In “A Tale of Two Cities”, we see a new DHARMA station, which appears to be the Hydra. This might be an apt name, because it seems to me it is many-armed (part of it a zoological station on land, part of it underwater); in biology, a hydra is an freshwater invertebrate distantly related to jellyfish that has many appendages; they are known for the ability to regenerate when one is cut off. But the Hydra is also a mythical beast from Greek mythology. Like Cerberus (which we pretty know now is the Smoke Monster’s name from the blast door map), it was one of the monstrous offspring of Typhoon and Echidna, two of the Titan gods. Also like Cerberus, Hercules battled Hydra as part of the 12 Labors.
This appears to continue an ongoing theme of Greek mythology seen on the show:
Can you think of any more references to Greek or other cultural mythology on the show? Why do you think they are making the references that they are?
What do you think DHARMA uses the Hydra Station for, if they are studying zoology? What are your thoughts on the weirdly-rigged bear cages, and the sharks they used to keep in the aquariums?
My guess is that the Hydra Station was used for genetic engineering experiments to make the animals stronger/smarter so as to give them a higher survival rate or something like that. Remember that each station probably deals with one of the Valenzetti Equation factors which need to be changed to save the world.
The four-toed foot could also be a reference to Greek culture or mythology. It looks like a Greek or Roman statue and as I’ve discussed earlier, it fits in quite well with the Ozymandias poem. Ozymandias being the Greek name for Ramses II.
The cage that Sawyer is in seems similar to the tests that BF Skinner did on mice. As you all know Dr. Marvin Candle mentions Skinner in the Orientation film. But that, I think, was to study behavior in a controlled environment so I don’t know how that relates to the idea of making them smarter. I do have a question about the animals. THe bears, the shark, the horse are all normal animals but the talking bird seems different. Not like a normal bird,and the talking thing is not normal. Maybe they were mix breeding birds to use all their strongest characteristics and then teaching them to talk like parrots do. How that is relevant to the story I don’t know but it is interesting.
Another refference tu greek mothology could be the foot with four fingers that appears in the last episode of season two, that if you look closely it’s clearly a tipical greek sandal (flip flop), the thing is, was there a god with 4 fingers in greek mithology?…i’ll try to find out…
Saludos, from Santiago Chile
seba, this is a good point… though there’s no specific statue with 4 toes in Greek mythology, the style of the carving is in the Greek style.
I like the comments on genetic engineering and the Skinner test. Especially with the latter, the ‘food dispensing’ apparatus seems very Skinneresque, and I think B.F. Skinner has been mentioned as an inspiration for DHARMA in one of the podcasts. How to put this all together with the purpose of the Others, though, I just don’t know. I think they are trying to learn more about the human mind’s abilities to change the environment (i.e. Walt’s telekinetic powers, very a la “Carrie”, the book reference from the last show).
yep, that’s my point, very greekish style, anyways, i think that it can be a very importan leed, to join wiht all the mithology theory…
I would not doubt that they are trying to make the animals more human … teaching reasoning, but as for a talking Bird? I think that is an assumption that Hurley heard something and thought it was his name. I replayed the scene and did not think the bird spoke.
I think the statue may be a Dharma Prop to keep local island hoppers away from their Utopia experiment.
The Black Rock is perhaps a real historic link to the islands history.
Then again it is all speculation.
The “talking bird” was probably just an inside joke since Damon and Carlton had been joking about “Hurley-birds” for some time on the podcast.
Regarding the statue being used to keep people away from the island, wouldn’t you be even more interested in taking a look at the island if you saw a part of an ancient statue on it? I know I would.
Wasnt the black rock part of Alvar Hanso’s family tree. His great great gandfather, someone or other. Anyway, i dont think the whole Greek thing plays that much of an important aspect. Dont scientist use ancient greek mythology alot for certain stuff? What im getting at all this Greek names is just that something the scientists (the Others) use to name certain things.
Martin: Scientists use all sorts of themes for naming projects, etc., but I think the Greek theme is especially prominant in the story, in addition to certain other ones which are recurrent, such as the Eastern Ideology (bagua, 108, DHARMA, namaste, etc) and Christian religious themes. The other aspect is that Greek mythology plays a role in Lost not only in projects directly named by DHARMA or the Others. We also have Persephone and Penelope (not just her name, but distinct similarities to the story; see the article link). So I think it’s fairly clear that the Lost writers want us to pay attention to this idea, not just as coincidence.
Yes, Magnus was Alvar’s grandfather.
