George Orwell's novel, 1984, sounded an alarm against a government dystopia run by Big Brother. Cameras were spying on citizens. Armed police forces kept citizens in line. There was a single groupthink.
The rigid society was made by taking away everyone’s free will with the power of fear.
That seems to be the basic formula for the island.
And since Dharma has tenets of militarism at its roots, one could assume that the island was set up for various experiments on behalf of the government, or its power elite.
Elections are messy things. Sometimes an outsider wins. Elections are expenses. Politicians feel it is beneath their stature to beg for campaign donations. If you can make the election process more of a show than a real democracy, by imposing a strict code of conduct on everyone, the authoritarian leaders will win.
But how do authoritarians go about crushing the independence of their people, especially in countries like the United States were individualism is treated as a sacred value? You start experimenting on human subjects on how to reshape their thinking to conform with a new order.
You prey on the weakest links in society: the loners, the malcontents, the criminally inclined anti-social types who do not fit into the parameters of the American Dream. LOST's main character list is filled with these types of people.
You take the disenchanted and disenfranchised individuals and make them believe that the "group" is their new family. That was what Locke was searching for his entire life. In some respects, Ben was also searching for a "better" family unit. Kate was running away from her family. Sawyer was trying to avenge his lost family innocence.
So the island was a series of human experimentation programs. Room 23 was clearly a mind control station. Another station just spied on the other stations - - - using paranoia and information to manipulate others.
But the biggest motivator on the island was fear. The unpleasant, highly charged emotion of dread and pain is known to be an easy way to change a person's attitude or behavior.
If anything could be said about the LOST ending, in the context of reshaping the individuals to identify and relate to the group of island survivors proves the point that the island can bring different people together, change their principles, free will, associations and connections into one happy family unit.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Monday, March 28, 2016
GODS OF DEATH
LOST contained many rites and passage of death themes.
In Japanese religion and culture, Shinigami ("death god" or "death spirit") are gods or supernatural spirits that invite humans toward death, and can be seen to be present in certain aspects of Japanese religion and culture. In popular culture, Shinigami have been focal points in shows like Death Note or Bleach.
But a case could be made that LOST was a show about Shinigami or gods of death.
If you agree with the premise that there is a supernatural barrier between life and death, earth and heaven, mortality and immortality, then there would probably be gatekeepers who would be present to either a) effectuate death ("the grim reaper"), b) help souls make the crossing ("the ferrymen across the River Styx") or c) mess with human beings (like the Greeks gods did in their mythology).
The island was an unusual place. It contained an immortal guardian, Jacob, and a smoke monster, his dead brother's apparent spirit. Everyone is "brought" to the island by its guardian. Humans notice that the island is unearthly - - - you cannot escape it, and time is different. Hence, the island is in the realm of the supernatural.
The inhabitants of a supernatural place would include gods of death. And the situation that called them into action would have been the Flight 815 plane crash. Hundreds of humans would lose their lives when the plane broke up at altitude. But what if a Shinigami, bored with his existence, decided to have fun playing with human lives. He would call these people "candidates" and put them through a series of games and challenges with his spiritual rival, MIB.
If you can imagine that Jacob "spared" the survivors of the plane crash to be his pawns, then the main characters were in a state of limbo: they were technically still "alive," but caught in a supernatural world of illusion, misdirection and danger.
Jacob played with his candidates much like Daniel did with his lab rat, Eloise. The island was a maze of psychological tests and video game style quests that would probably amuse a superior being like Jacob or MIB. The game could be as simple as whether any of the humans were intelligent enough to know where they were or what happened to them. When sideways church Christian told dead Jack that everything was real but there was no past or future but just now, this would confirm the state of death-limbo that Jacob snatched from each of them when the plane crashed.
It is a cruel premise that a death god would play with human souls like they were robotic toys. But in a hierarchy of power, a supernatural being would view humans as humans would view wild animals.
The island gave the survivors "suspended animation" from their deaths so that Jacob and MIB could experiment and play with them - - - to feed off their fears, emotions, laughter and tears.
It would help explain the ending where the immortal Jacob just "gives up." It is like a little child who outgrown his infant toys. He just walks away from them; they are put in the box in attic to be lost from memory. He releases the final governors of life to allow the main characters the false chance to save themselves from the inevitable: death. But even that was a cruel hoax.
Yes, gods of death do not portray themselves as nice guys. The culture puts the stamp of evil on them because death is something no one wants because it is the possible premature end of the line.
LOST as the playground of gods of death is a plausible premise for the series.
In Japanese religion and culture, Shinigami ("death god" or "death spirit") are gods or supernatural spirits that invite humans toward death, and can be seen to be present in certain aspects of Japanese religion and culture. In popular culture, Shinigami have been focal points in shows like Death Note or Bleach.
