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.

H-Bombs Make My Fillings Hurt

This week's episode, "Jughead" really blew my mind hole. Talk about something for everyone! Especially for the Pesmond-shippers (aren't we all?). We may have found out one or more of the following:

• The poured concrete under the Swan station is an h-bomb


• Charles Widmore was an Other


• Faraday's mom is Hawkings, also an Other


• Faraday's father is Widmore


• The Others are the enlightened


• Richard Alpert answers to Jacob and is, in fact, impossibly old


• Richard visited Locke as an infant because Locke told him to


• Locke feels the Others/Hostiles are his "people" (he needs to learn Latin)


• Radiation has no effect on Desmond or his reproductive abilities

So, I'm thinking "the incident," which blew off Marvin Candle's arm, must have to do with the h-bomb buried in the Swan. I hope not, though, because we saw the bomb go off, and it didn't destroy the world -- it just blew off Desmond's clothes. (The shot Desmond took every 9 days must be to avoid radiation sickness.) I still want to believe Desmond was saving the world by entering those numbers!

Now for Widmore. I'm thinking he gets banished by the Others. His banishment means he no longer has eternal life; he will age and die. So he assists scientists in finding the island and creating the Dharma initiative, to exploit the island's restorative powers. Much like the Sona in Star Trek: Insurrection. (Not the first time Star Trek themes have been borrowed. In the commentary for "The Constant" the producers said they used the final episode of TNG as a template for Desmond's time-shifting).

But why do the rules not apply to Desmond, as Faraday says? Maybe he is Jacob's son?

Travel by Death

According to my last post, if the Oceanic Six do not return to the island inside of 70 hours, the Earth will stop turning. We have several parties who are in the know about this catastrophe and taking action to stop it. They are: Richard Alpert (via John Locke), Mrs. Hawkings (via Ben Linus), and possibly Daniel Faraday.

Faraday, unlike Alpert and Hawkings, has jumped into the fray because of the nosebleed effect and most likely does not know the world may end. The nosebleed effect being: If you have the bad fortune to get unstuck in time and do not have a constant, you brain will start bleeding out your nose until it scrambles and you die. Sad but true.

Now Alpert and Hawkings, who could be the same person, and who could (either of them) have four toes, know this goes way beyond brain-scrambling. Of course, we don't know how they know. I'd like to discuss Team A, Alpert-Locke, and their interaction at the crashed Nigerian plane, because I believe it has given us one major insight:

To escape the island, you have to die.

I think the converse is also true. To return to the island, you have to die. Here's the evidence. Jack's father decides to drink himself to death in Australia. He dies. He is able to return to the island and walk around with his body back.

Alpert tells Locke, to leave the island, he has to die.

Hurley's imaginary friend from the loony bin, Dave, tells Hurley that to be free he must jump off the cliff. That this is all an illusion and he needs to kill himself. Libby "saves" him at the last minute. Maybe Dave was right.

Coincidentally (or not) Locke, Hurley and Christian are among the few who have seen Jacob's cabin. It may be Jacob who facilitates this travel by death, but only for those who know him.

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say the "purge" may have been an act of mercy by Ben and the hostiles, to free the Dharma Initiative workers from the island's grasp (and from inevitable death by nosebleed). This would explain why Ben persists in calling himself and his people "the good guys," and why I'm justified in believing that.

But what are the rules governing travel by death? Do you have to know and have seen Jacob? Is this why he knows his daughter is dead and not just transported. Are these the same "rules" Ben mentions to Widmore? We'll see.