写于LOST第3季第6集结束后的停播期
LOST “Season 2.5” — The Origins of the Dharma Initiative
After Season 2 of LOST ended with a widely praised finale, ABC and the LOST production team launched a publicity campaign called the “Lost Experience.” Its central trick was to make fiction feel real, convincing viewers that the Hanso Foundation in LOST—the foundation established by Alvar Hanso, the founder of the Dharma Initiative introduced in the Season 2 Dharma Initiative videotapes—was real. The most valuable scoop from this campaign was a video called Hansoexposed, supposedly stolen from the Hanso Foundation’s official website by a hacker (which never actually happened; it was all part of the Lost Experience’s fiction-made-real gimmick). The video has two parts: the first is Alvar’s introduction to the Dharma Initiative, and the second is a speech by a later executor of the Dharma Initiative to its staff. Given how explosive this video is, we might as well call it LOST’s “Season 2.5.”
YouTube link to the video with Chinese subtitles:
The analysis below also refers to this subtitled version.
The First Part of Hansoexposed: The Origins of the Dharma Initiative · The Meaning of “Dharma” · The Meaning of the Numerical Sequence
According to Alvar Hanso, during the Cold War in the 1960s, the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. An Italian mathematician named Valenzetti derived the Valenzetti equation, which was a secret of the United Nations Security Council. The equation predicted the exact time of humanity’s destruction, suggesting that humanity might be destroyed by nuclear weapons, biological and chemical weapons, conventional weapons, pandemics, or overpopulation.
(The Dharma Initiative’s various research projects were probably aimed at these factors. Magnetic research, for example, may have been intended to destroy weapons of mass destruction if nuclear war broke out. The vaccines that Desmond and the others inject themselves with regularly, the fabled disease, and the “quarantine” label on the hatch all seem closely related to pandemic research. Research on infectious viruses might also have led to the development of deadly biological weapons for wiping out the population!! This is confirmed in the second part of Hansoexposed.)
Valenzetti represented several core factors affecting humanity’s destruction as numerical values (roughly, the important coefficients of the equation; the size of each coefficient directly determines when humanity will be destroyed). Those values are 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42.
(The meaning of this mysterious sequence, which had tormented LOST viewers for two seasons, has been revealed, but its mysterious power remains a mystery: why does it make some people win the lottery while bringing others bad luck?)
The Dharma Initiative’s original purpose was to establish an integrated research program capable of changing these parameters in the Valenzetti equation. Change the parameters, and you either delay humanity’s destruction—or save the world.
The word “Dharma” does not actually refer to Bodhidharma. It is an acronym for the Department of Heuristics And Research on Material Applications (roughly, the “Department of Heuristic Research into Material Applications”—not that I know what that means).
So they built numerous research stations on an island, regularly airdropped supplies, and erected a radio transmission tower whose frequency and code were known only to the program’s upper management. The tower transmitted only the numerical values from the Valenzetti equation. If the scientists on the island changed those values through their research, the people at the top outside the island would know.
(It seems the Dharma Initiative was basically a soft form of imprisonment. From the beginning, the scientists on the island were isolated from the world; they might not even have been able to contact the outside world on their own, and the people outside did not know the program’s precise progress. Only after the numbers changed and the tower informed the people in charge outside might the scientists have been released. Of course, part of this is my speculation. But it also explains the Season 2 scene in which the 815 survivors discover that food is being airdropped. The outside world may still have believed that the Dharma Initiative was operating normally and therefore continued dropping essential supplies on schedule. I suspect the Others were living such comfortable, bourgeois lives largely because of those airdropped supplies.)
(The tower Alvar mentions is actually the one discovered by the French woman Danielle, which she used to transmit her distress signal. The signal Hurley’s friend in the mental hospital accidentally intercepted while serving in the military should also have come from this tower. Most likely, some incident occurred on the island at that time, causing an unencrypted signal to leak out briefly.)
The Second Part of Hansoexposed: The Dharma Initiative’s Disaster
The second part of the Hansoexposed video is a “secretly recorded” video, apparently made long after the Dharma Initiative had been operating. It shows Thomas Mittelwerk, the person in charge of carrying out the program on the island, giving a speech to his subordinates.
