FIRST IMPACT

Children are like sponges; at an early age they absorb everything around them. That is why major events in their childhood could haunt them as adults.

Since LOST was a character study, what were the first major impacts on the main characters?

For Locke, it was being told that he was "a miracle baby" but abandoned by his parents. It was this paradox that led Locke on a futile quest to find a family.

For Kate, it was stealing in the rural general store and getting caught. But the consequence was that she got off (a stranger paid her debt) which led her to a life's belief that she could get away with anything; no accountability or responsibility for her actions.

For Jack, it was a school yard fight. He intervened with bullies were taking on a student. Jack got beat up and when his father told him he was stupid and not a leader, it put a permanent scar on Jack's self-esteem in that he could never live up to his father's expectations.

For Hurley, it was the day his father left. He was a happy kid until that event. It traumatized him to the point of eating to hide his pain for he believed that he was the cause. This would lead to a life of self-blame, isolation and self-doubt.

For Sawyer, it was hiding under his bed hearing his father kill his mother and then himself. This turned Sawyer into a vigilante, on a quest to find the con man who destroyed his family. And in this quest, he was twisted into the thing he hated most: he turned into a murderous con man.

For Ben, it was his birth that caused his mother's death. His father constantly blamed Ben for killing his mother. He was constantly told he was a monster. As a result, he kept his emotions inward to the volcanic point of rage - - - and then actually turning into that monster by killing his parent during the Dharma purge.

For Sayid, it was taking the place of his older brother who could not get a grip on killing an animal for the family meal. When Sayid took control of the situation and took the animal's life so easily, it turned the young boy into a stone cold assassin and torturer because he could tune out his emotions.

For Jin, it was watching his aging fisherman father struggle to survive. He resented that he was poor and that he had no mother. He had a dream to leave poverty for the city where he would not have the daily dirty grind of trying to survive. When he was in the army, he got the taste of a bigger world than his fishing village. So he vowed to do whatever necessary never to go back there - - - and that would include compromising all his morals and beliefs.

SUN CONFLICTS

Sun-Hwa Kwon is an enigma, a person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand.  

She grew up in a Korean culture dominated by male power. She was expected to be the passive daughter of a wealthy industrialist (with harsh criminal attributes in his business dealings). By all accounts, she grew up as a spoiled, rich kid who had everything the upper class could offer her except excitement.

So she tried to feed her rebellious spirit by trying to undermine her father. Her daddy issues were part cultural, part self-esteem.

Her illicit romance with a poor man, Jin, was an example of her lashing out against her father's wishes. As Jin turned into her father (by being an enforcer for her dad's business partners), Sun began to rebel against her husband by having an affair with her English tutor. We presume that ended badly with her teacher being thrown to his death.

Throughout her back story, we find that Sun had no real close friends. This may be from her isolation as a daughter of a rich and powerful family. She may have been isolated for her own protection against kidnapping, ransom or shaming the family with bad behavior. As such, with Jin she found herself again alone in her home with nothing to do - - - no one to turn to discuss her problems. She thought that she could drastically change her life with the man she loved, but that quickly turned out to be not the case. She turned into the passive, doting spouse. A role that she despised. 

In order to find some self-worth, Sun tried to conceive a child to stabilize her marriage. Jin's infertility put another strain on their relationship to the point Sun was going to leave him at the airport to start a new life alone in America. 

But a pang of regret, remorse or guilt took Sun back to Jin in the airport. It took her onto Flight 815 and her ultimate fate of being trapped on a mysterious island. Since Jin did not know of her English skills, the couple were isolated from the start from the rest of the survivors. This also brought more stress on their relationship since Sun needed to have something more than Jin's paternal iron hand ruling her life. She sought out Kate with her secrets. 

It is ironic that Kate, who could easily make friends with her charm, could never really keep them.

It seemed that Sun could navigate her cursed island life with the meager chance of one true friend to stabilize her marriage, but a jealous Jin and the betrayal that she spoke English, shocked Jin to  shun her.

Here is where the Sun story goes off the rails. 

Despite Jin's infertility, Sun conceived Jin's baby on the Island, which strengthened their marriage but threatened Sun's health. This is the drama that binds the couple together. But logically, many viewers thought that the child was actually her English tutor's. How the "magic" of the island could create a baby in Sun while the couple was cold towards each other could only be thought to be the dream of a weak school girl.

Then the second improbable occurrence: Sun giving birth to her daughter in the jungle with the help of Kate. This was probably more a Kate moment than Sun's, since Kate had avoided her entire life. responsibility for anything or anyone. 

The third improbable occurrence was Sun's near death experience on the freighter. She gets on the helicopter just before the explosion. She is shocked and grief stricken that Jin has been killed. But then she has another near death experience when the island vanishes and the helicopter crashes in the ocean.

Instead of being grateful for having a daughter to care for, Sun's personality changes dramatically.
Back in civilization, Sun became more self-confident and daring, seizing control of her father's company. She also sought revenge for Jin's death. When a man she never trusted, Ben, tells her Jin is still alive, Sun drops everything - - - including the care of her own daughter - - - to return to the island. That makes no sense. Why would a mother with a young infant abandon her to go to a dangerous island in search for her deceased husband? Since she had the power and wealth of a Widmore, she could have sent her own rescue party to the island. We were as naive as she was in trusting Ben.

Back on the island, she is in the wrong time shift. She cannot find Jin. She feels angry and betrayed but somehow never accepts that it is her own fault. And during her island time, she has no remorse or feelings about her daughter.

Once the time lines merge, Sun reunites in a fantasy reunion with Jin. Their reunion was very brief, since the submarine destined to take them home is sabotaged by Flock. In the worst possible story line, Sun is trapped by a locker when the bomb explodes in the submarine. The ship takes on water. Instead of Jin saving himself to take care of their daughter, he decides to stay and die with Sun. Why would a father abandon his daughter that way?

Sun and Jin drowned together for no good reason. 

But the last contradiction is a major one. In the flash sideways, the pair were reunited after a family crime matter resolves, putting Sun into labor at the hospital. The birth of her daughter in the side ways world (after life) has the same major plot issues as the Aaron birth by Claire at the side ways concert: why would a live human being be born again in the afterlife? One theory is that the children were never born to their parents in their real life. That the island was all an illusion. That the dreams and hopes of a heavenly life would include a fabricated family to love. Otherwise, Sun's daughter would be alive on the mainland, growing up to live her own life, and then dying to reunite with her parents as an adult.

The Sun story shows many of the critical script flaws in LOST.

WHY MOTHERHOOD WAS CRAZY

It cannot be coincidence that so many mothers were crazy.  Really, crazy.

From Locke's child common law wife mother who went institutional crazy after abandoning her child in the 1950s, to Claire's "Rousseau's Walk" into the dark side of the jungle, LOST's writers painted a real bleak picture of motherhood.

Almost a tortured representation of the divine gift of life.

Juliet was kidnapped so Ben and the Others could find an answer to why their pregnant women were dying in the third trimester. Why would the island, as the alleged place of "life, death and rebirth" continually kill expectant mothers and their unborn children?

Jacob and MIB's mother gave birth on the island, but she was killed by another crazy woman, whom we think was a smoke monster (by the aftermath of her wiping out the Roman camp). She had been alone so long that she was crazy. Crazy dangerous.

Rousseau also gave birth on the island, to Alex. They survived but were separated by the Others (who apparently could reproduce or keep children alive. Perhaps there was a social stigma against any woman except those worshipping Jacob.) Rousseau saw the violence of the smoke monster killing her shipmates, which led her to kill their reincarnated corpses in order to protect her unborn baby. For her honor, she was to live a lonely, hardscrabble life in the jungle - - - under constant threat of attack, real and imagined.

