Lucky Lost Mystery 13.

This is from Jess's entry about Unsolved Lost   Mysteries. (Um. This won't ping me, will it?)

I was going to bring it up to add to her list, but I really wanted to ramble on the topic. Lazy!


[Begin Spoiler for Lost up to "Numbers" — Highlight to view]

13. Who (or what) is Alex?

I'd have to say that of all the mysteries, this is the one I wonder about the most. To refresh everyone, in the episode "Solitary" Sayid is captured by Rousseau, and she keeps asking him "Where is Alex?" As Sayid gets tortured for the trouble of not knowing, he's naturally curious about who this Alex person is, and by the end of the episode asks Rousseau about it. Her big dramatic reveal: "Alex was my child."

Now what does that mean! Well, the obvious conclusion we can leap to is that Alex ... is her child. Who is Alex? Is Alex Ethan? Is Alex alive? Is Alex a girl? (As Pat first pointed out to me, "Alex" is a gender neutral name, and Rousseau telling says "child," not "son" or anything like that.)

My first conjecture is that Alex is not dead. Rousseau describes Alex in past tense, yet prior to that, she seemed convinced that Sayid had seen Alex recently. Though the fact that she doesn't know who Alex is hanging out with and "was my child" indicates that she has not seen Alex recently. Although, since she is crazy, there's no ruling out the possibility that Alex is dead, she killed him/her, and has misplaced the corpse that she keeps around for comfort, or something. Moving on!

My second conjecture is: what if Alex is not a person? What if Alex is actually A.L.E.X. or something like that? Rousseau wouldn't be the first person to call a non-human thing a child. She is a scientist after all, and science people are weird. And she's crazy. And French. Anyway. What really started me wondering about this was her dramatic reveal, and the fact that she doesn't specify a gender for Alex. I understand that for the purposes of the show, withholding that information keeps some suspense built up. But from a practical standpoint, this is her DRAMATIC REVEAL. Why would she spill to Sayid that Alex is her child, but not go the arguabley more natural step and say that Alex is her son/daughter? Maybe I should ask some of my friends who've had babies, but to me, "child" doesn't really seem like the most natural utterance if you're talking about someone who is actually your child and whose gender you are certain of.

My other tip-off was, if Alex is her son/daughter, how old is Alex? And how old is Rousseau? She's been on the island for 16 years, and is a bit weathered by the lifestyle, but she doesn't seem that old. She doesn't seem old enough, for instance, to have had a grown child 16 years ago. Now, sure. But that means that Alex would have had to grow up on the island. So, was Alex born on the island? Was Rousseau knocked up when they crashed, or did she become knocked up shortly afterwards (before she killed her husband, anyway)? If so, then Alex is at most 16, which really messes up the timeline in terms of how early Alex could have run off and how long Rousseau has been alone. But the other option is that she brought a young child with her on a scientific escapade. Which ... I don't know, doesn't sit right with me somehow. Maybe it's because Sayid asks her if Alex was on their team, and she doesn't answer. Or maybe it's just because I don't think it's normal to take your young child on dangerous/boring science missions. But maybe I'm wrong!

But anyway, I'm now working off the assumption that Alex is something other than a human child.

Maybe Alex is the monster?

[End Spoiler]

Man, this is nowhere near as complete or coherent as it was when I was thinking it up in the shower 5 hours ago.