Did Christian Tell Locke To Keep Jack On The Island?



In There's No Place Like Home (pt. 2) Locke and Jack talk leader stuff at the Orchid. Locke tries to talk Jack out of leaving giving him the whole destiny spiel once again. But he fails to mention that a guy named Christian has told him to move the Island. Which makes me wonder, did Christian instruct Locke to keep Jack on the Island or is Locke freelancing? I still can't decide if Christian wants Jack and Aaron on or off the Island.

Who Ordered This?



I'm up to Cabin Fever in my re-watch and this exchange occurs at the Dharma open grave.

HURLEY: What's he doing down there?
(Ben shrugs)
HURLEY: So... This is where you shot Locke and left him for dead, huh?
BEN: Yes, Hugo, I was standing right where you are now when I pulled the trigger. Should have realized at the time that it was pointless, but... I really wasn't thinking clearly.
(Hurley steps back a little)
HURLEY: Is that why you killed all these people, too?
BEN: I didn't kill them.
HURLEY: Well, if the Others didn't wipe out the DHARMA Initiative--
BEN: They did wipe them out, Hugo, but it wasn't my decision.
HURLEY: Then whose was it?
BEN: Their leader's.
HURLEY:But I thought you were their leader.
BEN: Not always.

So who was the leader when the Purge was ordered? Was it Widmore? Was it not the case that Ben stole from Widmore when the DI was purged, but rather that Widmore purged the DI and Ben took over later? Oooh. Interesting.

Now The Countdown Really Begins!



I'm heading off this morning, after carpool, to get my Season 4 DVDs and intend to spend the next week, the week before school gets out for Christmas, to devour them in peace and quiet.

I have not re-watched any of Season 4 since it finished airing. I started to re-watch 4.1 a few weeks ago, but it was depressing. Half the people in the episode are now dead. I also fear the re-watch may fall a little flat because S4's big question was "they're off the Island?" and S4 answered that question. Moreover Locke being in the coffin has not been the "What's in the hatch?" "What do the Others want?" "WTF?" finale moment that's kept me speculating all off season.

But now it's only 42 days, 8 hours until Season 5, so my Season 4 re-watch must begin. Hopefully it will in fact raise questions that I can post here on my mostly dormant blog. But even if it doesn't, it should get the juices flowing for that January 21st kickoff date that's got me more excited than Florida/Oklahoma.

Song of Claire?

I finished Book 6 of the Dark Tower series, Song of Susannah and I can't even answer my own question given the cliffhanger ending of the book. Song of Susannah was that episode before the season finale. You know Born to Run, Three Minutes, Greatest Hits, and There's No Place Like Home, Pt. 1; that episode which is good, but in all honesty just resembles the five moves on the chessboard that precede the final three checkmate death blows. People who eventually have to end up together are scattered and you don't know how they'll get back together. And then with three minutes left, something starts to happen and then you have to wait to find out what. I'm somewhat fearful all of Season 5 may resemble that episode.

But there were a couple of ideas in Song of Susannah that I'm interested to see if they play out on LOST. The most interesting has to do with do-overs. Time travel has been very present in The Dark Tower series. From the very beginning we've known that there are other worlds than these. But here we are introduced to the idea of the true world, the "only one where, when things were finished, they stayed finished.” p. 176 What's more in this world you can never come back to an earlier time and get a do over. You have to get it right the first time. pp. 217-18

The new Season 5 promo and it's use of props that we've seen in the past have many speculating that some form of do-over may be where we're heading. Heck, that's been an idea ever since beardy Jack first started raving about going back. How could going back undo or make up for the bad things that happened after the O6 left, unless the O6 get some sort of do-over? I'm not a huge fan of alternate universes, but I'm willing to give TPTB one go at it. Just one though. We'll see. Will Jack and crew get on last chance to get everything right?

Another very LOST-ian idea is the role of magic/faith vs. science/rationality. Mia explains to Susannah that the world was formed by magic but then the magic receded and was replaced with machines. Now the machines are failing. Mia claims the same is true for Susannah herself. "You doom yourselves, Susannah. You seem positively bent on it, and the root is always the same: your faith fails you, and you replace it with rational thought. But there is no love in thought, nothing that lasts in deduction, only death in rationalism." p. 147 And to top it off Mia claims the only thing that can save the world is the return of magic.

Now this is the kind of explanation I'd like to see for the Island and what's going on with it. The Island is a magic place, then Dharma arrives and tries to harness that magic mechanically. As a result the magic departs. Then those maintaining the machines are purged, and now the machines are failing to control the Island resulting in rogue Smokey, moving Jacob and the inability of women to carry a pregnancy to term. And the only thing that will save it is the return of the magic. Well, a girl can hope at least. Or it could be an attempt to merge the science and the magic. That was something that happened in the Dark Tower world as well, but it failed in all but one remaining place, and the health of that place is pretty questionable too.

Finally, there's the repeated notion of twins. It arises in two key places in Song of Susannah. The first is in this duality of science and magic. Susannah calls them Tweedledee and Tweedledum in addition to rational and irrational, sane and insane. In the second instance Eddie is called the twin of Roland's childhood friend Cuthbert. But the idea isn't really so much that they are twins, but in fact the same reincarnated soul turning on the wheel of Ka.  I'm still looking for that bad twin.

I've only got one book to go in MY quest for the Dark Tower. I'm not sure when I'll get there, but I'm certain ka willing that it will be before the start of Season 6, my goal. 

Is John Locke As Naive As John Locke?




















In reading Madeline L'engle's An Acceptable Tiime I came across this description of philosopher John Locke and his view of Native Americans.

"Locke's impressions [were] idyllic and . . . a little naive. . . . The [natives] seemed to Locke to live a life as innocent as Adam and Eve in the Garden. They lived without external laws, did not buy or sell or pile up wealth. They were, Locke implied, without shame, not burdened by the guilts of the past." p. 76

This view seems to me to mirror our John Locke's view of the Island and Alpert's crew of true believers. Of course, we've seen more of the Others than Locke has, so I wonder if part of the "bad things" will merely be Locke's eyes opening to the reality of human nature and its depravity even on the Island. Maybe the real reason Locke leaves the Island is that his idyllic picture of the Island is shattered by reality. How Jack returning could help that I could not say, but Locke often looks for the easy, buck-passing solution (Sawyer and the real Sawyer), so perhaps Locke's plan to return the O6 is more mere naivete on Locke's part.