In the book “bad twin” which is linked with lost the main character owns a dog named Argos The book later explains that Argos is also the name of Odysseus’ guard dog in Homer’s The Odyssey. I also think that jack’s character is alot like hercules how he hated his father,Zeus but i don’t know enough about greek mythology to support that.
Techincally Herculues didn’t hate his father, more so his mother.
Also Apollo is also the greek god of Medicine, maybe that’s a hint? Plus I think the cages were probably for the polar bears.
The Others all seem to be slightly afraid of the leader Ben and seem to do his will without question. Maybe Ben is the final product of the DHARMA experments, a kind of super human in a way, prehaps he controlls the eerie super natrual powers of the island in some way.
Was lock the guy who hit Sara Jacks wife in the flash back it looked like him in the hospital. That could be why he was in the wheel chair. And that would connect them.
thank you liljim76@hotmail.com
[quote comment="7144"]Was lock the guy who hit Sara Jacks wife in the flash back it looked like him in the hospital. That could be why he was in the wheel chair. And that would connect them.
thank you liljim76@hotmail.com[/quote]
Jim, no it wasn’t Locke. It was Shannon’s dad…. Mr Rutherford.
hey what are your thought on how season 3 will end?
Matt Apollo was not the the god of Medicine!
i’m from greece!
On the season 2 dvd when the bird flies toward the group the subtitles do say bird screeches Hurley. However, I think that the bird is actually the smoke monster/cerberus. The writers have said that we had seen it many times without knowing. I believe that cerberus can shape shift. It appeared to Kate as the horse, Jack as his father, Sawyer as the boar and Hurley as the bird. I just also want to point out that when you pause the dvd on the shark with the Dharma logo, it appears to be the Arrow station and not the Hydra. Maybe it was just a fluke.
A couple of things about the whole Greek issue. I am copying this stuff directly from Wikipedia to save time in the re-telling (just to site where the info is coming from)
“A caduceus (/kəˈduËsiÉ™s/, -ʃəs, -ˈdjuË-; kerykeion in Greek; Unicode U+2624 (☤) on the Miscellaneous Symbols table) is a winged staff with two snakes wrapped around it. It was an ancient astrological symbol of commerce and is associated with the Greek god Hermes, the messenger for the gods, conductor of the dead and protector of merchants and thieves. It was originally a herald’s staff, sometimes with wings, with two white ribbons attached. The ribbons eventually evolved into snakes.
In some cases, depictions of the Greek kerykeion can be radically different from that of the traditional caduceus (as in the picture at right). These representations will feature the two snakes atop the wand (rod), crossed to create a circle with the heads of the snakes resembling “horns.” In this form, it looks remarkably similar to the symbol for the planet Mercury — while Mercury the god is the Roman name for Hermes, who carries the kerykeion, or caduceus. The Greek messenger goddess Iris also carried the caduceus. The basic power of the Caduceus is the primal power to heal or harm.
In the seventh century, the caduceus came to be associated with a precursor of medicine, based on the Hermetic astrological principles of using the planets and stars to heal the sick.”
The Caduceus is the symbol for the medical (we suppose) station that Claire was taken too.
In response to Maria Apollo actually was associate with medicine and such and I quote…
“In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo (Ancient Greek Ἀπόλλων, ApóllÅn; or ἈπÎλλων, ApellÅn), the ideal of the kouros, was the archer-god of medicine and healing and also a bringer of death-dealing plague; as the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, he is a god of music and poetry. Hymns sung to Apollo were called Paeans.
As the patron of Delphi (“Pythian Apollo”) Apollo is an oracular god; in Classical times he took the place of Helios as god of the sun. Apollo was also considered to have dominion over colonists, over medicine, mediated through his son Asclepius, and was the patron defender of herds and flocks.
Apollo was the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of the chaste huntress Artemis, who took the place of Selene as goddess of the moon. As the prophetic deity of the Delphic oracle, Apollo was one of the most important and many-sided of the Olympian deities. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. In Roman mythology he is known as Apollo and increasingly, especially during the third century BC, as Apollo Helios he became identified with Sol, the Sun.[1]”
Also Apollo was associate with (as you can read above) archery (the arrow) as well as many animals including Swan’s. Apollo is generally thought of as the God of order, harmony and reason (the opposite in some schools of thought from Dionysis the God of ecstacy and disorder) There certainly are many questions and issues raised throught the show pertaining to the struggles between these two opposing forces. Apollo was also the god of Colonies, of which the island is obviously of some such sort. While I can’t find a direct connection between the Hydra and Apollo my guess is that there will be other references of this sort that will pop up as the season continues. Cheers!