Even the surrogate mothers were crazy. Kate was no Ms. Housekeeping when she took charge of Aaron. Kate's background was a homicidal runaway. Eloise, Daniel's mother, thought nothing of throwing her son or step-daughter, Penny, to the flames of hell in order to maintain control over the island and its secrets.

There clearly is an undertone of anti-motherhood in the series.

There is no explanation for it.  Yes, bad mothers could infuse psychotic traits in their children. But the vast majority of mothers who had children were crazy, alcoholics (Jack's mother) or totally out of the picture, strangers to their own children.

Was the undertone a subliminal message for mass contraception, zero population growth, or an oddity of male dominated showrunner excess?

LIFE

I came across this interesting diagram. In the pyramid of Life, you get two choices.

Applying this to LOST should be a simple mental exercise.

Money was rarely the central motivational factor. It was more a means to an end. Widmore used his wealth to find a way to get back to the island (which led to his death). Hurley used his newfound wealth to find the origin of his Curse, the Numbers (which led him to the island and the unknown).

Children were never treated well in the series. There was one plot about how women died in their third trimester, and that the Others were kidnapping children for some unknown purpose. We were told that Walt was "special." And as a child, Locke was told the same thing. But having a child, even an apparent imaginary one in Jack's case, was fairly irrelevant to the story.

Time was used and abused in island story lines. The use of conflicting time travel theories did nothing to shed light on the understanding of the underlying LOST mythology. Time was a messy contrivance to create a faux sense of danger and drama.

How would a normal purpose balance the choices?

If one had children as a priority, money would give them the comfort and support. But on the other hand, people would want as much time as possible to be with their children.

If one did not care about children, then the focus would be on money and time. Time to make money as a singular goal does not make you a better person. More like an obsessive Scrouge.

What is missing from the chart is one component that everyone wants in their lives: happiness.

And a simple question to LOST viewers: were the characters really happy during the course of the series?

THE THREE STOOGIES

Ben, Hurley and Locke had the deepest connections to the island. Yet, they all played the fool as their personal stories unfolded over the six seasons.

Ben had a Napoleon complex: he wanted power, control and respect as many small minded leaders throughout history have come to grasp.

Hurley had an inferiority complex: he wanted love, respect and a purpose in life but he had no drive or ambition to live his own life.

Locke had grandeur issues: he believed he had a higher calling than what society and authority targeted him for; he was a dreamer who had no skills to make his dreams come true. He had a self-destructive personality.

So why was the island's connection to these three men so strong?

The island made fools of them.

Ben worked his way up from a lonely school boy with an abusive, drunken father to a mass murderer psychopathic leader of the Others. But in the end, his loyalty to Jacob, his perceived father figure, was a farce. This led to Ben becoming a broken man.

Hurley was a lonely boy who put himself in a shell because he blamed himself for his father's abandonment. He had only one true friend, who betrayed him after Hurley kept his lottery winnings a secret. Hurley believed he was cursed by the Numbers, and that led to his growing psychological problems, including the ability to speak to the dead.

Locke was a lonely man who could not find acceptance and a real family. He bounced from odd job to odd job, to being an outcast in a commune, to a pigeon taken advantage of by others, including his own father. His desire to be a part of a traditional family structure literally crippled him, making him a bitter man who could not see the hope that Helen could have given him.

If the island was an intelligent being as many have suggested, then it used its magical resources to build up and tear down these three men. It raised up the inferiority complex Ben into a limitless, powerful tyrant, only to pull the rug from underneath his reign and give it to a real monster, MIB. Hurley's mental problems were enhanced while on the island - - - the reoccurring Numbers sounded like bullhorns in his head of his Curse. The ability to talk to dead people. And the new friends around him started to die - - - including the one woman who found him interesting. It was like he was a mental punching bag. Locke seemingly was given the greatest second chance of all time. The plane crash allowed him to walk again. He could become the outback hero on the island. He could find the respect, admiration, loyalty and affection from the castaways. He could lead them to his promised land. But Locke was merely a prop in other people's plans. When things did not go well, Locke tried to rationalize his failures as new opportunities, even though it cost him colleague's lives such as Boone. He was told that he had to sacrifice himself for the island. Martyrdom was not the goal for a young John Locke, so he balked at the notion - - - but was killed anyway. He was barely a footnote to other people because he had lived a measly, stupid life.

The island must have had a cruel sense of humor.

It gave Ben, Hurley and Locke a glimpse of what they most wanted, then tore it from their grasp.

So why would the island intelligence be so childish, so cruel?

Because it is probably a childlike intelligence. It connected to Ben, Hurley and Locke because it too was an outcast from its own society. It had the same deep, dark emotional issues of Ben, Hurley and Locke. The island could not express or vent its anger so it had to act through visitors and its smoke monsters. The island was the puppeteer who smashed its playthings together to release some of its own repressed abandonment feelings.

The island as a lonely, supernatural child lost in space, trapped in the Earth's gravitational pull, is an intriguing side story. Could it be the last of its kind? Could it have been abandoned by its parents or world much like the origin story of Superman? How could such a being with immense power want to hide in plain sight instead of ruling an entire planet? It may have never been instructed on what to do - - - or it was told about certain rules to follow. Or, worse, it was trapped in island form and unable to make a physical transition to our world. That could be just as frustrating as what was going through the minds of Ben, Hurley and Locke.

And this can explain why many aspects of LOST have a theme of cruelty. Unsupervised children often can be cruel, in their play and their outlook on life. A magnifying glass to burn ants may have been a human curiosity, but an island superbeing doing the same to human adults is another thing.

THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN

I wondered what LOST would have been like if it had been set in a steampunk location rather than a tropical island. Wondering if anyone else had this crazy notion, I web searched lost and steampunk and found reference to a 1995 film called "The City of Lost Children."

Set in surrealist society, a scientist kidnaps children to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process.

What a nice, simple and easily understood premise to the movie. Very unLOST.

But this does follow up nicely on the last post about the island, as a living being, needing younger human blood in order to extend its own life force. What if the island being was needed new human beings brought to it in order to steal their dreams - - - as a means of extending the island's life span?

We know that the island, especially the smoke monster(s), can read people's minds and dreams in order to create the visions the characters had during the show.  And what better source of "dream material" than the mixed up cast of characters that were on the island. You have people who think they are crazy (Hurley) to those who really are crazy (Ben) to emotional newborn mothers (Claire, Rousseau) to freaked out drug addicts (Charlie) to romantic dreamers (Desmond) to hardened nightmares of war veterans (Sayid) to the storytelling con men (Sawyer, Cooper) to the desperate fathers (Michael). The cast has a library full of anxiety, emotions, experiences and personal demons that could keep a dream stealer nourished for years.

Re-worked LOST premise:

Set on an unchartered tropical Pacific island, an alien life force kidnaps human beings to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow its aging process.

MOTHERS AND CHILDREN

One of my main criticisms about character development in the series was the treatment of children, and in some respects, mothers.

Children were used mostly as disposable props, and mothers were insignificant to evil cast-offs.

The first island mother we encounter is actually in the last season: Jacob's mother. She is a shipwreck victim found by Crazy Mother. Crazy Mother earns her title by killing the Roman woman after she gives birth to twins, Jacob and MIB. So, the precedent set is that motherhood on the island is cloaked by homicidal kidnapping by a deranged island guardian.

