Ok, well, at last Farraday's "You can't change the past line" will finally have to be explained.....unless lil' Ben didn't die. Yeah, Sayid should have shot him in the head--hard.
Hmm......I'm not sure he's dead. Because if he is, wouldn't that create some really crazy time wormhole or something? Unless of course they're all just on a new old timeline.....if that makes any sense. Interesting episode, big set-up for next week.
- Sayid's confession while drugged, esp. the "Because I'm from the future" bit, hehe.
- The talk of what their purpose is, since it's become so clear that they have none.
Re: Ben--yes, it would seem most likely that he lives, and that this is still consistent with what Hawking and Faraday say about fate, time, etc. It'd explain Ben's certainty about Sayid's nature when he found him in the D.R., since Older Sayid had already admitted as much to Younger Ben. Besides, folks tend to make remarkable recoveries on the island--right up to and including downright resurrection.
But I guess I dared to hope for a second there that Sayid had not only exercised free will, but had been free to act.
It wouldn't create a wormhole if Sayid killed Ben, methinks, but it might create a paradox. It was Ben, after all, who got them to go back. If they'd never gone back, he'd have never shot Ben, so Ben would've made him come back, so he'd have shot Ben, so Ben wouldn't have made him come back, etc.
So it would have to be a branching timeline or something.
I'm watching the first 15 minutes now, which I missed...
I would think that Ben is alive, unless the show has decided to change their own rules about the time travel. If Lock can come back to life, I think Ben will be able to recover.
Also. Do we know what year Ben kills everyone? Because he was much older when that happened.
My only other question is do we know how Ethan ended up an other? Is it a possibility that Ben saved him for some reason or another?
I like this a lot: "Or maybe to be a true island 'leader' you have to be dead." I'm leaning toward the version where Ben is dead, but he's brought back to life in some miraculous way. We've seen Locke and Christian (sort of) come back to life, so maybe the Island resurrects certain people and maybe resurrection is an essential component in the process of becoming a leader of the hostiles. Maybe Sayid (by killing Ben) has effectively guaranteed him a position as the next leader.
The flaming bus is interesting. Sawyer makes it clear that this was a regular occurrence in the past, but that there haven't been any flaming buses in three years. Ben seems like the most obvious culprit this time, but did he really do this in the past when he was even younger? Seems unlikely. And why would the incidents stop for three years? Three years is about the length of time since Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Faraday and Miles appeared, right?
If Ben is *permanently* dead, then yes, Diego, they've changed their depiction of time travel. Although, we shouldn't necessarily assume Hawking & Faraday are necessarily correct/telling the truth. Daniel *did* still try to save Charlotte, after all, as if there was some hope. Maybe the consequences are just so dire that, I don't know, he wants to discourage it. But that doesn't really make sense.
The problem is, it seems that as soon as you introduce time travel, you have to resign to some form of predestination. Otherwise, you run into grandfather paradoxes.
If Ben is permanently dead, then that's what we've run into. If he didn't live, Sayid never would've gone back to the island and killed him. Paradox. *Unless* we introduce multiple, parallel timelines/universes. If that's true, then Sayid has changed the path of history--that is, he's no longer on the same path as the folks wandering around in 2008. If he waited around, Oceanic 815 might crash, but they may well never get off the island in the first place without Ben's tutelege of Locke and the freighter coming to capture Ben.
More likely, Ben didn't permanently die. At most, he had a temporary, Locke-esque death--although you'd think death would be permanent by definition, so maybe we better call it a very deep coma.
---
Diego: says Lostpedia, "The Purge occurred at 4 P.M. on December 19, 1992, which happened to be Ben's birthday."
---
No, we don't know how Ethan ended up an Other. But they do have a known history of stealing babies.
---
I'll have to think about the flaming bus. What exactly did Sawyer say? Yeah, got there ~3 years ago...
I like the idea that to be a true leader of the island, you would have had to have died and been resurrected--that can be both related to religion and not at the same time, which his good, because I wouldn't want the whole show to be deemed a Biblical allegory when all is done.
Also, I'm glad the Ethan question was pointed out, because I hadn't even considered it! When the baby was Ethan, I thought it was interesting, but I didn't realize that this meant he like Ben had to make a move from Dharma to hostile/other in some way.
Next week's episode is entitled, "Whatever happened, happened," which is a cool hook that maybe relates to the 'you can't change the past line' but also may not be at all, just to mess with us.
I just re-watched the episode with one of my friends. I realized that if little Ben is indeed dead and he comes back to life to lead the others, it would add another reason as to why he killed Lock. If it is the case that the leader must have died and come back to life then Ben could have killed Lock because he wanted Lock to end up the leader.
