One of the compelling plot points was the concept that the island had a mysterious "infection." People had to be given shots to ward off death.
Claire was told that she had to take shots in order to save her baby.
Desmond was told outside the Hatch was a hazmat zone, but he still had to take shots to ward off the infection.
The Others pregnant women continually died while in their third trimester, which some blamed on the island/infection.
Without a clear understanding of "what" the island really was, many people believe the "infection" story line was merely a ruse to control people.
But Juliet, who appeared at first to be an ethical doctor, gave Claire injections - - - if false, would violate her duty and oath as a physician ("do no harm to a patient.") Even a placebo that causes mental anguish as an intended result would violate that oath.
Perhaps, at one time, the infection plague was true. It was just passed down as a story, a myth, by the island natives and Others as a means of making visitors leave their island.
An infection is defined as the process of infecting or the state of being infected by a disease.
It is also defined as the presence of a virus in, or its introduction into, a computer system.
The origin of the word is late Middle English: from late Latin infectio(n-), from Latin inficere ‘dip in, taint.'
The dictionary definition raises two points. The island infection could be a metaphor for people becoming "tainted" or infected by something, such as evil, if this was a place of the underworld, or judgment. The events on the island were merely tests of character and morality.
Another possibility is that the infection was actually a computer virus. Computer avatars would see a computer virus as a disease that could kill (delete) them (their program). If you buy into the theory that LOST was merely a large MMOG, then the infection was one of those booby-trap hurdles one had to pass in order to level up to the next mission.
In any event, the infection angle showed a great deal of dramatic promise. But it quickly faded away without resolution.
Showing posts with label infection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infection. Show all posts
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
REBOOT EPISODES 105-108
POSTING NOTE: Due to work changes, I may not be able to post updates on Tuesdays after Monday night marathon G4 reruns, but updates will occur later in the week.
LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 105-108 (Days ????- - ????)
Many writers believe that the aftermath from Juliet's “detonation” of the hydrogen bomb is revealed as the sideways world, as her last thoughts were “it worked,” however, it is clear that the bomb did not explode because Sawyer finds Juliet alive in the Hatch site implosion debris.
Sawyer decides to leave the Temple and Kate follows him, while the Temple leader, Dogen, tests with a resurrected Sayid and finds him “infected” with the darkness that will turn him into presumably a smoke monster when it reaches “his heart” just like Claire.
Flocke takes Sawyer through the jungle to find answers. Sawyer learns of Jacob’s candidates, including himself, and that the people brought to the island were for Jacob’s purposes.
Hurley convinces Jack to follow him to find Jacob. Jin is forced to watch mad Claire
interrogate an Other, Justin, about the whereabouts of Aaron. Jin lies about where Aaron is (with the Others at the Temple) in order to save his own life.
Science:
Infection and Darkness.
An infection the process of some foreign substance (virus, bacteria, fungal) infecting or attacking the person and his immune system. It can also mean in computing the presence of a virus in, or its introduction into, a computer system, which causes corruption and damage to system files and operations.
Sepsis is a serious medical condition caused by an overwhelming immune response to infection. Chemicals released into the blood o fight infection trigger widespread inflammation.
Inflammation may result in organ damage. Blood clotting during sepsis reduces blood flow to limbs and internal organs, depriving them of nutrients and oxygen. In severe cases, one or more organs fail. In the worst cases, infection leads to a life-threatening drop in blood pressure, called septic shock. This can quickly lead to the failure of several organs --lungs, kidneys and liver -- causing death.
Darkness is defined as:
1. the partial or total absence of light: the office was in darkness.
• night: they began to make camp before darkness fell.
the quality of being dark in color: the darkness of his jacket.
2. wickedness or evil: the forces of darkness.
• unhappiness, distress, or gloom: moments of darkness were rare.
• secrecy or mystery: they drew a veil of darkness across the proceedings.
• lack of spiritual or intellectual enlightenment; ignorance: his accomplishments shone in a world of darkness.
It would appear from the Temple explanations, that a person killed on the island may become “infected” by a substance that would turn them into a dark being, one who would lack spirituality or intellectual enlightenment.
Improbabilities:
The “immortal” Jacob being killed by Ben, and turning up to Hurley as a ghost.
A “smoke monster” that can recreate dead people can suddenly become “mortal” as Ilana says that Flocke is “stuck” in Locke’s body after Jacob’s death.
Jacob changing into a form a small child to haunt Flocke in the jungle, reminding Flocke that he cannot kill Sawyer because that would be against the rules.
Clues:
The hydrogen bomb did not explode, because the site wreckage was an implosion. Further, Juliet’s voice is heard by Sawyer and the crew trying to rescue her. Therefore, the Incident was not the bomb going off, but the catastrophic EM release.
The Incident EM release, like the FDW, turned the time travelers back to the present, which may be what Jacob referred to when he said dying, “they’re coming.” They, meaning the 815 “candidates” are the last of his pawn pieces in the game with MIB.
The large wooden ankh symbol in the guitar case represents LIFE in ancient Egyptian mythology. It is a key or passport in the after life journey.
Dead Sayid’s reincarnation at the temple into an evil spirit and follower of MIB may show how MIB acquires his game “pieces” against Jacob.
Jacob’s death somehow imparts “mortality” into the smoke monster that is inhabiting Locke’s body; the only means of leaving the island for the smoke monster is to be in mortal, human form.
Sideways Jack cannot remember his appendectomy that his mother says happened when he was 7 or 8 years old. If one links that information to the lighthouse where Jack says he has not been at since he was a young child and the school yard fight where Jack is severely beaten up, one could make the case that Jack is really just a soul of a 7 or 8 year old child.
Flocke tells Sawyer that everyone was brought to the island by Jacob when Sawyer is shown the cave with the names and numbers. Flocke tells him that Jacob believes himself to be the guardian of the island, but “the joke” is that the island does not need protection. All Flocke wants to do is to “go home.” He asks Sawyer to join him, and he responds “hell, yes.” One can deduce that one of the “rules” is that mortal MIB cannot leave the island “alone.”
Hurley remarks that it is “old school” to trek across the jungle on a mission that they do not understand. It may be a reference to an old school yard game, “follow the leader.” In that children’s game, one person is assigned the role of leader and the rest are followers. The leader starts to doing something. He can walk, run, dance, sing, talk or do any activity or combination of activities he wants to do, in any order he wants.
The rest of the players must follow the leader, doing whatever the leader does exactly the way she does it. Anyone who doesn't follow exactly is out of the game.The game ends when only person is left following the leader. That person then becomes the leader of the next game.
There are variations of the follow the leader game. In the relay version, a leader from chosen among the group. The rest of the group breaks into two teams and have each form a single-file line. The leader is sent to the other end of the room or playing field. He instructs the two teams that they are to follow the commands of the leader such as hop, run or skip. The first person in the each line follows the directions of the leader until they reach the leader. Once they reach the leader, they turn around and head back to their team while following the leader's instructions. The first team to have all the members complete the relay wins.
In the Blind Fold version, a simple obstacle course is created for the children to go through using pillows and other soft objects you have around the house. You can also play this outside with your children's toys as the obstacles. Blindfold each child and assign a leader to each kid. Have the leader (the person without the blindfold) guide the blindfolded child through the obstacle course. This game will challenge the children who are blindfolded to trust the leader and learn to listen more than see.
The versions of follow the leader are incorporated into the LOST Jacob and MIB dynamic: they are leaders who tell followers what to do, either directly like telling Hurley in a cab to get back to the island or showing Jack in the lighthouse that he has been spied on since he was a child in order to get him to act on Jacob’s behalf. It also appears that once MIB as Flocke “becomes the leader,” he is somehow fixed in a mortal form, even though he can still change into the smoke monster and attack people like Bram in the statue (which is a major inconsistency in MIB’s eventual demise).
Discussion:
“ The power of man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good. ”
— Thomas Hobbes
“ Travel makes a wise man better but a fool worse. ”
— Benjamin Franklin
“ The past cannot be changed, the future is still in your power. ”
— Hugh White
During the show’s initial run, I took a great deal of time attempting to translate the hieroglyphs in order to glean some premise and meaning in plain sight:
My translation of he glyphs on the pillars that face the spring in the Temple appears to form prayers like passages of a ceremony from a Book of the Dead:
1. In the name of Horus, alas spirit enter. Horus, sacred god father's duties.
2. Horus, enter father's gardens.
3. Stand for father's long past ideas of health (rebirth).
4. Lord father, patron of the Dead, heal for eternities.
5. Lord father.
6. Island Heaven (sacred/magical sign symbol).
7. Enter Horus (Ra).
8. Heaven conspire against evil fires.
9. Stand Ra. (sacred/magical sign symbol).
My translations of the hieroglyphs in the temple hallway as Hurley searched for the secret passageway:
The first one on his left:
SON WHO MAKES OFFERS (TO) GOD HORUS
The first one on his right:
YOU SAID TO THE MAN: ETERNITY.
The second one on the left:
OSIRIS' YOUTH (SON) HORUS CONTROLS BIRTHS.
The third one on the left, where Hurley stopped and was ready to touch:
The symbol of a coiled rope means ETERNITY and PROTECTION.
In the Lighthouse, the hieroglyphs were hard to read but this my best translation:
I approach the Devine Spirit, Lady Nephthys.
Support the King.
Fetch your Father's (Geb) Support.
Give and justify that which binds the Two Lands after binding the dangerous under ruler scourge.
Destroy Hell's entrails (on the) Island, our Garden.
Nephthys is the patron of the dead, funerals and protector of the house. She is the sister of Osiris and wife of Seth. She helped put together Osiris after Seth's murdered him. She is often depicted on a boat riding with the dead toward the Blessed Land.
Her father, Geb, is the God of the Earth, and a member of the Ennead, the council of the founding gods.
What is the importance of all these translations? Because the show’s creators continually used them in various scenes and important moments of the characters, symbols to help explain (we hope) the action going on in the foreground (such as Ben’s judgment in the Temple wall, meeting the smoke monster, and then Dead Alex).
Clearly, the sets of the final run of LOST invoke and scream ancient Egyptian mythology and belief systems. Such ancient rituals are a mystery to modern Americans, but in many respects are the starting points for most modern religious philosophies.
In the Egyptian pantheon of the living and the dead, there are many characters who serve various purposes; gods who would help the living, and gods who would punish the dead. At some time in the island’s own time line, people brought to the island were deeply moved to build a large temple complex, a huge Tawaret statue and an ancient lighthouse to serve their god(s), which apparently consist of Jacob (as Anubis) and MIB (the smoke monster, as depicted in the mural).
But in this series arc, we see that in the forefront of the Egyptian mythology and magic of the underworld, we have a “contest” between Jacob and his brother. The end for MIB (Flocke) is clear: he wants to leave the island and “go home.” But what is home to a disembodied spirit? Heaven? Hell? Nothingness? So what game are the brothers playing? There are two choices: backgammon or its forerunner, Senet (which we will see them play in later episodes).
A lesson on backgammon (wikipedia):
Backgammon playing pieces are known variously as checkers, draughts, counters, stones, men, pawns, discs, or chips.
