Hi everyone!

The latest edition of Key Points is now available:

Key Points from "He's Our You"

Note to Dharma: When someone claims to be from the future, you best believe them (and lock up any bug-eyed teenagers moping around the grounds).

Talk about foreshadowing! Ben gave Sayid, A Separate Reality by Carlos Castenada, and I laughed & thought, “not frooming, but shrooming.” Then Sayid took a little trip.

Ben spoke of his father in the past tense, “I hated him.” I’m thinking Roger Workman’s incinerated remains will be found in that truck.

Completely broadsided by Sayid shooting Ben. I thought for sure Sayid thought his “purpose” was to remove Ben from Dharma at a young age to prevent the genocide, which I guess is precisely what he did… lol…..but I thought he would just deliver Ben to The Hostiles and out of the hands of Roger. Of course thinking about that option now I see that a full blown war would have occurred had a Hostile kidnapped a Dharma child.

I was disappointed that it only took 2 men to restrain Sayid. I noticed Sayid's fingernails were in somewhat better condition.

Taking Ben to the Hostiles wouldn't prevent the genocide, it still would have happened. And um, don't you think KILLING a Dharma child is worse than kidnapping one?

So for next week:
What happens to future Ben when little Ben dies?
What happens during the Dharma-Hostile war? Must the Hostiles win? Will they purge Dharma, or will the outcome be different?

We're pretty well seeing that it wasn't a good idea for the O5 to return. Does that mean they were doomed either way? - their lives off-island were crappy.

Where the heck are Rose & crew? Are they in the 70's? Are they just slurfling around the forest, eating grubs? And what about Cindy & the Tailie kidnappees? Are they with Richard in the present? The problem for me is, answering those questions means they have to take 10 min to show something meaningful, and I don't care. I just wanna know where they are.

Cindy and Tailie kidnappees is something that needs to be explained just as much as why Juliet did jump.

I would really like for Rose and Bernard to still be around even if means "Frogurt" has managed to survive as well.

But by far the best part of the episode was this:

quote:

Originally posted by hurling:

Where the heck are Rose & crew? Are they in the 70's? Are they just slurfling around the forest, eating grubs? And what about Cindy & the Tailie kidnappees? Are they with Richard in the present?

Agree; inquiring minds want to know! I especially want to know where/when Emma & Zack (the two kids) & their teddy bear are. Which brings up another scene from S2 w/no explanation—the parade of hillbilly legs/feet/one bedraggled teddy bear that Eko & Jin see from hiding. What was that all about?

quote:

Ben spoke of his father in the past tense, “I hated him.” I’m thinking Roger Workman’s incinerated remains will be found in that truck.

Ben actually says "I hate it here." Being the geek that I am, I've watched this scene 3 times already.

I've got a hunch that young Ben survives, and will be saved by either Dr. Jack or Dr. Juliet. Until further notice, I will stick by Faraday's theory that you cannot change what's already happened (ie Ben will grow up to lead the purge). I don't see how under the current rules, the island could let him die.

a) If Jack saves Ben, this would explain why Ben so clearly knows in 2004 that he must seek out Dr. Jack Shephard in order to operate on his nasty spinal tumor.

b) If Juliet saves Ben, this could help to explain why he's so infatuated with her when she arrives on the island decades later.

Also, Adult Ben's attitude towards Sayid makes me think Sayid shooting him is something he clearly remembers from his childhood. All of his references to Sayid being a natural born killer and being capable of so many unspeakable things..... it all hints to me that Ben had experienced and survived this shooting at age 14 with a clear memory of the man who pulled the trigger.

The list! Remember "Jacob's" list? It was really Ben's list of the people who had been with Dharma in 1977. Ben spent years compiling their dossiers, not a few magical hours.
Who remembers who was on it? Jack, Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, Hurley, right? I don't think Sun. Walt was taken, but they were grabbing all the kids.

quote:

hurling

Posted 26 March 2009 09:17 PM

The list! Remember "Jacob's" list? It was really Ben's list of the people who had been with Dharma in 1977. Ben spent years compiling their dossiers, not a few magical hours.
Who remembers who was on it? Jack, Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, Hurley, right? I don't think Sun. Walt was taken, but they were grabbing all the kids.

Just posted the same thought about "the list" on the blog (#163). What I didn't consider was the kid-grabbing (despite AL's repeated insistence that this is important [see just above re Emma & Zack] ... typical boyfriend, I know, not listening! ).

