Drealmcc0y
Banned
hamchan said:
Dont worry, took me a few minutes too
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Dont worry, took me a few minutes too
Well, yeah:oatmeal said:
a) Building a gigantic statue, a temple, a magical lighthouse, etc when you're a bunch of Egyptians stranded on an island that's cut-off from the outside world and populated by one murderous smoke monster
and
b) owning a lunchbox
... are absolutely comparable scenarios. Is one of the two slightly more perplexing than the other? I sure can't tell.
Oh, and:
My bad. The candy bar was for Jack. It was the candy bar that killed his father.Erigu said:
For Kate, he paid for the lunchbox and made her promise not to steal again. That makes much more sense, obviously.
And Sawyer got the pen that sent him on his quest for revenge. Had Jacob not been there at that precise moment, that wouldn't have happened: kid was obviously seconds away from getting over the death of his parents.
Everything takes a back seat to the characters. How did the Black Rock get there? How did the statue get destroyed? Why was the hatch created? All of those things have a direct link characters we love and were answered.
How was the island created? How was the light of the island or heart created? How was the statue created? How does the after life exist? Those things date back thousands-billions-timeless years before the characters and isn't the priority of the story being told.
What the characters do at the locations are more important than how they exist.
In all seriousness, the source of the lunch box is more important to me than the creation of the statue.
How was the island created? How was the light of the island or heart created? How was the statue created? How does the after life exist? Those things date back thousands-billions-timeless years before the characters and isn't the priority of the story being told.
What the characters do at the locations are more important than how they exist.
In all seriousness, the source of the lunch box is more important to me than the creation of the statue.
cyclonekruse
Member
So, this discussion has made me go back and watch Across the Sea again. A lot of things puzzled me. First, I was trying to figure out some of the chronology of the Island. Who got there first? When were the temple and statue built? Stuff like that. But then it got to the part with the MiB and Mother talking in the well. And I was wondering what was so special about conjoining the water and the light. Then the whole "rules" thing puzzled me. And finally, there was the flashback scene where Locke declares the bodies to be their "very own Adam and Eve."
That's when it hit me. Adam and Eve. The whole Genesis story. The first thing that struck me was how Eve ate of the Forbidden Fruit first, followed by Adam. Our "Eve" entered the light first and became a smoke monster, followed by our "Adam." They "ate" of the Forbidden Fruit and were then cursed. And part of their abilities included mindreading. Indeed, they knew all of the good and evil a person did and used it to judge, at least in Egyptian times. It's the Tree of Knowledge. And then, of course, there's the Tree of Life. Which led me to look it up on Wikipedia. Some interesting things to note:
Given how much Judeo-Christian imagery is used in the show, I think it's plausible that the Bible at least partially inspired the mythology of the Island. Then, of course, there are the numerous references to Egyptians in the show. So I looked into Egyptian mythology on Wiki. Some interesting things there as well.
The biggest is that the creation myths center around a mound rising from the primeval waters of chaos. From the mound emerges (depending on the particular version) a god which is said to be the source of all things, who is often associated with the sun. So bastardizing that a bit, you could see the Island (the mound in the chaotic waters) and the Source (the sun god that creates all things).
Just food for thought.
That's when it hit me. Adam and Eve. The whole Genesis story. The first thing that struck me was how Eve ate of the Forbidden Fruit first, followed by Adam. Our "Eve" entered the light first and became a smoke monster, followed by our "Adam." They "ate" of the Forbidden Fruit and were then cursed. And part of their abilities included mindreading. Indeed, they knew all of the good and evil a person did and used it to judge, at least in Egyptian times. It's the Tree of Knowledge. And then, of course, there's the Tree of Life. Which led me to look it up on Wikipedia. Some interesting things to note:
Ancient Egypt said:
Baha'i Faith said:
Another similarity to Genesis is that Adam and Eve were charged by God to protect and look after Eden.Christianity said:
Given how much Judeo-Christian imagery is used in the show, I think it's plausible that the Bible at least partially inspired the mythology of the Island. Then, of course, there are the numerous references to Egyptians in the show. So I looked into Egyptian mythology on Wiki. Some interesting things there as well.
