LOST: Like crazy mother, like son... Monster.

Some rambling theorizing, riffing on revelations in "Across The Sea" in four parts: (1) Crazy Mother was a monster, (2) Crazy Mother is killed by Esau, (3) Given #2, who can kill Esau, and how?, and (4) Luchador Desmond!

MOMSTER!

Crazy Mother is a smoke monster. The Momster.

She is the Protector of the Island and its Heart, and when Claudia meets her, she's a monster. She never shows her smokey self to her adopted sons, but we certainly see the evidence of her monster-ous powers, in the filling of the well and the destruction of the settlement of XENA extras. She also speaks with authority about the outcome for anyone who enters the Heart of the Island—basically, a fate worse than death. Granted, it's easy to believe that that authority is built on delusion—Esau's story about his crazy mother is designed to tilt us that way—but let's take her at her word. How would she know? To my mind, there are two possibilities:

1. She entered the Heart herself and experienced the consequences herself.

2. She knew/observed someone else who entered the Heart and witnessed the consequences.

I believe that possibility 1 is what actually happened.

When a human being enters the Heart of the Island, his or her consciousness is forced out of its body and implanted in a smoke monster host body, somehow conjured or manufactured by the Heart. This process leaves behind the human's corpse. This is what happens when Jacob sends the unconscious Esau floating into the Heart.

Things we know about a smoke monster, courtesy of Esau's exploits and words.

1. A smoke monster can take the form and assimilate the experiences, memories, and personality of the life of any dead body present on the Island.

2. A smoke monster in either human or smoke form is impervious to conventional physical attacks.

3. A smoke monster can be blocked or contained by a line of special ash spread on the ground of the Island.

4. A smoke monster can be blocked or contained by powerful sonics as well.

5. A smoke monster can only manifest in its smokey form on solid ground, and not over water. (SAWYER: What do you need a boat for? Can't you just turn into smoke and fly your ass over the water?)

6. Contact with water may interfere with the ability of a monster in human form to change into its smoke form. (Jack shoves Locke-ness into the water on the dock and he doesn't go smokey on them. This could be because all was going to plan anyway, but I'm going to assume that Sawyer's gambit—he told Jack to get Locke-ness into the water—had the desired effect.)

ESAU KILLS THE MOMSTER.

Now, since the Momster is a monster herself, thru her story, we've learned that a monster can be killed. What made Esau's attack special...? I'm gonna try to identify significant factors.

1. Esau was born on the Island.

2. Esau may have died and been resuscitated by Infection. (Meaning that Crazy Mother's head-cracking move on Esau actually killed him.)

3. Esau used a steel/iron knife. (We saw his knife attracted by the electromagnetic field of the well and I'm assuming it's the same knife.)

4. Esau loved the Momster.

5. The Momster loved Esau.

6. The Momster WANTED to die. (She tells Esau, "Thank you.")

7. Esau catches the Momster by surprise. (While she is distracted by his game and game pieces, he stabs her in the back.)

7a. The Momster doesn't get to speak to Esau until after he delivers his killing blow. Of course, she's been speaking to him since he was born, but maybe the Rules reset the speaks-first counter every time a monster meets someone...? I feel it's worth mentioning because much has been made of individuals losing their advantage and/or nerve (Dogen tells Sayid to strike and kill Locke-ness before he says a word to him) and submitting to Esau's will as soon as they hear him speak to them (Claire explains to Jack that he's joined Locke-ness, even if he doesn't think he has, because he spoke to him).

I'm not saying all of the above factors are required to hurt or kill a monster, but I'm guessing that at least one of them is. Anyone got any more to add?

SO, WHO CAN KILL THE LOCKE-NESS MONSTER?

So, who of the remaining Losties on the Island in 2007 meets most if not all of the above qualifications...?

1. Born on the Island? It was DI policy in 1974 that mothers should give birth off-Island, but with Amy's successful delivery of Ethan, perhaps that changed by 1977, and Miles Straume could have been born on the Island.

2. Infected? Claire.

3. Steel/iron as a weapon? Shouldn't be too hard to manage. Where's that fancy old Roman dagger got to?

4/5. Love? If a loving relationship between Esau and his killer is necessary, well, that narrows it down considerably. A resurrected Jacob. A resurrected Crazy Mother. Perhaps Claire, at just the right moment.

