Talk: Lost Encyclopedia

This where i should have asked so this encyclopedia is not canon--15-Ford 08:39, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Alcohol

I have my Encyclopedia in front of me right now on this page, and it has an image of Cabernet and says Kelvin drank. Yet on this article it says the encyclopedia incorrectly displays an image of Merlot when it should be Cabernet. What's the exact problem here? Is it a bottle of Merlot with a Cabernet label or something?--Baker1000 12:36, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

The opposite. It's a Cabernet bottle, implying that Kelvin drank Cabernet. He drank Merlot. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 12:49, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Oh right. I thought I was missing something then.--Baker1000 13:01, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

You were right. I switched the article info, which was backwards. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 13:32, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Thought you might be interested to know about Jacob's wine bottle, so I asked Tara. Basically, she had nothing to do with it, it was the designers. So I wouldn't call it and out-and-out error, nor the Merlot/Cabernet issue. The designers seemed to do the images/captions. http://www.formspring.me/NotesfromIsland/q/1341456131 --Alexisfan07 October 16, 2010

We're not just attacking Tara here. If the designers erred, that's as big an error. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 19:26, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

The Jacob bottle, yea. I still am not convinced the red wine thing is an outright error, since they don't say specifically he was drinking Cabernet. Either way, I think they used the images the show provided. Not sure why the official prop image of the Jacob bottle is the wrong bottle. --Alexisfan07 October 16, 2010

Alex's age

I'm restoring this as an error. Alex died on December 27, 2004. ("The Shape of Things to Come") Danielle was seven months pregnant when she landed on the island. ("This Place Is Death") She set sail from Tahiti in mid November of 1988. Even assuming their voyage from Tahiti to the Island took no time at all, Alex would have to have been born prematurely to die at 16.

What does the book give for her date of birth? --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 13:44, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

"In 1988, a seven-months pregnant Danielle Rousseau and her fellow French expedition peers ran aground on the island. In the short span of two months, Danielle killed her lover Robert and the rest of her crew because of the 'sickness,' which left her alone to give birth to a baby girl." - so 11/15/88 + ~9 months = 8/15/89. Uzerzero 15:53, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

I suppose it would be more like 11/15/88 + ~2 months = 1/15/89, but that confirms our estimates. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 17:36, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

The book stated that Danielle's group set sail from Tahiti on 15 November 1987, and Danielle has been on the island for 16 years and 10 months, that means her group landed the island on February 1988. As Danielle was already pregnant in February 1988 on the island, I don't think she was still pregnanting in December. So Alex was killed on 27 December 2004, then her birthday must before December. And if you count this:"2004-1988=16", there's nothing wrong about Alex's age. User:enos 18:23, October 16, 2010 (UTC).

Agreed. Alex's age is not an error. Gregg Nations, on The Fuselage, pointed out how fans came to our own erroneous conclusion about The Black Rock. Jin asks Rousseau when they left for their expedition. Rousseau says November whatever. Then Jin says "no, what year." We all assumed that meant what year she left on her expedition. What he was REALLY asking in his broken English is what year it currently was. She responded 1988. --Alexisfan07 October 16, 2010

Ah. That contradicts "This Place Is Death", where Danielle says they set sail on 11/15, and, when asked "What year?", replies "1988". The book suggests that Danielle told Jin the current year rather than the year they set forth, which makes no sense considering the context. Unless Danielle supposed Jin a time traveler, she'd assume he was asking about her expedition, not the current year.

But this explanation clears so much up. It syncs up the events of "The Little Prince" with Sayid's original estimate that we'd been believing for years. In sounds like the show really planned for Danielle to have set sail in 1987, and any error in portraying it was the show's, not the book's. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 18:39, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. The only idea I have is obviously Rousseau saw that Jin was disoriented and possibly lost and I'm assuming most people wouldn't assume he was time traveling. Maybe he was held hostage for a while and lost his sense of time? Who knows what Rousseau was thinking. --Alexisfan07 October 16, 2010

Slipped my mind till now, but David Fury told Lostpedia that "Solitary" originally stated the expedition studied... time. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 18:58, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Merge?

This should be an article in and of itself as I'm sure there will be more added over time. I do think there should be a mention of this article on the "Lost Encyclopedia" article with a link to this page. --Just Sayin' JSTalk LBC LBCTalk eMail 15:49, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Whoops. Moved it without further discussion, thinking I'd have posted here to begin with if I'd thought about it.

