Changes: Rachel Blake

Revision as of 15:57, 27 July 2006

This information was revealed in part through the alternate reality game
The LOST Experience

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Characters:		Rachel Blake · Alvar Hanso · Thomas Mittelwerk · DJ Dan · William Kilpatrick · W. Malick · Other...
Themes:		Hanso Foundation · DHARMA · Valenzetti Equation · Sri Lanka Video · Apollo Candy · Other...

A character in the Lost Experience, Rachel Blake is a woman investigating The Hanso Foundation and is effectively leading the story from the players' point of view. She has used two identities while completing her work in the Experience; her false identity "Persephone" while hacking the Hanso phone line and website, and her real name "Rachel Blake" while blogging and filming her progress in taking down the Foundation in Europe. Along with DJ Dan she is one of the protagonists of the story and usually is the only character to discover new information.

She has posted an official recap of her adventures as of July 25, 2006.

In her video and audio appearances she is played by actress Jamie Silberhartz.

History

Rachel's motives and past have been kept secret, however a few pieces of infromation have come to light in passing.

It is known that Blake's pursuit of the truth about the Hanso Foundation's operation is personal to her, to what ends and for what reason have not been made clear, however it has been stated by Blake that her mother was killed and that her death is the reason why Rachel is trying to stop Hanso.

In another entry, Blake stated that she spent her Widmore Corporation severence package on a bribe with an Italian harbour master. This implies that she was once an employee of a company in the Widmore family of corporations.

Introduction as Persephone

Initially, "Persephone" was the identity Rachel Blake took on while hacking the Hanso Foundation phone line and website. During her days as "Persephone", Rachel could be heard on the Hanso Foundation Phone Line with a rallying call to all who heard it. She told the listener not to "believe their lies" and things like "...where is Alvar Hanso? What have they done with him? Who is in charge?" and that we should investigate further to uncover the truth about what is going on with the Foundation. Giving over the password to access the hidden parts of the website, she effectively started the Lost Experience ARG for all players. She then began to leave clues to the game at her THF.org subdomain Persephone.thehansofoundation.org, which would point players in the direction of new hacks, videos, or comments.

Introduction as Rachel Blake

The in-game reveal of the Rachel Blake character and website came on June 19 as part of the source code in thehansofoundation.org. Her website http://www.rachelblake.com was revealed featuring blogs about her holiday travels (see cover blogs). However, a secret section of the site could be accessed by entering the password evident agenda in the "extra info" box (this password was discovered through Persephone's site). This takes visitors to Rachel's hidden blog concerning her efforts to expose the Hanso Foundation.

At first, there was much debate over whether Rachel Blake was actually the same woman as Persephone, with different authorities saying different things, such as The Lost Ninja saying they were the same, but Speaker arguing they weren't. New evidence was revealed on June 22nd on the letyourcompassguideyou.com directory site to support the theory, however, where a hidden text transcript of an internet conservation was found in the trash section (see OpenersHep Conversation). User OpenersHep refers to herself as 'Rachel B', and it was noted that OpenersHep is an anagram of Persephone, giving weight to the 'same identity' theory.

Finally, in her third Iceland post, Rachel confirmed that she was in fact Persephone, after weeks of speculation and discussion. She explained that as she had been hacking a Danish website [thehansofoundation.org], she could not have revealed her true identity whilst she was residing in Copenhagen.

As stated previously, in what could be seen as the next step in the Experience, the Hanso Foundation website was shut down, and with it came a new form of communication. Now under her real name, Rachel Blake posts blogs on her website almost daily (while taking the weekend off), discussing her findings as she ventures around Europe on the heels of the Hanso Foundation and its staff. In a similar fashion to her "Persephone" days, the new method includes clues for players. However, instead of the flash programmes that were used on THF.org site, videos are shown with Rachel using her digital camera to actively involve players and create a greater sense of alternate reality (with her posts discussing events as they happen).

The Story So Far...

Little is known about Rachel’s life before she began hacking the Hanso Foundation website under the guise of “Persephone”, though some information can be gleamed from her blogs and videos. Rachel initially worked for the Widmore Corporation. She later refers to them as an evil megalithic corporation, and this may in part explain why she quit the job, receiving her severance pay. It is also known that at some point Rachel’s mother died, and this is attributed by Rachel to be why she is undertaking her mission to expose the Hanso Foundation.

We know after this time that Rachel moved to Copenhagen, under the pretence of travelling, to further her Hanso investigations. After making a number of hacks on the Hanso Foundation website about her discoveries into the disappearance of Alvar Hanso and other Foundation executives, Rachel began to publish her blogs and video clips about her findings. During this time, Rachel learnt that Hanso executive Thomas Mittelwerk was researching islands for some purpose, as well as a specially designed ship. To gain this information, Rachel had to take a number of risks, including directly confronting Mittelwerk himself, and narrowly escaping a run-in with one of Mittelwerk’s cronies.