What if being "stuck" for so long as Locke-ness is imprinting the original Locke's experiences and emotions upon Esau's consciousness in a completely new and different way, compared to Esau's usual doppelganging. Perhaps the original Locke's feelings of love might affect Esau as Locke-ness? If that's the case... and allowing for apparitions and resurrections as well as those drawing genuine breath, Locke might feel a strong connection to Jack, to Boone, to Aaron, to Helen, of course, and maybe Eko.

Yeah. I'm hoping that Love isn't a factor.

6. A deathwish? It's hard to see Esau getting himself into a situation where he would WANT to die, after all of his patience over the centuries, engineering his loophole, and now, apparently only a few steps away from his goal. Singleminded little monster brat, ain't he?

Still, maybe Esau dying will end up being part of the process of "leaving the Island." In which case, someone killing Esau will end up helping him reach his goal.

Maybe the writers can conjure up a scenario in which Esau would genuinely wish to sacrifice himself and wish for someone to kill him. Perhaps a vision of the Momster and BioMom together?

7. Surprise attack/no talking? Y'know what? I'm pretty sure that Miles is the only living Lostie on the Island in 2007 who hasn't had a conversation with Locke-ness. He was one of the returned time travellers. He escaped the Temple during Esau's massacre. He left with Richard instead of joining Hurley and Jack at Locke-ness's camp.

Wow. Miles! Miles the Monster killer! =)

Hrmm... I wonder if he would get a reading off of Esau in his presence...?

PLAN D (FOR DESMOND =).

Of course, and I've said it before, killing Esau may not be the best way of dealing with him.

Consider the origin of Esau's life as a Monster—his visit to the Heart of the Island. The Heart is apparently the greatest concentration of exotic EM energy in or on the Island. The wells that the settlers dig seem to access secondary pools of the Heart's energized water. Two of the largest of these reservoirs end up being the focus of the DI Swan and Orchid stations.

What would happen if Esau were to be returned to the Heart? A human becomes a monster. What becomes of a monster?

The wheel chamber DOES eventually get built, and it does exactly what Esau's curious alchemists design it to do—sends an individual who turns the wheel off the Island. I'm unclear as to whether Esau and these wise men understood that the process would also move the Island. We know it works, tho. Esau must know as well. He was ready to turn the wheel when he was a living, breathing man, but since he's become a monster, he hasn't turned it. Given his desire to leave, that could only be the case because he CANNOT turn it. As a monster, he's unable to.

That tells me that concentrations of the Island's exotic energy are anethema to a monster. An extreme electromagnetic field or event is painful or destructive or deadly to a monster. Or, perhaps its fatally attractive or repelling? Maybe a monster would be unable to escape a massively potent EM field, or, on the other hand, its matter would be scattered to the winds if dragged to the center of one.

Now... Who do we know who could walk into the heart of an EM bonanza and get settle in with a good book, say, Charles Dickens, hrm? DESMOND!

Could the defeat of Esau lie in something as low-tech and down and dirty as Desmond putting Locke-ness in a headLocke and dragging him with him over the Heart's falls? Desmond's sacrifice?

I'd buy it, assuming the rassling would be just one of several theaters of the final war in both LOST realities.

ONE LAST THING.

Assuming that Crazy Mother is a Momster, it's interesting that her doppelganger body dies and decays just like a real human one. It's a *copy* of the original, but biologically, physically, it's a human body. Is it fair game for monster doppelganging? Could Esau wear Crazy Mother's form to mess with Jacob every once in a while? Was Momster "stuck" in that form for some reason, perhaps because she was a monster *and* Protector?

For a monster to take someone's form, must the original body of its dupe be in a particular condition?

Of course, if you're of a mind to reject the notion that Crazy M is a Momster, that she's just a crazy woman who believes she's in communion with the Island, then you'd probably view her apparently human remains as proof of that.

I'm gonna run with the Momster notion. It's way more fun.

ONE LAST LAST THING.

Interesting how Esau adopts Momster's opinion of mankind while Jacob takes an opposing, hopeful, stance.

MOTHER: They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt... and it always ends the same.

ESAU: They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.
JACOB: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.

Keep on keepin on~

LOST: cuz it hangs them up to see someone like you...

