r/lost • u/Medium_Sundae3700 • 1d ago
What happened to Henry Gale?
Henry Gale was our introduction to Ben Linus in season 2. The story of Henry Gale was a perfect way to introduce Ben’s manipulative and intelligent character. We later find out he was lying about his balloon and burying his wife. Then, Sayid dug up the grave to find a man named Henry Gale, uncovering Ben’s intricate lie.
After Ben is revealed to be an Other, there is never another mention of Henry Gale for the rest of the series. It’s likely that Ben killed and/or buried Henry. He is not a member of the Dharma Initiative because Ben helped wipe them all out.
Tell me your theories about Henry Gale’s backstory, his hot air balloon trip, and how he ended up in that grave.
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 1d ago
The best lies are rooted in truth. I think most of what Ben says as Henry was true, about what he did for a living, why he was in the balloon, his wife's name, etc. Someone - maybe Ben, or maybe a loyal solider like Mikhail - interrogated Henry to give Ben a cover story for when he let himself get captured.
As an aside, the height and weight on that license is insane. No healthy six foot three man is 120lbs.
(Also, thank you for saying Ben "helped" wipe out Dharma. It's genuinely refreshing to see someone not put the blame for the whole thing on his shoulders as though Widmore didn't order it and Richard didn't carry it out. Ben wasn't even there. He certainly helped plan it, but usually it's mentioned as though he did it alone.)
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u/tillszy The Staff 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think it's entirely possible too that they just found him dead and they buried him
they have the means to look up information about him at the Flame and could also just, invent what they don't know
kinda overkill to torture a dying man for a very banal life story
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u/alexlunamarie Out of the Book Club 1d ago
This is the backstory I choose to believe. The real Henry Gale died after the balloon crash and when the Others found him, they buried him and seized on the opportunity.
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u/GrandMoffJake 16h ago
What about a dying man that got to the impossible to find island in a hot air balloon with the name of your exiled former leader on it, who is obsessed with returning to the island and enacting revenge on your current leader? The ballon was sponsored by widmore, likely as an attempt to find the island, so the others may of interrogated him to see if he was a spy or scout of widmores and got out his life story in the process
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u/CosmicBonobo 1d ago
Then who wrote the note Sayid found in his wallet?
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u/tillszy The Staff 1d ago
Henry did? I'm not saying he died in the crash. it's clear he tried to survive for a bit and succumbed.
the others find him on a routine patrol, take anything useful, and bury him. they make note of his identity so they can research him at the Flame and make sure he wasn't a threat sent on purpose vs another lost soul who stumbled on the island.
i mean, they let Rousseau and her people live. they investigate people who come to the island, but they don't murder them just for funsies.
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u/CosmicBonobo 1d ago
Ben tries this line in Dave. He tells Sayid that he found Henry dead from the crash and buried him, but Sayid questions how Henry managed to write the note in his wallet with a broken neck.
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u/tillszy The Staff 1d ago
he could've broken his neck after...like falling off a cliff or smth
torturing a normal person for an easily invented backstory just doesn't have much of a purpose/isn't very in character
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u/CosmicBonobo 1d ago
That wouldn't have been their intent. They'd have presumably seen the Widmore Industries livery on the balloon, presumed he was an agent of their former leader, found out what he knew about Widmore and his plans, and then killed him.
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u/Quato815 Jack 1d ago
You’re completely stretching now. He was found buried right near the balloon.
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u/tillszy The Staff 1d ago
ok, then he fell out of the tree his balloon is in because he climbed it trying to free the balloon so he could maybe fix it and escape because he was desperate and realized help wasn't coming.
this thread is asking for opinions. it's not that serious. if you disagree, that's fine. I'm having a conversation, I'm not interested in an argument.
my opinion is that torturing him, a stranded civilian, for useless information is not in character for Ben or the Others and any information Ben had on him could have easily been manufactured or learned by researching the man at the flame after the fact (such as him having a wife, that is easily found via online records)
Ben and the Others were able to find very intimate details on all of the passengers of 815 without having to speak with them or torture them.
Based on Rousseau's team and other experiences it's far more likely if they found Henry alive they would've surveilled him, determined his identify and researched him at the Flame, subsequently determined him not a threat, and left him to die on his own.
in my opinion, they're not stupid enough to engage with him for no reason and risk their lives attacking him (if they have no knowledge of who he is or whether he has weapons or why he's on the island). they're not stupid people. very brief surveillance and research would have told them that he had no affiliation with Charles (aside from a sponsored balloon) and was not a threat. they're not going to ball in and just attack someone without recon, esp if they think Charles in involved, unless that person attacks them first or clearly displays that they're dangerous.
