Talk:Mysterious Figure

Merge/rename

• Delete Shadowy Figure, and re-name this article to 'Mysterious figure (The Man Behind the Curtain)' for clarity. Evil-pineapples 02:43, May 16, 2010 (UTC)
• Agreed. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 15:57, May 20, 2010 (UTC)
  • I took the liberty of redirecting Shadowy Figure here. This page already contained all its content. We still should rename this page though. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 16:03, May 20, 2010 (UTC)

Mysterious figure officially = The Man in Black

Assuming you take The Lost Encyclopedia as official.

From p. 180 (Jacob): When Ben took Locke to see Jacob at the cabin, he got more than he bargained for. Jacob was no longer using the cabin. It had been taken over by the Man in Black who staged a terrifying display, reminiscent of a haunting. The Man in Black only let Locke hear him say, "Help me," another carefully considered move in the long con of both men.

How did he get in? Also answered:

From p. 63 (The Cabin): When Benjamin Linus took John Locke to the cabin, they failed to notice a breach in the circle of ash, meaning the protective shield against the smoke monster's presence was useless. Ben, who had never seen or heard from Jacob, created a ruse to trick Locke into believing that Jacob was inside the cabin. Ironically, Ben didn't realize that something sinister was actually inside.

Merge?

-- Cap'n Calhoun 20:32, October 15, 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, if there's an explanation of how he and Christian appeared simultaneously, I didn't spot it. -- Cap'n Calhoun 20:38, October 15, 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this explanation, but the Lost Encyclopedia saying it's right doesn't make it so. Too many things it says fail to add up. We could mention this under trivia though. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 01:25, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure? Darlton's introduction seems to imply that the Encyclopedia is canon. (Not just the fact that they introduced it, but the wording of the introduction.) This is one of a *lot* of points the Encylopedia brings out, so there's probably going to need to be a site-wide ruling on this. --Cap'n Calhoun 06:09, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Although, in retrospect, while the Encyclopedia says that the *voice* was the Man in Black and that he caused the display, it doesn't definitively identify the figure itself as the MiB. Still, that seems to be the implication. Would like to get further opinions on this. --Cap'n Calhoun 06:17, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

I could defer to you on the foreword because I only read it once. But the Encyclopedia got some things wrong. It got facts wrong, which is bad, and it got conclusions wrong, which may be worse. For instance, it said that nuclear fallout may have caused the pregnancy problems -- a valid theory for a while, but ultimately wrong. It says Ben shot Widmore, preventing him from revealing crucial information. No - Widmore conveyed the info before dying. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 06:24, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

This wiki's policy page lists the Encyclopedia as canon. I guess an overall discussion on the canonicity of the Encyclopedia would probably be better suited to that area. Discrepancies aside, it seems like it should be treated as canonical wherever it doesn't directly contradict the show (or at least given as much credit as the Find 815 ARG and tie-in books, which I don't believe usually get relegated to the "trivia" section). -- Cap'n Calhoun 07:38, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

I disputed its canon status on that talk page. My dispute had nothing to do with the book's many errors (which we're cataloging here. I instead pointed out that our source that allegedly called the book canon doesn't actually mention the book at all. Find 815 and tie-in books are non-canon.

I'd love to mark off the mysterious figure as "solved". The book agrees with my theory! But its authors make some invalid conclusions. Therefore, not all its conclusions went through Lost fact-checkers like Gregg Nations. Therefore, any given conclusion might be true, or it might not. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 09:13, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Missing piece solved! Smokey can appear in two places at once: "When Alpert was shackled inside The Black Rock, the smoke monster appeared as Isabella. Being in two places at once made Alpert believe the smoke monster was outside while Isabella was inside." --Lost Encyclopedia p. 235. --Cap'n Calhoun 21:24, October 19, 2010 (UTC)

Has also appeared as several spiders. But this ruins my "MIB stored Christian's embalmed body in the cabin" theory :-( --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 06:44, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

It should be noted that the book was added as a canonical source to the canon article before it was released. We all assumed since it was written under the guidance of Gregg Nations, who asked Darlton to clarification, that it would be canon. It was very hasty, we should have waited for the release.--Baker1000 12:10, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia slso indicates that MiB could appear in two places at once, as he did when he put on the show for Richard in the Black Rock, and when he appeared as Christian in the Barracks, while on Hydra Island as Locke. So both figures in the cabin could be him.X static66 15:45, July 7, 2011 (UTC)

I believe it should be merged with MIB. Of course he could manifest in two places at once, we've seen that. With Isabella, with his tormenting of Eko. The Encyclopedia is canon. Yes, some details maybe were slightly incorrect but it's unfair to automatically assume this was one of those. It's an answer that has no real counter-evidence, and plenty of actual in-show evidence to back it up. --Sunshine4321 (talk) 21:32, December 19, 2012 (UTC)

Unmerging

Orphan94 redirected this page to The Man in Black because there was a request posted on the article. But we never actually came to a consensus either way.

Are we declaring that the figure definitely was the Man in Black? If so, there are quite a few pages that we must update accordingly. --- Balk Of Fame ♪ talk 21:09, October 2, 2012 (UTC)