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==The Hanso family, former leaders of the Others==
* The leader of the Others used to be Alvar Hanso's ancestor. He came on the Black Rock same as Richard. Richard was the captain and Magnus Hanso was his first mate. Upon coming to the IslandMagnus not Richard was Jacob's favorite. Magnus became the Others first leader and Richard his adviser. Through the ages the title of Others leader fell to Magnus's descendants. Alvar Hanso was the true leader of the Others in 1954. Richard has never been their leader, he reported to someone as he himself stated in Jughead. The camp the Others were residing in in 1954 was not their home...they occupied that camp after they slaughtered the U.S. Army soldiers who resided there. The rest of the Others were either living in the jungle or at the temple in 1954. Charles and Eloise (perhaps one of them being Alvar's offspring) staged a coup against Alvar and he was banished from the Island. He amassed a fortune off the Island and helped fund the Dharma Initiative as a way to get back to the Island much like Charles Widmore will one day do himself. Eloise left before Daniel was born which is why he never experienced the nose bleeds like everyone else did because he had spent the least amount of time on the Island. Charles left after the purge and formed his own financial empire.
** This makes sense, and certainly fits with the cycle of destruction that MIB alludes to; what Locke did to Ben, Ben did to Widmore etc. There's every reason to believe this is how the Others' heirarchy has operated for generations.
*** Even if Alvar had been born on the Island, he was gone before 1954, as had been providing munitions to Resistance forces in the 40's (World War II).
** Discredited now that we know that Richard arrived on the Black Rock, and was the only person on board not killed by the Man in Black.
==Hanso and the Island==
* Alvar Hanso learned the existence of the Island through the ledger of the Black Rock, owned by his family.
* Alvar Hanso learned the existence of the Island through the contacts he made at the U.S. Army during WWII, when he helped the resistance and NATO.
==Origin==
* Alvar is Magnus Hanso. He was marooned on the Island and discovered its anti-aging properties. Richard Alpert was part of his crew on the Black Rock.
* Alvar Hanso was born on the Island, explaining his unusually high age. His father is Jacob?, the leader of the Others. The father and son had a falling out, and went their separate ways.
* Alvar Hanso and Jacob are twins, grandsons to Magnus Hanso, pilot of the Black Rock. Being his descendants, they were born on the island and therefore both know of the Island's secrets, but while Jacob wanted to leave the island alone ("Jacob feels the same way about technology as you do" - Ben to Locke in {{ep}}), Alvar wants to use the island to help humanity and that causes a rift between the brothers. Alvar begins the Hanso Foundation while Jacob leads the "Hostiles" to try and stop him. Whatever the "incident" was in the 1980s, it turned Jacob into a living ghost, able to control the black smoke, to read minds and create life-like images (such as Jack's dad, Kate's horse, Locke's dad, and so on).
* Unlikely, because Jacob seems to have been around for a very long time before the Black Rock found the island ('The Incident, Parts 1 and 2').
* Alvar Hanso is Elsa's boss, the The Economist (Person).
* Alvar Hanso is really Charles Widmore, a closeup of Alvar can be seen in the Swan orientation film where he appears to be a very young looking Charles Widmore. Having left the island 12 odd years ago from the time of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, he has aged and thus took the name of Charles Widmore. In The Constant episode he is seen biding on the journal which once belonged to Tovard Hanso (relative of Alvar), using this journal he acquires the location of the island once again as he did long ago while on the Black Rock.
** Disproven now that we've seen Widmore on the Island in the 50's and 70's going by the name Charles Widmore.
== Alvar is Jacob ==
* Alvar disapeared in 2002, and it is not entirely impossible that he may have disappeared to the Island. He could easily be described as "a great man".
==Actions==
* Hanso embedded military ties within the DHARMA Initiative. We only know two DHARMA members, Kelvin and Desmond, to be former military officials with different attitudes towards authority. This alludes to the assumption that Radzinsky also, at some point in his life, was a part of the military.