But a case could be made that LOST was a show about Shinigami or gods of death.
If you agree with the premise that there is a supernatural barrier between life and death, earth and heaven, mortality and immortality, then there would probably be gatekeepers who would be present to either a) effectuate death ("the grim reaper"), b) help souls make the crossing ("the ferrymen across the River Styx") or c) mess with human beings (like the Greeks gods did in their mythology).
The island was an unusual place. It contained an immortal guardian, Jacob, and a smoke monster, his dead brother's apparent spirit. Everyone is "brought" to the island by its guardian. Humans notice that the island is unearthly - - - you cannot escape it, and time is different. Hence, the island is in the realm of the supernatural.
The inhabitants of a supernatural place would include gods of death. And the situation that called them into action would have been the Flight 815 plane crash. Hundreds of humans would lose their lives when the plane broke up at altitude. But what if a Shinigami, bored with his existence, decided to have fun playing with human lives. He would call these people "candidates" and put them through a series of games and challenges with his spiritual rival, MIB.
If you can imagine that Jacob "spared" the survivors of the plane crash to be his pawns, then the main characters were in a state of limbo: they were technically still "alive," but caught in a supernatural world of illusion, misdirection and danger.
Jacob played with his candidates much like Daniel did with his lab rat, Eloise. The island was a maze of psychological tests and video game style quests that would probably amuse a superior being like Jacob or MIB. The game could be as simple as whether any of the humans were intelligent enough to know where they were or what happened to them. When sideways church Christian told dead Jack that everything was real but there was no past or future but just now, this would confirm the state of death-limbo that Jacob snatched from each of them when the plane crashed.
It is a cruel premise that a death god would play with human souls like they were robotic toys. But in a hierarchy of power, a supernatural being would view humans as humans would view wild animals.
The island gave the survivors "suspended animation" from their deaths so that Jacob and MIB could experiment and play with them - - - to feed off their fears, emotions, laughter and tears.
It would help explain the ending where the immortal Jacob just "gives up." It is like a little child who outgrown his infant toys. He just walks away from them; they are put in the box in attic to be lost from memory. He releases the final governors of life to allow the main characters the false chance to save themselves from the inevitable: death. But even that was a cruel hoax.
Yes, gods of death do not portray themselves as nice guys. The culture puts the stamp of evil on them because death is something no one wants because it is the possible premature end of the line.
LOST as the playground of gods of death is a plausible premise for the series.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
THE MOMENTS OF DEATH
Scientists continue to probe on what happens to a person at the time of death. They have tracked down the chemical components that are released on death which may explain how people perceive and feel death.
Inside the center of one's brain is a vestigial gland. It was thought to have little function. The pineal gland, roughly the size of a grain of rice, is more heavily protected than even the heart with its literal cage of protection, because if something happens to your heart you die, but if something happens to your pineal, some say you can’t go to heaven.The pineal gland influences on both melatonin and pinoline, its end of life role in the creation of dimethyltriptamine or DMT. This chemical, DMT, may well be the reason we, as a species, are capable of sentience itself.
DMT is a narcotic substance. It is a powerful psychedelic. The pineal gland produces this substance every day.
DMT is also the trigger that elicits dreams. So the reason one has dreams is that the brain is producing a narcotic.
However, at the time of death, the gland floods the brain with massive amounts of DMT.
Science has studied the effects of DMT on normal people. These drug users experience two major themes while under the influence:
1)
A stretching of time – they experience the hectic 6 or 7 minutes as a
near eternity or lifetime. 2) They experience religious incarnations with a tilt toward whatever sect the subject is affiliated with.
This compound has been known for a long time. Cultures have known about the pineal, more widely known as the inner eye, all-seeing eye, or the like – considered the body’s gateway to the soul.
Egypt had its "Eye of Horus" Hindu culture has its bottu (the familiar forehead dot). Even the ancient art of yoga recognizes the brow chakra, or ajna, as blossoming at the pineal, or third eye.
Since science is aware that DMT is released at death, they have also observed that there is a mysterious several minutes of time after death where the brain still functions. These last few minutes after death, subjectively, are experienced as an eternity, engrossed in the DMT universe. Also, the trip itself is a highly personal experience dictated by the deepest realms of the subconscious.
The scientific chemical basis of death helps explain LOST.
Each person was experiencing a traumatic event (the plane breaking a part mid-flight). They were charged with adrenaline, anxiety and fear. Their minds would have "flashbacks" on their lives, their experiences, their families and their regrets. "Your life flashes before your eyes" is a common recall from near death experiences. But at the moment of death, the people on board Flight 815 did "survive" for several minutes through the massive release of DMT into their brain. A wash with an intense psychedelic narcotic drug which induces a dream state. A dream state that would seem to last for an eternity because there is no "time" barrier in the subconscious. One could feel or experience days, months, years of livid events in the minutes after death.
