STILL LOST AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

After ten years, LOST's management team continues to avoid answering the tough questions about their own series. At the Paley Center Television convention, several members of the LOST cast and the show runners appeared on a panel discussion. According to Yahoo.tv, there were several statements made by the creative team (and my commentary):

Were they dead the entire time?

"No. They were not dead the entire time," Carlton Cuse said. 

He said that theory may have been exacerbated by the closing shot of the show. (A screen shot is at the bottom of this blog's home page). An ABC executive had suggested they include a buffer between the last scene and the commercial break, so the producers found some footage of the plane fuselage sitting on the beach. That footage incited the theories that everyone aboard had actually perished.

The characters definitely survived the plane crash and really were on a very real island. Damon Lindelof added of the incorrect purgatory theory: "For us, one of the ongoing conversations with the audience and there was a very early perception, was that the island was purgatory and we were always out there saying, 'It's not purgatory, this is real, we're not going to Sixth Sense you.'"

But that scene of everyone in the church? Yeah, they’re all dead there.

And there lies the problem with the creators-writers position. There is no bridge between their constant denials about there being no purgatory, and the fact that the show's climax is set in the after life. And TPTB do not explain how the characters got to the sideways world, living a separate but parallel lives from their mortal island lives. And to blame ABC for the final debris field scene is also absurd since it was the show's producers who had final cut on the finale.

How the characters evolved:

Lindelof admitted that when they cast the show, there was no script. Kim read for the part of Kate. "There was no Sun in the 'Lost' script — because there was no 'Lost' script," he said. "Jorge read for Sawyer, because Hurley didn't exist."

And how did they decide Locke had been in a wheelchair? Lindelof revealed that while shooting the pilot, Terry O'Quinn would go down the beach and listen to his iPod during breaks. Co-creator J.J. Abrams pointed at O'Quinn and told Lindelof, "That guy's got a secret." What secret? "You figure it out."

The bravado needs to stop; the series did have a script by Jeffery Lieber that was greenlit by ABC to start production. No television network starts a production without one. When JJ Abrams got on board, the script was reworked but the essence of the pilot remained, as an arbitration panel found for Lieber in a subsequent creator dispute.

But what this one story does tell us is a bit of confirmation that the writers were creating characters, scenes, information by the seat of their pants. It seems to tout their self-stated genius, but it also questions on whether there was a clear plan for the show from the very beginning.

 Killing off characters:
As many "Lost" fans know by now, the initial plan had been to kill off Jack in the pilot episode. Luckily, ABC executives questioned that move, and the show's producers changed their minds. Instead, the first major character they killed off was Boone, played by Ian Somerhalder, who took the decision so well that Lindelof joked, "We gotta kill more of these guys!"

In the original Writer's Guide, Boone was going to have a bigger role in the series. But that did not happen. As previous posts showed, the writer's guide was quickly dismissed by the show runners, which again is evidence that there was no clear plan for the show.

The outrigger scene:
Lindelof and Cuse admitted that there is an answer to who shot at Sawyer on the outrigger. But the writers ultimately decided that it was "cooler" to keep it a mystery.
"The scene exists. It actually is on paper," Lindelof said. Years from now, they'll auction it off for charity.

This is another "cheat" on the fans/viewers. It is not "cooler" to fool fans into wondering, speculating or arguing over points of the show, when the writers and producers intentionally keep that information from the fans/viewers. The idea of writing a mystery story and NOT solving the mysteries is illogical. Some believe that the producers really did not have a reasonable explanation for this time traveling paradox, so keeping it a secret was better than getting flamed on community fan boards.


 Easter eggs that were never laid:
An audience member asked about the Easter eggs that "Lost" became famous for, and Lindelof said the one he was proudest of was an egg that was never meant to be an egg.

He recounted that someone sent him a screencap from the pilot of Walt standing in front of the fuselage. There was a burn mark on the fuselage that looked like the Dharma Initiative logo — but this was before the writers had even conceived the Dharma Initiative. "Whoa, this is an Easter egg that we did not hide," Lindelof said, jokingly adding, "And I lost all faith in religion."