I think in general that no matter how finely we chop our of Lost articles, we should treat external stuff like this differently. For example, we shouldn't have an article on Overlaps between Fringe and Lost. We should have an article of Fringe, and we should list the overlaps there. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 17:18, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

The Staff

This seems more like an expansion than a contradiction.

• Encyclopedia explanation as described here: The Staff studied whether radioactive fallout from the incident caused the pregnancy problems.
• Show explanation as described here: Electromagnetism, not nuclear fallout, caused the pregnancy problems, and DHARMA knew this. ("The New Man in Charge") The incident produced no appreciable nuclear fallout, even assuming that the bomb detonated at all, because DHARMA continued populating the island and men lived for decades at the Swan site. ("The Man Behind the Curtain")
• Actual text of Encyclopedia: The last birth on the island was Ethan Rom's in 1977. After that, the station was used to study whatever radioactive fallout occurred after the Incident and whether or not it contributed to, or was unrelated to, the fertility issues on the island.

Put together a few facts:

• Pierre Chang's explanation of the electromagnetic effects on pregnancy in "The New Man in Charge" seems to be before the Incident. (Admittedly, the apparent contradictions in TNMiC make this debatable.)
• The successful birth of Ethan Rom and the lack of successful births for the next few decades indicates the problem was exacerbated by something, as the Encyclopedia points out.
• The Encyclopedia says the Staff studied *whether* fallout *contributed to* the pregnancy issue. This is a far cry from stating that the fallout was the sole factor (or even stating it was a factor). It could have been in combination with the electromagnetic radiation or other factors, or it could have been debunked after some period of study. (It could have even concluded that there was no appreciable effect from the fallout, although I don't know why they would need a full station for that; if you want to argue the science of it, explain to me how electromagnetic radiation caused women's wombs to appear aged or their immune systems to attack their children.)
• While it indicates that was the initial purpose of the Staff, the term "after that" does not necessarily encompass the entire history of the island. Even if you want to say the Hydra Orientation Film was made after the Staff was created, it could've been after the Staff had already debunked the theory that it was studying when it was initially created.
• You might count this point as more under speculation than evidence, but despite Pierre Chang's statement, the source of the problem still seemed to be a mystery when Juliet was brought on board and doing her research, so it's quite possible that he was giving the prevailing theory at the time, which may have been flat-out wrong.

--Cap'n Calhoun 16:27, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

I think we must base our conclusions on "The New Man in Charge"'s accuracy. Its purpose was to provide answers. We mustn't speculate that those answers were wrong. Also, the pregnancy problem's source was apparently not a mystery when Juliet arrived. Its cure was.

Pre-Incident, DHARMA knew electromagnetism affected pregnancy at specific sites. The Incident released electromagnetism. I doubt DHARMA would attribute the wider pregnancy problems to something new altogether rather than the increased electromagnetism.

That said, you're right - merely studying the fallout's possible contribution doesn't contradict the real cause.

My other problem was with the additional fact - fallout occurred. I have trouble imagining DHARMA remaining on the island if significant fallout might have threatened people. I also have trouble imagining two people spending years at ground zero without dying of radiation sickness. But this in itself isn't an error. The island heals, after all. And the Swan did have layers of concrete like Chernobyl. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 16:45, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Even if this book is wrong, it answers a question I never thought to ask: Why did the Staff have a birthing section? When DHARMA women give birth on the mainland? --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 16:50, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Alvar Hanso: What if there were effects from the fallout?

Pierre Chang: Sir, there was no fallout.

Alvar Hanso: How can we be sure? We need to build another station.

Pierre Chang: Sir, we have geiger counters.

Alvar Hanso: Geiger counters, schmeiger counters. We need to study this further!

Pierre Chang: (mumbling): Well, I could use another station...

Staying on the island with fallout still doesn't strike me as less believable than the electromagnetic effects in any case. This list probably needs to stick with flat-out contradictions as opposed to uncomfortably illogical explanations, which stylistically are perfectly in keeping with the some of explanations the show gave us in the first place. ;-)

--Cap'n Calhoun 16:55, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Ha, ha!

I agree about our standard for errors. For instance, I wouldn't list "Charles Widmore carried out the Ajira massacre" as an error simply because he had no motive for it. We also can't list it as an error because the Man in Black suggested "dealing with" the passengers in "The Incident, Part 1". But we might say that the bodies had no time to decay between Widmore's arrival in "Dr. Linus" and their discovery in "Recon"... --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 17:12, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Is a list of grammatical errors in anyway relevant?

