Fertility Novelty & Why Ben Must Die (Like Cooper)
THE BRIG … DHARMA GETS TOO CLOSE … RELIABLE RICHARD … EVERY BEN FOR HIMSELF
The two most important episodes in season 3 are "Flashes Before Your Eyes" (I posted a theory on that last week) and "The Brig" …
SAWYER: Is it true?
LOCKE: Not anymore.
With apologies to Faraday, the Island DOES change the past, and the future. That is, perhaps, the Island's PURPOSE, to act a failsafe in case something big, something bad, happens to the rest of the world. The Purge may have happened because Dharma was getting much too close to unearthing the Wheel, much too close to mucking up the Island's power and scrambling time, so Dharma had to be stopped.
*** DHARMA GETS TOO CLOSE ***
The Hostiles understood the threat Dharma presented, even if (or especially if) Dharma did not. It could be that the smoke monster was always there, or it could be that the monster was conjured specifically to protect the Island from Dharma. In response, Dharma built the sonic fence. (Others have theorized that Dharma's polar bears were being trained to do something with the Frozen Donkey Wheel, such as turn it continually, like donkeys would turn un-frozen donkey wheels.)
Ben understood how close Dharma was getting to really messing everything up (as did a few other Dharma members) so he joined the Hostiles (AKA the Others) and killed his own father. (Would you kill your own father if it meant saving the world from destruction?) This SEEMS to cast Locke in a similar role as Ben, having to kill his father. But it's reversed. Unlike Ben, Locke doesn't literally kill his father. And Ben is not like Locke so much as Ben is like COOPER. Locke cannot fulfill his purpose (or allow the Island to fulfill/serve its purpose) if he's paralyzed (thanks to Cooper) or if he's dead (thanks to Ben).
*** THE BRIG ***
SAWYER: Is it true?
LOCKE: Is what true?
SAWYER: That he threw you out a window. That you were a cripple.
[Long pause]
LOCKE: Not anymore.
"Not anymore." It WAS true, but it is NO LONGER TRUE, now that Cooper is dead? If we take what Locke said — what the writers said through Locke — at face value, it would contradict the "whatever happened, happened" mantra. Let's explore this idea.
Since Cooper had memory of everything, he probably wasn't snatched up back in time before the year 2000 (when he threw Locke out the window). But what if the metaphorical "box" brought him back to a time before the year 2000? Somehow, killing him on the island RESULTS in his not being able to throw Locke out the window (if we are to take Locke seriously). The writers know the "truth" and they pick their words, the words that characters say, very carefully. There are no coincidences in good writing. And "not anymore" is the very last thing said in "The Brig."
So if by Cooper's death, somehow, it was NO LONGER TRUE that Locke was thrown out a window, or was a "cripple" (as Sawyer so elegantly put it) yet it was true up until that point … well, where are they on the Island? Where in time? When are they? Or, was it still 2004 on the island, but Richard went and got Cooper ("the man from Tallahassee") from some time before 2000, and like Faraday's mice, Cooper's consciousness (once on the Island) included events from after the crippling?
Either way, if we are to take Locke's words literally, Cooper's death resulted in Locke no longer having been pushed out a window in the year 2000. (Though we discover in season 4 that Locke is still missing a kidney.) Sawyer doesn't ask, "Were you a cripple?" To which "not anymore" would be a benign response. But Sawyer asks, "Is it TRUE?" And Locke answers that it WAS true, but that it is NO LONGER true.
Whatever happened … NO LONGER HAS HAPPENED.
John Locke was never thrown out a window, not now. The Island allows for cause-and-effect to be reversed. That is, or is part of, its purpose.
*** DIGRESSION ***
This gives a whole new meaning to the voice-over: "Previously on LOST." I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek here, but when they show Locke falling out the window after saying "previously on LOST" it also means "this was previously true; it is no longer true." I don't think the writers necessarily planned this or are even aware of it, but compare it to other commonly-used phrases for TV shows, like "last time on ____" and "last week on ____." Neither of which really apply to a show that jumps around in time (in its storytelling method and then within its narrative). Unless every flashback was really a time-jump for that character, in order to relive that moment, to do something differently (or not). This is what happened to Desmond after the hatch imploded, only Desmond was aware that he was reliving past moments; the other characters would be unaware. But I digress; that is part of a crackpot theory that I doubt will turn out to be true.