Again, this a tactic admission that the story producers had no real clue where their episodes would take them. Not knowing about the Dharma Initiative means that half the series was mere inconsequential filler. Such admissions further dilute the integrity of the show's original story line and further calls into the question the plot of the ending.

Hating Nikki and Paulo:

As they've said before, the writers introduced Nikki and Paulo as a reaction to fan discussion about the background characters. But even before the backlash to those characters began, the writers themselves started hating Nikki and Paulo. So they decided to acknowledge their "horrible mistake" in the episode "Expose."

This is another odd turnabout by the producers to deflect criticisms against them. "The fans asked for it," should not be an overriding concern to a creative team that knows what it is doing.

 

How the ending came to be:

As Cuse said, "The show was about people who were lost in their lives." And as he and Lindelof discussed the ending of the series, they agreed it should be spiritual.

Lindelof added that they decided to "solve a mystery we never asked: What's the meaning of life, and what happens when you die?"

Except, they never answered that grand question!  The murderers, con men, cheaters, liars and psychopaths all wound up in a happy fantasy after life (sideways world) with absolutely no punishment for their mortal crimes, sins, transgressions, etc. There was no redemption. In fact, the ending is less spiritual in the context of who these people really were - - - how they lived their lives should have put them through a gauntlet of pain and suffering (i.e. the purgatory angle). But there was no bona fide moral to the LOST story. If anything, it stated it does not matter what bad things you did in life, you will get to heaven with your friends and co-conspirators. And, the final unanswered question remains unanswered: what happened to the characters when the doors opened and the church was engulfed in white light?

The more TPTB speak of LOST, the less cohesive their vision for the series comes to the forefront. The less answers, even now 10 years removed, will be forthcoming.  It gets a twinge of a con-man's victim after a while; "what happened to me?"

LOST ITS WAY

“Winning that’s joyless is like eating in a four-star restaurant when you’re not hungry,” basketball legend Bill Russell once said.

And for many, that kind of empty reward at the conclusion of LOST still leaves a bitter taste. The final episodes were not as much about resolving the initial story than trying to back out of a freshly painted corner.

One of the lingering problems about LOST is that it quickly lost its original vision, as set forth in the original pilot episode and writer's guide.

Instead of having episodes that focused on one basic story, the writing changed from simple, defined episode plot to a series of mixed up stories being interrupted by new events.

First, the flashbacks. They were used to tell the back stories of the main characters. But instead of flushing out major character traits, they became used to take up more screen time than actual island stories.

Second, within the island story line, a situation rarely resolved itself. Instead, a new event, mystery or action interrupted the characters mission. Then the missions began to drag over from week to week.

Third, came the "twists."  Out of nowhere, strange things would pop on the screen not to enhance the story but to shock the viewer. A sudden death of a character is a prime example.

This makes it hard to watch if you were a casual viewer. Ratings continued to decline from Season 1, but there was an avid base of support, and glowing media reviews, to keep the "smartest show on TV" on the air. This is why this highly touted show never could sustain re-runs in syndication; it is too hard to follow.

There are plenty of explanations for why the express story structure of LOST was abandoned. It could be that J.J. Abrams was an absentee producer, off doing films, rather than keeping the series on point. It could be that the shake up of ABC network executives who then forgot to ride herd on the initial concerns and requirements of the show. It could be the writers thought they "were smarter than everyone in the room" and did things their own way because they could. It could be that the writers were making it up as they went along, without a plan (as many critics said after Season 6).

It was probably a combination of all those factors that gave us the LOST series that was aired on ABC.

DIFFERENCE

In trying to find patterns between characters, we almost forgot to focus in on major differences.

Hurley was raised in a strict Catholic household.
His mother was an overbearing force, especially after his father left the family.
Hurley was very shy around girls; he was very self-conscious about himself and his appearance.
He never had a girlfriend. The one girl he asked out was taken away by his best friend.
He was socially awkward around the opposite sex.
When his mother pushed him to find a nice girl, Hurley went farther and farther into his shell.
He lacked confidence or ambition to change his background existence.
In some respects, he hid behind his behind the counter fast food hideaway.