The objective is to remove (bear off) all of one's own checkers from the board before one's opponent can do the same. The checkers are scattered at first and may be blocked or hit by the opponent. As the playing time for each individual game is short, it is often played in matches, where victory is awarded to the first player to reach a certain number of points.
Each side of the board has a track of 12 long triangles, called points. The points are considered to be connected across one edge of the board, forming a continuous track in the shape of a horseshoe, and are numbered from 1 to 24. Players begin with two checkers on their 24-point, three checkers on their 8-point, and five checkers each on their 13-point and their 6-point. The two players move their checkers in opposing directions, from the 24-point towards the 1-point.
Points 1 through 6 are called the home board or inner board, and points 7 through 12 are called the outer board. The 7-point is referred to as the bar point, and the 13-point as the midpoint.
To start the game, each player rolls one die, and the player with the higher number moves first using both the numbers shown. If the players roll the same number, they must roll again as the first move can not be a doublet. Both dice must land completely flat on the right hand side of the game board. The players then alternate turns, rolling two dice at the beginning of each turn.
After rolling the dice players must, if possible, move their checkers according to the number of pips shown on each die. For example, if the player rolls a 6 and a 3 (notated as "6-3"), that player must move one checker six points forward, and another or the same checker three points forward. The same checker may be moved twice as long as the two moves are distinct: six and then three, or three and then six. If a player rolls two of the same number, called doubles, that player must play each die twice. For example, upon rolling a 5-5 that player may move up to four separate checkers forward five spaces each. For any roll, if a player can move both dice, that player is compelled to do so. If players cannot move either die in a roll, given the position of their checkers, then that turn is over and the turn passes to the opponent. If either one die or the other but not both can be moved, the higher must be used. When removing checkers from the board ("bearing off"), the exact roll must be used unless a die is greater than any checker can use to bear off; in that case the die is played by taking a checker from the highest-numbered point off the board. If one die is unable to be moved, but such a move is made possible by the moving of the other die, that move is compulsory.
In the course of a move, a checker may land on any point that is unoccupied or is occupied only by a player's own checkers. It may also land on a point occupied by exactly one opposing checker, or "blot". In this case, the blot has been hit, and is placed in the middle of the board on the bar that divides the two sides of the playing surface. A checker may never land on a point occupied by two or more opposing checkers; thus, no point is ever occupied by checkers from both players simultaneously.
Checkers placed on the bar re-enter the game through the opponent's home board. A roll of 2 allows the checker to enter on the 23-point, a roll of 3 on the 22-point, and so forth. A player may not move any other checkers until all checkers on the bar belonging to that player have re-entered the game.
When all of a player's checkers are in that player's home board, that player may start removing them; this is called bearing off. A roll of 1 may be used to bear off a checker from the 1-point, a 2 from the 2-point, and so on. A die may not be used to bear off checkers from a lower-numbered point unless there are no checkers on any higher points.
For example if a player rolls a 6 and a 5, but has no checkers on the 6-point, though 2 checkers remain on the 5-point, then the 6 and the 5 must be used to bear off the 2 checkers from the 5-point. When bearing off, a player may also move a lower die roll before the higher even if that means 'the full value of the higher die' is not fully utilized. For example, if a player has exactly 1 checker remaining on the 6-point, and rolls a 6 and a 1, the player may move the 6-point checker 1 place to the 5-point with the lower die roll of 1, and then bear that checker off the 5-point using the die roll of 6; this is sometimes useful tactically.
If one player has not borne off any checkers by the time that player's opponent has borne off all fifteen, then the player has lost a gammon, which counts for double a normal loss. If the losing player has not borne off any checkers and still has checkers on the bar or in the opponent's home board, then the player has lost a backgammon, which counts for triple a normal loss.
To speed up match play and to provide an added dimension for strategy, a doubling cube is usually used. The doubling cube is not a die to be rolled but rather a marker, in the form of a cube with the numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 inscribed on its sides, denoting the current stake. At the start of each game, the doubling cube is placed on the bar with the number 64 showing; the cube is then said to be "centered, on 1". When the cube is centered, the player about to roll may propose that the game be played for twice the current stakes. His opponent must either accept ("take") the doubled stakes or resign ("drop") the game immediately. If the opponent takes, the cube, now showing the doubled stake, is moved to the opponent's side of the board. This is done to indicate that the right to re-double belongs exclusively to the player who last accepted a double. Whenever a player accepts doubled stakes, the cube is placed on his side of the board with the corresponding power of two facing upward. If the opponent drops the doubled stakes, he loses the game at the current value of the doubling cube. For instance, if the cube showed the number 2 and a player wanted to redouble the stakes to put it at 4, the opponent choosing to drop the redouble would lose two, or twice the original stake.
The game is rarely redoubled beyond four times the original stake, but there is no limit on the number of redoubles. Although 64 is the highest number depicted on the doubling cube, the stakes may rise to 128, 256, and so on. In money games, a player is often permitted to "beaver" when offered the cube, doubling the value of the game again, while retaining possession of the cube.
A variant of the doubling cube "beaver" is the "raccoon." Players who doubled their opponent, seeing the opponent beaver the cube, may in turn then double the stakes once again ("raccoon") as part of that cube phase before any dice are rolled. The opponent retains the doubling cube. E.g. White doubles Black to 2 points, Black accepts then beavers the cube to 4 points; White, confident of a win, raccoons the cube to 8 points, whilst Black retains the cube. Such a move adds greatly to the risk of having to face the doubling cube coming back at 8 times its original value when first doubling the opponent (offered at 2 points, counter offered at 16 points) should the luck of the dice change.
Some players may opt to invoke The Murphy rule or the "automatic double rule." If both opponents roll the same opening number, the doubling cube is incremented on each occasion yet remains in the middle of the board, available to either player. The Murphy rule may be invoked with a maximum number of automatic doubles allowed and that limit is agreed to prior to a game or match commencing. When a player decides to double the opponent, the value is then a double of whatever face value is shown (e.g. if two automatic doubles have occurred putting the cube up to 4, the first in-game double will be for 8 points). The Murphy rule is not an official rule in backgammon and is rarely, if ever, seen in use at officially sanctioned tournaments.
The Jacoby rule, named after Oswald Jacoby, allows gammons and backgammons to count for their respective double and triple values only if the cube has already been offered and accepted. This encourages a player with a large lead to double, possibly ending the game, rather than to play it to conclusion hoping for a gammon or backgammon. The Jacoby rule is widely used in money play but is not used in match play.
An ancient version of backgammon board game in Egypt was called SENET.
Senet is one of the oldest known board games in the world. It has been found in burial sites of Egypt around 3500 BC. It was one of the most popular games of Egypt. Senet had become a kind of talisman for the journey of the dead. Because of the element of luck in the game and the Egyptian belief in determinism, it was believed that a successful player was under the protection of the major gods of the national pantheon: Ra, Thoth and Osiris. Consequently, Senet boards were often placed in the grave alongside other useful objects for the dangerous journey through the afterlife and the game is referred to in Chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead.
The Senet gameboard is a grid of thirty squares, arranged in three rows of ten. A Senet board has two sets of pawns (at least five of each and, in some sets, more, as well as shorter games with fewer). The actual rules of the game are a topic of some debate, although historians have made educated guesses. Senet historians Timothy Kendall and R.C. Bell have each proposed their own sets of rules to play the game. These rules have been adopted by different companies which make Senet sets for sale today.
Senet is an Egyptian race game and may be the ancestor of our modern backgammon. We know of this game through ancient Egyption boards that have survived to this day. More than 40 have been discovered, some in very good condition with pawns, sticks or knucklebones still intact. The oldest known representation of Senet is in a painting from the tomb of Hesy (Third Dynasty circa 2686-2613 BCE).
The game board is composed of 30 squares: 3 rows of 10 squares each. If we number each square, the board can be represented like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
The path of the pawns probably followed a reversed S across the board.
Squares 26 to 30 have symbols on them. We will represent them in order by X, O, III, II and I. It seems that the square with an X, carrying the sign nfr, was beneficial, whereas the one with an O, associated with water, had a negative meaning. Square 15, also called the "square of Rebirth," might have been the starting square.
Other elements found with the game boards were pawns. The Hesy painting shows a game with seven pawns for each player. Then, some time after 1600 - 1500 BCE, the players were represented with seven or five pawns. Some games have even been found with ten pawns per player.
The movement of pawns was probably decided by the throw of four, two-sided sticks (as depicted in the Hesy painting) or, later, knucklebones might have been used to determine the moves.
What was the function of Senet? A game or something more? In his book, Lhôte notices that the first pictures show two human players whereas later the human player is depicted alone with an invisible opponent. It appears that Senet began as a simple game and later acquired a symbolic, ritual function.
Of course, the original rules of Senet are not known. No record of the rules on papyrus or tomb wall has ever been discovered. It is very difficult to reconstruct the game through the pieces and the tomb images.
A summary of Timothy Kendall's work on the reconstruction of the rules of Senet :
At the beginning of the game the seven pawns per player alternate along the 14 first squares. The starting square is counted as the 15th. In the oldest games this square featured an ankh, a "life" symbol. The pawns move according to the throw of four sticks or, later, one or two knucklebones. When using the sticks the points seemed to have been counted from 1 to 5: 1 point for each side without a mark and 5 points if the four marked sides were present together.
When a pawn reached a square already occupied by an opponent pawn, they have to exchange their positions.
The special squares have the following effects on play:
15 : House of Rebirth, starting square and the return square for the pawns reaching square number 27.
26 : House of Happiness, a mandatory square for all the pawns.
27: House of Water, a square that can be reached by the pawns located on squares 28 to 30 which moved back when their throws did not allow them to exit the board. They have to restart from square 15.
28 : House of the Three Truths, a pawn may only leave when a 3 is thrown.
29 : House of the Re-Atoum, a pawn may only leave when a 2 is thrown.
The winner is the first to move all of their pawns off the board.
Another version of the rules was proposed by RC Bell.
Each player has 10 pawns. Four two-sided sticks (one side painted) are thrown to determine movement.
When only one painted side is visible : 1 point.
With two : 2 points.
With three : 3 points.
With four : 4 points.
With none : 5 points.
At the beginning of the game there are no pawns on the board.
Each player in turn throws the sticks, and puts his pawns on the board on the squares with the symbols I, II, III, X, O according to the number of points thrown. Only one pawn may be present on each square. So if a pawn is already present the turn is lost.
A player may either move one pawn or add a new pawn to the board, if possible, with each throw. The pawns located on the marked squares are in shelters.
Pawns may not be stacked. When a pawn arrives on a square already occupied by an opponent pawn, the opponent is removed and must restart from the beginning. This rule does not apply for the marked squares which are shelters.
The first pawn to reach square number 1 earns a bonus of five points and it fixes the goal of the game: that player's other pawns have to reach odd squares whereas the opponent must reach the even squares. The game ends when the pawns of the two players are alternately placed on the first and second rows.
When a pawn has reached its last square, it cannot be attacked.
The first player to have put all his pawns on his own squares wins the game and earns 10 points. He also gets one point for each move his opponent makes while placing all of his remaining pawns.
