My friend Joey and I spent a few hours discussing Lost this morning, and I think some really amazing things were said. I really feel like I should share. Please comment on anything!!
- This will have quite a few spoilers if you've not watched Lost.
- This is quite long, but I think the last section is worth reading more than anything.
- Typos ahead. I've not slept at all tonight.
- I wrote this up this morning after not getting any sleep. Upon re-reading parts, especially the last part, it seemed hard to understand. If that's really the case, just ask me to clarify... I just don't feel like rewriting anything now.
Part I: Criticism and Defense - An Endless Battle
Firstly, he is more critical of this last season than I am and cited a ton of things that bug him. Things like the island, as a character, losing all of what made it awesome; many characters being treated as if they were special, just for them to not have been, or forgotten about, or killed off (Jack, Richard, Eko, Locke, Walt...); inconsistency with dead people sightings (so it was Smokey all of the time? what about Hurley seeing his bald hallucination, or young Smokey himself seeing his birth mother?); smoke monster's motives seem silly; Ben's purpose and importance has kind of only been a story telling tool and not very organic (he never saw Jacob? who is he aligned with now?); being a candidate isn't special-instead it is just Jacob drawing names from a hat?
We discussed these things in detail. I defended mostly, but much of what he said was hard to defend against. I still feel okay with these things. My defense points on many of these are: we all forget some details and conversations that give us clues to the truth for some of these things; it's hard to look at the whole show as a whole with this last season included still, and it is important to do that once it is all over instead of judging the finale as only an extension; and my biggest point is, the show WON'T give answers to every question, but I believe what they have been giving us is a framework with which we can derive the answers to all of our questions. The beauty of this framework approach is that there is still room for interpretation and thematic inference, but you don't feel very in the dark.
One back and forth we had a bit of trouble with was the importance of the candidates and the "special" characters, in terms of why they are special. It was believed that the island made them special for some reason in the early seasons. This is why John could walk. Coming from that mindset, my blunt response that "the smoke monster was manipulating characters all over the place" (for which there is plenty of proof) and "the characters, as people, are flawed and have mistaken believes for some things" seem more like cop-outs. So does the "Jacob is only the protector of the island, not the magic behind everything." And the island itself lost some of it's magic with this light cave thing.
However, I stood by my framework idea and posed a thought. These characters ARE special. The UNIVERSE, not the island alone, has a purpose for them. I feel that Jack is fated to become the next Jacob. You can look at every special happening in the show and it really seems that all roads lead to that. I pull from what Eloise Hawking said: "The universe has a way of course correcting..." Jack is supposed to be the new Jacob. If Jack isn't on the right path, then the universe has to do something to help it come to fruition. We've seen the universe lead Charlie into some crazy situations to fulfill his death, and with other people to whom the universe treated in a rather unlikely way, just to kill them because it was their time, as Eloise said to Desmond. If the universe needs Jack to be somewhere, to feel a certain way, then it will again go out of his natural way to get him there. Think of a buildup of energy, the longer Jack isn't where he needs to be, the close it gets to the point where he needs to be there, the greater the force. What if all of this potential intention/force/fate building up to put Jack (or, perhaps, some other characters) where he needs to be causes the universe to act just plain crazy. Perhaps unexpectedly crashing a plane but letting the survivors wake up after being throw hundreds of feet in free fall, without any major injuries. Or how about one guy talking to dead people, or one guy's brain flashing between time periods, or some people being unexpectedly healed by Jack's hands, or a man with a broken spine walking again... All of these events lead Jack to where he is now: by Jacob's side. The universe wanted it that way, and some people were agents to the universe's intent, and are therefore special.
Joey bought this, but understandably still didn't feel much comfort from it. After all, at this point we are connecting dots in the writers' story that they probably never meant to be there anyway (in the original script, Jack died in the pilot episode... Mr. Eko wasn't smoke-smashed... there was no tail section...)
Part II: Even Lost Isn't Perfect, But We Can Love It Anyway
However hard I like to love and defend all of Lost (aside from Nikki and Paulo... that was just boring...), there are a few things told this last season that still kind of bug me. Jacob's candidates are only people whom he believes may be able and willing to take his place... and Kate was only crossed out because she was a mother. This I buy. It's a noble, albeit not as magical as originally believed, explanation. It makes perfect sense too. Or does it... All of the candidates' lives were not so great... check. People who had ties outside of the island Jacob didn't want to interfere with and were no longer candidates... well... How about JinSun? Their lives weren't super great before, sure. But on-island their lives turned around. Why would he not feel the same way about JinSun who wanted to have a live together off-island, and who were BIOLOGICAL parents, he did about Kate? Come to think of it, Richard's life wasn't perfect off-island either. Why didn't Jacob make Richard the new protector? I'm pretty sure he would have gladly taken the job, you know, after being there for 150+ years.
