I’ve long feared dipping my toe into this water. I’m a far cry from real Lost fanatics, people who pick up on all of the clues and play the online adventures. I’m just a regular guy who watches the show at some point after it airs, and speed views each season in its entirety on DVD before the next one premieres. I love the lore of the show, but I’ve never visited a chat room or fan site to discuss it. I’ve always felt as if other people’s theorizing might ruin my own experience, as I look for clues into what they saw, instead of watching the show colored by my own particular proclivities.
Yet, here I am, risking life and limb by stepping into this pool. Alas, my better judgment couldn’t hold back my confusion, and yes, disappointment, after the episode “Dead Is Dead,” from two weeks ago (I just saw it this past weekend). I was left pondering: What happened to the continuity?
I’ve never fully understood the games that time-travel shows play with timelines and the like. The arguments that you can’t change the past, whatever happened will always happen, nothing you do now didn’t not happen then, etc. All consistent variations on a theme. That is, until Ben (Michael Emerson) and Locke (Terry O’Quinn) went to visit Ben’s old house in their present. That’s when the show lost its way. Was it intentional? Most things on the show are. Even so, what happens to the integrity of the mythology when something questionable like that happens?
The incident in question was something that Ben said after Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey) handed him a picture taken of the Dharma Initiative recruits of 1977. The photo includes a smiling Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Hurley (Jorge Garcia). Yet it took Ben by surprise. Why? Ben was on the Island in 1977. In fact, Kate and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) carried young Ben to be healed by the Others after he was shot by Sayid (Naveen Andrews). Of course, he wouldn’t remember that, but wouldn’t he remember Jack, his father’s fellow janitor? Or Hurley, a man not likely to go unnoticed?
The thought occurred to me that maybe time-traveling Ben and present-day Ben are not one and the same, so time-traveling Ben never experienced when three of the Oceanic 6 came to the Island. The problem is that that answer rebuts the idea of not being able to change the past. Assuming that, either way, young Ben was shot and his life was saved by the Others, someone had to have brought him to them. No one in the Dharma Initiative would have brought their young to the “savages,” so it had to have been someone familiar with the Others, as well as with Ben’s future relationship to them. This means someone from Oceanic Flight 815. So, no matter what theory you prescribe to, any version of Ben that is an adult and is alive was saved by Kate. And Sawyer, who he surely should have known as soon as he saw him crash on the Island.
This is the kind of minor point that the show is excellent about staying on top of. Which would normally mean that there’s more to this slip and we have to be patient. While that’s fine in most cases, I really think that here, in this instance, the inconsistency jeopardizes the integrity of the show’s relationship with time. It’s a tricky thing to be playing with.
Or, I could just be totally wrong. (And, of course, Ben could have been lying.) I may have mis-heard, misunderstood, or simply missed something. Like I said, I don’t freeze, rewind, or check out chat rooms. But I do pay attention, and I do expect more from such a rich series. And, even the best solution to what appeared to be an innocent inconsistency, will take a little bit away from how the creators eventually get us from “A” to “Z.” I really hope we don’t end up feeling like they cheated to make it happen.
Anyone have any answers to this one?
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Apr 21, 2009 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
Well, Richard said that Ben was going to have memory issues after being “saved” by the island in the temple. I assume that’s why he had no memory of the events leading up to his gunshot wound. It is my assumption that he has no recollection of the 815ers being in the dharma initiative because they will end up leaving before little Ben returns from being with the Others. Things are falling apart for them, their covering is going to be blown pretty soon I think.
Or Ben is a lying liar. There is precedence for this.
Ok let me help explain this to you.
For people who already were on the island when the show happens, when we follow the story, the past has already happened. Things that are now “altered” does not lead to their memories being affected. To be honest I (!) think that Richard Alpert saying that young Ben won’t be able to remember was just a device for viewers not to say the show has jumped the shark for they would not be able to accept such a ruleset. That’s what Miles tried to explain to Hurley when they played Domino.
And if you now say that this can’t be because Daniel Faraday altered Desmond Hume’s memories then you have to keep in mind that Daniel said that Desmond is special.
