[Note: This was posted at 3:32pm, CST, on 2/12/09.]
A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH?:
TRONIC RESOLUTIONS, SOULFUL SACRIFICES,
EVENT HORIZONS, AND THAT COLD FDW
Kudos to the Lost creative combine for another phenomenal episode! Unfortunately for Charlotte, this place did indeed turn out to be death.... But does the island actually embody a fate worse than death....? And what lies in store for us, as our cherished show hurtles onward toward its fateful finale, at the end of Season 6?
Locke, Please Touch That Dial: A Tron-ic Island Retuning/Reresolution-
Thank goodness Locke was able to put the 'Frozen Donkey Wheel' (FDW) back on its axis.... As we've witnessed in the episodes since Ben's attempt to move the island, when the device 'turned' by the FDW is thrown off-axis, out-of-tune, the resulting space-time effects are indeed to die for! Whether or not Locke's act to restore the space-time tuner's balance is enough to put a final halt to the increasingly jarring 'record-skipping' experienced by the castaways, remains to be seen.
We've seen the deleterious effects on the castaways of being caught in the spacetime 'wake' after Ben's botched move of the island. Per my prior postings this year, the island was moved not only in time, but in space. In brief, my spacetime tuner theory holds that the island is capable of moving in and across spacetime, using the twelve nodes of the Earth's energy grid as spacetime 'portals' (a.k.a. the 'vile vortices').
Prior to last night's episode, my surmise was that Ben was successful in moving the island in spacetime, to another node on the energy grid. We now can see that this move was not completed, as Ben's botched spacetime move of the island instead threw the island's spacetime tuner off axis, putting the island in a spatiotemporally detuned or 'unresolved' state of existence in the superstrung universe. As a result, the castaways were forced to endure an increasingly frequent and potent series of spacetime 'record skipping'....
And Jin, being caught in the radius of the spacetime effect (nod to Faraday), was saved from death but subject to his own 'record skipping' events, only on a different 'song' of the island's spacetimeline, than the castaways. Since those who were on the helicopter (the Oceanic 6) were outside the effective event horizon/radius when Ben 'moved' the island, they did not experience the 'record skipping' effect....
I suspect that by putting the spacetime tuner back on its axis, Locke's act will play not only a key role in putting an end to the 'record skipping' effect, but it will also serve a central and critically important role in helping Ben and Eloise Hawking calculate where (and when!) the island will be on Earth, using the Foucault Pendulum and, undoubtedly, other arcane knowledge and devices.... You see, unless and until the island's spacetime tuner was put back on its axis, the island was undetectable in spacetime, as it was effectively 'detuned' or 'unresolved' in terms of our four-dimensional spacetime perception.
Turns out the nod to TRON in The Little Prince-- namely, the beam of light projecting upward from the Orchid/Well, viewed by Locke-- was more than a surface homage.... One of the core components of Tron was deresolution and reresolution. Ben's act to move the island in effect 'detuned' or deresolved the island in spacetime, causing a profound and increasingly turbulent reverberative 'wake', and the castaways were tossed to and fro on this spacetime wake. By restoring the island spacetime tuner's integrity through placing the FDW back on axis, Locke has 'retuned' or 'resolved' the previously derezzed island in spacetime, and it will indeed be interesting to see where/when it shows back up, in our four-dimensional field of spacetime perception.
Thirteen Ghosts? No, But The Return Trip Will Require No Small Sacrifice-
So now it all starts to come together.... Locke putting the spacetime tuner back on its axis, serving to retune and resolve the island's presence in our four-dimensional spacetime 'reality', setting the stage for Eloise Hawking to use the Foucault Pendulum and other related arcana to locate the island in spacetime, a crucial precursor to returning the Oceanic 6 back to the island....
How interesting to note the visual and thematic similarities between the 'teaser shots' for next week's episode and the movie Thirteen Ghosts. Of particular note is the device that Cyrus Kriticos (played by F. Murray Abraham) constructs in the special building designed to house twelve ghosts, using Latin inscriptions to hold them in their cells. The device in Thirteen Ghosts is:
"...a giant machine built for the sole purpose of opening a portal to the "Ocularis Infernum" (Eye of Hell), a demonic device that allows its user to see into the future. It requires the twelve ghosts to do so...."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thir13en_Ghosts
It will indeed be interesting to observe Eloise Hawking's methods for locating the resolved island in spacetime, and for returning Jack, Desmond, and the rest of those present at the church. Seeing these people standing around the Foucault Pendulum certainly reminds one of the striking image at the end of Thirteen Ghosts, with the twelve ghosts standing around the perimeter of the device. And the crucial role of a loving self-sacrifice-- Monk's Tony Shalhoub/Arthur Kriticos in Thirteen Ghosts, and John Locke in Lost-- is another striking parallel.