Senet is played in a LOST the episode in Season Six called “Across the Sea.” It depicts the origins of the characters of Jacob and his brother, MIB, and how they came to be on the island. It also reveals the identities of the corpses discovered in the cave in "House of the Rising Sun".
The backgammon game, referenced by Locke to Walt early in the show, as a struggle between black and white is reference to Jacob and MIB. And the roll of the dice (in some gambling parlance “bones”) moves men around the board. The basic doubling numbers include the Numbers 4, 8, 16, which correspond to Locke, Reyes and Sayid.
Other candidate numbers for the doubling cube (with names lined through meaning dead or taken out of the game):
2 - Lacombe, probably from Rousseau’s expedition
32- Rutherford, probably Shannon
64- Goldstein, unknown
128- Paddock, unknown
256- unknown
The other unlined or “live” game pieces are Reyes (8) Sawyer (15), Sayid (16), Jack (23), Jin (42), Kate (51). Sayid is infected and should be crossed off like Claire (313). Kate was crossed off by Jacob because “she was a mother” caring for Aaron, but on her return she could have been reinstated - - - possibly unknown to MIB who does not think she can kill him anymore - - - which is a fatal assumption (Jacob’s loophole, perhaps).
It could be as simple as the entire island game is merely a game of senet in the Underworld against Osiris's evil brother, Seth! If you win, your ba-spirit will attain immortality, as well as the ability to "go forth by day" and to take on any shape you desire. If you lose, your spirit will be swallowed up by Ammit, the Devourer-of-the-Dead. The 815 survivors and any other person brought to the island are the “game pieces” for this contest. Jacob and MIB must "claim" or "recruit" the people as their game pieces, and in a twist, must have the other brother kill off, or take off the island (board) the other person's people in order to win the contest. Example, infected Sayid (MIB's piece) will come to kill Dogen (a Jacob piece).
However, there is a twist to this gamesmanship. There may be another set of players than the basic brothers.
The "game" may be more complex if the goal is control of the island itself. It does seem at this junction, Jacob and MIB each have 5 living pawns, just like in a real game of Senet. However, it appears that each piece must square off against another one, to take out like in chess or checkers. Claire told Jin that if Kate took Aaron, she would kill her. Sayid will tangle with Dogen. Sawyer once sought revenge against Jack for Juliet's death. So each chip aligns with another one as the final clash is about to begin. The wild card is Eloise. She is the outside variable, pulling the strings on Widmore and his men; she "recruited" Desmond to go to the island to stay there forever (so as not to awaken in the sideways dream world).
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
The Lighthouse where the names on the mirror gear magically opens a window into the lives of a person.
The Temple’s magic “healing” spring that first kills, then brings Sayid back to life.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 105:
SAYID: What happened?
EP 106:
JIN: Claire?
EP 107:
SAWYER: Hell yes.
EP 108:
CLAIRE: That's not John. This is my friend.
[Malevolent smile from Locke. Claire smiles at Jin.]
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
Point One:
In a pseudo-scientific explanation of the Dogen analysis could follow the pattern of a supernatural staph infection:
Staph bacteria are normally found on the skin or in the nose of about one-third of the population. If you have staph on your skin or in your nose but aren't sick, you are said to be "colonized" but not infected. Healthy people can be colonized and have no ill effects. However, they can pass the germ to others.
>>>> This is what could have happened to the 815ers. Once they were "brought" to the Island, they have been in contact with the Island bacteria and "colonized."
Staph bacteria are generally harmless unless they enter the body through a cut or other wound, and even then they often cause only minor skin problems in healthy people.
>>>> More proof that you are safe unless you have an open portal for the Island bacteria to invade a body. Prime example: Sayid's gunshot wound in the belly.
A weakened individual can have the bacteria grow into a serious infection. The bacteria could be immune from antibiotics as over time the germs find a resistance to the drugs. Also, germ mutations can form making current antibiotics ineffective.
Using this foundational knowledge, we can transfer it to a sci-fi plane of existence:
Smokey can have the pattern of a mutant Island bacteria colony. It can infect human bodies when they are in a weakened state, such as just before death. Example, during the freighter fire-fight, Claire's cabin was blown up, and she came back to life in a groggy state (just like Sayid at the Temple). Dogen claims that Claire is like Sayid, infected by the darkness that will spread to their heart, obliterating that person as you would know them (like Flocke). Whether this Smokey bacteria can be a parasite and use dead bodies like Christian as a reanimated host is unclear. There may be two different minute cellular organisms at work.
The bacteria can only take hold with a weakened individual. In an Island sense, that may mean an individual whose mental or moral state has been weakened to a state of collapse and abandonment of hope. Sayid's conversation to Hurley at the van was a good example: Sayid was resigned to his fate because knew his time was up, and he knew he was going to hell ("an unpleasant place"). But little did he know, he would have a second chance on the Island to become a different kind of monster.
I think that since the Island is a spiritual place, elements such as free will and faith have more power than in a material world. A person who is in a weakened spiritual state would be in greater danger of being infected by then consumed by the dark side.
It would show that Jacob and MIB have a parasitic relationship with any humans or human souls brought to the island. Whether these souls bring life force, nourishment or entertainment is unclear.
Point Two:
Is Lost merely a game of revenge?
MIB, Jacob’s dead brother, was trapped by the island’s Life Force to continue to live on as smoke monster after Jacob violated “his mother’s rule” by killing his brother for killing Crazy Mother.
For some, both Jacob and his brother died when their Roman ship wrecked on the island. But, if their spirits (conscious) separated and were reincarnated by the powers of the Crazy Mother, then they would be living on the island as isolated children.
So to pass the time as an immortal being trapped on the island, MIB plots for a way to kill his brother. His brother, bored by the isolation of the guardianship of the Life Force, “brings” people to the island to play a game of chess-checkers-Senet with MIB. MIB complains that the game always ends the same: the people come, become corrupt and die (lose).
The goal of MIB is simple: his spirit wants to leave the island “and go home.” That may be a symbolic metaphor for leaving the island and move on in the after life. But so long as Jacob is alive, MIB is trapped with him on the island because Jacob will not leave because he made a promise to Crazy Mother to protect the island. That is why MIB deeply wants to kill Jacob; it is the only means for him to finish dying and to go home.
Throughout the centuries, MIB cannot kill Jacob himself. He needs a proxy, a substitute, a patsy, to do the actual deed. He finds an emotionally fragile and defeated Ben to do his dirty work. Ben knifes Jacob, and then MIB burns the body so he cannot come back to life (reincarnated by the life force). Now, MIB believes he is free to leave the island by
manipulating the remaining humans into getting the Ajira jet to take off.
It seems like a Rube Goldberg story line to get MIB in the position that he can leave the island by a round-about way of getting Locke to kill himself, have his body return to the island so he can reincarnate it, to have Ben believe dead Alex and do everything that Flocke tells him, to recruit crazed 815ers like Claire and Sayid to do his bidding and wage war against themselves, all to gain some form of mortality to leave his island prison.
How can a smoke monster, a shape shifter, turn mortal? That is not explained.
How can Jacob, an immortal being, be killed? That is not fully explained.
For if Jacob broke the “rule” in killing MIB in the first place, MIB is not his “brother” per se so why didn’t the smoke monster kill Jacob on the beach?
If Jacob is immortal, then why would he want or need candidates to replace himself?
Jacob death = mortality/human form for MIB
Locke death and return = vessel for MIB to take a human form
Jacob is only person who can “bring” people to the island.
Flocke instructs Alpert to tell time travel Locke to die to bring back 815ers.
Jacob & MIB “born” on island.
Jacob & MIB raised by Crazy Mother on island; her rules.
MIB decides to leave island and CM objects and kills survivors.
MIB gets mad and kills CM.
Jacob gets mad and kills MIB, throwing his body into the light cave to create smoke monster.
Jacob and MIB have a truce and reinstate rules about killing each other.
However, they devise a game of revenge to kill each off by using substitutes.
Jacob can bring people to the island for MIB to judge or recruit to try to kill Jacob.
Jacob counters by turning the Others into a cult like worship group.
MIB can take human souls and reincarnate dead bodies as vessels.
If MIB gets someone to “kill” Jacob, MIB “wins” mortality and an opportunity to leave its island prison.
If MIB gets mortality, Jacob’s substitute(s) can “kill” MIB forever.
But does that leave Jacob as ghost on the island?
Or if MIB mortally dies, their spirits both “let go” of the island and move on together? How?
If the plane crash caused death, but the dead's consciousness may live on (like in near death experience). A human conscious may be independent; it has no element of time or space - - - it takes personality, memory and emotions and goes to some unknown place (an island re-creation world) to play out the lost human life experiences until they awaken or they eventually die.
So the 815 survivors are actually in a sideways world #1, which upon their actual deaths
creates sideways world #2, a purgatory holding area, until the spirits in SW#1 “awaken” and “let go.”
Jacob and his brother may have been going through this same complex sideways world “life” until they found a way to kill off their faux lives. It brings into doubt whether the 815 survivors, Dharma or the Others are actual people, but spiritual recreations of the living consciousness of dead or dying people.
Whether the island rounds up the collective conscious of dead human souls to appease the island gods is unknown, but when the Lost game ends, there are still pieces are left on the board at the end of the game.
Why? Is it like chess, where once the king is captured or destroyed, the game ends?
Or in backgammon, when you take all your pieces off the board, you win?
If consciousness is an independent entity from the brain and human biologic life,
some consider it a “portal” to another dimension (after life, spirit world, etc.) So why do some consciousness leave forever, while other consciousness is trapped as a whisper on the island (Michael, others)?
Rose and Bernard apparently never leave the island. And what about Cindy and the children, Emma and Zach? In the End, the Others are in chaos, leaderless and torn a part by the smoke monster’s wrath. Do they go on in a feral existence for all time? And Hurley “shutting down” the island with Ben makes no sense either because the island itself is greater than one human being. How can Hurley change the life force and EM power of the island and take it away from Widmore, who also was left behind on the island?
The pure game explanation is “the” ending for the series, but who won? Jacob and MIB are gone.They do not appear in the sideways world. The survivors whom Frank pilots out are returning to what? Nothing. Flocke told Sawyer that John Locke was the only person to “get it,” that all of the characters had nothing but miserable petty lives back home, which is not the sideways world because that is a soul fantasy world according to Christian.
And then, people who are aware of their own demise in the sideways world (Eloise, and later Ben) are allowed to stay in that fantasy purgatory and not forced to move on. That seems odd, that one can control their own spiritual progression.
Point Three:
The question becomes whether Jacob and MIB are actually two souls in their own sideways world, being trapped on the island because they died in their mother’s womb during her shipwreck. They need to somehow move on together, but for some reason Jacob is too scared to leave with MIB. So a complex game is devised in order for MIB to at least have a chance to go home, to rest in the after life.