** Based on the arrival time of both of these two to the Island, it is probable that they came to the island under the pretense that they were joining the DHARMA Initiative, when infact the Initiative personnel on the Island had been wiped out and the Hostiles were now running the operation posing as DHARMA.
** More to this is the US Army KnifeAna Lucia found on one of the Others, and possibly the German handgun Tom threatens Kate with.
* Hanso is ''Him'', the leader of The Others, mentioned by Tom (Mr. Friendly)Benjamin Linus. Extending the Oz metaphor sometimes connected with the series, this would make Alvar Hanso "the man behind the curtain" aka the Wizard.
** Not likely since the Dharma and the "Others" are separate groups.
imageUnknownOther.jpg who portrays Alvar Hanso bears a striking resemblance to this man identified as an Other
* The man who appears in video on Hansoexposed.com is the 'real' Alvar Hanso, whereas the man who appears in the window is merely the actor who plays him in the show. This would explain his drastically different appearance, and is backed up by Rachel Blake's appearence at Comic-con this year.
* Is a subject of the life extension project. If he really aided in munitions manufacturing during the Second World War, he would have to be at least 80 by now, and his photo shows no where near that amount of aging. (This could be "creative license", but the discrepancy is too large to be unintentional)
** A side-effect of the Life Extension is his "unusual blood".
* Leader of Ilana and Bram's group and The Economist.
==Name==
* The name "Hanso" is likely spelled "Hansø" in Danish. The literal translation of "hans ø" from Danish is "his island".
** Since Alvar is an norse name for elves and Hanso becomes His Island in both Danish and Swedish, you can without doubt say that his name means that he is a graceful human being (as elves are) and that he is in control of land, in this case an island. Elves Hisisland is his name if you translate it into English.
* The scandinavian name Alvar is put together by two parts. The first, Alv-, meaning elf, and the second, -ar, meaning warrior.
* In scandinavian, the name Alvar may also be a shortened form for Hallvard. Hall- means stone, and -vard means ward. The name Hallvard (and Alvar?) means something like "the stone ward" or "the stone guard".
* Possibly named after Hans Ørsted, a Danish physicist and chemist whose discoveries inspired the development of electromagnetic theory and the ØRSTED satellite.
* "Hansa" is Vedic Sanskrit for "swan." The repeated word "namaste" on the Hanso website is originally from Sanskrit.
* The name "Hanso" and the fact he was a weapons manufacturer may be a reference to legendary Japanese sword smith Hattori Hanzo.
* "Alvar" is an anagram of "http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valar Valar", the "Powers of the World" in J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology.
* "Hanso" is a tribute to Han Solo of Star Wars.
* As stated above Hanso is likely spelled "Hansø" meaning "His Island". Another meaning in danish could be the name of a small island near Greenland "Hans Island". This Island is actually calle "Hansø" in Danish, wich is written "Hanso" if that silly letter "ø" is omitted. http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Island Wikipedia Hansø Recently Canada and Denmark have had some arguing about this island. Penny Widmore had some geologists stationed in some arctic area during the hatch implosion, and that could have been on Hansø.
* The name "Alvar Hanso" alludes two ways to characters from the British TV detective series ''Department S''
** It's a near-anagram of "Ralph A. Voss", the reclusive magnate of Voss Industries from the episode "One of Our Aircraft Is Empty", on which both the character and ''Lost'' are partly based.
** It's similar to the names of the character known variously as Anthony Harvey and Andrew Heywood, on whom the character was also partly based, from another ''Department S'' episode, "The Duplicated Man", on which much of ''Lost'', including shots in seasons 1 and 3, was based.
* The Dane "Hanso" reflects ''Hamlet'', the play on which much of the plot of ''Lost'' was based.
* "Alvar Hanso" anagrams "ha salvar nos", a rough way of saying in Portugese, "There is who will save us."
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