Originally Posted by
mkirsh
I haven't waded into all of the theories on the Lost specific message boards as they tend to be a little overwhelming, but I do have a theory question that I'll ask here: how do the Others know so much about the Lostaways? I guess I have 3 possible theories, but not really sold on any of them.
1. Conspiracy Theory - the Others orchestrated each person to get on flight 815 and caused it to crash on the island. Their motivation would be to bring in new people to their group (Walt, Cindy, Claire's baby, children, need of a spinal surgeon, etc) to perpetuate their society. Many of the characters are connected through their back-stories (Hurley & Libby, Locke at Hurley's box co, Jack & Claire, Jack's dad & Anna Lucia, Jack's dad & Sawyer, Kate's dad & Kelvin & Sayid, Shannon's dad & Jack's wife, many others that I may be missing), and I'm not sure I understand how the interconnectedness plays out unless they were pre-determined to get on the plane. However, I also think this is pretty unrealistic.
2. Super Google - the others have access to tons of information systems, so when their spies (Goodwin and Ethan) determined flight 815 had crashed, the others could access the flight manifest and then research each person who was on the plane. That's how they got Locke's medical records, know about Jack's wife, knew who the "good" people were to select, etc. Not sure if this totally explains how they know some personal information (Locke's fear of his father, etc), but seems most logical to me, but at the same time this is too easy (would be dissapointing if this were true).
3. Mystical "Smoke Monster" - We've seen that the smoke monster could pull thoughts/memories from Mr Eko - did the smoke monster scan all of the Lostaways mind and relay that back to the others? Again, seems pretty far fetched, but certainly within the bounds of the show.
Anyone have other theories, or remember things that I missed that support or disprove these? This is a question that has been nagging me a little, but none of my theories seem really satisfactory.