Richard said that Ben won’t remember what happened and yes that’s pretty convenient I know…
It’s hard to miss the “Ben won’t remember” point. But if you can get beyond that it does hold together fairly well.
As Jimmy McGovern said on the Charlie Brooker “Writer’s special” over here on BBC4:
“I’d rather be confused for ten minutes than bored for five seconds”
All of this was pretty clear: Ben’s memory has been affected by whatever saved him and the Losties will probably be all out of DHARMA after the next few episodes (maybe they are related to the Incident?)
It’s not hard to except memory failing as plot device – little Ben is just a kid
In the episode “Whatever Happened, Happened”, Richard tells Kate and Sawyer that once he helps Ben (via taking him into the temple) he won’t remember any of it and he will be changed. Apparently, that change is related to the “infection” Rousseau claimed her crew to have contracted after they entered the same temple upon initially shipwrecking on the island (why she killed them).
Early in the next episode, “Dead is Dead”, young Ben wakes up in the Others’ camp and doesn’t remember what happened or how he got there, confirming some of what Richard said would happen. We don’t know the circumstances of Ben’s return to the Dharma camp (probably to be explained in upcoming episodes), but it’s possible it happens without the direct involvment of the Oceanic survivors.
As to why he doesn’t seem to remember Jack, Hurley, Kate, or Sawyer at all: so far we haven’t seen young Ben have any appreciable interaction with any of them (beyond the stuff that he apparently won’t remember) and it’ll be another 27 years before the plane crash that brings them to the island. (Though oddly enough he selected out those same four people to be captured by the Others towards the end of season two.)
As someone else mentioned, it’s also possible Ben is lying about how much he remembers, but there’s also the question: how well would you remember (27 years later) a group of people from your childhood with whom you had little to no interaction?
*POST AUTHOR*
Okay, so Richard saying Ben won’t remember anything would provide an answer, albeit a serious cheat for the creators to get out of this problem (i.e. Ben should have shown some recognition of the 815ers in the first three seasons).
But that’s kind of the point: the creators were left scrambling to wipe away the inconsistencies by providing themselves with some handy cover, like Sebastian, Kenshiro and Al pointed out.
Bob, while I see your point about Ben not recognizing them if they’re gone by the time he returns, I tend to think that it will be his return that drives them out. When he comes back healed, his father will likely turn on Kate and tell everyone that she was involved. That, or Sawyer will neglect to kill Pete and he’ll spill all. Either way, if he’s there to witness a public stoning, Ben would likely remember the man and the woman (Sawyer and Kate) who saved his life. You could argue that that’s why he invited Kate to breakfast after kidnapping her, but that would be a clever way of jamming the previous seasons into the new direction.
Sebastian, as for the past already happening, if they can’t alter the past as Miles said, Kate and Sawyer saved Ben in any iteration you live through. At the very least, how many times do you find yourself sitting in a room, seeing an object without really seeing the object, and something about it subconsciously catches your eye and you look closer? (Matt, and Ushizo), can we really believe that in all his years living in that house, Ben never saw the picture of the recruits of 1977? If we are to believe that a) his memory was wiped, and b) what happened, always happened, then the 815ers were always in that picture. Since their arrival on the island he would have noticed that.
Let’s not forget a subtle line that has passed before on the show: Ben tells Juliet, when he first meets her, that “you look just like her”, or something like that. He remembered Juliet, be it from a dream, or from after he returns to the Dharma camp. Wouldn’t he remember his attacker (Sayid) in the same mechanism that he’s remember his savior?
Aryeh, see it like this: what ever happened, happened. You can NOT change the outcome. What you can change is the way it appears.
Look at it as if you have a script for a movie. Depending on the actors and the director as well as everyone involved, the movie changes. So there are now more people on the photos from 1977 of the Dharmas. Who cares? Let’s just say that the 815ers on that photo don’t matter (of course they do for us) but to the “real past” they don’t. They won’t change it. Ben ALWAYS got shot in the past. He ALWAYS got saved by the Others. How he was brought to them does not matter. The 815ers are no influence on that. As for him not remembering, like I said: OLD Ben won’t remember them – YOUNG Ben will now.
