LEADERSHIP

Joe DiMaggio said, “A person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example.”

In LOST, there were various characters who pushed to become leaders. It was a mix of office politics and mortal combat.

Jack was the Reluctant Leader. He got the job from the 815 survivors because he was a doctor. There were injured people who needed his help. He gave instructions . . . people listened to him. But a few did not like Jack because he got the respect they did not. Sawyer, for example, wanted the appreciation of being a leader without the responsibility. Only after the time flash skip to become the sheriff of the others did Sawyer learn what it took to protect his people.

Locke was the Hopeful Leader. He always wanted to be acknowledged and accepted for his skills so that he could be one of the popular kids. The fact that his foster home orphan upbringing gave him the anger and bitterness that would shape his adult life and decisions was not lost on the writers. For every opportunity to take a leadership role, he failed because he demanded too much. When he came back to camp with food, he thought he would be accepted as a leader. But Jack was still the man. Locke never let go of that rivalry. When Locke was thought of the chosen leader of the Others, one who could dethrone Ben, he took the chance to seize total control over the group. But the one condition he could not meet: killing his own father.

Ben was also an outcast. He grew up in the environment of an alcoholic father who blamed him for the death of his mother (in childbirth). As a result, Ben was a shy, bitter boy who dreamed of controlling his own destiny. When the Others were in a leadership flux, he took control by means of violence - - - slaying his rivals to seize total control like a military dictator. He used fear and threats to become the Absolute Leader on the island. But being a dictator brought detractors in his own group who wanted to have someone to remove Ben from power.

Leadership is a double edged sword. It can be used to offensively consolidate power, direction and support for the common good. Or it could be used defensively to hold onto power, unilaterally force decisions and abuse authority for corrupt purposes.

All of those elements were seeded in LOST's story lines. None of the main character leaders had a good final result. There leadership strengths would turn into their personal weaknesses. Even Jacob, the islands real, True Leader, succumbed to his own hubris.

OUR JACK AND JILL

There was an untapped undercurrent in the show which could have dramatically changed its course.

And it reminds us of an interpretation of an old nursery rhyme.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
Up got Jack, and home did trot
As fast as he could caper
He went to bed and bound his head
With vinegar and brown paper.

There are several different tales about the origin of "Jack and Jill." One of the most popular versions involves French royalty. Many believe that the rhyme about Jack falling down and breaking his crown refers to the king of France, Louis XVI, who was beheaded during the French Revolution. And the "Jill who came tumbling after?" That would be his dear wife, Marie Antoinette, who also lost her head in the French Revolution.

Juliet could have been the Island Queen if she had accepted Ben's advances. But since Ben killed her lover in order to control her, that relationship was DOA before it began. Ben's relationship with women was more torturous than normal. But even afterward, Juliet held a lot of sway among the Others, possibly because she stood up to Ben and lived to tell. She was smart, she knew how things worked, and she could navigate her way to manipulate even Ben.

Jack was the leader of the survivor camp. Over time, he began more assertive and controlling as he made unilateral decisions on missions. He became the focal point of the Others ire. So much so that Ben tried to convert Jack into an Other, an ally. It almost worked as Jack stayed in the Others camp after Kate and Sawyer escaped the cages.

Both Jack and Juliet had similar fates of the French nobles. Both died on the island, at the hands of the island politics.

THE POWER OF KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge is a treasure but practice is the key to it. - - - Thomas Fuller

I have always said that knowledge was power on LOST. Those characters who knew things could control things.

Eloise was probably the one person who knew the most since she had actual working knowledge of both worlds (island and sideways). It seems that she was able to connect to both worlds (and their seemingly same but different lives) as if the island was a gateway or portal to two dimensions. When Eloise conversed with Desmond in the clock shop, the essence of what she told him was that time was predetermined; that Desmond's life was predetermined; that Desmond's destiny was not to marry Penny but to sail off to his own demise. It was this erasure of a possibility of romance in the real world kept Desmond from awakening other characters, such as Daniel, for whom Eloise tried to shelter (in the after life).

Knowledge that the sideways world was a purgatory time line where people could continue to live out their imaginary dream lives is a powerful tool especially when one can communicate back to the living world to manipulate people to keep the fantasy world's status quo.

As most religions teach, what one does in the world of the living has consequences in judgment in the next world. By manipulating the actions of living human beings in the island world, Eloise could construct an elaborate alternative fantasy world where the characters would not need to rejoin and "remember" their old lives which would destroy the egg shell dream family situation Eloise created in her sideways vision.

But how can Eloise be a puppet master in two worlds. She somehow mentally connected herself with Daniel, her son, in both worlds. This theme of having a "constant" may have actually meant the mental connection between the living and the dead. Eloise was a medium who could actually affect events.

She forced her son to give up music in order to study and master highly theoretical physics, including the manipulation of time. Why? Perhaps so Eloise could go back in time herself to stop her young self from killing her own time traveling son. If Daniel "remembered" that his own mother killed him, that would destroy the happy family sideways dream world Eloise had created for herself. That shattered dream would mean that her "heaven" would be gone, and she would either go to hell or worse, just fade away from all conscious existence.

So the stakes for Eloise would be extremely high. It was her manipulation of Daniel in order to control the island which led to the unintended consequences of her shooting her own son. A lifetime of guilt both in the living world and sideways realm had a mother trying to do anything to make things better. In order to protect her vision of her happy family, she would communicate to her living self - - - which led to Widmore's anger and revenge motivations to destroy everyone on the island. By doing so, those souls would not remember or awaken Daniel from his dream state.

One could say Eloise was trying to maintain a complex dream support system for a critically mentally unstable patient, Daniel.  If this was the unstated premise of the series, I think most fans would have accepted it as a reasonable explanation for Season 6 and tie back the previous five years.

NEW QUESTION

There is a new gnawing question that just popped into my head. It is like "Who is Buried in Grant's Tomb?"

Who is buried in the Temple?

It is a major question because under Egyptian death rituals, the Pharaohs built temples as part of a complex burial mythology. The island temple was filled with hieroglyphs, many with passages from the Book of the Dead, an ancient text on how a soul can manage the journey through the underworld to paradise.

Since the temple was built on the island with Egyptian mythology and construction, one must assume that an Egyptian demi-god had it built in his honor. In the tradition of the culture, the temple would have been built in the king's life time, and his priests would manage the ceremonies when the king died so that he would be guaranteed passage to the stars. The priests would break a part the body, organs into separate vessels, to be reunited in the after life. There would be offerings of gold, food, beer, servants and weapons that the king could use during his journey through the underworld as they believed that the soul took a human form in its path through the after life.

