TOLD WHAT TO DO

Classic John Locke.

It sums up what he was all about: bitterness.

His anger and disappointment at being treated unfairly with resentment were the key traits of his character.

He was abandoned by his unwed, teen mother.
He was further abandoned by his con artist father.
He was further abandoned by a series of foster parents.

Was this the foundation for a mental condition or just welded into his mind as self-esteem, self-worth and unresolved parental issues.

But bitterness can cause illness.

New research suggests constant bitterness can make a person ill.
 
In the study, Concordia University researchers examined the relationship between failure, bitterness and quality of life.

“Persistent bitterness may result in global feelings of anger and hostility that, when strong enough, could affect a person’s physical health,” said psychologist Dr. Carsten Wrosch.

In his research, Wrosch examines why some people avoid bitterness at different stages of life and why others don’t.

Over the last 15 years, Wrosch has investigated how negative emotions, such as regret or sadness, affect people. Most recently, he has focused his attention on the impact of bitterness.

Feelings of anger and accusation are often found with bitterness.

Unlike regret, which is about self-blame and a case of “woulda, coulda, shoulda,” acrimony points the finger elsewhere — laying the blame for failure on external causes.

“When harbored for a long time,” Wrosch said, “bitterness may forecast patterns of biological dysregulation (a physiological impairment that can affect metabolism, immune response or organ function) and physical disease.”

One expert has proposed that bitterness should be recognized as a mental illness. German psychiatrist Dr. Michael Linden argues that bitterness is actually a medical disorder and should be categorized as post-traumatic embitterment disorder (PTED).

He estimates that between one and two per cent of the population is embittered and by giving the condition a proper name, people with PTED will receive the therapeutic attention they deserve.

While experts continue to review this perspective, Wrosch and Renaud say bitterness can be avoided.
They hold that if people who experience failure can find other ways to fulfill their goals they can avoid being bitter.

If they cannot discover alternatives, then individuals need to disengage from futile efforts (e.g., to get promoted, to save a marriage) and reengage in something that’s equally meaningful (e.g., a new job or passion).

This process is called self-regulation. Researchers state that meaningful activities to disengage and reengage can be necessary for a person to avoid bitter emotions.

“Any effective therapeutic intervention,” said Renaud, “hinges on the affected individual finding ways to self-regulate.”

In some cases, overcoming bitterness demands more than self-regulation. When bitterness arises from blaming other people, then recovery may involve others.

“In order to deal with bitter emotions there may need to be something else required to enable a person to overcome the negative emotion — that something is forgiveness,” said Wrosch.

THE BIG GAME

The Super Bowl ended on a controversial play. The Seahawks were ripped for throwing a slant pass at the one yard line. The Patriots rookie defensive back made a stellar play by reading it, reacting, and intercepting the pass to see New England's victory.

Once a person knows the rules of a game, then that person can create a strategy on how to win the game. One needs a strategy in order to coordinate his moves toward the path of victory.

But if one believes LOST was really a game engine where the main characters were pawns in some elaborate contest, does that hold up to scrutiny like the last Super Bowl play?

There are several possibilities of the game theory of LOST.

First, that LOST was merely the representation of a massive on-line first person adventure game. As such, the characters were not real but avatars on a computer screen. Each character would have had a real live person controlling their movements and actions (which we could assume mirror the players).  The nice aspect of this theory is that the series characters were constantly playing games, some outright and some coy manipulations. There were elements of extreme first person shooter violence. There were some adventure-danger elements like attacks and kidnaps. There were torturous means of finding information to lead characters on quests for answers. The initial premise was that the castaways wanted to find a means of rescue. And like a linear platformer, they had to move along on missions to find the means to get off the island (such as finding the radio tower, or the Hatch).

Second, that LOST was some sort of Westworld live-action danger theme park. In the movie, the mechanical robots go haywire, putting the guests in real danger. Likewise, the island could be considered a theme park that pits various "teams" against each other for the "control" of the island. It is like capture-the-flag with live ammo.

Third, that LOST was really a supernatural game of chess or Senet played by immortals Jacob and MIB. In Greek mythology, the gods would look down upon human beings as inferior play things. The gods would mess with their lives at will. By substituting real human beings for chess pieces, and manipulating their own "free" will into action, Jacob and MIB could have a formed an amusing but cruel chess match filled with chaotic outcomes.  And this could be the reason why Jacob continually brought more humans to their island to play game after game with MIB, who certainly was bored up to the point that the 815ers arrived on the island. A supernatural chess match makes the main characters human, alive but in a different level of existence which looks real, has real outcomes including death.

One of the supposed tenets of the show was that the island "had rules." Widmore and Ben claimed to each other that there was a rule violation (such as the killing of Alex by Widmore). However, technically the non-killing of family members did not apply to Alex, since Ben was not her real father. So when Ben was going to go after Penny, Widmore's daughter, it would have been Ben who was breaking the rules.

But we would later learn that the rules were whatever the island guardian decided them to be. So the rules were no rules. The only clear rule was that Crazy Mother decreed that Jacob and his brother could never kill each other. It was one god scolding and casting a spell on two lesser gods. But what happened? Jacob's brother killed Crazy Mother, and Jacob in turn set off the events to kill his own brother. So that rule was broken. Both Crazy Mother and brother were buried in the caves, with the smoke monster assuming the form of MIB to haunt Jacob for an eternity.

The game theory would work if there was an actual end game. One could still assume that the end game was rescue or leaving the island. Those few people who got on the Ajira plane may have been "the winners" of the game, but really what did they win? A future life of pain in the real world? If the ability to leave the island was a player's victory, then why did the O6 return to the island? Did they get a second life, a second chance to "level up" in strength and importance? No, Jack and Kate were subservient to Sawyer in the Others camp. Sayid was merely a shell crazy man. Sun was lost in another time.

And this is a basic problem with the plot of the show. There was no clear path to a defined conclusion of the island action. The sideways world resolution confused everyone because it marked "death" for every character as the "reward."  When is death the best option for a game player?

THE RULES

The island "rules" were a fast and loose term used by the writers to NOT explain critical points in their story.

The show runners played things fast and loose, hoping that the momentum of the characters’ story arcs and the whole “good vs. evil” showdown would be enough to appease most fans. But the promise of an intellectual drama was what most fans wanted to see.

One explanation of the island mythology has to be centered in "Across the Sea," the Jacob origin story in Season 6. The semi-explaination what the island was – a sort of container for a very important energy that seemingly links this world with worlds beyond... or something else.  There is a view that the unique "energy" is actually a form of light and water, and if that light goes out and the water stops flowing, so the world is basically end.

Everything magical or fantastic about the Island stems from this energy, and many of the technological oddities found on the Island (the Swan Station from Season 2) are a result of the Dharma Initiative trying to harness and control that energy (i.e., man trying to bend magic and mysticism to the will of modern science).

However, there are some things that were definitely left unexplained: Why did the Man In Black become a smoke monster when he was exposed to the light (was it a manifestation of his corrupted soul?); What is the nature of the “rules” that governed certain aspects of the Island – who could come and go, who could kill who, who was healed from injury (Locke, Rose), who lived forever (Richard). How were these rules established and maintained?

We were vaguely told that the island guardian made up his own rules, but what we came away with were a lot of vague pseudo- explanations. But if Jacob's rules controlled the island, he would never die because that was against the rules. And the randomness of who lived and died on the island, who was saved and punished by the smoke monster, also did not fit into any established rules. So why was MIB was obsessed with “finding a loophole” in order to kill Jacob? And since MIB was NOT Jacob's brother, who Crazy Mother said he could not kill, then Jacob could have destroyed the smoke monster long ago. If Jacob would not allow or could not kill the smoke monster/MIB, then how could Jack and Kate do it?  Some say that since Smokey was connected to the energy source, and when Jack had Desmond “turned off” that energy by re-setting the cork, Smokey "lost" his powers and was merely flesh and blood again. Except that does not make any sense. The cork was in the bottle and MIB still had all his powers. When the cork was removed, MIB still had his powers. Since we don't know how MIB was created in the light cave, nothing is canon.


If Jacob's final rule was "if I die, you can die," then that is not a dramatic loophole for the smoke monster. The smoke monster's statement that he wanted "to leave" the island mirrored Jacob's brother's, but since MIB was not human, where could it actually go if it was tied to the light source?


Without rules, one cannot have order. And with LOST's non-rules, the story is tangled in messy inconsistencies and legitimate questions.

THE FRANCHISE PROBLEM

There is a point where a long running franchise writes itself into a corner. At this point, the fans of the series have accepted the canon rules as fact. And such facts, even in science fiction tales, cannot be changed to suit the need for the character story to continue on forever.

This is the problem with Doctor Who, the 50 year old British sci-fi series. Yesterday, the 11th/12th Doctor, Matt Smith, made his farewell appearance as the main character. But under the terms of the Who franchise, a Time Lord can only regenerate 12 times . . . i.e. gather a new life cycle before dying. Under this season's episodes, Smith was actually the 12th Time Lord in his regenerated body . . . meaning that there was only one left, the final Doctor to be played by Peter Capaldi.

Which is the canon that fans know about. It is the Rule from the very beginning.

Things got a little muddled in this Christmas special, The Time of the Doctor, when head writer Steven Moffat crammed so many untied story strings together to make the special. Smith's Doctor, who previously helped stop a universal war by sending his home planet into a different hidden universe of time and space, finds the means to bring back his home planet, but at the cost of restarting the war that will destroy everyone. It is a typical big picture ethical dilemma that the main character has to solve. In this case, he decided to fight his enemies alone on a wayward planet that he knows from seeing his own future where he dies.

In an fuzzy moment, Smith attempts to explain that he should not be able to regenerate again because of the 10th Doctor's aborted regeneration may have used up his final reboot. Smith's character accepts that this is the end, but his companion whispers through a crack in time and space for help to his trapped home world. At the climax, the Time Lords for some unknown way, transmit to the Doctor another dose of life regeneration which he uses to destroy his enemies, save the planet, then make his final farewell.