Anyway, some more back and fourths. We discussed that a lot of the problems that Joey, and we surmise most people, is having spawns from his love of the show, and how worried he is that things could so horribly wrong. Like a parent trusting a child with a day-old drivers license. After so long, we are so devoted, and we have so much hope and trust, but we can't help but think: what if something bad happens? In the end, we expect to be fulfilled. And sure, there will always be things to pick at with even the most perfect of stories. But Lost has been one of the greatest adventures of our age, and we will love it for the rest of our lives.
Part III: You Know What, Have You Noticed...
One last side-note I tossed out, and one that I had only at that point realized, had to do with the good ol' Valenzetti Equation. As a refresher, this is the equation "predicts the exact number of years and months until humanity extinguishes itself." There are 6 core numerals to the equation which, of course, are 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42. Also, Alvar Honso, the man behind the Dharma Initiative stated that "the purpose of the DHARMA Initiative is to change the numerical values of any one of the core factors in the equation in order to give humanity a chance to survive by, effectively, changing doomsday." Well as we learned this season, these numbers correlate to our favorite six candidates! And this whole doomsday idea, sure sounds a lot like what Jacob's talking about if the smoke monster leaves the island. I thought it seemed rather metaphorical that the people representing the numbers of the equation were fighting against the outcome of the equation this season. It kind of brings a bit of purpose back to our favorite characters.
Part IV: It All Makes So Much Sense!!
The last part of our conversation is possibly my favorite conversation I have ever had in my life. You see, as soon as this season's first episode finished, the first thing I said to the group around me was "This alternate-time line and our original-time line will converge together at some point." I originally thought of something more along the lines of our season 5 flashes, but transporting some castaways to the other time line. In fact, that was my thought on the disappearance of Christan's coffin, as well as what seemed to have been a disappearance of Desmond. I mentioned this prediction to Joey that night, and he wasn't sure what to think of it yet. However, by the 5th episode, Joey had presented to me a very novel and bold theory. The LA-verse (sideways-verse) is actually experiencing the aftereffect of our island-verse (original-verse). This theory had a few other points, like this is how MiB escaped the island, by going to the alternate time line, which we don't mention much anymore, but the core is still strong. With only 2 days left until the finale, and after all we discussed, this theory was examined in every way we could take it, and it just tastes perfect.
The prediction is that on-island, events will play out that require the use of the Desmond fail-safe. This fail-safe seems to require him to set up something with the rest of the survivors off-island, and also in the other time line! This idea implies several points, most importantly that both of these time-lines depend on each other. How LA-verse plays out depends on what our heroes "remember" from island-verse, and our island-verse inhabitants' existence depends on our LA-verse heroes' doing their task properly. At this point, we don't know what this big task is, but we know it involves grouping everyone together at this concert that Desmond seems to be taking everyone to. It feels to Joey and me that this series finale will end with us both seeing our island-verse heroes fail and switch to the fail-safe, while at the same time we see our LA-verse heroes succeed and complete the fail-safe. This co-dependence that these time lines have with each other leads us back to this idea of the universe playing an active role in course correcting, which again puts some seemingly supernatural powers/events into the hands of our heroes, and also causes the convergence between the two time lines (as the universe tries to correct the time line split back together.)
This explanation of the time line crossover and our heroes' seemingly magical powers leads to some rather beautiful explanations, especially if we humor the idea of crossover being able to happen in both directions instead of only from island to LA-verse. Lets look at Locke's ability to walk after crashing on the island. We saw in LA-verse that Locke was ready to go through with the operation to try to walk again. Could this fix have been given to him from the LA-verse? Or how about LA-Jack's bleeding neck? I have a strong feeling that island-Jack will hurt his neck during the finale. Or LA-Locke's losing his ability to walk in the first place. He explained that he didn't even know why the plane he was flying crashed. Seemingly, it shouldn't have happened at all! Until- universe course correction. Just a simple nudge did the trick. As it turns out, with almost every event that happened in both times, one is rather believable, while it's counter-part is rather unbelievable. (Which is more believable, that 48 people survived a plane splitting in half mid-air over over an island without many major injuries in island-verse, or that there simply was no plane crash at all in LA-verse? Which time that Jack saved Charlie's life is more super-natural?)
This codependent coexistence, full circle theory is one of the most beautiful theories I have ever heard. In fact, it's one of the most beautiful endings I have ever heard. While excitedly discussing this with Joey I told him that if this theory was wrong, it would still feel right in my heart. It so nicely give everything that has happened lately so much meaning, and everything before more meaning than it already had. It also explains, in many very smooth and beautiful ways, everything magical (other than the presence of the light cave and smoke monster) that has ever happened or been on Lost. It's like the universe's time line was perfectly straight until our castaways started bouncing through time when it became a roller coaster, ending with two lines diverging from the original line, twisting into a yin yang, than sliding back together into one line.
I love Lost.