Those passengers whose final thoughts were centered on the will to survive the crash did so in their last dream state upon death.
So we did not view one coherent interaction between the survivors and the island, but hundreds of layers of final dreams stitched together like an overlapping quilt.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
THE MISSING
The BBC featured a story on the past history of a nice tropical island with a dark past.
Panama's Isla Coiba bears all the hallmarks of a perfect desert island: gin-clear water, powdery white sand, a fringe of palm trees against a backdrop of dense, unexplored rain forest. When I arrived on the island, the peaceful beach was scattered with a handful of travelers bobbing in the bath-warm water or taking lazy afternoon naps on the salt-encrusted hammocks.
Yet this island paradise harbors a dark past.
For almost a century, Isla Coiba was home to a notorious island prison, rumored to be where the
country's most dangerous criminals were sent and where political
prisoners disappeared. With the island home to various poisonous snakes
and insects and surrounded by shark-infested waters, there was no hope
of escape for the thousands of prisoners, known as Los Desaparecidos (The Missing).
There were many elements of a prison on LOST. The island was protected from outsiders such as modern prisons. The island had "security systems" like the smoke monster to keep people on the island and in their place. The island had a warden, which was later revealed as "the guardian." MIB only wanted to "escape" the island like an inmate wants to escape prison. The island's harsh existence and danger was the punishment for those broken souls who happened to find themselves on the island.
A few of the characters really deserved to be institutionalized in a prison. But most had no outward signs of being criminals. For example, Rose and Bernard seemed to be a happy, older couple. The only problem they had was Rose's terminal cancer. One could argue that terminal cancer is a form of medical prison that a patient has to endure. Shannon was a spoiled brat who pawned an existence off her boyfriends and family members. Not necessarily the type of activities that would lead to a potential island prison death sentence. The same goes for Boone, who apparently did nothing wrong in his life except help out his half-sister, Shannon.
The concept of a country or culture sending away its "misfits" to an inaccessible island is not a foreign one. Lepers were shipped off to a specific island in the Hawaiian chain. Even political/war prisoners have been kept at Gitmo, outside of the U.S. federal prison system. The entire country of Australia started out as a British penal colony. "Out of sight, out of mind" is one way leaders deal with pesky social or political problems. But the LOST survivors don't seem to be a rambo-like group of rebels who threaten the very existence of the democratic, free world.
They were just missing persons. And there is a growing number of people who go missing every day. Some, by choice - - - running away from their debts, family, job, mental depression. Some, by force through human kidnapping and human trafficking. Some, the victims of violent criminal behavior. The latter can be a forced imprisonment, almost slavery, in an abusive situation.
LOST does not fit one mold in the prison context. It had elements of capture, imprisonment, and forced labor against one's free will. But there was no moral equivalent driving any personal behavior.
But the context of being a prison is still the mortar that fused together several plot lines.
Panama's Isla Coiba bears all the hallmarks of a perfect desert island: gin-clear water, powdery white sand, a fringe of palm trees against a backdrop of dense, unexplored rain forest. When I arrived on the island, the peaceful beach was scattered with a handful of travelers bobbing in the bath-warm water or taking lazy afternoon naps on the salt-encrusted hammocks.
Yet this island paradise harbors a dark past.
There were many elements of a prison on LOST. The island was protected from outsiders such as modern prisons. The island had "security systems" like the smoke monster to keep people on the island and in their place. The island had a warden, which was later revealed as "the guardian." MIB only wanted to "escape" the island like an inmate wants to escape prison. The island's harsh existence and danger was the punishment for those broken souls who happened to find themselves on the island.
A few of the characters really deserved to be institutionalized in a prison. But most had no outward signs of being criminals. For example, Rose and Bernard seemed to be a happy, older couple. The only problem they had was Rose's terminal cancer. One could argue that terminal cancer is a form of medical prison that a patient has to endure. Shannon was a spoiled brat who pawned an existence off her boyfriends and family members. Not necessarily the type of activities that would lead to a potential island prison death sentence. The same goes for Boone, who apparently did nothing wrong in his life except help out his half-sister, Shannon.
The concept of a country or culture sending away its "misfits" to an inaccessible island is not a foreign one. Lepers were shipped off to a specific island in the Hawaiian chain. Even political/war prisoners have been kept at Gitmo, outside of the U.S. federal prison system. The entire country of Australia started out as a British penal colony. "Out of sight, out of mind" is one way leaders deal with pesky social or political problems. But the LOST survivors don't seem to be a rambo-like group of rebels who threaten the very existence of the democratic, free world.
