LOST-Theories.com

I think you’ve been alone for too long.

— AngeloComet

This is a full essay of an e-mailed debate a friend of mine (LoJozz) previously posted here (Rousseau Explained, was the title). That version was unrefined and sketchy - here is the full essay, with added discussion as brought up by some of the comments from the original posting.

Danielle Rousseau is a character that has been consistently shrouded in mystery and, as such, is potentially vulnerable to be considered untrustworthy and possibly evil-intentioned. That may be the case. But here I will argue otherwise. I will attempt to rationalise Rousseau’s behaviour with occasional theoretical musings on some bigger questions surrounding this curious island survivor.

The first time we meet Danielle we receive a lot of information – a lot of rigid information – that, I believe, if the creators had the chance to do again they would probably do differently. But I’ll work on the assumption that everything is as intended, and what we are given is foundation to form proper opinions. So: the first time we meet Danielle we’re with Sayid. He had fallen into one of her booby traps and been captured. He’s tied to a bed, and he’s just coming round. . .

Immediately, Rousseau’s first questions are all about Alex. “Where is Alex?” She asks over and over, in different languages. (Reminders here to when Naomi was speaking in different languages offer up a nice recurring resonance, though Rousseau merely asks her question in different languages as she is unaware what language Sayid speaks.) Alex is the first and only thing she is interested in.

If it is true that Rousseau has seen no one else whilst on the Island (I’ll come to that) then the baby she lost is her sole concern. When she finally comes into contact with ‘an other’ (Sayid) she wants to know where her child is. At this point, however, I am of the firm belief that Alex is still the baby she lost. The idea of Alex ageing doesn’t penetrate. Indeed, Rousseau is somewhat shocked when Sayid tells her the distress message she left has been playing for sixteen years.

“16 years. Has it really been that long?”

God knows how long she thought it had been. My point is that Alex – the person – is more of a concept of the baby she lost that an actual living human being to Danielle. This point is pivotal in understanding her later behaviour as far on as season 3. Onwards into the scene, we get this:

[Back at Danielle’s we see her music box.]

danielle: It’s a music box, but it’s broken. It has been for a long time. It was a gift from my love for our anniversary.

SAYID: You mean Alex?

danielle: Robert. This was such a comfort to me in the first few years here.

We have what would appear to be a tangible memory of her first few years spent alone – being comforted by a music box. It’s not much, but it’s a material object with emotional connection to an apparently once-real person (Robert, her true love and possibly husband), who accompanied her to the Island. It’s this kind of tangibility that argues against the ‘Danielle-was-brainwashed-to-forget-her-past’ line of thinking. The level of detail in attaching historical, emotional memory by mere brainwashing, I would argue, is implausible. (And if brainwashing is how they explain Danielle’s actions I for one will be very upset!)

Anyway, we now come to a small exchange of dialogue that has been enormous ever since it was uttered.

SAYID [working on the music box]: And how did you come to be on this island, Danielle?

[Danielle sighs and looks like she doesn’t want to talk about it, but she will as if for the price of the music box.]

danielle: We were part of a science team.

SAYID: A science team armed with rifles? Was Robert on the team?

danielle: Yes.

SAYID: And Alex, was he, too?

danielle: Our vessel was 3 days out of Tahiti when our instruments malfunctioned. It was night, a storm, the sounds. The ship slammed into rocks, ran aground, the hull breached beyond repair. So, we made camp, dug out this temporary shelter. Temporary. Nearly 2 months we survived here, 2 months before —

SAYID: Your distress signal? The message I heard, you said, “It killed them all.”

danielle: We were coming back from the Black Rock. It was them. They were the carriers.

SAYID: Who were the carriers?

danielle: The others.

SAYID: What others? What is the Black Rock? Have you seen other people on this island?

danielle: No, but I hear them. Out there, in the jungle. They whisper. You think I’m insane.

SAYID: I think you’ve been alone for too long.