We're not teaching an english class here. InflatableBombshelter 01:55, October 17, 2010 (UTC)

So we're not going to document if they write "Jack deciding" instead of "Jack's deciding" or something like that. But we'll but down we'll record where errors change meaning, render a sentence unreadable or just blatantly show the editor was asleep at the wheel. Do point out any instanced where we go overboard though. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 04:41, October 17, 2010 (UTC)

What does "we'll but down" mean? ;-) --Cap'n Calhoun 03:22, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

You can record such errors here. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 06:10, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

Update the lostpedia

I still not get the book yet, but if someone had already got it, please update the articles in lostpedia. Also I don't know if there any new stuff about characters' surname, the years or dates of any event, the candidates' nums and names, the DHARMA station's nums, etc. If the book do stated some of these new stuffs, we have to update them.User:enos 03:58, October 17, 2010 (UTC)

But if the info appears to contradict what we've got or what's in the show, discuss the change first. Sometimes, it'll be a book error. Sometimes, as with Alex's age, we'll learn something new about the show. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 04:43, October 17, 2010 (UTC)

Book states Claire's birthday as October 29, but here on Lostpedia we have it as October 27. Just wondering if we should list that as an error or are our calculations on the timeline incorrect?--Baker1000 12:11, October 17, 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure our timeline is slightly off. Season one jumped over days a lot, so I would guess we're just a few days off. Alexisfan07 October 18, 2010

It wasn't a lot. Season 1 jumped over only two or three days and that was after Sayid left. --LOST-The Cartographer 17:06, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Jughead

As I read here, Eloise sent Sayid, Richard and Jack to the bomb. But Eloise was there to! --Station7 11:17, October 17, 2010 (UTC)

Anything New and Significant?

• I currently don't own a copy of the book, but to those of you who do have it, I was simply wondering, is there any valuable info given out? For example, are Paulo and Eko's surnames stated? Do they at least confirm that Tunde was just an alias? Is there any clarification of the Goodspeed family and Olivia's later life whereabouts? Thanks in advance. --LeoChris 20:27, October 17, 2010 (UTC)

Lots of stuff. It clarifies many of the characters' motivations, which had been bugging me. We're currently debating over at Lostpedia talk:Canon how it'll fit into Lostpedia (if at all).

Haven't spotted Paulo's surname. Amusingly, he doesn't rate his own article. (There's a "Nikki and Paulo" article.)

Eko: Doesn't directly state, but says: "Eko went to London to study and adopted the name of Father Tunde."

Goodspeeds: Much like Benjamin Linus, young Ethan was drawn to the native people on the island and yearned to be part of their community. He reached out to their leader Charles Widmore and was told that he would be welcome if in exchange as a DHARMA insider, he helped carry out elements of the Purge. When Ethan's people were all dead, including his parents, the young boy changed his name from Goodspeed to Rom and officially became one of "them." Ethan grew up on the island and was one of Widmore's trusted few allowed to travel on and off the isalnd for schooling and specific recruiting missions. Rom eventually trained as a surgeon and assisted in the ongoing research to solve his people's fertility and childbirth issues. When Widmore was banished and Linus took over leadership of the Others, Ethan didn't have any problems with lingering loyalty because his overall commitment was to the well-being of the Others. (From the Ethan Rom article.)

Don't see anything significant about Olivia. --Cap'n Calhoun 20:40, October 17, 2010 (UTC)

Nikki and Paulo not getting their own, individual, article is hilarious when one considers they were main characters. Thanks for the info, though, it is much appreciated. --LeoChris 20:44, October 17, 2010 (UTC)

I discovered today in my meticulous reading of the c's that Cindy and the kids did indeed stay on the Island with Hurley after he became the big man. Thought that was pretty significant. Although if it's an assumption or canon, I'm unsure. - Uzerzero 05:50, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Standards

I'm not sure if it should be noted when the book steps outside of the "in-universe" aspect. All of the grey boxes contain some tidbit of info, many about who a character was named after or some other background info. Those are technically stepping out of the universe, but they are set aside by being in the grey box. I also think that page numbers should be cited when adding an entry, if at all possible. Also, should there be a place to mention anything new we find? I'd rather have new findings grouped here until we come to a conclusion about canon than have them crop up in articles around the site. - Uzerzero 09:06, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