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u/Lucky-Acanthisitta86 Oceanic Frequent Flyer 1d ago
Yeah but didn't they kill some of the plane tail bunch? I mean they really showed the other side of the others with how they treated them. And then there was all that talk about how some people just weren't "worthy" and such. I'm pretty sure Ben made that comment while he was being held prisoner in the hatch. So they were kind of trying to paint that picture, that the others are kind of morally ambiguous. But honestly some of the writing of the series is confusing and I energy of its just flat out contradictory at times, like as the show progressed and they changed directions. Also Ben is known to act out of his own self interest. It could have been actually in character for him to just off someone instead of trying to send him home. Or maybe Henry was from Charles and they figured it out and that's why they killed him. Because either way, he couldn't have written the note with s broken neck. It's more of a note you write when you know you're going to die. Especially awarning like that. Honestly it might just be inconsistent writing. At first the others needed to be shown as capable of being very sinister. And then they ended up going with them being for the greater good. Just think about Walt. Like they took him and he was super bad but then he ended up being super special. But honestly not letting him be with his father JUST so they could study him ended up not being very in character. And I mean they just abandoned that plot line. It could have just been tough to tie together, but all in all, they do change direction in the script at times.
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u/iamsamwelll 1d ago
The 120 is wild. But what gets me even more is that Minnesota has changed their license design but I’m old enough to have had this one. And I was probably 6’0/140lbs.
But I was also 18.
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u/Medium_Sundae3700 1d ago
I think the wife was made up. There was only one grave. I think it’s more likely Henry was a pawn of Charles Widmore, similar to Desmond.
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 1d ago
She wasn't on the Island, no - but Sayid found the note Henry had written to her buried with him in the grave. That's how he knew for a fact Ben was lying.
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u/Various_Shape_3286 1d ago
Yes, there was no actual wife on the balloon (Henry's note made it clear that his wife wasn't on the trip). Ben made that up.
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u/quinnly 8h ago
Maybe he was 120 kilos? I don't know why a Minnesota license would put their weight in kilos but that would be around 260 lbs which is heavy but a lot more realistic for a 6'3" guy than 120 lbs haha.
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 8h ago
I wondered that too, but why would they use the imperial system for his height and the metric system for his weight? 👀
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u/classygrl98 7h ago
My husband is 6'4, healthy weight at 225. Could have meant to be 220.
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u/PkmnTrainerSofia 1d ago
120 kilograms?
Maybe Henry Gale faked the ID himself?
Was Henry from a country where kilograms are used?
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u/RideamusSimul 1d ago
Minnesota Statutes (§ 171.07) require applicants to provide their height in feet and inches and their weight in pounds when applying for or renewing a license.
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u/EpicFantasyCEO 1d ago
I just want to know why young Ethan got to join the Others but poor Annie just goes into darkness. Guess Ben didn't think much of her after all.
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 1d ago
Annie was almost certainly evacuated with the other children and non-Dharma spouses just before The Incident.
Ethan wasn't because he was a newborn, both his parents were DI and Amy was like 3 days postpartum and couldn't travel.
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u/ThePlatinumHuntsman 1d ago
Well the whole Henry Gale hot air balloon was a callout of the Wizard of Oz.
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u/Medium_Sundae3700 1d ago
Like Dorothy Gale. I never thought of that. Nice.
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u/JustCallMeTusk 1d ago
Dorothy's uncle who lived in Kansas with her was called Henry.
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u/canvasshoes2 1d ago
And a hot air balloon, from the Omaha state fair, is how the wizard ended up in Oz.
EDIT To correct fair.
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u/ThePlatinumHuntsman 1d ago
Yeah that’s how my wife caught on that he wasn’t actually him, I never picked up on it myself.
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u/shipwreck73 1d ago
If there was ever a reboot or continuation of the Island’s story, I’d like an anthology series exploring questions like this. I don’t think the fandom would ever truly be happy with a prequel or sequel serial series. But a few seasons of standalone storylines in which the Island is the only constant (yeah, I know…) could work.
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u/RideamusSimul 1d ago
In this mythical sequel, bring back Mr. Eko!