So let’s tread carefully. We have been given much to take in. Firstly, Sayid’s remark about Rousseau being part of a science team armed with rifles is actually a very good question. What kind of science team were they to carry arms? What were they doing in Tahiti? Where were they headed before they crashed? There’s an idea that the science team were part of Dharma, possibly investigating the Valenzetti Equation… but I’ll get to that! For now, mull over the notion that Danielle as part of an armed science team arriving on the Island shares similarities with Naomi and the impending team of scientists set to reach the Island at the close of season 3. Couple in the multi-lingual similarities and the notion becomes compelling. Could Rousseau be part of the same faction that, 16 years later, Naomi will belong to? The idea’s got legs. Take it where you will.

But back to the scene in hand and what’s important here is the first mention of ‘the sickness’ and the others (small capitals intentional). Sayid asks her if she has seen other people on the island, and she tells him no, but that she hears them. To be clear: She says she has never seen The Others (capitals intentional). Not “hostiles”, not Dharma, anyone.

The idea that Rousseau, after 16 years on the Island, hasn’t seen a single other soul is remarkable. And problematic. Some survivors of Oceanic 815 met The Others their first night! This begs the question of how her week-old baby got kidnapped without her seeing anything (probably when she was asleep, is an answer). It begs the question of why The Others have not made their presence felt or got rid of her (she serves them no purpose and they are not “killers”, is an answer). It begs the question of why she has not seen a Dharma Station (in Enter 77 she deliberately stays away from the Flame as per her survival code, is an answer).

16 years without seeing a single other soul is problematic, but, OK, I can swallow it. There’s probably a very good reason why The Others allow her to remain on the Island. Until that’s clear, I can live with it. So to this issue of ‘the sickness’. A Lost jigsaw has since claimed there is no sickness, but this has been brushed off as baseless opinion from Radzinsky and Kelvin. It’s immaterial anyway, because unless Rousseau is consciously lying I believe that she believes there is a sickness. Note my use of the present tense. In later episodes we will learn that Danielle and her team will mark out an area as “the dark territory”, a place where Montan will lose an arm. Losing an arm does not sound like a sickness thing, in my opinion. More likely it sounds like a run-in with a polar bear. My point here is that Danielle and her team, for two months, coped with some crazy shit – and then (either because of, or as an additional problem) developed symptoms of a sickness that pushed Danielle to drastic measures.

For what it’s worth, my initial, first-viewing take on this was that ‘the sickness’ was a concept employed to demonstrate that Rousseau was crazy. That she went mad and killed her team and rationalised it as an infection. When she says she hears whispers we’re encouraged to accept her insanity further. Only, of course, Sayid hears these whispers. . .

“It was them. They were the carriers.” That is just massive. Remember: she has never seen other people, only heard them – so we must assume that the whispers she has heard are what she believes to be the “carriers” (and I suggest she believes the whispers belong to real people that stole her baby). A friend of mine has raised the idea that when she says “they were the carriers” she is referring to her own science team. Personally, I don’t buy it. It’s dialogue semantics. But if you like the idea then feel free to poke and provoke it.

Her distress signal states that “It killed them.” (It can translate as ‘he’ – but since she says she’s never seen another person on the island if ‘it’ was a ‘he’ it must have been someone from her science team that she knew and, if it were, why not just name them?) However, her subsequent confession to Sayid initially contradicts this.

[Sayid fires, but nothing happens.]

danielle: The firing pin has been removed. Robert didn’t notice it was missing, either — when I shot him.

SAYID: But you loved him.

danielle: He was sick.

SAYID: Sick?

danielle: It took them, one after the other. I had no choice. They were already lost.

SAYID: You killed them.

danielle: What would have happened if we were rescued? I couldn’t let that happen. I won’t.

[Sayid throws the rifle down.]

SAYID: I’m not sick.

danielle: i know.

SAYID: Then why kill me?

danielle: i can’t let you go. Don’t you understand, to have someone to talk to, to touch —

“It took them, one after the other. I had no choice. They were already lost.”

The contradiction is clear. The distress signal stated ‘it’ killed the science team. Here Rousseau confesses that she did it. But interestingly, when Rousseau says she shot them she doesn’t expressly say that she killed them. I’m not suggesting she shot them but didn’t kill them – what I am inferring is that she doesn’t believe she murdered them. She doesn’t blame herself. “They were already lost.” So in her distress signal, when she claimed that her team had been killed by “it”, she was sincere. In her mind she just eased their suffering. The same way Jack wouldn’t claim he killed Mars, he just ended his suffering after Sawyer had put a bullet in his lung.

