The Desmond Factor

Looking back at old episodes as well as following the new ones, something has been bugging me. I’ve wondered for a while just how much Desmonds past was manipulated for him. But now I am wondering who and why. Let’s look at a few things.

• In his early life Des was little more then your average Scotsman. He liked to drink and he supported Glasgow Celtic (one of Scotlands better soccer teams). He was likely a Catholic. Liked the girls. Had trouble with commitment. He worked to support his younger brothers after something happened to his father and never had time to finish University.
• One day that changes. He went out drinking and having doubts about whether his future lay with marriage to Ruth (his long term girlfriend). He woke to the face of Brother Campbell offering him help. Something in him told him to follow the brother and that he had a calling that at the time made him think that calling was to become a monk.
• Now this is where things get interesting. The monks have a vow of silence which they use to initiate new members. This can last for a varying length of time. For Desmond it took such a long time that Brother Campbell thought he may never make it. We don’t know how long this was but the suggestion is that it was over a month (as a month was the standard time for those they were unsure of). Could it been as many as 108 days? I have often thought so.
• The monks worked to produce wine, which they sell for just over £100. Again I’m thinking £108. By the time Des left, they had bottled 108 of them. The wine was named the wine “Moriah” after the mountain on which God asked Abraham to kill his son Isaac.
• Could this be some kind of conditioning or was he merely there so that he could be led to the events that would follow it?
• Upon being fired as a Monk he met Penny who had come to the monks to collect some of the wine. This moment set up Desmond’s life on the path which led him to participate in many pinnacle events in the Lost mythos, such as:
• Reaching the Island and taking over the running of the Swan, pressing the button every 108 minutes
• Being part of the incident that led to Flight 815 crashing on the island.
• Being the one that turns the key to de-activate the Swan relatively safely.
• Being a key person in the events that led to the Oceanic Six leaving the island.
• Travelling in time twice, the second time meeting up with Daniel Faraday and helping him develop his understanding of time travel (as well as becoming his constant).
• The head of the Monastery, Brother Campbell had a very curious picture on his desk showing him outside the Monastery with one Eloise Hawking.
• Was he at one time romantically linked with her?
• Were they friends?
• Were they part of a secret organisation?
• Did she act as a proxy for someone to help him set up the Monastery and/or wine making operation?
• Now Eloise has an interesting number of links herself.
• As well as being the resident expert on where and when the Island is, she is the mother of Daniel Faraday. A man linked with Desmond through time travel experiences and possibly the most knowledgeable person on time travel around.
• She appears to have been on the Island as an Other in the 50’s along with Charles Widmore. She still has links with Widmore as he funded her sons research and knew where she could be found.
• She was working with Ben to get the others back on the island giving her links to the current Others as well as Widmore.
• The strangest thing though is her appearance in Desmond’s flashback. Was she manipulating Desmond all along? Did she tell her son about Desmond so that he knew Des was someone that could actually change events while time travelling?

So even back in Desmond’s earliest flashback to date it seems that Widmore, Ben, The Others and/or Eloise could have been manipulating his life. They could have been doing it on behalf of the Island or there own ends. Apparently the Island isn’t done with him yet, even though he chose not to come. But then Ben’s secret little side mission may have changed that. I am certain we will see more of Des and that this mystery will unravel itself. It will certainly be interesting!

UPDATE: With the events of Episode 5x07 and the revelation that one of Widmores employee's, Matthew Abbadon specializes in "getting people to where they need to go" I am even more convinced that Charles Widmore had similarly had a hand in Desmonds destiny. Especially considering that it seems Ben wasn't already linked up with Eloise beforehand.

Season Five and all that Jazz.

So We’re back…finally. The season is in full swing and a lot of questions have been answered, semi-answered or replaced with twice as many questions. We’ve seen Charles Widmore with hair, Hurley throw away food, Locke leave the island, Jack join up with Ben, Sawyer give a man hug, Jin translating Korean for people, dogs and cat’s living together…chaos!

what do I make of it? Well with this season bouncing around the past and future of the island there has never been a better time to go back and look at older episodes and that is what I have been doing, both leading up to the new season and since it started. It’s given me a perspective on a few things that I would like to share.

Healing, Sickness and Vaccinations

• When the Island heals someone does it share a deeper link with them? Is it possible that the Dharma vaccine was to prevent the islands healing powers and stop that link with people that it caused? This would explain why Kelvin did not heal while Patchy did. Speaking of healing why did it not heal the Marshall?
  