Quite so, Diego. Although that still doesn't explain why Ben first stopped Locke from killing himself, and then strangled him once he mentioned Eloise Hawking.
As that other Twitterer pointed out, perhaps suicide, as a sin, disqualifies you.
:-/
I really like the title "Whatever happened, happened." We'll have to wait and see what exactly it means in context.
ok it's a horrible theory but i just want to say it: what if ben clones himself (a la bunnies) and sayid only killed one of him. not true but if makes you wonder....
"Next week's episode is entitled, 'Whatever happened, happened,' which is a cool hook that maybe relates to the 'you can't change the past line' but also may not be at all, just to mess with us." -- Wednesday is April Fool's Day, so I think there's a very good chance that they're just messing with us.
Liz--I'm not sure that the cloning theory is so horrible. The writers put those bunnies in for a reason. Young Ben had a bunny as a pet. We saw a bunny die and (seemingly) come back to life. I doubt that we see cloning in the stereotypical sci-fi sense, but I won't be surprised at all if we see multiple "versions" of a single character. I'll let Toph figure out what sort of trouble that would create in the space/time continuum...
First, I like that "Whatever happened, happened" is reminiscent of the song/saying "Que Sera, Sera" (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).
OK, bunnies. I had completely forgotten about them! Hmm. I don't think they've ever been cloned. But they have been shifting in time and space so that two copies might appear at the same time. And recall how, in the Orchid orientation film (the DVD extra one), Pierre Chang was freaking out about them getting too close to each other. That has interesting implications for our talk of what would happen if one of the Losties encountered his/her past self.
But I'm not sure this offers any way out of our "is Ben dead?" conundrum, since it seems like there's still only one bunny, Ben, etc. A sting can be folded back on itself, but you still have only one string.
http://search.twitter.com/ is good for tracking reaction and such. For instance, see here:
ReplyDeletehttp://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23lost
A couple tweets that caught my eye...
redlipsmack: #LOST - all I have to say about tonight's episode is everyone knows you have to shoot them in the head or they WILL come back later!
redlipsmack: #LOST - Or maybe to be a true island "leader" you have to be dead. mmmm? I'll have to think on that one.
valenzetti: The island is so not happy about that one #Lost (@itsjustkatie)
druck21: so all the s*** ben has put sayid through is to get back at him for shooting him when he was 12. epic. #lost
zierler02: Is thinking... Did Ben Kill Locke to prevent him from the sin of suicide... is this important? #lost
(Re: the latter--the exact order of events suggests no, but it remains an interesting concept.)
Back to homework. More comprehensive comments to come. :)
Ok, well, at last Farraday's "You can't change the past line" will finally have to be explained.....unless lil' Ben didn't die. Yeah, Sayid should have shot him in the head--hard.
ReplyDeleteHmm......I'm not sure he's dead. Because if he is, wouldn't that create some really crazy time wormhole or something? Unless of course they're all just on a new old timeline.....if that makes any sense. Interesting episode, big set-up for next week.
ReplyDeleteOther things I loved:
ReplyDelete- Sayid's confession while drugged, esp. the "Because I'm from the future" bit, hehe.
- The talk of what their purpose is, since it's become so clear that they have none.
Re: Ben--yes, it would seem most likely that he lives, and that this is still consistent with what Hawking and Faraday say about fate, time, etc. It'd explain Ben's certainty about Sayid's nature when he found him in the D.R., since Older Sayid had already admitted as much to Younger Ben. Besides, folks tend to make remarkable recoveries on the island--right up to and including downright resurrection.
But I guess I dared to hope for a second there that Sayid had not only exercised free will, but had been free to act.
It wouldn't create a wormhole if Sayid killed Ben, methinks, but it might create a paradox. It was Ben, after all, who got them to go back. If they'd never gone back, he'd have never shot Ben, so Ben would've made him come back, so he'd have shot Ben, so Ben wouldn't have made him come back, etc.
So it would have to be a branching timeline or something.
I'm watching the first 15 minutes now, which I missed...
I would think that Ben is alive, unless the show has decided to change their own rules about the time travel. If Lock can come back to life, I think Ben will be able to recover.
ReplyDeleteAlso. Do we know what year Ben kills everyone? Because he was much older when that happened.
My only other question is do we know how Ethan ended up an other? Is it a possibility that Ben saved him for some reason or another?
I like this a lot: "Or maybe to be a true island 'leader' you have to be dead." I'm leaning toward the version where Ben is dead, but he's brought back to life in some miraculous way. We've seen Locke and Christian (sort of) come back to life, so maybe the Island resurrects certain people and maybe resurrection is an essential component in the process of becoming a leader of the hostiles. Maybe Sayid (by killing Ben) has effectively guaranteed him a position as the next leader.
