Dave

Season: 2, Episodes: 1, Faction: N/A

Overview

Dave was Hurley’s friend. Hurley met Dave while he was a patient at the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute. It is unknown if Dave was imaginary, a hallucination created by Hurley, or a dead person that Hurley could speak to. Dave’s presence at the institute, whether post-death or imaginary, proved to be something of a setback to Hurley in his stay at Santa Rosa.

Sun (Fire)

Fertility (Vegetation)

Fertility (Earth)

Fertility (Water)

Protection

2×18 – Dave

At the Institute

Dave is Hurley’s friend in the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute. Hurley’s doctor thinks Dave is a bad influence and doesn’t want Hurley to change or lose weight.

Hurley’s doctor, Dr. Brooks, takes a photo of Hurley with his arm around Dave. The doctor later shows the photo to Hurley. Dave is not in the picture and Hurley’s arm is hanging over empty air.

Hurley refuses to escape the mental hospital with Dave and instead locks him out of the building. Hurley later reveals that this led to a breakthrough in his therapy which resulted in his eventual release.

On the Island

Dave was first seen on the Island by Hurley as the survivors scrambled to gather food from the supply drop.

Dave lost a slipper when Hurley followed (chased) him away from the supply drop. Hurley found the slipper, but Libby later said she didn’t recall seeing him carry it.

Dave appears to be able to physically interact with Hurley, by slapping him and hitting him with coconuts. This interaction occurs in the hospital and on the Island but since nobody else is present at the time this incident may just have happened in Hurley’s head.

Dave tries to convince Hurley that the person he locked out of the hospital was real and that he imagined the breakthrough, the release from the hospital, winning the lottery and crashing on the Island. Dave tells Hurley that he is still in the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute and that everything is a hallucination. Dave says that even he is a figment of his imagination, but he did let out the real Dave at the hospital.

He says that he is the part of Hurley that wants him to escape the dream. As proof, he points out that the Numbers he used to win the lottery and are used to reset the timer were learned from Leonard at the hospital. Then, as further proof, he points out that someone like Libby would never be romantically interested in him.

Dave leads Hurley to a cliff and tells him the only way he can escape the dream is by throwing himself off the cliff and challenging his mind to deny the hallucination. When he jumps Dave tells Hurley “see you in another life,” a phrase Desmond said to Jack. Dave plunges off the cliff himself and Hurley nearly follows him before being talked out of it by Libby. (“Dave”)

Images Source | Source

Related Character Images

Decoded Season 1 & 2 Characters

Hurley Reyes

Dr. Douglas Brooks

Leonard Simms

Libby Smith

Key Episode(s) to Decoding the Character

2x18 "Dave"

(Nehebu-kau) Nehebkau’s name means either ‘He who harnesses/yokes the kas,’ or, more conceptually, ‘Bestower of dignities’ or ‘Appointer of positions’; sometimes his name is written with ka in the singular. The term ka is frequently translated as ‘double’, for it may be depicted as a twin, or as ‘spirit’, but it has a wide semantic range, from the most concrete, e.g., ‘food’, to the most ideal, e.g., the essence or nature of something (or, more typically, someone), with its most representative usages falling somewhere in the middle of this continuum. Something’s ka is the source of its being what it is and of its continuance in the state of being what it is, whether this source be viewed in a more refined sense, which yields the notion of something’s essence or someone’s personality, or in a more immediate and tangible sense, which yields the notion of one’s livelihood, or the set of circumstances allowing for one to be successful. Nehebkau is depicted as a serpent of indefinite species (but in any event not an uraeus cobra) or as a serpent-headed man, or as a serpent with human arms and legs. Sometimes the serpent form of Nehebkau is shown with two heads at the front and a head where his tail would be. In his humanoid form, Nehebkau may hold a snake in each hand. His typical consort is Serket, who is also sometimes regarded as his mother; otherwise, Renenutet is identified as his mother. Nehebkau is also linked conceptually with Nehmetaway, inasmuch as she bears the epithet nehbet-ka, the feminine form of Nehebkau’s name but for ka being in the singular, in her function as Goddess of justice. Nehebkau sometimes appears on the thrones of statuettes of Sekhmet and Bast, indicating that his functions literally support theirs.

