The internet is filled with lists on popular culture, including vague rankings on televisions shows.
LOST appeared in the Top 10 "creepiest endings" to a television series. Creepy, an unpleasant fear or unease about a situation, may not accurately describe LOST's conclusion, but the list remarks stated:
As if this show was not strange enough, the
show's finale added an extra creep factor to it. Though the finale did
piece things together, fans who had fallen in love with the various
characters were heartbroken, or better yet, disappointed to learn they
were all living in purgatory. It made some viewers question whether the characters were ever alive at all.
It depends on whether you take TPTB's word that the characters were "alive" the whole time (when the purgatory theory was advanced by fans early on in Season 1). But the purgatory Ending did bluntly raise the possibility that the characters were dead all along.
And that doubt is valid because the writers could have done a different, non-purgatory ending, IF they so chose to do so. However, it would not have been "as happy" ending because so many main characters (Juliet, Jin, Sun, Jack, Locke, Boone, Shannon, Christian) were already dead so you could not have a happy reunion at the island grave yard. For a few, having the characters all dead prior to Flight 815, with the unhappy departed having their souls treated to "one final adventure" in the spirit anteworld called the island, would have been a clearer justification for the sideways church reunion.
It would have been creepier if the final reveal was that all the characters NEVER lived at all; that the entire series was a "what if" these human spirits actually had lived . . . in other words, the final scene would have not shown a church but an operating room door at an abortion clinic. All the characters were never born. But since they were innocent, the universe gave them the chance to live like humans in a cosmic playground.
Showing posts with label purgatory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label purgatory. Show all posts
Monday, November 17, 2014
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
REVIEW: THEORIES PART 1
For the next few posts, we will review the popular theories that the LOST community thought were important as the final season was about to begin for our island castaways.
The first, and probably least popular theory was Purgatory.
The barrier to acceptance of the theory by a vast majority of viewers was a) the people looked alive and so they survived the plane crash; b) they were alive because people "died" on the island; and c) viewers wanted to vicariously "live" through their favorite characters.
This fourth wall in television may have led to some viewer confusion and bitterness when the series ended in the sideways world church.
The purgatory theme was what many people immediately thought of when the pilot episode ended. It was based upon several critical observations. First, it was highly unlikely that the passengers would have survived a plane break up at 35,000 feet. Second, there were inconsistent injury patterns such as the lack of broken bones on impact. Third, the plane's engine which was disconnected from its wing (and fuel) source continued to run. Fourth, John Locke miraculously could walk again. Fifth, Rose's cancer pain was cured. One can only release the physical pain and constrictions of injury or disease in the after life.
Further clues include the dramatic demise of passenger Gary Troup who was sucked into the mysterious still active jet turbine. His name was an anagram for "purgatory."
Throughout the series, there were many clues that the main characters were actually dead. When Naomi arrived on the island and was told that the survivors of Flight 815 were present, she was in shock. She told them they found the plane wreckage, and they were "all dead."
Purgatory, which is a different realm than life on earth, would explain why women cannot give birth to children conceived on the island.
Further, the appearance of the smoke monster, a dark nebulous mass of evil, is a statement on where the characters are located, in an after life state.
Also in the episode “The Brig” when Sawyer asks John’s father, Anthony Cooper, how he got to the island, he explains that he was in a car accident and the next thing he knew, he was tied to a chair and gagged and looking at his “dead son," John Locke. Sawyer asks if he thought Locke was dead because he threw him out of a window and Cooper replies: “He’s dead because a plane he was flying on crashed in the Pacific.” Sawyer doesn’t believe him, then Cooper says: “If this isn’t hell, friend…then where are we?”
In “A Man Behind The Curtain”, there are a few things that support the purgatory theory. One is when Young Ben sees his mother, who died when he was born, on the island. Another is that when we see Richard in Ben’s flashbacks, he appears to be the same age. We would learn that Richard crashed on the island, was attacked by the smoke monster and became "immortal" which could be a synonym for "dead." Also, Jack sees his dead father and Kate sees her dead horse on the island.
Many people do not believe that the sideways world was "confirmation" of the island purgatory. They point to the position that people left the island and returned to their old pre-crash lives. However, as the clue in the marina stated, all the post-island events could have been illusions. Besides, it is clear that the sideways world ALL of the characters were dead. When they all died is open to interpretation.
In the the purgatory theory, everyone on the island is actually dead and their actions on the “island” determine where they end up: heaven or hell. In order to help in the "soul sorting" process, people on the island have a serious set of common issues in which they have to figure out both alone and in the group dynamic. The island gives the souls a proving ground for redemption. Now, some religious students disagree that the island would function as a purgatory since teachings indicate souls in leave Purgatory will leave for heaven - no one in Purgatory goes to hell it is a period of purgation of sin before facing God not an in between place with an option for heaven or hell.
But in the context that the sideways church represents all facets of religions, there is a hybrid or literary reasoning behind the purgatory theory.
In Dante Alighieri's, The Divine Comedy, the author describes heaven (paradiso), hell (the inferno), and purgatory (purgatorio). He provides a diagram of purgatory. The first thing you enter when you come to purgatory is called "The Island." Perhaps this is where the survivors are. The ones who have died (Boone, Shannon, etc.) have moved on to the other levels of purgatory after being "purified" on the Island. Dante had to wash the stains of hell from his face and the film of hell's vapors form his eyes. This could be all of the bad things that the survivors have done. It seemed that whenever a character had redeemed themselves, they "died." This could have been because they had cleansed themselves and were moving on to the next level.
For example, according to Dante, greedy people go to the fifth terrace of purgatory where they are forced to lay face down on the ground and are unable to move. Nikki & Paulo (done in by their own greed) end up being buried alive while paralyzed.
So it is possible to view the Island has a series of hellish levels of post-life existence for the main characters to traverse (which is similar to the ancient Egyptian ritual writings that a soul must pass through a dangerous journey in the underworld in order to be judged then reach paradise.)
Many people, including the writers and producers of the show, are adamant that the show was not set in purgatory. But where did the show actually end up in the Finale? There is nothing to say that when the characters "died" on the island, they were "created" in the sideways holding realm until their souls could work out their moral issues and "remember" their own demise and judgment.
There is also no rule against having a show about souls running the gauntlet of the underworld seeking personal salvation. See, Dante's master work above. But since TPTB said this was not purgatory after Season 1, people believed them. But the entire show was about lies, deceit, betrayal, misdirection and mistrust. Why believe the TPTB who had a vested interest in keeping the audience for Season 2?
Based upon the show's ending, the purgatory theory continues to be the most plausible explanation for the supernatural elements of the island events and location.
The first, and probably least popular theory was Purgatory.
The barrier to acceptance of the theory by a vast majority of viewers was a) the people looked alive and so they survived the plane crash; b) they were alive because people "died" on the island; and c) viewers wanted to vicariously "live" through their favorite characters.
This fourth wall in television may have led to some viewer confusion and bitterness when the series ended in the sideways world church.
The purgatory theme was what many people immediately thought of when the pilot episode ended. It was based upon several critical observations. First, it was highly unlikely that the passengers would have survived a plane break up at 35,000 feet. Second, there were inconsistent injury patterns such as the lack of broken bones on impact. Third, the plane's engine which was disconnected from its wing (and fuel) source continued to run. Fourth, John Locke miraculously could walk again. Fifth, Rose's cancer pain was cured. One can only release the physical pain and constrictions of injury or disease in the after life.
Further clues include the dramatic demise of passenger Gary Troup who was sucked into the mysterious still active jet turbine. His name was an anagram for "purgatory."
Throughout the series, there were many clues that the main characters were actually dead. When Naomi arrived on the island and was told that the survivors of Flight 815 were present, she was in shock. She told them they found the plane wreckage, and they were "all dead."
Purgatory, which is a different realm than life on earth, would explain why women cannot give birth to children conceived on the island.
Further, the appearance of the smoke monster, a dark nebulous mass of evil, is a statement on where the characters are located, in an after life state.
Also in the episode “The Brig” when Sawyer asks John’s father, Anthony Cooper, how he got to the island, he explains that he was in a car accident and the next thing he knew, he was tied to a chair and gagged and looking at his “dead son," John Locke. Sawyer asks if he thought Locke was dead because he threw him out of a window and Cooper replies: “He’s dead because a plane he was flying on crashed in the Pacific.” Sawyer doesn’t believe him, then Cooper says: “If this isn’t hell, friend…then where are we?”
In “A Man Behind The Curtain”, there are a few things that support the purgatory theory. One is when Young Ben sees his mother, who died when he was born, on the island. Another is that when we see Richard in Ben’s flashbacks, he appears to be the same age. We would learn that Richard crashed on the island, was attacked by the smoke monster and became "immortal" which could be a synonym for "dead." Also, Jack sees his dead father and Kate sees her dead horse on the island.
Many people do not believe that the sideways world was "confirmation" of the island purgatory. They point to the position that people left the island and returned to their old pre-crash lives. However, as the clue in the marina stated, all the post-island events could have been illusions. Besides, it is clear that the sideways world ALL of the characters were dead. When they all died is open to interpretation.
In the the purgatory theory, everyone on the island is actually dead and their actions on the “island” determine where they end up: heaven or hell. In order to help in the "soul sorting" process, people on the island have a serious set of common issues in which they have to figure out both alone and in the group dynamic. The island gives the souls a proving ground for redemption. Now, some religious students disagree that the island would function as a purgatory since teachings indicate souls in leave Purgatory will leave for heaven - no one in Purgatory goes to hell it is a period of purgation of sin before facing God not an in between place with an option for heaven or hell.
But in the context that the sideways church represents all facets of religions, there is a hybrid or literary reasoning behind the purgatory theory.
In Dante Alighieri's, The Divine Comedy, the author describes heaven (paradiso), hell (the inferno), and purgatory (purgatorio). He provides a diagram of purgatory. The first thing you enter when you come to purgatory is called "The Island." Perhaps this is where the survivors are. The ones who have died (Boone, Shannon, etc.) have moved on to the other levels of purgatory after being "purified" on the Island. Dante had to wash the stains of hell from his face and the film of hell's vapors form his eyes. This could be all of the bad things that the survivors have done. It seemed that whenever a character had redeemed themselves, they "died." This could have been because they had cleansed themselves and were moving on to the next level.
For example, according to Dante, greedy people go to the fifth terrace of purgatory where they are forced to lay face down on the ground and are unable to move. Nikki & Paulo (done in by their own greed) end up being buried alive while paralyzed.
So it is possible to view the Island has a series of hellish levels of post-life existence for the main characters to traverse (which is similar to the ancient Egyptian ritual writings that a soul must pass through a dangerous journey in the underworld in order to be judged then reach paradise.)
Many people, including the writers and producers of the show, are adamant that the show was not set in purgatory. But where did the show actually end up in the Finale? There is nothing to say that when the characters "died" on the island, they were "created" in the sideways holding realm until their souls could work out their moral issues and "remember" their own demise and judgment.
There is also no rule against having a show about souls running the gauntlet of the underworld seeking personal salvation. See, Dante's master work above. But since TPTB said this was not purgatory after Season 1, people believed them. But the entire show was about lies, deceit, betrayal, misdirection and mistrust. Why believe the TPTB who had a vested interest in keeping the audience for Season 2?
Based upon the show's ending, the purgatory theory continues to be the most plausible explanation for the supernatural elements of the island events and location.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
THE EYE
One of the key shots in the series was a close up of a single eye
opening. It usually signaled a character change, a flashback, or new
story tangent. What does an eye represent?
The phrase "mind's eye" refers to the human ability for visualization,that is the experience of visual mental imagery; in other words, one's ability to "see" things within one's mind.
The biological foundation of the mind's eye is not fully understood. MRI studies have shown that the lateral geniculate nucleus and the V1 area of the brain's visual cortex are activated during mental imagery tasks. Scientists have found that this visual pathway is not a one one street. Higher areas of the brain can also send visual signals back to neurons connected in the lower areas of the visual cortex, also creating the ability to see or have a perceptual experience in the absence of actual visual imput from a person's eyes.
Deeper studies of the brain have shown that below the neocortex (where the center of perception exists), the thalamus has been found to be discrete to other components in that it processes all forms of perceptional data relayed from both lower and higher components of the brain. Damage to this component can produce permanent perceptual damage, however when damage is inflicted upon the cerebral cortex, the brain adapts to neuroplasticity to amend any occlusions for perception. It can be thought that the neocortex is a sophisticated memory storage warehouse in which data received as an input from sensory systems are compartmentalized via the cerebral cortex. This would essentially allow for shapes to be identified, although given the lack of filtering input produced internally, one may as a consequence, hallucinate - essentially seeing something that isn't received as an input externally but rather internal (i.e. an error in the filtering of segmented sensory data from the cerebral cortex may result in one seeing, feeling, hearing or experiencing something that is inconsistent with reality).
Other studies theorize that the pineal gland may be the source of the mind's eye. Researchers think that during near death experiences and dreaming, the gland may secrete a hallucinogenic chemical known as DMT which could produce internal visuals when external sensory data is occluded.
The pineal gland is a light sensitive gland that is located deep in the brain at its hemispheric division. It produces the serotonin derivative melatonin, a hormone that affects the modulation of wake/sleep patterns and seasonal functions in a person's body cycle. Because of its location and light sensitive properties, many philosophers believe this gland is the gateway into enlightenment beyond mere dream states. Some people believe that this gland is the gateway to the soul or spiritual world.
This is best described as "the third eye" (or the inner eye) in Hinduism. The third eye is a mystical concept referring to a speculative invisible eye which provides perception beyond ordinary sight. The third eye refers to the gate that leads to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness.
In New Age spirituality, the third eye often symbolizes a state of enlightenment and process of mental images having deeply personal spiritual or psychological significance. The third eye is often associated with religious visions, clairvoyance, the ability to observe chakras or auras, precognition and out-of-body experiences. People who are claimed to have the capacity to utilize their third eyes are sometimes known as seers.
In ancient Egyptian religion, the Eye of Horus contained powerful symbolism. Horus was a sky god usually depicted as a falcon. His right eye was associated with the sun god, Ra. The eye symbol represents the marking around the eye of the falcon, including the "teardrop"marking sometimes found below the eye. The mirror image, or left eye, sometimes represented the moon and the god Djehuti (Thoth, the scribe and holder of magical powers). In one myth, when brothers Set and Horus were fighting for the throne after Orsiris's death, Set gouged out Horus's left eye. The majority of the eye was restored by either Hathor or Thoth (with the last portion possibly being supplied magically). When Horus's eye was recovered, he offered it to his father, Osiris, the god of the underworld, in hopes of restoring his life. Hence, the eye of Horus was often used to symbolise sacrifice, healing, restoration, and protection.
Besides the close ups of eyes, John Locke had a similar scar across his right eye like in the story of Horus. Locke's goal on the island was succeed Horus, and later Ben, in the leader of the natives. Locke was the person who found and interacted with the (holographic or repetitive image) of Horace near Jacob's cabin.
Also, in Season 1, Jack, Locke, Sun, Claire, Boone, Michael, Charlie, Sawyer and Jin all had eye close ups which led to flashback story lines. This is strong evidence that even though a clever foreshadowing device to get back stories started, it may have served a more compelling clue that in each case, the eye that was "opening" was the character's inner eye, or mind's eye - - - the gateway to inner, magical or spiritual realms.
It would also explain why so many people appeared to be uninjured despite the plane tearing apart and falling from 35, 000 feet. They were, but it was their minds that were creating a new perception of the world around them when they were in shock, or in a coma, or having near death experiences. The story structure then is a patchwork quilt of the passengers own perceptions if they survived the plane crash. It is a collective story telling through the portal of individual pineal glands set off by the unique electromagnetic energy of the island (which gives life, death and rebirth.) While it seems that it would be one consistent story, each individual character was in his or her own dream state. This could be why there are drastic mood and alliance changes during the series because we do not know who is the actual projector of that story line.