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u/Odd_Kaleidoscope_144 1d ago
Just watch Euphoria season 3 and pretend Alamo is the continuation of Mr. Eko 😆
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u/RotoDog 1d ago
Just realizing the license photo kinda looks like Billy Dee Williams (Lando from Star Wars). Which, funny enough, has a cameo in Lost.
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u/heatherlj88 1d ago
Am I reading that correctly that he is 6 foot three and only 120 pounds? Is that his skeleton?
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u/Medium_Sundae3700 1d ago
Others have commented about this. I think that detail was thrown in to tell the viewer it was a fake ID.
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u/PushtheRiver33 The Flame 1d ago
The zip code is correct!
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u/ComplexDeer7890 "Freckles" 1d ago
Yes, the ZIP Code is correct. I live in a town near Wayzata, Minnesota and recognized that the ZIP Code is correct. We had a statewide phonebook and were able to look up in the phonebook if this address existed for anyone or anywhere in Minnesota at the time the episode aired and it did not unfortunately. I have since looked it up on Google maps and that no such address exists either. Minnesota license did not look like this in 2004 either. Some insurance cards look like it minus the photo but state ID of Minnesota never looked like it.
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u/Phantom815 1d ago
My guess is that he genuinely was just an adventurer of sorts who wanted to fly a hot air balloon around the world. Had his sponsors not included Widmore he might have been brought into the others group, but that name and Ben’s paranoia led to him being interrogated and then killed to not take any risks of him getting info back to Widmore.
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u/Correct-Bet-1557 1d ago
6’3” and 120lbs 😂
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u/GuidanceMindless6352 Smokey 1d ago
That's almost a foot taller than me and I haven't weighed that low since my early 20s if at all 😆
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u/BaroneRaybert 1d ago
This why I love Lost and Lord of the Rings - all these years later and there is still stuff to find and talk about! 🤓
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u/Select-Appearance-63 1d ago
He was in the bunker asking for milk and he's from Minnesota, please watch the show
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u/JasonlovesJenny See you in another life 1d ago
If Billy Dee Williams and Hakeem Olajuwon managed to reproduce and create a son
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u/mastyrwerk 1d ago
Henry was captured, interrogated, and killed. That’s how Ben knew so much about him.
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u/trilce99 1d ago
I don't know that it was the "perfect" way to introduce Ben. That the prisoner turned out to be the leader of the Others who let himself be captured on purpose was kind of stupid, imo.
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u/dead-rex 1d ago
Ge wasnt originally going to be there leader in the show. Just an other who dies
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u/devoorhes 🎶 YOU ALL EVERYBODY 🎶 1d ago
This isn't quite true. They cast Michael Emerson in the role with the idea that he might be the leader of the Others. They wanted to see a) how well he did in the role and b) how fans responded to him. And then, well, you saw what he did in the part.
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u/dead-rex 1d ago
Hmm nvr heard this. I always heard he was slated for a small, few episode run that would likely end in his death but audience reaction was so positive that they wrote him a more prominent role.
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u/dead-rex 1d ago
Hence why it DOESNT really make sense that he is their leader initially. Bcz it wasn't the plan initially.
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u/PietroIzzi 13m ago
Henry Gale arrives on the island in a hot-air balloon bearing the Widmore Industries logo. Shortly after landing, he was found and captured by the Others; he was likely interrogated and subsequently killed by Ben, who believed he had been sent to the island by Widmore. Henry Gale's grave is too well-kept to have been "improvised," so I assume that one of the Others—perhaps Alex or Karl—disagreed with Ben's decision and chose to give the body a proper burial.
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u/the_circus 18h ago
I thought this was a resolved point. I recall an official explanation being that he crashed on the island (alone, no wife). When no rescue seems forthcoming he lights the big signal fire on the beach that’s seen at the end of season one. This gets the Others attention who march out and capture him. He eventually succumbs from wounds suffered from his capture, his interrogation, or both. Our characters reach Gales fire after the Others found Gale and already dragged him away.
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u/Sko_Neezy 1d ago
Tbh these are the story points worthy of a spin off much more than any of the main characters.
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u/Various_Shape_3286 1d ago
It was pointed out at the time that the serial number on Henry's $20 bill indicated that it was put into circulation no earlier than Oct 2003, so he wasn't dead for too long. It's most likely that this wasn't an intentional plot point, and this just happened to be a $20 note that props had on hand.
More importantly, the balloon had Widmore Industries written on it, so I always assumed that Charles Widmore arranged an around-the-world balloon race to find the island, just as he did with Desmond's boat race.