If we were to believe Juliet, the medicine Claire received while pregnant were not for the same sickness Robert and the other Frenchies had.
In the season three episode ‘One of Us’ Claire gets sick and Juliet tells Jack she can help. Here’s what she says about the meds Claire was on:
“JULIET: Claire’s immune system is turning on her, she’s having a latent reaction to a medication in her bloodstream.
JACK: What medication?
JULIET: It was designed to keep her alive during the late stages of her pregnancy.
JACK: Designed by who?
JULIET: By me. For some reason, the women here can’t have babies. The mother’s body turns on the pregnancy, treats it as a foreign invader. I saw it happen over and over. Every pregnant woman on this Island died.”
NOTE – We know Juliet was acting on Ben’s behalf at this point and nothing she says should be taken at face value, but it’s on record…
When you think about it, the only reason we’re calling it the sickness is because rousseau called it the sickness. And the only reason she thinks its the sickness is because she has no schema to differentiate otherwise. Think about it. She gets to this Island. A plume of smoke pulls a man into a temple. The others go into the temple. When they come out they’re “not themselves.”
What it looks like is not so much a sickness, but some kind of understanding of the Island, perhaps even a need to protect it (Her lover says “Its not a monster, its a security system designed to protect that temple,” who knows what else he saw down there). The symptons are an apparent murderous twitch, or, at the very least, a desire to murder Rousseau.
As to why Rousseau doesn’t have it, Jin did not let her go into the Temple, remember.
I was thinking that what rouseau’s team had was something entirely different than temporal displacement actually.
I also thought all the quarintine labels were for the same thing rouseau’s team had also…………..if it was temporal displacement I don’t think quarantine could protect them nor a hazmat suit…………….
Damon…good facts….Didn’t someone bring a case of innoculations to the beach for claire…and are these the same innoculations that Juliet gave her?
Shanimal- interesting idea…………I did think though that there was a small gap in time between the team being pulled into the temple and the scene on the beach with the sickness….
yes I remember that Jin and Rouseau did not go into the temple but if that is where it comes from then why quarantine and hazmat protection…. That is the real reason I wonder how rouseau did not get it….if everyone else had to be quarantined. I realize this may not have happened until later though.
I relate the sickness and the happenings to her team, now, more to smokey. That is why she will not travel to the dark territory. The sickness is smokey taking over and using the knowledge that the person had to its advantage. The only thing I dont get is…why? Why doesnt it just kill them? Its obviously capable, why the ‘host’ what is the hidden agenda? Is the smoke monster trying to leave the island? Is it trying to make it to true civilization? Is there more of a connection with smokey and the island being hidden than we were originally led to believe? Am I ever going to stop asking questions?
Great thinking A.E.S. As far as the quarantine and the hazmat, perhaps we should take a word from Ben: “Dharma is a bunch of silly scientists doing silly experiments.” Have we really seen ANY MENTION of quarantine and hazmat beyond the swan or Rousseau’s manic ramblings?
If not, then they quarantine and hazmat are most likely an elaborate ruse designed to ensure that the button pushers remain below ground, and that others don’t interfere with the button pushers. If they are TRULY needed (as it appeared) to push that button (for whatever reason) than elaborate methods would have to be designed to ensure that they stay beneath ground, and, more importantly, that no one interferes.
I read in interesting theory about this. One to do with Faraday. There was a promo shot that had taken out one of his feet. They were saying this is a nod to the foot statue, saying Faraday went back in time and with his technological knowledge of the future he would naturally be seen as some magical being by an earlier civilisation and he was worshiped and the temple etc are all in honour of him. He could have got the smoke monster from the future, brought it back to protect the temple. It sounds far fetched but I cant think of any other theories regarding the temple and statue.
I’d like to throw in a thoery of mine, which I don’t necessarily believe in, but to me just demonstrates how the many pieces of the puzzle we see can be made into different pictures.
I think most of us agree “the sickness” is not necessarily (though possibly) a genuine disease, but Rouseau’s interpretation of the events.
Now, as we have seen and A.E.S mentions there seems to be a connection between smokey and the sickness. so, what if smokey indeed is the cause and source of the sickness, but serves nothing more than a carrier? what if smokey’s violent behaviour has more to do with it being sick itself than being ill-intended? what if it is more suffering than trying to inflict pain?
Again, I don’t necessarily believe in this but then again it seems to me that though we generally attribute smokey with wants and needs, we rarely consider that maybe smokey is perhaps lost and clueless much in the way the human characters are…
The idea might be foolish and uneducated, but still… maybe smokey doesn’t have an agenda?