Crazy Mother further complicates the bonds between mother and child by lying to Jacob and MIB. She tells them they can never leave the island, which puts MIB on the track of rebellion. Rebellious children will get their penance in the series. In MIB's case, death and soul imprisonment in a smoke monster is his punishment for killing the woman who killed his natural mother.

The island's other birthright was Rousseau and her child, Alex. Rousseau's research vessel was shipwrecked on the island. Her crew is killed and turned into zombies by the smoke monster. Rousseau evades the smoke monster and gives birth. However, the Others led by Widmore and Hawking do not like outsiders. Widmore gives young Ben a mission to kill Rousseau and Alex. Having regrets about his own childhood demons (his father cursed him for killing his own mother during childbirth), Ben kidnaps Alex instead - - - treating her like his own daughter. In some ways, Ben continued the tradition of Crazy Mother.

But how did the writers treat Rousseau? She was still shown as a caring and protective mother, at first, but then morphed into a psychotic crazy person obsessed with revenge and loneliness. And when she finally gets reunited with Alex, Rousseau dies. You cannot even say Rousseau's death was to protect her child, because Alex is captured by Widmore's men and quickly executed because Ben did not give himself up. Ben's decision was another black mark against how parenthood was shown in the series.

The relationship between Eloise and Daniel was also messed up. As I have theorized about the sideways world view, Eloise tried to keep everyone in the dark about the island memories in order to keep Daniel from "awakening" and leaving her in their after lives. This mixed-up reasoning was caused by Eloise killing her time traveling son prior to his own birth (which opens a hallway of unexplained paradox doors). In an unexplainable time loop, Eloise forces her son to become an advanced theoretical scientist in order to unlock the unique properties of the island, including its time travel component. We can question Eloise's motivations as being less than motherly since she would have had some understanding that she was going to sacrifice her son in order to allegedly protect the island. There was a strong undercurrent of selfishness that put aside any honor or respect for other people's lives, in order to create some purgatory "loophole" in the sideways world; her perfect marriage and family dream.

Claire's pregnancy and motherhood was also fraught with dark undertones. Claire, as a young woman, did not have the street smarts to keep herself from getting into trouble or realizing that her boyfriend could bolt at the mere thought of responsibility. Likewise, Claire wanted to discard her own responsibility for her child by putting him up for adoption (not in Australia but far, far, far away in America so there would be no chance he'd ever find her.) It seems this selfishness was caused by resentment with her stormy relationship with her own mother, for whom she severely injured in an automobile crash. It is easier to sever the ties that bind than to work out one's family issues.

And when Aaron's adoptive parents change their minds in the sideways world, Claire is in a panic. She is lost and confused because now she is fully accountable for her past actions. She does not want to be a mother. She does not want to become her own mother. In the island realm, Claire turns into Rousseau, a crazed person after her child is taken away from her. Claire turns to the darkness of the island to follow Flocke in the quest to kill off all the candidates. The series shows mother-child separation as the pathway to manic behavior.

And then, the final straw in this murky soup of mother and child relationships is Sun and her daughter. Sun abandons her own child to return to the island not knowing whether Jin is alive or dead. In fact, she saw the freighter blow up with Jin on board. There was no evidence to justify Sun leaving her own child for a wild goose chase to find Jin. And once she finds Jin, she is unbelievably trapped in the sinking submarine, instead of demanding her motherly instincts to protect her child from losing a parent, she allows Jin to stay and die by her side. (Jin as much at fault as well; he decided death was better than being a single parent.) Such an end is baffling contradiction considering Jin and Sun desperately wanted to have a child throughout their marriage - - - and when that miracle happens, they throw away their parentage like table scraps into the garbage. Sun's decisions left her daughter with a life as an orphan which is the most unmotherly thing she could have done.

The only protective mother-child relationship on the island is still mixed-up. The best protective parenting skills shown in the series was flight attendant Cindy's adoption and caring for Emma and Zach. She took them under her wing and protected them from harm. She may have been a Ben operative from the beginning, but she was independent enough to leave the temple with Flocke in order to save the children from certain death. So, the parenting lesson of the show is that strangers make better guardians than natural parents?

NURSERY

Homes and Hues had a recent article on theme baby nurseries.

LOST was featured in the article with this picture:

What every child needs: a Dharma tagged polar bear.

LORD OF THE FLIES

SPOILER ALERT: This post details the William Golding novel, The Lord of the Flies, which was part of the inspiration of the original screenwriter for the series LOST.

There were some clear elements of the novel, The Lord of the Flies, incorporated into Jeffrey Leiber's original LOST script (called Nowhere) and in the original series writer's guide. For those who have forgotten the story from their high school English classes, the story is set on an island where a group children have landed after surviving a plane crash.

In the midst of a raging war, a plane evacuating a group of schoolboys from Britain is shot down over a deserted tropical island. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a conch shell on the beach, and Piggy realizes it could be used as a horn to summon the other boys. Once assembled, the boys set about electing a leader and devising a way to be rescued. They choose Ralph as their leader, and Ralph appoints another boy, Jack, to be in charge of the boys who will hunt food for the entire group.
 

Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, set off on an expedition to explore the island. When they return, Ralph declares that they must light a signal fire to attract the attention of passing ships. The boys succeed in igniting some dead wood by focusing sunlight through the lenses of Piggy’s eyeglasses. However, the boys pay more attention to playing than to monitoring the fire, and the flames quickly engulf the forest. A large swath of dead wood burns out of control, and one of the youngest boys in the group disappears, presumably having burned to death.

At first, the boys enjoy their life without grown-ups and spend much of their time splashing in the water and playing games. Ralph, however, complains that they should be maintaining the signal fire and building huts for shelter. The hunters fail in their attempt to catch a wild pig, but their leader, Jack, becomes increasingly preoccupied with the act of hunting.

When a ship passes by on the horizon one day, Ralph and Piggy notice, to their horror, that the signal fire—which had been the hunters’ responsibility to maintain—has burned out. Furious, Ralph accosts Jack, but the hunter has just returned with his first kill, and all the hunters seem gripped with a strange frenzy, reenacting the chase in a kind of wild dance. Piggy criticizes Jack, who hits Piggy across the face. Ralph blows the conch shell and reprimands the boys in a speech intended to restore order. At the meeting, it quickly becomes clear that some of the boys have started to become afraid.

The littlest boys, known as “littluns,” have been troubled by nightmares from the beginning, and more and more boys now believe that there is some sort of beast or monster lurking on the island. The older boys try to convince the others at the meeting to think rationally, asking where such a monster could possibly hide during the daytime. One of the littluns suggests that it hides in the sea—a proposition that terrifies the entire group.

Not long after the meeting, some military planes engage in a battle high above the island. The boys, asleep below, do not notice the flashing lights and explosions in the clouds. A parachutist drifts to earth on the signal-fire mountain, dead. Sam and Eric, the twins responsible for watching the fire at night, are asleep and do not see the parachutist land. When the twins wake up, they see the enormous silhouette of his parachute and hear the strange flapping noises it makes. Thinking the island beast is at hand, they rush back to the camp in terror and report that the beast has attacked them.

The boys organize a hunting expedition to search for the monster. Jack and Ralph, who are increasingly at odds, travel up the mountain. They see the silhouette of the parachute from a distance and think that it looks like a huge, deformed ape. The group holds a meeting at which Jack and Ralph tell the others of the sighting. Jack says that Ralph is a coward and that he should be removed from office, but the other boys refuse to vote Ralph out of power. Jack angrily runs away down the beach, calling all the hunters to join him. Ralph rallies the remaining boys to build a new signal fire, this time on the beach rather than on the mountain. They obey, but before they have finished the task, most of them have slipped away to join Jack.


Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe of hunters and organizes a hunt and a violent, ritual slaughter of a sow to solemnize the occasion. The hunters then decapitate the sow and place its head on a sharpened stake in the jungle as an offering to the beast. Later, encountering the bloody, fly-covered head, Simon has a terrible vision, during which it seems to him that the head is speaking. The voice, which he imagines as belonging to the Lord of the Flies, says that Simon will never escape him, for he exists within all men. Simon faints. When he wakes up, he goes to the mountain, where he sees the dead parachutist. Understanding then that the beast does not exist externally but rather within each individual boy, Simon travels to the beach to tell the others what he has seen. But the others are in the midst of a chaotic revelry—even Ralph and Piggy have joined Jack’s feast—and when they see Simon’s shadowy figure emerge from the jungle, they fall upon him and kill him with their bare hands and teeth.

The following morning, Ralph and Piggy discuss what they have done. Jack’s hunters attack them and their few followers and steal Piggy’s glasses in the process. Ralph’s group travels to Jack’s stronghold in an attempt to make Jack see reason, but Jack orders Sam and Eric tied up and fights with Ralph. In the ensuing battle, one boy, Roger, rolls a boulder down the mountain, killing Piggy and shattering the conch shell. Ralph barely manages to escape a torrent of spears.

Ralph hides for the rest of the night and the following day, while the others hunt him like an animal. Jack has the other boys ignite the forest in order to smoke Ralph out of his hiding place. Ralph stays in the forest, where he discovers and destroys the sow’s head, but eventually, he is forced out onto the beach, where he knows the other boys will soon arrive to kill him. Ralph collapses in exhaustion, but when he looks up, he sees a British naval officer standing over him. 

The officer’s ship noticed the fire raging in the jungle. The other boys reach the beach and stop in their tracks at the sight of the officer. Amazed at the spectacle of this group of bloodthirsty, savage children, the officer asks Ralph to explain. Ralph is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he is safe but, thinking about what has happened on the island, he begins to weep. The other boys begin to sob as well. The officer turns his back so that the boys may regain their composure.

Many of the key opening elements of the novel are incorporated in the original ideas of LOST: surviving a plane crash, electing a leader, finding food, building shelter, laziness, malaise, fights over what do to, people doing their own thing instead of group needs, and violence.

There are even key aspects or events tied into the LOST mythology: the island monster that terrifies the castaways; the first boar hunt with Locke taking his victory into trying to become the group leader; the inability to fashion a rescue fire; a parachutist landing on the island (or even Henry Gale the balloonist); the power struggles and lack of trust; the missions into the jungle; the breaking apart of the main group into two camps; and betrayals from within the group.

LOST wavered off the Golding story path. Instead of focusing in on the survivors, the LOST writers continually threw non-group characters into the mix to force the action. Instead of the castaways trying to build a new society, it became more of a mixed-message game of follow-the-leader.

There is a similarity between the novel and show. The boys were too young to realize the morality of their actions. Their primal instincts took over any notion of right or wrong. Likewise, in LOST, the characters did not dwell on any moral or ethical aspects of their decision making or actions. At times, the castaways acted more like naive children than grown adults. In the novel, much of the problems were self-created by the children themselves, while in LOST, much of the problems were created by the writers forcing various tangents into the main story line.

The novel concludes with a much more realistic end to the saga than the LOST finale.

MYSTERY OF CINDY

Cindy Chandler was the middle section flight attendant on board Oceanic 815.  She has always been one of the most mysterious background characters of the series.

Her big close up is in the pilot when she is flirting with Jack. During that encounter, she gives him two bottles of clear alcohol (vodka), which Jack puts into his pocket. These bottles would later be used to sterilize Jack's severe laceration wounds to avoid a jungle infection. This is the first tie-back that Cindy is not who she seems.

Her next big event was dealing a drugged out Charlie in the first class lavatory. Charlie was getting his fix when the plane began its turbulence and suddenly broke a part.  Charlie wound up with the middle section survivors, but Cindy, who was within feet of him, wound up in the Tail Section camp.

There are two explanations for this major inconsistency. First, she was thrown clear of the cabin section and wound up on the other side of the island, but this is highly improbable. As strange as it seems, in the Other 48  Days, she appears relatively quickly during the initial beach rescues. Second, if she did land with the other middle section survivors, but she left or was transported to the tail section beach. This is also highly improbable because it took Ben time to send his spies to each camp. Another explanation is that Cindy was an Other planted on the plane so she knew her mission prior to the crash landing on the island.

While with the Tailies, Cindy was one of the women allegedly kidnapped by the Others. There was no apparent reason to take Cindy from the camp, except that she became close to the children, Emma and Zach, the real prizes. From the point of her abduction, she made no moves to leave the Others or seek rescue with her fellow 815 survivors. This leads credence that she was different than the other passengers and crew aboard Flight 815.

If she was a plant on the plane, then that would mean that she had some forecast with future events, i.e. giving Jack the alcohol to treat his wounds, or getting to the Tail Section to secure the children for assimilation into the Others community. This would mean that there was an evil intent behind the plane crash, and that it had some "control" over the life and death of certain passengers and crew members. It would also mean that Desmond's failure to enter the alarm numbers into the Hatch computer did not cause 815 to crash. It was a convenient coincidence that the island used to guilt Desmond into staying on the island in order to use the fail safe key.

One bothersome aspect of Cindy's character was her appearance. On the plane (above) she had short, reddish hair. But during the island time, she quickly is seen with long, black hair. Her hair length would not have grown that much in the time shown on the island. And why would she wear a wig in a hot, tropical climate if she was not hiding from anyone. It was one of these little things that does not make sense either for the character or in the context of the whole story line.

When MIB turns into Flocke and begins to terrorize everyone on the island, Cindy is at the Temple with Zach, Emma and another young boy. When it came to a decision to follow Flocke, Cindy took the children with her and left the Temple. Clearly, she took it upon herself to insure the safety of the children.

Which brings into play a similar parallel in island history. A stranger comes upon two children without parents. This stranger then adopts them as her own. Cindy's behavior after the plane crash mirrors Crazy Mother taking control over Jacob and MIB. In an odd footnote, could Cindy have been Crazy Mother? As a smoke monster, she could travel instanteously about the island, taking whatever shape shifting form she chose to adopt.

During the final episodes treks across the island, and the waiting, we lose track of Cindy and the children. Where did they go? They did not go to the Barracks because they were not seen during Widmore's final confrontation with Ben. They would not have gone back to the Temple, because Cindy would not want to have the children see the deadly carnage left behind by Flocke. She never went to the Hydra Station because everyone on the island, except candidates, were killed off by Widmore's men. So where did Cindy hide? Again, this is like what Crazy Mother did with young Jacob and MIB - - - hiding out in their own camp and telling them not to be involved with the Roman villagers.

One aspect of Cindy we do see is that she appears on the flight that lands at LAX (in the sideways world). But we don't see Zach or Emma. If everyone in the sideways world is dead, when did Cindy die? On the island?

There are some who believe that after Flocke's death, Cindy and the children joined the Island's new protector, Hurley, in living out his new era on the island. Except, we have no evidence of that happening. We only get a vague tip-of-the-cap from Hurley that Ben was a good island second-in-command. If Hurley was in charge of the island, why wouldn't he make sure that Emma and Zach were reunited with their parents in LA? Hurley had a strong bond with his family so why would he doom the children to stay on the island? Unless, of course, he could not change what they had become, i.e. spirits in the after life.