• Is the sickness that Danielles group had after going to the temple the same as the one that the babies were vaccinated against and the same as the one the Dharma initiative was vaccinated against? I can understand the Dharma link, but why would the Others vaccinate a baby against the island seeing as it seems having this sickness is what makes an other an other.
  

• Early in season one, Claire commented to Shannon that she hadn't felt the baby kick since the crash. This seemed to be about 24 hours of not feeling the baby. Which is not a good sign. Then a while later she felt it kick again. With everything else going on no one really took that much notice and of course as the baby was fine again by the time things started to settle (comparatively anyway) it seemed to become less relevant. However, I wonder if the island healed the baby. Perhaps even brought it back to life. That would make Arron special indeed.

The Kids are alright (apparently)

• Speaking of Arron, We now have four children of survivors: Walt, Arron, Charlie and Ji. What is there destiny? Of course Charlie has spent no time on the island, but with genetic links to the Widmore family and the unique Desmond he would seem likely to be special.
  

• Is there still relevance in the choice of name for Arron? Eko actually spelled out it's meaning and before that it had been asked about. Is Arron to be a spokesperson for “Moses”? Is he to be some kind of high priest? When the characters actually take time to talk about that kind of thing, it puts your suspicion levels high.
  

• Back in season one, Walt had the comic he was reading burned by his father. The comic showed a heroic battle against a polar bear. I think perhaps Walt created the situation where the polar bear attacked him and Micheal had to save him, so his father would be just like the super hero in the comic that he burned.
  

• He also mentioned about being attacked by a shark before they set out on the raft where they would eventually be attacked by a shark. Did he predict that?
  

• Interestingly though, while he seemed to be foreseeing everything else, he didn’t say anything about the Others capturing him. Did he not see it, or did he on some level want that to happen?
  

• Why did Walt see the opening of the hatch as very bad? This seems to conflict a little with the islands apparent desire to shut down the hatch. It's also easy to assume that he went on the raft because of the hatch, but was it actually because he needed the others to capture him?

The Swan

• That brings me to the Hatch. By the end of season two it seemed the island wanted the hatch to be shut down. Walt appeared saying not to push the button and events seem to have conspired to make sure the hatch was shut down, including Eko being told in a dream about taking Locke to the the Question Mark, which led to him losing his faith and causing the hatch to be destroyed. I also think maybe Charlie, when he told Locke about Desmond, was actually the island in disguise. He seemed to be acting a little strange and far more purposeful then usual.
  

• Did the hatch keep the islands moving/time travel in check? Perhaps the island couldn’t move while it was still there.
  

• I know a lot of people now feel that the bomb which was seen this season was buried under the concrete at the Swan. This seems to be supported by stray comments by Sayid (who said the only time he had heard about this much concrete being poured on something with Chernobyl) and by Desmond (who commented that it would take a nuclear blast to get through the blast doors). There is also the links to the “Swan Device” which was part of a US test in 1956 (part of Operation Redwing).
  

• I’m not 100% certain about this. With Alvar Hanso being involved in advanced weapons design for the UN around this time, it would seem that he would at least be aware of the weapon and probably wouldn’t build a station around it. Then again maybe Dharma felt that the island had had a strange effect on it and there was some way to harness it. The second doubt I have involves the fact that the Swan has imploded. It is likely we will see more of the bomb and if it is simply a thing of the (relative) past that reduces the possibility of it being involved in the (relative) future. Of course time travel can factor into countering this and I can’t think right now of how else the device will fit into the puzzle.

Latin

• The others speak “Vulgar Latin”. That is a spoken form of Latin, not used in churches or for scientific writing (as Juliet suggested) but instead the Latin of the common folk of quite a large geographical area around the Mediterranean sea.
  

• Carthage/Tunisia isn’t one of those countries. But perhaps the Others first came from one of these areas when the island was around there and their descendants eventually forgot where they got their language from.
  

• If the Others originated from the period/area where Vulgar Latin was common then this means that they are not survivors of the Black Rock slave vessel (which left port much later), nor are they likely directly related to the ancient civilisation behind such things as the hieroglyphs and the four toed statue.

More on this season

• Did the Island really want Locke to turn the wheel instead of Ben? Or when it said Locke needed to move the island was it talking about the second time, after Ben had moved it?
  

• It seemed that Locke was in the past, before the Dharma initiative or whomever built the well turned up on the island. So that means a past island move was actually due to Locke. Did the island perhaps pop up right under a certain slave ship at this point?
  

• Did Ben kill Locke? After all he said that he “went to see him” and yet he didn’t seem to get a lot of answers from him and why would Locke give him Jins watch?

