Preface: The following is by no means meant to be a cure-all for every mystery on the show. I don't even claim to be right about anything. It's just the way I've chosen to look at what's happening every Thursday at 9:00 PM.
Intro: Even a casual viewer of Lost can tell that it's a show about dualism. Good versus Evil. Science versus Faith. Physical versus Metaphysical. And perhaps most importantly, Free Will versus Fate. The show challenges us to figure out where to draw the line between these polarities. I'll come back to these themes in the paragraphs below.
In my mind, the show's central mysteries today are:
1) What makes the
2) What is the nature of its phenomena (visions, whispers, healing properties)?
3) What is the nature of time on the show (Desmond's flashes, etc.)?
4) What was the objective of the Dharma Initiative?
5) What is the nature of the Black Smoke and what is its agenda?
6) What is the objective of the Others?
7) What is the nature of Jacob?
8) What is the objective of the four newcomers?
Thesis: Via its unique, powerful, unexplainable electromagnetic field, the
Sounds simplistic and dense at the same time, doesn't it? But before you laugh at it, let's see how this perspective could answer the eight questions above.
1) What makes the
John Locke was paralyzed, but wanted desperately to walk again. Jin-Soo Kwon was infertile, but wanted desperately to father a child. Rose was terminally ill, but desperately wanted to live.
Upon their arrival on the
In The Man From Tallahassee, Ben speaks to Locke of a box: "What if I told you that, somewhere on this island, there is a very large box, and whatever you imagined, whatever you wanted to be in it when you opened that box, there it would be?"
What if that box is the
This could help us make sense of Walt's abilities. When playing backgammon with Hurley, he blew on his dice, and rolled exactly what he wanted to, over and over. When learning to throw a knife from Locke, he was told to visualize the knife's path, and when he did, the nine-year-old threw it just as well as his 50-year-old mentor could. And in Special, Walt's emotional fervor causes a nearby bird to lose its navigational senses, which are based on the earth's magnetic field, and crash into the window (watch the mobisode Room 23 for more of Walt's disruptive effects on birds).
Simply put, the
2) What is the nature of the
The manifestation of conscious will can explain the purported "healing properties" of the
3) What is the nature of time on the show?
If we accept the idea that the Island allows for the manifestation of will, of Free Will with a capital "W," how can we incorporate the words of Mrs. Hawking (named after time-travel theorist Stephen Hawking), a figure from Desmond's past, who says that he has a "defined path" to follow, and that even if he refuses to comply, the universe has a way of "course correcting"? The answer, in my opinion, lies in taking a look at the other people on the show who speak in those terms. Namely, Brother Campbell and Charles Widmore.
Brother Campbell (named after the mythographer Joseph Campbell, obsessed with the "path of the hero"), who actually has a framed picture in his office of himself with Mrs. Hawking, also told Desmond that he had a defined "path" to follow. In my mind, he was manipulated by Campbell into leaving the monastery and thus meeting Penelope on that day. Which, in turn, led to their relationship. At that point, he was manipulated by her father, Charles Widmore, into going on that race around the world. Which, in turn, wound up putting him on the Island. So, these people who've been telling Desmond that he has a destined path are really just manipulating him into following a path they've devised for him. Even when he went back in time, and had a chance to stay with Penny, Mrs. Hawking manipulated him into thinking that he had no choice but to leave her. How do I know that this is true? Just look at his "visions" of the future. They don't show a defined future like they should, do they? He sees all kinds of things that don't end up happening, because he utilizes his Free Will to prevent them. In my mind, this is the Island telling Desmond not to listen to the Temporal Police, which is what I've started calling the group of people who manipulated Desmond. The question then is why is it so important for Desmond to reach the Island?
I think it's because the Island does not exist in the same space-time continuum as we do. It inhabits something called a closed time-like curve, or a "time-loop" in Minkowski space (if Minkowski sounds familiar, that's because its the name of the guy on the freighter). The only way to enter this little mini-universe is through the 12 Vile Vortices that I mentioned in my Confirmed Dead analysis last Friday.
Sounds dense, I know, but all it means is that the events on the Island have already occurred several times before. Perhaps each time they end in a catastrophic way, and the Temporal Police manipulated Desmond into reaching the Island because he would have the courage, unlike Kelvin, to turn the Fail-Safe key and stop the catastrophe.
4) What is the nature of the Dharma Initiative?
In short, to exploit the power of the Island for some unknown purpose. Given the unethical nature of their experimentation (see B. F. Skinner or the Milgram Experiment), I would hazard to guess the goal of the Initiative may have been a benevolent one with malicious means to attain it. In my mind, Dharma is just one part in a larger faction of individuals who represent the Science, Physical, and Manipulation sides of the themes I mentioned at the beginning. Also in this group, the Temporal Police and whoever Abbadon represents. Considering Charles Widmore and Abbadon's Maxwell Group are all funded by the same pockets, I think this is a reasonable theory.
5) What is the nature of the Black Smoke and what is its agenda?
We haven't been given enough information on it to really come up with an answer, but given the fact that the blast door in the Swan called it the Cerberus System, referred to vents that it uses, and alluded to a malfunction, I think its safe to say it's an artificial construction, probably by the Dharma Initiative, that got out of hand and now has a mind of its own. It looks to me like ferrous volcanic ash that's being manipulated by the electromagnetic field of the Island. And it looks to me like it's judging the inhabitants of the Island one-by-one, it an attempt to weed out people who might be dangerous. After all, would you want just anyone to be able to manifest their conscious and subconscious desires? This might explain why it destroyed an unrepentant Eko.
6) What is the nature of the Others?
The Others, too, appear to be charged with the task of separating good people from bad people, such as the ones on "Jacob's List". They may understand the real power of the Island, and want to protect it and the rest of the world from the possibility that its power could fall into the wrong hands. They are probably an amalgam of people who've found themselves on the Island for thousands of years, people who got sucked through those pesky Vortices. They weed out people who want to exploit the powers of the Island (such as the Purge of the Initiative members).
7) What is the nature of Jacob?
He looks to me like an example of what Walt or Locke could become in the future. Someone who really understands the power of the Island. Jacob understands the Island so well, he's not even enslaved by time and space anymore. As for his actual identity, I think he's Magnus Hanso, grandfather of Dharma-founder Alvar Hanso and captain of the Black Rock (where Richard was his first mate, I bet).
8) What is the nature of the four newcomers?
In all of this, there are two sides. Light and Dark, like Locke said in the Pilot when playing Backgammon with Walt (pictured above). One side can be represented by Science, Dharma, Maxwell, Abbadon, and the manipulation of human beings to achieve a goal (I think ALL of the characters were manipulated into reaching the Island like Desmond). The other side can be represented by Faith, the Others, Jacob, Locke, and the Island's rewards for the power of Free Will. These newcomers were sent here by the first side, the Science side, to find out what happened to the Dharma Initiative. They are, after all, looking for the man responsible for the Purge. But that doesn't mean that the newcomers necessarily both fall into the Science side. Miles and Frank, for example, seem to rely on faith and intuition, while Dan and Charlotte rely on science and physical evidence. Like the survivors of 815, they'll have to choose sides eventually. Do we protect the power of the Island to manifest human will, or do we exploit it for our own good?
Am I right about any of this? Probably not, but it'll be interesting for me to read this again after the series finale in 2010!What I'm listening to right now on Pandora - What Goes Around, Comes Around by Justin Timberlake.
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