According to Mittelwerk, the Dharma Initiative had failed: the scientists on the island had never managed to change the parameters. They tried manipulating all kinds of environmental variables, but nothing worked. So they had no choice but to resort to extreme measures—going after humanity itself.
(Judging from what Mittelwerk says later, their extreme measure was to “wipe out the population”!! From Alvar’s explanation, we know that the Valenzetti equation might also predict destruction through overpopulation, so Mittelwerk hoped to save the world by actively eliminating part of the population.)
Mittelwerk says, “The villages of Fallam and Vitualami have allowed us to test the vaccine on their villagers.” The villagers believe they have been infected with a virus and trust the researchers to bring them a cure. Mittelwerk orders his subordinates to take the “cure” (actually the virus) to them and not to lose their nerve. “When the villagers begin to die, you must comfort them with sympathy and compassion.” The bodies are then transported back to the work station for genetic analysis; they must confirm that the virus attacked its predetermined genetic targets. Mittelwerk says, “The optimal mortality rate is 30 percent.” Aside from what is necessary, do not kill anyone else.
This speech by Mittelwerk raises a lot of questions:
1. The virus and the vaccine: In Seasons 1 and 2 of LOST, the Others, Desmond, and Danielle all believe that people can get sick on the island. Is this the virus Mittelwerk originally spread among the villagers? Is the reason people still get sick that a small amount of the virus actually remains on the island?
2. The “quarantine” label in the Pearl hatch may not have been made up out of thin air. The virus may once have gotten out of control, turning the island into a place overrun by infection, so that the surviving researchers really did have to wear protective suits like Kelvin to leave their stations. The virus concentration is now very low, so perhaps only babies can still catch it. That may be why the Others abducted Danielle and Claire’s babies to inject them with vaccines.
3. The Others may well be the original villagers of Fallam and Vitualami. They may have been the island’s indigenous people, or perhaps its earliest colonists or pioneers, since they all speak with unmistakably American accents. In the early days of the Dharma Initiative, they may have served as observers or partial research subjects. After Mittelwerk’s virus plan was carried out, they became victims. But once nearly all the actual Dharma Initiative staff had died, they became the ones in control.
4. The real meaning of “the good guys”: In the Season 2 finale, Ben tells Michael, “We are the good guys.” What exactly does “the good guys” mean? Ben’s expression when he says it is complicated, almost cruelly amused. It probably does not simply mean “good people.” And who, then, are “the bad guys”? If we infer from Mittelwerk’s speech, “the good guys” may mean people carrying the genes the virus did not select for elimination—the people chosen to survive. “The bad guys” would be the 30 percent carrying the undesirable genes and killed by the virus. Since Mittelwerk says the virus is genetically specific and kills only people with certain genes (although the selection may well have failed in practice), the people the virus selected to kill are “the bad guys,” while the people it selected to spare are “the good guys.” So the Others are people chosen to survive: winners, survivors chosen by heaven. That is why Ben’s “We are the good guys” comes with that cruel little smile. As for the standard used for the genetic selection, we still have no idea.
5. Why the Others do not contact the outside world: From Season 3, it is clear that the Others could contact the outside world, but they do not want to expose the island. Once nearly all the Dharma Initiative staff were dead, the Others’ lives returned to normal (and they still had a steady supply of provisions year after year). They did not want outside interference again, so they worked hard to preserve the island’s secrecy—and may even have taken steps to create the illusion that the Dharma Initiative was still operating.
LOST Season 3, Episodes 1–6 — Science Fiction? Psychology? Religion?
Episode 1
Title: A Tale of Two Cities
Actual title: A Tale of Two Islands
Theme: Let it go!
Starting in Season 3, the writers began playing some even more “devious” tricks than in the first two seasons, such as the title of each episode. Episode 1 is inexplicably called “A Tale of Two Cities,” so everyone assumed it had some subtle connection to Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. It is not until Episode 4 that J. J. Abrams lets the audience realize that the two cities actually mean two islands! The Others’ lifestyle is so aggressively comfortable and bourgeois that it is almost shocking; the opening scene nearly made me think I was watching Desperate Housewives.
The title is actually a way of using place names to refer to people. “The tale of two islands” is really the story of the people on two islands—in other words, the story of the Others and the 815 survivors.