Nobody can tell you there's only one song worth singing. They may try and sell you, because it hangs them up to see someone like you. But you've got to make your own kind of music. Sing your own special song. Make your own kind of music, even if nobody else sings along.

You're going to be nowhere, the loneliest kind of lonely. It may be rough-going. Just to do your thing is the hardest thing to do. But you've got to make your own kind of music. Sing your own special song. Make your own kind of music, even if nobody else sings along.

So, if you cannot take my hand; and, if you must be going, I will understand. You've got to make your own kind of music. Sing your own special song. Make your own kind of music. Even if nobody else sings along.

You've got to make your own kind of music. Sing your own special song. Make your own kind of music. Even if nobody else sings along.

=)

Thanks to Mama Cass and Desmond Hume.

Keep on keepin on~

LOST: Every question I answer will simply lead to another question.

6.15: "Across The Sea"

A pretty frickin lame episode of XENA, but a decent, not mind-blowing, episode of LOST. =)

Gonna rattle off some way late night first impressions and theory sparks from tonight's ODD COUPLE secret origins episode.

Jacob's a (crazy) mama's boy and Esau's a rebel without a cause.

ESAU: I'm shaking the dust of this crummy little Island off my feet and I'm gonna see the world.

It's not the most awesome backstory, but it's not the worst...

Jacob and Esau are brothers in the same ancient Egyptian scout troop and Christian is their scout leader. One day Esau tells Jacob that Christian touched him in his special show-us-on-this-doll place but Jacob refuses to believe it. Esau takes matters into his own hands and kills Christian, and in grief-fueled retaliation Jacob earns hit turn-your-brother-into-the-Monster badge. The Rules turn out to be ancient Egyptian scout's honor.

Hrmm... actually, I kinda like that story better than this episode's.

I'm kind of glad to find that the origin of the Island brothers doesn't involve a massive EM event or time travel. Takes SOME of the pressure off the finale. It's a little clunky, but it's also...what's the word...? Classic? Archetypal? Mythic? All of those fit I guess, but that makes sense, given that you start with two brothers, fraternal twins, and end with Adam and Eve, right? In any case, it works.

We still don't have a proper name for Jacob's brother. I shall continue to call him Esau, altho I am kinda looking forward to LOST fans discussing the newborn Jacob and B.I.B. (Baby In Black).

Allison Janney makes an excellent Crazy Mother.

I like how Esau's fate at Jacob's hands shows us that Esau was telling the truth to Ricardo when he said that Jacob stole (or was it "took?") his body from him. When we first hear that, it sounds like a disembodied Jacob took control of Esau's human body, booting his consciousness into the jungle in the process. However, knowing what we know now, we see that he was colorfully explaining how Jacob consigned him to a fate worse than death, life as the Monster.

We see that the Rules are something created by their mother. She seems to be able to commune w the Island and has a knowledge of how to manipulate its power using what appear to be spells and incantations, but of course, may be the outward trappings of some kind of science or technology.

It sounded to me like BioMom spoke Spanish, or something close to it. I didn't recognize Crazy Mother's first words to her as anything like Spanish, tho. Latin? The show seemed to activate the universal North American English translator for the audience after a minute or two. I can't put my finger on just what visual cue or cues there were, but there was SOMETHING that transpired that seemed to telegraph to me that from that moment on we'd be getting a convenient translation of dialogue. Like when the camera closes in on Connery's(?) mouth while he's speaking Russian, then pulls back out as he begins speaking English in HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER.

I wonder if Esau's people, Jacob and Esau's biological mother's people, are Atlantean explorers. The way Esau speaks of the wise and curious men of this people seems... somehow like reverence, y'know? Like scientists as sorcerers. Alchemists. I mean, how does one suss out a system for manipulating energy and energized water using a wheel. And on top of that, understanding that this manipulation will result in the teleportation of an individual to a location off the Island?

Was Crazy Mother's mother an Atlantean as well?

I loved Esau's dagger throw.

It was a nice ending, weaving Jacob laying Esau's and Crazy Mother's mortal remains to rest in the caves with Jack's discovery of the bodies in 2004.

I hafta say that I'm annoyed at the show giving us such an active deception in Jack's bogus guesswork at dating the age of the bodies of Adam and Eve in the caves. I think he estimated 30 or 40 years at rest based on the deterioration of their clothes.

