Knowing Me, Knowing You

Sometimes something just doesn't seen right or feel right or seem to be complete as far as the story of LOST is concerned. More often than not these occurrences are easily spotted. Like Sayid telling Hurley to not believe a word Ben tells him. There is obviously more story there to be told and we will get it when we get it. Other times there are things that we never notice and when the brick hits us over the head we sit there and think "Oh, duh! It was right there the entire time.", these are usually the things that take several seasons to all play out. Locke's father being the original Sawyer and Jack and Claire being related are just two of the things that have slowly been resolved through the course of four plus seasons. Another example is, of course, Danielle's story (who may or may not be this new Elle chick we saw in the "Jughead" episode. Danielle = Elle? Could be, but I am putting the cart before the horse.) In the season premier we had an event that made me start thinking and well, I got a hair up my ass over it and apparently I am not the only one. I have to give a shout out to Erika on this one. So what exactly am I talking about?





Let's go back to the meeting of Ethan and Locke in the season premier. Something very interesting happened here, or didn't happen here. But it did set up something to go back and check on.





When Ethan sees Locke climbing up to get to the drug plane, Ethan doesn't know who Locke is and he shoots him. As Locke is lying on the ground he tells Ethan that Ben has made him the new leader. Ethan doesn't believe him and is about to shoot him again when the new flash takes Locke out of the picture. Now here's where the past comes into play when we think about the future as well as the present: shouldn't Ethan have recognized Locke when he infiltrated the camp of the survivors of flight 815? Or at the very least wouldn't Ethan have went right back to Ben and told him about the nutty bald guy he just saw in the jungle telling him that Ben had made him the others new leader?

The exact year or date doesn't mean that much here so don't let that be a sticking point. As long as we can agree that this meeting between Ethan and Locke happened before the crash of flight 815 we are on the same page. So let's say this meeting happened sometime around '99 - '01. Now time travel is tricky, that goes without saying, so most of this all turns on who is writing the story and how they decide to play it out. So to Ethan he met Locke for the first time in 2001, as far as Locke is concerned that meeting didn't happen until they were on the beach after the crash so it wouldn't change the fact that Locke recognized Ethan or would it? Because it would change the fact that Ethan had already met Locke and recognized him or it should. Or it's possible that when Locke meets Ethan again in October 2004 after Ethan has passed himself off as an 815er, perhaps they DID actually recognize each other, but kept it hidden from the rest of the survivors. In episodes nine and ten of Season One, Locke and Ethan spent a heck of a lot of time hanging out by themselves, supposedly hunting. It's conceivable that they each remembered their initial encounter and were able to talk privately about it before Ethan made off with Claire. If Locke eventually comes to understand "the rules," he would know that he'd have to let everything run its course and couldn't intervene in either Claire's abduction or Ethan's death.

What about the possibility of Ethan reporting his Locke sighting to either Ben or Richard, wouldn't that have screwed something up? There's two possible scenarios to explain this away:

1) Richard intercepted Ethan before he could say anything to Ben. Richard tells Ethan that he cannot under any circumstances let Ben know about the bald guy in the jungle that disappeared into thin air. Ethan agrees, Ben never finds out, and the meeting of Ben and Locke unfolds as we witnessed it in the last half of Season Two. Or...

2) Ethan does tell Ben, but that's OK, because Ben has also time jumped before (perhaps as a result of him coming back to the island with the O6) and therefore already knows that he'll eventually meet and then be replaced by Locke.

Perhaps Locke was able to "remember" his meeting with Ethan at the drug plane even though their first meeting technically hadn't happened until October 2004 (when they meet after the 815 crash) because he didn't start jumping back in time until December 2004 (after Ben moves the FDW). Is it possible that Locke's mind was suppressing his memories from the time jumps and filing them as having taken place in the year it was on the island, not the year it was to Locke's body.

Locke is not the only character this has happened to either. Who are the only characters left from Season One that remain on the island in Season Five and are now drifting through time? Locke, Sawyer and Rose. There are reasons to believe that all three of these crash survivors had buried memories of their time jumping experiences from the moment they landed on the island. Yes, Bernard and Juliet were also on the island during that time frame, but we didn't get introduced to them episode wise until much later in Seasons Two and Three, respectively. But we're leaving them out of this analysis because it's confusing enough as it is!

As the saying goes, ladies first.

Rose

In the pilot episode, when the Losties first heard Smokey in the jungle and saw trees swaying and crashing in the distance, Rose said, "That sound that it made, I keep thinking that there was something really familiar about it." You may also recall that Rose was absolutely adamant that her husband was alive elsewhere on the island. At the time we all attributed this to Rose's strong faith, but what if she actually knew about both the monster and the fact that Bernard would eventually be found because these memories were in her mind from the time jumping?

Sawyer

Some of you probably remember an offhanded comment Sawyer made in "White Rabbit" (episode five of the first season). Kate tackled him because she thought he was hoarding the groups water. He replied, "It's about time; I made this birthday wish four years ago." Somewhere after the first time I heard that line and the 20Th(?) through countless times of re watching it, at first I didn't give it much thought. Now, I believe that line was there to mean something and it was put there on purpose. Why? To prove the existence of either time travel or a time loop for the characters from the very beginning. But here's the thing: Neither Rose nor Sawyer are conscious of these buried memories or aware of the fact that they may have gone through certain events on the island more than once. Obviously Sawyer and Rose would have acted much differently throughout Seasons One - Four if they were actually aware of what transpired during their time jumps.

But I can't be as certain about-

Locke!

Locke's the easiest one to explain. How many times has he known when it would stop or start raining? How many times has he told people what they were or were not "supposed" to do? Locke has shown multiple signs of having been on the island before, so to speak. While he has always figured that he has been following some strong gut instinct, what may have actually been happening is that because he is more connected to the island than Rose or Sawyer, his time jump memories are more accessible to him. And yes, if you've inferred through all of this that I think the Lostaways are going to repeat the crash, or at least that those three characters will live through it again because of their time shifting, then you are right that's what I believe and what a lot of other theorists out there believe as well.

If you need one last bit of evidence that these "memories" could be affecting the characters' thoughts and actions before the events technically transpired, look no further than our first flashback of

Daniel Faraday.

Surely you remember him sitting at home in his robe, sobbing at the footage of the Flight 815 wreckage on TV. A woman in his kitchen asks him why he's so upset, and he replies, "I don't know." But now WE know. Even though Faraday's body wouldn't start time jumping for a few more months, Daniel's mind had already been to the island and Jacob knows where else in the past, all in the name of his time travel research and DHARMA investigation. His suppressed memories were making him weep. Therefore I think we have good reason to believe that Locke, Rose and Sawyer were in similar situations once they landed on the Island.

OK now go do something else before your head explodes.