Dad (or others who have not watched the finale of Lost), do not start reading this entry. Skip it completely! This will ruin it for you!
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Alright, onto the good stuff. You have been warned that I will be chatting about elements about Lost in its entirety.
My good friend Mark is an avid fan of Lost and so we have some good times chatting about our theories. I just assumed that the theories would die with the finale, but not so as Mark and I have differing views concerning what the series entailed.
So we are going to have a blog-off…where I present my theory, and he’ll present his theory, and the readers can choose which one seems more on the mark. The beauty of Lost is that they don’t answer every bloody question and that leaves us to theorize.
I thought my theory is pretty well explained by the events in the finale and I’m pretty sure I’m relaying what the writers of the show wanted to portray (considering I’m basing my thoughts on actual events/text from the show.
In the end, the Island was the real deal, this actually happened and Jack ends up dying at the end on the Island. He defeats Smokey/Man in Black, passes the torch to Hurley who then protects the island along with Benjamin Linus for an undetermined amount of time (conceivably a long time after the finale occurs) and then dies from his wounds in the bamboo forest along with Vincent (the dog) by his side, which mimics the intro scene of the series. So it’s come full circle.
I feel that’s pretty straight-forward. What wasn’t straight-forward was the introduction of the sideways universe that was introduced in Season 6. It involves seeing our characters in a reality where they are living slightly different lives in the real world. Sawyer is a cop, Jack is still a surgeon, but has a son, etc. Everyone is just a little different and we don’t know WHAT the heck is going on.
Midway through the season, back on the Island, Desmond appears and is placed into an electro-magnetic pulse which enables him to see both the Island reality and the sideways reality (if not all realities). This plays into the aspect of quantum physics which was explained a little by Daniel Faraday earlier in the series. I’m not clear if Desmond in both realities can communicate with one another, or if he is an exception to the rule and his consciousness actually spans all realities, but nonetheless, Sideways Desmond realizes that he has to make sure that the characters realize that there was another reality they were part of other than the one in sideways/alt reality.
To trigger this knowledge/memory, they have to come into contact with someone/some thing that was really important to them in the Island reality. This could be something simple like touching the woman who was the love of your life in the Island time line and BLAMMO! You remember everything that happened in the Island reality.
Now, I originally theorized that this was going to be the method in which the characters ‘get off the island’. Maybe not all of them could get off the Island in the Island reality, but in another reality, they are all living in a world where they can remember that they all shared a deep bond from their experience on the Island and then live out the rest of their lives in sideways-reality with the knowledge of what happened in the other reality.
However, the last fifteen minutes of the show demonstrated that I was a little off the mark with my theory. Turns out that the sideways reality is some form of afterlife. Do you know the theory of how you will meet all your loved ones when you enter into Heaven? You know, the people you have a large bond with that was part of the most important parts of your life? Well, it follows along with the same concept. This sideways reality was constructed as a place in the afterlife where all these people from the Island timeline would go and meet up with one another before moving onto the next level of existence (let’s just call it Heaven for simplicity sake for now).
So somehow, this construct (sideways reality/afterlife) holds all these people that had an incredible bond but they don’t realize that they have something in common until Desmond shows them the way. I’m a little fuzzy on why there are differences in the sideways reality…I’m leaning towards the fact that each person creates an afterlife where some of their wishes come true…Jack has a son, Sawyer does good in his life as a cop…they have created a reality/afterlife where some of their dreams can come true and they can live there until they decide to move onto Heaven. But, I haven’t come to any hard conclusions with facts to support that theory at this point.
Ok, so onto the church…so in the show, Jack shows up to the church and finds out he is dead. His dad tells him that he’s dead. (I’m cribbing this from the Lostpedia article about the finale). Christian explains that he is real, his friends are real and Jack’s life with them is real. Life on the Island actually happened and the sideways reality is a form of afterlife. The church they are in is something these characters created to meet up with each other before moving on towards the light (aka Heaven, the next plane of existence, etc.). Time doesn’t matter in this place so some people actually died on the Island, some people died in the finale (aka Jack), and some people died long after (Kate, Sawyer, escaping on the plane and presumably lived a decent life…Hurley, Benjamin living a life protecting the island…this is explained by their comments “You were a great Number 2”.) Time is irrelevant once you physically die so they all come together when they are ready to move on.
An interesting point is the fact that Benjamin Linus doesn’t bother going into the church as he is not ready yet. I think this has to do with the fact that he loves being in the sideways afterlife with his daughter who is alive as well as her mother. Chances are, if I were him, I wouldn’t bother making them realize they had another life on the Island considering he freaking got his daughter killed! Or did he kill her outright? I can’t remember.
Another question people may have is “Why wasn’t ‘Person X’ in the church?”. Well, I can only theorize (and others on Lostpedia have theorized as well) that perhaps if the Island WAS NOT the most important thing in their life, then they go onto another church where they meet up with the most important people in their life. Take Walt/Michael for example…they left the island years ago in the Island timeline! Maybe it just wasn’t that important to them by the time they lived their entire lives. Anyhow, that’s just a theory. It could also be that they just didn’t get the actors back for the shoot (like Mr. Eko!).
I still am not sure if they end up going to heaven at the end. Christian Sheppard sure does as he walks into the light. I would like to think that they all exit the church and go hang out with this new found knowledge that they all know each other! But I’m pretty sure they all head into the light and this was just a meeting place to catch up and head into the next plane of existence together…with everyone that was important to them in the physical world.
So that’s that! I believe Mark wanted me to sum up the premise of the show. I know he has quite an interesting theory about how the show revolves around the death of Jack and how he is being tested. I don’t agree with ‘when’ he dies in the storyline, but a lot of his points overlap my own. I invite you to read his theory on his site “The 99th Monkey“. By the way, you should check out his post and the videos concerning human being’s inability to understand the exponential function. It’s quite scary.
The premise of the show was to follow Jack Sheppard’s journey from being a man of science to becoming a man of faith…and a successful journey at that! He saved the island, saved the world, and saved a few of his friends along the way.