In PT utterance 229, “the fingernail of Atum” is said to have pressed down on the vertebrae of Nehebkau, and thus to have “stilled the turmoil in Unu [Hermopolis].” In PT utterance 263, four divinities who are possibly the four sons of Horus, are to “tell my good name [the deceased king is speaking] to Re and announce me to Nehebkau, so that my entry may be greeted.” PT utterance 308 could be interpreted as stating that Nehebkau is understood as the son of Serket; at any rate, the affirmation, which is directed to the “two daughters of the four Gods who preside over the Great Mansion,” is that “I have looked on you as Nehebkau looked on Serket,” and stands parallel to affirmations that “I have looked on you as Horus looked on Isis” and “as Sobek looked on Neith.” But since the divinities in question are simply to “come forth at the voice to me [the deceased king], being naked,” it cannot be said with authority what the king intends to do with them, and the relationship between Nehebkau and Serket could be sexual rather than filial. In PT utterance 510 the deceased king identifies with Nehebkau, “multitudinous of coils.” In PT utterance 609, the four divinities of utterance 263 “will raise up this good utterance of yours to Nehebkau when your daughter has spoken to you, and Nehebkau will raise up this good utterance of yours to the Two Enneads,” i.e. all the Gods, represented by the doubling of the ideal number nine.” In PT utterance 727, Nehebkau apparently takes the poison of a snake instead of the deceased king, for it is said that Nehebkau “burns with the poison.”

CT spells 84-88 are particularly important for understanding Nehebkau because they belong to the genre of ‘transformation’ spells (i.e. for invoking the God). Spell 84 refers to Serket again, although some variants substitute Seshat (an error?). Serket is said to have become pregnant by the operator, who is identified with Nehebkau. She is angry with him, and possibly attacks him. The operator claims to have made something between the Goddess’s thighs “as [like] Him-whose-head-is-raised,” a term for a serpent, indicating either Serket/Seshat’s pregnancy, state of arousal or, if it is indeed Serket, who is depicted as a scorpion, perhaps her preparedness to strike. The result for the operator, however, is beneficial: “I have surpassed the spirits, I have surpassed the sages, and I have said that they shall make for me a standing-place by reason of it.” CT spell 85 refers to a motif frequent in connection with Nehebkau, the idea that he swallowed seven uraei (the cobras who spit fire in defense of Re); CT spell 374 states that these uraei became seven of Nehebkau’s vertebrae. A more abstract theme which emerges in these spells is of Nehebkau as one who in some fashion embodies the collective powers (kas) of the Gods. Thus in CT spells 86 and 87, Nehebkau is “the great Ennead of Atum,” that is, the manifold of Gods proceeding from Atum, or “the Bull [a pun, for ka=’bull’] of the Tribunal of Atum” or “of the Enneads,” that is, the manifold-of-manifolds of Gods. Similar is spell 88′s claim that Nehebkau “obeys no magic.”

CT spell 762 conceives Nehebkau as the son of Renenutet and Geb, and articulates further Nehebkau’s conceptual relationship to the other Gods: “You [the deceased as Nehebkau] are indeed the ka of every God … Stand up; Horus has greeted you, for he recognizes you as the ka of all the Gods; there is no God who has not his ka in you.” Nehebkau thus embodies something, perhaps the very concept of the ka as such, without which the Gods could have no kas; it is a matter of a necessary condition, if not the sufficient condition, for the Gods’ mode of being. Similarly, CT spell 647 affirms that Nehebkau “grants souls, crownings, kas and beginnings.” In CT spell 1076, this is expressed by stating that Nehebkau “eats his fathers … [and] his mothers,” and “swallowed the Hehu,” that is, the ‘Chaos-Gods’ who constitute the members of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad and who represent the state of formlessness prior to the emergence of the cosmos.

The Book of the Dead mentions Nehebkau as present in the day bark with Re (BD spell 15A1), thus lending his powers to the maintenance of cosmic order. Nehebkau is also among the deities cited in the so-called ‘Negative Confession’ of BD spell 125; Allen translates the denial delivered to him as “O uniter of attributes [i.e., Nehebkau] who came forth from the city, I have not made distinctions (of others) from myself,” (p. 99) perhaps with a degree of speculative excess. In BD spell 17, the deceased says, “I fly as a hawk, I have cackled as a goose, I destroy eternity like Nehebkau.” The first part of the formula, involving the hawk and the goose, is familiar from a variety of contexts, while the reference to ‘destroying’ eternity perhaps means that identifying with Nehebkau grants the deceased a power of persistence and renewal more durable than eternity itself.

Nehebkau’s occurrence in amulets and magical spells indicates that he was assumed to exercise a protective function for the living individual as well. A spell against infectious disease (no. 18 in Borghouts) is to be said “over Sekhmet, Bast, Osiris and Nehebkau, drawn in myrrh on a bandage of fine linen,” and applied to a person’s throat. In another spell (no. 87), Nehebkau is characterized as “prominent in the Palace, who restores people to life with the work of his arms,” a phrase which is interesting insofar as the hieroglyphic sign for ka is a pair of outstretched arms.

