Over on the fuselage.com, there's an interesting debate with potential implications for a bunch of topics we've discussed recently. Take a gander at this deleted scene from the Season 4 DVD, which apparently takes place when Ben lands in the desert after turning the Donkey Wheel:
In the scene, Ben rides to a crumbling stone wall and dismounts. As he scans the horizon, we can clearly see a body lying motionless off in the distance. Mysteriously, the body appears to be wearing Ben's Dharka, pants, and boots. Ben seems unphased by his dead "twin" but is obviously in a hurry. He pauses long enough to grab a stash of money and passports hidden in the wall then gallops off into the desert.
The conventional interpretation, which I currently favor, is that the body belongs to one of the Bedouins who accost Ben after he wakes up in the desert. Ben dresses the first body in his clothes to fool Widmore's people into thinking he died in transit. (This might be why, as Wayne Allen Sallee reminds us, Widmore installed cameras at the exit point.) Ben goes to hide the second body, then returns for the wall stash. The scene was probably cut to avoid confusing viewers familiar with the two Bunny 15s from the Orchid Orientation outtake.
That brings me to the more whackadoo take, which is admittedly growing on me which I'm now persuaded is correct. You can't make out the face in the youtube clip, but our friend darkprose swears it's Ben's own visage when viewed on DVD. And as SamG observes, the deleted scene seems to be a continuation from when Ben rides off after the Bedouin attack. Watching the two scenes in that order leaves the impression they take place at different locations. You can, for example, see power lines behind the body that aren't visible when Ben first awakens. As Netprophet notes, however, the pile of rocks behind Ben is the same in both scenes.
I know what you're thinking. One Ben? Two Bens? But he ... but you can't ... oh, my medication. Skepticism was my first reaction, too. The more I think about it, however, the more intrigued I am by the notion that turning the Donkey Wheel creates a duplicate. Could this be why the Man in Black wanted Locke to turn the Wheel? Can returning to the Island have a similar twinning effect? Maybe Darlton deleted the scene in question to avoid tipping their hands prematurely regarding the two Lockes in Season 5...
Update: September 15, 2009
Darkprose has posted this screencap (click for a larger pic) which establishes pretty conclusively that a second Ben is indeed lying on the ground.
Update: September 16, 2009
Our friend Allan has created this loop (click the icon in the bottom right corner for full screen) of the second Ben apparently inhaling. Though we see this other Ben for only a second or two, his exaggerated gasp resembles the deep breath taken by the original Ben upon awakening in the desert.
As always, you're welcome to post anonymously, but please identify yourself somehow, so I can distinguish between anonymous posters. Thanks!
Yes, it's a very disturbing scene -- I have to admit I don't like it at all. It wasn't included for a very good reason, obviously, but as you say that could go either way. At first I didn't want it to be another Ben, or even look like Ben, but I can't deny that, in better resolution, the nose and clean-shave makes it very likely that it's Michael Emerson. Does this have anything to do with the two Lockes, or is that a completely different phenomenon? I have a feeling that's something different. I also am uneasy about this new piece of information as it makes differentiation of the two Ben's so difficult -- it's not like there is an "evil" Ben (lol), he's, you know, already evil. So, for me the question is: is this just a weird side-effect of the turning of the frozen wheel, or it might not be central to the overall endgame and that is why they deleted it, or, is this a key to the final season and Locke's destiny, too -- for instance, this might be a way to get out of his death: the one Ben killed was the duplicate or some such thing, and the Island/monster resurrected the duplicate, thus preserving the original Locke safe and sound for the last season? This stupid, short deleted scene has my head reeling. :-)
It's a short clip that might be a clue to the two Lockes, much like the con videos that give us a thought-push without ever being shown in context within the show.
The clip shows something that could be cut because we kind of got it, Ben had passports and money that he didn't have in the Orchid parka. I guess I'd buy into the "two Bens" theory more if he didn't remain the same bastard off-Island. MIB Locke was pretty much creepy from the moment he appeared after 316 crashed. But it is interesting.
Maybe the dead body is Frogurt. I mean, it was shot with a flaming arrow.
Well, there were 2 Miles on the island at the same time too.
And I guess when time flashing Sawyer saw Kate delivering Claire's baby, 2004 Sawyer was at the camp (he had all the alcohol for Kate to take back to Jack, who was tending to Boone).
Are these twins too? I need to finish up Bad Twin and see if there is any insight to report.
i was never to keen on the notion of MiB "copying" Locke so maybe this will lead to a better explanation
and taking the twinning to the extreme we have the possibility of in the outrigger flash Juliet shooting Juliet in the other outrigger which makes my head spin
i assumed it was Bram and Illana with Locke in the box in the outrigger shooting at the flashing left behinders in the outrigger because they recognized Locke but the idea of this event happening AFTER Ben killed Jacob is intriguing but is it Flocke or Locke in the flashing outrigger?
Greg, I mentioned last week how weird it would be if the outrigger scene involved the same outrigger, though we'd have no real justification as to why #2 started shooting at #1. Since it was the one flash not answered, it seems important.
This thing with Ben is pretty bizarre, tho. The conspiracy guy in me wants to know why little nuggets like this appear after the S4 DVDs have been out for months? Gotta go, the black helicopters are coming...
maybe when you turn the FDW a second version is created that lives in the close future to the original which dies so Ben is looking at his dead version
this is where MiB took over Locke's dead original but we do have the cameras to contend with, i don't the cameras where there when Ben turned the FDW, maybe Widmore knew where to put the cameras becuase his people discovered Ben's dead version
maybe these leads to why Widmore can't kill Ben when Ben barges into Widmore's bedroom
Wayne, i saw the black helicopter photos on your blog, better lay low
yeah, that's why i assumed it was Bram and Illana that started the outrigger gunfire since we saw them collecting guns like they were getting ready to start shooting people, maybe they saw an alive Locke in the outrigger and maybe they thought it was MiB or at least they knew something was afoul since they had dead Locke in the box in their outrigger
I just watched the scene. I have season 4 on blu-ray so the image is as good as it gets. The image is disturbingly close to Ben. The problem being Ben took his parka off and then we see a body with the parka. He could have put it on one of the Bedouins incase somebody came looking for them. Also, the hood is up so no real identification is possible.
We have absolutely no context for the outrigger scene except that since it is in the same time frame we have a picture of the Ajira water bottle in an outrigger, it is in the future. Other than that it could be anybody in the 2nd outrigger that started shooting.
john, Dan, Juliet, Sawyer, Charlotte and Miles were all in the boat. It appears that someone got hit because after Juliet fires a couple of shots we see someone, a shadow, flinching as if struck. as far as who that is there is no possible way of Knowing.
Neoloki, thanks for the reminder of who was in the outrigger, i couldn't quite remember when Dan & Charlotte got separated from the group and Charlotte died in relation to it, so now i see the outrigger shooting happened before Charlotte died
Here's how UnderAlienControl put it over on The Fuselage....
More or less, because you've broken the speed of light (in order to teleport/time travel in the first place) it causes observation to break down (become unreliable).
Essentially (in my words) the FDW sent Ben into the past and future at the same time. 'Duplicating' him like the bunnies from the Orchid Outtakes video.
With what I understand of quantum teleportation (just from reading various pages) scientists believe that if it were ever possible...it would be much like the Star Trek (original series) episode The Enemy Within.
Kirk has a transporter malfunction and it 'duplicates' him...this was, of course, way before anything like this was ever tested in a lab.
So the original is 'duplicated' and the 'copy' is teleported.
Only in this case, the FDW sends BOTH the original and the copy and spits them out...one just before Ben actually arrived (in the past).
So I would suspect, unless I have my wires crossed that the Ben lying on the ground (as observed by Bedouin-ass-kicking Ben) is 'real Ben'.
And just to keep things nice and tidy...maybe we'll see 'real Ben' killed by Charles Widmore...only to see 'dupe Ben' as the one who showed up in Widmore's room.
"I know who you are boy, WHAT you are."-Widmore.
I don't know, it's not a perfect idea but it's awful cool to think about.
The scientific analogy that leaps to my mind is particle-antiparticle annihilation. Perhaps turning the Donkey Wheel propelled one Ben forward in time, while the other went backwards into the past.
First Ben arrives at well and looks at second Ben (no shock on face, he knows the drill) he takes passport and money.
FIrst 'twin' to arrive after split seems extremely knowledgeable on warfare and languages, hmmm. I'm guess "I know what you are boy." just got explained.
First Ben recruits Sayid and kills second Locke. This might also explain the puzzled look on his face with Desmond arrives at church. But there's no way that the two Ben's are NOT aware of themselves. What does the bunny video tell us - they can't come into contact with each other.
Ben's said that he knew of only one other time that the FDW had been turned. So Ben, Locke and at least one other. We saw Widmore leave by sub. What about Christian Shephard - he's seems to be living the double life and was spoken about by Jack as though still alive in LDJB.
Could somebody plz go to the Orchid Station and see if there's a body there?
Locke. What to think. Suppose the first Locke landed outside the Widmore compound and we did not get the benefit of seeing him. The second Locke, much like the second Ben triggered Widmore's security and he was taken to hospital. We see only second Locke attempting to get the others to go back (failing as would be expected).
Then there is the ever confusing questions . . . do the flashes off the plane result in 2fers?
Maybe all these twins will have a reunion, touch each other, explode and dies just I did after writing this comment *bloop*
First paragraph of above post, which did not post:
Let me is if I understand: Ben turn FDW (are you happy now). One Ben arrives Tunisia, defeats Bedouin, take horse and rides to well. Second Ben transported to Tunisia and is laying near well. He is not moving, wear parka. We do not know what happens to him.
Highly confident that Christian and Ray Shephard were on the island (much like Linus, Austin, Locke, Chang, etc. father and sons/daughters)
We just need to think that if two are replicated off island, what does that mean for the corporeal version on the island? We see several real and unreal versions of Christian Shephard on island.
The lack of continuity between the two clips is jarring. Ben1 wounded both bedouins at the precise spot where he awoke, and there was significant horse activity. Yet in the Ben2 scene, there's no Bedouin bodies, no hoofprints.
Bigmouth, I tried to put this together with your idea that one Ben went forward in time while one went backwards, but I just keep going in a circle: Ben2 rides up before Ben1 awakens, yet Ben2 has the wound dressing, horse, gun etc. that Ben1 obtained.
Neither Ben fits neatly into a before or after category.
And now I'm wondering if the Ben that recruited Sayid is the same Ben that killed Locke and shot Des. Who wanted all those people dead - Ben or MiB?
And I'm also still mulling that darn cat. Ben is simultaneously alive and 'dead'(unconscious), and Locke is simultaneously alive and dead.... until the 'box' is opened.
If the 'box' is the island, maybe the 'box' opens when someone turns the wheel. Both Lenny and Walt warned against "opening the box".
IMO, the writers' intend Ben's and Locke's ejections to be a sort of 'out the white hole' event, but they're not sticklers about the precise theory, since like us they're not scientists.
So turn the wheel, open the box, and time/space goes wonky. MiB might understand that wonkiness well enough to take advantage of it.
I said "I'm wondering if the Ben that recruited Sayid is the same Ben that killed Locke and shot Des. Who wanted all those people dead - Ben or MiB?"
What I meant is I believe our original Ben killed Locke and shot Des, but maybe Ben2 coolly recruited Sayid and ordered those hits. It's far from clear what the organization was that they were targeting. None of the targets have ever been linked to Widmore.
Just one more note - Ben's beefs with Des/Penny and with Locke were very personal. But the Sayid hits didn't appear personal. The Ben who ordered those hits seemed to have a much larger and mysterious agenda.
A problem I have with it is that it doesn't fit or explain anything. The only time a second Locke comes into play is when we see the corpse, which ostensibly means that the zombie Locke didn't come to be until after 316 crashed. There is nothing which implies a second set of Locke's OFF the Island -- the only Locke that we are shown has complete memory continuity. How would a duplicate, who couldn't be doing the same thing as the original at the same time, have identical memories of the original? (Beginning, of course, at the moment of duplication, not previous or "inherited" memory from the original.) Doesn't work. Neither is there any evidence of a second Ben. If these characters gave some sign that they had done things differently, have a different set of memories, etc, then maybe, but as it stands the show simply doesn't read that way. The second Locke on the Island -- THAT is evidence of difference: he knows things that the original Locke probably wouldn't know -- he acts with certainty and is proved to be correct. Plus, really, isn't the idea that there are TWO Ben's traversing the globe just too insane? It doesn't fit the character himself. Seriously, I don't think either one of them would allow that!
Big, I'll read up on anti-particles...the quantum teleporting (telecloning) just makes sense to me, using wormholes, timespace manipulation etc. Also, there is actually memory transference in a quantum superposition (tangent timeline).
My brain is moving all over the place at the moment, maybe I can throw down a coherent explanation later on.
Quantum telecloning, means near exact duplicates...and because this is SF, we can deduce that means near exact memory transfer.
Ben Linus, with a wound, pushes the FDW and is essentially 'cloned'. So both versions of Ben have the wound.
The Two Lockes:
One of them, is 'fixed' by Widmore parades around as Bentham and is eventually killed by Ben. This version ends up in the metal case.
The other one...of course we wouldn't have seen him, that would ruin the big Flocke twist (fakeout)...we're supposed to think that it's not John Locke.
Anyhow, this other one is off Island, or perhaps even sent back to a time before he pushed the wheel and never left the Island. How do you likes them apples? :)
Either way, we absolutely have evidence of two dudes who look like John Locke...how else does MIB "clone" or perpetrate his likeness?
Also there is the idea that this second "alive" Locke would be working for MIB...and have been told about the "loophole" and all of this. So the idea that he was left behind on the Island might make some sense.
With the 'other Ben', it makes too much sense to me that Widmore thought he had disposed of Ben or something. I don't like the idea of having two Ben's or even two Locke's running around...and I suspect TPTB don't either. At least one Locke is already dead. And a version of Ben might be dead as well, that's not a stretch, IMO.
And perhaps there is this idea of a 'clone' being invulnerable. Richard Alpert, much? That is a stretch worth considering...maybe.
Also Ben- before/after Ben1 arrives first, does what we saw in Shape of Things...then Ben2 arrives sometime while Ben1 is kicking Bedouin butt (at any time after Ben1 arrives) and is laying there for Ben1 to observe.
I think this explains a lot about Locke, less about Ben...which is maybe why they cut it in the first place.
Jacob 'entangles' (touches) the selected Losties together, then when they arrive on 316, he or the Island does some various whatever to get them were they ended up. Haha, whatever just going with it.
Hey all. I still want to know, who leaked this out? Did the deleted scene on my S4 DVD set simply add the scene like the picture frames changing in the gramma's house? I'm saying, someone must've nudged this by posting it, instead of tossing it out in writing, like here or elsewhere. I'm thinking Rumsfeld leaked the YouTube, damn him. (KoreAmBear, I think Donnie is with Tom and Arturo in a very different tangent universe, if you get my drift.)
Two Bens helps clarify a few things, how often he seems to get around, and the whole Kill, Sayid, Kill! vs. "You don't know what I've done" etc. Plus Widmore saying that he knows what Ben truly is, good catch. I've sd myself, a single line can have great meaning. But this new theory, about the duplicates, will that really send the show into Crazytown seeing as how there are only 16-18 hours left? With the two Bens, we get the same old LOST problem, answer a question, then throw out another mystery. Anyone else think that the only way this will smooth out is if we see one or two absolutely linear episodes, no flashbacks, no multiple scenes at the Long Beach marina?
darkprose, thx for that screencap. Big, thx for that link, and of courese, all of yours, Greg.
Re: the outriggers, it could just be that whoever moved was flinching from the shot, like an involuntary movement. So far, Ilana and her crew are not hurt, nor did they mention the other outrigger. I really didn't get the impression anyone was shot, just startled that Juliet was shooting back.
Even though my theory doesn't work in that only Ben and Locke were in one outrigger, an interesting scenario would be to have the 77ers flash to 07 in time to see Ben shoot Cesar. There's a reason they showed Jack and Cesar talking at the ticket counter. The bigger thing is that they see Locke alive and with Ben. Now this gets even sillier, what if the other outrigger (filled with 77ers, Ilana's crew, whomever)were shooting at ANOTHER outrigger that was bumped away from the timeflash. Yea, that sounds crazy.
Interesting...some of you interpret the two scenes very differently than I do. Here's how I view the chronology of events based on watching them back-to-back. Ben wakes up in the desert and is attacked. He subdues the Bedouins and rides off on one of their horses. He then rides to the wall, which he knows contains passports and money. It's at this second location that he sees himself DEAD, not unconscious.
I don't think there are two Ben's running around -- turning the Wheel creates a Schrodinger state where the turner is BOTH alive and dead. THAT'S WHY BEN IS UNPHASED BY THE SIGHT OF HIMSELF. He knows about and fully expects this side effect. Some similar quantum magic might work in reverse on dead bodies that return to the Island, explaining the miraculous reanimations of Christian and Locke alike.
lostmio, in re-reading your comment, you seem to think that both Bens are bad, am I right? That's what I would think, too, just saying it might clarify why he seems out of character at times, by almost looking compassionate.
Why would MIB need to use the wheel? To create a duplicate of himself (formal Christian/casual Christian)? I truly am baffled by the whole Jacob/MIB rivalry, this is one of the reasons why. If Jacob can just go off-Island, why not MIB?
One last thing, as I am watching "Jeremy Benthem" in bit & pieces. Aaron wasn't meant to come back. After Locke sees Walt at the high school, Abaddon tells Locke that he is 0 for 2. I never caught that before. Makes it sound like Aaron isn't important at all.
Big, just saw your post. Could this explain the polar bear skeleton? Someone from DI was in Tunisia and took the one polar bear (copy, duplicate, whatever), and left the other behind for Charlotte to see years later BECAUSE THE DI NEVER REALIZED THAT THERE WERE TWO POLAR BEARS? (Not trying to be dramatic there...) I just never got why they'd send a polar bear anywhere without looking for it.
Wayne: Yep, that would indeed explain the polar bear. I wonder what happened to Locke's dead double. I just realized, though, that the part about reanimating dead bodies might not work. After all, Christian (and Yemi's) corpses disappeared.
Thunderstorm, I kinda figured it was on a forum for awhile, I'm more surprised that it just seemed so obvious and overlooked (hell, I've had the S4 set for eight months). Being only a minute long, I can see where someone might skip over it, myself, I don't think I noticed a Deleted Scenes link. It just seems to have gotten a bump, e.g., I'm surprised Doc Jensen at EW hadn't brought it up in a column. Thx for the rundown, tho.
Big, that's what I meant about MIB moving the wheel. If Ben is to be believed about one other person turning the wheel, I'd go out on a limb and say it was either 1/ the individual who created the Lamp Post or 2/ ...Magnus Hanso. The blast door says he is dead, but why would anyone writing on the BDM even know of the Black Rock? I'd lean toward my first example, tho.
Thunder: I certainly don't mean to dismiss the possibility of quantum cloning via teleportation. My main concern would be that such teleportation results in the "original" at the transport site and the "clone" at the destination, not two clones in two different destinations. Dan Simmons has a fascinating take on this technology in his books Ilium and Olympos. People travel using quantum "fax" whereby they're destroyed and reconstituted at their destinations. Highly recommended LOST-related reading if you haven't already...
Bigmouth said: turning the Wheel creates a Schrodinger state where the turner is BOTH alive and dead. THAT'S WHY BEN IS UNPHASED BY THE SIGHT OF HIMSELF. He knows about and fully expects this side effect.
oh, bravo, I agree... and it does make sense that there only was/is ever one alive Ben.
Which then begs the quesion: what is the purpose of this schrodinger dead/alive plot device?
With what we've seen so far, the best answer seems to be to create the Locke/MiB anomaly. (as as been posted above, deleting this scene means 1. it would have tipped that hand and 2. and/or/so tptb decided the Locke/MiB anomaly would stand on its own, for now at least).
