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Annie
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Identity[]

Annie is Young Helen Norwood[]

Theory by Meteor 18:20, December 19, 2009 (UTC)

  • Both Katey Sagal and Michael Emerson were born in 1954.
  • Helen mentioned years of being angry. Possibly angry because of childhood trauma (perhaps being forced to leave or the deaths of her family).
  • There is no master manipulation at work though. It was a coincidence that she struck up a relationship with both Locke and Ben.

Annie is Young Libby[]

Theory Breakdown: "Libby" is an alias for Annie Goodspeed, Ben's childhood sweetheart. That's why Juliet looks just like her (Annie).

  • Presented without comment. --Blue eagle islander 00:05, April 25, 2007 (UTC) Blue eagle islander
  • Annie's namesake: an homage to Cynthia's Emmy win for the role of Annie on Guiding Light.
  • Very little is known about Libby's past. She is around the right age. Earlier, the producers & writers were saying that Libby's backstory was important and would continue to be told even though she is dead. We have also been told that Annie plays an important role to come in Ben's life. --Jmrichards27 03:42 March 9, 2009 (UTC) Jmrichards27[1]
  • Libby changes her appearance several times in the few flashbacks we have seen. When she lands on the island though, she is blonde, resembling both Emily, Ben's mother, and Juliet. She also has brown hair at one point, much like Young Annie. --Jmrichards27 03:42 March 9, 2009 (UTC) Jmrichards27
  • During Comic Con 2007, Damon Lindelof said (July 26th) about the fan theory Libby worked for DHARMA: "You're not, um, you're not barking up the wrong tree either with some of your speculative online questioning".
  • Libby's backstory was teased at the time as something that couldn't be told through the flashbacks of a "character we already know and love", according to Lindelof in an 11/15/06 interview (one week after the Season 3 mid-season finale "I Do" aired). Among those we don't know and love, Ben qualifies—we don't truly know him yet, and he was the main villain at this point, so he's certainly not loved in a traditional sense.
  • The showrunners were adamant Libby would return via flashback in Season 3. She did appearas a child, played by a child actor.
  • Then everything afterwards preventing Cynthia Watros being able to properly return & tell her character's backstory (the WGA strike during Season 4, her scheduling conflicts during Season 5, and the flash-sideways theme of Season 6) forced them to abort the Annie/Libby storyline entirely.
You Look Just Like Her

In one of the few Season 4 episodes cut by the writer's strike, both Annie and Libby would return.

Scheduling conflicts and writer's strike theory[]

  • After the Writer's Strike, Annie, Harper, Olivia, and Libby (minus the finale cameo and "Everybody Loves Hugo") never reappeared in the show ever again. Two of them (Annie/Olivia) were "seismic" to the ending, two had untold backstories cut (Libby/Annie), one became a one-off character but was slated to recur (Harper).
    • This is drastic enough to make it seem like the strike affected the show more than we think. Or did these characters simply blend into one storyline, where they couldn't get the one key actor who functions as the beating heart for that one storyline to work (in this case Cynthia Watros)?
    • The prerequisite for these characters to return was Cynthia. She needed to be booked back on the show in proper form, something they struggled with.
    • The characters of Annie and Libby, in this case, are combined, leaving the other two. (Olivia, her character's would-be mother, then Harper, someone she would be familiar with, and/or her character's therapist, a job Annie as "Libby" would get inspiration from for her cover story when she became a crash survivor).
  • Annie, and Adult Annie specifically, was said to appear in Season 4, but then "doesn't". Libby's backstory doesn't get told, and Harper never reappeared. A writer's strike wouldn't affect Adult Annie's actor's schedule if they needed to cast a new actress. Clearly, it was someone familiar. Similarly, Harper alluded to adult Annie resembling Juliet, a curly-haired blonde—Libby?
    • After "Two for the Road" cut to black on Michael shooting himself to free "Henry Gale", we would need a follow-up flashback filling in the blanks, where "Henry" a.k.a Ben reacts to and walks past an unconscious, shot "Libby" a.k.a Annie, slowly dying of blood loss.
      • Given the alleged working-for-Ben's-rival-Charles Widmore tie-in with "Libby", Ben's feelings towards his former flame, Annie may have changed, and this would have been part of the added tensions between Widmore and Ben.
  • During Season 5, when there was no creative restraints from the network, Cynthia Watros was unavailable. Then Samantha Mathis' Olivia, Annie's possible mother and a soundalike, lookalike actress for Cynthia Watros, is replaced with Amy as Horace's wife. It is easy to see why they didn't jump through hoops for Mathis, and just replaced someone only implied to be his wife originally. Since they couldn't incorporate the storyline with Young Annie/Future Libby as her daughter.

