Among the initial mysteries introduced in Lost pertained to the existence of a polar bear on the island. When the show started the stories of the Oceanic Flight 815 passengers in 2004, a quantity of queries right away became pertinent, not the least of which getting the monster living on Lost’s island. While these that factored heavily into the primary story had been explained more than time, the explanations for some had been sometimes lost in the shuffle due to the sheer quantity of Lost mysteries that piled up from the pretty initial episode. A ideal instance of this was the island’s resident polar bear.

In the second half of the two-aspect Lost pilot, Kate and Sayid had been top a group of survivors into the jungle when they heard some thing substantial charging toward them. To everyone’s surprise, their attacker was revealed to be a polar bear. Naturally, the discovery shocked the group, considering that it created no sense for a polar bear to reside in such an atmosphere. And although the polar bear died through the attack, it wound up just getting the initial of numerous polar bear-connected experiences on the show. Michael, Locke, Mr. Eko, and Walt also had encounters with polar bears. However, these incidents stopped soon after season 3.

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Lost Season 3 Reveals The Polar Bears Are From DHARMA Experiments On The Island

The Dharma Initiative Used The Polar Bears To Further Their Research

The early seasons of Lost had been filled with references to polar bears, but an actual explanation for them wasn’t presented till season 3 when the Others placed Kate and Sawyer in cages. As the characters came to comprehend, the cages after belonged to polar bears, which had been brought to the island at an unspecified point in the Lost timeline by the original owners of the Others’ headquarters, the Dharma Initiative. Clearly, the Dharma Initiative was working with them for experimentation. This was created apparent by the cameras watching the cages and the mechanism made to make the polar bear operate for his meals.

An essential aspect of their goal on the island relates to the activities at the Orchid station, one particular of the Dharma Initiative outposts in Lost. At the Orchid station, the polar bears had been made use of to turn the substantial, frozen wheel. Discovered by the Dharma Initiative in 1977, the mysterious wheel was identified as a strategy of manipulating the electromagnetic power inside the Heart of the Island. This was the very same wheel that Ben turned at the finish of season 4 to “move” the island, which set up the time travel shenanigans in Lost season 5.

When the bears would turn the wheel, they would be teleported to Tunisia, a detail that became a essential plot point in Lost season 4. The discovery of a polar bear skeleton in Tunisia is what motivated Charlotte to go searching for the island with Faraday’s group. The polar bear getting the catalyst for Charlotte’s journey to the island helped give genuine significance to the polar bear twist, rather than leave it as a detail about the island integrated merely to surprise viewers.

How The Polar Bears Left Hydra Island In Lost

The Polar Bears Fled From One Island To Another

Of course, the Dharma Initiative’s interest in polar bears only accounts for aspect of the explanation, as that on it really is personal does not clarify how Lost’s primary characters located themselves at odds with the animals. After all, it really is essential to note that the Dharma Initiative (and later the Others) occupied a tiny, neighboring island identified in the series as Hydra Island. As for how the polar bears created it from Hydra Island to the primary island, the answer to that query stems from the events of “The Purge.” A calculated attack perpetrated by the Others, the Purge wiped out the Dharma Initiative and resulted in the bears getting accidentally freed from captivity decades just before the setting of the series.

The “Access: Granted” particular function on the season 3 DVD set confirmed that the bears escaped from the cages observed in Lost season 3 and managed to swim from Hydra Island to the primary island. That tends to make a good deal of sense, taking into consideration that polar bears are identified to be superb swimmers. Despite the island not getting a hospitable atmosphere for their species, the polar bears succeeded in surviving on their personal in the wild. The presence of at least a handful of polar bears on the island in 2004 was proof of that, as it became clear more than time that there wasn’t just one particular or two bears there.

Lost’s Epilogue Fully Explains The Polar Bears’ History On The Island

The Dharma Initiative Considered Several Factors When Picking The Polar Bear For Experimentation

Interestingly, the Dharma Initiative’s precise factors for working with polar bears particularly weren’t totally spelled out till soon after the series ended. “The New Man in Charge,” a brief Lost particular that acted as an epilogue to the series, saw Ben play the Hydra Orientation video narrated by Dr. Pierre Chang, who explained the value of the polar bears. Dr. Chang explained in the video that the Dharma Initiative performed experiments on a number of animals to see how they would react to electromagnetic power. In the interest of evaluating its effects on “larger mammals,” the Dharma Initiative chosen the polar bears as test subjects.

As for why polar bears had been selected more than other mammals of their size, that can be attributed to a selection of things, which includes their intelligence, capacity to withstand cold temperatures, and strength. All of these traits had been singled out by Dr. Chang, who brought up the strategy to send the bears to the Orchid station. Though he did not go over the frozen wheel straight, this speaks to the organization’s motivations for getting the bears turn the wheel. The intense cold and the difficulty of turning the wheel most likely known as for the scientists to lean on some thing that could each budge the wheel and endure the freezing temperatures at the very same time.

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Dr. Chang also emphasized the polar bears’ intelligence and memory capabilities. These had been essential considerations for the Dharma Initiative, as the scientists recognized that polar bears are smarter than most animals. It’s attainable that they believed that due to the fact of their intelligence, it would not be challenging to train them to push the wheel, although this wasn’t explicitly stated in the epilogue.

It’s worth pointing out that Lost itself hinted at the intelligence of the polar bear getting some thing to do with why they had been on the island, as opposed to some other bear species. In Lost season 3, Charlie created a remark about this aspect of the animal, referring to the polar bear as “the Einsteins of the bear community.” Evidently, this notion was not lost on the minds behind the Dharma Initiative in Lost.

Lost

Cast

Evangeline Lilly , Naveen Andrews , Henry Ian Cusick , Daniel Dae Kim , Harold Perrineau , Dominic Monaghan , Emilie de Ravin , Jorge Garcia , Josh Holloway , Michael Emerson , Terry O’Quinn , Matthew Fox , Ken Leung , Elizabeth Mitchell , Yunjin Kim

Release Date

September 22, 2004

Seasons

6

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