructed.
quote:Why was it essential to send John's body back to the island? Why did he need to be wearing Christian's shoes?
I actually hope there's a twist here, since the explanation they gave was kinda lame. But some of their other explanations have been similarly lame. I wouldn't be surprised if this was just what Ben said - they had to recreate the events of the first flight as closely as possible. (Maybe they specifically had to have individuals who were "Touched" by Jacob, which is why the other 70+ passangers weren't important)
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quote:I think it's close to established that those are just manifestations of the Smoke Monster. They might officially tell us, but I doubt there'll be a twist there.
I was thinking more about the ghosts who visit Hurley. They seem over all much less malevolent than the malevolent than the smoke monster ghosts. Maybe its just that the smoke monster likes Hurley.
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quote:I actually hope there's a twist here, since the explanation they gave was kinda lame. But some of their other explanations have been similarly lame. I wouldn't be surprised if this was just what Ben said - they had to recreate the events of the first flight as closely as possible. (Maybe they specifically had to have individuals who were "Touched" by Jacob, which is why the other 70+ passangers weren't important)
That explanation is incredibly lame, if they that is what can expect from the answers coming in season 6, I will wish I'd never started watching. I would think that issues like the fact that Sawyer and Jin weren't on the plane at all (and we know they were touched by Jacob) would be more significant than the shoes on the corpse.
I'm much more willing to let some of the stuff that happened in the first 2 or three season slip by unanswered than stuff in the later seasons. I'm willing to accept that the writers may have had to drop some ideas along the way as the time frame for telling the story became more precisely defined.
In a full novel, you can expect stuff like that to get edited out before publication but when you are telling a story in serial form its pretty hard not to leave a few loose ends.
But by the time they got to seasons 4 and 5, I would expect they'd ironed all that out and I really won't forgive them for dropping stuff that's come up this season.
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This doesn't strike me as much of a mystery. There's some random mechanical system that distributes food to Dharma facilities. Do we really care exactly how said system is constructed.
It's not the mechanics of the system that I find important. I think its important that the system keeps functioning long after the rest of Dharma initiative is destroyed. Food doesn't last forever. It can't just be coming out of a giant wear house. Someone has to purchase the food and ship it to the island and the drop it. If the food is coming via the Others, then that must mean they know about and are in some way caring for the people pushing the button. If Widmor is sending the food, it begs the question of how he is able to send food to island but not return himself (or send an expedition). If there is an off island Dharma project that's continuing to send the food -- that's important.
So the reason I want to know about the food has nothing to do with the mechanics of an automated system. We haven't seen anything that suggests the Dharma initiative had any sort of Bradbury-esk automated function that could continue on years after the people disappeared. Understanding where the food comes from is important for understand a lot of other things on the about how the island works.
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I want to know what the deal is with the Others. I want to know what Richard was talking about when he told Kate that if he saved Ben then Ben would lose his innocence and never be the same and always be one of them. Did he feed him the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil or something?
I want resolution to the Claire story. Why was it so important for her to raise Aaron?
I want to know how what has happened to everyone fits into a larger scheme of things. I think we're getting there with the conversation between Jacob and Esau and some of what you have all been saying about that. It's about redemption, just like it has been from the beginning of the show.
I want to know there was a reason why Charlie had to be brought to the island and then die. Eko, Ana Lucia, Boone, whatsername (Boone's sister), Libby -- lotta people we were introduced to just to see them get killed.
Oh yeah, Libby. Which brings us to Hurley. I want a lot of answers about our friend Hugo. The numbers, the hallucinations, etc.
You know, I'd be perfectly happy if they ended Season 6 with the larger explanations and then did little specials afterwards to tie up loose ends. I'd watch a flashback episode about any of those dead people after the season was over.
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We'll never find out about Libby. They've made that pretty clear.
Why were they so interested in Walt, though? He had some psychic powers. Were they grooming him to be a leader? They kept referring to him as "special". That's what they say about Locke, and what they don't say about Ben.
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posted
I subscribe to the you-can't-change-history theory. I think "the incident" was the h-bomb going off (in other words, by trying to prevent the incident, Jack actually caused it to happen).
I think Season 6 will begin with Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Hurley, Jin, and Myles opening their eyes (saved, once again!) and back on the island in 2008. Juliet will be dead. Sayid will be dead or dying. Jin and Sun will be reunited.