That is all well and good, except it really unclear what really happened. Buried in the explosions and sentimentality, is a question of how the writer is getting around the most sacred story Rule of the series on how many times a time lord can regenerate. Even the television reviewers are confused at what the explanation was for the regeneration process.  On reviewer stated that  Time Lords granted the Doctor a new regeneration cycle, thereby saving him from death on Trenzalore and changing his future; that temporary rejuvenation is a 'reset' for the new cycle of regenerations to begin and the second phase of the regeneration is taking some time to start up, but he will soon change. However, another reviewer states that the Time Lords granted Smith's character only "one more" regeneration and not a new cycle (which would mean 12 more characters in the future). 

This story confusion is unwarranted and tricky since everyone accepted the fact that Smith's Doctor had one more regeneration to go. The fact that he suddenly needed an "extra" boost does not make sense since the aborted regen did not alter the prior Doctor's appearance (which shows the completion of the cycle). So, everyone assumed that the regeneration to the Capaldi Doctor was a given and no intervention by his home planet was required to accomplish it.

Because, if the one reviewer is correct in the assumption that the Time Lords can grant another full life cycle of 12 regenerations, and hence immortality, then the Rule was frivolous from the start. The need to "change" the rule so dramatically is to extend the franchise's main character is an easy way out, without the creativity to make a "new" doctor profile (i.e. someone to take the place of the Doctor character - - - would not violate the Rule). But executives and producers believe that the viewers are tied to the main character (in all the incarnations it is still the same man), but that is another false assumption, because as we have seen in the Star Trek franchise, fans will accept different captains, different ships, even different eras - - - so long as they do not violate the basic canon rules of the show. To mess with canon rules is to mess up the show's past history - - - to diminish it to irrelevance.

So the series producers need to quickly explain what they meant by Smith's final regeneration. Did it change the normal, steadfast rule which has been in place for 50 years, or was it convenient hocus pocus to extend the franchise's main character?

Fan reaction to the episode and continuity has been mixed, much like LOST's ending.

There is a vocal majority who believe that the show produced a McGuffin to get around the Rules to make the premise that there are no rules in the show's universe. A few have scanned the wiki-archives to find one small reference to the proposition that the Doctor's high council could "grant" an additional cycle of regenerations to a Time Lord. But how is that possible, especially if the high council is trapped in another universe and cannot get out into ours? And it seems odd that a species has the ability to "grant" another sequence of life force on a mere whim. Again, that would mean that no time lord would ever die, but they have in the past so much so that they were about to be wiped out during the Time War. The change in the principle rule of regenerations has taken many fans to questioning the future of the series; whether it has jumped the shark. More than a few have lamented that there should have been a better, more clever story line than just instantaneously but haphazardly giving a character another cycle of regenerations. These are the same criticisms we have been debating since The End finale of LOST.

TIME TRAVEL RULES

The component of time travel in the LOST story line was probably one of the most debated elements to the series. Many considered it a "jump the shark" script moment. Others thought that it could lead to The Answers of the Island's mysteries.

Even though LOST is fictional, writers and physicists have discussed "realistic" attitudes toward the genre of time travel in literature. In any time travel story, one needs a solid starting point to explain the trigger or reason for the time travel. For example, in the novel,  The Time Traveler's Wife, which tells the story of Henry DeTamble, a man with a rare genetic disorder that causes him to skip around in time. Or a widely seen film series, Back to the Future, in which a tricked-out DeLorean must reach 88 mph with a massive jolt of energy to jump into the past.

Physicists have many theories about how time travel should work. In 2009, a Toronto Star article indicated that physicists theorize a way to exploit Einstein's theory of general relativity to come up with "practical" models of time machines. Kip Thorne, in Black Holes & Time Warps, describes how wormholes can be successfully used to travel back in time, while in Time Travel in Einstein's Universe, J. Richard Gott does the same with gargantuan cosmic strings – threadlike concentrations of matter of almost unimaginable density and length – moving at close to the speed of light.

Quality fiction, like science itself,  still needs to abide by a few fundamental ground rules. Time travel needs a foundational base in order to have viewers or reader's to "buy in" to the premise.

Generally speaking, literary guides come up with the following fundamental rules.

1.  We are in only one universe.

Experts point out that there's no evidence to support the notion that parallel universes exist.  More importantly, Einstein's theory of general relativity – the branch of physics that might make time travel possible – doesn't take kindly to the idea. Every solution to Einstein's equations involves just a single universe.

On the flip side, in 1957, physicist Hugh Everett proposed what has become known as the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was one of the great breakthroughs of the 20th century, and it predicted, among much else, that the motions of electrons and other small particles are fundamentally random. Everett, then at the Pentagon, wondered whether the universe wasn't branching off into two nearly identical copies each time one of these random events occurred. Since there are lots of particles in the universe and they move around and interact very quickly, these parallel universes would multiply almost without limit.

The problem with the parallel universe concept in fiction is that the events in the main universe time line become irrelevant or less compelling because it does not matter what action the character does, the parallel universes will balance things out.  Human beings believe that they have one body, one mind, one heart and one soul. We do not have a core belief that we are concurrently "living" in multiple universes.

 2. You cannot go back in time to a time "before" your time machine was created.

In  Einstein's universe, space and time are curved and very closely related to each other. This means that traveling through time would be much like traveling through a tunnel in space – in which case you'd need both an entrance and an exit. As a time traveler, you can't visit an era unless there's already a time machine when you get there – the " an off-ramp" required for any time destination.

This time-machine construction clause is one of the most often overlooked of the rules of time travel. The movie Terminator proposed a single historical line (or loop) with no alternate universes. Machines along the time loop would act like stations on a subway.  The Time Traveler's Wife is more clever as the main character "is the time machine," his time travel is limited because he can't visit any time before he was born.

In time travel fiction, you need some real guideposts or barriers in which the characters must travel in order to make the concept believable to the average reader.

3. The standard paradox: You can't go into the past and kill your own grandfather

If one goes back into time and kills a grandparent or parent, then the normal time line would be altered so you would not have been born, which means you couldn't have killed your grandfather, which (logically) means that you will be born. This "grandfather paradox" is hard to resolve.

In 1985,  Igor Novikov of the University of Moscow used quantum mechanical arguments to develop what has become known as the "self-consistency theorem." Quantum randomness must obey well-established laws, and Novikov showed that the probability of producing a different future with a time machine was zero. The theory is that you might "try" to alter past events, but time itself will not allow you to change any history. All of your attempts would be thwarted by the rules of the universe. You would be the coyote to the road runner.

If you can never change history, this would mean that choices in the present set in concrete that could never be changed.  Concurrently, one could argue that time travel itself would do nothing to change the future because the past is irrevocable. Nothing you would do in the past would be applicable when you returned to the present since the past had not changed. If you use the wisdom, knowledge or events of the past to make current decisions, one could also say that choice was influenced by the experience or still random causation which may or may not have happened anyway.

4. There are limits to a person's free will.

If one cannot change the past, the same would seem to be true in time travel to the future. This would mean that the time history line is already be written - - - fate, predetermined by the universe, and not by any human decision. Future events are predetermined in the single universe theory.

People must succumb to their destiny even if  you don't know what the future will bring; it certainly seems like you've got free choice in your life actions.  But if you traveled in time to see the future, the time traveler has already seen what his destiny is, then the future is already written.  The future is then locked in stone. Making that self-consistent future play out is one of the great challenges of time-travel fiction. 

Theorists compare this to the grandfather paradox. The pool ball example is cited as a paradox. If you shoot a pool ball into a time machine and it returns just a moment before you make the shot, it would block your original shot thereby preventing the original action (shot) from entering the time machine in the first place. But since the ball made it to the time machine means that it will return without interrupting the shot (such as coming back at a slightly different angle.) As a result, pool balls are forced to succumb to their destiny, so can people. Time travelers may have a feeling of free choice where none really exists.

It seems that LOST broke all four of these fundamental time travel rules. LOST showed us a parallel or alternative sideways universe. There was no explanation of when the island time machine was created when our Losties began to time skip from the 1950s to the 1970s back to the present. The frozen donkey wheel was thought to have been the mechanism to "hide" the island or move it in space, but not necessarily in time. The wheel being stuck (causing the skips) would mean that Locke may not have been able to get back down the well to a relevant time period (because he was alternatively skipping) that would allow time to return to normal. This time skip only affected a few but not all of the people alive in the same place as the time travelers. The time travelers went back in time before they were born. Daniel was killed by his mother which should have been a paradox where Daniel would have never been born or arrived on the island. And the concept of free will is nullified in time travel to the future since things are set in stone. None of the time travelers can change their fate. There was no free will vs. faith choice. The events in flashback 1974 could not have influenced or changed the island present. But it seemed it did.

And that is the problem with the LOST time travel arc. It is a mess. If you are going to promulgate a non-standard time travel theory, you need to clearly explain its rules so it makes some logical sense.  You can have a series that breaks or changes these rules. For example, Doctor Who proposes multiple independent universes. The Doctor's machine, TARDIS, can displace time and space. He can influence and change outcomes of events  both past and future (so it seems) but there are certain "fixed" points in time that even he cannot alter. But the key piece of the story is that the Doctor has special wisdom of a Time Lord who is the master, guardian, gatekeeper and overlord to the time continuum. That gives that series the mythological structure to fly off on acceptable time adventures.

LOST's time travel arc was disappointing on all levels. It did not take into consideration standard time travel methodology. It failed to explain how it worked. It made huge inconsistencies in how it affected individual time travelers and the people around them in an illogical fashion. And worst of all, the time travel story line had no impact on the ending.

MEET KEVIN, DISSECT KEVIN'S STORY

"Meet Kevin Johnson" was one of those strange episodes that started a twisted plot arc but turned into a braided contextual nightmare.

The character of Michael started off as a man dispossessed of his new born son. It was a contrast to the other characters "daddy issues" when in fact Michael at least tried to have a relationship with Walt, but his mother and her career separated any normal family setting. As a failed artist and kicking around from job to job, Michael could not stand in the (economic) way for Walt to have a better life. It is clear that Walt resented the fact he grew up without his "real" father. But Walt never understood that it was his mother who pushed them away. It is also clear that Michael "regretted" that he gave up with parental rights to Walt.

