How to Become an Other

The last few episodes of season five have thrown a log or two on the Jack loves Kate fire. Only it's been Kate doing most of the lovin'. First she told him, "I've always been with you, Jack," which gave me serious goosebumps, then she broke into his house and threw herself at him -- with a much better response than I've ever gotten from that move. For the most part, Jaters should be smiling like they've got a hanger stuck in their mouth.

So what's got me down? Well, I'm stuck on what separates an Other from anyone else, i.e. Dharma Initiative Workman, plane crash victim, etc. Approaching this problem from the stance of "what separates an American from everyone else?" I arrived at a few possibilities:

1) You are born unto one or more real Others. They train you in Other ways of non-caring about the wellbeing of those who are not Others (Ben's "who cares" on the return trip killed me!). They teach you to speak Latin and you get an elective of Korean, Portugese or French.

2) You are brought into the fold by Others because you have something they need. The transformation process from human to Other is lengthy. First, Smokey pays you a visit and decides if you are good or bad. If bad, he rips off your arm or kills all of you. If good, proceed to step two. Second, you are housed in a confined area (bear cage or barracks) and set up with an impossible number of appointments with a psychiatrist. The shrink answers all your questions with a question until you stop questioning and become an Other. If that doesn't work, then step three: You alternately take tests/solve puzzles (in a bear cage or fishing hut) and are forced to watch disturbing videos.

Some folks who fell into category two:
* Oceanic flight attendant (they did a number on her! She couldn't even remember she wasn't always an Other)
* Carl (who may be category one, but required reprogramming)
* Walt
* Jack, Kate, Sawyer
* Juliet

Here's what I'm wondering -- are Ben's Others different from Richard Alpert's "proto"- Others? Alpert didn't have access to the audio-video equipment necessary for brainwashing new recruits. It's possible all Others were born until Ben created the baby-birthing problems I'm guessing in the 90s. Then Ben had to scramble to figure out how to expand their ranks. He asked Jacob and Jacob started to give him lists. Then Ben developed the naturalization program and Latin curriculum. The rest is history.

The Frozen Donkey Wheel: A History

Yesterday's episode, "This Place Is Death" brought back some very important props I'd like to discuss today: the smoke monster (yeah!) and the frozen donkey wheel under the Orchid station.

I'll just say, it was more than a bit lame to explain the Losties' moving through time as "the wheel is off its axis." A few weeks ago, I said the time shifts were like pendulum movements back and forth, which was such an elegant thought. Now we find out they are just like eating at a rickety wagon-wheel table in a third-class Western-themed bbq place -- only with slightly less naseau.

But let's talk about the wheel for a moment. A horizontal wheel, to which is attached one or more beasts of burden, has been used around the globe for more than 2,000 years specifically to pull water up from underground wells. This device is called a "noria". Animals push the spokes and generate horizontal rotations that are transferred into vertical rotations through the gears, which brings up a chain of buckets from the well. Animals used in a noria are blindfolded because they can't stand the boring revolution walk.

In Dharma's case, they used polar bears to turn the noria. This worked until the wheel lit up and the polar bear disappeared, to be found later in Tunisia by Charlotte.

So I find it very interesting that this noria is at the bottom of a well. The wheel should be at the top of the well, carrying water out of it... Why would it be at the bottom? It must be because it is turning something that is in a well beneath it.

To explain this, I would like to mention again George Minkowski, who is named for German mathematician Herman Minkowski. In 1908, Herman Minkowski presented a paper which presented time as a "fourth dimension." If it is so, then it behaves like any other dimension: abiding by the rules of physics (in particular: bodies in motion stay in motion until acted on by force).

Just like the Earth rotating on its axis, time is a body in motion that moves along at a constant rate, according to Minkowski. But there's the kicker: the Earth does not rotate constantly. In fact, it wobbles, and it's slowing down every year. It's like an ice skater in a sit-spin, only with no wind resistance, it doesn't slow down except from the repositioning of objects on or in its surface. Two recent (in human history) events are said to have slowed the Earth's rotation: the damning of major water sources, and the movement of glaciers.

So if it's possible the Earth's rotation can be affected, then it is also possible time can be affected. What slows the Earth is force, but then what slows or speeds up time? What constitutes force in respect to time? You may have guessed it: magnetism.

Back to the frozen donkey wheel. It's attached to a long pole that goes deep in the earth and at the end has magnets, or something that generates electromagnetism (plutonium?). When it turns, it exerts force on time, making it slow or speed up. But then the question is how could it only affect some people on the island and not all of them? And how could the rest of the world not feel any time shifts? Because time is personal. H.G. Wells preempted Minkowski and Einstein in saying, "There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it."