The Losties will come to understand that something very important has happened/is happening. It is vitally important that the incident occurred, Desmond came to the island, 815 crashed, Locke was killed, etc.
For over 30 years Ben, Richard, Eloise, and Charles have been manipulating events to make sure that everything recorded in Daniel's journal came to pass exactly as it was supposed to. That's why Ben let Radzynski, Kelvin, and then Desmond push the button all those years. It's why Charles manipulated Desmond into sailing in that race. It's why Eloise sent Daniel to the island on the freighter.
Season 6 will be about proving that human beings can change. Jacob must prove to "Esau" that Free Will is stronger than Predestination.
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quote:I subscribe to the you-can't-change-history theory. I think "the incident" was the h-bomb going off (in other words, by trying to prevent the incident, Jack actually caused it to happen).
The problem with that hypothesis is that the catastrophe started before the bomb went off. All the metal being sucked into the whole was exactly like what happened when the Losties stopped pushing the button. So its pretty clear that even if the bomb never went off there would have been an incident and that incident could easily have lead to all the effects we've seen. The bomb may not have changed anything or it may have been part of the original incident, but an incident had already happened before the bomb went off.
I want to know what was going on with the fail safe. How did the fail safe neutralize the pocket of energy so that the button no longer needed to be pushed? Could the fail safe have triggered a nuclear bomb? Why didn't the Dharma initiative simply trigger the fail safe a long time ago rather than continuing to push the button?
I'm betting that Radzinsky refuses to use the fail safe option because he thinks the EM pocket is too valuable a resource to destroy so they are pushing the button while he, Change and the guys in Michigan try to find a way to contain and control the energy without destroying it.
Since its all goobledegook science anyway, it doesn't really matter how the bomb destroys the EM pocket but if anyone wants a science explanation that sort of sounds "scientific-y-ish". Here's my attempt. The EM field is actually generated by a dense pocket of dark matter particles that are anti-neutrons, sort of an anti-matter black hole. The neutrons generated in the atom blast annihilate the the anti-neutrons creating one massive pulse of light and destroying the source of the EM field.
Feel free to share this and in the extremely remote chance that the writers actually ever say anything like this, remember you heard it hear first. I never expect to hear an explanation remotely that scientificyish on the show.
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quote:For over 30 years Ben, Richard, Eloise, and Charles have been manipulating events to make sure that everything recorded in Daniel's journal came to pass exactly as it was supposed to. That's why Ben let Radzynski, Kelvin, and then Desmond push the button all those years. It's why Charles manipulated Desmond into sailing in that race. It's why Eloise sent Daniel to the island on the freighter.
This seems to contradict the history can't be changed theory. If history can't be changed and Ben, Richard, Eloise and Charles know this. Then why would they think they need to work hard manipulating events? They know that Daniel will do his research and return to the island because it already happened. Why would they feel the need to push him if they know he will do it? If Eloise and Charles know Desmond is going to end up pushing that button on the island -- what makes them think they need to manipulate him to do it. If the past can not be changed, then those events would have to happen no matter what they do. Why would they then do anything at all that wasn't enjoyable? It isn't human nature to spend a great deal of effort doing unpleasant things unless one believes it will make a difference of some kind.
It makes more sense if Eloise and Charles believe that the time line can be changed but they have a reason for believing that this particular chain of events needs to happen and so they are constantly working to make sure these events happen.
Of course, whether or not Charles and Eloise believe that the time line can be changed and whether it really can are two different issues. I'm just saying that their behavior only makes sense if they can make a difference.
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quote:Of course, whether or not Charles and Eloise believe that the time line can be changed and whether it really can are two different issues. I'm just saying that their behavior only makes sense if they can make a difference.
I disagree completely.
quote:f history can't be changed and Ben, Richard, Eloise and Charles know this. Then why would they think they need to work hard manipulating events? They know that Daniel will do his research and return to the island because it already happened. Why would they feel the need to push him if they know he will do it? If Eloise and Charles know Desmond is going to end up pushing that button on the island -- what makes them think they need to manipulate him to do it. If the past can not be changed, then those events would have to happen no matter what they do. Why would they then do anything at all that wasn't enjoyable?