Random Notes

• Is there a significance to the fact that Eko's brother may have been dead already when he reached the island. Like Christian Sheppard and presumably like Locke will be.
  

• In season two Hurley got Sayid to fix a radio. Briefly it picked up some Glenn Miller. Hurley joked that the radio broadcast could have been from "any time", maybe it was? Like we saw in that disappointing second (not-exactly-an) ARG.
  

• On a side note apparently “Orchid” is Greek for testicle. Thank you QI. Lol.
  

• I still find Desmond’s comments to Jack in the stadium where they first met a little creepy. Did he know Sarah’s surgery was successful?

Lord of the Flies

The book Lord of the Flies isn't ever shown on the show, but it's referenced in conversation several times. One being the quote above from Sawyer in Season one's ...In Translation. Also Charlie, in season two's What Kate Did says, "They seem to have had a rough time of it. It looks like they went bloody Lord of the Flies out there."

I feel that the similarities between the plot and characters of this book and the show Lost are somewhat glaring. From the survivalist tactics, to the sheer denial of what is going on. So I'll have a go at what it all means.

The Characters:

I'm going to look at only three main characters here, Piggy, Ralph, and Jack.

Piggy is in most ways our Hurley. He is most similar to him physically, and his mental prowess is overlooked because of his physical image. Clearly not all parts of Piggy are Hurley-like. Where Hurley is liked by everyone, and the comic relief at times, Piggy is whiney and unliked by pretty much everyone. The thing that is important to note between the two though is that they both have great ideas, and they are often overlooked because of how they present themselves in the societies of their respective islands.

• Piggy often has the best ideas and solutions for problems, and they most often get credited to others or ignored completely.
• Hurley is looked at as the one everyone loves, and has only recently started gaining importance as a contributing member of the survivors. He saved the day on the beach with the Volkswagen Bus, he is now seeing Jacob's cabin which is a huge deal and has gained him a lot of value. He also (like Piggy) seems to have the best understanding of the personalities on the island, and how they mesh.

Ralph is the reluctant hero of the book. Although not the brightest or best under pressure (often being fed ideas by Piggy) he is gentle, kind, and has a rational head on his shoulders. Where others get caught up in games and madness, Ralph tries to remain rational and do what he thinks is the best for the group as a whole.

• Jack is our most likely Ralph. As a doctor he was sort of made the leader of the Losties although he didn't ask for it. He tries to think ahead and do what he thinks is in the best interest of the group. When faced with impossible situations he tries to be rational and not get caught up in the madness that surrounds him.
• As Lost progresses things seem to go for Jack as they did for Ralph. Jack ends up with his small group of followers who are trying to do the right thing, stay out of trouble, and just get off the island. Locke on the other hand takes his group to the barracks and battens down for a battle.

Jack is our wild child. He wants to hunt, kill, and have adventures. I feel that Sawyer is our most likely Jack candidate. While John Locke and Ben wind up as a close second. There are lots of reason why these characters reflect Jack and his wild unpredictable side.

• His willingness to resort to violence, his ritual with the slaughters, etc. But one thing in particular stand out between he and Sawyer. Sawyer is a grifter, and he wants revenge for the death of his mother. In order to do this he masks himself and takes on the identity of the man who killed his mother. Jack, in the book, wants desperately to kill the pig, but he can't. However, once he covers his face in mud and ash, he is able to ritualistically hunt and kill the pig, and revel in the experience. Hiding who they really are behind masks and falsehoods make it possible for them to do things that perhaps they wouldn't normally be able to do.
• This seems to be an ongoing theme of the island life on Lost. People there are not who they are in their real lives, the anonymity of the island allows them to shine as they couldn't before, or reveal sides of themselves that had until that point lay dormant. Everyone gets redemption and a fresh start on Lost Island for the simple fact that at first, no one knows who anyone is.
• I do think though that is where the similarities between the two end. Where Jack is wild, violent, and irrational, Sawyer is calculating and compassionate. Jack would burn up the whole island to get his vengeance on Ralph, which is much more Ben or John Locke like.

The Lord of the Flies:

In Lost there have been plenty of instances where folks see things and hear things that aren't really there (or maybe they are...). This also happens in the novel. The heat during the day causes the boys to see mirages on the ocean, and think that they see and hear things in the jungle. The scene where Simon confronts The Lord of the Flies particularly stands out.