The Heart of the Island. It's not super awesome, but I'll allow it. Acceptable as an elemental, McGuffiny foundation piece of the LOST puzzle pie. The source of life? All life? Of sentience? Of spirit or spirits? Of souls? A little bit of the same light is in every living person. If the source is extinguished on the Island, it's extinguished everywhere. How does one get to the Heart in 2007? I think it must be located within its own snowglobe in the snowglobe, like Jacob's Cabin, and maybe like Jacob's Lighthouse.

How does Crazy Mother know that to enter the Heart is to meet a fate worse than death? Did she visit the Heart herself? Was she a monster herself as well, wearing a dupe of her original body? As a Monster, did Island Rules dictate that she could only die under specific conditions? Like, say, at the hand of someone born on the Island and/or someone who loves her?

She tells Esau, "Thank you," when he kills her. Sad.

Did Moms actually KILL Esau when she smashed his skull into the wall? In the moment, remembering Kelvin's death, I certainly believed it. When we see him regain consciousness outside the remains of the well, I was thinking INFECTED!

How the frickin heck did Moms fill the well in and kill everyone? Witchiness? I feel like that would be the handiwork of a Monster, no? At 3am, I think I'm gonna hafta commit to the idea that Crazy Mother *did* enter the Heart of the Island, which yanked her consciousness out of her mortal coil and made her a smoke monster. She is Island Protector *AND* Monster, but without any of Esau's desire to leave the Island.

When Jacob drinks her spellbound wine, Crazy Mother tells him something like, "Now we are the same." I took that to be a reference to Protector-hood, and all the powers and obligations that come with the office, Gift-giving by Touch being one of them.

Esau is special. Momster says this in connection with his ability to lie (Jacob's no good at it). I think there's a bit more to his special-ness. He is able to understand how things work without being told, but by doing them. He learns the rules of the proto-gammon game by playing it.

Jacob... He seems to like learning from observation, at a distance.

Hey, no whispers! We do get a ghost, tho, BioMom, who appears only to Esau. Could this have been Crazy Mother using her Monster abilities to nudge Esau into rebelling and leaving and ultimately pushing her to assault him, destroy his people, and drive him to kill her, just as she planned...?

Or is this a genuine ghost, and Esau, as a son of the Island, has the same gift that Hurley gets millennia later? Perhaps all the gifts we've seen manifested in our 21st century Losties are gifts that Esau and Jacob possess. Like when the Kymellian dude gives the Power kids their individual Power Pack powers...?

If you know what I'm talking about in that last sentence, and you're a girl who plays volleyball, please leave a comment and let me know how I can contact your parents to get their blessing. =)

Right. Well, I think that about does it for tonight, wouldn't you agree? Ayep.

Namaste.

Keep on keepin on~

LOST: a story of Jacob and Esau

A LOST yarn that I spun together from bits and pieces. I rather like it...

Way back when, the Island was an oasis in Tunisia, Jacob and Esau were brothers and part of some "lost tribe" of Egypt who settled there. The tribe believed that they were chosen by their gods to watch over the oasis. Simply by living there, their life force kept an ancient evil at bay. This evil was gathered in the deep dark past of the world and removed from reality, sealed away in an adjacent dimension physically accessible only in the oasis. In an attempt to escape, the evil managed to manipulate the oasis's unique energies to draw a meteorite out of the sky to wipe out the tribe. The attempt fails, as members of the tribe somehow survive, but the energies of the meteorite interact unexpectedly with those of the oasis, bumping the oasis out of normal spacetime and into a pocket dimension, the snowglobe, transforming the oasis into the Island. While the Island's energies protect its tribe's health, something, the taint or nature of the extraterrestrial energy, and/or perhaps some influence of the captive evil, ends up rendering the Island population unable to carry pregnancies successfully to term. They raise a statue to Tawaret to worship in the hopes of preserving and saving their posterity, but their numbers only decrease. In the end only Jacob and Esau survive, charged with the duties of their tribe, governed by Rules established by the powers they worshipped. Over the millennia, these two learn how to harness certain abilities granted to them by the Island. They also learn of certain limitations on their freedom. Esau becomes resentful. His sacred duty has become a life sentence. This dark turn in his nature makes him vulnerable to the influence of the evil, which convinces him that their duties to the Island are foolish. Even tho they are bound to the Island by the Rules in different ways, there's no real reason to stay. Jacob is somehow content, but does find some satisfaction in a hobby, bringing outsiders to the Island as a kind of social experiment or test. This hobby becomes a deliberate search, tho. Jacob understands that the evil, thru Esau, seeks escape, and that he may not survive a well-orchestrated, Rules-abiding, assault launched by Esau. He needs a successor and/or a weapon or shield, and he will find it by searching for and/or fashioning one over generations in the off-Island world and preparing the way for him.

