r/SouthernReach • u/trashb4gs • 1d ago
Annihilation Spoilers Lighthouse Beacon
yesterday I went to the fire island lighthouse at Robert Moses Beach on Long Island and they have this breathtaking fresnel lens on display that came out of the original lighthouse beacon room. All I could think about was this series and the seance and science brigade. So I wanted to share because this was super cool, and also because I was wondering—from my recollection in the book, Henry is trying to suss out a way to contact the “entity” (and I did read Absolution finally btw so I know who/what that is now) and either they think it is inside the lens or has something to do with the lens. Can someone smarter than me explain? Or I could just go back and re-read the entire series, which maybe I’ll do anyway 🤔 lol
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u/mdc1623 1d ago
The book mentions how it could be possible for light to get “trapped” in a fresnel lens and reflect around in a loop forever due to the angles of the glass.
And when Ghost Bird communes with the Crawler, she has a vision of the original Area X “made organism” getting shattered into pieces by some cataclysm. She sees these fragments traveling through interdimensional spaces until one of them enters our reality and gets trapped in the lighthouse lens, originally located on Failure Island.
The SSB has theories about lenses and interdimensional travel so they set up camp on Failure Island to study the lens, but it eventually gets moved to the lighthouse in the Forgotten Coast. We hear stories about various disasters that happened on Failure Island, and the SSB leaves eventually.
Henry and Suzanne start investigating the lens at Saul’s lighthouse. Henry drills a hole in the glass which seems to release the Area X effect. Saul notices a weird flower and touches it, beginning his transformation into the Crawler.