So when Christian tells Jack that all the people in the church, his fellow passengers, were the most important people in his "life," it was his pre-purgatory limbo that his mind's eye shared with the other island crash victims, in order to sacrifice, heal, restore, and protect their spiritual souls so they could move on in the after life together by reconnecting in the church realm. The toll to pass to the church realm was to work out one's material, selfish, and sinful nature in order to redeem the goodness trapped in one's soul. That is the true escape from the island, through each person's inner eye.
The phrase "mind's eye" refers to the human ability for visualization,that is the experience of visual mental imagery; in other words, one's ability to "see" things within one's mind.
The biological foundation of the mind's eye is not fully understood. MRI studies have shown that the lateral geniculate nucleus and the V1 area of the brain's visual cortex are activated during mental imagery tasks. Scientists have found that this visual pathway is not a one one street. Higher areas of the brain can also send visual signals back to neurons connected in the lower areas of the visual cortex, also creating the ability to see or have a perceptual experience in the absence of actual visual imput from a person's eyes.
Deeper studies of the brain have shown that below the neocortex (where the center of perception exists), the thalamus has been found to be discrete to other components in that it processes all forms of perceptional data relayed from both lower and higher components of the brain. Damage to this component can produce permanent perceptual damage, however when damage is inflicted upon the cerebral cortex, the brain adapts to neuroplasticity to amend any occlusions for perception. It can be thought that the neocortex is a sophisticated memory storage warehouse in which data received as an input from sensory systems are compartmentalized via the cerebral cortex. This would essentially allow for shapes to be identified, although given the lack of filtering input produced internally, one may as a consequence, hallucinate - essentially seeing something that isn't received as an input externally but rather internal (i.e. an error in the filtering of segmented sensory data from the cerebral cortex may result in one seeing, feeling, hearing or experiencing something that is inconsistent with reality).
Other studies theorize that the pineal gland may be the source of the mind's eye. Researchers think that during near death experiences and dreaming, the gland may secrete a hallucinogenic chemical known as DMT which could produce internal visuals when external sensory data is occluded.
The pineal gland is a light sensitive gland that is located deep in the brain at its hemispheric division. It produces the serotonin derivative melatonin, a hormone that affects the modulation of wake/sleep patterns and seasonal functions in a person's body cycle. Because of its location and light sensitive properties, many philosophers believe this gland is the gateway into enlightenment beyond mere dream states. Some people believe that this gland is the gateway to the soul or spiritual world.
This is best described as "the third eye" (or the inner eye) in Hinduism. The third eye is a mystical concept referring to a speculative invisible eye which provides perception beyond ordinary sight. The third eye refers to the gate that leads to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness.
In New Age spirituality, the third eye often symbolizes a state of enlightenment and process of mental images having deeply personal spiritual or psychological significance. The third eye is often associated with religious visions, clairvoyance, the ability to observe chakras or auras, precognition and out-of-body experiences. People who are claimed to have the capacity to utilize their third eyes are sometimes known as seers.
In ancient Egyptian religion, the Eye of Horus contained powerful symbolism. Horus was a sky god usually depicted as a falcon. His right eye was associated with the sun god, Ra. The eye symbol represents the marking around the eye of the falcon, including the "teardrop"marking sometimes found below the eye. The mirror image, or left eye, sometimes represented the moon and the god Djehuti (Thoth, the scribe and holder of magical powers). In one myth, when brothers Set and Horus were fighting for the throne after Orsiris's death, Set gouged out Horus's left eye. The majority of the eye was restored by either Hathor or Thoth (with the last portion possibly being supplied magically). When Horus's eye was recovered, he offered it to his father, Osiris, the god of the underworld, in hopes of restoring his life. Hence, the eye of Horus was often used to symbolise sacrifice, healing, restoration, and protection.
Besides the close ups of eyes, John Locke had a similar scar across his right eye like in the story of Horus. Locke's goal on the island was succeed Horus, and later Ben, in the leader of the natives. Locke was the person who found and interacted with the (holographic or repetitive image) of Horace near Jacob's cabin.
Also, in Season 1, Jack, Locke, Sun, Claire, Boone, Michael, Charlie, Sawyer and Jin all had eye close ups which led to flashback story lines. This is strong evidence that even though a clever foreshadowing device to get back stories started, it may have served a more compelling clue that in each case, the eye that was "opening" was the character's inner eye, or mind's eye - - - the gateway to inner, magical or spiritual realms.
It would also explain why so many people appeared to be uninjured despite the plane tearing apart and falling from 35, 000 feet. They were, but it was their minds that were creating a new perception of the world around them when they were in shock, or in a coma, or having near death experiences. The story structure then is a patchwork quilt of the passengers own perceptions if they survived the plane crash. It is a collective story telling through the portal of individual pineal glands set off by the unique electromagnetic energy of the island (which gives life, death and rebirth.) While it seems that it would be one consistent story, each individual character was in his or her own dream state. This could be why there are drastic mood and alliance changes during the series because we do not know who is the actual projector of that story line.
So when Christian tells Jack that all the people in the church, his fellow passengers, were the most important people in his "life," it was his pre-purgatory limbo that his mind's eye shared with the other island crash victims, in order to sacrifice, heal, restore, and protect their spiritual souls so they could move on in the after life together by reconnecting in the church realm. The toll to pass to the church realm was to work out one's material, selfish, and sinful nature in order to redeem the goodness trapped in one's soul. That is the true escape from the island, through each person's inner eye.
Monday, August 12, 2013
THE FUTURE
There are only four more episodes of the sci-fi comedy Futurama left. This show did not take itself too seriously because it was a comedy. It had distinct characters. It also had core science fiction world standards that did not change from series to series. The show itself was canceled several times, but brought back to life on cable. In some respects, it was the little show that could. The future is coming to an end.
In relation to Futurama, LOST probably would have not made it if it started this year. There are plenty of science fiction, vampires, monsters and end of the world shows on television, but none of them have the cult following to get a canceled show back on the air. LOST started out with a high note because of the pilot episode - - - plane crash survivors on a mysterious island with monsters and a polar bear. Network television was a lull (just before its fragmentary viewership declines of today).
Around Season 4-5, I always thought that the rabid fan base would have had at least one person take the show and re-edit it into chronological order. Put all the flashbacks into place to see if the story structure made any clearer sense. Even today, there are fans who make Star Trek fan episodes. I thought one college student or underemployed person(s) would put LOST in a final fan show reel. But to my knowledge, no one ever did that.
It would have been more complicated by the insertion of the flash sideways story arc. That would have to be a separate, independent story.
But in the chronology of events, it seems that the sideways world as being the show's conclusion point was in the island's chronological future. The sideways characters were waiting for their characters to remember their island experiences in order to move on through purgatory. The sideways world was first shown in Season 6 so many assume that it was created at the end of Season 5 (when Juliet said "it worked.") Her passing into the after life at that moment helped create a non-traumatized fantasy world we called the sideways existence.
That would be one explanation. The other is that the sideways world was created first. Lost souls in the after life were given a chance to find new relationships and strong bonds needed to pass through their after life journey. The island was merely a test of departed souls a kin to traveling through the Egyptian underworld for judgment.
So, the options are that the survivors were alive on the island, but as people died they went to purgatory to create the sideways realm, waiting for their friends to join them (but somehow not remembering the island experiences at all). Or, the sideways world was created first by greater beings who sorted the lost souls into groups and put them on a spiritual island to allow them to learn, live and grow.
The latter seems to make more sense since all the characters "awakened" in the sideways world. There is no evidence that their physical forms left the sideways existence to the island. There is no parallel universe explanation for their feelings, thoughts or experiences from the island realm. The apparent end game of the series is to find a group of people close to you (the church reunion) so you can move on in the after life. The lost souls' future was molded by their pasts. Their pasts were recreated on the island so they could work through their personal issues. It was when they remembered the bad times as well as the good, did the souls reawaken in the sideways world. The island was a dream scape compared to the sideways world.
But then again, we have no clue what the real future of the characters was going to be after Christian opened the church doors. Would their memories get erased again? Would they be transported to heaven or hell? Would they go to another spiritual plane of existence to continue to work on their personal problems?
They would not have gone back to the island like Groundhog Day. In the sideways world, when the plane did not crash, we saw a glimpse of the island under water. It was gone. It's purpose complete.
In relation to Futurama, LOST probably would have not made it if it started this year. There are plenty of science fiction, vampires, monsters and end of the world shows on television, but none of them have the cult following to get a canceled show back on the air. LOST started out with a high note because of the pilot episode - - - plane crash survivors on a mysterious island with monsters and a polar bear. Network television was a lull (just before its fragmentary viewership declines of today).
Around Season 4-5, I always thought that the rabid fan base would have had at least one person take the show and re-edit it into chronological order. Put all the flashbacks into place to see if the story structure made any clearer sense. Even today, there are fans who make Star Trek fan episodes. I thought one college student or underemployed person(s) would put LOST in a final fan show reel. But to my knowledge, no one ever did that.
It would have been more complicated by the insertion of the flash sideways story arc. That would have to be a separate, independent story.
But in the chronology of events, it seems that the sideways world as being the show's conclusion point was in the island's chronological future. The sideways characters were waiting for their characters to remember their island experiences in order to move on through purgatory. The sideways world was first shown in Season 6 so many assume that it was created at the end of Season 5 (when Juliet said "it worked.") Her passing into the after life at that moment helped create a non-traumatized fantasy world we called the sideways existence.
That would be one explanation. The other is that the sideways world was created first. Lost souls in the after life were given a chance to find new relationships and strong bonds needed to pass through their after life journey. The island was merely a test of departed souls a kin to traveling through the Egyptian underworld for judgment.
So, the options are that the survivors were alive on the island, but as people died they went to purgatory to create the sideways realm, waiting for their friends to join them (but somehow not remembering the island experiences at all). Or, the sideways world was created first by greater beings who sorted the lost souls into groups and put them on a spiritual island to allow them to learn, live and grow.
The latter seems to make more sense since all the characters "awakened" in the sideways world. There is no evidence that their physical forms left the sideways existence to the island. There is no parallel universe explanation for their feelings, thoughts or experiences from the island realm. The apparent end game of the series is to find a group of people close to you (the church reunion) so you can move on in the after life. The lost souls' future was molded by their pasts. Their pasts were recreated on the island so they could work through their personal issues. It was when they remembered the bad times as well as the good, did the souls reawaken in the sideways world. The island was a dream scape compared to the sideways world.
But then again, we have no clue what the real future of the characters was going to be after Christian opened the church doors. Would their memories get erased again? Would they be transported to heaven or hell? Would they go to another spiritual plane of existence to continue to work on their personal problems?
They would not have gone back to the island like Groundhog Day. In the sideways world, when the plane did not crash, we saw a glimpse of the island under water. It was gone. It's purpose complete.
Friday, July 26, 2013
IT WORKED
"It worked."
Juliet said that after the Incident where the bomb or EM energy pocket imploded the Hatch during its construction in the flash time of 1977.
Many assumed that she meant that whatever happened brought them back to the present time period. But in reality, how could a severely injured Juliet, trapped under rubble, know she had time skipped to the present?
In the last big scene, there is a clue:
[Flash sideways - Sawyer is walking down the hospital corridor. He stops Jack has he passes by.]
SAWYER: Hey, you know where I could get some grub around here?
JACK: Uhh... the cafeteria's closed, but there's a vending machine down the hallway.
SAWYER: Thanks, doc.
JACK: Yeah, no problem.
[Sawyer looks on as Jack walks away, pausing for a moment. At the vending machine he flattens out his dollar bill and inserts it into the machine. He presses the buttons for an Apollo bar (G23), but it gets stuck in the machine.]
SAWYER: Oh, come on...
[He shakes the machine but the bar doesn't budge.]
SAWYER: Unbelievable.
[He attempts to reach inside the machine to grab the bar. A woman approaches.]
JULIET: Can I help you?
SAWYER: It's okay... I'm a... I'm a cop.
JULIET: Mmmm. Maybe you should read the machine its rights?
SAWYER: [laughing] That's funny.
JULIET: Mmmm... Can I tell you a secret?
SAWYER: Please.
JULIET: If you unplug it, and then you plug it back in again... the candy just drops right down.
SAWYER: Is that right?
JULIET: Yes, and it's technically legal.
SAWYER: Oh... give that a shot...
[He unplugs the machine and all the lights in the room go off.]
SAWYER: Oops...
[Juliet laughs, grabs the bar from the machine and gives it to Sawyer.]
JULIET: It worked.
[Sawyer grabs the candy, but as his hand touches Juliet's, they both begin to see flashes of their time together on the Island. They jump back in surprise.]
JULIET: Oh...
SAWYER: Whoa... did you feel that?
JULIET: We should get coffee some time.
SAWYER: I'd love to but the machine ate my dollar, I only got one left.
JULIET: We can go dutch.
[As she says that last line we see her on the Island, they flash to her dying in Sawyer's arms as she says the same line. Juliet holds Sawyer's hand and they begin to experience more flashes of their 1970's DHARMA life; Sawyer holding up a daisy, them hugging, spooning in bed, more hugging and kissing, Sawyer holding Juliet from falling in The Incident, Juliet falling.]
SAWYER: Juliet? Juliet it's--it's me. Ju--
[They embrace and Juliet begins to sob.]
We have to ask ourselves "What worked?"
Juliet's plan to help a stranger game a vending machine worked as Sawyer got his candy bar. But was her phrase "It worked," coupled with a touch the "magic spell" that unlocked their repressed memories of their island life? We still don't understand why the characters in the sideways purgatory after death cannot remember their island past. Or when they do remember the trials, tribulations and good memories of the island they get all euphoric.
But if we take a different perspective on Juliet's "It worked" in the hospital, we may get a different understanding of the sideways world.
Island Juliet could have been remembering how she and Sawyer found happiness in the after life when she said "it worked." Her mind flashed to the hospital vending lounge. She understood her place in the universe. She knew everything would be okay in the end.
This again puts the sideways world earlier in real time than the island world. Considering the time itself was a nebulous concept throughout the series, this is a possible connection between the two worlds. It may hint that one needs to know in the island realm that things will be okay in the sideways afterlife in order to actually die in the island world. It may sound strange, but Christian's explanation of the sideways world (something the main characters created themselves) was actually referencing the characters creating the sideways world to work out their purgatory problems in order to move on. The purgatory characters were using their dreams, fears and fantasies to escape to the island (and not escape from it as shown in the pilot episode) to work out the issues that kept in purgatory.
Perhaps, Juliet was stuck in purgatory because she could not move on in her past relationship with her ex-husband. Her inability to give up her feelings for her ex-husband in Florida mirrored her loneliness in the sideways existence with her cordial but distant relationship with Jack. It was only throwing her subconscious spirit into the island world could she work through her personal demons of clinging emotional behavior to find a new love of her life. She just happened to stumble upon another desperate spirit in Sawyer who also had learn to let down his guard to overcome his commitment issues. They became soul mates because their after life souls found each other in the spiritual proving ground called the island.
Juliet said that after the Incident where the bomb or EM energy pocket imploded the Hatch during its construction in the flash time of 1977.
Many assumed that she meant that whatever happened brought them back to the present time period. But in reality, how could a severely injured Juliet, trapped under rubble, know she had time skipped to the present?
In the last big scene, there is a clue:
[Flash sideways - Sawyer is walking down the hospital corridor. He stops Jack has he passes by.]
SAWYER: Hey, you know where I could get some grub around here?
JACK: Uhh... the cafeteria's closed, but there's a vending machine down the hallway.
SAWYER: Thanks, doc.
JACK: Yeah, no problem.
[Sawyer looks on as Jack walks away, pausing for a moment. At the vending machine he flattens out his dollar bill and inserts it into the machine. He presses the buttons for an Apollo bar (G23), but it gets stuck in the machine.]
SAWYER: Oh, come on...
[He shakes the machine but the bar doesn't budge.]
SAWYER: Unbelievable.
[He attempts to reach inside the machine to grab the bar. A woman approaches.]
JULIET: Can I help you?
SAWYER: It's okay... I'm a... I'm a cop.
JULIET: Mmmm. Maybe you should read the machine its rights?
SAWYER: [laughing] That's funny.