Or is it more reasonable than none of the people left on the island ever left the island. They would have stayed there as the next cycle of guardianship would unfold. Perhaps, Cindy took over for Hurley - - - to train Emma and Zach as the next candidates to take her place. But, that does not answer the real mystery of why the island needs a guardian in the first place.

I think from the circumstances, there is more to Cindy than just being a flight attendant who survived a plane crash. Her ability to stay out of the line of fire was uncanny. Her sudden devotion to the children was overprotective. She never once tried to leave the Others once she was allegedly kidnapped. She knew that following Flocke was the only way the children would survive, but then she took an opportunity to hide them away. Cindy seemed to know a lot more of what the island was and what was happening than the average castaway. But who or what Cindy was will remain a mystery.

YOUTH

I read in a magazine that "the wonder of youth" is a prerequisite for all that is possible in life.

What are the main attributes of youth?

Learning. The absorption of knowledge of one's surroundings begins immediately after birth. The ability to begin to move around in one's environment is the next step. Then the acquisition of knowledge becomes standardized in each person's own culture. Trial and error is acceptable as a child.

Rebellion. Perhaps based on the lack of knowledge of how things really work, youth often rebels against the constraints of their parents or society norms. Many parents wait for their wild children to get their rebellious tendencies out of their system before they leave the nest.

Experimentation. Youth have less inhibitors when it comes to social norms, vices, alcohol, drugs, etc. Some scientifically inclined will just throw things together just to see what happens. Many times, they don't believe things cannot be done.

Dreamers. Youth more often than not have dreams about the paths they want their life to follow. A young child can dream to be a fireman or an astronaut. Through child's play, imagination is developed which later on can be formed into applied knowledge to solve problems.

Fear. Until a child grows up to see the world as it is, he or she can become trapped in the simplest of fears such as the dark, being left alone, etc. There is an emotional development to growing up and experiencing life which parallels the intellectual development in people.

A child can view the wide open world with wonder.

As people grow into adulthood, these attributes are reformed.
Learning becomes adult skill sets for one's employment or profession.
Rebellion becomes the desire to improve oneself's lot in life.
Experimentation gives way to standardized habits and behavior.
Dreams become more nostaglic as a daily routine becomes the norm.
Fear gives way to anxiety and emotional bouts triggered by certain stressful events, such as
marriage, a new job, a death in the family, an accident, or the birth of a child.

In some ways, the main characters in LOST held more true to the attributes of youth than the reformed ways of adulthood. This can reinforce the notion that the characters were actually children in the guise of "acting as adults" in a dream world.

LEVELS OF DEATH

There is still a nagging question about the sideways purgatory stinger. First, it came out of left field and led many viewers to question the first season plane crash as being unsurvivable. Second, it clearly stated that all the characters were in fact dead, but some died long before and others long after Jack did. But Jack realized his death in the church before we saw him actually "die" on the island. Third, the story telling vehicle of flashbacks, flash forwards and leaps in time create an uncertainty of WHEN the characters "died."

If death is the ending, when did the characters actually die?

It is not as simple answer.  For those who steadfastly believe that the characters survived the plane crash, then bear in mind in the scheme of LOST universe, the characters were "alive" in their own perception and interaction with people and objects in the sideways world. It was "real" to them, even though they did not realize it was not the Earth existence we know as life.

As such, there is no prohibition that this perception of a sideways "real" life could extend to the island world, or even to each character's flashback or background events.  In other words, LOST may have been a show about death from the very beginning.

I speculated long ago that deep within the background stories of the main characters, there were chilling life and death moments which we were led to believe each character survived. But what if they did not?

No one knows what happens after death. Many cultures believe a human soul must travel through inter-dimensional portals to find paradise. Some religions believe a soul is judged in hell or the various levels of the underworld before it is cleansed or purged of its sins to be worthy for heaven.

The LOST universe could be a construction of various levels or stages of the after life. If during childhood, the main characters were killed by the accidents or traumatic events in their lives, then those child souls could have been given an opportunity to perceive or "live" a new life in a sideways world like existence. Those could be contained in the recent or adult flashbacks; illusions and dreams of children coming to "life." Once those souls ran their course in their first after life level, they were rounded up and boarded Flight 815 for the next level of spiritual attainment, the island. With themes like sacrifice, trust, redemption and judgment, the island is the ideal place for a religious component or a place where lost souls could get rid of regrets or selfish desires in order to move on to the next level of spiritual existence.

It is probably hard to imagine that the characters who boarded Flight 815 in Sydney were already dead. But it does make sense in reference to the season finale in the church. The characters died at different times in different places and they could not move on without finding each other. The whole series then did not have to follow Earth bound concepts of linear time, physics, time or any form of relativity because it was not of this planet.

Now, the show's creators and writers would dismiss this theory as nonsense because they continue to be adamant that the characters did not die in the plane crash. Again, it may be parsing words, but if they were already "dead" before the plane crash, then it would be true that they would not die in the conventional sense in the plane crash on the island.

For example, Locke's "miracle birth" aftermath was actually the beginning of his soul's first life in the after life. It would have been highly improbable that a premature baby injured in a car collision in rural America in the 1950s would have survived the trauma with limited medical technology. This theory is bolstered by the fact that an immortal, Richard Alpert, visited him in the hospital.

Jacob was then not recruiting human beings but lost souls who were given a second chance to live a normal (abet fantasy) life.

It would also explain why Michael, after he left the island, could not kill himself. Mr. Friendly told him that the island was not through with him; he had work to do. A supernatural place was affecting Michael's suicide attempts; therefore, off-island was also a realm of supernatural actions. They could be classified as one in the same. If the island was a place of death then so to would be the off-island.

And then there is the Aaron problem. How could he be "born" twice? He was "born" just as the series ended in the sideways purgatory where everyone present was already dead (but just not aware of it). Aaron was so born earlier on the island. How could that be when the island did not or could not allow births of babies (if the island is hell or the after life that makes sense: who can bring new human life in the after life that is made up solely of souls). So this gets the trace back to Claire and her auto accident which severely injured and ultimately killed her mother. It could have also killed herself and her baby, leading the moments after the accident her first stage in the after life. Since Aaron was never born, he was always a spirit in the show who would manifest himself when Claire needed him.

This levels of death theory tries to unify the various aspects of a disjointed story line under one single premise: death.

REVIEW: THEORIES PART 4

A lesser known theory about LOST was we could call today "Children at Play."

It is based upon fragmentary observations throughout the series about how children were used and perceived in the story lines. Overall, children were not well received or well established. Which was very odd considering one the key mid-point story lines centered around the infertility problem.

After the plane crash, there are only four new children to the island: Emma and Zach in the tail section group and Walt with unborn Aaron with Claire on the main beach camp. Of these four children, only Walt, the eldest, was called "special." He was the only one allowed to voluntarily leave the island.

Juliet was manipulated, coerced, kidnapped and taken to the island because she was a fertility expert. She had miraculously given her cancer patient sister a chance to conceive and give birth. Ben seemed to be obsessed with this problem, even though Alpert would remark to Locke that this was a waste of time and not part of the Others mission.

 But one of the shortest and most disturbing scenes from the tail section arc was the adult survivors hiding in fear in the brush when a group of ill-clad, bare foot  "Others" walked by who looked like a band of children. This led me to speculate that there actually could be two sets of Others - - - an adult band and a splinter tribe of children. This could be the reason why the adult Others like Ben were obsessed in finding a new source of children.

A band of children roaming the island brings to mind the classic story of The Lord of the Flies. That story has several similar themes to LOST, including power struggles, corruption, greed and the collapse of a loose island society.

