Lost....

[Zeste]

Amazing episode, had me captivated.

Lost is about "negative capability." The questions about all the mysteries and such... answering them isn't the point of the show, not for me anymore. It is about watching things happen to these people who have become very real.

We may never know all the "big secrets" of the island, but look at all we have learned about Desmond, and Jack, Locke, and the other major characters.

I know probably no one will agree with my thoughts, but I am liking the show alot more now that I am not just looking for answers to the Sci-Fi questions, but just accepting that everything isn't going to be understood.

Negative Capability is a theory of the poet John Keats, expressed in his letter to George and Thomas Keats dated Sunday, 21 December 1817.

I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason

Keats believed that great people (especially poets) have the ability to accept that not everything can be resolved. Keats was a Romantic and believed that the truths found in the imagination access holy authority. Such authority cannot otherwise be understood, and thus he writes of "uncertainties." This "being in uncertaint[y]" is a place between the mundane and ready reality and the multiple potentials of a more fully understood existence.

Keats expressed this idea in several of his poems

* La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad (1819)
* Ode to a Nightingale (1819)
* The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream (1819)

Negative capability is a state of intentional openmindedness that has many parallels in other writers' literary and philosophical stances. Much has been written about this. Walter Jackson Bate, Keats's authoritative biographer, wrote an entire book from his Harvard honors thesis on the topic. The footnote to the negative capability letter in the 1958 Harvard UP edition of the Letters of John Keats references the work of Woodhouse, Bate, C. L. Finney, Barbara Hardy, G. B. Harrison, and George Watson, all prior to the edition’s printing in 1958. Additionally, Nathan Scott (author of a book entitled Negative Capability), notes that negative capability has been compared to philosopher Martin Heidegger’s concept of Gelassenheit, “the spirit of disponibilité before What-Is which permits us simply to let things be in whatever may be their uncertainty and their mystery."

[Citten]

Yeah, I really liked this episode. The time travel aspect adds another flare to the questions, and I gotta agree with Zeste's line of thinking too. Any good story has a meaningful journey. I can take tons of more questions with no answers as long as they eventually entwin and payoff at the end and the climax is worth it.

Anyone notice charlie looked different in this episode? His cheekbones or something, maybe fatter or swollen? Was kinda funny to watch, heh.

[Soygen]

What is this Final Destination crap?!

You can't escape death!! Boogity Boogity!!!

[Faltigoth]

Originally Posted by Fricken

The one thing that really stood out for me .. was the show this week brought a completely new meaning to Desmond's "See you in another life brother"

Goddamn, you are right. Now that you mentioned it, that is pretty kick ass. I always loved that line.

I wonder if Charlie dying is a repercussion for when he died in Season 1 (when Ethan hung him) and Jack brought him back. It will be weird to kill him off - he is one of the characters with a healthy dose of magic/mysticism around him. Hurley with the numbers, Desmond with the flashes of the future, Rose and Locke with being mysteriously healed by the island...

And Charlie with his weird religious visions about Claire's baby. I hope that stuff gets resolved before the universe course corrects iteself on his ass.

[Zeste]

I am not sure that the show telegraphing to us "charlie is gonna die brotha" necessarily means he is.

I mean, he still could. But I think it's more of a thing where they figure out how to change it or something. I really have no idea, but I really don't think the writers are gonna just let charlie die because desmond said it tonight. It's like when the Oracle told Neo that either him or morpheus had to die, but in the end neo saved them both (matrix 1).

I mean maybe, he's gonna be the one to saaaave me... he's my ruuunderraaaalll.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Did anyone else notice, that Desmond changed the 'future' in this episode?
The Oracle, er I mean, the Jewelry lady clearly says, "You weren't supposed to want to buy the ring, you were supposed to change your mind, and walk out that door."
Even though the universe 'course corrected' itself eventually, because he still broke up with Penny anyway, it shows that they are able to change their paths.
And once Desmond realized he was back on the island, he said he was going to do it right next time. Which I assume means he is going to not break up with Penny.
Great episode. I love this show and hope they don't answer everything, since there is no way the answers will be good enough.
No other show out there makes me literally say outloud, "What, the, fuck." as this one does.

[Ossoi]

terrible episode, just to expand on this because I was fking tired earlier when I made this post;

the fact that all 8 of the season 3 episodes have hardly dealt with the original island and its mysteries/characters and instead focused on a whole different island and group of people and then devoted almost an entire episode to a flashback [never done before as far as i can recall] leads me to believe that the writers/producers never really had any idea of where to take the series.

[Thorpe]

Just noticed something after watching the episode a second time. When Desmond runs into Charlie, Charlie is playing Oasis' Wonderwall. The lyrics Charlie is singing are "You're gonna be the one that saves me."

[Grooverider]

garbage basically.

[Soygen]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo Banzai

Did anyone else notice, that Desmond changed the 'future' in this episode?

But he didn't change the future. He was still broken up with Penny. He may have said he was going to do it right next time, but there may not be a next time and even if there is, who's to say he won't fuck it up again. In the present, back on the island, things are still the same.

[Ham n Cheese]

He clearly changed something. He didn't get hit with the cricket bat the first time around, we don't know if he kept on and did the stupid sail around the world thing because they cut back too quickly.

[TheOkapi]

The current theory bouncing around is that there's a second key, that Desmond will turn. When he turns this second key, it bounces him back to right after he turned the first. He keeps seeing Charlie die in one way or another, and every time he turns the second key, he has a new way to go save him.

I don't buy that, but it's better than a lot of the other ideas going around.

What I really want to know is, why haven't they looked for the radio tower yet?

[Grooverider]

That doesn't make a great deal of sense, because he would have known that Charlie died due to drowning and would have waited on the beach - not hundreds of meters from the beach inside the jungle.

[Thorpe]

Originally Posted by Grooverider

That doesn't make a great deal of sense, because he would have known that Charlie died due to drowning and would have waited on the beach - not hundreds of meters from the beach inside the jungle.

Maybe that's why he brought him into the jungle to see Locke and Sayid?

[Zeste]

I think that desmond can see flashes of the future on the island due to his encounter with the hatch implosion or whatever...

BUT, he didn't travel in time or anything like that. He had an island induced lucid dream where he believed that he was back on that day with Penelope, and through that dream he learned about his new ability to see the future. The jewelry store woman, the cricket bat, all that was metaphor. Desmond didn't actually "go" anywhere.

So now, he sees flashes of the immediate future, but it has nothing to do with time travel or his dream. His dream was just his brains way of sorting it all out before he woke up.