*** RELIABLE RICHARD ***
Earlier in "The Brig" we learn from Richard, who so far has seemed like a reliable person (or a reliable whatever-he-is-if-he's-not-a-person) that Ben is trying to keep Locke down:
RICHARD: Ben has been wasting our time with novelties like fertility problems. We're looking for someone to remind us that we're here for more important reasons.
LOCKE: What do you want from me?
RICHARD: I want for you to find your purpose. And to do that, your father has to go, John.
The fertility problem was a novelty??? If fertility is truly a "novelty" like Richard claims, then is the four-toed statue not of a fertility god? Does it have nothing to do with fertility, or if it does, is the statue itself a "novelty" too? (And while good writers don't allow for coincidences, do CGI artists inadvertently create them? Is it a coincidence that the statue seems to be standing DIRECTLY in front of the Island's power source, now known as the Orchid?) It makes sense, though: wouldn't fertility always seem like a novelty to someone, like Richard, who doesn't age?
*** EVERY BEN FOR HIMSELF (SORT OF) ***
Why would Ben be so obsessed over the "novelty" of fertility? Perhaps because Ben knows that if Locke is going to do what Locke is meant to do, that Ben will have to die. And Ben, like the rest of us, doesn't want to die. If he can get fertility working again, perhaps a newborn child will end up playing the role Locke is (meant to?) be playing, and then Ben won't have to die. This could have been part of the reasoning behind taking the children, and taking Michael. Perhaps Ben shoots Locke in the Dharma pit (why there, why not anywhere else?) because there's no risk involved. If Locke is meant to save everyone, he'll somehow survive and get out of the pit. If not, then Ben can stop following this path that seems to lead to his own demise. Ben is looking for another way.
*** BEN AND COOPER WILL SUFFER SAME FATE ***
Why will Ben have to die? Perhaps it is inevitable, like with Charlie. Perhaps it is specific to a required cause-and-effect. In "The Brig" Locke is taking Sawyer to the Black Rock to kill Cooper, but he tells Sawyer that HE'S TAKING HIM TO KILL BEN. Is this a con? Perhaps. But it's also, perhaps, the TRUTH — whether or not Locke realizes it. Locke IS taking Sawyer to kill Ben … by having him kill Cooper.
Cooper's death will fulfill Locke's position/role on the Island and will subsequently (a word that seems problematic on LOST) set into motion a series of events that results directly in Ben's death.
Locke ends up back on the Island, or on the Island's island, probably in some time period closer to the present. He is alive, after being very much dead. THE ONLY WAY he can be alive (on the Island) is if Ben is killed "before" (however the Island does this) he can strangle Locke to death (in the "real" world). Ben, like Cooper, HAS to die to in order for Locke to fulfill whatever it is he has to fulfill.
Perhaps Ben can't hear Jacob, in part, because he's been manipulating events to try to fudge things. He's been trying to make sure that whatever NEEDS to happen, happens … but in a manner that is more advantageous to him. Perhaps so that he'll live; perhaps so that he'll be the one who saves everything. Either is a good motive. But Ben is not completely diverting from the course of events that has to happen; he's sticking with the basic structure of what's going to happen, he's just trying to manipulate elements and "trivialities" therein. When Widmore has Alex killed and Ben says Widmore has "changed the rules" those rules may be something like, "Do whatever you want so long as you don't jeopardize the eventual, and necessary, outcome. It wasn't (just) that Ben was angry; it wasn't that "killing family members changes the rules" but rather that Alex's death changed something else that Ben is not sure how to compensate for.
Regardless of how that works out, the fact that Locke is alive on the Island means that Ben will have to be killed, and in a time/manner that negates his killing of Locke in the outside world. This might seem like a paradox, but it is actually REQUIRED to AVOID the commonly-cited problem of paradox.
