"Anthurium Redux - FWIW"

Back in May after "There's No Place Like Home" aired, I tried to find some info on the meanings of the flower used as a directional signpost to the secret hatch in the Orchid Station. I didn't find much except, "...two Victorian meanings in anthurium-giving; either hospitality or intense attraction." I didn't put much importance on either symbolic intention, even though we were given the flashback of Ben's possessive feelings for Juliet.

Then today I was reading a book that I bought because I'm going to begin drawing and taking photos of stone statues soon. The book is, "Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography." Under Anthurium, it says: "Although there is not a lot of symbolism attached to the anthurium, it is often used to decorate graves in Hawaii...a gift of an anthurium from a man to a woman is supposed to signify his enormous attraction to her, for reasons that do not need to be explained."

I doubt that TPTB purposely put this plant in the show to point to Ben's seemingly unhealthy affection for Juliet, but I thought that it was interesting just the same to imagine Ben nurturing this plant that held the meaning of the feelings that he obviously felt for her. Considering that Juliet was so clueless as to Ben's affections (even though others seemed to notice) and the way he insisted that she should have known as they stood over Goodwin's corpse, "reasons that do not need to be explained", took on some interesting meaning in distant hindsight. Just sayin'. :-)

"Happy Holidays"

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and Mele Kalikimaka to Losties everywhere! I'm really looking forward to having something new to talk about with you all in January. :-D

"Neat Things"

I normally don't post the updates that can be found elsewhere, but I really like this ad for the Sky channels that was posted on DarkUFO.

I guess that new Lego Lost characters will be released soon. Just in time for Christmas I suppose. Pretty neat, but I wonder why Sayid's "chest" is more pronounced than Kate's. :o) Info on DarkUFO seems to imply that New DI Recruits can get a discount with their DWY cards.

http://meltcomics.com/Melt_Lost.html

"When Worlds Collide"

In the last episode of Season 4, we were shown an alive Locke and a dead Locke. Pierre Cheng's frantic video led us to think that due to Kerr's time-shell theories, there could be two realities "existing" at the same "time", meaning that there could be two Lockes co-existing, i.e., an alive one and a dead one. This got me wondering about how Ben told Jack that they have to take "him" -- Locke -- back to the island with them. Does this mean that the alive and dead Lockes will come together and inhabit the same time and space like matter and anti-matter? Will the two separate time-shells converge into one colossal astronomical event? Is there an island in each of these time-shells? If so, will they converge in some kind of atomic collision? So far I'm still looking forward to finding out, although I must admit that my patience in waiting for this story to start to gel is getting about as thin as our patience for "The Project", if you know what I mean. Hopefully I can hang in there. :-o

Image from :http://www.skinbase.org/zoom.php?id=3233

"Second Entry:Young Frankenlost"

I was thinking about this movie and couldn't resist skewering our remaining Freighties. :-)

And of course I always pick on Locke and Ben, here in an old pic that I made up long ago. Have a safe Halloween, everyone who partakes.

"Lostoween Is Near"

Here's my contribution to this year's Lostoween season. I didn't feel as creative as last year, but Count Deadlocke did manage to inspire something suitable. Since I was so lazy, here's last year's parade of costumes for new visitors who may not have seen it: http://capcomslost.blogspot.com/2007/10/happy-lostoween.html

"Autumn in Keamyland"

Since I seem to have nothing interesting to say about Lost at this time for some reason, here is a lovely picture of autumn foliage from the mystical forest in Keamyland, for your viewing pleasure -- courtesy of the fertile minds at 'Keamy's Paradise' blog (see sidebar links). People have written sentimental songs about autumn in New York and Vermont, but I have a feeling that seeing this vegetation in the woods would inspire some pretty interesting emotions as well.
:-)

"A Fox Network Idea For Lost And ABC"

People who watch Fox's new series "Fringe" may have noticed that the show spends less time on advertisement breaks than most shows. I thought that this was just supposed to be the procedure for the Pilot, but it seems to be carrying on for the rest of the season.

http://www.fringetelevision.com/2008/07/will-fringe-pilot-be-remote-free-tv_18.html

