Lost S5, Part IV, Episode 13, Scene 108

[Shryke]

You don't think Dharma is a villainous group already in the '70s? At least on the island they seem pretty villainous to me.

Their not exactly NICE, but what's villainous about DHARMA in the 70s?

At worst, they are pissing off a few locals on a random island in the pacific.

[red snow]

I stumbled upon an idea for who the third factor may be this afternoon while idly talking to my girlfriend about it. Here goes;

What if they are agents of Daniel Faraday?

At the end of the episode we witnessed Daniel returning to the island from the sub, meaning he has been out and about in in the late 70s. What if he has decided that the only way to save Charlotte is to set up his own little group? The contents of the third groups box could also be key to bringing everyone back to the present. Maybe he needs a future anchor or something?

That's my crazy idea. Hopefully you guys can mull it over while we wait for the answer in a couple of weeks.

[awesome possum]

Did anyone else notice that the Dharma vans sound very similar to the noise Smokey makes?

[Fatuous]

Their not exactly NICE, but what's villainous about DHARMA in the 70s?

At worst, they are pissing off a few locals on a random island in the pacific.

There's always Radinzsky but I'm not sure if "mad dog crazy" is the same as villainous.

Red Snow

What if they are agents of Daniel Faraday?

I don't recall if Daniel was in the right frame of mind to see the statue so I don't know if he could be said to be behind them 100% but I like the way you think.

How about Elie or rather Ms. Hawking?

Maybe we should look at the phrase itself: "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" Codewords, passwords or a riddle? If it's a riddle then there's two meanings of the word "lies", isn't there? And then there's the use of the word "shadow" which is certainly suggestive...

[Slurktan]

Their not exactly NICE, but what's villainous about DHARMA in the 70s?

At worst, they are pissing off a few locals on a random island in the pacific.

There is a "truce" that they are deliberately going aginst, not only in the occasional odd deed, but permanently. Given that the Others have been shown doing nothing to Dharma except when Dharma breaks the Truce, I'd consider that underhanded. They are lying to some of their own people and putting them in danger while doing what they want with the stations. They act nice and benevolent but it's just a veneer, see Horace and his Circle of TRust friendship which means concealing a dead body.

Put it all together and yes that seems villainous to me.

[Scion of Valyria]

You don't think Dharma is a villainous group already in the '70s? At least on the island they seem pretty villainous to me.

I think villainous is a bit of a stretch. The militancy and secrecy of the upper levels of Dharmatown seems to be more of a security thing. The fact that the natives of the island are referred to as Hostiles (granted, not sure when this came into play) hints at a considerable amount of violence when they set up shop. Even with the Truce, they need to protect themselves (as neither side seems to follow the Truce by the book), and living in close quarters with people who really want you gone or dead will put a person into the mindset that Radzinsky, and apparently Horace and others are in. They aren't trying to wipe out the Others or destroy the Island, so I'm not sure how they can be construed as villainous.

ETA:

There is a "truce" that they are deliberately going aginst, not only in the occasional odd deed, but permanently. Given that the Others have been shown doing nothing to Dharma except when Dharma breaks the Truce, I'd consider that underhanded. They are lying to some of their own people and putting them in danger while doing what they want with the stations. They act nice and benevolent but it's just a veneer, see Horace and his Circle of TRust friendship which means concealing a dead body.

Put it all together and yes that seems villainous to me.

What about those two Others who killed the Dharma man and were about to rape the woman that Sawyer shot (and consequently diffused the situation by chatting with Richard)? I don't remember one hundred percent, but I don't believe that was Dharma initiated. And the body is probably just to prevent panic and keep focused. Moral or ethical, no. But it's better than preventing a panic, which could easily be seen as a breach of the the peace in less informed members of Dharma.

[Shryke]

Yeah, at best they are underhanded. They don't have any EVIL plans or anything, they just don't like the Natives getting in their way.

[Caligula_K]

I agree with the majority. Dharma may be slightly sinister, and they may be messing around with forces that they don't understand and that shouldn't be messed with (which will probably cause the Incident), but I wouldn't call them "evil." Hopefully neo-Dharma, if it is neo-Dharma, won't be evil either. One of the things that I love about how this show handled the Widmore/Ben feud was that it made it pretty clear that neither side was good or bad- they were just too men grappling for power, and depending on who you hear the story from, the other is the bad guy. Hopefully they'll go this route with Dharma.

