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?