Cindy Cindy Cindy

I do not believe that Cindy was "captured and converted" at all.
I feel pretty certain that she, like Seth Norris, is a plant most likely working for Widmore.

If Seth Norris was a plant, that would mean he willingly flew to an Island he had no place to land on. (In fact, if they hadn't crashed, he would have probably flown right over it. So where was Seth headed?)

Unless Seth knew they would crash. In which case he willingly elected to pilot a plane that was going to drop out of the sky in bits and crash to the ground.

Similarly, it would mean Cindy elected to be onboard a plane that was going to drop out of the sky with her in it.

I have a hard time reconciling why anyone would willingly be in a plane crash, which is where I always fall down in trying to grasp the idea that the crash was planned and arranged to get all of the survivors to the Island.

I've gotta agree with AC on this one. Captured and converted is the only way it makes sense to me.
As for Cindys importance, surely her quick introduction and/or indoctrination into the others way of life and lack of screen time lends her to having an even more important role within the show or our understanding of it.

All of this adds to the shows mystery and as you know keeps us coming back for more, heck there is three pages of discussion on this already!

I am in agreement with AC on this b/c it is an easier pill to swallow. With that being said it will always bother me that Cindy was the one to have the conversation with Locke when he joined the others. Cindy was the one who calmly told Locke that they had "been waiting for him". If Cindy is a converted-other, then she is a "MEGA-converted-other". Converted via Room 23.

Although honestly, I am strictly neutral here. I will come to the side of THS because I think his side is equally as plausible as AC's.

Blonde, AC -- perhaps Cindy's entire role is to convince us how easy it is to convert the right people to the side of the Others. Given that we have, at some level, had to deal with a morally ambiguous Others (i.e. we always feel they are wrong, yet at the same time, we are challenged with the immoral acts of the Losties and asked -- is there something to these Others that we should be accounting for), Cindy is the perfect question mark.

Our lack of knowledge of how/when she was converted leads us to question (esp. for us detail oriented fans) the moral aspects of the Others. We learn that some people, flight attendants and children, have become willing parts of the Others society. This creates huge dilemma -- if they are so immoral, how come these otherwise seemingly moral people have so easily come to their side????

I think this question/doubt is the overriding value of Cindy. I think, outside this, her role will be fairly minimal. Like anyone else though, I totally admit to the possibility I am 100% wrong.

But like THS, I think she has served her purpose and her role, if any, going forward will not be significant.