BASIC ELEMENTS REVIEWED

This diagram shows the connections between characters with the same first letter in their names. It is hard to remember that so few letters were used for names. For example, you have Jack, Juliet and Jin; Sawyer, Shannon and Sun.

But two characters pop out alone: Penny and Eloise.

They are related by marriage. Penny is the daughter of Widmore. We can infer from his back story that when he left the island to the main land, he had a child (Penny) which led to his banishment. He later married Eloise and together they had a child, Daniel, the scientific genius for whom Eloise desperately protected in the sideways world.

Penny grew up as part of the privilege class in England. She has aspects of being spoiled, but also has a rebellious streak against her father (as would later turn into her affection for Desmond). Desmond was the anti-Widmore, a man with little ambition, unmarketable skills and lack of commitment. Dez was a drifter, a loner, and man without a cause. Penny never needed Desmond, but when Desmond tried to win her back and lost at seas, he found out that he needed her.

Eloise was part of the plot to get Desmond away from Penny. Eloise was the watch clerk who told Desmond about life's "course correction," people die no matter what events intervene to delay it. Desmond was told he had a great role to play, but he did not believe it. That role was to set sail in a solo race to crash into the island - - - to be trapped there pushing a button that would keep the island in a snow globe.

The reason why Eloise wanted Desmond removed from Penny's life was that she was protecting Daniel from awakening. She knew that Penny had feelings for Desmond, and if Penny re-awakened those feelings in the sideways world, Eloise fantasy after life would be destroyed. So she kept Penny's happiness at bay for the sake of her own selfish goal of being with her son forever.

Her son, if he remembered Eloise killing him in the time travel episode, could have gone off with the other island castaways to the church and into the light, never to be seen again. Sending Desmond to the island prison was a way to prevent that event from happening.

Without that, Eloise would have no bonds to keep her in the sideways dream. Her perfect marriage to Widmore was a ruse since he had not awakened to the island past - - - and their feud/break-up over the island's control. Penny would not be awakened if Desmond was kept at bay, traveling the world at the behest of Widmore (or more likely Eloise's prodding him). Penny would have continued on in a privileged status that she had pre-Desmond relationship, not knowing what she was missing in her life.

If the baseline for the show was love, then the stories of Penny and Eloise demonstrate two sides of the same coin. Penny, in a blissful ignorance and Eloise, in a conning manipulation in the sideways realm. But in the island sphere, it is proactive Penny trying to re-connect to lost Desmond, while Eloise tries to right her wrong caused Daniel. One is a mother's love to an extreme, and the other is a couple's triumph over tragedy.

PERSONALITY CHART

I created the above diagram to try to chart the main character's emotional path through the series.

On the left side, positive attributes which begin with basic hope, then move up to dreams, love, trust and leadership. On the right side, negative attributes with basic regret, then fears, hate, naivety, to being a follower. A stronger will comes with each level toward the bottom line of being either a leader or a follower (a theme of the series).

I started the chart by simple word association. I began with hope, then quickly worked up the emotional ladder. I then started on the right side with the opposite of hope which I thought would be regret, and then by quick word association got through the series to the opposite of leader.

On the light side, there is a fairly clear progression a person would take in a path to leadership. One would have to have some hope (which is tied to a goal). From that point, one would dream about that goal. One must love what they are after. Then they must trust themselves enough to succeed. And once that trust has been obtained, it can be projected upon others to form leadership.

Likewise, regrets can easily morph into fears. Fears can compound themselves into hate. Hate can cloud judgment to make a person outwardly naive. Being naive means people can take advantage of you. You become a follower.

In the light example, we can take Jack. Jack had hope as a young boy that he would someday impress his father. He dreamed that he would become as successful as this father. He loved medicine and his ability to help other people. His love of his craft led to other people, including patients, trusting his judgment. Such trust can him leadership skills in his OR teams. People looked to him to make the right clinical decisions. Those qualities made him a natural candidate to lead the survivors.

On the flip side, Locke had regrets from an early age. He regretted not having a normal family life as a child. Her feared that he would be unwanted as he was raised by successive foster homes. He began to hate how people perceived him. He hated that he was being directed to the uncool sciences when he wanted to be a popular athlete. His hate made him distrustful of other people. As a result, he bounced from meaningless job to meaningless job. He became withdrawn. He was then quite naive when his father reappeared in his life. So much so, that his kidney was stolen. Because he was so naive about the people around him, he could only be a follower throughout his life. And that realization is something that Locke attempted to rebel against, until he realized that no one would follow him. That dissolved any hope (and all those light side emotional states) of change. He died a bitter and broken man.

