2821

There is a reason why they only take a sub over. It has been stated by numerous people (including the Producers) that there is something above/around the Island. No one has stated there is anything below it (underwater). It follows that underwater is a safe passage to and from the Island, hence the sub.

Furthermore, no one knows exactly how Desmond got on the Island. He thinks it is during the boat race but for all we know the Others could have brought him to the Island via the boat race without him knowing it (much like how Cooper, Locke’s dad, was brought to the Island without him knowing it).

As for Roussea, she is crazy. Hence we cannot believe anything she says nor can we use her testimony as building blocks for plot theories. She is no different than Ben; Ben is a liar and Roussea is crazy – neither of their words are trustworthy for plausible theories at this time.

2822

This is what makes the show great–how it generates interesting speculation like this. I get as much out of the discussion about the show as I do the show itself.

I’m still dumbstruck as to why Ben went to so much trouble to mentor Locke, only to shoot him. Because Locke challenged his authority? And wouldn’t Locke be a little more careful than to turn his back on Ben?

2823

Perhaps there is something over the island, but I’m not going to buy a time/space rift. An electrical anomaly, a sort of shield from satellites and whatnot - That I’ll buy. But the multi-verse theories, I’m not ready to buy those yet. I think that the 815 crash wreckage was faked, deep enough (4 miles?) that any footage would have been easy enough to CG, especially with the resources the Others seem to have.

And I don’t believe Roussea is institutional-crazy. Her survival and circumstances have led her to a sort of frayed grasp on reality, but she still has a grasp on reality. She acts rationally and deliberately, and has yet to have been shown lying except when it involved her attempts to get her daughter back. After the first season, she’s been pretty straight with the Losties.

2824

And what happened to all the rock breaking project work Sawyer and Kate were forced to do??
It better be a three year project, the end is coming.

2825

I guess theories on that depend on your interpretation of “Jacob”. If you think that was all just a show for Locke, then yeah, Ben snapping on Locke seems odd, but if there either really is a Jacob, or Ben’s crazy and believes in one, then Ben’s anger could be related to that. At the very end he seemed almost betrayed and jealous that Jacob apparently spoke to Locke.

2826

I guess that makes sense, Ben did seem pretty pissed and made the point to demand Locke tell him what Jacob said. I don’t think Ben is crazy or delusional at all, that would be too simple. I think there is a “Jacob” and he can appear in many forms, or not appear visible, as he chooses. I think it is Jacob who appears as Jack’s father, Kate’s horse, Eko’s brother, and Hurley’s psych ward mate. In the cabin, Jacob appeared to Ben but not Locke.

I’m sticking with my original theory. Well, actually it has been revised 344 times, but hey… it’s nearly a month old now!

2827

Interesting bit from TV Watch at ew.com:

In the aftermath, Locke denied his own eyes and demanded that Ben come clean about faking the ‘‘Help me’’ voice. Ben allowed that he had stretched the truth before — like his claiming that he’s always lived on the Island. Clearly not the literal truth, but perhaps, in Ben’s mind, it’s true in that Ben Kenobi ‘‘from a certain point of view’’ kind of way. In the episode’s final scene, Ben took Locke to the Dharma mass grave — a grotesque marker of the event that made Ben into the monster he is today. And there, Ben shot Locke. The reason seems self-explanatory: In order to preserve everything that gives his life meaning, Ben needed to put down the threat that Locke embodied: being replaced, becoming obsolete. You saw it in his eyes when he heard what Jacob had said to Locke. It was the look of a man who had just been told that his idealized father — a father who genuinely needed him; a father who gave his life importance — had found a new favorite son.

2828

I stopped watching Lost halfway through season 2 because I found the slow pace too frustrating. But Terry O’Quinn, who plays John Locke, lives around here, and I see him at Caribou Coffee every so often. He was there this afternoon with a middle-aged woman, presumably his wife, and the two of them were taking advantage of Caribou’s free wireless with his-and-her laptops.

I noticed on the way out that O’Quinn was reading an on-line forum, though I couldn’t see which. I imagine him logging on to discussions like this one under assumed names and posting the most absurd theories he can think of for the sheer joy of watching people take them and run with them.

2829

I don’t think there is any reason to think that Richard is somehow ‘immortal’ or not aged due to Island magic. I think it has everything to do with Nestor Carbonell being one of those guys who ages well. He is 39 now. Without makeup, he can probably play 30 to late 40s. How far back was the first Ben and Richard meeting? 20 years?

I think it’s a touch of make up in both directions. Longer hair, shadowing a lot of his face, and some dirt/makeup to make him seemed tan and youthful. Then a haircut tight on the sides with a hint of grey at the temples to make him seem older. I can easily believe that young Richard was 22-25 and current Richard is 45-48.

We don’t know which Others were original hostiles, so we have no other points of comparison.

2830

I don’t buy it. If Ben wanted Locke dead, you think he’d be smart enough to shoot Locke multiple times, including at least once in the head, knowing that the island heals. Either Ben is testing Locke, or he’s really stupid.

2831

Seems like it would be closer to 30. Consider how much aging Ben and his dad did between the first meeting and the purge day. I’m not sure they are saying he is immortal, but I think it is clear they want us to be scratching our heads over the fact that he (Richard) looks about the same age, just with shorter hair. One other thing is that Ben looked about the same on purge day as he does now and he was shocked to learn he had a tumor, so maybe slow aging goes with the neighborhood, if you’re accepted/on “Jacob’s List” or whatever, and part of the reason Ben is losing his cool is because it appears as if he’s being pushed out because the island isn’t maintaining his age anymore… If he thought he wasn’t aging, it would explain his surprise at the cancer (presumably if he isn’t aging, his cells aren’t undergoing the typical division cycle that cancer growth relies on). This all seems to tie neatly into why the Dharma people were there doing experiments on life extention…

2832

Well I’m pretty sure that Roussea was getting the TNT for Jack. For the trap they’ll be setting for the others.