But how the adults on the island acted was also very childlike. Locke had the naivety of a small child when he interacted with others in his group. Ben had the petty anger of a school yard bully. The love triangle story between Jack-Kate-Sawyer was very high school soap opera.

By the end of Season 5, we still did not know who were The Others, the original inhabitants of the island. We did not know if they had any real purpose except to kill off strangers on their island. But the Others had two factions: the post-Dharma Ben group who embraced the technology brought to the island, and the Alpert group who lived in nomadic tents in the fields. Again, it appears to be two school clicks.

The question raised is why if children were so important in the mission statement of the Others, why were they treated so badly by the Others. One reason could be that children treat other children badly because of their own immaturity.

Which leads to the premise that despite appearances, the island is made up of children "playing" castaway survivor. The clues are the common behaviors: in-fighting, control, temper, tantrums, and playing games. The original island inhabitants, being children, never wanted any more children to ruin their island. And when they mentally grew into young adults, and their attitude towards their themselves began to change, they were eliminated by rebellious children.

But how can children look like adults? That could be answered by the fact that the island's unique magnetic properties coupled with its time distortions could physically age children into bodies of adults, but their mental intelligence would lag far behind in development. 

One could look at it that Dharma represented the parental figures on the island while the Others were the wild, undisciplined children. Such symbolism would be in step with a major theme of the series: the daddy issues that many of the main characters had in their own backgrounds.

The structure of the series had the feel of kids in the backyard. There was a whole past generation of children who played outdoors instead of becoming video TV couch potatoes. Kids used to play with other kids in games like War, combat, capture the flag, baseball, football  - - -  using both imagination and athletic strength.  The island would be a wonderful playground for imaginative children.

It would explain all the inconsistencies in science and story continuity during the series. Children may have no knowledge how the real world or real science works. But their imagination can conjure up anything to "fix" a situation or opponent like the sonic fence, or the creation of the smoke monster. The island would give the children supernatural abilities to act out their own fantasies as adults. It may be why a few children, like Emma and Zach, did not want to play with the others. There are always wallflowers, loners and quiet children in the background of any group.

So how did all these children arrive at the island? If we look to the final season for a clue, we would find that they were probably kidnapped or captured by the island guardian. And what would happen to lost children over time? Children without guidance will have self-doubts about their worth. They would sting with rejection. They would "fight, destroy and corrupt." And this cycle appeared to last for centuries.

The one thing that this theory has that may help explain the sideways church reunion, where the souls reunited after people died long before and long after Jack, was nostalgia. If life is a full circle, the adult in most people find nostalgic memories of their childhood in their advanced old age. Why these good memories surface in elderly patients is not known. But many adults regret that the vast majority of their lives were spent working hard, problem solving, juggling financial and family issues to the point of simple romantic notion of the freedom and carefree times spent as children with their friends. If the main characters were in fact children, in a fantasy world of their own creation, they possibly could reunite in the after life if those innocent times were the best memories of their lives.

THE GREAT THING

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. — Anatole France

What was the great event, the great accomplishment, that made the end the LOST saga worth while?

In Season 6, the only conclusion presented was the fact that Jacob and his followers defeated the MIB who sought to leave the Island. No one viewing the pilot episode could have imagined that would be the key climatic event that would end the series. For those who believe that the series went back to the beginning to focus in on the main characters to finish their journey, the Jacob-MIB tangent doe nothing to resolve the deep emotional scars, fears, phobias and anti-social behavior deep within the main characters back stories.

To accomplish a "great" thing, one needs:
1. Action
2. A dream
3. A plan
4. A belief.

How does Jack's apparent victory over Flocke meet those requirements?

Jack fought MIB but he had no plan. Jack was a non-believer in faith, fate or spiritual aspects of life. He led his life in reality, in science, through the lens of a highly trained spinal surgeon. He had no use for politics, cliches, focus groups or public relations.

There are several key unanswered or poorly explained elements to the end.

Jacob is immortal. He has lived on the island for a thousand years. He can grant the gift of immortality. MIB calls him the devil. So how can a mere mortal like Ben kill him? And once he is "killed," he still wanders around the island interacting to various people, including the remaining candidates. 

MIB as the smoke monster is also apparently immortal. The smoke monster is depicted on ancient hieroglyphs in the Temple. It is termed a Cerberus, a security system, and pure evil. It can transform its shape to take the appearance of dead people like Locke, with all his faults and memories.

One must make several long assumptions to try to figure out how an immortal being becomes mortal.
The alleged dislodged frozen donkey wheel made the island time skip. It's core life force was in jeopardy. As a result, Jacob could be killed but not at the hands of his "brother," in the form of MIB, but at the hands of a human. The problem with this logic is that Jacob's brother died so the reincarnated smoke monster image of his brother was not bound by Crazy's Mother's rule that Jacob and his brother could not harm each other. Jacob broke that rule already. For that sin, he was left to a lonely existence.

To somehow make MIB into a mortal Flocke, Desmond and Jack had to "reset" the stone cap in the light cave, a place where intense electromagnetic energy would tear a human a part. Now, Desmond allegedly survived the Hatch explosion-implosion to become an electromagneto superhero. But Jack only took a job title of guardian without any special transformation. Again, there are no rules that grant such powers. The "reboot" of the Light Cave source somehow "trapped" MIB in Flocke's body (not Locke's actual human body because those remains were buried; MIB transformed matter to create Flocke). If one can transform matter, why would putting a stone back on a light source change or eliminate that power?

Even if one goes backward from Season 6, this Jacob-brother dynamic goes past the plane crash to the early beginnings of the island itself, even before Jacob and his brother as children came to this place.

This place, the island, is also a debatable unknown. It seems real, with plants, animals, people, machinery, temples, beaches, food, water and human beings. But even vivid dreams can seem absolutely real to the dreamer.

One aspect of the Jacob-MIB relationship was the fact that young Jacob appeared before Flocke during the final back and forth with Widmore's men. Young or ghost Jacob had appeared before in the series, usually warning someone that they could not kill. This young ghost Jacob also appeared at the same time as ghost grown-up Jacob after Ben killed him in the statue. It is odd that dead Jacob would appear at two different ages around the same climatic time.

Or is it?

We have viewed the series through the eyes of adults. We used our personal experience, knowledge, education, research and common sense to try to figure out the island happenings and events. Some of us were disturbed by how TPTB handled and mistreated (or misused) children during the series. But that may be the point. The series would be different if it was viewed through the eyes of a child.

It now occurs to me that the end was an end as the beginning was just that, a new start. The ghost spirits of young Jacob and his young brother never grew up. They stayed children harbored away in a spiritual place we saw as an island. When MIB tells Jacob it is he who "brings" people to the island, it is a metaphor for the imagination of Jacob to create his own "stories" and "adventures" with his mind. The lighthouse is merely a window to the world of the living, just like a television set to a shut-in. There Jacob can spy on actual humans to get a blueprint for how people act, react and behave. There is no moral judgment just observation. That is why there is no moral tone or lesson in LOST. As a lonely unsupervised child spirit, Jacob would have no cause to know the difference between right and wrong.

So a child spirit begins a new adventure story to play against MIB, or his imagined brother. He "brings" people to the island by creating characters and placing them in a situation where they come to the island. Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sawyer, Claire , Charlie, Desmond . . .  they are all figments of Jacob's imagination. The interactive game of characters is just like MIB creates forms out of its matter; Jacob can do the same as he shifted from various states. We have the island more as a holodeck than a real place. We have programmed characters running through story lines created by a child. This is not black or white. It is not a game. It is an adventure like cowboys and Indians, capture the flag, or combat. Children at play. Jacob and his brother at play.

