I have issues with Richard. Help. (SPOILERS)

Marcaiocht_Tonn

I've always liked Richard, something that was reinforced by his cool backstory in Ab Aeterno and getting his own epic theme tune.

He's also been one of the most mysterious characters on the island, and the way his story wrapped up - i.e. finally being able to age, and the burden of imortality lifted off him - was perfect in my opinion. For me he was always set apart from the rest of The Others as an almost otherworldly entity - something that was explained well in the scene where Jacob recruits him. He was almost an embodiment of the island's mystery.

But I have an issue. Towards the end of the series Richard is presented to us in this "tragic hero" light, a man who lost his wife and tried to do good for Jacob, be a guiding influence on people who came to the island, then felt disheartened and thought all was lost(:cool:) and ultimately tried to help defeat the MIB at the end.

However, didn't he take part in the Dharma purge? Doesn't that rise him up in the evil stakes with MIB, Mikhail, Keamy etc.? Grrr

jimbling

I was under the impression Jacob was responsible for the Dharma Purge. Basically they got too close. So Richard was just following the orders of the Great One

MisterAnarchy

jimbling wrote: »

I was under the impression Jacob was responsible for the Dharma Purge. Basically they got too close. So Richard was just following the orders of the Great One

Yes I think it was Jacob that ordered that ,a bit strange in hindsight as it would make him a bloodthirsty mass murderer and not the nice guy he was portrayed to be later in the series.
It couldnt have been MIB pretending to be Jacob as Richard knew who MIB was.
I guess Jacob was taking a leaf out of his mothers book by wiping out a village.

TonyD79

Didnt both parties- Dharma and MIB's villagers want to use/exploit the Islands light/energy source thus the only way around it was too remove them by force?

Jay Ru

what evidence is there to suggest that Jacob ordered the purge? i'm not having a go here i'm just curious?

Livvie

Did they explain why Richard never aged?

He wasn't a candidate, and not everyone on the island stayed young, so did I miss something?

TonyD79

Yeh you obviously missed the whole episode explaining his back story!!!!:rolleyes: He asked Jacob could he live forever.

jimbling

Jay Ru wrote: »

what evidence is there to suggest that Jacob ordered the purge? i'm not having a go here i'm just curious?

Evidence? I doubt there is any.... well no more than "Circumstantial Evidence" anyway.
But Richard organized the Purge, and he took his orders from Jacob. I really doubt Richard would do it of his own volition.

At the very least it was probably a case of
Jacob: "If the Dharma guys break the truce and start building some fcking crazy hatch then you will have to deal with them"
Richard: "Okay....what do you want me to do?"
Jacob:"Just deal with them Richard, don't be such a big girls blouse"
:pac:

Seriously though...
I think the 2000y old purge of the villagers in ep15 was a nod that Jacob was probably responsible for the purge of Dharma. Obviously you do not have to agree in any way.... it is open to interpretation and this is just my opinion... which I am almost afraid to give lately.

minotour

jimbling wrote: »

I think the 2000y old purge of the villagers in ep15 was a nod that Jacob was probably responsible for the purge of Dharma. Obviously you do not have to agree in any way.... it is open to interpretation and this is just my opinion... which I am almost afraid to give lately.

Lots of people referencing 2000 yrs when talking out the two boyos, I dont remember any definite timeline being offered, where are people getting this from? The lads diggin' that well werent exactly neandrathal knuckle draggers, id have given them maybe 1700's era status?

Marcaiocht_Tonn

minotour wrote: »

Lots of people referencing 2000 yrs when talking out the two boyos, I dont remember any definite timeline being offered, where are people getting this from? The lads diggin' that well werent exactly neandrathal knuckle draggers, id have given them maybe 1700's era status?

I had issues with this too when the 2000 years date was being bandied around, so I posted a question on it a while back. The evidence that was presented was:

(1) They were speaking Latin.
(2) (I think) it was mentioned in interviews etc.
(3) The weapons and clothes were of Romanesque era.

Note also that 2000 years ago doesn't get us as far back as the neanderthals - 2000 years ago the Roman empire was in full swing, Jesus Christ was 10 years old. We had ancient but sophisticated civilisations.

Also 1700's era was closer to Richard's time on the Black Rock.

Zombrex

I think Jacob's mother was there to demonstrate that in the Lost world it is considered morally justified to kill people on the island if they get to close to discovering the "light". The Dharma group were continuously breaking the truce so they killed them, like Jacobs mum did to the original settlers.

What I don't get about Richard is that he is apparently in communication with Jacob, and we assume passing lists from Jacob to Ben (Ben admitted never seeing Jacob and having the lists given to him).