The paradoxes are like everything else … cause and effect can be (or always are) reversed. The paradox exists, then it MUST be resolved; this results in the replacement of a temporary fact (Locke was paralyzed) with larger, permanent truth (Locke was NOT thrown out of that window).
*** LOCKE'S LEGS ***
If Locke's path was always supposed to be arriving at some destination that would lead to his father, via the Others, to negate his paralysis, then go back and with this in mind watch seasons 1 and 2. Whenever Locke has a problem with his legs (such as when Boone climbs to the perched plane) it is likely because he is veering too far off course of his intended path, a path that negates his paralysis. There are several other examples (including the obvious one this season) but in the case of Boone and the plane, Locke would have climbed up himself. That was his INTENT. Had he climbed up, he would have fallen (like Boone did) and he would have probably died. ONCE HE FORMED THE INTENT to climb up to the plane, his legs stopped working, because if he HAD done it, and died, he never could have arranged for his father's death; without his father's death, his legs wouldn't have ended up working in the "first" place. The Islanded didn't need to "consciously" make Locke's legs stop w! orking; the approaching paradox (or negation of the eventual paradox resolution) SELF-CORRECTED:
If Locke can't climb up to the plane, he can't die when it falls. If he dies when it falls, he can't ("later") negate his paralysis, and so he couldn't climb up into it in the first place.
Boone was a proxy for Locke's intent. Boone was not a "sacrifice" in the pagan ritual/voodoo/Hollywood sense of the term, the Island didn't want to be "fed" or anything like that, but Boone's death was necessary to negate Locke's INTENT to act in a way that would negate his resolution of the paradox that would ultimately disallow for whatever his ultimate purpose is. (Now, exhale.)
*** BEN, WIDMORE, HAWKING: UNRELIABLE ***
I believe Richard is reliable. Richard tells Locke that in order to get his people back on the Island, he'll have to die. Widmore rejects this idea. Widmore is told (if I remember correctly) that Richard said this. So why is Widmore contradicting Richard? Perhaps Widmore knows Richard is right, but thinks that Locke will chicken out if he believes it (so Widmore is second-guessing Richard's judgment in telling Locke). Ultimately, though, Widmore rejects (or seems to reject) what Richard has said, while Ben ends up fulfilling what Richard has said. If Richard is reliable, then Ben is "better" than Widmore, whether intentionally or not.
The third unreliable major player, Hawking, suggested that all of us are in danger (or are dead) if the 06 do not succeed. But what does she mean by "us" … ??? Does she mean "us" as in the whole world, or does she mean a smaller "us" grouping, a group she is part of, like the original inhabitants?
*** WHO'S LEFT OUT? ***
Where does this leave the other characters?
Ben has to be killed (or has to die) at a "time" that is compatible with what has already happened (not EVERYTHING can be changed). He can't be killed, for example, a week after flight 815 crashes. That creates a paradox rather than resolves one. So for the other characters, whoever is acting (knowingly or not, intentionally or not) AGAINST the overall sequence of events, against the strategic death of Ben (that I believe is inevitable) … that person is working against resolving the paradox, and THAT PERSON IS IN PERIL.
More importantly, any of that person's anti-paradox-resolving, anti-fulfillment-of-what-must-happen actions will be ULTIMATELY unsuccessful — just as how Michael was IMMEDIATELY unsuccessful when he tried to shoot himself and the weapon did not discharge. Whatever happens to Ben, he will have to die … but he'll have to die in the right way/place/time. And whatever John's purpose is (even if it's for him to die himself — I have no idea) any action that goes against that will fail — just as every single action in every previous episode of LOST (actions taken by others or by Locke himself) that could have steered John off his "path" ultimately failed. One definitive waypoint in along that "path" was the death of Cooper; it was required to resolve the paradox (or fulfill the path) and allow John to walk. I believe that Ben's death, and more importantly the circumstances and the manner of Ben's death, will be another definitive waypoint, because it will resolve the parado! x of Locke being alive on the Island (where he needs to be) even though Ben strangled him with an electrical cord. Theory by Kirbyjon
THE BRIG … DHARMA GETS TOO CLOSE … RELIABLE RICHARD … EVERY BEN FOR HIMSELF
The two most important episodes in season 3 are "Flashes Before Your Eyes" (I posted a theory on that last week) and "The Brig" …
SAWYER: Is it true?