JULIET: Mmmm... Can I tell you a secret?
SAWYER: Please.
JULIET: If you unplug it, and then you plug it back in again... the candy just drops right down.
SAWYER: Is that right?
JULIET: Yes, and it's technically legal.
SAWYER: Oh... give that a shot...
[He unplugs the machine and all the lights in the room go off.]
SAWYER: Oops...
[Juliet laughs, grabs the bar from the machine and gives it to Sawyer.]
JULIET: It worked.
[Sawyer grabs the candy, but as his hand touches Juliet's, they both begin to see flashes of their time together on the Island. They jump back in surprise.]
JULIET: Oh...
SAWYER: Whoa... did you feel that?
JULIET: We should get coffee some time.
SAWYER: I'd love to but the machine ate my dollar, I only got one left.
JULIET: We can go dutch.
[As she says that last line we see her on the Island, they flash to her dying in Sawyer's arms as she says the same line. Juliet holds Sawyer's hand and they begin to experience more flashes of their 1970's DHARMA life; Sawyer holding up a daisy, them hugging, spooning in bed, more hugging and kissing, Sawyer holding Juliet from falling in The Incident, Juliet falling.]
SAWYER: Juliet? Juliet it's--it's me. Ju--
[They embrace and Juliet begins to sob.]
We have to ask ourselves "What worked?"
Juliet's plan to help a stranger game a vending machine worked as Sawyer got his candy bar. But was her phrase "It worked," coupled with a touch the "magic spell" that unlocked their repressed memories of their island life? We still don't understand why the characters in the sideways purgatory after death cannot remember their island past. Or when they do remember the trials, tribulations and good memories of the island they get all euphoric.
But if we take a different perspective on Juliet's "It worked" in the hospital, we may get a different understanding of the sideways world.
Island Juliet could have been remembering how she and Sawyer found happiness in the after life when she said "it worked." Her mind flashed to the hospital vending lounge. She understood her place in the universe. She knew everything would be okay in the end.
This again puts the sideways world earlier in real time than the island world. Considering the time itself was a nebulous concept throughout the series, this is a possible connection between the two worlds. It may hint that one needs to know in the island realm that things will be okay in the sideways afterlife in order to actually die in the island world. It may sound strange, but Christian's explanation of the sideways world (something the main characters created themselves) was actually referencing the characters creating the sideways world to work out their purgatory problems in order to move on. The purgatory characters were using their dreams, fears and fantasies to escape to the island (and not escape from it as shown in the pilot episode) to work out the issues that kept in purgatory.
Perhaps, Juliet was stuck in purgatory because she could not move on in her past relationship with her ex-husband. Her inability to give up her feelings for her ex-husband in Florida mirrored her loneliness in the sideways existence with her cordial but distant relationship with Jack. It was only throwing her subconscious spirit into the island world could she work through her personal demons of clinging emotional behavior to find a new love of her life. She just happened to stumble upon another desperate spirit in Sawyer who also had learn to let down his guard to overcome his commitment issues. They became soul mates because their after life souls found each other in the spiritual proving ground called the island.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
BEST OF TIMES
Here is a new question. If Christian was correct in saying that the main characters in the church died well before and well after Jack, why did they all appear in the church as their "island" selves?
The metaphysical question is what is the physical appearance of the dead in purgatory.
It may not be a bothersome proposition because it was just a television show, and the actors aged only 6 years. But the show did use other actors to play the main characters roles such as in childhood or as young adults. But TPTB chose to represent the dead LOST cast in the church at their island ages.
Can one infer that when one's soul goes to purgatory, its physical appearance is locked in place? This would seem to match the ancient Egyptian concept of mummification of the deceased body and organs for the reconstruction and rebirth of that person in the after life.
Now, Christian also said that the people in the church waiting for Jack were present because they shared the "most important" time in their lives. He did not say "the best" times. The idea of the shared experience of an airplane crash may be important, and the survival of the plane crash even more important, but there were some characters who should have lived full lives beyond the island crash.
For the church scene to make sense, it would seem that all the characters were "locked" in their physical place based upon the moment they went into island airspace. And in the purgatory world, Aaron becomes the problem child. It is hard to imagine that Aaron, who left the island with Kate and was with his grandmother when Claire was rescued, would not have lived a full life outside the island. But the ending church realm has Aaron being born - - - meaning that he was still a fetus when the sideways world was "created." It also creates the massive logic issue of how can a dead mother, Claire, give "birth" to her child in purgatory? (In some respects that pregnancy issue was at the heart of Ben's island research with Juliet, i.e. evidence that the Island could also have been a purgatory state.) Was Aaron really born on the island, or was that a fantasy?
For if Aaron's physical spirit was locked in as shown in the after life (as a fetus or new born), one would have to conclude that Aaron died in the plane crash or shortly after birth on the Island. Otherwise, it would have been more appropriate to have a grown Aaron with Claire in the church, or no Aaron at all. The idea that Claire "needed" to have Aaron's birth to "awaken" in the after life to reconnect her feelings with Charlie seems to be an unnecessarily convoluted plot twist. It makes Aaron a mere prop for Claire to accept her own death. A death that may have been caused because of a traumatic child birth (which mirrors Ben's back story birth).
And if Aaron's "most important" life moment was being born on the island, that would mean Aaron had no other life . . . his soul represents only a fixed newborn whose life was measured in weeks not years. One cannot say that the best days of Aaron's life were on the island unless those were his "only" days.
Then again, the Ajira escapees would have lived a long lives after leaving the island. Kate, Sawyer and Claire would have aged before they died "long after" Jack. But again, their appearance in the sideways after life was that of the island time of the plane crash. Kate, Sawyer and Claire had life expectancies of forty years or more. They would have had the opportunity to change, meet new people, forge new relationships and put the island terror behind him. Kate could have reconnected with her husband, the Florida policeman. Claire could have reconnected with Aaron's father. Sawyer could have reconnected with the mother of his child. All those pre-flight bonds and relationships were present when they left the island for good. So, one would then have to assume that none of those mainland reunions ever took place. One could also assume that the Ajira people may have never made it back. Or one could assume no one ever left the island, per se.
The physical appearances of the characters in the sideways church and Christian's vague explanation creates more fundamental questions. The sideways plot premise does not seem to be consistent when one looks at the individual characters, especially post-island time. In fact, it leads us down the path to consider one explanation: that the sideways purgatory was also the island purgatory - - - the lost souls were locked in their spiritual and physical forms when Flight 815 crashed on the island.
But then again, the appearance of Christian in the church is also problematic. He was never on the island. He died in Australia. His body was never on the plane. He only had two connections: Jack and Claire. So if Jack's island friends "created" the sideways world as a purgatory holding pen for their souls until Jack accepted his own death, Christian's soul would not have been part of that collective experience (unless of course, they were all souls passing through the same after life gate and Christian, Eloise or some other guardian angel corralled them in place so they could "move on together.") Christian should not have been the master of ceremonies at the end.
It is hard to imagine that the island time was "the best times" for the main characters. That shared experience was so powerful that their souls would be linked forever. For a character like Locke, that seems counterproductive. The main characters abandoned him to die alone (or at the hands of Ben). Locke's soul would have had a better or stronger connection to meet up with his mother or even Helen in the after life. But he wound up with the 815 survivors in the after life, but sadly, he wound up alone without a soul mate. How cruel is that?
There is also an issue of why all the people in the church needed to be together in order to "move on." Was it some kind of reward for destroying MIB? Probably not, because Christian said the characters themselves created this diversion place. Recall, Jacob told Alpert that he could not resurrect the dead but he could grant some form of immortality. So it was probably not necessary to have the characters in the church to complete their journey. In fact, Rose and Bernard seem the most out of place. They specifically told them they did not want any more part of the island melodramas. They went off on their own to build their own cabin and live out their own lives without anyone else. When Rose and Bernard would have died, one would have assumed they would have moved on together without the help of anyone else.
The problem with the "happy ending" to LOST is that when one begins to drill down through the smiles, it really cannot be considered a happy ending. There are too many inconsistencies and questions to say that the main characters needed each other in order to have true eternal happiness.
The metaphysical question is what is the physical appearance of the dead in purgatory.
It may not be a bothersome proposition because it was just a television show, and the actors aged only 6 years. But the show did use other actors to play the main characters roles such as in childhood or as young adults. But TPTB chose to represent the dead LOST cast in the church at their island ages.
Can one infer that when one's soul goes to purgatory, its physical appearance is locked in place? This would seem to match the ancient Egyptian concept of mummification of the deceased body and organs for the reconstruction and rebirth of that person in the after life.
Now, Christian also said that the people in the church waiting for Jack were present because they shared the "most important" time in their lives. He did not say "the best" times. The idea of the shared experience of an airplane crash may be important, and the survival of the plane crash even more important, but there were some characters who should have lived full lives beyond the island crash.
For the church scene to make sense, it would seem that all the characters were "locked" in their physical place based upon the moment they went into island airspace. And in the purgatory world, Aaron becomes the problem child. It is hard to imagine that Aaron, who left the island with Kate and was with his grandmother when Claire was rescued, would not have lived a full life outside the island. But the ending church realm has Aaron being born - - - meaning that he was still a fetus when the sideways world was "created." It also creates the massive logic issue of how can a dead mother, Claire, give "birth" to her child in purgatory? (In some respects that pregnancy issue was at the heart of Ben's island research with Juliet, i.e. evidence that the Island could also have been a purgatory state.) Was Aaron really born on the island, or was that a fantasy?
For if Aaron's physical spirit was locked in as shown in the after life (as a fetus or new born), one would have to conclude that Aaron died in the plane crash or shortly after birth on the Island. Otherwise, it would have been more appropriate to have a grown Aaron with Claire in the church, or no Aaron at all. The idea that Claire "needed" to have Aaron's birth to "awaken" in the after life to reconnect her feelings with Charlie seems to be an unnecessarily convoluted plot twist. It makes Aaron a mere prop for Claire to accept her own death. A death that may have been caused because of a traumatic child birth (which mirrors Ben's back story birth).
And if Aaron's "most important" life moment was being born on the island, that would mean Aaron had no other life . . . his soul represents only a fixed newborn whose life was measured in weeks not years. One cannot say that the best days of Aaron's life were on the island unless those were his "only" days.
Then again, the Ajira escapees would have lived a long lives after leaving the island. Kate, Sawyer and Claire would have aged before they died "long after" Jack. But again, their appearance in the sideways after life was that of the island time of the plane crash. Kate, Sawyer and Claire had life expectancies of forty years or more. They would have had the opportunity to change, meet new people, forge new relationships and put the island terror behind him. Kate could have reconnected with her husband, the Florida policeman. Claire could have reconnected with Aaron's father. Sawyer could have reconnected with the mother of his child. All those pre-flight bonds and relationships were present when they left the island for good. So, one would then have to assume that none of those mainland reunions ever took place. One could also assume that the Ajira people may have never made it back. Or one could assume no one ever left the island, per se.
The physical appearances of the characters in the sideways church and Christian's vague explanation creates more fundamental questions. The sideways plot premise does not seem to be consistent when one looks at the individual characters, especially post-island time. In fact, it leads us down the path to consider one explanation: that the sideways purgatory was also the island purgatory - - - the lost souls were locked in their spiritual and physical forms when Flight 815 crashed on the island.
But then again, the appearance of Christian in the church is also problematic. He was never on the island. He died in Australia. His body was never on the plane. He only had two connections: Jack and Claire. So if Jack's island friends "created" the sideways world as a purgatory holding pen for their souls until Jack accepted his own death, Christian's soul would not have been part of that collective experience (unless of course, they were all souls passing through the same after life gate and Christian, Eloise or some other guardian angel corralled them in place so they could "move on together.") Christian should not have been the master of ceremonies at the end.
It is hard to imagine that the island time was "the best times" for the main characters. That shared experience was so powerful that their souls would be linked forever. For a character like Locke, that seems counterproductive. The main characters abandoned him to die alone (or at the hands of Ben). Locke's soul would have had a better or stronger connection to meet up with his mother or even Helen in the after life. But he wound up with the 815 survivors in the after life, but sadly, he wound up alone without a soul mate. How cruel is that?
There is also an issue of why all the people in the church needed to be together in order to "move on." Was it some kind of reward for destroying MIB? Probably not, because Christian said the characters themselves created this diversion place. Recall, Jacob told Alpert that he could not resurrect the dead but he could grant some form of immortality. So it was probably not necessary to have the characters in the church to complete their journey. In fact, Rose and Bernard seem the most out of place. They specifically told them they did not want any more part of the island melodramas. They went off on their own to build their own cabin and live out their own lives without anyone else. When Rose and Bernard would have died, one would have assumed they would have moved on together without the help of anyone else.
The problem with the "happy ending" to LOST is that when one begins to drill down through the smiles, it really cannot be considered a happy ending. There are too many inconsistencies and questions to say that the main characters needed each other in order to have true eternal happiness.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
RESURRECTION
Most LOST fans do not want to consider that the show was truly a story about people traveling through purgatory. They make their belief based upon TPTB statements in Season 1 that the show was not about purgatory. Well, one explanation is that TPTB lied. The series is full of images and symbols of the after life and a purgatory journey of lost souls. TPTB also told us that we would get answers to the deep questions and mysteries of the series. They lied about that, too.
For if all the major issues were addressed by the finale, we would still not be wandering the theoretical desert trying to find answers.
Resurrection, eternal life, and reincarnation are recurring themes in the plots and sets of the show. Christian, Egyptian, and Native American symbols were used to reinforce these themes.
The most common images of the after life theme were the Egyptian hieroglyphs and temples. The ancient Egyptians had an advanced funeral rites religious take on death. The temples and pyramids were grand palaces to worship the gods to help the worthy through their perilous journey through the after life. A prime example of the theme coming full bore is a dead Sayid being reincarnated in the temple pool.
Other aspects of the Egyptian death culture were found in the frozen donkey wheel chamber where the hieroglyphs referenced resurrection and portals to "Earth gates." The Egyptians believed that a dead person's soul and body would be split in the after life and travel through the various levels of the underworld to be reunited in paradise. The Hatch's warning glyphs stated "He Escapes Place of Death." The unique Egyptian cross, the Ankh, is seen in symbol form and worn as a pendant by Dharma leaders prior to the purge. Christian crosses, such as the one worn by Eko, were also seen throughout the series. Churches, were people pray for the souls of their departed, were also settings in the series.
On the Geronimo Jackson artwork, the Native American symbol of a hatband is shown. It represents everlasting life. The native tribes had a clear sense of a cycle of life by living on the plains. This cycle of life and rebirth follows the natural observation of nature's seasons. When Aaron was born, Boone had just died which shows a connection to the cycle of life from death. Even the Dharma symbols of ying-yang represent the circle of life; an endless balance and cycle of the univese which includes reincarnation as an essential element of its religion.
Locke was immersed in the resurrection theme. As a boy, Alpert visits him at a foster home. Alpert gives Locke several items to view. He then asks him which objects are "his." This test is similar to tests are done to find the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. When Locke is working a cross word puzzle, one of the answers is from the story of Gilgamesh, in which the main character searches for immortality. When Locke is killed off the island by Ben, Locke's body was returned to the island. As a result, MIB transformed into Locke's image, a form of reincarnation, to instill fear and loyalty in those remaining survivors.
After Locke's death, his body was transported by "Canton-Rainier" which is an anagram for "reincarnation." To take the effort to make an anagram for what was going to happen in the series could be considered foreshadowing or an explanation of what the series is truly about.
There were also clear references to religious texts and beliefs. Ajira Flight 316 takes its number from the most recognizable biblical quotation, John 3:16. The passage states: "For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
Eko's walking stick contained numerous references including "Colossians”, which includes the text: "When you were dead in your sins... God made you alive with Christ..." (Colossians 2:13)The appearance of his dead brother to Eko is also similar to the new testament passages of how Jesus came to be seen by his apostles after his death and resurrection.
While the action of LOST clearly contained struggles of life and death, hidden in plain sight were symbols and acknowledgments by the writers that the deeper meaning present was resurrection, eternal life, and reincarnation.
