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Main Article Theories about
Horace Goodspeed
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Horace is one of the Others[]

Signs pointing to Horace is an Other...

  • Horace's son Ethan, is the doctor for the Others in 2004.
    • How did Ethan survive the purge, he would have been killed along with his mum and dad right?
      • He defected to the others beforehand and helped Ben Linus orchestrate the Purge.
  • During the Purge, Ben Linus finds Horace dead on the bench and closes his eyes, a sign of respect that he did not show any other member of Dharma.
    • Ben showed this respect to Horace because he had known him since he was born, and probably knew him well. Also, he was the man who brought Ben to the Island. Although he found it necessary to erradicate the Dharma Initiative, this doesn't mean he was pleased that Horace had to die.
    • Notably, Horace is one of the few people (if not the only person) shown to have died in a "comfortable" position. He didn't fall over, he didn't collapse. As seen when Roger Linus dies, it's not instantaneous. And yet even as he's dying he doesn't stand up or seem to do anything. He's found just sitting there. This would suggest he was expecting the Purge.
  • Horace was sacrificed because he had doubts, brought on by his ties with the the DHARMA Initiative. Widmore, who led at the time of the Purge, was ruthless and decided he must die.
  • Horace shows up on the island to Locke in a vision and gives him the directions to Jacob's cabin. He also appears to be chopping wood to build Jacob's cabin. Why would one of Dharma be building Jacob's cabin?
  • When Ben is born, Horace is outside Portland, the supposed location of Mittelos Bioscience, which is a front for the Others.
  • Horace is drunk and reckless in 1977 because he has cracked under the strain of divided loyalties.
  • His lack of decisiveness is not due to his 'hippie' character, but is an effort to undermine any attempts to militarise the DHARMA Initiative and to keep the truce in tact.
  • Horace's basement is built against a tunnel wall. The DHARMA Initiative seem unaware of these tunnels, as they didn't know how Richard Alpert got past their sonar fence. It would be very unlikely that Horace didn't know about these tunnels.
  • Horace's son Ethan ends up with the Others instead of dying in the Purge. Perhaps Horace made a deal with the Others to protect his son in exchange for help infiltrating the Dharma village. However when the time came to enact this plan, Horace remained similar to the way a captain stays with a sinking ship. Or perhaps as a sign of remorse.
  • Horace's house actually has a secret room which contains a hidden door to the chamber where the smoke monster is summoned. When Horace is drunk in 'LaFleur' he's blowing up trees with dynamite - very similar to the way the smoke monster has destroyed trees when it's around. Later Horace appears as a vision to Locke, similar to the smoke monster appearing to Eko as Yemi.
  • As far as we've seen, Horace is the only member of the DHARMA Initiative allowed to speak with the Others (with the exception of when he approves of such conversations). No one is privy to the details of his conversations. For example, when Richard Alpert arrives shortly after Sawyer et al show up, the majority of his conversation with Horace is not shown.

A time traveler[]

  • The 1992 date for the Purge (which is solely based on Horace's "dead for 12 years" claim in Locke's vision) is problematic in relation to Danielle's presence on the Island, and Alex's kidnapping. If later evidence shows an earlier date for the Purge, then Horace being a time traveller at some point (even if his death and nosebleed were caused by the gas, and not by time travel), would provide us with a way to explain the discrepancy.
  • Also In Season 4's episode, "Cabin Fever," Locke saw a bloody nose Horace cutting down a tree. Probably many of you thought he was a ghost, but I think Horace time traveled to 2004 before his death. The evidence all has to do with the bloody nose. Remember Desmond, Charlotte, Juliet, and others all had bloody noses as they changed time zones when the flashes occured. Maybe this explains why Horace has a bloody nose. He is time traveling into the future, which leads him to 2004.
    • This would not hold true since that is a dream Locke is having, and would not explain why he cuts down the same tree repeatedly. The bloody nose could have to do with the fact that he died from the gas during the purge.

Significance of Mathematician[]

  • Horace's job as Mathematician was a forecaster of events. Part of the Hanso Foundation was the Mathematical Forecasting Initiative (mFi), for the prediction and mitigation of natural disasters (according to Mittelwerk ).
  • As a mathematician he was the "clever fellow" described by E. Hawking as the one who built The Lamp Post.

Cover Identity[]

  • Horace is very wealthy. He and Olivia are driving an expensive looking car when they find Roger and Emily. When Roger and Horace are talking in the Linus home Roger demands more money, saying "Don't tell me YOU don't have it." Of course Roger was probably speaking to Horace as a representative of the DHARMA group (who were presumably well funded), but Horace is in fact the benefactor. Also note the fact that in LaFleur, when Sawyer and Miles are driving out to collect him, Sawyer says Goodspeed is "loaded" was a double meaning for his intoxication and wealth.

