Wednesday, April 1, 2009

My Lost babies theory.

I've been ruminating on the pregnancy problems that occur on the Lost island for some time now. I read a few different recaps every week, including the esteemed Doc Jensen's analysis on EW.com. But although I think that my particular theory is fairly simple and obvious, I have yet to see it espoused by anyone else. So here it is. If you don't want to wade through all the background information, just scroll down to the paragraph that begins with, "Okay, so here's my theory" in bold. (Spoilers, obviously. Don't read this if you are behind on your Lost episodes.)

We know that when women get pregnant on the island, there are problems. The Others brought Juliet, a fertility doctor, to the island in the hopes of resolving these issues. When Juliet began studying and treating pregnant women on the island, she discovered that during the second trimester, the pregnant woman's white blood cell count would plummet, and her immune system would appear to attack the fetus. After roughly 100 days of pregnancy, the woman would die. Juliet theorized that this problem occurred at conception, and suggested taking a subject off the island to test this theory, but Ben rejected the idea.

When Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on the island, Claire was already pregnant. Ethan kidnapped Claire and brought her to a medical facility, where he observed her and gave her drug treatments. Claire escaped and eventually gave birth to baby Aaron without complications. This seemed to support Juliet's theory that the pregnancy problem occurs at conception.

When Juliet discovered that Sun was pregnant, and had conceived on the island, she warned Sun that if she remained on the island, she would die. Sun later escaped the island and gave birth to a healthy baby in South Korea.

In "LaFleur," Amy, a member of the Dharma Initiative, was supposed to be transported to the mainland to give birth, but she went into labor two weeks early. Juliet was reluctant to assist her, given her previous failures to save the lives of pregnant women on the island. Since they were back in 1977 at the time, Sawyer suggested that whatever had caused the pregnancy problems might not have occurred yet. He persuaded Juliet to deliver Amy's baby, which she did, successfully. This seemed to support Sawyer's theory that some event would later occur on the island, which would cause pregnant women to die.

Okay, so here's my theory: I think that Sawyer and Juliet were both wrong. There was no event that caused these pregnancy problems. I think that normal human beings have always been able to conceive and give birth on the island. Sun could have given birth on the island, and she and her baby would have been fine. Juliet incorrectly assumed that some sort of birth defect occurred at conception because she was only monitoring pregnant Others. I think that that these pregnancy problems are only an issue for the Others, not for normal human beings. I don't know if the Others are ageless or ghosts or zombies or aliens or what, but they are not normal human beings, and that is why they can't reproduce.

If my theory is correct, it would explain the Others' habit of stealing normal, human babies. When Danielle Rousseau gave birth on the island, the Others stole her baby, and Ben Linus raised Alex as his own adopted daughter. When Flight 815 crashed, the Others kidnapped several of the survivors who had been in the tail section of the plane, including the children. The Others kidnapped Claire and apparently intended to cut her baby out of her before she escaped. They also kidnapped Walt. In "The Brig," Ben revealed that Juliet had infiltrated the survivors' camp in order to determine whether any of the women were pregnant, so that the Others could kidnap them.

Finally, in the most recent episode, "He's Our You," Amy, who has just given birth, seconds Radzinsky's suggestion that they kill Sayid. She justifies this position by explaining that she considers Sayid, who she believes is a Hostile, or Other, to be a dangerous threat, specifically to her newborn baby and the other children. This fear seems reasonable enough, if Sayid really were a Hostile/Other. Her newborn baby is named Ethan, and if he is the same Ethan who we have already met as an adult, then the Others do eventually kidnap him and raise him as one of their own.

Tonight's episode, "Whatever Happened, Happened," centers on Kate, who recently gave up Aaron under mysterious circumstances. I have a feeling that the Others' pregnancy problems and baby stealing tendencies will continue to be relevant in the gradually unwinding plot of Lost.

2 comments:

Ed said...

Ethan is going to get baby-napped. It just hasn't happened yet in our groovy 70's Dharma time-frame.

Although, why won't they take Ben or why wasn't he taken initially when he came with his father to the island? Was he too old?

And could that be why the Others let Walt return to the US and attend normal school??

LOST LOST LOST!

susan said...

I agree, when Ethan was born I thought, he's not with the Others and that he has to act out his part with Claire, so whatever is going on happened after Ben killed all the Darma Initative. but now that Kate has rescued Ben from Sayid does that change history. I am on pins and needles to find out