Was rewatching the Red Room scene in Part 2. The Tree tells Cooper it's time to leave the Lodge. His first attempt to go through the curtains is unsuccessful. He goes back from where he came but the Tree & Mike are gone. In yet another room he encounters Leland, asking Cooper to find Laura.
When Cooper finally finds the curtain that overlooks the highway the white Roman statue is in the hallway between. Mike says, "There's something wrong." Then the Tree says, "My DOPPELGANGER." Then the Roman statue turns into the Tree! But is the Roman statue / Tree actually the Tree's own Doppelganger?? The head is actually very different in color. The Original Tree's head is fleshy and tinted pink & blue. The "Doppelganger Tree" is bright yellow and obviously way more aggressive than the Original Tree. That's when the floor of the Lodge starts coming apart on Coop and "Doppelganger Tree" yells "non-existant" sending Coop down through the floor gaps on his way to the Glass box in NYC.
Is it possible the Tree has a Doppelganger with a different agenda than the Tree itself?
Yet more variables without answers (yet)! Yikes.
Well, it does seem like the doppelgangers generally have a different agenda than their counterparts - and there's the undeniable fact that the vast majority of Lynch's work is about duality (and the exponential multiplication of dualism).
There's also an argument to be made that different agendas from two (duals) parts end up going in the same direction, towards the same result, albeit from different path (as in the case described in Lost Highway).
All of this is a little more difficult to determine, in Twin Peaks, because while it's pretty clear that the dopplegangers are from the Black Lodge, it is not as clear if their counterparts are actually from the White Lodge.
So, I guess nothing of this answers your question and, actually, it makes everything even more confusing but... yeah, no, you're welcome 😛
The "Non-Existant!" sequence reminded me of the ancient Egyptian book of the dead. In their afterlife belief system, you were confronted by several gods after death-who would ask you certain questions. If you couldn't answer correctly, your "soul/essence" was destroyed and you ceased to exist-which was considered the worst that could happen to you. No afterlife for you, buddy.
Original TP, the doppelgangers had greyed eyes & acted weird ( the screaming Laura was the doppelganger ). There were no answers about them back then, doubt they'll be explained now.
When Cooper finally finds the curtain that overlooks the highway the white Roman statue is in the hallway between. Mike says, "There's something wrong." Then the Tree says, "My DOPPELGANGER." Then the Roman statue turns into the Tree! But is the Roman statue / Tree actually the Tree's own Doppelganger?? The head is actually very different in color. The Original Tree's head is fleshy and tinted pink & blue. The "Doppelganger Tree" is bright yellow and obviously way more aggressive than the Original Tree. That's when the floor of the Lodge starts coming apart on Coop and "Doppelganger Tree" yells "non-existant" sending Coop down through the floor gaps on his way to the Glass box in NYC.
Is it possible the Tree has a Doppelganger with a different agenda than the Tree itself?
Was just rewatching it too. I think you are right. The Arms dobbleganger (yellow brain - the evil arm) was at the waiting room. That's was what was wrong. He sendt Coop to the non-existance minutes before Bad Coop was supposed to go back. Probably to make room for him (Bad Coop).
My interpretation of the scene was simply an explanation that everyone has a doppelganger in the black lodge / waiting room. I don't expect the doppelganger arm will make another appearance.
Here's how I've tried to piece it together.
- Laura Palmer (or "her cousin" or whatever) tells Coop "You can go out now". She then gets "taken" somewhere. Why? Who knows.
- Arm/Tree disagrees. Doppleganger has to come back. 253 again and again. Then tells Coop to leave.
- Coop goes to leave Mike senses something is wrong. Arm/Tree doppleganger tries to "non-exist" Cooper, but he ultimately winds up in that purple/mauve world (where, I guess in hindisight, the Giant and Dido's castle on the hill also is - but he isn't there).
I think there's a couple of key things here.
Laura gets taken away, and then seems to be missing for Leland to implore Cooper to "find her". So I don't think she was supposed to get whisked away like that.
Then Mike sense the disturbance.
We see, of course, that Cooper goes through that prism/glass box when moving between both worlds. Presumably then, wherever Laura went when she left the lodge and went "missing", she might've moved into that same box as well then?
It seems the plan was to capture/trap Cooper there, prevent him from entering the real world, and to have that mother/demon thing kill him before he could return. We get a cryptic clue from "Sam" that the guy before him in NY saw something in the box once, which suggests something else came through, but he didn't say what it was (Laura's spirit, maybe?) .
Wow, nice work. I think you're really on point, especially the idea that (1) Laura (or cousin/doppelganger) was whisked away from the Lodge against her will, and possibly passed through the box in NYC, (2) and that the plan was to trap Cooper in the box so that Mother could have at him.
It's interesting to think that a version of Laura could be back out in the real world. Perhaps she will end up intervening on behalf of Good Coop and against Bad Coop, since she was presumably meant to be a 'force for good' when created by the Giant aka ??????? aka "The Fireman."
Let's take this a little further.
We know that anyone who enters the lodge will encounter their "shadow self" or doppelgänger. The only exceptions to this seem to be spiritual entities like Mike and Bob, who "reside" there. Coop has one, Leland has one (the one who chuckles and tells Coop "I did not kill anybody") and Laura has one (the screamer). Even the Little Man from Another Place has one (the white eyed one who says "Doppelganger!").
How's about this for a concept: the Windom Earl who tormented Coop and kidnapped Annie was a doppelganger. The wicked Windom is to S2 what evil Coop is to S3. In the past, Windom was described by Coop as being a genius FBI agent who taught him everything he knew about being a fed. Could it be that, way back in the past, Earl found the lodge, was replaced by his doppelganger (like Coop) who committed that unspecified federal crime, then killed the witness (Caroline)? Earl went from being a model agent (much like Coop) to being an evil killer (like evil Coop). Earl was searching for the power of the Black Lodge, evil Coop my be doing something similar.
Let's take this a little further.
We know that anyone who enters the lodge will encounter their "shadow self" or doppelgänger. The only exceptions to this seem to be spiritual entities like Mike and Bob, who "reside" there. Coop has one, Leland has one (the one who chuckles and tells Coop "I did not kill anybody") and Laura has one (the screamer). Even the Little Man from Another Place has one (the white eyed one who says "Doppelganger!").
How's about this for a concept: the Windom Earl who tormented Coop and kidnapped Annie was a doppelganger. The wicked Windom is to S2 what evil Coop is to S3. In the past, Windom was described by Coop as being a genius FBI agent who taught him everything he knew about being a fed. Could it be that, way back in the past, Earl found the lodge, was replaced by his doppelganger (like Coop) who committed that unspecified federal crime, then killed the witness (Caroline)? Earl went from being a model agent (much like Coop) to being an evil killer (like evil Coop). Earl was searching for the power of the Black Lodge, evil Coop my be doing something similar.
I like this idea quite a bit. The only trouble I have fully swallowing it hook and sinker is that the Windom we saw in Season 2 seemed to have no idea how to access the lodge. That doesn't seem to be the case with DoppleCoop. He knows exactly when and where he's going to get sucked back in and has been working on plans to defeat that eventuality.
- Ehi guys! I'm going a little bit out of your discussion and maybe someone has already spotted this but I think that the Evolution of the Arm is not a tree, it reminds me rather a kind of giant neuron, where the cell corp is the head, the axon is the body and the dendrites are the arms. That could explain all that gleams on its structure and I suppose that it could be something to understand the role of electricity in Twin Peaks.
Cheers
Fire walk with