I see it like Miles. The past already happened for the Ben that first got affected by the 815ers when the plane crashed. We are following the present of the 815ers, and they are currently in a 1977 that is like a museum in which they can enter the dioramas and interact with them, without actually changing it. Like for instance a display of Dinosaurs. They are in it, they interact with the Dinosaurs – doesn’t mean that humans lived 50 million years B.C. Does also not mean that if you could revive a fossil from back then now standing in a museum that it would recollect interacting with humans because the fossils have already been there when the 815ers entered the diorama, altering the mind of the dinosaur that is interacting with them, but not meaning that the fossil will change. It is SET IN STONE. Look at it as if OLD Ben’s mind is already SET IN STONE. No matter how they affect YOUNG Ben, it won’t change anything – he won’t even remember. Actions in the past don’t alter things in the future.
And like I said, Desmond is an exception, he’s special. To me, the cop-out is not young Ben not remembering but rather Desmond being special. Darlton invented a ruleset that defines the past as being set in stone, then they go around and use Desmond to break that ruleset. THAT is the problem I’m having, NOT young Ben not remembering. It’s bothersome I know but it’s simply because so many people watching Lost won’t be able to accept this ruleset for they’ve been taught a whole different one their whole lives during Star Trek, Stargate and most prominently “Back to the Future” and other Sci-Fi shows where time travel always results in actions in the past altering things in the future (with the total Bullshit of McFly seing his own hand vanish due to actions that are IMMEDIATELY affecting the timeline but don’t get me started on that one, Butterfly effect and everything included).
Of course I might be totally wrong but I understand it the way Miles described it to Hurley for now and I’m friggin fine with it :-)
I really am :-)
Small correction: Young Ben WOULD remember them if the temple didn’t change him, but like I said this IMHO is just a device for the viewers to accept the fact that the 815ers had an influence on him being saved and that he should remember them. In my understanding of the rules he would now recognize them and know them, but that does not have an effect on the OLD Ben running around in 1977 at the moment, it does not mean he won’t be surprised about things that change in the 1977 we see here. It looks different but it’s leading nowhere. They are all living in the past that has been and no matter what they do they won’t change the future timelime. It’s a new ruleset. Actions in the past do not affect the timeline – and people who leave the timeline in the future to return are merely watchers who can interact with the past that has been but can not affect anything that happened in the future.
Which also means that Faraday telling Charlotte not to return to the island is up for change as it seems that future Charlotte knew about not returning to the island – in her past, as it seems, there always has been a Faraday telling her not to do it and it was “Old” Charlotte who returned to the island.
The Faraday who returned to the island on the Sub last week might just have to be more convincing the second time around.
I know this is all absolutely irritating and hard to explain via text. It’s really more something for a chat at the watercooler :-)
*POST AUTHOR*
Wow. So, um… first of all, clearly, you’re fine with it. ;-)
I think it’s hard to determine where to draw the line between means and result. Meaning, you can’t change events of the past; is Ben being shot an event, or is Sayid shooting Ben an event? One would mean it’s insignificant how it happened. The other? Sayid’s face would have been burned into Ben’s mind, no matter how much time passed or what freaky things happened to him in the temple.
However, your analogy to a movie is interesting, and I agree that different actors will simply make the same script look different. But the discussion about time and who is affected by what is really the sticking point that I think the creators were doing fine with until this incident (at least for me). I accept that the current version of a person who’s gone back to the past will not feel the ramifications of his meddling in the past (i.e. Sayid wouldn’t always know that he shot little Ben), but Ben is not in 1977 with them, he’s in the future.
It’s a question of one line in time versus concurrent ones. The idea that once you change something in the past, it spawns a new future for that person. But, again, I go back to the rules we were given about not being able to change the past, and whatever happened, happened. It’s hard to digest if you look at yourself now, and say that the present you couldn’t be affected by changes that are made tomorrow in your past. But, if we zoom out and look at Ben’s entire life as one stitch in time, by changing his past you are forever changing his future, and every iteration of him, the one that lived before the 815ers went back in time, and the one that lived after they did so, have been affected by the change. He has NO past in which the 815ers didn’t appear in 1977. At least, that’s my understanding of this whole thing.