If, as Faraday observed in last night's episode, this may be where we begin to "leave science behind", the device in Thirteen Ghosts which leverages lost souls to power spacetime abilities provides a rich precedent informing our speculation about things to come on Lost....
Houston, Is There An Event On The Horizon? It's Not Purgatory, But Oh Hell!
And yes indeed, the 'Ocularis Infernum' device in Thirteen Ghosts, with its rings rotating on their axes about a central point, not unlike the core of a planet, calls to mind yet another intriguingly relevant movie: Event Horizon. Hmmmm.... Maybe Charlotte was more right than she knew, that "this place is death..."
Recall that the gravity drive on the ship Event Horizon comprised a set of rings spinning on their axes about a central point, not unlike the Ocularis Infernum device.... And how interesting to ponder the effects of this device and the eerily potent and potential parallels to Lost:
"The crew discover that although the ship's drive successfully opened a gateway in space-time, it actually led outside the known universe and into another dimension, described as "pure chaos, pure evil". The Event Horizon's reconstructed video log shows the original crew activating the gravity drive and, moments later, engaging in a frenzy of torture, self-mutilation, cannibalism and sodomy. The ship's captain, who has torn out his own eyes, leaves the previously-heard Latin message which has since been found to actually say liberate tutame ex inferis ("save yourself from Hell").... It appears that the Event Horizon has returned with a supernatural presence which is using its occupants' personal torments against them, with the aim of compelling them to return to the "chaos" dimension. The Lewis and Clark now repaired, Miller decides to destroy the Event Horizon despite the strong objections of Weir. While preparing to evacuate, Peters is led to her death by plummeting down a shaft as a result of being tricked by a manifestation of her son..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_Horizon_(film)
Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte... lest you divulge the island's real secret.... That it is not Purgatory, but instead it entails a fate worse than death, namely... that one of its dire and nontrivial effects is serving as a portal to higher dimensional realities in a 10-dimensional superstrung universe, opening a literal and very real gateway to heaven and to hell....
Now those 'whispering voices' in the background are starting to get even more interesting.... Is this really an island of Lost souls? Is one of the pronounced and profound powers of the island an ability to serve as a portal to higher-dimensional realities? Per my postings from last year, is this where/when/how Charlie Pace now exists/resides? Is Charlie now a higher dimensional being in the superstrung universe, existing on different vibrational planes? Is Charlie now experiencing in a literal sense, existence as 'Good Vibrations'?
In addition to serving as a spacetime tuner, then, we may ultimately learn that the island can serve as a portal to higher dimensional realities in a superstrung universe. This may be how Charlie visited Hugo... Charlie simply retuned/resolved his higher-order vibrational self/being into our four-dimensional 'plane', to communicate with Hugo.
Of course, this may help to explain Christian Shephard's current state of existence on the island, as an extradimensional being.... Whether or not he was able to fully retune/resolve into our four-dimensional plane of existence, to help lift Locke off the ground and move to the FDW, remains to be seen. Given Charlie's visit to Hugo, I suspect that those who have passed into (retuned/resolved as) extradimensional beings on the island can resolve for a time into our four-dimensional 'reality', with the ability to manifest as tangible, corporeal entities.
And yes, since we have now learned that Ben's botched attempt to move the island resulted in the island itself becoming 'detuned' and 'deresolved' in our four-dimensional reality, producing the 'record skipping' wake/turbulence experienced by castaways caught within the event horizon/radius, what likely happened to Richard Alpert and the others....? I strongly suspect that once the island was detuned/deresolved in our four-dimensional 'plane', Alpert and the others (being so attuned to the island) were similarly detuned/deresolved in 4-D spacetime, and thrown back into their 'true' state of higher order dimensional existence, as extradimensional beings on the island (like Charlie Pace and Christian Shephard.)
So unfortunately for Charles Widmore and others who might be searching for the island, not unlike Ponce de Leon, in search of Richard Alpert's secret fountain of youth and eyeliner, what may instead be causing the appearance of Alpert's sustained agelessness may indeed turn out to be one of the effects of the island... namely, it enables you to pass from 4-D 'death' to a higher 'plane' of extradimensional existence, realizing in a very interesting but different manner, the William Gibson dream of translating our selves/sentience into cyberspace-enabled immortality....
So what/who is JACOB? Is Jacob some sort of exradimensional Adam? Or is he the extradimensionally transformed Jacob, with Rachel at his side? And does Charles Widmore desire to make that type of transformation on the island? Does Widmore know he must return to die on the island, so that he can transmute to an extradimensional being? Will he aspire to ascend to the throne as King of Fate? And will he instead find that he is a prince in Hell?
I would not be surprised to see Locke's body placed in a tomb on the island. Although it would be interesting to witness Locke 'rising from the dead' and resuming existence as a 4-D being, a more intriguing twist would be to have Locke follow the path of Christian Shephard before him, and stay on the show as an extradimensional being.... Like Richard Alpert, Locke would be able to retune/resolve into our 4-D corporeal existence on the island or the mainland, for a period of time, but I suspect this may take significant effort and energy on the part of the island, to generate and sustain this effect....
