FLocke said to Richard, "Nice to see you without those chains." He made several comments about the chains being gone, now that Jacob is dead.
Also, in Season 5, he and Richard were talking about Richard's longevity and Locke's apparent resurrection. Richard said that he was the way he was because of Jacob; FLocke said it was something similar for him.
All that makes me think that Jacob had somehow bound Nemesis, and Nemesis saw Jacob's followers as being in chains (the classical argument about religious commandments).
"You make me think Hell is run like a corporation."
"It's the other way around, but yes."
Obaki, Too Much Information
I see no evidence of two smoke monsters. I'll have to go back and watch episode 1, but I don't remember two locations. Besides, Smokey moves pretty fast and covers lots of space.
Whew...finally saw it before anything was spoiled. So happy to now be able to join the discussions.
Kil Tyme wrote:
And not a guess, but some observations: Spoiler
Jacob is "Accended" after all, like I was joking in an earlier post. And notice how on the plane some things were altered: Jack's response to the flight attendant giving him a free bottle of booze was different. "This of course breaks some sort of code violation" (or words to that effect) in original time line, vs "It will be our secret" in the altered timeline. Also, Boone setting near Locke without Shannon vs Boone and Shannon setting togeather farther up in first class in the orig timeline. Well, and Charlie trying to kill himself...
Spoiler
Not to mention that Desmond was on the plane, which was the first shocker for me. I might be remembering incorrectly, but the "It Will be our secret" was in the original timeline. I wonder if the actress playing Shannon declined coming back - hence her absence. One other bit that is subtly different on the plane was Hurley was going on about how lucky he is, whereas previously he had felt he was cursed by the numbers and everything going wrong after winning the lottery. He went to Australia to try and find out more about the curse. Which leaves the question now - why was he in Australia in this timeline?
Damn...a heap more questions when they are meaning to answer them. That's fine though - I find it more fun when I am asking questions then finding the questions on Lost.
The biggest question for me is, and I suspect we won't find out until the end of the season, when they were flying in 2004 in the new changed way of things, the island was underwater. WTF? And that drop from the plane into the ocean....was that Christian's point of view?
Life is a waste of time
Time is a waste of life
So get wasted all of the time
And you'll have the time of your life
Murrin, are you running Peer Block or the slightly outdated Peer Guardian? If so, I can give you my lists.
"It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
-George Steiner
Cagliostro wrote:Whew...finally saw it before anything was spoiled. So happy to now be able to join the discussions.
Kil Tyme wrote:
And not a guess, but some observations: Spoiler
Jacob is "Accended" after all, like I was joking in an earlier post. And notice how on the plane some things were altered: Jack's response to the flight attendant giving him a free bottle of booze was different. "This of course breaks some sort of code violation" (or words to that effect) in original time line, vs "It will be our secret" in the altered timeline. Also, Boone setting near Locke without Shannon vs Boone and Shannon setting togeather farther up in first class in the orig timeline. Well, and Charlie trying to kill himself...
Spoiler
Not to mention that Desmond was on the plane, which was the first shocker for me. I might be remembering incorrectly, but the "It Will be our secret" was in the original timeline. I wonder if the actress playing Shannon declined coming back - hence her absence. One other bit that is subtly different on the plane was Hurley was going on about how lucky he is, whereas previously he had felt he was cursed by the numbers and everything going wrong after winning the lottery. He went to Australia to try and find out more about the curse. Which leaves the question now - why was he in Australia in this timeline?
Damn...a heap more questions when they are meaning to answer them. That's fine though - I find it more fun when I am asking questions then finding the questions on Lost.
The biggest question for me is, and I suspect we won't find out until the end of the season, when they were flying in 2004 in the new changed way of things, the island was underwater. WTF? And that drop from the plane into the ocean....was that Christian's point of view?
Spoiler
Remember, this is a timeline where the island was obliterated in 1974 (hence, why it was at the bottom of the ocean). Desmond is a very logical change to this timeline, since Widmore would have been on the island when it was vaporized. No Widmore, no Penny, no Desmond having met Jack previously, etc. I don't expect to see Faraday either in this new universe for roughly the same reason.
Now, here's the problem with the whole thing: the show is using (at least partially) quantum theory to solve the problem with the bomb, hence the two universes, one where it destroyed the island, the other were it just sends Jack & friends forward in time. The writers hoped, I believe, to avoid to much tinkering and way to explore changes in time lines without negating what had gone before. Of course, according to quantum theory, there should be infinite numbers of alternate universes, the problem with this being that the experiences of our castaways kinda cease having as much meaning (in my mind, if this were the case). This could led to what Vraith was talking about when he said the time lines would probably flow into each other... kinda like how when you strike a string, eventually it'll stabilize itself. This will allow them to have the two alternate realities for their purposes and not have to worry about infinite universes.