Or, Ben could be lying, which is always going to be a perfectly viable explanation, up to and including the point at which the show comes to an end! It’ll still leave us with the issue of his showing no signs of recognition of the 815ers in the first three seasons, but I won’t go around that circle again.
Yes, this is a difficult means of having these conversations, but it has always allowed for plenty of drama, since you can’t emote via text, so we all insult each other inadvertently. It’s a thing of beauty! :-)
“Yes, this is a difficult means of having these conversations, but it has always allowed for plenty of drama, since you can’t emote via text, so we all insult each other inadvertently. It’s a thing of beauty! :-)”
Yes that’s exactly what I meant. If you could see my facial expression while I’m talking about this and hear the tone of my voice this would all be much easier :-)
How many times didn’t I understand when people replied to one of my mails angry just because I didn’t garnish my words with half a million smileys even though I was snickering :-) Sarcasm is a double edged sword (though I wasn’t sarcastic here in any way).
But back to the discussion:
I see it differently. In Old Ben’s past, there were no 815ers and Richard Alpert saying that he won’t remember stuff is just there so people watching the show don’t say the rules were broken. That’s all it is IMHO. Catering to the audience who just wouldn’t get the whole ruleset. If you look at it closely, many things don’t make sense like the photo – if you follow the rules from Star Trek, then this photo, if it existed in the future, would just mean that the 815ers were _always_ there with them. But I bet my ass that if we were to return to the present RIGHT NOW then there wouldn’t be any 815ers on any photos OFF the island – you could then apply another rule in that you say that maybe stuff that changes on the island would really change THERE but that’s another idea just like my Charlotte sidetrack I opened up there.
What I’m saying is: what happened HAPPENED. Nobody who comes back from the future is able to change ANYTHING. They are just visiting a themepark where stuff always happens the same way but they can interact with it. You could call it a new timeline, fine, if you think that the things happening here will continue once they all leave.
To me it’s like in “Night at the Museum”. They are entering a diorama that displays things that happened back then. The story is set. The outcome is fixed. They are allowed to interact with the things and people in the diorama, but they won’t change anything in the future – and no matter if this is a new timeline or not – if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to witness it, did it really fall? Meaning: once the last 815er left, who cares what happened while they were there?
It doesn’t change anything.
What we see here rather is a giant interactive FLASHBACK.
“To me, the cop-out is not young Ben not remembering but rather Desmond being special.”
I’m holding back on that being a copout.
If you recall, Desmond being an exception to the rules of time was presented to us as twist within the same episode in which they established the rule set. Not more than a few seconds after Faraday was delineating the rules to everyone, he turns around and breaks said rules by messing with the past via Desmond.
Since the given reason he broke the rules didn’t pan out to anything (Desmond didn’t really need to do anything to save everyone and Ms. Hawking was already in the process of sending the Oceanic 6 back), there’s likely more to this and I’m curious as to how that will play out…
…and it probably connects to whatever they’re currently digging up where they’re going to build the Swan station. Post being dead-center of the hatch detonation was when we first saw Desmond experiencing the irregularities with time.
Ushizo, very interesting point about how Kate, Sawyer, Jack, and Hurley are the ones selected to be captured later. I hadn’t thought about that. I wonder where Jin falls into the picture?
And Aryeh, good point about Ben’s line to Juliet– that does seem to muddy the “no memories” theory a bit.
Well, we don’t know the whole time line. Jack, Hurley, Kate and the others arrived when Ben left, pretty much, and it could be that they eventually left before Ben joined Dharma back. Admitting that Ben was passed out and wouldn’t remember Sawyer & Kate driving him to the Others, because anyone in such condition is often going not to remember exactly what happened.
As for those he saw longer, Sawyer & Juliet, there’s still the possibility that Ben was quite young, and went through a lot of exciting/traumatizing experiences after that, so he could have forgotten those faces… I now I don’t remember lots of people I probably saw every day when I was 7, it’s not uncommon.