After death, the priests and their followers would be charged with maintaining the temple and praying for the soul of their departed leader. But over a long period of time, one could imagine that their ranks would thin and their time on the island would die out.

Egyptian culture was the first civilization. It predates the empires of Greece and Rome. As such, parts of it remain in today's current societal foundations. As such, since it goes back thousands of years, the temple on the island could be that of a "lost" Pharaoh. Some scholars believe that the ancient Egyptians did possess the engineering knowledge to create ocean faring boats to explore the seas. As such, a conquering king could have made it to the Pacific with a large crew of soldiers and servants. Once shipwrecked, he would have ordered a temple be built in order to fulfill his destiny.

In a series that loved its complex back stories (like Alpert's), this could have been a good one - - - and set a solid foundation for the LOST mythology. Given the detail in the temple sets, one would think that some one gave it a great deal of thought - - - a great deal of importance that was somehow itself lost in the story line as it went forward.

So who was buried in the temple? We will never know.

But what happened to the king? We can assume that his passage to the stars may have been interrupted, intercepted or thwarted by the mere fact that his temple was not in Egypt, and aligned to magical stars of Orion. If his temple was not properly "aligned with the stars," his soul (ba and ka) could never reunite in paradise, so in essence, his spirit would be trapped on the island.

A spirit trapped on the island seems to fit the profile of the smoke monster.  It wanted to leave the island to go "home," which could mean Egypt or even the after life paradise promised in the ancient texts. After thousands of years, the spirit would become angry, frustrated and desperate. The spirit would know how things should happen, and who should help him in this time (his priests and servants). But once they were gone, it had to wait for humans to shipwreck on the island in order to fashion a way out of its island limbo.

The spirit could have convinced many men or women that it was a god. It may have promised immortality and special favors such as power or wealth. Whether Crazy Mother was the final Egyptian follower of the Pharaoh or whether Alpert eyeshadow took on the markings of an ancient Egyptian priest, they seem resigned to their own fate to serve the island (spirit) in its quest to find a loophole in trap. Desperate, the spirit recruits more and more priests to his service, such as Jacob to find humans with the ability to cross time and space (realms) or Dogen to revitalize the reincarnation rituals inside the temple pool. Everything done on the island by modern man had the tangential goal of helping bridge the present with the after life.

The hieroglyphs in the frozen donkey wheel chamber indicated the words "travel" or "open Earth" gates. This is a possible portal to the after life which needed a human being (and its life force) to operate.  The smoke monster became frustrated with the humans who came to the island, as they turned corrupt and failed in their mission to worship him or help him escape Earth. The guardian of the island must be considered the High Priest of the Temple, who has the special knowledge of the ages, i.e. the after life. If one can control the power of life and death, that person could control the universe. And that is probably the true corruption that frustrated the spirit the most.

The real LOST story may be the island plight of the unknown, trapped Pharaoh spirit. For the most important and revealing quote in the show was from MIB to Jacob:

“They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.”
“It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”

MOTIVATION

There were many driven characters on LOST. But what really motivated them?

POWER. Widmore was hellbent on reclaiming the island. In his banishment from the island, he amassed a great deal of wealth in order to "find" "his" island.

His son, Daniel, was looking for a different kind of power. One that could control time, as his lab rat experiments at Oxford would show was possible. But in his search for intellectual power, Daniel severely injured his assistant - - - and stopped his progress to attain power and its prestige.

Jack held the power of life and death over his severely injured patients. As a surgeon, his skill level would determine whether he would help or harm at patient. As with his father's demise for medical negligence, there is a fine line between being a miracle worker and a fraud.

CONTROL. Sawyer wanted to control his life after his parents deaths. He wanted to control his future for one event: revenge on Cooper. It gave him a narrow vision; and ironically turned himself into the person he hated most. He learned the skills of control by being a con man - - - looking deeply into the greed and desires of others, to manipulate them to his advantage.

Likewise, Ben wanted control of the island, not for the power but for the respect he never gathered from his own father. He banished Widmore so the Others would look up to him as their sole leader. Ben tightened his control by surrounding himself with new hires loyal to him.

However, Locke had the same want of being able to control his future as he received no respect from his father. But Locke failed because he never could formulate a workable plan where other people would follow his lead. And during the course of failure after failure, Locke became a bitter person.

Eloise was also a control freak. She knew of future events, and manipulated people like Desmond to get her chess pieces in place so she could have her own after death fantasy family life with a doting son and husband.

But those actions above were not the true motivations of people seeking power or control. The real motivation throughout the characters were their fear of loneliness. Widmore, Ben, Jack, Sawyer and Locke all battled against the stress of loneliness.

Kate was a flirty, gregarious child who got into trouble in order to connect with other people. She turned into a loner because she wanted to run away from commitment. But she found that made her even more alone.

Hurley always felt abandoned and alone when his father left him. Then his one best friend left him after he kept a secret from him. Hurley felt that he could trust no one with his new found wealth so he was crazed with the fear that his life would be one lonely road.

Desmond never fit in because he really did not want to try. He feared commitment so he took to the idea of being a loner. But after he met Penny, he wanted to free himself from the chains of loneliness but could not bear the confidence of being able to support Penny or win over her family.

In order to combat their lonely existence, the main characters found new hope when they were thrown together in an island survival story. None could make it on their own. "Live Together or Die Alone." They needed the friendship of each other in order to make their lives meaningful. They needed their friendships in order to move on with their lives. This is probably the clearest theme in the series.

WAKE UP DESMOND

There has been a difficult explanation of why Desmond was the one who would shepherd the Losties to the final reunion.

One of the biggest things people seem to be questioning is how Desmond was able to “wake up” from the purgatory universe and how he had the know-how to “wake up” the other characters. 

Desmond was not an original cast member. He did not survive the plane crash. He was never really part of the beach camp. He really did not care which side to take, Jack, Locke's, or anything else except to get off the island and back to Penny. In the story progression, Desmond's character began as arc filler, to add another piece to the Widmore story (that his daughter was involved with a loser).

To our knowledge, Desmond was not "touched" by Jacob to become a candidate. He was sent on his insane quest to show-up Widmore by winning a solo sailboat race across the Pacific. How a stupid and dangerous thing would make a rich girl swoon is another matter. But that was his plan. However, since Dez had no money and no boat, he had fallen back to his comfort zone (a depressed, self doubting existence of inner pain and regret). But out of no where, widow Libby gives him her late husband's boat. Too coincidental? Of course. That is the LOST tangled ball of strings story writing.