And while we're on Locke, I can't remember asking this before -- do you think off Island Bentham/Locke can walk or does he have to return to a wheelchair?

So What Did Dharma Want?



Now that the ARG seems to be on hold for over 2 months! I've got some questions.

I'd guess given the Comic Con imprimatur that the new Dharma Initiative's formation is official LOST canon. If you show up on a stage with Damon and Carlton that makes you canon to me. What's more the cause that has led to the effect of the re-formation of DI seems to be the receipt of the Chang video. So here's what I want to know:





Feel free to discuss any other aspect of the ARG in the comments as well. I personally do not regret dropping out early on, but I'm interested to see what those of you who persevered think about how the ARG will affect the LOST-iverse.

Did The Others Use Time Travel To Compile Their Dossiers?


From another listener on Lost Unlocked: The listener theorizes that the Others use time travel to travel to the time and places of the LOSTies pre-flight 815 in order to compile their files on them. This explains how they know that Sawyer killed a man before leaving Australia, something the Australian authorities did not know at the time of the flight. It also explains how they know that Sawyer's "Sawyer" is actually Anthony Cooper. The theory also led to a real chicken and egg conundrum as they further theorized that the Others or perhaps someone else like Widmore manipulated the 815ers onto that plane on that date, an interesting variation on a theory that's been out there from the beginning.

I kind of like the idea of time travel being used to determine who the 815ers really are. There are certainly those who believe that explains Richard Alpert's appearance in young Locke's life. It could also explain the speed with which they compiled the information if you can leave time x on the Island and return to it with no time passing. I like that it restores some of the mystical and mysterious nature of the Others. But I suppose it could equally be a network of PIs Off Island.

Does Life On Island Keep You Alive Off?


I heard this theory from a listener on Lost Unlocked. He theorized that the Island exists in the future and for that reason you can't die in the past off Island. And this explains why Michael, Jack and possibly Widmore can't die off Island because of the paradox it would create given that they were already alive in the future on Island.

I would guess at some point your timelines would cross and you could die off Island which makes Widmore's case particularly interesting. And it also raises the question about the Freighter's timeline with Michael on it. Is it now back on Island time thus he can die? It's an interesting theory, but I think all in all, it's not so much an avoidance of paradox but the Island's need of you that protects you.

Do You Have To Create A Tornado In A Bottle To Get To The Island?

I know this is grasping at straws, but it still really bugs me how Desmond couldn't leave the Island on The Elizabeth and Juliet said that others on The Elizabeth couldn't either, but all of a sudden in Season 4 (well from Naomi's arrival in Season 3) the Island is reachable. The idea of Daniel going blithely back and forth in the Zodiac just about sends me over the edge.

So how's this for an explanation. My son created a tornado in a bottle.



With all the water in one bottle if you merely turn the bottles over very little water escapes from the top bottle to the bottom one. But if you swirl the bottle you create a vortex pushing the water to the sides of the bottle leaving an air pocket in the middle for the water to escape through into the bottom bottle. It also produces a visible tornado in the bottle.

As you recall at least when Frank's helicopter comes and goes from the Island in the first instance and taking Sayid and Desmond to the freighter, they passed through a storm. Now no cows or witches on broomsticks flew by, but it was stormy. So my theory is roughly that there needs to be a storm to create a vortex to pass from the bottle of the Island to the bottle of the rest of the world. Furthermore the discreet headings, 325 and 305 either a) take you through what is creating that vortex or b) is that place where just the little bit of water passes through.

This is probably bunk and I'm not sure we'll ever get an explanation for this question, but playing with my son's tornado in a bottle at least made me think of LOST -- surprise, surprise.

What Kind of "Timers" Inhabit The Island?

More from Insomnia. Normal living human beings are known as Short-Timers. They (we) can only perceive our world with our five senses. There are 3 Long-Timers in the book who can perceive much more in the same physical space for example our auras which give a sense of our health and emotions and also when our end is near. Long-Timers experience time differently than we do. They live much, much longer and age differently. Then there are All-Timers who are immortal.

Additionally those who live longer have the ability to manipulate those who live shorter. The three main Long-Timers end the lives of Short-Timers and are also said to manipulate 3 Short-Timers in particular as if they were chess pieces on a board. Sound familiar? Additionally these Long-Timers are sent to perform these manipulations by others more higher ranking than they.

So I wonder -- Is Richard a Long-Timer? Ben? Widmore? In Insomnia these Long-Timers can't lie though they don't always answer questions and try to answer only what and to the extent that they desire. They also have to keep promises. This sounds a bit like Ben's ethos. They also can't interfere with each other directly, but need to use Short-Timer agents. Again this sounds like Richard, Ben and Widmore who seem to keep their hands technically clean. (Okay, not so much Ben, but the other 2.)

It also makes me wonder about Christian and Jacob and their manipulations of Short-Timers on the Island. Are they trying to get in on the chess game as well?

Does Time Move Faster On the Island
When Its Inhabitants Go Up?

On my road to the Dark Tower I've detoured once again to Derry, Maine where Stephen King's novels It and now Insomnia take place. Characters in Insomnia are moving between levels of the Dark Tower, a building that somehow controls time and worlds and how time moves in worlds. When these humans move up the levels of the Tower allowing them to perceive more than is normally available to our five senses time begins to move at a significantly faster rate.

So I wonder if what's going on in terms of Island time and its failure to quite add up is movement by the Island or those on it through levels of time resulting in the rate at which time passes failing to be constant. I especially wonder this with Daniel's experiment. The rocket literally went up (and so do characters in Insomnia at least once) and then had a different time from Daniel's watch. Ben went somewhere when he turned the wheel and 10 months passed. Did he go up?

Can Alpert Time Travel?

There are theories out there that Alpert and his appearances in Locke's young life are attributable to time travel. His lack of aging plays into that theory. But here's what I can't understand. How does Alpert control his time travel? The only physical time travel that we know we've seen so far is Ben post-donkey wheel turning. And I think it was pretty clear that Ben didn't know where or when he was going when that happened.

Has Alpert perfected the pinhole opening we see in the latest Marvin Candle video? And if so, why aren't others (like Ben) using it on Island as well? Or are they?

So what do you think?

Can Richard Alpert Talk to Jacob?



We've been told that Richard is not the Island leader, he's the Island's No. 2



but how does he know that he's supposed to be looking for a new Number 1? Who sends Alpert after the baby Locke and the young Locke? Who tells him to co-opt Ben?  And to get rid of Ben?