So Bigmouth, can you craft an equally clear and spot-on Schrodinger's summary for Locke?
I'll try: when he turned the wheel, the Schrodinger effect kicked in. Only in his case, living Locke arrived safely in Tunisia, but dead Locke was left behind on the island. Where like all unburied bodies, it became available for another entity's use. Ta-da! Flocke!
Remember, Locke's Schrodinger split was foreshadowed in Walkabout , when he was trapped in his room with a geiger counter.
~~sorry, I couldn't come up with a cap showing the geiger counter on a short search. It's not the thing on his bedside table, that's a TENS unit. The geiger counter was shown on a long pull-away shot, on a table or counter in the foreground, with Locke in bed in the background.
Deleted scenes are not cannon. Maybe they deleted the scene because of the powerlines in the background. Not to many power companies in the Sahara Desert.
Wayne, brilliant catch on the polar bear! I had completely forgotten that skeleton. So, as you said, maybe the dead polar bear arrived in Tunisia, the living bear was left behind.
Three wheel-turners, that's it to date, right?
Then there's Desmond, who turned a key near the wheel and different-but-similar experience. He wasn't both alive and dead, but his consciousness did a wonky split.
They could easily have giffed out the power lines. Right, it's not canon; nonetheless they wrote, shot, post-edited the scene, then it on the dvd. That's ample reason to use it as basis for speculation.
lostmio, glad you mentioned UNBURIED bodies. There seems to be a hell of a lot of effort made to bury the dead, the Others did it in 1974 (well, Amy, told LeFleur they had to bury them), Miles walked over the buried soldiers in 1954, and, one nagging instance, Danielle and Karl being buried. Keamy and crew certainly didn't do that, but I'll bet Richard had several Others do it on the way to the Temple.
The reason I remembered the polar bear skeleton is because I hate when particular scene is shown with no logical explanation, in this case, why would the DI knowingly leave a polar bear in the Sahara? I had a similar problem with Rousseau and Karl being buried (why would Keamy do that, really?), until I saw the other burials.
As far as deleted scenes being non-canon, its the same with the con videos. But there IS always something there for a reason. Let's say the deleted scene was meant to foreshadow the two Lockes, though why the producers would be so obvious, I don't know. So...let's go with there being no two Bens. The scene still raises the point that something happens when the wheel is turned. I am buying into this mostly because of the polar bear, myself. The key to the deleted scene is that it involves the wheel, not the Vault, or the fail safe, etc. Its interesting to discuss this, but I can't imagine so blatant a scene as Ben looking at himself. I'm not waffling, I'm saying this deleted scene, to me, is more about what happens when the wheel is turned, kind of defining the wheel more.
Hey, here's something to think on re: Ben and Locke. Each turned the wheel from OPPOSITE ends. Does that help anyone with their thoughts on each body showing up in Tunisia?
Yes, it's enough to speculate. My speculation is that whatever idea it belonged to, they scrapped it. This was during S4, the shortest season, maybe they had to economize certain potential threads.
Wayne, a lot of folks missed a brief bit in Through the Looking Glass. After the Losties killed Ben's 7 folks, including Tom, at the beach camp, there was a quick shot of Juliet digging furiously with a shovel. I've no doubt she was burying the Others (hopefully Sawyer, Bernard, and Jin, who were talking in the foreground, turned around and helped her). Cremating the bodies or floating them out to sea seems to be ok, too.
The most prominent unburied in the first 4 seasons were Yemi, Christian, and Alex. All of whom reanimated. A dead Locke left behind at the wheel would be prime. And Causal Christian was right there, having just urged him on.
I today rewatched the Ben-meets-Smokie matchup, and I'm convinced that MiB and Smokie are not the same. But IMO MiB DID briefly leave Locke and reanimate Alex, to give Ben the order to obey Locke.
@Wayne: Why would the DI have known that the polar bear ended up in Tunisia? It seems Widmore didn't know Ben would land there, until he did, then when Locke does, he has cameras ready. In fact, the polar bear disappearing, and Ben's appearance there -- I would say that is another reason why they cut that deleted scene. Why or how did Ben know that he would land in Tunisia? That might have been a surprise to him. Of course, he has traveled all over the world, stashed money, etc, I would think, in several places, but I am beginning to think he didn't know where he would end up.
Wayne said this deleted scene, to me, is more about what happens when the wheel is turned, kind of defining the wheel more. Right, that's the most logical reason for ever writing and filming that scene, in the first place; it *has* to with the wheel.
Wayne saidBen and Locke. Each turned the wheel from OPPOSITE ends. Wow, I never noticed that.
Well, SamG is reporting that the SECOND Ben can be seen BREATHING on the DVD. He supposedly gasps just like the first Ben. So much for my Schrodinger state speculation (sorry, Lostmio!) and GAME ON for the clones!
No, you can't see him breathing. I am sorry and I don't mean to be rude but that is ridiculous. I watched that seen a few time this morning on my dvd's (blu-ray) and you can't really say for sure it is Ben let alone that he is breathing.
Anyway, I am with Big (his first assumption) if for some reason that is Ben then he is dead. The second Ben is dead, rather. I have a hard time envisioning TPTB introducing a concept like cloning into Lost. WAY to many loose ends. It would cause more problems then it would solve and this late in the game when they will be looking to bring everything together it would create a horrid mess.
When you have an an Out of Body experience some part of yourself leaves one's current body. But maybe two bodies are created briefly...who knows? Maybe the personless shell left behind has to remain until the altered time has caught up? and then it decays.
neoloki, not quite my point. Ben was in the chamber below the Orchid, Locke beneath the well. Yea, same direction on the wheel, but to me the two sides of the wheel represent faith on one side, science on the other. That's what I was getting at, if all this is is speculation, then Ben's turn of the wheel represented science. So if there is an argument for two Bens but not two Lockes (or variations), then I'm just pointing out the two sides of the wheel. Myself, I have no real opinion on the two Bens yet. Hell, Ben could have been hallucinating and seeing himself there dead, I dunno.
lostmio, you are right about Juliet shoveling dirt over the dead. I was actually reminded of that when she was dumping sand on the guy hit by the flaming arrow.
darkprose, I was being a little broad in saying the DI MUST have known about Tunisia. My reasoning is that whoever can monitor the Island movements from the Lamp Post quite possibly knew specifics such as the exit point. Also, in regards to the third time the wheel had been turned, way back when the wheel was turned by Ben, I wrote here that maybe it was cold in the chamber and there were holes in the spokes for polar bear harnesses. None of this holds true anymore, simply because there's no way a polar bear could get down there. But I do think that whoever (I say DI because of the Lamp Post, so maybe its a leap)can monitor the Island would know any exit points. Maybe not in the exact area or even country, but in the general area.
before anyone corrects me, in case they were turning the wheel in opposite directions, I brought the two sides of the wheel up because of the faith/science angle. I was going by camera angles, Locke moving towards the camera, Ben away. But either way, its the two halves of the wheel. KoreAmBear gave some great insight into "Jacob's well" from the Bible, and I seriously think there's no other explanation for the well coming. For every symbol of science, there seems to be one of faith.
Bigmouth, you said: "Thunder: I certainly don't mean to dismiss the possibility of quantum cloning via teleportation. My main concern would be that such teleportation results in the "original" at the transport site and the "clone" at the destination, not two clones in two different destinations"
If the FDW opens up a wormhole, and thus it's not the Cause (turning the wheel from inside the chamber) but the Effect (the wormhole opening itself) that becomes the quantum teleporter...then Ben enters the wormhole as soon as it's opened, becomes telecloned and the wormhole ejects both Bens at different times.
Does that make any sense?
In the Star Trek example I used earlier which is also cited here in this link, as a SF example of telecloning:
http://www.physorg.com/news10924.html
Kirk is being beamed back to the Enterprise, and two of him show up. Not 'one stays' and 'one goes'.
"In ideal quantum teleportation, the original particle is destroyed and its exact properties are transmitted to a distant particle. In telecloning, the original is destroyed and its properties are sent to two distant particles with an accuracy of less than 100%. The Heisenberg principle limits cloning fidelity; researchers would otherwise be able to make enough clones to learn everything about the original particle."
So, I am just a quantum hack copying and pasting, so maybe this works or not...but it seems to be pretty neat.
Ok, so there's debate about whether Ben sees the other Ben breathe or not.
At any rate, as Bigmouth points out, Ben2 (ie the Ben we didn't see until this clip) is neither surprised nor concerned.
The only 3 viable options are:
1. The wheel turn caused a Schrodinger effect; Ben1 is dead and Ben2 is alive but essentially they're the same person. or 2. Ben1 is alive. Ben2 is a dupe or clone of some sort who knows that Ben1 will arrive and also knows exactly how the encounter with the Bedouins will go down - in enough detail to fake the wound and obtain a duplicate horse. He can do this because he's in a slight future time to Ben1, who's still lying on undisturbed ground and has not yet had his own encounter with the Bedouins.
3. It's just another bit of wonkiness that TPTB threw in to keep alive the weirdness factor, and they never intended to explain it. They changed their minds about airing it.
I think it's option 1.
As much fun as I had toying with the idea of 2 Bens, I'm way more prejudiced in favor of the first option. Because it works with other elements of Lost, ie Flocke and the Polar Bear.
Option 2 is just out of nowhere, it doesn't fit in with anything else we've seen. I'd rather it be Option 3.
I had an interesting idea after watching the clips back to back. I dont know the language the two riders were speaking. But they both seemed suprised to see Ben standing there where he was. Suprised possibly because 1. he was wearing a parka standing in the middle of the desert...or...2. they had just rode from the location of the other Ben and couldnt figure out how he got from one place to another so fast. I noticed that after assualting the two riders that Ben rode back in the direction that two had just came from. So if you keep that in mind and watch the deleted scene. Perhaps he rode from the location he popped up in to the location of the other body and the stash were located. It just seemed to me that the rider with the red bandana seemed startled by him being there and looked to the ground to find any tracks that ben could've made to get there. Which makes me think of what the chances would be that they happened to be anywhere near there to even come across him in the first place.
Do you suppose there was a flash of light or something along those lines that might compare to when Des had the incident of turning the fail safe key? Do you suppose that could've caught their attention to be in that area?
"Thunderstorm, are you saying the 2nd Ben was ejected into a different place than the first Ben?"
No, I'm not really speculating about that (geography). More or less, if that idea I threw out there has any logic, they would probably both be near the 'exit'.
The idea that Ben would be looking back at his 'older' self in the same spot, or a different geographic spot close by...means about the same thing to me.
I don't look for all of this to be explained by the science...I could just see them saying 'that is a killer idea!!!' and given that is has an actual scientific backing, then going on to craft the story around it.
So in a nutshell, if it made more dramatic sense to have two Ben's in two different spots (near that same Tunisian exit) whereas, a strict reading might say they should be in the exact same spot, whatever...it works for me.
I still have problems with going back to this idea...because they didn't use it when they should have. People would be asking...what the hell is this? If "Flocke" was a Locke twin from the FDW.
Whereas, this scene could have put that idea in the viewers psyche.
"2. Ben1 is alive. Ben2 is a dupe or clone of some sort who knows that Ben1 will arrive and also knows exactly how the encounter with the Bedouins will go down - in enough detail to fake the wound and obtain a duplicate horse. He can do this because he's in a slight future time to Ben1, who's still lying on undisturbed ground and has not yet had his own encounter with the Bedouins."
Fake the wound?
If he's a duplicate, he's a duplicate, how would they both not have that wound?
Duplicate horse?
No, I think we are having a communication problem here.
Ben1 shows up before Ben2. Ben1 does everything we saw in 'Shape of things to Come' Ben2 shows up. Ben1 sees Ben2 and is not surprised.
Other than this, it's as simple as that.
There is nothing to say that another encounter with the Bedouins would take place. Didn't he kill them? This is not an iteration, this is 'real time' the whole event doesn't repeat. The 'older Ben'= the one that is observed by younger Ben lying on the ground...wouldn't have to deal with Bedouins at all. In fact, we have no idea what would happen to him.
Unless I am misunderstanding things. #2 should be a lot more believable option.
1. I just did this. Watch the deleted scene on the dvd. When it cuts to Ben #2 lying on the ground, hit whatever button on your remote that will play at 2x speed. It's faster than play but slower than fast forward speed. You can clearly see Ben #2 breathing.
2. Alpert was referring to Sayid and Walt when said " 0 for 2 "
3. There is a clip, somewhere, that explains that the background in the scene that aired was all CG. So I assume the deleted scene was cut before the CG was put into it. That is why you can see the electric wires and poles in Hawaii.
3. Someone asked " Why were Bedouin there in the first place ? " What about that ?
4. Was Ben's stash in a wall or in the wall of a well ? Wouldn't it be odd if there was an old well like Locke went down in Tunisia too ? Would that mean there is a wheel at the bottom of that well too ? Just sayin'
5. What about Ben's stash in the air vent in the hotel room ? How could someone stash something in that particular room, if this hasn't already happened ? How else could Ben have known that room wasn't already occupied when he and Jack checked in ?
6. I really think we'll see the shooting at the outriggers again. I'm guessing it takes place after Jacob is killed.
7. "I know WHAT you are boy" Good catch on that one !
I probably forgot other stuff I wanted to say. If I think of more, I'll return
Thunderstorm said I think we are having a communication problem here. TS, I hadn't read your two-Bens-in two-times post when I dashed off option 2, so it was not a response to your theory.
Anonymous, I don't have the translation handy for the two riders but basically they were just wondering how a man got there w/o there being any footprints or other tracks in the surrounding area.
Thunderstorm, You're not necessarily saying something different than I am, when you say two Bens arrived at two different time points and I say a Schrodinger event caused the two Bens. The writers could be using both as one wheel-related event.
The difference is that if Schrodinger is involved, then it would *seem* that one of the Bens would be dead. We've had 2 Lost Schrodinger references: one - indirect- aired in Sayid's Paris fb, and the other direct reference is posted under the Faraday Class at the Lost U website.
Also, the reason I asked about the geography is because there was no foot or hoof prints or wounded Bedouin around the prone Ben1.
That eliminates a lot of possibilities and puzzles me. If there are two separate time-traveling Ben arrivals, then two events would be very close in time, only a couple of minutes. Riding Been2 should see the evidence of his immediate-prior experience at that spot.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that. That's why I asked if you think the 2nd time-traveling Ben arrived at the same spot. That doesn't fit with the two filmed scenes.
being a reasonably intelligent 40yr old man who knows he is prone to make mistakes, i re-watched the scene once again.
The image of the person laying on the ground does not last longer than a second. A normal human being takes a breath every 2 to 3 seconds. One can make an argument that the chest "exhales", but given the rate of breathing of a human and the rapid fire shot of "person" on the ground, to make a conclusion the he is "breathing" is asinine. It is not possible.
Otherwise, the whole scene is odd. Given the fact that Ben comes riding in on a horse. If his stash was close to where he had the fight with the bedouins he would have walked to his destination, but the fact that he comes galloping in on a horse leads one to believe he traveled some distance. Given this circumstance, and the terrain, how would he be able to see "the body" which appears to be relatively close. The whole scene makes little sense when one takes into account the body and I would imagine that is why it is a DELETED scene.
If one was to make a theory on this deleted scene the only assumption to safely make is the possibility of a double, but not a living double because there is not enough information present.
I'm with neoloki on what to make of this, though I might add that Ben was breathing very hard and fast when we saw the original scene, and the other Ben looked almost serene. I lean towards deleted scene, filmed with the intention of giving us an implication of the wheel, then they decided it was too confusing. Or for that matter, before the episode aired, they came up with a better scenario. That said, this is a good blog for speculation instead of spoilers and the like, so I applaud anyone who tries using their brain over the six month break. I think Big will agree that there's nothing better than re-thinking what we've already been told on the show itself. It's not too often these days that I get to use my brain for anything other than getting through the day.
Yea, it was Sayid and Walt, and I should have added that Aaron's name never came up once (not that it logically could once Kate bitch-slapped Locke), but for several years we've been pushed towards Aaron being special and the Others wanting nothing to do with Walt. It was never implicit to Locke to bring Walt back, so it seemed odd that Abaddon said "0 for 2" even though Locke never once asked Walt to join him, as he never spoke withe Eloise. Also, it was good to listen to Abaddon's lines now that S5 has ended the way it has. "I'm just a driver, John."
My vote is also that this scene is legit and important and they left it out in order to not confuse and/or tip their hand. I can't imagine them going through all of the trouble to write, shoot, and put the scene on a DVD without it being relevant somehow. The need to freeze frame to see something important (dead Ben) is also a trademark Losty move.
I also feel that Ben1 looks at a DEAD Ben2 and isn't surprised. I'm not sure why, but when Ben1 wakes up and vomits my association to his vomiting was that somehow his body had just been through something (cloning or whatever).
What actually happened to "resolve" the two bunnies #15 issue? Chang said to make sure that they didn't touch, but I'm not clear what happened after that.
Does this have any bearing on the Ben killing Locke scene? It really seems like when Ben arrives he wants to save Locke. But, then Locke says something (I think about visiting Eloise Hawking) and Ben's demeanor changes and he decides to kill him. Did this comment let Ben know "which Locke" he was dealing with?
Neoloki: Easy tiger...there's nothing "asinine" about this disagreement. Two people have watched the scene in slo-mo and see something different from you. Really, the most important thing is the gasp. I'm not saying you're wrong, but let's keep an open mind.
Also, I think we have to think about this scene in context. We also know TPTB wanted Hurley to see himself in the Cabin during S4. They were vetoed by ABC who thought that would be too weird. Did TPB cut the second Ben scene for the same reason?
I cut the 2 second clip of Ben on the ground and repeated it 15 times. You can see his chest move like when we saw him regain consciousness and took that first deep breathe.
There is a FULL SCREEN icon in the lower right corner of the video window.
I am not saying his chest does't move. What I am saying is it is not conclusive it is "breathing". Considering the scene was deleted. Any number of reason's why.
Big. I am as foolish as everyone else and obviously i enjoy the conjecture, but we have to set limits at some point or we are faced with the dilemma:
Everything is true, nothing is permitted Nothing is true, everything is permitted
the problem with your flickr, obviously you looped it, the scene is not that long. we have a fraction of what you showed as the scene. the actor could have exhaled given the distance of the shot and the people shooting didn't notice. In the end nothing else moves. He is prone sprawled and comatose.
Yes, LOST has its limits, which include time travel and two Bunny 15s. So, I'd say a second Ben is well within the realm of possibility on the show.
And denying that it's Ben strikes me as unreasonable in light of the evidence. At a minimum, the onus is on skeptics to come up with a reasonable alternative. He's not one of the Bedouins because he's clean shaven and seemingly caucasian. So who the hell is it if not Ben?
I'm not sure what it would mean, but what if there is something going on that is similar to "The Time Traveler's Wife?" Basically there are times when there are two of the same person, but they are still both the same person, not a clone. It's just that each person is at a different point in time.
Clearly, there was a time during the S5 flashes that there were two Sawyers, two Lockes, etc. on the island at the same time.
I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before, and again, I'm not sure what all it would mean, but just thought it was worth bringing up again.
maybe the Bens keep multiplying like rabbits, that's why Widmore can't kill "Ben"
some of you may remember, long long ago i wouldn't let go of the idea that i swore there were more than 1 Bens on island but it was just chalked up to him wearing different glasses, i think
what i mean is Ben1 turns he FDW and stargates to Tunisia while at the same time a Ben2 is duplicated at the FDW who turns the FDW and stargates to Tunisia then Ben3 is duplicated at the FDW
I like Wayne Allen Sallee's thinking about the possibility of the two Ben's being alive & dead in Schrodinger like fashion, but I'm really of the firm opinion that this DELETED scene is nothing more than a playful tweak or possibly, at the most, a foreshadowing of the two Lockes.