But both sides can stumble down a different path. Hope can turn into fears, which could become so strong as to consume one's psyche to love the paranoia and pain. That misguided love of pain can lead to naive isolation, which was the safety net Hurley had at Santa Rosa.

Likewise, regrets can turn into one's dreams. Unfulfilled dreams can quickly turn into hate. Hate can be marshaled into developing a trust with other people who do not factor in your dreams. That trust turns one into a follower, just as Sayid had become during his youth to Iraqi soldier days.

This chart also shows that change can make a difference. False hope can turn into hate, but that strong emotion can be channeled into great leadership qualities, as was the case with Ben and his ascension to leader of the Others.

Likewise, regrets can turn to love and that love can make you follow a special person instead of running away, which is an explanation for Kate becoming Jack's partner in the after life church at the end.

SS6: Number 3: The Numbers

Oh, The Numbers. The six numbers that haunted LOST fans for Six Years. Those pesky numbers kept on showing up on props, signals, odometers, cave walls, lighthouse dials, lottery tickets, flight numbers, the hatch door, computer screens, computer read-outs, and numerous theories.

The Numbers. 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42

Was there any final conclusion to what the Numbers represented?

I guess it depends if you think the Numbers were important.

Hurley thought the Numbers were important: as bad luck, a curse or a bad omen, every time he encountered them. Danielle must have thought the same thing, as the signal repeating the numbers led to her coming to the Island.

Many fans speculated that the Numbers had to deal with Dharma or some unknown group trying to change the values of the Valenzetti Equation. That theorem is a 1970s equation that attempts to determine the end of humanity. Dharma was conducting various experiments to either create, change or modify life in an attempt to change the coefficients of the equation to save the world. But that does not explain why the numbers were broadcast as an island location beacon; why they were on the hatch serial number; or why those numbers had to be put into the Swan computer in order to avoid a release of electromagnetic energy.

The fans really, really, really wanted an answer to the Numbers. They wanted the Numbers to be foundational to the whole story line. They have to be disappointed.

We found in the lighthouse and in MIB's cave, the Numbers allegedly represented potential Candidates.T he Numbers represented the last six candidates to succeed Jacob as island protector:

4 was John Locke, who was killed off the island, and his body taken by MIB to create Flocke.

8 was Hugo Reyes, who feared the Numbers the most, and wound up the guardian after Jack.

15 was James Ford, Sawyer, who never wanted to take responsibility for anything until he time traveled with Juliet.

16 was Sayid Jarrah, who was taken over by "The Darkness" and MIB.

23 was Jack Shepard, who defeated MIB and became the island protector for just a few short hours, until Flight 316, piloted by Frank, allowed Sawyer, Kate, Miles, Claire and Richard to leave the island.

42 was for Jin Kwon, who never left the island, who killed himself to stay with Sun in the sinking submarine.

Were the Numbers critical to the final explanation of the show? Or were the Numbers merely a clever plot device, a red herring, to keep fans watching intently and discussing the meaning of them from week to week? (I really liked by Periodic Chart of the Elements Theory). The conclusion, as written, the Numbers were basically used as immaterial bait to keep fans interested in the show. The function of the numbers being so coincidental throughout the seasons is an easter egg not found and left to rot in the yard. The idea that the Numbers were merely symbolic placeholders in Jacob's still convoluted plan to maintain the Island special powers seems disappointing, especially to die hard sci-fi fans looking for a deeper explanation. There is little elegance in the Numbers being merely a scorecard.

Considering the lighthouse contained hundreds of names and numbers crossed off during the centuries, the LOST numbers appear just to be random footnotes. And in the vetting of these final Candidates, there are very little cohesion or moral values between the actual characters. In fact, three had violent or criminal pasts (Ford, Kwon, Jarrah). Two were real life losers (Locke and Reyes, until he won the lottery then began to lose his mind). So by default, Jack winds up as the least flawed person on this list, if you exclude his personal life and drug addiction. In fact, none of the final Candidates had high moral standards to protect something so important as the Light and Island, the source of life, death and rebirth. I guess it is true, when your number is up, your number is really up.