It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree that Rousseau did or didn’t kill her team; what matters is she believes she didn’t kill them. She ended their suffering, and also did this to prevent this ‘sickness’ being spread further should rescue arrive. What explains all this simply is that Rousseau actually did go insane and kill her team under the delusion of them being infected. What also works is that there genuinely IS a sickness.

Interestingly, I never noticed first time around Danielle telling Sayid that she knew he wasn’t sick.

SAYID: I’m not sick.

danielle: i know.

Does this mean that she has come to learn since that there is no sickness? Or that the symptoms of ‘the sickness’ are so striking, so apparent, she can tell from the appearance and behaviour of a person whether they are infected or not? I’ll come back to this but, so it’s clear, it throws a spanner in the works that she was once insane.

One last point to bake your noodle. “It took them, one after the other.” Here, Rousseau could be talking about how the Black Smoke (apparently) takes dead bodies (think Christian, think Yemi). Like she shot her science team, and then the bodies disappeared. I’m not going to get any further into THAT idea – but as with all ideas presented, feel free to play with it.

After this, Sayid leaves and we don’t see or hear from Rousseau for a while. Sayid did manage to take papers with him, though. On it were the 4 8 15 16 23 42 numbers (we’re getting to that soon, fret not!) and, alarmingly, maps. MAPS! This means Rousseau explored enough of the Island to make maps and STILL saw no other person! (Indeed, the Season 3 DVD documentaries reveal that Rousseau had drawings of the Hydra Island in those papers!) Oh well… I guess we can assume she only went around the perimeter. What’s at the perimeter of the Island? Nothing much. Only a cable, a ferry pier, and a giant four-toed statue. . .

Keep repeating: the writers know what they’re doing… the writers know what they’re doing. . .

In Rousseau’s timeline the next thing we know she does is find Claire (who had unbeknownst to Rousseau escaped from the Staff with Alex’s aid) and take her back to her camp. We can figure Rousseau didn’t assume Claire was ‘an other’ since she was being chased by Others. We have to assume that Rousseau had been secretly scouting around the Oceanic 815 camp to validate what Sayid said about being in a plane crash, otherwise she wouldn’t have known where to take Claire. So far, so explicable.

Next up for Rousseau, as if your head wasn’t reeling enough, is her encounter with Hurley, who has sought her out so she can shed some light on the meaning of the mysterious numbers.

hurley: Look, I came here to find — [he reaches for his pocket; Danielle aims her rifle] oh, easy, easy, easy. I’m just getting your notes. Please, tell me why you wrote this. What do these numbers mean? Please.

danielle: i don’t know.

hurley: What? You don’t know… ? [Speech edited for brevity] I want some friggin’ answers.

danielle [lowering her rifle]: Our ship picked up a transmission — a voice repeating those numbers. We changed course to investigate. After we shipwrecked my team continued to search for the transmission source. It was weeks before we found the radio tower.

hurley: There’s a radio tower on this island?

danielle: Yes, up by the Black Rock. Some of us continued to search for the meaning of those numbers while we waited for rescue. But then the sickness came. When my team was gone, I went back up to the tower and changed the transmission.

hurley: The distress signal we heard?

danielle: Yes.

hurley: But the numbers — did you ever find out anything about them? Do you know where they got their power?

danielle: Power?

hurley: They bring bad stuff to everyone around you. They’re cursed. You know that, right? The numbers, they’re cursed.

danielle: Numbers are what brought me here. As it appears they brought you. Since that time I’ve lost everything, everyone I cared about. So yes, I suppose you’re right. They are cursed.

