Saturday, May 30, 2009

Questioning LOST

So here's the things I'd like to know. Some of these will likely be answered in Season 6 but most probably won't unless Damon and Carlton publish some compendium of LOST trivia after the show ends. Nevertheless, as I rewatch the entire series to date over this hiatus, I'm going to collect these questions. After the series ends, we'll see where we stand.


I've decided to color code my questions. Red is for really, really important. Orange is less important, but I'd really like to know. The rest I'll settle for no answer, but still inquiring minds want to know.

1. Are Amelia and Amy the same person?
2. How did Ethan become an Other?
3. Where did Karl come from?
4. Why couldn't Desmond sail out of the influence of the Island?
5. What happened to the Elizabeth?
6. Why the Viking funeral for Colleen?
7. What force (good/bad/Jacob/Smokey/etc) was manipulating Locke's dreams and Smoke Lodge visions and also keeping him from walking and talking?
8. What was the Pearl's original purpose since it seems to predate the Swan and the Incident at the Swan?
9. Was Jacob communicating with Ben as Leader of the Others and if so, how?
10. How many polar bears were there?
11. Was Tom part of the original DI? Of Widmore's Others?
12. What is the deal with the Island pregnancy problem? When did it start?
13. Why did Mittelos go after Juliet? What is Ben's obsession with her including an explanation of the painting?
14. Who created the Room 23 video and to what end exactly? Who has undergone it's application?
15. Flashes Before Your Eyes established the existence of a time loop. When does it start and end and who is aware of reliving it? Does Ellie's statement to Penny at the hospital establish that the loop has ended once 316 returns to the Island?
16. Why mark Juliet in a place no one can see?
17. Cindy and the kids and the other Tailies taken -- what's the deal?
18. When did the Purge occur?
19. Why exactly do the Others have such a superiority complex like Mikhail when talking to Kate and Pickett's attitude to Sawyer?
20. Are things like Kate's horse and the cat named Nadia on the Island because of Jacob? The Man in Black? Are these coincidental occurrences how Jacob and MIB interact with the "players" on the Island?
21. When and how did Carol Littleton's coma end? (I hope it was Jacob.)
22. What the heck makes the Others (like Mikhail) have such faith in their magnificent leader (presumably Jacob) despite never having seen him?
23. How did Tom get off and back on Island post-purpling? And was he the one who brought Cooper to the Island? If not, who did and when?
24. What's the story behind the blond woman with the guinea pig painting in Ben's house.
25. Were Desmond's visions during his flashing period true or lies, especially the flashes when Naomi lied given that he saw both Charlie die and Charlie holding the parachute?
26. Why do Locke's legs stop working at times on the Island?
27. Who told Ben to have the Others build a runway?
28. Who/what was Taller Ghost Walt?
29. Who besides Christian Shephard was in the cabin when Hurley saw it in episode 4.1, and why did the cabin move?
30. What is the deal with the changing photo frames in the house Miles first ghostbusts?
31. What is the deal with The Whispers?
32. What caused the horse to intervene in Kate's escape and why is the same horse on the Island?
33. Was Kate hallucinating or did something inhabit Sawyer to make him seem like Wayne?
34. Did Ben get caught in Rousseau's trap on purpose? If not, where was he going?
35. What is the deal with the injections -- those given to Claire; those in the Swan?
36. Why did the Others want Aaron, but not Claire?
37. How do the food drops at the Swan work?
38. How do the people that Ben had Sayid execute, like Peter Avellino fit into the story? Same with Abaddon. How did he come to work for Widmore?
39. Why did Kelvin and possibly Radzinsky pull the whole quarantine charade in the Hatch?
40. How does Penny's encounter with Desmond at the LA track jive with their encounter in The Constant?

14 comments:

Amused2bHere said...

LOL I left a comment for this post on the previous one!

I agree with your color coded questions, Memphish. Great choices!

I also want to know What's up with the whispers!!!!

Capcom said...

Good questions! :-)

Capcom said...

Memphish, I have a question about your timeline: why did you put the LBs at the statue at 100BC? Just curious, thanks. :-)

beer said...

nice blog.

i think i can answer a few of your questions.

4. Why couldn't Desmond sail out of the influence of the Island?

- because of the electromagnetic sphere encircling the island. no one can enter or exit except through the special coordinates; jacob created a hole in the sphere in order to allow the black rock to enter, as seen in the finale.

9. Was Jacob communicating with Ben as Leader of the Others and if so, how?

- yes, by dreams, lists, visits (by ben)

12. What is the deal with the Island pregnancy problem? When did it start?

- The excessive electromagnetic energies on the Island caused in 1977 by the Incident, as seen in the finale.