If things can't be changed, it implies that they can't be changed because things in time happen only once. So their manipulative actions are part of the cause and effect relationship of events that leads to those things happening.
Just because an event is "determined" to happen, doesn't mean it will magically happen. I'm going to cut and paste something i wrote in an email talking about this concept. I have another friend who has a serious problem with this idea too. He says, if things are determined, then what's the point of doing anything. since it's all already done. Why should he continue to go to school and work hard trying to earn his masters, when it's determined already. And I say, no, being determined and being done are two different things:
quote:Lets say a future version of Dermot time travels and shows up at younger Dermot's house. Future dermot says to present Dermot, "hey, guess what, you end up earning a phd and solving this incredibly complicated problem." and then he disappears. here are a few options:
A) maybe present dermot already is working towards that goal, and old dermots info tells him nothing of value and he continues along, earns his phd, solves the difficult problem, gets the chance to time travel, and tells his younger self this stuff.
B) current dermot doesn't care about a phd, and is only focused on his masters. he ignores what old dermot tells him and continues along his path and earns his masters degree. B1) derm decides a masters is all he wants and continues to work. years later he gets wrapped up in this difficult problem and decides he wants to earn a phd to help solve this problem. and does so. B2) as derm is completing his masters he decides that maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to earn a phd. and he does so.
C) Derm goes through an existential crisis. if his acts are already done, then what is the point of doing them. he gets depressed. he starts eating lots of chocolate, gets super fat, and sits around all day watching reruns of Friends. A few years down the line dermot evaluates his life, realizes he really miserable, and misses all that cool grad work he was doing. he decides to go back to school. school makes him really happy. he earns his phd and solves this incredibely difficult problem. later he travels back in time and tells young dermot.
D) maybe older dermot completes all these things but says, "hey, i'm not going to go back in time and tell my younger self these things. all telling myself these things did was get me really depressed and i wasted years of my life." so when he gets offered time travel he turns it down. again and again. but years later he's sitting around one day and suddenly gets really worried that maybe if he doesn't tell his young self these things, his young self won't get the phd and solve the problem and all the benefit that was gained from solving that problem will never happen! so he travels back in time and tells his younger self.
All these different scenarios end with the same result. The difference is that though young derm knows that old derm will come back and visit, he is completely unaware of why and the reasons surrounding why. so dermot, throughout his life continues to make choices, and use his free will in whatever way he wants to. even if from an outside point of view, those events are determined.
Let's try a harry potter example:
In Prisoner of Azkaban Harry is saved from the Dementors by someone he thinks is his father who casts an incredibly powerful patronus spell. When he travels back in time he wants to see the person who cast it, so he goes to where it was cast from. and waits. and waits. and waits. until poor earlier version of harry is about to die. And suddenly Harry realizes, "hey, there's no one here to cast the spell. young me is about to DIE! it's ME, i'm supposed to cast the spell!" and he does.
relation to Rabbit's conundrum: an earlier version of harry was saved by an older version of harry. But after the older version of harry time travels, he STILL HAS TO PERFORM THE ACT and save young harry, or no one will do it. he can't decide to just sit around and not do anything because it's already done...it isn't already done. it was only done once it was done! even though we know the act was determined to happen, Harry had to make a subjective decision to do the act.
I thought that was the biggest thing they drove home this past episode. At every corner and turn it was Choice Choice Choice. Every single character made a complicated decision based on whatever criteria they felt was important to use. And yet, it all brought about the event we knew was going to happen the whole time, because that event is part of history, events happen in time only once. So Ben, Charles, Eloise, etc...may know aspects of what events occur, but they are not magically put outside the causal nature of events just because they have some limited knowledge of them. They might know what will happen, but they don't know why, they don't know what they will choose to do, etc...and so their decisions and actions are still important.
For anyone who thinks the bomb changed the timeline in any way, i'm curious as to what you think about every other event leading up to it that we know conforms perfectly to what we know happens in history; Faraday talking to young charlotte, chang losing his arm, the incident occuring, sawyer blowing up the sub communications(we know this is still out in the future), young Ben being otherized, Jin stopping Rousseau from going in the temple, the compass exchange, etc...all those scenes were the Losties interacting with people at earlier points in their time line, and yet we know that all those events were always part of the Lost mythology, so if none of them were changed by any of these actions, why would the bomb going off be different?
posted
How is it that the Others are rich? Widmore, Ben, even mid-level big gay guy was loaded when he left the island. What's the commercial enterprise?
