Is the sickness an emotion??

[Matt Gogi]

Dunno if this has been covered but I was just pondering the other night... could the sickness actually be an emotion rather than an illness??

Desmond and other Dharma stuff mentioned "getting sick"... and when Benry was in the hatch, he said something along the lines of "when a man gets too lonely he gets sick". So maybe loneliness is the sickness. Maybe that's why the vaccine was in the hatch - to stop the people down there to get "too lonely", coz it's true what Ben said, if someone is alone for years, you get sick, often psychologically, so the vaccine would have been given to prevent this, thus making sure the button could be pushed. It would seem like quite a strange outcome but could it be something like that??

Oh, and there was something else I had to add to this to back it up a bit more but I've forgotten it...

[Murgatroyd]

Well, I used to think that, except that Rousseau thought that Aaron had 'the sickness' when he developed physical symptoms like a fever and a rash. So her notion of what the sickness is - and presumably what she saw in her crew - is a physical illness. But I'm guessing it's a physical illness that is highly contagious, terrifying and either doesn't kill or was bad enough to lead her to euthanise, because she killed everyone who she claimed had it and advised Claire to do the same with Aaron (a thing I doubt Rousseau would've suggested lightly). But there's also the fact that she killed her lover apparently in some kind of a fight - I suppose that could've been his resisting being killed (quite understandable), but it does leave open the possibility that madness is involved. Or, you know, maybe that's just a Rousseau thing.

[Him]

I quite like that idea... Quite novel and a nice approach.

Although problems definitely exist, like, was he not still taking the vaccine for 'the sickness' until he escaped the hatch; i.e. when he was going to commit suicide out of loneliness?

[Malion]

It makes since, save for the case of Rousseau's team... I mean, how can a group of people get a lonliness desease?

[Matt Gogi]

Originally Posted by Malion

It makes since, save for the case of Rousseau's team... I mean, how can a group of people get a lonliness desease?

Yeah that's the bit I couldn't account for either...

[Easily confused]

I like your thinking Matt

Maybe Rousseau is suffering from the sickness and its making her a bit doo-lally thats why here stories are inconsistent and she doesn’t realise that she is suffering thats why she didn’t realise that Aaron couldn’t have it

[Matt Gogi]

Originally Posted by Easily confused

I like your thinking Matt

Maybe Rousseau is suffering from the sickness and its making her a bit doo-lally thats why here stories are inconsistent and she doesn’t realise that she is suffering thats why she didn’t realise that Aaron couldn’t have it

Thanks

Yeah, maybe she's suffering now, now that everyone she loved is dead and she has no-one... well, except now she has Alex again... maybe she can be "sane" again :P

[D-Roc]

I think if 'real' (cos it might be another Dharma bluff) the sickness is more physical or mental than emotional. Just my personal opinion.

You're right in the (Mice and Men) 'sickness' Ben spoke of (which was on the cliff speaking to Sawyer in 3.04) was one of loneliness..one of love and one of relationships (a hint to Annie?).

However, I thin Rousseau's reference to the 'sickness' is or was real to her in another way..in a more physical/mental way (perhaps the visions/manifestations etc). Of course if the sickness is real (depending upon how you want to view it) we perhaps should also take into consideration the "Quaranteen" notice on the at least 2 of the 7 known Dharma hatches. Of course, they could have used that to fool their operatives. Still, it points to an airborne sickness of somekind, whether or not it was real, that's at least what they (Dharma) wanted their hatchling's to think.