Her research took her to Iceland, where Mittelwerk had headed following a fire at the Hanso funded “Vik Institute”. Here, Rachel learned about the Valenzetti Equation, which was being secretly analysed in the institute by mathematicians and savants. Rachel came to the conclusion that Enzo Valenzetti, the creator of the equation, could have faked his own death in a plane accident, and may be alive in well in hiding. On a tip-off from “GidgetGirl”, Rachel moved on to Italy, finding once again the presence of Hanso executives. Along with seeing a mysterious boat called the “Helgus Antonius” loading Hanso Foundation cargo at a nearby harbour, Rachel received a mysterious phone call from “GidgetGirl”, instructing Miss Blake to go to Paris, France immediately.

When she arrived in Paris, Rachel went to the meeting place, but GidgetGirl never appeared. Rachel later learnt that GidgetGirl was actually Darla Taft, the mistress of Hanso executive Hugh McIntyre, and that both had died in a suspicious car accident. Whilst still reeling from this development, Rachel was attacked in her hotel room, with gunfire shooting from outside. She was rescued by an unlikely ally, the subordinate of Thomas Mittelwerk known only as the “man in black” who Rachel had previously encountered in Copenhagen. Taking her to safety, he tells her of a flat in St Germain de Pres that was owned by Hugh and Darla, and gives her a key. When she got there, Rachel found a video of Darla’s last words, telling her about a package. Inside this, Rachel found folders on the “SPIDER PROTOCOL”, as well as discovering designs for the “Helgus Antonius” ship which outlined a hospital boat with “quarantined” wards. Finally, Rachel found a fake ID and a plane ticket to Sri Lanka, and she hastily booked her flight.

In an appearance that blurred the fourth wall of the series, she appeared at the LOST panel at Comic Con and slammed writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for allowing the Hanso Foundation "to prove themselves as this great philanthropic organization" by buying their way into the show's plot with advertising dollars.

Near the end of her irate speech at Comic Con, she instructs for all who want the truth to go to www.hansoexposed.com.

Indeed, as Rachel indicated, HansoExposed.com is now a center for more mystery and new information in the Lost Experience. When one creates an account with HansoExposed.com, they have joined a new (and rather massive) stage of the game in the Experience - a huge search for fragments of the new video that "will tear the Hanso Foundation apart..." (in the words of Rachel). For much more information on this new stage, go to the Hansoexposed.com page.

Post Archive

Template:Blakeposts

Rachel Blake media

click Here for more information on HansoExposed.com and the new Sri Lanka video fragments
for the locations of all the media, and for a recap on Rachel's adventures, click here.

Theories

Alvar Hanso's Daughter?

There is an increasingly strong suggestion that Rachel is Alvar Hanso's daughter.

One of her first actions as "Persephone" was to track down Hanso's location via the website.
There is a personal connection between Rachel and the Hanso Foundation, perhaps related to her mother's death.
She turns off her camera during her conversation with the Hanso "tech support" thug after he mentions Rachel's mother and says, "He wanted me to help you." In the corresponding post, Rachel tells her readers to ignore these comments.
In the video message left in her Paris flat, Darla tells Rachel, "You know, I never met the big man, Hanso, but something tells me he'd be p—" The video cuts out (likely turned off by Rachel), but the logical end of that sentence is "he'd be proud."
In her surprise appearance at the LOST panel at ComicCon, she declares that "...Alvar Hanso is real, and I am living proof of that!..."

Other Speculation

Possible anagrams:
- Bella Hacker
- A Lab Hacker
- Black Healer

Rachel Blake could be the partner of Tom Brennan as mentioned in the episode Born to Run
- Kate looks at family pictures on Tom's fridge which show a young woman with dark hair as well as a baby. Tom says the baby is called Connor, and when Kate says "he's beautiful," Tom replies "well that's from Rachel."
- Tom worked as a doctor and so, if he had connections to the Hanso Foundation, Rachel could have investigated them after his death.
- Basing on Kate, Tom does seem to like tough girls. He's also quite a match to Rachel as a character, as he is described as a little nerdy (which Rachel is arguably a little herself due to her many Star Wars, Alias, etc. references in her blogs/videos).

Rachel's search for answers about Hanso/DHARMA will lead her to the island during Season 3. (However, in relation to the timeline, Rachel's search is taking place almost approximately two years ahead of the 'LOST present'. Also, her interaction with the writers and actors of the LOST universe at ComicCon seems to undermine the likelihood of her introduction in the show itself.)