We can assume it was Widmore who recruited Desmond to get the boat and race across the Pacific. What better way to get rid of a problem then send him into the vast ocean? But for some unknown reason, Desmond shipwrecked on the island. How he got through the barrier is unknown, but if Jacob was to be believed, only he could allow people to come to the island. Of course, Jacob could have been lying - - - a Desmond got through because there is no evidence that Jacob ever knew Desmond existed until late in Season 6. So Widmore got rid of his problem. But at the same time, Widmore's other big problem was finding the island. He was working with Eloise to do that - - - and probably had spies try to tail Ben or his people when they went to the mainland (again, why would Jacob allow free passage by the Others since Jacob had no real "work" for them to do for him.)

Some fans believe that the first true love story of the series was the Desmond-Penny affair. It was that bond that led to the concepts of having a "constant" and being a "variable" in the island's time skipping equation. But Desmond was not the only one with a constant. Everyone has a constant - - - someone they knew or bonded with such as a parent, friend, spouse or child that they love and want to protect. But somehow, the writers tilted Desmond's relationship as special. The only difference between Dez and the rest of the characters was the likely fact Desmond was never supposed to be on the island. That may have been the wild card MIB was looking for in his own "loophole" theory.

In many viewer's explanation of the sideways reunion, it is Desmond (specifically through his past connection to Penny Widmore) that is the “constant” in the show. No matter what happens, when, or where, Desmond seems somehow immune to the Island’s energy (which has electromagnetic properties) and has a sort of awareness that can transcend space and time (his consciousness shifts seen in episodes like “The Constant“). These “shifts” and Widmore’s explanation that Desmond is special because of his resistance to the Island’s energies, imply that Desmond would even be able to “shift” his consciousness back and forth between this universe and the sideways purgatory one, catalyzed by Widmore’s team placing him in that huge electromagnetic machine in the Season 6.

Based on the show's apparent reasoning, that Desmond – after having his consciousness
“shifted” to the purgatory reality – would “wake up” after encountering HIS constant, Penny. It’s another fast and loose metaphysical explanation, but one that some people think works within the framework of the show. 

 Except, in the sideways world, other characters encountered their constants - - -  like Jin and Sun. Together, they should have awakened first especially with their traumatic ending on the island.

So if the island EM "blocks" memories of the past life, then why does it fail when Desmond starts rounding up the other cast members? Sayid instanteously remembers everything when he finds Shannon? But his entire life centered around Nadia - - - even in the sideways world. The major inconsistencies with the amnesia in the sideways world is baffling when one considers the quick cascade of memories flowing from one concert setting.  Worse, is the awakening of Claire and Charlie - - - and Kate - - - only by the "re-birth" of Aaron in the sideways world. If Aaron was alive in the real world, he could not be a fetus in the sideways world. He would have lived his life on Earth then died and gone to purgatory-heaven-whereever as an adult. The Aaron rebirth sequence calls into question whether there were actually two different dimensions at play.

The writers tagging Desmond "special" so he can get everyone magically back together was too convenient. The show had labeled other characters as "special" including Walt and Locke, but they really had no role in bringing the cast back together. It is hard to believe that the writers knew Desmond would be the final key when the show began since Desmond was not even written into the show until much later. And many viewers believe that Jack should have the key to the series and its resolution.

LITTLE MAN COMPLEX

“ There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the mind. ” - - - Napoleon Bonaparte

A Napoleon complex is one of self-absorbed grandeur.  Some psychoanalysis of Bonaparte claim that his small stature but high dream expectations led him to become a tyrannical monster hell bent on conquering all of Europe. Great historical figures often have grand visions of their legacy. What better way to be remembered than enslaving an entire continent?

There were two characters who fall into the emperor category of conquest and control: Ben and Widmore.

Widmore was not a small man. He had apparently grown up on the island. He knew it contained serious power source. He wanted to control it for his own ambitions. He was once the leader of the Others, the self-proclaimed guardians of the island. Whether Widmore knew of or believed in Jacob is unclear. He had a relationship with a powerful woman, Eloise Hawking, and had a brilliant academic son, Daniel. But it was his lust for power and privilege that got Widmore expelled - - - his crime was having a child off the island (Penny) with another unknown woman. Why the island would have such a moral barometer on an out-of-wedlock daughter while allowing the Others to kidnap and kill visitors makes no logical sense. But being LOST, logic or common sense are not necessary elements in any story line.

Once forced to leave the island, Widmore used his ego and talents to build up a vast business empire. But that empire was only a means of gaining enough power to find his island and reclaim it. Widmore's quest was to return to the island, and get revenge on the man who kicked him off it: Ben.

Ben was a small man. His small size fits into the Napoleon grandeur of over-compensating for an inferiority complex. Ben did not have a good childhood. He had no close friends. His father blamed him for his mother's death at childbirth. He was lonely. He dreamed that people would look up at him in awe and fear. He wanted to control his own destiny. He wanted to rebel against the Dharma lock-step. He still had a measure of compassion when he did not kill Alex or her mother Rousseau even though Widmore had ordered it as part of Ben's initiation. Instead, Ben took baby Alex under his care and control. Perhaps this was his first lesson in turning an adverse situation into an advantage.

Both Widmore and Ben were clever in making other people do their dirty business. They both had elaborate plans to get what they wanted from other people. Ben used psychological mind games to confuse then submit people to his will. Ben became frustrated and angry when people, especially women, did not follow his orders.

When Ben got to the leadership role he wanted, he ruled like a tyrant. It was his way or the highway. In that way, even though he was a "bad" character, he was a compelling character. There is a part of human nature that would lash out like Ben did because of his back story. There is always an inner demon that burns to be liked and loved by other human beings; but when that does not happen - - - one becomes bitter, angry and more controlling over people around him.

 Ben was the most complex character. He went through the rollercoaster of being good (as a boy) to bad (as an adult) to at least repented as a dead soul.

19

The Numbers were a constant throughout the series. Fans want the Numbers to mean more than the explanation given by TPTB.

In typical in-series episode clue hunting, scratch math of the Numbers:

If we look at the "progression" of the Numbers, we find an interesting pattern. The number "19" is produced by the first four number sets and by the final number set.

How does the Number 19 apply to LOST?

In the lighthouse, candidate 19 was Nguyen, and that name was crossed out. Lostpedia references the trivia of brutal Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Mihn was born Nguyen.

In the chart of elements, Number 19 is for potassium. It's symbol is K. 

K is the eleventh letter of the alphabet.It's abbreviation denotes things like 
• kelvin(s).
• Computing kilobyte(s).
• kilometer(s).
• kindergarten.
• king (used esp. in describing play in card games and recording moves in chess):
• knit (as an instruction in knitting patterns):
• (also k ) informal thousand
• Baseball strikeout.
• karat.
• a constant in a formula or equation.
• Chemistry Boltzmann's constant,  the ratio of the gas constant to Avogadro's number, equal to 1.381 × 10−23 joules per kelvin. (Symbol: k ).

