Eloise is as special as Desmond? by Utterly Lost

It’s funny, everytime I come in here looking for some answers, you all give so many questions to think about…

First, I want to say I really enjoyed the theory from the contest winner for WHH (excellent insight), but I still have one question;

Although the evidence is stacked up in favor of WHH, this would imply that all of the 77 losties are certainly dead. If WHH, then there seems to be no logical way that they would return from that, and cmon, you don’t need spoilers and cast lists to figure out that these main characters of the show are coming back. So how then?

I like the theories that suggest that they could become dislodged from time in their conciousnesses, similar to Desmond’s flashbacks, (perhaps even being able to change things this way), but this seems to only make things more confusing, and it brings us back towards the ridiculousness of ALT in undoing everything we’ve seen, as well as being inconsistent with what we’ve seen, etc…. Unless of course, this is what always happened, but as others have stated, there is little evidence they are “in their past bodies”, or even influencing them, at certain points in the last 5 seasons (with the possible exception of Locke).

Perhaps the biggest conundrum about this line of thought, however,is the question about Eloise visiting Desmond in one of these flashbacks. Everyone seems to have an excuse for how she knew about the guy in the red shoes, and about Desmond’s fate, but I haven’t really heard an adequate explanation. Further, how was she present in Desmond’s reliving of his past, when she wasn’t there in the first place? Yes, I understand that she wasn’t needed there the first time, but how’d she know (and how’s it possible) that:

She knew that she needed to be there at this exact point in Desmond’s conciousness’ reiteration/flashback of his experiences. Could it really have been as simple as Daniel’s notebook having told her that Desmond would be rethinking his decision to leave Penny the second time through (even though Desmond never told Daniel about this experience in his flashback)? How did she know that he’d flash back to exactly this point and rethink his future decisions? It seems that she would need more future insight than just a notebook to tell her all that (unless she deduced quite a bit from possibly knowing he flashed back to 1996, that would be seemingly the only way).

In fact, it is truly perplexing how she is seemingly able to also exert “free will” in this second iteration, just as Desmond appears to be able to. If it didn’t happen like this the first time, then how is Eloise also unique to be able to change Desmond’s decision to change the future? Perhaps then, I might guess that this is the Smoke Monster, MIB, or other imposter, or else Eloise would have to be even more unique than Desmond or the losties, no?

I do, however, like that this idea shows that there is something different about Desmond (his exposure) that makes him unique. The fact that he could have changed things the second time through certainly shows that WHH does not necessarily apply to him in these flashbacks (even though others might persuade him to let WHH). So is there something different about Eloise too (exposure?), or is that the work of course-correction (monster?).

Also, this idea does imply that the 77 losties could also change things via “flashbacks”, should the radiation/magnetism have the same effect on them. But that brings up even more questions. What if anything would they change? How would they be resurrected, reunited with the rest? How does that fit into (or contradict) the WHH scenario we’ve likely been seeing so far?

I really hope that these issues (and many more) are not just inconsistencies, because it seems that no matter what direction you go, there are many more questions.

(Have I made you want to quit thinking about it yet? lol. I know I threw a lot of questions out there, but they’re the same ones that keep popping up for me and everyone else here. Feel free to answer any one if you have any insight)