So why did Jacob or Richard allow the MiB to manipulate Ben so much? Surely Jacob could just say to Richard "Nope, never appeared to Ben"?

How can Richard think Jacob is appearing to Ben when Richard is also in communication with Jacob?

jimbling

Marcaiocht_Tonn wrote: »

(1) They were speaking Latin.

Everything you said is correct, just want to mention that the reason people are so sure is because of the type of Latin they were speaking, not just that it was latin.
It was specifically a form of Latin that pre-dates new age latin...something about the endings of the words.... the use of this language specifies that it was prior to something like 60AD (not sure exact dates)

jimbling

Wicknight wrote: »

I think Jacob's mother was there to demonstrate that in the Lost world it is considered morally justified to kill people on the island if they get to close to discovering the "light". The Dharma group were continuously breaking the truce so they killed them, like Jacobs mum did to the original settlers.

Exactly.

Wicknight wrote: »

What I don't get about Richard is that he is apparently in communication with Jacob, and we assume passing lists from Jacob to Ben (Ben admitted never seeing Jacob and having the lists given to him).

So why did Jacob or Richard allow the MiB to manipulate Ben so much? Surely Jacob could just say to Richard "Nope, never appeared to Ben"?

How can Richard think Jacob is appearing to Ben when Richard is also in communication with Jacob?

when did Richard think Jacob was appearing to Ben? When did Ben think this?

If you mean the mother thing then okay. I cant really remember what happened about that...... did Ben tell Richard he saw his dead mother? Did Richard assume it was Jacob?
That actually sheds a different light on the Bens Mother thing... if so, perhaps Jacob could take other forms.... maybe it wasn't all MiB.

If its not the mother thing, and you're talking about the times Ben said he saw Jacob, then I think that was a lie. I think he was telling the truth when talking to Flocke on the beach that time about having never seen Jacob.

Zombrex

jimbling wrote: »

when did Richard think Jacob was appearing to Ben? When did Ben think this?

Everyone thought Jacob was appearing to Ben, that is why he was the leader of the Others. But he was pretending, which is why he was jealous of Locke because he thought Locke could actually see Jacob.

The thing is though why did the Others, including Richard, believe Ben if Richard was also in communication with Jacob.

Richard said that only the leader could meet Jacob in the statue (though FLocke dismisses that as Richard just making up rules).

Perhaps long before Ben Richard gave up communication with Jacob and passed it on to someone else.

But this is has always been one of the least explained aspects of Lost and one of the most frustrating. The idea that both Jacob and the MiB were communicating with the Others seems rather implausible.

jimbling

Wicknight wrote: »

Everyone thought Jacob was appearing to Ben, that is why he was the leader of the Others. But he was pretending, which is why he was jealous of Locke because he thought Locke could actually see Jacob.

The thing is though why did the Others, including Richard, believe Ben if Richard was also in communication with Jacob.

Richard said that only the leader could meet Jacob in the statue (though FLocke dismisses that as Richard just making up rules).

Perhaps long before Ben Richard gave up communication with Jacob and passed it on to someone else.

But this is has always been one of the least explained aspects of Lost and one of the most frustrating. The idea that both Jacob and the MiB were communicating with the Others seems rather implausible.

I don't think Richard ever believed Ben.... Ben probably knew that too I would assume.

Richard was Jacobs communicator, but I would assume he was told to pretty much leave them up to there own devices for the most part. If Ben felt the best way to get his people to obey him was to say he spoke to Jacob, then so be it.

jimbling

Wicknight wrote: »

The idea that both Jacob and the MiB were communicating with the Others seems rather implausible.

Actually, just on this too. I dont see why it's implausible. I don't think it's a case of communicating, just MiB trying to influence them to do his work rather than Jacobs.
Jacob, believing that people are good would have wanted them to withstand MiBs influence without him telling them directly.

I'm also not sure what MiB interaction you're talking about exactly?

As you say though, it's all relatively unexplained, so its just guesswork.

prinz

jimbling wrote: »

Richard was Jacobs communicator, but I would assume he was told to pretty much leave them up to there own devices for the most part. If Ben felt the best way to get his people to obey him was to say he spoke to Jacob, then so be it.

+1, IIRC when Jacob was hiring Richard in the beginning he wanted to keep him on as an 'advisor' like a mentor type person. He could've kept him on the island as a leader but I think as you said Jacob wanted people to be left to their own devices and Richard just reported back to Jacob who was manipulative, who was deceiving etc. If anything needed to be done urgently like action against the Dharma folk Richard could speak for Jacob but apart from that I think he was told to take a backseat role and let them say whatever they wanted.