In the same token, it is possible that the 815 characters sideways world is not the first fantasy soul land. The island may be sideways world number one and the sideways world being number two. As stated in earlier posts, it is possible that every major character on the island has a back story of being killed when they were a young child, and as such, their souls may have been given a chance to “experience” a life in the island realm. That may explain why Christian tells Jack in the church that these people present were the most important people in his life, a “life” which technically lasted less than four years in island linear time. So one conclusion could be that the island is a “life force nursery” for dead children’s souls.
the Lighthouse is a portal to find children; a spyglass to "touch" or claim children's souls by Jacob. He is told of manipulating all events in a person's life in order to get them to the island, seemingly by free choice. So every weird coincidence to get everyone on Flight 815 was done by Jacob's hand? So all the playing pieces are Jacob's at the beginning; only to be "corrupted" by MIB and killed off.
It is more probable that the island visitors are young dead children given a chance to "experience" a life. Sideways Jack does not remember his appendectomy at age 7 or 8; on the island, he has one. Which is real? If the Lighthouse is fixated on his house where he lived at age 7 or 8, is that when Jack died as a result of a school yard beating? That the island time and backstories are merely sideways world view number one and the Season 6 sideways world is after life realm number two.
If the island was created by the imagination of two still born children (Jacob and MIB) infused by the island (in the form of Crazy Mother) and its "life force" power (which must include the ability to give life and to take it away), who learn about their lost humanity by bringing other dead souls to their "play ground," that could be a simple explanation of the entire series.
LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 105-108 (Days ????- - ????)
Many writers believe that the aftermath from Juliet's “detonation” of the hydrogen bomb is revealed as the sideways world, as her last thoughts were “it worked,” however, it is clear that the bomb did not explode because Sawyer finds Juliet alive in the Hatch site implosion debris.
Sawyer decides to leave the Temple and Kate follows him, while the Temple leader, Dogen, tests with a resurrected Sayid and finds him “infected” with the darkness that will turn him into presumably a smoke monster when it reaches “his heart” just like Claire.
Flocke takes Sawyer through the jungle to find answers. Sawyer learns of Jacob’s candidates, including himself, and that the people brought to the island were for Jacob’s purposes.
Hurley convinces Jack to follow him to find Jacob. Jin is forced to watch mad Claire
interrogate an Other, Justin, about the whereabouts of Aaron. Jin lies about where Aaron is (with the Others at the Temple) in order to save his own life.
Science:
Infection and Darkness.
An infection the process of some foreign substance (virus, bacteria, fungal) infecting or attacking the person and his immune system. It can also mean in computing the presence of a virus in, or its introduction into, a computer system, which causes corruption and damage to system files and operations.
Sepsis is a serious medical condition caused by an overwhelming immune response to infection. Chemicals released into the blood o fight infection trigger widespread inflammation.
Inflammation may result in organ damage. Blood clotting during sepsis reduces blood flow to limbs and internal organs, depriving them of nutrients and oxygen. In severe cases, one or more organs fail. In the worst cases, infection leads to a life-threatening drop in blood pressure, called septic shock. This can quickly lead to the failure of several organs --lungs, kidneys and liver -- causing death.
Darkness is defined as:
1. the partial or total absence of light: the office was in darkness.
• night: they began to make camp before darkness fell.
the quality of being dark in color: the darkness of his jacket.
2. wickedness or evil: the forces of darkness.
• unhappiness, distress, or gloom: moments of darkness were rare.
• secrecy or mystery: they drew a veil of darkness across the proceedings.
• lack of spiritual or intellectual enlightenment; ignorance: his accomplishments shone in a world of darkness.
It would appear from the Temple explanations, that a person killed on the island may become “infected” by a substance that would turn them into a dark being, one who would lack spirituality or intellectual enlightenment.
Improbabilities:
The “immortal” Jacob being killed by Ben, and turning up to Hurley as a ghost.
A “smoke monster” that can recreate dead people can suddenly become “mortal” as Ilana says that Flocke is “stuck” in Locke’s body after Jacob’s death.
Jacob changing into a form a small child to haunt Flocke in the jungle, reminding Flocke that he cannot kill Sawyer because that would be against the rules.
Clues:
The hydrogen bomb did not explode, because the site wreckage was an implosion. Further, Juliet’s voice is heard by Sawyer and the crew trying to rescue her. Therefore, the Incident was not the bomb going off, but the catastrophic EM release.
The Incident EM release, like the FDW, turned the time travelers back to the present, which may be what Jacob referred to when he said dying, “they’re coming.” They, meaning the 815 “candidates” are the last of his pawn pieces in the game with MIB.
The large wooden ankh symbol in the guitar case represents LIFE in ancient Egyptian mythology. It is a key or passport in the after life journey.
Dead Sayid’s reincarnation at the temple into an evil spirit and follower of MIB may show how MIB acquires his game “pieces” against Jacob.
Jacob’s death somehow imparts “mortality” into the smoke monster that is inhabiting Locke’s body; the only means of leaving the island for the smoke monster is to be in mortal, human form.
Sideways Jack cannot remember his appendectomy that his mother says happened when he was 7 or 8 years old. If one links that information to the lighthouse where Jack says he has not been at since he was a young child and the school yard fight where Jack is severely beaten up, one could make the case that Jack is really just a soul of a 7 or 8 year old child.
Flocke tells Sawyer that everyone was brought to the island by Jacob when Sawyer is shown the cave with the names and numbers. Flocke tells him that Jacob believes himself to be the guardian of the island, but “the joke” is that the island does not need protection. All Flocke wants to do is to “go home.” He asks Sawyer to join him, and he responds “hell, yes.” One can deduce that one of the “rules” is that mortal MIB cannot leave the island “alone.”
Hurley remarks that it is “old school” to trek across the jungle on a mission that they do not understand. It may be a reference to an old school yard game, “follow the leader.” In that children’s game, one person is assigned the role of leader and the rest are followers. The leader starts to doing something. He can walk, run, dance, sing, talk or do any activity or combination of activities he wants to do, in any order he wants.
The rest of the players must follow the leader, doing whatever the leader does exactly the way she does it. Anyone who doesn't follow exactly is out of the game.The game ends when only person is left following the leader. That person then becomes the leader of the next game.
There are variations of the follow the leader game. In the relay version, a leader from chosen among the group. The rest of the group breaks into two teams and have each form a single-file line. The leader is sent to the other end of the room or playing field. He instructs the two teams that they are to follow the commands of the leader such as hop, run or skip. The first person in the each line follows the directions of the leader until they reach the leader. Once they reach the leader, they turn around and head back to their team while following the leader's instructions. The first team to have all the members complete the relay wins.
In the Blind Fold version, a simple obstacle course is created for the children to go through using pillows and other soft objects you have around the house. You can also play this outside with your children's toys as the obstacles. Blindfold each child and assign a leader to each kid. Have the leader (the person without the blindfold) guide the blindfolded child through the obstacle course. This game will challenge the children who are blindfolded to trust the leader and learn to listen more than see.
The versions of follow the leader are incorporated into the LOST Jacob and MIB dynamic: they are leaders who tell followers what to do, either directly like telling Hurley in a cab to get back to the island or showing Jack in the lighthouse that he has been spied on since he was a child in order to get him to act on Jacob’s behalf. It also appears that once MIB as Flocke “becomes the leader,” he is somehow fixed in a mortal form, even though he can still change into the smoke monster and attack people like Bram in the statue (which is a major inconsistency in MIB’s eventual demise).
Discussion:
“ The power of man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good. ”
— Thomas Hobbes
“ Travel makes a wise man better but a fool worse. ”
— Benjamin Franklin
“ The past cannot be changed, the future is still in your power. ”
— Hugh White
During the show’s initial run, I took a great deal of time attempting to translate the hieroglyphs in order to glean some premise and meaning in plain sight:
My translation of he glyphs on the pillars that face the spring in the Temple appears to form prayers like passages of a ceremony from a Book of the Dead:
1. In the name of Horus, alas spirit enter. Horus, sacred god father's duties.
2. Horus, enter father's gardens.
3. Stand for father's long past ideas of health (rebirth).
4. Lord father, patron of the Dead, heal for eternities.
5. Lord father.
6. Island Heaven (sacred/magical sign symbol).
7. Enter Horus (Ra).
8. Heaven conspire against evil fires.
9. Stand Ra. (sacred/magical sign symbol).
My translations of the hieroglyphs in the temple hallway as Hurley searched for the secret passageway:
The first one on his left:
SON WHO MAKES OFFERS (TO) GOD HORUS
The first one on his right:
YOU SAID TO THE MAN: ETERNITY.
The second one on the left:
OSIRIS' YOUTH (SON) HORUS CONTROLS BIRTHS.
The third one on the left, where Hurley stopped and was ready to touch:
The symbol of a coiled rope means ETERNITY and PROTECTION.
In the Lighthouse, the hieroglyphs were hard to read but this my best translation:
I approach the Devine Spirit, Lady Nephthys.
Support the King.
Fetch your Father's (Geb) Support.
Give and justify that which binds the Two Lands after binding the dangerous under ruler scourge.
Destroy Hell's entrails (on the) Island, our Garden.
Nephthys is the patron of the dead, funerals and protector of the house. She is the sister of Osiris and wife of Seth. She helped put together Osiris after Seth's murdered him. She is often depicted on a boat riding with the dead toward the Blessed Land.
Her father, Geb, is the God of the Earth, and a member of the Ennead, the council of the founding gods.
What is the importance of all these translations? Because the show’s creators continually used them in various scenes and important moments of the characters, symbols to help explain (we hope) the action going on in the foreground (such as Ben’s judgment in the Temple wall, meeting the smoke monster, and then Dead Alex).
Clearly, the sets of the final run of LOST invoke and scream ancient Egyptian mythology and belief systems. Such ancient rituals are a mystery to modern Americans, but in many respects are the starting points for most modern religious philosophies.
In the Egyptian pantheon of the living and the dead, there are many characters who serve various purposes; gods who would help the living, and gods who would punish the dead. At some time in the island’s own time line, people brought to the island were deeply moved to build a large temple complex, a huge Tawaret statue and an ancient lighthouse to serve their god(s), which apparently consist of Jacob (as Anubis) and MIB (the smoke monster, as depicted in the mural).
But in this series arc, we see that in the forefront of the Egyptian mythology and magic of the underworld, we have a “contest” between Jacob and his brother. The end for MIB (Flocke) is clear: he wants to leave the island and “go home.” But what is home to a disembodied spirit? Heaven? Hell? Nothingness? So what game are the brothers playing? There are two choices: backgammon or its forerunner, Senet (which we will see them play in later episodes).
A lesson on backgammon (wikipedia):
Backgammon playing pieces are known variously as checkers, draughts, counters, stones, men, pawns, discs, or chips.
The objective is to remove (bear off) all of one's own checkers from the board before one's opponent can do the same. The checkers are scattered at first and may be blocked or hit by the opponent. As the playing time for each individual game is short, it is often played in matches, where victory is awarded to the first player to reach a certain number of points.
Each side of the board has a track of 12 long triangles, called points. The points are considered to be connected across one edge of the board, forming a continuous track in the shape of a horseshoe, and are numbered from 1 to 24. Players begin with two checkers on their 24-point, three checkers on their 8-point, and five checkers each on their 13-point and their 6-point. The two players move their checkers in opposing directions, from the 24-point towards the 1-point.
Points 1 through 6 are called the home board or inner board, and points 7 through 12 are called the outer board. The 7-point is referred to as the bar point, and the 13-point as the midpoint.
