Logo found on the wall of The Arrow
The Arrow is a station found by the Tailenders, which we assume was built for the researchers of The Dharma Initiative. It seems to have been abandoned by the research scientists for unknown reasons and was empty except for a box containing a number of items, listed below.
- This station has electric power, which powers some lights.
- The inside of the door says "QUARANTINE."
Purpose
The Arrow station's purpose is unknown at the moment. However, it may be noted that both The Arrow and The Swan refer to attributes of the Hindu pantheon (from which the word Dharma and the greeting/salutation "Namaste" come from). The Swan is an attendant of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of creativity, and is said to have the faculty of discernment: offered a mixture of milk and water, the swan is traditionally supposed to be able to drink only the milk. The Arrow would thus be understood as potentially being Rama's arrow, in reference to the bow of Vishnu, which, when challenged by Parashurama, Rama strings. The arrow Rama fired into the air at that end ofin the other bunker's logo is noticeably pointing upwards.
Based on this, it might be expected that the other stations also correspond to imagery/mythemes, though there has been no indication of this yet, one way or the other.
Theories
- There is speculation that Arrow is a different type of bunker than Swan, that it was just a supply depot and that is why the tailies found it mostly empty.
- The Arrow is one of the six constellations of Apollo, along with The Swan.
Items
When the Tailenders first find The Arrow station, they find some abandoned items wrapped in cloth (burlap?):
- a glass eye.
- a Bible, which Eko took. In Season 2, episode 9, ("What Kate Did"), Eko shows the Bible to Locke, revealing that it had been used to hide a missing section of the Orientation Film inside.
- a (two-way) radio, with which Bernard makes contact with Boone, and which the Tailenders bring with them on their march to join the other survivors.
They did not explore further into The Arrow hatch, so we do not know if it is like The Swan hatch.