The biggest is that the creation myths center around a mound rising from the primeval waters of chaos. From the mound emerges (depending on the particular version) a god which is said to be the source of all things, who is often associated with the sun. So bastardizing that a bit, you could see the Island (the mound in the chaotic waters) and the Source (the sun god that creates all things).
Just food for thought.
Drealmcc0y
Banned
cyclonekruse said:
Nice man
tycoonheart
Member
DeathNote said:
The reason the statue even came up was because some of us think the writers threw the 4-toed statue in w/o having a history or reason for it. Us Lost viewers put more thought into its existence than the writers might have at the time. This goes back to some of us believing the writers were throwing shit on the wall and seeing what stuck.
Drealmcc0y
Banned
tycoonheart said:
With no proof to back it up.
People ruined the show for themselves because they were so obsessed with knowing whether the writers had a plan or not.
tycoonheart
Member
Drealmcc0y said:
But Erigu's posted multiple quotes from the two creators suggesting they knew what the plan was. Don't blame the viewers, blame the fucking jackasses who said that.
Drealmcc0y
Banned
tycoonheart said:
OK, whose to say they didnt know what the plan was lol
tycoonheart
Member
Drealmcc0y said:
Then why wasn't it disclosed on the show?
Drealmcc0y
Banned
tycoonheart said:
Because the writers had no intention of handing out answers.
I mean look at Across the Sea. That hardly gives you any answers on the surface, but once u start digging, it gives tons of answers.
tycoonheart
Member
Drealmcc0y said:
If by "digging" you mean doing what cyclonekruse did, which is borderline insanity, then no thank you.
Drealmcc0y
Banned
tycoonheart said:
Its up 2 u, how much you wanna dig.
I personally have no interest in digging that far either.
Just as much as i needed to make me satasfied.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
Yeah, the line about how he made the island moving apparatus by "combining light and water" seems like stupidest, most inane explanation for anything ever at first glance, but once you delve into it and deconstruct the meaning of it - it becomes brilliant. How does one combine 'light and water'? What is the nature of this 'light and water' and how must one 'combine' them? The questions themselves are mindblowing let alone the answers.Drealmcc0y said:
And the reason MIB knows how to do this according to the show? Because he's "special". Well that just opens up another can of worms. What does it mean to be "special"? Is he more or less "special" than Jacob? etc. etc. etc.
Someone really should devote a whole text to the intricacies of the deep, deep questions which 'Across the Sea' brought up.
Drealmcc0y
Banned
dave is ok said:
I have no idea how combining the water and the light works, nor do i care.
Actually you just brought up an answer to the show that you dont realise when u first watch.
AtS answers what it means to be special. It answers Walt specialness.
People who are special are natural candidates for protector of the island. These are the people in tune with the island, because they are naturally special. Its like what Hurley says to Walt in the epilogue. "You just need to get back to the island, thats where u belong, thats where you've always belonged"
MiB was special because he was a natural candidate for protector, thats why Mother favoured him more. But "theres always a choice" so because of circumstances. Jacobs was made protector.
Thats the conclusion ive come to anyway and I really like it.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
tycoonheart said:
then watch something else. and let those of us who do enjoy the digging and searching and understand it enjoy it. the thing is, Lost provided for all. it had character drama and sci-fi and fantasy and answers about it's mithology but yet it's never enough.
Drealmcc0y
Banned
Blader5489 said:
Disagree, but thats just me.
I explained in my other post.
Knowing more about the history and rules of that fictional universe would help quite a bit with the question of why the characters do some of the things they do. As TheExodu5 pointed out earlier, we got a lot more of "what"s than "why"s, on the show.DeathNote said:
(^ this assumes there actually is something to know, and the characters' actions would then make sense... as you can imagine, I don't believe that's the case, here)
For example, when we're told that we shouldn't be asking questions like "why exactly does the island have to protected, and what would happen if it were to be destroyed?" or "what kind of apocalyptic scenario would play out if the Man in Black escaped, exactly? why would he want to kill everybody?" because the answer is "unknowable" or "besides the point", I call BS. Why would one become protector of the island? Why this "war" against the Man in Black, exactly? We don't know why the characters are doing all that, and we don't know the stakes.