To start the game, each player rolls one die, and the player with the higher number moves first using both the numbers shown. If the players roll the same number, they must roll again as the first move can not be a doublet. Both dice must land completely flat on the right hand side of the game board. The players then alternate turns, rolling two dice at the beginning of each turn.
After rolling the dice players must, if possible, move their checkers according to the number of pips shown on each die. For example, if the player rolls a 6 and a 3 (notated as "6-3"), that player must move one checker six points forward, and another or the same checker three points forward. The same checker may be moved twice as long as the two moves are distinct: six and then three, or three and then six. If a player rolls two of the same number, called doubles, that player must play each die twice. For example, upon rolling a 5-5 that player may move up to four separate checkers forward five spaces each. For any roll, if a player can move both dice, that player is compelled to do so. If players cannot move either die in a roll, given the position of their checkers, then that turn is over and the turn passes to the opponent. If either one die or the other but not both can be moved, the higher must be used. When removing checkers from the board ("bearing off"), the exact roll must be used unless a die is greater than any checker can use to bear off; in that case the die is played by taking a checker from the highest-numbered point off the board. If one die is unable to be moved, but such a move is made possible by the moving of the other die, that move is compulsory.
In the course of a move, a checker may land on any point that is unoccupied or is occupied only by a player's own checkers. It may also land on a point occupied by exactly one opposing checker, or "blot". In this case, the blot has been hit, and is placed in the middle of the board on the bar that divides the two sides of the playing surface. A checker may never land on a point occupied by two or more opposing checkers; thus, no point is ever occupied by checkers from both players simultaneously.
Checkers placed on the bar re-enter the game through the opponent's home board. A roll of 2 allows the checker to enter on the 23-point, a roll of 3 on the 22-point, and so forth. A player may not move any other checkers until all checkers on the bar belonging to that player have re-entered the game.
When all of a player's checkers are in that player's home board, that player may start removing them; this is called bearing off. A roll of 1 may be used to bear off a checker from the 1-point, a 2 from the 2-point, and so on. A die may not be used to bear off checkers from a lower-numbered point unless there are no checkers on any higher points.
For example if a player rolls a 6 and a 5, but has no checkers on the 6-point, though 2 checkers remain on the 5-point, then the 6 and the 5 must be used to bear off the 2 checkers from the 5-point. When bearing off, a player may also move a lower die roll before the higher even if that means 'the full value of the higher die' is not fully utilized. For example, if a player has exactly 1 checker remaining on the 6-point, and rolls a 6 and a 1, the player may move the 6-point checker 1 place to the 5-point with the lower die roll of 1, and then bear that checker off the 5-point using the die roll of 6; this is sometimes useful tactically.
If one player has not borne off any checkers by the time that player's opponent has borne off all fifteen, then the player has lost a gammon, which counts for double a normal loss. If the losing player has not borne off any checkers and still has checkers on the bar or in the opponent's home board, then the player has lost a backgammon, which counts for triple a normal loss.
To speed up match play and to provide an added dimension for strategy, a doubling cube is usually used. The doubling cube is not a die to be rolled but rather a marker, in the form of a cube with the numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 inscribed on its sides, denoting the current stake. At the start of each game, the doubling cube is placed on the bar with the number 64 showing; the cube is then said to be "centered, on 1". When the cube is centered, the player about to roll may propose that the game be played for twice the current stakes. His opponent must either accept ("take") the doubled stakes or resign ("drop") the game immediately. If the opponent takes, the cube, now showing the doubled stake, is moved to the opponent's side of the board. This is done to indicate that the right to re-double belongs exclusively to the player who last accepted a double. Whenever a player accepts doubled stakes, the cube is placed on his side of the board with the corresponding power of two facing upward. If the opponent drops the doubled stakes, he loses the game at the current value of the doubling cube. For instance, if the cube showed the number 2 and a player wanted to redouble the stakes to put it at 4, the opponent choosing to drop the redouble would lose two, or twice the original stake.
The game is rarely redoubled beyond four times the original stake, but there is no limit on the number of redoubles. Although 64 is the highest number depicted on the doubling cube, the stakes may rise to 128, 256, and so on. In money games, a player is often permitted to "beaver" when offered the cube, doubling the value of the game again, while retaining possession of the cube.
A variant of the doubling cube "beaver" is the "raccoon." Players who doubled their opponent, seeing the opponent beaver the cube, may in turn then double the stakes once again ("raccoon") as part of that cube phase before any dice are rolled. The opponent retains the doubling cube. E.g. White doubles Black to 2 points, Black accepts then beavers the cube to 4 points; White, confident of a win, raccoons the cube to 8 points, whilst Black retains the cube. Such a move adds greatly to the risk of having to face the doubling cube coming back at 8 times its original value when first doubling the opponent (offered at 2 points, counter offered at 16 points) should the luck of the dice change.
Some players may opt to invoke The Murphy rule or the "automatic double rule." If both opponents roll the same opening number, the doubling cube is incremented on each occasion yet remains in the middle of the board, available to either player. The Murphy rule may be invoked with a maximum number of automatic doubles allowed and that limit is agreed to prior to a game or match commencing. When a player decides to double the opponent, the value is then a double of whatever face value is shown (e.g. if two automatic doubles have occurred putting the cube up to 4, the first in-game double will be for 8 points). The Murphy rule is not an official rule in backgammon and is rarely, if ever, seen in use at officially sanctioned tournaments.
The Jacoby rule, named after Oswald Jacoby, allows gammons and backgammons to count for their respective double and triple values only if the cube has already been offered and accepted. This encourages a player with a large lead to double, possibly ending the game, rather than to play it to conclusion hoping for a gammon or backgammon. The Jacoby rule is widely used in money play but is not used in match play.
An ancient version of backgammon board game in Egypt was called SENET.
Senet is one of the oldest known board games in the world. It has been found in burial sites of Egypt around 3500 BC. It was one of the most popular games of Egypt. Senet had become a kind of talisman for the journey of the dead. Because of the element of luck in the game and the Egyptian belief in determinism, it was believed that a successful player was under the protection of the major gods of the national pantheon: Ra, Thoth and Osiris. Consequently, Senet boards were often placed in the grave alongside other useful objects for the dangerous journey through the afterlife and the game is referred to in Chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead.
The Senet gameboard is a grid of thirty squares, arranged in three rows of ten. A Senet board has two sets of pawns (at least five of each and, in some sets, more, as well as shorter games with fewer). The actual rules of the game are a topic of some debate, although historians have made educated guesses. Senet historians Timothy Kendall and R.C. Bell have each proposed their own sets of rules to play the game. These rules have been adopted by different companies which make Senet sets for sale today.
Senet is an Egyptian race game and may be the ancestor of our modern backgammon. We know of this game through ancient Egyption boards that have survived to this day. More than 40 have been discovered, some in very good condition with pawns, sticks or knucklebones still intact. The oldest known representation of Senet is in a painting from the tomb of Hesy (Third Dynasty circa 2686-2613 BCE).
The game board is composed of 30 squares: 3 rows of 10 squares each. If we number each square, the board can be represented like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
The path of the pawns probably followed a reversed S across the board.
Squares 26 to 30 have symbols on them. We will represent them in order by X, O, III, II and I. It seems that the square with an X, carrying the sign nfr, was beneficial, whereas the one with an O, associated with water, had a negative meaning. Square 15, also called the "square of Rebirth," might have been the starting square.
Other elements found with the game boards were pawns. The Hesy painting shows a game with seven pawns for each player. Then, some time after 1600 - 1500 BCE, the players were represented with seven or five pawns. Some games have even been found with ten pawns per player.
The movement of pawns was probably decided by the throw of four, two-sided sticks (as depicted in the Hesy painting) or, later, knucklebones might have been used to determine the moves.
What was the function of Senet? A game or something more? In his book, Lhôte notices that the first pictures show two human players whereas later the human player is depicted alone with an invisible opponent. It appears that Senet began as a simple game and later acquired a symbolic, ritual function.
Of course, the original rules of Senet are not known. No record of the rules on papyrus or tomb wall has ever been discovered. It is very difficult to reconstruct the game through the pieces and the tomb images.
A summary of Timothy Kendall's work on the reconstruction of the rules of Senet :
At the beginning of the game the seven pawns per player alternate along the 14 first squares. The starting square is counted as the 15th. In the oldest games this square featured an ankh, a "life" symbol. The pawns move according to the throw of four sticks or, later, one or two knucklebones. When using the sticks the points seemed to have been counted from 1 to 5: 1 point for each side without a mark and 5 points if the four marked sides were present together.
When a pawn reached a square already occupied by an opponent pawn, they have to exchange their positions.
The special squares have the following effects on play:
15 : House of Rebirth, starting square and the return square for the pawns reaching square number 27.
26 : House of Happiness, a mandatory square for all the pawns.
27: House of Water, a square that can be reached by the pawns located on squares 28 to 30 which moved back when their throws did not allow them to exit the board. They have to restart from square 15.
28 : House of the Three Truths, a pawn may only leave when a 3 is thrown.
29 : House of the Re-Atoum, a pawn may only leave when a 2 is thrown.
The winner is the first to move all of their pawns off the board.
Another version of the rules was proposed by RC Bell.
Each player has 10 pawns. Four two-sided sticks (one side painted) are thrown to determine movement.
When only one painted side is visible : 1 point.
With two : 2 points.
With three : 3 points.
With four : 4 points.
With none : 5 points.
At the beginning of the game there are no pawns on the board.
Each player in turn throws the sticks, and puts his pawns on the board on the squares with the symbols I, II, III, X, O according to the number of points thrown. Only one pawn may be present on each square. So if a pawn is already present the turn is lost.
A player may either move one pawn or add a new pawn to the board, if possible, with each throw. The pawns located on the marked squares are in shelters.
Pawns may not be stacked. When a pawn arrives on a square already occupied by an opponent pawn, the opponent is removed and must restart from the beginning. This rule does not apply for the marked squares which are shelters.
The first pawn to reach square number 1 earns a bonus of five points and it fixes the goal of the game: that player's other pawns have to reach odd squares whereas the opponent must reach the even squares. The game ends when the pawns of the two players are alternately placed on the first and second rows.
When a pawn has reached its last square, it cannot be attacked.
The first player to have put all his pawns on his own squares wins the game and earns 10 points. He also gets one point for each move his opponent makes while placing all of his remaining pawns.
Senet is played in a LOST the episode in Season Six called “Across the Sea.” It depicts the origins of the characters of Jacob and his brother, MIB, and how they came to be on the island. It also reveals the identities of the corpses discovered in the cave in "House of the Rising Sun".
The backgammon game, referenced by Locke to Walt early in the show, as a struggle between black and white is reference to Jacob and MIB. And the roll of the dice (in some gambling parlance “bones”) moves men around the board. The basic doubling numbers include the Numbers 4, 8, 16, which correspond to Locke, Reyes and Sayid.