Walt grew up moving from country to country. It appears he did not make friends. When his mother died, his adoptive father abandoned him (which legally and morally he could not do) back to Michael, who assumed the responsibility to take care of his son, though he had no legal or moral obligation to do so. This sets up the odd relationship for Walt: two fathers, two prior abandonments, and an uncertain future.

So when Michael is bringing Walt back the the United States, both are on edge. Both do not how to communicate with each other because they were strangers. So what better "bonding" experience than surviving a plane crash and camping on an island with deadly smoke monsters and murderous Others?

Michael's overriding obsession is to get off the island and rescue his son. He does it by building a raft, but that leads to Walt being captured by the Others. He does it by making a deal with the Others to get Ben out of the Hatch prison in exchange for safe passage off the island. In executing the deal, Michael kills Ana Lucia and Libby. When he arranges for a posse to get their "killer" and to save Walt, Michael betrays his own people (Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley) and gives them up to the Others.  At the dock, Michael is rewarded with a boat and passage off the island. To the stunned silence of the 815ers, Michael receives instructions from Ben to take the boat and follow a bearing of 325, so both he and his son can find rescue. They leave the island and their "friends" at the hands of a recently tortured Ben and his group.

The structure of Michael's sub-plot story followed the traditional literary paths. There was a beginning, conflict, a middle, a reunion, then heartbreak tearing a part, then a dangerous climax to the resolution Michael had hoped for - - - getting off the island with his son. Michael's story and role in LOST should have ended there, in Season 4. His character did change: from anguished father letting go of his son to a murderous protector of his son against adverse odds. In Michael's mind, the ends justified the means, which was standard operating procedure for many of the Island's characters. People may not like what Michael did, but there was some logical basis for his actions.

The end of Michael's island time did give us a few key points. First, apparently Ben is a man of his word. Since Mrs. Klugh made a deal with Michael, he would honor it. (Or would he?) Second, despite Desmond's claim that the Island was in "a bloody snow globe" and there was no way back to civilization, Ben told Michael to use bearing 325 to get home. Third, there is a foreshadowing of the importance of "lists," especially in the realm of Jacob's candidates. The four 815ers brought to the dock as payment for Walt were all candidates. It is unclear whether Ben ever knew who were candidates or what Jacob's grand plan for everyone, but it could be that Ben took his captives to "test them" on behalf of either Jacob or MIB. Could they be corrupted?

So the end of Michael's island story end gave us several important clues into the Island, the ability to leave the island, and the militaristic honor among the Others.

But then the reincorporation of Michael into the series led to major story structural problems.

One could understand Walt's rejection of Michael once Walt was told the cost of their freedom (two lives and four friends being held captive). But it does not explain Michael's need to return to the Island.

Once rejected by Walt, Michael goes on a downward spiral (much like Jack would do when he leaved the island with the O6). He is distraught and cannot live with the fact he killed two women. He is now estranged from Walt because of those actions. He writes a note to Walt, gets into his car, and at very high speed crashes into a shipping container. Instead of dying, he wakes in the hospital only to find that his nurse is dead Libby. He screams, and then truly awakens but refuses to answer anyone's question of what happened to him. After his release, Michael trades Jin's watch for a hand gun. He goes into an alley to shoot himself, but is interrupted by Mr. Friendly. Michael demands that Mr. Friendly, Tom, shoot him. But Tom replies "the island is not done" with Michael. Tom says Michael "still has work to do" (which is the same line Tall Walt gives a shot Locke when he is lying in the purge mass grave). A short time later, Michael tries to commit suicide in his apartment but the gun does not work. We are lead to believe that it is the Island intervention. Then Michael sees a news report that the remains of Flight 815 was found with confirmation that all 324 passengers and crew had perished in the crash.

Michael goes to see Tom. Tom explains to Michael that the television report was wrong. Widmore had created a fake crash site in order to keep the island to himself. Michael demands proof, and Tom calmy shows him files of exhumed graves, plane receipts and official looking documentation (which has the eerie vibe of a Sawyer con job). Michael is told that Widmore's plan is to send a force to the island and kill everyone on it.

Tom gives Michael an offer. He can get on the freighter as a crew member and stop Widmore from killing everyone on the island. Michael asks why he should do it, and Tom reminds him that this would be a chance to redeem himself for the actions he took on the island. Tom says that Michael will not return to the island, but destroy the freighter and everyone on board. He is handed a passport and an alias, Kevin Johnson.

In this set-up, we are led to believe many improbable and impossible factors. First, that Ben and the Others kept minute tabs on Michael after he left the island. There was no reason to do so. Michael was never going back to the island, or disclose its location because that would admit his guilt in two murders. If Ben thought Michael was a threat, then he should have let Michael commit suicide. Problem solved. Second, that the Island is a supernatural power that intervenes to stop Michael's numerous suicide attempts. How? Why? So in Season 4, the TPTB basically tells us that the Island and its premise was just one big McGuffin? Third, how gullible are Michael and the viewers to believe that a detailed oriented man like Widmore who could fake a plane crash would not check every crew member on his freighter's mission to seize the Island? It is not credible that Ben could "sneak" his own agent on board Widmore's freighter. Fourth, we were told that no one could find the island so why would Michael believe the freighter could? Also, there were more "loyal" soldiers in the Others camp to be the saboteur than Michael.

Once on the boat, Michael realizes that Widmore's crew is filled with soldiers who plan on killing the island inhabitants. This is not a rescue mission as helicopter pilot Frank told him. Back in his room, Michael opens his crate and finds a case in it. He takes the case to the engine room and finds a bomb inside. Michael inputs the combination for the bomb, but hesitates to push the EXECUTE button to set off the bomb. Suddenly, he hears the same Mama Cass song he was listening to in the car when he tried to commit suicide. He sees another vision of Libby who tells him not to do it, and then disappears. Michael says, "I love you, Walt" and pushes the button. The bomb's 15-second timer expires, but the bomb doesn't explode. Instead, a flag pops up with a note around it which reads "NOT YET."

This scene adds another thick layer of disbelief. It should never matter where the freighter exploded so long as it never reaches the island. The non-explosion was a mean trick on the viewers to add suspense then not deliver (in the hope of adding more filler).  The scene also adds to the growing visions of dead people within the series. It strengthens the evidence that the characters are not in the real world but in supernatural place where dead souls reside and interact.

We are then included into another layer of a con. When Michael is taken to the radio room to take a call from "Walt," Michael rushes in to speak to his son (even though we know Walt has no idea where Michael is or how to contact him). For some reason, Michael thinks Walt is on the line. Ben informs Michael there are innocent people on the freighter, and that the plan was never to kill them all, because Ben isn't "that kind of person." He says he gave the fake bomb to Michael to show that unlike Widmore, he does not want to kill innocents. Ben then orders Michael to get him a list of everyone on board, report the list back to him, and then disable both the radio and engine so that the ship cannot get to the Island. Michael is obviously shaken up, but Ben tells him that he can now consider himself "one of the good guys."


We know Ben is a master liar and manipulator. We can tell that Ben is using Michael to do his dirty work. But if Ben truly wanted no one to reach the island, then he should have given Michael those instructions to disable the freighter from the beginning instead of the fake bomb. And the need for a freighter list seems to be an excessive-compulsive waste of time. It gets further unnecessarily complicated when the helicopter lands on the island, and Desmond and Sayid go to the freighter. In the simple scheme of not allowing anyone on or off the island, Ben has made a huge mess of it. Unless, Ben himself is being manipulated by Jacob who really wants to bring new people to the island for his game with MIB. (Which would make some sense since we were told ONLY Jacob had the power to bring people to the island.)

Later, Sayid and Desmond find Michael in the engine room and confront him about why he is on the boat. Michael tells his story about being Ben's "man on the boat." When he learns Michael is working for Ben. Sayid grabs Michael and drags him into Captain Gault's room, revealing Michael's true identity as the saboteur, a spy, a traitor, and a survivor of Oceanic 815. This action pushes two sets of dangerous dominoes into motion. It disrupts Ben's plan to thwart Widmore's forces from getting to the island. It also sets into motion the safe passage of the soldiers to the island to confront Ben.

Ben has to give up his secrecy when his plan begins to fall a part. Locke takes a leadership role.
Locke holds a meeting with everyone at the Barracks to share information. Miles confirms the people from the freighter are after Ben. Sawyer suggests they just turn Ben over to the freighter people. Ben says the orders of the freighter people are to capture him, then kill everyone else on the Island; Miles does not deny it.

Ben persuades Alex to go to a location he calls "the Temple" with Karl and Danielle, and tells her the rest of the Others are already there. He provides them with a map. Ben tells Alex she is in danger because the people who are coming to the Island will use her to get to him. He assures her that her mother will protect them. He is dead wrong.

Some time into their journey, Danielle, Alex, and Karl take a break. Sudden gunfire erupts from the jungle and Karl is shot in the chest. Danielle and Alex hide behind a tree and quickly decide they need to make a run for it. They get to their feet, but Danielle is immediately hit by gunfire and falls to the ground. Alex stands up, puts her hands in the air and yells, "I'm Ben's daughter!"


This episode is one where everything goes wrong from its stated purpose. Michael's voyage of redemption has turned into a savage murderous spectacle. Michael's failure to stop the freighter (which was part of Ben's disjointed plan) caused the deaths of many more innocent people. The fate of the innocent were sealed when Sayid betrayed Michael like Michael had done to the 815ers. Michael was played for the fool by everyone.


From a failed artist, to construction worker, then to sailboat builder, to freighter engine expert to finally alleged bomb detention specialist, Michael's skill set continued to grow beyond belief when the story line needed some authoritative explanation. The more grand Michael's expertise grew in the series, the more the show stumbled toward pure fantasy over even science fiction. Especially in the end, when ghost Christian, speaking as the Island, allows Michael to end his life by allowing the jury and scientifically inaccurate bomb device, to blow up the freighter.

