Let's rake up some old stuff, try and give this board a shot in the arm;

Talk to me about the White Lodge. Was it just an attempt by the writers to add mystery? The oppostie of the Black Lodge? A place? Part of the Red Room? Realm of the Angels?   Thoughts?  Please, intelligent discussion

EDIT, this is the 1200th topic, woowoo!

It's certainly an aspect of the show that, when i watch again, i really wish they would have elaborated upon. It's such an intriguing concept, having those polar opposites. What i always thought was that the red room was a kind of purgatory, and depending on what your mind state was and how 'innocent' you were, you ended up in either the Black or White lodge but within your own experience.

It's evident that Major Briggs is an endearing, wonderfully honest and well-meaning person, and thus has his experience in the White Lodge. But whereas Cooper might have at that point of the show have also seen the same if he was summoned(?)/transported there, at the end of the show as we know it, his mind was clouded with confusion and perhaps uncertainty concerning the nature of innocence, love, and altruism; leading to his inevitable imprisonment in the lodges.

That's just my thoughts really. And kudos for bringing up the oldies! They always keep the mind ticking, and i adore reading others opinions.

 OK. First, speaking as a budding, would-be writer myself, writers have a much more difficult battle presenting our ideas properly, in getting them communicated and getting them understood by our audience than we ever have adding to the mystery. It is one of my personal downfalls in my storytelling.

So, it is my personal opinion that the White/Black Lodge concept, like the embedded Soap Opera, "Invitation to Love" and the multiple use of the surname, Chalfont are all methods that the various writers of the series used as signposts or guiderails intended to lead us to the various entertaining ideas that they had collectively written into the series. Make the audiences' journey too easy and the saga is too boring; make the reveal sudden and well-mapped out without your audience "seeing it coming" and you have a hit. Build walls of random fact and mythic interaction that Superman's X-Ray vision can't reliably penetrate and you have a cult classic.

 Again to me, the White Lodge and Black Lodge as well as the Red Room were metaphoric tale-spinning methods to show the audiences the various character's internal battles between each choosing good and evil and the inevitable fence each sits on while making up one's mind which course of action they will follow. Bob either started all-bad or was seduced by the dark side long long ago. Leland was clearly drawn over during his vunerable youth but thereafer eagerly choose his personal path of evil. Windom Earl was more of an evil-groupie who just didn't read the bylaws.

Everyone I talk to about this seems to have forgetten that we see several other occupants of the red room; some non-descript lumberjacks, some Chalfonts (one very young and one very old), a dwarf and a giant of indetermanent size, and the yet-to-have-passed-over Laura. Several have Doppleganger opposites in this den of opposition. There is no back story for this cast yet offered.

 For the record, I found the parallels between the Soap Opera twins and the Laura-Maddie similarities to mean that Lynch was trying to tell me that Laura and Maddie were twins probably not from the wheelchair bound mom and that perhaps Leland wasn't quite the villain he might otherwise be. I took the mention of repeated Chalfonts to parallel the plot for the movie, "Kind Hearts and Coronets." but that's another post.

I don't think the Soap Opera things were a signpost to any specific answer; its thematic echoes, which as a budding writer you are probably familiar with. The idea of repetition, especially within a show within a show, creates a strong resonance.

Did Briggs in fact go to the WL? Because he seemed to invision what i believe to be a Dugpa. I always feel that had their been a season 3, the idea of an 'occult bookhouse boys' vs 'secret dugpas' would have been explored

A quick word about guideposts in writing on TV. This comes from 5 years after Twin Peaks ceased but was closer to when FWWM came out.There is a seminal moment for me as a writer in the year 2000, Season 2, Episode 15: "Celebrities" of "Sports Night" where Joshua Malina's character, Jeremy Goodwin, has (while on the rebound) just met and flirted heavily with Paula Marshall's Jenny, a stunning and somehow familiar-looking brunette at a bar. At the climax of the show, somewhere in the background, the rest of the staff is playing "Celebrity", a mindless guessing game where each player is given the name of some celebrity and then he tries to get his partner to guess that celebrity's name by giving unique attributes of said celeb as clues to his or her identity. Jeremy sits in the foreground mulling over the nagging idea that he knows his new flame from somewhere.

At the climax of the action, Jeremy's co-worker giving clues in the background keeps repeating his clue for, say Marilyn Chambers as a celebrity, "She's a PORN Star!" over and over while we watch Malina's Goodwin in the foreground reach pretty much the same conclusion about Jenny's familiarity. When I reread the Twin Peak's scripts I had the realization that Laura was the Jade to Maddie's Emerald. I will have to look up the chapter and verse on exactly where.

 Well, imo we can see Major Briggs like a perfect character, but he seem to have his own demon,  for example his relationship with his son, and the way he have been shown violent (the slap in Bobby face) with him, he seem to have lost his temper in this sequence, more than Dale Cooper (sorry for my bad english) for something not really important, so in some way, it was a surprise that he was abble to go in the white lodge (if it was really the white Lodge).

 But in the same time, he seem to have grown up like a character and make peace with his son, he have clearly understand his point of view about his life, he seem to know to deal with his own problems, unlike Cooper who seem to live under his past mistakes (Caroline death etc...), and when he was again in the same situation, Cooper seem really fear to lost someone he love (Audrey and Annie).

Briggs could have done the same mistake imo if his wife or his son was in danger in the red room, Bob could have easily played with his bad temper.

The throne he was sat on looked like it was in a pretty nice place. If it was in a hellish place, it would have had skulls and stuff on it, and Chris De Burgh would have been playing in the background.

I think that the White Lodge is definitely the opposite of the Black Lodge in most ways. Physically though I believe it looks the same. When we see Major Briggs' vision on the throne, I think of it more as a vision he's having while in the White Lodge. Not the actual physical state of the lodge. I think that once in the White Lodge you are presented with a vision that either comforts you in some way or represents the things you love. Such as Cooper and Laura at the end of FWWM. I believe that the final scene is their acceptance into the White Lodge. I don't think it would make much since for an angel to appear to them in the Black Lodge.

 "The mind is a place of its own.  It can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven.

  -John Milton

It seems pretty logical that if your going to have a hell in Twin Peaks mythology (Black Lodge) there has to be a heaven (White Lodge). I think the lodge was just a natural progression of an idea. Most writers would have come up with it.

 Also, I think the White Lodge is an extension of the concept of the Giant. That the Giant is the "god" to LMFAP's "devil". This also works as a mislead. That if the audience buys that Giant is good, then everything he says must be in aid of Agent Cooper. And conversely, anything the LMFAP says must be bad and hindering agent Cooper. It's an excellent example of playing around with the viewers own perceptions.  

 The lodges also fit into the overall motif of Twin Peaks. Two sides to everything. Even LMFAP has a doppleganger in the lodge. Who's to say the White Lodge doesn;t have a good version of LMFAP? Or the lodge has it's own evil version of the Giant (who we may have seen in the last episode in the Red Room.

 The White Lodge also fits into the underlying buddhist theme that occured as early as teh 2nd episode. 

Perhaps the Giant symbolizes truth, whether universal or mundane truths, that Cooper has attuned himself to through his spirituality and clairvoyance.  

Giant:  The things I tell you will not be wrong

Cooper:  Where are you from?
Giant:  The question is, where have you gone?