For if all the major issues were addressed by the finale, we would still not be wandering the theoretical desert trying to find answers.
Resurrection, eternal life, and reincarnation are recurring themes in the plots and sets of the show. Christian, Egyptian, and Native American symbols were used to reinforce these themes.
The most common images of the after life theme were the Egyptian hieroglyphs and temples. The ancient Egyptians had an advanced funeral rites religious take on death. The temples and pyramids were grand palaces to worship the gods to help the worthy through their perilous journey through the after life. A prime example of the theme coming full bore is a dead Sayid being reincarnated in the temple pool.
Other aspects of the Egyptian death culture were found in the frozen donkey wheel chamber where the hieroglyphs referenced resurrection and portals to "Earth gates." The Egyptians believed that a dead person's soul and body would be split in the after life and travel through the various levels of the underworld to be reunited in paradise. The Hatch's warning glyphs stated "He Escapes Place of Death." The unique Egyptian cross, the Ankh, is seen in symbol form and worn as a pendant by Dharma leaders prior to the purge. Christian crosses, such as the one worn by Eko, were also seen throughout the series. Churches, were people pray for the souls of their departed, were also settings in the series.
On the Geronimo Jackson artwork, the Native American symbol of a hatband is shown. It represents everlasting life. The native tribes had a clear sense of a cycle of life by living on the plains. This cycle of life and rebirth follows the natural observation of nature's seasons. When Aaron was born, Boone had just died which shows a connection to the cycle of life from death. Even the Dharma symbols of ying-yang represent the circle of life; an endless balance and cycle of the univese which includes reincarnation as an essential element of its religion.
Locke was immersed in the resurrection theme. As a boy, Alpert visits him at a foster home. Alpert gives Locke several items to view. He then asks him which objects are "his." This test is similar to tests are done to find the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. When Locke is working a cross word puzzle, one of the answers is from the story of Gilgamesh, in which the main character searches for immortality. When Locke is killed off the island by Ben, Locke's body was returned to the island. As a result, MIB transformed into Locke's image, a form of reincarnation, to instill fear and loyalty in those remaining survivors.
After Locke's death, his body was transported by "Canton-Rainier" which is an anagram for "reincarnation." To take the effort to make an anagram for what was going to happen in the series could be considered foreshadowing or an explanation of what the series is truly about.
There were also clear references to religious texts and beliefs. Ajira Flight 316 takes its number from the most recognizable biblical quotation, John 3:16. The passage states: "For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
Eko's walking stick contained numerous references including "Colossians”, which includes the text: "When you were dead in your sins... God made you alive with Christ..." (Colossians 2:13)The appearance of his dead brother to Eko is also similar to the new testament passages of how Jesus came to be seen by his apostles after his death and resurrection.
While the action of LOST clearly contained struggles of life and death, hidden in plain sight were symbols and acknowledgments by the writers that the deeper meaning present was resurrection, eternal life, and reincarnation.
Monday, April 29, 2013
PUNISHMENT
One of the most glossed over but irritating topics of LOST was punishment.
The series moral compass was pretty much lost and malfunctioning if you look at the character's crimes and their resolutions.
Sayid was a torturer and murderer. If one believes that he would have got out of Iraq alive after the war, he received no punishment for any of his war crimes. Further, Sayid was never punished for any of the crimes he did when he was Ben's off-island assassin. And the island pain, torture or killings had no effect on Sayid allegedly going on in the after life in a happy state.
Kate was a murderer, thief and insurance fraudster. If one believes that she had a "trial" for her crimes (which was legally impossible and incorrect), Kate received less than a slap on the wrist: probation without major restrictions for cold blooded murder, insurance fraud, robbing a bank and stealing cars?
Ben was a mass murderer. He killed dozens of Dharma people during his purge. He killed his own father with poison gas. On the island he kidnapped people (Juliet, Walt, Zach, Emma). He tortured people (Jack, Sawyer). But in the end, Ben is not punished for any of his transgressions.
Even good guy Jack was never punished for his role in his father's drunken malpractice death. If Jack was part of the cover-up of his father's mistake, changing medical records, etc., Jack should have lost his medical license and faced criminal and civil penalties. But nothing happened to Jack (except for his own self-abuse of guilt).
So why was LOST so devoid of punishment for the characters blatant crimes? Some believe that the LOST saga was a series of personal redemptions, but it is hard to say any character could be redeemed without some moral punishment for their gruesome sins against their fellow man.
The lack of a moral barometer is a support for those who believe that the island was not a purgatory. There was no need for punishment of the characters because they were all victims of Jacob and MIB. But that does not absolve the off-island issues.
The only suffering the characters had was the "fear" of the unknown, the smoke monster, the Others and their own self-worth. But fear is an introspective, mental condition.
One could argue that the lack of any punishment for anyone's crimes is because a sociopath, in their own mind, does not punish himself for his actions. If the series was contained in the imagination of a sociopath, that would partially explain why the "punishment" factor is lacking throughout the series. A sociopath does not believe he has done anything wrong. In some respects, such a person lives in a fantasy world.
So it is an odd hole in the series that punishment was not a bigger event.
The series moral compass was pretty much lost and malfunctioning if you look at the character's crimes and their resolutions.
Sayid was a torturer and murderer. If one believes that he would have got out of Iraq alive after the war, he received no punishment for any of his war crimes. Further, Sayid was never punished for any of the crimes he did when he was Ben's off-island assassin. And the island pain, torture or killings had no effect on Sayid allegedly going on in the after life in a happy state.
Kate was a murderer, thief and insurance fraudster. If one believes that she had a "trial" for her crimes (which was legally impossible and incorrect), Kate received less than a slap on the wrist: probation without major restrictions for cold blooded murder, insurance fraud, robbing a bank and stealing cars?
Ben was a mass murderer. He killed dozens of Dharma people during his purge. He killed his own father with poison gas. On the island he kidnapped people (Juliet, Walt, Zach, Emma). He tortured people (Jack, Sawyer). But in the end, Ben is not punished for any of his transgressions.
Even good guy Jack was never punished for his role in his father's drunken malpractice death. If Jack was part of the cover-up of his father's mistake, changing medical records, etc., Jack should have lost his medical license and faced criminal and civil penalties. But nothing happened to Jack (except for his own self-abuse of guilt).
So why was LOST so devoid of punishment for the characters blatant crimes? Some believe that the LOST saga was a series of personal redemptions, but it is hard to say any character could be redeemed without some moral punishment for their gruesome sins against their fellow man.
The lack of a moral barometer is a support for those who believe that the island was not a purgatory. There was no need for punishment of the characters because they were all victims of Jacob and MIB. But that does not absolve the off-island issues.
The only suffering the characters had was the "fear" of the unknown, the smoke monster, the Others and their own self-worth. But fear is an introspective, mental condition.
One could argue that the lack of any punishment for anyone's crimes is because a sociopath, in their own mind, does not punish himself for his actions. If the series was contained in the imagination of a sociopath, that would partially explain why the "punishment" factor is lacking throughout the series. A sociopath does not believe he has done anything wrong. In some respects, such a person lives in a fantasy world.
So it is an odd hole in the series that punishment was not a bigger event.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
SATAN'S STEW
The one thing most Lost fans hate to discuss is the topic of Purgatory. Early in the series, TPTB clearly stated that the show was not about the characters dying in the plane crash and the island being purgatory. Well, throughout the series, the creators, producers and writers lied to the viewers during their plot points and story arcs allegedly having meaning, clues or substance. Many characters built their entire existence on a pyramid scheme of successive lies. Lying was a core concept of Lost. At come point, one has to accept the proposition that TPTB lied to the viewers about purgatory.
The question begins with the answer. The sideways world clearly was a place of departed souls. All the characters were dead "but living a life" of their own fantasy, according to the account of master of church ceremonies, Christian. In one respect, dead was not dead. The sideways characters were involved in a complex, diverse and physical plain of existence. So why was that kind of existence only limited to the sideways premise?
Building upon the next concept that Christian stated that the sideways world was created by characters, but it had no concept of time (past, present or future), what came first - - - the island or the sideways world? This is a brain teaser because most people assume the sideways world was created by the characters in direct response to the island interactions of the characters. Except, there are logical inconsistencies with that premise.
If we narrow the analysis to the final candidates, we find that they have the following connections:
In breaking a part the three levels of Lost (pre-815, O6 and sideways), we find surprisingly that the candidates never really had any connection with each other during any time or event periods. In the pre-815 situation, none of the final candidates had any real interaction with each other. (It would be speculative at best to assert that Locke "could have" met Hurley while Locke visited his mother at Santa Rosa, but post-crash none of the characters had any recollection of prior meetings except for being passengers in the departure gate.) Even in the O6 off-island situation, only Hurley and Jack had a few encounters but were not close. Only in the sideways world is there the strongest connection: Jack and Locke, based upon a doctor-patient relationship Otherwise, the interactions between the candidates were in limited events of short duration.
We could gather from that information, that each level of Lost was an independent construct. They were not dependent upon candidate interaction or interconnected characters. Which in some respects is a surprise.
For if the characters created the sideways world because those church participants were the most important people in their lives, there is certainly scant evidence of any true friendships between them.
The only long term interaction between the church goers was on the island.
Which then leads to the ultimate question: what is the island? And this is where the purgatory doubters and haters do not want to go.
There is evidence that the island could be hell or purgatory. MIB called Jacob "the Devil." Cooper came to the island immediately after a serious traffic accident and believed he was transported to Hell. If the sideways world was an after-life holding pen, a purgatory for dead souls to occupy their minds until the time was right, then why dismiss the possibility that the other levels of Lost could also be after life creations?
Lost could be considered a multi-layered purgatory. Or in some descriptions, various layers of punishment in hell.
For example, many believe that the island adventures were merely tests of redemption for the characters. Each character arrived on the island with secrets, sins and unresolved issues. The island created all the elements to mirror those secrets, sins and issues in order to test each character to determine if they could change or resolve those issues; to repent, to become a better person, to change their evil ways, or to redeem themselves from their faults.
If we agree that the sideays world was a purgatory that allowed the dead souls to continue to figure things out (as Ben decided to do when he turned down a final church invitation from Hurley), then we can also say that the island itself gave the characters ample opportunity to figure things out.
One can then make the final connection: that the pre-815 world that we were shown was also an after life purgatory challenges and punishments. For example, Hurley in the pre-815 world was the luckiest man in the world as a lottery winner, but it caused him great anguish and grief. Money did not solve his problems, but actually caused him more pain and damnation. It would be an ironic trick that a character like Satan would have found amusing. And the pre-815 after world would explain why all the characters were illogically rounded up onto one flight to LA. Each character wound up in Australia as a possible solution to a pressing personal burden: Hurley, the Numbers; Sawyer, revenge on Cooper; Jack, to find his father; Bernard to find a cure for Rose's terminal cancer; Locke to find freedom in a walkabout. But in another ironic trick, each of their quests turned up negative and a major disappointment.
One must picture that the all the characters are dead. Satan is the man behind the curtain. He has these dead souls to direct during their journey through the after life. Some need to be punished. Some need to be taught a lesson. Some need to find their own purpose. Some need to let go of their sins. Some need to let go of their unresolved personal relationships.
So, with millions of departed souls to manage, Satan creates vast realistic worlds based on the memories of the people he needs to push through to the final white light. If one accepts that the pre-815 world (the flashbacks) are one level of purgatory, we can see each character living a miserable, lonely life - - - but with an opportunity to change themselves for the better. But in some ways, each character wants to find an easy way out (like Kate, whose solution to everything is to run). So when the souls cannot personally evolve in the pre-815 world, Satan directs them to salvation in Australia. But none of the characters find what they were looking for; they obtain no peace. Therefore, Satan mixes up their post-life journey by putting them all on a doomed plane for a more intense purgatory - - - where their self-obsessed life troubles are now turned into daily life and death trials. On the island purgatory, characters will need to make friends and trust other people in order to survive. It is that forced co-existence that requires the souls to change. But some characters who were too comfortable in the island chaos, needed another testing ground - - - the off-island O6 realm was an ancillary purgatory to mentally punish the "lucky" characters who got off the island. The guilt of leaving people behind got to all of them. They had to go back, but in reality like the round up to Australia by Satan, the O6 survivors were meant to go back to the island to complete their tasks.
The sideways purgatory was a like a dream state for most of the characters. They still had problems, but there were more individualized and focused such as Jack working through his own daddy issues by his interactions with his faux son, David. Once Jack came to the realization of what father-son relationships were all about, he was truly ready to accept his own relationship with Christian. And in this final fourth layer of purgatory is when Jack found the truth and resolution of his tormented relationship with his father.
Lost could be viewed as increasingly difficult post-life proving grounds for each departed soul. Satan kept mixing up the character's lives in order to get them to personally evolve and "fix" themselves. It was when the main characters were thrown together on the island did they begin to really confront their personal demons and find a path to closure.
Lost can be viewed as a series of after life purgatories concluding with a graduation type reunion in the church at the end.
The question begins with the answer. The sideways world clearly was a place of departed souls. All the characters were dead "but living a life" of their own fantasy, according to the account of master of church ceremonies, Christian. In one respect, dead was not dead. The sideways characters were involved in a complex, diverse and physical plain of existence. So why was that kind of existence only limited to the sideways premise?
Building upon the next concept that Christian stated that the sideways world was created by characters, but it had no concept of time (past, present or future), what came first - - - the island or the sideways world? This is a brain teaser because most people assume the sideways world was created by the characters in direct response to the island interactions of the characters. Except, there are logical inconsistencies with that premise.
If we narrow the analysis to the final candidates, we find that they have the following connections:
We could gather from that information, that each level of Lost was an independent construct. They were not dependent upon candidate interaction or interconnected characters. Which in some respects is a surprise.
For if the characters created the sideways world because those church participants were the most important people in their lives, there is certainly scant evidence of any true friendships between them.
The only long term interaction between the church goers was on the island.
Which then leads to the ultimate question: what is the island? And this is where the purgatory doubters and haters do not want to go.
There is evidence that the island could be hell or purgatory. MIB called Jacob "the Devil." Cooper came to the island immediately after a serious traffic accident and believed he was transported to Hell. If the sideways world was an after-life holding pen, a purgatory for dead souls to occupy their minds until the time was right, then why dismiss the possibility that the other levels of Lost could also be after life creations?
Lost could be considered a multi-layered purgatory. Or in some descriptions, various layers of punishment in hell.
For example, many believe that the island adventures were merely tests of redemption for the characters. Each character arrived on the island with secrets, sins and unresolved issues. The island created all the elements to mirror those secrets, sins and issues in order to test each character to determine if they could change or resolve those issues; to repent, to become a better person, to change their evil ways, or to redeem themselves from their faults.
If we agree that the sideays world was a purgatory that allowed the dead souls to continue to figure things out (as Ben decided to do when he turned down a final church invitation from Hurley), then we can also say that the island itself gave the characters ample opportunity to figure things out.
One can then make the final connection: that the pre-815 world that we were shown was also an after life purgatory challenges and punishments. For example, Hurley in the pre-815 world was the luckiest man in the world as a lottery winner, but it caused him great anguish and grief. Money did not solve his problems, but actually caused him more pain and damnation. It would be an ironic trick that a character like Satan would have found amusing. And the pre-815 after world would explain why all the characters were illogically rounded up onto one flight to LA. Each character wound up in Australia as a possible solution to a pressing personal burden: Hurley, the Numbers; Sawyer, revenge on Cooper; Jack, to find his father; Bernard to find a cure for Rose's terminal cancer; Locke to find freedom in a walkabout. But in another ironic trick, each of their quests turned up negative and a major disappointment.
One must picture that the all the characters are dead. Satan is the man behind the curtain. He has these dead souls to direct during their journey through the after life. Some need to be punished. Some need to be taught a lesson. Some need to find their own purpose. Some need to let go of their sins. Some need to let go of their unresolved personal relationships.