Anyway ... this leads me to believe that Harry Potter Ben had limited info regarding the "O6," and just knew one of them was a child. He had no idea Aaron was not even born yet, but probbaly suspected so after discovering Claire was pregnant and near term. At any rate, the first order would've been something like "get these people on the list, plus any kids you can find" ... hence the undue interest in the kids, including Walt, and eventually the unborn Aaron.

The thing I am having the most difficulty with is this: "What happened, happened." So if that is so, why is there such an effort to correct what happened?

What am I missing? If it happened, then wouldn't efforts to manipulate events to prevent it from happening be futile?

Or perhaps something was supposed to happen and didn't happen. OK...that is a little easier to grasp.

Is "course correction" (manifested as time loops) a spontaneous phenomenon? And the people we see trying to manipulate events are hoping to create an environment which they believe is conducive to what they think is the desired outcome?

It all reminds me of a Rube Goldberg contraption.

Help!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: undaunted,

quote:

Originally posted by hurling

The list! Remember "Jacob's" list? It was really Ben's list of the people who had been with Dharma in 1977... Who remembers who was on it? Jack, Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, Hurley, right? I don't think Sun. Walt was taken, but they were grabbing all the kids.

Sayid wasn't on Ben's/Jacob's list, just Jack, Kate, Sawyer, & Hurley.

quote:

Originally posted by ealgumby:

Just posted the same thought about "the list" on the blog (#163). What I didn't consider was the kid-grabbing (despite AL's repeated insistence that this is important [see just above re Emma & Zack] ... typical boyfriend, I know, not listening! ).

quote:

Anyway ... this leads me to believe that Harry Potter Ben had limited info regarding the "O6," and just knew one of them was a child. He had no idea Aaron was not even born yet, but probbaly suspected so after discovering Claire was pregnant and near term. At any rate, the first order would've been something like "get these people on the list, plus any kids you can find" ... hence the undue interest in the kids, including Walt, and eventually the unborn Aaron.

Someone over on the blog had wondered what Ethan's interest in Claire was due to...perhaps this is why.

quote:

b) If Juliet saves Ben, this could help to explain why he's so infatuated with her when she arrives on the island decades later.

Yes, I would have thought it could play out that way. Remember Harper saying "you look just like her"? Well, that's because it IS "her"!

And there was that portrait in Ben's house too. Maybe it was of Juliet after all...

Also another post elsewhere got me thinking about parallels between Locke and Ben.

- Both born prematurely to mothers called Emily.

- Both killed their father or anyway engineered his death.

- Both were shot and didn't die (I don't believe Ben is dead).

- Both turned the wheel and left the island, and then came back.

Twice now Ben has tried to kill Locke. There is some kind of power struggle going on there. I want to see what happens when they meet up again now.

Oh and what did that reference to Ann Arbor mean?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: YinYang,

quote:

Originally posted by YinYang:

Oh and what did that reference to Ann Arbor mean?

Isn't Ann Arbor where the DeGroots live? Perhaps they have final authority on what goes on out at the island.

quote:

Originally posted by primetime52:

quote:

Originally posted by YinYang:

Oh and what did that reference to Ann Arbor mean?

Isn't Ann Arbor where the DeGroots live? Perhaps they have final authority on what goes on out at the island.

The deGroots were researchers at the University of Michigan (at Ann Arbor). This was mentioned in one of the orientation videos w/some scenes of groovy '70s college students.

This raises another interesting (to me) point: what happened to the deGroots after they founded the Dharma Initiative? Do we have any evidence that they were ever on the island? In fact, do we have any evidence that they ever existed at all? Or are they a cover for the real founders of the DI, perhaps Widmore et al.? Just speculating here...

Please help me with this --- The 21st century Losties appear to have no recollection of being 20th century Dharma-ites, but does adult Ben remember his youth and being shot by Sayid, etc.?

quote:

Originally posted by bellnier:
Please help me with this --- The 21st century Losties appear to have no recollection of being 20th century Dharma-ites, but does adult Ben remember his youth and being shot by Sayid, etc.?

Yes, Ben has memory of getting shot in his youth because it happened when he was 12, and he's now in his 40's. It happened both in THE past and in HIS past. One must make a distinction between the two.

Remember, even though the Lostees are back in the 70's, they traveled back in time 3 years after they landed on the island, with 3 year older bodies and minds. Thus, they didn't crash in 2004 with memories of 1970's Dharmaville, because even though it took place in THE past, it happened in THEIR future. Them traveling 30 years into the past didn't make them 30 years younger. Does that make sense?

quote:

Originally posted by primetime52:
I've got a hunch that young Ben survives, and will be saved by either Dr. Jack or Dr. Juliet. Until further notice, I will stick by Faraday's theory that you cannot change what's already happened (ie Ben will grow up to lead the purge). I don't see how under the current rules, the island could let him die.