The concept that the entire LOST story is the telling of a tale made up by a child is probably the closest thing we can get to a unified theory. Nothing matters because nothing was real. The characters happy ending was a child's creation for his favorite action figures. They never died because they never lived on the island. It explains why certain family members of the characters who had strong bonds with them were not in the church. It also shows the imprint of loneliness that Jacob had in himself. It is probably Jacob's personality that keeps his brother from leaving the island playground because Jacob does not want to move on. As a child, who did not have a sibling or friend whine that he did not want to play the current game anymore. Kids get bored and want to move on to do something else. Some kids do not, and want to continue playing with or without their friends. In his fantasy world, he is the king and creator. He is the master of his universe. What ever he can imagine, he can make. He lives in the land of illusion with endless adventure stories that he can capture and rerun. 

The great thing Jacob accomplished was to create his own self-sustaining fantasy world.
To accomplish a "great" thing, Jacob needed a plan (the lighthouse to see into the human world to gather observations about people), a belief (that putting various people together in his fantasy world could create vast amounts of entertaining situations and events), action (in the devious plot twists he would throw at his characters) all within the confines of his own child-like dreams.

THE CHILDREN

During the series, I had a long simmering question about the children on the island.

After the crash, there was Walt, who was a main character. He was "special." He had a troubled childhood. He was placed in the hands of a stranger, who was his natural father.

In the rear section, two children survived, Zach and Emma. But they were quickly kidnapped by the others (possibly with the help of Cindy who joined the Others).

During the Tailie story, those survivors were terrorized by the Others. During one trek in the jungle, while hiding in the brush, there was a shot of a group of Others passing by from the knee down - - - it looked like children (there was a teddy bear at the end). I thought at that point there may have been a second "group" of island natives, comprised of children like The Lord of the Flies who split off from the adults. This split could have been the reason why a) the adults could not conceive on the island because the renegade children's wish was to curse them; or b) why the Others kidnapped children.

Once Walt left the island, the story of the island children became a great mystery. What happened to them? Throughout the rest of the show, we don't see any children in the Others camp. Then, in a brief instance during MIB's clash at the Temple, we see Emma and Zach - - - but we also see a third child. It was very brief, but it registered as being out of the ordinary. Who was this other child?

Shaun Twiddy was the young actor playing this character. It is in the episode "Sundown," where Sayid returns to the Temple and publicly announces that Flocke has sent him with a message: that Jacob is dead so none of the Temple dwellers have to stay here anymore and that they are free. He says that Flocke (MIB/Smoke Monster) is leaving the Island forever and that those who want to go with him should join him before sundown and be saved, or stay and die. The ultimatum  seems to upset Cindy, Emma and Zach. Cindy leaves the Temple with Emma and Zach, but we do not see this third child.

Which begs several questions: who was this child? Why did he stay at the Temple to meet his death? Was his parents at the Temple? Or was he another kidnap victim? If so, why did not Cindy protect him like she did for Emma and Zach? And why was MIB so callous and indiscriminate in killing children?

Since this mystery child is still young, maybe around seven (7) years old, he came to the island after Ben's purge of Dharma. But only Jacob allowed people to come to the island (as his candidates). If the purge was the curse of the Others not being able to bear children, then this mystery child is not a native islander. He seems to be Middle Eastern. Could he have been a reincarnated child of Sayid's soul when he died in the Temple waters?

The one conclusion we are left is this mystery child more likely than not would have perished in the Temple massacre. It is another fact in the theme that ran through the entire series: the mistreatment of children.

UNWANTED CHILDREN

One of the issues I had with LOST is how it treated children like Aaron, Emma and Zach. At times, the portrayal of children were mere props. This includes Walt, who was supposed to be a major character into the series until a large growth spurt wrote him out of the series.

But as adults, we did not view the series through the eyes of a child. How one reacts to an entertainment show is based upon one's own life experiences. That is why writers try to use universal themes and events to give commonality to the characters so we can glean familiar traits and conflicts to be resolved in the story.

The show could be viewed now as a series of unwanted children stories.

Locke was probably the earliest example. He was the consequence of a smooth talking con man taking advantage of a naive country girl. After his miraculous birth, his mother refused to hold him. Locke was abandoned by his parents within minutes of being born. That scar was burned deep into Locke. He called his mother "crazy." He did not fit into his foster homes. He had no relationship with his father, until he came back into his life to steal a kidney.  No wonder Locke rebelled against his own nature and authority. He wanted to be in charge of his own life. He wanted to find a normal home life. It is telling that at an early age Locke transposed his feelings into artwork which included a dangerous smoke monster.

Kate also had bad childhood issues. She was raised by an army officer father, Sam Austen, and her mother. But Kate felt deeply betrayed when she found out that the man who raised her was not her "real" father. And once that secret was out, her "real" father  - - - an abusive drunk - - - came back to the house, Kate lashed out. She felt abandoned by the man he thought was her father. She felt abandoned by her mother who took more time and effort to please Wayne than maintain her relationship with Kate. As such, Kate began to act up in order to regain her mother's attention.  As a child,  a store clerk caught Kate and her friend, Tom, stealing a lunchbox from a small convenience store. Jacob intervened and paid for the lunchbox, tapping her nose, and telling her to "be good." Later,  Kate and Tom recorded a message and put it and a toy airplane and a baseball into the lunchbox and buried it under a tree as a time capsule. It is telling that Kate transposed her feelings into becoming a trouble maker to get attention. One way to do so was to runaway from home. Make her mother miss her. The toy airplane became of symbol of Kate's desire to runaway from her parents.

 Jack had different childhood issues. He was raised by an upper middle class professional couple. His father was a brilliant but boastful surgeon. He was never around when Jack was growing up. And when he talked to Jack, it was usually to correct him or knock him down a peg. Jack felt isolated from his parents. And as an only child, he had the desire to succeed in order to re-gain the perceived lost affection from his parents. So he tried very hard to match his father's accomplishments. And when he succeeded and began a successful surgeon, his father did not change. He was still critical of his son. The lack of respect was crippling to Jack's ego.

James Ford a/k/a Sawyer had a traumatic childhood that scarred his psyche. He carried with him the story of how a con man came into his rural town and seduced his mother and stole all his family's money.  He said that the man, Anthony Cooper or "Sawyer," claimed that he loved his mother and promised to take her out of Alabama. Sawyer realized that her mother had betrayed his father. His mother chose a stranger over the family. Sawyer's father found out and became a deranged person.  He shot his wife then turned the gun on himself, while young James hid under the bed and watched. At the funeral, James began a letter to the con man, vowing to find him one day and kill him. Jacob  gave him a pen when his dried out, and he finished the letter, though he promised his uncle that he would not complete it.  In his bitterness and the traumatic emotional scar of a broken family, Sawyer's quest for revenge turned him into the man he hated since he was a boy.

Hurley also had abandonment issues. He was close with his mother and father. Everything seemed to be great. He was helping his dad rebuild a car, when suddenly one day, he left. All he gave him was a candy bar. That candy bar became a crutch to stay off depression. Hurley gained weight, became introverted, and began to fantasize about a better things. Hurley became a loner. As a result, he never thought that he would amount to much. He would go from dead end job to dead end job. Even his closest friend would take off and leave him alone.  He blamed his loneliness on the fact that it must have been his fault that his father left the family. He had to be punished for breaking up the family. And when he suddenly found wealth and the family was reunited, Hurley was ashamed by the superficial love shown by the people around him. He felt that the money was a curse, but he really believed deep down that he was the one that was cursed so that bad things would happen to people close to him.