Although for the record, I wouldn’t be surprised Ben lied…
“…can we really believe that in all his years living in that house, Ben never saw the picture of the recruits of 1977?”
If I’m not mistaken, the place where Frank and Sun got the picture wasn’t Ben’s house. They got it from a different building and brought it with them when they were told to wait at Ben’s home for Locke.
“Ben tells Juliet, when he first meets her, that “you look just like her”, or something like that.”
Ben doesn’t tell this to Juliet. I believe it was Harper (one of the Others) who makes the quick comment to Juliet during a conversation: “Of course he likes you. You look just like her.”. Maybe she was referring to Ben seeing Juliet when he was younger or maybe she was referring to someone else.
I think she was referring to a girl Ben was in love with when he was young. If my memories are correct, we saw her in Ben’s first flashback. Can’t remember her name though (I’d say Annie but not sure…).
*POST AUTHOR*
Okay. Either way, the pictures were likely hanging somewhere that he frequented. Catching Hurley out of the corner of your eye in a picture dated 30 years before he came to the island would certainly make you stop and think.
This was my fear diving into this; lack of total recall. I definitely don’t remember 100% who said that to Juliet, but I do remember thinking now, when Juliet went back to 1977, that Ben recalled her from then. It’s a small point that could unravel this entire conversation if it did in fact refer to Juliet of 1977.
But, Kenshiro could be right, too. Like I said, there’s too much to this show for me to remember all of the finer points. I just know what occurred to me as I watched it.
But the otherville they were staying in looked as if it had been abandoned by the DI, not by the Others.
I don’t see any issues, Ben is a liar and he won’t remember things, problem solved.
I think Ben was waiting for 815 to crash all along. Remember how organized his team was when the plane initially crashed? He had his people ready to infiltrate the survivors to find Sawyer, Jack, Kate and Hurley because he remembered them from 1977. That’s why their names were on the list. That’s why he had detailed files on all of them.
It’s also why he sought out Juliet to bring her to the island. He remembered her. I’m of the belief that Ben remembers the past perfectly. He was just waiting for them to “return.” Maybe to keep the timeline intact, so he didn’t die as a child. If Sawyer and Kate never arrived on the island in 2004, then they never could have been shipped back through time to 1977 to save lil’ Ben. When little Ben first met Richard in the jungle and told him he wanted to join the Others, Richard told him to be “patient.” In other words, wait for Kate, Sawyer and the rest to arrive.
Ben is an exceptional liar. In fact, all he’s done is lie since he first appeared pretending to be be Henry Gale.
Great… now I have a headache.
Good points Scott. Now I’m torn between your theory and mine.
All in all it simply makes for a great finale and hopefully an interesting last season of Lost. Remember when people were bitching after episode 5 of this season that Lost had become boring?
Back then I said that the show would re-gain momentum and look where we are now. Talking and talking :-)
Of course you could also be in the boat of people who just dropped the show after the Temple “forgetting” incident but if you look at the ratings I don’t think that there are that many.
*POST AUTHOR*
Scott, I love this theory! I think we’ve heard that Ben got files on everyone from 815, but it’s definitely a great way to see the whole thing coming together. It would even address my concern that, if Ben’s lying, it still doesn’t explain why we never got the impression in the first few seasons that he knew them.
Plus, my wife made an interesting point after reading your thoughts: Kate and Jack give one another a look before the hoods are put over their heads after being kidnapped; did they remember that this is little Ben all grown up?
Awesome! It puts a whole new tie to things on the show. Thanks!
One thing about the “detailed files.” If I recall, Ben only had files on central characters: Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Locke and Sayid. None of the lesser characters such as Charlie or Mr. Ecko, who weren’t around in 1977, were talked about. They also weren’t kidnapped or interrogated by Ben and his people.
Whatever the case, Ben had a serious interest in Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Sayid and Locke. Why?
“One thing about the “detailed files.” If I recall, Ben only had files on central characters: Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Locke and Sayid. None of the lesser characters…”
Actually, in the episode “One of Us”, right after the crash, we see Ben and Juliet go to the Flame station to see Mikhail who’d been monitoring news reports about the missing flight.
