Well, I got a bit busy last week to leave any comments under the LOST season 2 finale post (whew, 500+ responses… new record for us!), but rest assured that Andreas, I, and I think all who write for this blog followed the finale with great interest. I have watched it a few times, and there is a lot to dissect in it. Fortunately we have all summer to do it… or unfortunately, I should say; sad to have a Wednesday night without a new episode!
Violet and I had a discussion about the finale recently that I found interesting (she is someone I know from outside the blog). She pointed out that when the two guys from the arctic call (one of which is NOT Jack, confirmed by the podcast)… they called her Miss Widmore. At this point, we know that Desmond has been away for over 3 years, since that is how long he was sitting in the hatch. When he left, there was the inference given by Mr. Widmore that Penelope was about to get married; something she didn’t refute when Desmond asked her outside the stadium. I guess she waited for him all this time?
Violet and others know the other handle I use online is “Pandora”… partly out of my great love for Greek mythology. There’ve been a few times when I’ve seen references to Greek mythology in the show (such as Cerberus, 3-headed dog guarding the gates of Hell, mentioned from the blast door map, and possibly the name of The Monster), and also in the webmaze (such as Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, kidnapped from her mother Demeter, Goddess of Spring, by Hades). The opening of the hatch itself could be seen as a metaphor for Pandora’s Box. Just ask Hurley — I think he’d agree that evils were released after opening it!
Penelope in Greek Mythology was the wife of Odysseus (Ulysses to the Romans), King of Ithaca. After he left for the Trojan War, his journey home was no easy task, and the subject for Homer’s great epic poem, The Odyssey. His great voyage by sea (much like Desmond in his sailboat race) was sidetracked numerous times by supernatural events and exotic island distractions.
Odysseus was actually gone for 20 years (10 years of war + 10 years of travel time), during which Penelope pined away and refused numerous suitors. She was seen as the symbol for fidelity to the ancient Greeks. In the myth, Odysseus finally returns home and does so in disguise, to find that Penelope, still pining but getting restless at the many suitors’ advances, has arranged a contest in which the suitor who is able to string Odysseus’ old bow would win her hand in marriage. Odysseus is the only one who is able to do so, revealing his true identity, and killing off all the rude and disrespectful suitors with the help of his son. (Edit: Joe pointed out in the remarks that the exact number of suitors was 108 — great catch!)
Given the fact that most of the names on this show have significance (John Locke, Christian Shephard, Boone Carlyle, etc…. [Desmond] David Hume is also a philosopher’s name), I thought this was an interesting connection. Can you think of other names that have meaning to the story? What do you think of Penelope — was she really looking for Desmond out of love? Or is she more complicit in her father’s plans and conspiracy than we think?
PS: The one other thing I would like to mention is that when you take a look at the screencaps of Desmond’s letters to Penelope, we can see that they are addressed to Knightsbridge, U.K. Knightsbridge is a small, affluent suburb of London, and the same place where Lucy Heatherton, Charlie’s ex-girlfriend, was from (according to Tommy, the heroin addict friend who helped him “fnd” her). Are they setting us up for another connection?
PPS: I just wanted to put out one last note, in response to some earlier reply comments pointing us to widmoregroup.com. This is NOT an official site, and is considered a hoax site by most veteran webmazers, based on /whois IP information, and also the quality of the site. New sites will be introduced in links and national promotion campaigns intrinsic to the ARG itself. There are numerous fake sites, user beware.
you pointed out what i noticed a while ago… that there are a lot of references to philosopher’s in lost’s character names. john locke as mentioned, but also interestingly the french woman’s name is rousseau, another enlightenment philosopher who, like locke, wrote treaties on social politics/contract, human nature and government. now i’m just waiting for henry gale’s real name to be revealed as Thomas Hobbes and things will start to make more sense.
Great information! You will also notice that on Pen’s nightside table she has the same picture as Desmond had in the hatch. Also, nothing else too sexy there just stuff for her hair.
penelope didn’t just turn down ‘many’ suitors.. it’s very specific.. she turned down 108. dun dun DUNN!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelope
christine– Not all the names references are philosophers, though Hume, Locke and Rousseau clearly are (I would add Thomas Carlyle to that list, combined with Boone, the name of a folk hero). Henry Gale is a reference to the character from The Wizard of Oz; this was speculation after “One of Them”, and the writers confirmed it in their podcast.
