lol actually i didn't remember this... although i just came upon Ben's story.

I've transcripted my way through Season 3. I'm waiting to see the beginning of Season 3 Episode 7 “Not in Portland”, most of which i saw this evening. I had already read the episode over the weekend though. I will probably keep reading - will advise periodically where I am. Then when I get to the end you won't have to worry about spoilers.

I'll still be watching because watching is different. Pre-reading helps defuse some of the violence though.

I liked it too - actually I like a lot of the titles.

haha love how you sum this up. and yes lots of back and forth.

actually, while it keeps you on the edge of your seat, i find rather frustrating the constant toggling of probabilities, possibilities and loyalties from one extreme to another. i am at the point of not buying anything - no expectations - just wait. i think plot developments can be done differently than toggling...

be back repeat is starting now...

Season 2 Episodes --- (approx) One of Them, The Whole Truth, and Lockdown. ???

Ben is taken prisoner by the Losties. He pretends to be Henry Gale.
Michael helps him escape.

Later in the medical shows in Season 3, Ben mentions the roil reversal to Jack.

M

OHH THAT! totally remember that. totally did not think you were referring to that... din occur to me. thought you meant his origins on the island ... but till then he'd said he ws born there - revealed later not to be true.[/QUOTE]

~ waves ~

Right. Ben comes to the island with his dad when he is eight. His father comes to the island for a job with Dharma.

Mari

Hi,

The toggling keeps up I think. I hate so much back and forth in one episode.

For some reason I used to see the characters as on the spectrum of good and bad.
Goodness and badness seems to be meaningful to the island. By the end of season we can see for example that Jack is going to be a good character. Sayid is good but has done some bad things and might have some reckoning. Same with Eko. Ben seems bad but we know that bad and good are not constant . . ..
Rousseau seems neither good nor bad because she is too alone. Or maybe her aloneness is good. Michael betrays his group for what seems to be a false promise perhaps.

And I guess this matters to me. I will stop trying to think of things this way for purposes of our discussion. There are plenty of other patterns to look for in Lost.

I do need to know in terms of the show, whose truth I can trust. I guess we are supposed to mostly identify with the people on the plane but that is changing as new actors get added to the cast.

====
Not to complicated things but the writers decided that they did not know what to do with Walt so he (and Michael) are only seen a little in the show after season 2 becuase Walt went through a growth spurt and is mentioned as Tall Walt because he is not the same size he would be in island time.
Shooting on the set took place over years ( 2004-2010 (?) and a child like Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) had a chance to basically grow up but the number of days the passengers are on the island is relatively few (101 days I believe).

This is what I saw about Danielle Rousseau as little bit of a Jean-Jacques Rousseau figure:
M

yes. that's just it - too much.

I cut myself off last night to catch the beginning of Not in Portland but then I was tired (then i couldnt' sleep but beside point.) About the toggling - it's a 180. With/against. good/bad. strong/weak. I find this jarring and while it keeps up the vigilance, I think this could have been achieved other ways. Oh some toggling is fine, but there is too much. I would have appreciated more suspicion and gradual divulgence. I am no longer buying into the overt 180 maneuvers, because I just figure that 10 or 20 mins down the line, or next episode, I will see another that will put me facing the same direction as before. Too many 180's, too few 20*-90*gradual shifts.

These 180's are an aspect of the show I actually dislike , because there are too many for me. After falling for a few "gotchas" I simply mistrust everything and everybody. Is Jacob the Monster? Is the Monster a natural phenomenon? Is Jack a good guy? Does Kate love Jack, Sawyer, both, or neither? Dunno, and I can't trust what I "learn" until the complete end. For all I know Hurley (a person I see so far as altruistic, and mostly gentle) will turn psycho.

Right.
I guess the point of the show is to keep watching.
The rug gets pulled out from under us too many times within the one hour episode or a few episodes later.

