The way they filmed him going to the moon pool they almost made it seem like they expected Charlie to die because the moon pool was flooded. They said specifically he drowns flipping a switch. So when he surfaced inside, his saying "I'm alive!" really didn't make any sense to me. I was like "no shit you are alive, because you haven't found the switch yet. You find that, then you drown."
1) Charlie was almost out of air when he reached the Moon Pool.
2) They
did expect the entire hatch to be flooded. That's why Desmond describes the place as being flooded and said, "You throw the switch, and then you drown" -
not "You throw the switch, then the place fills with water, then you drown." Charlie was expecting to come up inside a completely flooded hatch that still had electrical power with barely enough air left to find the switch and throw it - then immediately drown when he can no longer hold his breath - hence his perfectly reasonable surprise that he's breathing air and still alive. A) He didn't expect to make it into the pool at all (since he was almost out of air and it was farther than he had expected) and B) When he did, he was surprised to find that there was air - that he was not only still alive, but that he was apparently going to
stay alive and not drown in the airless confines of the hatch.
As for Desmond - "You're going to die, Charlie" is a pretty lame prediction.
Everybody's going to die. Without specifics who cares?
They've teased Charlie's death so relentlessly I starting to think he's a red-herring and that they're going to kill someone else.
(Although someone on the HTF had an interesting suggestion - Charlie throws the switch, escapes the hatch and is about to board the catamaran when he's suddenly attacked by the Dharma shark:
Charlie: "Hey! I thought you said I was going to drown!"
Desmond: "Sorry, brother. But if instead of 'drowned' I'd said, 'eaten alive by a shark', would you still have come?")
Joe