Starting in Season 3, three elements—science fiction, psychology, and religion—suddenly move to the foreground, although all three had been hinted at during the first two seasons.
The first element to come strongly to the fore is psychology. Psychology and parapsychology were listed among the Dharma Initiative’s research topics in the videotape shown in the Pearl hatch. The first two seasons focused more on parapsychology, or extrasensory abilities—for example, the Others clearly discovered something important in Walt, who has extrasensory powers. In my previous review, I suggested that the Others may originally have been research subjects in parapsychology—in other words, a group of people with extraordinary abilities. The main evidence was that they could “speak in ghost language” in the jungle and appear and disappear without a trace. But it now looks as though this theory may need revision. Starting this season, the psychological element begins to receive much more attention.
A Behavior Modification Experiment
For example, I was amazed to discover that Episode 1 is actually about a behavior modification experiment! The famous psychologist B. F. Skinner used the Skinner box to train animals and change their behavior. He called pigeons that developed unusual behavior patterns through his training “superstitious” pigeons. Put simply, his method was reward and punishment. When an animal happened to perform the behavior the experimenter wanted, it received a reward (such as food or water); when it happened to perform behavior the experimenter did not want, it received punishment (such as an electric shock). In this way, the animal gradually developed a conditioned reflex and acquired the behavior pattern the experimenter wanted. Sound familiar? Exactly—Sawyer was locked inside a giant Skinner box!
Returning to this episode’s theme, Juliet’s treatment of Jack is a classic behavior modification experiment based on Skinner’s theory. What she is correcting is Jack’s compulsive behavior—or, more precisely, his stubbornness. The obvious goal is to make Jack give up his desire to escape. Jack is extremely stubborn, and without this special approach it would be very difficult to bring him under control.
The cleverness of Juliet’s therapy lies in combining direct and indirect treatment. First, she uses the apparently broken intercom player on the wall to play Jack’s father’s voice saying “let it go” (heaven knows how she managed that), guiding Jack to recall how stubbornly he once pursued his wife’s new lover. This makes Jack experience the transformation from the stubbornness in his memories to the stubbornness in the present. If he can give up the thing he was once most fixated on, giving up his current stubbornness becomes less difficult. The next steps are simply “reward” and “punishment.” First, Jack is dehydrated, which indirectly increases the intensity of both. Then they tempt Jack with a “reward” (food). The food is actually the reward in this therapy—which is why they do not leave food in Jack’s room while he is unconscious, but go to the trouble of pretending to offer it only after he wakes up.
Give up resisting and you get a reward. Keep resisting and you get no reward—in effect, negative punishment. When Juliet realized it was not working very well, she changed tactics and decided to punish Jack for resisting. Jack pretended to accept the terms and sat in a corner. When Juliet brought him food, Jack escaped, only to be nearly drowned and then knocked out by Juliet. That was the punishment for passive behavior. (In fact, Juliet and Ben’s conversation at the end of the episode makes it clear that this was all a step they had arranged together, not an accident.)
After being punished, Jack finally learned his lesson. He gave up his fixation on his ex-wife, and with it, his resistance. The behavior modification worked perfectly.
Episode 2
Title: The Glass Ballerina
Real title: Lies
Theme: You can’t keep fire wrapped in paper
This episode has a very typical LOST structure: the flashback and the present look like two separate parts, but they are really about the same thing. Both are about lies and betrayal.
Viewers who miss the literary, slightly arty atmosphere of Season 1 will like this episode. Sun’s pregnancy apparently has nothing to do with the island’s magnetic field or the Smoke Monster; she must be carrying the bald-headed lover’s child. The so-called miracle is just a lie.
The Others take a huge interest in Desmond’s boat. When Ben says, “I want that boat,” his expression is bizarre—almost like he is twitching with excitement. If a sailing boat matters this much to the Others, then although they seem able to obtain information about the outside world, they apparently cannot use their own power to get very far from the island—they do not even have a boat. Seen this way, the promise Ben later makes to Jack may well be another lie. Looking back, Michael and his son, whom Ben released in Season 2, set off in a little boat like that. If they could not get rescued immediately after leaving the island’s range, their odds were probably terrible. So that promise looks like a lie too.
Still, however you look at it, Ben seems completely sincere both times. I would rather believe he was thinking along these lines: Jack and the others could call for help once they left the island’s range, but the Others did not want the outside world to know they existed, so they needed a seaworthy boat they could operate themselves.
