2 "Others" questions

[LovesToRead]

Number One - Are they the "good" guys? Just because Ben proclaims it to be so, doesn't make it so.

Number Two - Are there 2 groups of "Others"?

Discuss amongst yourselves

 

[snoochface]

There are two groups of Others.

As for whether or not Benry's group is the "good" one, I think that's still to be revealed. A lot depends on the other group, what they may have been responsible for that we have been attributing to Benry's commune group, if the two factions have been warring with each other, and who the other faction actually is.

I think it's very possible the jungle walkers are the ones who took the kids, hung Charlie, and messed with Locke's mind so he thought he needed to sacrifice Boone. They may be the whispery voices we hear that scared Danielle so much. They could be responsible for the monster that killed the pilot, if it's a different entity from the smoke that Eko faced down.

I think we just don't know enough about them yet to know which group, if any, is the good one.

 

[LovesToRead]

My preliminary thoughts...

We have seen several of the commune Others in the garb of the group we are referring to as the walking Others...

Zeke - in beard and so forth - meeting the group at the line in the sand. He had the people hiding in the bushes light up their torches - there were lots of them.

Miss Klugh (sp?) We have seen her in the fake village that Michael was brought to AND in the book club. She dressed rather differently in both places.

We saw Alex in the woods with Michael, questioning him about how Claire was, wearing the drab clothing. We saw her at the medical hatch, encouraging Claire to escape, can't remeber how she was dressed. We also saw Ethan, dressed normally and Zeke without his beard . Zeke was in normal clothing.

When Benry showed up at the dock scene - wasn't he wearing the drab, brown clothing? I'm not sure.

So, that leads me to believe that they aren't strictly 2 different groups, but that certain people play different roles at times.

Perhaps certain Others are kept hidden away, or are with the children.

 

[snoochface]

Heh, I don't know how to continue the discussion without using a spoiler tag.

 

[LovesToRead]

O.K. - I'm just going with what I've seen so far. I haven't watched any previews, even of this week's show, so thanks for not including something that's a spoiler.

Feel free to use a spoiler tag, but I won't read it until after this week or whenever it refers to.

Thanks again for the thoughtfulness.

 

[Thinker]

I have thought for a long time that the `Others' were under some sort of extreme mental conditioning (brainwashing). What had me puzzled (until looking over the `Lost Experience' Vids) was that conditioning of this sort is most often found in religious groups, but the Others appeared to be entirely secular.

With conditioning of this sort comes:

1) a belief that the group has the `real' truth;
2) that the group has the *only* possible solution (salvation in christian terminology);
3) a polarized worldview - all those outside of the group are corrupted or fallen and quite possibly active enemies of the group - only those in the group are `good';

plus a whole slew of other stuff pertaining to internal discipline, placing the groups dogma over reality, ect. Of these, one in particular seems relevant with the Others:

- denial of the past. If something happens that forces the groups views/dogma to change, and the group is not destroyed (disbanded) outright by this change, then what invariably happens is the adoption of a new view/dogma and the systematic effort to make it seem as though the new view was in fact the real view of the group all along (this actually happened a time or two in early christianity).

With this stance, the Others become former Dharma people who were once conditioned to accept the Dharma POV without question. But something happened that caused that view to change significantly. Rather than admit the change, they ... went into withdrawl, for want of a better term.

If there are two groups of Others, then the second group is probably more recently arrived, and much more strongly commited to Dharma's orginal purpose.

 

[BenAdam]

I think within the group that we see there are various factions. Ben seems to be a leader, but Juliett seems to be in something less of a good relationship with him, not to mention Alex who helped Claire escape.