i'm not having anyone talk about me in the past tense!
(Probably already done this subject title, but I love it so I'm using it again.)
I just spent an hour and twenty minutes re-alphabetizing the videos at the library. My brain is kind of dead. (See, Bella? They don't give me cool jobs to do all of the time.) Thankfully, I wrote most of this entry last night when I was in a Comparison/Conspiracy Theory mood. That is a dangerous mood for me to be in, as you'll soon see from the rest of this entry.
Because I've given up on re-reading the Final Fantasy VII script again (because once you get to the middle of Disc 2, things just start to get a little confusing/ridiculous), I've instead decided to delve into the Final Fantasy VIII script, which has its own share of confusing ridiculousness (I remember my first time reading it, and all of a sudden they were in outer space and Rinoa was a sorceress and I was like "WTF IS GOING ON HERE?" and suddenly getting visions of when they go into outer space in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator) But at least Squall is a normal person, not like the main characters of VII and X (in which Cloud is a failed Sephiroth clone and Tidus is a "dream of the fayth"). And if I were a Final Fantasy character I would probably be Squall, except with a little less angst (he has thoughts very similar to Harry idea of "the more you care about, the more you have to lose" in the OotP movie).
Anyway, FFVIII features lots of time-traveling type events, and I can't help but see the similarities between the time-travel of FFVIII and Lost.
- In FFVIII there is a character, Ellone, who is able to send the consciousnesses of people she knows in the future to the consciousnesses of those whom she knew in the past. The main character, Squall, is one whom Ellone often sends back to the past so that he can learn about events in Laguna (who is supposedly his father, although it's not stated directly in the game)'s life. This sounds an awful lot like how Desmond's consciousness kept drifting back and forth between 1996 (the past) and 2004 (the present) when he first arrives on the freighter on Lost.
- Ellone tries to change the past when she does this, but she realizes that she can't change the future by changing the past. Desmond also discovers this on Lost when he's sent back in time after detonating the Swan station: he tries to change his future by changing his past and proposing to Penny, but he soon learns that the past and future are set, and even if he does do something that would change the future's events, the universe would course-correct itself so that the future happens the way it's supposed to.
- The main villain of FFVIII, Ultimecia, is a sorceress who lives in the future but possesses sorcerors of the present. In order to defeat Ultimecia, "time compression" magic must be used. Time compression makes the past, present, and future all mixed together so that Squall and co. can travel to the future and defeat Ultimecia. Laguna tells Squall and co. that "Ultimecia lives far in the future where none of us can technically exist. There's only one way to make yourself exist in a world like that! As friends, don't forget one another! As friends, believe in one another! Believe in your friends' existence! And they'll also believe in yours... What place reminds you of your friends? Imagine being in that place with all your friends. Once time compression begins, think of that place and try to get there!" This is a bit similar to what Faraday says about "constants" on Lost: when one's consciousness keeps traveling between the past and present, the only way to stop it is to have a constant (someone or something that is important to you in the past and present), or else you'll die becaue your brain can't handle it. When Desmond's consciousness is moving back and forth in time, he makes Penny his constant, contacting her in the past so he can contact her in the present to stop his time-traveling brain. Faraday is adamant in that a person's constant must be something that he or she really cares about, which is similar to what Laguna says about remembering the friends that you love in order to travel through time compression and into the future. (Of course, this makes one wonder why Faraday chose Desmond as his constant "if anything goes wrong" - how deeply does he care about Des? Because that would seriously mess up my OTP and my second-most OTP.)
- After time compression ends after Ultimecia's defeat, Squall ends up in a desert. On Lost, after Ben turns the Frozen Donkey Wheel in the Orchid Station and moves the island (perhaps in time as well as in space), he appears approximately 11 months into the future... in the Sahara Desert. Coincidence? (Or fate?)
