Talk: Benjamin Linus

Diary reference

(Warning: spoiler) ABC.com

Now there's a certain guy who used that certain word... --Jambalaya 17:34, 3 March 2006 (PST)

Well since it is on the official ABC LOST Website, I don't consider it a spoiler - more a teaser...

a teaser that shows us, that Henry Gale might really not be what any of us thought him to be...

...or just something meant to confuse and throw off the theories. If you check the general tone of the writing, it doesn't sound like any of the survivors, more like a certain other, nor does it say what HG is or isn't. Like all of the 'Diary' entries, very vague and doesn't really put any facts on the table.

On a sidenote, I don't see the point with any spoiler warnings as the wiki follows the US showtimes & everything anyone official or unofficial has said or written about the show has always been very vague and generalised. I don't think there ever has been a spoiler about LOST, just a lot of theories and teasers. Spoilers are definitive, and leave no questions.--skks 12:41, 7 March 2006 (PST)

You're both right :-) I added a bullet about it, but I didn't speculate whether it's Desmond or not... --Jambalaya 13:21, 7 March 2006 (PST)

I was actually going for Mr. Friendly judging from the phrase "This is not their island". --skks 13:55, 7 March 2006 (PST)

I have a feeling the diary is not considered canon. The first author, and most of the previous entries by the current author, have only commented on events and ideas already established in the episodes, suggesting the diary's purpose as merely reflective. In any event, there doesn't seem to be a consistency of authorship. My guess is, the writers at the website were recently given some knowledge of the upcoming Henry Gale story arc which they've chosen to inject into their otherwise-useless diary narrator. So while the "brother" reference may bear some fruit, I don't think we'll see the author in the show.

--

I think Desmond's use of the word 'brother' is merely a term of endearment that he has incorporated into his speech (just like Hurley's 'dude') and to be hoenst, it's not that uncommon. On the otherhand, the diary seems to refer to a 'brother' of relation.

As far as I know, the only secret that the diary has revealed is that Eko and Charlie are building a church, and we found this out in S.O.S shortly after anyway. Its probably just written to keep fans interested and developing theories, without giving much away.

--Rayne 09:47, 30 April 2006 (PDT)

Diary Update

The newest diary: http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/diary/105434.html changes things a bit. This clearly states that whoever the 'brother' is actually confronts Locke and Jack. Ana-Lucia, perhaps? ~Weez

Confession

Mr Eko's talk to Gale is a confession. Pure and simple.

Yemi offered to take Eko's confession several times and i think that has become something important to Eko, esp in his new priestly life.

He uses Gale to fullfill that need. Someone to tell, someone he can say these things too, who will listen but not necessarily be phased by what he has to say or spread panic by telling. --MRNasher

Trap?

I think that the very reason for Gale mentioning the possibility that he has lead Ana into a trap, and that it could be used to trade for him, is exactly the reason why they will find evidence that he has not been lying.

If he needs to infiltrate the survivors what better way than to set himself up as a victim. Sure they have given him an amazingly rough time and both Jack and Locke realise how manipulative he is but if he can pull this off he might get some sympathy on his side. -- MRNasher

Even if they do find the balloon it does not prove that he is not one of 'them'. Remember, the "others" have apparently added to their ranks by kidnapping crash victims. Maybe he did land by balloon and was kidnapped by the others.

Or he might have just known about the balloon, which someone else crashed in.

My gut feeling is that he's not an other, but that's probably because I've been trained by the show to assume the opposite of where the show is leading us. The first two Gale episodes seemed to suggest that he was one of them, so I assumed therefore he wasn't. --208.204.155.241 09:37, 23 March 2006 (PST)

