Juliet has always been a fascinating character on Lost, and one of my favorites since showing up in season three. She’s an Other, but she is on the island against her will, being held there and manipulated by Ben. She’s a sympathetic character, that’s for sure. How can you not feel for a character that has to deal with Ben believing that he owns her? The episode that featured Ben manufacturing the death of Goodwin just to spite Juliet stands out as one of my favorite episodes, and one of Ben’s creepiest moments (“The Other Woman”). Who can forget Ben running across the kitchen to check on his ham? Disturbing.
As things go on, however, I can’t help but wonder how much Juliet knows from her days with the Others.
Juliet continues to reveal small pieces of information about her time with the Others. Only a few episodes ago it was revealed that she knows how to speak Latin (“Jughead”). She claimed that all the Others learned to speak Latin. I’m curious about what else she is hiding. Hiding, perhaps, isn’t the right word, as that makes it all seem a lot more sinister than I believe it to be. I don’t think there is going to be some big twist with Juliet winding up to be some evil agent of Ben or Richard Alpert. I simply think that she knows more than she has shared with the rest of the characters.
I’m not sure just how much she does know, as she was recruited to the island for a very specific reason. I would think that the Others run things on a “need to know” basis, and she probably didn’t need to know that much. She must know more about the nature of the monster (we’ve seen that she knows about the sonic fence in “Left Behind”), as well as more about the nature of the island than the 816ers know. As to the reasons why she hasn’t offered up any of this information, I can’t be quite sure.
I’m sure as the series moves on, many of these answers will be revealed.
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Mar 09, 2009 @ 13:00 EST5EDT
The feeling I get is that Juliet has a limited amount of information about the island and what the Others are doing.
She was/is a relative newbie among the Others, and the fact that she wasn’t allowed to leave or contact anyone off island (in contrast to some of the other inhabitants) suggests that her level of influence and confidence within the Others’ community couldn’t have been that high.
Additionally, Ben, as the leader and apparent representative of Jacob to the Others, has been shown to lie to his own people (even those he considers to be loyal) or at least keep them in the dark about the extent of his plans. So, a question might be how much do any of the other Others know.
Several times Juliet has shown gaps in her knowledge: she said she didn’t know what the smoke monster was, just that it didn’t like the sonic fence; didn’t know why the Others were building a “runway”; didn’t know about the two women blocking signals in “The Looking Glass” station; genuinely seemed to be unaware of the existence of “The Orchid” station; and her dialogue with Goodwin at one point, about his chemical burns, implied that what Ben had him doing was a secret that neither she nor some of the others were supposed to know about…
…but then she did know about Richard’s agelessness, so I could be wrong and she knows a lot more than she’s been telling.
She’s a doctor and therefor knows latin. She was brought to the island for the sole purpose of being the doctor. Not knowing things keeps people powerless.
Juliet is unimportant.
Of course you could make her a mastermind, especially if Sawyer choses to go after Kate again, with her revealing her true colors but I think she’s a weak person in that she really wanted to get off the island, that she was really not powerful enough to get off the island and that she really just wanted to fulfill her hippocratic oath and help the women who died during labor and cure all injuries that happened while she was there. And that she is someone who falls in love and just goes with it and isn’t a scheming bastard.
*POST AUTHOR*
Well, she did say that all the Others learned Latin as part of their training. I don’t think it was just because she was a doctor.
I don’t think she’ll end up being a mastermind. I agree that she probably doesn’t know as much as some of the other Others, as she was a “newbie.” Just figured it might be an interesting question.
It IS an interesting question.
I just wanted to express her detachment from the training process and that she didn’t have to undergo extra training as part of becoming an other. She was brought in as someone to help find out why women die during labor on the island. She was supposed to be able to leave the island after three years. That’s why I think she was always kept in the dark about more things than other others and why I don’t consider her to be an evil mastermind – or rather an evil mastermind within the others for her own good, meaning that she always tried to escape them after Ben didn’t allow her to go back to the main land to help her sister survive her illness. And why she was so open to defecting to the 815ers.
I guess you are giving her too much credit – what would be the reason for her to know more except being a secret leader of the others? What could she do with more knowledge than she has revealed?
I think all the plot devices that Juliet offers have been already explored. She knew about a possible death threat and helped disarm it to show her allegiance to the 815ers. On the other hand she seemingly worked for the Others but then helped Jack escape.
All her displays of knowledge were always for her own good. She knew more things than other others because she had her own motives.
What could be another twist here? I guess if Sawyer goes back to chasing Kate she could have knowledge that she could use for either the ultimate sacrifice or evil. Charlie sacrificed himself so I think that will not happen with Juliet. And since she wants to help, since she’s a doctor, I don’t think she will off anybody out of revenge. She’s shown that she’s too good for that.
So in the end the question about if she knows more or not is not that important, but I guess you were heading in the right direction – you question her motives. What would be her reaction to Sawyer betraying her?