They were just missing persons. And there is a growing number of people who go missing every day. Some, by choice - - - running away from their debts, family, job, mental depression. Some, by force through human kidnapping and human trafficking. Some, the victims of violent criminal behavior. The latter can be a forced imprisonment, almost slavery, in an abusive situation.
LOST does not fit one mold in the prison context. It had elements of capture, imprisonment, and forced labor against one's free will. But there was no moral equivalent driving any personal behavior.
But the context of being a prison is still the mortar that fused together several plot lines.
Sunday, March 13, 2016
MEMORY OBSERVATION
Last month, William Shatner was being interviewed on a Chicago radio station. He was on to promote his new book, Leonard, a retrospective of his life with Star Trek co-star Leonard Nimoy.
He wrote the book as a tribute to his late friend. But in the process, he had an interesting observation on life.
He said that people share experiences with friends. And in order to remember them, re-live them, they have to be together - - - "do you remember the time we did such and such?" Then laugh about it.
He said those conversations keep those memories alive.
But once someone dies, a person loses that connection to the other person. Those strong memories begin to fade because the deceased friend is no longer around to share them with you.
That was why Shatner wrote the book. It keeps his memories of Nimoy alive in a tangible form.
This is a deep observation that makes logical sense.
Our memories fade of lost loved ones because we don't see them anymore. A daily, weekly, monthly or annual face-to-face helps reinforce past memories because you re-connect with the person, their face, their voice, their mannerisms, their personality, and humor. The stronger the bonds between two people, the clearer the memories will be retained.
So when we lose people, at some point we will lose the memories of those departed souls.
That is a sad dilemma. You want to remember. You need to remember.
We have things to help us remember. Family photograph albums. Pictures speak a thousand words. Grave stones. We visit the departed to pay our respects and to remember their life. Their children and siblings. They are the living images of their departed family members.
If you are a film star, friends can find the permanent footage of your acting career. It helps ease the problem of losing touch.
But those are mere substitutes for the real thing. The real experiences in life hold more meaning than just mere memories. But at a certain point, memories are the only things left to hold on to.
In LOST, there was the odd notion that the main characters "forgot" their island past while "living" in the sideways world. Perhaps, they lost their memories because people died and they faded from conscious memory.
He wrote the book as a tribute to his late friend. But in the process, he had an interesting observation on life.
He said that people share experiences with friends. And in order to remember them, re-live them, they have to be together - - - "do you remember the time we did such and such?" Then laugh about it.
He said those conversations keep those memories alive.
But once someone dies, a person loses that connection to the other person. Those strong memories begin to fade because the deceased friend is no longer around to share them with you.
That was why Shatner wrote the book. It keeps his memories of Nimoy alive in a tangible form.
This is a deep observation that makes logical sense.
Our memories fade of lost loved ones because we don't see them anymore. A daily, weekly, monthly or annual face-to-face helps reinforce past memories because you re-connect with the person, their face, their voice, their mannerisms, their personality, and humor. The stronger the bonds between two people, the clearer the memories will be retained.
So when we lose people, at some point we will lose the memories of those departed souls.
That is a sad dilemma. You want to remember. You need to remember.
We have things to help us remember. Family photograph albums. Pictures speak a thousand words. Grave stones. We visit the departed to pay our respects and to remember their life. Their children and siblings. They are the living images of their departed family members.
If you are a film star, friends can find the permanent footage of your acting career. It helps ease the problem of losing touch.
But those are mere substitutes for the real thing. The real experiences in life hold more meaning than just mere memories. But at a certain point, memories are the only things left to hold on to.
In LOST, there was the odd notion that the main characters "forgot" their island past while "living" in the sideways world. Perhaps, they lost their memories because people died and they faded from conscious memory.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
AJIRA'S RETURN
One of the great unknowns is what happened to the Ajira plane after it took off from the island.
We see it fly over a dying Jack, but we really do not know if it ever made it back to the mainland. It was a damaged plane fixed without tools or supplies. It may have not had enough fuel to reach a destination. And if the island's electromagnetic shell was still working, it would have not let the plane travel in any direction except in circles.
But we are led to believe that the passengers got home safely. That they returned to their lives and died "much later" than Jack, according to sideways Christian in the church anteroom.
But is that believable?
If the Ajira return passengers got back to the mainland, they would have been celebrity-heroes. They would have been hounded by the media for interviews, shows and biographies. They would have met other celebrities, been part of the B-list jet set, and had their lives totally changed.
Frank piloted the plane off the Hydra Island with Kate, Claire, Richard, Sawyer and Miles on board.