Love Lives of The Others



I was thinking about how Juliet was recruited to the Island by Richard and Ethan and I wonder do The Others recruit only single people or do they recruit married couples? In other words

How Was Alex's Death Ben's Fault?



I was listening to the showdown between Ben and Widmore in Widmore's bedroom and Widmore claimed Alex's death was Ben's fault.

WIDMORE: Don't stand there, looking at me with those horrible eyes of yours and lay the blame for the death of that poor girl on me, when we both know very well I didn't murder her at all, Benjamin. You did.

How's that? One argument is Ben's disavowal of Alex led to Keamy killing her, but how would Widmore know about that given the death of everyone who witnessed that?

Here's my new argument. I think Ben taking Alex from Rousseau was his attempt to course correct. Ben had been pulling a Desmond thwarting Alex's death right and left for 16 years. And the universe finally caught up with him. Alex's death at age 16 is Ben's fault because she was supposed to die as an infant when Rousseau went nuts again. I further predict we'll see this during Rousseau's story in Season 5.

Will The Shoeless Others and 815ers Merge?



Boy it really is starting to feel like Survivor isn't it. At this point lots of people have been voted off via death and now a new set of people, the O6 + Ben and Desmond and Lapidus have been voted off as well. So is it time for the tribes to merge?

On the one hand we have the Locke "led" Richard Others which should also include Cindy, Zach, Emma and a handful of other Tailies plus some of those who purged Dharma and any newer recruits to the cause that weren't taken out since 815 arrived. And then we've got I'd guess roughly 20 815ers most notably Sawyer, Rose, Bernard and Frogurt plus Juliet and Miles and Charlotte and possibly Faraday and 3 or 4 others. And we've got the ultimate Island wildcard in Claire.

So what sort of interaction do you predict we'll see in Season 5. Presumably those left in the 815 camp are not list-worthy, but is there even anyone at Richard's camp (I refuse to put Locke as the leader of that group) who can even communicated with Jacob? Is the really bad thing that happens that Richard or Jacob tells Locke that they have to purge those not on the list? But then where will Sawyer and Vincent hide? Those are really the only 2 I care deeply about, especially Vincent. I'm a big yellow lab fan.

Any ideas?

Sawyer -- Leader or Con Man?

I listened to The Transmission's recent Long Con podcast and they got into a discussion of Sawyer and his evolution. It led to speculation about what we can expect from Island-stranded Season 5 Sawyer and so I ask:

Online Surveys & Market Research

This is one of the things I'm really interested to see. Will Sawyer step up and assume the role Hurley created for him or will he remain an Every Man for Himself and allow Juliet to take charge? Who else might assume leadership? Rose?

Did The Island Jump Up In The Air?

I'm reading a novel, The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt that centers around Nikola Tesla. Tesla proposes an idea that he could build a ring around the equator that is not subject to Earth's gravity so that a person could stand on the ring and the rest of the world was pass by in the course of a day as it turned on its axis. This made me wonder if the Island is moved similarly. It "jumps" for some period of time and stays stationary as the Earth turns under it and then ends up somewhere else when it lands. Just a crazy idea I thought I'd share.

Why I'm Giving Up on the LOST ARG

Well, I had high hopes that the new LOST ARG announced during the Season 4 finale was going to be the thing that would keep LOST fans, and especially me, going until February 2009. So I waited the two months until Comic Con. Then I waited until the Monday after Comic Con. And I've waited and waited and despite saying it's coming today I'm still waiting and --

NOW I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!

I feel like I've been waiting for the cable guy. This is worse than Bell South which gives you an 8am-5pm appointment. And after reflecting on what I learned from Find815 I now deem the frustration which this game is causing me in no way worth the amount of information I could possibly learn from the game. After all, Episode 4.2 gave us in 2 minutes what a month of playing Find815 gave us.

So I'm out. Good luck if you're going to keep playing. I'll still know when something happens given my current RSS feed subscriptions, but other than giving it a cursory glance that's it for me. Come end of January I'll check Lostpedia for the summary, but that's it. Later.

Wolves of The Island

"[The] story has left me in a strangely disturbed frame of mind. I can't tell if it answers more questions than it raises, or the other way around." Wolves of the Calla p. 612

Book 5 of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, Wolves of the Calla was probably the least LOST-like book so far in the series. It's a way station of sorts on the way to the Tower. A pregnancy project if you will. As Eddie realizes:

Even though their main goal is the Tower, they aren't exempt from participation in other "quests." . . . and had Eddie really thought there was no work left for the line of Arthur Eld in this mostly empty and husked-out world? That they would simply be allowed to toddle along the Path of the Beam until they got to Roland's Dark Tower and fixed whatever was wrong there? p. 144

But there are some large thematic things happening in Wolves that remind me of LOST and make me wonder if they are clues as to what's going on on our favorite Island.

The Nature of Time

The very nature of time itself, a commodity that has been slipping throughout the Dark Tower saga is very present in this book.

Time is a face on the water. . . . The saying might have been true when Roland had been a boy not much older than Jake Chambers, but Eddie thought it was even truer now, as the world wound down like the mainspring in an ancient watch. Roland had told them that even such basic things as the points of the compass could no longer be trusted in Mid-World; what was dead west today might be southwest tomorrow, crazy as that might seem. And time had likewise begun to soften. There were days Eddie could have sworn were forty hours long, some of them followed by nights (like the one on which Roland had taken them to Mejis) that seemed even longer. Then there would come an afternoon when it seemed you could almost see darkness bloom as night rushed over the horizon to meet you. Eddie wondered if time had gotten lost. pp. 45-46

It reminds me of the crazy way time seemed to act in Season 2 and also in Season 4 with Daniel Faraday's arrival. It was inconsistent. All of a sudden it was dark. It seemed like days on the Island before Sayid tried to call from the boat. The doc arrived before he was killed. Maybe time is running down on the Island too. Or it runs at different rates depending on external events as Eddie thinks. "When a lot of interesting shit was happening, time seemed to go by fast. If you got stuck with nothing but the usual boring shit, it slowed down. And when everything stopped happening, time apparently quit altogether." p. 48

And time is not the only thing that's blurry. Eddie remarks, "The people are real. . . . But the way stuff from my world keeps showing up over here, that's not real. It's not sensible or logical, either, but that's not what I mean. It's just not real. p. 215 It makes me think of the Nigerian drug plane in particular. I still can't wait to find out how that got on the Island.