Excluding the mini-recap that precedes each Lost episode, according to my VCR, most Lost episodes run about 33-36 minutes on the average. This last Fringe episode ran for almost 48 minutes, while the ad breaks are quick (60-90 seconds) and few. It would be nice if J.J. and company could convince ABC to allow them to follow the same guidelines with Lost, that they can over on Fox with their new series. Considering all the mysteries and questions that we would collectively like (read: need!) to see satisfied in the final two seasons of Lost, 10-12 more minutes per episode would really help to facilitate that. Right? :-)

"Shut Out At Emmys"

Flame on: You know, it's not as if there are no other creative and talented shows such as Lost on TV that deserve to be recognized, because there are. And it's not as if good entertainment can't have morals, warnings, and messages, as the memorable Twilight Zone series certainly did for example, because they can. But maybe some day the political elitists in Hollyweird will realize that there is more to entertainment than pushing their own propaganda, and that a lot of the people in the flyover states actually enjoy pure entertainment because it is just that...entertainment, not politics. Until then, they'll just keep giving themselves all the awards, and we'll keep watching the shows that they don't want us to watch for fun. 'Nuff said. :-p And this is as close to making political commentary as I'll ever get here on this Lost blog again, I promise. Flame out.

"Jorge Wins ALMA Award"

A hearty congratulations to Jorge Garcia for winning this award for his excellent work on LOST!

http://www.almaawards.com/2008-winners.html

"A Little Help From My Friends"

Wayne volunteered to recharge my brain of mush with an interesting question. Here's how he put it for me in an email:

"Last night I was on the Sayid-flashback in S4. I went back at the end to replay the talk between Ben and Widmore in Widmore's bedroom. I had always concentrated on the "ah, Ben's going after Penny now because Alex died." But there was an important exchange that I should have picked up on after "Meet Kevin Johnson."

Widmore: Are you going going to kill me.

Ben: We both know I can't.

Ben can't kill Widmore because the Island won't let Widmore die, like Tom told Michael? I thought it was about committing suicide and/or "The Island has more work for you." Does that mean Widmore is protected in some way because he WAS on the Island at some time? That he isn't just looking for it again, as if it is a legend like Atlantis, but rather he was there, maybe turned the FDW and was banished? Seriously, the first time around, watching it on TV, I thought ah, going after Penny. Makes sense. But, hell, Jann, he slit Keamy's throat. Why not just pump bullets into Widmore right then and there? Why Can't Ben Kill Widmore? "

All good points. This Ben/Charles dialogue evokes SO many questions about Widmore concerning how he originally got a hold of the island (merely via the Hanso Org?), if he ever lived there, how he got separated from the island, why he can't go back, etc. And, if he needs to get back to the island for healing because he's got some mysterious "shpilkes in his geneckteckessoink" (thank you Linda Richman). And like Wayne said, is there more to the reason why Ben can't kill him, than just because the island won't let him? Sometimes I think that Ben and Widmore are dependant upon each other... that is, there might be a reason that Ben can't live without Widmore, and visa versa, because if one dies the other will too. Oy, it makes me all meshuggah!

Can TPTB answer all the Widmore questions by the end of Season 6? Will TPTB answer these questions?! We need some farkakte answers about Widmore soon. :-)

"Klimt's LOST Kiss"

Lately, I've got no theories. I'm all theoried-out. So when that happens I play with the pretty pictures. I was looking at Klimt's painting "The Kiss" the other day, and it reminded me of The Kiss of Season 4, so I made up this little montage of Des' and Pen's special moment. :-)

BTW, here's the original painting by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918, Austrian symbolism artist).

"How Far Will Sun's Revenge Go?"

A lot depends on the information Sun gets from Locke after he visits them.
I kind of think that Widmore is the other person besides Paik that Sun holds responsible for Jin's "death", or their separation, since it was his search and destroy mission that brought on the mercs. That would make the coy merger that she's doing with him all the more poetic in application, in the vein of "keeping your enemies closer", before she destroys him financially or whatever. Or, Locke could use the info of why the freighter blew up to get Sun mad enough to go back and do whatever it is that Locke needs them to do. But if she finds out about what happened in the Orchid, she could go after Ben off-island instead. Then the path of vengeance-begetting-vengeance becomes the theme of her sad future too -- that is, with Ben killing Keamy and blowing up the freighter to avenge Alex, then Sayid killing to avenge Nadia, Sun killing Ben to avenge Jin, and who knows what else in Seasons 5 and 6. (Quite frankly I hope that all the killing on this show starts to wind down soon!)