So Hurley had a bummer life, but so did many of the other main characters. But what was different with Hurley was that he was the only one who was still a virgin. Everyone else had had relations, before, during and after the island events. Hurley was portrayed as clumsy around women.

The simple symbols around his life turns on this personal stress. It is said that men think about sex more than a 100 times a day. It would seem that based upon his upbringing, social skills and shyness, Hurley could have reverted himself into a mental shell to hide from the rejection, disappointment and pain of trying to meet expectations in a real relationship. From the phonetics of Mr. Cluck's to the drumsticks to multi-millionaire status without any woman vying for his attention (recall, Anna Nicole Smith's marriage to the old oil tycoon), something is off.

Participate in your dreams today. There are unlimited opportunities available with this new day. Take action on those wonderful dreams you've had in your mind for so long. Remember, success is something you experience when you act accordingly. — Steve Maraboli

He was a young man who had nothing but his own personal dreams. Hurley thought he could not find his own happiness without hurting people around him. He blamed himself for his dad leaving home. He blamed himself for the porch accident. He never had any ambition to have a career with a good paying job. Winning the lottery was a fantasy come true. Money solves all problems, or so the saying goes. But in Hurley's case, it bought him nothing but pain. Thus his devine curse was rooted in his analysis of the world around him. The Numbers were the trigger point of pain.

But nothing like that had to be real. In his dreams, Hurley could have gone through the various scenarios like winning the lottery to find out that he always ends up alone. His subconscious continues to feed his insecurities about women to the point where he has to increase the fantasy situations in order to find a sliver of happiness.

He transforms a catatonic patient, Libby, into his dream woman lost on an island. They would have an awkward romance. But in all his past dreams, she is taken away from him. He then thinks the only way he can have her is in the next life, after death.

It is plausible theory that an lonely young man with an avid imagination spiked with mental illness could craft a diverse fantasy universe where he is the self-loathing broken loner seeking a soul mate.

COGNITIVE FLAWS

The problems with the LOST characters may have been caused by their inherit flaws.

One basic human characteristic is tribalism. Humans have a kind of ingrained fear or distrust of the "out-group." It's a previously adaptive trait that binds small groups of individuals together and prevents them from wandering off or joining other groups. But it also leads to ethnocentrism and divisions between groups. For example, medica studies show that the use of oxytocin may increase feelings of trust between individuals, it also increases fear of others.  This characteristic was obviously important back when we lived in family clans or tribal arrangements, but today it leads to all sorts of social problems, including racism, prejudice, and our inability to empathize with people we don't immediately know.

The human brain is capable of 1016 processes per second, which makes it far more powerful than any computer currently in existence.  But that speed of thought has annoying glitches that cause us to make questionable decisions or make wrong conclusions. These mistakes are a consequence of our limited intelligence and predisposed tendencies. Examples include the confirmation bias (we love to agree with people who agree with us), the gambler's fallacy (the tremendous weight we tend to put on previous events that aren't causal factors), our tendency to neglect or misjudge probability, and the status-quo bias (we often make choices that guarantee that things remain the same). Some of these are adaptive traits, but others are simply cognitive deficiencies.

Confirmation bias is an easy one to understand. We love to agree with people who agree with us. It's why we only visit websites that express our political opinions, and why we mostly hang around people who hold similar views and tastes. We tend to be put off by individuals, groups, and news sources that make us feel uncomfortable or insecure about our views — what the behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner called "cognitive dissonance."  It's this preferential mode of behavior that leads to the confirmation bias — the often unconscious act of referencing only those perspectives that fuel our pre-existing views, while at the same time ignoring or dismissing opinions — no matter how valid — that threaten our world view. And paradoxically, the internet has only made this tendency even worse. As a result, people are less and less inclined to listen to other people's views or even to think about reaching compromises because somewhere on the net they can find support for their positions.

