Don't You Dare Question Me
Unanswered Lost questions by College Humor has been getting a lot of views. Many of the questions are worth asking, but some are fairly pointless and some have been answered (as far as I'm concerned).
Some have tried to supply answers. Here's an attempt at Movieline. I don't agree with everything they say, but it's mostly straightforward, and certainly takes care of the easy questions.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:13 AM
2 Comments:
Movieline's answers seem mostly plausible. Except the bit about women dying in childbirth, which may be the single largest continuity problem in the plot. Other things we can ignore, but the death-in-childbirth subplot is essential to the Others' desire to kidnap children (a key point in seasons one and two) and to Juliet's backstory (which is huge in season three).
But this was never explained or even hinted at.... or, IIRC, mentioned at all in seasons five and six. Clearly the Others from the 1950s until the 1980s reproduced by having babies, but then they couldn't anymore. And both Ben and Richard were utterly mystified by it -- both of them cooperated in hiring an outside doctor (Juliet) -- which means that Jacob never said anything to Richard to explain this.
Movieline suggests this was due to radiation from the Incident. Clever... but wrong. (1) The bomb went off in 1977, and Alex was born healthy on the Island in 1988. (2) Juliet was a brilliant doctor and would easily have diagnosed radiation poisoning. (3) Juliet determined that if a pregnant Other left the Island by her second trimester, she could give birth on the mainland and then return. [This raises the tangential question of why the Others didn't find that solution satisfactory.] What kind of radiation has no effect on first-trimester embryos or infants, but is a guaranteed killer of pregnant women in their third trimester? Not just of their babies, but of the women themselves! And recall that Ethan was only two days old when the bomb went off and it didn't hurt him. (4) The curse ended suddenly, with Aaron's birth, rather than fading out as a natural cause would have.
I don't have too much trouble with the childbirth subplot. Maybe it played too big a party for a while then was mostly dropped, but it seems to fit into the the overall architecture pretty easily.
While it's not clear why childbirth became difficult or impossible on the island, it's not that hard to buy. This is a place with special electromagnetic fields and healing powers. If something, for whatever reason, was knocked out of whack in the 1990s (an era we know little about), then it's possible this caused the problems. There are plenty of likely suspects. Maybe Smokey was getting back at them. Maybe Jacob (who doesn't mind seeing people die) was messing around. Maybe the Island, which seems to be its won entity, was unhappy with how Ben was running things. Maybe somehow Widmore (or Ellie) were unhappy with their situation and were able to screw with things before they left for good.
Later, when the Losties crash-land, perhaps they (or one of them like Locke) bring balance back to the Island. Or maybe it's the sky turning purple. But whatever it is, being pregnant is no longer a death sentence.
Anyway, once the problem starts happening, you can see how Ben would be highly concerned. The Others could no longer reproduce--how would they continue? Shuttling pregnant women on and off the Island is unwieldy at best, but more important, Ben (and perhaps Jacob) didn't seem to want his people (except a trusted few) to be allowed to leave.
At the same time, I can see how Richard and others would start thinking "what's going on with Ben--he's obsessed with this childbirth thing, and has got us kidnaping children, etc.--time for new leadership, like that Locke guy who seems better connected to the Island."
Post a Comment
<< Home