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Okay, so we've all been a little confused as to why Daniel is supposedly 19 when he graduates Oxford even though he looks more like 40?
I HAVE A POSSIBLE SOLUTION. When we first meet bb!Dan playing the piano, Eloise comes in and she's crying. She then tells him to stop messing around with music and start doing his math-y stuff. Basically, this is the moment she starts grooming him towards his destiny: dying on the island by the hands of his own mom. What if, that was right after the Incident occured? (Assuming for a moment that the Incident was the Jughead explosion, to negate the electromagnetic release, by the way. I'm still not sold that the Incident Marvin Candle speaks of is this particular incident*). Bear with me for a moment here. The Incident happens, and Eloise, who is brought off-island after Richard clubs her in the underwater cave to protect her, gets the call that the accident her future son spoke of, has actually happened. That's why she's crying - she realizes that she can't change the past. She will always shoot her son, the incident will happen, no matter what - destiny is destiny, it's fixed. And that's why she tells Dan to stop playing the piano and focus on his real work, because her shooting him cannot be avoided (though this begs the question, if whatever happened happened, why not have him have an awesome candy-filled childhood, but okay).
Now, Daniel, most of us assumed he was born in 1977, right? Which would make him 19 upon graduating Oxford. But what if the flashback we saw, of Eloise telling Dan to not play the piano, was actually in '77, and Dan was actually born in the late sixties? Eloise is pregnant in '77, but maybe Daniel has a sibling? Or the bb died because after the Jughead explosion the fall-out caused miscarriages, or something.
* What also struck me is that Dan, in The Variable, keeps talking about an accident, not an incident. His choice of words stands out. Maybe the accident in '77 is Jughead exploding, and then there's another accident AFTER the Hatch is built from which the need to push a button arises. I need to mull over this for a while longer...
I HAVE A POSSIBLE SOLUTION. When we first meet bb!Dan playing the piano, Eloise comes in and she's crying. She then tells him to stop messing around with music and start doing his math-y stuff. Basically, this is the moment she starts grooming him towards his destiny: dying on the island by the hands of his own mom. What if, that was right after the Incident occured? (Assuming for a moment that the Incident was the Jughead explosion, to negate the electromagnetic release, by the way. I'm still not sold that the Incident Marvin Candle speaks of is this particular incident*). Bear with me for a moment here. The Incident happens, and Eloise, who is brought off-island after Richard clubs her in the underwater cave to protect her, gets the call that the accident her future son spoke of, has actually happened. That's why she's crying - she realizes that she can't change the past. She will always shoot her son, the incident will happen, no matter what - destiny is destiny, it's fixed. And that's why she tells Dan to stop playing the piano and focus on his real work, because her shooting him cannot be avoided (though this begs the question, if whatever happened happened, why not have him have an awesome candy-filled childhood, but okay).
Now, Daniel, most of us assumed he was born in 1977, right? Which would make him 19 upon graduating Oxford. But what if the flashback we saw, of Eloise telling Dan to not play the piano, was actually in '77, and Dan was actually born in the late sixties? Eloise is pregnant in '77, but maybe Daniel has a sibling? Or the bb died because after the Jughead explosion the fall-out caused miscarriages, or something.
* What also struck me is that Dan, in The Variable, keeps talking about an accident, not an incident. His choice of words stands out. Maybe the accident in '77 is Jughead exploding, and then there's another accident AFTER the Hatch is built from which the need to push a button arises. I need to mull over this for a while longer...
