"Don't you talk to me about sacrifice, Charles."
Near the end of The Variable, Eloise Hawking leaves the hospital, and Charles Widmore creeps out of the shadows and approaches her. He says his relationship with Penelope was one of the things he had to sacrfice.
Eloise replies,
Sacrifice? Don’t you talk to me about sacrifice, Charles. I had to send my son back to the Island, knowing full well —
Charles interupts her before she can finish her sentence.
What, exactly, does Eloise Hawking know “full well”? Clearly she knows that she has sent Faraday to his doom, but does she know that it would be her younger self who would kill him?
That’s what Daniel himself, at the very end of the episode, believes. After he is shot, and sees that it was Ellie who had shot him, he says to her:
You knew. You always knew. You knew this was gonna happen. And you sent me here anyway.
If Daniel is right, then why would Eloise have sent him to the Island — why would she have manipulated him his whole life to become the scientist he became so he could go to the Island — just so she could shoot him 30 years ago?
Interesting that Daniel went into the Otherville Renfest with guns blazing, making threats, and counting down his intent to kill Alpert. His mother is only able to live with herself because she can rationalize with “I didn’t know”. Nice of Dan to do that for her.