Not Worth The Paper
I hadn't seen this before. The terms of the truce between the Dharma Initiative and the Others, along with Richard Alpert's notes.
It was never clear who had the edge in power. For one thing, you could never tell how many DI members and Others there were. (Alpert's notes suggest the DI had no more than 216--or 2 x 108.) Also, DI had more modern weapons, but the Others knew the island and perhaps had access to its powers. They also seemed more ruthless than the DI, which was not, after all, a military organization.
You also get the impression that Alpert is barely tolerating the DI, and certainly sees a day when they'll leave. (Alpert is the sort of guy who can look at the long run.) It's still unclear, however, just how bad things had to get before they led to the purge.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:24 AM
4 Comments:
Thanks for your comments.
It seems as if some DI folks (including Radzinsky) always believed that if it came to a fight, the DI would win, simply because the island's natives were obviously "primitive". Maybe he was too much a "man of science"? Horace and Amy were clearly afraid of the natives.
Ironically, the purge seems to have been accomplished using Dharma technology, not the Others' tools.
We still don't know who ordered the Purge. I would assume that it was whoever was the "leader" of the Others at the time, but I'm confused about who that leader is. In the 1970s, was Eloise teh sole leader, or were she and Charles co-leaders? Was Ben declared the leader while Charles was still on the island, or did he only become the leader after Charles was exiled (i.e., after the Purge was over)?
I don't know when Ben became the leader, but we do know he was still on the inside, with the DI, when the Purge occurred. It'd actually be pretty impressive if he was the leader while also spending most of his time in Dharmaville (which I'd think he'd have to do to keep up the front). I'm assuming, even with less than a full season to go, there's a fair amount of DI backstory we'll be learning.
Agreed. Another possibility is that Ben became the leader as a result of the Purge. I used to think that was the case, because of the "killing your father" theme in Season Three. Both Ben and Richard make it clear to Locke that to join the Others he must kill his father. Did Richard see this as a test for leadership?
If so, does that mean that Ben knew even in Season Three that Richard intended Locke to supplant him as leader? That is one way to understand Ben's jealousy when Locke heard the voice in the cabin, but not the only way....
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