Set aside all of the discussion about what is in canon (per TPTB, the only true canon is the show itself), my reasoning is as follows:
The ground that Ben is lying on is actually the same in both scenes. I know there will be argument over the comparison, but forget the upper background and sky and focus on the smaller piles of stones seen above and below Ben as he is laying prone. It is well known that these scenes of "Tunisia" were, in fact, filmed at Ma'ili quarry (thus the stone piles) in Hawaii. Afterwards, a great deal of the background and sky were substituted in post production to better fit the intended locale. The brief shot of Ben in the deleted scene, however, is unfinished - no FX work, thus you can see the local power lines. (BTW - its not uncommon for deleted scenes to not have full post production FX work for budgetary reasons.)
In any event, it hardly makes sense that Ben whacks the Bedouins, mounts the horse, rides no more than a few hundred feet to the well, then looks back to the same area where he woke up only to see now its not the guys he took out, but himself, in a prone position, all without batting an eye. Even if he were somehow privy in advance to the postulated "twinning effect" of the FDW, I think even Ben would offer more than a passing glance to that!
My guess is that the unfinished version of the earlier shot of Ben lying there was originally inserted as a placeholder (most likely for an FX enhanced shot to be edited in depicting more realistic Tunisian scenery)that became obviated when they decided to excise the secret stash scene from the episode altogether. Or maybe, like the DHARMA logo on Ezra J. Sharkington, it found its way in during editing for the DVD release as a joke.
Just my two cents, but I'm really paying no mind to the possibility of two Bens running around. One bad twin seems like plenty to me.
Neoloki: I love your argumentativeness, just not characterizations of opposing viewpoints as "asinine." But no harm done!
Netprophet: Great catch re the two locations being the same! I'm glad you like my idea of a Schrodinger effect, but what do you make of Allan's image, which shows the second Ben exhaling? Also, how do you explain the second Bunny 15 being alive in the Orchid Orientation outtake?
In this extremely painful hiatus and in the shadow of the end of the show we all know and love, I am kind of glad we find things here and there like this to converse about. Honestly, without blogs like this or the Fuselage or DarkUFO, I know I would probably e x p l o d e.
After reading some of the ideas here, I am leaning toward the idea that this definitely had everything to do with the bilocating bunny and the polar bear -- but, I also think it was probably an idea that they just plain didn't have time to pursue in the already abridged S4.
I also agree with neoloki that Ben must have traveled somewhat of a distance to get his stash, and that makes the cut to the body even more out of place -- is it to be read as a POV cut, or a cutaway to something Ben isn't aware of or can't see.
Is this deleted scene something we can ask the TPTB on an upcoming podcast or something? How do you send in questions? I have looked all over the place, and I don't think they were asked about this one.
Found this on Lostpedia: Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse suggest that fans curious about Charlotte's discovery of a polar bear skeleton in Tunisia watch the Orchid video, and further draw a link between the polar bear with the bunny in the video. (Official Lost Podcast/February 19, 2008)
Obviously something on the show is capable of making a duplicate. We've got ourselves a "clone" already (Flocke).
Would you rather there be a magic diabolical clone machine under The Temple? Or that it might be a more controlled idea like using the FDW twins it's wheel-pusher?
In other words, you can't "clone" anyone without sending the Island or time itself into mass chaos.
Whereas, the idea of MIB using Locke's persona and literal image, that's more open ended than this idea, IMO. "Limits" are absolutely needed. Why not be skeptical about this limitless angle of the Flocke thing? There has to be a method here. Why didn't MIB just "clone" Jack and stop everyone from leaving in the first place? Talk about limits needing to be in place...
Netprophet, that scene being a "placeholder" could make sense. In fact, it's the most plausible explanation yet for why it would appear the way it does (using Michael Emerson in this scene, in this way).
Lostmio, quoting you:
"The difference is that if Schrodinger is involved, then it would *seem* that one of the Bens would be dead."
Lostmio, I don't know if this "TwinBen" is alive or dead or if it's even a twin in the first place. So I am all eyes and 'ears'. Just trying to explain why I was considering telecloning to BigM. Schrodinger analogies are hard to understand because they are all about 'observation' (seems to me).
Whereas, Schrodinger himself was saying 'observation' shouldn't make any difference, either something is dead or alive, it shouldn't be open to what you 'see' or think you see.
This other idea (quantum teleportation/telecloning) is quite literally scientific 'twinning'.
So I don't know how that translates over to what is happening with Ben here. If he saw himself as alive (because he is up and walking around) and then looked over at his Schrodinger twin, would that observation itself 'kill' his twin?
haha, I am confused about that whole idea.
Lostmio, you also said:
"If there are two separate time-traveling Ben arrivals, then two events would be very close in time, only a couple of minutes. Riding Been2 should see the evidence of his immediate-prior experience at that spot.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that."
It might be a different geographic spot or it might be just as Netprophet says...it's just a placeholder and all of this conjecture is misguided.
Sorry if I misattributed the origins of the Schrodinger anaolgy. In any event, as I said, while I "like" the idea I ultimately discount it anyhow. So neither Ben's gasping nor the fact that both bunnies are alive really bothers me. In the end, I truly think there is just nothing to the whole two Ben idea.
I do, however, also like the concept of matter/anti-matter versions of the bunny. In fact, this would be the only cause for Pierre Chang's alarm at the prospect of the two rabbits touching. Talk about bad twins! It also fits with a lot of the mirror imagery we've seen as well as the "two sides - one dark, one light" thing. (I think you've read my Desmond Unbound theory where I discuss some of this.)
On the other hand, the video Ben shows Locke in the Orchid specifically talks about time travel. So my belief has always been that we see two Bunny 15's in the ComicCon Orchid video as a result of a temporary overlap of their existence allowed for by time travel. A condition that will end the moment "present" Bunny 15 must necessarily enter the chamber to become the backwards time traveling Bunny 15 that pops up on the shelf.
EPIPHANY! As I was writing, I just now realized that these two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. What if time travel, by virtue of a NEGATIVE energy source, ALSO reverses your natural polarity in anti-matter terms? So you time travel backwards and take on reverse matter properties to become polar opposites of the past you. Might be a very good reason to avoid interacting with the past you...
Leaving the polar bear aside... The hardest thing to reconcile (for me) was that the bunny in the Orchid Outtakes was sent to the past (have to assume) and the one shown on the show itself was sent to the future.
Because the bunny from the Orchid outtakes showed back up in it's own space-time ('twinned'). And the other one, supposedly just disappears (as it moves to the future).
Whereas, if the bunny from the Orchid Outtakes (and thus the reason it was an "outtake") was unintentionally sent to the past (also coupled with Chang's reaction)...I think that gives this twinning idea some solid backing.
The polar bear...rather than using the bear to move the Island, maybe they were just trying to move a bigger object (than a bunny) into the future and had a screw up.
well so there you go Lostmio, i read their statement as there was another Polar Bear created as a result of the polar bear turning the FDW and the same happened when Ben turned the FDW
i'm in the minority and have not seen ANY of the DVDs but i wonder who decides what goes on the DVDs, i would suspect Carlton/Damon at least have a little say
anyway i think there would be rabid fans if TPTB DIDN'T put LOTS of easter eggs on the DVDs
Wow...I had a really dark thought. What if Ben deliberately left his double behind to die in Solaris fashion? Say he lands in the desert and is attacked. He kills his attackers and hides their bodies and one of the horses. Then he rides back to the landing site in time to see another version of himself -- perhaps from some slightly different iteration of events -- land in the desert as well. So he grabs the passports and cash stashed in the wall and essentially leaves himself behind. That way Widmore won't know until it's too late that Ben survived the trip.
Under this interpretation, Ben's twin isn't so much a hint about the Donkey Wheel's effects as a comment on Ben's ruthless character. The scene was cut because TPTB feared it would mislead those of us familiar with the Orchid Orientation Outtake.
Left the house for a few hours. Greg, the helicopters are back. Have no idea why the number of passovers between Midway and, I believe, Homewood. Still kinda weird seeing ten in an afternoon. Anyhow.
lostmio, I meant Kate being the bitch with a capital c who talks as shitty to Locke as Jack did. "Look how far you've come," she says, with as much contempt as I've seen. Jack, of course, was man of science until Locke mentioned his dad saying hello, and then he became the man of Oxycontin.
Re: the outtake of the Orchid video. The one that Locke sees on the show implies what Faraday first did with Eloise the rat, transfer the consciousness of the bunny whatever amount of milliseconds (it actually sounds silly, the time being so short as opposed to Eloise, someone help me here, having her consciousness sent an hour into the future to learn the maze).
I had lunch with my friend Greg yesterday, and he has finally seen "The Incident," I loaned him my DVDs because his DVR died or whatever it is DVRs do. I told him that after he and his wife watched the finale, pretty much every discussion we have had on LOST would be moot.
But he still thinks, as he did prior to the finale, that this whole thing revolves around perception and, for lack of a better word, dreaming. I bring this up simply because of the 2 Bens, the 2 bunnies, yet we see the mind experiment in the Orchid on the show, Desmond being special because he can intercept Faraday's conversation from 2004, Locke has a hell of a lot of dreams loaded with Easter eggs, Minkowski & Regina, etc. And then there are the two Bens and the two Lockes. My friend leans towards it being more than people just imagining MIB and Christian and Claire. Thought I'd toss his theory into the ring.
Yes, it was lostmio who mentioned S. cat. I'm of the belief that the scene was filmed then kept as the placeholder mentioned here. I do wonder if we'll ever get a list of what was jettisoned because of the truncated S4.
Greg, re: the DVD sets, there might be one disc that has deleted scenes or bloopers, one had a commentary on the Others, but the best addition is the running commentary. The best example is Cuse and Michael Emerson talking over "The Man Behind The Curtain." I was disappointed at the lack of extras in S4 compared to the first three seasons. I never watched the Ben scene because it was only a minute long and I was already pi$$ed that the extras were so barren.
Interesting thought, Big. But I still have to wonder how they can make this work in 16 or 18 hours. "This" being everything. We do know about Ben's ruthlessnes in that he didn't care about the Ajira passengers and almost killed Penny, until he saw baby Charlie. It's an interesting take you made, and it could further explain the need for Widmore to install those cameras. To see if more than one body appears.
oops, lostmio, I was directing the Kate/Locke comment to neleoki. Also, rereading my post, Greg doesn't really have a theory there, as I wrote, more just that he sees the manifestations as being more important to the end game.
After reading thru 118 comments, I thought I would inject a bit of whimsy. I am no scientist. So, if we're going down the clone-brick road, we'd better get some rules from Tabula Rasa, the game. Here they are:
So maybe this is a kind of "Prestige" thing? Except the orig or the dupe is dead?
In The Enemy Within, there's a "good" Kirk (or passive if you prefer) and a "bad" Kirk. Do we have a good Ben somewhere also?
::cough!Bad Twin!cough::
In the spoiler section of Dark's Neoloki?
The first reason I can think of the the DI leaving a P-bear in the desert, is because on their first try of the FDW, they didn't know where it went. ???
Perhaps that's why the woman at the hotel desk looks at him weird, because (another) Ben already checked in that day or something? :o)
Yes, the 'what" in "I know what you are" has always bugged me too.
I can see a situation in season 6 where we have consciousness dimension skipping because they have done half the work explaining the possibility through conscious time travel but 2 Ben's?
the rumor was ABC did not want a 6th toe on the statue because it is too wierd and TPTB had some backlash with time travel considering some parts of the audience had a hard time following. To introduce a situation where we have 2 Ben's running around seems a stretch at the very least.
My interpretation of the bunnies was not cloning but TPTB introducing the possibility that the same person through time travel could occupy the same space.
How realistic would it be for Darlton to introduce cloning into the season 6 end game. They are gong to have enough problems just resolving the questions they brought up in season's 1 through 5.
right, neoloki, just the idea of introducing something as big as cloning this far in is overwhelming, and I'm still going with the deleted scene being something they might have sort of thought they'd film and see how it looked. Even though my friend Greg (Loudon, an artist, by the way) is a bit minimalistic in his thinking, your mention of the dimension skipping of the consciousness seems to fit with the easiest way they can get S6 underway (not the first episode, I mean get the gears going). The strongest AND briefest moment combined in S5 was Desmond waking up with his memory of Faraday outside the Swan.
For those who've been mentioning Widmore as a WHAT you are to Ben (on the dock by the sub, Greg), I took that to mean Widmore knew WHAT Ben was as in Ben was healed in the Temple as a kid. A crazy thought, in my head just now: is it possible that the tumor Ben had was a result of Sayid's gunshot wound catching up with him. Not literally, more as he fell from Jacob's grace, whatever healing happened during his stay at the Temple was erased, or w/e. It would explain his getting the tumor right before the spinal surgeon fell out of the sky.
NetProphet, I never give you the proper respect when you show up here, truth is, I'm silent because you are so concise. All of you are, really, but I seem not not reply to NetProphet during the same post.
And someone needs to tell me about this Tabula Rasa game. Looking fwd to more comments. For another four months. *sigh*
I thought that Wid said "I know what you are boy" in bed when Ben came to his room. :-o
Interesting thought about the gunshot/tumor Wayne. Is the vertebra they mentioned on the X-ray up near where little Ben got shot (in both sides!) I wonder?
Capcom, you're right about the bedside, but I thought he said something at least very similar on the dock. I'm sure it's in the transcripts if I'd just look. If he didn't, then it does add to the meaning of WHAT instead of WHO in 2005 instead of pre-1992. Your thought on the hotel clerk in Tunisia being flustered is interesting, as well.
Did we ever really get any clarity on where Ben was shot? The entry holes changed, and I don't really recall anyone holding up an X-ray as clearly as we saw in regards to the tumor. At the very least, those x-rays were shown multiple times. Again, just a thought. Many things we will never get the complete answers, though I'm holding out to get a crapload answered in the Richard-centric episode. Or so I hope.
this guy claims to have used time travel technology, unfortunately i have a hard time not putting up my bullshit screen but maybe that is just conditioning because i would really like to be less skeptical since there is lots of evidence out there that seems to verify that time travel technology is being used
Capcom, in Defying Gravity when she sat in the "montauk chair" and the MiB observers said it is talking to her again i immediately thought of remote viewing
Poo, I missed that, when did that happen to her Greg? I have to watch those DG eps again online, I missed a lot. I wish that someone had a blog dedicated to DG too. Haven't found one yet.
Speaking of claims of time travel, did that John Titor guy get debunked eventually? I know that some of his claims for our immediate future didn't come to pass.
Capcom, it was the African American woman, Eve, she seems to know the most about Beta, she is married to the African American man, Ted, on the ship (he is the only one on the ship that seems to know about Beta)
a few times Eve went to a special room in mission control and sits in a chair and these doors open and she sees Mars, a bunch of MiB type men behind a glass window observe her saying "it is talking to her again"
Defying Gravity was canceled. ABC isn't airing the rest of the episodes. The only other network airing them is CTV. I tried viewing them online. The CTV videos won't play for me since I'm in the U.S. HULU has 4 or 5. Maybe they will get the eps that haven't aired yet. There are other places on the web to find this kind of thing, they will turn up eventually. Maybe a DVD.
I tend to think Widmore's line about "what you are" is -- like the deleted scene -- a comment on Ben's character. Keep in mind the context of that speech. Ben has just accused Charles of murdering Alex. Widmore is basically saying, "don't get self righteous with me, boy, because I know you're a murderer, usurper, con man, etc."
What is Ben Linas? The kind of guy who would leave himself behind in the desert to die...
Well, thanks, Greg. Throw the word Montauk out there by mistake, willya? I never did see DG so I'm glad Anon Allen mentioned Hulu. Anyone can Google the Montauk Project which tied into the Philadelphia Experiment. Desmond seems to be a remote viewer in one sense of the word.
Big, that's where I was confused as to when Widmore used that line, because I know Ben was being all self-righteous when they were talking. Maybe they could try a show called Ben & Kate Plus 8, seeing as the two mirror each other in chest-thumping superiority.
well, i meant to mention Montauk but i mistakenly implied that's what they called it on the show but we better shut up or you'll have more black helicopters on your tail
THANKS ALLEN! for the clips as we see Widmore says both i know WHO AND says WHAT you are
LOL Greg. Did you call it that because of this? link I didn't know about that, I'm glad that you did.
So, is that the latest on the series, Allan? Cuz as of yesterday, ABC wasn't confirming either way. I suspect that is the way they'll go though. :-p
I agree Big, that was my first reaction to what Wid said about Ben, i.e. "what" equals "very icky person". :-) But ya never know. And, what you said about Ben leaving himself to die, that was the creepiest part of The Prestige to me, that the guy could allow his own self to *SPOILER* without a hint of remorse. Yuk.
Maven posted on LostARGs that on Dark's site they found an easteregg of an Oceanic billboard in one of the promos (I think it was a promo, she just links the screencap) of Fast Forward.
Yes indeed, why can't they kill each other. It goes with someone who said on the show that they can't kill their own, or something about that. Maybe it was when Juliet went to trial? I don't think that fans just inferred it, I think that it was really said at some point.
So that begs the question of what the island will do to them if they do. :-o Of course, we've been wondering how the island can sentiently do anything since they began talking about this precocious little brat called, The Island! Heheh.
So then, I guess if either one of them intends to return to the island, which they each seem to want for themselves, they'd better not break the rules of not killing one of the island's chosen or Smokey will get them when the return?
i still like the idea that they can't kill each other because there are multiples, anytime you add a time travel device there is no way getting around the problem of multiples multiplying
they better show us what exactly happened to Ben in the Temple
Greg: Yeah, I'm afraid my interest in Warehouse 13 is waning, too. Claudia is super annoying and the scene where Artie met the "regents" was really, really lame. Still, I loved seeing Romo Lampkin and Sol Tigh as guest stars!
Capcom: I think Widmore and Ben would simply fail if they tried to kill each other. The gun would jam, or if it didn't, the person wounded would recover.
Sigh, forgot to put this in last post...sorry. Greg not to worry, next week is the finale for the W-13 season. I myself didn't understand the Poe connection very well, I have to watch it again. I did like how last week it wasn't just about the "find a thingy" formula, and that the FBI peeps actually didn't even leave the warehouse.
Thanks Allan! Anyone who lives in the south like me can send orange dirt (for Martian soil) to ABC to protest the cancellation. Heck, Jericho fans sent peanuts in and got one more season.
I'm stupid, I kept trying to figure out why you guys were talking about that film with magicians starring Michael Caine a year or two back.
Capcom, I'm fairly certain that they were going to execute Juliet, though again it's a World According to Ben situation. The plan might have been just to gauge Jack's reactions and that all they were going to do was brand her anyways. Locke doesn't kill Widmore in 1954 and tells Sawyer he couldn't because Widmore is "one of his people."
Big, one reason I always remember Michael and the gun misfiring is because Tom delivered that line so well, "...the gun jsmmed, the bullet bounced off your skull, what was it?" I just loved how Tom had so much more knowledge at that exact moment than at any other time I've seen him.
Greg, I don't try to explain the gun jamming thing or why Ben & Widmore and MIB & Jacob cannot kill each other, respectively. I like that it plays with the idea that instead of not being able to change the past, you're not able to change the present.
What about the scene where Locke is watching the Orchid orientation video and it starts to spontaneously rewind (I think it was rewinding)? This seemed like an obvious clue as to the "properties down there," but I wasn't sure if it was saying anything more specifically than "you can time travel down here."
Capcom got me thinking on certain phrases and I always think of Locke's "Clean up your own mess" line.
Crazy thought. What if the coming war is about the living and the dead? And I would then put the 77ers Richard was referring to "I watched you die" in the latter category. You got your Bens and Lockes and Christians, might a surprise visit by Anthony Cooper, too. Fate is a fickle bitch.
Also, I wonder if too much is played up on this war, that it might culminate towards the end of the season, but not dominate the entire season. No one here has said that, I'm just bringing it up.
