This is blog entry number 1968. The same year James “Sawyer” Ford was born. Coincidence? TRICK QUESTION! In LOST there are no coincidences!
Oh my God, you guys — LOST premieres tonight. For the last time. I don’t know whether to geek out and get all giddy, or shy away and try to hide my watery eyes. It’s a lot like fathering a child, or finding the absolute best hamburger in the world. LOST is one of those things in life that can toy with your emotions on a whim, and it does pretty much on a weekly basis as it is airing. My sister recently described LOST as being like, “finding the man of my dreams, and realizing he’s a Cowboys fan.” Hell, the show is capable of sabotaging your feelings even after you’ve seen every episode multiple times, as evidenced by this most recent re-watch experiment I undertook with some friends. LOST is all things to all men, and even some geeky women.
This is why it’s so important that everyone who loves the show make predictions about what questions are going to be answered and how they will be answered this coming season. Doc Jensen over at Entertainment Weekly recently posited eight different theories which he believes could be confirmed over the course of LOST‘s final episodes (“‘LOST‘: How It Ends (Maybe)”). I’ve watched the show — a lot — and I think I can come up with some good theories too. So, I’m going to do that for you today. I’ll check back over the course of the next few months to chart my progress. Maybe I’ll go 0 for 10. Maybe I’ll go 10 for 10. Hell, if I get even one right I think I’ll consider it a success. It’s kind of like the test you have to take to become a US Census worker.
What Is The Island
It’s a place where miracles happen. That’s it. They’re not going to give us any more information than that, and that’s okay. We get that it’s old, and because of that people will draw elusions to Atlantis or Eden or Narnia or whatever, but we’re not going to get a real definition or explanation. It’s just a plot of land home to some unusual organic properties, where miracles can happen. Period.
What Is The Monster
It wouldn’t surprise me if the monster is revealed to be the Man In Black. I think most of the definitions about the monster given to us at this point have done enough to define what it is for us. It’s a security system meant to protect the ancient history/mythology of the island, and it is used to judge. I don’t know if we’ll get any more information about the monster other than how long it’s been around, or what its name is.
What Are The Numbers
I don’t know if they’re going to answer this one either. They are one of the means by which the main characters are connected. That is to say, they are like Jacob touching all the survivors of Oceanic 815 in the final episode of season five. This coming season we are going to learn why everybody on the show has been brought together. How they are brought together is through a series of coincidences and fate. The continued appearance of the numbers — both as a whole and individually — are one of the clues we are given to realize that the characters are all bound by some gossamer, and are supposed to come together to achieve some overarching goal.
Is Everyone From Oceanic 815 Connected
Obviously. I think I just answered that. We’ve seen since the beginning of the show that everybody is connected. That’s why the show utilized flashbacks. That’s why, in everybody’s flashbacks, we saw them passing through one another’s lives, or saw connections between characters. We saw Sawyer and Christian together. We learned about Jack and Claire long before they did. The connection itself is a non-issue at this point. Anyone who has seen the show knows that its characters are associated with one another on multiple levels. The question now is, why?
What’s Up With the Ghosts, Like Mr. Eko’s Brother, Jack’s Father, Kate’s Horse, And Sayid’s Cat?
For the most part, Jensen’s theory here seems fair. The smoke monster could be taking a more human form than it’s normal black lightning cloud in order to get a closer look at the Losties and see whether or not their continued struggle towards some ending is justified. If you believe the smoke monster is the Man In Black, he could easily be pushing them to help him. Or, they could just be ghosts. Hurley and Miles have admitted that they can see ghosts. Maybe all the characters can and they just don’t know it or realize it. And maybe it will turn out to be just another thread tying them all together, reminding us that they are bound to one another to perform some greater task.
Who Are Jacob And The Man In Black And What Is The Nature Of Their Conflict? And What Is “The Loophole”?
Jensen goes a bit off his rocker here. Especially in regard to the his theory about a loophole, which he doesn’t even really address. He defines a loophole, but doesn’t say what the actual loophole was. So, I’ll address that first. I think the loophole was one of two things: First, it could have been “bad Locke” (read: The Man In Black as John Locke) telling Richard Alpert to go take the bullet out of “good Locke”s leg, while informing “good Locke” that he would have to die to save his friends. If we are to assume the Man In Black can take the form of the deceased (see: all the ghosts on the island), his best chance for killing Jacob would be to inhabit the form of John Locke. How does he get there? Locke has to die and come back to the island. The other explanation of the literal loophole could be that Man In Black himself could not deliver the fatal blow to Jacob, so he needed to convince Ben that it was his job. So he took the form of Alex briefly (notice Locke was out of the picture at the time!) to tell him to listen to John Locke or die, then returned to the body of Locke to tell him that he should kill Jacob. Loophole closed. As for the question of who are Jacob and the Man In Black, well…they could be old Island caretakers, or they could be Gods. If we’re to believe all the ancient mythology noise being thrust upon us with statues and hieroglyphics, the odds are pointing to them being ancient entities, possibly deities. And that Jacob asked Ilana for her help in the season five finale probably means that she has some great power too, just like he and the Man In Black.
Who Are The Others? And Why Doesn’t Richard Alpert Age?
The others are the island’s indigenous inhabitants, decedents of whatever group originally settled there. You know, the people who constructed the temple and the statue and all the tunnels and caves. I think maybe only the original inhabitants of the island can give birth, too. I don’t think the same birth/death issues befall them as they do to outsiders, like the DHARMA Initiative and anyone else who has not descended from the Others. Richard Alpert doesn’t age as a result of some deal with Jacob. Conventional logic says that he arrived on the Black Rock. It wouldn’t surprise me if they explained him as having been there even longer than that. Ben says he’s very, very, very old. The Black Rock ran aground on the island in 1845. If Richard was his current age then, he’d be like…what, 200 years old? Wouldn’t it be cooler if he was 1,000 years old? I think so…
How Will John Locke’s Story End?
Unfortunately, I don’t think the producers of the show see Locke’s story as the most important one in the series. If we are to believe that the end of the show as conceived during the first season, it probably has a lot to do with Jack and not so much to do with Locke. This is a shame, because Jack is a perpetually annoying character (or was until the latter half of season five) and Locke has been an amazing character since the beginning of the show. I think the end of his story will lead to his being installed as the leader of the Others. Maybe he’ll even be granted eternal life if he chooses to stay there. Of course, he’ll have to be resurrected as “good Locke” first.
I’m pretty confident in my theories, but at the same time…this is LOST. The producers make habit out of frustrating us whenever we think we’re finally going to learn something. Could the show end without resolving anything and still be considered an absolute stunner of a series? Yes! We’ve waited five seasons for big answers and haven’t gotten many. Yet we’re all still watching every week in the hopes of learning something new or seeing something amazing happen. Would it really be a disappointment if not everything was explained? I don’t think so. I think it would benefit the mythology of LOST, and cause it’s feverish fanbase to keep its flame alive long after it ceases to exist (in the present). With any luck, LOST will be revered as much as Twin Peaks in the coming decade(s). And, much like Rousseau’s transmission, it will continue to shock and amaze newcomers for a very long, long time.
As for me, I just want to find out how it ends for Walt. He’s such a special boy…
Ruth White – The Litanies Of Satan
Chihei Hatakeyama – Phantasm
Eliane Radigue – Onward 19