Faraday's Not Going Back to the Future

Last night -- a night not unlike any other night -- I'm lying on my couch asking myself, "Why is Faraday working under the Orchid station in the 1970s?" This is THE question to answer this season, being one of the first mysteries thrown at us in season five. It will probably also be the LAST question the producers will answer.

Thankfully, you have me. And I have answers -- that I received while on said couch last night. To answer this quintessential question about Faraday, I'll start by showing you a very awesome blog post from one year ago today. Read it here. A year ago, this information was quirky. Now it paints a very revealing picture. Here it comes:

Faraday IS Radzinsky!

Sadly, all we've seen of Radzinsky -- the original inhabitant of the Swan station -- is the stain he left on the hatch ceiling. Convenient, because if we had seen him, he would have looked like a 45-year-old Daniel Faraday.

It seems to me like the season opening reveal -- Faraday working with the Dharma Initiative -- was to be Faraday's last jump through time. He could not return to the future because of the "incident" or because he fixed what was wrong with the space-time continuum and was stuck there.

We know "Radzinsky" filmed and cut the Swan station orientation film in 1980. And we've seen Faraday working with Pierre Chang to make a different film (the ComicCon film). The "incident" blows off Chang's arm and Faraday's who-knows-what. Then Faraday locks himself in the Swan and paints "Quarantine" on the inside of the hatch door to protect himself from radiation poisoning. He pushes the button (that he probably wrote the program for) every 108 minutes to save the world. That is up until Kelvin shows up. He shows Kelvin how to fake a lockdown, shows him the invisible map he has painted (from the notes in his journal), and then loses his will to live and offs himself -- if Kelvin was telling Desmond the truth.

Why wouldn't he have told Kelvin his name was Daniel Faraday? Same reason Pierre Chang started using fake names in the orientation films -- maybe to confuse other time travelers, or to hide his identity from those off-island who would search for him. So Faraday became Radzinsky. That's not a real leap for me.

The real puzzle is: Why does his mother, Ellie, have the SAME computer that is in the hatch? Did she help him write the numbers program after the incident? Like the program was installed on two computers and she took one off-island to continue the calculations? Ponder these questions, I will. But one thing is for sure: We will see Faraday descend into the Swan hatch and close the door that says "Quarantine." Then put on a record, open his journal, and start painting with invisible ink.

Ben: You Brought This On Yourself

Yes, I know everyone in the blog-o-sphere is abuzz after so many revelations in "Jughead," and I have discussed a few, but today I would like to turn your attention back to another mystery -- why pregnant women on the island die.

A big clue to this mystery was released in the Pierre Chang video shown at ComicCon 2008. If you haven't seen it, run don't walk, here. In the video, Pierre Chang, whom we have previously seen as Dr. Marvin Candle, is seen with his arm (in some of the orientation films it is missing) and with a baby crying in the background. So the Dharma hippies had no problems making love not war and carrying their babies to term as late as 1979.

Some have speculated that the h-bomb had something to do with women dying during pregnancy. I think not -- because, as I speculated in my last post, the h-bomb is buried in concrete deep under the Swan station, and has been since the 50s.

Why would the Dharma Initiative build a station directly over an h-bomb? I'm guessing they didn't know what it was, and just found a huge block of concrete with "unique electromagnetic fluctuations" and assumed it was one of the island's "mysterious properties" that needed studying. And it's probably this Mr. Magoo "what does this button do?" attitude of Dharma's that ticked off Richard Alpert's original Others and forced them to kill everyone (like they killed the army men who violated the island in '54). Even 24 years later, poor Jacob is so wounded by Dharma's experiments that he begs anyone who'll listen to "help me."

But I digress. Others (not those Others, I mean other bloggers) have speculated that "the incident" is what caused the pregnancy problems to manifest. I don't think so there either. The incident I'm placing at 1979-1980, and I believe it's the cause of Dr. Chang's lost arm (unless the arm just wandered off into the jungle and is living with Jacob, like Claire), and we know it's the reason the numbers had to be entered in the computer. Isn't that enough to follow from one incident. They wouldn't add pregnancy problems on top of all that.

So now for why we're here. The actual cause of the pregnancy problems. We know that things from people's past can manifest on the island -- like Kate's horse. I think not just important things, but also important events can manifest. Ben's mother dying in childbirth affected his life more than any other event. Kate is small time to the island, so her horse only manifests twice and shows itself to her and Sawyer. Ben, however, has spent most of his life on the island and is its leader and protector, so this important event for him manifests in every woman on the island. His big event keeps playing out over and over again.

Ben brought Juliet to the island to solve this problem -- but he was always the cause. To solve the problem, he would have to abdicate as leader. Which he finally did by turning the frozen donkey wheel and leaving forever. My guess is, women can have children again now that he's gone. But with Locke as leader, they will probably all have kidney failure.