ReplyDeleteThe flaming bus is interesting. Sawyer makes it clear that this was a regular occurrence in the past, but that there haven't been any flaming buses in three years. Ben seems like the most obvious culprit this time, but did he really do this in the past when he was even younger? Seems unlikely. And why would the incidents stop for three years? Three years is about the length of time since Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Faraday and Miles appeared, right?
If Ben is *permanently* dead, then yes, Diego, they've changed their depiction of time travel. Although, we shouldn't necessarily assume Hawking & Faraday are necessarily correct/telling the truth. Daniel *did* still try to save Charlotte, after all, as if there was some hope. Maybe the consequences are just so dire that, I don't know, he wants to discourage it. But that doesn't really make sense.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, it seems that as soon as you introduce time travel, you have to resign to some form of predestination. Otherwise, you run into grandfather paradoxes.
If Ben is permanently dead, then that's what we've run into. If he didn't live, Sayid never would've gone back to the island and killed him. Paradox. *Unless* we introduce multiple, parallel timelines/universes. If that's true, then Sayid has changed the path of history--that is, he's no longer on the same path as the folks wandering around in 2008. If he waited around, Oceanic 815 might crash, but they may well never get off the island in the first place without Ben's tutelege of Locke and the freighter coming to capture Ben.
More likely, Ben didn't permanently die. At most, he had a temporary, Locke-esque death--although you'd think death would be permanent by definition, so maybe we better call it a very deep coma.
---
Diego: says Lostpedia, "The Purge occurred at 4 P.M. on December 19, 1992, which happened to be Ben's birthday."
---
No, we don't know how Ethan ended up an Other. But they do have a known history of stealing babies.
---
I'll have to think about the flaming bus. What exactly did Sawyer say? Yeah, got there ~3 years ago...
I like the idea that to be a true leader of the island, you would have had to have died and been resurrected--that can be both related to religion and not at the same time, which his good, because I wouldn't want the whole show to be deemed a Biblical allegory when all is done.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm glad the Ethan question was pointed out, because I hadn't even considered it! When the baby was Ethan, I thought it was interesting, but I didn't realize that this meant he like Ben had to make a move from Dharma to hostile/other in some way.
Next week's episode is entitled, "Whatever happened, happened," which is a cool hook that maybe relates to the 'you can't change the past line' but also may not be at all, just to mess with us.
I just re-watched the episode with one of my friends. I realized that if little Ben is indeed dead and he comes back to life to lead the others, it would add another reason as to why he killed Lock. If it is the case that the leader must have died and come back to life then Ben could have killed Lock because he wanted Lock to end up the leader.
ReplyDeleteQuite so, Diego. Although that still doesn't explain why Ben first stopped Locke from killing himself, and then strangled him once he mentioned Eloise Hawking.
ReplyDeleteAs that other Twitterer pointed out, perhaps suicide, as a sin, disqualifies you.
:-/
I really like the title "Whatever happened, happened." We'll have to wait and see what exactly it means in context.
ok it's a horrible theory but i just want to say it: what if ben clones himself (a la bunnies) and sayid only killed one of him. not true but if makes you wonder....
ReplyDelete"Next week's episode is entitled, 'Whatever happened, happened,' which is a cool hook that maybe relates to the 'you can't change the past line' but also may not be at all, just to mess with us." -- Wednesday is April Fool's Day, so I think there's a very good chance that they're just messing with us.
ReplyDeleteLiz--I'm not sure that the cloning theory is so horrible. The writers put those bunnies in for a reason. Young Ben had a bunny as a pet. We saw a bunny die and (seemingly) come back to life. I doubt that we see cloning in the stereotypical sci-fi sense, but I won't be surprised at all if we see multiple "versions" of a single character. I'll let Toph figure out what sort of trouble that would create in the space/time continuum...
First, I like that "Whatever happened, happened" is reminiscent of the song/saying "Que Sera, Sera" (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).
ReplyDeleteOK, bunnies. I had completely forgotten about them! Hmm. I don't think they've ever been cloned. But they have been shifting in time and space so that two copies might appear at the same time. And recall how, in the Orchid orientation film (the DVD extra one), Pierre Chang was freaking out about them getting too close to each other. That has interesting implications for our talk of what would happen if one of the Losties encountered his/her past self.
But I'm not sure this offers any way out of our "is Ben dead?" conundrum, since it seems like there's still only one bunny, Ben, etc. A sting can be folded back on itself, but you still have only one string.
Corrections:
ReplyDelete- But they have been *shifted* in time and space...
- A *string* can be folded back on itself...
:)
And: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Orchid_Orientation_Film
P.S. I've decided that there's a benevolent White Smoke Monster out there somewhere. A Cloud Colossus.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's not clear that the Black Smoke Monster is malevolent to begin with....