The Cabin[]

  • Horace built the cabin for Jacob, not for himself - which is why the cabin is located in the "final resting place of Magnus Hanso" and he mentions that "he" has been waiting for Locke.
    • We don't even know that the cabin that Ben brought Locke to is the one that Horace was building. He was chopping down wood in a dream, not to mention that every time he cut down the tree it reappeared. It could have very well been just a dream, and the cabin was built long ago just like the bench or the well.
  • Ben say's that Jacob hates technology. Horace builds the cabin at the request of Jacob.
  • The Cabin is constructed with deep roots in Quantum Probability. A mathematician wouldn't normally be involved in constructing a log cabin. This would also account for the constant relocation of the Cabin.
  • Is his cabin not the cabin we saw at the end of season 5???
  • Trivia mentions "Horace" is homonymous with "Horus", the Greek name for a falcon-headed Egyptian god. In myth, the eye of Horus was wounded when he battled with Se(t)h for the throne of Egypt. This is key to why Jacob, who is really Horus, uses this cabin. Horace is either a Fake-ob (but getting drunk when your wife is having a baby is odd behavior, unless the man she couldn't get over was a reincarnation of Set and that's why he wore the Ankh, and your wife was really Tawaret. Nevertheless, that is a far-fetched theory) or Horace was chosen and connected to Jacob.

Arrow and Horace[]

Horace worked in The Arrow. A glass eye was found in The Arrow. He is featured with glasses in early flashbacks (Ben as a boy/Ben's birth), but in the future (Purge/Locke's dream) he is depicted without glasses. He had a bad eye and at one point opted to replace the eye with a fake one.

Connection to Mittelos[]

  • Horace Goodspeed found Ben at his birth outside of Portland, Oregon, which is the where Mittelos is based. He and his wife either worked for Mittelos or were meeting with them on behalf of the DHARMA Initiative.
  • That cant be it, because obviously, the glass eye is Mikhail's because he was stationed at The Arrow.
    • The glass eye is NOT "obviously" Mikhail's due to the fact that his bad eye is completely scarred over.
      • Mikhail was stationed at The Flame, not The Arrow.

Horace and the Island[]

  • Horace was one of the "good people" on the Island during the Initiative. He has glasses for the first few times he appears, but in later scenes has no glasses due to the healing effects of the Island. He was the factor in bringing Ben to the Island by giving his dad a job with DI. He built the cabin that Jacob resides in, he was the only purge victim to be given any honor by Ben closing his eyes, and was chosen to be the messenger to Locke.
  • This could be supported by Ben wearing glasses (presumably all the time) as a child when he first came to the Island, and Ben not wearing glasses (except for reading) when he is older.
    • ...or he got contacts. Remember, they had such ameniteis.

Horace, Bernard and how the Purge timeline doesn't make sense[]

The details Locke discovered about Horace in his vision in season 4 are not about Horace at all but really about Bernard. Horace didn't build a cabin for his wife. Bernard did. This is the same cabin Ghost Christian will operate out of. The picture of the dog in the cabin was probably painted by Rose. Horace didn't really die 12 years before 2004 (1992). The Purge should have taken place several years before that at least sometime before 1988 which is when Ben came to be Alex's care-giver. The Purge being in 1992 doesn't make sense because Ben was raising Alex as of 1988 but he should have been living with Dharma up until 1992 if the dream is to be believed. Ethan Rom also should have been living with Dharma up until 1992 instead of being with the Others in 1988 if the dream is to be believed. Horace's death in the Purge did not occur in 1992. It had to have occurred 1988 or earlier. Bernard is the one who died in 1992. Locke's dream mixed up events from Horace and Bernard's lives. Maybe because the writers originally intended for Horace to have built the cabin for his wife (which was originally intended to be Olivia and not Amy but that too changed). Or maybe because there is a deliberate reason for the dream being misleading... but nonetheless the dream IS misleading.

  • Wouldn't the Others be living in the old Dharma barracks after the Purge, and not in the jungle? They were definitely living in the jungle when they took Alex from Danielle. I don't think there is any concrete evidence that Dharma was dead at the time they took Alex. Alex was born on the Island, and it seems like babies probably stopped being able to be born on the island after the Purge (Ethan was born fine on the island in 1977). We only saw them take Alex in the middle of the night. I just always assumed they ran off at night time. Alex is much younger than Ethan, which is consistent with the timeline. Ben also looked much older when they gassed Dharma (when he was in the van with his dad - does he say how old he was turning that day?) than he did when they took Alex. My only question would be, how did Danielle survive the Purge, but I guess I would assume she was nowhere near the Dharma camp. Ethan would have been about 11 when Danielle came to the island, which would put him at about 27 when 815 crashed. He was born in 1977, and the crash was in 2004, which is 27 years later. Danielle (Surely you mean Alex?) was born in 1988 (maybe 89?), which would make her 16 in 2004. Adds up if you ask me.
    • Yes, sorry, I meant Alex, not Danielle, thanks for correcting.
      • But the blueprints for the cabin were on Horace's corpse. The only way this makes sense to me is if Horace designed the cabin and Bernard later found the prints and built it--but that still doesn't explain why they ended up back on Horace's body.
  • Both Bernard and Rose were seen alive after the detonation of the hydrogen bomb in 1977, having been snapped back into 2007. They made all the jumps through time as the rest of the Losties and therefore weren't present at the time of the Purge. Bernard could not have been killed by the Purge.


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