One thing I'm confused about, though: If this new group is neo-Dharma, and if neo-Dharma isn't connected to Widmore, who after all would have been leader of the Others until after the Purge, how do we take all the info we've received which hints that Widmore was a major player in Dharma? I think Wert has said that Widmore was responsible for building a lot of the Dharma stuff on the island. I also just re-watched the season 4 episode Cabin Fever, and when Keamy (who works for Widmore) decides to implement secondary protocol (ie, to torch the whole island and kill everyone), the booklet he pulls out has a Dharma symbol. So, is there a Widmore-Dharma connection? Or will the writers just retcon that?

[awesome possum]

I wouldn't be surprised if Widmore approached Dharma or the other way around after he was banished. Don't know if they'd still be working together, but Bram did seem to have an early series Other creepyness vibe to him. It may be a possibility that Widmore is behind that, or had a hand in providing all the information to them after he felt he was betrayed by his people. He's already shown he's not above killing everyone on the island for the sake of vengeance, so who knows what he's capable of doing.

As for Dharma being evil, I don't think so. However, the blacksuits definitely have an overall military feel to them, and it's easy for outfits like that to be used for nefarious purposes.

Re: the two Others Sawyer and Juliet killed; they were definitely doing bad deeds but only after the Truce was broken by whats-her-name and her dead boyfriend.

[Slurktan]

What about those two Others who killed the Dharma man and were about to rape the woman that Sawyer shot (and consequently diffused the situation by chatting with Richard)? I don't remember one hundred percent, but I don't believe that was Dharma initiated. And the body is probably just to prevent panic and keep focused. Moral or ethical, no. But it's better than preventing a panic, which could easily be seen as a breach of the the peace in less informed members of Dharma.

Actually that was entirely Dharma breaking the truce. Those two were having a picnic where they weren't supposed to be (outside the security fence). Not only were the Others apparently within their rights to kill them both, Dharma broke the truce further by burying the two men. And they weren't going to rape her as far as I could tell but I could be wrong there. Sawyer had to diffuse the situation *because* Dharma broke the truce.

The motives behind that picnic seem strange at this point to me.

[Samalander]

All we've seen from Dharma so far are the low level peons and middle management (Horace, Miles' father). I speculate that :

a. The big fish are actually off-island. They are the only ones who know the true agenda.

b. Dharma are EVIL. They have a secret EVIL agenda. They were created that way.

As for good examples of the banality of EVIL organizations you can watch any of the "Austin Powers" movies, "Better off Ted" episodes, "Michael Clayton" or read Stephan King's "Dark Tower" books.

c. The Others are worried, but pretty sure that if they retain control of certain parts of the island they can thwart anything. Then, at some point, this changes, and they decide to kill everyone.

d. The real conflict is between the two forces represnted by "the Others" and "Dharma".

e. Dharma suffered a setback in the 80's when Ben killed off their island delegation but were already in full swing in the 90's pitting Ben and Widmore against each other, in effect, generating a civil war among "the Others" (and if Mathew Abaddon didn't have something to do with this, I'll eat my hat).

P.S

I don't care how long Luke and Darth Vader would have chatted in Hurley's utopian "The Empire Strikes Back" at that time they never would have seen eye to eye (one is Dark Side the other not) on anything.

[Shryke]

We already know DHARMA's agenda. It's to save the world.

[Demonblade]

Yeah, at best they are underhanded. They don't have any EVIL plans or anything, they just don't like the Natives getting in their way.

They conduct mysterious experiments with polar bears in a tropical climate, have some association with a nuclear weapon and deal with experiments in time travel. We have no idea as to their true purpose or even the reasons behind their experiments. So to say definitively that Dharma doesn't have any 'EVIL' plans is a bit premature. Ben and Widmore are vying for power, but are also trying to protect the island, from what that is remains unclear. I've always thought that Dharma's purpose on the island was something sinister and nothing I've seen this season has detracted from that view. As much as we've seen of Dharma this season, we still know very little of it.

[Demonblade]

We already know DHARMA's agenda. It's to save the world.

According to whom?

[Fatuous]

All we've seen from Dharma so far are the low level peons and middle management (Horace, Miles' father). I speculate that :

a. The big fish are actually off-island. They are the only ones who know the true agenda.

b. Dharma are EVIL. They have a secret EVIL agenda. They were created that way.