It is interesting to note so many things pop up from K. Kelvin was the character in the Hatch who lied to Desmond to keep him imputing the Numbers into the computer. He was also a military officer Many people think the characters interactions with each other was like kindergarten children. Everyone wanted to be king of the island. The turning point for Jack, in captivity, learned  the Red Sox won the World Series, reversing a fan curse. We were also told about "constants" by Daniel as the means of surviving the island's unique properties, including time travel.

Potassium is a metal and is the seventh most abundant and makes up about 1.5 % by weight of the earth's crust. Potassium is an essential constituent for plant growth and it is found in most soils. It is also a vital element in the human diet.

Potassium is never found free in nature, but is obtained by electrolysis of the chloride or hydroxide. It is one of the most reactive and electropositive of metals and, apart from lithium, it is the least dense known metal. It is soft and easily cut with a knife. It is silvery in appearance immediately after a fresh surface is exposed.

So the Number 19 is a number derived from LOST's series of numbers. Is it a clue that the key to understanding LOST can be learned through Kelvin? Probably not. He was a minor character who conveniently shows up on two different characters' background stories. The themes attached to him include military, duty, manipulation, lies, and wanting to escape. Potassium is never found "free" in nature; it must be manipulated to be obtained. Again, the clue could be that the characters had to be manipulated by the island in order to escape the traps and lies of their human existence.

COMPASS POINTS

A compass is a tool to guide someone to a destination.

A candidate is a person who wants to be a leader to guide others.

A guardian is a person who is a leader who protects others.

A light is symbolic of knowledge, direction, energy and life.

A person who has both the compass and the light is truly powerful.

When we review which LOST characters had the most traits of a compass and a light (which apparently were the embodiment of the heart of the island), the top four people are Locke, Jack, Sawyer and Kate.

Locke had the compass. He knew how to use it. He was aware of the island's special powers. He wanted it to guide him to his destination (destiny). Just as magnetic north is a constant direction, the island pushed Locke towards his fateful demise.

Kate was a natural runaway, a wanderer with a keen sense of direction and tracking skills. She was a survivor throughout her troubled life. She used her internal compass not to find a destination but to flee from one. Just as our forefathers took chances and headed west into the wild unknown, Kate embraced that wild west spirit.

Sawyer also had a focal bearing in his life: to find the person who killed his family. His life's direction was formed by his own promise for revenge. He honed his own tracking skills with the southern charm of a con artist to find the man who ruined his life.

Jack was following a trail for most of his life. The trail that his father had made through the jungles of childhood. Jack was always trying to find a way to get ahead of his father's accomplishments so his father would respect his achievements. He would symbolically look to the East, where the dawn would rise on each new day, to find some hope that the light would empower him to reach his goal.

Locke's direction was north, toward the magnetism of the island's mysterious power to give his life meaning.
Kate's direction was west, to the open opportunities and freedom to run away her past.
Sawyer's direction was south, toward the slow, simmering pace of the long, cruel road of honor and revenge to release his personal demon.
Jack's direction was east, toward the dawn of a new day where he could release himself from the shadow of his own father.

Each character had their own direction. They were set to their own paths. As a result, they did not work well together because their compass points would never align. And perhaps, that was the governor that protected the light cave - - - the candidates needed each other in order to obtain both the full compass points and the light. For in the end, none of these four candidates took the place of Jacob, the island guardian, to put their own rules upon the universe.

GREAT LEADERS

“ A great leader never sets himself above his followers except in carrying responsibilities. ”
— Jules Ormont

Who were the great leaders of LOST?

There is a short list of those who can call leaders.

The Others: Jacob, Widmore, Eloise, Dogen, Horus, Ben, Flocke.
The 815ers: Jack, Sawyer.

Jack was made the de facto leader after the crash because of his medical skills and calm demeanor. Sawyer became the de facto leader when Jack left the island. He also had his followers during the time flash to the 1970s Dharma.

The Others had a longer list of leaders. Jacob was the island leader as his power came from the light source.  The first leaders we saw in ancient times were the unknown Roman ship survivors who Crazy Mother killed off. Widmore and Eloise shared the duties of leadership during the 1950s, but both left the island. Horus was the Dharma leader who made peace with the Others, but was killed off in Ben's purge. Dogen was the leader at the temple. And Flocke (smoke monster) used terror to get the island survivors of both the Others and 815ers to his side (in a means to kill off all the candidates leaving the island unprotected so he could leave).

Locke is not mentioned as a leader because he did not have any followers. Boone was his assistant until his death. Charlie was a hanger-on. Locke did not supervise any rescue with Michael's boat. Locke wanted to be considered a leader, but he fails to meet the definition. He could not get the O6 back to the island until after his own death.

Were any of the leaders mentioned "great?"

If you measure it by great wealth, then Widmore was one.
If you measure it by tyrannical power, then Ben was for a time.
If you measure it by likability, then perhaps Horus tenure as Dharma leader was good.

But none of the 815 survivors could hold a trophy as being the greatest leader of all.
Even the wannabee leaders like Kate, Locke, Sayid or Michael, each had their own flaws, their own  agendas, and their own pitfalls.

POWER AND LOSS

"People who have power look for fights. People who don't have power lose everything."  - - - Masashi Kishimoto

Who were the most powerful people in LOST?

Widmore was a powerful businessman who could do just about anything, including "faking" the 815 crash site with corpses. He was ruthless. He showed no mercy. He did everything he could get back control of the island, including sending mercenaries to kill everyone.

Ben was a powerful leader of the Others. He manipulated his followers by a combination of fear and mental brain washing. He also was ruthless and showed little mercy to his enemies. He helped wipe out Dharma compound by betraying his co-workers with nerve gas. That was his first coup; his second was exiling Widmore from the island.

Jacob was the island guardian. He had immense power of an immortal being. He could grant eternal life as he did to Alpert, but he could not bring back the dead to life. He could bring people to his island. He manipulated his followers through surrogates, adding a level hidden control over the people who believed in him. His followers would worship him but never see or hear him.

Eloise seemed to know everything about everyone. She knew the power of the island. She knew how to find the island. She knew how to manipulate people to get to the island. And she was the only person fully aware of what the sideways world was, and that awakening her son who make him leave her. If knowledge was power in the series (as I believe), then Eloise was a very powerful character who used it to her advantage.

But at the same time, Widmore lost his island conquest goal when he was killed by Ben.

Likewise, Ben lost his control and leadership of the Others when he killed Jacob.

And Jacob lost his followers when word spread that he had been killed by Ben and Flocke.

Widmore lost everything material in his life that he acquired under the most brutal means, but somehow he was rewarded with a blissful life in the sideways world.