Even another character the main ka-tet meets along the way has experienced this time problem. Callahan says "For months--sometimes even years, as I tried to explain to you--time hardly seems to exist. Then everything comes in a gasp." p. 403 This reminds me of what's happened on Island since 815 crashed. Since the Purge the Others carried on in their day to day Land's End life in New Otherton and now "bam" the last 100 days have been insane. Same for Desmond. For 3 years all he did was push a button and now everything is coming in a gasp.

And we finally get a hint at what's going on with time when Roland, Eddie and Jake visit the Rose in New York. Eddie . . . saw the Tower itself in the burning folds of the rose and for a moment understood its purpose: how it distributed its lines of force to all the worlds that were and held them steady in time's great helix. . . . for every hand stayed from violence, there was the Tower. And the quiet, singing voice of the rose. "There are two hubs of existence," [Roland said] The Tower . . . and the rose." pp. 250-51 Is the Island also one of these hubs?


Travel Through Time and Space

Another big component of Wolves is the traveling the ka-tet does away from the Calla to 1977 New York. They manage this travel in two different ways. This first is by going "todash" which is a kind of very real dream. When it occurs, they pass between two worlds, the World they were sleeping in and the world of 1977 New York. And as they were "todashed" to New York only the barest bit of them remained in the other world. Could this explain Jacob? While Jake and Eddie were todash they flickerd on and off.

What's more we meet a group of people, the Manni-folk who regularly engage in this sort of travel. The "elder Manni seek the other worlds[.] Not for treasure but for enlightenment[.] [Roland] also knew that some had come back from their travels insane. Others never come back at all. These hills are magnetic, and riddled with many ways into many worlds."  p. 533 I want to know if this is the sort of task that Richard wants to get his people back to.

There's even more time travel through alternate worlds in Callahan's story. While living in "our" world he often encountered "highways in hiding" that led to alternate Americas with different Presidents, different currencies and different town names.

And then there's a final form of travel and that's through a door, a door like those in Book 2 The Drawing of the Three, but to get through these doors you need a glass, Black 13 which was first introduced in Wizard and Glass. Using Black 13, the ka-tet and Callahan are able to direct their travels back to 1977 though there does seem to be rules.

Eddie believes that they can't go back in time via the door or todash to a point in 1977 New York they've already visited. If they were right about the rules, he couldn't go back to that day, not todash, not in the flesh either. If they were right, time over there was somehow hooked to time over here, only running a little faster. If they were right about the rules . . . if there were rules . . . p. 664

And as far as we can tell those rules do indeed hold, though they never really attempt to break them by going back to a day in New York they think has already past.

Can You Affect Time

But despite these forms of time travel, there are problems. For example, Black 13 tries to mess with you. It tempts you to in fact go back and do things differently.

Black 13 tempts you into going back and change things making you believe you will make them all better. Callahan says "I believe it lures people on to acts of terrible evil by whispering to them that they will do good. That they'll make things not just a little better but all better." p. 608

And these ideas continue to play out in the concept of ka and when you should meddle with it. For example, Roland tells Jake this advice from Roland's dad. "[W]hen you are unsure, you must let ka alone to work itself out." p. 508 Jake says this sounds like passing the buck. Roland emphasized again the "when one isn't sure about ka, it's best to let ka work itself out. If one medles, one almost always does the wrong thing." pp. 509-10 Sounds a lot like a Locke/Jack confrontation, though Locke is much more passive than Roland.

This is something I worry about with the O6 going back to the Island. The ka-tet discusses going back to prevent the Kennedy assassination and the fact that might have led to a worse person or people than Lee Harvey Oswald working to course correct. It makes me wonder if Desmond saving Charlie made things worse. And will Jack and the O6's return in the face of the "bad things" that happened when they left result in good things or just another form of bad things?

General References

Finally, a list of basic similarities.

There are magic numbers in the book. Nineteen appears over and over in the tree branches, in the clouds, in the number of petals of the rose and the number of letters in peoples' names. Also 99 and combinations like 1999. They also add other numbers up to 19 like the most rabid of LOST fans.

Susannah compares their experience with crossovers between worlds as a Dickens novel.   

There's a reference to the Red Sox winning the Series. They had not at the time.

There are several businesses that show up in all worlds, LeMark Industries, Sombra Corp., North Central Positronics. It reminds me of the everpresent Widmore.

There's a message on a loop.

There's a reference to George and Lennie from Of Mice and Men.

When the Low Men finally catch Callahan, they do it at an office building. Callahan remarks that most of the people there seem to be "extras," "stage-dressing," "a set-up . . . as elaborate as a Hollywood movie."

Callahan dies by falling out a window -- 32, not 8 stories.

Callahan crossed with Roland and Jake all the way back in Book 1 much like Jack crossed with Shannon at her father's death.

Susannah sneaks off from the group at night. This reminds me of Claire getting up and wandering off with Christian in the middle of the night.

The Jafford's special child is named Aaron.  

Twins are the focus of the Calla story.  And I'm still waiting for Bad Twin to be relevant.

In the Cave of the Voices/Doorway Cave you hear voices of people from your past. "The voices are coming from your own head. The cave finds them and amplifies them somehow. Sends them on. It's a little upsetting, I know, but it's meaningless." p. 662 This is a lot like Sawyer's encounter with the boar in particular and sometimes the Whispers.

Eddie refers to himself as being exiled from New York, yet he can return through todash and the door. Will that be true for Ben too?

The technology left behind by the "Old People" is technology of our world, of 20th century America. Reminds me of DIs left behind tech and that left behind by the 4-toes.

Jake finds a monitoring station full of TV screens fed by hidden cameras a la The Pearl, The Flame and The Hydra.

Andy the robot is tired of being dissed. Reminds me of Roger Workman and later Ben Workman.

And finally, we are briefly introduced to the Breakers who are telepaths and psychokinetics, i.e. "special."

So my quest for the Tower continues on. I'm going to have to add Salem's Lot to the reading list now. The general plan is to read Book 6 before the start of Season 5. Then read Insomnia and Book 7 before the start of Season 6. Until then, remember the face of your father.

How Does Locke Know the O6 Are Alive?

It dawned on me as I speculated about the O6's return to the Island, how did Locke know he could leave the Island and go look for them? Last those on the Island knew was this:

which drove Juliet to drink and I'm begging you writers, not into the arms of Sawyer. Why would anyone on the Island have any reason to believe 6 people survived?