I think the new findings is a great idea. Also, should we create a list of articles (and their page numbers) or would that be too long? We list what doesn't have an article. I think we should get rid of that awful Wikia gallery of the page samples, put them as thumbnails down the right of the page in a section with a list of articles.--Baker1000 19:56, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

The gallery seems appropriate here, making this only of the only appropriate spots in the encyclopedia. They pics don't illustrate the article. They're a series of links to full-size pages you can read. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 14:32, October 19, 2010 (UTC)

I think a list of articles and page numbers would be far too long. There's an index in the back of the book (albeit not too helpful) and there's probably around 700 articles in there. The promotional samples should stay where they are. They're referring to the book, not to the errors. Perhaps if need be, comparison shots/scans of pages and the items they contradict could be added alongside the errors list. I did a page and section column for the categories that needed it. I couldn't find a few of the copyediting errors and one or two were confusing in the way they were worded so I deleted them. I think copyediting errors should only include issues with format, sentence structure where it changes the meaning or makes the sentence unreadable, or major typos. I'm working on making a list of all the new things that I've found so far, hopefully I'll have a new section on that up soon. - Uzerzero 23:33, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

If, for the moment, Lost Encyclopedia information is largely kept in the trivia section or a "background information" section (similar to what Memory Alpha uses) or even a "Lost Encyclopedia comments" section with each reference clearly linking to the Lost Encyclopedia, the "What links here" feature could be used to locate these additions for the purpose of finding them and better integrating them into the articles once the canonicity of the book is determined. --Cap'n Calhoun 05:58, October 19, 2010 (UTC)

It occurred to me recently that the large number of copyediting errors is due in large part to the bumped release date. It seems as though an editor read the first draft and corrected it, but they neglected to have it edited for their second draft due to time. I think that the reason behind bumping it to a later date was to add material relating to the series finale, although I could be wrong. Based on a few sentences that seem to have multiple drafts in them, I think this could be the case. - Uzerzero 22:07, October 21, 2010 (UTC)

Elsa/Naomi Error

According to the Encyclopedia Naomi's bracelet reminded Sayid of Elsa's. Surely this is an error as Naomi died in 2004, whereas Sayid only met Elsa when he was one of the Oceanic 6. MR IRISH 15:40, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

Yep, a mistake. Add it. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 15:43, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

Done MR IRISH 20:48, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

Omissions

Rupa Krishnavani

Seeing that she spoke in one episode and the show never mentioned her name, her omission isn't really worth noting. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 21:06, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

I disagree many more minor characters got an entry many who were one-liners or had no lines at all. Examples include Nadine, Sexy Blue Striped Shirt Girl, Nancy, Sam Toomey etc. The co-pilot of Flight 316 has an entry as well but since this would also include adding others I see your point.--Thelamppost 00:16, October 21, 2010 (UTC)

Nadine and Sam Toomey surprise me, but at least the show named them. Nancy? I had to look her up. We don't even know what she looks like. And Sexy Blue Striped Shirt Girl? That's ridiculous. She isn't a character. She's a fan concept - a nickname given to a background extra. I thought this was all "in-universe"? Do they also have an entry on Jackface?--- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 06:28, October 21, 2010 (UTC)

I think the inclusion of some of the minor characters is meant as a bit of a joke or easter egg. Who else but us hardcore fans would notice those little things? Rupa did give Jack the suicide note from Locke, which I think is pretty important and warrants mention (it's not even included in a caption on the image of the note on Jack's page). Sam Toomey is referenced in the Hurley article I think - Uzerzero 17:28, October 21, 2010 (UTC)

But... if it's a Lost Encyclopedia, shouldn't it include every character who was ever credited on the show / had a line? Therefore, even if a specific clerk doesn't have its own article, like they do here on Lostepedia, it becomes, by definition, an omission. Right? --LeoChris 00:01, October 22, 2010 (UTC)

not every single event, person, or thing is given an article and/or mentioned in real encyclopedias so why would you expect that from one about a show? --LOST-The Cartographer 04:43, October 22, 2010 (UTC)

Index

The index in this book is just as lacking as the rest of the encyclopedia. For a start, there isn't an article dedicated solely to the whispers, which of course means no transcripts or expanded explanation such as why they appear when the Others are near. Then I looked in the index to try and find which page they get a mention on, and it doesn't have it listed. I'd at least expect something as huge as the whispers to have its own segment on the Island article, but it doesn't. They are mentioned on the Michael article, but why isn't that listed in the index?--Baker1000 22:25, October 20, 2010 (UTC)