So, with millions of departed souls to manage, Satan creates vast realistic worlds based on the memories of the people he needs to push through to the final white light. If one accepts that the pre-815 world (the flashbacks) are one level of purgatory, we can see each character living a miserable, lonely life - - - but with an opportunity to change themselves for the better. But in some ways, each character wants to find an easy way out (like Kate, whose solution to everything is to run). So when the souls cannot personally evolve in the pre-815 world, Satan directs them to salvation in Australia. But none of the characters find what they were looking for; they obtain no peace. Therefore, Satan mixes up their post-life journey by putting them all on a doomed plane for a more intense purgatory - - - where their self-obsessed life troubles are now turned into daily life and death trials. On the island purgatory, characters will need to make friends and trust other people in order to survive. It is that forced co-existence that requires the souls to change. But some characters who were too comfortable in the island chaos, needed another testing ground - - - the off-island O6 realm was an ancillary purgatory to mentally punish the "lucky" characters who got off the island. The guilt of leaving people behind got to all of them. They had to go back, but in reality like the round up to Australia by Satan, the O6 survivors were meant to go back to the island to complete their tasks.
The sideways purgatory was a like a dream state for most of the characters. They still had problems, but there were more individualized and focused such as Jack working through his own daddy issues by his interactions with his faux son, David. Once Jack came to the realization of what father-son relationships were all about, he was truly ready to accept his own relationship with Christian. And in this final fourth layer of purgatory is when Jack found the truth and resolution of his tormented relationship with his father.
Lost could be viewed as increasingly difficult post-life proving grounds for each departed soul. Satan kept mixing up the character's lives in order to get them to personally evolve and "fix" themselves. It was when the main characters were thrown together on the island did they begin to really confront their personal demons and find a path to closure.
Lost can be viewed as a series of after life purgatories concluding with a graduation type reunion in the church at the end.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
WHAT IS REALITY?
There are two positions in regard to the end of LOST.
The pro-ending viewers said that the way the series ended was in a satisfactory conclusion where their favorite characters finally found resolution from their troubled lives. However, the majority of the pro-enders believe that though the characters were dead in sideways world, the characters were "alive" and survived the plane crash on the island.
The anti-ending viewers thought the series ended in an unsatisfying way for numerous reasons. First, many thought that the sideways church ending was a cop-out for not explaining the long, twisted science fiction mystery story lines of the island. Second, a minority of the anti-enders thought it was totally inconsistent (to the point of irrational) to believe that the sideways world could have been "created" by the characters at any point in time. Third, many thought the concept that the characters created their own sideways world - - - but failed to "remember" their island pasts as being a red herring. How could one create a fantasy sideways world (and actually participate and live in it) but not remember it?
Both sides of the question focus in on the pivotal conversation in the waning moments of the final episode: when Jack speaks to his father, Christian:
JACK: You...are you real?
CHRISTIAN: I should hope so. Yeah, I'm real. You're real, everything that's ever happened to you is real. All those people in the church...they're real too.
JACK: They're all...they're all dead?
CHRISTIAN: Everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some of them before you, some...long after you.
JACK: But why are they all here now?
CHRISTIAN: Well there is no "now" here.
JACK: Where are we, dad?
CHRISTIAN: This is the place that you...that you all made together, so that you could find one another. The most...important part of your life, was the time that you spent with these people. That's why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you.
JACK: For what?
CHRISTIAN: To remember...and to...let go.
JACK: Kate...she said we were leaving.
CHRISTIAN: Not leaving, no. Moving on.
JACK: Where we going?
CHRISTIAN: [smiling] Let's go find out.
So what is "real?"
First, let us look to the definition of the word.
1. actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed;
2. (of a substance or thing) not imitation or artificial, genuine;
3. [ attrib. ] informal complete; utter (used for emphasis);
4. [ attrib. ] adjusted for changes in the value of money;
5. Law of fixed property (i.e., land and buildings), as distinct from personal property;
6. Mathematics (of a number or quantity) having no imaginary part;
7. Optics (of an image) of a kind in which the light that forms it actually passes through it; not virtual.
So what was Christian telling Jack?
"Yeah, I'm real. You're real, everything that's ever happened to you is real. All those people in the church...they're real."
Second, here is a literal translation:
"Yeah, I actually EXIST. You EXIST, everything that's ever happened to you is GENUINE. All those people in the church . . . they EXIST and they are not imagined or supposed."
Next, Jack asks the question that is supposed to answer the question of what is the sideways world:
"They're all dead?"
The big twist in the finale is that everybody was dead. "Everybody" meaning the key players. Exactly who those players are remains open for debate and remains one of the show's most enduring mysteries. The finale revealed that a gathering of memory-restored Oceanic "survivors" in the sideways world have in fact been running through an elaborate fantasy, one designed to bring their group together before they step over to the afterlife. The major question that remains is when during the run of the show that break between life and death occurred. Life could have ended for the Oceanic passengers as far back as the pilot episode. The plane crashes, everybody dies, but this group is left behind because of unresolved issues within their individual lives. The trials they go through surviving on the island serve as a sort of purgatory. This would render certain key figures — Jacob, the Man in Black, Richard Alpert — as utter fabrications. That's just one theory. Another read could put the time of death for Oceanic 815's survivors as the hydrogen bomb blast at the end of the show's fifth season, which raises a whole new set of questions as to the nature of certain supporting characters. It is now a question of acceptance of this death premise in the mythology of the series.
The word "dead" is defined as follows:
1. no longer alive, as in a dead body;
• (of a part of the body) having lost sensation; numb.
• having or displaying no emotion, sympathy, or sensitivity;
• no longer current, relevant, or important;
• devoid of living things;
• resembling death;
• (of a place or time) characterized by a lack of activity or excitement;
2. [ attrib. ] complete; absolute;
• exactly:
• straight; directly;
Clearly, the sideways world characters were "no longer alive."
But, they were "real."
And here is where the viewers become split in their perception of the show.
In the pro-ender camp, since we are told that everything was "real" that must mean that everything that happened on the island (including time travel and flashback back stories) was also "real."
However, the anti-ender camp points out that in the context of the sideways church statements, "real" means "dead." They would state that since the sideways world was "real" but "dead," then the island world being also "real" would also be "dead." For if the "dead" characters can create an elaborate fantasy dream purgatory in the sideways world (with marriages, children being born, etc), why can't the "dead" characters also "dream" of a fantasy adventure world called the island?
The pro-end fans would counter to say that Christian explained it.
"This is the place that you...that you all made together, so that you could find one another. The most...important part of your life, was the time that you spent with these people. That's why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you."
But then again, the anti-enders say finish the passage:
JACK: For what?
CHRISTIAN: To remember . . .
"Life" is defined as:
1. the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death;
• living things and their activity;
• [ with adj. or noun modifier ] a particular type or aspect of people's existence;
• vitality, vigor, or energy;
2. the existence of an individual human being or animal;
• a biography;
• either of the two states of a person's existence separated by death (as in Christianity and some other religious traditions);
• any of a number of successive existences in which a soul is held to be reincarnated;
• a chance to live after narrowly escaping death (esp. with reference to the nine lives traditionally attributed to cats);
3. (usu. one's life) the period between the birth and death of a living thing, esp. a human being.
"Remember" is a verb meaning:
1. have in or be able to bring to one's mind an awareness of (someone or something that one has seen, known, or experienced in the past);
• [ with infinitive ] do something that one has undertaken to do or that is necessary or advisable;
• [ with clause ] used to emphasize the importance of what is asserted;
• bear (someone) in mind by making them a gift or making provision for them;
• (remember someone to) convey greetings from one person to (another);
• pray for the success or well-being of; and
• (remember oneself) recover one's manners after a lapse.
2. The word is derived from Latin "to call to mind" or mindful.
The characters represented the most important part of their collective lives, so that is why the created the sideways soul oasis. But "which" life? Some would say their human life. Others would say, based upon the mythology and images shown in the show, "any number of successive existences" including reincarnation. So when Christian says "life" it can be an ambiguous concept, especially in the Lost story.
But Christian tells Jack that he and his friends created the sideways place (where they are dead) in order to "remember" their past "experiences" together. Some will postulate that the sideways world was created AFTER the characters first met, and formed during their island world adventure. That could explain why there were ghosts and visions on the island.
But others would balk at that assertion that the ghosts were sideways world messengers or souls in charge of the construction of the sideways world. Dave, Hurley's vision, was not a part of the sideways story. We were told that Jack's vision of Christian was a smoke monster projection.
Further complicating any reasoned analysis is the statement from Christian that the sideways world contained no "now" or "present" time. It is an undefined magical statement to show how characters who died long before Jack and died long after Jack's death could co-exist together in a complex sideways world - - - for which we saw linear time events occur.
But an open question remains of "when" the characters "actually died." Pro-enders believe that the characters survived the plane crash, and died when they did on or off the island. There is no room for reincarnation, or a purgatory level to the island so there is no belief that the characters souls manifest in human form such as the spirited smoke monster after dying in the plane crash. But these lost souls may have died at various time prior to the Flight 815 crash; a theorist would argue that the plane crash (like all the previous wrecks on the island) were mere metaphors of souls passing through one level of existence to another.
How can one reconcile the "nothingness" of sideways time and space which showed about a week's worth of linear time events to the "reality" of the island time and space which went on for months (on the island) and years (off-island)? You really cannot unless you make assumptions to fit a unified theory. One could argue that the survivors of plane crash only "lived" as long as the sideways world permitted (one week or so); meaning that the survivors minds raced through the island adventures like REM dreams and nightmares.
To "awaken" memories of a sideways soul means that those memories had to have be repressed; what represses memories? The existence of repressed memories is a controversial topic in psychology; some studies have concluded that it can occur in victims of trauma, while others dispute it. According to some psychologists repressed memories can be recovered through therapy. Other psychologists dispute this arguing that this is in fact rather a process through which memories are created through a blending of actual memories and outside influences. According to the American Psychological Association, it is not currently possible to distinguish a true repressed memory from a false one without corroborating evidence.
Memories can be accurate, but they are not always accurate. For example, eyewitness testimony even of relatively recent dramatic events is notoriously unreliable. Misremembering results from confusion between memories for perceived and imagined events, which may result from overlap between particular features of the stored information comprising memories for perceived and imagined events. Memories of events are always a mix of factual traces of sensory information overlaid with emotions, mingled with interpretation and "filled in" with imaginings. Thus there is always skepticism about how valid a memory is as evidence of factual detail. Some believe that accurate memories of traumatic events are often repressed, but remain in the subconscious mind, from where they can be recovered by appropriate therapy. Others believe that truly traumatic events are never forgotten in this way, although often people may not disclose their memories to others.
So, is the whole story of Lost boil down to a collective repressed memory of a plane crash? Who would "forget" surviving a plane crash? Why would such highly charged, emotional memories be repressed in one's after life? Is this part of a dynamic that upon death, the conscious mind and the subconscious mind separate and a soul cannot "move on" in the after life without their mind being whole? The show writers did not intend to give a clear answer to any of these questions.
It comes down to a personal interpretation of the meaning of "reality" in the context of the Lost story.
The pro-ending viewers said that the way the series ended was in a satisfactory conclusion where their favorite characters finally found resolution from their troubled lives. However, the majority of the pro-enders believe that though the characters were dead in sideways world, the characters were "alive" and survived the plane crash on the island.
The anti-ending viewers thought the series ended in an unsatisfying way for numerous reasons. First, many thought that the sideways church ending was a cop-out for not explaining the long, twisted science fiction mystery story lines of the island. Second, a minority of the anti-enders thought it was totally inconsistent (to the point of irrational) to believe that the sideways world could have been "created" by the characters at any point in time. Third, many thought the concept that the characters created their own sideways world - - - but failed to "remember" their island pasts as being a red herring. How could one create a fantasy sideways world (and actually participate and live in it) but not remember it?
Both sides of the question focus in on the pivotal conversation in the waning moments of the final episode: when Jack speaks to his father, Christian:
JACK: You...are you real?
CHRISTIAN: I should hope so. Yeah, I'm real. You're real, everything that's ever happened to you is real. All those people in the church...they're real too.
JACK: They're all...they're all dead?
CHRISTIAN: Everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some of them before you, some...long after you.
JACK: But why are they all here now?
CHRISTIAN: Well there is no "now" here.
JACK: Where are we, dad?
CHRISTIAN: This is the place that you...that you all made together, so that you could find one another. The most...important part of your life, was the time that you spent with these people. That's why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you.
JACK: For what?
CHRISTIAN: To remember...and to...let go.
JACK: Kate...she said we were leaving.
CHRISTIAN: Not leaving, no. Moving on.
JACK: Where we going?
CHRISTIAN: [smiling] Let's go find out.
So what is "real?"
First, let us look to the definition of the word.
1. actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed;
2. (of a substance or thing) not imitation or artificial, genuine;
3. [ attrib. ] informal complete; utter (used for emphasis);
4. [ attrib. ] adjusted for changes in the value of money;
5. Law of fixed property (i.e., land and buildings), as distinct from personal property;
6. Mathematics (of a number or quantity) having no imaginary part;
7. Optics (of an image) of a kind in which the light that forms it actually passes through it; not virtual.
So what was Christian telling Jack?
"Yeah, I'm real. You're real, everything that's ever happened to you is real. All those people in the church...they're real."
Second, here is a literal translation:
"Yeah, I actually EXIST. You EXIST, everything that's ever happened to you is GENUINE. All those people in the church . . . they EXIST and they are not imagined or supposed."
Next, Jack asks the question that is supposed to answer the question of what is the sideways world:
"They're all dead?"
The big twist in the finale is that everybody was dead. "Everybody" meaning the key players. Exactly who those players are remains open for debate and remains one of the show's most enduring mysteries. The finale revealed that a gathering of memory-restored Oceanic "survivors" in the sideways world have in fact been running through an elaborate fantasy, one designed to bring their group together before they step over to the afterlife. The major question that remains is when during the run of the show that break between life and death occurred. Life could have ended for the Oceanic passengers as far back as the pilot episode. The plane crashes, everybody dies, but this group is left behind because of unresolved issues within their individual lives. The trials they go through surviving on the island serve as a sort of purgatory. This would render certain key figures — Jacob, the Man in Black, Richard Alpert — as utter fabrications. That's just one theory. Another read could put the time of death for Oceanic 815's survivors as the hydrogen bomb blast at the end of the show's fifth season, which raises a whole new set of questions as to the nature of certain supporting characters. It is now a question of acceptance of this death premise in the mythology of the series.
The word "dead" is defined as follows:
1. no longer alive, as in a dead body;
• (of a part of the body) having lost sensation; numb.
• having or displaying no emotion, sympathy, or sensitivity;
• no longer current, relevant, or important;
• devoid of living things;
• resembling death;
• (of a place or time) characterized by a lack of activity or excitement;
2. [ attrib. ] complete; absolute;
• exactly:
• straight; directly;
Clearly, the sideways world characters were "no longer alive."
But, they were "real."
And here is where the viewers become split in their perception of the show.
In the pro-ender camp, since we are told that everything was "real" that must mean that everything that happened on the island (including time travel and flashback back stories) was also "real."
However, the anti-ender camp points out that in the context of the sideways church statements, "real" means "dead." They would state that since the sideways world was "real" but "dead," then the island world being also "real" would also be "dead." For if the "dead" characters can create an elaborate fantasy dream purgatory in the sideways world (with marriages, children being born, etc), why can't the "dead" characters also "dream" of a fantasy adventure world called the island?
The pro-end fans would counter to say that Christian explained it.
"This is the place that you...that you all made together, so that you could find one another. The most...important part of your life, was the time that you spent with these people. That's why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you."
But then again, the anti-enders say finish the passage:
JACK: For what?
CHRISTIAN: To remember . . .
"Life" is defined as:
1. the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death;
• living things and their activity;
• [ with adj. or noun modifier ] a particular type or aspect of people's existence;
• vitality, vigor, or energy;
2. the existence of an individual human being or animal;
• a biography;
• either of the two states of a person's existence separated by death (as in Christianity and some other religious traditions);
• any of a number of successive existences in which a soul is held to be reincarnated;
• a chance to live after narrowly escaping death (esp. with reference to the nine lives traditionally attributed to cats);
3. (usu. one's life) the period between the birth and death of a living thing, esp. a human being.