Ben lost everything in his life, including his family, friends and followers, but he was somehow rewarded with a second chance in the sideways world where he did not have to move on. He was granted a similar reward as Eloise, the knowledge of the sideways world realm, and an opportunity to keep the fantasy world alive in his own mind.

Jacob had lost his family while on the island. He was trapped there as the light source guardian. He spent thousands of years trying to find a way to leave, but the smoke monster kept him imprisoned on the island. When ghost Jacob told the final candidates that when the fire (his light) would go out, he would be no more - - - it would seem that Jacob received no reward for his island service. He lost everything and everyone close to him.

MILES POWER

To be honest, I always thought Miles' "power" to read the last thoughts of the dead was pretty much a stark naked con to comfort family members (for a price).

But in the world of pseudo-science, there is now an article allegedly explaining this power.

In the Australian Journal of Parapsychology, June, 2013 issue, there is a paper which deals with the subject matter of  Psychological phenomena in dead people: Post- traumatic stress disorder in murdered people and its consequences to public health.

The journal abstract states:  

The aims of this paper are to narrate and analyze some psychological phenomena that I have perceived in dead people, including evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in murdered people. The methodology adopted was "projection of consciousness" (i.e., a non-ordinary state of consciousness), which allowed me to observe, interact, and interview dead people directly as a social psychologist. This investigation was based on Cartesian skepticism, which allowed me a more critical analysis of my experiences during projection of consciousness. There is strong evidence that a dead person: (i) continues living, thinking, behaving after death as if he/she still has his/her body because consciousness continues in an embodied state as 'postmortem embodied experiences'; (ii) may not realize for a considerable time that he/she is already dead since consciousness continues to be embodied after death (i.e., 'postmortem perturbation' - the duration of this perturbation can vary from person to person, in principle according to the type of death, and the level of conformation), and (iii) does not like to talk, remember, and/or explain things related to his/her own death because there is evidence that many events related to death are repressed in his/her unconscious ('postmortem cognitive repression'). In addition, there is evidence that dying can be very traumatic to consciousness, especially to the murdered, and PTSD may even develop.

In order to have a scientific truth, the author's conclusion needs to be repeatable by his peers. I cannot fathom how one could set up an experiment to duplicate these conclusions.

But in an extremely odd way, this paper hits on various science fiction points contained in LOST.

Projected consciousness could relate to Desmond's flash forward premonitions in a time altered world.

One of the ideas I had early on is that no one survived the plane crash, but those lost souls on Flight 815 failed to realize that they were dead. This is the paper's "postmortem embodied experience." Their consciousness continued to live on as each person survived the crash - - - living, breathing, interacting with other consciousness streams united by the same ending experience.

The manner of death, such as a plane crash or murder, would somehow heighten the duration and post-traumatic stress of a dead person's consciousness.

The main characters continued to repress their past actions, but the island projected to them symbols of their pasts (like Christian or Kate's horse) so they could remember that they were dead in order for their souls to move on.

And the author's claim that he can interview the dead by extending his own consciousness could be the method that both Miles and Hurley used in order to communicate with the dead. However, Hurley had the additional strange attribute to physically be with people he knew were dead, and to have physical contact with them (Charlie and Ana Lucia).

SOKEMEN

The anagram contained in "smoke monster" reveals SOKEMEN STORM.

Sokemen are defined as middle ages European tenants on property who provide specified services or payment of rent but not military service to the free holder.

The smoke monster was never explained in the series. But the producers and writers were keen on sticking anagrams into the show.

If the smoke monster(s) were island "tenants," it would appear from legend of the Others that the smoke monster(s) were "security guards" protecting the island from outsiders.  But who were the land owners?

Crazy Mother and Jacob were "guardians" of the island, not owners. A guardian is a person who is appointed to look after a person or property because of a legal disability, including being a minor.

A storm is a violent airborne force of nature that has destructive powers. The manifestation of smokey in smoke form does transform into a deadly tornado.

So we have a potential hierarchy on the island:

The island's owner.
The island guardian who manages the island for the owner.
The island's tenant(s), who are smoke monsters.

Working up, since the smoke monsters are supernatural beings, one can then assume that the island itself is a supernatural place.

We know the island guardians were immortal beings, who could grant immortality to other souls who arrived on the island (as Jacob did to Alpert). But that immortality could be extinguished, apparently by a non-guardian under vague circumstances such as reversion to a human form. This suggests that the island guardians were not humans, but manifestations of human beings such as spirits.

Logically, the island owner would be someone who has greater power or authority over immortals, spirits or supernatural beings. But somehow, that person is put into check by some form of immaturity or status. It could be a god, or child-god. Or, the island could be its own intelligence - - - as native American Indians believed that all things, human, earth, stone, sky and animal, had souls - - -  but unable to communicate to the world around it.

The idea that the smoke monster(s) are allowed to live on the island in exchange for protecting it is a intriguing possibility to explain the motivations of MIB/Flocke. Perhaps, the smoke monster(s), including Jacob, could not evolve except on the island. Or that they were bound to their island tenancy like sharecroppers or slaves to the island master. And the only way to break that lease was to die at the hands of lowly but non-evil human beings who were not corrupted by the island power. (This seems unlikely in the case of Ben, who lusted for power, as he killed Jacob.)

If the smoke monster(s) were killed off in the series, then what would happen to the island? Normally, one needs someone to work the land in order to preserve it. If there were no spiritual tenants to keep the balance on the island, would it have sunk to the bottom of the ocean, killing everyone else on it? That is a possibility as Hurley's guardianship reign seemed as short as Jack's.

WHAT WE KNOW

Diagrams are useful tools to express ideas and alternatively, to try to find answers to complex problems.

One of the great mysteries of the series was the island. We know a lot about the island, but we really don't know a lot of important information about the island.

Using Jacob as the focal point, I began to draw the above diagram. We know that Jacob was the central authority on the island during the 815 era. We know that he was brought to the island by Roman shipwreck. He was kidnapped by Crazy Mother, who at the time was the central authority on the island. Jacob and his brother lived together with Crazy Mother on the island.

One thing we do know is that the island is hard to find, even with the most advanced technologies. Therefore, the island is a "closed" system. It has a special barrier that limits who can ingress or egress its boundaries.

During the family feud, Jacob's brother killed Crazy Mother, and then Jacob killed his brother (which was strictly forbidden). As a result, a smoke monster took the form of his dead brother (MIB). It appears that they were to live alone on the island forever. Jacob was given the role of island guardian, and MIB was given the role of island security dog. But if no one could find the island, their existence would have been futile. Without MIB presence, Jacob probably would have gone mad in isolation (which was probably what happened to Crazy Mother).