LOCKE: Not anymore.
With apologies to Faraday, the Island DOES change the past, and the future. That is, perhaps, the Island's PURPOSE, to act a failsafe in case something big, something bad, happens to the rest of the world. The Purge may have happened because Dharma was getting much too close to unearthing the Wheel, much too close to mucking up the Island's power and scrambling time, so Dharma had to be stopped.
*** DHARMA GETS TOO CLOSE ***
The Hostiles understood the threat Dharma presented, even if (or especially if) Dharma did not. It could be that the smoke monster was always there, or it could be that the monster was conjured specifically to protect the Island from Dharma. In response, Dharma built the sonic fence. (Others have theorized that Dharma's polar bears were being trained to do something with the Frozen Donkey Wheel, such as turn it continually, like donkeys would turn un-frozen donkey wheels.)
Ben understood how close Dharma was getting to really messing everything up (as did a few other Dharma members) so he joined the Hostiles (AKA the Others) and killed his own father. (Would you kill your own father if it meant saving the world from destruction?) This SEEMS to cast Locke in a similar role as Ben, having to kill his father. But it's reversed. Unlike Ben, Locke doesn't literally kill his father. And Ben is not like Locke so much as Ben is like COOPER. Locke cannot fulfill his purpose (or allow the Island to fulfill/serve its purpose) if he's paralyzed (thanks to Cooper) or if he's dead (thanks to Ben).
*** THE BRIG ***
SAWYER: Is it true?
LOCKE: Is what true?
SAWYER: That he threw you out a window. That you were a cripple.
[Long pause]
LOCKE: Not anymore.
"Not anymore." It WAS true, but it is NO LONGER TRUE, now that Cooper is dead? If we take what Locke said — what the writers said through Locke — at face value, it would contradict the "whatever happened, happened" mantra. Let's explore this idea.
Since Cooper had memory of everything, he probably wasn't snatched up back in time before the year 2000 (when he threw Locke out the window). But what if the metaphorical "box" brought him back to a time before the year 2000? Somehow, killing him on the island RESULTS in his not being able to throw Locke out the window (if we are to take Locke seriously). The writers know the "truth" and they pick their words, the words that characters say, very carefully. There are no coincidences in good writing. And "not anymore" is the very last thing said in "The Brig."
So if by Cooper's death, somehow, it was NO LONGER TRUE that Locke was thrown out a window, or was a "cripple" (as Sawyer so elegantly put it) yet it was true up until that point … well, where are they on the Island? Where in time? When are they? Or, was it still 2004 on the island, but Richard went and got Cooper ("the man from Tallahassee") from some time before 2000, and like Faraday's mice, Cooper's consciousness (once on the Island) included events from after the crippling?
Either way, if we are to take Locke's words literally, Cooper's death resulted in Locke no longer having been pushed out a window in the year 2000. (Though we discover in season 4 that Locke is still missing a kidney.) Sawyer doesn't ask, "Were you a cripple?" To which "not anymore" would be a benign response. But Sawyer asks, "Is it TRUE?" And Locke answers that it WAS true, but that it is NO LONGER true.
Whatever happened … NO LONGER HAS HAPPENED.
John Locke was never thrown out a window, not now. The Island allows for cause-and-effect to be reversed. That is, or is part of, its purpose.
*** DIGRESSION ***
This gives a whole new meaning to the voice-over: "Previously on LOST." I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek here, but when they show Locke falling out the window after saying "previously on LOST" it also means "this was previously true; it is no longer true." I don't think the writers necessarily planned this or are even aware of it, but compare it to other commonly-used phrases for TV shows, like "last time on ____" and "last week on ____." Neither of which really apply to a show that jumps around in time (in its storytelling method and then within its narrative). Unless every flashback was really a time-jump for that character, in order to relive that moment, to do something differently (or not). This is what happened to Desmond after the hatch imploded, only Desmond was aware that he was reliving past moments; the other characters would be unaware. But I digress; that is part of a crackpot theory that I doubt will turn out to be true.