Speaking of the gun jamming, how about Keamey not being able to kill Michael -- with Christian at the end, just before the Kahana explodes, telling Michael he could go now. So Ben (perhaps unwittingly) and Michael are working for MIB? Is Widmore working for Jacob? The mercenaries of war doesn't seem to be the way Jacob rolls though.
KoreAmBear, add to that Eloise Hawking. I've always suspected that she would side with whomever best suited her at the time. Maybe the adult Eloise is just overly dramatic, but I've always seen her as being on the level of Ben when it comes to manipulation.
Agreed on the war, Capcom. Then again, the last two seasons have for the most part covered two or three weeks (not counting time jumps or the 06 just plain giving up on caring about everyone else on the Island; there was four days for all of S4, the 3 days in 1977, and the 10-15 days involving Locke as Jeremy Benthem). Then again, since Jacob and MIB have been around forever, I suppose a war (or each war) can take it's time in coming.
Greg, back when I wrote that glossary in S2, even with 650 entries, I tried to have something for each letter of the alphabet, just as a test for myself. When I got the pdf. back to proofread, Zombie Island was taken off, as the people from LOST involved with the book didn't want the phrase in print. I think back then it was more about the current status (S2) of the show, the purgatory aspect, etc. Which was funny because I took the phrase from an interview that ran in Entertainment Weekly. So, for Z I ended up with Zeke. Kinda lame.
I was thinking of that kind of war earlier as I was reading something outside. I suppose the talk of live Ben dead Ben was in the back of my head.
No, no, Capcom. My involvement with him came later, and with any real Google search attempts, one could find who he he will not be named is named, even though it remains his fake name and not his real name. Say that a dozen times fast. This was website-related, not print-related.
GETTING LOST is still the second best seller for SmartPop after THE MATRIX TRILOGY, though I'm betting any book involving TWILIGHT will sell well. The book is actually still in print, the royalties minimal since its a dozen people splitting 40% of the sales. Usually books like this get updated, like you said, after the series ends, but with a new essay by someone famous. I'd literally start the glossary from scratch, because quite a few of those entries from S1 & 2 meant next to nothing compared to later seasons. My fingers are crossed I'll hear from the people Not In Portland. (They are in Austin, ha ha).
Did I ever post here that I thought that the title "Not in Portland" was wordplay for Not Important?
While I anticipate that many mysteries of Lost will ultimately be answered only in mystical terms (i.e. the Island wanted/needed Michael to survive until he delayed the Kahana from exploding, and was told he could "go" only once he served this purpose), there may be a possible answer provided by time travel.
We have at least been told that WHH may be the rule for time travel in Lost. In other words, a strictly consistent history purportedly exists, where Jack, Kate, Sawyer, et al. have always been present in the 1970's. And interestingly enough, the notion of mysteriously misfiring guns has come up in the context of consistent history and the ever-popular grandfather paradox. A nice article I came across that touches on the subject isThe Downing Street Dilemma, which sets forth the crux of the issue as follows:
"The “consistent history” argument says, roughly, that if you travel back in time, you can only do things that are consistent with the overall history of the universe. Or, to put more simply: If you travel into the past, you will only be able to do what you actually did. This rules out many kinds of trips, or at least curtails the activities a time traveler can engage in while visiting the past. ...So what, exactly, are we left with? Must our time traveler experience an endless series of puzzling coincidences, peculiar constraints, and a bizarre absence of free will? (Must every rifle aimed at grandpa misfire? Must every attempt to stroll along Downing Street go awry?) Perhaps, as a number of scholars have suggested, such questions put the cart before the horse. As philosopher Nicholas Smith has argued: “If a time traveler is going to travel to some past time, then she has already been there. If she is going to save a life or prevent a birth when she gets there, then she has already done so.”
Of course, we don't have a strict grandfather paradox situation with Michael, but here is one way I view it as possibly working: 1). Jin was present on the Island circa 1974-77, and during that time performed certain actions that were vital to creating the future where 815 crashed on the Island. The Incident? 2). If Jin had never time traveled, then Michael never would have emabrked on the entire set of events that ultimately bring him back to the Island aboard the Kahana. 3). In fact, Michael, despite trying to kill himself as well as Keamy's best efforts to oblige him, can not die until he does delay the explosion for the simple reason that Jin must survive. If Jin doesn't survive to go on to time travel, consistency would be disrupted - this is strictly not possible if WHH.
@ Bigmouth: When I alerted our mutual friend 35er (aka Coaltrain) that this new topic was up, he directed me to a similar thread he posted a while back over at SpoilerTV called Revisiting a Deleted Scene
@ Wayne Allen Sallee: THX for the kind words. I usually just enjoy following the discussion here as an observer - you all are amazing everybody!
maybe Ben used the chamber to peer into the future wherein Keamy did not kill Alex but some how the rules were changed and Alex was killed which sets off a massive domino effect of course correction
Mine too, even though I spent my first 18yrs there. I am in Seattle now but plan to move back in the next year. Some of the best restaurants on the west coast are in Portland. As a Chef that is exciting.
I agree completely, but I do not think Eloise is woking for MIB. More of a feeling, but she sacrifices her son for the Island. It would have to be a good cause.
I am in the camp that Eliose and Widmore are good.
Actually, I meant the wordplay was that the real place that Richard was taking Juliet to was 'not important' to her needing to know, like pulling a swifty over on her. If I ever left Chicago for good, I'd move to Denver or Portland, although the former is rapidly losing my grace as it turns into a mirror image of Chicago. So my wordplay was in regards to the episode, not in city-dissing. And the words NOT IN are important to the title, because I think Portland is the only big city on the coastline past LA that the Island could have migrated nearby for the sub to hit the wormhole effect, as San Francisco and Seattle both are not glued to the coast as, say, Chicago is to Lake Michigan.
NetProphet, you raise exactly the point I did as I was talking about rewatching S6, in that new lines and such pop up that give better meaning to "I know WHAT you are, boy." (I'm saying, in general, that events will not be explained that we can get answers from by making a leap of logic.) Indeed, until we saw Jin survive the explosion, there would be no real reason for Michael to even survive his suicide car crash.
On a similar (kind of) note, a lot of us have been wondering about where Annie went to, and I'm wondering if an easy reveal will be along the lines of learning Joe Inman and Kelvin were one and the same guy. I really could care less if we never hear more about Annie, except for those creepy wooden dolls Ben has held onto. If young Alex had looked like Annie, it would be creepier, and I just wonder if Annie will pop up in some way as opposed to Libby, using her middle name or something.
If I had to choose between Widmore and Eloise, I'd still choose the former. E. isn't just manipulative with Desmond--The Island isn't done with you yet--she gave Jack Locke's suicide note to screw with his head. She might be decent enough, and unless this war really is about the living vs. the dead, and some actual war between good vs. evil, she'd switch sides. I do believe that.
Greg, I know of that store in Austin. My favorite in TX is in Tyler, Peapicker's Books. Just a fun place.
Enjoy THM, Greg. If you have the pb, you'll get a deja vu feeling towards some of those TZ episodes.
Don't know if this makes sense, but its not that I think Eloise can see the future per se, but see certain implications of future events. Maybe its like the picture on the box changing.
I know what you meant wayne, just being dumb/silly.
My impression, and this is the obvious choice, is Eloise's knowledge of the future came purely from Faraday's journal. The first time we hear her saying she doesn't know what is going to happen is upon his death.
Yes E. is manipulating a whole cast of characters through little gestures, but to what end? Good...Bad...? Will Lost even end in these terms? I doubt it. But her motivational gestures are purely for the sake of the Island which is where her best intentions lay.
@neoloki, I was just adding the correct meaning there, Richard being a bit devious, and he has some great lines he delivers, i.e., "It points north, John." I think Eloise is simply more likely to make things work in her favor, hers alone. A part of this selfishness is in her not being a leader as Widmore was, and so she may not put the Island first.
Back to NetProphet and Jin, I think Jin's role in 1977 was showing up when he did at the north point, if only to keep Jack, etc. from being grabbed by the Others or discovered by another DI member like Radzinsky. Just as with Sun, Jin has a relatively small role in this story. Whereas their love bookends Desmond's and Penny's, free will (Sun getting on 815) vs. determinism, they have each had relatively little air time for entire seasons. (Interesting in that, as with Claire MIA as well, those three are on the one with the two kids with implied importance towards the end game of the show.)
Every now and then, though, I wonder if Sun will be the real enemy in S6, maybe going after Ben and affecting the balance in the war. And I still think Paik Heavy Equipment was responsible for all the machinery brought to the Island for the DI.
Netprophet: The gun jamming (and Mike surviving the car crash) might well be an impersonal universe enforcing self-consistency in the timeline -- I've wondered something similar myself. But I'm confused why Jin's survival necessarily depends on Mike. Why can't the universe simply course correct by giving Mike's job to someone else, making the bomb a dud, or having Jin simply defy all odds and survive the explosion like he did the plane crash?
I sense some kind of personal intervention is at work. Other Tom expressly attributes Mike's invincibility to the Island. Remember how casual Zombie Christian tells Mike "you can go now"? My suspicion is that the Island can influence your destiny at the quantum level such that the probability of death is zero until the Island releases you.
As I said, I actually expect that there will be some mystical explantion too. Zombie Christian's appearance to advise Michael he could go makes it a virtual lock that some motivated, "divine" intervention was at play in ascertaining Michael made it to that point.
Notably, your questions remain valid even under such a scenario. Why would it be necessary for Mike to survive to that point? Why prolong the inevitable? Couldn't what/whoever was pulling the strings have accomplished that through someone else?
My only answer is that with either an impersonal universe rolling on in a self consistent manner or such divine intervention, things are much more complicated than my simple example might indicate. We have multiple players with intertwined lifelines (I almost used "destinties"). Don't forget, Sun and Desmond were also aboard the freighter, and their survival begets Ji-yeon and Little Charlie. And Sun, of course, plays a role in 316's arrival at the Island, etc., etc. Such entanglements may allow for only one ultimate resolution that ends up with Michael being necessarily there to chill the bomb and only die when the Kahana finally explodes.
Big and NetProphet, maybe my nutty little theory from two years back can be added to the divine & mystical. Back when I was working those 16 hour shifts at that abhorrent printing plant, I had nothing but brain time on my hands 60% of the time and that's when I first thought that the Numbers could as easily be people as the Valenzetti Equation. Once Big mentioned the O6 being the Island's Constants in a post, I added that perhaps the numbers represented the ACTIONS of an individual. The whole chessboard thing. Eventually Charlie would die because he wasn't 23 or 42 (I'm being very abstract here), but his actions were needed for someone to get as far as becoming 23 or 42. Taken in that context, even Frogurt played a certain role in that his death could easily have been Juliet's and Christian then told Michael he could go because he knew Jin was in the safe zone. The picture on the box changed so that Jin no longer died.
That's extremely abstract, I know, but even before I saw Jacob touching everyone, I thought of people being shuffled around according to importance. Eloise presented the picture on the box idea to Desmond to one day enable him to be Faraday's constant as she read in the journal. So the guy in the red shoes was as much a chess piece as any one single crash victim from 815.
By the way, I'm heading out to that Zap2Locke get-together in a bit. I'll have a complete report, but I doubt I'll be staying past 10, otherwise my bus home turns into a pumpkin. There is a raffle planned, so I'll try and get an idea of the prizes before I blow out of the north side...
Netprophet: I believe Michael must be saved precisely because the loop isn't "supposed" to happen, so universal course correction doesn't apply. (See Three Black Swans.) The loop is part of Jacob's plan to save the world, the Man in Black's Loophole, or both simultaneously. I think the Comic-Con vids are indication the loop CAN be broken. In so doing, they offer hints about what's "supposed" to happen (e.g., Hurley wins the lottery either way, Kate is a murderer no matter what, etc.).
Wayne: I think I kind of get what you're suggesting. There are certain people who are constants (e.g., the O6) and others (e.g., Charlie) who help them attain their status as such. The constants can't die but their helpers can (though they'll simply be replaced by another helper). Is that right? One thing to consider is that S5 seems to suggest the O6 are variables, rather than constants. Then again, maybe their variable status also makes them constants in the sense they remain the key participants in all possible timelines. Does that make any sense?
Big, here's where S5 changed my thinking on that. Not sure if this ties into neleoki wanting to get my take after rewatching "The Variable," but you are getting me right. If you look back, quite a few people called foul on Faraday's odd variable speech as going against he'd ever said about WHH. But what if he started thinking the way I mentioned? I don't think that each of the 06 are the constants, actually. I think Walt and possibly Juliet (just a feeling) are at least bigger players in getting things in motion than Kate or Hurley. Yes, Kate effed up 1977 pretty bad, even causing Sayid to be shot, but aside from Jacob's touch, I would believe that Jack or Sawyer or, as I said, Juliet play a bigger role. Sawyer in that he didn't have to be with Kate at the sonic fence for Phil to see later.
Greg, don't wish too hard. There've been a few events (not LOST-related) here that were less organized and ended up being local cliques from Wrigleyville or Depaul and everyone else was a bit of an outcast. Age plays a factor, if the thing has a huge amount of college kids involved.
Oh, I like the constants and helpers thing. As in, some are constants and need to be there, and the others are the variables and are interchangable within the course of the plan?
Just in from the party. No one guessed it would turn out so well. Seriously. At least a hundred people, I'll type more tomorrow. ABC even donated Blu-Ray DVD sets as raffle prizes.
Am I the only one who thinks we've already seen the first shots fired in Charlie Widmore's war? I'm guessing the war will be zombie Locke (and possibly the Others) vs. Ilana and her crew. That's why the people in the other outrigger shot at Sawyer and Co. during the flashes. It was Ilana and Co. shooting at what they thought was zombie Locke.
My problem with Ilana shooting at Locke is that Locke was in the front of the first outrigger, so the only way they'd know would be to actually see them paddle off, which meant that they were pretty close by. I recall that the 2nd outrigger was gaining before the flash, they might have seen the 1st outrigger near the shore or at a different angle.
The only reason I think of it not being Ilana's crew (though logically it must be), is that I have a feeling that we haven't seen the shootout from the 2nd POV yet, that is, it hasn't "happened" yet. Also, Locke's metal box would have certainly slowed them down.
Big brings up a good point, though. As does Capcom. Have the first shots been fired? Not the deaths of all the people Ben claims Widmore killed or the ones Sayid killed for Ben, but if not the outrigger scene, is there anything else we might have seen that constitutes 'the war'? Did MIB need Alex dead so he could then copy Alex and tell Ben not to kill Locke?
And, Capcom, indeed. Regardless of zombies or zuvembies or George Romero's ghouls, re-animation on the Island seems a whole different story from what we've seen. I think the Zombie Island phrase was meant to be taken broadly, but still, there's something to be said for what will be the needed weapons and how they get implemented. What good is shooting something in the head if it is a carbon copy, right?
Not necessarily off-topic, if anyone would like a run down of the event I went to last night (and met Lottery Ticket, who has a comment on this very post!), you can email me at jonalgiers@aol.com. This was way bigger than I thought, I was talking with people who lived in Charlotte NC and quite a few people from the Boston area were there. When there is a link to Facebook or the Chicago Tribune, I will post it here.
To all but Greg most, as I was replying to him just as I was heading out, when I mentioned the cliques at such events, that would have been the case if it was just Chicago. Mingling works, but the north side is separate from the south side which is then separate from the suburbs. The Zap 2 Locke event was user-friendly to the highest degree.
wayne, glad zap2it was worthwhile, from years of reading Ryan's and Erika's blogs i assumed it would be user friendly
i'm still on the fence about who the good guys really are, i just don't know and i'm not sure we will ever really know for sure even after season 6 is over
i'm also on the fence whether the outrigger shooting happened before or after Jacob's sacrifice
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«Oldest ‹Older 1 – 200 of 271 Newer› Newest»as they say in that other show "there is more than one of everything"
Yes, it's a very disturbing scene -- I have to admit I don't like it at all. It wasn't included for a very good reason, obviously, but as you say that could go either way. At first I didn't want it to be another Ben, or even look like Ben, but I can't deny that, in better resolution, the nose and clean-shave makes it very likely that it's Michael Emerson. Does this have anything to do with the two Lockes, or is that a completely different phenomenon? I have a feeling that's something different. I also am uneasy about this new piece of information as it makes differentiation of the two Ben's so difficult -- it's not like there is an "evil" Ben (lol), he's, you know, already evil. So, for me the question is: is this just a weird side-effect of the turning of the frozen wheel, or it might not be central to the overall endgame and that is why they deleted it, or, is this a key to the final season and Locke's destiny, too -- for instance, this might be a way to get out of his death: the one Ben killed was the duplicate or some such thing, and the Island/monster resurrected the duplicate, thus preserving the original Locke safe and sound for the last season? This stupid, short deleted scene has my head reeling. :-)
It's a short clip that might be a clue to the two Lockes, much like the con videos that give us a thought-push without ever being shown in context within the show.
The clip shows something that could be cut because we kind of got it, Ben had passports and money that he didn't have in the Orchid parka. I guess I'd buy into the "two Bens" theory more if he didn't remain the same bastard off-Island. MIB Locke was pretty much creepy from the moment he appeared after 316 crashed. But it is interesting.
darkprose, nice to see you here!!
I was a skeptic like everyone else.
That screencap is hard to ignore.
Too much to say on this subject tonight...
This is pretty seismic idea, IMO.
Why? Because I think it proves that John Locke is alive!!!
True, I've only been looking for an excuse to believe it!! Haha.
^ above I refer to darkprose's screencap.
Also "proves"... ;)
I hope you get what I mean.
Quantum telecloning, is what I've been searching for, as it relates to this idea.
It's an actual tested phenomenon.
I hope when I read this tomorrow, some of our sciencey hounds will have figured out a way that it would work using our lovely FDW.
Maybe the dead body is Frogurt. I mean, it was shot with a flaming arrow.
Well, there were 2 Miles on the island at the same time too.
And I guess when time flashing Sawyer saw Kate delivering Claire's baby, 2004 Sawyer was at the camp (he had all the alcohol for Kate to take back to Jack, who was tending to Boone).
Are these twins too? I need to finish up Bad Twin and see if there is any insight to report.
i was never to keen on the notion of MiB "copying" Locke so maybe this will lead to a better explanation
and taking the twinning to the extreme we have the possibility of in the outrigger flash Juliet shooting Juliet in the other outrigger which makes my head spin
i assumed it was Bram and Illana with Locke in the box in the outrigger shooting at the flashing left behinders in the outrigger because they recognized Locke but the idea of this event happening AFTER Ben killed Jacob is intriguing but is it Flocke or Locke in the flashing outrigger?
Greg, I mentioned last week how weird it would be if the outrigger scene involved the same outrigger, though we'd have no real justification as to why #2 started shooting at #1. Since it was the one flash not answered, it seems important.