One would assume that if Frank got back, he may have retired to Florida to charter smaller planes. It never made sense that he would have returned to a commercial pilot status after the 815 crash psychosis and alcoholism. Frank would have been the type to recede into the background.
Kate would have returned to the mainland as a free woman. But what would have happened to her? She was still married to Florida police officer Kevin Callis. She could not have been declared legally dead. Kevin truly loved and supported Kate, but he must have been devastated when she left him. He never showed up in the O6 arc. Would he ask her for a second chance upon her return to the States? If so, then Kate should have not ended up in the sideways church with Jack. She would have created a long life with Kevin. But that does not seem to be the case, as Kate arrives without him in the afterlife.
More likely, Kate would have reverted back to a life of recklessness. She enjoyed being a fugitive, using her wits to get out of trouble. She was a troublemaker. She tried to change by being a homemaker to Aaron, but she abandoned that notion on the wild dream that she could find and return Claire to him.
Likewise, Sawyer would have come back with no career, no prospects except the con game. But he also had a person to re-connect with: Cassidy, the mother of his child, Clementine. If Sawyer had changed into a responsible adult during his time with Juliet in the time loop 3 years in the Dharma camp, one could imagine Sawyer wanting to have a "real" family and a "real" life. But that does not seem to have happened, because Sawyer does not end up in the afterlife with either Cassidy or Clementine.
Claire's return would have been problematic. First, she was an emotional and psychological nightmare. She loved a dead squirrel baby. If she returned to the mainland, she would have had to go back to Australia to face her mother in order to re-connect with Aaron. But the main issue with the O6 arc was that Claire's mother, Carole, was on life support because Christian was paying for it. When he died, the support ended. It was a miracle that Carole suddenly recovered and found her way to LA for Christian's funeral. No one would have told her that. And for Carole to take Aaron out of the United States when all the documents said it was Kate's baby - - - again, legally far-fetched and unbelievable. But even if the fairy tale ending happened and Claire was reunited with Aaron - - what would she do? Would she seek out Aaron's father, Thomas, and live happily ever after on her celebrity fame? Doubtful, since it seemed that Thomas was the type not to accept responsibility. Claire's return to the afterlife casts doubts on whether anyone survived the return flight. She was pregnant with Aaron, meaning she never reunited with him. It may mean that her mother and Aaron rejected her - - - so she may have been institutionalized from her island trauma and grief. But how she could re-create the soul of Aaron outside his own time-life line is a major plot hole. (This is also true with Sun and Jin).
Miles return to the States was also problematic. He had given up being a spiritual con-artist, speaking to the dead to give loved ones closure. We don't know if his mother, Lara, was still alive. But if Miles was going to re-start his life, one would expect he would start back in his hometown, Encino, and probably return to a job as a mechanic. The only other alternative would to follow Sawyer down his path if the con game was still an option. But since Miles does not make it to the sideways church reunion, he moved on to his own life.
Richard would have continued to be a lost soul. He was more than a 160 years old when he left the island. Nothing is known about what happened to Richard after he left the island. But the gray hair he discovered before leaving suggests that he later aged as a normal person would. But he had no place to go - - - everyone he knew was long gone, dead. Would he have reconnected with the few remaining remains of Ben's network of spies and assassins? Probably not, because they had no purpose anymore. Richard would return to the modern world with no identity, no resources, no family and no friends. He would truly be a man out of his time. And that would be a sad, troublesome end for him. He also did not show up at the church.
The sideways church reunion was supposed to wrap up the grand question of LOST. Christian reassured Jack that they are all "real," Jack's life was real, and the people in the church were real. Jack asks if everyone else is dead too, and Christian explains that "everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some before you, some long after you." When Jack asks why everyone is here now, Christian responds that "There is no now . . . here", and that this is a place they all made together to find one another, because the most important part of Jack's life was the time he spent with these people, and that's why they are all here; no one lives life alone. He needed them, and they needed him; to remember, and to let go. Jack tells Christian that Kate said they were all leaving. Christian explained they aren't leaving; they're moving on.
But if the Ajira plane did return to the mainland, and those passengers did live long lives as expected, one would presume that they would have made new friends, had new relationships, gotten married, had children - - - created a brand new life separate and more important than the island world. If Sawyer spent the next 50 years brooding about losing Juliet, then that would have horrible (and totally out of character). If Kate secretly pined for Jack, that would also be counter to the chances she had with him on the island and during the O6 arc (when she rejected him for the last time). We can then only assume that she led a spinster, quiet and lonely life if Jack was the best thing she ever had. And apparently, Claire had no life since she is re-creating it over again with Charlie.