Pictoral evidence of that last point:
^ Squall in a desert after time compression ends
^ Ben in the Sahara Desert after moving the island
So what can one conclude from all of this? I think that in the Lost universe, there is a character, like Ellone in FFVIII, who can send people's consciousnesses around in time. Or maybe certain people can send their own consciousnesses around in time - maybe those who have been exposed to radiation or electromagnetism, as Faraday suggests in episode 4x05, "The Constant." That would explain Desmond, who undoubtedly experienced lots of electromagnetism when the Swan station detonated, and Faraday himself, who used lots of radiation in his time-traveling-consciousness experiments while working at Oxford. Going along with this theory, this could mean interesting things for Ben, who may have been exposed to a lot of electromagnetism while turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel, since moving the island caused another electromagnetic anomaly similar to that which occurred after the Swan station's detonation. After all, we've seen Ben in the future coming in contact with Sayid, Widmore, and Jack - but what if what we've seen has been the result of Ben's consciousness moving between the present (the very end of 2004) and the future (October 2005 and onward - so far, as late as 2007 or 2008, since Ben talks to Jack after Kate says it's been three years since they've left the island). Ben didn't leave the island in a conventional way (not like the Oceanic Six's rescue), so maybe he's physically stuck somewhere (maybe on the island, maybe elsewhere) while his consciousness bounces around in time. (What would Ben's constant be, I wonder? It can't be Juliet because she's presumably still on the island during Ben's adventures in the off-island future.) Or perhaps it's the opposite of what Desmond experienced after causing the electromagnetic anomaly that detonated the Swan: Desmond experienced his past, so now Ben's experiencing the opposite by experiencing his future. The mind boggles with possibilities. All I hope is that we get at least one more episode featuring time travel in Season 5. I also want to find out how Faraday works into all of time travel - after all, he's seen in 1996 working in Oxford and sending the consciousness of a mouse into the future (though that might be just like how Juliet impregnated a male field mouse - it's a demonstration of their Speshal Abilities). I have a feeling that January 2009 is not going to come quickly enough.
Also? I'm in the process of sporking the second draft of "The Power of Light" (I'd love to do the first draft, because I think it's much more spork-worthy, but it's not typed up and there is no way that I'm going to go through the pain of typing up that abomination word-for-word just so that I can mock it) with the help of Karis (because sporkers often employ characters of existing fandoms or their own characters to help in the sporkage). It's been a lot of fun; I might later post it (or bits of it) here. I'm especially excited because I just fit in one of my favorite How I Met Your Mother references: "We are International Businessmen on a lucrative trip to Japan!" I also make a Princess Consuela Bananahammock reference and multiple references to Lost, Final Fantasy X, and Harry Potter. I mainly do the references and other miscellaneous stuff (including turning a fight scene into a poorly-written sex scene), while Karis questions the general logic of things and laments how much the story rapes her universe (because it was written before I really came up with good world travel/interworld contact).
Speaking of sporking, I was shelving Eldest at the library today and I was thinking that somebody should seriously do a spork of that and Eragon. I have a feeling that would be very amusing.
I just spent an hour and twenty minutes re-alphabetizing the videos at the library. My brain is kind of dead. (See, Bella? They don't give me cool jobs to do all of the time.) Thankfully, I wrote most of this entry last night when I was in a Comparison/Conspiracy Theory mood. That is a dangerous mood for me to be in, as you'll soon see from the rest of this entry.
Because I've given up on re-reading the Final Fantasy VII script again (because once you get to the middle of Disc 2, things just start to get a little confusing/ridiculous), I've instead decided to delve into the Final Fantasy VIII script, which has its own share of confusing ridiculousness (I remember my first time reading it, and all of a sudden they were in outer space and Rinoa was a sorceress and I was like "WTF IS GOING ON HERE?" and suddenly getting visions of when they go into outer space in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator) But at least Squall is a normal person, not like the main characters of VII and X (in which Cloud is a failed Sephiroth clone and Tidus is a "dream of the fayth"). And if I were a Final Fantasy character I would probably be Squall, except with a little less angst (he has thoughts very similar to Harry idea of "the more you care about, the more you have to lose" in the OotP movie).
Anyway, FFVIII features lots of time-traveling type events, and I can't help but see the similarities between the time-travel of FFVIII and Lost.
- In FFVIII there is a character, Ellone, who is able to send the consciousnesses of people she knows in the future to the consciousnesses of those whom she knew in the past. The main character, Squall, is one whom Ellone often sends back to the past so that he can learn about events in Laguna (who is supposedly his father, although it's not stated directly in the game)'s life. This sounds an awful lot like how Desmond's consciousness kept drifting back and forth between 1996 (the past) and 2004 (the present) when he first arrives on the freighter on Lost.
- Ellone tries to change the past when she does this, but she realizes that she can't change the future by changing the past. Desmond also discovers this on Lost when he's sent back in time after detonating the Swan station: he tries to change his future by changing his past and proposing to Penny, but he soon learns that the past and future are set, and even if he does do something that would change the future's events, the universe would course-correct itself so that the future happens the way it's supposed to.