He's using textbook manipulation. He's using everyone's paranoia against them, suggesting them that the others would want to trap few of the survivors to exchange for him, and when it doesn't happen - he's automatically cleared of the suspicion. In theory atleast, I've lost my respect for Jack & Locke, so they just might fall for it. The Others wouldn't want to exchange him for anyone, he was planted there to get intel, and the only way he can do that is by convincing everyone he's to be trusted. He's piling up the doubts on doubts and backing them up with possibilities, eventually the web of lies will become too much for anyone to sort out and everything seemingly falls into place. It's clearly a plan, waiting few days to give out the map, claiming to be afraid that whoever's looking won't find the planted balloon. If he's who he says he is, within a few months he's crashed onto the island, lost his wife to a mystery illness, caught in a trap, shot with a crossbow and have being locked up in a room and beaten. Still, he's not afraid, he maintains his composure and finds time to push people's buttons. It all just feels too calculated to me. --skks 10:17, 23 March 2006 (PST)

Jack and Locke should be painfully aware that if they others wanted a hostage to exchange for Gale, they'd come and grab someone, no need to send people on a wild balloon chase, of course I agree that they just might fall for it with the way they've been behaving lately. I think Gale is manipulating the viewer more so than the people on the island. The speech about Ana Lucia & Co falling into a trap seemed designed only to make the viewer go Oh Sh*$! Jack and Locke barely reacted to it. --208.204.155.241 10:48, 23 March 2006 (PST)

They did react to it, especially Jack. Ofcourse this is newer info than the previous comment as the scene continued in Lockdown. --skks 04:36, 30 March 2006 (PST)

I think Gale is manipulating the viewer more so than the people on the island. <--From a couple paragraphs above...
BINGO! I think you're onto something here! The show is itself a type of Skinner box. They are "experimenting" on us, the viewers. Putting us all in a little box on Wednesday night to see how we will react to certain situations! Genious! :)--Stew Erickson 06:31, 6 April 2006 (PDT)

Driver's license discrepancies

Yes, it's a fake, it's from a tv show. The discrepancies could be because of legal issues. There's no 555 area code either, but every phone number in a tv-show still has that. --skks 04:53, 30 March 2006 (PST)

Did Henry recognize the numbers?

After Locke told Henry the numbers once very slowly, Henry rattled them back to him like he had said them a hundred times. Do you think that he's familiar with them? --BigSteve777 08:50, 30 March 2006 (PST)

Well they seem to be written all over the hatch, and maybe even the island, so that might explain it. --Uth 12:12, 30 March 2006 (PST)

Considering the accuracy and precision that he spit out the stats of the balloon, maybe he has a photographic memory?--Tricksterson 09:36, 31 March 2006 (PST)

I think he knew the numbers. Maybe even knew them from before the island. Perhaps the numbers led him to the island? --Admin 09:42, 31 March 2006 (PST)

Did 'HG' push the button?

Although he claims he did, we don't hear him. We hear the engines powering up indicating that time ran out. HG's states that he:

pushed the button
counter reset to 108.00
tried to climb back in the vent
lights went out
blast doors open

Yet the chronology shown on screen is:

timer ran out, engine powered up
lights went out
counter reset
blast doors open

--Uth 12:46, 30 March 2006 (PST)

Another interesting thing is that the preview for next week shows the counter set at 215. Could Gale have entered some other, unknown to the Flight 815 survivors, code that caused the lockdown? Maybe the lockdown didn't happen because the numbers didn't get entered in time. It happened because Gale entered a different code. Maybe we still don't know what happens when the numbers don't get entered in time!--Stew Erickson 06:37, 6 April 2006 (PDT)

He pushed the button because unless I missed something metal object didn't started to fly to the magnet thing--Captain Insano

Split article?