I was thinking more that the sickness is on the level of a possession by the smoke monster. It takes control of the person, but still carries the knowledge the person had, alive or dead. By doing this, the sickness is viewed by Danielle as a mental sickness. She probably thinks it drives people mad and makes them do things that they normally wouldnt do. (which it does) But I dont think the people are in control at all. I think they are dead or hell, on a broader note, maybe it forces their concienceness out into another time in their life, and takes over the body as a host. It seems as if the smoke monster, not necesarrily has real thoughts, but at least emotion. The way it chooses, it seems to understand. When Ben releases it, it goes right for the freighter team and annilhates them. When we see it go to Eko, it seems to almost tell him something…before it kills him. I never viewed Smokey as technology, at least the kind we are used to. I dont see it as much of a security system either, more of a guard dog, if it needs to be associated with protecting the island. When the first of Danielles team got pulled in and lost his arm, he immediatly snaped out of the fear he was in and called for help. I think this was a ruse by Smokey trying to lure the rest of the team into the hole. I just cannot for the life of me figure out the motivation.
But that motivation could be based on what people are doing on the island inn the first place. What was the purpose of their team? Were they on the way to the island, trying to find it, or just happen to crash there? It didnt kill Locke, why? Because Locke is there out of good nature to save the island…just for the record, Im speculating more than theorizing here
Dabs- good thought….I was thinking that rouseaus team may have encountered the sickness from the temple and not from sm0key…..also meaning here that the sickness is insanity.
…They may have entered and seen the face of ..whatever.. and it was too much for their minds to take …..much like the face of god would be…….
Hello everybody, well this is my first time in this post. And well I think that Rousseau was immune to this sickness because of the innoculation for pregnancy. I think that this innoculation has to do something about time. What i mean is that it was supposed that every 108 minutes someone pushed the button to restart something. What if that restart actually is a time-back travel, so that is why women can’t have their babies and die, because it’s like they are going back again, so the baby couldn’t complete their evolution because time is affecting them.
I also wondered if that girl on the freighter i think her name was regina…had the sickness and that is why she jumped ship..
Hi lostfan, This is from a post I made in Just for Fun about the sickness. Hope it helps.
I learned through watching the re-run of
If we were to believe Juliet, the medicine Claire received while pregnant were not for the same sickness Robert and the other Frenchies had.
In the season three episode ‘One of Us’ Claire gets sick and Juliet tells Jack she can help. Here’s what she says about the meds Claire was on:
“JULIET: Claire’s immune system is turning on her, she’s having a latent reaction to a medication in her bloodstream.
JACK: What medication?
JULIET: It was designed to keep her alive during the late stages of her pregnancy.
JACK: Designed by who?
JULIET: By me. For some reason, the women here can’t have babies. The mother’s body turns on the pregnancy, treats it as a foreign invader. I saw it happen over and over. Every pregnant woman on this Island died.”
NOTE – We know Juliet was acting on Ben’s behalf at this point and nothing she says should be taken at face value, but it’s on record…
When you think about it, the only reason we’re calling it the sickness is because rousseau called it the sickness. And the only reason she thinks its the sickness is because she has no schema to differentiate otherwise. Think about it. She gets to this Island. A plume of smoke pulls a man into a temple. The others go into the temple. When they come out they’re “not themselves.”
What it looks like is not so much a sickness, but some kind of understanding of the Island, perhaps even a need to protect it (Her lover says “Its not a monster, its a security system designed to protect that temple,” who knows what else he saw down there). The symptons are an apparent murderous twitch, or, at the very least, a desire to murder Rousseau.
As to why Rousseau doesn’t have it, Jin did not let her go into the Temple, remember.
I was thinking that what rouseau’s team had was something entirely different than temporal displacement actually.
I also thought all the quarintine labels were for the same thing rouseau’s team had also…………..if it was temporal displacement I don’t think quarantine could protect them nor a hazmat suit…………….
Damon…good facts….Didn’t someone bring a case of innoculations to the beach for claire…and are these the same innoculations that Juliet gave her?
Shanimal- interesting idea…………I did think though that there was a small gap in time between the team being pulled into the temple and the scene on the beach with the sickness….
yes I remember that Jin and Rouseau did not go into the temple but if that is where it comes from then why quarantine and hazmat protection…. That is the real reason I wonder how rouseau did not get it….if everyone else had to be quarantined. I realize this may not have happened until later though.
I relate the sickness and the happenings to her team, now, more to smokey. That is why she will not travel to the dark territory. The sickness is smokey taking over and using the knowledge that the person had to its advantage. The only thing I dont get is…why? Why doesnt it just kill them? Its obviously capable, why the ‘host’ what is the hidden agenda? Is the smoke monster trying to leave the island? Is it trying to make it to true civilization? Is there more of a connection with smokey and the island being hidden than we were originally led to believe? Am I ever going to stop asking questions?