"Remember" is a verb meaning:
1. have in or be able to bring to one's mind an awareness of (someone or something that one has seen, known, or experienced in the past);
• [ with infinitive ] do something that one has undertaken to do or that is necessary or advisable;
• [ with clause ] used to emphasize the importance of what is asserted;
• bear (someone) in mind by making them a gift or making provision for them;
• (remember someone to) convey greetings from one person to (another);
• pray for the success or well-being of; and
• (remember oneself) recover one's manners after a lapse.
2. The word is derived from Latin "to call to mind" or mindful.
The characters represented the most important part of their collective lives, so that is why the created the sideways soul oasis. But "which" life? Some would say their human life. Others would say, based upon the mythology and images shown in the show, "any number of successive existences" including reincarnation. So when Christian says "life" it can be an ambiguous concept, especially in the Lost story.
But Christian tells Jack that he and his friends created the sideways place (where they are dead) in order to "remember" their past "experiences" together. Some will postulate that the sideways world was created AFTER the characters first met, and formed during their island world adventure. That could explain why there were ghosts and visions on the island.
But others would balk at that assertion that the ghosts were sideways world messengers or souls in charge of the construction of the sideways world. Dave, Hurley's vision, was not a part of the sideways story. We were told that Jack's vision of Christian was a smoke monster projection.
Further complicating any reasoned analysis is the statement from Christian that the sideways world contained no "now" or "present" time. It is an undefined magical statement to show how characters who died long before Jack and died long after Jack's death could co-exist together in a complex sideways world - - - for which we saw linear time events occur.
But an open question remains of "when" the characters "actually died." Pro-enders believe that the characters survived the plane crash, and died when they did on or off the island. There is no room for reincarnation, or a purgatory level to the island so there is no belief that the characters souls manifest in human form such as the spirited smoke monster after dying in the plane crash. But these lost souls may have died at various time prior to the Flight 815 crash; a theorist would argue that the plane crash (like all the previous wrecks on the island) were mere metaphors of souls passing through one level of existence to another.
How can one reconcile the "nothingness" of sideways time and space which showed about a week's worth of linear time events to the "reality" of the island time and space which went on for months (on the island) and years (off-island)? You really cannot unless you make assumptions to fit a unified theory. One could argue that the survivors of plane crash only "lived" as long as the sideways world permitted (one week or so); meaning that the survivors minds raced through the island adventures like REM dreams and nightmares.
To "awaken" memories of a sideways soul means that those memories had to have be repressed; what represses memories? The existence of repressed memories is a controversial topic in psychology; some studies have concluded that it can occur in victims of trauma, while others dispute it. According to some psychologists repressed memories can be recovered through therapy. Other psychologists dispute this arguing that this is in fact rather a process through which memories are created through a blending of actual memories and outside influences. According to the American Psychological Association, it is not currently possible to distinguish a true repressed memory from a false one without corroborating evidence.
Memories can be accurate, but they are not always accurate. For example, eyewitness testimony even of relatively recent dramatic events is notoriously unreliable. Misremembering results from confusion between memories for perceived and imagined events, which may result from overlap between particular features of the stored information comprising memories for perceived and imagined events. Memories of events are always a mix of factual traces of sensory information overlaid with emotions, mingled with interpretation and "filled in" with imaginings. Thus there is always skepticism about how valid a memory is as evidence of factual detail. Some believe that accurate memories of traumatic events are often repressed, but remain in the subconscious mind, from where they can be recovered by appropriate therapy. Others believe that truly traumatic events are never forgotten in this way, although often people may not disclose their memories to others.
So, is the whole story of Lost boil down to a collective repressed memory of a plane crash? Who would "forget" surviving a plane crash? Why would such highly charged, emotional memories be repressed in one's after life? Is this part of a dynamic that upon death, the conscious mind and the subconscious mind separate and a soul cannot "move on" in the after life without their mind being whole? The show writers did not intend to give a clear answer to any of these questions.
It comes down to a personal interpretation of the meaning of "reality" in the context of the Lost story.
Monday, December 17, 2012
REBOOT EPISODES 85-88
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 85-88 (Days 99 - - ????)
Now we begin the jumbled confusion of Lost’s time travel circus:
After the Season 4 finale, the Oceanic Six and those left on the Island are separated by both time and space. The three years apart were covered in various ways.
On-island time shifts from 1974-1977. Chronology of island events as experienced by time-jumping islanders, up to the sudden arrival of the Oceanic 6 in 1977. Depicted during the first part of Season 5.
Off island time shifts from 2005-2007. Chronology of events taking place off the island after the rescue of the Oceanic 6. Depicted variously in flash forwards, real-time events, and flashbacks.
The key events in this four episode arc:
Widmore’s soldiers continue to reign havoc on the island, until they are ambushed by the Others with the help of Sayid and Kate, who get a free copter ride off the island as a result. But in haste to get back to the freighter, Sawyer jumps out to save his friends. However, when Ben kills Keamy in the Orchid station for killing Alex, it activates a “dead man” detonation device on the freighter, which eventually blows up killing Michael and Jin. The copter tries to get back to the island, but Ben moves the frozen donkey wheel, making the island “disappear.” The copter crashes, Desmond is dead in the water until revived by Jack. Then Penny’s boat arrives to rescue the Oceanic 6. But as a result of the sky flashing and island moving; the island is “skipping” in time and Locke meets Alpert on two different years, one in which he knows what is happening and another when he does not. Off the island, Ben is trying to get all the 815 survivors, including dead Locke’s body, back to the island. He asks Eloise what would happen if he cannot get everyone back. She replies, “God help us all.”
Science:
Exotic materials were referenced as being part of the Orchid station chamber.
Exotic Materials can include plastics, superalloys, semiconductors, superconductors and ceramics.
Casimir Effect
The existence of a force between two polarizable atoms and between such an atom and a conducting plate in 1947, and, after a conversation with Niels Bohr who suggested it had something to do with zero-point energy, Casimir alone formulated the theory predicting a force between neutral conducting plates in 1948; the former is called the Casimir-Polder force while the latter is the Casimir effect in the narrow sense. When this field is instead studied using the QED Vacuum of quantum electrodynamics, it is seen that the plates do affect the virtual photons which constitute the field, and generate a net force —either an attraction or a repulsion depending on the specific arrangement of the two plates. Although the Casimir effect can be expressed in terms of virtual particles interacting with the objects, it is best described and more easily calculated in terms of the zero point energy of a quantized field in the intervening space between the objects.
Science theory, fiction application:
Exotic matter with negative energy density may be required to stabilize a wormhole. In quantum mechanics of the Casimir effect can be used to produce a locally mass-negative region of space-time, and suggested that negative effect could be used to stabilize a wormhole to allow faster than light travel.
In physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topographical feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional (2D) surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it allows one to picture a wormhole "bridge". This is merely a visualization displayed to convey an essentially unvisualisable structure existing in 4 or more dimensions. The parts of the wormhole could be higher-dimensional analogues for the parts of the curved 2D surface; for example, instead of mouths which are circular holes in a 2D plane, a real wormhole's mouths could be spheres in 3D space. A wormhole is, in theory, much like a tunnel with two ends each in separate points in spacetime.
Improbabilities:
The trigger mechanism on Keamy that detonates the ship explosives.
The idea of “cooling” the fuse/trigger aboard the ship. In the set up of the device, it is stated that if the battery is disconnected (no charge sent to the device) it would trigger a detonation, meaning that there is a redundant power source for the firing signal and the electric spark to detonate the C4. Cooling the battery makes no sense to stop the bomb from going off.
No one would have survived the C4 explosion. 500 grams of C4 can destroy a car; 500 pounds would have total destructive effect on the ship. When the chemical reaction begins, the C-4 decomposes to release a variety of gases (notably, nitrogen and carbon oxides). The gases initially expand at about 26,400 feet per second (8,050 meters per second), applying a huge amount of force to everything in the surrounding area. At this expansion rate, it is totally impossible to outrun the explosion like they do in dozens of action movies. To the observer, the explosion is nearly instantaneous -- one second, everything's normal, and the next it's totally destroyed.
Clues:
Hurley continues to interact with dead people in a physical manner. When Sayid breaks him out of the hospital, he leaves his chess game by saying “checkmate, Mr. Eko.” When Sayid is darted and Hurley is pulled over by the police, the cop who raps on his window is Anna Lucia, who yells at him to get his act together.
On numerous occasions, people ask Hurley if he is “crazy” because he is acting crazy.
Desmond wakes up three years after rescue from a dream of Daniel telling him to go to Oxford, but Desmond suddenly realizes “it was not a dream; it was a memory.”
Keamy tells Ben that Widmore will find him. Ben replies, "Not if I find him first." Despite Locke's best efforts to save him, Keamy dies. Locke tells Ben that he just killed everyone on the freighter, to which Ben coldly responds, "So?"
Discussion:
“ Life is a long lesson in humility. ”
— James M. Barrie
This is the most science-centric loop in the Lost series. In order to digest these meaty concepts without indigestion, let us slowly examine what was said and what is inconsistent with the show’s stated mythology.
In the video, Halliwax explains that The Orchid was designed to investigate 'unique properties' of the Island, it is these properties create a kind of Casimir Effect. He points to a white triangular door, calling it the vault. Halliwax explains that the vault was constructed adjacent to what they believe to be a pocket of negatively charged exotic matter. Halliwax then warns the viewer never to place any metal objects inside the vault. Halliwax then places a white rabbit inside the vault, closing the doors and stating that they will send it 100 milliseconds into the future.
From a science fiction standpoint, the theory of using negatively charged exotic matter to create a Casimir type effect means that the Frozen Donkey Wheel is in essence, a worm hole stabilizer. The video states that no non-organic materials, such as metal, should be placed in the vault. The vault was used to send bunnies milliseconds into the future. However, it was extremely dangerous for the time traveling bunny to interact with its real time self in the station.
When Ben blows a hole in the vault, all we see is a rocky tunnel down to the chamber. This begs the question: where are the exotic materials, the plates to which the island’s unique energy interacts to create a change in spacetime? Is the negative exotic material organics, such as humans? In the multiverse sideways realm, are positive exotic materials human souls?
The island’s EM energy creates the waves to make the Casimir effect to stabilize the wormhole between universes. the church’s “white light” energy waves must make a positive Casimir effect to stabilize the worm hole at the other end of the tunnel. The negative (evil) character traits and actions on the island are clearly balanced by the positive (good) character traits in the sideways world.
In physics, a Einstein-Rosen Bridge (or wormhole) is a hypothetical feature of spacetime theory that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through space and time. A wormhole is, in theory, much like a tunnel with two ends each in separate points in spacetime. By crossing the event horizon of a Schwarzschild wormhole which bridges two different universes. the observer seeing light that has fallen into the black hole interior region from the other universe; however, this other universe is unreachable in the case of a Schwarzschild wormhole, as the bridge always collapses before the observer has time to cross it, and everything that has fallen through the event horizon of either universe is inevitably crushed in the singularity. A Schwarzschild wormhole is a bridge between areas of space that can be modeled as vacuum solutions to the Einstein Field Equations. Kip Thorne proposed that using "exotic matter" to hold open the throat of a Schwarzschild wormhole, one can create a transferable wormhole. This is called a Morris-Thorne Wormhole. By accelerating one end of a wormhole, it would allow the person entering it to travel to an exact location years in the past or future.
The Orchid must use a particle accelerator to open a wormhole that is used for time/space travel. This is the "frozen wheel" - particle accelerators need to be cooled to operate (they use superconducting magnets). As Ben turns the spokes of the embedded wheel, inside the rock the light changes and energy increases to a yellowish color to a flash of bright white light. (The white light that is the same as the final moment of The End, when Christian opens the church doors to “move on.”) The movement of the FDW creates the same failsafe Hatch denotation of Desmond’s; the island goes through a purple-white flash. But in this situation, there is a clear mechanical musical tone to the energy escaping the underground chamber.
Ben tells him that there is a price to pay to move the Island. The person that moves it must leave it and never return there. Locke is reluctant to let Ben leave but Ben offers a handshake, apologizing for all the misery he has inflicted on Locke. (This is the same statement told to Locke by Jacob after Locke falls 8 stories. Why does Ben say once someone “leaves” the island, they never can come back? That is not true as the O6, Locke and Ben return to the island later in the series. And it appears Ben has turned the wheel before, since he is familiar with Tunisia landing pad. At this point in the series, it is obvious that Ben has lied so much he is incapable of telling real truths. The Others and Ben have come to and from the island on the submarine in the past. When one turns the wheel, there is no literal or spiritual reason that they are forbidden from returning, they simply cannot, since they are sent to an unknown destination somewhere else on the planet, while the island is moved to another unknown point. The impact of this is that the person who turns the wheel can never know where the island is, since they move it but do not know where it moves in relation to them. There is nothing stopping Ben from getting to the island if he can manage to find it—the catch is that he cannot find it.
Meanwhile, Locke left the Orchid and heads to Richard and the Others, following Ben's instructions. At his arrival, all of the Others look surprised and Richard tells him "welcome home." The humility of Ben’s demise as the island leader must have made Locke feel like he was on top of the world.
The freighter explosion sequence which kills everyone on board (for now) was interrupted by another strange twist. After Michael yells at Jin to leave, he hears whispers After the whispers, Christian Shepard appears in the room containing the explosives, telling Michael, "You can go now...". The boat explodes, killing Michael and everyone else on board. From the helicopter, Sun cries out in desperation over the apparent loss of her husband.
Why does ghost Christian have to be on the boat? It is Christian that “allows” the explosion?
When did Christian get so much “power” over life and death of the characters? It makes the whole bomb explosion sequence surreal - - - that the dead are controlling the lives of the apparent living. It also puts into question “who” is really in charge - - - we are led to believe that the man behind the curtain is the mysterious Jacob, but in The End it is Christian who is the master of ceremonies at Eloise’s church.
The question is the Church - - - it is dark and foreboding with a basement pendulum to find the island with Eloise; but it is also light and cheerful in the End. But are there two churches? One with evil world and other with good world? Or is there just one “church” in the sideways world - - - that is the equivalent of the island in the real world. It is the nexus plates between both worlds. So when the O6 left the island, did they really “go back home” or did they go into an alternative reality (with all the medical legal errors and improbabilities)? The sideways purgatory limbo world had characters “living” alternative lives - - - basically good, calm and productive. It is when they “remember” the island time is when they realize the sideways world is fake (in the sense of being a repressed illusion). But that creates another issue: is the island an equal illusion?
When the island “disappeared” when Ben moved the FDW, there should have been a massive oceanic event. Displacement of the island would have created huge void; ocean rift like a sinkhole of 2.65 miles in depth. Such as displacement of land mass would have created a downward force vector, not little indentation on surface of water. A massive displacement of earth (volume) of a Pacific island, which are volcanic, arising from thousands of feet below to the ocean bed, would have created a massive suction as surrounding water would flood the void; a massive whirlpool event. But this was not depicted from the view of the helicopter. So from the visual evidence presented, several conclusions can be drawn: a) that the island is not real in the sense that it contains real volume of earth substances like soil and rock; b) that the island’s disappearance is an illusion (like a magician making an elephant disappear with mirrors) since the ocean’s surface did not dramatically shift with water displacement; c) the island did not disappear, but dove underwater like a submarine (USO); d) the island, as a construct, is not real in our normal view of reality (may be mental, or representative).
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
The Frozen Donkey will which “moves” an island in time and in space.
Christian appears before Michael in the freighter. Christian then allows the C4 to explode, granting Michael's wish to die.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 85:
SUN: [Shrieking] Jin!
EP 86:
BEN: Jack... I said, all of you. We're gonna have to bring him, too.
[Jack, standing feet from Ben and facing him in the tiny mortuary, turns back and looks at the body in the coffin. Ben regards the body for a moment too. The well-dressed, peaceful-looking body in the coffin, the body of Jeremy Bentham, is the body of John Locke.]
EP 87:
DESMOND: Oxford.