I was very happy to see Sun fire that shot (although we still do not know whether the Others are actually bad people). It swept away the pathetic atmosphere of the 815 survivors being pushed around by the Others at every turn.
Episode 3
Title: Further Instructions
Real title: A Blow to the Head
Theme: Cleaning up your own mess
An episode shrouded in fog.
Further Instructions
The title “Further Instructions” is another instance of J. J. Abrams messing with the audience. On the surface, there really are “instructions” in this episode—the island tells Locke to rescue Mr. Eko, who has been dragged away by a polar bear. But that is a misunderstanding. Only after Episode 6 do we learn that the real “Further Instructions” are the words carved on Mr. Eko’s stick: “Lift up your eyes and lock north JOHN 3:05.” Although Locke discovers these instructions when Mr. Eko is buried in Episode 6, the stick actually falls on Locke’s head the moment he opens his eyes in Episode 3. Unfortunately, he misses the message in this literal blow to the head and goes off to “talk to the inland” instead. The island then makes Locke clean up the mess he created. According to leaked background material online, the island where the Others live—the one where Jack and the others are currently being held—is directly north of the 815 survivors’ island. So Mr. Eko’s instruction seems to mean that Locke should go north to rescue Jack and the others.
Locke finally realizes how to communicate proactively with the island. Actually, Locke is not communicating with the island at all—he is communicating with the Smoke Monster! This is an important plot point, but I will analyze it when I introduce Episode 5.
Even more troubling is that Desmond becomes stark naked after the Pearl station explodes, and gains the ability to predict the future. I will analyze Desmond’s ability when I introduce Episode 5, because in my view it is still one of the Smoke Monster’s masterpieces.
The Bizarre Implosion
One thing is certain, though: the implosion of the Pearl station is an extremely unusual event. It was definitely not just a simple way to discharge excess electricity all at once. Locke’s brief loss of speech and his “spacing out” after the implosion, Mr. Eko’s instructions, and Desmond’s prophetic ability are all chain reactions caused by it. And this implosion raises plenty of questions.
Question 1:
Why was the implosion powerful enough to obliterate the Pearl station and leave a crater, while Locke, Desmond, and Mr. Eko, who were at the center of the blast, suffered almost no physical harm and simply woke up in different parts of the jungle the next day? What force “transferred” them out of the center of the explosion?
Question 2:
The second question is why Charlie, who was also there, came through completely unharmed. Even if he was no longer inside the station, he should not have been far away, since he was with Mr. Eko shortly before the explosion. And even if he was not at the scene, why did he show so little concern for what happened to Mr. Eko and the others afterward? Even if he disliked Locke, he should still have cared whether Mr. Eko lived or died. Before the end of Season 2, when Claire asked where Locke and the others were, Charlie casually replied, “They haven’t come back yet?” That is a very strange reaction. From his tone, it sounds as if Charlie knew Locke, Desmond, and Mr. Eko were perfectly fine and there was nothing to worry about. Could he have seen Mr. Eko and the others shortly after Desmond turned the key, then returned safely to the beach? If so, perhaps the implosion did not happen immediately after Desmond turned the key. Maybe something else happened first, followed by this strange implosion. Locke, Desmond, and Mr. Eko seem to have lost their memories of the interval between turning the key and the implosion. Did they undergo some extraordinary experience during that time, causing the strange reactions each person shows in this episode?
Question 3:
The third question concerns a cliffhanger left over from Season 2—one we may all have forgotten by now: why did Ben risk his life to find Locke, and why did he lie that Locke had not pushed the button? This episode solves half the mystery. Ben’s goal was to use a ruse to shake Locke’s faith, ultimately causing Locke to stop Mr. Eko from continuing to press the button—and the result of all that was the implosion! So here is the truly chilling part: although the implosion looks like an accident caused by Locke’s shaken faith, it was completely orchestrated by Ben! That makes it even clearer that the implosion is no simple matter; it must have triggered some major event Ben wanted. We just still do not know what that event was.
There is another interesting detail: while Mr. Eko was half-conscious, he was possessed by Locke’s former police-friend. I will discuss this detail more when I get to Episode 5. The science-fiction flavor of this episode is getting stronger.