Hopefully Sun merely wants to mentally and financially twist the b@lls of the guys who are responsible for separating her from Jin (like the coup of her father's business, rather than killing him) and doesn't end up lowering herself to committing murder like those she feels are responsible. Even though she defended herself well against Colleen on the sailboat (most likely due to being pregnant making her even more defensive), up to this point I don't think that Sun is a killer per se, but you never know with this show. Most of the characters are turning tail on their own personalities, for good and bad and crazy, ever since they got to the island.

"Why Kate's Contempt For Dead Locke?"

"Why would I go to the funeral?"
It was a simple reply, and not laced with too much emotion (probably to keep us from sensing too much about it), but I could see enough of a tinge of repulsion in it that I kind of expected Kate to spit on the ground after she said it to seal the sentiment. A lot of other fans sensed it enough that many voted for Ben being the dead-guy, since he has done so much to earn the hatred of any of the 815ers.

I wonder what happened between Kate and John that ticked her off so much? Could it just be because of all his efforts to keep them from leaving the island? His general half-cocked, explosive craziness? Or is it something that Locke did as the alias Jeremy, after they left the island? Makes you wonder if John might have tried to abduct Aaron somehow when he went to talk to Kate, on his off-island recruiting mission. He could have gone to her to convince her to take Aaron back to the island, she says no, and when she goes to get some iced tea in the kitchen to politely send him off, he sneaks upstairs to try to nick Aaron and she catches him and freaks out. As with everything else, we'll just have to wait and see.

"Misfiring Pens And Guns"

We saw that when Claire was trying to sign the adoption papers, her pens failed to work in the same way that Mike's gun didn't work for him at multiple attempts. So come on Powers That Be, when are you going to tell us why the island wouldn't let Claire take Aaron anywhere but to the island? The psychic said that it would have to be that flight. So it looks as if the island was calling the shots there. I hope that we don't have to wait until the finale of all finales, to learn why Aaron was supposed to crash on the island (and, exactly how it is that the island has all this power to control events!). But it's such a huge mystery at this point, that's probably when and how it will be revealed...in the final scene before the blackout-boom-logo. At least maybe TPTB will give us a few hints and crumbs along the way.

Some theories on Aaron can of course be found at Lostpedia. One that sounded interesting to me was: "Jack and Kate are the "nice couple in LA" to whom Richard Malkin wanted Claire to give Aaron. He didn't know that the plane would crash, but only knew of the future where Jack and Kate were happily raising Aaron." That makes it appear that although Malkin was perhaps not an operating psychic, maybe he did get flashes of precognition like Desmond that didn't really fit together, and he just pieced them in his head to make as much sense of them as he could. Hmmm.

http://lostpedia.com/wiki/Aaron_Littleton/Theories

"Thoughts On The Tunnels"

Ever since we learned of the possibility of subterranean passageways on the island, we've wondered how the DI could have created all the miles of conduits through the volcanic island rock, in the short time since they landed on the island. But after seeing Ben turn the FDW, I'm starting to think now that most of the tunnels were dug out by the ancient islanders and the DI was able to add onto the existing tunnels, with offshoots to their buried stations. A few of the points in the show that make me think this way are:

1) The limited amount of time the DIs had to dig these tunnels. It seems as if they were mostly ready as soon as the stations were finished. The DI would have to be careful drilling around underground, in case there were still any "live" lava veins in the area. Wouldn't it be dangerous to be drilling everywhere quickly without careful and cautious geological exploration of a small volcanic island ahead of time?

2) We saw the ancient looking construction and glyphs in the cave/tunnel where Ben called on Smokey, and into where he had to crawl to get to the FDW. So some sub-structures were there before the DI arrived and set up shop.

3) If there were ancient inhabitants, there's a volcano, and they could have known about any empty dead lava tubes to use for tunnels. This could have assisted them in creating the vast system of conduits without modern technology -- unless they had some kind of Alien/Atlantean equipment to use of course (j/k, sort of). Otherwise, they could have just taken their time and primitively dug their way around over the course of many decades or centuries, since it looks like someone's been on the island for a very long time.