The couldn't watch the O6s return from the Flame:


This guy's not around to rig up something:

Nor this one:

So were they able to communicate from this location?

Or did these folks see the helicopter escape?

What's your best guess?

A Couple of Season 5 Ideas From Comic Con . . . And Plans



I'm going to try to put this in a dark font so that you have to highlight it to read, but CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED that I intend to talk about ideas I've come up with as a result of information released about Season 5 during Comic Con. There are some broad spoilers in that material and I'll be talking about them. If you don't want to know STOP NOW! No, I mean it.

Okay, you were warned. Here goes:

So I think Jin is definitely dead. The reason I think this is that they said the redshirts ferried to the Freighter are dead. It would take a Heroes level of incredulity to believe that everyone near the boat but Jin died. So while I love Jin, and frankly can't figure out how he's going to continue to be in the story if he's dead, something else they confirmed, I hope for the sake of the story he's dead.

I think we won't see Locke's death until the final 1 or 2 hours of Season 5. Why show it any sooner? You've got at least 2 1/2 years of storytelling to do in 17 hours, so of course they are going to drag out Locke's return to the real world and his death.

And finally -- the thing I'm most looking forward to in Season 5 is Rousseau's story! There's no way they'll manage to answer all the questions I have about her I'm sure, but I'm ready, willing and able to take anything they'll give me, and I can't wait.

My one regret about Comic Con, other than my absence from it, is that no one asked the questions I wanted answers to. Oh yeah, and that I didn't get to get up close and personal with Matthew Fox like this fan. And be forewarned, it looks like from that photo that he got another new tattoo on his inner right arm. Yes I looked that closely. But thankfully with only 34 hours left there is no time for another Jack tattoo story. There isn't! You hear me Damon and Carlton?

Now for the near future . . . School starts in 3 weeks (from this past Monday), so my plan is to take a blogging break until that kicks in. Then I think I may start rewatching, maybe 1 episode from Season 4 a week. We'll see. And of course, I'm following the OGR ARG. And you can too starting over at Lost ARGs. Hopefully that will keep us entertained for the remainder of the hiatus. And keep me from being tempted to look at the spoilers which will start trickling out in the next few weeks.

More Sharing

If you like LOST Funnies, and who doesn't, be sure to check out After LOST.

One of my favorites is the one after the Season 4 finale. You can see it here.

Sharing From The Blog-O-Sphere

I am so far behind in reading LOST related stuff you would not believe it. I still haven't read all of Doc Jensen's finale review! And if TLE II really kicks off in the next few days I may never get there, but . . .

With 6 more months to go until Season 5 (and frankly 6 sounds so much better than 8) I have no fear that by the time Episode 5.1 gets here I'll be ready.

In the meantime, here's a fun thing to discuss: The Top 30 WFT?! Moments In LOST History. This blogger has even included clips. I'll just hit my personal highlights.

#29 -- I was spoiled by Entertainment Weekly, but Kate's look in discovering Jack playing football in Othersville was priceless.

A lot of Jess, the blogger's, later WTF moments come from Seasons 1 and 2. Those would rank higher for me. For example, the first time I found out Ethan wasn't on the manifest for example was a total shocker for me and would rank in my personal Top 10.

Jess's #11, the world finding 815 does not rate as a WTF moment for me, at least not when it occurred in Season 4. Now when Naomi first mentioned it in Season 3--that rated a WTF, though I'd put it in the 20s.

#10 -- Michael shooting Ana Lucia and Libby. This was one of the giant ones for me. I could not sleep the night after that aired. And I couldn't make myself re-watch the episode for a while knowing it was coming. In an episode where I felt certain that Ana Lucia would die, the execution (literally) of this story left me speechless and completely unsettled.

#9 -- The end of Walkabout. This is where it all started for me. When it turned out Locke was in a wheelchair I could not get the next disc of Season 1 fast enough (yeah, I didn't watch Season 1 live.) I tell people who want to jump on the LOST bandwagon now to watch Disc 1 of Season 1, and if you aren't hooked by the end of Walkabout, this show is not for you.

#4-#8 don't really qualify as the big WTF moments for me. For some reason Locke being in the coffin just has not ignited me the way other things have. I'm sure it's probably my wanting it to be Michael as I had thought most of the past year has something to do with that.  But still the prospect of a Season 6 with no Locke or zombie Locke leaves me making a face. And not a good face.

Finally, I can buy Jess's Top 3. I can't wait to find out WTF happened when Ben turned that wheel. I can't make myself re-watch Tom Friendly say "we're gonna have to take the boy." As the mother of a boy that gives me too many chills, and even though I grew to like Tom, I don't regret Sawyer killing him for that reason. And finally, the S3 finale. I loved, loved, loved that moment. I bit hook, line and sinker and I hope TPTB will get me again and again in the remaining 34 hours.

Why the Lie?



I'm not the only one wondering about the ridiculously convoluted lie Jack concocts for the O6 to tell upon their return. At the recent ABC TCA (Television Critics Association) event, Alan Sepinwall asked the same thing. Here it is in case you missed it.

I thought about [what question to ask] for a while, looked back over the reactions to each episode, and eventually decided to ask a question about why, in retrospect, Jack came up with the Oceanic Six plan, which was far more convoluted than necessary considering it was voluntary. (I had been assuming for much of the season that they were forced into leaving the island and following the lie by some outside force.)

So I gave it a shot, but Lindelof, sneaky bastard, was ready for me.

He not only nodded and smiled at the sound of my voice, but in response to my question, explained, "It's actually a funny story. We were sitting halfway through the season, and we had come up with this simple, streamlined, non-convoluted excuse, and I turned to Carlton and said, 'Alan Sepinwall might actually like this, so what we ought to do is come up with something incredibly convoluted so he can bust our balls at press tour.' And he said, 'Let's do that! He'll never fall for it.' Lo and behold, here we are."

At that point, the only thing I could say was "Touche."

I'm looking forward to bootleg copies of the Doc Jensen hosted panel at Comic Con on Friday.

1:45-2:45 Entertainment Weekly’s The Visionaries: Showrunners— Carlton Cuse (Lost), Damon Lindelof (Lost), Josh Schwartz (Chuck, Gossip Girl), Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies), and Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) are the television producers who are changing the face of television with deeply immersive entertainments marked by distinctive, cutting edge storytelling. They have also been at the forefront of bringing "genre programming" or "cult TV" to the mainstream. Prepare for a candid conversation about creative integrity in a commercial medium and the future of broadcast TV in an increasingly digital world. Spoiler Alert! Upcoming plot developments may be teased. Moderated by Entertainment Weekly senior writer Jeff Jensen. Room 6CDEF

Maybe we'll get some more from that.