Which gets us to a new question: is the sideways (after life) itself an illusion, a fantasy, a re-boot? It must be if you take Sun-Jin and Claire's post-pregnancies into account. Then if that is not believable as in a truth, then can we take anything that Christian said as being true? It makes more sense that the Ajira flight did not make it home. That the passengers last moments of life were thinking about the island and the people they left behind.
We see it fly over a dying Jack, but we really do not know if it ever made it back to the mainland. It was a damaged plane fixed without tools or supplies. It may have not had enough fuel to reach a destination. And if the island's electromagnetic shell was still working, it would have not let the plane travel in any direction except in circles.
But we are led to believe that the passengers got home safely. That they returned to their lives and died "much later" than Jack, according to sideways Christian in the church anteroom.
But is that believable?
If the Ajira return passengers got back to the mainland, they would have been celebrity-heroes. They would have been hounded by the media for interviews, shows and biographies. They would have met other celebrities, been part of the B-list jet set, and had their lives totally changed.
Frank piloted the plane off the Hydra Island with Kate, Claire, Richard, Sawyer and Miles on board.
One would assume that if Frank got back, he may have retired to Florida to charter smaller planes. It never made sense that he would have returned to a commercial pilot status after the 815 crash psychosis and alcoholism. Frank would have been the type to recede into the background.
Kate would have returned to the mainland as a free woman. But what would have happened to her? She was still married to Florida police officer Kevin Callis. She could not have been declared legally dead. Kevin truly loved and supported Kate, but he must have been devastated when she left him. He never showed up in the O6 arc. Would he ask her for a second chance upon her return to the States? If so, then Kate should have not ended up in the sideways church with Jack. She would have created a long life with Kevin. But that does not seem to be the case, as Kate arrives without him in the afterlife.
More likely, Kate would have reverted back to a life of recklessness. She enjoyed being a fugitive, using her wits to get out of trouble. She was a troublemaker. She tried to change by being a homemaker to Aaron, but she abandoned that notion on the wild dream that she could find and return Claire to him.
Likewise, Sawyer would have come back with no career, no prospects except the con game. But he also had a person to re-connect with: Cassidy, the mother of his child, Clementine. If Sawyer had changed into a responsible adult during his time with Juliet in the time loop 3 years in the Dharma camp, one could imagine Sawyer wanting to have a "real" family and a "real" life. But that does not seem to have happened, because Sawyer does not end up in the afterlife with either Cassidy or Clementine.
Claire's return would have been problematic. First, she was an emotional and psychological nightmare. She loved a dead squirrel baby. If she returned to the mainland, she would have had to go back to Australia to face her mother in order to re-connect with Aaron. But the main issue with the O6 arc was that Claire's mother, Carole, was on life support because Christian was paying for it. When he died, the support ended. It was a miracle that Carole suddenly recovered and found her way to LA for Christian's funeral. No one would have told her that. And for Carole to take Aaron out of the United States when all the documents said it was Kate's baby - - - again, legally far-fetched and unbelievable. But even if the fairy tale ending happened and Claire was reunited with Aaron - - what would she do? Would she seek out Aaron's father, Thomas, and live happily ever after on her celebrity fame? Doubtful, since it seemed that Thomas was the type not to accept responsibility. Claire's return to the afterlife casts doubts on whether anyone survived the return flight. She was pregnant with Aaron, meaning she never reunited with him. It may mean that her mother and Aaron rejected her - - - so she may have been institutionalized from her island trauma and grief. But how she could re-create the soul of Aaron outside his own time-life line is a major plot hole. (This is also true with Sun and Jin).
Miles return to the States was also problematic. He had given up being a spiritual con-artist, speaking to the dead to give loved ones closure. We don't know if his mother, Lara, was still alive. But if Miles was going to re-start his life, one would expect he would start back in his hometown, Encino, and probably return to a job as a mechanic. The only other alternative would to follow Sawyer down his path if the con game was still an option. But since Miles does not make it to the sideways church reunion, he moved on to his own life.
Richard would have continued to be a lost soul. He was more than a 160 years old when he left the island. Nothing is known about what happened to Richard after he left the island. But the gray hair he discovered before leaving suggests that he later aged as a normal person would. But he had no place to go - - - everyone he knew was long gone, dead. Would he have reconnected with the few remaining remains of Ben's network of spies and assassins? Probably not, because they had no purpose anymore. Richard would return to the modern world with no identity, no resources, no family and no friends. He would truly be a man out of his time. And that would be a sad, troublesome end for him. He also did not show up at the church.
The sideways church reunion was supposed to wrap up the grand question of LOST. Christian reassured Jack that they are all "real," Jack's life was real, and the people in the church were real. Jack asks if everyone else is dead too, and Christian explains that "everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some before you, some long after you." When Jack asks why everyone is here now, Christian responds that "There is no now . . . here", and that this is a place they all made together to find one another, because the most important part of Jack's life was the time he spent with these people, and that's why they are all here; no one lives life alone. He needed them, and they needed him; to remember, and to let go. Jack tells Christian that Kate said they were all leaving. Christian explained they aren't leaving; they're moving on.