Cuz... why not?

Keep on keepin on~

LOST: Jacob and Esau are both "Aaron"

This is a theory that's been around for a while in one form or another since early this season. Basically, Jacob and Esau are different versions of Claire's son, each from a different reality. My riff on this involves factoring in Infection and a massive second Incident, or anti-Incident, to power the time displacement required for this theory to become LOST-reality. It's a pretty "blue sky" theory that I like more for its fun factor and symmetry than its likelihood (of course I'd be happy if it turned out to be even a little correct, without requiring a lame and compromising deus ex). In fact, I pretty much rejected the theory for most of this season, wanting to commit to the notion that Esau and Jacob have their origins rooted firmly in the past, and not in the future by way of a wrinkle in spacetime. But, like I said, fun factor and symmetry. =)

1. Esau is an Infected, raised-by-another Aaron.

Esau is Claire's son in LOST1. As sad as the notion is, I do like the idea of Aaron being born Infected. This is a wrinkle on that theory, involving an epic application of time travel. I've been thinking that the scale of time displacement would be prohibitive, but I have to admit that it's possible, especially given my insistence on reality and time bending over backwards to deliver the follow-thru on Desmond's last FINAL DESTINATION flash for Charlie.

2. Jacob is a not-Infected, raised-by-Claire Aaron.

Jacob is Claire's son in LOST2. Sure, Claire thinks she'll name the child Aaron, but it's not a done deal, right? Lots of wiggle room as far as naming goes. If one Aaron can be blasted back to ancient times, why not two? Makes for some excellent symmetry and does a fine job of using all the parts of the doubled realities of the LOST buffalo, y'know?

3. A massive EM energetic event, similar in nature to the 1977 Incident will send the young "brothers" back in time and into the snowglobe to the Island.

This is pretty loose, pretty shakey math, but I like it. In LOST2, the Lostie counterparts will converge on the Los Angeles DI station, the Lamppost. Desmond2 (w Desmond1 riding shotgun) and Daniel will guide them thru a recreation of the Incident, exploiting the lesser energies of the Lamppost and/or its connection to other energy pockets worldwide.

Whilemean, in LOST1, Desmond1 executes Jack and/or Widmore's gambit against Locke-ness, involving the release or exposure to massive EM energies. Okay, this is where it gets crazy-crazy... These two events, in LOST1 and LOST2, synergize and cause the collapse of the two realities until 2004 and launch 3-yo Aaron from LOST1 and the unborn Jacob from LOST2 into ancient times on the Island and in the snowglobe. In fact, it might be the responsible for the creation of the snowglobe in the first place.

The possibility that an unborn or disembodied Jacob arrives on the Island plugs into Esau's vague origin storytelling to Ricardo rather nicely. Esau claims that his body was stolen by Jacob (see "RICHARD IS ESAU'S FIRST ATTEMPT AT A LOOPHOLE..."). I can imagine Jacob's consciousness forcing Esau's out of his Aaron body, Esau eventually discovering that he can inhabit the machine-creature known as the Smoke Monster, and then, once Jacob begins luring visitors to the Island, learning to create doppelgangers from their dead.

Crazy-crazy-crazy thin guesswork now... Is someone already on the Island, ready to train and raise the boy/s? Christian? Or is someone or two zapped back with them as their guardians, mentors, and parents. Esau seems to remember his crazy mother. Is it Infected Claire? Is it not-Infected Kate? Perhaps it's reality-bounced Eloise?

That rewind to 2004 is important to me because it allows for the realization of Desmond's last Charlie flash (see DOT 1). The ideal timing would place the Island rescue (by Penny's people) after Aaron's birth and before Locke's visit to Jacob's Cabin.