Other candidate numbers for the doubling cube (with names lined through meaning dead or taken out of the game):
2 - Lacombe, probably from Rousseau’s expedition
32- Rutherford, probably Shannon
64- Goldstein, unknown
128- Paddock, unknown
256- unknown
The other unlined or “live” game pieces are Reyes (8) Sawyer (15), Sayid (16), Jack (23), Jin (42), Kate (51). Sayid is infected and should be crossed off like Claire (313). Kate was crossed off by Jacob because “she was a mother” caring for Aaron, but on her return she could have been reinstated - - - possibly unknown to MIB who does not think she can kill him anymore - - - which is a fatal assumption (Jacob’s loophole, perhaps).
It could be as simple as the entire island game is merely a game of senet in the Underworld against Osiris's evil brother, Seth! If you win, your ba-spirit will attain immortality, as well as the ability to "go forth by day" and to take on any shape you desire. If you lose, your spirit will be swallowed up by Ammit, the Devourer-of-the-Dead. The 815 survivors and any other person brought to the island are the “game pieces” for this contest. Jacob and MIB must "claim" or "recruit" the people as their game pieces, and in a twist, must have the other brother kill off, or take off the island (board) the other person's people in order to win the contest. Example, infected Sayid (MIB's piece) will come to kill Dogen (a Jacob piece).
However, there is a twist to this gamesmanship. There may be another set of players than the basic brothers.
The "game" may be more complex if the goal is control of the island itself. It does seem at this junction, Jacob and MIB each have 5 living pawns, just like in a real game of Senet. However, it appears that each piece must square off against another one, to take out like in chess or checkers. Claire told Jin that if Kate took Aaron, she would kill her. Sayid will tangle with Dogen. Sawyer once sought revenge against Jack for Juliet's death. So each chip aligns with another one as the final clash is about to begin. The wild card is Eloise. She is the outside variable, pulling the strings on Widmore and his men; she "recruited" Desmond to go to the island to stay there forever (so as not to awaken in the sideways dream world).
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
The Lighthouse where the names on the mirror gear magically opens a window into the lives of a person.
The Temple’s magic “healing” spring that first kills, then brings Sayid back to life.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 105:
SAYID: What happened?
EP 106:
JIN: Claire?
EP 107:
SAWYER: Hell yes.
EP 108:
CLAIRE: That's not John. This is my friend.
[Malevolent smile from Locke. Claire smiles at Jin.]
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
Point One:
In a pseudo-scientific explanation of the Dogen analysis could follow the pattern of a supernatural staph infection:
Staph bacteria are normally found on the skin or in the nose of about one-third of the population. If you have staph on your skin or in your nose but aren't sick, you are said to be "colonized" but not infected. Healthy people can be colonized and have no ill effects. However, they can pass the germ to others.
>>>> This is what could have happened to the 815ers. Once they were "brought" to the Island, they have been in contact with the Island bacteria and "colonized."
Staph bacteria are generally harmless unless they enter the body through a cut or other wound, and even then they often cause only minor skin problems in healthy people.
>>>> More proof that you are safe unless you have an open portal for the Island bacteria to invade a body. Prime example: Sayid's gunshot wound in the belly.
A weakened individual can have the bacteria grow into a serious infection. The bacteria could be immune from antibiotics as over time the germs find a resistance to the drugs. Also, germ mutations can form making current antibiotics ineffective.
Using this foundational knowledge, we can transfer it to a sci-fi plane of existence:
Smokey can have the pattern of a mutant Island bacteria colony. It can infect human bodies when they are in a weakened state, such as just before death. Example, during the freighter fire-fight, Claire's cabin was blown up, and she came back to life in a groggy state (just like Sayid at the Temple). Dogen claims that Claire is like Sayid, infected by the darkness that will spread to their heart, obliterating that person as you would know them (like Flocke). Whether this Smokey bacteria can be a parasite and use dead bodies like Christian as a reanimated host is unclear. There may be two different minute cellular organisms at work.
The bacteria can only take hold with a weakened individual. In an Island sense, that may mean an individual whose mental or moral state has been weakened to a state of collapse and abandonment of hope. Sayid's conversation to Hurley at the van was a good example: Sayid was resigned to his fate because knew his time was up, and he knew he was going to hell ("an unpleasant place"). But little did he know, he would have a second chance on the Island to become a different kind of monster.
I think that since the Island is a spiritual place, elements such as free will and faith have more power than in a material world. A person who is in a weakened spiritual state would be in greater danger of being infected by then consumed by the dark side.
It would show that Jacob and MIB have a parasitic relationship with any humans or human souls brought to the island. Whether these souls bring life force, nourishment or entertainment is unclear.
Point Two:
Is Lost merely a game of revenge?
MIB, Jacob’s dead brother, was trapped by the island’s Life Force to continue to live on as smoke monster after Jacob violated “his mother’s rule” by killing his brother for killing Crazy Mother.
For some, both Jacob and his brother died when their Roman ship wrecked on the island. But, if their spirits (conscious) separated and were reincarnated by the powers of the Crazy Mother, then they would be living on the island as isolated children.
So to pass the time as an immortal being trapped on the island, MIB plots for a way to kill his brother. His brother, bored by the isolation of the guardianship of the Life Force, “brings” people to the island to play a game of chess-checkers-Senet with MIB. MIB complains that the game always ends the same: the people come, become corrupt and die (lose).
The goal of MIB is simple: his spirit wants to leave the island “and go home.” That may be a symbolic metaphor for leaving the island and move on in the after life. But so long as Jacob is alive, MIB is trapped with him on the island because Jacob will not leave because he made a promise to Crazy Mother to protect the island. That is why MIB deeply wants to kill Jacob; it is the only means for him to finish dying and to go home.
Throughout the centuries, MIB cannot kill Jacob himself. He needs a proxy, a substitute, a patsy, to do the actual deed. He finds an emotionally fragile and defeated Ben to do his dirty work. Ben knifes Jacob, and then MIB burns the body so he cannot come back to life (reincarnated by the life force). Now, MIB believes he is free to leave the island by
manipulating the remaining humans into getting the Ajira jet to take off.
It seems like a Rube Goldberg story line to get MIB in the position that he can leave the island by a round-about way of getting Locke to kill himself, have his body return to the island so he can reincarnate it, to have Ben believe dead Alex and do everything that Flocke tells him, to recruit crazed 815ers like Claire and Sayid to do his bidding and wage war against themselves, all to gain some form of mortality to leave his island prison.
How can a smoke monster, a shape shifter, turn mortal? That is not explained.
How can Jacob, an immortal being, be killed? That is not fully explained.
For if Jacob broke the “rule” in killing MIB in the first place, MIB is not his “brother” per se so why didn’t the smoke monster kill Jacob on the beach?
If Jacob is immortal, then why would he want or need candidates to replace himself?
Jacob death = mortality/human form for MIB
Locke death and return = vessel for MIB to take a human form
Jacob is only person who can “bring” people to the island.
Flocke instructs Alpert to tell time travel Locke to die to bring back 815ers.
Jacob & MIB “born” on island.
Jacob & MIB raised by Crazy Mother on island; her rules.
MIB decides to leave island and CM objects and kills survivors.
MIB gets mad and kills CM.
Jacob gets mad and kills MIB, throwing his body into the light cave to create smoke monster.
Jacob and MIB have a truce and reinstate rules about killing each other.
However, they devise a game of revenge to kill each off by using substitutes.
Jacob can bring people to the island for MIB to judge or recruit to try to kill Jacob.
Jacob counters by turning the Others into a cult like worship group.
MIB can take human souls and reincarnate dead bodies as vessels.
If MIB gets someone to “kill” Jacob, MIB “wins” mortality and an opportunity to leave its island prison.
If MIB gets mortality, Jacob’s substitute(s) can “kill” MIB forever.
But does that leave Jacob as ghost on the island?
Or if MIB mortally dies, their spirits both “let go” of the island and move on together? How?
If the plane crash caused death, but the dead's consciousness may live on (like in near death experience). A human conscious may be independent; it has no element of time or space - - - it takes personality, memory and emotions and goes to some unknown place (an island re-creation world) to play out the lost human life experiences until they awaken or they eventually die.
So the 815 survivors are actually in a sideways world #1, which upon their actual deaths
creates sideways world #2, a purgatory holding area, until the spirits in SW#1 “awaken” and “let go.”
Jacob and his brother may have been going through this same complex sideways world “life” until they found a way to kill off their faux lives. It brings into doubt whether the 815 survivors, Dharma or the Others are actual people, but spiritual recreations of the living consciousness of dead or dying people.
Whether the island rounds up the collective conscious of dead human souls to appease the island gods is unknown, but when the Lost game ends, there are still pieces are left on the board at the end of the game.
Why? Is it like chess, where once the king is captured or destroyed, the game ends?
Or in backgammon, when you take all your pieces off the board, you win?
If consciousness is an independent entity from the brain and human biologic life,
some consider it a “portal” to another dimension (after life, spirit world, etc.) So why do some consciousness leave forever, while other consciousness is trapped as a whisper on the island (Michael, others)?
Rose and Bernard apparently never leave the island. And what about Cindy and the children, Emma and Zach? In the End, the Others are in chaos, leaderless and torn a part by the smoke monster’s wrath. Do they go on in a feral existence for all time? And Hurley “shutting down” the island with Ben makes no sense either because the island itself is greater than one human being. How can Hurley change the life force and EM power of the island and take it away from Widmore, who also was left behind on the island?
The pure game explanation is “the” ending for the series, but who won? Jacob and MIB are gone.They do not appear in the sideways world. The survivors whom Frank pilots out are returning to what? Nothing. Flocke told Sawyer that John Locke was the only person to “get it,” that all of the characters had nothing but miserable petty lives back home, which is not the sideways world because that is a soul fantasy world according to Christian.
And then, people who are aware of their own demise in the sideways world (Eloise, and later Ben) are allowed to stay in that fantasy purgatory and not forced to move on. That seems odd, that one can control their own spiritual progression.
Point Three:
The question becomes whether Jacob and MIB are actually two souls in their own sideways world, being trapped on the island because they died in their mother’s womb during her shipwreck. They need to somehow move on together, but for some reason Jacob is too scared to leave with MIB. So a complex game is devised in order for MIB to at least have a chance to go home, to rest in the after life.
In the same token, it is possible that the 815 characters sideways world is not the first fantasy soul land. The island may be sideways world number one and the sideways world being number two. As stated in earlier posts, it is possible that every major character on the island has a back story of being killed when they were a young child, and as such, their souls may have been given a chance to “experience” a life in the island realm. That may explain why Christian tells Jack in the church that these people present were the most important people in his life, a “life” which technically lasted less than four years in island linear time. So one conclusion could be that the island is a “life force nursery” for dead children’s souls.
the Lighthouse is a portal to find children; a spyglass to "touch" or claim children's souls by Jacob. He is told of manipulating all events in a person's life in order to get them to the island, seemingly by free choice. So every weird coincidence to get everyone on Flight 815 was done by Jacob's hand? So all the playing pieces are Jacob's at the beginning; only to be "corrupted" by MIB and killed off.
It is more probable that the island visitors are young dead children given a chance to "experience" a life. Sideways Jack does not remember his appendectomy at age 7 or 8; on the island, he has one. Which is real? If the Lighthouse is fixated on his house where he lived at age 7 or 8, is that when Jack died as a result of a school yard beating? That the island time and backstories are merely sideways world view number one and the Season 6 sideways world is after life realm number two.