Lesley: The one thing about the photo is, if you compare it to screencaps from “Orientation”, the two women are clearly not the same (yet Desmond and the background are, it appears photoshopped in). I personally don’t think this is significant to the storyline aside from showing a continuity error (they probably couldn’t get the same actress to play her)… but I think it was a pretty glaring error, personally, because they aren’t even wearing similar looking shirts. I think the producers are getting sloppy on us.
joe: Great catch! I never noticed that before. 108 is sacred to a lot of religions and cultures (including Buddhists, where many of the themes from the show come from), but the appearance in this particular myth is a new one to me. I’m going to edit it in my post, thanks.
I am looking forward to tackling some of the various paths this show could take.
Are they really in some sort of supernatural Globe as referenced by Desmond?
Are the others a mutiny group of abandoned subjects of the Dharma initiative that after the “incident” have been trapped in this supernatural globe.
Where are Locke and Echo? Did they pass out of the supernatural globe back into the “real world” where the icemen of the final episode spotted the anomoly?
Is Libbys “Dave” a real husband or does she have the same friend as Hurley who is an “other” with special powers to appear where the shouldnt be….like Walt seems to have?
Sooooo many questions!
That’s one great post I love, thank you Cecilia ! It appeared clear to me that Penelope was a reference to the “odyssey”, but DAMNED I didn’t connect it with the whole story about Penelope waiting for ten years her husband, by sewing a white cheet, which a reference to the Desmond love story : THANK YOU !
I noticed at the beginning that the name of Kate was AUSTEN, this is another reference to literature I really think. As you probably know, Jane AUSTEN is one of the most famous English writter (“Pride and prejudices”), but I never read any of her books, so I can’t connect it with her character.
I am sad I never read the odysseus, because the story of “Ulysse” should probably explain many features about Desmond.
By the way, he really became one of the major character of the show thanks to this finale, and for me he’s the most fascinating. I don’t believe he, Eko and Locke died, that would be a stupid loss for the quality of the show.
Someone should definitely write a post about Locke’s madness compared with Eko’s wisdom : this an amazing religious question. Through the button, the question was “Do we have to act in the name of the belief God exists ?”. By denying that Locke seemed to be punished, but on another hand Desmond says “I am going to save you because you save me”.
Maybe the whole philosophy is “forgiveness”, like Eko previously mentionned. And who knows if exploding the magnetic dam is good since they may be freed from isolation (last scene).
That would explain why Henry managed to turn round Locke so that he stopped pushing the button. Remember what Desmond says “I’m sorry John for what happenned that made you stop believing but this was true”, and this was Henry’s statements, who probably upset John on purpose !
There are definetely some questions about the “snowglobe” often mentionned (Desmond, Locke), and eventually embodied by those two mysterious portuguese characters.
Anyway, I have thousands other things to say, but “on a tout l’été comme dit Job”.
See u, and thanks for this post.
In Regard to Penelope and Desmond. I personally went back to the first show with Desmond and verified that the woman in the picture is not tha same actress and she is wearing a white shirt but in the current episodes with desmond and the now known Penelope we see in the picture a new actress and she is wearing a black shirt. Both Desmond and Penelope have the same new picture which is different from the one Desmond first had…?
With all the attention to detail they sure could have done better than this edit job. Dont they know we are picking every little trainers hand detail in the show…?
OK, so this is probably a stupid, not-connected observation, but since all this discussion re: Greek mythology…
When I was watching the finale (the first time) I was strongly struck at the visual similarities during the scene with the four-toed statue with the foreshadowing scene in one of those old Greek mythology revial movies from my youth – and I *think* it was from the Odyssey, the part where Odysseus comes to the island of the cyclops. I have no idea what -if any- meaning this might have, but in Lost World it was obviously a foreshadowing scene as well….
yeah, having different actress… strange(but if you can’t get the same one, then what else can you do?) but again we have the black and white which we havn’t seen for a while(shirts this time) why would they change the shirt color if they knew that people would be disecting the show like they are?