This thing with Ben is pretty bizarre, tho. The conspiracy guy in me wants to know why little nuggets like this appear after the S4 DVDs have been out for months? Gotta go, the black helicopters are coming...
maybe when you turn the FDW a second version is created that lives in the close future to the original which dies so Ben is looking at his dead version
this is where MiB took over Locke's dead original but we do have the cameras to contend with, i don't the cameras where there when Ben turned the FDW, maybe Widmore knew where to put the cameras becuase his people discovered Ben's dead version
maybe these leads to why Widmore can't kill Ben when Ben barges into Widmore's bedroom
Wayne, i saw the black helicopter photos on your blog, better lay low
yeah, that's why i assumed it was Bram and Illana that started the outrigger gunfire since we saw them collecting guns like they were getting ready to start shooting people, maybe they saw an alive Locke in the outrigger and maybe they thought it was MiB or at least they knew something was afoul since they had dead Locke in the box in their outrigger
oh and just to clarify, my logic leads me to believe the outrigger gunfight happened BEFORE Ben killed Jacob
but i haven't rewatched any of season 5 yet so i could be completely wrong
was it implied that Juliet actually shot and hit somebody on the other outrigger? (that's the way Lostpedia makes it sound)
"the group has Juliet returning fire with a rifle, apparently hitting one of the pursuers"
also remind me who all is on the outrigger in addition to Juliet, Sawyer and Locke, my mind is hazy
KoreAmBear, we will see Frogurt in season 6 and it will be a good chuckle
I just watched the scene. I have season 4 on blu-ray so the image is as good as it gets. The image is disturbingly close to Ben. The problem being Ben took his parka off and then we see a body with the parka. He could have put it on one of the Bedouins incase somebody came looking for them. Also, the hood is up so no real identification is possible.
the parka is the only hiccup for me.
that's why i'm thinking duplicate Ben is looking at the other Ben that just teleported via the FDW so duplicate Ben is in a slight future
We have absolutely no context for the outrigger scene except that since it is in the same time frame we have a picture of the Ajira water bottle in an outrigger, it is in the future. Other than that it could be anybody in the 2nd outrigger that started shooting.
john, Dan, Juliet, Sawyer, Charlotte and Miles were all in the boat. It appears that someone got hit because after Juliet fires a couple of shots we see someone, a shadow, flinching as if struck. as far as who that is there is no possible way of Knowing.
the teaser promo from the Disney Expo (D23) includes the outrigger clip at .41 so maybe it is important
Lost Season 6 Official Teaser Promo from D23 Expo
Neoloki, thanks for the reminder of who was in the outrigger, i couldn't quite remember when Dan & Charlotte got separated from the group and Charlotte died in relation to it, so now i see the outrigger shooting happened before Charlotte died
Here's how UnderAlienControl put it over on The Fuselage....
More or less, because you've broken the speed of light (in order to teleport/time travel in the first place) it causes observation to break down (become unreliable).
Essentially (in my words) the FDW sent Ben into the past and future at the same time. 'Duplicating' him like the bunnies from the Orchid Outtakes video.
With what I understand of quantum teleportation (just from reading various pages) scientists believe that if it were ever possible...it would be much like the Star Trek (original series) episode The Enemy Within.
Kirk has a transporter malfunction and it 'duplicates' him...this was, of course, way before anything like this was ever tested in a lab.
So the original is 'duplicated' and the 'copy' is teleported.
Only in this case, the FDW sends BOTH the original and the copy and spits them out...one just before Ben actually arrived (in the past).
So I would suspect, unless I have my wires crossed that the Ben lying on the ground (as observed by Bedouin-ass-kicking Ben) is 'real Ben'.
And just to keep things nice and tidy...maybe we'll see 'real Ben' killed by Charles Widmore...only to see 'dupe Ben' as the one who showed up in Widmore's room.
"I know who you are boy, WHAT you are."-Widmore.
I don't know, it's not a perfect idea but it's awful cool to think about.
thanks for the post Thunderstorm, yep that's how i see it, the duplicate Ben looks at the real Ben
i added that i think the real Ben dies but have nothing to really back it up except that's how MiB took Locke's body
but there is the issue of that it seems the duplicate Ben rode on the horse for a ways so how could he still see the real Ben on the ground
and yes, i REALLY like how it dovetails into the scene with Ben busting into Widmore's bedroom
i suppose the entry point could have moved between the time dupe Ben beats up the Bedouin and dupe Ben looks at real Ben
The scientific analogy that leaps to my mind is particle-antiparticle annihilation. Perhaps turning the Donkey Wheel propelled one Ben forward in time, while the other went backwards into the past.
First Ben arrives at well and looks at second Ben (no shock on face, he knows the drill) he takes passport and money.
FIrst 'twin' to arrive after split seems extremely knowledgeable on warfare and languages, hmmm. I'm guess "I know what you are boy." just got explained.
First Ben recruits Sayid and kills second Locke. This might also explain the puzzled look on his face with Desmond arrives at church. But there's no way that the two Ben's are NOT aware of themselves. What does the bunny video tell us - they can't come into contact with each other.
Ben's said that he knew of only one other time that the FDW had been turned. So Ben, Locke and at least one other. We saw Widmore leave by sub. What about Christian Shephard - he's seems to be living the double life and was spoken about by Jack as though still alive in LDJB.
Could somebody plz go to the Orchid Station and see if there's a body there?
Locke. What to think. Suppose the first Locke landed outside the Widmore compound and we did not get the benefit of seeing him. The second Locke, much like the second Ben triggered Widmore's security and he was taken to hospital.
We see only second Locke attempting to get the others to go back (failing as would be expected).
Then there is the ever confusing questions . . . do the flashes off the plane result in 2fers?
Maybe all these twins will have a reunion, touch each other, explode and dies just I did after writing this comment *bloop*
ah! yes Big, that brings us back to the Feynman diagrams which were on one of the Lost blackboards
(even though they are still as over my head as it was the 1st time we looked at them,lol)
LotteryTicket, i'm digging your idea that Christian turned the FDW
First paragraph of above post, which did not post:
Let me is if I understand: Ben turn FDW (are you happy now). One Ben arrives Tunisia, defeats Bedouin, take horse and rides to well. Second Ben transported to Tunisia and is laying near well. He is not moving, wear parka. We do not know what happens to him.
y'all HAVE to watch the movie Primer if you haven't yet, all about time travel twinning and then some
i think the parka wearing not moving Ben is dead or will get killed as others have speculated above
Highly confident that Christian and Ray Shephard were on the island (much like Linus, Austin, Locke, Chang, etc. father and sons/daughters)
We just need to think that if two are replicated off island, what does that mean for the corporeal version on the island? We see several real and unreal versions of Christian Shephard on island.
yes, i've been saying all along our Losties had fathers that spent time on the island or at least grandfathers to give it just a little wider net
i included Hurley's father
The lack of continuity between the two clips is jarring.
Ben1 wounded both bedouins at the precise spot where he awoke, and there was significant horse activity.
Yet in the Ben2 scene, there's no Bedouin bodies, no hoofprints.
Bigmouth, I tried to put this together with your idea that one Ben went forward in time while one went backwards, but I just keep going in a circle:
Ben2 rides up before Ben1 awakens, yet Ben2 has the wound dressing, horse, gun etc. that Ben1 obtained.
Neither Ben fits neatly into a before or after category.
And now I'm wondering if the Ben that recruited Sayid is the same Ben that killed Locke and shot Des. Who wanted all those people dead - Ben or MiB?
And I'm also still mulling that darn cat. Ben is simultaneously alive and 'dead'(unconscious), and Locke is simultaneously alive and dead.... until the 'box' is opened.
If the 'box' is the island, maybe the 'box' opens when someone turns the wheel. Both Lenny and Walt warned against "opening the box".
IMO, the writers' intend Ben's and Locke's ejections to be a sort of 'out the white hole' event, but they're not sticklers about the precise theory, since like us they're not scientists.
So turn the wheel, open the box, and time/space goes wonky. MiB might understand that wonkiness well enough to take advantage of it.
I said "I'm wondering if the Ben that recruited Sayid is the same Ben that killed Locke and shot Des. Who wanted all those people dead - Ben or MiB?"
What I meant is I believe our original Ben killed Locke and shot Des, but maybe Ben2 coolly recruited Sayid and ordered those hits.
It's far from clear what the organization was that they were targeting. None of the targets have ever been linked to Widmore.
Just one more note - Ben's beefs with Des/Penny and with Locke were very personal.
But the Sayid hits didn't appear personal. The Ben who ordered those hits seemed to have a much larger and mysterious agenda.
A problem I have with it is that it doesn't fit or explain anything. The only time a second Locke comes into play is when we see the corpse, which ostensibly means that the zombie Locke didn't come to be until after 316 crashed. There is nothing which implies a second set of Locke's OFF the Island -- the only Locke that we are shown has complete memory continuity. How would a duplicate, who couldn't be doing the same thing as the original at the same time, have identical memories of the original? (Beginning, of course, at the moment of duplication, not previous or "inherited" memory from the original.) Doesn't work. Neither is there any evidence of a second Ben. If these characters gave some sign that they had done things differently, have a different set of memories, etc, then maybe, but as it stands the show simply doesn't read that way. The second Locke on the Island -- THAT is evidence of difference: he knows things that the original Locke probably wouldn't know -- he acts with certainty and is proved to be correct. Plus, really, isn't the idea that there are TWO Ben's traversing the globe just too insane? It doesn't fit the character himself. Seriously, I don't think either one of them would allow that!
Capcom, Greg uhmm i don't know how to say this but their is a spoiler on darks site you might want to check out. under title 14h december.
huh Neoloki, did you mean 14th SEPTEMBER?
yes, LOL, sorry need to put computer down. mind is jumping through interweb time.
Big, I'll read up on anti-particles...the quantum teleporting (telecloning) just makes sense to me, using wormholes, timespace manipulation etc. Also, there is actually memory transference in a quantum superposition (tangent timeline).
My brain is moving all over the place at the moment, maybe I can throw down a coherent explanation later on.
Quantum telecloning, means near exact duplicates...and because this is SF, we can deduce that means near exact memory transfer.
Ben Linus, with a wound, pushes the FDW and is essentially 'cloned'. So both versions of Ben have the wound.
The Two Lockes:
One of them, is 'fixed' by Widmore parades around as Bentham and is eventually killed by Ben. This version ends up in the metal case.
The other one...of course we wouldn't have seen him, that would ruin the big Flocke twist (fakeout)...we're supposed to think that it's not John Locke.
Anyhow, this other one is off Island, or perhaps even sent back to a time before he pushed the wheel and never left the Island. How do you likes them apples? :)
Either way, we absolutely have evidence of two dudes who look like John Locke...how else does MIB "clone" or perpetrate his likeness?
Also there is the idea that this second "alive" Locke would be working for MIB...and have been told about the "loophole" and all of this. So the idea that he was left behind on the Island might make some sense.
With the 'other Ben', it makes too much sense to me that Widmore thought he had disposed of Ben or something. I don't like the idea of having two Ben's or even two Locke's running around...and I suspect TPTB don't either. At least one Locke is already dead. And a version of Ben might be dead as well, that's not a stretch, IMO.
And perhaps there is this idea of a 'clone' being invulnerable. Richard Alpert, much? That is a stretch worth considering...maybe.
Also Ben- before/after
Ben1 arrives first, does what we saw in Shape of Things...then Ben2 arrives sometime while Ben1 is kicking Bedouin butt (at any time after Ben1 arrives) and is laying there for Ben1 to observe.
I think this explains a lot about Locke, less about Ben...which is maybe why they cut it in the first place.
Jacob 'entangles' (touches) the selected Losties together, then when they arrive on 316, he or the Island does some various whatever to get them were they ended up. Haha, whatever just going with it.
Hey all. I still want to know, who leaked this out? Did the deleted scene on my S4 DVD set simply add the scene like the picture frames changing in the gramma's house? I'm saying, someone must've nudged this by posting it, instead of tossing it out in writing, like here or elsewhere. I'm thinking Rumsfeld leaked the YouTube, damn him. (KoreAmBear, I think Donnie is with Tom and Arturo in a very different tangent universe, if you get my drift.)
Two Bens helps clarify a few things, how often he seems to get around, and the whole Kill, Sayid, Kill! vs. "You don't know what I've done" etc. Plus Widmore saying that he knows what Ben truly is, good catch. I've sd myself, a single line can have great meaning. But this new theory, about the duplicates, will that really send the show into Crazytown seeing as how there are only 16-18 hours left? With the two Bens, we get the same old LOST problem, answer a question, then throw out another mystery. Anyone else think that the only way this will smooth out is if we see one or two absolutely linear episodes, no flashbacks, no multiple scenes at the Long Beach marina?
darkprose, thx for that screencap. Big, thx for that link, and of courese, all of yours, Greg.
Scratch the Alpert thing. If one clone is invulnerable...why not the other?
I told ya my mind was all over the place.
:)
Wayne, I read about this right after the S4 DVD came out and tossed it off. I think someone mentioned it on one of the various forums.
In fact, IIRC, it's been up on YouTube for quite some time.
It came up in a conversation on the Fuselage about Wormholes, I think (drawing a blank) something else entirely and it spawned it's own discussion.
Re: the outriggers, it could just be that whoever moved was flinching from the shot, like an involuntary movement. So far, Ilana and her crew are not hurt, nor did they mention the other outrigger. I really didn't get the impression anyone was shot, just startled that Juliet was shooting back.
Even though my theory doesn't work in that only Ben and Locke were in one outrigger, an interesting scenario would be to have the 77ers flash to 07 in time to see Ben shoot Cesar. There's a reason they showed Jack and Cesar talking at the ticket counter. The bigger thing is that they see Locke alive and with Ben. Now this gets even sillier, what if the other outrigger (filled with 77ers, Ilana's crew, whomever)were shooting at ANOTHER outrigger that was bumped away from the timeflash. Yea, that sounds crazy.
Interesting...some of you interpret the two scenes very differently than I do. Here's how I view the chronology of events based on watching them back-to-back. Ben wakes up in the desert and is attacked. He subdues the Bedouins and rides off on one of their horses. He then rides to the wall, which he knows contains passports and money. It's at this second location that he sees himself DEAD, not unconscious.
I don't think there are two Ben's running around -- turning the Wheel creates a Schrodinger state where the turner is BOTH alive and dead. THAT'S WHY BEN IS UNPHASED BY THE SIGHT OF HIMSELF. He knows about and fully expects this side effect. Some similar quantum magic might work in reverse on dead bodies that return to the Island, explaining the miraculous reanimations of Christian and Locke alike.
lostmio, in re-reading your comment, you seem to think that both Bens are bad, am I right? That's what I would think, too, just saying it might clarify why he seems out of character at times, by almost looking compassionate.
Why would MIB need to use the wheel? To create a duplicate of himself (formal Christian/casual Christian)? I truly am baffled by the whole Jacob/MIB rivalry, this is one of the reasons why. If Jacob can just go off-Island, why not MIB?
One last thing, as I am watching "Jeremy Benthem" in bit & pieces. Aaron wasn't meant to come back. After Locke sees Walt at the high school, Abaddon tells Locke that he is 0 for 2. I never caught that before. Makes it sound like Aaron isn't important at all.
Big, just saw your post. Could this explain the polar bear skeleton? Someone from DI was in Tunisia and took the one polar bear (copy, duplicate, whatever), and left the other behind for Charlotte to see years later BECAUSE THE DI NEVER REALIZED THAT THERE WERE TWO POLAR BEARS? (Not trying to be dramatic there...) I just never got why they'd send a polar bear anywhere without looking for it.
Wayne: Yep, that would indeed explain the polar bear. I wonder what happened to Locke's dead double. I just realized, though, that the part about reanimating dead bodies might not work. After all, Christian (and Yemi's) corpses disappeared.
Thunderstorm, I kinda figured it was on a forum for awhile, I'm more surprised that it just seemed so obvious and overlooked (hell, I've had the S4 set for eight months). Being only a minute long, I can see where someone might skip over it, myself, I don't think I noticed a Deleted Scenes link. It just seems to have gotten a bump, e.g., I'm surprised Doc Jensen at EW hadn't brought it up in a column. Thx for the rundown, tho.
Big, that's what I meant about MIB moving the wheel. If Ben is to be believed about one other person turning the wheel, I'd go out on a limb and say it was either 1/ the individual who created the Lamp Post or 2/ ...Magnus Hanso. The blast door says he is dead, but why would anyone writing on the BDM even know of the Black Rock? I'd lean toward my first example, tho.
I'd be cool with twin Ben being dead in that scene...but I am more interested in figuring out a way that would support a twin Locke being alive.
Otherwise, what's the use of using such a thing? A dead twin pops up? Ho-hum. Unless it's just to be consistent with the science.
I still have to read about antiparticles but I suspect BM's science is sound and he's probably closer to an answer than I am.
I'm sure I am misusing the idea of quantum teleportation (all of this spec is pretty superficial right now) but it all reads so nicely...
Besides, it's SF, it wouldn't have to be a perfect match. They've already ditched the 'staying grounded to science' rule, haven't they?
Thunder: I certainly don't mean to dismiss the possibility of quantum cloning via teleportation. My main concern would be that such teleportation results in the "original" at the transport site and the "clone" at the destination, not two clones in two different destinations. Dan Simmons has a fascinating take on this technology in his books Ilium and Olympos. People travel using quantum "fax" whereby they're destroyed and reconstituted at their destinations. Highly recommended LOST-related reading if you haven't already...
@Thunderstorm:
You write: "Otherwise, what's the use of using such a thing? A dead twin pops up? Ho-hum. Unless it's just to be consistent with the science."
I think might be precisely the reason it wasn't included in the show.
Bigmouth said: turning the Wheel creates a Schrodinger state where the turner is BOTH alive and dead. THAT'S WHY BEN IS UNPHASED BY THE SIGHT OF HIMSELF. He knows about and fully expects this side effect.
oh, bravo, I agree... and it does make sense that there only was/is ever one alive Ben.
Which then begs the quesion: what is the purpose of this schrodinger dead/alive plot device?
With what we've seen so far, the best answer seems to be to create the Locke/MiB anomaly. (as as been posted above, deleting this scene means 1. it would have tipped that hand and 2. and/or/so tptb decided the Locke/MiB anomaly would stand on its own, for now at least).
So Bigmouth, can you craft an equally clear and spot-on Schrodinger's summary for Locke?
I'll try: when he turned the wheel, the Schrodinger effect kicked in. Only in his case, living Locke arrived safely in Tunisia, but dead Locke was left behind on the island.
Where like all unburied bodies, it became available for another entity's use. Ta-da! Flocke!
Remember, Locke's Schrodinger split was foreshadowed in
Walkabout , when he was trapped in his room with a geiger counter.
~~sorry, I couldn't come up with a cap showing the geiger counter on a short search. It's not the thing on his bedside table, that's a TENS unit.
The geiger counter was shown on a long pull-away shot, on a table or counter in the foreground, with Locke in bed in the background.
Deleted scenes are not cannon.
Maybe they deleted the scene because of the powerlines in the background.
Not to many power companies in the Sahara Desert.
This may be a bit of a disappointment for some, but what about the chances that this simply isn't canon?
...oops, sorry Anonymous, I guess you already brought that up.
Wayne, brilliant catch on the polar bear! I had completely forgotten that skeleton.
So, as you said, maybe the dead polar bear arrived in Tunisia, the living bear was left behind.
Three wheel-turners, that's it to date, right?
Then there's Desmond, who turned a key near the wheel and different-but-similar experience. He wasn't both alive and dead, but his consciousness did a wonky split.
They could easily have giffed out the power lines.
Right, it's not canon; nonetheless they wrote, shot, post-edited the scene, then it on the dvd. That's ample reason to use it as basis for speculation.
lostmio, glad you mentioned UNBURIED bodies. There seems to be a hell of a lot of effort made to bury the dead, the Others did it in 1974 (well, Amy, told LeFleur they had to bury them), Miles walked over the buried soldiers in 1954, and, one nagging instance, Danielle and Karl being buried. Keamy and crew certainly didn't do that, but I'll bet Richard had several Others do it on the way to the Temple.
The reason I remembered the polar bear skeleton is because I hate when particular scene is shown with no logical explanation, in this case, why would the DI knowingly leave a polar bear in the Sahara? I had a similar problem with Rousseau and Karl being buried (why would Keamy do that, really?), until I saw the other burials.
As far as deleted scenes being non-canon, its the same with the con videos. But there IS always something there for a reason. Let's say the deleted scene was meant to foreshadow the two Lockes, though why the producers would be so obvious, I don't know. So...let's go with there being no two Bens. The scene still raises the point that something happens when the wheel is turned. I am buying into this mostly because of the polar bear, myself. The key to the deleted scene is that it involves the wheel, not the Vault, or the fail safe, etc. Its interesting to discuss this, but I can't imagine so blatant a scene as Ben looking at himself. I'm not waffling, I'm saying this deleted scene, to me, is more about what happens when the wheel is turned, kind of defining the wheel more.