The last thing Kevin Johnson gave the story was the ghost meeting with Hurley near the end of the series. Michael tells Hurley that he is a whisper, a ghost, trapped on the island. Michael accepts his fate to be trapped as a lost soul on the island. However, this conclusion runs contrary to what happens to Ben. Ben did more heinous things on and off the island than Michael did, yet Ben was "rewarded" by continuing to live on the island and then later going to the sideways world to being his after life.


It is one of the great problems with LOST. It set forth canon about "rules," but never explained them or even followed them consistently from character to character. The uneven application of the rules weakens the story foundation for the series. Why would Michael have to remain a ghost on the island for eternity while Ben and other evil people get a second, third or fourth chance at redemption?


The idea that Michael was not "ready" to move on is also suspect because Ben himself states the same thing Hurley outside the church. The concept that Michael needed to re-connect in his own sideways world with Walt also has no basis because Michael was not a part of the sideways world. We are not shown any tangible proof that Michael had the  ability to create  his own purgatory realm. He may never had a chance because Hurley was going to shut down the island operations. Just as Walt was abandoned by his fathers, Michael's character was abandoned by the writers. And Michael was not alone in the inconsistent treatment and altered resolutions of many characters.

REBOOT: EPISODES 109-112

POSTING NOTE: Due to work changes, I may not be able to post updates on Tuesdays after Monday night marathon G4 reruns, but updates will occur later in the week.


LOST REBOOT 
Recap: Episodes 109-112 (Days ????- - ????)

Dogen asks Sayid to make a decision, while Locke sends Claire to give the temple inhabitants a warning.

Sayid is faced with a difficult decision at the Temple when he meets Flocke, then MIB plays out his plan with help from Sayid and Claire.

Ben deals with Ilana’s consequences for an uncovered lie, about killing Jacob. Jack and Hurley follow Alpert to the Black Rock where Alpert asks them to help him kill himself.

Flocke takes Sawyer on a mission to investigate the plane on the Hydra island; and walks into the remains of the ambush of the survivors.

Richard Alpert’s back story is revealed, including how he changed his island allegiance before having an unexpected meeting.

Science:

Modern science still cannot fully explain life and death. We know it is a cycle. We have the knowledge of what begins life and what ends life. But we do not truly know what happens after death except for circumstantial evidence from “near death” experiences of patients or accident victims.

Life is defined as the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.

In religion, life is any of a number of successive existences in which a soul is held to be reincarnated (as in Hinduism and some other religious traditions). Most religions have a concept of life after death, which means part of the intangible human spirit or soul journeys to another life in the heavens.

The cycle of life is the foundation for all human culture. The phrase “bring (or come ) to life” means to regain or cause to regain consciousness or return as if from death. The phrase “a matter of life and death” means a matter of vital importance. The search for the scientific answers to the questions of life and death have led to advances in medical science, human behavior and the quest for immortality.


Clues:

Dogen unearths a carved box from a plant pot which he cleans and opens, revealing a ceremonial  dagger. He explains to Sayid that Claire is a confused girl under the influence of an angry man, that this man has been trapped for years but is free now that Jacob is gone and that he will not stop until he has destroyed every living thing on the Island. He says that the man is "evil incarnate." Dogen gives Sayid the dagger warning him that this person is going to appear to him under the guise of someone Sayid knows and who died and that Sayid should stab him in the chest before giving him any chance to talk. As Sayid wonders why should he do all that for Dogen, Dogen tells him that it's his chance to prove that he is a "good person."

MIB gives newly arrived 1867 Alpert a dagger to kill The Devil, Jacob. MIB tells Alpert that he cannot allow him to speak. But Jacob attacks Alpert first, taking away the knife. Alpert tells him that this place is the devil, he has seen his dead wife, but Jacob says that was not her. It was an illusion cast by MIB after scanning Alpert in the ship hold as the smoke monster. Jacob attempts to “drown” Alpert to prove that he is alive. Jacob tells him he cannot bring back his wife, or absolve his sin of murder, but he can grant immortality with his touch.

Jacob explains to Alpert that he brought him to the island to prove MIB wrong. MIB believes that all humans are corrupt by their very nature. Jacob brings people to prove him “wrong.” Jacob tells Alpert that the wine in the bottle is not hell (per se), it is called many names not malfeasance, evil, darkness. The island is the cork that does not allow the evil to spread. However, this analogy confirms that the underside of the cork where the human souls are brought is hell.

Sayid was dead for two hours. Then came back to life. Is this because Sayid is one of the remaining “candidates?” Or was he possessed by the smoke monster? Dogen said the tests were to balance good and evil in a person, and Sayid failed the test. When Sayid goes to stab Flocke, is Sayid also a smoke monster?

Dogen classifies Flocke as the “evil incarnate.”  It means an evil deity or spirit embodied in flesh; in human form. But when the dagger is pulled from Flocke’s chest, there is no blood.

Sayid could never kill Flocke with a dagger; it is inferred that Dogen sent Sayid out to stab Flocke so in rage Sayid would be killed by the monster, thus destroying the darkness (evil) inside him.  But Sayid turns pure evil after killing Dogen and Lennon in the temple spring.

Sayid could not kill Flocke because Sayid was “infected” by the darkness, i.e. he was one of Flocke’s game pieces now and like colored pawns cannot capture (kill) their leader.

When the remaining Templetons leave with Flocke after the temple massacre by the smoke monster, Flocke gives Claire a knowing nod which she returns (possibly meaning that Claire killed Kate in the temple pit), but then Flocke gives Kate an odd look. Since she is traveling with Flocke’s group, is it possible that MIB believes that Kate is now infected with darkness like Claire? But later on, Claire attempts to kill Kate while Sayid watches in a trance. Flocke intervenes to save Kate from the attack. Kate is sobbing in a grove apart from the others. Flocke joins her and apologizes to Kate for Claire's attack, saying he has to take responsibility for Claire's behavior because he told Claire that the Others had her baby. Kate asks why he would say that and he tells her that Claire was devastated without Aaron, so he gave her something “to hate” in order to keep her going. He goes on to say that hearing the truth from Kate caused Claire to release all of the anger she had been holding on to for so long. Kate replies that his explanation is very insightful considering that he's a dead man. Flocke does not consider himself to be a dead man. He believes Jacob has stolen his humanity.
He claims he will protect her and the others. Key point: Flocke believes Kate is one of his followers now (and as a former candidate, she cannot kill the leader.)

“Sundown” reflects the passage of the Egyptian Day, which the good god, Ra, disappears and must make his dangerous way through the Night (underworld) of his evil brother, Seth, and his powers. The temple massacre in the sanctuary of the temple happens at night because it is protected during the day.

Hurley reveals that Jacob had implied to him earlier that it was unsafe to go to the Temple. Richard is surprised by this and says that whatever Jacob said should not be believed. Richard heads for the wreck, saying that there's something he needs to do: die. Richard leads them through the jungle, and Hurley asks him how it is possible that Richard looks the same as he did 30 years ago. Richard says it is not easy to explain, but that Jacob gave him a gift. Richard admits he lied about going to the Temple because everyone at the Temple is dead, but maybe their friends made it out alive. Alpert’s lie was in self-interest because he needs Jack or Hurley to kill him.

Inside the hull, Alpert informs Jack that this is the first time he has come back to the ship in all the long time he has been on the Island. Richard opens a box of dynamite sticks and fuse wire, and Hurley tells him it is unsafe and the dynamite is unstable. Richard states that he can't kill himself, even though he wants to (he demonstrates this by throwing a stick of dynamite across the room, which does not explode), which is why he wants Hurley or Jack to do it for him. Richard explains that Jacob touched him, which is thought to be a gift, but it is actually a curse. He says that he has devoted his life to Jacob, who claimed that everything was happening for a reason, that he had a plan, and that he would share the plan with Richard when the time was right. Richard reveals that, now that Jacob is dead, he believes that his entire life has had no purpose. He asks Jack to light a stick of dynamite for him, pointing out that he made the fuse long enough to give Jack time to get out. Jack immediately lights the fuse and sits down with Richard. Hurley is uncomfortable and decides to go, but Jack is calm and says he has to talk to Richard. The fuse on the dynamite goes out before it reaches the stick. It means the island would not kill Alpert or Jack. Jack now believes he has some sort of island destiny.

The series confirms a series of “hard bargains.” Both Jacob and MIB make “deals” with human souls for their service, their game. Alpert believes Jacob to be a liar and fraud; his gift of immortality served no purpose. Sayid tells Flocke that the only thing he loved died in his arms. MIB states that he could grant that wish if Sayid would follow him. Dogen previously told Sayid that he made a bargain with Jacob to save his son from Dogen’s drunken car accident. In order to save his son, Dogen could never see him again. (Does this mean his son died and went to heaven, and Dogen was sent to hell to serve Jacob?) Flocke tells his followers that he will get them all off the island if they do what he tells them to do.

Flocke  is annoyed at Sawyer’s interruption of his speech with his new followers (the remnants of the Others from the Temple) and suggests that they talk in private. Once aside, an angry MIB tells Sawyer that he wishes he hadn't interrupted him. Sawyer sarcastically apologizes and asks how "Locke" knew to rescue people from "that smoke thing." The Man in Black says he is the smoke thing. Sawyer is incredulous that all those people were killed and asks why. The MIB replies that he gave them the opportunity to leave peacefully, but they didn't take it. He explains that those people believed they were protecting the Island from him, whereas all he wants to do is leave. He says that it is either "kill or be killed," and he doesn't want to be killed.

MIB tells Kate that he is not a dead man. He says that he knows what Kate is feeling because his mother was crazy. He says that a long time ago, before he looked like he does now, he had a mother who was very disturbed and as a result of that he had some "growing pains," problems that he is still trying to work his way through and that he could have avoided had things been different. (This relates to Crazy Mother killing the Romans who were trying to leave the island with MIB; in anger, MIB killed his mother which resulted in Jacob killing him - - - and throwing him into the light cave to emerge as a smoke monster). Kate asks him why he told her this story and the MIB replies, "Because now Aaron has a crazy mother too."

