S6E17 LIVE ALONE DIE TOGETHER

In some unexplained way, the main characters in Season 1 made a subconscious psychic bond between themselves which created the sideways (fantasy) world, where their conscious souls after death could wait (in a timeless place of just constructed memories and dreams) until everyone had died and their full consciousness would be "awakened" by island memories.

This was done because the island time was the most important time of their real lives, according to Christian. They made a subconscious pact to not live together, but to die together.

If Christian's statement is true, it really means that our beloved characters had really sub-par to crappy real lives. Loneliness appears to be the largest theme of the show that was lurking in the shadows of every story line.

Why was the island time the "most" important to each character?

Locke: But for Jacob's life giving touch, he would have died a lonely and bitter man after his father pushed him out a high rise window. On the island, he found his first real purpose in life, to protect it. To be the person he wanted to be. But when he was murdered by Ben, all of Locke's aspirations had turned into pitiful loneliness and despair.

Jack: Jack had the job, social skills and status to have a fulfilling life as a California spinal surgeon. Jacob's touch accelerated Jack going off the rails by amplifying his unresolved father issues and personal faults. It is hard to see how his surgical miracles, colleagues and fulfilling career helping other people was nominal in relation to his eventual island sacrifice.

Kate: Jacob's touch actually kept tom boy Kate on the path of rebellious crime as a loner on the run. The cumulative acts of anti-social behavior were set aside when she landed in the island. She could truly start over fresh, and the castaways could see her real self hidden underneath all of her past emotional baggage.

Sayid: Once he left the island, Sayid would have had his desired life with Nadia. Jacob's intervention caused Sayid to lose his one true love, and let his dark side fully control his soul. The island experience was not Sayid's most important time in his life, it was his worst. None of his friends could save him.

Shannon: Shannon was killed on the island by accident. She was a self-centered, rich girl with a conscious disrespect for other people. She made no real difference on the island except for eye candy and Sayid's short term pillow. If this was the peak of her life, she really had a sad life. And why Sayid turned out to be her soul mate in the afterlife is marginalizing Sayid's longer term relationship with Nadia.

Bernard and Rose: The only thing the island brought this couple was peace. Their relationship was the same before the crash as it was after the crash. The other people on the island may have been interesting, kooky, and dangerous, but they felt no strong bonds once they decided "retirement rules" ("we don't get involved.") In fact, they butted heads with the group's leaders more often than not. Why they needed to move on with all of the other main characters appears to be unnecessary. (Yes, the inference is that they stayed on the island with Hurley during his guardianship and could have grown closer in nostalgic memory.)

Charlie: He died on the island trying to save Claire and Aaron, the only "family" unit he ever led.
His death was partially in vane because it was not Penny's boat. But one could see from ghost Charlie's interactions with Hurley, that the island bonds were strong in Charlie, who otherwise would have probably died a lonely, washed up guitar player drug addict.

Claire: One would think that her bonds with her mother and her sister in Australia would have been stronger than her eventual zombie brain death island existence. She had mentally given up her baby to be raised by another, which haunted her for most of her time on the island. We don't know what happened after she left, but we presume she re-bonded with Aaron.

Aaron: He is the person in the church that makes the least sense. The re-birth was used in the sideways world fiction in order to awaken Claire, Kate and Charlie so they could understand that they were dead and waiting with their island friends, the most important people and time of their lives, to move on together. Everyone in the church was dead. That includes new born Aaron. Why? He had no other life except for the island connections (most of people there he had no real contact with). Did Claire's return to him at age 3 scar the young boy with a "crazy" mother and the guilt that his birth caused her a lifetime of pain so when he died, his only happy moment was his infancy? That is really depressing at every level.

Jin and Sun: The island's other couple found themselves totally committed to each other after a long period of separation and loneliness. The island would have been the peak of their emotional bond to each other, especially in death. It is odd though, that their daughter plays no role in their moving on, while Aaron does for Claire.