Hey, here's something to think on re: Ben and Locke. Each turned the wheel from OPPOSITE ends. Does that help anyone with their thoughts on each body showing up in Tunisia?
Yes, it's enough to speculate. My speculation is that whatever idea it belonged to, they scrapped it.
This was during S4, the shortest season, maybe they had to economize certain potential threads.
Wayne, a lot of folks missed a brief bit in Through the Looking Glass. After the Losties killed Ben's 7 folks, including Tom, at the beach camp, there was a quick shot of Juliet digging furiously with a shovel. I've no doubt she was burying the Others (hopefully Sawyer, Bernard, and Jin, who were talking in the foreground, turned around and helped her). Cremating the bodies or floating them out to sea seems to be ok, too.
The most prominent unburied in the first 4 seasons were Yemi, Christian, and Alex. All of whom reanimated. A dead Locke left behind at the wheel would be prime. And Causal Christian was right there, having just urged him on.
I today rewatched the Ben-meets-Smokie matchup, and I'm convinced that MiB and Smokie are not the same.
But IMO MiB DID briefly leave Locke and reanimate Alex, to give Ben the order to obey Locke.
@Wayne: Why would the DI have known that the polar bear ended up in Tunisia? It seems Widmore didn't know Ben would land there, until he did, then when Locke does, he has cameras ready. In fact, the polar bear disappearing, and Ben's appearance there -- I would say that is another reason why they cut that deleted scene. Why or how did Ben know that he would land in Tunisia? That might have been a surprise to him. Of course, he has traveled all over the world, stashed money, etc, I would think, in several places, but I am beginning to think he didn't know where he would end up.
Wayne said this deleted scene, to me, is more about what happens when the wheel is turned, kind of defining the wheel more.
Right, that's the most logical reason for ever writing and filming that scene, in the first place; it *has* to with the wheel.
Wayne said Ben and Locke. Each turned the wheel from OPPOSITE ends.
Wow, I never noticed that.
Well, SamG is reporting that the SECOND Ben can be seen BREATHING on the DVD. He supposedly gasps just like the first Ben. So much for my Schrodinger state speculation (sorry, Lostmio!) and GAME ON for the clones!
No, you can't see him breathing. I am sorry and I don't mean to be rude but that is ridiculous. I watched that seen a few time this morning on my dvd's (blu-ray) and you can't really say for sure it is Ben let alone that he is breathing.
Anyway, I am with Big (his first assumption) if for some reason that is Ben then he is dead. The second Ben is dead, rather. I have a hard time envisioning TPTB introducing a concept like cloning into Lost. WAY to many loose ends. It would cause more problems then it would solve and this late in the game when they will be looking to bring everything together it would create a horrid mess.
Ben and Locke turned the wheel from opposite sides but in the same direction.
When you have an an Out of Body experience some part of yourself leaves one's current body. But maybe two bodies are created briefly...who knows?
Maybe the personless shell left behind has to remain until the altered time has caught up?
and then it decays.
neoloki, not quite my point. Ben was in the chamber below the Orchid, Locke beneath the well. Yea, same direction on the wheel, but to me the two sides of the wheel represent faith on one side, science on the other. That's what I was getting at, if all this is is speculation, then Ben's turn of the wheel represented science. So if there is an argument for two Bens but not two Lockes (or variations), then I'm just pointing out the two sides of the wheel. Myself, I have no real opinion on the two Bens yet. Hell, Ben could have been hallucinating and seeing himself there dead, I dunno.
lostmio, you are right about Juliet shoveling dirt over the dead. I was actually reminded of that when she was dumping sand on the guy hit by the flaming arrow.
darkprose, I was being a little broad in saying the DI MUST have known about Tunisia. My reasoning is that whoever can monitor the Island movements from the Lamp Post quite possibly knew specifics such as the exit point. Also, in regards to the third time the wheel had been turned, way back when the wheel was turned by Ben, I wrote here that maybe it was cold in the chamber and there were holes in the spokes for polar bear harnesses. None of this holds true anymore, simply because there's no way a polar bear could get down there. But I do think that whoever (I say DI because of the Lamp Post, so maybe its a leap)can monitor the Island would know any exit points. Maybe not in the exact area or even country, but in the general area.
before anyone corrects me, in case they were turning the wheel in opposite directions, I brought the two sides of the wheel up because of the faith/science angle. I was going by camera angles, Locke moving towards the camera, Ben away. But either way, its the two halves of the wheel. KoreAmBear gave some great insight into "Jacob's well" from the Bible, and I seriously think there's no other explanation for the well coming. For every symbol of science, there seems to be one of faith.
Bigmouth, you said:
"Thunder: I certainly don't mean to dismiss the possibility of quantum cloning via teleportation. My main concern would be that such teleportation results in the "original" at the transport site and the "clone" at the destination, not two clones in two different destinations"
If the FDW opens up a wormhole, and thus it's not the Cause (turning the wheel from inside the chamber) but the Effect (the wormhole opening itself) that becomes the quantum teleporter...then Ben enters the wormhole as soon as it's opened, becomes telecloned and the wormhole ejects both Bens at different times.
Does that make any sense?
In the Star Trek example I used earlier which is also cited here in this link, as a SF example of telecloning:
http://www.physorg.com/news10924.html
Kirk is being beamed back to the Enterprise, and two of him show up. Not 'one stays' and 'one goes'.
Trying a different link using html.
Different link
And quoting from the article.
"In ideal quantum teleportation, the original particle is destroyed and its exact properties are transmitted to a distant particle. In telecloning, the original is destroyed and its properties are sent to two distant particles with an accuracy of less than 100%. The Heisenberg principle limits cloning fidelity; researchers would otherwise be able to make enough clones to learn everything about the original particle."
So, I am just a quantum hack copying and pasting, so maybe this works or not...but it seems to be pretty neat.
Ok, so there's debate about whether Ben sees the other Ben breathe or not.
At any rate, as Bigmouth points out, Ben2 (ie the Ben we didn't see until this clip) is neither surprised nor concerned.
The only 3 viable options are:
1. The wheel turn caused a Schrodinger effect; Ben1 is dead and Ben2 is alive but essentially they're the same person.
or
2. Ben1 is alive.
Ben2 is a dupe or clone of some sort who knows that Ben1 will arrive and also knows exactly how the encounter with the Bedouins will go down - in enough detail to fake the wound and obtain a duplicate horse. He can do this because he's in a slight future time to Ben1, who's still lying on undisturbed ground and has not yet had his own encounter with the Bedouins.
3. It's just another bit of wonkiness that TPTB threw in to keep alive the weirdness factor, and they never intended to explain it. They changed their minds about airing it.
I think it's option 1.
As much fun as I had toying with the idea of 2 Bens, I'm way more prejudiced in favor of the first option.
Because it works with other elements of Lost, ie Flocke and the Polar Bear.
Option 2 is just out of nowhere, it doesn't fit in with anything else we've seen. I'd rather it be Option 3.
Thunderstorm, are you saying the 2nd Ben was ejected into a different place than the first Ben?
I had an interesting idea after watching the clips back to back.
I dont know the language the two riders were speaking. But they both seemed suprised to see Ben standing there where he was. Suprised possibly because 1. he was wearing a parka standing in the middle of the desert...or...2. they had just rode from the location of the other Ben and couldnt figure out how he got from one place to another so fast.
I noticed that after assualting the two riders that Ben rode back in the direction that two had just came from. So if you keep that in mind and watch the deleted scene. Perhaps he rode from the location he popped up in to the location of the other body and the stash were located.
It just seemed to me that the rider with the red bandana seemed startled by him being there and looked to the ground to find any tracks that ben could've made to get there. Which makes me think of what the chances would be that they happened to be anywhere near there to even come across him in the first place.
Do you suppose there was a flash of light or something along those lines that might compare to when Des had the incident of turning the fail safe key? Do you suppose that could've caught their attention to be in that area?
Mike
lostmio, quoting you...
"Thunderstorm, are you saying the 2nd Ben was ejected into a different place than the first Ben?"
No, I'm not really speculating about that (geography). More or less, if that idea I threw out there has any logic, they would probably both be near the 'exit'.
The idea that Ben would be looking back at his 'older' self in the same spot, or a different geographic spot close by...means about the same thing to me.
I don't look for all of this to be explained by the science...I could just see them saying 'that is a killer idea!!!' and given that is has an actual scientific backing, then going on to craft the story around it.
So in a nutshell, if it made more dramatic sense to have two Ben's in two different spots (near that same Tunisian exit) whereas, a strict reading might say they should be in the exact same spot, whatever...it works for me.
I still have problems with going back to this idea...because they didn't use it when they should have. People would be asking...what the hell is this? If "Flocke" was a Locke twin from the FDW.
Whereas, this scene could have put that idea in the viewers psyche.
mike, good questions. I have no clue.
lostmio, one more point, #2 above
"2. Ben1 is alive.
Ben2 is a dupe or clone of some sort who knows that Ben1 will arrive and also knows exactly how the encounter with the Bedouins will go down - in enough detail to fake the wound and obtain a duplicate horse. He can do this because he's in a slight future time to Ben1, who's still lying on undisturbed ground and has not yet had his own encounter with the Bedouins."
Fake the wound?
If he's a duplicate, he's a duplicate, how would they both not have that wound?
Duplicate horse?
No, I think we are having a communication problem here.
Ben1 shows up before Ben2.
Ben1 does everything we saw in 'Shape of things to Come'
Ben2 shows up.
Ben1 sees Ben2 and is not surprised.
Other than this, it's as simple as that.
There is nothing to say that another encounter with the Bedouins would take place. Didn't he kill them? This is not an iteration, this is 'real time' the whole event doesn't repeat. The 'older Ben'= the one that is observed by younger Ben lying on the ground...wouldn't have to deal with Bedouins at all. In fact, we have no idea what would happen to him.
Unless I am misunderstanding things. #2 should be a lot more believable option.
Allan
My 2 cents :
1. I just did this. Watch the deleted scene on the dvd. When it cuts to Ben #2 lying on the ground, hit whatever button on your remote that will play at 2x speed. It's faster than play but slower than fast forward speed. You can clearly see Ben #2 breathing.
2. Alpert was referring to Sayid and Walt when said " 0 for 2 "
3. There is a clip, somewhere, that explains that the background in the scene that aired was all CG. So I assume the deleted scene was cut before the CG was put into it. That is why you can see the electric wires and poles in Hawaii.
3. Someone asked " Why were Bedouin there in the first place ? "
What about that ?
4. Was Ben's stash in a wall or in the wall of a well ? Wouldn't it be odd if there was an old well like Locke went down in Tunisia too ? Would that mean there is a wheel at the bottom of that well too ? Just sayin'
5. What about Ben's stash in the air vent in the hotel room ? How could someone stash something in that particular room, if this hasn't already happened ? How else could Ben have known that room wasn't already occupied when he and Jack checked in ?
6. I really think we'll see the shooting at the outriggers again. I'm guessing it takes place after Jacob is killed.
7. "I know WHAT you are boy" Good catch on that one !
I probably forgot other stuff I wanted to say. If I think of more, I'll return
We've already seen two Christians on the island, of course, in different sets of clothing.
Matthew
Thunderstorm said I think we are having a communication problem here.
TS, I hadn't read your two-Bens-in two-times post when I dashed off option 2, so it was not a response to your theory.
Anonymous, I don't have the translation handy for the two riders but basically they were just wondering how a man got there w/o there being any footprints or other tracks in the surrounding area.
Thunderstorm, You're not necessarily saying something different than I am, when you say two Bens arrived at two different time points and I say a Schrodinger event caused the two Bens. The writers could be using both as one wheel-related event.
The difference is that if Schrodinger is involved, then it would *seem* that one of the Bens would be dead. We've had 2 Lost Schrodinger references: one - indirect- aired in Sayid's Paris fb, and the other direct reference is posted under the Faraday Class at the Lost U website.
Also, the reason I asked about the geography is because there was no foot or hoof prints or wounded Bedouin around the prone Ben1.
That eliminates a lot of possibilities and puzzles me.
If there are two separate time-traveling Ben arrivals, then two events would be very close in time, only a couple of minutes. Riding Been2 should see the evidence of his immediate-prior experience at that spot.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that.
That's why I asked if you think the 2nd time-traveling Ben arrived at the same spot. That doesn't fit with the two filmed scenes.
i agree with Lostmio and Big (damn the Ben1 breathing thing, just bad at playing dead)
Ben1 is dead, that's why Ben1 can never go back to the island, that's why Widmore knows what Ben2 is
Locke1 is dead as well after turning the FDW, that's how MiB got Locke's body
so Polar Bear1 died on the spot as well
Greg said :
"i agree with Lostmio and Big (damn the Ben1 breathing thing, just bad at playing dead)"
If they wanted him to be dead in that scene, they would have used a better take or just used a still frame since his chest is the only thing moving.
being a reasonably intelligent 40yr old man who knows he is prone to make mistakes, i re-watched the scene once again.
The image of the person laying on the ground does not last longer than a second. A normal human being takes a breath every 2 to 3 seconds. One can make an argument that the chest "exhales", but given the rate of breathing of a human and the rapid fire shot of "person" on the ground, to make a conclusion the he is "breathing" is asinine. It is not possible.
Otherwise, the whole scene is odd. Given the fact that Ben comes riding in on a horse. If his stash was close to where he had the fight with the bedouins he would have walked to his destination, but the fact that he comes galloping in on a horse leads one to believe he traveled some distance. Given this circumstance, and the terrain, how would he be able to see "the body" which appears to be relatively close. The whole scene makes little sense when one takes into account the body and I would imagine that is why it is a DELETED scene.
If one was to make a theory on this deleted scene the only assumption to safely make is the possibility of a double, but not a living double because there is not enough information present.
oh and anonymous:
you can't make that argument because it was a deleted scene. so instead of them fixing it they cut the whole thing.
I'm with neoloki on what to make of this, though I might add that Ben was breathing very hard and fast when we saw the original scene, and the other Ben looked almost serene. I lean towards deleted scene, filmed with the intention of giving us an implication of the wheel, then they decided it was too confusing. Or for that matter, before the episode aired, they came up with a better scenario. That said, this is a good blog for speculation instead of spoilers and the like, so I applaud anyone who tries using their brain over the six month break. I think Big will agree that there's nothing better than re-thinking what we've already been told on the show itself. It's not too often these days that I get to use my brain for anything other than getting through the day.
Yea, it was Sayid and Walt, and I should have added that Aaron's name never came up once (not that it logically could once Kate bitch-slapped Locke), but for several years we've been pushed towards Aaron being special and the Others wanting nothing to do with Walt. It was never implicit to Locke to bring Walt back, so it seemed odd that Abaddon said "0 for 2" even though Locke never once asked Walt to join him, as he never spoke withe Eloise. Also, it was good to listen to Abaddon's lines now that S5 has ended the way it has. "I'm just a driver, John."
Kate bitched slapped Locke? you mean when Locke went to see her off Island?
and what do you see as Abaddon's true purpose?
My vote is also that this scene is legit and important and they left it out in order to not confuse and/or tip their hand. I can't imagine them going through all of the trouble to write, shoot, and put the scene on a DVD without it being relevant somehow. The need to freeze frame to see something important (dead Ben) is also a trademark Losty move.
I also feel that Ben1 looks at a DEAD Ben2 and isn't surprised. I'm not sure why, but when Ben1 wakes up and vomits my association to his vomiting was that somehow his body had just been through something (cloning or whatever).
What actually happened to "resolve" the two bunnies #15 issue? Chang said to make sure that they didn't touch, but I'm not clear what happened after that.
Does this have any bearing on the Ben killing Locke scene? It really seems like when Ben arrives he wants to save Locke. But, then Locke says something (I think about visiting Eloise Hawking) and Ben's demeanor changes and he decides to kill him. Did this comment let Ben know "which Locke" he was dealing with?
Neoloki: Easy tiger...there's nothing "asinine" about this disagreement. Two people have watched the scene in slo-mo and see something different from you. Really, the most important thing is the gasp. I'm not saying you're wrong, but let's keep an open mind.
Also, I think we have to think about this scene in context. We also know TPTB wanted Hurley to see himself in the Cabin during S4. They were vetoed by ABC who thought that would be too weird. Did TPB cut the second Ben scene for the same reason?
Allan here
I cut the 2 second clip of Ben on the ground and repeated it 15 times.
You can see his chest move like when we saw him regain consciousness and took that first deep breathe.
There is a FULL SCREEN icon in the lower right corner of the video window.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42536270@N02/3926695546/
I have to say, that's pretty compelling Allan!
maybe then Ben1 kills Ben2
Allan here
Bigmouth said...
I have to say, that's pretty compelling Allan!
Thanks
or Ben2 kills Ben1
I am not saying his chest does't move. What I am saying is it is not conclusive it is "breathing". Considering the scene was deleted. Any number of reason's why.
Big. I am as foolish as everyone else and obviously i enjoy the conjecture, but we have to set limits at some point or we are faced with the dilemma:
Everything is true, nothing is permitted
Nothing is true, everything is permitted
A dog chasing is his tail.
but LostWorld is an Ouroboros where everything and nothing is true
the problem with your flickr, obviously you looped it, the scene is not that long. we have a fraction of what you showed as the scene. the actor could have exhaled given the distance of the shot and the people shooting didn't notice. In the end nothing else moves. He is prone sprawled and comatose.
In the end we don't even know if it was Ben.
even lost has boundaries.
Ben is not made out of cheese and he does not live on the moon.
(although I am sure he would be convincing if he told some one so)
Yes, LOST has its limits, which include time travel and two Bunny 15s. So, I'd say a second Ben is well within the realm of possibility on the show.
And denying that it's Ben strikes me as unreasonable in light of the evidence. At a minimum, the onus is on skeptics to come up with a reasonable alternative. He's not one of the Bedouins because he's clean shaven and seemingly caucasian. So who the hell is it if not Ben?
I'm not sure what it would mean, but what if there is something going on that is similar to "The Time Traveler's Wife?" Basically there are times when there are two of the same person, but they are still both the same person, not a clone. It's just that each person is at a different point in time.
Clearly, there was a time during the S5 flashes that there were two Sawyers, two Lockes, etc. on the island at the same time.
I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before, and again, I'm not sure what all it would mean, but just thought it was worth bringing up again.
Yes, i agree Big. If it is anybody it is Ben.
but alive?
That is my boundary.
sorry for being argumentative. I just feel strongly that we have to set boundaries or nothing makes sense.
looks like Ben to me
maybe the Bens keep multiplying like rabbits, that's why Widmore can't kill "Ben"
some of you may remember, long long ago i wouldn't let go of the idea that i swore there were more than 1 Bens on island but it was just chalked up to him wearing different glasses, i think
what i mean is Ben1 turns he FDW and stargates to Tunisia while at the same time a Ben2 is duplicated at the FDW who turns the FDW and stargates to Tunisia then Ben3 is duplicated at the FDW
I like Wayne Allen Sallee's thinking about the possibility of the two Ben's being alive & dead in Schrodinger like fashion, but I'm really of the firm opinion that this DELETED scene is nothing more than a playful tweak or possibly, at the most, a foreshadowing of the two Lockes.
Set aside all of the discussion about what is in canon (per TPTB, the only true canon is the show itself), my reasoning is as follows:
The ground that Ben is lying on is actually the same in both scenes. I know there will be argument over the comparison, but forget the upper background and sky and focus on the smaller piles of stones seen above and below Ben as he is laying prone. It is well known that these scenes of "Tunisia" were, in fact, filmed at Ma'ili quarry (thus the stone piles) in Hawaii. Afterwards, a great deal of the background and sky were substituted in post production to better fit the intended locale. The brief shot of Ben in the deleted scene, however, is unfinished - no FX work, thus you can see the local power lines. (BTW - its not uncommon for deleted scenes to not have full post production FX work for budgetary reasons.)