But if the Ajira plane did return to the mainland, and those passengers did live long lives as expected, one would presume that they would have made new friends, had new relationships, gotten married, had children - - - created a brand new life separate and more important than the island world. If Sawyer spent the next 50 years brooding about losing Juliet, then that would have horrible (and totally out of character). If Kate secretly pined for Jack, that would also be counter to the chances she had with him on the island and during the O6 arc (when she rejected him for the last time). We can then only assume that she led a spinster, quiet and lonely life if Jack was the best thing she ever had. And apparently, Claire had no life since she is re-creating it over again with Charlie.
Which gets us to a new question: is the sideways (after life) itself an illusion, a fantasy, a re-boot? It must be if you take Sun-Jin and Claire's post-pregnancies into account. Then if that is not believable as in a truth, then can we take anything that Christian said as being true? It makes more sense that the Ajira flight did not make it home. That the passengers last moments of life were thinking about the island and the people they left behind.
Monday, March 7, 2016
LOST LINE
Jorge Garcia posted video of his first line in LOST which was deleted from the pilot.
In the scene, Jack turns around in the beach debris and yells, "Hey you, come here" and then Hurley points at the plane and says "plane crash."
Garcia said it was a great line, and many fans agree.
But with Hurley in a dazed but unhurt expression, the idea of him saying the obvious is an intriguing leaping off point for a theory.
What if Hurley was not dazed by the crash itself, but amazed that he had "created it?"
The question is whether Hurley could have "projected" one of his nightmares into reality.
The concept of projection is well known. A strong personality often "projects" his feelings and opinions on the people around him. Cult leaders are famous for doing this. They can control other people's minds by their charisma and charm, even if the ideas are batsh*t crazy.
Now, throughout the series, Hurley truly believed that he was cursed. When anything good happened to him, he would dread it - - - and suddenly something bad would happen, like his grandfather having a heart attack or the chicken joint hit by a meteorite.
Now if you take the phrase "mind over matter," and turn it around to say "matter over the mind," it would mean that a person's mind can magically create a new physical world order by thought. If Hurley could create events just by thinking about them, then he had god-like abilities. And the island could have been a place for these gods, as Jacob also had those attributes as well as the smoke monster.
It harks back to the Greek legends of the various gods coming to Earth to mess with the human beings. The bred, tortured, cajoled and misused the human race because of the gods arrogant superiority. One could think that Hurley may have been the offspring of such a mythological god race.
Or it could as simple as creating a vast new world in your mind's imagination. We do it all the time. We call it dreams. But if a superbeing has the power to project those dreams into reality, that could be the premise of the series. The struggle of competing minds to fashion their own world.
If Hurley did cause the plane crash, that puts an entirely different spin on the Desmond story arc which he believes his not putting in the Numbers caused the crash. But those Numbers were tied directly to Hurley prior to Flight 815.
In the scene, Jack turns around in the beach debris and yells, "Hey you, come here" and then Hurley points at the plane and says "plane crash."
Garcia said it was a great line, and many fans agree.
But with Hurley in a dazed but unhurt expression, the idea of him saying the obvious is an intriguing leaping off point for a theory.
What if Hurley was not dazed by the crash itself, but amazed that he had "created it?"
The question is whether Hurley could have "projected" one of his nightmares into reality.
The concept of projection is well known. A strong personality often "projects" his feelings and opinions on the people around him. Cult leaders are famous for doing this. They can control other people's minds by their charisma and charm, even if the ideas are batsh*t crazy.
Now, throughout the series, Hurley truly believed that he was cursed. When anything good happened to him, he would dread it - - - and suddenly something bad would happen, like his grandfather having a heart attack or the chicken joint hit by a meteorite.
Now if you take the phrase "mind over matter," and turn it around to say "matter over the mind," it would mean that a person's mind can magically create a new physical world order by thought. If Hurley could create events just by thinking about them, then he had god-like abilities. And the island could have been a place for these gods, as Jacob also had those attributes as well as the smoke monster.
It harks back to the Greek legends of the various gods coming to Earth to mess with the human beings. The bred, tortured, cajoled and misused the human race because of the gods arrogant superiority. One could think that Hurley may have been the offspring of such a mythological god race.
Or it could as simple as creating a vast new world in your mind's imagination. We do it all the time. We call it dreams. But if a superbeing has the power to project those dreams into reality, that could be the premise of the series. The struggle of competing minds to fashion their own world.