4) The Others/Hostiles seemed to pop up in the most obscure (from the stations and barracks) positions when they began to take the 815ers in the first two seasons. Why would the DI bother to scrape out tunnels in remote areas of the jungle and beach that weren't connected with their stations or experiments? The remote surprise access probably also aided the Hostiles in their attacks on the DI.

So, it looks as though there could have been a pre-existing tunnel system left from the early days of the island. After the DI arrived, the stations then could have been considered according to where the main tunnels were, allowing them to easily create new linking passages for the stations. Radzinsky's map may also show where the DI attempted to cut off access from their stations' tunnels to the Hostiles' tunnels after trouble started. Chances are, the DI never got to finish exploring all the subterranean tubes within the island before their situation began to deteriorate.

"Atlantean Subterranean Donkey Wheels"

More adventures of LOST following you wherever you go.
Today Turner Classic Movies ran the film "Atlantis, The Lost Continent". It's not considered to be one of George Pal's best efforts, but it is unusual enough to be good fun to watch and make fun of. The general story is that Atlantis became powerful and "created wonders for the good of mankind." Then all heck broke loose when false gods and egos prevailed, and world domination became its main mission. The usual revolt ensues, involving giant power crystals, volcanoes, slaves, and Manimals.

The scene that made my eyes bug out though, was the following: A bunch of slaves crawl down a hole in the ground, to a small subterranean cave, where they begin to turn a wooden donkey wheel. (!) The wormgear attached to the wheel disappears into a glowing hole, that emits vapors of some kind (probably hot vapors, since they are attempting to unleash the volcano and wreck the bad guys' giant crystal of doom). So gee whiz, where have I seen an underground donkey wheel scene before?! Like I said, there is no escaping LOST, it seems. The following are some photos that I snapped off of the TV screen, because I couldn't find any images of this set online. Sorry about the crummy quality, but I had to share this weird deja vu experience with you all.

Down the hole!

Turning the wheel to blow up Atlantis.

"Is Widmore Dying?"

Does Widmore need to find the island for his own failing health?
There's been some blog speculation as to whether the true reason that Wid needs to find the island is because he is desperate to get healed of some fatal malady. Perhaps that's why he doesn't sleep at night -- because he's dying, and the fear of life's deadline looming closer every minute is pressing in on him. There may be very little time left for Widmore to find the island, which could explain why he pulled out all the stops and engaged the freelance militia to cut a swath to the healing source that he needs so badly before it's too late.

That makes some sense to me. I really could not understand why he'd contract a team of mercs to eliminate all the interference, just so he could be the first to open the Fountain of Youth Adventure Park on the island. Granted, it would make him the richest man in the universe, but I got the impression that he's almost at that apex anyway. And if he is dying, it makes Ben seem all the more cold-hearted, as he stands in Widmore's bedroom mocking a dying man's sleepless nights, when he has the keys to Wid's recovery in his hand so to speak. After what Ben said to Locke in the Orchid, you can almost image the conversation as Widmore says, "Ben, you know that I'm dying." And Ben replies with, "So?"

"Some Jack's-Mom Actress Trivia"

It would be nice if TPTB could throw us some more background information about Jack's mother, somewhere in the final two seasons. For instance, why she was not the best choice for loser Christian to marry (was she too good for him?), or what her part was in the disintegration of their marriage (was she emotionally unstable?), and if Jack is a crybaby because his mother babied him after his father would shoot him down (which might explain Jack's roller-coaster emotions).

