THE LOST

ISSUE 5.04
This Place is Death, 316

[FEATURES]

Speak to Me

The Numbers have returned, but who is transmitting them.

Long You Live and High You Fly

The O6 had to recreat Flight 815, right down to the comic books.

The Great Gig in the Sky
Ben brought some interesting reading material on the flight.

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THE LOST
Managing Editor Jarrion Tripdack
Assistant Editor Roxana L Drake; Research Editor/Staff Writer Andi Raptor; Staff Writer Torri Panda; Staff Writer Pandorra Crikit

Contact: thelostnewsletter@hotmail.com

[INSIGHTS]

Us and Them

Eclipse

All You Create, All You Destroy

In the end it's Only Round and Round

Ends and Odds

*Coming up on Lost

Speak to Me

By A. Raptor

4 8 15 16 23 42

In Episode 5.05, “This Place is Death," there is a shot of Montand listening to a transmission of The Numbers. In Episode 1.17, ”The Numbers,” it is explained that the Numbers were originally heard by Leonard Simms and Sam Toomey.

     Leonard and Sam were U.S. naval officers stationed at a listening post in Kalgoorlie Australia, monitoring long-wave radio transmissions in the South Pacific. Sam’s wife, Martha, said that Sam hated the job because there was nothing to do but listen to static night after night. However, some time in the late 1980s the station picked up a transmission of The Numbers repeating on a loop; the same transmission that eventually led Rousseau and her team to the Island.

     Sam went on to use The Numbers to win a game of chance. He then began suffering from a series of bad luck. He became convinced The Numbers were cursed. Sam eventually committed suicide in an attempt to make it stop. Similarly, The Numbers drove Leonard to insanity. He was admitted to Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute where he spent all of his time playing Connect Four while repeating the Numbers. Hurley then used The Numbers to win the lottery.

     Although there has never been a definitive answer as to what the Numbers mean, some believe they are related to DHARMA and their research into the Valenzetti Equation. However, in this scene, it may not be so much the Numbers, as who may be saying them. :<

Montand listening to the transmission in 5.05.

Listen to the Transmission:

Long You Live and

High You Fly

By P. Crikit

In the recreation of Flight 815, John Locke was cast as Jack's father. Ben replicated the late-boarding Hurley. Sayid played the part of Kate's fugitive, accompanied by what appeared to be a law enforcement agent

   In Episode 5.06, “316” Ms. Hawking insisted that the Oceanic 6 somehow replicate, as best as possible, the exact conditions of the original Oceanic 815 flight that led them to The Island. Hurley brought a Spanish translation of a Green Lantern and Flash comic book entitled Green Lantern/Flash: Faster Friends #1 (1997) onboard Oceanic Flight 815. Walt later found this comic amidst the wreckage. Just before boarding Flight 316, Hurley is seen reading a Spanish translation of “Y: The Last Man Vol. 3: One Small Step.” This is a comic book series by Brian K. Vaughan, who also happens to be a Lost producer. The series is about a mysterious plague that kills every mammal possessing a Y chromosome - including embryos, fertilized eggs, and even sperm. The only exceptions are Yorick Brown, a young amateur escape artist, and his Capuchin monkey Ampersand.

    Hurley is also seen boarding with a guitar case. This suggests that he may have been visited by Charlie who convinced him to return. Charlie may have also told him to bring him his guitar. Perhaps when Locke finds Charlie’s guitar in Episode 1.06, “House of the Rising Sun,” its no coincidence. :<

The Great Gig in The Sky BY TORRI PANDA

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

In Episode 5.06 “316,” Ben is seen reading the novel “Ulysses” by James Joyce. The novel is a story about a journey through Dublin on a single day, June 16, 1904, by its main character, Leopold Bloom. The story is considered a rewrite of Homer's Odyssey, which tells the epic saga of the Greek hero Odysseus (or ''Ulysses'' in the Latin) on his way home after the battle of Troy that was won using the Trojan Horse strategy.

     A quote from Page 316 of “Ulysses” is hidden in the source code of the Ajira Airways website:

"So off they started about Irish sport and shoneen games the like of lawn tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil and building up a nation once again and all of that."

The quote comes from Chapter 12 of Ulysses, which mirrors the Cyclops chapter in Homer's tale. In this chapter Odysseus kills the Cyclops, Polyphemus, by poking out his eye with a sharpened, heated club. Joyce takes the idea of monocular vision and blindness and makes them the operating principles of his chapter. The chapter even begins with "I,” much as many episodes of Lost -- including "316." :<

Live for today, gone tomorrow

The other major character is Joyce’s Ulysses is Stephen Daedalus. The name ''Daedalus'' means ''cunning worker.'' In Greek mythology, Daedalus gets his son, Icarus, killed. Daedalus is also renowned for building a labyrinth that seemingly had neither and beginning nor end.

   In Ulysses, Stephen Daedalus, is also deeply marked by the death of his mother. In the second chapter of Ulysses, Stephen gets one of the book's most famous lines: ''History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.''

     This all may be alluding to Ben, his daughter, his mother, and his web of lies. It may be that Ben is trying to change history in such a way that will alter his own tortured personal history. Maybe in the next iteration, his mother will not die and she will teach him to read. :<

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

There were several moments when ''316'' mirrored Joyce's novel just as Joyce's novel mirrored Homer's.

   At one point in Ulysess, Leopold Bloom finds himself traveling in a carriage as part of a funeral procession. He is familiar with almost everyone, except one mysterious figure. This is much like the mysterious character that extends his condolences to Jack and is later seen on flight 316. :<

Eclipse

There is not Dark side of the Moon, Really

In Episode 5.05, it is revealed that the name of the off-Island DHARMA station is called The Lamp Post. This is alluding to the book “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” in the Chronicals of Narnia series. In the books, a lamp post marks the passage between Narnia and the real world.

    Ms Hawkings explanation as to what is going on offers the idea that the Island has become separated from its designated point in time and is moving through higher dimensions, as suggested by the blackboard references to the Schrodinger equation. Whatever the orbit of the Island, it seems that it periodically comes into phase with the Earth. During these "event windows," the Island is accessible. Therefore, the Island is to the earth what the pendulum is to the map on the floor.

    "The Elegant Universe," a book written by theoretical physicist Brian Greene, introduces string theory and provides a comprehensive assessment of the theory. According to super string theory, there are 10 dimensions of space, including eight that are hidden in the fabric of reality. :<