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quote:Of course, whether or not Charles and Eloise believe that the time line can be changed and whether it really can are two different issues. I'm just saying that their behavior only makes sense if they can make a difference.
I disagree completely.
Woops! I left out a word there. What I intended to say is that their behavior only make sense if they BELIEVE the can make a difference. It doesn't actually matter so much whether or not that is true but certainly most peoples behavior is influenced by what they believe to be true or it makes no sense to consider peoples motivations at all.
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quote:relation to Rabbit's conundrum: an earlier version of harry was saved by an older version of harry. But after the older version of harry time travels, he STILL HAS TO PERFORM THE ACT and save young harry, or no one will do it. he can't decide to just sit around and not do anything because it's already done...it isn't already done. it was only done once it was done! even though we know the act was determined to happen, Harry had to make a subjective decision to do the act.
The example doesn't apply because in that story, the Harry from the future chooses to act because he saw himself take that action in the past. He knew that he had to do it to save his past self. He didn't say, this is the past and the past can't change so I have to do this he said this is the past so I know what I need to do so that I will live. I want to live so I will do it.
In Lost, Eloise, Charles, Ben and Richard know what happens in 1977 but they have no idea what happens in the intervening years and what actions they took (if any) to make those events happen. They can't say, I know these things have to happen so I know what I need to do because unless they know a great deal more than we've been told, they don't know the details of Daniel's or Desmond's life that are important to get them to the island. I doubt there is anything in Faraday's notebook that says that his mother made him stop studying piano. So they can't consciously say -- this is what I have to do? Without that knowledge there are only a few options. They either believe that they can make a difference and want to make sure certain events happen or they believe its all predetermined and have no motivation to do anything in particular.
It could be like in Vonnegut's Timequake, Ellie and Charles know what they are going to do but have no control over whether or not they will do it. They become sort of mindless automatons for 30 years. They have a strong desire to stop the events of the past but simply can't control their actions.
No from a motivation stand point, the Other's behavior doesn't make sense unless they believe their actions can impact the past events and they for some reason want those events to occur.
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quote: So Ben, Charles, Eloise, etc...may know aspects of what events occur, but they are not magically put outside the causal nature of events just because they have some limited knowledge of them. They might know what will happen, but they don't know why, they don't know what they will choose to do, etc...and so their decisions and actions are still important.
Perhaps the whole disagreement is caused by my leaving out that one word.
I'm confident that whether the time line is fixed or not, people's choices and decisions are important. What I'm saying is that whether or not people believe the time line is fixed and unchangeable will influence the choices they make. When Jack believed "What ever happened, happened" he was content to make no effort to influence the course of events. Once he believed his actions could influence the outcome of events, he was motivated to risk his life in gun fights to do it.
People aren't motivated to take risks and make sacrifices unless they believe it will make a positive difference. Since Charles and Eloise do seem to be making sacrifices and taking risks, it seems that they must either want the incident to occur, believe that their actions can change whether or not the incident occurs or they've become mindless automatons whose motivations have no connection to how they act.
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quote: They either believe that they can make a difference and want to make sure certain events happen or they believe its all predetermined and have no motivation to do anything in particular.
See, this is the crux of our disagreement and/or misunderstanding. I don't believe that those statements are either/or. I believe both can be true.
quote:What I'm saying is that whether or not people believe the time line is fixed and unchangeable will influence the choices they make. When Jack believed "What ever happened, happened" he was content to make no effort to influence the course of events. Once he believed his actions could influence the outcome of events, he was motivated to risk his life in gun fights to do it.
That is true of Jack. But not necessarily true of everyone. For instance, Faraday in 1955 still believes in the whatever happened happened theory. And when posed with the situation with a nuclear bomb decides to act proactively to help the situation. He believes the time line is unalterable. So he uses that information to act in the most effective way possible, by saying to bury it, and knowing that it must work because the Island hasn't been blown up in the future. He believes in determinism, yet still believes his actions are important. "changing" events in time and "impacting" events in time are not the same when you start talking about time travel. Faraday believes events can't be changed, but he certainly believes that he can impact them. Like i said before, knowledge of events doesn't take away your relationship to the causal nature of how events happen.
quote:What I intended to say is that their behavior only make sense if they BELIEVE the can make a difference. It doesn't actually matter so much whether or not that is true but certainly most peoples behavior is influenced by what they believe to be true or it makes no sense to consider peoples motivations at all.
quote:People aren't motivated to take risks and make sacrifices unless they believe it will make a positive difference.
