You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
That hath to instrument this lower world
And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea
Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island
Where man doth not inhabit; you 'mongst men
Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;
And even with such-like valour men hang and drown
Their proper selves.
The Tempest. Act iii. Sc. 3
Was Danielle real, or, like Jack's dad, perhaps a projection from Said's mind?
ccmerlot
I wondered the same thing myself, ccmerlot. One important difference is
that Jack's dad never spoke to, or interacted with, Jack. Also, don't
forget that Sayid was trapped and released by someone.
Still, it is an intriguing possibility. I also wonder if the voices Sayid
hears aren't related somehow to Jack's vision.
awsecond
was it not a coincidence that the first thing she does is the very buggaboo that drove Said away from the others?
ccmerlot
Wow, I never thought of this. This idea really knocks my socks off. It
could definitely work.
Sayid heard the French transmission, so a manifestation or hallucination
of the French woman could definitely come from his mind. It would be a
manifestation if something else on the island is causing the survivors
to hear and see things. A hallucination could be caused by many things
- infected boar meat, hallucinogenic plant pollen, contaminated water.
Sayid imagines the French woman torturing him as an expiation of his guilt
for torturing Sayid and his role as a torturer in the Republican Guard.
The French woman becomes gentler and even almost flirtatious as the manifestation/hallucination
responds to his memories of Nadia.
The stuff in the French woman's compound also would come out of Sayid's
mind so there must be a reason why he would imagine such antique equipment
instead of what we would expect her to have if she had been there 16 years.
Maybe the reason is that during the time of Saddam in Iraq the Republican
Guard had very antique equipment, not up to date with what was used in
the rest of the world - or at least, the stuff they had in the prison
was pretty old since the more modern stuff would probably be allocated
elsewhere.
The whispers could simply be symbolic for the voices of all the unfortunate
people Sayid tortured now haunting him in his hallucination, so he put
references to them first into the mouth of his French woman illusion.
Danielle's story of how she killed the members of her team might come
from Sayid's guilt at torturing fellow Iraqis to death when he was a soldier
in the Republican Guard.
This may explain why he didn't function with Danielle as an interrogator
as well as one would expect. Subconsciously he knew she wasn't real and
any answers she gave him would have been manufactured by his own mind
so he knew them already.
Hawkmistress
We will find out how real she was when Sayid gets back to the others and
he still has the maps he took. He still has his pack so...
You can't stuff imaginary papers in your pack and show them to other people,
not that I know of anyway.
robinhood56
Ah ha! I think Daniell was "real," but I also think that Hawkmistress
's account will be exactly what most of the other castaways will
think when he returns.
Until he whips out that map, that is.
They may still think he hallucinated her!
drabauer
Sayid could have drawn the maps himself while he was hallucinating, maybe
during the time period when he thought he was sedated by the hypodermic.
Did anybody notice if we saw the maps for the first time after Danielle
sedated him or before?
Since he set out with the intention of mapping the island (I believe this
is what he said to Jack and the others before leaving the beach), it makes
sense he would carry pencils and paper in his backpack, so he would have
the materials on hand to draw the maps.
Hawkmistress
I watched it again yesterday. When Sayid mentioned mapping the island
he was talking to Kate. He said it should be done by the only person he
trusted. After the whispering incident, he may not trust himself any longer,
but I have no doubt Danielle was real and I don't think Sayid will think
she was an hallucination either. His injuries alone should be proof -
the electro-shock probably left burns, hanging by his ankle from a tree
probably left pretty bad rope marks and there should be needle punctures.
These are things he couldn't have done to himself.
Sayid grabbed alot of things from the table. He took the map and some
papers and wrapped them in a much longer sheath of papers that I assumed
were charts. Don't know what the other papers were but I'm hoping they
were some sort of journal. That might be the only way we learn anything
at all. Chances are it will a bit erratic but it's better than nothing.
Someone, somewhere asked about the photo of Nadia. It was left on the
table.
JacksGirlfriend
Since Sayid was two days out and was with Danielle probably only a day
or two and he is headed back...
Do we think the others will beleive he could map the whole island in a
week?
robinhood56
No, but frankly it wasn't much of a map. I think Walt could have probably
done better. Thankfully he has better proof - like the charts and whatever
the other papers are.
JacksGirlfriend
Hey JGF, a friend of mine who is a nurse also thinks as you do - that
Sayid will have burns from the electric shock as physical evidence that
Danielle tortured him. She thinks Danielle was real and not a hallucination.
She also told me that it's a very little-known fact, but that when people
hallucinate unless they are schizophrenic they almost never hallucinate
seeing people whom they don't already know. Assuming that Sayid is not
schizophrenic (which I think is a safe assumption since we have seen no
evidence of this), then he wouldn't be likely to hallucinate the image
of Danielle, a person he had never met before.
It was an interesting idea though. Kudos to the person who thought of
it.
Hawkmistress
This is a fabulous theory.
I choose to believe that she is real because I find it more interesting
in terms of the show's mythology, but I hope at least some of the other
survivors (perhaps those less familiar with the medical probabilities
of various hallucinations) think this way.
I don't think the marks he will have are necessarily things he couldn't
have done himself. If he put his mind to it, he could probably do some
convincing rope burns and needle punctures. Not so sure about electric
shock burns, though, because I don't know how similar those are to regular
burns. And while I'm sure a web search would educate me, I prefer not
knowing.
railwaymadness
It would be interesting if the others were skeptical of Sayid's story
but then each had their own enounter with either Danielle or the mysterious
Alex.
drabauer
JacksGirlfriend
Gotta be real, doesn't make any sense for me for her not to be.
b a fett
How about, Is Rousseau really Rousseau ? I mean, Sayid saw the jacket
with the name, and I believe he asked her her name or she gave it to him,
but since she might have been suspicious of Sayid, given a name of someone
else from the scientific team? As I recall, she did get a little spacey
in the eyes when they were talking about the transmission and as she started
giving Sayid some information. Is this too dumb??
Yorke
Nothing's too dumb
But I do believe, as least for casting purposes, that there is a character
named Danielle Rousseau. Unless, there's another casting call for a Jean-Jacques,
I think we're safe. For now.
spooky