We know that the unique energy of the island is contained in the heart of the island, which equates to some kind of "life force." The light source was described as "life, death and rebirth." The context of this description is that the heart of the island is the heart of the universe - - - the creator of all life and the religious recycler of all death into new life.

So we know the importance of the island as it houses the power to create life, destroy life and re-create life.

To save his own sanity, Jacob decided to bring "candidates" to the island in order to a) play a game or b) experiment with human behavior to prove a point to MIB. We know that deep inside MIB's memories is the strong desire to "escape" the island (as Jacob's brother did), so MIB played along with Jacob's work. MIB's support of Jacob bringing people to the island was a mere ploy to learn how to get off the island. If MIB could not directly kill Jacob (as was the rule with his brother), then MIB would use trickery to get one of Jacob's candidates to do it. MIB frustration with the people brought to the island was clear: they would get her, settle in, then devolve into "corruption." From MIB's perspective, corruption could have been worship of Jacob and not plotting his demise. From Jacob's perspective, the people brought to the island did not get the result he secretly wanted: death and release of his responsibilities as Crazy Mother had lured Jacob into thousands of years ago. Even though they did not know it, both Jacob and MIB were looking for the same result but took their own different paths to try to achieve it. This caused a frustrating stalemate.

Since the candidates were brought to the island, they were under the sphere of influence of the heart of the island. We do not observe any intelligent behavior of the light source itself. We do not observe it changing or killing either Desmond or Jack when they went into the light cave to reboot the island. Whether Dez and Jack were marked with immortality earlier by the island is unclear, but whatever they did together did set the stage for the final time of Jacob and MIB.

The light source had to transform the candidates into one of the three categories: giving life, giving death or giving rebirth. We know that all of the candidates and their closest friends were reincarnated in the sideways church world, a place in the after life. The exact process of that reincarnation is unknown. It appears not automatic, as there were several candidates who were either trapped on the island as spirits or never made it to the sideways world.

As a machine diagram, the island looks like it takes through its barrier human souls, experiments with them in order to either remold or change their behavior, then releases them back to their lives, or kills them directly, or gives them rebirth either on or off the island.

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.

IN CHARGE

One of the themes was the acquisition and control of "power." Power motivated men like Widmore and Ben to attempt to seize the island and its unique properties. Power was the means to control and manipulate people. Power kept those in charge in control of their own destiny.

It would seem that anyone brought to the island to be a "candidate" needed an inherit quality of wanting "power."  The island guardian was all-powerful. A weak candidate would mean a weak guardian - - - the island would be in jeopardy. That is true if the island was a fragile object that needed human protection.

The final candidates did not have the same power traits. They may have had common personalty features like free will and primordial need for survival. We can group the final candidates in a simple chart:

The one person of this group who really wanted to be The Leader was Locke. But he had to leave the island in order to follow his destiny as told to him by Christian (or MIB). Locke was manipulated into thinking he was a final choice for guardian because he thought he had a spiritual connection with it. Locke was manipulated into leaving the island instead of guarding it. Locke could never have succeeded Jacob because Locke was too naive and lacked judgment. Locke's purpose was to die so that more worthy candidates could return to the island.

Sayid and Jin never expressed any desire to rule the island. Both were focused in on leaving the island; rescue. Sayid left the island, Jin did not. Sayid's post-island life was also a manipulation (by Ben). But Sayid's return was not one of leadership but one of revenge. He was to be a tool or weapon in the final fight against MIB.

Sawyer never wanted responsibility. All he wanted to do was get off the island. Anything that stood in the way of his goal was pushed aside. Sawyer was selfish. He was never comfortable in any leadership role, even when Hurley pressed him to be the "de facto" leader of the beach camp. He never wanted to attain a higher calling in life. Like Sayid, his life's motivation was consumed by revenge.

So in all of the convoluted story arcs and twists, there were only two viable final candidates from the very beginning of the series: Jack and Hurley. Jack accepted the notion of leadership because the survivors immediately valued his medical skills as a means to their rescue and survival. Hurley never accepted a leadership role. He was comfortable at the end of the mission line. He hardly made his opinions known until the last story arc. He did not have the ego to want to seize power over other people's lives (because of his feelings of what other people in a similar position did to him).

In the end, both Jack and Hurley become the island guardians. One volunteers and one assumes the job involuntarily. Jack's reign as guardian is short lived; Hurley's reign is one of janitor, cleaning up the leftover strings, to close the island down (whatever that meant). We can assume that Hurley sealed away the island from future "crashes," but that is one of the final mysteries: what ever happened to the island after Hurley?

Nothing. Hurley and Ben briefly discuss their time on the island in the sideways church courtyard. There is no great revelation that the island needed protection, that it had a new guardian or that it even survived at all.

The island either continued on its life force mission without a guardian or it faded away from reality when none of the characters remained on (or in) it. In either event, the world did not end. The only thing that ended were the lives of the main characters who gathered in the after life church to move on.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will be at peace."
Bob Marley

Power.

It is a basic human drive. It was a theme throughout the series.

There were many variations of power.

First, there was power as in control.  Widmore and Ben fought over control of the Island. What exactly was the end game of that conflict is mired in the murkiness of The End.

Second, there was power as in leadership. Jack and Locke sparred over the survivor group, just as Ben and Locke wrestled over the leadership of the Others. 

Third, there was power as in energy properties. The Tempest was supposed to be the power station for the Dharma stations, but we are never told exactly what was the source of its power grid. There were no imports of oil, natural gas, or references to being a nuclear power plant. One could assume that it was either geothermic or nuclear. Or, one could say they tapped a light source pocket of electromagnetic energy to harness it for electric turbine power.

Fourth, there was the power in the bonds between people who came to the island. The Others bonded together to form a collective who believed the island was their home. Dharma members brought a cult like bond to their group in researching or taming the island. The 815 survivors bonded because of their major life experience (surviving a plane crash). There were the bonds of matrimony and love by those who came to the island such as Rose and Bernard, which remained constant throughout their island trials.

Which power was the most important?

Was it Jack's love for his fellow man that saved everyone in the end? Or was it really Jack's ego?

A person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance is his or her ego. In psychoanalysis, the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity. In metaphysics it is a conscious thinking subject.

Jack always thought of himself as the hero. He "saved" patients with his miracle skills. He was thrown outside his comfort zone to "save" his fellow passengers. Instead of an operating room where he could control, he had to control and entire island filled with non-medical variables.

If one considers LOST a multiple character study instead of a sci-fi drama, then the quest of various levels of power by the central cast members could be considered an ego study.

In the end, Jack did step outside of himself and become the "leader" his father thought he would never become because he could not accept the "death"  component of life and death decisions. It was only when Jack realized his own "death" in the sideways church did he "save" the rest of people in the church who were "waiting for him."