Based on what happened in Lockdown, should we split this article into "Henry Gale (real)" and "Henry Gale (fake)" or something? And just rename "Henry Gale (fake)" when we learn his name? --Jambalaya 08:51, 31 March 2006 (PST)

At this point, I don't think it's necessary as the Real McGale's article would be really stubby, if/when we find out more about him, then maybe. Renaming the article is an idea though, I guess the hard part would be to think up a name. Maybe next week when we hopefully know more about the guy. --skks 11:50, 31 March 2006 (PST)

Agree. We don't know his name or anything yet. If we know some name we can give him, we should change this article and Put up a page for the real Henry Gale (I doubt we'll learn more about him) with a bold link to the fake Henry Gale. If we do that, we have to clean up all articles that mention Henry Gale, or make it really clear on the new Henry Gale article, that for most of the show yet, someone else was using that name. --aurora glacialis 12:13, 1 April 2006 (PST)

Most of the HG article is speculation anyway, that will be come irrelevant as more is known about him. --Uth 17:30, 1 April 2006 (PST)

Speaking of that - I don't like that "Information-Set" structure. It's geek-talk but the articles should be understandable for everyone! Tooke me some moments to just get what that notation meant. And I don't thnik, the statistics of the balloon are really that interesting anymoe. Mayve split off to another article on the Baloon? --aurora glacialis 01:09, 7 April 2006 (PDT)

The article is bloated, a split or splits at this point wouldn't be a bad thing. Tried to make some more sense to it, but it gets complicated fex when one needs to refer to the note etc. An article for the real henry gale or hg's wallet would make referrals a lot easier. Changed the information set structure a bit, also removed the 'proven false' mentionings as one should get the idea when the stories conflict with eachother. There's too many things I did to list them all, check the diff if you're interested. I'm sure someone who likes the old one better will just revert without even talking about it, thusly making the 20 minutes I spent on it seem completely useless. Oh well. --skks 06:36, 14 April 2006 (PDT)

Magnets

I dont have access to it right now so if someone else could confirm this for me before I put it on the article page that would be great but here goes:

Im absolutely certain that when Henry is describing to Locke what happened when he entered the numbers (in the lockdown episode), he says that he saw the heiroglyphics and that there was a noise "like a big magnet".

Why would he describe the noise as sounding like a magnet unless he knew that that is what it was? We know that something fishy is going on with magnets (the thing that Jack was wearing round his neck got attracted to one), but I dont recall Henry ever being told about this or Henry seeing it in anything that we have seen.

So I'd like to think that somewhere there is a big magnet that gets moved around (and thats the noise we heard) when the countdown runs to zero, normally if someone that didnt know what it was was describing it they would describe it as a noise or as machinery but to describe it as a magnet kinda implies that you know that that is what it is. Afterall a magnet makes no different a sound to any other lump of metal grinding around. --TimmyWimmy 15:40, 18 April 2006 (PDT)

Mercury

An interesting thought that occurred to me;

"Henry"'s initials are, obviously, HG. Hg is the chemical symbol for mercury, which in the mythological sense of the word is regarded as the messenger of the gods. Perhaps an intentional reference, seeing as "Henry" is a messenger of sorts for the others? kaini 12:13, 19 April 2006 (PDT)

No. Far too obscure. --Draic 06:43, 2 May 2006 (PDT)

Henry Gale/ Medical Hatch??

The page mentions a "picture montage" that shows Henry Gale as similar to one of the doctors in the Medical Hatch. Could someone link us to this picture or upload it? It seems an interesting line to go on, since it doesn't look like Henry has any medical skills when he's in the custody of Jack and John.--Charugan 18:53, 19 April 2006 (PDT)

Here's a link to the picture in debate [1] Actually looks a little to me like Henry and Kate and maybe Bernard & Ana Lucia. If so is it intentional or did they forget to hire extras? --BigSteve777 06:02, 20 April 2006 (PDT)

time to disambiguate and split this, i think

i think that with the amount we know, it's time to split this page in two. the page is way too dense.
i've started separating the information as well as i can (still needs work - nightmare of a page lol) but i'd like to wait for other people's opinions before i do it. --kaini 21:38, 9 May 2006 (PDT)

Henry knows who Walt is?