In these examples, we find small children trying to deal with serious adult issues: abandonment, betrayal, harsh criticism to belittlement, traumatic emotional scars and cursed loneliness. And in these early years, the characters made certain choices that appear to haunt them for the rest of their lives. Locke pushing hard to find a family but as a result pushes away the good people. Kate only knows how to run away from her problems rather than directly dealing with them. Jack gives up all aspects of his life to make sure his father would one day be proud of Jack's accomplishments. Hurley learns to blame himself for the troubles of the people around him. At some early point in time, each of the main characters felt that someone they cared about did not want them.

It is a universal fact that babies and young children cling and bond to their parents. They need the close attachment for nourishment and safety. They get upset if they think a parent is abandoning them ("don't leave me alone!") or not paying attention. They cannot care for themselves. It is the care and affection they receive as a young child which molds how they will grow up.  Kate felt this deep pain of her childhood scars coming to the forefront when she took Aaron home to be raised by her. This was the same lie which she lived in her own childhood. Kate beat herself up so much that her solution was again to run away from the responsibility of caring for Aaron to find Claire in a apparent suicide mission to get back to the island. Kate abandoned Aaron much like her step-father abandoned her.  Kate knew that her actions would cause Aaron deep pain later in life. But her own history repeated itself when she left Aaron.

We saw the main characters as adults with childlike issues. And perhaps, that is how the main characters saw themselves. The characters had similar traits of being sentimental, emotional, bitter and feeling unwanted by their parents. Where do unwanted children wind up? An orphanage.

One small pebble of doubt in a young child's mind can snow ball into a huge emotional problem as an adult. How does a young child perceive his or her being put in an orphanage? A prison to punish them for something they did wrong to break up their family? A place where useless people are thrown away? 

The seeds of the entire LOST island story could have been established in the imaginations of the orphans who dreamed of what their lives would become if they could control them. Each of the children could bring an element to their group storybook tale of woe to the schoolyard: Locke the dangerous island monster; Kate the airplane to run away from their problems; Hurley the curse of crashing the plane; Sawyer the lies that turn matters into life and death actions; and Jack trying to prove that he is worthy of a parent's praise.

What if the basis of LOST is the group imagination of orphans acting out their psychological issues in their own Wizard of Oz fantasy play time. Children have vivid imaginations. They can recreate battles in the back yard; Star Wars space fights in the basement with paper towel tubes as light sabers; they can dream of tropical paradises; they can create monsters in the closet or boogie men under the bed; they can transform themselves into doctors, pilots, hunters, assassins, soldiers, beauty queens, witches and kings, and  all with the lack of moral right or wrong since to them it is all mere "play."

As normal adults, we have forgotten more childhood memories than we realize. It may be the clutter of the modern day multitasking, but at some time in the future the mental clouds will part and those forgotten memories will resurface like they happened just yesterday. An example of this is in elderly patients with various forms of dementia: they may not know the names of their family members, but they can tell vivid stories from the childhood. How or why people suddenly "awaken" or focus in on lost childhood memories is unknown. But that same mystery is apparent in the sideways world when the characters have to remember in order to move on. In LOST, it may have been to remember the fantasy stories of abandoned orphans in order to obtain peace of mind.

THE AARON PROBLEM

If The End had a major flaw, it would have to center upon the awakening of Kate and Claire at the concert. Many in the Lost community called it "The Aaron Problem."

Now, many posters felt that children were treated on the whole badly throughout the Lost series. For example, plane survivors Emma and Zach were kidnapped by the Others and had no resolution of their plight at the end of the series. The whole story arc with Walt being "special" but having no consequence in the show's conclusion has left many viewers with a bad taste.

So, yes, everyone is in agreement that everyone in the church in The End are dead. Dead dead.

But what about Aaron?

The pro-enders believe that the "re-birth" of Aaron in the sideways world was necessary for Claire "to remember" her island life and her bond with now Egyptian eyeliner Charlie Pace. Except, Aaron was already "born" on the island. It makes no sense to have Aaron born in the dead realm to Claire unless:

a) Aaron, like the other children including sideways David (Jack's son) are just mere illusions or props;

b) Aaron was never truly "born" on the island;

c) the sideways world characters are separate entities living in a parallel dimension from that of the island world, meaning that events in one place had no effect on the other; or

d)  it was a major writing error in the finale.

We were told that Aaron was "alive" in Los Angeles, raised by Kate for three years. Then when Kate returned to the island, Aaron was given to his grandmother. So based upon that information, Aaron is no different than anyone else in the church - - - he was already born, living and breathing in the island world. We do not know when he "died" in the island world - - - whether he lived a brief, or a long life; with his own family, friends, children, grandchildren, etc.

But the sideways world pre-supposes the opposite. For if Christian's statement was true, these people were the most important people in their collective lives (including Aaron's) during their time on the island, which lasted initially about 100 days, then time split for three years, to re-converge for approximately 12 days after Ajira 316 landed on the Hydra Island. The 12 days also seems to coincide with the time line for the sideways events. Christian tied both worlds together so there is no evidence of parallel universes. There is no evidence that the sideways world was an "alternative" place in time or space, but merely a holding fantasy, for souls to remember and re-connect to people that allegedly meant the most to them in their previous existence.

In order to reconcile the condition of the island characters to their sideways doppelgangers, in order to be truly consistent and logical, if he truly lived a "real" life,  Aaron should have arrived at the church either as a three year old boy or an old man when his life ended in the non-sideways world. Everyone else in the church had their same island time line appearances.

Many people do not want to hear this explanation: that Aaron was "reincarnated" in the sideways world. If he was reincarnated as a new born in the sideways world, it means he had a horrible, non-existent "real world" life.

But most believe Aaron did have a life before dying. So how can he be in "two" places at once. (The Christian explanation of the sideways world having no time does not hold water if one believes that a person only has one soul, whether it be living or dead.) So if Aaron went through adulthood, his reward for living was becoming a new born infant in purgatory? Again, that makes no sense. And further, why would Aaron return to his mother as an infant, if she returned to him as a crazy person when Ajira left the island? It would seem Aaron's expected life would be just like poor John Locke's.

Then again, one could argue that this part of the sideways fantasy world was Claire's dream to be with Aaron always so she made him return as a fetus - - - but why, if she did leave the island and was reunited with her three year old son and her mother?

And if Aaron was reincarnated at the sideways concert, what about the rest of the characters? They were somehow also reincarnated into the sideways world.  And if the characters were reincarnated in one place (sideways), then it is just as logical that they could have been reincarnated in the other place (the island). Many fans abhor the idea that the characters were somehow "dead" from the beginning of the pilot episode and throughout the series. But why then, are those fans content with the same reasoning fashioned in the sideways world finale?

How Aaron was depicted in the series is a real series paradox.

Was he just a literary prop to add some tangent drama to a secondary character's story as part of a four season filler arc?

From the after life theorists, for Aaron to be "reborn" in the sideways finale, he would have had to have been killed on or before Flight 815 crashed on the island. One life; one soul.

How Aaron was used in the finale is one of massive contradiction. It raised more questions about the disregard of the first five season plot lines in favor of a final half season white wash sideways explanation to the conclude the characters lives. But Aaron's birth to his dead mother has no explanation in either the island or sideways time frames. It is really one of those plot points that still gnaws some viewers. Claire could have "awakened" in another fashion than using Aaron as a prop doll.