M

I think it is excellent you put them on a spectrum. LOL.
I would agree. I have been developing the notion of the island as a sort of purgatory. So far, it also seems that The Monster might be seen differently by good v.s. bad people - and might also be more or less vested in destroying one or the other. Locke said he saw a beautiful white light looking at it. Eko says that's not what he saw. At one point WE saw black smoke that approached but did not attack Eko - I was unsure if that was "the" Monster. (I don't know if "The Monster" was perhaps shown in the pilot early on? The transcript said something like "We see the monster in the treeline," at one point but no description was given. I saw several incidents with loudness, rushing, crashing mashed grass/trees, and wide-eyed stares by the Losties, but never actually saw the Monster - if an entity other than the black smoke.) I found the encounter with Jacob similar to those with the "Monster". Danielle asserts that there is no Monster, which I found really intriguing.
Right. Ok, to me, show opens, we are introduced to the protagonists - the Losties. my brain tends automatically to throw them in the "GOOD" basket. I realize I did this because works for most shows, but I realized later, in LOST it doesn't work. (I explain below.)

No need, this is a relevant pattern. I was trying to point out the toggling as mechanism more than the concepts being toggled. We seem to agree it is used more frequently than we'd like. The mechanism is distinct, however, from the concepts it is applied to - such as good and bad. I also mentioned loyalties... these happen on a large and small scale - loyalty within a couple being small scale, loyalty of an individual to a group, or group to group, being large scale. (Btw not implying that intensity goes with scale often the contrary.)

Indeed, who can we trust? At first, we do not know.

Going back to what I said before - with most shows we can "safely" identify with the good guys introduced to us in the beginning. There may be good and bad protagonists, or "good" protagonists which are flawed, but we are usually given background information to identify the "good guys". Even in Dexter, we know that Dexter, however flawed, is our "good guy" for plot purposes.

LOST is interesting, and different, because our protagonists represent a random group of people, not a select group. Thus, some are bound to be more "good" and some more "bad". Probability suggests an even distribution across your good/bad continuum, but the randomness would allow for a complete skewing of that - in either direction. (Btw, I find it hysterical that the Others keep talking about recruiting "good" people and about being the "good guys".)

In Lost, the premise of having a random group of people invalidates any assumptions one would like to make about the crash survivors. Each of them, when we start out, must be logically taken as a tabula rasa, because we have very few deductive elements. The episode entitled thus is apparently about Locke (erhemm!) but can be extended to all the survivors. However the title can also suggest to us, the audience, "You have no clue who you are looking at. You have no/few moral elements by which to assess these people. You cannot tell whom to trust." As we move on... the current events and the flashbacks write on that tablet for us. The more writing we have, the better we can assess the characters, but there is always room for that 180 element...

I believe that would be the empirical approach to character assessment. Go figure.

===============
Mari,

Please, tell me if I am getting into this too deep - for you. I don't have to. I don't want for you to end up feeling too involved in it again or burdened by my interpretations and other ramblings.

I am breaking up my posts I hope this makes it easier to answer if you wish, and/or pick and choose what to ignore

~ waves ~

I felt sorry for him after a while, although simultaneously angry at what he had done. I got from his story that he had given up Walt (paternity rights) because he was conned into believing it was the best thing for Walt. He continued to care about Walt, but was not permitted to be a part of his life. He sent letters and drawings which were kept from Walt. We find out later that the Others have files on everyone... it wouldn't be a stretch to believe they capitalized on these events to manipulate Michael. Any parent might be subject to such a manipulation, but most especially Michael...

It seemed to me when the Others gave him the choice to betray the Losties or give up his son forever (for the second time)... it drove him mad... he looked crazed and lost to me from the time he came back to camp all the way to when he and Walt took off on the boat. Despite betraying the Losties, he did not acquire loyalty to the Others, and we see clearly his suspicion of them right up to the end. I felt the shootings were out of character - only his crazed look made it believable.

I felt Sayid said it best when he says Michael has been "compromised." choice word. Michael had to make a dreadful compromise. I saw what happened to him as a near-variant of "Sophie's choice" - do this awful thing, or this other awful thing.

haha. yes things like this happen in tv shows - good to know.

~ waves ~

... especially helping them remain free from the Others.

I poked around and learned a little more about the philosopher Rousseau. These aspects of Rousseau's philosophy would seem consistent with Danielle's role and her general attitude:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/
this too:
Her isolation would certainly be a good way to try to escape that dystopia of alienation oppression bla bla bla. hehe.

In her self-enforced isolation and other things, Danielle resembles a romantic heroine.