2833

I don’t see where you are going with this.

  1. Desmond’s arrival is what motivates Penny to start looking for him.
  2. Flight 815’s crash in the same location as Desmond’s crash which gives Penny a hint that the Island is somewhere out there
  3. The EMP (when the Pearl station blows up) confirms the exact location of the Island for Penny and her Portaguese retainers.
  4. Penny sends Naomi to make contact.
2834

When did Ben mentor Locke?

Ben introduced Cooper to Locke to get Locke to kill Cooper. This was not mentoring. This was an act of obedience towards Ben. Once Locke kills his own father for Ben in front of everyone, Locke has proved obedience to Ben in Ben’s eyes. (Much like how Ben killed his own father – Locke kills his own father too… coincidence? I think not.)

2835

I couldn’t agree more. If Ben wanted Locke dead he would shoot to kill.

As an aside, wouldn’t it be funny if Locke’s abdominal wound hit his only kidney killing him by renal bleeding?

Alternatively, wouldn’t if be funnier if the gun shot wound would have hit his kidney but didn’t because he gave that kidney to his father. The bullet misses everything else in his abdomen and Locke lives?

2836

I don’t see where you’re going with this. Desmond disappears, years later a plane goes down that I guess happens to involve the same ocean, so hey, that must be because Desmond is stuck on a secret island that pulls in planes! How would Penny make that jump?

I’ll grant you she may, and this is a stretch, have somehow learned something over the years more than “Desmond was lost at sea in a race”, though I have no idea how. She seems to know enough to know that this crazy EMP thing is somehow related to Desmond. But associating that with flight 815? Even after she knows about the EMP and uses that to narrow down the location, for Desmond, there’s no reason to use that to explain the 815 crash because there is no mystery to that for the outside world. Maybe some relatives are beating themselves up about why the plane crashed, but Penny has no tie to the plane. To the rest of the world, a plane went off course and crashed, later they found it in the ocean, case closed, lives move on.

So even Penny, suspicious as she may be about Desmond’s disappearance, has no reason to connect those dots. The plane crash isn’t a mystery to anyone but our characters on the island.

2837

There is no “jump” to make. She knows more than you think about the Island.

I am basing my speculations on a premise. I assumed everyone who watches Lost closely in this thread would have accepted the following premise:

Penelope Widmore is part owner of the Widmore Corporation (presumably founded by her father). We already know that Widmore Corporation has ties to the Island and the Dharma Project including manufacturing the ballon for the real Henry Gale and manufacturing the Dharma pregnancy tests. Furthermore, the novel “The Bad Twin” details connections between the Widmore Corporation and the Hanso Foundation. No doubt Penelope knows a few secrets about this Island, she obviously doesn’t know everything since she doesn’t know its exact location until the failsafe went off, but she knows a lot more than the average persion.

After accepting this premise return to my speculations and I think they will become more plausible.

On a somewhat related note, do you remember when Des is released from prison? Penelope manages to track him down. Desmond asks how she found him and Penelope replies “with enough money and determination, you can track anyone”.

2838

Right. And wasn’t there something in the Lost Experience thing that suggests Penny would be aware of a possible connection between her father and the island and the others? Or possibly Kelvin?

Kelvin must have been a ‘forgotten’ or ‘tolerated’ member of the Dharma group pre-Purge.

2839

Doc D, I already granted you that Penny knows more about the island or whatever than we do, but we both agree she doesn’t have a complete picture either.

The problem is you’re using your proposed theory to justify complete conjecture on what Penny’s doing, just to justify your proposed theory. Here’s the bit that kicked this discussion off:

Even if we take the huge flying leap for your crisis on infinite earths, Penny has no motivation to seek out answers for the crash of flight 815. Does Penny attribute every event in the southern hemipshere with her crazy island?

“Penny, did you hear about the wildfires in Australia?”
“Yeah, that’s because there’s convergence of dimensions somewhere in that area, so every time anything happens, the same thing happens someplace else, except something else happens.”
“What.”

Penny is looking for clues to Desmond’s location. As you point out, through her father’s connection, she must be at least tangentally related to the events on the island, but hell, we don’t even have reason to believe Penny knows it’s an island. She could’ve spent the last five years assuming Desmond wrecked off the coast of Australia and was held in her father’s facility somewhere in the middle of th Australian desert. We don’t know what the rest of the world, or even other parts of the Dharma and Hanzo foundation, knew about our specific island.

So she wouldn’t be looking for the island from the information we do know. So the idea that 815’s crash led her to the island doesn’t provide support your idea, because that’s all just a part of your idea.

Edit: Or, put another way, if your dimensions/parallel universe idea is right, why would Penny know that the plane “interfaced” with the anomaly?

2840

I don’t think Penny knows anything or gives a damn about Flight 815. Naiomi was very surprised to see the 815 survivors. We know that her dad didn’t like Desmond at all, and we know her dad has connections to the island. It seems if nothing else she knows the island has something to do with Electro Magnetic stuff, and probably suspects that her father had a hand in making Desmond vanish. So she has her team in Antarctica watching for an EMP to help locate the island.

The big thing I’m wondering is how after the purge:

  1. The Hostiles created their large wealth and corporation in the USA
  2. The Dharma drops didn’t stop (btw… how could they drop supplies without crashing in the first place?)
  3. Does Hanso thing Dharma is somehow still functional? If they figured out what happened you think they’d send some Mercs to the island or something.

Edit: Also, it’s rather fun to go back to the start of this thread and see how the perceptions of the show have evolved.