- The main villain of FFVIII, Ultimecia, is a sorceress who lives in the future but possesses sorcerors of the present. In order to defeat Ultimecia, "time compression" magic must be used. Time compression makes the past, present, and future all mixed together so that Squall and co. can travel to the future and defeat Ultimecia. Laguna tells Squall and co. that "Ultimecia lives far in the future where none of us can technically exist. There's only one way to make yourself exist in a world like that! As friends, don't forget one another! As friends, believe in one another! Believe in your friends' existence! And they'll also believe in yours... What place reminds you of your friends? Imagine being in that place with all your friends. Once time compression begins, think of that place and try to get there!" This is a bit similar to what Faraday says about "constants" on Lost: when one's consciousness keeps traveling between the past and present, the only way to stop it is to have a constant (someone or something that is important to you in the past and present), or else you'll die becaue your brain can't handle it. When Desmond's consciousness is moving back and forth in time, he makes Penny his constant, contacting her in the past so he can contact her in the present to stop his time-traveling brain. Faraday is adamant in that a person's constant must be something that he or she really cares about, which is similar to what Laguna says about remembering the friends that you love in order to travel through time compression and into the future. (Of course, this makes one wonder why Faraday chose Desmond as his constant "if anything goes wrong" - how deeply does he care about Des? Because that would seriously mess up my OTP and my second-most OTP.)
- After time compression ends after Ultimecia's defeat, Squall ends up in a desert. On Lost, after Ben turns the Frozen Donkey Wheel in the Orchid Station and moves the island (perhaps in time as well as in space), he appears approximately 11 months into the future... in the Sahara Desert. Coincidence? (Or fate?)
Pictoral evidence of that last point:
^ Squall in a desert after time compression ends
^ Ben in the Sahara Desert after moving the island
So what can one conclude from all of this? I think that in the Lost universe, there is a character, like Ellone in FFVIII, who can send people's consciousnesses around in time. Or maybe certain people can send their own consciousnesses around in time - maybe those who have been exposed to radiation or electromagnetism, as Faraday suggests in episode 4x05, "The Constant." That would explain Desmond, who undoubtedly experienced lots of electromagnetism when the Swan station detonated, and Faraday himself, who used lots of radiation in his time-traveling-consciousness experiments while working at Oxford. Going along with this theory, this could mean interesting things for Ben, who may have been exposed to a lot of electromagnetism while turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel, since moving the island caused another electromagnetic anomaly similar to that which occurred after the Swan station's detonation. After all, we've seen Ben in the future coming in contact with Sayid, Widmore, and Jack - but what if what we've seen has been the result of Ben's consciousness moving between the present (the very end of 2004) and the future (October 2005 and onward - so far, as late as 2007 or 2008, since Ben talks to Jack after Kate says it's been three years since they've left the island). Ben didn't leave the island in a conventional way (not like the Oceanic Six's rescue), so maybe he's physically stuck somewhere (maybe on the island, maybe elsewhere) while his consciousness bounces around in time. (What would Ben's constant be, I wonder? It can't be Juliet because she's presumably still on the island during Ben's adventures in the off-island future.) Or perhaps it's the opposite of what Desmond experienced after causing the electromagnetic anomaly that detonated the Swan: Desmond experienced his past, so now Ben's experiencing the opposite by experiencing his future. The mind boggles with possibilities. All I hope is that we get at least one more episode featuring time travel in Season 5. I also want to find out how Faraday works into all of time travel - after all, he's seen in 1996 working in Oxford and sending the consciousness of a mouse into the future (though that might be just like how Juliet impregnated a male field mouse - it's a demonstration of their Speshal Abilities). I have a feeling that January 2009 is not going to come quickly enough.
Also? I'm in the process of sporking the second draft of "The Power of Light" (I'd love to do the first draft, because I think it's much more spork-worthy, but it's not typed up and there is no way that I'm going to go through the pain of typing up that abomination word-for-word just so that I can mock it) with the help of Karis (because sporkers often employ characters of existing fandoms or their own characters to help in the sporkage). It's been a lot of fun; I might later post it (or bits of it) here. I'm especially excited because I just fit in one of my favorite How I Met Your Mother references: "We are International Businessmen on a lucrative trip to Japan!" I also make a Princess Consuela Bananahammock reference and multiple references to Lost, Final Fantasy X, and Harry Potter. I mainly do the references and other miscellaneous stuff (including turning a fight scene into a poorly-written sex scene), while Karis questions the general logic of things and laments how much the story rapes her universe (because it was written before I really came up with good world travel/interworld contact).
Speaking of sporking, I was shelving Eldest at the library today and I was thinking that somebody should seriously do a spork of that and Eragon. I have a feeling that would be very amusing.