If the island was created by the imagination of two still born children (Jacob and MIB) infused by the island (in the form of Crazy Mother) and its "life force" power (which must include the ability to give life and to take it away), who learn about their lost humanity by bringing other dead souls to their "play ground," that could be a simple explanation of the entire series.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
REBOOT: EPISODES 17-20
LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 17-20 (Days 32-42)
When the raft the survivors have been building mysteriously burns down, Michael is convinced that Jin is responsible for the sabotage, which only further escalates their rivalry. Boone gives Sayid a warning about Shannon.
When Hurley becomes obsessed with the French woman and heads into the jungle to find her, Jack, Sayid and Charlie have no choice but to follow. Meanwhile, Locke asks Claire to help build a mysterious item.
Locke begins to suffer physical difficulties as he and Boone try to find a way into the Hatch; Jack is reluctant to offer assistance when Sawyer begins to experience excruciating headaches.
Claire goes into labor while a helpless Charlie goes into panic mode. Meanwhile Locke is missing, Jack tends to a critically injured Boone as Sayid begins a romance with Shannon.
Science:
1. Infection & Headaches: Causes
Headaches may be caused by virus infections, stress, fatigue, influenza or common colds and respiratory ailments.
Mayo Clinic literature defines the primary causes for headaches:
A primary headache is caused by dysfunction or overactivity of pain-sensitive features in your head. A primary headache isn't a symptom of an underlying disease. Chemical activity in your brain, the nerves or blood vessels of your head outside your skull, or muscles of your head and neck — or some combination of these factors — may play a role in primary headaches. Some people may carry genes that make them more likely to develop such headaches. Other headache patterns that are generally considered types of primary headache but are less common. These headaches have distinct features, such as an unusual duration or pain associated with a certain activity. Although these headaches are generally considered primary, each of them could be a symptom of an underlying disease. These headaches include chronic daily headaches, cough headaches, exercise headaches and hypnic headaches (that awaken a person at night).
A secondary headache is a symptom of a disease that can activate the pain-sensitive nerves of the head. Any number of conditions — varying greatly in severity — may cause secondary headaches. Sources of secondary headaches include Arterial tears (carotid or vertebral dissections), blood clots in the brain, aneurysms, tumors, carbon monoxide poisoning, concussion, encephalitis, inflammation of lining of arteries, glaucoma, hangovers, influenza, hemotoma, side effects from medications, meningitis, sinus infection, trauma or stroke.
Medical dictionary definition of “infection”
1. invasion and multiplication of microorganisms in body tissues, especially that causing local cellular injury due to competitive metabolism, toxins, intracellular replication, or antigen-antibody response.
2. an infectious disease.
An airborne infection one that is contracted by inhalation of microorganisms or spores suspended in air on water droplets or dust particles. Droplet infection infection due to inhalation of respiratory pathogens suspended on liquid particles exhaled by someone already infected (droplet nuclei) .
Endogenous infection that due to reactivation of organisms present in a dormant focus, as occurs in tuberculosis, etc. Tunnel infection subcutaneous infection of an artificial passage into the body that has been kept patent. Opportunistic infection infection by an organism that does not ordinarily cause disease but becomes pathogenic under certain circumstances (e.g., impaired immune responses).
2. Schizophrenia.
A person diagnosed with schizophrenia may experience hallucinations (most reported are hearing voices) delusions, (often bizarre in nature), and disorganized thinking and speech. The latter may range from loss of train of thought, to sentences only loosely connected in meaning, to incoherence. Social withdrawal, sloppiness of dress and hygiene, and loss of motivation and judgment are all common in schizophrenia. There is often an observable pattern of emotional difficulty, for example lack of responsiveness. Symptoms include social impairment, paranoia, social isolation. Difficulties in working, long term memory, attention, executive functioning and speed of processing information can occur.
Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, debilitating mental illness that affects about 1% of the population, more than 2 million people in the United States alone. With the sudden onset of severe psychotic symptoms, the individual is said to be experiencing acute schizophrenia. Psychotic means out of touch with reality or unable to separate real from unreal experiences. There is no known single cause of schizophrenia. Genetic factors produce a vulnerability to schizophrenia, with environmental factors contributing to different degrees in different individuals.
Schizophrenia is one of the psychotic mental disorders and is characterized by symptoms of thought, behavior, and social problems. Symptoms of schizophrenia may include delusions, hallucinations, catatonia, negative symptoms, and disorganized speech or behavior. There are five types of schizophrenia based on the kind of symptoms the person has at the time of assessment: paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated, and residual. Schizophrenia is considered to be the result of a complex group of genetic, psychological, and environmental factors.
Improbabilities:
It is highly unlikely that Rousseau, after 16 years of lonely, paranoid existence, would learn the skills of a trained Army ranger to booby trap her camp with explosives. It is similar experience that wheelchair bound Locke fantasized being the great hunter-Outback survivalist coming to reality on the Island.
Mysteries:
The “illness” or “infection” that Rousseau told Sayid about. We will learn about it from the Others as a byproduct of Claire’s abduction and Juliet’s research in why babies don’t come to term on the Island. The “illness” is an unspoken change in a person; the Temple dwellers believe that it is the transformation of a person (Sayid) into evil. Apparently, there is no cure.
What is the Island? We have more information that the Numbers may have been coordinates or the "magic box" that the Numbers opened when Hurley played them in the lottery. It is clear that the Island is a supernatural place which may or may not be in reality. Whether the Island is a place or a supernatural being is still open to debate.
Themes:
Both Locke and Jack yell “you can’t tell me what to do” when faced with an adverse situation. This sets up the duality of faith vs. science theme (Locke vs. Jack).
Separation is also a theme. There appears to be two types of survivors now: those who desperately want rescue or to get off the island (Jin, Michael, Sawyer) and those who do not want to leave (Locke, Walt).
Parental issues go beyond par with Locke’s backstory that his father paid his crazy mother to help with his con to get a kidney from him. But even with Jack’s pending marriage to Sara, a woman he miraculous saved from a life of paralysis, Christian tells Jack that it is that commitment is his strength, but “letting go” is his personal demon.
Clues:
The biggest clues were the the references to games.
When Locke was working at a toy store, he tells a young boy about the game, Mouse Trap. He says the object of the game is to put your game pieces on the board and then have your opponent land on a certain square to set off the trap.
When Hurley visits Leonard at the mental institution, Leonard (who knows about the Numbers) is playing Connect Four.
Discussion:
“ Imagination is more important than knowledge. ”
— Albert Einstein
There are two significant plot arcs in these episodes. First, is Rousseau warning Hurley about the “sickness” when he seeks her out about why she wrote down the Numbers. She wrote down the numbers because that is the signal she heard with her science crew, who changed course and crashed. When the “sickness” took all of her people, she went to the radio tower and changed the message to the distress call. In talking with Hurley, who believes the numbers are cursed, Rousseau (who Sayid believes is crazy) agrees with Hurley because it was the Numbers who brought them both to the island. Hurley is relieved that someone finally agrees with him (that he is not thinking crazy talk) and hugs her.
The “sickness” or “infection” that was a part of the show never clearly manifests itself, except when we see Sayid becomes overtly evil at the Temple. We may see the beginning of the sickness in Sawyer, as his headaches now appear daily. Jack diagnoses his situation as being farsighted (all of a sudden?) but headaches may be caused by infections, viruses or disease.
The sickness may manifest itself in the brain. It alters perception or reality, as Rousseau says the sickness changed her crew to the point where she killed them all in self defense. In that situation, we know her crew members were dragged into the Temple outer wall by Smokey, and returned “changed” and plotting against her.
Second, and possible corollary to the sickness is the issue of mental illness. There is a series of references to mental instability in these episodes: Locke’s mother was institutionalized (at the same place as Leonard and Hurley); Jacob and MIB’s adoptive murderous guardian was called Crazy Mother by show viewers. John Locke begins to talk crazy to Boone when they cannot open the Hatch, proclaiming that “the Island” was telling him what to do or what he needed to do.
Who is Locke begging to? Jacob? His Crazy Mother? The island itself?
There is another magic box cause and effect - - - as he is begging for an answer, the light goes on inside the Hatch.
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
The process of thinking of something deeply coming to come to pass on the island (“the magic box”) is forefront in these episodes. As Locke needs to find a sign, the island scans the memories of other people on the island to create the memory on the island (Eko’s brother’s Beechcraft plane crashing into the island). Hurley’s crazy friend, Leonard, screams that the Numbers Hurley used to win the lottery “opened the box!”
Last lines in episodes:
EP 17:
HURLEY: Son of a bitch.
[He takes his headphones off and throws them on the sand.]
EP 18:
CHARLIE: I bare my soul, and all I get is bloody jokes!
[Shot of the hatch and the container it's attached to. The camera pushes in to reveal the numbers etched in to the side: 4 8 15 16 23 42.]
EP 19:
LOCKE: I've done everything you wanted me to do, so why did you do this to me?!
[A light goes on inside the hatch.]
EP 20:
JACK: To find John Locke.
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
The Numbers were firmly planted into the conscious mysteries of the show with Hurley’s “unlucky” back story. And they were firmly put in the forefront when the Numbers appear on the mysterious Hatch cover.
We know that the Numbers represent Jacob’s candidates (Locke, Hurley, Sawyer, Sayid, Jack and Jin.) All are socially awkward with father issues. We were told that only Jacob can bring people to the Island. And these were his “candidates,” but that may be a misdirection. Candidates may mean “game pieces” between Jacob and MIB. In Jacob’s lighthouse, people’s names and numbers are kept. But the names and candidate numbers were also kept in MIB’s cave. So it is clear that both Jacob and MIB were on the same page in regard to castaways.
During the Show’s initial run, there were a few theories about the premise being one giant, interactive video game (with the characters being avatars). The reason for this theory was that over time, the characters kept on going on “missions” into the jungle for little rhyme or reason (just like in many video games) in order to “level up” to get more information, more weapons or more power. The clear references to games (mouse trap and Connect 4) add a foundation to this theory.
But what type of game is Jacob and MIB playing? The first early reference was to backgammon (white and black, like the stones found in the cave). Then there was the idea of the ancient Egyptian version, Senet, where the object is to take your pieces off the board first to win. Now, with the reference to Mouse Trap, the game may be to set up “traps” and situations to “capture” humans in such a way as to “win” the contest. In the last season, MIB is clearly disturbed by the fact that Jacob continues to bring humans to the island and things “never change.” What is becoming clear is that both Jacob and MIB are trying to curry favor with the castaways. It appears that the Others worship Jacob. MIB is trying to get the 815 survivors on "his team" to fight the Others. Locke continually tells the plane survivors that they are not alone and must get ready to fight the Others.
But it may be a combination of all the games. The final six candidates are the game pieces that MIB and Jacob play with. They both are allowed to set traps or illusions based upon the memories of the people brought to the island. The goal: to have four (connect four) candidates come to your side. In the End, we can see Jacob winning not by Flocke’s “death,” but in the tally of people who sided with Jacob. MIB “captured” Locke and Sayid in the Island darkness (his color) and Jacob “captured” the souls of Hurley, Sawyer, Jin and Jack, with the latter two seeing the light of personal sacrifice.