'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville
I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!
"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley
So when can we stop using spoiler tags? I'm not complaining. I just want to know when it's safe. Spoiler
As for the differences on the plane . . . I have no idea how setting off the bomb during the Incident would cause personal changes in people's lives. This has obviously affected a lot more than the plane failing to crash. It affected multiple lives prior to getting on the plane. Probably all the way back to 1977. How is that possible? Butterfly effect? Tiny changes starting in 1977 that eventually ripple out to the rest of the world? If that's so, then why are the changes 27 years later (2004) so small? Most of the same people are still on the same exact flight (Shannon is missing because the actress couldn't make it). What could possibly make such fundamental changes such that everyone was affected, but still only affect them a little?
And there seems to be some cross-talk between timelines, things that happen in both as if they were "destined" to happen. And this crosstalk itself isn't linear, because it happens for events that hadn't occurred yet in the original 2004 timeline (for instance Charlie getting saved by Jack happened a few weeks later on the island).
If the Incident sunk the island, how can that possibly be construed as "it worked," in Juliet's words? That seems like a very selective definition of success. From the perspective of anyone else on the island at the time, that's an epic fail. How could it have possibly been worse if the Losties chose not to interfere? Sure, they'd be dead. But this small group of people aren't the most important thing in the world. You don't sink islands to save a handful of people.
I'm trying to wrap my head around the Incident. Did they prevent it? Or cause it? Last season, I thought they prevented it, because when they were time traveling in the s5 opener, the hatch looked more like it did at the end of s5, rather than the beginning of s3 (after Des blew it). So I thought they changed things for that timeline, hence the Incident was prevented and the hatch was never built. But now it looks like the hatch was built, and they didn't prevent the Incident. Thus, they caused the Incident--or at least helped it to unfold exactly like it had in the original timeline we've known all along.
So what would have happened if they hadn't interferred? The Incident would have been much worse? I suppose "much worse" means the island would have sunk? That makes sense, if they never went back to interfere. So that means "causing" the Incident (or interferring in a way that produced what we have thus far known as the Incident) is actually preventing it, or preventing a much worse version of it.
Therefore, the 2004x timeline is wrong, at least from the perspective of the island. Escaping their "fate" (i.e. crashing on the island) caused something much worse to happen. And yet, they didn't escape their fate. That timeline is still running. So crashing on the island produced a chain of events keeps them from crashing on the island. Paradox.
Are they trying to say that reality responds to such a paradox by creating an alternate timeline? We've got a Schrodinger's cat situation? If that's the case, what is the event which will kill (or save) the cat? Something must collapse this superposition of timelines into one?
Ah, I feel like everything I've just said is obvious now that I've typed it out. Like I said, I'm just trying to wrap my brain around it.
Last edited by Zarathustra on Thu Feb 04, 2010 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The introduction of two timelines sounds like it's heading into a retread of a plot mechanic found in Dark Tower - a consequential action, two timelines branch from there, something doesn't seem quite right, the consequences need to be corrected to merge the timelines, which is the only way to bring peace/salvation.
I think you're making things a little more complicated then they need to be, Z. First, our group of castaways did not give a damn about the other inhabitants of the island... just about the plane and its passengers, so Juliet's "it works" syncs up with this desire nicely (however morally questionable it may be). The "Incident" I presume was the pocket of electromagnetism being released. In one timeline, the nuclear powers neutralized this, though it did not destroy the source, allowing for events to unfold as we are familiar with them. In the other, the atom bomb acted as a normal atom bomb and vaporized everything and everyone. This led to a chain of events that altered the original timeline, though not necesarily in the drastic ways you'd expect since the island had little to do with the passengers up to the crash.
It's also good to note that because Hurley said he's the luckiest guy in the world, doesn't mean that he isn't lying or being bitterly ironic in the statement, though it could imply that his bad luck was the result of the meddling of one of the island's entities who are presumably no more in this time line.
I think the writers took the easy way out with this timeline structure... it's not very original, though they may be able to apply it uniquely. At least they haven't murdered the show yet
Right now, I think we should continue to spoiler things until Lost is being broadcast worldwide or we know that the folks that frequent this thread have seen the episodes.
'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville
I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!
"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley
The introduction of two timelines sounds like it's heading into a retread of a plot mechanic found in Dark Tower - a consequential action, two timelines branch from there, something doesn't seem quite right, the consequences need to be corrected to merge the timelines, which is the only way to bring peace/salvation.
Spoiler
Could be, though I think it's more likely that the two timelines will just merge together naturally. (At least, that's my hope... wouldn't want the ending of Lost being Jack waking up in episode one of S1... that'd be lame!)