• The boys in the hunting group kill many wild pigs on the island. In one instance the head of a kill is set on a stake and left in the ground. Simon stumbles on this icon and hallucinates that it speaks to him.
  • The head implies this it is evil, and that evil is inside everyone. It tells him that no matter what he does he will meet this evil, and if he tires to ruin the 'fun" it will be the end of him. Basically embrace the evil or die...he dies.
• This speaks to when Eko confronts the smoke monster in the form of Yemi right before his death. Eko is supposed to confess his sins, but instead shows no fear and refuses to ask forgiveness.
  • Eko feels that he did what he had to do with the life that was handed to him and nothing more. Further, he's made sacrifices to save his brother. He is then killed for refusing to acknowledge his 'evil' (repent or die) just as (it is implied) Simon is killed for the same reason.

Denial:

Whoa, is there a lot of denial going on in this book! Basically, no one is claiming any responsibility for their actions. Sound familiar?

• Denial is also reflected in the novel where the boys do such things as blame the 'beastie" when littleuns start to disappear. As a matter of fact they aren't even alarmed when members of their survivors start to go missing. They seem to ignore this fact completely, almost like if they don't acknowledge it, its not actually happening. The boys, in a frenzy nearly kill Roger as part of their pig game. Then they laugh it off, in kind of an "Oops, sorry about that" moment. They KILL SIMON WITH THEIR BARE HANDS, and when the body washes out to sea, they claim they killed the beastie and nothing more. Piggy is killed for holding the conch and trying to restore order. But Ralph somehow tries to justify the brutality of basically letting Roger drop a boulder on Piggy because he can tell him to do anything he wants and he'll do it. There is no need for a conch or rules when he can do that!
• In the world of Lost Ben can commit an extermination of the island and somehow justify this. He can trap people on an island for months, and use them as he sees fit without thinking twice about how wrong this is. John Locke can blow up the only supposed way off the island and claim he had a reason for it. He can also get Sawyer to murder his father for him and justify it as what the island wants. Charles Widmore can send a freighter crew out to kill the remaining survivors of a plane crash, and fake the wreckage to fool the world, but he has his reasons apparently.
• It all comes back to the fact that being on these islands allows the survivors to act in ways that would just not be acceptable in society. With no one there to answer to but themselves, its much easier to justify or not think about what it is that they are doing and any consequences that may be involved.

Rescue:

• The boys are eventually rescued, and with it comes shame, and tears. Rescue brings clarity as to just what they have become and what they have done. It shows them the truth, and as they embrace it they break down and sob as they realize they won't be the same again.
• At one point during their rescue, the naval officer turns his back on the boys, not willing to watch them crying. He is unimpressed and humiliated for them. He can't seem to understand what actually has been going on since they crashed and just feels sorry for this emotional spectacle unbecoming of good British lads. He doesn't want to know the truth of the situation after all, not knowing is much easier to swallow.
• For the Losties rescue doesn't bring with it the truth but rather more lies. There are lies as to what actually happened to Flight 815, how they were rescued, and about who survived. There is no moment of clarity for the Losties, no redemption or sobbing cleanse as they accept that things won't be the same again. Perhaps this is why they are all not doing so well with life off the island.
• After they return to their homes, the world seems to embrace the Losties as heroes. The O6 are celebrities, and everyone seems willing to accept the story they tell no matter how little sense it makes. No one is looking for the truth because lies are just easier to embrace and far easier to play along with.

Final Bullets:

• The boys are survivors of a plane that's crashed on a deserted island and no one knows they're there. The Losties are also crash survivors, and supposedly no one knows they're alive. Especially since they are 1,000 miles off course, and the world thinks that their bodies are actually at the bottom of the ocean.
• When Simon is killed the boys decide that he was actually the beastie. The beastie can assume any form, and it doesn't die. In the world of Lost their beastie, being Smokey, can do this too. We've seen it, unless its all a massive trick designed to justify or influence the actions of those on the island.
• The boys in the book become savages. Not really intentionally, they seem to get caught up in the game of it all. It's similar for our Losties, but it's survival, not a game. By the time season four arrived we saw our Losties go from hapless survivors to very much Other-like. Being suspicious of the freighties, holding them hostage, not trusting their intentions, and even seeing scene reproductions that were very reminiscent of when the others first encountered the Losties and interacted with them.
• The term Lord of the Flies is a direct translation of Beelzebub.
• Both in the book and on Lost we see the survivors split into two groups. Those who want to survive and get off the island (Ralph/Jack Shephard's group) and those that embrace the respective islands and hunker down for the long haul (John Locke/Jack's group).

Coming in August: The Tempest