EP 88:
MS. HAWKING: Then God help us all.
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
If you can’t get lost souls back in their place on the Island, “God help us all?”
Is Christian the shepard who is supposed to herd these lost souls to
bridge mind and body back in one place so they can move on in the after life?
The Dharma science statements infer that the island is a bridge or “portal” between two universes. The island’s unique energy properties stabilizes a wormhole that connects space time and these two separate universes. The question is whether it is a bridge between earth and the afterlife, or more probable - - - between hell and heaven.
When Desmond “died” in the water after the helicopter crash, the island was in a state of time flux; and his mind may have crossed through the portal to the other universe, to a duplicate, parallel self. Now, complicating this assumption is that the other universe is the sideways world - - - one we will be told is where everyone is dead.
Under science fiction multiverse theory, for every action or decision in this world, it creates a parallel universe based upon alternative event choices. As a result, zillions of universes could be operating with the same “characters” but in different situations.
The frozen donkey wheel is the chamber where both Ben and Locke met their destiny moments of sacrificing part of themselves for the sake of a bigger purpose, protecting the Island by moving it in time and space. In a cold chamber is a wooden gear wheel is surrounded by Egyptian glyphs, translated to mean:
OPEN SIDE (EARTH) GATES TO ETERNITIES.
This has to be the best evidence of what the Island is: a nexus point between worlds. Since the Island has been built up by deference to ancient Egyptian beliefs, the phrase can easily be broken down to state that is device allows one to open an earth portal (a gate) to the afterlife. The pyramids and Sphinx were designed as part of Temples to make sure that rulers and leaders would be able to make their dangerous journey through the afterlife to paradise. The Temples were aligned with cosmic and heavenly objects and stars to make sure that the journey would match the myth of Ra's nightly cycle through the underworld.
In ancient Egyptian culture, departed souls would reach a pagan paradise where they would toil in the fields of the gods, while others would go into the underworld to have their heart weighed in the final judgment on whether they would pass onto eternal paradise. The Island could the the intersection of different, supernatural realms of good and evil. This could explain why our perception natural laws and physics seem not to apply to aspects of Island as a reason why there is no scientific or scientific theory explanation for the supernatural elements in the show. The Island is a different realm, a bridge between Earth (and its laws of physics) and a spirit world (where anything goes). Or better yet, the island is the Temple of the Dead who seek a bridge to the living after life (the sideways world).
If you fix the heart, you fix the mind. In island world, especially off-island, it is dark. Evil is center in the characters hearts. Quick to anger; quick to murder. But if one fixes the troubles in their heart, it heals their mental issues.
When we try to find a constant in the series, what are the most repeated lines by the characters?
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I am not crazy!”
“Trust me.”
What are the characters attributes in The End? Did any of them really change personality, beliefs? Did any really find redemption, forgiveness of past sins, or have any punishment for their evil ways? No, not really. The sideways church was not the judgment of the on-island events. In fact, there is no moral to the story of The End.
As such, can the series be better viewed as the bridge between lost souls on a journey of personal grief in the afterlife to find some relief with new souls in the next step towards heaven? One is a place of hell and the other a place of happiness.
LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 85-88 (Days 99 - - ????)
Now we begin the jumbled confusion of Lost’s time travel circus:
After the Season 4 finale, the Oceanic Six and those left on the Island are separated by both time and space. The three years apart were covered in various ways.
On-island time shifts from 1974-1977. Chronology of island events as experienced by time-jumping islanders, up to the sudden arrival of the Oceanic 6 in 1977. Depicted during the first part of Season 5.
Off island time shifts from 2005-2007. Chronology of events taking place off the island after the rescue of the Oceanic 6. Depicted variously in flash forwards, real-time events, and flashbacks.
The key events in this four episode arc:
Widmore’s soldiers continue to reign havoc on the island, until they are ambushed by the Others with the help of Sayid and Kate, who get a free copter ride off the island as a result. But in haste to get back to the freighter, Sawyer jumps out to save his friends. However, when Ben kills Keamy in the Orchid station for killing Alex, it activates a “dead man” detonation device on the freighter, which eventually blows up killing Michael and Jin. The copter tries to get back to the island, but Ben moves the frozen donkey wheel, making the island “disappear.” The copter crashes, Desmond is dead in the water until revived by Jack. Then Penny’s boat arrives to rescue the Oceanic 6. But as a result of the sky flashing and island moving; the island is “skipping” in time and Locke meets Alpert on two different years, one in which he knows what is happening and another when he does not. Off the island, Ben is trying to get all the 815 survivors, including dead Locke’s body, back to the island. He asks Eloise what would happen if he cannot get everyone back. She replies, “God help us all.”
Science:
Exotic materials were referenced as being part of the Orchid station chamber.
Exotic Materials can include plastics, superalloys, semiconductors, superconductors and ceramics.
Casimir Effect
The existence of a force between two polarizable atoms and between such an atom and a conducting plate in 1947, and, after a conversation with Niels Bohr who suggested it had something to do with zero-point energy, Casimir alone formulated the theory predicting a force between neutral conducting plates in 1948; the former is called the Casimir-Polder force while the latter is the Casimir effect in the narrow sense. When this field is instead studied using the QED Vacuum of quantum electrodynamics, it is seen that the plates do affect the virtual photons which constitute the field, and generate a net force —either an attraction or a repulsion depending on the specific arrangement of the two plates. Although the Casimir effect can be expressed in terms of virtual particles interacting with the objects, it is best described and more easily calculated in terms of the zero point energy of a quantized field in the intervening space between the objects.
Science theory, fiction application:
Exotic matter with negative energy density may be required to stabilize a wormhole. In quantum mechanics of the Casimir effect can be used to produce a locally mass-negative region of space-time, and suggested that negative effect could be used to stabilize a wormhole to allow faster than light travel.
In physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topographical feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional (2D) surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it allows one to picture a wormhole "bridge". This is merely a visualization displayed to convey an essentially unvisualisable structure existing in 4 or more dimensions. The parts of the wormhole could be higher-dimensional analogues for the parts of the curved 2D surface; for example, instead of mouths which are circular holes in a 2D plane, a real wormhole's mouths could be spheres in 3D space. A wormhole is, in theory, much like a tunnel with two ends each in separate points in spacetime.
Improbabilities:
The trigger mechanism on Keamy that detonates the ship explosives.
The idea of “cooling” the fuse/trigger aboard the ship. In the set up of the device, it is stated that if the battery is disconnected (no charge sent to the device) it would trigger a detonation, meaning that there is a redundant power source for the firing signal and the electric spark to detonate the C4. Cooling the battery makes no sense to stop the bomb from going off.
No one would have survived the C4 explosion. 500 grams of C4 can destroy a car; 500 pounds would have total destructive effect on the ship. When the chemical reaction begins, the C-4 decomposes to release a variety of gases (notably, nitrogen and carbon oxides). The gases initially expand at about 26,400 feet per second (8,050 meters per second), applying a huge amount of force to everything in the surrounding area. At this expansion rate, it is totally impossible to outrun the explosion like they do in dozens of action movies. To the observer, the explosion is nearly instantaneous -- one second, everything's normal, and the next it's totally destroyed.
Clues:
Hurley continues to interact with dead people in a physical manner. When Sayid breaks him out of the hospital, he leaves his chess game by saying “checkmate, Mr. Eko.” When Sayid is darted and Hurley is pulled over by the police, the cop who raps on his window is Anna Lucia, who yells at him to get his act together.
On numerous occasions, people ask Hurley if he is “crazy” because he is acting crazy.
Desmond wakes up three years after rescue from a dream of Daniel telling him to go to Oxford, but Desmond suddenly realizes “it was not a dream; it was a memory.”
Keamy tells Ben that Widmore will find him. Ben replies, "Not if I find him first." Despite Locke's best efforts to save him, Keamy dies. Locke tells Ben that he just killed everyone on the freighter, to which Ben coldly responds, "So?"
Discussion:
“ Life is a long lesson in humility. ”
— James M. Barrie
This is the most science-centric loop in the Lost series. In order to digest these meaty concepts without indigestion, let us slowly examine what was said and what is inconsistent with the show’s stated mythology.
In the video, Halliwax explains that The Orchid was designed to investigate 'unique properties' of the Island, it is these properties create a kind of Casimir Effect. He points to a white triangular door, calling it the vault. Halliwax explains that the vault was constructed adjacent to what they believe to be a pocket of negatively charged exotic matter. Halliwax then warns the viewer never to place any metal objects inside the vault. Halliwax then places a white rabbit inside the vault, closing the doors and stating that they will send it 100 milliseconds into the future.
From a science fiction standpoint, the theory of using negatively charged exotic matter to create a Casimir type effect means that the Frozen Donkey Wheel is in essence, a worm hole stabilizer. The video states that no non-organic materials, such as metal, should be placed in the vault. The vault was used to send bunnies milliseconds into the future. However, it was extremely dangerous for the time traveling bunny to interact with its real time self in the station.
When Ben blows a hole in the vault, all we see is a rocky tunnel down to the chamber. This begs the question: where are the exotic materials, the plates to which the island’s unique energy interacts to create a change in spacetime? Is the negative exotic material organics, such as humans? In the multiverse sideways realm, are positive exotic materials human souls?
The island’s EM energy creates the waves to make the Casimir effect to stabilize the wormhole between universes. the church’s “white light” energy waves must make a positive Casimir effect to stabilize the worm hole at the other end of the tunnel. The negative (evil) character traits and actions on the island are clearly balanced by the positive (good) character traits in the sideways world.
In physics, a Einstein-Rosen Bridge (or wormhole) is a hypothetical feature of spacetime theory that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through space and time. A wormhole is, in theory, much like a tunnel with two ends each in separate points in spacetime. By crossing the event horizon of a Schwarzschild wormhole which bridges two different universes. the observer seeing light that has fallen into the black hole interior region from the other universe; however, this other universe is unreachable in the case of a Schwarzschild wormhole, as the bridge always collapses before the observer has time to cross it, and everything that has fallen through the event horizon of either universe is inevitably crushed in the singularity. A Schwarzschild wormhole is a bridge between areas of space that can be modeled as vacuum solutions to the Einstein Field Equations. Kip Thorne proposed that using "exotic matter" to hold open the throat of a Schwarzschild wormhole, one can create a transferable wormhole. This is called a Morris-Thorne Wormhole. By accelerating one end of a wormhole, it would allow the person entering it to travel to an exact location years in the past or future.
The Orchid must use a particle accelerator to open a wormhole that is used for time/space travel. This is the "frozen wheel" - particle accelerators need to be cooled to operate (they use superconducting magnets). As Ben turns the spokes of the embedded wheel, inside the rock the light changes and energy increases to a yellowish color to a flash of bright white light. (The white light that is the same as the final moment of The End, when Christian opens the church doors to “move on.”) The movement of the FDW creates the same failsafe Hatch denotation of Desmond’s; the island goes through a purple-white flash. But in this situation, there is a clear mechanical musical tone to the energy escaping the underground chamber.
Ben tells him that there is a price to pay to move the Island. The person that moves it must leave it and never return there. Locke is reluctant to let Ben leave but Ben offers a handshake, apologizing for all the misery he has inflicted on Locke. (This is the same statement told to Locke by Jacob after Locke falls 8 stories. Why does Ben say once someone “leaves” the island, they never can come back? That is not true as the O6, Locke and Ben return to the island later in the series. And it appears Ben has turned the wheel before, since he is familiar with Tunisia landing pad. At this point in the series, it is obvious that Ben has lied so much he is incapable of telling real truths. The Others and Ben have come to and from the island on the submarine in the past. When one turns the wheel, there is no literal or spiritual reason that they are forbidden from returning, they simply cannot, since they are sent to an unknown destination somewhere else on the planet, while the island is moved to another unknown point. The impact of this is that the person who turns the wheel can never know where the island is, since they move it but do not know where it moves in relation to them. There is nothing stopping Ben from getting to the island if he can manage to find it—the catch is that he cannot find it.
Meanwhile, Locke left the Orchid and heads to Richard and the Others, following Ben's instructions. At his arrival, all of the Others look surprised and Richard tells him "welcome home." The humility of Ben’s demise as the island leader must have made Locke feel like he was on top of the world.
The freighter explosion sequence which kills everyone on board (for now) was interrupted by another strange twist. After Michael yells at Jin to leave, he hears whispers After the whispers, Christian Shepard appears in the room containing the explosives, telling Michael, "You can go now...". The boat explodes, killing Michael and everyone else on board. From the helicopter, Sun cries out in desperation over the apparent loss of her husband.
Why does ghost Christian have to be on the boat? It is Christian that “allows” the explosion?
When did Christian get so much “power” over life and death of the characters? It makes the whole bomb explosion sequence surreal - - - that the dead are controlling the lives of the apparent living. It also puts into question “who” is really in charge - - - we are led to believe that the man behind the curtain is the mysterious Jacob, but in The End it is Christian who is the master of ceremonies at Eloise’s church.
The question is the Church - - - it is dark and foreboding with a basement pendulum to find the island with Eloise; but it is also light and cheerful in the End. But are there two churches? One with evil world and other with good world? Or is there just one “church” in the sideways world - - - that is the equivalent of the island in the real world. It is the nexus plates between both worlds. So when the O6 left the island, did they really “go back home” or did they go into an alternative reality (with all the medical legal errors and improbabilities)? The sideways purgatory limbo world had characters “living” alternative lives - - - basically good, calm and productive. It is when they “remember” the island time is when they realize the sideways world is fake (in the sense of being a repressed illusion). But that creates another issue: is the island an equal illusion?
When the island “disappeared” when Ben moved the FDW, there should have been a massive oceanic event. Displacement of the island would have created huge void; ocean rift like a sinkhole of 2.65 miles in depth. Such as displacement of land mass would have created a downward force vector, not little indentation on surface of water. A massive displacement of earth (volume) of a Pacific island, which are volcanic, arising from thousands of feet below to the ocean bed, would have created a massive suction as surrounding water would flood the void; a massive whirlpool event. But this was not depicted from the view of the helicopter. So from the visual evidence presented, several conclusions can be drawn: a) that the island is not real in the sense that it contains real volume of earth substances like soil and rock; b) that the island’s disappearance is an illusion (like a magician making an elephant disappear with mirrors) since the ocean’s surface did not dramatically shift with water displacement; c) the island did not disappear, but dove underwater like a submarine (USO); d) the island, as a construct, is not real in our normal view of reality (may be mental, or representative).
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
The Frozen Donkey will which “moves” an island in time and in space.
Christian appears before Michael in the freighter. Christian then allows the C4 to explode, granting Michael's wish to die.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 85:
SUN: [Shrieking] Jin!
EP 86:
BEN: Jack... I said, all of you. We're gonna have to bring him, too.
[Jack, standing feet from Ben and facing him in the tiny mortuary, turns back and looks at the body in the coffin. Ben regards the body for a moment too. The well-dressed, peaceful-looking body in the coffin, the body of Jeremy Bentham, is the body of John Locke.]
EP 87:
DESMOND: Oxford.
EP 88:
MS. HAWKING: Then God help us all.
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
If you can’t get lost souls back in their place on the Island, “God help us all?”
Is Christian the shepard who is supposed to herd these lost souls to
bridge mind and body back in one place so they can move on in the after life?
The Dharma science statements infer that the island is a bridge or “portal” between two universes. The island’s unique energy properties stabilizes a wormhole that connects space time and these two separate universes. The question is whether it is a bridge between earth and the afterlife, or more probable - - - between hell and heaven.
When Desmond “died” in the water after the helicopter crash, the island was in a state of time flux; and his mind may have crossed through the portal to the other universe, to a duplicate, parallel self. Now, complicating this assumption is that the other universe is the sideways world - - - one we will be told is where everyone is dead.
Under science fiction multiverse theory, for every action or decision in this world, it creates a parallel universe based upon alternative event choices. As a result, zillions of universes could be operating with the same “characters” but in different situations.