Also, the inspiration for the Shangri-La-like place in Locke’s flashback may have come from B. F. Skinner’s utopian novel Walden Two. It seems LOST and Skinner are inseparable after all.
Episode 4
Title: Every Man for Himself
Real title: Live together, die alone
Theme: Sun Wukong vs. the Buddha
Another episode with a strong psychological flavor. The Others finish with Jack, then move on to Sawyer.
Why doesn’t Ben simply take Sawyer to the beach to “look across at the other island,” instead of painstakingly setting up a con to fool a master con man? The Others clearly understand human nature. They know psychological submission is much more effective than physical shackles. Ben wants to tell Sawyer, “My abilities are far beyond yours, so don’t even think about escaping my Five-Finger Mountain.”
So this episode is really LOST’s version of the Buddha battling Sun Wukong. Sawyer is a scruffy little monkey who has a few tricks but no idea how vast the sky or how thick the earth is. Without personally experiencing the Buddha’s boundless power, even being pinned under Five-Finger Mountain for 500 years would not make him submit willingly. That is why the Buddha, despite having overwhelming power, bothers to wager and compete with Sun Wukong—and why Ben plays psychological games with Sawyer. First destroy Sawyer’s psychological defenses with a mind game, then deliver the fatal blow with the fact that there are two islands. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
After that little “heart-pounding trip down memory lane,” “Little Flirt” had no choice but to turn obediently into “Little Repressed Flirt.”
The key clues in this episode are:
The Others live on another, smaller island. That is the real meaning of “the two cities” in the first episode. Why had the 815 survivors failed to discover it in more than sixty days? Why had Desmond, despite sailing out to sea, never seen it? Apparently, if some force can isolate the two islands from the outside world, a similar force may be further protecting the Others’ island, creating a blind spot: people on the other island can neither see it nor approach it.
Desmond’s prophetic ability is confirmed, and it happens to save the lives of Charlie’s family of three.
Episode 5
Title: The Cost of Living
Real title: The Cost of Not Repenting
Theme: The Judgment of “God”
This is the most important episode of Season 3 so far. It concerns LOST’s central mystery—the Smoke Monster. This may be the key to unlocking every mystery in LOST.
The Smoke Monster’s True Face
An expert online has already revealed that the inspiration for LOST’s Smoke Monster came from the nanomachines in Michael Crichton’s novel Prey. The excerpt goes like this: the book describes “predators” created by a failed government experiment. The predators are actually a cloud of nanomachines resembling a black cloud. They are tiny robots that gather like dense smoke or a huge swarm of insects, forming a cloud-like object that moves around. When hunting, the nanomachines make a sharp mechanical sound. While pursuing prey, they can freely change the shape of their bodies, even taking human form. When they escape human control, they hide underground. The nanomachines enter the bloodstream through breathing and then invade the brain, allowing them to control an entire person. (See: http://sfile.ydy.com/bbs/read.php?tid=7043&keyword=LOST%A1%B0%B9%D6%CE%EF%A1%B1%B7%C0%D3%F9%CF%B5%CD%B3%BD%D2%C3%DC)
The Smoke Monster—a Petty-minded God
Let us treat the Smoke Monster as nanomachines for the moment. In my view, though, explaining what it does is much more important than explaining what it is. LOST may never explain exactly what the Smoke Monster is, but if it cannot give a reasonable account of its motives, it starts to feel like empty mystery-mongering.
I will try to explain and speculate about some of the motives behind the Smoke Monster’s behavior. What exactly is its purpose in killing some people and saving others—
Put simply, the Smoke Monster plays the role of the island’s god! And a narrow-minded god at that! The logic behind everything it does is: “Those who follow me prosper; those who oppose me perish.” The Smoke Monster grants redemption to people who want to repent, while those who refuse redemption on its terms—or threaten it—receive a destructive punishment: divine judgment.