That Thing You Do.... Come Sail Away With Me-
I'm sure I'm not the only one who noted the eerie parallels between: (1) Danielle's fear that her (apparent) lover was infected and was not who he was supposed to be, and (2) that 'ol sci fi theme of being replaced by an alien copy, ala The Invasion of the Body Snatchers....
Actually, my thoughts quickly moved from that classic film to another staple in the sci fi genre, The Thing From Another World (1951). I admit to being a member of the cult following for John Carpenter's gripping and gory remake of that movie, called The Thing (1982). If you have not seen Carpenter's version, or if it has been a while since you have seen it, it's definitely worth seeing. As others have observed, in some central ways the remake is more faithful to the source-- John W. Campbell, Jr.'s 1938 novella Who Goes There?-- than the first movie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(film)
So anyway.... While watching Danielle and her lover engaged in mutual confrontation on the beach, at gunpoint, it struck me that one admittedly parodical homage (better suited for the Saturday Night Live crowd) would be for Danielle to pull out a petri dish, draw a blood sample from her lover, and use a hot wire to test if her lover were really who he claimed to be, or if he instead were.... an alien copy!
One intriguing side note on the theme of copying people is that it might be possible for the island to 'reanimate/retune/reresolve' a dead person back into 4-D reality, only not with their original sentience intact, but instead with a 'transplanted' or 'downloaded' sentience from another person.... Hmmmm.... will we witness, in a future episode, someone who is not who he appears to be....? Will this comprise yet another one of the intriguing twists in plot devices devised by the Lost creative team?
Back to The Thing.... While pondering Danielle's dilemma (paranoia?) regarding the true identity of her lover, I recalled the plot theme of a visitor from another world in The Little Prince, and it struck me that.... all along, I may have been wrongly assuming that the island itself is a naturally-occurring energy/matter phenomenon that has been visited and leveraged by us humans throughout the ages, from the Atlanteans, to the crew of the Black Rock, to the military H-bomb testers, to the DHARMA Initiative, and beyond (including other visits and uses we have not yet been shown....) According to this view, visits by humans to the island can and often do involve the 'implantation' of devices on the island, with the expressed purpose of harnessing, channeling, and exploiting the island's unique energy properties. In this sense, then, we may eventually learn that we in fact are to blame for the 'record skipping' spacetime effect, since the natural spacetime tuning function of the island was tapped and diverted through the FDW-related ancient tech device, implanted at/near the island's own natural spacetime tuning fork/source.... (And yes, how interesting that to get to this source one must travel from the surface through a literal black hole....)
Consistent with this view, from the DHARMA Swan hatch to that ancient 'glyphed' temple of doom in last night's episode, what Locke and others have been uncovering on the island is a litany of 'tech implants' we have placed onto/into the island throughout the course of human history.... But last night's episode provided another 'flash' of insight into an intriguing alternative, a possibility that might shed some light on the nature and substance of the surprising twist we have been promised in the series' finale at the end of Season 6.
In brief, I'm now wondering if there is more to the parallels with The Thing, in particular.... to The Little Prince nod to a visitor from another world, and the potential disclosure at the end of the series that the island is not really a naturally-occurring phenomenon but instead is.... a spaceship that landed on Earth some eons ago, and is now encased not in ice, but rather in the soil and dense jungle growth associated with a tropical island....!
Like the search party in The Thing, did the ancient Atlanteans stumble upon the island and discover, with wonder and awe, the great powers made possible through the really ancient tech devices developed not by the Atlanteans, but instead by the designers and builders of the spaceship? Is this not why it gets so cold at the bottom of the Orchid/Well, at the FDW, as the containment field surrounding the island's energy source (and spacetime tuning abilities) has continued over the millennia to keep this source cool, so it does not explode?
What a wondrous sight that would be, at the end of Season 6.... Watching in shock and awe as our cherished castaways moved the island/ship not simply to another node on our Earthly 'vile vortices' energy grid, but instead off the Earth itself.... I can see it now.... The island lifting out of the water, up and away through the atmosphere, protected by a negatively-charged exotic matter shell, all in a manner not unlike the 'snowglobe' concept discussed during Season 1.... (nod to Dark City!)
Where are they headed? Maybe Damon was right.... heading toward the Crab Nebula, anyone?! And along for the ride is the trio of starchildren themselves: Aaron, Ji Yeon, and Charlie Hume....
Hmmmm.... What if the island were only a scout ship, and the real mother ship is elsewhere on the Earth... say.... at/in Uluru/Ayers Rock....?! And, is JACOB really the island spaceship's artificial intelligence, ala HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Let's see.... DHARMA is the Department of Heuristics and Research on Material Applications, and HAL stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000#HAL_in_2001:_A_Space_Odyssey
Dr. Todd J. Hostager