In any event, it hardly makes sense that Ben whacks the Bedouins, mounts the horse, rides no more than a few hundred feet to the well, then looks back to the same area where he woke up only to see now its not the guys he took out, but himself, in a prone position, all without batting an eye. Even if he were somehow privy in advance to the postulated "twinning effect" of the FDW, I think even Ben would offer more than a passing glance to that!
My guess is that the unfinished version of the earlier shot of Ben lying there was originally inserted as a placeholder (most likely for an FX enhanced shot to be edited in depicting more realistic Tunisian scenery)that became obviated when they decided to excise the secret stash scene from the episode altogether. Or maybe, like the DHARMA logo on Ezra J. Sharkington, it found its way in during editing for the DVD release as a joke.
Just my two cents, but I'm really paying no mind to the possibility of two Bens running around. One bad twin seems like plenty to me.
Neoloki: I love your argumentativeness, just not characterizations of opposing viewpoints as "asinine." But no harm done!
Netprophet: Great catch re the two locations being the same! I'm glad you like my idea of a Schrodinger effect, but what do you make of Allan's image, which shows the second Ben exhaling? Also, how do you explain the second Bunny 15 being alive in the Orchid Orientation outtake?
In this extremely painful hiatus and in the shadow of the end of the show we all know and love, I am kind of glad we find things here and there like this to converse about. Honestly, without blogs like this or the Fuselage or DarkUFO, I know I would probably e x p l o d e.
After reading some of the ideas here, I am leaning toward the idea that this definitely had everything to do with the bilocating bunny and the polar bear -- but, I also think it was probably an idea that they just plain didn't have time to pursue in the already abridged S4.
I also agree with neoloki that Ben must have traveled somewhat of a distance to get his stash, and that makes the cut to the body even more out of place -- is it to be read as a POV cut, or a cutaway to something Ben isn't aware of or can't see.
Is this deleted scene something we can ask the TPTB on an upcoming podcast or something? How do you send in questions? I have looked all over the place, and I don't think they were asked about this one.
@Netprophet: Nicely stated! Cogent.
Found this on Lostpedia:
Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse suggest that fans curious about Charlotte's discovery of a polar bear skeleton in Tunisia watch the Orchid video, and further draw a link between the polar bear with the bunny in the video. (Official Lost Podcast/February 19, 2008)
Obviously something on the show is capable of making a duplicate. We've got ourselves a "clone" already (Flocke).
Would you rather there be a magic diabolical clone machine under The Temple? Or that it might be a more controlled idea like using the FDW twins it's wheel-pusher?
In other words, you can't "clone" anyone without sending the Island or time itself into mass chaos.
Whereas, the idea of MIB using Locke's persona and literal image, that's more open ended than this idea, IMO. "Limits" are absolutely needed. Why not be skeptical about this limitless angle of the Flocke thing? There has to be a method here. Why didn't MIB just "clone" Jack and stop everyone from leaving in the first place? Talk about limits needing to be in place...
Netprophet, that scene being a "placeholder" could make sense. In fact, it's the most plausible explanation yet for why it would appear the way it does (using Michael Emerson in this scene, in this way).
Lostmio, quoting you:
"The difference is that if Schrodinger is involved, then it would *seem* that one of the Bens would be dead."
Lostmio, I don't know if this "TwinBen" is alive or dead or if it's even a twin in the first place. So I am all eyes and 'ears'. Just trying to explain why I was considering telecloning to BigM. Schrodinger analogies are hard to understand because they are all about 'observation' (seems to me).
Whereas, Schrodinger himself was saying 'observation' shouldn't make any difference, either something is dead or alive, it shouldn't be open to what you 'see' or think you see.
This other idea (quantum teleportation/telecloning) is quite literally scientific 'twinning'.
So I don't know how that translates over to what is happening with Ben here. If he saw himself as alive (because he is up and walking around) and then looked over at his Schrodinger twin, would that observation itself 'kill' his twin?
haha, I am confused about that whole idea.
Lostmio, you also said:
"If there are two separate time-traveling Ben arrivals, then two events would be very close in time, only a couple of minutes. Riding Been2 should see the evidence of his immediate-prior experience at that spot.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that."
It might be a different geographic spot or it might be just as Netprophet says...it's just a placeholder and all of this conjecture is misguided.
But it's fun!!
Bigmouth:
Sorry if I misattributed the origins of the Schrodinger anaolgy. In any event, as I said, while I "like" the idea I ultimately discount it anyhow. So neither Ben's gasping nor the fact that both bunnies are alive really bothers me. In the end, I truly think there is just nothing to the whole two Ben idea.
I do, however, also like the concept of matter/anti-matter versions of the bunny. In fact, this would be the only cause for Pierre Chang's alarm at the prospect of the two rabbits touching. Talk about bad twins! It also fits with a lot of the mirror imagery we've seen as well as the "two sides - one dark, one light" thing. (I think you've read my Desmond Unbound theory where I discuss some of this.)
On the other hand, the video Ben shows Locke in the Orchid specifically talks about time travel. So my belief has always been that we see two Bunny 15's in the ComicCon Orchid video as a result of a temporary overlap of their existence allowed for by time travel. A condition that will end the moment "present" Bunny 15 must necessarily enter the chamber to become the backwards time traveling Bunny 15 that pops up on the shelf.
EPIPHANY! As I was writing, I just now realized that these two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. What if time travel, by virtue of a NEGATIVE energy source, ALSO reverses your natural polarity in anti-matter terms? So you time travel backwards and take on reverse matter properties to become polar opposites of the past you. Might be a very good reason to avoid interacting with the past you...
darkprose: Thanks! I love being cogent!
lostmio, nice podcast find!!
Leaving the polar bear aside...
The hardest thing to reconcile (for me) was that the bunny in the Orchid Outtakes was sent to the past (have to assume) and the one shown on the show itself was sent to the future.
Because the bunny from the Orchid outtakes showed back up in it's own space-time ('twinned'). And the other one, supposedly just disappears (as it moves to the future).
Whereas, if the bunny from the Orchid Outtakes (and thus the reason it was an "outtake") was unintentionally sent to the past (also coupled with Chang's reaction)...I think that gives this twinning idea some solid backing.
The polar bear...rather than using the bear to move the Island, maybe they were just trying to move a bigger object (than a bunny) into the future and had a screw up.
well so there you go Lostmio, i read their statement as there was another Polar Bear created as a result of the polar bear turning the FDW and the same happened when Ben turned the FDW
i'm in the minority and have not seen ANY of the DVDs but i wonder who decides what goes on the DVDs, i would suspect Carlton/Damon at least have a little say
anyway i think there would be rabid fans if TPTB DIDN'T put LOTS of easter eggs on the DVDs
being that it sounds like TPTB shot a FAKE Ben/Locke season 6 scene to throw off the spoilereaters i wounldn't put anything pass them
Wow...I had a really dark thought. What if Ben deliberately left his double behind to die in Solaris fashion? Say he lands in the desert and is attacked. He kills his attackers and hides their bodies and one of the horses. Then he rides back to the landing site in time to see another version of himself -- perhaps from some slightly different iteration of events -- land in the desert as well. So he grabs the passports and cash stashed in the wall and essentially leaves himself behind. That way Widmore won't know until it's too late that Ben survived the trip.
Under this interpretation, Ben's twin isn't so much a hint about the Donkey Wheel's effects as a comment on Ben's ruthless character. The scene was cut because TPTB feared it would mislead those of us familiar with the Orchid Orientation Outtake.
Left the house for a few hours. Greg, the helicopters are back. Have no idea why the number of passovers between Midway and, I believe, Homewood. Still kinda weird seeing ten in an afternoon. Anyhow.
lostmio, I meant Kate being the bitch with a capital c who talks as shitty to Locke as Jack did. "Look how far you've come," she says, with as much contempt as I've seen. Jack, of course, was man of science until Locke mentioned his dad saying hello, and then he became the man of Oxycontin.
Re: the outtake of the Orchid video. The one that Locke sees on the show implies what Faraday first did with Eloise the rat, transfer the consciousness of the bunny whatever amount of milliseconds (it actually sounds silly, the time being so short as opposed to Eloise, someone help me here, having her consciousness sent an hour into the future to learn the maze).
I had lunch with my friend Greg yesterday, and he has finally seen "The Incident," I loaned him my DVDs because his DVR died or whatever it is DVRs do. I told him that after he and his wife watched the finale, pretty much every discussion we have had on LOST would be moot.
But he still thinks, as he did prior to the finale, that this whole thing revolves around perception and, for lack of a better word, dreaming. I bring this up simply because of the 2 Bens, the 2 bunnies, yet we see the mind experiment in the Orchid on the show, Desmond being special because he can intercept Faraday's conversation from 2004, Locke has a hell of a lot of dreams loaded with Easter eggs, Minkowski & Regina, etc. And then there are the two Bens and the two Lockes. My friend leans towards it being more than people just imagining MIB and Christian and Claire. Thought I'd toss his theory into the ring.
Yes, it was lostmio who mentioned S. cat. I'm of the belief that the scene was filmed then kept as the placeholder mentioned here. I do wonder if we'll ever get a list of what was jettisoned because of the truncated S4.
Greg, re: the DVD sets, there might be one disc that has deleted scenes or bloopers, one had a commentary on the Others, but the best addition is the running commentary. The best example is Cuse and Michael Emerson talking over "The Man Behind The Curtain." I was disappointed at the lack of extras in S4 compared to the first three seasons. I never watched the Ben scene because it was only a minute long and I was already pi$$ed that the extras were so barren.
Interesting thought, Big. But I still have to wonder how they can make this work in 16 or 18 hours. "This" being everything. We do know about Ben's ruthlessnes in that he didn't care about the Ajira passengers and almost killed Penny, until he saw baby Charlie. It's an interesting take you made, and it could further explain the need for Widmore to install those cameras. To see if more than one body appears.
oops, lostmio, I was directing the Kate/Locke comment to neleoki. Also, rereading my post, Greg doesn't really have a theory there, as I wrote, more just that he sees the manifestations as being more important to the end game.
After reading thru 118 comments, I thought I would inject a bit of whimsy. I am no scientist. So, if we're going down the clone-brick road, we'd better get some rules from Tabula Rasa, the game. Here they are:
http://tinyurl.com/pjtbp2
So divide yourselves and upgrade as necessary.
that kinda works for me Big since it ties in with Widmore saying i know WHAT you are to Ben2
but somebody remind me, Widmore did say WHAT instead of WHO, right?
Allan here
Greg Tramel said...
" but somebody remind me, Widmore did say WHAT instead of WHO, right? "
Here's the clip :
http://www.mytopclip.com/v/18418,lost-4x09-ben-confronts-charles-widmore-.html
So maybe this is a kind of "Prestige" thing? Except the orig or the dupe is dead?
In The Enemy Within, there's a "good" Kirk (or passive if you prefer) and a "bad" Kirk. Do we have a good Ben somewhere also?
::cough!Bad Twin!cough::
In the spoiler section of Dark's Neoloki?
The first reason I can think of the the DI leaving a P-bear in the desert, is because on their first try of the FDW, they didn't know where it went. ???
Perhaps that's why the woman at the hotel desk looks at him weird, because (another) Ben already checked in that day or something? :o)
Yes, the 'what" in "I know what you are" has always bugged me too.
Well, I just read halfway through the Fuselage posts, it sounds good. And very confusing.
P.S. I wonder if all the Losties at the Incident site will be moved and duplicated by the energy/bomb blast?
I can see a situation in season 6 where we have consciousness dimension skipping because they have done half the work explaining the possibility through conscious time travel but 2 Ben's?
the rumor was ABC did not want a 6th toe on the statue because it is too wierd and TPTB had some backlash with time travel considering some parts of the audience had a hard time following. To introduce a situation where we have 2 Ben's running around seems a stretch at the very least.
My interpretation of the bunnies was not cloning but TPTB introducing the possibility that the same person through time travel could occupy the same space.
How realistic would it be for Darlton to introduce cloning into the season 6 end game. They are gong to have enough problems just resolving the questions they brought up in season's 1 through 5.
right, neoloki, just the idea of introducing something as big as cloning this far in is overwhelming, and I'm still going with the deleted scene being something they might have sort of thought they'd film and see how it looked. Even though my friend Greg (Loudon, an artist, by the way) is a bit minimalistic in his thinking, your mention of the dimension skipping of the consciousness seems to fit with the easiest way they can get S6 underway (not the first episode, I mean get the gears going). The strongest AND briefest moment combined in S5 was Desmond waking up with his memory of Faraday outside the Swan.
For those who've been mentioning Widmore as a WHAT you are to Ben (on the dock by the sub, Greg), I took that to mean Widmore knew WHAT Ben was as in Ben was healed in the Temple as a kid. A crazy thought, in my head just now: is it possible that the tumor Ben had was a result of Sayid's gunshot wound catching up with him. Not literally, more as he fell from Jacob's grace, whatever healing happened during his stay at the Temple was erased, or w/e. It would explain his getting the tumor right before the spinal surgeon fell out of the sky.
NetProphet, I never give you the proper respect when you show up here, truth is, I'm silent because you are so concise. All of you are, really, but I seem not not reply to NetProphet during the same post.
And someone needs to tell me about this Tabula Rasa game. Looking fwd to more comments. For another four months. *sigh*
I thought that Wid said "I know what you are boy" in bed when Ben came to his room. :-o
Interesting thought about the gunshot/tumor Wayne. Is the vertebra they mentioned on the X-ray up near where little Ben got shot (in both sides!) I wonder?
Allan here
Capcom said...
" I thought that Wid said "I know what you are boy" in bed when Ben came to his room. :-o "
He did say that in bed in London.
Bedroom scene:
http://www.mytopclip.com/v/18418,lost-4x09-ben-confronts-charles-widmore-.html
Dock scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECW8HNq0meE
Capcom, you're right about the bedside, but I thought he said something at least very similar on the dock. I'm sure it's in the transcripts if I'd just look. If he didn't, then it does add to the meaning of WHAT instead of WHO in 2005 instead of pre-1992. Your thought on the hotel clerk in Tunisia being flustered is interesting, as well.
Did we ever really get any clarity on where Ben was shot? The entry holes changed, and I don't really recall anyone holding up an X-ray as clearly as we saw in regards to the tumor. At the very least, those x-rays were shown multiple times. Again, just a thought. Many things we will never get the complete answers, though I'm holding out to get a crapload answered in the Richard-centric episode. Or so I hope.
this guy claims to have used time travel technology, unfortunately i have a hard time not putting up my bullshit screen but maybe that is just conditioning because i would really like to be less skeptical since there is lots of evidence out there that seems to verify that time travel technology is being used
Project Pegasus, Time Travel, Teleportation & The Chronovisor Device
Capcom, in Defying Gravity when she sat in the "montauk chair" and the MiB observers said it is talking to her again i immediately thought of remote viewing
Poo, I missed that, when did that happen to her Greg? I have to watch those DG eps again online, I missed a lot. I wish that someone had a blog dedicated to DG too. Haven't found one yet.
Speaking of claims of time travel, did that John Titor guy get debunked eventually? I know that some of his claims for our immediate future didn't come to pass.
Capcom, it was the African American woman, Eve, she seems to know the most about Beta, she is married to the African American man, Ted, on the ship (he is the only one on the ship that seems to know about Beta)
a few times Eve went to a special room in mission control and sits in a chair and these doors open and she sees Mars, a bunch of MiB type men behind a glass window observe her saying "it is talking to her again"
i don't know much about John Titor but i do think i recall him being debunked
Oh yeah, now I know what your'e talking about, I didn't pay attention to the name of the chair, heheh.
Speaking of chairs, that was a pretty weird training chair that they were using, kind of a torturous Simon Says for bad kids. Or, for Room23. :o)
Allan here
Defying Gravity was canceled. ABC isn't airing the rest of the episodes. The only other network airing them is CTV. I tried viewing them online. The CTV videos won't play for me since I'm in the U.S. HULU has 4 or 5. Maybe they will get the eps that haven't aired yet. There are other places on the web to find this kind of thing, they will turn up eventually. Maybe a DVD.
I tend to think Widmore's line about "what you are" is -- like the deleted scene -- a comment on Ben's character. Keep in mind the context of that speech. Ben has just accused Charles of murdering Alex. Widmore is basically saying, "don't get self righteous with me, boy, because I know you're a murderer, usurper, con man, etc."
What is Ben Linas? The kind of guy who would leave himself behind in the desert to die...
Oh! Capcom, sorry i jut named it a montauk chair, they never called it that at all
Defying Gravity episodes on ABC
cloning may have not been the best word to use but i think we can all agree multiples exist due to time travel
i'm going with Ben left Ben to die until we have any further evidence
Well, thanks, Greg. Throw the word Montauk out there by mistake, willya? I never did see DG so I'm glad Anon Allen mentioned Hulu. Anyone can Google the Montauk Project which tied into the Philadelphia Experiment. Desmond seems to be a remote viewer in one sense of the word.
Big, that's where I was confused as to when Widmore used that line, because I know Ben was being all self-righteous when they were talking. Maybe they could try a show called Ben & Kate Plus 8, seeing as the two mirror each other in chest-thumping superiority.
well, i meant to mention Montauk but i mistakenly implied that's what they called it on the show but we better shut up or you'll have more black helicopters on your tail
THANKS ALLEN! for the clips as we see Widmore says both i know WHO AND says WHAT you are
but why is it not possible to kill each other?
LOL Greg. Did you call it that because of this? link I didn't know about that, I'm glad that you did.
So, is that the latest on the series, Allan? Cuz as of yesterday, ABC wasn't confirming either way. I suspect that is the way they'll go though. :-p
I agree Big, that was my first reaction to what Wid said about Ben, i.e. "what" equals "very icky person". :-) But ya never know. And, what you said about Ben leaving himself to die, that was the creepiest part of The Prestige to me, that the guy could allow his own self to *SPOILER* without a hint of remorse. Yuk.
Maven posted on LostARGs that on Dark's site they found an easteregg of an Oceanic billboard in one of the promos (I think it was a promo, she just links the screencap) of Fast Forward.
Yes indeed, why can't they kill each other. It goes with someone who said on the show that they can't kill their own, or something about that. Maybe it was when Juliet went to trial? I don't think that fans just inferred it, I think that it was really said at some point.
P.S. New Fringe tonight!!!
The Prestige...of course! That's a GREAT analogy! I think Widmore and Ben can't kill each other because they've both been chosen by the Island.
Wayne, the last Warehouse 13 show was Poe centric but i'm kinda having a waning interest in the show
SyFY full episodes
Destination Truth looks interesting, i'm gonna give new shows Stargate Universe and Caprica a try when they start
So that begs the question of what the island will do to them if they do. :-o Of course, we've been wondering how the island can sentiently do anything since they began talking about this precocious little brat called, The Island! Heheh.
So then, I guess if either one of them intends to return to the island, which they each seem to want for themselves, they'd better not break the rules of not killing one of the island's chosen or Smokey will get them when the return?
"What" Ben is, could also pertain to the fact that he's some kind of re-animated zombie creature (in Wid's eyes) from the temple. Maybe.
i still like the idea that they can't kill each other because there are multiples, anytime you add a time travel device there is no way getting around the problem of multiples multiplying
they better show us what exactly happened to Ben in the Temple
Greg: Yeah, I'm afraid my interest in Warehouse 13 is waning, too. Claudia is super annoying and the scene where Artie met the "regents" was really, really lame. Still, I loved seeing Romo Lampkin and Sol Tigh as guest stars!
Capcom: I think Widmore and Ben would simply fail if they tried to kill each other. The gun would jam, or if it didn't, the person wounded would recover.
Allan here
This is what I read about Defying Gravity:
http://www.inentertainment.co.uk/20090914/defying-gravity-cancelled-due-to-poor-ratings/
But I just read this:
http://www.scificool.com/is-defying-gravity-canceled-or-isnt-it-abc-answers/
So maybe they will air the res,maybe not. We'll see.