When Alpert leaves the beach camp, he begs out loud to accept MIB’s offer. His ghost wife speaks to Hurley, who follows Alpert to the jungle bench. Alpert talks to his dead wife in Hurley’s presence, but in the distance after she is gone, we see Flocke with a slight grimace on his face. It is unclear whether Isabella as a ghost is a trapped soul on the island in her own form, or a manifestation of the smoke monster (MIB or possibly even Jacob). But it does give Flocke another follower.

Discussion:

“ A thousand may fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it will not come nigh thee. ”
— Psalm 91:7

“ Whenever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps, and whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues. ”
— Bhagavad Gita

In this story arc, there are numerous, clear references by the characters that the island is Hell. If the Richard back story was put into the beginning of the series, so many viewers would not have been mislead by The End.

After the shipwreck, the survivors are killed by the mechanical clicking smoke monster. We hear a low guttural moan like a bass horn after the rampage. The sound is like a release. Next, the smoke monster returns and “scans” Alpert. Later, to  Richard's astonishment, he is roused by his “dead wife.”  She tells Richard that they are both dead and that they are in Hell. She says she looked the Devil in the eye and saw only evil, asking if Richard saw it too. Richard says that he thinks he did, and Isabella says she will free him before the Devil returns. As she unsuccessfully tries to free him the sounds and shadows of the Monster are heard and seen above deck. Richard pleads with Isabella to leave him and escape while she can. As soon as she has left, Richard hears the sounds of her screaming, accompanied by crashes and the Monster's exiting call. Richard is devastated.

Some time later,  MIB comes to Richard, gives him water and says he is “a friend.”  He confirms Richard's assertion that they are in Hell, and when Richard realizes he was not on the ship, MIB discloses he has been on the Island a long time. Richard asks about Isabella and explains what happened and the MIB says that "he has her,” implying that she was captured by the Devil (Jacob). Richard begs to be freed so he can save her and MIB says he will help, as he also wants to be free. MIB has keys he obtained from the dead officers but makes Richard promise to do anything that he asks before he frees him (“a hard bargain”). MIB unlocks the chains and when Richard thanks him MIB says, "It's good to see you out of those chains." MIB carries Richard out of the ship hold as he explains that the only way to escape from Hell is to kill the Devil.

Richard eats a boar roasted on a spit by MIB. Alpert is directed to the statue, now broken into pieces after the collision with the Black Rock. This is where he will find the Devil. MIB gives him an ornate dagger, warning Richard that he has but one chance to stab the Devil, and that he must not hesitate or let him speak because he is “very persuasive.”  Richard wonders how he can kill the Devil if he is black smoke but the Man in Black admits that he, himself, is the black smoke. He claims that the Devil betrayed him and stole his body and his humanity. He explains that Isabella was not running from the black smoke but from the Devil. (This infers that both Jacob and MIB are smoke monsters; and in the scene we see a slight glimpse of the smoke and part of Isabella leaving the hold). He adds that he saw the Devil take Isabella but couldn't stop him. He deflects questions about murdering the ship's officers and requesting Richard commit murder, saying that if Richard wants to see his wife again he must hurry up. But Richard’s mission is a failure. As a result, Jacob gives him immortality in exchange for working as his representative on the island, to intervene and guide human souls during MIB-Jacob’s humanity experiment.

One of the differences in the grand back story of the island is that Jacob comes to an injured Ilana in a hospital bed, and asks her to “guard” the “six” remaining candidates. Now, this appears to be a request given “before” Jacob’s death since Ilana was on Ajira plane with her crew. But with the lighthouse and its 360 names mostly crossed off except for the six 815 survivors (five if you scratch off dead Locke as MIB did in the cave), it may mean that “the game” is running out of pieces. That is why there is more action and interaction between Jacob and MIB: time is literally running out.
Jacob “brings” people to the island - - - MIB helps “corrupt” them to prove a point: that human beings are not worthy of something (immortality? guardians of the universe? heaven?) But considering the long time frame of island visitors, Jacob and MIB have to have been at least equal in power and strength when they were adopted by Crazy Mother, and MIB slightly weakened by the loss of his “body.” But the Egyptian mural depicting the smoke monster and Anubis pre-dates Jacob and MIB coming to the island, so it is possible that both Jacob and MIB are immortal smoke monsters who were given their powers (and rules) from their Crazy Mother.

Are these truly "The Rules?"

Each man has a special dagger in which can kill the other. But the assailant must not talk or listen to the intended victim or the killing spell is released.

Candidates cannot kill themselves.

Being touched is not a gift, but a curse to remain forever on the island, trapped by Jacob.

Once Jacob is killed, MIB turns into a mortal form when not the smoke monster.

Once Jacob is killed, MIB can leave the island if he is accompanied by another candidate who is his follower.

Jacob is in control of everything; he was the leader of both Dharma (Horace) and the Others (Alpert) before and after the purge. He can only bring people to the island. Apparently, Jacob can leave to recruit new candidates, but MIB cannot. MIB can only recruit or “corrupt” candidates by infecting them with “darkness,” akin to an infection which takes over the person’s soul when it reaches his heart.

What is the end game? Jacob’s death which releases his hold on MIB’s soul so he can “go home” which would be heaven, as the island is his Hell and Jacob is his Devil.

Sacred ash is a barrier for MIB/smoke monster’s movements. He cannot cross it.
Jacob’s touch can give a person’s soul immortality or the appearance of immortality in the island realm.

Creation mythology:

Crazy Mother kidnaps Jacob and MIB and raises them as her own. She sets the rules. The children cannot harm each other.

MIB grows weary of the island and goes to live with the Others, who are tapping the EM Life Force in an attempt to “go home” or leave the island.

Crazy Mother is upset with MIB, and kills all the Others, which makes MIB mad with rage so he kills her. In his own rage over the death of his alleged mother, Jacob kills MIB (or destroys his soul) by throwing him into the Light Cave where MIB is transformed or released into the smoke monster. This transformation binds Jacob and MIB to eternity on the island, together.

Jacob views the island as home and needs to be protected; while MIB views the island as a prison. As the protector, the leader, Jacob sets “the rules” between themselves.

What did we learn from this week’s episode arc about the main characters?

1. Miles is a grave robber.
2. Richard stated that Jacob's "touch" was a curse, which led him from chains of slavery to endless servitude on the island.

3. Jack finally realized that you have to go crazy in order to keep your sanity.

4. Ilana apparently has the mother of all daddy issues if Jacob is the closest thing to a father she has had in her life.

5. Ben would give up the promise of power for the chance of having a single friend.

6. Sun's role is now that of show set decorator at the beach camp.

Magical/Supernatural/Elements:

Jacob’s touch will bring you or bind you to the island after your death.
Everyone brought to the island was a “candidate” to be Jacob’s replacement, but in Jacob’s own words, they were lab rats in an experiment on human corruption.

That an 1867 wooden ship would fly through a multi-story stone statue and land fairly intact several miles inland.

That a sonic fence would repel a smoke monster.

That a smoke monster can possibly split into multiple things, such as Isabella in the hold and as a smoke monster outside the ship hold.

That Hurley can have conversations with ghosts like Isabella, even though her body never made it to the island and he never met her before.


Last lines in episodes:

EP 109:

ILANA: Everybody inside, now.
[The smoke monster rushes past just as they escape.]

[Kate, Claire, and Sayid walk through the courtyard, which is littered with mangled corpses. Outside, they meet up with Locke, who has assembled a small group of Temple dwellers. They follow him into the darkness of the jungle.]

EP 110:

CREWMAN AT PERISCOPE: Yes sir, Mr. Widmore.

EP 111:

SAWYER: We ain't taking the plane, Freckles. Taking the sub.

EP 112:

MAN IN BLACK: Sooner than you think.
[The Man in Black raises the bottle of wine and turns it upside down. He smashes the bottle against the log, splashing wine everywhere.]

New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

I continue to view the sideways story line like the vegetables on a high end steak house plate; you move it to the side and concentrate on the meat, the island story. 

Point One: When is Dead Dead on?

Both Jacob and MIB are liars and manipulators. Everything they say has to be taken with a grain, no, a bag of salt. The show has consistently used the game metaphor between light and dark, so why are we assuming that only Light Jacob moved game pieces off-island, and not Dark Smokey as well, such as Locke’s crazy mother being hit by a car driven by Anthony Cooper?

Or if MIB is confined to the island, he needed someone off-island to move the pieces for him such as Widmore. Method of game play? Car crashes. But it is more probable that the evil car crash method was employed by Jacob as a means of manipulating human souls to come to the island.

In the first few seasons, there were frequent, unexplained, game changing car crashes, in almost every case turning that character's life into a downward spiral.

* Michael is hit by a car just as he is trying to keep custody of Walt, putting him in a unhappy cycle not ended until his death
*Adam Rutherford and Sarah get into a serious car accident that will permanently warp Shannon (again, until her death), and maintain her unhealthy co-dependence with Boone.
* Sarah's car accident. No saving Sarah means no Jack marriage that ends in him destroying his relationship with his father and driving Christian to his death in Australia.
* Claire and her mother get into a car accident, depriving her of her mother's support, leading to her reliance on a psychic(?). In addition, this indirectly speeds up Christian's death, as Claire's aunt refuses his request to reconnect with Claire.

Further evidence here: Claire's mom miraculous recovery which allows her to take Aaron and send Kate back to the island.
*Kate has multiple car crashes- we knows she still ends up arrested in Australia, but perhaps Tom Brennan is never killed?
* If Dr. Burke is never hit by a bus, does Juliet ever end up on the island, underwater or not?
*Nadia is hit by a car, sending Sayid into a black spiral he will never full recover from. Jacob probably caused this accident, since he stopped Sayid from becoming a victim of the accident.
* The real game changer was Emily Locke is hit by a car, causing a premature Locke to “be born” with Alpert, Jacob’s representative, at the hospital.