This page says Henry "Knows who Walt is and says that 'they' would never trade Walt for him." Is this true? Jack says in front of Henry that they're going to trade him for Walt. Henry didn't mention Walt's name until after Jack did. So we do not know that Henry even knows who Walt is. Henry may not have even known that 'they' had captured any of the LOSTies. Henry is smart enough to just parrot back Walt's name and say Oh, they'll never make a trade. Snarf 08:19, 19 May 2006 (PDT)

Henry = Him

I think it's pretty safe to say that Henry is Him, Zeke seemed pretty intimidated by him and he had no physical part in the capture of the 4 people, hinting that he is the puppetmaster. talk contribs 04:39, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

I have to disagree with this most strenuously. Gale may very well be the "leader" of those *on* the island, but his fear of "him" seems genuine. It's very possible that they have contact with people off the Island, so "him" very possibly could be some as-yet unknown agent ultimately calling the shots. Absalom 05:12, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

Yes, I agree Henry might be the Leader of one group of others but not the whole thing.

My reasons why Henry is not Him:

He seemed genuinely afraid that he would be punished for failing on his mission by Him.
If he were Him, he would not have been travelling alone and would not have been captured by Rousseau's trap. Even if he had been captured, if he were their leader, the Others would have released him from the trap.
If he were the leader, the Others would have tried much harder to get him out of the Hatch.

If Henry's fear of Him was so genuine, then why did he run right back to join the others when Micheal freed him? He told Locke that he would be killed for failing by the unforgiving "Him". Also Mrs. Klugh said that the Others were not able/or not allowed to free Gale. --Uth 17:22, 26 May 2006 (PDT)

Henry is clearly a higher-up; I'll give him second or third in command or maybe the voice of Him to the rest of the Others, but not Him himself. -Platypus Man | Talk 05:25, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

But what if he got captured on purpose? And as for him being scared of "Him", I think thats irrelevant, as pretty much every word out of his mouth is a lie.--Piscez 06:12, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

This is true, but the discussion is if we can say with authority that Gale is "him." I certainly think it is a strong theory, but it is far from a certainty. Thus, articles should not be merged. Absalom 06:15, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

And to play devil's advocate, all Henry's talk of being punished or scared of "Him" while in the hatch could have been an act or just an outright lie. Henry lied extensively while in captivity (i.e. he told Locke that he didn't push the button... that the button is a joke. Obviously he did push the button). If he is Him there is no reason he couldn't travel alone. It could be indicative of his (and the rest of the Others) confidence in their dominance of the island, or just a desire to move inconspicuously. I think the fact that they were willing to give up Walt to get Henry back (which Henry indicated he/they were not happy about) shows his great value and runs counter to Henry's assertion in the Hatch that they would never trade Walt for him. Henry is the best candidate for Him right now, but I wouldn't declare it as fact just yet. He's obviously a big Kahuna... but until it is proven he is at the top of the food chain I'd leave the connection between Henry and Him as speculation.--Isotope23 05:37, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

I vote no merge at this time. I'm not convinced Henry is Him. Henry obviously seems to have some power in the organization as indicated by his leadership role on the dock, and the fact that the Others gave up Walt to rescue him, but it's not really clear he's the head honcho. I'd leave it as a theory until there's confirmation. --Elvis 09:08, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

I Think he is Him and his stint in the castaways custody was his reenactment of Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects but until definitive proof comes about I say leave them unmerged.--Tricksterson 09:44, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

I feel that Henry Gale is definitely not Him but he is Someone of importance. Leader of that specific camp or collection of people. Plus, someone who is spoke of with such power probably wouldn't be out in the field doing the dirty work. That's why he has people like Henry Gale doing it for him.--kcnovA23 13:43, 25 May 2006 (EDT)

I don't think we can say for sure if the man who posed himself as Henry Gale is "Him." Although it is mostly likely at this point. I think that it is important to stop calling him Henry Gale because it has become confusing and incorect. The articles about this man and "him" should be linked but not one and the same. However the article currently tittled Henry Gale should be changed. Possible changes could be Henry Gale (Imposter); The Other's Leader; Leader of the "Good Guys"; Former Prisoner.... --Jules 11:04, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

I think it's a little too soon to assume Henry Gale is Him. No merge. MaxVeers 18:26, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

There's no reason he would tell them about "Him" in such a fearful manner if he really was "Him". I naysay the merge. Zombiebomb 18:36, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

Not enough evidence to suggest Henry is Him - questions regarding Alvar Hanso have not yet been answered (the person thought most likely to be Him) and thus we should wait. - Adam 09:28, 26 May 2006 (GMT)

More than they bargianed for?