And then, there would also be the matter of all those vague "rules"...
How was the source of the lunchbox important? She had a lunchbox as a kid. You already knew that when the lunchbox was introduced. So she had tried to steal it? How does it matter? What does that change? Does it inform her future character?
And again, it's not just the matter of the creation of the statue, but of the general scope and sometimes supernatural nature of that ancient society's legacy. If Egyptians managed to be DHARMA thousands of years before DHARMA, I think that's something that warrants at the very least a few lines of explanations. And considering how long the show was and how vapid/pointless many of its plotlines were, there definitely would have been room for those.
The showrunners hinted at that in the audio commentary by pointing out that it would have been "impressive, especially in daylight", for a woman like her to wipe out the village all by herself against "twenty armed men", yeah... But I've got this feeling they were just parroting a relatively popular fan theory they found on the net... While her being a smoke monster would help explain her feat, I'd then have to wonder how the Man in Black managed to kill her.cyclonekruse said:
And for the record, according to the Lost Encyclopedia, she used the cover of night to kill Claudia's people while they slept. Heh.
It's like the outrigger shootout thing: there are several contradictory official versions, but hey, that doesn't mean they have no idea what's going on! Why would you think that?
Drealmcc0y
Banned
The reason MiB could kill Mother despite her being a smokey is because a smoke monster can be killed by normal means.
The reason why MiB cant be killed is because Mother made a rule in secret:
Boy in Black: "Whats dead?"
Mother: Something you will never have to worry about"
I think she made him immortal
The reason why MiB cant be killed is because Mother made a rule in secret:
Boy in Black: "Whats dead?"
Mother: Something you will never have to worry about"
I think she made him immortal
Both Jacob and his brother died.Drealmcc0y said:
While I guess you could argue the Man in Black could die because the island was unplugged at the time and that had voided whatever rules Mommy came up with, the same can't be said of Jacob. He was stabbed and died. His brother was stabbed and survived.
Drealmcc0y
Banned
Erigu said:
No only his body died. His spirit/soul merged with the darkness/evil.
I was talking about him getting shot by Kate in the finale. And like I said, maybe you could explain that away by saying Mother's invulnerability rule (your scenario) was voided by the island being unplugged at the time.Drealmcc0y said:
But there would still be Jacob. Unless you're arguing Mother only made the Boy in Black invulnerable, in that scene, but really...
Drealmcc0y
Banned
Erigu said:
Well yes everyone knows why he was killed in the finale, duh.
She favoured MiB because he was special
We know he lost his smoke powers and got killed because the island was unplugged, yeah. But your theory that he was invulnerable not because he was a smoke monster, but rather because of a rule made up by Mother is another matter.Drealmcc0y said:
Well, that's shitty.
Anyway, if the Man in Black actually became invulnerable as a kid, why could his Mother knock him out, and Jacob beat the crap out of him? When Sayid attacked him with that dagger, it didn't do anything. I'd say that hints at him only becoming invulnerable after his fall in that cave and his transformation into a smoke monster.
And we'd be back to Mother being an oddly vulnerable smoke monster.
Drealmcc0y
Banned
shock horror ^
dave is ok
aztek is ok
I actually have a better answer for this than Dreal does.
The island wasn't corked during Across The Sea, the light is much brighter in that episode than in the episodes later on. This explains why the mother could be killed
Of course it doesn't explain why she is still a smoke monster that can kill 25 people at once
The island wasn't corked during Across The Sea, the light is much brighter in that episode than in the episodes later on. This explains why the mother could be killed
Of course it doesn't explain why she is still a smoke monster that can kill 25 people at once
Drealmcc0y
Banned
dave is ok said:
lol "better answer"
poor Internet elitist
dave is ok
aztek is ok
Exactly. The show is a messErigu said:
The sloppiest kind of storytelling you can have is where one character can make arbitrary 'rules' for no reason at all and every other character just follows them until it's either proven that they can broken later on or completely forgotten about.
My answer actually uses evidence which the show gave us.Drealmcc0y said:
Drealmcc0y
Banned
dave is ok said:
Are you serious?
The island isnt supposed to be corked.