In-group bias is somewhat similar to the confirmation bias is the ingroup bias, a manifestation of our innate tribalistic tendencies. It is said that part of this effect may have to do with oxytocin — the so-called "love molecule." This neurotransmitter helps to forge bonds between people in our in-group, performs the exact opposite function for those outside our group. To outsiders,  it makes us suspicious, fearful and distain other people.  Ultimately, the in-group bias causes us to overestimate the abilities and value of our immediate group at the expense of people we don't really know.

The Gambler's Fallacy is a glitch in our thinking. We tend to put a tremendous amount of weight on previous events, believing that they'll somehow influence future outcomes. The classic example is coin-tossing. After flipping heads, say, five consecutive times, our inclination is to predict an increase in likelihood that the next coin toss will be tails — that the odds must certainly be in the favor of heads. But in reality, the odds are still 50/50. As statisticians say, the outcomes in different tosses are statistically independent and the probability of any outcome is still 50%. This gives a person the false notion that events are not random. One can ride the dice rolls to victory. This positive expectation feeling often fuels gambling addictions. There is also the sense that our luck has to eventually change and that good fortune is on the way. It also contributes to the "hot hand" misconception. Similarly, it's the same feeling we get when we start a new relationship that leads us to believe it will be better than the last one.

Rationalization is a process which tends to gloss over one's mistakes to justify a prior decision. Example, if you bought something totally unnecessary, faulty, or overly expensive item, people tend to rationalize the purchase to such an extent that you convinced yourself it was a great idea all along. It is mental mechanism that makes us feel better after we make crappy decisions, especially at the cash register. Also known as "Buyer's Stockholm Syndrome," it's a way of subconsciously justifying our purchases — especially expensive ones. Social psychologists say it stems from the principle of commitment, our psychological desire to stay consistent and avoid a state of cognitive dissonance. 

Neglecting clear probability is another strange twist in brain analytical function. Very few of us have a problem getting into a car and going for a drive, but many of us experience great trepidation about stepping inside an airplane and flying at 35,000 feet. Flying, quite obviously, is a wholly unnatural and seemingly hazardous activity. Yet virtually all of us know and acknowledge the fact that the probability of dying in an auto accident is significantly greater (1 in 84 chance) than getting killed in a plane crash (1 in 12,000) — but our brains won't release us from this crystal clear logic.  It's the same phenomenon that makes us worry about getting killed in an act of terrorism as opposed to something far more probable, like falling down the stairs or accidental poisoning. This is our inability to properly grasp the sense of peril or risk - - - which often leads us to overstate the risks of relatively harmless activities, while forcing us to overrate more dangerous ones.

Observational Selection bias is that effect of suddenly noticing things we didn't notice that much before — but we wrongly assume that the frequency has increased. A perfect example is what happens after we buy a new car and we inexplicably start to see the same car virtually everywhere. A similar effect happens to pregnant women who suddenly notice a lot of other pregnant women around them. Or it could be a unique number or song. It's not that these things are appearing more frequently, it's that we've (for whatever reason) selected the item in our mind, and in turn, are noticing it more often. Trouble is, most people don't recognize this as a selectional bias, and actually believe these items or events are happening with increased frequency — which can be a very disconcerting feeling. It's also a cognitive bias that contributes to the feeling that the appearance of certain things or events couldn't possibly be a coincidence (even though it is).

Status quo bias is an inherit form of security in one's place. We humans tend to be apprehensive of change, which often leads us to make choices that guarantee that things remain the same, or change as little as possible. Needless to say, this has ramifications in everything from politics to economics. We like to stick to our routines, political parties, and our favorite meals at restaurants. Part of the perniciousness of this bias is the unwarranted assumption that another choice will be inferior or make things worse. The status-quo bias can be summed with the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" — an adage that fuels our conservative tendencies.

Negativity bias is the tendency to fixate on negative things. People tend to pay more attention to bad news — and it's not just because we're morbid. Social scientists theorize that it's on account of our selective attention and that, given the choice, we perceive negative news as being more important or profound. We also tend to give more credibility to bad news, perhaps because we're suspicious (or bored) of proclamations to the contrary. More evolutionarily, heeding bad news may be more adaptive than ignoring good news (e.g. "saber tooth tigers suck" vs. "this berry tastes good"). Today, we run the risk of dwelling on negativity at the expense of genuinely good news. If presented with studies that  crime, violence, war, and other injustices are steadily declining,  most people would argue that things are getting worse — what is a perfect example of the negativity bias at work.