Why Does Hurley Wish He'd Stayed With Jack?



Is it because if he'd hung on the beach odds are Hurley like Rose, Bernard, Juliet and a handful of log-carrying guys would still be on the Island instead of lying to the world? That would be an interesting twist to that declaration.

Why Doesn't Locke Just Tell Jack About The Wheelchair?



So I'm sloooowwwwwllly winding my way through Doc Jensen's finale recap, and here's the question I have after the how many is it now Man of Science/Man of Faith leadership stuff showdowns.  When Jack says to Locke "There's no such thing as miracles," why doesn't Locke tell him about his squiggly, squiggly legs which didn't work for 4 years and now work?

Ben's Motivation



Do you think Ben is motivated more by the Island and it's long-term goals or his own?

At the end of Season 3 Ben insists to Alex that he can't let anyone leave the Island. I guess in large part this is so no one will tell the rest of the world about the Island. By the end of Season 4 he seems completely fine with letting Kate and Sayid leave given their role in freeing him from Keamy and the rest of the Freighter Merc Crew. What's changed? Once he realizes he has to leave is he not concerned with who else leaves? Is he confident that no one on the Freighter will survive? His "So?," one of the most chilling lines of the entire series, brings his entire no one leaves plan to fruition. Another case of the Island taking care of its own.

As we enter Season 5 and the quest for the return to the Island, I still wonder what motivates Ben. Revenge? Power? Mere self-preservation?  Or is it whatever is motivating The Island?

And what the heck does The Island want?

Bentham's Mission



Time for back to basics.  I'm looking at some S4 finale things and notice that apparently Locke's mission when he came back to "our world" was to convince Jack and Kate if not the rest of the O6 to come back to the Island.  So here's some questions:





I guess this means that I think Locke did NOT turn the donkey wheel. I'd guess in his attempts to get Jack, Kate and Aaron to return to the Island Locke thought he himself could return to the Island.

I also wonder why someone would kill Locke, but not Jack, Kate and Aaron which doesn't seem like it would be that difficult. Jack tells Kate he wants to go back to keep Aaron and Kate safe. Safe from whom? Safe from the people who just killed Locke? Who killed Nadia? More Kate on the run. Gee. Can't wait for that. (Read with great sarcasm.)

Watch Kate's Husband Sing and Save The World!



This doesn't really have anything to do with LOST, but I really enjoy it, and you might too. And it does feature Nathan Fillion who played the schmuck who married the truthful "Monica" also known to us as Kate Austen.

BTW a quick Google search suggests that Kevin did not need to divorce Monica/Kate because her use of a fake name would make the original marriage invalid. So that necklace is up for grab ladies.

What Question Would You Ask At ComicCon?



Anyone whose read my posts over at The Lost Community could probably guess that my number 1 question for Damon and Carlton is:

What the heck is the wreckage of 815 doing in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia when it was flying from Sydney to LA, a northeast route, and why the heck aren't the families of the almost 320 non-6 raising a giant stink about this?

And another thing I want to know is: What's happened to the cloaking device/storm around the Island that is evident when Naomi arrives, when the Freighties first come to the Island and in The Constant, but does not seem to be present after that as the Zodiac goes back and forth (and don't give me the heading crap; you try steering a 305 course in a Zodiac on the ocean and see how easy it is), the helicopter goes back and forth and the freighter is visible from the Island?

And finally, what's up with Horace's dream ghost telling Locke he'd been dead 12 years and Alex being 16?  Was a) Horace wrong on the dates, as ghosts are wont to be; or b) did Danielle survive the purge?

So if you got to go to ComicCon and you got to ask a question what would it be?

Who Decided Alex Could Die?

Another idea from Lost Unlocked -- did Widmore specifically tell Keamy that he could kill Alex (or any child of Ben's) or was it Keamy's brilliant idea to kill Alex as leverage? In other words, was it Widmore who really changed the rules, or Keamy?

Does Hurley See Dead People?



I heard this on Lost Unlocked. First one listener posited the idea that Hurley is like Miles and sees dead people. That explains how he sees Charlie, Mr. Eko and on Island Christian Shephard. The listener further posited that Dave is dead and that's why Hurley sees him too. He's not seeing an imaginary friend, just a dead guy.

Feedback on the idea took it even further speculating that Dave was Libby's husband and the reason that Hurley sees him both on the Island and at Santa Rosa is that Dave is haunting Libby, but Hurley sees dead people, so he sees him at Santa Rosa and on the Island. Dave might also have driven Hurley to try to kill himself on Island to keep him away from his wife Libby.

So what do you think?

Can You Get To The Island On Purpose?




I've been thinking about how Damon and Carlton have referred to the Island as being a land like Narnia or Wonderland or Oz, and that makes me wonder if Jack and Ben's scheming to return to the Island has any chance for success.

The Pevensie children could not get to Narnia unless Narnia wanted them get there. For example, the wardrobe itself wasn't always open. Lucy got through, then later when she showed her siblings she just found a back wall, and later again they were able to get to Narnia through the Wardrobe. But by the end of that episode the Wardrobe is no longer a viable portal to Narnia.

In later trips they get to Narnia from a subway platform, a train coach, looking at a painting in a bedroom and hiding in the woods. The one key was that until Narnia wanted them they weren't able to get there no matter how much they wanted to go.

The same is true with Alice and her adventures in Wonderland. She gets there once through a rabbit hole and once through a looking glass, but she never seems to be able to recreate her visits to Wonderland.

And of course there's arrival here:



Again, unplanned and unreproducable, much like this:



Now that I think about Jack's idea of flying around the Pacific is probably a pretty good one, because much like the fictional lands of Narnia, Wonderland and Oz, getting to the Island may be more something that it decides than someplace you decide to travel to.

Another Thought About Claire



So I really hate the idea that Claire died in the rocket blast on her house and has been a walking zombie ever since. So I have another idea. What if the shots given to Claire first by Ethan and then Juliet have heightened Claire's "specialness" which allows her to see Christian? I'd also argue that in the cabin Claire has been given more Ethan style happy juice, possibly as an additional accompaniment to more of these shots.

