NADIA

One of the most puzzling aspects of the LOST saga was the final treatment of the Nadia story line.

For 6 seasons were told that Nadia, Sayid's childhood friend, was his long lost love of his life. As a child, Nadia teased him to get his attention. She was from a wealthy family and Sayid was not. After Sayid went into Republican Guard intelligence, he met Nadia when she was a prisoner. She had joined an anti-Saddam group. When it was Sayid's job to interrogate, torture her and finally execute her, Sayid led her to her escape. Before escaping, a panicked Nadia begged Sayid to come with her. When he refused, she left him her photo with the inscription,  " You will see me in the next life, if not this one."

Nadia fled to England at some point. She was saved by Charlie who stopped a mugging in progress. Charlie would never know the woman he helped was Sayid's girlfriend.

Later, Nadia moved the United States. In California, Locke inspected her house. Her whereabouts were later used as a lure by the CIA to get Sayid to betray one of his childhood friends who was a suspected terrorist. The government agents informed Sayid that Nadia was working in Irvine, California as "a lab tech in a medical testing company."

It was after this mission, which did not work out well for Sayid's friend, Sayid was expelled from Australia on Flight 815. The plane crashed on the island, thereby crushing Sayid's reunion plans with Nadia in America.

After Sayid was rescued as part of the Oceanic Six,  Nadia finally found him again after the group's first press conference. They tearfully embraced, overjoyed to see each other again. Sayid and Nadia later married. At some point before or after the wedding, she befriended the other members of the Oceanic Six, attending Hurley's  surprise party and Jack's father's  funeral service.

Their marriage came to an abrupt and tragic end, however, when she was killed in Los Angeles in late October 2005. She was hit by a car in a hit-and-run collision while Sayid was stopped by Jacob who asked him for directions.  Her last words to Sayid before she died were, "Take me home."

Her death in a hit-and-run incident used by Ben to manipulate Sayid into working for him as an assassin.  Believing Ben's story, Sayid followed and later killed Bakir in a fit of rage. Sayid, still bent on revenge for Nadia's death, came to work for Ben — tracking down other employees of Charles Widmore and assassinating them.

In the sideways purgatory world, Sayid's relationship with Nadia was that of a forbidden fruit. Sayid had encouraged her to marry his brother. She did so. They had two children.

When visiting them, Sayid gets caught up in his brother's business. She detects that Sayid is going to seek revenge for Omer and begs him not to do it. She pleadingly asks him to return to the house and look after the children. That evening Nadia returns home. Sayid is repairing a vase broken by the children playing with a boomerang. Nadia reports that Omer is recovering from surgery and is awake. She makes it clear that she knows about the loan, and she believes dealing with it is solely Omer's responsibility as he brought the trouble on himself. She confronts Sayid about the picture of her from his bag, asking him why he pushed her towards his brother if he has been carrying a picture of her for so long (an obvious indicator that Sayid has always had feelings for her). Sayid explains that he has spent twelve years dealing with his guilt for all the horrible things he did while a soldier. Finally, he explains that he cannot be with Nadia because he "does not deserve" her.

From the analysis of the two different worlds, the island and sideways purgatory, Sayid still has strong feelings about Nadia. And it appears that in both worlds, Nadia has mutual feelings for Sayid. If they were truly meant for each other, why in the made-up fantasy world of the dead souls is Nadia not with Sayid?  The vast majority of viewers could not get over the fact that Sayid wound up with Shannon in the end rather than Nadia.

This is hard to take if one believes that the sideways world was secondary to the main island story arc. In other words, if the island time came first, then Sayid was married to Nadia. They had a short marriage together until the island cut it short (through an evil partnership of Jacob, Ben  and Widmore). But they had been in love for their entire lives. So if Nadia was taken away from Sayid at that moment in time, Sayid spent the rest of his days revenging her death.  That strong bond would have filtered into his soul in his after life in the sideways world.

But if the island world was actually the fantasy world of the lost souls in the sideways realm, where Nadia in real life was married to Omer, then Sayid's attraction to Nadia was not real. Sayid's dream was to take his brother's wife. But in working out that fantasy, it ends badly in Nadia's death and Sayid being thrown into evil darkness to punish his soul in guilt. This may be the only way to explain why Sayid wound up with Shannon, a person he had a short fling with on the island. But again, in this continuum, Shannon was merely a diversion, a prop, imagined in part by Sayid's dream fantasies.

So what was Nadia's role in the Sayid story? If the series was a fantasy inside a dream, then there was no relationship between young Sayid and young Nadia in Iraq. He made up a strong character of an independent, smart and charming woman in Nadia. He carried that dream woman with him throughout his life. There was no physical contact between them. It was only when his soul intersected with Shannon's spirit did he actually have a physical bonding moment with another being. This fantasy trumped his prior dream. Somehow Shannon turned into Sayid's soul mate.

Which is a odd development, even for LOST. If the island was a cosmic dating service where soul mates were found for the main characters, Sayid had more in common with Ilana, Naomi, Ana Lucia or even Kate than with Shannon. And even if the island was to sort soul mates, Sayid in that time sphere had contact and a relationship with Nadia. When Nadia died, she would have helped "create" the sideways world to wait for Sayid. But that did not happen. And this is the fundamental flaw in the Sayid and Nadia story.