CARELSS WHISPER
It was past time to just sit down and focus on the Whispers. This audio portion of LOST is intriguing in that the editors take the time to include them. However, 99% of this audio is not capable of being heard by 100% of the viewers. It bothers me that the producers would include this technique for four seasons and then have them mean nothing.
In my last post, my Biscuits and Gravy Theory suggested the Whispers were actually the Oceanic 6 in some type of time phasing thingy. After just a few minutes into my dedicated analysis, I have to retract that. Now, one must admit that it would be an awesome concept to have the Oceanic 6 return as sort of “time ghosts” who quickly realize they can’t be seen by the island Survivors, but that will have to wait for another movie.
WHY BOTHER?
That thought kept crossing my mind, “Why bother?” The answer for me is that the Whispers continue throughout all seasons.
On one hand, we could consider the Whispers as just a technique of some sort. You might recall that the TV reality show, Survivor, had a pattern of showing the remaining contestants in the opening credits and the person who was shown with a fire burning over their left shoulder was the one who was getting voted off that week. Actually, the details are fuzzy in my mind, but you get the point. Someone noticed the pattern and spread the word and we never saw that “clue system” used again.
That clue technique made me wonder if the Whispers content wasn’t as important as much as they were just an audio clue that something was going to happen. They could merely be the “fire over the left shoulder”.
PUZZLE PATTERNS
Any fan of JJ Abrams work has recognized that he loves patterns. The Fringe, another Abrams show, is based solely on the “Pattern”. This reminded me of some of the summer games. You might recall that LOST released a series of four jigsaw puzzles. While entertaining to assemble, the real juicy stuff was on the back side. Once all four were assembled, flipped over, and placed under a black light we could see a replication of the Blast Door Map.
This gives me some hope for the Whispers having a deeper purpose. It is one thing to hide the fact in front of our eyes (i.e. did you see the baton lying next to Jack when the plane crashes on the island) and quite another thing to embed clues.
We also need to consider the off season ARG’s. One thing has been quite clear about these games: you have to be a computer nerd to unravel the puzzles. I’ve worked with computers for over two decades and trust me…you have to be a major computer nerd. Why do something that eliminated 90% of the population? Well, for off season entertainment, I’m fine with it. My experience with Alternate Reality Games is that they are all shared this common trait of technology puzzles more than mental puzzles. Fine, but the show itself? It would be like having the movie “The Sixth Sense” only being fully understood if you owned state of the art audio equipment and only then would you realize that Bruce was dead. No, the clever part of the movie was that an early clue was “I see dead people” and only at the end do you realize the little boy meant Bruce.
Let me elaborate on this point one step further…the jigsaw puzzles did contain the Blast Door Map but they also contained additional markings like C4/16 C14/+3 C9/2. Someone finally figured the pattern out. When you took the book “Of Mice and Men” (don’t quote me on the book) and used the first number for the chapter and the second number as the word count in that chapter you could piece together phrases.
The list of phrases was anti-climatic leading me to believe this was more of an ARG thing rather than an integral part of the show.
In other words, if we took the transcript of the Whispers and rearranged the lines by every 4th, 8th, 15th, 16th, 23rd or 42nd word or line…it would produce a different meaning. However, after my analysis, I’m convinced it would be of little value. They might be interesting, but no revelation.
And yet, the producers and editors seem intent on including the darn things which in and of itself must mean SOMETHING. Right?
CLUES FROM THE PRODUCERS
It seems odd that in today’s world we don’t have a single clue from the producers concerning the Whispers. I mean EVERYTHING gets leaked nowadays. Carlton and Damon love to tease us, but they are always about relevant topics. And yet, on this subject they have remained mum. Nothing on the secret portions of season DVD’s. No cast member has made mention of them. Not a single disgruntled employee has revealed anything…except one thing:
In my research I came across a person associated with LOST who stated that the Whispers were originally intended to be the Others, but that they adjusted that approach. Of course, the validity of those comments is in question, but let’s the comments face value. My view is that the original purpose might have been for enhancement purposes. So the proper focus should be on the second intention because someone sat around and had a light bulb go off in their head, “Hey, I know how we could USE these Whispers.” It would be at this point that my interest grows.
THE WHISPERS ARE FROM DEAD PEOPLE
I’m convinced that the Whispers are people who have died. Throughout the transcripts there are a handful of times when the relationship of the speaker seems obvious. When Shannon and Sayid are about to run into a very wet Walt, the Whispers say, “Hi, sis.” At this point Boone is dead.