Eko’s Death
There are too many threads to follow, so let us start with Eko’s death in this episode. The Smoke Monster takes the form of Yemi and repeatedly reminds Eko to repent, then accept God’s judgment (which is really the Smoke Monster’s judgment). In the Smoke Monster’s eyes, Eko’s many killings are evil, but Eko has a heart that leans toward goodness, making him worthy of being saved by a manifestation of the Smoke Monster. More importantly, Eko is, in a sense, a believer in the Smoke Monster. In Season 2, Eko took over Locke’s faith in the island (which is really faith in the Smoke Monster). After Locke’s faith wavered in Season 2, the Smoke Monster used dreams to hint that Eko should help Locke. Clearly, Eko is the Smoke Monster’s designated heir. A promising young man like that always deserves a little help.
We know that in the Old Testament, God even used coercive, bribe-laden, and frankly rather unsavory methods to “recruit members.” For a narrow-minded god like Yahweh, this is really rooted in an inferiority complex. On the one hand, he feels responsible for his believers; on the other, he is often merciless and brutal toward those who betray him, disbelieve in him, or fail to do as he demands. It is an irrational anger and hatred born of inferiority. In the Old Testament, God killed the firstborn of all the Egyptians for the sake of his pitifully small number of believers for precisely this reason.
The Black Smoke treats Eko the same way. It regarded Eko as one of its faithful believers and used Yemi’s image to urge Eko to repent his sins. “Those who believe in me shall be saved”—that is God’s responsibility toward his believers. But at the last moment, contrary to the Black Smoke’s expectations, what Eko wanted to tell Yemi was not a confession that he had killed countless people. Quite the opposite: Eko believed that was the price of survival and that he had nothing to repent. What he wanted was Yemi’s forgiveness.
Eko did not repent in the manner the Black Smoke had prescribed. A believer became a betrayer. So God was enraged, displayed terrifying power, and destroyed the traitor—just as God once rained fire down on Sodom instead of considering whether to save the city’s “wayward young people.” God is used to threatening and eliminating those who do not believe in him or betray him. Buddhism speaks of “saving all sentient beings,” while God says, “Believe in me and you shall be saved.” The difference in spiritual stature could not be clearer.
So the real reason Eko died was that he failed to repent according to God’s wishes, touching the most sensitive nerve of this petty God. Since God lost face because of Eko and flew into a rage, Eko had no choice but to sacrifice his life to cool God’s temper. This was the Black Smoke’s “judgment” of its betrayer.
Follow God and you are saved by God; defy God and you perish by God!
The reason Eko left the dying message “you’re next” was that he had seen through the petty nature of the Black Smoke God. It may often drop hints through hallucinations and dreams, but the moment you accidentally anger it, it wipes you out with thunderous force.
(One small addition: both Australian mediums sensed the existence of the Black Smoke’s power, and both showed extreme awe toward it. This also proves that the Black Smoke is a godlike presence.)
The Black Smoke God’s Various Ways of Revealing Itself
Once we understand this mindset of the Black Smoke, we can analyze why it sometimes helps the 815 survivors find spiritual redemption, yet at other times kills without blinking. The Black Smoke reveals itself in the following ways:
Method One: Uprooted Trees and a Deafening Roar
1. Uprooting trees on the night of Flight 815’s crash:
This petty God always feels the urge to display its divine power and satisfy its vanity. This time it was clearly showing off a little. It is like the way statues of gods are usually made oversized, so that their “small” believers can constantly feel the god’s majesty.
2. The roar on the way to the Black Rock:
On the way to the Black Rock to retrieve the explosives, Jack and the others heard the Black Smoke roaring in the jungle. This area seemed to be the Black Smoke’s usual habitat.
Method Two: Revealing Its True Form
The Black Smoke deliberately revealed its true form to Locke and Eko. These two were actually the “most promising” and “most faithful” believers in the Black Smoke’s eyes. The first time it revealed its true form to Eko, it read his memories. This explains why the Black Smoke could take the form of certain people and things from the 815 survivors’ memories: it had actually read everyone’s memories, though perhaps not always in such an overt way. It may have read Eko’s memories long ago; this time was probably just “reinforcing the impression.”
Method Three: Killing Directly
1. Taking out the portly pilot:
The petty God is extremely sensitive to the number and size of its flock (see the many examples in the Old Testament). So after Flight 815 crashed, the Black Smoke automatically claimed this group of “potential believers.” Sometimes it helped them out—I even suspect that the reason so many people survived the crash was thanks to the Black Smoke, rather than the abnormal magnetic field slowing their descent—and sometimes it killed those who angered or threatened it. The pilot died because he threatened the number of the Black Smoke’s believers. In theory, as a professional, he was the person most likely to help the survivors successfully transmit a distress signal (of course, that is only in theory; no electromagnetic signal can get off this island). So how could a Black Smoke desperately short of believers tolerate someone like that?