As for good examples of the banality of EVIL organizations you can watch any of the "Austin Powers" movies, "Better off Ted" episodes, "Michael Clayton" or read Stephan King's "Dark Tower" books.

c. The Others are worried, but pretty sure that if they retain control of certain parts of the island they can thwart anything. Then, at some point, this changes, and they decide to kill everyone.

d. The real conflict is between the two forces represnted by "the Others" and "Dharma".

e. Dharma suffered a setback in the 80's when Ben killed off their island delegation but were already in full swing in the 90's pitting Ben and Widmore against each other, in effect, generating a civil war among "the Others" (and if Mathew Abaddon didn't have something to do with this, I'll eat my hat).

I don't believe Dr. Chang is middle management; Besides the matter of his PhD, the whole "alias" issue seems kind of sneaky because he doesn't want his real name to be documented on the Island.

It hasn't been confirmed yet but it appears that it was Widmore who wanted DHARMA off the Island and he was the man who ordered the Purge. But, the bigger question is who let them on the Island in the first place {Ms. Hawking, you're up...}. And the Purge happened in 92 and the Island fight between Ben and Widmore is a lot smaller than it actually seems as it was only going on for about 12 years yet someone made use of it in 2004 and 2007.

Do I have to write a list of suspects here? Who knew Ben and Charles personally and was last seen in a DHARMA station? :dunce:

Abaddon?

:idea:

I think my brain just broke...

[Scion of Valyria]

According to whom?

I believe some members of DHARMA themselves, post-Incident.

And thanks for the correction on the encounter between the Others and the two Dharma. I didn't remember them being in Others territory. Still, I wouldn't really say that initiation of the conflict was truly nefarious by any means. Just fucking stupid.

[Demonblade]

I believe some members of DHARMA themselves, post-Incident.

Well not to resort to invoking Godwin's Law, but I'm pretty sure that Hitler thought he was doing the right thing by trying to eradicate the Jews. Just because he didn't think he was a murdering psychopath, doesn't absolve him of the distinction.

[Shryke]

According to whom?

The Lost Experience details both the origin of the numbers and the purpose behind the DHARMA initiative.

Basically, the human race is gonna destroy itself and the DHARMA initiative's purpose is to conduct experiments in order to discover a way to change that.

[Fatuous]

Basically, the human race is gonna destroy itself and the DHARMA initiative's purpose is to conduct experiments in order to discover a way to change that.

So it's pretty convenient that they come across an Island with wacky Time Travel/Spatial properties and funky healing powers that could in no way save humanity but maybe one or two people. I suppose you could call them "Adam" and "Eve" if you're in a "Rod Serling" frame of mind...

However, it makes more sense to me the other way around: Not so much that DHARMA was formed to save the world but rather prepared right from the starting gate to study qualities of a theoretical, mystical land. Shangri La, Xanadu, Thule, so many names for the land that's always over the next horizon.

The proof? The Lamp Post {Hey, let's throw Narnia into the name pile. It's fictional but so what? Maybe Desmond will get back to the Island by entering a Wardrobe in Oxford :wideeyed: } which seems to be how DHARMA found the Island in the first place. From Wiki and ignoring the whole acronym aspect of the name which seems to be garbage anyway {Department of Heuristics and Research on Material Applications. Roughly it means they study problems and solutions. How vague, I should create a Think Tank like that, I wonder if I could get away with it}:

"In Indian languages it contextually implies one's religion. Throughout Indian philosophy, Dharma is presented as a central concept that is used in order to explain the "higher truth" or ultimate reality of the universe.

The word dharma literally translates as that which upholds or supports, and is generally translated into English as law."

Religion figuratively and laws literally. No wonder Locke was so interested in Dharma.

[SpaceChampion]

Dharma is a cult... all that namaste b.s. is to provide the peons with rationale to ignore what their brains are screaming to them when the upper management do their nefarious things and the peons choose to obey. Don't forget it wasn't the Others who built the brain-washing machine. This show is steeped in philosophy, but I think one point of the Dharma Initiative is to remind us that sometimes philosophies and religions proselytized to the peons aren't typically followed by the upper management types -- it's just another form of brain-washing, a convenient tool to control their underlings.