So let’s spend a moment discussing the idea that Danielle and her science team were Dharma. Did they set out to the Island deliberately to investigate the Valenzetti equation? Possibly. “Some of us” went to investigate the numbers; maybe just some of them were in on Valenzetti and engineered the shipwreck on the Island. Possibly this occurred without Danielle knowing (she was seven months pregnant, too; there’s mileage in the idea that she was deliberately brought to the Island against her knowledge because of her unborn child). I’m not counting any of this out. It’s all possible. The science team find a radio tower broadcasting and DON’T convert the signal into a distress call? They were waiting for rescue. Like, you know, how those Dharma people working in the Swan Station would wait for their relief to come… ?

Food for thought for sure, but I want to get back to Danielle. The next major moment is when Rousseau shows up to warn the survivors that “The Others are coming.” She tells the survivors that her baby, Alex, was stolen and, the important thing about this is this: Rousseau delivers this information when there is no plume of black smoke visible. Which begs the question: How did she know The Others were coming?

[Claire’s baby cries. Danielle and Claire share a long look.]

SAYID: Danielle? Danielle? What are you doing here?

danielle: The others are coming… Our ship went aground on this island 16 years ago. There were 6 of us — my team, 6. At that time I was already 7 months pregnant. I delivered the infant myself. The baby and I were together for only 1 week when I saw black smoke — a pillar of black smoke 5 kilometers inland. That night they came — they came and took her — Alex. They took my baby. And now, they’re coming again. They’re coming for all of you.

JACK: Who’s coming?

danielle: The others. You have only 3 choices — run, hide, or die.

Technically she only mentions The Others are coming after she has seen Aaron. You could argue that she formulated the kidnap plan since she had already seen the heavily-pregnant Claire in the jungle and was waiting until she knew Claire would have delivered the child before making a move. You could go down that route. The trouble is that, if it really was just a concoction, she just happened to be right. The Others really WERE coming. That’s quite a coincidence.

I don’t think it was a coincidence. I believe Rousseau did know The Others were coming and she was genuinely warning the Oceanic survivors. It’s only when she actually clapped eyes on baby Aaron did a more self-serving scheme come to mind – that she could take the child and use it as a trade with The Others for Alex. It was a quick, rough and ready snatch; not an intricate plan. That’s what I think.

So, a plan is hatched (ho ho!) to get dynamite from the Black Rock to blow open the hatch to secrete the survivors (how anyone thought this was a good idea is a matter for another essay). On the way there, this occurs:

[They come to a piece of black fabric hanging from a branch.]

danielle: Le Territoire Fonce.

JACK: The Dark Territory.

danielle: The Black Rock is not far. This is where it all began — where my team got infected — where Montan lost his arm. We must move quickly.

Clearly she genuinely DOES believe her team got infected. Yet was convinced that Sayid or anyone else was not infected. Thus we must deduce she is either lying, or she believes completely in infection. Was she insane at the time? Well, she has a very clear memory here of where it all began. Does an insane person have the capacity to pinpoint the moment they started to go mad? And this isn’t the only thing she knows. After the Black Smoke attacks them we get this:

KATE: What was that thing?

danielle: It’s a security system.

JACK: Security system? What does that mean?

danielle: It’s purpose is that of any security systems — to protect something.

KATE: Protect what?

danielle: The island.

Someone definitely needs to pump Danielle for whatever it is she knows, because that woman knows A LOT. Whatever magical properties the Island possesses, Danielle has some appreciation of it. She understands the idea of Smokey as a security system…? Would that not make her question more about what it was protecting after 16 years? Doesn’t this wealth of knowledge contradict the behaviour of a woman who has kept herself to herself? And, with her child missing, WHY did she choose to keep herself to herself?

(If I sound like I am questioning Danielle’s character then I kind of am – but mostly I am getting the feeling that Danielle’s character has suffered at the hands of some writing inconsistencies. If her character does turn out to be a brainwashed Others saboteur with an evil masterplan it’ll be as a result of some bad writing. A shock twist for the sake of a twist rather than logical character revelation. The more I analyse her actions and words the more I think it.)

So, Danielle leads the group to the Black Rock and then goes back to the beach and Claire remembers that she scratched Danielle and so Danielle belts her across the head and nicks baby Aaron and scampers off. Right now you could be swayed into thinking like Charlie does; that there are no Others and Rousseau conceived the deception to swipe the kid. . .