LOL A.E.S- you sound like me.
Great thinking A.E.S. As far as the quarantine and the hazmat, perhaps we should take a word from Ben: “Dharma is a bunch of silly scientists doing silly experiments.” Have we really seen ANY MENTION of quarantine and hazmat beyond the swan or Rousseau’s manic ramblings?
If not, then they quarantine and hazmat are most likely an elaborate ruse designed to ensure that the button pushers remain below ground, and that others don’t interfere with the button pushers. If they are TRULY needed (as it appeared) to push that button (for whatever reason) than elaborate methods would have to be designed to ensure that they stay beneath ground, and, more importantly, that no one interferes.
I read in interesting theory about this. One to do with Faraday. There was a promo shot that had taken out one of his feet. They were saying this is a nod to the foot statue, saying Faraday went back in time and with his technological knowledge of the future he would naturally be seen as some magical being by an earlier civilisation and he was worshiped and the temple etc are all in honour of him. He could have got the smoke monster from the future, brought it back to protect the temple. It sounds far fetched but I cant think of any other theories regarding the temple and statue.
Its great fun to hypothesise anyway!
I went back and watched the season 1 episode “Solitary” to find out exactly what Rousseau tells Sayid when they first encounter.
Rousseau: …so we made camp, dug out a temporary shelter. Nearly two months we survived here, two months before
I’d like to throw in a thoery of mine, which I don’t necessarily believe in, but to me just demonstrates how the many pieces of the puzzle we see can be made into different pictures.
I think most of us agree “the sickness” is not necessarily (though possibly) a genuine disease, but Rouseau’s interpretation of the events.
Now, as we have seen and A.E.S mentions there seems to be a connection between smokey and the sickness. so, what if smokey indeed is the cause and source of the sickness, but serves nothing more than a carrier? what if smokey’s violent behaviour has more to do with it being sick itself than being ill-intended? what if it is more suffering than trying to inflict pain?
Again, I don’t necessarily believe in this but then again it seems to me that though we generally attribute smokey with wants and needs, we rarely consider that maybe smokey is perhaps lost and clueless much in the way the human characters are…
The idea might be foolish and uneducated, but still… maybe smokey doesn’t have an agenda?
I was thinking more that the sickness is on the level of a possession by the smoke monster. It takes control of the person, but still carries the knowledge the person had, alive or dead. By doing this, the sickness is viewed by Danielle as a mental sickness. She probably thinks it drives people mad and makes them do things that they normally wouldnt do. (which it does) But I dont think the people are in control at all. I think they are dead or hell, on a broader note, maybe it forces their concienceness out into another time in their life, and takes over the body as a host. It seems as if the smoke monster, not necesarrily has real thoughts, but at least emotion. The way it chooses, it seems to understand. When Ben releases it, it goes right for the freighter team and annilhates them. When we see it go to Eko, it seems to almost tell him something…before it kills him. I never viewed Smokey as technology, at least the kind we are used to. I dont see it as much of a security system either, more of a guard dog, if it needs to be associated with protecting the island. When the first of Danielles team got pulled in and lost his arm, he immediatly snaped out of the fear he was in and called for help. I think this was a ruse by Smokey trying to lure the rest of the team into the hole. I just cannot for the life of me figure out the motivation.
But that motivation could be based on what people are doing on the island inn the first place. What was the purpose of their team? Were they on the way to the island, trying to find it, or just happen to crash there? It didnt kill Locke, why? Because Locke is there out of good nature to save the island…just for the record, Im speculating more than theorizing here
Just a thought on Rousseau’s team. I believe they went insane, upon their encounter with Smokey, and whatever occurred in that hole.
Cerebus, the three-headed dog, guardian of the Underworld!
Dabs- good thought….I was thinking that rouseaus team may have encountered the sickness from the temple and not from sm0key…..also meaning here that the sickness is insanity.
…They may have entered and seen the face of ..whatever.. and it was too much for their minds to take …..much like the face of god would be…….
well its an out there idea anyway…
some great brainstorms in here!!
wookie- I do think the others have played a part with the sickness…..maybe they are carriers..
lostfan, good thoughts! Expand on them in a theory.
Hello everybody, well this is my first time in this post. And well I think that Rousseau was immune to this sickness because of the innoculation for pregnancy. I think that this innoculation has to do something about time. What i mean is that it was supposed that every 108 minutes someone pushed the button to restart something. What if that restart actually is a time-back travel, so that is why women can’t have their babies and die, because it’s like they are going back again, so the baby couldn’t complete their evolution because time is affecting them.