Like many of you, I have racked my brain trying to determine the meaning of "253" from the Return.
- "253 time and time again" - the Arm
- Major Briggs directed Bobby et al to 253 yards from Jack Rabbits Palace at 2:53, two days in a row
- 2:53 was the time on American Girl's watch when Cooper was in the Purple Room
- 2:53 was the time Good and Evil Coop were supposed to switch places
- 2:53 "the number of completion" was the time noted by Coop when heading from Vegas to Twin Peaks (was also the time on the wall clock when he was at the sherrif station
(Hopefully I got them all...)
Are they just random numbers indicating a time when various significant things are occurring simultaneously? Or is there significance with the numbers themselves?
One thought I had is that we know Cooper was born in April 1954, which would place his conception in 1953. Could "253" really mean "2 in '53?" Meaning "two Coopers" (good and evil) were conceived in 1953 (assuming they are two sides to the same person)? And the "number of completion" referencing the fact that whatever force was at work in creating the "two sides of Cooper" had "completed" its mission?
I don't know, this may be a big stretch. It is just all I can presently come up with!
Hi - and this one....
Ha. This is probably old news to the more observant viewers, but I guess we're supposed to think the clock in the Twin Peaks Sheriff's station stopped at the same time Cooper checked out of the hospital in Las Vegas? They're in the same time zone, so 2:53=2:53. Any point in asking why that is, or just Lynch being Lynch?
I dunno, the stuttering on the clock in the station made me think they were all stuck at the moment of completion, and that perhaps time was beginning to "break" there, followed by space breaking around them (the loss of light, and the ephemeral transition of Coop, Cole, and Diane to the Great Northern Basement).
The clock also reminds me in particular of the way time and reality stutter back and forth as Sarah-Judy smashes the frame on Laura's portrait (and were subsequently see a shift in reality after that, as well).
I also figure the number (outside of how it adds to ten) is simply significant since it was the time at which Mr. C rebelled against the order of things and refused to enter the lodge.
Ooh! And I just realized something else about 253 that seems too on the nose to not have been intended by Frost and/or Lynch as a meta reference:
25 years till we got season 3, "the moment of completion" for the cliffhanger from season 2!
Nice!
I think there's also groupings in the room during the final battle:
James + Naido + Freddy - by one door
Coop + Truman - in the middle of the room
Hawk + Andy + Lucy + Bradley + Rodney Mitchum - by the other door
Bit strange, if not to make up numbers on the side of good to ten, for James to be there - he's the victim in Ep.15, rather than the perpetrator. Seems likely that this grouping is another nod at replicating the number, rather than driving it, as the groupings don't seem to mean anything in themselves.
I remember seeing 253 on the entrance floor of the casino. This was in ep. 3 or 4. Didnt see that mentioned.
Like many of you, I have racked my brain trying to determine the meaning of "253" from the Return.
- "253 time and time again" - the Arm
- Major Briggs directed Bobby et al to 253 yards from Jack Rabbits Palace at 2:53, two days in a row
- 2:53 was the time on American Girl's watch when Cooper was in the Purple Room
- 2:53 was the time Good and Evil Coop were supposed to switch places
- 2:53 "the number of completion" was the time noted by Coop when heading from Vegas to Twin Peaks (was also the time on the wall clock when he was at the sherrif station
(Hopefully I got them all...)
Are they just random numbers indicating a time when various significant things are occurring simultaneously? Or is there significance with the numbers themselves?
One thought I had is that we know Cooper was born in April 1954, which would place his conception in 1953. Could "253" really mean "2 in '53?" Meaning "two Coopers" (good and evil) were conceived in 1953 (assuming they are two sides to the same person)? And the "number of completion" referencing the fact that whatever force was at work in creating the "two sides of Cooper" had "completed" its mission?
I don't know, this may be a big stretch. It is just all I can presently come up with!
It's neumerology: 2+5+3=10. 10 is the number of completion. Before the set returns to 1 again. So at 2:53 "completion".
Check out Thoth Tarot, Kabbalah for more symbolic references.
I think it's plain and simple that at 2:53 Coop goes back and changed history. Therefore changing the future. His success is at 2:53 Sherrif Station time.