There is also a tangent of alchemy that pops to the surface in these episodes. The basic principle of “equivalent exchange” means that in order to gain something, you must give something of equal value up. In the case of the birth of Aaron, to give new life, Boone had to die. Boone’s death was a senseless lie of Locke’s cover-up of his secret, the Hatch.
The new theory that Locke is really MIB from the beginning was challenged by Locke losing control of his ability to walk. However, when the trebuchet fails and huge spear chards go into his leg, Locke feels no pain. It freaks out Boone. Locke takes out several inches of bloody wood without a grimace. But he begins to lose his grip as Boone challenges his obsession with the Hatch and his mental stability of talking about the Island as a person. In an alchemy twist, in order to open the Hatch (what Locke wants), he must give up his best friend on the Island, Boone.
One has to take Boone’s “accident” into context. Jack leaps to the conclusion that it was murder because Locke suddenly “vanished” in an instant (like a puff of smoke?) when bloody Boone was delivered to the caves. And Jack may be right. For the Beechcraft was allegedly fixed in place for more than a decade, and only lost its balance after Boone got a connection on the plane’s radio. Locke’s facial expression was that he had to “stop” Boone mayday and potential rescue - - - resulting in the plane tumbling down the cliffside. The mixed motivation of Locke is apparent after what happens to Boone in the plane.
In the context that the MIB may still “inhabit” Locke as a player in Jacob’s game of Mouse Trap, MIB may take on the schizophrenia in Locke’s genetic profile. Can MIB co-exist in the mentally unstable mind of John Locke? If not, does this mean that MIB can “change” players during the course of the game itself (as a signal - - - Locke reverting to his old body dynamics). It is more probable that MIB takes the illusion of Locke than Locke himself.
The Island, as its own person, may be the cruel gamekeeper. It may have given Locke the miracle “healing” of his legs that he had dreamed of, but at the cost of his sanity. Locke has always been a pawn in other people’s games. It is no different on the Island.
In regard to the Numbers as a combination Lock tumblers, Leonard’s outrage that Hurley used the Numbers “opened the Box” infers that the numbers were a lock to keep Jacob and MIB from bringing souls to the Island for their games. If the Island itself is the magic box, it is creating matter from memories, reality from illusions. We don’t know if the Island is benevolent or cruel.
What is apparent in a tumbler context, is that in each realm Jack had a similar situation in which to find a solution. In the flashback world, he “fixes” Sara by miraculous surgery skills. In the Island world, he “can’t fix” Boone who asks Jack to “let him go.” In the sideways world, he tries to “fix” a paralyzed Locke. He succeeds in the FB and SW tests, but fails on the Island - - - but that failure is the key to unlocking his deep rooted personal flaw: the inability to let go.
The Island may be the second round in a series of tests of the character’s deepest flaws in order to determine if they truly change their deep seeded personal issues toward personal enlightenment in the sideways world. But in order to find that true understanding, the Island must bring them to brink of their own humanity.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
S6E9 HELL IN A BOTTLE
As a very early adopter of "they're all dead" theories of the show premise, the cork analogy fits nicely into my Nexus-Buffer theory that the island was a gate-portal between heaven and hell to stop Satan from attacking heaven. There are contradictory stories in religious texts that once Satan was banished from hell and thrown into the lake of ice in the depths of the chaos universe, he still had the power to visit Eden and Earth to spread evil, temptation and undermine God's word. An example is Richard's wife, Isabella. She died of the plague, the Black Death. There is an inference that even if Satan is locked up in hell, his evil can still make its way into human existence.
LOST has appeared to mold a "consensus" idea of the devil-evil theology into a secular form, an island prison, with a person called the "devil" trying to escape, and a "guardian" or guard trying to keep the wine (evil) in the bottle. And in a consensus like structure, not fully confirmed at this point, the idea of "dead" people showing up in a place of the dead (hell, purgatory, limbo, the island) is not a far off idea. It makes perfect sense. Having these people appear only to some people as ghosts and to others as living humans, it could be explained as hellish mind games or punishment. As for "killing" dead people on the island, this could be weaved into several concepts that when a person dies his or her soul is reincarnated in the afterlife to make a journey of redemption, and along the way it could be destroyed or saved to pass on to another existence (a bad possibility would be the sideways world, where too many conflicting variables make it into one happy, sloppy finish to the epic story).
I am also wondering if the "infection" on the island is the Black Death in the underworld. In the real world, one contracts the disease and dies, releasing your soul to the after life. In the afterlife, one's soul contracts the disease and turns into pure evil.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
S6E8 CON DESCENDING
"Recon" was an overdose of liars conning other liars.
Flocke admits that he conned Claire into believing that the Others had stolen her baby, Aaron. It fed that illusion into Claire's marginal brain so she could survive on the hate building up within her. Flocke could be considered a farmer; he is cultivating a crop of Hate.
Flocke has fully darkened the hatred within Sayid. It conned Sayid with the promise that he could be with Nadia again. Flocke never said when or where or how. I just see a distant off-ramp called Hell.
Flocke lets pit bull Claire to attack Kate in order to set up a "double con" on Kate later. By taking responsibility for Claire's actions, Flocke attempts to let Kate's survivalist instincts down and prey upon the reason Kate returned to the island to find Claire. By putting Claire into a fake "time out," it makes it appear that Claire has changed to apologize to Kate. In the bear hug of remorse, Claire is actually "infecting" Kate with Smokey's darkness. When Flocke takes Kate to the beach to wait for Sawyer's return, it claims to have had a "crazy mother." Flocke must be channeling memories of John Locke because when does smoke monsters have mothers? It was a set up of authoritative opinion that Aaron also has a crazy mother in Claire. This is to shock Kate into having no purpose in leaving the island to reunite mother and child. She needs to tether herself to something or someone, and the only confident left is Sawyer, for whom Flocke desperately wants to manipulate to the end game.
I did not buy into Sawyer's "triple cross." First, Flocke already knew what was going on at Hydra (he was heading his recruits there). The Ajira victims appeared to be mowed down like the Temple people. Second, Widmore was too quick to "deal" with Sawyer (besides if both know he is Smokey, no one said they know how or if Smokey can be killed). Third, Flocke expected Sawyer to lie to him, and when he did not, Smokey's plan self-executed. Fourth, when Sawyer told Kate he is going after the sub, he was in essence telling Smokey because after Claire's "hug" I believe Kate is now "infected"= partially under Smokey's control.
History will repeat itself. If Smokey is channeling Locke's memories, Flocke will blow up the sub: no one is leaving the island, including Flocke. Flocke just wants "loyal" worshippers. The rest be damned. I think this is the final glide path of the story line, the slow descent into Hell.
Flocke admits that he conned Claire into believing that the Others had stolen her baby, Aaron. It fed that illusion into Claire's marginal brain so she could survive on the hate building up within her. Flocke could be considered a farmer; he is cultivating a crop of Hate.
Flocke has fully darkened the hatred within Sayid. It conned Sayid with the promise that he could be with Nadia again. Flocke never said when or where or how. I just see a distant off-ramp called Hell.
Flocke lets pit bull Claire to attack Kate in order to set up a "double con" on Kate later. By taking responsibility for Claire's actions, Flocke attempts to let Kate's survivalist instincts down and prey upon the reason Kate returned to the island to find Claire. By putting Claire into a fake "time out," it makes it appear that Claire has changed to apologize to Kate. In the bear hug of remorse, Claire is actually "infecting" Kate with Smokey's darkness. When Flocke takes Kate to the beach to wait for Sawyer's return, it claims to have had a "crazy mother." Flocke must be channeling memories of John Locke because when does smoke monsters have mothers? It was a set up of authoritative opinion that Aaron also has a crazy mother in Claire. This is to shock Kate into having no purpose in leaving the island to reunite mother and child. She needs to tether herself to something or someone, and the only confident left is Sawyer, for whom Flocke desperately wants to manipulate to the end game.
I did not buy into Sawyer's "triple cross." First, Flocke already knew what was going on at Hydra (he was heading his recruits there). The Ajira victims appeared to be mowed down like the Temple people. Second, Widmore was too quick to "deal" with Sawyer (besides if both know he is Smokey, no one said they know how or if Smokey can be killed). Third, Flocke expected Sawyer to lie to him, and when he did not, Smokey's plan self-executed. Fourth, when Sawyer told Kate he is going after the sub, he was in essence telling Smokey because after Claire's "hug" I believe Kate is now "infected"= partially under Smokey's control.
History will repeat itself. If Smokey is channeling Locke's memories, Flocke will blow up the sub: no one is leaving the island, including Flocke. Flocke just wants "loyal" worshippers. The rest be damned. I think this is the final glide path of the story line, the slow descent into Hell.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
S6E3 INFECTION
When Dogen used the term "claimed" to describe Sayid's condition, several things came to mind. First, possession by an outside force, such as an (evil) spirit. Second, a more scientific explanation, like an infection. Rousseau claimed to Sayid that all the Others were infected by the "sickness." And we learned she was referring to the transformation of humans after being captured (consumed) by Smokey. It is also of note that when Desmond was caged up in the Hatch, he was routinely giving himself a "vaccine" against an unknown illness. That is why the Island was under some kind of quarantine.
In a pseudo-scientific explanation of the Dogen analysis could follow the pattern of a supernatural staph infection:
Staph bacteria are normally found on the skin or in the nose of about one-third of the population. If you have staph on your skin or in your nose but aren't sick, you are said to be "colonized" but not infected. Healthy people can be colonized and have no ill effects. However, they can pass the germ to others.
>>>> This is what could have happened to the 815ers. Once they were "brought" to the Island, they have been in contact with the Island bacteria and "colonized."
Staph bacteria are generally harmless unless they enter the body through a cut or other wound, and even then they often cause only minor skin problems in healthy people.
>>>> More proof that you are safe unless you have an open portal for the Island bacteria to invade a body. Prime example: Sayid's gunshot wound in the belly.
A weakened individual can have the bacteria grow into a serious infection. The bacteria could be immune from antibiotics as over time the germs find a resistance to the drugs. Also, germ mutations can form making current antibiotics ineffective.
Smokey can have the pattern of a mutant Island bacteria colony. It can infect human bodies when they are in a weakened state, such as just before death. Example, during the freighter fire-fight, Claire's cabin was blown up, and she came back to life in a groggy state (just like Sayid at the Temple). Dogen claims that Claire is like Sayid, infected by the darkness that will spread to their heart, obliterating that person as you would know them (like Flocke). Whether this Smokey bacteria can be a parasite and use dead bodies like Christian as a reanimated host is unclear. There may be two different minute cellular organisms at work.
The bacteria can only take hold with a weakened individual. In an Island sense, that may mean an individual whose mental or moral state has been weakened to a state of collapse and abandonment of hope. Sayid's conversation to Hurley at the van was a good example: Sayid was resigned to his fate because knew his time was up, and he knew he was going to hell ("an unpleasant place"). But little did he know, he would have a second chance on the Island to become a different kind of monster.
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