Using a cork and a button isnt what it should be happening.
The island existed probably from the beginning of time.
Only when humans start fucking around with the source do they end up corking and buttoning it all up
dave is ok
aztek is ok
Jacob must be a real shitty protector of the island to allow that to happen at least twice, then.Drealmcc0y said:
Drealmcc0y
Banned
dave is ok said:
Well thats why the Di was killed off in the purge.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
I guess thats what happened to the hundreds of Egyptians tooDrealmcc0y said:
Drealmcc0y
Banned
dave is ok said:
No the others only began with Richard. Who knows how the egyptians died out
And when the audience has to extrapolate all of those rules and to excuse inconsistencies away by also making up exceptions to those rules for every other case...dave is ok said:
Richard and the Others don't travel in time despite the fact Locke (who was standing right next to them) and Jin (who wasn't even on the island) do. Maybe it's a candidate thing? No, wait, Juliet, Faraday, Charlotte and Miles do as well.
Jack, Kate, Hugo and Sayid disappear from the plane. Maybe it's a candidate thing? No, wait, Kate isn't a candidate anymore, at that point.
GhostBoyJacob can be seen by the Man in Black, but not by Richard. Guess that's a family thing. No, wait, Sawyer can see him, too. Guess that's because he's a candidate. No, wait, Desmond can see him, too.
The magical cave turns you into a smoke monster. No, wait, Desmond is fine. Maybe that's because of his supposed immunity to magical electromagnetism? No, wait, Jack is fine, too. Maybe that's because he's the protector of the island? No, wait, was he still the protector of the island, when the island was unplugged? The Man in Black could hurt him, so...? Maybe there was no rule to prevent the Man in Black from killing him? But why wouldn't Jack make rules like that, now that he's in charge? No, wait, he gives the job to Hurley before plugging the island back, so that should mean he still had his protector powers? No, wait, the Lost Encyclopedia answers that one: the effects of the cave are unpredictable.
FFFFFFFFFFFF
So what is the "natural" state of that cave, back in Across the Sea, when the light is brighter, and the island isn't self-destructing? The magical energy or whatever isn't free but still emits more light than when it's corked?Drealmcc0y said:
Mother didn't wait for Richard and his Others to genocide the hell out of the people she had brought on the island because they were getting too curious.
Drealmcc0y
Banned
Wait Erigu bought the lostpedia?
cyclonekruse
Member
I have a guess on that, but it's a lot of speculation and somewhat complicated. Erigu, consider that fair warning because I'm sure you'll dislike it.Erigu said:
The rule was only that Jacob and MiB couldn't intentionally kill each other. Intentionally is the key word. They could still beat the crap out of each other as evidenced by Jacob doing just that. Mother didn't have any such safeguard. She was vulnerable to death by anyone (aside from herself, presumably--just like how Richard couldn't kill himself). So MiB stabs her and kills her.
Later, Jacob tosses MiB in the water in an attempt to banish him from the Island. He never intended to kill him, but he did anyway. (I think Lindeloff mentioned something about that in a podcast.) The death wasn't immediate, however. He died upon entering the cave. And that's the difference between Mother and him. He was already bodily dead when he became Smokey. She was not. She was both a Smokey AND mortal (on account of her still having a body). He was just a Smokey who could take on the image/form of a body. Stabbing the Mother did real damage. Stabbing MiB was just stabbing smoke.
Later, Jacob starts imbuing the Candidates with the selfsame protection from the MiB that he has.
That's the best I can do.
As for the cork, I have to believe that it was there before AtS. Lostpedia places that episode as being around 2000 years before Oceanic 815 crashed on the Island. That puts it around year 0, give or take. The Egyptian ruins and the statue seem like they were built much earlier than that. Plus the script on the cork is cuneiform, which was in vogue several millennia B.C. Also, the height of the Egyptian civilization was well before the Romans (Claudia spoke Latin) gained power, was it not?