I recently came across some early career photos of Veronica Hamel, who plays the apparently long-suffering Margo Shephard. She was one of the top Ford Agency models in the 1960s and early 70s before she started acting. Not a skeevy runway-super-model type like Janice Dickinson and Naomi Campbell (and dare I say, Tyra Banks?). Oh no, Hamel was at the apex of the international high-fashion modeling world, and someone for young women to actually look up to as a role model. I know that I did, and I used to draw her face when I was a kid. Her look was the epitome of 60s fashion, and was perfect for when an image of sophistication, grace, or futuristic beauty was called for to sell a product. She was gorgeous then, and still looks pretty good for her age. Just thought I'd throw out this bit of retro trivia, while we wait for the Comic Con craziness to begin soon. Look for the new OGR letter in your email today! :-)

"The Joke's On Keamy"

Keamy gets his just rewards at a new blog.
Check out http://keamysparadise.blogspot.com/ and make fun of "Mr. Keamy" in more ways than you probably thought possible. It's too funny to put into words, you have to see it for yourself. I think that Mona Keamsa, Keamy the Barbarian, The Keamy Bunch, and dancing Keamy are my favorites so far. :-) You can even submit your own Keamy art to the blog too.

"Thoughts On Eko's Book Of Laws"

The following ideas aren't exactly new, but I just felt like laying them out in writing. I know that there is a holy book in the Bahai faith called "The Book Of Laws" that could be the reference in "Cabin Fever", but it's difficult to ignore the story that Eko told John in the Swan station after they met, especially when Eko could have just said, "Hey, I found this Bible with a secret compartment in it, and some film!":

EKO: I have something I think you should see...Long before Christ the king of Judah was a man named Josiah. Josiah, since he was a good king, sent his secretary to the treasury and said: "We must rebuild the temple. Give all of the gold to the workers so that this will be done." But when the secretary returned, he had no gold. And when Josiah asked why this was the secretary replied, "We found a book."...What the secretary had found was an ancient book -- the Book of Law. You may know it as the Old Testament. And it was with that ancient book, not with the gold, that Josiah rebuilt the temple.

So the point of the story is that the Jewish people had strayed from the Holy Laws, and needed to return to their true faith. They realized that gold would not procure the changes necessary for spiritual revival, only a reformation of their worship and lives would truly rebuild the Temple physically after rebuilding it in their hearts first.

From the Jewish Encyclopedia: Josiah "undertook the repair of the Temple...During the progress of this work "the book of the law" was found in the house of the Lord...The king then set himself to the task of cleansing the land from idolatry...The evidence is very strong that "the book of the law" referred to was Deuteronomy."
From the Catholic Encyclopedia: Josiah "ascended the throne when he was only eight years of age. In the eighteenth year of his rule, the Jewish king undertook to repair the Temple with the help of the high-priest...they all united with Josiah in a solemn vow of obedience to its commands. This was followed by a drastic reformation of worship..."

We're led to think that Locke was originally meant to ascend the "throne" as a boy like Josiah, when Richard came along with his test. Now that the island is in desperate need of regrouping, it seems Locke is expected to return the island to it's original purpose and order, the way Josiah returned faith and order to his people (with Richard in the spot of the king's high-priest?). Except maybe it doesn't happen that way, because the "bad things" happen instead. But then perhaps the regrouped Oceanic-6 return to help make things right again on the island, by committing together to follow the old ways of the ancient island originals? To be continued next season...

"Captain Gault or Captain Gutless?"

So what gives with Captain Wishy-Washy?
Someone posted this in the Doc Ray theory section of Lostpedia, which is pretty funny: "Ray mentions that the captain is "not a man to cross" shortly after we see the cut on his face...You know, back when the captain was still presented as an unseen character who was supposedly really intimidating, instead of when we actually met him and discovered that he's a trembling wuss who can't stand up to Keamy."

This is exactly what I was thinking after the deadly confrontation between Gault and Keamy on the deck. It seemed like a big difference from the ominous "Don't trust the captain" persona that we were led to worry about previously. What the heck happened to Captain No-Nonsense before that night on deck? One episode he's barking orders at the deckhands to let the crazy people go ahead and kill themselves, and later he's kowtowing to Keamy. Most likely we'll never know, unless they give someone a flashback of which Gault happens to be a part. I find this seeming inconsistency rather odd, but maybe everyone was just as terrified of "Mr. Keamy" as Frank was, regardless of their station on the ship. Or, was Gault beginning to catch the Freaky Freighter Fever as well?