I think he spent more time advising Jacob on what the people got up to than advising the people what Jacob got up to.

prinz

Wicknight wrote: »

The idea that both Jacob and the MiB were communicating with the Others seems rather implausible.

They both found ways to communicate with the Losties. Not that implausible that MIB would try to undermine the Others as well.

dudeitshurley

jimbling wrote: »

I was under the impression Jacob was responsible for the Dharma Purge. Basically they got too close. So Richard was just following the orders of the Great One

jimbling wrote: »

Evidence? I doubt there is any.... well no more than "Circumstantial Evidence" anyway.
But Richard organized the Purge, and he took his orders from Jacob. I really doubt Richard would do it of his own volition.

At the very least it was probably a case of
Jacob: "If the Dharma guys break the truce and start building some fcking crazy hatch then you will have to deal with them"
Richard: "Okay....what do you want me to do?"
Jacob:"Just deal with them Richard, don't be such a big girls blouse"
:pac:

Seriously though...
I think the 2000y old purge of the villagers in ep15 was a nod that Jacob was probably responsible for the purge of Dharma. Obviously you do not have to agree in any way.... it is open to interpretation and this is just my opinion... which I am almost afraid to give lately.

I agree it would be the most logical train of thought to assume the Purge came from Jacob down. Which makes no sense either.

Jacob inferred he brings all the people to the Island. One of the reasons i'm disappointed in the lack of completeness/answers to certain mysteries is that without them certain actions make very little sense. If we assume Jacob brought Dharma to the Island and also eventually ordered the Purge this makes no sense. Why would he bring a scientific organisation to the Island, to allow it to study the Island, to build all the stations on the Island, only to then "purge" them for getting too close in actually succeeding with what they came there for? Surely allowing them to build The Swan and The Orchid, in particular, is exactly the type of thing he was supposed to protect against.

It leaves too many gaping questions. How did Dharma know about Smokie and how did they work out that Sonic Waves are a barrier to his presence? What did pushing the button actually achieve? We see from the Finale that moving the literal cork in the magical cave caused bad things to happen, but we've seen nothing to indicate how they came to the point where the button-pushing-system, it's purpose and origins will make sense overall.

I think the writers were building up the science aspect over the seasons as a ruse; when the end was approaching they knew they couldn't rationally explain things by genuine science, i.e. electromagnetism, so in the end the magical cave with the magical electromagnetism was needed to circumvent this.

jimbling

dudeitshurley wrote: »

I agree it would be the most logical train of thought to assume the Purge came from Jacob down. Which makes no sense either.

Jacob inferred he brings all the people to the Island. One of the reasons i'm disappointed in the lack of completeness/answers to certain mysteries is that without them certain actions make very little sense. If we assume Jacob brought Dharma to the Island and also eventually ordered the Purge this makes no sense. Why would he bring a scientific organisation to the Island, to allow it to study the Island, to build all the stations on the Island, only to then "purge" them for getting too close in actually succeeding with what they came there for? Surely allowing them to build The Swan and The Orchid, in particular, is exactly the type of thing he was supposed to protect against.

I'm not sure it's correct to say Jacob brought everyone to the Island.

I'm not sure how Dharma originally got there, but we see them bring new people in all the time. New recruits constantly joining etc.... do you think Jacob "brought" all of those people?

Also, the US army would be another example.

I would reckon that certain people just found the Island too. Jacob allowed these people a certain amount of Freedom. The Others / The Hostiles were there to ensure these people didn't get too close to the "Light".
That's what the Truce was all about. Dharma were not supposed to do certain things.... when they did, and they went too far, they were destroyed.

The thing that doesn't tie in with this is the Donkey Wheel. Obviously, that makes use of the Light, so how come Jacob allowed that to happen, but then purged them at a later point. Although, perhaps that is one of the reasons why Jacob decided to "purge" them.

dudeitshurley wrote: »

It leaves too many gaping questions. How did Dharma know about Smokie and how did they work out that Sonic Waves are a barrier to his presence? What did pushing the button actually achieve? We see from the Finale that moving the literal cork in the magical cave caused bad things to happen, but we've seen nothing to indicate how they came to the point where the button-pushing-system, it's purpose and origins will make sense overall.

How did Dharma know about Smokie? Well, he probably killed a fck load of them.
How did they figure out that Sonic Waves are a barrier? They're scientists... its their job to figure **** out
The Button? Well the button had to do with the release of pressure build up or some such.
Why they chose to do this via a human pushing a button rather than an automatic system is unclear.... and a bit stupid.... but heh, it's lost

dudeitshurley wrote: »

I think the writers were building up the science aspect over the seasons as a ruse; when the end was approaching they knew they couldn't rationally explain things by genuine science, i.e. electromagnetism, so in the end the magical cave with the magical electromagnetism was needed to circumvent this.