I'm probably repeating myself now, but yes, I agree with these statements. I just disagree with the idea that because my actions are determined, my own decisions or choices mean any less. To relate this to myself, I don't believe in free will. I'm an atheist with a materialist view of myself and the universe, and I think the ideas of the self and free will are convenient illusions. And yet even believing this, I still believe my actions and choices to be very important. I still try to live a good life, treat people kindly, and do what I can to help those less fortunate than I. I involve myself in organizations that I feel are doing good work in the world so I can actively try to impact the world in a positive way. I don't lie in bed all day doing nothing because "what's the point, i don't have any free will, it's all determined anyway, i can't change anything". Yes it might all be determined, but I don't know what it is, so i can choose to lie around, or I can choose to be active, and whatever i choose is what was always determined to have happened.
Charles, and Eloise, and Ben can all view their actions and decisions as important. Because while the event itself may be determined, like you said, they don't know about 90% of the variables involved, and so must act as best they can.
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quote:I'm probably repeating myself now, but yes, I agree with these statements. I just disagree with the idea that because my actions are determined, my own decisions or choices mean any less. To relate this to myself, I don't believe in free will.
I don't think you are really understanding me. I'm not saying that believing in determinism per se would remove the motivation to act and to try to act in a way one sees beneficial. I'm saying that knowing that she had killed Daniel Faraday in the past isn't a rational motive for her to manipulate events to make that happen. It isn't a logical reason for her to encourage him to do it. If she believes in determinism, she knows he will do it -- which might make her less motivated to try to stop it but it just isn't a motive for her to encourage it.
Think of it this way, suppose that some how you know that 10 years from now you will have a son and he will be hit by a car. You know that this predetermined and you cannot stop it. Would this motivate you to push him out in front of the car when the time comes? No way! If you are at all like most people, you either invest all your effort in trying to find a way to stop it hoping against hope that this isn't really futile or you accept that its futile and try to make the absolute best of the time before it happens. But knowing that kind of tragedy is in your child's future would not motivate any rational person to try to manipulate things so that it does happen.
Unless perhaps they also know that their son being killed by a car was essential to prevent some much greater catastrophe and it wouldn't happen unless they pushed. That might serve as a motive. Just knowing it was inevitable isn't a rational motive for the things Eloise Hawking did.
[ May 15, 2009, 10:56 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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quote:For anyone who thinks the bomb changed the timeline in any way, i'm curious as to what you think about every other event leading up to it that we know conforms perfectly to what we know happens in history.
Think of the time line as a self correcting system.. That's pretty much the way Eloise Hawking explained it to Desmond and what we saw when Desmond was trying to save Charlie's life. Most of time, making a different choice doesn't change anything because the Universe is able to correct and despite the small diversion, we settle back into the exact same timeline.
Think of a snowflake in Yellowstone National Park. Due to the chaotic nature of the winds, you couldn't predict precisely where a snowflake is going to fall, but most of the time it doesn't really matter because a few meters or even a dozen miles doesn't make a real difference. When the flake melts, the water will still drain into the same stream, into the Yellowstone River and makes its way to the Missouri, the Mississippi and ultimately the golf of Mexico. Even if it lands over by Old faithful in the Madison river drainage instead of the Yellowstone drainage, its will still make its way to the Missouri where its path will join up.
But for a very small number of snowflakes that happen to be falling right near the Continental divide, a tiny shift of a few millimeters will put them in the Snake River drainage rather than the Yellowstone drainage which heads to the Pacific Ocean and the path of those snowflakes will never join up with the other pathe. It will be radically altered essentially never remerging with the path taken by the snowflakes that fell only inches away. Those are watershed events.
So the watershed theory of history is that nearly all the time, small changes in peoples choices have no long term effect because overall pull of history (like gravity) is in the same direction. But there are watershed points in the time line when a change can in fact dramatically alter the time line. I don't know if that's where they are headed or not but its certainly a possibility.