Now who else do we know has had similar shots? Well, a young Dharma Initiative child named Ben who just happens to see his dead mother on the Island. I'd argue that whatever is in these shots heightened Ben's specialness as well. Did the Dharma Initiative know what it was up to with these shots? Much as in the case of time traveling bunnies perhaps they had a rudimentary understanding, but were incapable of conceiving of such grand results in a certain chosen few.

And who else had those shots? Desmond -- a guy who kept seeing a dead Charlie before he was dead. Maybe in Desmond's case the combined effect of the shots and turning the failsafe key crossed his wires so that he also saw dead people only future, not current dead people.

Were The Four-Toed People Time Travellers?



I read H.G. Wells The Time Machine back in April of course looking for clues about LOST. I have to say from a literary standpoint I did not enjoy this book. Like Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad it's essentially a 100 page recitation of what happens to one completely undeveloped character. In fact, the character doesn't even have a name, he is merely The Time Traveller.

The Time Traveller builds a time machine in his home that allows him to move in time though not in the other three dimensions of space. The Time Traveller looks forward to what he can learn from the future. He expects great innovation and peace. Instead he finds technology-less imbeciles who cower in the darkness as buildings crumble around them coupled with carnivorous tunnel-dwellers. Once he manages to escape a cannibalized fate he can't get back to his own time fast enough.

Having now seen the hieroglyph surrounded donkey wheel, my question is did the 4-toed people make a similar trip into our time? Like the Time Traveller, were the ancient Island people so repulsed by the backwardness of society in our day that they gave up on time travel? And what's more did they give up on attempting to survive as a race given this horrible future abandoning the Island to Dharma and its likes, or will we still meet a 4-toed person?

One final note -- when the Time Traveller time travelled he and his device disappeared from his house and it returned to the same physical space once he got back to our time.  This is similar to what many think happened to the Island when Ben turned the wheel.  The big question then is how will the Island get back to our time and will it require someone (Locke?) to operate the device again to accomplish that feat?  [And if this is indeed the case it still makes me wonder why Widmore doesn't just stake out that ocean location until it reappears.]

Who Else Does Widmore Know Got Off The Island?



SUN: Are you really going to pretend that you don't know who I am?
WIDMORE: I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, Ms. Kwon.
SUN: Yes, you do know, Mr. Widmore... just like you know we've been lying all this time about where we were and what happened to us there. You and I have common interests. When you're ready to discuss them...
(Sun hands Widmore her Paik Industries business card from her pocket.)
SUN: Call me. As you know, we're not the only ones who left the island.
(Sun turns and begins to walk away. Widmore calls after her.)
WIDMORE: Ms. Kwon? Why would you want to help me?

So what's your take on Sun? Who is it that Widmore knows left the Island?



And why does Sun want to work with Widmore?

Basic Question -- Who Killed Locke?



Earlier I asked if Locke died. As with all LOST characters, even the infamous Nikki and Paolo there are those out there who believe Locke is not dead. But I think he is as did the majority of people who voted in my previous poll. So for arguments sake let's say Occam's razor applies and Locke is dead -- who killed him?

This Better Not Be The End of LOST



There are so many people dying on that Island these days, I'm starting to get worried that the end is the O6 returning to the Island, some more of them dying, Jack and Kate becoming Adam and Eve and all the other dead ones gathered around them at the caves. What's more, all the dead people will be forced to wear the LOST Wigs of Doom in order to look like they did when they died on the Island.

I'm calling it now -- I will NOT be happy if I am right.

Happy 4th of July

Enjoy the day and my favorite scene from Season 4 of LOST.

What Explains The 2 Photos?

Any new ideas about how we end up with 2 Desmond/Penny photos?

Why Isn't Widmore Satisfied?



At the end of Season 4 Widmore has everything he wanted right? Ben is alive and off the Island. That was the stated goal. Now clearly Widmore is NOT satisfied, or he wouldn't be sleeping with his MacCutcheon.

So what's wrong Chuck? What was your real game? Was it also your mission to kill Alpert and all the natives? Is that what's got you up at night? Were you supposed to regain control over the Island? To what end? Are you working on solving the Valenzetti Equation problem or something else?

Is Ben Using The O6 To Kill Penny?



I guess Ben wouldn't really need all the O6 per se to find Penny, but could Ben's game plan be merely using the O6 to get his Widmore revenge and even possibly eliminate the O6 themselves in the process? After all none of them were on "the list." If you turn the wheel, you can't go back (and why would Ben have lied to Locke at that point?), does Ben have a different plan altogether?

Are There 2 Bens Like There Are 2 Bunnies?

Another Jay and Jack caller theory. This caller speculated that Ben can't return to the Island because turning the wheel produced two of him, one on and one off Island. Ben off Island can't return because of the possibility of colliding with Ben on Island. I personally am not a great fan of this theory, but what does everyone else think?

How Does Daniel Know About The Secondary Protocol?



There's something really squirrelly about Daniel Faraday in the finale. It seems clear he knows that Ben is going to move the Island. But it also seems clear he doesn't know the freighter is going to blow up because he's intent on reaching it with as many people as possible. Any ideas how Daniel knows this?

My first idea is that Daniel has been trusted by Widmore with documentation from the Dharma Initiative about The Orchid. Daniel has information in his notebook about that station. And he knows what the phrase secondary protocol means. Before this the only people who had access to this secondary protocol were Keamy and Captain Gault and they both needed to be present to access it.

Or could it be the case that Daniel is time traveling? That he's seen the Island move before? And if that's the case, why doesn't he stay with Charlotte? Surely any log-carrying guy could drive the Zodiac at a 305 heading. Why does Daniel feel he must do it especially after all the radiation he's been exposed to?

Who Has To Go Back?

Vote for all the people you think must go back to the Island.



And why would all of them need to go back? Locke never told anyone but Jack that they didn't need to leave. He never made the case to Kate, Sun, Hurley, etc. And he had lots of opportunity with Hurley this season. And he knows what Kate did and that the Others don't want her for that reason. So why do they all need to go back now?

I'm Not A Fan of Popular Mechanics



That's a broad generalization. While I'm not very mechanical, my husband is the scientist in the family; I'm the linguist and historian -- we make a deadly Trivial Pursuit team, it's actual Popular Mechanics Theory of Island Movement that I'm not a fan of. The analogy they draw is that the Island is in location x and that turning the frozen donkey wheel was equivalent of building a bypass around it. Staying on the bypass you never run into town, but the town (the Island) is still in the same location.