Purgatory theorists have used this list of serious accidents as circumstantial evidence to conclude that the characters involved in those accidents were killed but their "dead" souls were hijacked to the island limbo by Jacob. It makes perfect sense when we learn that the sideways world is the afterlife holding pen for the island souls to reconnect with their dead spirits.

The implication to date is that getting "infected" is done by dying. i.e: Sayid died in the pool and the discussion has long been that Claire actually died in the cabin explosion. So, both of them are "infected", or perhaps "inhabited" because their bodies were available. This infers multiple smoke monsters, including Christian.

It is possible that Kate never got out of the temple pit alive. Claire was at full anger mode when Kate approached her. Nothing would have calmed that anger during the monster’s revenge strike. If anything, it would have enhanced Claire’s desire to kill Kate. I think the 180 degree out of character Claire hug was to accelerate the infection in Kate. So “dying” on the island is different than dying off-island when one’s soul departs the body for the afterlife.

As a very early adopter of "there all dead" theories of the show premise, the cork analogy fits nicely into my Nexus-Buffer theory that the island was a gate-portal between heaven and hell to stop Satan from attacking heaven.

If Jacob brought the Black Rock to the island, did he not cause the destruction of the statue? Is this pointing to the fact at that moment, his micro-Egyptian island lab rats had been killed off, resetting the experiment?

And if the whole purpose of bringing souls to the island to see if they were good, bad or corrupt, Smokey-MIB did not waste a second in killing off the entire Black Rock crew (who never had a chance to even leave the ship after it crashed in the jungle). No test shown; pure violence.
In the hold, when it looks like Alpert is dead on the floor, we see a butterfly pass through the scene. (This must be important symbol because it would be difficult to frame an insect in the set shot.)

What does the butterfly mean?
In some Japanese anime, it is used to represent a soul.

The Western view is that the butterfly is a carefree creature. The Dalai Lama explains that, rather than carefree, it is uncaring:

"The butterfly never meets its mother. It must survive independently and remains a stranger to affection. An animal nurtured by mother's milk, however, is dependent on another for its basic survival. A child who grows up in a cold and detached home environment is similar to the butterfly, in that kindness is sparing. Once an adult, it will be very difficult for that person to show compassion."



In other cultures, the butterfly is symbolic of rebirth after death.

In the 1600s, in Ireland, killing a white butterfly was prohibited since it was believed to be the soul of a dead child.

For Christians, the butterfly's three steps of metamorphosis -- as caterpillar, pupa and then winged insect -- are reminiscent of spiritual transformation.

The caterpillar's incessant crawling and chewing reminds us of normal earthly life where people are often wholly preoccupied with physical needs. The chrysalis (cocoon) resembles a tomb and empty, can suggest the empty shroud left behind by Jesus. Therefore, a butterfly represents the resurrection into a new condition of life that is free of any material concerns.

In images of the Garden of Eden, Adam's soul is symbolized by a butterfly, or drawn with butterfly wings. In paintings of Mary and her Child, the presence of butterflies stands for their care for human souls. The Gnostics depicted the Angel of Death by showing a winged foot stepping on a butterfly.

Others have stated that since the insect is so fragile it can be torn apart by a hard rain, the butterfly stands for human frailty, both moral and physical. Also, as its life is not a long one, it is also a symbol of the ephemeral nature of physical existence.

In America among the Aztec and Maya, the god of cosmic fire is symbolized by a butterfly. Fire is considered the element of transformation, as in cookery and the smelting of metals.
The ancient Greeks depicted the spirit of a person as a winged stick figure. Interpretation of that symbol gave rise to the idea of the "soul" as a butterfly.

The ancient Romans associated the butterfly with the wandering consciousness that seems to occur during the dream state.

In science, there is The Butterfly Effect.

This is an aspect of chaos theory: the way a seeming insignificant event can cause dramatic consequences.

From wikipedia: The butterfly effect is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory; namely that small differences in the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. Although this may appear to be an esoteric and unusual behavior, it is exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.

The butterfly effect is a common method in fiction when presenting scenarios involving time travel and with "what if" scenarios where one storyline diverges at the moment of a seemingly minor event resulting in two significantly different outcomes.

Some theorists believed that is what TPTB were attempting by putting in the sideways world in Season 6.

Point Two: What are Jacob and his brother?

Clearly, they are powerful beings. They get knowledge in different ways: Jacob spies on people from the light house, while MIB scans their minds while a smoke monster. Both have the power to manipulate time, space and matter.

For example, MIB is not trapped in Locke's body. Locke's real body is now buried on Boone Hill.  MIB is using a duplicate "body." And he is not trapped inside the duplicate, because he can continue to transform into Smokey after Locke is buried. And it is not human, because when Sayid stabbed him, no blood was on the dagger.

There is an interesting question that was rarely asked when the series first ran. "Could Jacob have manifested himself as smokey or as dead people?"

Yes, and here is a wild tangent explanation: Jacob is MIB. Or more exact, MIB is to Jacob as Dave is to Hurley: an imaginary friend, his conscious incarnate, or his split personality. It is possible that MIB’s resentment of Jacob is that MIB is trapped inside Jacob’s mind (“the island”).

It's possible that Jacob made MIB who/what he is, thus the reason for his resentment towards him. Even if Jacob wasn't the one that made him who/what he is, he certainly is the reason he cannot escape. He knew that as long as Jacob was alive he was trapped on the island and that he could not kill Jacob himself, thus the whole "loophole" storyline.

All evidence points to smoke monsters on the island prior to Jacob and his brother’s arrival. Since they would look the same, we do not know what physical human form is any one smoke creature. (Side tangent: some believe that the mechanical noises, electromagnetic flashes, and swarm like movement of the smoke creature infers that the monster may be a nano-like machine powered by the unique physics properties of the island. And as a machine, it cannot be “killed” in the sense of a human being dying from a mortal wound.)

As a result, I did not buy into Sawyer's "triple cross." First, Flocke already knew what was going on at Hydra (he was heading his recruits there). The Ajira victims appeared to be mowed down like the Temple people, which looks like Smokey’s work. Which would negate one of the viewer assumptions, that the monster could not cross water.  Second, Widmore was too quick to "deal" with Sawyer (besides if both know Flocke is Smokey, no one said they know how or if Smokey can be killed). Third, Flocke expected Sawyer to lie to him, and when he did not, Smokey's plan self-executed; the war with Widmore would go forth.  Fourth, when Sawyer told Kate he is going after the sub, he was in essence telling Smokey because after Claire's "hug" I believe Kate may have "infected" her, giving partial control of her mind to Flocke. Fifth, even though we hear MIB wanting to “leave” the island, he never says how that is possible for him, as a smoke monster.

If MIB is truly “trapped” on the island, who did it to him? If he was dead, why is his soul fused to the island life force as a smoke creature?

Some viewers  think it's a prison. MIB is the prisoner and Jacob is the guard. Woe be to the world if that angry prisoner escapes.

Most believe MIB is trapped on the island. If the cosmic prison is the final premise of the show, that does not explain why the main characters were brought to the island by Jacob. For recreation for MIB? You would think a guard would want to encourage less violence in his prisoner.

We know that Jacob wanted to retire and brought in candidates for his job, but it still might be that bringing those people in was a form of passing the time while trying to prove a point and find a replacement. And it might be the reason for those damned "rules".

Unless MIB represents something eternal, while the Jacob role is only temporary, requiring periodic replacements? That's more of an idea than a conviction, btw, but how else to explain the whole candidate business?

There is a simple explanation for what could be happening on the island. In a Death Note vibe, Jacob and MIB could have the same job, as Gatekeepers to Hell of the Afterlife. The island is the gate. What do gatekeepers do? Allow people to pass through or hold them up for interrogation or inspection. That may be why both the lighthouse and the cave have the same list of names, which each striking out names who they have allowed to pass through the gate.

Just as a cork keeps liquid in a bottle, a cork also acts as a stopper so more liquid cannot get into the bottle (for example, to make it overflow). Every person brought to the island had some form of sin in their heart; a few truly evil. As a result, to keep the bottle from bursting, the gatekeepers must “test” these souls and release those who have had a worthy redemption, asked for true forgiveness, and accepted their fate, to move on and leave the place of ultimate judgment.

We know that an ancient civilizations, first the Sumerians in 5000 BC, then the Egyptians in 2500 BC, then the  Romans in 500 BC, then Dharma in the 1970s,  were brought to the island and stayed long enough to construct the statue, temple, stations and villages - - - which meant that there had to be a long standing peace between Jacob and MIB to allow all this construction to happen.

Apparently, Smokey left them alone while they did this- he was clearly there, as pictured on the temple walls.

Did they pacify Smokey by worshiping him? Was he not aware/conscious that he was trapped at that time?

We will probably never know what happened between the time of the Egyptians and the arrival of the Black Rock. But when the Black Rock arrived, Smokey was in all-kill mode, as he immediately wiped out the crew- no hesitation, no scanning.

Jacob tells Richard he is the only man alive on the island and then makes Richard immortal. This may have made Richard immune to being killed by Smokey, who may have wanted to keep Richard around anyway for his own future potential use.

Does that mean that between the Black Rock and the US Army encounter in 1954, that there was a gradually growing community of Others, with Richard as the representative to the god, Jacob? Did Richard watch them arrive on the island, live their lives there, have children, and then eventually die after a normal life - - - one which he himself lost? In that vain, Richard’s life on the island would have been agonizing and mental suffering like being in a living hell, trapped there by his bargain with Jacob.

Until Jacob's “death,”  the Others showed no fear or concern re: Smokey, freely walking through the underground passages of the temple, going about their business in the jungle. Smokey lived in the temple wall!

So for 140 years Smokey bided his time, searching for the appropriate "candidates" to corrupt for his plan to kill Jacob? Periodically killing those who he did not find useful, but essentially laying low?

When Richard describes the arrival of the US Army, he says he gave them an opportunity to withdraw in peace- he doesn't say "and then they landed with their bomb, and Smokey immediately tore them to shreds..."