"Ben's Lament"

Take a moment to play the video above and think again about Ben's life as we know it.
This is the somber Rachmaninov piece that Ben thoughtfully played while the "Hardy Boys" got the auto-call from the sonic fence that the mercs were on their way. TPTB picked a very good tune to use while Ben was probably mentally preparing for the "things to come," and which contingency plan of action he would pull from his bag of tricks. I played this piece as I was re-reading Ben's bio on Lostpedia, and it seemed very poignant. Not that Ben doesn't have plenty of comeuppances headed his way after the Machiavellian life that he led, and I'm sure he had many sweet cushy moments living in his Pottery Barn furnished Otherton cottage as King Of The Others, among the lonely moments of leadership. But once upon a time, he started out as just a kid...a blank slate like the rest of us, with all of life ahead of him. And then his mom died, and his knucklehead dad made a bad job decision, and decided to blame his lot in life on his kid. I can't give Ben any slack for his sociopathic behavior on many occasions (and especially his stalker attitude towards Juliet), but it still makes you think. It's another example of how TPTB have told a story of not only the need for redemption, but the need for looking into a person's past to learn why they act the way that they do.

Anyway, in lieu of having anything else pertinent to theorize about right now, I thought that this piece of music might set the mood for thinking about what to expect when we next see Mr. Linus on the prowl. And thanks to TPTB, I will not think about only "The Seven Year Itch" when I hear Rachmaninov from now on. :-)

See you in 2009 Ben! (And Mr. Emerson!)

Rachmaninov, potato chips, and champagne. :-)

"Something's Up In Comic Land"

My ARG Spidey-senses are tingling.
Some strange things seem to be going on over at the blog that posted the Mystery Tales comic in "Cabin Fever". First, they posted a final story from the comic book, but they still haven't posted the story for the cover. When posters in the comments asked for it, they gave a brief summary: "Some scientist named Jake Bronowski is on a plane that passes through a storm and he weirds out during landing because the buildings don't look the same. His best friend Dr. Polder, with whom he's been playing an ancient Egyption game he discovered, meets him but his name is now Waxman. To make a long story short, they figure out that playing the game results in a "limitless outcome of similar timelines". It's a weird game like chess game and Jake makes the "right move" and suddenly he's transported back to his timeline where Waxman is Polder again. Honestly though, the story has nothing to do with LOST. It has a strong spiritualism slant to it. It sounds more like Jumanji than anything else." When pressed further for scans of the story, they replied: "We are sorry but we've received correspondence from a solicitor suggesting it would not be in our interests to scan "The Travellers". We are sorry but it is not worth a lawsuit." As well as "We can add no more than we mentioned in post #8 above."

A game? Like, with rules? Like the rules that Ben complained got changed? An Egyptian game? Like the Egyptian glyphs all over the island? And doctors changing names? One commenter also noted that "Limitless Outcome of Similar Timelines" is an acronym for LOST. Hmmm. They also posted on the comic blog that they just found out about the Octagon commercial and site, when they were told today that the Octagon website mentions the story in the comic called "March Has 32 Days", as just about every eager LOST ARG fan knows by now.

Seriously, as FYSB asks over at TLC, that comic's very old, so when would public domain apply? And Maven found on the bottom of the site page: "blog hosted at Oceanic Webhosting Services" which connects to the old Oceanic site. So on TLC we are thinking that either the comic and/or blog are fake and whipped up for the show and game (although Sayidsgirl at TLC thinks that it's up on another auction online); TPTB did not expect anyone to find this musty old classic comic and they have asked these guys to refrain from revealing this last story which pertains to either the show or the ARG; or the comic owners are a part of TPTB and games began before we even knew it during "Cabin Fever". However you look at it for now, it's odd. But if TPTB did indeed ask them not to reveal things that they have lifted from the comic for the show, that's fair enough and copacetic by me.