Science played a major part of the Story in Lost, but yes, in the end it was more about the mythical/magical side. I know the lost writers made up a lot of stuff in the show, but I do believe that they always planned to go that way.

Johnmb

The other possibility is that Jacob didn't order the purge. Wasn't that his whole gig, bring people to the island and let them prove how good they were, but it never worked, they always ended up fighting and killing each other. Maybe this was just another failed experiment of Jacobs. He brought two different groups to the island, instructed Richard to organise a truce between them, and then follow the instructions of the leader(s) of the Others to see what happens, and once again the MIB was correct, they fought and one side was wiped out.

Hynes93

Richard Alpert (also known as Richardus and Ricardo) is a long-time inhabitant of the Island, having arrived in 1867 as a slave on the Black Rock. Soon after he arrived, he asked Jacob to make him immortal, and in exchange held a Leadership position with the Others as an advisor and the sole intermediary between Jacob and the people who were brought to the Island. Richard believed that even though he cannot kill himself, others are capable of killing him. He perpetually appeared to be in his late 30s or early 40s, whether on or off the Island.
Richard had on occasion left and returned to the Island. In the outside world, he monitored Locke's early life, having visited him as a baby and at age five. He also presented himself as a recruiter for Mittleious, helping to bring Juilet to the Island in 2001.
After the crash of Ajira Planein 2007, Richard led the MiB, who he thought was a resurrected John Locke, to Jacob. This resulted in Jacob being murdered by Ben, at the prompting of the Man in Black. After Jacob's death, Richard tried to kill himself, believing all the years he had spent on the Island were meaningless, as Jacob had promised him he would share everything he knew. Through Hugo , Richard found out from his long-dead wife, that he must prevent the Man in Black from leaving the Island. After spearheading a plan to destroy the Ajira plane with explosives, Richard attempted to negotiate with the Man in Black to buy Widmore and others time to hide, but was instead violently thrown through the air by the Monster. Richard survived the attack and realized he was now aging normally. He helped Miles and Frank fix Ajira Flight 316 and left the Island to live in the real world.

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

They both found ways to communicate with the Losties. Not that implausible that MIB would try to undermine the Others as well.

It is a bit though.

The Others know about the MiB, going so far as Drogen some how being able to stop it entering the Temple. And Drogen was brought to the island directly by Jacob.

So why does Ben not understand what the Monster is?

There might be a good explanation but the more I think about it the more messy the overall writing was. Even if there is a really good consistent narrative here they writers did their best to hide that fact for no apparent reason.

TonyD79

Wicknight wrote: »

It is a bit though.

The Others know about the MiB, going so far as Drogen some how being able to stop it entering the Temple. And Drogen was brought to the island directly by Jacob.

So why does Ben not understand what the Monster is?

There might be a good explanation but the more I think about it the more messy the overall writing was. Even if there is a really good consistent narrative here they writers did their best to hide that fact for no apparent reason.

The others didnt know MIB could take any human form hence Ben getting tricked by Flocke and Alex. Drogen in the Temple is seperate to the losties living under Bens leadership. Remember Ben killed Jacob as he was pissed at never getting to talk to him etc.The others with Drogom were guarding the temple and made up of several of Ben's people whose camp seperated to some degree after Ben moved the island. Drogen know it could take any human form but Jacob never advised him to tell this to Ben at any stage.Also the writers hinted at Jacobs lack of communication when Sawyer commented on how he hadnt told Jack very much.

Barlett

I think the fact that everyone is missing about Richard is that himself and Frank so obviously decided to shack up in a penthouse bachelor pad in New York, going out pulling hot chicks every night!

Frank is the sophisticated pilot jetting off to some far flung location so it's always his last night in town (well that's what he tells them anyway) while Richard is the mystery man who seduces them with his Spanish, along with the obvious banter between the two with their witty inside jokes about the island. They could make it into a sitcom!!

Imagine the tagline (deep voice) an escaped 19th Century Spanish convict must learn to live again in 21st Century New York!!

Johnmb

Wicknight wrote: »

It is a bit though.

The Others know about the MiB, going so far as Drogen some how being able to stop it entering the Temple. And Drogen was brought to the island directly by Jacob.

So why does Ben not understand what the Monster is?

There might be a good explanation but the more I think about it the more messy the overall writing was. Even if there is a really good consistent narrative here they writers did their best to hide that fact for no apparent reason.

I think Dogen should be more considered on a par with Richard rather than any of the Others. He was in charge of the Temple, but had nothing to do with the Others once they weren't on his territory, and he was appointed directly by Jacob, no middle man involved, making him more special than most, if not all, of the Others.