So was MIB more fascinated by the new technologies of the people brought to the island as a means of escape? If that is true, why could he have gone into a human form and turned the FDW and escaped to North Africa?! It seems no matter what Jacob or MIB wanted, they could never have: both were/are trapped on the island forever. And it seems that the candidates were not ever going to “replace” Jacob, but to appease the brother’s boredom.

Point Three: What is the final conflict?

The consensus was that the final battle will be good vs. evil. But what is the the actual battlefield for this conflict?

Author Joyce Meyer said the mind is the battlefield for good and evil.

With Jacob’s alleged demise at the hands of Ben, it would seem that the final showdown for the island is Widmore vs. Flocke. Widmore wants the island because it contains what he must believe is the fountain of youth, the life source that could grant immortality. He must have learned that from Alpert.

We have seen symbols of good (light) and evil (darkness). Jacob appeared to represent the light (the lighthouse) and MIB the dark (smoke monster). But it is now more likely that they are both shades of gray. It was telling that the knife into Flocke came out with no blood. There are no traits of a human body just the mere illusion of one. It infers that there are multiple Flockes (one with Sawyer in the cave, and one at the temple) The most important clue on the night was when Dogen said Flocke/MIB was "evil incarnate," which means an evil deity or spirit embodied in flesh (human form).

The final conflict is not about Widmore, the 815 survivors, the Ajira people, or the remaining Others. The conflict remains Jacob vs. his brother.

But Widmore is a powerful piece in the game, what is his true relationship with the brothers?
This could be the explanation, using word clues, to try to find out who is good and who is bad in the show's current "team building" story lines.

Widmore returns to the Island, presumably for revenge. In looking for the root origin of "Widmore," one can trace a branch to wider, a Scottish term for "against." There is another old Scottish term called widdershins, which means "in a direction contrary to the course of the sun."

In ancient Egyptian myth, the "sun god," Ra was one of the most important gods. In later kingdoms, the merger of gods found Horus, the son of Osiris, taking on the role of sun god after defeating his uncle Seth for control of the kingdom. Horus is known as the god and protector of the monarchy. One of the traits of the protector, was the Eye of Horus, a scar below his eye, similar to the one on John Locke's face.

One could make the connection that Widmore is on the side opposing the sun god, or ruler of the living kingdom. One could presume that if Jacob is light, Widmore is an agent for darkness, MIB.

The name "Jacob" means "the supplanter." To supplant means to supercede or replace. One seeks to supercede the throne by overthrowing its current king. In its Latin origins, supplant means "to trip up from below." We learned when Desmond failed to enter the code in the Hatch computer, that the warning signal sounded that spelled out "He escapes place of death." This incident caused Flight 815 to crash on the Island. We never saw Jacob before this incident. However, the Hatch occupants were quite familiar with Smokey as he/it is described in detail on the blast door map.

Once Horus defeated Seth, Seth was relegated to the underworld to serve his brother, Osiris and to help protect the sun god on the nightly journey through the underworld. Later cults deemed that the nightly journey had already stopped since Horus defeated all his enemies, so the sun would always rise.

But most believe Seth, a master of trickery and evil, would not sit idle in the underworld. He was once called the god of chaos. One would think that he would mark his time and seek his revenge against Horus and retake the throne in the living world. For that reason, Horus would have imprisoned him in the underworld.

In trying to tie the wordsmith's art into character associations, those who intend on upsetting the current order are Widmore and Jacob, in the role of Seth. Once Seth was able to reach the Island, it was like letting a genie out of a bottle. He "trapped" Horus on the island, and through magic was able to leave the island in search for the pieces to solidify his plan to overthrow the kingdom. (This is very similar to the notion that Satan builds an army to retake the heavens from God.)

That leaves Flocke in the Horus role. He wants "to go home," a place where he permanently lives, which would mean to his kingdom. It appears that the only way to do that is not to physically leave the island, but to defeat Seth (Jacob). For those who believe that Flocke was surprised by Sawyer's intel in the Recon episode, this would be consistent with Flocke's perception that Jacob and his men are out to kill him. And recall, there are (unknown) ways for which a god can be killed, as Seth butchered Osiris and scattered his remains across the desert, as the means to claim the throne. However, we have seen the two supernatural beings stabbed with two different results: Jacob bled out and was burned to ash; Flocke was stabbed with no blood. Maybe that battle has already taken place, and Horus is being kept alive in a spirit form (as Jacob is now) with the help of other underworld gods, like Anubis and Thoth.

I originally thought that Jacob "touching" the characters was a means of putting part of himself in them in case he was killed, so he could be reincarnated like Osiris in the underworld. But now, we are learning from Richard the "touch" is a curse. The touch was a marker for candidates to "replace" Jacob. None of these candidates was given a job application to become the next Jacob. But since we don't know whether Jacob even has a job or Island purpose, we can only assume that Jacob's motivations are self-serving.

Now that both Jacob and MIB appear to be trapped in a ghost-spirit hybrid, they are both recruiting human souls to fight their final battle. In backgammon, the goal is to remove all your pieces in order to win. Maybe Flocke was upset because he thought none of the Temple residents would take his offer so he could mow them all down and have less pieces aligned with him to dispose of; and knowing that, Jacob is actually blocking the removal of those aligned with his enemy because in this game you cannot kill your own followers. That is a twisted rule: to win the game your enemy has to wipe out all your pawns!

On the flip side,  there is evidence that MIB/Smokey could be aligned with Widmore. Widmore was once the (co) leader of the Others before he was banished by Ben after the Dharma purge. It is clear that the Others did not put up any sonic fences to keep Smokey out of their camps. There had to be some clear understanding that Smokey would not harm the Others.

That may have been the presence of Jacob. The Others followed the indirect directions of Jacob. And for some reason, Smokey could not directly kill Jacob. This check and balance system was not totally wiped out with Ben's stabbing of Jacob: Jacob's "presence" is still on the island, and he is still giving directions to the characters.

Widmore has been shown as a evil guy; he sent mercenaries to wipe out everyone on the island. His man killed Alex, which was alleged as a violation of the rules. Flocke as Smokey clearly had an evil intent when it wiped out the temple dwellers. So there is plenty of blood on their hands to have a solid evil alliance.

When Widmore was co-leader of the Others, he was a follower of Jacob. But MIB did not disturb that clan, or wipe them out. When Dharma joined the island, they followed Jacob but were opposed by MIB. Is this the time when Widmore turned away from Jacob’s control and toward MIB? It would seem that this is the time where there are two equal sides or “teams” occupying the island - - - the perfect situation for the brothers to battle their pawns to the death. And it was the “corruption” of young Ben at the temple waters that turned Ben into evil to wipe out Dharma and exile Widmore.

From an earlier theory of mine: Touched by an Angel Devil:

There is a growing debate on whether Jacob is good or bad.

We saw Jacob touch many people off-island. I theorized that it was to put a piece of himself in these vessels to be reincarnated if killed on the Island (the Osiris story).

That may come to be true, but looking at things now from the Lighthouse spy glass into the lives of the 815ers, Jacob may be darker than we have imagined:

Every person we have seen Jacob "touch" has had their lives torn a part on an emotional roller coaster: Sawyer, Kate, Jack, Jin, Sun, Locke, Ilana, Sayid and Hurley.

Sawyer was touched at his parents funeral. He needed a pen to write down his vengeful thoughts. Jacob enabled him to do so with a pen. That letter caused Sawyer to turn down the dark path of conning people to murder.

Kate was touched in the midst of a shop lifting caper. Jacob's intervention with the shop keeper actually rewarded Kate for her bad behavior. This led her down the path of self-destruction including murder because she was ingrained at an early age that she could get away with things.

Jack was touched by Jacob in the hospital. He gave the candy machine "a little push," but in reality pushed Jack to stand up to his father, which led to his paranoia and failed relationships, to the betrayal of his father (and malpractice induced alcoholism that killed Christian). In other words, Jack's turn from being afraid of his father to turning in his father screwed up his life.

Jin and Sun were touched by Jacob at their wedding. As Jacob reached out to them, he brought them together. In one respect, Jacob's touch may have solidified Sun "staying with" Jin even though she wanted out of her subservient marriage. It also put pressure on Jin to be his father-in-law's muscle in the dirty family business. They both wound up doing shameful things during their marriage.

Locke was touched by Jacob after Cooper tossed his son eight stories to his perceived death. Jacob's touch brought Locke back to life, with an apology. From that point forward, Locke would have been better off dead. His life was a crippling failure, leading to an unseemly death at the hands of Ben after failing in his one faithful mission to return to save the island and his friends.

We think Jacob touched Ilana in the Russian hospital bed. Jacob needed her help "again." It is not clear that her current injuries were a result of helping Jacob in the past, but her life turned into a bloody mess with four of her comrades killed by the Smoke monster, and she is on the run for her life on the island.

Sayid was touched just before crossing the street - - - which saved him but killed his Nadia. As a direct result of that touch, Sayid could not be a happily married man. His life reverted back to a cold blooded killer and a dark soul.

And finally, Hurley was touched in the back of a cab. Jacob convinced Hurley he was not cursed, so Hurley made the decision to go back to the island. If he did not go back, he would have lived the life of leisure with his parents as a millionaire. Instead, his life is on the edge in a supernatural war zone hell, created in part, by Jacob.

One could say the worst thing that happened to the touched characters was Jacob's intervention in their lives.

In the pivot final scene of  Season 5, Flocke  is recognized by Jacob as the MIB from the beach scene. Flocke acknowledges that he (MIB) had found the loophole to kill Jacob. The only motivation we know of is that MIB did not want Jacob to continually bring human (souls) to the Island. All they do, MIB insisted, was fight, kill and make a mess of things. This is the Conflict. The loophole the apparent solution to the Conflict.

Some comments on the relationship between Jacob and MIB. Both are apparently equals in some regard. They must have equal status or equal powers on or through the Island. The balance of power may be as simple as one controlling above ground and the other controlling above ground. They cannot directly kill each other, otherwise MIB would have killed Jacob on the beach. However, one can apparently get a human soul to do the evil deed under the right circumstances (the loophole).