But I'm not buying it. The helicopter crashed within 5 km or miles of the Island. They did not seem to drift for long before Penny's boat picked them up. Surely, they used Penny's boat to go back and forth over the site they believed the Island to exist. Surely they looked for some evidence that Jin or others survived the freighter blast. Or are they so self-centered (Seinfeldian in that self-centeredness) that they immediately began motoring for the Indian Ocean? I just don't see how in an ocean without roads they can't find that Island if it is still there, bypass or no bypass.

Now I can understand the idea that the Island is somewhat like Narnia in that it is not in fact in our world and that turning the wheel forever reinserted the back panel of the wardrobe. But if that's the case, I feel like they played fast and loose in the latter half of Season 4 what with Doctor Ray and his fresh wound. By the end of Season 4 it felt like you could come and go from the Island in any direction and you'd get there, though there might be consequences you didn't prefer. What's more you could clearly see the freighter from the Island and vice versa and you could see it all from the helicopter. No interference.

This also really makes me wonder how the Dharma Initiative ever figured out how to safely come and go from the Island. Did Alpert teach them? Did he teach a Hanso?

As for what idea I do like, I think the Island literally got sucked into the ocean and will pop back up somewhere else. That could lead to very bad things. I also love the idea that this explains how the Black Rock got to the center of the Island. The Island popped up under it. I also like the idea that the Nigerian drug plane could have gotten there similarly or that it could have been sucked in from the Tunisian desert as a polar bear was spit out. After all Ben moved both physically and in time, so why shouldn't that also be the case with the Island?

Whoever moves the island can never come back.



Why? My favorite theory, and I've heard this a couple of places is that turning the wheel has exposed Ben to such a high level of radiation/magnetism/other that trying to return to the Island would lead to death a la Minkowski and Eloise, constant or no constant. Why do you think Ben can't return to the Island? Or do you think he can?

And here's a corollary to the question. There are those who speculate that Widmore turned the wheel in the past. Do you think he did? And if he did, why was he looking for the Island again if Island movers can't come back. And what about Christian Shephard and Locke? Did they move the Island too?

How Cool Is This?



Check out Wordle.

Mummy Penny?



I heard this one on Jay and Jack too. Why didn't they leave Aaron with Penny and avoid the whole Kate was 6 months pregnant when the Marshall picked her up lie?

Were Charlotte and Daniel on the Up and Up?



I heard this on Jay and Jack. A caller speculated that Daniel and Charlotte lied about what they were up to in The Tempest. Lying?!? On LOST?!? The caller thinks rather than rendering poison that Ben could use inert, Daniel shut off a barrier that existed between the Island and the Freighter. I like that idea. After than episode it did seem like people went back and forth between the two much more easily than they had before that event. What do you think?

Lost IT




I just finished all 1090 pages of Stephen King's IT. I decided to read IT because it was recommended by another person on a LOST board. While not the most overtly LOST-connected book in the Stephen King pantheon, there are some similarities between the two.

One clear connection has to do with the method of story-telling. There's real time stories, flashbacks and differing points of view constantly in the book. Part 5 in particular changes back and forth from main characters in the past to main characters in the present to subordinate characters in the story. And there's often a blending of past and present. As one character reflects: Is something really stapling the past and present together here, or am I only imagining it? A regular mobius strip.

There's also a circularity or repeating of patterns that take place throughout the story. But rather than literally having things repeat, patterns repeat but with the circumstances varying every 25 or so years. What's more the main characters who realize they need to repeat this pattern can't remember what they had done before. Their memories are blank when it comes to key items, and part of the story is them regaining their memory in order to accomplish the task they need to accomplish.

This repetition notion intrigues me looking forward to the O6s return to the Island. Will they have to try to re-do something? Will they have all their memories of the Island or have they successfully repressed them? And of course Ben's incredible ability to outplay everyone still makes me wonder if he's somehow repeating a pattern.

Another huge thing similarity between IT and LOST is the nature of the bad guy. IT's bad guy can appear to you as whatever your personal worst nightmare is. That's clearly reminiscent of what the Island or Smokey is up to when it appears as things from your personal experience. And in IT others can see your nightmare just like Sawyer saw Kate's horse.

According to the book this type of creature exists in many cultures -- a Glamour in Gaelic, a Manitou by the Plains Indians, a Tallus or Taelus in the Himalayas, an Eylak in Central Europe and Le Loup-Garou in France. While I think Smokey is manmade (and out of control), it's interesting to think of a culture creating a machine that would duplicate this sort of monster.

Also looking forward to the return of the O6 to the Island, the children in IT found that 7 was a magic number that gave them power. I guess if you count Locke and Ben, but not Aaron and Ji Yeon you could get to 7 Island returnees in LOST. Of course you could also get 7 by adding Ji Yeon to the O6. While 7 is not one of THE Numbers, I think we're about in need of some magic numbers. Maybe 7 will be one.

Place is key in IT as it is in LOST. The pull and power and magic doesn't exist outside of Derry, Maine. The Island on the other hand seems to have much more influence outside of its physical sphere. How much of that is real, how much is psychological remains to be seen.

As a side note for those who've read Watership Down as well, Derry, Maine reminds me of Cowslip's Warren. Derry has made an unacknowledged deal with IT same as those rabbits. Every so often loved ones will be lost, but in general there will be prosperity as long as those losses continue.

And finally -- there's a love triangle. ;-p (and reproduction problems.)

Locke, Leader or Ultimate Scapegoat?



Jeremy Bentham shows up in the real world and tells Jack that "after I left the island, some very bad things happened. And he told me that it was my [Jack's] fault for leaving. And he said that I had to come back. But I'm thinking the bad things may come from Locke's presence more than Jack's absence or possibly even from Ben's absence. After all who did Christian Shephard and Claire tell to move the Island -- Locke. But Locke didn't move the Island, Ben did.

It reminds me of how Locke was supposed to take care of Sheriff's Deputy Eddie, but didn't. How little Locke was supposed to pick the things that belonged to him, but didn't. How he was supposed to kill his dad, but didn't. How Locke was supposed to push the button, but didn't. Once again, Locke is given a task, and he can't even find the flowers.

Now arguably, Locke didn't have the know how had he gotten into the Orchid to move the Island, but maybe the Island would have given him further instructions. But if Locke had been able to get into the Orchid in a timely manner and moved the Island (never to return) he would have trapped Jack on it. So whose fault is it John?