We also have dialog that strongly appears to be Christian Shephard. Again, very dead.
There is one major contradiction in that several dialogs appear to be between Christian and a living Sarah. But we must recall that Christian gave Ana Lucia an alias on his trip to Australia. He suggested she go by the name of Sarah. So, it could be explained that Sarah in the Whispers is actually Ana Lucia…a dead Ana Lucia.
The next pattern I chased after was whether these were people who died on the island. No. All seem to have died on Mysterious Island except one: Frank. This is the guy who Saywer shot at the Shrimp Shack by mistaking him as the real Sawyer. Frank’s voice is fairly recognizable and we have consensus that his line, “It’ll comes back around”, is a repeat of his ominous warning to Sawyer as he lay dying amidst the shrimp juice and garlic butter. Yum!
We can conclude then that the Whispers are from dead people, but not necessarily those who died on the island.
THE WHISPERS ARE NOT EMBEDDED MEMORIES
This led me to wonder if the Whispers were from dead people or just memories. Sawyer obviously had the memory of Frank in his mind and that particular phrase. Shannon would have tons of memories of Boone in her head.
However, we clearly have tons of examples where the Whispers are clearly not possible to be in the listeners head – mostly when it appears Christian is speaking and those people have never met him.
THE WHISPERS ARE PROPHETIC
There are several examples where the Whispers predict events moments before they happen. This I found interesting. But then this takes us back to time loops for how does Ben and Locke have the ability to say things like, “I have a plan”, “The island had a reason”, and indicate that certainty of events to come that really can only be the result of having experienced something beforehand?
THE WHISPERS ARE MOSTLY TWO PEOPLE
My guess is that 80% of the hidden conversations are between a man and a woman. I can’t help but be drawn to the unique relationship between Sarah and Christian. Ok, let’s call it an unusual relationship. While just earlier I suggested Sarah in the Whispers means Ana Lucia, my mind can’t let go of the odd way Christian seemed to interact with Sarah. Many guessed this meant an affair, but now I wonder.
THE WHISPERS KNOW SEVERAL LANGUAGES
The consensus is that snippets of dialog are in Korean and Spanish. One is immediately drawn to Jin and Hurley. However, we may have a clue that Jin is still alive and we know Hurley is. This throws a wrench into my observations. But we don’t have to assume these lines were delivered by these characters.
There was interesting find along the language angle: several lines are in German.
There is one tail ender that has been identified as German, but that appears to be a wink link. There have been several references to Germany in early seasons and the Lost Experience game, but on the show there has been very little.
THE WHISPERS HAVE SEVERAL INTERPRETATIONS
If you’ve every played a record backwards or twisted a cassette tape around to play it in reverse, you know that you can hear about anything you want to hear. While the equipment being used by the “experts” on the message boards is undoubtedly an improvement over my rasping speakers, even they hear completely different phrases and words.
How then are we to draw any conclusions when we don’t know who or what is being said? With that said, here is a general transcript of the Whispers when Sayid leaves Danielle’s camp site in the Solitary episode:
Male Voice- "Just let him get out of here"
Male Voice- "He's seen too much already"
Male Voice- "What if he tells?"
Female Voice - "Could just speak to him"
Male Voice- "No"
And when Sawyer is boar hunting:
Female Voice- "Maybe we should just talk to him"
Male Voice- "No if he see us it will ruin everything"
Male Voice- "What did he see"
Female Voice- "They could help us"
Male Voice- "Can't trust"
Male Voice- "Come back around"
(Sawyer pauses, crickets and cicada are heard)
Male Voice- "What did he see"
Male Voice- "Nothing, he was following it"
Female Voice- "Speak"
Male Voice- "Nothing"
Frank Duckett's Voice- "It'll come back around"
The only conclusion to be drawn is that the source of the Whispers can see the Survivors. If they are the dead, then we jump to Purgatory as our explanation. The producers tell us that isn’t it. That leaves us with one thing: some in between stage like we have presented in a lot of ghost movies. Someone needs to figure this out and attempt to speak to them. I have an idea. Miles!
CONCLUSION
It is quite clear to me now that the B&G theory got the Whispers idea dead wrong. I've got to stop listening to those voices in my head. However, this doesn't invalidate the whole theory. But I must admit when the evidence conflicts and in this case I'm obviously just hearing things. HA!
Still, it was a worthwhile effort to dig into these. Been meaning to do it for some time. It is a bit disappointing that something so constant throughout LOST remains veiled from my understanding, but then, what fun would LOST be if it was easy to figure out?
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Thanks for reading!
Enjoy,
KC
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