Jughead's Yield

Thanks to Wikipedia and Wolfram|Alpha, we can make a few quick calculations about what exactly happened when Jughead detonated.

Yikes.

The Orchid Insignia and Dynamical Systems

In light of the Season 5 finale, let's take a moment to re-examine the Orchid insignia. There was some discussion of this when it first appeared, but quite a bit has happened since then....

Sure, it's sort of flowery; maybe it's just supposed to throw people off the scent (so to speak). But one can read a lot more into it, if one chooses to.

Essentially, the logo consists of concentric black and white circles--closed loops. But the central curve is open, and it branches at one end. Are we looking at the graph of a dynamical system? Beginning and end? But what's the beginning, and what's the end?

Is time cyclical? Does it inevitably converge on a single point (or attractor, Mr. MacDonald)? Does it diverge? Are there stable orbits and unstable orbits? It seems like it. And it seems like detonating Jughead destabilized the island's orbit.

Faraday tells us that the explosion stops the Swan from being built and 815 from ever crashing. But maybe it does more than that. Ms. Hawking tells us that the universe has a way of course-correcting. In Seasons 1-5, that has seemed to be true. But maybe she is referring less to fate, higher purpose, and seeming Acts of God than to the highly deterministic, disturbance-dampening nature of the universe in which Lost has been taking place. And maybe this new world they have created is not like that.

It makes you think.

The Incident

Ok, so basically Lostcampia died. It's really sad. Especially because the finale is coming up and I have no idea what to think or even how to think about all of this at this point.  But....this episode looks amazing.

We're finally getting to see the temple! And see Jacob?!?!?!

I know everything Dan said about changing the past could be possible but I just don't think it's going to happen.  There's too much course correction, my guess is that correction comes in the form of Locke.  Even if it didn't I don't think it's possible; Daniel has made it clear that you can't change other people's past and with this loophole what happens to the world? Do just those people jump back in time and get reset somehow?  My intro physics did not prepare me for all this.  

Also, they need to stop trying to make Juliet seem better.  They've spent so long trying to make her attractive and now they're making Kate annoying.  She was just obnoxious last week. 

SAYID IS BACK! I sadly completely forgot about him. He's going to do big things in the finale.  They've been saving him up.  Same with Richard, I feel like he's going to be a HUGE part of this episode because he is with both groups.  I really don't know what I think will happen.

If Jin and Sun don't get back together I'll cry.

PLEASE RESPOND I'M HOME AND NOBODY ELSE IS AND ALL I HAVE TO DO TO WASTE MY TIME UNTIL THE FINALE IS WAIT FOR PEOPLE TO RESPOND

Some Like It Hoth

Best. Title. Ever.

More tonight. :)

Dead is Dead

I thought this episode was great but kind of confusing.  Not confusing how lost usually is, which is just completely lack of understanding, but more in the way of character development.  I liked young ben, what happened to him??? He saves all the cute little babies but likes to kill people once they're old enough (if a character named Caesar becomes leader, you know hes going to die).  It kind of makes sense though that he wouldn't kill moms with young children or children themselves.  His mom died and he has a horrible relationship with his dad and doesn't want to give any kid that experience, and I don't think not wanting to kill babies is that hard to understand.

I will say this though, the thing with the smoke monster and the flashbacks in it-awful.  It just didn't look right and it was cheesey and all that.  So are we all in agreement that Alex is dead? I just think that was the smoke monster/temple making her show up.  

Speaking of people who might not be dead, I was really mad when it wasn't claire in alex's room because i think that would have been awesome.  

More to come later, I have to run

Whatever Happened, Happened

Fantastic episode, I thought. (Of course, I always do.) We got to look a little more at folks' motivations (e.g. who needs whom)... the Love Parallelogram struggled to sort itself out... we found out what happened to Aaron...

Oh yeah, and Ben. First, Roger (who seems perfectly likeable) clearly aims to make this a Love Pentagon. But who cares? Ben. Ben Ben Ben Ben Ben. There was a lot going on here... and what seems like some interesting inverted Fall of Man / original sin religion overtones.

I appreciated the compassion for the poor kid, but also sympathized with Jack. I mean, come on, he and Sayid had good intentions. And yet, we now see they brought about the very future they were desperately trying to avoid. Tragic. Ironic. And a staple in tales of Fate.

Serves them right for their immoral behavior, eh?

