The black and white stones

Now that we are back in the days of Dharma, we will begin to see answers fall into place as more dominos, er, backgammon pieces fall.

The proximity of the bodies in the cave so close to each other suggests a level of intimacy, so yes, I agree we will be shown couples who could be likely candidates for A&E.

Here's hoping we will be shocked by some of the synchronicity with the survivors of 815 and Dharma and the Hostiles. That scene between Sawyer (as LeFleur) and Richard was GREAT! No more on the down low, James, time to let it all hang out.

The inconsistency I want resolved is if the 815ers will be able to change their future (this assumes they can/will get back to their "normal" time era) or add to their past memories. Remember what Ben said to Jack: "you won't be coming back"

Another inconsistency: why did Charlotte disappear in front of Dan, but Miles didn't if they were supposedly both on the island during the time of Dharma?

We were shown baby Charlotte, but what happens when Dr. Pierre Chang meets Miles?

And who is the new son of Amy and Horace? Me thinks that won't be insignificant.

Yeah I'm liking that for the game with pieces bumping other pieces out and taking their place.

I was wondering about Miles--did we see him in any of the 3 years later scenes?  Wonder what would happen if he left the island on the sub?

I'm still thinking that something changes--Dan mutters something about "not telling" Charlotte--not warning her--I thought that was kind of a cool way to try to change fate.  By trying not to warn her of her death, he's going to change things so that she doesn't die.

The son--I kept waiting for a name...yeah that seemed very big to me.  First baby conceived and born on the island that's been shown on the show, as far as I can remember...

Sawyer saying maybe what ever caused the problem for mothers hasn't happened yet. Tells me we will be told what cause the problem for mothers. But why would they go to the mainland to deliver - becuase of lack of proper medical equipment?

But what a powerful way for Sawyer to create a bond with Juliet - pumping up her ego in the most critical spot: her profession.

Gonna make the whole Sawyer/Juliet and Jack/Kate dynamic really fun to watch.

Oh brutha, what if each couple tries to have a kid?

I thought Dan said that there was a flash and Charlotte disappeared. I assume this meant that the flash caused by Locke fixing the donkey wheel caused Saywer and Co to jump in time but Charlotte's dead body stayed behind. 

 One thing that I find interesting now is that Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sun, Dan, Juliet, Sawyer and Miles have all now chosen to stay on the island.  Sayid was taken forcibly and we don't know what's happening with the rest of the 815ers (i.e. Rose, Bernard etc.) I wonder how will being on the island by choice affect their roles and purpose? 

... after Charlotte died.  In which one did she disappear? I don't think it would make sense for her to have disappeared after the first one.  I think the "rules" Dan outlined should have made even the corpses jump about in time.  However, that last flash... the one caused by John... was a different kind of thing.  That flash, I think, sent Jack and company to 1977.  It sent Sawyer and company to 1974. And it sent Charlotte's body to who knows where.  But I presume it sent Charlotte's body somewhere other than 1974 to avoid her corpse being in a similar time-period with her living self.  Apparently, two living versions of a person in the same time is allowed (John saw the light from the hatch and knew his other self was there cursing the sky) and being in a time where you haven't been born yet is allowed (we get to see the statue) but being in a time when you are dead is not?

I seriously doubt that any of that will be explained.

In the meantime, the past is being messed with royal as people from 2004 are killing people in 1954 and 1974.  And Dan's gotten more vague about how the past can be changed... "what's happened has happened"... could just mean that the 2004 they've all lived in had already taken into account everything they did in the past.  That's not exactly the same as saying the past can't be change... that paradoxes aren't allowed.  It's saying paradoxes are allowed, but the ones in the past (relative to 2004) are already fixed and cannot be changed.  This strikes me as a very different thing compared to what Dan said earlier... and I have to say I prefer the way he said it before.

There was a flash and the rope ended in the ground--that turns out to be the flash that took them back to the age of the four-toed statue.   Then we see Dan and Charlotte and Charlotte died.  So I'm guessing that we are supposed to think she died because the jump was so huge.  Then Locke turns the wheel and they are in 1974.  I guess that's when the body disappears--because Charlotte's alive at this time?  So Miles can be there along with baby Miles, but Charlotte can't be there dead and alive at the same time? (Schroedinger's cat)

It must be significant that the same period of time occurs on island and off after the flash--three years.

... the writers could just be suggesting that corpses stopped moving with the flashes.  Which wouldn't make sense, really.  The zodiac kept moving with the flashes even when none of the time travelers were in or around it, and the rationale given for that was that whatever the travelers had on them during (at least) the first flash was going to stay with them for the duration no matter what.  Surely the corpses ought to have followed that rule.  (And anyway, Dan was surely touching Charlotte before that last flash, and it was clearly the case that anything touching a traveler would go with him or her through the flash.)

I guess I prefer the notion that there was some other rule that would have been violated had Cheryl moved with them to 1974.  The last flash WAS qualitatively different and if it's the same flash that the 316 folks experienced then we already have one example of people in the flash ending up in different time-frames.

So, yeah, I guess I'm going with the notion that your dead self and live self can't be in the same time-frame.

Prof, by paradoxes do you mean anything done in which a future person interacts with the past?  Is it a paradox if it always happened this way--Sawyer always lived in the Dharma compound for those three years as LeFleur for instance.

When this first came up was when Desmond couldn't hear Sawyer banging on the door, and my understanding of why he couldn't was that Desmond had never met Sawyer in this way.  It could happen with Dan because Desmond is his constant.

Instead of quite that cliched version of change I was wondering if they might do something like this--based on Stip's suggestion that when Jack and Kate threw dynamite in after Smokie, Kate said something about the temple.

In the model for change that we saw with Eloise the rat--Eloise's future self beamed into her past consciousness and as her future self knew how to ran the maze, Eloise successfully ran the maze.  So one can give one's past self knowledge from the future in a kind of precog way.  Now instead of thinking of the characters living in historical time (whether looped or not)--that is, not thinking of them as in 1954 or 1977 or 2004--but thinking of them each on their own timeline.  So Kate might be on the 35th year 24th day 7th hour...of her life when she learns about the temple.  Suppose like Eloise that this knowledge from her future consciousness makes it back to her past self.  But in historical time--Kate is in the past 1977, and her past self is in the future 2004 (dizzy yet?).  What if one of the things this whole timetravel into 1977 allows is for them to gain information they need to change the future--but the future that's being lived by their past selves?  

Hmmm, just wondering how the incident is going to play into this... 

That's a REALLY good question, Jukin.

Why did Juliet, Sawyer, et al,  elect to stay when they could have taken the submarine to the mainland?

Wasn't it Sawyer's decision to stay? He wanted to wait for Locke no matter how long it took then asked Juliet to give him two weeks? She then agreed to stay with him that amount of time and it seemed they were happy on the Island.