Of course, there was an even simpler reason the portly pilot was taken out: the nose of the plane landed right in the Black Smoke’s habitat.
2. Trying to take out Locke:
On the way back from the Black Rock, Jack and the others passed through the Black Smoke’s habitat and disturbed it. Locke nearly got killed as a result. God always wants to preserve its mystery and remain high above everyone else. So the thing God can least tolerate is humans deliberately approaching it and learning its true nature. You may revere it, but do not try to understand it. That is why, when Locke tried to approach the Black Smoke deliberately, it stopped recognizing even its own family. Besides playing the role of a god, the Black Smoke also has an instinct resembling that of a lower organism: anything that threatens its existence must be killed.
3. Taking out Eko.
Method Four: Killing Indirectly
Boone’s Death
My view is that Boone was actually killed by the Black Smoke.
① The first mystery surrounding Boone’s death: Why say Boone was killed by the Black Smoke rather than falling to his death by accident?
Boone’s fall from the cliff was entirely orchestrated by the Black Smoke. First, let’s look at why Boone climbed up there: Locke’s leg suddenly went numb. In Locke’s own words, he did not know why the island had taken back what it had given him. Clearly, on the day of the crash, Uncle Locke and Grandma Rose had both received the Black Smoke’s blessing and recovered miraculously. Now the Black Smoke decided to temporarily withdraw that blessing from Locke in order to set up Boone’s death. It also used dreams to guide Locke toward Yemi’s plane and hint that Boone would die. Locke took the bait obediently, and both his legs very “coincidentally” went completely numb on the way.
So it naturally became Boone who climbed the cliff. Notice that once Boone had been seriously injured in the fall, Locke’s legs recovered with perfect “timing”! Poor Locke never once thought about the connection between his bizarre temporary paralysis and Boone’s death.
② A further hypothesis about Boone’s death: Yemi may never have crashed here at all
There is another very strange detail. Boone connected to the plane’s radio and called for help, but the voice on the radio said, “There were no survivors of Flight 815.” That could not have been a voice from off the island, and the Others had no reason to say it either. So the sentence may actually have been spoken by the Black Smoke. Its meaning is unclear.
An even bolder theory is that Yemi’s plane never landed on this island in the first place. The plane on the island did not even exist before Flight 815 crashed. It was synthesized by the Black Smoke after reading Eko’s memories (not during that overt memory-reading appearance, of course, but earlier). Nanorobots were originally designed to manipulate and arrange molecules. “Creation” is the Black Smoke’s day job (good grief, the Black Smoke is the true Creator in the literal sense). Other clues suggest that the Black Smoke really can synthesize physical objects, rather than merely create hallucinations. For example, Hurley once waved the shoe of his imaginary friend in front of Charlie, and Charlie really did see the shoe.
So the fact that Yemi and Eko landed on the island one after the other was originally the plot point in LOST that looked most like “destiny.” But under my theory, “destiny” turns out not to exist at all. Otherwise, how could everything line up so perfectly? Not only did Yemi crash onto the island years earlier; he also landed right next to the Pearl station.
③ The second mystery surrounding Boone’s death: If the Black Smoke had once redeemed Boone, why kill him afterward?
The reason is actually simple: Boone’s faith had begun to waver. Boone had originally been promising material. But in the end, not only did he lose faith himself, he also kept mocking, taunting, and undermining the faith of Locke, this devoted believer. Once again, he touched the sensitive nerve of the Black Smoke God. The Black Smoke can tolerate people who have never believed in it (such as Jack, since they may still be potential believers to some extent), but it cannot tolerate those who once believed and later betrayed it. Especially not when Boone tried to shake the faith of Locke, the Black Smoke’s favorite.
Locke said the island needed a sacrifice. He was unfortunately right: Boone really did become the sacrifice.
Method Five: Healing
On the day of the crash, the Black Smoke used its divine power to cure Rose and Locke. This seems to have been a blessing bestowed on certain potential believers.