Does that put the whole island dynamic in the portal between Jack's conscious and subconscious mind? Were the dream like aspects of the island story lines a mere complex fantasy created by Jack's imagination in order for him to personally work out the reality of dying?

If Jack was dying in real life, he may not have accepted his fate. His mind may have shut down (by coma, trauma, drugs, etc.) but his subconscious ran a series of alternative realities to show Jack what would happen in his own life and death scenarios.  So the "character study" analysis of LOST could mean a single character's self-study of his own mortality. 

In the open question of what happens to a lost soul upon a person's demise, Jack's journey is not one of redemption but of acceptance that death is part of life; that death is part of his own life. He could only have eternal peace when he finally accepted his own death. There was a duality of split scenarios: the bad for the island events and the good for the sideways fantasy events. Jack's mind could only reconcile the two with the acceptance of his own death.

The power that Jack sought was to stave off death. He thought of himself as a miracle surgeon. He always had hope. He never gave up. He thought he could do no wrong. He could not accept the failure in the OR which would mean death to a patient. Those same attributes kept Jack from accepting his own mortality. And without that acceptance, Jack's soul was thrown into limbo.

His ego or soul had to find a way to get out of this trap. He had to learn to accept the carnage of death to other people as witnessed on the island. Over time, it would have had to numb Jack's principles.  Mission after mission thrust Jack into life and death decisions that we beyond his power to control.

Even though Jack assumed the power of leadership, he had a hard time accepting the responsibility of that leadership role when people around him died. Everyone comforted him when things went bad, but he had a hard time taking their support.  

In the end when Jack learned he died, we could see the burdens lifted from his shoulders. There was a sigh of relief. He was ready to move on. Jack's own peace came through his soul dispatching his ego to accept his own demise.
 

 

  

REBOOT EPISODES 93-96

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 93-96 (Days ????- - ????)

In 1974, Sawyer perpetuates a lie with some of the other Island survivors in order to protect themselves from mistakes of the past, by joining the Dharma group.

When the O6 arrives,  Sawyer is forced to further perpetuate his lie in order to protect them by making them part of Dharma.

Things begin to unravel when Sayid goes rogue and takes matters into their own hands, risking the lives of everyone on the Island. Dharma thinks he is a Hostile.

Kate goes to extreme measures to save Ben's life after he is shot by Sayid when Jack refuses to help. She asks the Hostiles to help Ben. In a house, Hurley and Miles try to figure out the consequences of Ben's shooting and time travel. Sawyer tries to recruit help from Jack, but he refuses telling Kate that he already saved Ben once, and he did it for her. Jack claims that he's done trying to fix things and now puts his trust in the Island. Kate remarks that she doesn't like the new Jack, but Jack reminds her that she didn't like the old him.

Miles argues with Hurley about time travel.

Kate arrives at the infirmary and donates blood to keep young Ben alive. As Kate and Roger sit at Ben's bedside, he admits that he may not have been "the world's greatest father" since Ben stole his keys because of him.

Inside the house, Hurley is trying to understand the unanswered questions of time travel. Miles explains to him that they are in their present while everyone else are in their past. Hurley wonders why a future Ben couldn't remember that Sayid, the guy who tortured him in the future is the same guy who shot him in his past. Miles has no answer.


Juliet is able to stabilize Ben, but can't heal him. Juliet tells Kate that the Others may be able to save his life by bringing him to the Temple.  She secretly helps Kate load Ben into a van, and Kate drives out to the sonic fence. Sawyer catches up with her and helps her rather than stopping her. He says that he's doing it for Juliet--because Juliet feels it's wrong to let a child die. Sawyer and Kate bring Ben to the Others.

Science:

Wikipedia reports on a man who weighed deceased souls. In 1901, Duncan MacDougall weighed six patients while they were in the process of dying from tuberculosis in an old age home. It was relatively easy to determine when death was only a few hours away, and at this point the entire bed was placed on an industrial sized scale which was apparently sensitive to the gram. He took his results (a varying amount of perceived mass loss in most of the six cases) to support his hypothesis that the soul had mass, and when the soul departed the body, so did this mass. The determination of the soul weighing 21 grams was based on the average loss of mass in the six patients within moments after death. Experiments on mice and other animals took place. Most notably the weighing upon death of sheep seemed to create mass for a few minutes which later disappeared. The hypothesis was made that a soul portal formed upon death which then whisked the soul away.

MacDougall also measured fifteen dogs in similar circumstances and reported the results as "uniformly negative," with no perceived change in mass. He took these results as confirmation that the soul had weight, and that dogs did not have souls. MacDougall's complaints about not being able to find dogs dying of the natural causes that would have been ideal led one author to conjecture that he was in fact poisoning dogs to conduct these experiments. In March 1907, accounts of MacDougall's experiments were published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research and the medical journal American Medicine, while the news was spread to the general public by New York Times.

His results have never been attempted to be reproduced, and are generally regarded either as meaningless or considered to have had little if any scientific merit. Nonetheless, MacDougall's finding that presumably the human soul weighed 21 grams has become a meme in the public consciousness, mostly due to its claiming the titular thesis in the 2003 film 21 Grams.

Improbabilities:

The time traveling Ben Linus, on the Hydra Island in 2007, would not have any immediate affects from being shot by Sayid in 1977 as a child, including memories if time travel is a string as Daniel states; that you can go back and forth upon the time string, but what happened happened.

Clues:

The Lost explanations of time travel, and then the subsequent breaches of those time travel rules, indicates a) that the viewer is not really seeing time travel but some form of illlusion or b) massive continuity errors in the filler arcs.

The duality of young Ben “dying” in the island past by Sayid, and the severely injured Ben awaking on the Hydra island “the land of the living” after 316 crashes and meets dead Locke (Flocke) indicates that we do not know who is alive or who dead but in a living clone on the island. The idea that the island is the land “of the living” can be a misnomer of dead souls who retain a physical manifestation passing through hell.

Discussion:

“ A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. ”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

We come to another crossroads. The series is throwing out more and more mysteries, but the show will not conclude like a mystery story. The series is throwing out more and more science fiction attributes, but the show will not conclude like a sci-fi classic. The series is also imparting more adventure sequences, but it is masking “shock plot twists” as drama. Season 5 is the point where many late adopters of the show jumped off the raft.

What Happened, Happened is a misnomer. When Sawyer takes on the sheriff role in 1970s Dharma camp, that changes the past. The time flashing 815ers have a direct causal connection to Sayid shooting Ben as a child. As a result of Jack’s insistence not to intervene (to let the island do its own thing), Kate takes it upon herself to save Ben. This should have fractured their shaky relationship forever.
When I first viewed Season 5, the episodes continue to confirm my suspicion that the show is about the after life. That all the characters are not in the real world; they are all dead.  The Egyptian mythology on the afterlife is the basis for the characters journey through the underworld to judgment.