Richard is quite a guy. Now, what's up with the temple!?!?!? It's been such a tantalizing subject since the first mentions in, what, Season 3? Crazy. Aside from being Smoke Monster HQ, I'm still caught up in this Garden of Eden business, so I'm thinking it's an enclosure for the Tree of Life and/or Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Adam and Eve got knowledge, sacrificed eternal life, right? And with it they lost (ahem) their innocence. Now Ben is sacrifing knowledge for life... but he, too, is losing his innocence. And as an adult, he certainly seems to have plenty of knowledge, including of Good and Evil ("we're the good guys"). Hm. Maybe I'm trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, as my Calc professor likes to say.

Ben's mind-wipe also seems to throw Diego's "Ben Knows The Future Because He's Met It In The Past" theory out the window (at least to some degree). Oh well. I was a fan.

Jack trying to fix things vs. letting the island fix things for itself was very interesting. Active vs. passive. Does a belief in fate and predestination and all that make you more passive? We certainly seem to be seeing a certain sad resignation in some of our time-travelers. That's a real risk of disbelief in free will (etc.). And Jack's situation serves as an important reminder of the consequences. Good.

Hurley and Miles were pretty funny trying to explain to us, the audience, about time travel. Now, Miles said that Our Heroes can die, whereas other people can't. This disturbed me a bit. Pending elaboration, I'm going to (hope / ) say Miles was a wee bit off. Obviously, I have no authority to overrule the show, haha. But it seems more logical to say that, say, Ben's fate is known, whereas the time travelers' fates are not.

So of course Ben "can" die. He's not immortal or invincible or anything. Same with all these other characters of the past. Rather, the time-travelers KNOW Ben's future, but not their own. It's not that he couldn't die. He just didn't. Doesn't. Won't. Yet.

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Whatever_Happened,_Happened

He's Our You

Um... wow. What a fundamental shift in message. Or will it become clear that the obvious description of what just happened is wrong?

I don't have time to say more, but I know I will.

Discuss.

:)

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/He's_Our_You

Namaste

Coming back from the 1 week break I'm really excited for tonight.  Namaste is a greeting used in India.  Looking at wikipedia really quickly it seems like they're going to be traveling crazy places tonight and there may be some religious (probably Hindu) undertones. It's gonna be sweet.

Also, I'm looking forward to some tense love parallelogram action going on tonight. 

Random Thoughts

Ok, so LOST was a repeat this week, so I figured we could use this time to step back and throw out some random thoughts or questions.

Here's one: no one has mentioned any ideas about who Amy's baby is. The person would be 33-ish, since 815 crashed in 2004, it's been three years since then, and the baby was born in 1974. Is it possible that it's Ben, even though we THINK he was born off the island?

4x08: LaFleur

So, for once we didn't get a preview post up. But wow. That was incredible. So much new stuff to take in! And, Mr. Camp, I was wrong--seems like, for some reason, the same amount of time elapsed for both the O6 and Sawyer's posse. I'll have to think about why that might be.

We still don't know where the rest of the O6 are. We still don't know a lot of things. But, well--the floor is open for discussion now...

With that, I'll go study for my two midterms. I'll have more to say later. In all likelihood, much, much more. :)

LaFleur on Lostpedia

Episode #7: The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

This week we're going to learn about how Locke got the alias of "Jeremy Bentham." Interesting, the real Bentham believed in utilitarianism: which essentially is a philosophy that embodies the phrase "the ends justify the means." Thus, morality depends not on any universal idea of truth, but rather what is moral is that which is useful and contributes to one's society. This connects to his belief in legal or civil rights over natural law. Remember from my island's class, that the real John Locke was a prime contributor to "Social Contract Theory," meaning that people give up certain personal rights to a government for the sake of the community (i.e. we follow laws that may go against our moral beliefs for the collective safety of everyone)

So, basically in connection to Locke, Locke's "civil laws" (a.k.a. Bentham's beliefs) that he abides by are the island's laws, not the laws or morality or nature and Locke believes Jack et al should all come back to the island for the sake of the island (a la the real Locke), thus sacrificing their personal lives for the community/island.

Interestingly, Jack, who has been such an adversary of Locke's since Season 2, is so willing to sacrifice everything he has to get back to the island and justify Locke's suicide note to him from last episode: "I wish you had believed me."

Hawking-Faraday Points

"The room we're standing in was constructed years ago over a unique pocket of electromagnetic energy. That energy connects to similar pockets all over the world. The people who built this room, however, were only interested in one."

- Ms. Hawking, episode 5x06 "316"

Maybe they were that narrow-minded, but we need not be. This is pretty interesting.

Lagrangian Points: New Scientist | Wikipedia

There are five “Lagrangian points” in space where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravitational fields cancel each other out. It feels very reminiscent of these places Ms. Hawking refers to. Which, incidentally, is a theory with a long history on Lostcampia. I’m confident that those other spots will come into play before this is over.