Method Six: Hallucinations
The Black Smoke often creates hallucinations to guide the 815 survivors. This is also a responsibility toward its people.
In fact, many hallucinations that seem harmful to the 815 survivors ultimately serve a redemptive purpose. For example, the hallucination involving Hurley’s imaginary friend looked as if it were trying to lead Hurley to suicide, but Libby “happened” to arrive in time. So the experience not only helped Hurley completely escape his inner demons, it also brought him and Libby together.
Method Seven: Dreams and the Subconscious
All the signs suggest that the 815 survivors are most vulnerable to invasion by the Black Smoke when the power of consciousness is weakened—for example, when they are tired, in dreams, or in deliberately induced subconscious states. Locke discovered this earliest, and it became his way of communicating with the Black Smoke on purpose. In Season 1, he used hallucinogenic herbs to put Boone into a trance and let him receive the Black Smoke’s redemption directly. Then, in Season 3, Episode 3, temporarily off his rocker, he used herbs and a sauna to enter a subconscious state and communicate with the Black Smoke directly (that is, “talk to the island”).
Eko was also “possessed” by Locke’s police-officer friend in Episode 3 for this reason. In reality, it was the Black Smoke speaking through Eko.
Method Eight: Whispers?
Although the whispers in the jungle sound a lot like something the Others produced, at this point they seem more likely to be the Black Smoke acting like a tape recorder: recording the words—or perhaps the thoughts—of the Others and the 815 survivors, then playing them back in the jungle. For example, in the episode where Sawyer was attacked by a boar, he clearly heard in the whispers something said by a man he had accidentally killed as that man lay dying.
If the whispers are an ability of the Black Smoke, then Shannon was also indirectly killed by it. The reason is unknown.
The Truth About Desmond’s Ability
Back to this episode. Another major mystery is: Why can Desmond predict Locke’s actions and the island’s weather, yet fail to predict the major event of “Eko being killed”?
My guess is this:
Desmond can predict ordinary events on the island that operate according to normal, non-divine patterns, but he cannot predict the will of God. Under God, the island operates according to certain rules: when it rains, how people on the island behave in particular circumstances, and so on. Just as the world beyond the island also runs according to certain physical and social laws. Desmond’s ability is to predict events produced by these ordinary rules. But God can arbitrarily break the rules he made himself. God stands above the rules. Just as God can split the Red Sea through Moses while ignoring gravity. Einstein and Newton can step aside at that point. So Desmond cannot foresee events operating under God’s will and against the rules—in other words, God’s actions.
That is why Desmond could not foresee Eko’s death!
So where did Desmond’s ability come from? It was probably granted by the Black Smoke. Just as God gives angels a certain amount of divine power, while angels can never fathom God. Could Desmond be the next exceptional believer the Black Smoke has chosen? If so, it was the Black Smoke that rescued Desmond and the others from the implosion of the Swan station.
To sum up:
The Black Smoke—the God
815 survivors—believers/potential believers/subjects
Locke—the First Apostle (Archangel)
Boone—the Second Apostle
Eko—the Third Apostle
Desmond—the Fourth Apostle (?)
Episode 6
Title: I Do
The Real Title: Sawyer, Loved by Everyone, and Kate, Who Loves Everyone
Theme: Jack Strikes Back
An episode with very little information.
1. Locke finally discovers the Further Instruction carved into Eko’s stick.
2. Kate finally has ML with Sawyer. Going by the rule established in the previous two seasons—that women who have extramarital ML always die (Shannon and Ana-Lucia)—Kate may be next. Although Kate is still nominally the female lead, her screen time has dropped sharply since Season 2. This season, she doesn’t even get a flashback until Episode 6. It looks as though her position will be taken over further by other female characters.
3. Jack Strikes Back
Jack is worthy of being the male lead: he neither willingly rescued Ben nor secretly killed him according to Juliet’s plan. Instead, he chose to use Ben as a hostage to rescue Kate and Sawyer.
But given the others’ deep understanding of human nature and their calculating ways, could they really fail to anticipate Jack using the surgery to strike back? I can’t shake the feeling that an even bigger conspiracy is hiding behind this operation, and that Jack is still caught in the trap.
I may well have guessed a lot of this wrong. If I got it all right, then I must be J. J. Abrams. The new Episode will be here before we know it, and we’ll wait and see.
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