Note: Jacob Bronowksi is the scientist who was in the BBC series "The Ascent of Man". LoCos at TLC have yet to find anything interesting about the name Polder.
http://www.mysterytales40.com/

"LOST Science Blog"

I've decided to keep the LOST science talk in another area for the most part, so I started: http://perditascientia.blogspot.com/ to try out keeping a separate forum for it. I'm just going to post all our favorite theories, images, and conspiracies that people have posted in the LOST blogosphere, in case anyone is interested in seeing it compiled. Some are so good that they deserve to get more recognition and notice. They might be on the mark or not, but I'll post them as I find them, in abbreviated form with links. It's just something to try through the duration of the hiatus, and mostly wishful thinking that over the summer people will start unraveling ideas about what we saw happen to the island...especially after Octagon Recruiting kicks in! :-D

"Lucky Baby"

I was wondering some things about Ji Yeon recently, and conversation on the TLC blog spurred me to finish this post. For instance:

(1) Since her conception was caused by the island's influence, will she be different physically? Do the island's EM effects at the early stages of fetal formation create a mutated species of some kind? Even though its influence has been cut short by Sun leaving before the complications set in, perhaps enough time passed for Ji Yeon's growth to be affected or mutated in some way.
(2) Is she the first one to be conceived on, and born off, the island? Maybe the uber-team's Miles, Charlotte, or Daniel were conceived on-island too -- we've already gotten hints about Charlotte -- they seem to each have special intellect or cognition. Ji Yeon might have some too.
(3) If so, will her future and the island's be entwined? According to the enhanced version of her episode, Ji Yeon means "flower of wisdom"...she might be a spiritual leader of sorts on the island when she's older.
(4) Was Sun able to get herself and the baby off the island, because the island allowed it? This could imply that she was saved because she is needed on the island in the future, or that she will help her mother control the forces against the island back in the world, via the newly revised Paik Industries' corporate mission under Sun's control.

It's all up to TPTB how they run with this part of the story, of course. But her complicated conception and time being vulnerable to the island's influence, does inspire much curiosity about her physical attributes and her future. It kind of reminds me of Paul Atreides' little sister in Dune, who was subjected to the Waters Of Life when her mother drank it while pregnant, and Alia is born a cognizant super-being. Maybe TPTB gave us a hint during the scenes at her birth, when she went from being in distress one minute to miraculously being born fine (and very quickly!). That is, if she is a "special" island-conceived baby, maybe she already has the power to control her environment (the same question could be asked about Locke's birth as well). Or, her birthing twist was just a quickie plot device to ramp up the drama and then set up a red herring in the process. Well it's a long hiatus, this is just one aspect to cogitate until next year.

"Using The FDW vs. The Vault"

Hey Ben, why use the frozen old junk when the shiny new apparatus was right there?
A lot of us are wondering why Ben had to break through the Orchid's fancy chamber vault, and use the ancient looking wheel instead, to complete his task of moving the island. Some comments of Ellen's on the TLC blog led me to a few thoughts about that: "...the fact that Ben had to blow a hole to gain entrance and then chip huge icicles off the wheel with a tire iron leads me to think that it hadn't been used since the Dharma Initiative arrived and built the Orchid Station." What she said made me think that maybe it's like the difference between the results of an atomic bomb blast, and an atomic power plant.

The FDW itself seems to be a crude but powerful apparatus that might be difficult to control for applied purposes beyond it's original intention, whatever that may be. It would make sense that the DI would have had to refine and upgrade the mechanics of the ancient machine before they could utilize it. With modern equipment to regulate the power, they could create a more manageable process, so that it could be used in various controlled and specific applications via the vault and instruments built onto it. Maybe the DI had even tried out the FDW for themselves when they found it, created an incredible result (moving in time or space), and then built equipment around it to harness the energy for practical purposes. So instead of trying to get a handle on an atomic bomb, they built a modern system onto it and learned to use it as a moderated power plant to run their futuristic equipment. Like Ben said, it was used for experiments with bunnies, so it seems as if the DI did not get very far along in their tests with wormholes, or whatever, before they got purged out.

Then when it came time for Ben to move and hide the island, the refined vault apparatus itself was probably of no use to him in doing what he had to do. He had to quickly get to the true power source, i.e. the big guns that were covered up, and turn the FDW to get the huge blast that he needed. And voila, the island "moved". Well, it's just a thought.

"Trellis Confrontation 4.13"

For some reason, this scene...

...reminded me of this scene.

I know, they are not really the same atmosphere or story momentum. But as Jack and John were having their 999th spat at the Orchid trellis, O-Ren and Bea battling at the House of Blue Leaves snow garden trellis just popped into my mind. And it did look as if the top of Jack's head was going to blow off as he watched Ben and Locke descend into the earth in cahoots together!