Boone: He died on the island by trying to be some one he was not; he tried to break away to be someone different just like Locke. He did teach Jack that some times, you just have to let things go. Yet, it is hard to figure that a successful young man's most important part of his life was dying in an accident on the island. Or why the people in the church (except Shannon) were the most important people in his life. Was he totally devoid of friends in the real world?

Juliet: Her closest bond in the world was with her sister. There is no denying that fact. Her relationships with men was spotty at best. Her entire time on the island was focused on getting back to help her sister. She never got the chance to do that. She was a prisoner on the island, so how that negative emotion made her bond with the islanders over her own family is strange. She had many failed relationships on the island: Ben, Goodwin, the Dharma folks, Jack and Sawyer. In the end, she chose the time skip fantasy life with Sawyer.

Sawyer: He apparently leaves the island. We do not know whether he re-connects with Cassiday and his daughter (probably not). We do not think he joins up with Kate, because they are not together in the church. He had a lonely existence after his parents were killed, and his single minded revenge motivation for his life ended with the island. So, it is possible that Sawyer's life peaked with his island adventure.

Desmond and Penny: This is the problematic off-island couple. Their relationship had little to do with the island connections. In fact, it flourished outside the island. They had a child, little Charlie, who would have been the centerpiece of their strong family ties. This family unit would not have needed the other characters to move on. Penny had no deep attachment to anyone except Desmond. Like Jin & Sun, it is odd that Desmond's son was not part of the departure if these characters were waiting for the most important people in their lives to die and join them in the crossing over to eternity.

Libby: She is like Penny in some ways. Her only true connection with the island as being important in her life was her short relationship with Hurley. The unexplained and troubling aspect of Libby's story was that she was in the same mental hospital as Hurley, in the same day room. But Hurley never recognized her on the island. Now, Libby died on the island which left Hurley with a deep emotional void. And if Hurley remained the island guardian for a long period of time (as most people believe), Hurley had no special relationship in his entire life except for Libby.

Hurley: We can see why the island time was the most important for Hurley. People came to accept him for himself. They were not out to use him for his money. They were not shutting him out of their plans. He turned from introvert to extrovert; from follower to leader. A great deal of personal growth and responsibility happened as a direct result of his island time.

CONCLUSION: It appears the writers gave us a gallery of extremely lonely and troubled individuals whose high water mark in the real lives was the survival of a plane crash on a mysterious supernatural island. But the rationale for the gathering is inconsistent from character to character. Now, a few commentators have surmised that the sideways world was the construction solely for Jack; that this was Jack's purgatory - - - coming over party. That the other characters would have their own church reunions with other souls (such as being invited to multiple friends weddings over the course of your lifetime). If that is the case, why would the non-Jack characters have to be "awakened" in order to "move on." Moving on seems to be a singular event for all the characters sitting in the church pews.

SIDE NOTE: One of the perplexing aspects of the final scene was Christian's role. He was there to awaken his son. He said his friends had created this place so they could move on together. That infers that people can move on without an elaborate sideways world. Had Christian already "moved on" himself? We were told that Christian was not on the island; that his image was that of the smoke monster.

But Christian seemed to know more than he let on during that final scene. His appearance to Jack came from the direction of the church. He brought Jack to the main room. He was the one who walked down the aisle, between the two angel statues, and opened the doors to flood the room with white light (the final act of these souls moving to the next plane of existence). I had the sneaky suspicion that it was Christian who could have constructed this sideways world to help his son shed his guilt and unfinished business that tied down his soul so he could move on in peace. Of all the people in the church, Christian was the first person in the Lost saga to actually die in the real world. So he would be the only person who could have gathered the souls of his son's friends as they passed on (guardian angel style).

MORAL OF THE STORY: Jack's first island leadership speech to keep the survivors from falling a part was that they needed to "Live Together, or We'd Die Alone." Without a community effort, working together, no one would live. But even in this context of community, each character was still living alone, in some state of loneliness. However, the reward in the end was that the characters got to die together.