Rachel is one of the life extension tests tried on humans (after the success of Joop)
- This is backed up by Rachel saying at Comic-Con "I'm living proof of that"

Despite her reference to a "Widmore severance package," Rachel was actually (or additionally) an employee of the Hanso Foundation.
- In the Post 005 video, Thomas Mittelwerk seems to recognize her.
- It's possible that she is the one referred to in the hidden message at the Mathematical Forecasting Initiative page. It states that "she" was an employee of the Foundation.
- It would also have allowed her access to the Hanso Foundation's website and add on her own hacks.
- In an early blog post she mentions a former job with 'an evil megalithic corporation'.

Liddy Wales is Rachel's mother
- One of Persephone's hacks says "SHE WAS A MEMBER OF THE FOUNDATION"
- Would explain Rachel's motives for bringing down The Hanso Foundation, since she stated that she is motivated by her mother's death.

Rachel may know about the existence of the Island. (However, the fact that she confronted the LOST writers at ComicCon and singled out the Hanso Foundation's inclusion in the "fictional" series — but not, say, the island or Flight 815 — makes this unlikely.)
- She had a keen interest in a particular satellite photo of an island among Mittelwerk's files — i.e. more than the other photos.
- Perhaps her mother was on Oceanic Flight 815.

Persephone in Greek mythology

*Prosperine*: A Dante Gabriel Rosetti painting of the classical Persephone appeared in a DJ Dan podcast.

In classical myth, Persephone (She who destroys the sound) was abducted by Pluto to become the queen of the Underworld. Her story has great emotional power: an innocent maiden; a mother's grief at the abduction and the return of her daughter. It is also cited frequently as a paradigm of myths that explain natural processes, with the descent and return of the goddess bringing about the change of seasons.

As she was gathering flowers with her playmates in a meadow, the earth opened and Pluto, god of the dead, appeared and carried her off to be his queen in the world below. ... Torch in hand, her sorrowing mother sought her through the wide world, and finding her not she forbade the earth to put forth its increase. So all that year not a blade of corn grew on the earth, and men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not persuaded Pluto to let Persephone go. But before he let her go Pluto made her eat the seed of a pomegranate, and thus she could not stay away from him for ever. So it was arranged that she should spend two-thirds (according to later authors, one-half) of every year with her mother and the heavenly gods, and should pass the rest of the year with Pluto beneath the earth. ... As wife of Pluto, she sent spectres, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men

But the Greeks knew another face of Persephone as well. She was also the terrible Queen of the dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was named simply "The Maiden". Her central myth, for all of its emotional familiarity, was also the back-story of the secret initiatory mystery rites of regeneration at Eleusis, which promised immortality to their awe-struck participants—an immortality in her world beneath the soil, feasting with the heroes beneath her dread gaze.

Persephone, as Queen of Hades, only showed mercy once, because the music of Orpheus was so hauntingly sad. She allowed Orpheus to bring his wife Eurydice back to the land of the living as long as she walked behind him and he never tried to look at her face until they reached the surface. Orpheus agreed but failed, looking back at the very end to make sure his wife was following, and lost Eurydice forever.

Inspired by James Frazer, Jane Ellen Harrison and modern mythologers, some scholars have labeled Persephone a life-death-rebirth deity.

Notes

In Rachel's first video there is a can of Sprite visible next to her laptop
Rachel drives a Jeep Compass (as seen in her second video)
A rumour on the comments section of the Blake site is that the character was originally planned to be called Amy Jenson, who was apparently described in briefing as an attractive and intelligent young woman in search of missing pieces of her past trying to find her missing parent (father). The briefing also apparently mentioned that the actress to play this woman would need to be available for personal appearances from July to September.
- However, this is but a rumour at this moment in time, and it should be noted that the Rachel Blake blogs began in June, not July.

Related Websites

All of these in-game sites are hosted on the same server

@@ Line 90: / Line 90: @@
 *Rachel's search for answers about [[Hanso]]/[[DHARMA]] will lead her to the island during [[Season 3]]. (However, in relation to the timeline, Rachel's search is taking place almost approximately two years ahead of the 'LOST present'. Also, her interaction with the writers and actors of the LOST universe at ComicCon seems to undermine the likelihood of her introduction in the show itself.)
+*Rachel is one of the life extension tests tried on humans (after the success of [[Joop]])
+**This is backed up by Rachel saying at Comic-Con "I'm living proof of that"
 *Despite her reference to a "[[Widmore Corporation|Widmore]] severance package," Rachel was actually (or additionally) an employee of the Hanso Foundation.