Why do I think this is likely to be where this show is heading. It's because of Desmond and Charlie. Desmond kept saving Charlie's life and the Universe kept self correcting and he'd have to save Charlie's life again. But he kept doing this long enough that Charlie made it to the Mirror and contact Penny and that lead to a chain of events which we were told weren't supposed to happen including the rescue of the Oceanic 6 which then necessitated a major course correction. But because of all this, Desmond and Penny were reunited and they had a child and because of that child, Ben didn't shoot Penny. And it was after that point, that Eloise said that for the first time she had no idea what was going to happen. So I'm thinking that Desmond by saving Charlie repeatedly managed to shift the timeline enough that it can't correct back to the same course -- a watershed event.
I should add, that if Charlie had been killed by the first lightening strike, someone else might have still made it to the Mirror. But the computer password, needed to contact Penny, was musical so none of the Losties but Charlie would have been able to crack the code and they would not have been able to make contact.
So I think it is very likely that Daniel discovered that the incident was also a watershed point in history and that changing that event could in fact dramatically alter the timeline.
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quote: I'm not saying that believing in determinism per se would remove the motivation to act and to try to act in a way one sees beneficial. I'm saying that knowing that she had killed Daniel Faraday in the past isn't a rational motive for her to manipulate events to make that happen. It isn't a logical reason for her to encourage him to do it.
ahhh...i was totally misunderstanding you. And i agree. And I think you address what I assume the answer would have to take the form of: Eloise certainly loves her son. But she also loves the Island, possibly more than her son, and will do what needs to be done to protect it. Eloise must believe that sending Daniel to the Island is so integral to the survival of the Island that she's willing to do it, knowing what the consequences will be.
Now, they haven't shown us this, and you're right that knowing information along these lines is necessary to understand the character motivations of those who have knowledge of future events. I too hope they'll give a means to understand this.
Maybe you're right, maybe it's just human nature. They know Daniel will end up on the Island, and they believe it's necessary that he ends up there, but they don't know the mechanisms and details involved, so they take hold of what control they have, what influence they have, to make sure it happens. I see your point, and I don't have a comprehensive answer.
quote:So I think it is very likely that Daniel discovered that the incident was also a watershed point in history and that changing that event could in fact dramatically alter the timeline.
I think you had some really great thoughts there. Desmond has always been a problem for the "whatever happened, happened" theory. And if you followed the online Lost Experience stuff you know more about what the numbers signify in relation to the Valenzetti equation and Dharma's purpose on the Island. So the show has certainly hinted at the possibility of "changing" things.
Here's why I think there is a difference between Desmond's actions and what has happened this season. It's based on the idea that events happen only once in time, so if you don't buy that, we're starting from fundamentally different assumptions, but hear me out anyway. Desmond has accurately predicted certain aspects of future events, and acted on those visions to protect Charlie. Yet those future events that Desmond saw, they didn't happen. The didn't happen because he took steps to make sure they didn't happen. The key thing about those alternate time lines is that they weren't realized, we as viewers never saw them happen. I would say it's debatable whether Desmond actually "changed" anything, or just acted to "impact" the world around him, using the terms I spoke of above. For Desmond to "change" an event that happened in time I as the viewer would have to see it play out one way, and then during a time travel scene, play out a different way. At that point I'd eat my hat and say Change has come to Lost. It'd be like if the second time we saw the compass scene Ben stopped Richard from going out and helping Locke and giving him the compass. And yet that scene played out exactly the same way, and the reason I believe it played out exactly the same way is because events happen in time only once. We were just shown that same event in time, but from a different camera angle. When Desmond takes steps to change the future and save charlie, the moment that acts is the first and only time that event ever happened. The event he foresaw never occurred, in any time line.
I guess I'm saying that Desmond seeing a future scenario in his head, is fundamentally different from Faraday understanding the ripples emanating from one event that is known to happen in time, and thus trying to change that event. In the first case, Desmond is acting to impact the world through knowledge he has gained about a "possible" future. Faraday is trying to change an event that is already part of history.
Now, i fully admit i may be interpreting these events wrong, and I'm up in the air about Desmond's place in all this and how his actions will affect the plot, but I'm very doubtful that the blowing up of the nuke will put them onto a different timeline or "change" events as we know them to have happened.