Ben tells Mikhail that he wants him to get detailed files on ALL the flight’s passengers, and Mikhail says he’s already working on it.
(On that point, Tom the Other knew that Bernard [Rose’s husband] was a dentist.)
“Plus, my wife made an interesting point after reading your thoughts: Kate and Jack give one another a look before the hoods are put over their heads after being kidnapped; did they remember that this is little Ben all grown up?”
How? Why? That’s just – sorry Aryeh I’m a bit disappointed now.
Scott proposed Ben was a liar. Now your wife suggests Kate, Jack and everyone else who appeared surprised by the crash and everything that happened after that also knew all along?
Sorry, that’s not possible. Nothing that happened on the show suggest that, not even Scott suggest this here on this thread.
It would mean the 815ers knew everything all along as well and that’s just not the case. Scotts proposal entails that Ben’s past has been affected by things that will happen in the future of the lives of Kate and Jack. They themselves didn’t get affected in 1977, first and foremost because they weren’t born then. The only way Kate and Jack knew would be if they would’ve gained knowledge of little Ben by being affected by a timetraveler as well when they were born in the past OR if these entities of Jack and Kate return from 1977 to 2005 to get on Oceanic 815 and that’s just bogus.
Ben’s life is linear from 1970 to 2008 when he jumps back to 1977 so everything that happens to him by a timetraveler can be imprinted in his brain as knowledge – Jack and Kate don’t have such a life. They don’t know anything.
*POST AUTHOR*
Are you picking on my wife?!?
Realize you just called THIS impossible … as opposed to all of the other rules in time travel?
While Ben’s life is linear, it doesn’t mean that somehow, somewhere, the name Benjamin Linus didn’t come to the attention of Jack, Kate, et al. There was a look, and it was a knowing one, and as of yet the only explanation for it has been one of reassurance. That’s a bit lacking as an explanation.
Try this on for size: we know the Island has a unique relationship with time. What if, instead of just being not quite in the present, it’s actually on a loop? We learn at the end of the series that things here replay Groundhog Day style, every iteration bringing all involved closer to the goal, i.e. saving the Island or whatever. So the look was “here we go again!”
Realistic? No. Impossible? Time travel is make believe! Anything goes here, as long as it doesn’t break the show’s unique set of rules. Who knows what the present day models of these characters know and don’t? As long as it isn’t forced, anything could work.
Just saying.
I’m a follower of the “whatever happened, happened” theory. If Hurley and Kate and Jack were there when Ben was a kid, then grown-up Ben used to live in the Dharma Initiative with Jack and Kate and Hurley.
But I’m not sure you should expect him to remember anything. I was born roughly the same year as Ben and I remember almost NOTHING about when I was 8 to 10. Just a few major events.
Ben is likely to remember major events that caused a big emotional impact, but so far he’s only had one of those involving the 815’ers – getting shot by Sayid and saved by Kate – but he was unconscious much of the time, and victims of trauma often have memory loss, not to mention whatever weird stuff Richard Alpert did to his head.
The photos are a good point, but I’m willing to accept that Ben (who was not exactly a fan of the Dharma Initiative and killed most of them) is unlikely to have decorated his house with classic Dharma photos.
*POST AUTHOR*
Reasonable points all, and I think you’re on the same page as the show. I just feel like there may be too many of those little details that, while easy to explain, together add up to a lot of inconsistencies.
Could it have been because this direction wasn’t intended from the beginning? That’s my belief. I’ve just always felt that this show is great at making pieces fit with ease; I’d hate to end up watching them scrambling to force them, or worse yet, finesse them, into their natural slots.
I think either Richard was right and Ben didn’t remember anything once in temple (but then why did he say he didn’t want to go back to his Dad, which he obviously remembered!) or old Ben is lying and he does remember all of them perfectly.. remember how many information he used to have on all of them, he used to know their parents names, marital status, everything, like he knew them from before (1970’s dharma); I think he needed them to crash on the island and go through everything so that they could get to that point in the present where they GO TO HIS PAST and actually save him (although then he’s also helping Sayid to go to his past and try and kill him).
What I want to know is Desmond’s mystery. He’s the one!