Primetime, you make some very good points regarding "what happened, happens. I cut your examples out so as to save space, but they are right up above here for everyone to read.

I tend to belive that Ben will live. There are any number of implications which arise from that, such as who saves him and how that impacts Ben's future decisions. However, the simple fact is that Ben is Ben is Ben. Past, present and future. If he dies, he is dead and cannot in any possible way be in the 90s. Can't happen. That would be a stretch beyond anything that the writers have done thus far, and that would make it a very BIG stretch.

We also know how and where Ben's dad dies and how it happens. It didn't happen in a burning VW van hurling into the compound. It happened with a slightly older Ben killing his dad out in the jungle.

HOWEVER;

quote:

Originally posted by bellnier:
Please help me with this --- The 21st century Losties appear to have no recollection of being 20th century Dharma-ites, but does adult Ben remember his youth and being shot by Sayid, etc.?

It is a very good point that Kate, Jack, Sawyer, Juliet, Sayid, etc. in the 90s don't remember being Dharmites in the 70s. The exception might be Juliet, who makes occasional references to having "been there before", but with no further reference. And Faraday didn't remember for the most part, but starts to have recollections. Of course, the difference is that both Ben and Faraday apparently grew up on the island. They reached their age at the time of the 70s in a sequential manner. The Losties are essentially "out of sequence" when they are in the 70s. The big challenge with that is that the Losties clearly remember the events of their other time jumps. Sawyer remembers the Other's camp, Jughead and Locke speaking with Richard. He remembers that even through an entire series of physically harsh jumps. So why do they not remember being Dharmites? Something has to happen. That is such a big hole that the writers couldn't have missed it.



And Hurling, your are correct about the "l" in slurfling, as in slur-full-ling. And I take exception with your claim that I can't spell. I just can't type. You've hurt my feelings. Okay, maybe knot.

Just wanted to point out that pagecarl has gone over 1000 posts...congrats!

quote:

Originally posted by pagecarl:
And Hurling, your are correct about the "l" in slurfling, as in slur-full-ling. And I take exception with your claim that I can't spell. I just can't type. You've hurt my feelings. Okay, maybe knot.

?C, when you consistently use "too" correctly, I will cease picking on your spelling/typing/editing abilities. Please note the third word in your first sentence above. But congrats on hitting 1000, your are quite verbose.
[Don't let on that I'm attempting to be nice, but compared to most people on blogs & forums everywhere, your grammar, sentence structure & spelling are top-notch. Just not quite perfect. It's not the occasional errors that make me nuts, it's the incomprehensible gibberish from native English speakers. Your vocabularic renderings are always fun.]

***Important update***** with possible SPOILER

I wanted to bring this to everyone's attention since I haven't seen it posted on these boards yet...

If you watch the newest edition of "LOST Untangled" on ABC.com, part of the video is a quick snapshot of young Ben hooked up to medical equipment. This is nothing we've seen in past episodes, so it appears they placed a quick spoiler in there. It looks as though we will soon see Ben receive some extensive medical attention for that bullet wound. Of course, the picture isn't necessarily a spoiler, since we have no way of knowing if he lives or dies, just that he will receive treatment.

I fully believe Ben lives, but I've got to say it's kind of a stretch to believe that professional killer Sayid would be so sloppy on a death, especially one he considers this important. Two in the head and you know he's dead. C'mon!

quote:

Originally posted by Tom_Sawyer:
I fully believe Ben lives, but I've got to say it's kind of a stretch to believe that professional killer Sayid would be so sloppy on a death, especially one he considers this important. Two in the head and you know he's dead. C'mon!

I agree with that. Sayid should know better. The only exception could be the fact that he looked visibly uncomfortable shooting a 12 year old. You could see the anguish on his face. It was tough enough to put one bullet in his heart.

quote:

Originally posted by Tom_Sawyer:
I fully believe Ben lives, but I've got to say it's kind of a stretch to believe that professional killer Sayid would be so sloppy on a death, especially one he considers this important. Two in the head and you know he's dead. C'mon!

C'mon give Sayid a break! He shot a 12 year old straight through the heart at relatively close range and left him there. If he'd tried to shoot him in the head, the gun would have jammed.