'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville
I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!
"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley
If the Island as we know it disappeared in the 70s, then Hurley would never have been influenced by the number sequence of doom. The most likely outcome would be that he never won the lottery; however, it seems that he did win the lottery, just with regular numbers. And so he has no luck issues.
Also, probably Aaron would never have been born, or he would have been born normal, and so Claire would not be on the plane at all.
Not sure why Shannon, Boone's stepsister, wasn't on the plane, I mean, in terms of how the timeline change caused that.
If the Island as we know it disappeared in the 70s, then Hurley would never have been influenced by the number sequence of doom. The most likely outcome would be that he never won the lottery; however, it seems that he did win the lottery, just with regular numbers. And so he has no luck issues.
Also, probably Aaron would never have been born, or he would have been born normal, and so Claire would not be on the plane at all.
Not sure why Shannon, Boone's stepsister, wasn't on the plane, I mean, in terms of how the timeline change caused that.
Spoiler
Claire is off to give the baby up for adoption, just like she was doing before the plane crash. Hurley got the numbers from a mental patient who got them from listening to radio sounds in the Pacific during the late forties or fifties before the Island was blown to bits.
Yeah, I have no explanation for Shannon... probably because it has more to do with the availability of the actress then it does the story, as some have said.
'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville
I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!
"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley
If the Island as we know it disappeared in the 70s, then Hurley would never have been influenced by the number sequence of doom. The most likely outcome would be that he never won the lottery; however, it seems that he did win the lottery, just with regular numbers. And so he has no luck issues.
Spoiler
I think Hurley still winning the lottery, along with the utter improbability of them all being on the same plane, is just proof that the bomb nudged the time line, set it in the one that was closest to the original minus the island. While it's improbable, in an infinite number of universes...
I want to know what the deal with the Ankh is. Sure, that's their symbol (and breaking it to get the message is a symbol in itself), but it still seems like a rather inefficient way of delivering a note. Same with the circle of ash - if you're going to go with witchcraft, why not salt? I like symbolism as much as the next guy, unless the next guy is Lurch, but...
"It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
-George Steiner
I think Hurley still winning the lottery, along with the utter improbability of them all being on the same plane, is just proof that the bomb nudged the time line, set it in the one that was closest to the original minus the island. While it's improbable, in an infinite number of universes...
I like it!
Syl wrote:Spoiler
I want to know what the deal with the Ankh is. Sure, that's their symbol (and breaking it to get the message is a symbol in itself), but it still seems like a rather inefficient way of delivering a note. Same with the circle of ash - if you're going to go with witchcraft, why not salt? I like symbolism as much as the next guy, unless the next guy is Lurch, but...
Spoiler
This is something I have a problem with... it's almost like now that they're at the heart or source of the conflict, they have reverted to complete mythology and zero explanation. Why can't SLocke cross ash? He just can't, that's the way it is. That's the sort of thinking that I hope this season avoids or minimizes, at least.
As far as the Ankh, I think it's as efficient way to get a message if you want to make sure that only one person gets that message.
'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville
I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!
"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley
The ankh is the symbol for eternal life. This may have been Jacob's way of reminding the people in the temple that he is immortal. Which would become important when they learned that Jacob was killed. I suspect that either he's reminding them that he isn't really dead, or he's promising to return from death. That's my bet.
The ankh is the symbol for eternal life. This may have been Jacob's way of reminding the people in the temple that he is immortal. Which would become important when they learned that Jacob was killed. I suspect that either he's reminding them that he isn't really dead, or he's promising to return from death. That's my bet.
Excellent insight!
'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville
I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!
"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley
Zarathustra wrote:So when can we stop using spoiler tags? I'm not complaining. I just want to know when it's safe.
I brought up the idea of keeping 'em for a week and then it's fair game on the previous week's episode without using spoiler tags. Does that sound good for everybody, or should we increase/decrease that timeline?
Also, curious if you all think I should go back in and edit out the spoiler tags at that time too, or should I just relax and leave 'em?
Life is a waste of time
Time is a waste of life
So get wasted all of the time
And you'll have the time of your life
I think the spoiler tags are pretty dumb (and my opinion on this has been the same for BSG and the Last Chronicles). Somehow the word came from meaning something that most people wouldn't know to meaning something that everyone wouldn't know.
"It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
-George Steiner
And notice how on the plane some things were altered: Jack's response to the flight attendant giving him a free bottle of booze was different. "This of course breaks some sort of code violation" (or words to that effect) in original time line, vs "It will be our secret" in the altered timeline. Also, Boone setting near Locke without Shannon vs Boone and Shannon setting togeather farther up in first class in the orig timeline. Well, and Charlie trying to kill himself...