*** RELIABLE RICHARD ***
Earlier in "The Brig" we learn from Richard, who so far has seemed like a reliable person (or a reliable whatever-he-is-if-he's-not-a-person) that Ben is trying to keep Locke down:
RICHARD: Ben has been wasting our time with novelties like fertility problems. We're looking for someone to remind us that we're here for more important reasons.
LOCKE: What do you want from me?
RICHARD: I want for you to find your purpose. And to do that, your father has to go, John.
The fertility problem was a novelty??? If fertility is truly a "novelty" like Richard claims, then is the four-toed statue not of a fertility god? Does it have nothing to do with fertility, or if it does, is the statue itself a "novelty" too? (And while good writers don't allow for coincidences, do CGI artists inadvertently create them? Is it a coincidence that the statue seems to be standing DIRECTLY in front of the Island's power source, now known as the Orchid?) It makes sense, though: wouldn't fertility always seem like a novelty to someone, like Richard, who doesn't age?
*** EVERY BEN FOR HIMSELF (SORT OF) ***
Why would Ben be so obsessed over the "novelty" of fertility? Perhaps because Ben knows that if Locke is going to do what Locke is meant to do, that Ben will have to die. And Ben, like the rest of us, doesn't want to die. If he can get fertility working again, perhaps a newborn child will end up playing the role Locke is (meant to?) be playing, and then Ben won't have to die. This could have been part of the reasoning behind taking the children, and taking Michael. Perhaps Ben shoots Locke in the Dharma pit (why there, why not anywhere else?) because there's no risk involved. If Locke is meant to save everyone, he'll somehow survive and get out of the pit. If not, then Ben can stop following this path that seems to lead to his own demise. Ben is looking for another way.
*** BEN AND COOPER WILL SUFFER SAME FATE ***
Why will Ben have to die? Perhaps it is inevitable, like with Charlie. Perhaps it is specific to a required cause-and-effect. In "The Brig" Locke is taking Sawyer to the Black Rock to kill Cooper, but he tells Sawyer that HE'S TAKING HIM TO KILL BEN. Is this a con? Perhaps. But it's also, perhaps, the TRUTH — whether or not Locke realizes it. Locke IS taking Sawyer to kill Ben … by having him kill Cooper.
Cooper's death will fulfill Locke's position/role on the Island and will subsequently (a word that seems problematic on LOST) set into motion a series of events that results directly in Ben's death.
Locke ends up back on the Island, or on the Island's island, probably in some time period closer to the present. He is alive, after being very much dead. THE ONLY WAY he can be alive (on the Island) is if Ben is killed "before" (however the Island does this) he can strangle Locke to death (in the "real" world). Ben, like Cooper, HAS to die to in order for Locke to fulfill whatever it is he has to fulfill.
Perhaps Ben can't hear Jacob, in part, because he's been manipulating events to try to fudge things. He's been trying to make sure that whatever NEEDS to happen, happens … but in a manner that is more advantageous to him. Perhaps so that he'll live; perhaps so that he'll be the one who saves everything. Either is a good motive. But Ben is not completely diverting from the course of events that has to happen; he's sticking with the basic structure of what's going to happen, he's just trying to manipulate elements and "trivialities" therein. When Widmore has Alex killed and Ben says Widmore has "changed the rules" those rules may be something like, "Do whatever you want so long as you don't jeopardize the eventual, and necessary, outcome. It wasn't (just) that Ben was angry; it wasn't that "killing family members changes the rules" but rather that Alex's death changed something else that Ben is not sure how to compensate for.
Regardless of how that works out, the fact that Locke is alive on the Island means that Ben will have to be killed, and in a time/manner that negates his killing of Locke in the outside world. This might seem like a paradox, but it is actually REQUIRED to AVOID the commonly-cited problem of paradox.