possibly going along with the alternate parallel realities… hmmm
WEll, get this….besides the Four Toes- I rented a kids movie for my son the other night. It was called Woggle or I just asked my son and HE said the name of the movie is “Doogle.” ANyhow, stupid me didn’t even watch it but now I think I should have. I noticed one scene where they are in a boat and going to an ancient island or something. When they first float up to the island there is a statue. The only thing LEFT of the statue was a half a leg and the foot!!! Just like on Lost. ANyhow, supposedly they are at Skull Island…Skull Island is known as a Phantom Island and there are many Phantom Islands in Greek Mythology INCLUDING my Lost Island of MU (Lumeria). Back to the idea they are on a LOST CONTINENT/ISLAND!
Good catch on the pics of Desmond’s love but I must agree with the blair it seems unlikely that they would be so careless in having two different colored shirts and what a coincidence black and white…. Flagrant error? They know we watch so closely so probably not…now what was that twin theory again???
are the others tulpas ?
Very nice post Cecilia. I didn’t make the connection to Greek mythology but reading your post, it seems like you are on the right track!
As for names of characters with real-world counterparts, the name “Rutherford” as in Shannon Rutherford and her dead father Adam Rutherford, is also the name of several interesting persons like Ernest Rutherford and others.
I would guess that the reason for the different actresses portraying Penelope Widmore is that they either couldn’t get the original actress to play the part, or they simply found Sonya Walger to be a better actress for the role.
also about the pandoras box thought, the last thing to come out of pandoras box in the story is hope – which is what locke says to hurley when hes asked what he thinks is inside of the hatch.
(im pretty sure he says that)
aaron
I thought this was interesting.
There is a Brazilian base in Antarctica that performs geomagnetic observations. Here is a link that describes it. Could this be where the Portuguese speakers are?
http://pdf.comnap.aq/comnap/comnap.nsf/P/StationsByName/BResta#1
[quote comment="3583"]I thought this was interesting.
There is a Brazilian base in Antarctica that performs geomagnetic observations. Here is a link that describes it. Could this be where the Portuguese speakers are?
http://pdf.comnap.aq/comnap/comnap.nsf/P/StationsByName/BResta#1%5B/quote%5D
That sounds very possible.
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I just want to say that I just realized that John Locke was a real life philosopher today, I am not a Lost super fan, so today is my first time exploring Lost blogs etc. I figured out the Locke-philosopher on my own through a connection in a book I am reading, and not by easy reseacher online, so give me a little credit. Speaking of the internet, it is an amazing tool, I will quote Wikipedia: “[Locke] is equally important as a social contract theorist…and argued a government could only be legitimate if it received the consent of the governed through a social contract and protected the natural rights of life, liberty, and estate. If such consent was not given, argued Locke, citizens had a right of rebellion. Locke is one of the few major philosophers who became a minister of government.” Sounds like real life Locke was a good, fair guy, and again I am not a Lost super fan and I don’t have Lost’s Locke and his personality analyzed, but I can see Locke leading the group and being pretty fair about it. I was wondering if anyone agrees. Who can see Locke leading the group to a better life with the mystery of the island solved and possibly the means of getting home?
Rousseau, (Desmond) David Hume, and Locke share their characteristics with the philosophers they are named after, so I completely agree with you Pam.
Locke certainly tries to lead the losties to a better life, the question is if he will succeed…
Losties…I never thought of calling them that. I had always refer to them as “not the others”. I actually deep down think that as far as leading the group off the island Jack seems to be the front runner, even if he doesn’t want to be a leader. But I also deep down believe that Locke will solve the mystery of the island, because he’s so in tune with the weirdness, etc.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you are correct regarding Locke, but even if I would like to see Jack leading them off the island, I have my doubts. I think it’s possible that Jack might be going over to the “dark side” soon.
After yesterday’s episode Jack might be sucked into the evil blackhole of the others. Ooo! Jack was the SAVAGE leader in The Lord of the Flies, if Lost Jack helps the others with this “spinal tumor”, they might begin to treat him better (to suck more doctoring from him), and he could feel more or less required to be “faithful” to the others. The others, while they are not savage in a Freudian way, they are not the nicest, most civilized people on the planet (if they are even on the planet…), and if Jack goes to “the dark side” he would be going to a more SAVAGE group.