Danielle Rousseau

There be quite a few puzzles associated with our darling Danielle, especially in light of season 3 thus far.

First off...Danielle had made a map of the entire island - but that map did not show `otherville'. How did she miss it?

Second...the hatches. Thus far, over the span of less than two months, our lostaways have blundered across no less than four hatches - two of them by accident. Yet Danielle claimed to know nothing of them.

Third - Danielles traps. SHe has these scattered across a large chunk of the island, and has been setting them for years. Yet, she doesn't appear to have bagged *anybody* with them until the lostaways crashed.

Fourth - Danielle knew that the `monster' was a security system and not a savage or supernatural beastie. *How* did she know this?

Fifth - Danielle *knew* for certain that `Benry' was an `Other' from the moment she captured him, and knew that he was deceptive in the extreme. How did she know this?

I can offer a bit of speculation. When Claire was kidnapped, she was unable to remember what had happened to her until weeks later, and even then the memories were hazy. Possibly something similiar happened to Danielle - except that she never really regained most of her memories of what happened when she was captured - but she did escape. Going out on a limb and firing up the chainsaw - possibly parts of her memory were hypnotically blocked?

Isn't Danielle the one who led Claire and Kate back to the medical hatch to help Claire regain her memory? So she did have some knowledge of at least one hatch.

It's an intriguing theory that she is a rogue Other. She tried to kidnap Aaron, she tried to give him up so the Others would leave her alone, in the Season 1 finale. She has that rope that leads from the ocean to her camp. She seems to know a lot, but reveals little. She's on the outskirts of everything, only showing up periodically and in ways that we never expect.

Her daughter is with the Others. I think there's a very good chance that she started with them too, and is either working with them to get information from the Losties to the Others, or is a rogue out on her own after a falling out.

Maybe she is now the leader of the jungle walkers, the other faction of Others that has been alluded to.

Except -- new thought -- she's the one who started the 16 year transmission that we heard in the opening episodes. Was that a trick as well? I think maybe so. How is it possible that with all the com the Others were talking about (which is apparently gone now that Swan imploded) they would not have known about and stopped that transmission over the course of 16 years??

Yes, there is more to Danielle than meets the eye. We have continued to discover new twists and turns with her.

It was kind of surprising to me that she didn't reveal that she was trying to help Claire sooner than she did. I mean, I would think that she could have come to the Losties beach and talked peacefully to someone there.

I trust her more now, in some ways, but still feel she's hiding lots of things.

And why is her daughter a rouge and yet that doesn't seem to be a problem to the Others. They don't seem to punish her or try to rehabilitate her, they let her be.

She was also certain Sayid was an Other too.

I've always been suspicious of Danielle. Too much of her doesn't add up.

More on that later.

Thinker said:

Third - Danielles traps. SHe has these scattered across a large chunk of the island, and has been setting them for years. Yet, she doesn't appear to have bagged *anybody* with them until the lostaways crashed.

Click to expand...

We don't know for sure she hasn't caught anyone, though. For all we know some of the Others have gotten caught and been rescued before Danielle came along, or maybe the traps are more to catch food, and the Losties are the first people on the island clumsy enough to be caught, then Benry got caught on purpose?



Another thing I've always wondered about Danielle. If Alex was taken when she was just born, how do the Others know her name? The assumption is that Danielle would have told them somehow ("No! Don't take Alex!"), but they may offer another suggestion.

Ah, Danielle. I've been missing that crazy french lady, I hooe she comes back soon!

As for her not catching an other, think about it. The other's lived in their little community, why would they be in the jungle?

I don't think Danielle is an other. She didn't know where the medical hatch was, she had to be shown the way. If she was an other why not get all the losties togeather and raid their homes, she'd know where they live.

Huge one that I forgot about: if all her team members died of a sickness, why is she the only one that survived?

EDIT:
Does the sickness affect only men? Is that why they vaccinated Aaron, but not Claire? Is that why Danielle survived?

FatBurger said:

Huge one that I forgot about: if all her team members died of a sickness, why is she the only one that survived?

EDIT:
Does the sickness affect only men? Is that why they vaccinated Aaron, but not Claire? Is that why Danielle survived?

Click to expand...

As for the Aaron/Claire, I remember one of the Others telling claire they didn't have enough vaccine for both of them...

Ever since the episode with the `medical hatch', I've had a suspicion about why Danielle survived the `sickness' and her teammates (apparently) did not.

When Claire was in the hatch, the others were determined to innoculate baby Aaron with something - but didn't have enough for baby and mommy both. Assume that what they were going to inject Aaron with was a cure for the `sickness'. Also remember the others had Claire shot up so full of drugs she couldn't remember a thing for weeks afterwards.

Then go back sixteen years. This time it is Danielle that is kidnapped from her team while pregnant. Her baby gets the `cure' as well - and because the others have more of the `cure' on hand, so does Danielle. Then somehow Danielle escapes - but without her baby. Or maybe she escapes with the baby, returns to her camp, then has the baby taken from her at a later date.

One of the implications of this is that sixteen years ago, the `sickness' was a very real menace to those on the island. So...has it gone away for good? Or is it merely laying dormant somewhere? The others who kidnapped Claire certainly seemed to think it was still active.