The paradoxes are like everything else … cause and effect can be (or always are) reversed. The paradox exists, then it MUST be resolved; this results in the replacement of a temporary fact (Locke was paralyzed) with larger, permanent truth (Locke was NOT thrown out of that window).
*** LOCKE'S LEGS ***
If Locke's path was always supposed to be arriving at some destination that would lead to his father, via the Others, to negate his paralysis, then go back and with this in mind watch seasons 1 and 2. Whenever Locke has a problem with his legs (such as when Boone climbs to the perched plane) it is likely because he is veering too far off course of his intended path, a path that negates his paralysis. There are several other examples (including the obvious one this season) but in the case of Boone and the plane, Locke would have climbed up himself. That was his INTENT. Had he climbed up, he would have fallen (like Boone did) and he would have probably died. ONCE HE FORMED THE INTENT to climb up to the plane, his legs stopped working, because if he HAD done it, and died, he never could have arranged for his father's death; without his father's death, his legs wouldn't have ended up working in the "first" place. The Islanded didn't need to "consciously" make Locke's legs stop w! orking; the approaching paradox (or negation of the eventual paradox resolution) SELF-CORRECTED:
If Locke can't climb up to the plane, he can't die when it falls. If he dies when it falls, he can't ("later") negate his paralysis, and so he couldn't climb up into it in the first place.
Boone was a proxy for Locke's intent. Boone was not a "sacrifice" in the pagan ritual/voodoo/Hollywood sense of the term, the Island didn't want to be "fed" or anything like that, but Boone's death was necessary to negate Locke's INTENT to act in a way that would negate his resolution of the paradox that would ultimately disallow for whatever his ultimate purpose is. (Now, exhale.)
*** BEN, WIDMORE, HAWKING: UNRELIABLE ***
I believe Richard is reliable. Richard tells Locke that in order to get his people back on the Island, he'll have to die. Widmore rejects this idea. Widmore is told (if I remember correctly) that Richard said this. So why is Widmore contradicting Richard? Perhaps Widmore knows Richard is right, but thinks that Locke will chicken out if he believes it (so Widmore is second-guessing Richard's judgment in telling Locke). Ultimately, though, Widmore rejects (or seems to reject) what Richard has said, while Ben ends up fulfilling what Richard has said. If Richard is reliable, then Ben is "better" than Widmore, whether intentionally or not.
The third unreliable major player, Hawking, suggested that all of us are in danger (or are dead) if the 06 do not succeed. But what does she mean by "us" … ??? Does she mean "us" as in the whole world, or does she mean a smaller "us" grouping, a group she is part of, like the original inhabitants?
*** WHO'S LEFT OUT? ***
Where does this leave the other characters?
Ben has to be killed (or has to die) at a "time" that is compatible with what has already happened (not EVERYTHING can be changed). He can't be killed, for example, a week after flight 815 crashes. That creates a paradox rather than resolves one. So for the other characters, whoever is acting (knowingly or not, intentionally or not) AGAINST the overall sequence of events, against the strategic death of Ben (that I believe is inevitable) … that person is working against resolving the paradox, and THAT PERSON IS IN PERIL.
More importantly, any of that person's anti-paradox-resolving, anti-fulfillment-of-what-must-happen actions will be ULTIMATELY unsuccessful — just as how Michael was IMMEDIATELY unsuccessful when he tried to shoot himself and the weapon did not discharge. Whatever happens to Ben, he will have to die … but he'll have to die in the right way/place/time. And whatever John's purpose is (even if it's for him to die himself — I have no idea) any action that goes against that will fail — just as every single action in every previous episode of LOST (actions taken by others or by Locke himself) that could have steered John off his "path" ultimately failed. One definitive waypoint in along that "path" was the death of Cooper; it was required to resolve the paradox (or fulfill the path) and allow John to walk. I believe that Ben's death, and more importantly the circumstances and the manner of Ben's death, will be another definitive waypoint, because it will resolve the parado! x of Locke being alive on the Island (where he needs to be) even though Ben strangled him with an electrical cord. Theory by Kirbyjon