We know of two: the island, and the church in L.A. It’s also possible that the spot in the desert where Ben finds himself in 4.09 “The Shape of Things to Come” has some significance; there is no such thing, after all, as a magnetic monopole. The island could be the "north pole" of the magnetic field, and the desert could the "south pole". 

(The Earth's magnetic field isn't actually quite so simple as one north pole, one south pole. Rather, there are, apparently, tons of poles which happen to currently be aligned. There's a spot, for instance, off the southwest coast of Africa where compasses point south. Thank you, 8th grade CSP. :))

So. We know those places. Let's try to think of others.

1. The poles & the center of the Earth

The only three meaningfully unique points on a spinning sphere, I figure. We know Penny has an Arctic listening post.

2. Eden

There’s a ton of Eden symbolism in Lost. (Most notably, Adam and Eve.) If the island itself isn’t Eden, it may yet play a meaningful role.

3. Bethlehem

There was some interesting talk of Jesus in 316, and there's certainly been plenty of symbolism throughout the show. Maybe these special points can be associated with special people

4. Shangri-La

Because we needed something less Judeo-Christian-centric on this list. :) “In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan...” -Wikipedia

---

Alternately, these places could be meaningless. The church in LA doesn't seem all that special, after all. And surely there's a reason the Dharma Initiative set its sights only on the Island. But hey, it's fun to think about. So: what do you think? :)

316

Thanks for the Valentine's wishes, Toph (and Juliet).

This week rolled around fast.... any predictions for 316?  Sounds like we'll find out more about Eloise Hawking and getting back to the Island at least.

316 may refer to an oft-quoted Bible passage, John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  Essentially, belief in Jesus is key for eternal life.  John Locke's steadfast belief in the Island will somehow grant him some version of immortality, I figure.

I'm holding out hope, though, that since 316 is an area code in Wichita, Kansas, the way back to the island is some sort of tornado.  Or at least invovles clicking of ruby slippers.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This Place Is Death

LOST IS BACK!

The Little Prince

Hola everyone. As Liz said last time, "it's that time of week again."

Any predictions or thoughts heading into Wednesday's episode?

I have these:
*My new tenuous theory is that Jacob is Locke. Just as Daniel (possibly) saw his own mother when she was a young woman, I think in the cabin last year, Locke sees himself in the future (after he is dead and reincarnated Island-style, like Jack's dad). When Jacob says, "Help me" to Locke, he's talking to a past version of himself. This has nothing to do with this week's episode, though.

*I think we find out that Jin is alive this week. His actor has been in the credits each week, and Carleton Cuse made some comment that Sun 'thinks Jin is dead' in an interview. I feel like that's lame, but ok. Or, maybe he's reincarnated on the Island, like Claire.

Jughead

Hey y'all, it's that time of the week again: LOST predictions time! I don't really know what to expect for tomorrow, I'm still trying to wrap my head around last week.  I want to know who Dan's mom is and I think it will be the course correction lady...I hope so!

What I do know:

WALT IS ON SOME RANDOM COMMERCIAL. It was hilarious.

We Have to Go Back!. . .to LOSTCampia

So I thought I'd kick off the new version, LOSTCampia 2.0, with just a few of the many, many questions that exist heading into the Season 5 premiere. Last night, ABC played the whole three-hour Season 4 Finale "There's No Place Like Home."

1. Ok, I'm not psyched about the whole 'moving the island' thing. But, I do want to know what the heck happened to it and how they plan on explaining it.

2. I'm very intrigued by Sun approaching Charles Widmore because they have common interests. Sun certainly wasn't happy that Jack et al wouldn't allow the helicopter to go back for Jin, and Jack pretty harshly told her "He's gone" as the helicopter was pulling away from the burning wreckage of the ship. Remember that only Hurley showed up to visit Jin's grave with Sun...nobody else. And, in the Season 4 finale in the continuation of the "We have to go back" flash forward from the Season 3 finale, Jack says to Kate, "Sun blames me for Jin's death." So, what really is going on with Sun and Widmore?

3. Is Kate still an ridiculously amazing tracker back in civilized life?!? That's a joke. But, I did learn in the little notes at the bottom of the screen in last night's re-broadcast of the season finale that Kate learned tracking from her father as revealed back in Season 2. Did not know that. Still ridiculous.

LOST Fansites and Websites

I compiled a list of some LOST fansites that across the internet, so here they are--

We all know that lostpedia is the be all and end all!

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

The official ABC page:

http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index?pn=index

These are just random fansites:

http://www.lost.com/

http://www.oceanicflight815.com/

http://lost-media.com/

http://lost.cubit.net/

LOSTCampia's new home

It's almost January 21st!