Wait a second...(spoilers)

[Fish]

WTF is up with Ben's "Magic box?" I know it's just a metaphor for something, but for what? WHERE DID HE GET LOCKE'S DAD?!?:confused:

Watching Sawyer kill him was one of the high points of the season, in my opinion, but I am still mystified as to the actual mechanism behind the "magic box" that caused the dad to appear on the island in the first place. Is it just supposed to be some sort of cover for high profile connections to the "mainland," or is it something more sinister and Islandy?

[Suzie]

Well, on the island people frequently seem to have seen people or things that aren't there - eg.

What's her face, whiny blond chick, saw Walt a whole bunch, but it wasn't the real walt, since he was still alive, it was like, doppel-walt.

Echo saw his brother, and THOUGHT it was really his brother, though it seemed in the episode where he died, that it was the "shadow smoke monster thing" pretending to be his brother, esp. since it said that he was "assuming I am really your brother" right before he died.

Hurley saw "Dave" who may or may not have been his imaginary friend. He interacted with him physically, or perhaps only pretended to.

Kate saw horses

Ben sees Jacob.

Jack saw his father.

Most of these characters interacted with their apparitions, though the major exception was the walt apparition, who is incidentally the only one we KNOW was still alive *after* his apparition was seen.

My theory? Everyone's already dead when they hit the island, or every apparition that's brought there is for the most part, somebody that's already dead. The magic box sort of -reincarnates- appropriate ghosts..

[AtrainV]

Well, on the island people frequently seem to have seen people or things that aren't there - eg.

What's her face, whiny blond chick, saw Walt a whole bunch, but it wasn't the real walt, since he was still alive, it was like, doppel-walt.

Echo saw his brother, and THOUGHT it was really his brother, though it seemed in the episode where he died, that it was the "shadow smoke monster thing" pretending to be his brother, esp. since it said that he was "assuming I am really your brother" right before he died.

Hurley saw "Dave" who may or may not have been his imaginary friend. He interacted with him physically, or perhaps only pretended to.

Kate saw horses

Ben sees Jacob.

Jack saw his father.

Most of these characters interacted with their apparitions, though the major exception was the walt apparition, who is incidentally the only one we KNOW was still alive *after* his apparition was seen.

My theory? Everyone's already dead when they hit the island, or every apparition that's brought there is for the most part, somebody that's already dead. The magic box sort of -reincarnates- appropriate ghosts..

Careful, Fish is very touchy about the purgatory theory! ;)

But as I've talked to him quite a bit about this, I'll divulge my thoughts about it. While there are many good and obvious reasons to say that the island is a purgatory-esque place, there are just as many reasons to say that it isn't (including the writers' dismissal of the idea).

Regardless, I don't think anybody will argue against the fact that the island is symbolic of a purgatorial experience. Everybody on the island has extreme amounts of baggage that they're having to deal with, and as soon as they deal with said baggage, they seem to find their way off the island, dead or alive.

You could be right that the box is in some way facilitating characters' dealing with their old "ghosts." I'm not quite sure how I feel about the box yet, so I'm suspending most of my theorizing about it for the moment.

[Suzie]

Yeah, I don't actually think it's purgatory, but I'm basically looking at the logic of the apparitions people see..

Walt, to me is the exception, because when you saw him, he was covered in streaming water, and also making weird noises..

The others generally spoke, sooner or later.. And those others were dead (Jack's father, Echo's brother) or imaginary?/dead? in the case of Hurley's ghost..

That makes me guess that Locke's father was dead before he hit the island..

His apparition, having relevance to two people on the island in an extreme way, would obviously be a more 'real' one.

Of course, given ben's behavior, it's also plausible that he brought Locke's father there, just to fuck with him, though it does apparently happen AFTER the sky turned purple..

[AtrainV]

Yeah, I think you definitely have to take Ben's fear of Locke (or moreso, his fear of losing power) into consideration. It may be strong enough for him to pull together something like this to "humanize" locke.

[Fish]

yeah, I'm most inclined to believe that Ben (or someone...Joseph?) had the connections to pull the strings to get the guy sent to the island. He must have been real in some capacity, seeing as how Locke and Sawyer both had meaningful interactions with him.

[Zok]

In response to Suzie's first post: Jack also saw his dad (in the first few episodes).

yeah, I'm most inclined to believe that Ben (or someone...Joseph?) had the connections to pull the strings to get the guy sent to the island. He must have been real in some capacity, seeing as how Locke and Sawyer both had meaningful interactions with him.

That's true. The interactions with those people were weird and brief. They didn't do much talking, were usually seen from a distance, and when Walt talked it was in that weird whispery voice. If it wasn't Locke's dad, it was a new breed of magic, for sure - somehow seems like something that Jacob might be controlling. If it was Locke's dad, I'm inclined to say that the island has the power to bring certain people closer (and to keep people from leaving). Maybe Ben has learned to harness this power somehow. Maybe Jacob controls it entirely.