DHARMA child to Widmore agent[]

  • The "one significant missing piece to Libby's story" that Lindelof alludes to in a December 2006 interview was her past connection to the Island as a child to members of the DHARMA Initiative. That's what "was going to have to get answered in year 4". Lindelof said further:
    • “​How did she get from A to B — from Desmond to the mental institution? We know the answer to that question, but the only way to tell that story is through another character's flashback, and that character would have to be another character on the show who is not among the beach dwellers”. (Ben is not among the beach dwellers, and the freighter people introduced in Season 4 were connected to Charles Widmore, someone Libby was theorized to be working for).

Juliet is Libby, Adult Annie's proxy[]

4x06e

"The Other Woman — Enhanced" affirms who Juliet looks like, before the writers confirmed Juliet was Ben's proxy for Annie.

  • She fulfils the proxy for "Libby" A.K.A, Annie, explaining Ben's strange obsession with her.
  • When Harper says to Juliet "Of course [Ben has been good to you]; you look just like her." She referred to Annie. Annie and Juliet are Ben's only known love interests. --DukeofSpades 06:52, March 8, 2008 (UTC) DukeofSpades
    • And Harper is referring to Adult Annie, not Child Annie, hence why Young Annie does not resemble Juliet. Michael Emerson also stated Annie would reappear in adult form in Season 4. Technically, she does if Harper means the woman we knew to be "Libby" (both curly-haired blondes).
      • The Writer's Strike scrapped the storyline reveal, as both Roth and Watros were unavailable to return. Carlton Cuse admitted to TVGuide's Michael Ausiello that Andrea Roth would be one of the actors affected by the strike for Season 4's back-half (she had a regular role on another show; it was also pilot season when production resumed after the strike).
  • In the same episode "The Other Woman", a clue exists where Juliet, in a flashback, proxies another Tailie woman, Cindy's guardianship role of Tailies, Zack and Emma. At the time Ben addresses her taking care of them, Cindy was still with Ana Lucia's group (and would be until the events of "Abandoned").
    • The same episode also is littered with many Tailie references, including the previous three mentioned (Ana/Emma/Zack), Goodwin's appearance in flashback form, and if Libby were Annie, she would be the reference by Harper, and an extra meaning to the episode's title itself.

[2]

Parentage[]

Annie was the child of Horace Goodspeed and Olivia Goodspeed[]

Annie looks slightly like Olivia. Olivia trusted Annie to lock the doors while the other children huddled in a corner. Ben and Annie's special relationship explains why Ben shuts Horace's eyes when he paid no attention to anyone else's.

  • More on this theory from 2013 here.
  • Horace and Olivia were intended to be a married couple as strongly implied, the leaked 2019 script confirms.
    • If Adult Annie was also intended as Libby, this adds up. Samantha Mathis resembles both Madeline Carroll and Cynthia Watros (even sounds like Cynthia). So Annie would go blonde like her mother, bearing a striking resemblance as an adult. This explains why, in Season 5, scheduling conflicts for Cynthia occurred, and Olivia got replaced by Amy as Horace's wife.

Annie was Amelia's daughter[]

  • In the very last page of the book Carrie (1974 book by Stephen King), there is an excerpt from a letter sent from a woman named Amelia to her sister. She explains that her daughter, Annie, seems to have telekinetic powers. --Hampan 18:09, July 24 2007 (UTC) Hampan[3]

Annie left the Island as a child[]

She left the island before the Purge. This could partly explain Ben's attitude towards people leaving the island. --Ausge 23:22, May 10 2007 (UTC) Ausge



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