Bandwagon effect is a principle that one gets acceptance in accepting the consensus. Though we're often unconscious of it, we love to go with the flow of the crowd. When the masses start to pick a winner or a favorite, that's when our individualized brains start to shut down and enter into a kind of "group think" or "hive mind" mentality. But it doesn't have to be a large crowd or the whims of an entire nation; it can include small groups, like a family or even a small group of office co-workers. The bandwagon effect is what often causes behaviors, social norms, and memes to propagate among groups of individuals — regardless of the evidence or motives in support. This is why opinion polls are often maligned, as they can steer the perspectives of individuals accordingly. Much of this bias has to do with our built-in desire to fit in and conform.

Projection bias is a way individuals look at the world around them. As individuals trapped inside our own minds 24/7, it's often difficult for us to project outside the bounds of our own consciousness and preferences. We tend to assume that most people think just like us — though there may be no justification for it. This cognitive shortcoming often leads to a related effect known as the "false consensus bias"  where we tend to believe that people not only think like us, but that they also agree with us. It's a bias where we overestimate how typical and normal we are, and assume that a consensus exists on matters when there may be none. Moreover, it can also create the effect where the members of a radical or fringe group assume that more people on the outside agree with them than is the case. Likewise, it can create a sense of exaggerated confidence one has in predicting the winner in a sports match or an election.

Current moment bias is the tendency to live in the present moment. We humans have a really hard time imagining ourselves in the future and altering our behaviors and expectations accordingly. Most of us would rather experience pleasure in the current moment, while leaving the pain for later. This is a bias that is of particular concern to economists (i.e. our unwillingness to not overspend and save money) and health practitioners. In a 1998 study, when making food choices for the coming week, 74% of participants chose fruit. But when the food choice was for the current day, 70% chose chocolate.

The anchoring effect or the the "relativity trap," this is the tendency we have to compare and contrast only a limited set of items. We tend to fixate on a value or number that in turn gets compared to everything else. The classic example is an item at the store that's on sale; we tend to see (and value) the difference in price, but not the overall price itself. This is why some restaurant menus feature very expensive entrees, while also including more (apparently) reasonably priced ones. It's also why, when given a choice, we tend to pick the middle option — not too expensive, and not too cheap. But that thinking does make the end choice a logically better one.

It is not perfectly clear why these biases and effects are so ingrained into human behavior. Some sociologists believe that these may be leftover defense mechanisms from the hunter-gathering period in human development. Others believe that much of these traits are learned behavior from the environment around you. If you are a child with a single parent welfare mother who does not work or betters herself, that environment could cause the child to integrate living for the moment traits or accept one's lot in life quicker than a person in a middle class family where goals and change is taught on a daily basis.

If you re-read the above list again, your own mind can flash to various characters who displayed those bias or traits during the series. It is like a mental popcorn maker. It also helps understand the notion on why so many of the main characters never could change their paths.

LOCK STEP TO FATE

Expecting life to treat you well because you are a good person is like expecting an angry bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian. — Shari R. Barr

Many of the characters could have considered having a trying childhood or a "hard life."

But very few understood their predicament in order to change their future.

The classic example of this was John Locke.

Things he could not control:

1. Abandoned by father
2. Crazy mother giving him up to foster homes
3. Being bounced from foster parent to foster parent.

Things he could control:

1. Doing well in school, especially in math and science.
2. His attitude towards making friends.
3. His temper.
4. How he handled his relationships.
5. Making obtainable goals.

In LOST, Locke was more resigned to his fate than making things better through his own determination. Fate is the development of events beyond a person's control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power. Locke believed that his fate decided his course for him, from his parental abandoment to subsequent serious injury as a cruel twist of fate.