Well, they tried to explain that whole "they can't kill each other" thingy by having Mother say "I've made it so you can't hurt each other". So there's no "kill" nor "intentionally". And then Jacob beats the crap out of his brother, and I'd assume that would hurt, too.cyclonekruse said:
I mean... When the show goes out of its way to finally explain something like that (and you can just picture them high-fiving in the writers' room: "yeah! case closed!"), but the audience pretty much has to immediately rewrite said explanation by changing several elements so that it would actually work... well, there's a bit of a problem. And I'm not sure I really feel like doing the writers' job for them, here (especially considering that wouldn't be the only issue with the plot anyway, far from it).
But all right! Let's say that's what the actual rule was, here.
You think? Why would he believe that would banish him from the island?
I don't think he expected him to literally "leave this place". Nor do I think he would have wanted his brother to actually succeed in leaving the island. I think the guy was just really, really pissed off. Mother said that going into the light would be very bad for your teeth, and Jacob wanted to hurt his brother.
But your main point appears to be that he didn't actually intend to kill his brother, and I can agree with that. The way I see it, the guy didn't really know what he was doing: he was just furious.
Yeeeah, I can't follow you on that one, indeed...
I did make some shit up in order to try and tie up some loose ends, earlier, but this... For me, that's just way too much wild extrapolation, based on way too little... I mean, we don't even know that Mother was a smoke monster, and we'd have to extrapolate that she was another kind of smoke monster because of the way she (supposedly) fell in that "cave-with-unpredictable-effects".
Maybe on another show where I didn't feel the writers had absolutely no clue and didn't care anyway, I'd be willing to fanwank to that extent in order to see if I could fix an apparent inconsistency... But here, I'll have to leave you to it. Good luck with that. ^^;
That's also how I pictured the timeline, initially, but after reading some comments from the showrunners (-> said comments) and discussing it here with people who were convinced it was the other way around, I went "oh, well, all right, I guess it could work, too... besides, Claudia appears to be Roman, yeah, but it seems kinda odd that a Roman would name her son "Jacob" (maybe that's just me though), and we have several sources giving precise years for the events of the episodes and they can't seem to agree with each other... it probably isn't worth over-analyzing..."
But you're right about the cuneiform script on the cork. Thanks for pointing that out. I had forgotten about that and had been picturing it as hieroglyphs for a while, probably because of this post (from the Lost Encyclopedia). I read Egyptian god names, and I just think "hieroglyphs". Whoops.
But according to Wikipedia (I really don't know much about this, myself), the cuneiform script had become extinct by the 2nd century AD, so I guess you could still make it work...? I don't know...
Another fucking insane Doc Jensen Lost article.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20313460_20498633,00.html
Kinda nostalgic.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20313460_20498633,00.html
Kinda nostalgic.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Erigu said:
LOL, that is classic!!!
I follow this thread because I'm a huge LOST fan, always have been, and I just finished a second watchthru the other day (finally) and there is one thing I've come to accept as a truth:
don't try to make too much sense of the show, because the story is a mess.
I mean I love the show and I always will, but you have to watch it for what it is: a character show. It can't give you all the answers because the writers didn't KNOW all of the answers. They didn't care. It just wasn't a priority to them. Watching the whole shebang again makes that more clear to me now than ever. Doesn't mean it detracts from the great character show that it is, but looking for something that isn't there will just drive you crazy (ie: answers and explanations).
Welp, back to you guys trying to figure it all out. Good luck!!!
BuggyDClown
Member
Cant wait. After xmen tday S1 Finale then S2 premiere for my ultimate rewatch. Going to do two this summer. When I road trip to LA Ill play the whole season again. Though this one has been one of my favorites even though Its the 16th time throughh. Mostly cause my cousin is watching it with me for the first time.
D
Deleted member 22576
Unconfirmed Member
Erigu said:
In general I agree with this. Everyone says "but it's really about the characters." And it is, but the characters got kinda bad along the way, too. It really wasn't helped by killing off the legitimately interesting new characters before they really got a chance to shine as well. Things just got too messy, and it lost it's emotional resonance.
I love lost, I always will.. but in my opinion after the season3 finale it became a VERY different show than what I think of as the genuine greatness the show represents in my mind.
Drealmcc0y
Banned
Mengy said:
So basically it (AGAIN) comes down to whether the writers knew what they were doing or not.
But theres no proof. So everything you say is garbage.
Its all so fucking hysterical.
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