I love how this blog is really attracting intelligent commenters.
Andreas and I have read the comments to the episodes, and many are great.
On the Caduceus/Apollo issue… here’s a little technical clarification, for those who care. Apollo is considered by most to be the sun god, but he does have other associations. One of them was with medicine, though commonly the association is that the “god of medicine” was Asclepius, his son. Asclepius was an immortal shephard, and associated with animal husbandry (in the old days, this gave a lot of pull in society, because your livestock’s health was tied with your own, so many people with that sort of expertise also doubled as doctors of people).
The staff of Asclepius is technically the TRUE symbol of medicine, and it is just a staff with a snake around it. Hermes’ (messenger god’s) staff is the one with wings that we often see, and is the one that is properly called the caduceus… and initially, it was meant to be a symbol of trade and commerce. It started getting copied on medical books, however, and eventually the association of the caduceus (the one with wings) was made in the minds of society, though not accurately. Today the two are used interchangeably because of this confusion.
Hope this helps.. I didn’t want to bore people with the details that weren’t relevant to Lost, but it looked like some here were curious…
Great post Cecilia. I’m new to your blog, but not at all to Lost. I think you are bang on with the greek mythology references with the show. If not all of the connections you make, definitely most of them. There are way too many to be a coincidence. Sort of a general trend for plotlines of the show, no?
My thoughts on the animals in the Hydra station are twofold: One, maybe the animals are subjects for the same ‘life-extension’ project that the Hanso Foundation website previously alluded to. And two, maybe the animals are being tested for the virus that the ARG finally revealed was being developed.
I am thinking that maybe the Hydra station is thus named because it is the main station of the island. In mythology the center head of the Hydra monster is immortal, could not be harmed by mortal weapon, and was where the monster did its ‘thinking’. The other heads could be destroyed, in essence, by fire. Which is how the swan station was destroyed.
Obviously it was used for animal (or human) observation/ training. I haven’t found a connection to hydra and this though.
Thanks guys… though I did want to make the point that I do think the name “Hydra” was given primarily after the real-life zoological animal… the reasons being that it 1) has many arms (like the station seems to) and 2) lives in water. I think the mythology connection is possibly real, but secondary.
maybe it just sprays out large volumes of water, like a hydrant
you can add linus to your list of greek mythology tie-ins
Linus – Son of Apollo and Psamathe, whose father was the King of Argos. She feared her father and gave the infant Linus to shepherds to raise. He was torn apart by dogs after reaching adulthood and Psamathe was killed by her father, for which Apollo sent a child-killing plague to Argos.
oooh i like this linus tie-in. a lot less convoluted than the linnaeus one, and makes so much sense. figured the writers of lost wouldn’t get into hard science.
Nice find Todd. So I guess we can presume that Ben was raised by an-other. The question is if he will be torn apart by dogs… hehe.
well metaphorically he could be torn apart by the clashing opinions of those under his leadership i.e. “thrown to the dogs”
First time poster… love the blog. I started researching this Linus guy. There’s gotta be something here. Players of the Lost Experience know there’s a connection between the Hanso Foudation and Apollo Candy Bars. Linus is Apollo’s son. Fake Henry Gale’s last name is Linus. I was really hoping I’d find out that Linus had 4 toes, but didn’t. So close!
River Styx w/ water in temple
Hera & Zeus (Faradays mom & Widmore) conflict over two male candidates (Heracles & Euretheclus -spelling) Jacob – MIB
Heracles (candidate) tasked with killing many beasts. Brings Cerberus from underworld.
More to follow
It is all and true because there was BLACK SMOKE in “Clash of the Titans” and two brothers talking to each other (just as Jacob and the Man In black had done in “Ab Aeterno”). Jacob is Zeus and Hercules will be one of the Candidates. It All Makes Sense!
[quote comment="7030"]Another refference tu greek mothology could be the foot with four fingers that appears in the last episode of season two, that if you look closely it’s clearly a tipical greek sandal (flip flop), the thing is, was there a god with 4 fingers in greek mithology?…i’ll try to find out…
Saludos, from Santiago Chile[/quote]
Look at the Statue! Your Right!
The Island is MOUNT OLYMPUS!!!
Lost writers are out there, paul dini very good writer, here is a funny joke about greek mythology http://ponderingstuff.com/2010/02/05/greek-mythology-is-such-a-bureaucracy/