Yet, the only fate common to everyone is the inescapable death of a person. In Locke's case, it could have been many deaths. A little part of him died when he was old enough to realize that his parents did not want him. A little part of him died when he met his crazy mother who must have put the impression that he was "special" in his mind (a mild that may have become self-delusional). A little part of him died when he put unattainable goals in the early stages of his high school years. He wanted to be a popular jock and not a nerdy science kid. He fell into the trap of popularity as being more important than lifetime skills. He desperately wanted to be liked by other people; but he came off cold and distant. The result was that he turned inward, in his own shell. He abandoned what other people told him, and fell into a personal rut of meaningless jobs and spurts of self-discovery which always ended badly.

Locke was lost from an early age. He never got to the point of accepting his lot in life to make an assertive change in direction. If the supernatural situation which he fell into, the plane crash and the island, was a second chance to change his behavioral anchors, Locke failed at the task. Initially, he was assertive but then was spurned. People liked Jack better than him. It was high school all over again. He had important skills that were diminished by Jack's better skills. This is why Locke resigned himself to accept things that would happen to him. He believed in fate, that his life was predetermined to be bad.

And it was. He was bitter. He was naive. He was trusting. He was bad at decision making. His analytical skills led to the mistake with the Hatch lockdown. He could not convince people to his way of thinking. He allowed other people to control him or use him like a pawn. Even in death, he was a puppet called Flocke.

There was once a line that said "don't confuse coincidence with fate."  In Locke's case, he did. Even in the fantasy world after death, for no apparent reason he could not move on with Helen, who was his partner in that world. Why? He destroyed his personal relationship with her off-island by being obsessed with his father's betrayal. In the sideways world, it was the exact opposite. His father was an invalid. He was with Helen. Was that all pure fantasy? He had no bonds to keep Helen in the sideways world church? If not, why did he accept that loneliness when Ben chose to keep working on his relationship issues. Or did it really matter at all? The dream is not reality. It only makes sense if one erases the sideways story lines. Locke's fate was to die alone, over and over again.

ISLAND GROUPS

When Flight 815 crashes onto the island, there is a diverse population already on the island.

There are the Temple people, led by Dogen. It would seem that these are the traditional Jacob worshippers. They do not leave the temple for fear of being attacked by the smoke monster. For some reason, the temple is sanctuary against the monster (or as long as Jacob is alive). These people may be the oldest large group on the island.

The Others may be an off-shoot of the temple. But they tend to live throughout the jungle, in a nomadic lifestyle. They use tents and make camp for weeks at a time. This is the main core group, which contains a mix of older island populous and new recruits for Ben's army after his purge of the Dharma collective.

There are still a few Dharma people left on the island, such as Mikal, Mrs. Krug and Kelvin, who still manned the Swan station. At one point, the Dharma science group had a truce with the Others over the control of the island. Dharma built several major stations on the island, which means at some point it controlled the island at will. But perhaps, under Horus' leadership, the scientific community dwindled - - - especially just prior to the dangerous Incident experiments to tap the island's energy source. As a result of the numbers loss, the Others began to attack the Dharma holdovers. Dharma collapsed due to Ben's purge.

There were also three stray individuals on the island. Danielle, the last remaining survivor of her shipwreck, had been living off the land for 14 years. Jacob had been the island guardian for centuries, mostly holed up in the foot of the Tawaret statue. Then there was MIB, the smoke monster, who may have been the oldest creature on the island.

By the end of the series, several major population shifts happen on the island.

All the remaining members of the Dharma group were killed off.
The temple people who refused to leave were wiped out by the smoke monster.
Danielle was killed by Widmore's raiders.
Jacob and MIB apparently met their demise.
The remaining Others had left for hiding in the jungle, or in the case of deposed Ben, an assistant to the new island guardian.
And only six 815ers (Hurley, Rose, Bernard, Cindy, Emma and Zach) were left alive on the island. Rose and Bernard were at their own cottage away from everyone. Cindy, Emma and Zach were with the new Others group. Hurley was left in charge of the island itself.

LORD OF THE FLIES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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