Sigh, forgot to put this in last post...sorry. Greg not to worry, next week is the finale for the W-13 season. I myself didn't understand the Poe connection very well, I have to watch it again. I did like how last week it wasn't just about the "find a thingy" formula, and that the FBI peeps actually didn't even leave the warehouse.
Thanks Allan! Anyone who lives in the south like me can send orange dirt (for Martian soil) to ABC to protest the cancellation. Heck, Jericho fans sent peanuts in and got one more season.
:o)
Oh yeah right, the gun jamming thing, how could I forget?!
Prestige is an excellent movie and that brings s us full circle back to the montauk chair via Tesla (David Bowie's character)
mentioning Bowie reminded me i hope Moon comes out on DVD soon, i never got a chance to see it
i can't think of any scientific (or puesdo) way to explain the gun jamming thing
I'm stupid, I kept trying to figure out why you guys were talking about that film with magicians starring Michael Caine a year or two back.
Capcom, I'm fairly certain that they were going to execute Juliet, though again it's a World According to Ben situation. The plan might have been just to gauge Jack's reactions and that all they were going to do was brand her anyways. Locke doesn't kill Widmore in 1954 and tells Sawyer he couldn't because Widmore is "one of his people."
Big, one reason I always remember Michael and the gun misfiring is because Tom delivered that line so well, "...the gun jsmmed, the bullet bounced off your skull, what was it?" I just loved how Tom had so much more knowledge at that exact moment than at any other time I've seen him.
Greg, I don't try to explain the gun jamming thing or why Ben & Widmore and MIB & Jacob cannot kill each other, respectively. I like that it plays with the idea that instead of not being able to change the past, you're not able to change the present.
sorta off topic but here's a load of Fringe videos to prepare for tonight
Fringe Video Round-up
What about the scene where Locke is watching the Orchid orientation video and it starts to spontaneously rewind (I think it was rewinding)? This seemed like an obvious clue as to the "properties down there," but I wasn't sure if it was saying anything more specifically than "you can time travel down here."
Capcom got me thinking on certain phrases and I always think of Locke's "Clean up your own mess" line.
Crazy thought. What if the coming war is about the living and the dead? And I would then put the 77ers Richard was referring to "I watched you die" in the latter category. You got your Bens and Lockes and Christians, might a surprise visit by Anthony Cooper, too. Fate is a fickle bitch.
Also, I wonder if too much is played up on this war, that it might culminate towards the end of the season, but not dominate the entire season. No one here has said that, I'm just bringing it up.
so it's that zombie season TPTB always joke about
maybe they WILL ll end up in the Crab Nebula
i don't think the war is ever going to physically happen but we will see
Somehow after two seasons of threatening a war, it seems like an anti-climax to me now. I just wanna know the answers to the mysteries. :-p
Speaking of the gun jamming, how about Keamey not being able to kill Michael -- with Christian at the end, just before the Kahana explodes, telling Michael he could go now. So Ben (perhaps unwittingly) and Michael are working for MIB? Is Widmore working for Jacob? The mercenaries of war doesn't seem to be the way Jacob rolls though.
--KoreAmBear (couldn't log on for some reason)
KoreAmBear, add to that Eloise Hawking. I've always suspected that she would side with whomever best suited her at the time. Maybe the adult Eloise is just overly dramatic, but I've always seen her as being on the level of Ben when it comes to manipulation.
Agreed on the war, Capcom. Then again, the last two seasons have for the most part covered two or three weeks (not counting time jumps or the 06 just plain giving up on caring about everyone else on the Island; there was four days for all of S4, the 3 days in 1977, and the 10-15 days involving Locke as Jeremy Benthem). Then again, since Jacob and MIB have been around forever, I suppose a war (or each war) can take it's time in coming.
Greg, back when I wrote that glossary in S2, even with 650 entries, I tried to have something for each letter of the alphabet, just as a test for myself. When I got the pdf. back to proofread, Zombie Island was taken off, as the people from LOST involved with the book didn't want the phrase in print. I think back then it was more about the current status (S2) of the show, the purgatory aspect, etc. Which was funny because I took the phrase from an interview that ran in Entertainment Weekly.
So, for Z I ended up with Zeke. Kinda lame.
I was thinking of that kind of war earlier as I was reading something outside. I suppose the talk of live Ben dead Ben was in the back of my head.
The book should be updated and reprinted after the series is over, Wayne! But then, you'd have to work again with he-who-shall-not-be-named.
:o)
No, no, Capcom. My involvement with him came later, and with any real Google search attempts, one could find who he he will not be named is named, even though it remains his fake name and not his real name. Say that a dozen times fast. This was website-related, not print-related.
GETTING LOST is still the second best seller for SmartPop after THE MATRIX TRILOGY, though I'm betting any book involving TWILIGHT will sell well. The book is actually still in print, the royalties minimal since its a dozen people splitting 40% of the sales. Usually books like this get updated, like you said, after the series ends, but with a new essay by someone famous. I'd literally start the glossary from scratch, because quite a few of those entries from S1 & 2 meant next to nothing compared to later seasons. My fingers are crossed I'll hear from the people Not In Portland. (They are in Austin, ha ha).
Did I ever post here that I thought that the title "Not in Portland" was wordplay for Not Important?
For those pondering the misfiring guns:
While I anticipate that many mysteries of Lost will ultimately be answered only in mystical terms (i.e. the Island wanted/needed Michael to survive until he delayed the Kahana from exploding, and was told he could "go" only once he served this purpose), there may be a possible answer provided by time travel.
We have at least been told that WHH may be the rule for time travel in Lost. In other words, a strictly consistent history purportedly exists, where Jack, Kate, Sawyer, et al. have always been present in the 1970's. And interestingly enough, the notion of mysteriously misfiring guns has come up in the context of consistent history and the ever-popular grandfather paradox. A nice article I came across that touches on the subject isThe Downing Street Dilemma, which sets forth the crux of the issue as follows:
"The “consistent history” argument says, roughly, that if you travel back in time, you can only do things that are consistent with the overall history of the universe. Or, to put more simply: If you travel into the past, you will only be able to do what you actually did. This rules out many kinds of trips, or at least curtails the activities a time traveler can engage in while visiting the past.
...So what, exactly, are we left with? Must our time traveler experience an endless series of puzzling coincidences, peculiar constraints, and a bizarre absence of free will? (Must every rifle aimed at grandpa misfire? Must every attempt to stroll along Downing Street go awry?) Perhaps, as a number of scholars have suggested, such questions put the cart before the horse. As philosopher Nicholas Smith has argued: “If a time traveler is going to travel to some past time, then she has already been there. If she is going to save a life or prevent a birth when she gets there, then she has already done so.”
Of course, we don't have a strict grandfather paradox situation with Michael, but here is one way I view it as possibly working:
1). Jin was present on the Island circa 1974-77, and during that time performed certain actions that were vital to creating the future where 815 crashed on the Island. The Incident?
2). If Jin had never time traveled, then Michael never would have emabrked on the entire set of events that ultimately bring him back to the Island aboard the Kahana.
3). In fact, Michael, despite trying to kill himself as well as Keamy's best efforts to oblige him, can not die until he does delay the explosion for the simple reason that Jin must survive. If Jin doesn't survive to go on to time travel, consistency would be disrupted - this is strictly not possible if WHH.
@ Bigmouth:
When I alerted our mutual friend 35er (aka Coaltrain) that this new topic was up, he directed me to a similar thread he posted a while back over at SpoilerTV called Revisiting a Deleted Scene
@ Wayne Allen Sallee:
THX for the kind words. I usually just enjoy following the discussion here as an observer - you all are amazing everybody!
Wayne i'll be laughing all day
"Not In Portland. (They are in Austin, ha ha). Not in Portland was wordplay for Not Important"
of topic but there is a cool bookstore in Austin kinda sorta like Quimbys
Brave New Books
I'm reading The Howling Man IN PRINT right now
netprophet, thanks for sharing the Downing Street Dilemma, very interesting and works for me
to that i add i wonder if The Freighter had to time travel to get to the island, kinda a philadelphia experiment
Wayne
I was born and raised in Portland. Dont know if I care for your word play, hahaha
maybe Ben used the chamber to peer into the future wherein Keamy did not kill Alex but some how the rules were changed and Alex was killed which sets off a massive domino effect of course correction
Portland is one of my favorite U.S. cities
i would really like to attend Esozone
Mine too, even though I spent my first 18yrs there. I am in Seattle now but plan to move back in the next year. Some of the best restaurants on the west coast are in Portland. As a Chef that is exciting.
i've been to both Seattle and Portland for Library Conferences but i preferred Portland
i enjoyed all the restaurants/pubs/bars that brewed their own beer, pretty much all the brewpubs in Houston and Austin have shut down
back to Lost, the more i think about it sure seems Ben, Ellie and maybe Widmore have peered into the future
I agree completely, but I do not think Eloise is woking for MIB. More of a feeling, but she sacrifices her son for the Island. It would have to be a good cause.
I am in the camp that Eliose and Widmore are good.
Actually, I meant the wordplay was that the real place that Richard was taking Juliet to was 'not important' to her needing to know, like pulling a swifty over on her. If I ever left Chicago for good, I'd move to Denver or Portland, although the former is rapidly losing my grace as it turns into a mirror image of Chicago. So my wordplay was in regards to the episode, not in city-dissing. And the words NOT IN are important to the title, because I think Portland is the only big city on the coastline past LA that the Island could have migrated nearby for the sub to hit the wormhole effect, as San Francisco and Seattle both are not glued to the coast as, say, Chicago is to Lake Michigan.
NetProphet, you raise exactly the point I did as I was talking about rewatching S6, in that new lines and such pop up that give better meaning to "I know WHAT you are, boy." (I'm saying, in general, that events will not be explained that we can get answers from by making a leap of logic.) Indeed, until we saw Jin survive the explosion, there would be no real reason for Michael to even survive his suicide car crash.
On a similar (kind of) note, a lot of us have been wondering about where Annie went to, and I'm wondering if an easy reveal will be along the lines of learning Joe Inman and Kelvin were one and the same guy. I really could care less if we never hear more about Annie, except for those creepy wooden dolls Ben has held onto. If young Alex had looked like Annie, it would be creepier, and I just wonder if Annie will pop up in some way as opposed to Libby, using her middle name or something.
If I had to choose between Widmore and Eloise, I'd still choose the former. E. isn't just manipulative with Desmond--The Island isn't done with you yet--she gave Jack Locke's suicide note to screw with his head. She might be decent enough, and unless this war really is about the living vs. the dead, and some actual war between good vs. evil, she'd switch sides. I do believe that.
Greg, I know of that store in Austin. My favorite in TX is in Tyler, Peapicker's Books. Just a fun place.
Enjoy THM, Greg. If you have the pb, you'll get a deja vu feeling towards some of those TZ episodes.
Don't know if this makes sense, but its not that I think Eloise can see the future per se, but see certain implications of future events. Maybe its like the picture on the box changing.
I know what you meant wayne, just being dumb/silly.
My impression, and this is the obvious choice, is Eloise's knowledge of the future came purely from Faraday's journal. The first time we hear her saying she doesn't know what is going to happen is upon his death.
Yes E. is manipulating a whole cast of characters through little gestures, but to what end? Good...Bad...?
Will Lost even end in these terms? I doubt it. But her motivational gestures are purely for the sake of the Island which is where her best intentions lay.
@neoloki, I was just adding the correct meaning there, Richard being a bit devious, and he has some great lines he delivers, i.e., "It points north, John." I think Eloise is simply more likely to make things work in her favor, hers alone. A part of this selfishness is in her not being a leader as Widmore was, and so she may not put the Island first.
Back to NetProphet and Jin, I think Jin's role in 1977 was showing up when he did at the north point, if only to keep Jack, etc. from being grabbed by the Others or discovered by another DI member like Radzinsky. Just as with Sun, Jin has a relatively small role in this story. Whereas their love bookends Desmond's and Penny's, free will (Sun getting on 815) vs. determinism, they have each had relatively little air time for entire seasons. (Interesting in that, as with Claire MIA as well, those three are on the one with the two kids with implied importance towards the end game of the show.)
Every now and then, though, I wonder if Sun will be the real enemy in S6, maybe going after Ben and affecting the balance in the war. And I still think Paik Heavy Equipment was responsible for all the machinery brought to the Island for the DI.
Netprophet: The gun jamming (and Mike surviving the car crash) might well be an impersonal universe enforcing self-consistency in the timeline -- I've wondered something similar myself. But I'm confused why Jin's survival necessarily depends on Mike. Why can't the universe simply course correct by giving Mike's job to someone else, making the bomb a dud, or having Jin simply defy all odds and survive the explosion like he did the plane crash?
I sense some kind of personal intervention is at work. Other Tom expressly attributes Mike's invincibility to the Island. Remember how casual Zombie Christian tells Mike "you can go now"? My suspicion is that the Island can influence your destiny at the quantum level such that the probability of death is zero until the Island releases you.
Bigmouth:
As I said, I actually expect that there will be some mystical explantion too. Zombie Christian's appearance to advise Michael he could go makes it a virtual lock that some motivated, "divine" intervention was at play in ascertaining Michael made it to that point.
Notably, your questions remain valid even under such a scenario. Why would it be necessary for Mike to survive to that point? Why prolong the inevitable? Couldn't what/whoever was pulling the strings have accomplished that through someone else?
My only answer is that with either an impersonal universe rolling on in a self consistent manner or such divine intervention, things are much more complicated than my simple example might indicate. We have multiple players with intertwined lifelines (I almost used "destinties"). Don't forget, Sun and Desmond were also aboard the freighter, and their survival begets Ji-yeon and Little Charlie. And Sun, of course, plays a role in 316's arrival at the Island, etc., etc. Such entanglements may allow for only one ultimate resolution that ends up with Michael being necessarily there to chill the bomb and only die when the Kahana finally explodes.
Big and NetProphet, maybe my nutty little theory from two years back can be added to the divine & mystical. Back when I was working those 16 hour shifts at that abhorrent printing plant, I had nothing but brain time on my hands 60% of the time and that's when I first thought that the Numbers could as easily be people as the Valenzetti Equation. Once Big mentioned the O6 being the Island's Constants in a post, I added that perhaps the numbers represented the ACTIONS of an individual. The whole chessboard thing. Eventually Charlie would die because he wasn't 23 or 42 (I'm being very abstract here), but his actions were needed for someone to get as far as becoming 23 or 42. Taken in that context, even Frogurt played a certain role in that his death could easily have been Juliet's and Christian then told Michael he could go because he knew Jin was in the safe zone. The picture on the box changed so that Jin no longer died.
That's extremely abstract, I know, but even before I saw Jacob touching everyone, I thought of people being shuffled around according to importance. Eloise presented the picture on the box idea to Desmond to one day enable him to be Faraday's constant as she read in the journal. So the guy in the red shoes was as much a chess piece as any one single crash victim from 815.
By the way, I'm heading out to that Zap2Locke get-together in a bit. I'll have a complete report, but I doubt I'll be staying past 10, otherwise my bus home turns into a pumpkin. There is a raffle planned, so I'll try and get an idea of the prizes before I blow out of the north side...
HAVE FUN WAYNE!
wish i was going
Netprophet: I believe Michael must be saved precisely because the loop isn't "supposed" to happen, so universal course correction doesn't apply. (See Three Black Swans.) The loop is part of Jacob's plan to save the world, the Man in Black's Loophole, or both simultaneously. I think the Comic-Con vids are indication the loop CAN be broken. In so doing, they offer hints about what's "supposed" to happen (e.g., Hurley wins the lottery either way, Kate is a murderer no matter what, etc.).
Wayne: I think I kind of get what you're suggesting. There are certain people who are constants (e.g., the O6) and others (e.g., Charlie) who help them attain their status as such. The constants can't die but their helpers can (though they'll simply be replaced by another helper). Is that right? One thing to consider is that S5 seems to suggest the O6 are variables, rather than constants. Then again, maybe their variable status also makes them constants in the sense they remain the key participants in all possible timelines. Does that make any sense?
Big, here's where S5 changed my thinking on that. Not sure if this ties into neleoki wanting to get my take after rewatching "The Variable," but you are getting me right. If you look back, quite a few people called foul on Faraday's odd variable speech as going against he'd ever said about WHH. But what if he started thinking the way I mentioned? I don't think that each of the 06 are the constants, actually. I think Walt and possibly Juliet (just a feeling) are at least bigger players in getting things in motion than Kate or Hurley. Yes, Kate effed up 1977 pretty bad, even causing Sayid to be shot, but aside from Jacob's touch, I would believe that Jack or Sawyer or, as I said, Juliet play a bigger role. Sawyer in that he didn't have to be with Kate at the sonic fence for Phil to see later.
Greg, don't wish too hard. There've been a few events (not LOST-related) here that were less organized and ended up being local cliques from Wrigleyville or Depaul and everyone else was a bit of an outcast. Age plays a factor, if the thing has a huge amount of college kids involved.
Oh, I like the constants and helpers thing. As in, some are constants and need to be there, and the others are the variables and are interchangable within the course of the plan?
Have fun Wayne!
P.S. to reply to the first post here, which is Greg's -- yeah, what that other show said, heheh.
OT, does anyone watch Eureka? Season finale is tonight. This season didn't impress me like the first one did, S1 was much more dynamic IMHO.
Just in from the party. No one guessed it would turn out so well. Seriously. At least a hundred people, I'll type more tomorrow. ABC even donated Blu-Ray DVD sets as raffle prizes.
Am I the only one who thinks we've already seen the first shots fired in Charlie Widmore's war? I'm guessing the war will be zombie Locke (and possibly the Others) vs. Ilana and her crew. That's why the people in the other outrigger shot at Sawyer and Co. during the flashes. It was Ilana and Co. shooting at what they thought was zombie Locke.
Hey I like that idea about the first shots, Big.
Hmm, I wonder how you kill a zombie? :-)
My problem with Ilana shooting at Locke is that Locke was in the front of the first outrigger, so the only way they'd know would be to actually see them paddle off, which meant that they were pretty close by. I recall that the 2nd outrigger was gaining before the flash, they might have seen the 1st outrigger near the shore or at a different angle.
The only reason I think of it not being Ilana's crew (though logically it must be), is that I have a feeling that we haven't seen the shootout from the 2nd POV yet, that is, it hasn't "happened" yet. Also, Locke's metal box would have certainly slowed them down.
Big brings up a good point, though. As does Capcom. Have the first shots been fired? Not the deaths of all the people Ben claims Widmore killed or the ones Sayid killed for Ben, but if not the outrigger scene, is there anything else we might have seen that constitutes 'the war'? Did MIB need Alex dead so he could then copy Alex and tell Ben not to kill Locke?
And, Capcom, indeed. Regardless of zombies or zuvembies or George Romero's ghouls, re-animation on the Island seems a whole different story from what we've seen. I think the Zombie Island phrase was meant to be taken broadly, but still, there's something to be said for what will be the needed weapons and how they get implemented. What good is shooting something in the head if it is a carbon copy, right?
Not necessarily off-topic, if anyone would like a run down of the event I went to last night (and met Lottery Ticket, who has a comment on this very post!), you can email me at jonalgiers@aol.com. This was way bigger than I thought, I was talking with people who lived in Charlotte NC and quite a few people from the Boston area were there. When there is a link to Facebook or the Chicago Tribune, I will post it here.
To all but Greg most, as I was replying to him just as I was heading out, when I mentioned the cliques at such events, that would have been the case if it was just Chicago. Mingling works, but the north side is separate from the south side which is then separate from the suburbs. The Zap 2 Locke event was user-friendly to the highest degree.
wayne, glad zap2it was worthwhile, from years of reading Ryan's and Erika's blogs i assumed it would be user friendly
i'm still on the fence about who the good guys really are, i just don't know and i'm not sure we will ever really know for sure even after season 6 is over
i'm also on the fence whether the outrigger shooting happened before or after Jacob's sacrifice
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