Cindy and The Children (possible spoilers for Season 6)

[RoJoHen]

What happened to them? How did they become Others? Were they taken to the Temple and stuck in the crazy healing water? Were they brainwashed in that room from Season 3 where Sawyer and Kate rescued Alex's boyfriend?

More importantly, do you think we're actually going to find out before the show is over?

 

[CaptainWacky]

I'm starting to doubt we'll find out the answers to these type of questions after the "only the questions that matter to the characters will be answered" type statements from the producers. Some kind of brain-washing seems the most likely answer.

Remember when Jack was in the bear cage and Cindy was watching and he asked why she was there and she said "we're here to watch" and Jack said "IF YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING TO WATCH, GO WATCH IT!"? Good times.

 

[Mallet]

No, I think this is a fairly important question.

It seems the Others were taking who they thought to be "good people" to join them. I don't think they brainwashed them, rather they just gave them the answers and explained things to them. I mean if they brainwashed all the people who joined them, then every one of them would be brainwashed, right? It doesn't seem that way to me. I think the answer will be something cryptic like "they had their eyes opened" so they joined with the Others.

I imagine it will be the same thing with whoever ends up being Jacob's replacement. Like Jack for example, it will/has taken a long time for him to come around, but soon he'll probably never want to leave the island. It will become his home. Just like "The Others."

What did Jacob say last episode? "Some people you can just tell them in a cab and they'll do it, other have to stare at the ocean for awhile." Cindy, and the other people taken just had to be told/show the Island and they accepted it. Jack and the rest had to find it for themselves.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I assumed room 23 brainwashed them

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

I don't think we are. A lot of things about 'The Others' were just pointlessly convoluted stuff Damon and Carlton thought up to fill time. At one point during the endless "Living With The Others" stuff in Season 3, a tv critic asked Damon, if Ben wanted the surgery the whole time, why he didn't just offer the Losties shelter and food in exchange for the surgery instead of such a convoluted long-winding plan, and Damon's response was "that wouldn't make a very good mystery show" or something.

Basically there was never any logical reason for most of the weirdness surrounding The Others. Why were they wearing makeup and costumes? For whose benefit? The Losties? They set up an ENTIRE camp so michael would be fooled? What about the scenes when they don't know they're being watched, why are they dressed like savages then? There was no real logic to it, it was just to create more "mystery" around them.

I think the only explanation we're going to get is "Jacob told them to" (or, Richard told them via proxy).

I love most of LOST, but 90% of what I don't like it almost always based around the boring-ass Others. Only when Richard's "age" was revealed did they seem remotely interesting.

 

[Mallet]

^ Yah, the switch of the Other's from being backwoods crazy people, to being scientists in disguise as backwoods crazy people, is I think the biggest change to Lost's over all plot/storyline that the writers went through in Season Two. This big change in the direction of the show still causes logic problems.

And it would have been simple to answer. All they need to say was that there was a large group of backwoods crazy people living on the island, and they were being paid/working for the new group of scientists who had set up a small colony on the far side of the island. That way you kept both the Dharma Others and the crazy, backwoods looking Others.

 

[Lindley]

^ Yah, the switch of the Other's from being backwoods crazy people, to being scientists in disguise as backwoods crazy people, is I think the biggest change to Lost's over all plot/storyline that the writers went through in Season Two. This big change in the direction of the show still causes logic problems.

And it would have been simple to answer. All they need to say was that there was a large group of backwoods crazy people living on the island, and they were being paid/working for the new group of scientists who had set up a small colony on the far side of the island. That way you kept both the Dharma Others and the crazy, backwoods looking Others.

Or maybe the Others are actually backwoods crazy people, disguising themselves as scientists.

 

[RoJoHen]

I think the backwards crazy people are and have always been the real Others. It's the Dharma people, with Ben as their leader, that sort of infiltrated the Others and set up camp. Ben is the one who has been bringing the scientists to the island and "recruiting" new Others. However, the backward crazy Others are still there running around.

 

[Checkmate]

Except the leader of the Other Others is a crazy scientist-type that was brought to the island.

 

[Mallet]

Yah, and Widmore wasn't "from the Island" either, yet he was their leader and even way before Ben's time (in the 1950's) they were living in nice tents, and Richard was well dressed, etc... Richard left the Island and fit in perfectly well modern society in 1954, so the "Others" must have been fairly advanced and not "Backwood crazy people" for a long time.

 

[Hober Mallow]

More importantly, do you think we're actually going to find out before the show is over?

The answer is no.

 

[CaptainWacky]

The thing I want to know about the Others is why they're such pricks and so willing and eager to kill people (like Dogen being ready to kill Jack, Hurley etc until he saw the list this season.) Maybe Jacob told them to be pricks?

 

[Checkmate]

I think they've been trying to imply lately that they're all just paranoid of Smokey and the people he infects. It's lame, especially since they're apparently followers of Jacob who's all prophetic and shit, but it's about the only thing that makes any sense.

 

[Mallet]

Or maybe it's more of a "if your not with us, your against us" kind of mentality. So if you are not invited, brought there by Jacob, or the like, then they kill you out of hand. Just so there is one thing less to worry about.

 

[RoJoHen]

Perhaps, but who decides if Jacob brought you there or not? I only ask because it's obvious that Jacob DID bring the Losties to the Island.