"Mentions that Michael's trade was "more than we bargained for", perhaps implying that it won't be too dissapointing for them to lose walt and the boat to Michael in the trade."

If memory serves, this is not what he said. He said that he was not happy with the arrangement, but that they got more than they bargained for when walt joined them, so perhaps this was best. I interpreted this as meaning that Walt was so useful to their purpose (whatever that is) that it was ok to let him go now.

I interpretted it to mean that Walt was almost more trouble than he was worth to the Others

Maybe this meant that the benefits of having Jack, Kate and Sawyer outweighed the benefits of having Walt? Adam 09:30, 26 May 2006 (GMT)

"im not happy about the arangement that was made with you michael, but, we got more than we bargained for when walt joined us so i suppose this is what's best." - Henry Gale - - Mikey - "so emo, it hurts"© 08:24, 27 May 2006 (PDT)

Henry pressing the button

Why'd he lie? He obviously knew what would happen if the button wasn't pressed, because he did press it. But then he lied about it to Locke... it doesn't exactly make sense. He, and the rest of the Others, seemed wholly unsurprised by what happened during the flash (but we don't really know if that was caused by the button not being pushed or the key being turned, though it is assumed that it's the key). I don't even know how to start guessing at what this means. :\ --Cajuncook 10:24, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

i think henry likes locke, even after what the losties did to him, he realized that locke was just trying to figure the island out, not hurting anybody or anything but didn;t belong with the others because of his temper. so i thin k henry left it to locke to decide does the button get pressed or doesn't it, so the man of faith can see the reality of the island.

talk contribs 12:07, 25 May 2006 (PDT)

Well, what would normally be likely to happen if Locke didn't push the button? Well, first the hieroglyphics would come up. Then all the loudspeakers in the hatch would start blaring "System Failure." At this point Locke would realize Henry had lied. Then the electromagnetic effects would start happening, and chances are Locke would do the same thing as Desmond, frantically try to get the system to re-engage. Provided things weren't too far gone, the system would re-engage and everything goes back to normal, except that the electromagnetic effect might have brought some more victims to the Island. Probably, that's what Henry was expecting. However, due to his conflict with Eko and later Desmond, this is not how things played out. Locke destroyed the computer when it was too late to fix it in order to stop the electromagnetic effect. So, Henry's gamble didn't pay off quite the way he was expecting.--Inquisitor 06:53, 26 May 2006 (PDT)

I have been pondering this question too. Do we know if the Others and Fake Henery Gale are from Dharma? Yea, I know they are doing experiments in Dharma hatches. But could they have somehow taken over the Island. We don't know that something happend when Alvar most likely died in 2002. Maybe Fake Henry Gale just wanted to mess with Locke not knowing what would happen.--Jules 08:02, 26 May 2006 (PDT)

Well, I just assumed he knew more than he was telling because he knew about the "funny red pictures" that came up if you didn't push the button. It's possible that they were already starting to come up by the time he had gotten to the computer, but I just figured that he knew more than he implied.--Inquisitor 09:38, 26 May 2006 (PDT)

We do know from Lockdown that the countdown ran out and the machines started powering up. So it's likely Gale saw the hieroglyphs. I also think it's possible that The Others don't really know what that button is for.

Alvar Hanso?

Have you guys noticed in the season finale Henry Gale stood and posed just as Alvar Hanso did in the Swan Orientation Film? -- Nusentinsaino talk contribs email

I noticed that too, but I think the producers did that to make us think he is Alvar Hanso when he is not. --Captain Insano

i think it is impossible to say that alvar hanso looks like anyone..we only have one very msall grainy photo to go by... - Mikey - "so emo, it hurts"© 08:18, 27 May 2006 (PDT)