Meme: December 9

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ARGH. So, I had a whole linkspam post typed up, which included a review of The Sound of Music live broadcast and a random digression into American Girl dolls, and then my computer decided to spontaneously shut down and when I rebooted it, IT WAS ALL GONE. *sob*

Rather than try to recreate that brilliance, I'm just gonna move on...

Keep telling me what to talk about!  Today's topic comes from pocochina.

Poco asked me to speculate on Juliet's work with the Dharma Initiative. I have two immediate thoughts:

1. Technically, she was a mechanic with the Dharma Initiative, so...
2. I'm not sure there's much to speculate? lol

But I'm assuming we're talking about when she was with the Others, and her fertility work with the pregnant women who keep dying on the Island? I still don't really have much to say there, since I actually try my best NOT to delve into the unsolvable mysteries of Lost. That way lies only madness, I promise you. Captain Logic does not steer this tugboat.

Anyway, my memory of season 3, when most of this is discussed, is somewhat hazy, so I went back and read the Lostpedia wiki page for Juliet (and... many other things. The Lostpedia wiki is a neverending rabbit hole of links similar to TVTropes). Things I did not remember:

1. Juliet had a thing with Goodwin before the plane crash. This is irrelevant to the topic at hand, but I COMPLETELY forgot about it, and apparently it was actually a plot point of sorts with his wife being Juliet's therapist and so I am including this as a benchmark for how little I actually remember of this season, so don't hold it against me that I can't come up with a coherent meta for this topic.
2. Richard lured her into accepting his job offer with a "medical puzzle, a young woman whose uterus looked 70 years old." Did we ever find out if that was a real thing or just something he made up to capture her interest?
3. Juliet once impregnated a male field mouse. I feel like that should appeal to mpreg fans (ahem, snickfic).

None of this was especially useful to my speculation.

So, what I did remember was that Juliet was trying to save the pregnant women and all of them died. And Juliet was a fertility specialist, so it didn't make a ton of sense why they wanted her specifically, since getting pregnant was clearly not the problem. It was staying alive while pregnant that was the hard part. I can only assume that this was just more of Jacob's manipulation to get Juliet on the Island, rather than any actual medical expertise needed, especially since Juliet never actually solved the problem.

I really have no idea what, exactly, Juliet was supposed to be DOING to save these women. Developing some kind of cure? Since they never really knew why or how it happened, they probably would've been better off just bringing in someone to perform abortions, but apparently that never occurred to them?

Anyway, Juliet thought it was tied to conception on the Island - and Claire seemed to prove that theory, conceiving off-Island and then giving birth without complications on the Island - but then Sun got pregnant on the Island and gave birth off the Island, so who the fuck knows. Maybe it was the length of exposure? If you were pregnant on the Island for more than 100 days, no matter where you conceived, you'd be affected. So Claire wasn't there long enough before Aaron was born to be affected, and Sun left before she could be affected, and Juliet wasn't allowed to experiment with any other off-Island pregnancies.

The theory put forth on the show was that it had something to do with the Island's electromagnetism. However, given the Island's weirdly capricious healing properties, that seems at best an unfortunate coincidence and at worst deliberately misogynist and cruel. So the Island will increase a man's sperm count, making it five times easier to get pregnant... only to KILL ANYONE WHO DOES? WTF, Island?

Whatever. It's probably something magical - for whatever definition of "magical" describes the wacky unexplainable shit that happens on the Island - which is why I tend not to think too hard about Lost, lol, because the answers usually come down to something handwavey like that.

I also vaguely remembered something about Juliet developing some kind of medicine (Lostpedia calls it "Juliet's Serum") but none of that was real, as far as I can tell? It was all an elaborate ruse to get the crash survivors to trust Juliet, when really she was working for Ben (except not really because... oh fuck it all, I give up). Which is another reason I don't bother with theorizing, because half the information we are given is wrong because EVERYBODY LIES.

LOL clearly I suck at Lost meta, sorry, Poco.

Comments

[pocochina]

ha cool yes I meant the Others! I had it in my head that they were affiliated with the DI, somehow.

I really like that theory about the 100 days of pregnancy on the island, it makes a lot of sense.

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Well, at the time, I don't think it was clear whether the Others were with Dharma or not. It was only later we found out the Others killed off all the DI people and took over their houses.

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lol, bless this post.

1. LMAO, that was the worst. I remember there was a scene where Goodwin's wife went and CONFRONTED Juliet about it too and Juliet had to pretend she didn't know wth she was talking about it and was SHOCKED about her shitty behaviour being held to account. (I will never understand people who have affairs.)

The entire pregnant women plot was impressively dubious. I'd endorse not thinking too hard about it.

WTF Island indeed.

which is why I tend not to think too hard about Lost, lol, because the answers usually come down to something handwavey like that.

Indeed. It's still incredible to me that masses of fans were in it for the plot tbh.

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LOL now that you mention it, I vaguely remember that scene? Clearly it has been forgotten in the general "Juliet is awesome!" that followed.

It's still incredible to me that masses of fans were in it for the plot tbh.

I will never understand THESE people.