If Hurley did cause the plane crash, that puts an entirely different spin on the Desmond story arc which he believes his not putting in the Numbers caused the crash. But those Numbers were tied directly to Hurley prior to Flight 815.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
ENERGY MATTER SPIRITS
For what it is worth, the theme of spirituality can be changed to spirits as an explanation of the Jacob-MIB dynamic.
We were taught that e=mc2 or energy=mass x the speed of light squared.
Energy has a mass component, but also mass has an energy component (e/speed of light squared).
We look upon ourselves as organic beings with the sense of higher purpose, or a spiritual take on the universe.
What if it is the opposite. What if there are spirits who are beings who take on energy to form mass.
For example, when Jacob is "killed" but is still wandering the island interacting with the castaways, he comes to his final time at a camp fire. He tells the castaways that once the "fire" goes out his life ends. So he asks for a volunteer to be the next island guardian.
From this exchange we can postulate that Ben did not "kill" Jacob, per se. MIB burned Jacob's body, but that was merely a shell for the spirit called Jacob. The spirit could still live if it had a source of energy (a fire). The spirit consumed the body mass into energy, then recreated it in a physical form to interact and communicate with the survivors.
This is the same mechanism to explain the smoke monster. It can change physical appearance from MIB, smoke or Flocke because it is not confined to a human body. As a spirit, it can manipulate energy into physical form to absorb more energy (perhaps, as speculated in earlier posts, consuming the "fear" from human beings).
This explains why Jacob and MIB could not harm each other - - - because as spirits they are equals. They are not doomed by age, injury or death of a human being. They are immortal if they chose to be immortal. But if they chose to leave the island, then their spiritual existence would be compromised. The island, with its unusual magnetic energy, was the source of the spiritual well being of Jacob and MIB. But when that was disrupted, it endangered each of them.
In nature, all beings have some sense of survival. Crazy Mother's rampage against the Roman shipwreck survivors was probably to protect the spiritual energy field - - - her own survival. But just with Jacob's demise, MIB had altered the energy field with the FDW so Crazy Mother was venerable. She no longer wanted to live trapped on the island alone, so she submitted to her own death. Or so it would seem. Her spirit may have lived on in Jacob, who we were led to believe was a boy who became immortal when he became the guardian. Likewise, when his brother was killed but found his soul cast into the light cave, he turned into a spirit as well.
The idea that the island was populated with spirits and not immortal human beings helps explain the nature of the Jacob-MIB story. However, it does not explain the relationship with the island visitors and 815 survivors whose mortality was clearly displayed throughout the series.
We were taught that e=mc2 or energy=mass x the speed of light squared.
Energy has a mass component, but also mass has an energy component (e/speed of light squared).
We look upon ourselves as organic beings with the sense of higher purpose, or a spiritual take on the universe.
What if it is the opposite. What if there are spirits who are beings who take on energy to form mass.
For example, when Jacob is "killed" but is still wandering the island interacting with the castaways, he comes to his final time at a camp fire. He tells the castaways that once the "fire" goes out his life ends. So he asks for a volunteer to be the next island guardian.
From this exchange we can postulate that Ben did not "kill" Jacob, per se. MIB burned Jacob's body, but that was merely a shell for the spirit called Jacob. The spirit could still live if it had a source of energy (a fire). The spirit consumed the body mass into energy, then recreated it in a physical form to interact and communicate with the survivors.
This is the same mechanism to explain the smoke monster. It can change physical appearance from MIB, smoke or Flocke because it is not confined to a human body. As a spirit, it can manipulate energy into physical form to absorb more energy (perhaps, as speculated in earlier posts, consuming the "fear" from human beings).
This explains why Jacob and MIB could not harm each other - - - because as spirits they are equals. They are not doomed by age, injury or death of a human being. They are immortal if they chose to be immortal. But if they chose to leave the island, then their spiritual existence would be compromised. The island, with its unusual magnetic energy, was the source of the spiritual well being of Jacob and MIB. But when that was disrupted, it endangered each of them.
In nature, all beings have some sense of survival. Crazy Mother's rampage against the Roman shipwreck survivors was probably to protect the spiritual energy field - - - her own survival. But just with Jacob's demise, MIB had altered the energy field with the FDW so Crazy Mother was venerable. She no longer wanted to live trapped on the island alone, so she submitted to her own death. Or so it would seem. Her spirit may have lived on in Jacob, who we were led to believe was a boy who became immortal when he became the guardian. Likewise, when his brother was killed but found his soul cast into the light cave, he turned into a spirit as well.
The idea that the island was populated with spirits and not immortal human beings helps explain the nature of the Jacob-MIB story. However, it does not explain the relationship with the island visitors and 815 survivors whose mortality was clearly displayed throughout the series.
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