It is not about time travel but re-creation of “place” in order to test the characters (souls) to determine if they are worthy to remain in the afterlife or be destroyed into non-existence.

The concept of “place” over “time” is evident in the clear indication that the Hydra station with polar bear cages in use in 1974-77 with the Sawyer group while Locke and the 316ers are at the abandoned Hydra station in 2005-2008.

Each character is being put into a new situation (place) to determine whether they are able to “Change.”  For example, Sawyer’s soul has been reset to a situation or place where a murderous con man can change into a the peaceful, wise sheriff of Dharmaberry.  For example, Locke was returned to a “real” world setting with a simple mission to bring people back, but he utterly fails in his own right. He now has an opportunity in a new place with the 316ers where he could change from pathetic suicidal loser into the special leader (a “do over” if you don’t think Locke’s body was taken over by MIB).

It would appear that Widmore, Alpert, Abbadon, Hawking, Brother Campbell are all on the same team.  They are all judges from the underworld who are testing the characters to determine whether they are worthy for redemption and rebirth.

While Chang is constructing the Orchid to get to the FDW, Horace is doing 4 a.m. feedings, Sawyer is Andy Griffith, Radzinsky, a security guard, is creating the plans for the Hatch?  Does that make any sense?

In 1977, the Hatch was not built yet. How would the Hostiles allow a major underground construction project (remember the massive concrete vaults) on their territory? They would not. The natives would have had to been eliminated in order to construct the hatch.

Radz and Kelvin survived the Purge in 1992. So the Hatch had to be constructed between 1977-1990. Based on the equipment, more towards the early 1980s.

The hatch’s purpose still remains a mystery.  Why would you need in a computer age, an operator typing in the numbers every 108 minutes? And why construct your alarm display in hieroglyphs? 

In 2001, Desmond replaced Radzinsky at the Hatch. Radz went nuts and allegedly committed suicide. Was he the Faraday of his day?

In 2004, Desmond’s failure to put the numbers in caused 815 to crash.

Now the 815ers of 1977  are in the position of stopping the hatch from being constructed, which would change the future so 815 would not crash.

During the Swan Orientation Film, Dr. Marvin Candle mentioned that there was "an incident" which resulted in the creation of a protocol that required a code to be entered every 108 minutes. The incident involved a leak in the containment associated with an electromagnetic anomaly. The leak caused an unspecified charge to build up within the anomaly. As the charge built up, the magnetic field associated with the anomaly grew. After 108 minutes, the magnetic field was large enough to damage the Swan station. This incident most likely occurred before 1980, the production date of the film. ("What Kate Did")

Dr. Marvin Candle issues a strict warning not to use the computer for communication with the outside world. He goes on to say that failure to comply will compromise the integrity of the project and could result in another incident. Candle also seems to indicate that the incident occurred shortly after the Swan station began operations. ("What Kate Did")

It is unknown exactly what caused the incident to occur or what kind of damage it caused. The protocol was created so that the magnetic anomaly could be discharged every 108 minutes, thus preventing an electromagnetic catastrophe. Failure to comply with this protocol leads to a system failure. There is a failsafe mechanism in place below the floor of the computer room that will destroy the Swan and permanently and safely seal the electromagnetic anomaly. ("Live Together, Die Alone")

1980 Swan orientation references The Incident causing protocol for EM discharge.
Sawyer group Dharma 1974-1977.

The Incident, EM discharge, 1977-1979.  (The Orchid? why build Swan on different spot?)

Swan built between 1977-1980 (Why Radz designing station not needed to exist yet?)

Ben buries Orchid box w/ mirror, crackers 1990
Ben orchestrates the purge in 1992.
Radz and Kelvin in Hatch survive the Purge in 1992.
Radz commits suicide 1999-2001
2004 protocol breach caused 815 to crash
Ben builds runway for plane in 2004.
Desmond impodes Hatch with fail safe key in 2004
O6 leave island in 2004-05.
316 crash lands on runway in 2007
Dharma barracks “different” in 2007.
Picture wall: one more recruits photo (6 months after Jack arrives?)

So going back into time to 1977 should have created more massive event distortions in the Lost universe.

Magical/Supernatural/Elements:

Time travel. In all of its inconsistencies.

Dead Locke walking among the island living.


Last lines in episodes:

EP 93:
SAWYER: Yeah. I just... I gotta go.
[He does so.]

EP 94:

SAYID: It's nice to meet you, Ben.

EP 95:

SAYID: I am a killer.
[Sayid looks up and shoots young Ben in the chest once. Ben falls to the floor instantly. Sayid lowers the gun and wipes a tear, then he runs into the jungle, leaving Ben for dead.]

EP 96:

LOCKE: Hello, Ben. Welcome back to the land of the living.
[Ben's eyes open wide as he realizes Locke is alive again.]

New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

In ancient Egyptian religion, names held great power or magic. When a new Pharaoh took the throne, he would erase the name of his predecessor in order to eliminate his power. Likewise, people would not speak a god’s name, but use another name as to not invoke the power or wrath of that god. Also, when you wanted the gods to spite an enemy, you would invoke a curse upon him.

Maybe this ancient concepts are at play in the Lostverse. We have always been bothered by why Hugo is called Hurley in the island world. We know that James Ford took the name of his parents’ killer, Sawyer. But Sawyer’s rise to power coincides with Juliet calling him by his given name, “James.” And it is that simple invocation that gives Sawyer a change in personality to become a well respected member of Dharma, its sheriff, and a long lasting relationship with Juliet.

Hurley winds up as the powerful god-like guardian on the island in the end. Is it the recognition and call of his given name in later episodes that defines his final mission?

The concept that the island “is the land of living” as Flocke tells Ben on the 316 island is probably a great misnomer, too. It may be another lie to invoke a sense of common place in the souls now trapped in the misery of forehell. It is also a control mechanism by those who have actual knowledge that they are dead - - - knowledge is power in the Lost world. Hurley has wavered from thinking he was crazy to thinking that all of the 815ers never left the island, that they were all dead. Hurley’s prophecy will turn to ultimate truth in The End. Viewers probably did not give Hurley enough credit as our proxy in the series.

Gnostic idea that there are two worlds, and the inferior visible world is an illusion. The island world seems more “real” but it is an inferior “illusion” of life as compared to the ending sideways world (after life or purgatory holding dimension). We have seen several references to the island world as being an illusion, a reincarnation, and a place of death. It may be the first place of death in a chain of levels of enlightenment until a final death brings together all the elements to complete one true life (i.e. the sideways church reunion.)