Image Source | Source

Further Info

Nehebkau (Nehebu-Kau, Nehebkhau), ‘He Who Unites the Kas’, was a benevolent snake god who the Egyptians believed was one of the original primeval gods. He was linked to the sun god, swimming around in the primeval waters before creation, then bound to the sun god when time began. He was a god of protection who protected the pharaoh and all Egyptians, both in life and in the afterlife.

Homage to thee, Netethib, daughter of these four gods who are in the Great House. Even when the command of Unas goes not forth, uncover yourselves in order that Unas may see you as Horus seeth Isis, as Nehebkau seeth Serqet, as Sobek seeth Nit, and as Set seeth Netethib.

— Pyramid Text of Unas

He was depicted in the form of a snake with arms and legs, occasionally with wings. He is sometimes shown holding containers of food in his hands, in offering to the deceased. Less often, he is shown as a two headed snake, with a head at each end of the reptilian body.

His name comes from the ancient Egyptian word for ‘yoke together’ or ‘unite’, nhb with the word for the plural of a part of the spirit, the ka

His name means that he is the one that brings together the ka – the double of a person, an animal, a plant, a body of water or even a stone – and unites the double with the physical body that the ka would reside in, be it an animate or inanimate object.

Homage to you, O ye gods, who are masters of [your] beards, and who are holy by reason of your scepters. Speak ye for me words of good import to Ra, and make ye me to have favor in the sight of Nehebkau.

— The Chapter of Not Letting the Heart of Nun, Whose Word is Truth, be Driven Away from Him in Khert-Neter, The Book of the Dead

In life, Nehebkau was invoked by the people to protect them from and cure them of venomous bites. The Egyptians believed that he swallowed seven (a magical number) cobras, using them for his magical power. It was thought that he was one of the gods who announced the new pharaoh to the gods, at the beginning of his rule. He was at one point a rather fierce and aggressive deity, and the god Atem had to press his nail into Nehebkau’s spine, so he could control the snake god. He could not be overcome with magic, fire or water.

After death, it was Nehebkau who protected and fed the pharaoh, offering food and water to the other justified dead. The drink was known as the ‘Milk of Light’, magical liquid that would heal the deceased had they been bitten by a poisonous animal. He was one of the forty two gods in the Halls of Ma’at, who helped to judge over the deceased.

O Nehebkau who comes from the city:
I have not sought to make myself unduly distinguished.

— The Negative Confessions, The Book of the Dead

One tradition states that he is the son of the scorpion goddess Serqet, and another says that he is the son of the earth god Geb and Renenutet, the goddess who gave the rn – the true name – to each child at birth. He was a form of the sun god while he lived in the waters of Nun, before creation. He swam in the water in the form of a snake with the other primeval gods, living in chaos.

Among the greatest of the festivals … were those in honor of Nehebkau which, according to Dr. Brugsch, were celebrate on of Tybi [the fifth month], that is to say, nine days after the ‘Festival of Ploughing the Earth’.

— The Gods of the Egyptians, E. A. Wallis Budge

Nehebkau did not have a priesthood, but many people invoked him in magical spells to gain his protection and cures against snakebites. He was a snake god of protection, who was called on when the people needed him. He was, they believed, one of the original gods of Egypt, only turned from chaos by the sun god. He was a benevolent god, a god of magic who bound the ka with the physical form, and who judged them in the afterlife. Although he did not have a cult following of his own, he was a god who they invoked in magical spells, both in life and in the land of the dead.

Source

Wiki Info

In Egyptian mythology, Nehebkau (also spelt Nehebu-Kau, and Neheb Ka) was originally the explanation of the cause of binding of Ka and Ba after death. Thus his name, which means (one who) brings together Ka. Since these aspects of the soul were said to bind after death, Nehebkau was said to have guarded the entrance to Duat, the underworld.

Nehebkau became depicted in art as a snake with two heads (occasionally with only one). As a two-headed snake, he was viewed as fierce, being able to attack from two directions, and not having to fear as much confrontations. Consequently sometimes it was said that Atum, the chief god in these areas, had to keep his finger on him to prevent Nehebkau from getting out of control. Alternately, in areas where Ra was the chief god, it was said that Nehebkau was one of the warriors who protected Ra whilst he was in the underworld, during Ra’s nightly travel, as a sun god, under the earth.

When he was seen as a snake, he was also thought to have some power over snake-bites, and by extension, other poisonous bites, such as those of scorpions, thus sometimes being identified as the son of Serket, the scorpion-goddess of protection against these things. Alternatively, as a snake, since he was connected to an aspect of the soul, he was sometimes seen as the son of Renenutet, a snake-goddess, who distributed the Ren, another aspect of the soul, and of the earth (Geb), on which snakes crawl.

Ka is also the Egyptian word for phallus, and so as the somewhat difficult to interpret (one who) harnesses together phalluses, he was often depicted in an ithyphallic manner (still as a snake).

Image Source | Source