Here’s a thing to validate her original claim that The Others were definitely coming. The pillar of Black Smoke. It appears when Danielle is with the survivors. So The Others must have made it (unless the thing was set to a timer!). That’s very un-Other like behaviour, to advertise their presence, unless it was used specifically. I believe it was. The pillar of smoke was not a warning, it was a means of manipulating Rousseau.

[In the distance we see the black smoke is coming from a fire on the beach. Sayid and Charlie approach the fire.]

charlie: What the hell is that?

SAYID: There’s no footprints, no tracks.

No tracks is very Other like. This is our first clue.

danielle: i just wanted my Alex back. I thought if I gave them the baby…

SAYID: It’s okay. I know. It’s okay.

[Sayid takes the baby and gives it to Charlie.]

charlie: i’ve got him. There never were any others. You started the fires yourself.

danielle: No, I heard them whispering.

charlie: You’re a nut job. You heard nothing.

danielle: i heard them say they were coming for the child. The others said they were coming for the boy.

So there’s the key to it. She knows what she knows because she heard it. She listened to the whispers. Could it be that The Others have control over the whispers and used them to manipulate Danielle? It works logically. Or did The Others just whisper loud enough to make Danielle THINK it was the real whispers? The net result is the same: The Others lit the fire and manipulated her. Get the survivors concerned about the welfare of baby Aaron when Walt is the real target. For Rousseau, sobbing, handing back the child, she has learned the bitter lesson that The Others don’t trade. She’ll remember this betrayal in season two. . .

So season two brings, for me, two important pieces of business, the first of which is when we are introduced to ‘Henry Gale’ (hitherto referred to as Ben). I am lead to understand that the exact circumstances of how Ben came to be captured in one of Rousseau’s booby traps is to be properly explained but, until then, I’ll believe events are as presented. There is potential to imagine that Ben and Danielle worked in collusion to trick Sayid into taking Ben back to the Swan Station. I can see how that works in Ben’s favour, in terms of getting in amongst the survivors and meddling around, but I don’t see how that works for Danielle. What does she get out of this arrangement? Answer is, not much. No, I think she’s above board. She tells Sayid something that later turns out to be true right from the start:

VOICE: Help me!

danielle: Don’t believe a word he says.

VOICE: Hey!

danielle: He’s one of them.

VOICE: I have no idea what she’s talking about. She’s crazy.

SAYID: How long has he been up there?

VOICE: Since last night. Please, just cut me down. My name is Henry Gale. I’m from Minnesota. Please.

danielle: He’s lying.

She’s right. He is lying. The way I see it, Rousseau found Ben in her trap. Like she did with Sayid, I’ll bet the first thing she asked him is, “Where is Alex?” Don’t forget, at this point Alex is still the baby she lost and is her prime motivation. However, Ben continues his “My name is Henry Gale” spiel until, exasperated, Rousseau gives up. But she remembers Sayid the interrogator. If she can’t get the truth out of Ben she knows a man who can! (She actually gives Sayid her rifle, telling him he can shoot her if he believes her to be lying. Of all the people on the Island, Sayid knows a liar when he sees one. Rousseau, if she was lying, took one hell of a risk and that’s not really her style.)

The problem, of course, is that she hands Ben over and then never bothers with him again. If she handed Ben over to get answers about Alex she never sought out those answers – therefore does that not indicate misdemeanour? Well, it would, if very soon after this (the very next episode, in fact!) Rousseau hadn’t journeyed with Claire and Kate to the Staff Station and found out something about Alex that totally knocked her sideways. . .

See, remember when Aaron started getting sick? And Libby hypnotised Claire? And Claire remembered being with Ethan and getting injected? And so she, with Kate, set out to try and find this medical place? And Rousseau just shows up? Is it not a pertinent question to ask: What the hell was Danielle doing hanging around the Oceanic 815 camp in the first place?

[We see Claire putting a cold rag on Aaron’s forehead.]

CLAIRE [panicky]: Hey, it’s okay; it’s okay. Mommy’s going to cool you down, okay. Shhh, it’s okay. [Claire hears something behind her] Jack.