Completely unrelated, but 253 is also a really good book by Geoff Ryman - I think a lot of people who like Twin Peaks would probably also enjoy it. It was originally in the form of a website - but doesn't seem to exist as that any more, which is a shame as it worked best when you could move through all the connecting links.
Except for that the tree does not say 253, but 257, as mentioned in other threads(see attached audiofile). For me these numbers does not give any sense anyway. The completion of what. I dont really know what to thinkink about this thing is a big clue.
I dig the numerology, but I'm curious what you mean by "Sheriff Station Time." Do you think the Sheriff Station is on its own version of time, separate from Twin Peaks and the rest of the West Coast? As I mentioned earlier, it can't really be 2:53 (in the normal world) at that moment when we see the clock fluttering in the Sheriff Station - because that's when Coop left the hospital in Las Vegas (same time zone). Even assuming very speedy travels, at least a couple of hours have gone by. I kind of assumed the Sheriff Station clock had stopped at 2:53 (for cosmic reasons, no doubt). But I guess it's also possible that time in the Sheriff Station is now "doing its own thing," making the 2:53 on the clock "correct."
I took it that Coop and the Mitchums took an entire day to get there (plus probably one night's sleep). Cooper woke up on 10/1 at 2:53 and arrived at Twin Peaks on 10/2 with events culminating there again at 2:53. They had to drive to the LV airport, fly to Spokane, arriving at night most likely. Probably got a room and then drove to TP the next day.
253 = 10, the number of completion, 'lucky 7', the gamble becomes completion(episode 17). While at 430, the 'lucky 7', the gamble becomes zero(episode 17 and completion becomes episode 18); and thus Cooper says in Judy's diner 'I dont know if the oil is hot enough to set off those bullets, but I would stand back if I were you', indicating that the lack of guarantee can never be erased with a gamble, that 'lucky 7', Dougie's 'seven heaven' where the gamble pays off in the 'happy ending', that this will never eliminate the danger, no completion or elimination of a 'bad guy' will ever get rid of the problems 'at the root' of the situation(the pain and impossibility seen in dreams, etc.). Cooper has met Judy, negative/impossibility of completion, thus must return back to the scene of the 'original trauma' of Twin Peaks, with Laura and her house, the fan, etc....no completion here...the investigation was never even started, but 'sleepwalking' and complacency was preferred for 25 years in place of the mystery, with the hope of some big 'payoff' or salvation that would somehow erase the pain/dreams that exploded with the murder of Laura Palmer, allowing people to ignore it....
253 and number 10 of completion is BOB's modus operandi(also this is why Cooper 'wanted to be with BOB' and called himself back in 'Daryas motel' in the search for completion and why he went mad back in Twin Peaks when his dreams of community there were shattered by the brutality of the place). BOB wanted Laura 'completely', to come to rest and possess Laura as a guarantee of his existence. Just as Mr. C was trying to possess Judy and got extremely nervous when Jeffries told him 'youve already met Judy', since Mr. C thought finding Judy would somehow 'complete his existence', allow him to come to rest, or control everything, the situation, eliminate the pain and the world which caused him to go mad; something like eliminating thinking, the dream that a 'place' can be found for everyone, and everyone can be 'put in their place', the elimination of freedom/dreams, etc., that some kind of 'wild quest' or dream can be carried out which will somehow put an end to death itself, where the successful 'dreamer' can become the eternal tyrant and put everything else that stands in the way 'to rest', eliminated, and thus Mr. C was working with billionaires to control even the red room/lodges themselves, and all of the world. An example what BOB did to Laura...Also this is why Odessa is 'jack rabbits palace'(a reference to Bobby Peru when he raped Lula in Wild at Heart) the closed tyrannical life of BOB, natural man/billionaire which closes off dreams, completes everything(digital network) and this life slowly decay into the primordial slop and violent outbursts of 'Odessa life', inhabited by 'billionaire/woodsmen/truck driver' types who are all like BOB, and why Cooper had to confront them there with Judy/negativity, which is also in nature and why 'jack rabbits palace' as complete is still prone to the natural slow decay and violent outbursts, cut in the forest, vortex/voids, etc., there is no completion in nature, just life not fit for dreams, Odessa life..., thus Judy/negativity is necessary to tear apart and restrict completion and the slop of 'Odessa life'
Fire walk with