Keep on keepin on~

LOST: collecting more dots...

Some more dots collected, but not yet connected...

DOT 10. JOHN LOCKE PLAYED A CERTAIN GAME WITH HIS BROTHER...?

No real theory here, but does anyone remember this little exchange from season 1? In the episode where Locke meets his mother and then father, John's working in a toy store and telling a kid about MouseTrap...

KID: What's that?
LOCKE: A game. It's my favorite game, actually. I used to play it with my brother. It's called MouseTrap.
KID: How do you play?
LOCKE: Well, you start with all these parts off the board. And then, one by one, you build the trap - shoe, bucket, tub - piece by piece it all comes together. And then you wait 'til your opponent lands here on the old cheese wheel. And then if you set it up just right, you spring the trap. Go ahead, kiddo.

Assuming he's not just shilling to make a sale, I'm guessing he's talking about a foster brother. Interesting, tho, looking back at this description of how the game works and playing it with his brother, given the updated context of Esau now wearing his form and engaged in an ages-old game with Jacob.

DOT 11. READINGS BY MILES.

We need more! At the top of the list: Adam and Eve. Next any of the bodies that we've seen Esau wear: Christian, Yemi, Alex, John Locke. Do these bodies KNOW that their forms AND experiences are being copied? Can any of the dead DI leadership clue us into anything significant about the DI's truce with the Hostiles? The bodies of deceased time travellers: Daniel and Charlotte (not so useful, but maybe her deathbed time tripping was also reality tripping).

DOT 12. CONVERSATIONS WITH HURLEY.

Hey, dead dudes, a little help? Sayid. Charlie. Eko. Anna Lucia. Jacob. Dogen. Adam and Eve. Rose and Bernard. Daniel. C'mon, Libby, you'll let the Island use you to spook Michael, but you can't say "boo" to Hurley?

DOT 13. ILANA HAD TO PROTECT SIX.

Before she gets Arzted, Ilana tells Sun that there are only six Candidates left. If we start with the Numbers, that gets us six: Locke, Reyes, Ford, Jarrah, Shephard, and Kwon. At that time, they already know that Locke is actually Locke-ness and that Sayid has gone bad, so we subtract those two. Also, Ilana admits that she's not sure whether Sun or Jin is the Kwon Candidate, so we add one. That brings us to FIVE. Who is the sixth? I think only Ilana and Jacob knew.

The Kate discrepancy between the cave wall list and the lighthouse names—51 is crossed out on the wall, but not on the dial—points to Kate as still being in the running.

QUESTION: Were the list on the dial and the list on the wall tracking the same thing? Candidacy, aka Protector eligibility? Mike suggested that the lighthouse might have been tracking deaths while the cave tracked Candidacy. I originally thought that Esau's visit to the cave w Sawyer was something of a home invasion, but now I'm thinking that the cave is Esau's hideaway and the lighthouse is Jacob's winter home. Locke-ness chucks the white stone out of the cave when he visits with Sawyer. "Inside joke," he says. Is it the same stone that Jacob has Ricardo give him back in 1867?

QUESTION/THEORY: Where did Widmore get his list of names? He's so sure that Kate is expendable, it must be a list based on the names on the cave wall. What if Locke-ness intentionally crossed out names that Jacob would not have, for Sawyer to see, and perhaps to trickle down to other players, like Widmore, transforming a viable and thusly, untouchable, Candidate into perceived leverage.

DOT 14. KILLING THE INFECTED.

Dogen wants Sayid dead, but he goes out of his way to have someone else be the instrument of his death. He gives Jack the poison to give to Sayid. Later, he sends Sayid to face Locke-ness, hoping that he will be killed by him. Why can't Dogen be direct about eliminating Sayid? Is it because he's a Candidate, even Infected, and Others are not allowed or able to kill Candidates?

Or, does INTENT matter? In order to die, does an Infected individual have to CHOOSE a course of action that results in his death? Dogen wants Jack to get Sayid to take the pill, not FORCE Sayid to take it. Sayid wants to go out and confront the Bad Man to prove that his internal scale still weighs him as Good. Sayid decides to save everyone else on the sub by taking the bomb as far from them as possible.

If Esau is Infected, does that mean that he can be killed if he *chooses* to be?

Keep on keepin on~