And in fact, I'd almost argue that as much as many fans think it'd be cool if they "changed time", i think those fans would end up being highly disappointed if they reset things, and the next time we see these characters none of these events happened for them and they don't know each other. It'd almost be like making it all "just a dream". I think fans would lament all the lost relationships, and I don't think the show would be able to do anything meaningful with all those characters AND tie up the tons of loose plot lines that we all want answered.
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One more thing. I would liken Desmond's ability to see future events and act as he sees fit, to Jacob's ability to show up at key moments in people's lives and impact them. They have a control over time, or maybe more accurately an awareness of events in time and can thus step in at pivotal moments to impact events significantly. To alter the course of events, but not to change events, since there is no event to change.
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quote:Here's why I think there is a difference between Desmond's actions and what has happened this season. It's based on the idea that events happen only once in time, so if you don't buy that, we're starting from fundamentally different assumptions, but hear me out anyway.
Here is why I think that there isn't a difference. The events where Desmond saves Charlie's life happen inside the time loop. So if there is only one possible time course between 1977 and 2007, then there aren't any alternative time lines in 2004. If its true that whatever happened happened in 1977, it has to be true for the entire time loop. So there aren't any alternative timelines between 2004 and 2007. And If Desmonds visions aren't visions of a possible alternative future, I can't think of any logical explanation for them.
This just gave me a possible explanation for why Sun, Ben and Locke didn't get transported back to 1977. Assume that Desmond saving Charlie is a watershed event like moving a snowflake from the Yellowstone drainage to the Madison drainage. It makes a significant change in the timeline but not so huge that it can't be course corrected by bringing Jack, Sayid, Hurley and Kate back to 1977. So now we have two time lines that have happened --
The Yellowstone timeline where Charlie gets struck by lightening so the rescue never happens and
The Madison timeline where Charlie gets saved and the Oceanic 6 get rescued.
The Yellowstone timeline is what gets referred to as what was supposed to happen. But the Island gravity is strong enough to eventually make a course correction so just like the Madison River and the Yellowstone River ultimately join the Missouri, The Yellowstone time line and the Madison Time line merge in 1977.
So now I'm getting to why Sun, Ben and John didn't get flashed to 1977. If the rescue had never happened, Sun would have died of complications from her pregnancy in 1974 so she wouldn't have been there in 1977. Ben was one of the others and none of them made the time jump so we can assume Ben was never supposed to have jumped back to 1974. John is a bit different but we were told that Ben wasn't supposed to turn the wheel, John was. So for some reason we haven't been told, on the Yellowstone time line, John turned the wheel and so he ended up off the island and not Ben. These three didn't get flashed back to 1977 because they weren't in 1977 on the original time line.
Any way, I think the bomb is going to change the timeline. I don't know if it will change it enough that we end up on a Snake time line that never rejoins with the others or if we will simply be shifted to a Gallatin timeline and will still be heading for Gulf of Mexico.
The more I think about it the more I like this theory because it simply fits more of the details of the story than the deterministic theory. But I could easily be wrong.
For all I know I could easily be giving the authors too much credit in assuming that they did everything for a reason. But I'll be rather disappointed if they leave Desmond's unique relationship with time as one of the loose ends. They've just devoted too much time to it already to drop it.
[ May 16, 2009, 08:27 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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Does anyone else think that they are definately going to bring back Charlie to life? Jacob gave Hurly a guitar. That's I think a subtle hint that Charlie is going to be in the next season. I haven't dona a research to see if they re-hired the actor but I just think there has to be a reason Hurly has a guitar on the plaine, even if I don't think it went with him to the old dharma times, it's on the island. Unless whatever crazy mishap they do to the time space pattern because of the "Incedent" Changes everything. I still think we'll get Charlie back. Any thoughts? Who else would need a guitar?
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I've also been thinking we'll get Charlie back. partly because of the guitar, and our new understanding of how it came to be in Hurley's possession. Also Sun's finding of his ring. And partly because of some new thoughts about the Island as a metaphor for heaven/paradise/garden of Eden and how Charlie sacrificed himself to save the person/people he loved.
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quote:Originally posted by LargeTuna: I just think there has to be a reason Hurly has a guitar on the plaine, even if I don't think it went with him to the old dharma times, it's on the island.
Hurley had the guitar with him in the pool when he materializes in 1977, so the guitar definitely makes it back to Dharma time.
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