AN AFTERLIFE VIEW

During Season 1, TPTB were adamant that the show was "not about purgatory" when many viewers realized that no one would have survived a mid-air separation plane crash. Purgatory is believed to be a place of moral redemption where souls are purified of evil in order to be saved. Semantics aside, the "afterlife" as depicted in the show may be a place without any moral consequences. Many viewers have concluded that MIB/Flocke was not necessarily good or evil. At the same time, they reflect that there were no adverse consequences for the killings on the island by Sayid, Jack or Kate, as they all wound up in the anteroom to heaven in Eloise's church.

A very simple explanation of the show's big premise is that the characters' souls were on personal quests or adventures missing in their past real lives until they found enough quality in spirit to let go of their regrets and move on. If the characters could create the sideways "reality" in the afterlife, certainly they could have collectively created the island adventure scenarios in another afterlife setting. As Christian explained in the afterlife, there is no concept of time (past, present or future, just "now.") No "real time" line would negate all the paradoxes in the time travel flash issues of the island events. The whole show could be viewed as a series of re-sets or modes in a video game. And as such, a character could "die" multiple times because even though it appears to be real, it is only an afterlife reality.

Let us focus on Jack. Jack came to the realization that he was "dead" dead in the end at Eloise's church. The context of how he "died" was the spliced scenes of Jack dying on the island after resetting the light source. However, Jack was also in Eloise's church in the O6 world which would be also be an afterlife creation. In that context, Jack's death to get to Eloise's church as a member of the O6 would mean he would have "died" either (a) with the helicopter crash landing in the ocean; or (b) if he "survived" that, then he would have at least died with everyone in the 815 crash.

Jin was awakened in the sideways world with Sun. The context of how they "died" was in the submarine explosion. Except, Sun was at Eloise's church in the O6 arc, which makes her demise prior to the submarine drowning, like Jack, either in a helicopter or Flight 815's crash. Concurrently, Jin would have "died" in the freighter explosion making his return to the island also an afterlife experience with those who remained on the island. The premise that the characters are merely spirits or souls in their own construct of an afterlife playground erases all the debates about continuity errors, factual inconsistencies, or unbelievable dead end story lines.

It would appear that in the characters afterlife, the collective memories can be used as powerful mental highways to bridge or bring lost souls back to each other during their personal (mis)adventures in the spirit world. No good, bad, right, wrong, moral, immoral, judgmental or punishment for the choices made by the souls because it is not our world perspective, but the world the souls created for themselves.