Since we are fairly certain that MIB can manifest himself as Smokey, there is an open question on how Jacob can manifest himself.

It may get down to contact or touch.

We have seen Jacob "touch" the following characters: Sawyer, Kate, Jack, Jin, Sun, Locke, Ilana, Sayid and Hurley. All those contacts occurred off-island in public places.

We have seen MIB, as Smokey, have contact with the following characters: Seth the Pilot, Locke, Eko, Kate (scanned), Juliet (scanned), Nikki & Paulo (spiders), Ben (as shot boy taken to the underground chamber), and Alpert (? who took Ben into the underground chamber).

We can also suspect that since MIB is Flocke, that he can reincarnate the Dead who arrive on the Island: Christian and Locke. We have also seen MIB ghost in contact with Claire and Aaron (though Christian).

When we compare the Lists, we find that only one character was physically touched by both Jacob and MIB: Locke. And the tipping point in MIB's favor was bringing Dead Locke to the Island so MIB could reincarnate into Flocke, to lead follower Ben into a treasonous rage which results in Ben killing Jacob (the loophole) for MIB.

It may be a simple as a game of tag: with MIB "tagging" Locke twice to Jacob's once in so far as MIB creating and controlling Flocke in the end.

Point Four: The Rules

The key episode, "Ab Aeterno," which means "from eternity" in Latin, the series may have found its mission statement that it is a character driven show about basic human behavior:  good, evil, temptation, redemption, life and death. Those are eternal struggles of mankind. The underlying hidden cake, the layers and layers of mystery, is the nature and purpose of the island.

From this episode, we can glean seven golden island rules:

Rule #1: No one comes to the island without Jacob’s permission. Except, Jacob himself was brought to the island by someone else. And "the island" had powers to control people off the island, such as Michael not killing himself in NYC.

Rule #2: MIB is trapped on the island because Jacob won’t let him leave. MIB cannot leave if Jacob (or his successor) is alive. We don't know if Jacob is telling the truth, or that MIB is merely gaining sympathy from his followers. Both brothers had the mantle of being immortal gods.

Rule #3: MIB cannot leave the island even by killing Jacob because someone will take his place. Again, we don't know if this is true or not. Jacob was given his powers from the island guardian, and there was no ceremony to pass it on to Jack.
Rule #4: Jacob can grant eternal life (with his touch to Richard), but he cannot give resurrect dead people or absolve people of their sins. Then why are so many ghosts and  trapped souls (whispers) on the island? Many believe that the whole island experience, its danger and tests, are all means to get to a final judgment on a character's soul: pass fail, heaven or eternal nothingness.

Rule #5: MIB believes that it is in all human nature to be bad, to sin, to corrupt or destroy, and Jacob brings people to the island to “prove him wrong.” All prior people brought to the island to prove MIB wrong are dead. Then what is the point of continuing this experiment in humanity unless there is a more important purpose: to judge souls.

Rule #6: The island is a gate or cap that stops evil, malevolence from spreading (to somewhere?) The fallen angels were set to work to manage hell, where evil souls were tormented for their sins. In some ancient writings, there is a possibility that souls in hell could be redeemed and sent to heaven.

Rule #7: Jacob does not intervene or interfere with people brought to the island (even though MIB can), so he appoints Richard to be his intermediary, to act on his behalf. But in reality, Jacob can intervene any time he wants to, including appearing to Hurley as a ghost within a hour of his "death" at the hands of Ben.

Rule #8: Escape from the island is difficult. MIB calls this place Hell, and tells Richard that Jacob is the devil. In order to escape Hell, one must kill the devil. Richard's attempt to kill Jacob was MIB's first attempt to kill Jacob. We can infer that MIB cannot directly "kill" Jacob. He needs to act through some one else. But the survivors do leave the island, to be awakened in the afterlife.

Point Five: The Loophole?

If one believes that the sum of the series is the butterfly effect of avalanche of unrelated events converging at the island's final conflict of MIB defeating Jacob for the first time, here are THE MOVES MIB HAD TO MAKE TO WIN:

What did MIB/Flocke have to “go through” in order to kill Jacob? What were the moves required to get the result he wanted? I have yet to see anyone try to piece together the Rube Goldberg/Mad, Mad, Mad World time line of interrelated events, but here is my an outline of what MIB may have meant:

1. MIB needed BEN to kill JACOB, which required
2. FLOCKE planting the seed/justification for killing in BEN, which needed
3. DEAD LOCKE in order to trick BEN on his island return, which meant
4. BEN killing LOCKE when he heard LOCKE was working with HAWKING to get back to the island (and thereby assuming the leadership role), which would not have happened without
5. WIDMORE and ABBADON helping LOCKE try to round up the O6 group for the return flight to the island, because

5 A. the O6 had a deal with RICHARD to leave the island for saving BEN from WIDMORE’S team, which BEN knew about by
5.B. placing his man MICHAEL on the freighter, as a result of
5 C. a deal to free MICHAEL and WALT in exchange for capturing JACK, KATE, SAWYER and HURLEY by the Others, which lead to
5 D. JACK, KATE, SAWYER escaping Otherville with ALEX, who
5 E. was caught by WIDMORE’s man and killed, causing
5 F. BEN turn the FDW to hide the island from WIDMORE, causing

6. HAWKING in her pendulum Dharma station to try to find the island, because
7. BEN’s FDW causing the island to time skip, requiring
8. LOCKE to turn the FDW to reset the island with the instructions of CHRISTIAN,

8 A. Whose past fathered CLAIRE in Australia, which led to
8.B. Daddy issues with his son JACK, which led to
8.C. JACK turning on CHRISTIAN, leading him back to drinking and
8.D. CHRISTIAN dying in Australia, which made
8.E. JACK fly to Sydney to claim CHRISTIAN’s body and get it on Flight 815, so,
8.F. when Flight 815 crashed on the Island, CHRISTIAN’s body could be used by MIB to influence JACK and LOCKE, since
8.G. DESMOND’s failure to input the Numbers in the Hatch caused 815 to crash,
8 H. since DESMOND’s need to prove his honor to WIDMORE caused him to enter a sail boat race after
8. I. a stranger named LIBBY gave him her deceased husband’s boat, since
8. J. DESMOND had no job since he was fired from the monastery vineyard by BROTHER CAMPBELL, (who was friends with HAWKING) but
8. K. as a result, DESMOND meets PENNY, who he falls for, but WIDMORE objects to the relationship, which leads
8. L. PENNY to search the globe for the lost DESMOND, which leads to
8.M. a listening station finding a signal in the Pacific, which leads both
8.N. WIDMORE’s freighter soldiers to the island and
8.O. PENNY’s boat finding the O6 survivors after LOCKE turns the FDW, taking,
8.P. The O6 back to their problems stateside, including:

KATE on trial for murder;
JACK finding out CLAIRE is his half sister;
SAYID’S wife NADIA being killed,
SUN taking over father’s company and seeking revenge on BEN;
HURLEY going back into mental institution; which leads

8.Q. BEN to scheme with HAWKING to get the O6 to re-create Flight 815, which includes killing LOCKE, who was suicidal because he had failed to convince anyone to return with him, which could be caused by
8.R. LOCKE’s pathetic life of personal failures, which may have influenced

9. The island splitting into two time frames when he turned the FDW,with

9.A. 1974 flash where SAWYER takes the lead with JULIET, MILES, and JIN, who
9.B. in order to survive and await LOCKE’s return, join Dharma by helping AMY who was attacked by the Others, and in turn
9.C. SAWYER telling RICHARD about time traveling LOCKE which creates a truce between Dharma and the Others, which
9.D. changes SAWYER and JULIET into a happy Dharma couple, until
9.E. Flight 316 crashes on the Island causing a time flashes to 1977 and 2007, which leads to,
9.F. KATE, JACK, SAYID meeting up with SAWYER’s Dharma group,
which causes,
9.G. JULIET to doubt her relationship with SAWYER because of KATE, but adds complication when
9.H. SAYID shoots young BEN in order to save SAYID from his future killings, which requires,
9.I. JACK and KATE to bring dying young BEN to RICHARD to be saved,
9.J. which creates BEN as an Other, which leads to
9.K. BEN banishing WIDMORE from the Island after Purging Dharma, including killing his own father ROGER,
9.L. who blamed BEN for killing his wife by being premature, but that lead to,
9.M. HORACE coming across ROGER and BEN at birth for later recruitment of ROGER to the Island, which led to
9.N. ROGER blaming BEN for his crappy life, which led BEN to seek a way out with the Others, who are

10. The island’s native population that needed outside leadership “candidates,” which led them to BEN, who recruited many off-islanders including,
11. JULIET, who was recruited to deal with the island’s fertility problems, for which,
12. RICHARD thought was unimportant to the Other’s prime mission, but which led to
13. JULIET being the lead scientist with the Hydra confinement and manipulation of JACK, SAWYER and KATE, which led to

13.A. JULIET joining the 815 survivors as a spy and as a way to get off the island, away from the captivity of BEN, which
13.B. put her in the position of the 815ers who time flashed back to 1974, which
13.C. led her to have a long term relationship with SAWYER, which caused her
13.D. sacrifice herself to detonate Jughead to bring the time lines together, which
13.E. brought ghost JACOB to HURLEY when SAYID was dying at the van,
13.F. making HURLEY leader to direct the group to take SAYID to the Temple, where,
13.G. Dogen and Lennon drowned SAYID as his friends watched in horror,
13.H. then learning JACOB was dead from HURLEY causing the Temple to be on guard from “him” and laying out ash to repel Smokey, who
13.I. was at the Tawaret foot in the form of FLOCKE, recognizing RICHARD as a man once in chains, and beating RICHARD unconscious while being extremely “disappointed” with the Others, which now makes

14. MIB/FLOCKE in position of power on the Island by killing JACOB.


There is no way that TPTB had this mapped out at the beginning of the show.