13. Why did Mittelos go after Juliet? What is Ben's obsession with her including an explanation of the painting?

- She specialised in the appropriate areas. Is Ben immune to the standard laws of attraction? The painting is of his mother. Anything else would be seemingly paradoxical (not that the show is free of paradoxes).

17. Cindy and the kids and the other Tailies taken -- what's the deal?

- they are potential 'candidates'

22. What the heck makes the Others (like Mikhail) have such faith in their magnificent leader (presumably Jacob) despite never having seen him?

- have they never seen him?

24. What's the story behind the blond woman with the guinea pig painting in Ben's house.

- his mother

27. Who told Ben to have the Others build a runway?

- jacob

beer said...

also, 18. When did the Purge occur?

- december 19, 1992

memphish said...

Thanks for commenting beer. I think your answers are reasonable; I'd just like to have them confirmed. As for the Purge date, that's an ongoing pet peeve of mine. I know that's the date that you if you take ghost Horace's word for it, but I'm still convinced that it occurred before Danielle arrived. I can't reconcile how Ben can live a double life in two camps that includes a child thinking you're her father, though it could just be that Alex doesn't have any memories until she was 4 or older thanks to the old Room 23. While that's most likely, it's implausibility sort of annoys me. LOST is such a funny show because we'll accept things like dead bodies being reanimated, but little things can drive us nutty. :-)

BTW, your user name has been making me thirsty all morning, and while it is Friday, it's a little early for me. But I'll hoist one in your honor if not tonight then tomorrow afternoon at the party we're having complete with keg.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

It seems clear that the Purge occurred in 1992 and Alex was abducted as a baby in 1988, she'd have no memory of her first four years if you include Room 23. My question has always been exactly when Mr. LSD sugar cube guy morphing into Room 23. Why the need for massive brainwashing? Another thing, there were a lot of Others and even if Karl was the only other child, then Alex was around enough people as a young child that moving to the Barracks was like moving to a new home.

Everyone asks about Cindy and the kids, but they forget that other tailenders were taken as well. I'm just curious as to if some need to be sent to Room 23 or some simply go along with the idea of being with the Others. Jacob kept a list that was found on one of the dead Others that Eko killed.

That's a neat loop re: Juliet, she is brought to the Island to find a cure for an event that started (maybe) at the point of her death. Interesting that, for all its funding (the facilities, airport, etc.), the two times we hear of Mittelos is with Juliet and with Locke. (I want to say that there were other "candidates," but were there?)

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Oh, and I echo the statement that you have a cool blog.

beer said...

i'd like them to be confirmed, too, but i don't particularly like vouching for things if i'm not confident that they're viable with a fair amount of evidence and sound logic behind them.

the purge was the 19th of '92 because it was ben's 28th birthday

about the painting... i know i wrote it was his mother, but if annie did live to adulthood it would most probably be her.

i'm not sure what you mean by ben living a double life in two camps or alex's memory, but if the purge was before danielle arrived then why would they still be camping out in the jungle when ben went to kill danielle? it wasn't anything to do with widmore or anyone's dislike of technology or advancement, because a. they moved in dharma territory during widmore's stint and b. jacob disliking technology seems to have been a ruse.

and wayne, i'm pretty sure it was 1989 when alex was abducted.

Capcom said...

I think that Ben living in two camps is assumed by the fact that Ben was still at least hanging out in DI-ville, and posing as a work-man in a jumpsuit, untill the Purge when he took dear old dad up to the hills for his final repose. So if they took Alex before that and Ben was part of the Hostiles camp at that time, Ben was still at DI-ville posing as one of the faithful, up to the year of the gas-o-rama. I'm posting this off the cuff without checking L-pedia first for the exact dates though.

:-)

Capcom said...

Hi Memphish! Hope that all is well with you, you are missed at LostARGs. But if you aren't interested in posters, then you aren't missing much. Especially with the ugliness that is often erupting between the newbies to TLC that have migrated over from SpoilerTV I suppose. Can't wait until we can get back to our regular scheduled TLC programming again. Hope you will be back soon!

:-)

Capcom said...

It's me again, your friendly neighborhood pest, haha. Merry Christmas Memphish, to you and all of your family!

:-)

memphish said...

Thanks Capcom. And to you and yours!

TheOtherLisa said...

Memphish... I was here a number of years ago as just plain Lisa.....I skimmed a few of your old blogs from 07 when you started! What fun to read and see what's come true and how some have been answered already... you really do have GREAT questions! I'm hoping for all our sakes that these ones have answers too!

Its also nice to see that so many people are still familiar names even though I've been gone so long!
Happy Last season everyone... bittersweet!