[We see Danielle approaching from behind. Claire quickly picks up Aaron.]

claire: What are you doing here? You stay away from us.

Indeed. And yet we already know the answer. Rousseau is hanging around the fringes of the camp waiting for news about Ben/Henry Gale, hoping that Sayid will get some truth out of him. So that’s that explained. But just as things are looking clearer we’re back to ‘the sickness’.

danielle: He’s infected, isn’t he?

claire: What?

danielle: Your child, he’s sick.

So now we’ve got Rousseau mentioning sickness again. Before it seemed apparent to her that Sayid was not sick. With Aaron, however, she is not so certain. The last thing she tells Claire is:

danielle: i hope your baby’s not infected. But if it is, I hope you know what must be done.

So what are we to conclude about Rousseau’s stance on ‘the sickness’ (remember, I’m interested in Rousseau’s opinion; whether it’s factually correct or not is irrelevant)? In a nutshell, it’s this: She came to an island where a sickness existed and it infected her science team. Due to this, to prevent a “carrier” from ever leaving the island, she killed her team. She believes the sickness still exists on the island – just not everyone is infected. She has a sense of duty to prevent the sickness from ever leaving the island and will ensure that this is maintained. Do you know which piece of dialogue directly informs me of this? You might have missed it first time, but it WAS stated previously. It’s something she says to Sayid during the moment she is revealing to him that she was the one that shot her team to prevent them from spreading the infection:

danielle: What would have happened if we were rescued? I couldn’t let that happen. I won’t.

Those two words at the end. “I won’t.” She switches from past tense to present tense. She shot her team to prevent the spread of ‘the sickness’. She tells Claire she needs to do what needs to be done. This wasn’t something she once did. This is something she is DOING.

That’s all for ‘the sickness’, and now there’s just one last piece of business regarding Rousseau and her daughter, Alex. I stated previously that Rousseau learned something about Alex that knocked her sideways. Allow me to explain.

claire: i remember a girl — a girl with blue eyes. She helped me. She saved me, just like you did. She wasn’t like the others. She was good.

Remember this, above all else: Alex is Rousseau’s prime motivation. But here, for the first time (in my opinion), Rousseau is forced to consider Alex not as the baby that she lost, but as a grown human being. In short, a person. This changes everything. Suddenly Rousseau realises that if she were to get Alex back she would have to confront all the concerns and feelings she tells Kate about in Par Avion. “Imagine sixteen years from now… wouldn’t remember you… wouldn’t know you… wouldn’t even know that you ever cared…” Now she figures that meeting Alex again might not be a good idea. This is how we can understand her psychology when she is on the brink of finding her daughter. Why it is Rousseau merely views Alex from afar, in the jungle, and weeps, keeping her presence a secret.

As we know, season 3 ends with mother and daughter finally reunited. This suggests the potential for a little more Rousseau time in season 4! The relationship between Danielle and Alex will make for interesting viewing and maybe we’ll even find out the truth about the science team and ‘the sickness’. Rousseau is planning on sticking around after all. Even as Jack and co are busy making plans to try and get themselves rescued, Rousseau tells him she has no interest in leaving the island. I can only assume this is because she believes she’s got a job to do: to prevent ‘the sickness’ from ever spreading. Or maybe, just maybe, she’s already infected. Maybe she’s got ‘the sickness’ too. She “won’t” let it leave the Island, remember, no matter what. . .

Key characters

Short Name	Full Name	Episodes	Theories
Aaron	Aaron Littleton		367
Claire	Claire Littleton	2.15, 2.12, 1.10, 1.15, 1.21, 3.12	385
Sayid	Sayid Jarrah	2.14, 1.9, 3.11, 4.3, 4.12	391

Key episodes

#	Title	Aired	Central character	Theories
2.15	Maternity Leave	3-1-2006	Claire	118
2.14	One of Them	2-15-2006	Sayid	88
1.18	Numbers	3-2-2005	Hurley	113
1.9	Solitary	11-17-2004	Sayid	87

Key events

Theme	Relevant Episodes	Theories
Claire is captured	2.15	145
French woman radio trasmission discovered	1.2	99

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