The frozen donkey wheel is the chamber where both Ben and Locke met their destiny moments of sacrificing part of themselves for the sake of a bigger purpose, protecting the Island by moving it in time and space. In a cold chamber is a wooden gear wheel is surrounded by Egyptian glyphs, translated to mean:
OPEN SIDE (EARTH) GATES TO ETERNITIES.
This has to be the best evidence of what the Island is: a nexus point between worlds. Since the Island has been built up by deference to ancient Egyptian beliefs, the phrase can easily be broken down to state that is device allows one to open an earth portal (a gate) to the afterlife. The pyramids and Sphinx were designed as part of Temples to make sure that rulers and leaders would be able to make their dangerous journey through the afterlife to paradise. The Temples were aligned with cosmic and heavenly objects and stars to make sure that the journey would match the myth of Ra's nightly cycle through the underworld.
In ancient Egyptian culture, departed souls would reach a pagan paradise where they would toil in the fields of the gods, while others would go into the underworld to have their heart weighed in the final judgment on whether they would pass onto eternal paradise. The Island could the the intersection of different, supernatural realms of good and evil. This could explain why our perception natural laws and physics seem not to apply to aspects of Island as a reason why there is no scientific or scientific theory explanation for the supernatural elements in the show. The Island is a different realm, a bridge between Earth (and its laws of physics) and a spirit world (where anything goes). Or better yet, the island is the Temple of the Dead who seek a bridge to the living after life (the sideways world).
If you fix the heart, you fix the mind. In island world, especially off-island, it is dark. Evil is center in the characters hearts. Quick to anger; quick to murder. But if one fixes the troubles in their heart, it heals their mental issues.
When we try to find a constant in the series, what are the most repeated lines by the characters?
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I am not crazy!”
“Trust me.”
What are the characters attributes in The End? Did any of them really change personality, beliefs? Did any really find redemption, forgiveness of past sins, or have any punishment for their evil ways? No, not really. The sideways church was not the judgment of the on-island events. In fact, there is no moral to the story of The End.
As such, can the series be better viewed as the bridge between lost souls on a journey of personal grief in the afterlife to find some relief with new souls in the next step towards heaven? One is a place of hell and the other a place of happiness.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
AN AFTERLIFE VIEW
During Season 1, TPTB were adamant that the show was "not about purgatory" when many viewers realized that no one would have survived a mid-air separation plane crash. Purgatory is believed to be a place of moral redemption where souls are purified of evil in order to be saved. Semantics aside, the "afterlife" as depicted in the show may be a place without any moral consequences. Many viewers have concluded that MIB/Flocke was not necessarily good or evil. At the same time, they reflect that there were no adverse consequences for the killings on the island by Sayid, Jack or Kate, as they all wound up in the anteroom to heaven in Eloise's church.
A very simple explanation of the show's big premise is that the characters' souls were on personal quests or adventures missing in their past real lives until they found enough quality in spirit to let go of their regrets and move on. If the characters could create the sideways "reality" in the afterlife, certainly they could have collectively created the island adventure scenarios in another afterlife setting. As Christian explained in the afterlife, there is no concept of time (past, present or future, just "now.") No "real time" line would negate all the paradoxes in the time travel flash issues of the island events. The whole show could be viewed as a series of re-sets or modes in a video game. And as such, a character could "die" multiple times because even though it appears to be real, it is only an afterlife reality.
Let us focus on Jack. Jack came to the realization that he was "dead" dead in the end at Eloise's church. The context of how he "died" was the spliced scenes of Jack dying on the island after resetting the light source. However, Jack was also in Eloise's church in the O6 world which would be also be an afterlife creation. In that context, Jack's death to get to Eloise's church as a member of the O6 would mean he would have "died" either (a) with the helicopter crash landing in the ocean; or (b) if he "survived" that, then he would have at least died with everyone in the 815 crash.
Jin was awakened in the sideways world with Sun. The context of how they "died" was in the submarine explosion. Except, Sun was at Eloise's church in the O6 arc, which makes her demise prior to the submarine drowning, like Jack, either in a helicopter or Flight 815's crash. Concurrently, Jin would have "died" in the freighter explosion making his return to the island also an afterlife experience with those who remained on the island. The premise that the characters are merely spirits or souls in their own construct of an afterlife playground erases all the debates about continuity errors, factual inconsistencies, or unbelievable dead end story lines.
It would appear that in the characters afterlife, the collective memories can be used as powerful mental highways to bridge or bring lost souls back to each other during their personal (mis)adventures in the spirit world. No good, bad, right, wrong, moral, immoral, judgmental or punishment for the choices made by the souls because it is not our world perspective, but the world the souls created for themselves.
A very simple explanation of the show's big premise is that the characters' souls were on personal quests or adventures missing in their past real lives until they found enough quality in spirit to let go of their regrets and move on. If the characters could create the sideways "reality" in the afterlife, certainly they could have collectively created the island adventure scenarios in another afterlife setting. As Christian explained in the afterlife, there is no concept of time (past, present or future, just "now.") No "real time" line would negate all the paradoxes in the time travel flash issues of the island events. The whole show could be viewed as a series of re-sets or modes in a video game. And as such, a character could "die" multiple times because even though it appears to be real, it is only an afterlife reality.
Let us focus on Jack. Jack came to the realization that he was "dead" dead in the end at Eloise's church. The context of how he "died" was the spliced scenes of Jack dying on the island after resetting the light source. However, Jack was also in Eloise's church in the O6 world which would be also be an afterlife creation. In that context, Jack's death to get to Eloise's church as a member of the O6 would mean he would have "died" either (a) with the helicopter crash landing in the ocean; or (b) if he "survived" that, then he would have at least died with everyone in the 815 crash.
Jin was awakened in the sideways world with Sun. The context of how they "died" was in the submarine explosion. Except, Sun was at Eloise's church in the O6 arc, which makes her demise prior to the submarine drowning, like Jack, either in a helicopter or Flight 815's crash. Concurrently, Jin would have "died" in the freighter explosion making his return to the island also an afterlife experience with those who remained on the island. The premise that the characters are merely spirits or souls in their own construct of an afterlife playground erases all the debates about continuity errors, factual inconsistencies, or unbelievable dead end story lines.
It would appear that in the characters afterlife, the collective memories can be used as powerful mental highways to bridge or bring lost souls back to each other during their personal (mis)adventures in the spirit world. No good, bad, right, wrong, moral, immoral, judgmental or punishment for the choices made by the souls because it is not our world perspective, but the world the souls created for themselves.
Monday, May 24, 2010
S6E17 LOCKE, TV STOCK & BARREL
Maybe the hype was too great; maybe the expectations were set too high; maybe the filler became more important than the actual angel food cake. There are many merely "satisfied" viewers, but underwhelmed to confused by the actual story construction. How one looked at the story as it unfolded created a bias on the reaction at the end. The angry fan thinks it was a long con by the producers to deny the fact in Season 1 that the show was about purgatory. Some in the middle just don't like that the time and resources to try to figure out the island's mythical quantum physics properties was nothing more than an illusion. In the end, it was a typical, stock television ending: happy trails to the cast, an emotional roller coaster for a few, and a big rug to sweep points under cover. As one reviewer said, "It could have been worse."
A quick review of the major points are in order.
Big premise of the show was clearly answered: it was all about DEATH.
Did Flight 815 actually crash in S1E1? Most now believe it did, resulting in all island events occuring in DEATH. (I believe the cast was dead before 815 crash; that the flight crash was a symbolic device to get lost souls to purgatory).
Where were the "survivors?" DEAD. Purgatory is a purification process. Each person on the island had to interact with other lost souls in order to move on to the next level. But there were two different levels or worlds: the island and the sideways. And there lies the confusion: how can you have two purgatories. The concept of the split soul was part of ancient Egyptian religion (the "ba" and the "ka"). The writers failed to adequately explain their viewpoint on the mechanism of their after life sojourn.
The ending was underwhelming even though my basic theories were nearly spot on. It was underwhelming because the writer's craft was missing in tying the various key elements together into one coherent thought process. TPTB kept the details vague (because they did not know how to explain everything without ticking off more viewers).
If one thought the island world was real, then finding out it was not was hard. Especially, when you see the conclusion of the sideways world as souls in the after life waiting to be "awakened" by the island "experiences" in order to move on to eternity.
Last week, I thought there were 7 possible story constructions to the show. See, Time Lines, May 19, 2010. There was one scenario that was a wild card:
Flashbacks were real
Island events were fake
Sideways events were fake.
Better terms would describe the ending:
Flashbacks were the REAL lives of the characters, the memories of the souls who had died with unresolved issues, that needed to have a means of resolution and redemption in order to be enlightened or saved.
Island events/time line were AFTER LIFE events constructed upon the memories, fantasy, nightmares and fears of the characters (which I theorize would have been Hurley and Ben).
Sideways events/time line (which chronologically were 3 years behind the island; but time does not matter according to Christian) were AFTER LIFE events constructed while the characters were waiting for their souls to re-merge after resolving their life issues.
A quick review of the major points are in order.
Big premise of the show was clearly answered: it was all about DEATH.
Did Flight 815 actually crash in S1E1? Most now believe it did, resulting in all island events occuring in DEATH. (I believe the cast was dead before 815 crash; that the flight crash was a symbolic device to get lost souls to purgatory).
Where were the "survivors?" DEAD. Purgatory is a purification process. Each person on the island had to interact with other lost souls in order to move on to the next level. But there were two different levels or worlds: the island and the sideways. And there lies the confusion: how can you have two purgatories. The concept of the split soul was part of ancient Egyptian religion (the "ba" and the "ka"). The writers failed to adequately explain their viewpoint on the mechanism of their after life sojourn.
The ending was underwhelming even though my basic theories were nearly spot on. It was underwhelming because the writer's craft was missing in tying the various key elements together into one coherent thought process. TPTB kept the details vague (because they did not know how to explain everything without ticking off more viewers).
If one thought the island world was real, then finding out it was not was hard. Especially, when you see the conclusion of the sideways world as souls in the after life waiting to be "awakened" by the island "experiences" in order to move on to eternity.
Last week, I thought there were 7 possible story constructions to the show. See, Time Lines, May 19, 2010. There was one scenario that was a wild card:
Flashbacks were real
Island events were fake
Sideways events were fake.
Better terms would describe the ending:
Flashbacks were the REAL lives of the characters, the memories of the souls who had died with unresolved issues, that needed to have a means of resolution and redemption in order to be enlightened or saved.
Island events/time line were AFTER LIFE events constructed upon the memories, fantasy, nightmares and fears of the characters (which I theorize would have been Hurley and Ben).
Sideways events/time line (which chronologically were 3 years behind the island; but time does not matter according to Christian) were AFTER LIFE events constructed while the characters were waiting for their souls to re-merge after resolving their life issues.
Friday, May 14, 2010
S6E15 LIGHT POOL
There are some viewers who are miffed by the concept of a magical light pool being the center piece of the island. It resorts to some sort of extraterrestrial location.
I have always thought that the best explanation for the unexplained would be the premise that the island was in a different realm like the underworld. TPTB were outspoken in Season 1 against the concept that the island was purgatory, but it could be a purgatory type setting without the religious connotations.
Maybe part of the viewer confusion is that the initial expectations of the show was presented in a style of a shipwreck-survival-adventure story which morphed into a science fiction now fantasy story line. The creators claim that all of these key elements were contained within the pilot episode, but besides the smoke monster, this is not accurate. The idea of "Jacob" did not get mentioned until late in Season 2, or any context until after Season 3.
People had hoped Season 6 was the light at the end of the tunnel, but they were not expecting the light to be a glowing pool of Life. The circumstances show that the special property of the island is not just strange electromagnetic energy, but the substance of Life itself. As stated in earlier posts, the Life force appears to be finite matter which can be "consumed" but not replaced. When MIB's body floated into the cave, the light diminished and the dark smoke monster appeared. If that is the case, then how is the Life force delivered to human beings?
When CrazyMom said the light was "life, death and re-birth," it could mean that the island is that nexus point between realms of life and death (after life). Not quite purgatory, but the light pool could a human soul recycling station. Except, the fact is that not very many people ever found the place; that its guardian's sole purpose was to guard the light pool from everyone.
I have always thought that the best explanation for the unexplained would be the premise that the island was in a different realm like the underworld. TPTB were outspoken in Season 1 against the concept that the island was purgatory, but it could be a purgatory type setting without the religious connotations.
Maybe part of the viewer confusion is that the initial expectations of the show was presented in a style of a shipwreck-survival-adventure story which morphed into a science fiction now fantasy story line. The creators claim that all of these key elements were contained within the pilot episode, but besides the smoke monster, this is not accurate. The idea of "Jacob" did not get mentioned until late in Season 2, or any context until after Season 3.
People had hoped Season 6 was the light at the end of the tunnel, but they were not expecting the light to be a glowing pool of Life. The circumstances show that the special property of the island is not just strange electromagnetic energy, but the substance of Life itself. As stated in earlier posts, the Life force appears to be finite matter which can be "consumed" but not replaced. When MIB's body floated into the cave, the light diminished and the dark smoke monster appeared. If that is the case, then how is the Life force delivered to human beings?
When CrazyMom said the light was "life, death and re-birth," it could mean that the island is that nexus point between realms of life and death (after life). Not quite purgatory, but the light pool could a human soul recycling station. Except, the fact is that not very many people ever found the place; that its guardian's sole purpose was to guard the light pool from everyone.
Monday, April 19, 2010
THE SOUL SOCIETY
When Michael told Hurley that the Whispers were trapped souls who could not "move on," it puts Michael's "life" back on the autopsy table.
In the beach talk between MIB and Jacob, it was Jacob who continually brought people to the Island, to the disgust of MIB. MIB charged that Jacob was the person who stole his body, "his humanity," leaving MIB in the form of a shape shifting smoke monster.
When Michael made his deal with Ben to leave the island, he did so by a series of events which included homicide of two people, Libby and Ana Lucia. When Michael returned to New York, he could not commit suicide, either by ramming his car into a brick wall or attempting to shoot himself at point blank range. Tom Friendly told him that "the island was not through with him" so Michael could not die. At the time, it was an unbelievable statement. How can an "island" stop a human being from committing suicide?
When Michael returns to the island, he is Ben's inside man on Widmore's freighter crew. When Michael takes his box into the engine room, it is a case of explosives. He prepared to activate the bomb but Ghost Libby briefly appeared to him and told him not to do it. She quickly disappeared and Michael shook off the apparent hallucination. He punched in a detonation code, but at the end of a short countdown, rather than detonating, the bomb popped up a flag reading "NOT YET". He was then summoned to the radio room by Minkowski. On the other end of the line was Ben, telling him to sit tight and gather a list of names of the crew.
It is some time later when Michael learns that Keamy had set up a room of C4 explosives with a dead man switch. He tells everyone to leave the room as he attempts to slow down the countdown. Once Michael is alone, a person he never met, ghost Christian appears, telling him he can "go now." The freighter then explodes, apparently killing Michael instantly.
Both Libby and Christian were "dead" when they appeared to Michael on the freighter. Why a figure Michael did not know told him he could move on (commit suicide so to speak) when Libby had already contacted him is open to debate. Libby was a survivor who Michael had killed so her spirit could have sought revenge and had Michael kill himself. Christian was a doctor whose oath was to save men but he allowed Michael to die on the freighter. The ghost appearances and their motivations are quite confusing, especially in the context of the Whispers, souls "trapped" on the island.
Michael did not get his reward of death as his soul is now trapped on the island. (Or so it says.) But does that also infer that Libby and Christian's souls are also trapped on the island? It clearly sounds like the island is a form of purgatory. All the ghost visions or reincarnated people (like Patchy) are trapped soul's on an island purgatory?
Or for that matter, can anyone Jacob brought to the island truly leave? Ben seems resigned to the fact that the island "has it in for" everyone, especially after Ilana blew herself up with the Black Rock dynamite. Ben refers to the island almost as a spoiled, vindictive child (which in some respects mirrors his own life story). Which is quite possible since three unknown mystery children have popped up around wandering Flocke this season.
What power could keep souls in a state of being trapped in one place? And is this the true "power" that Widmore is seeking on his return to the island? The power to manage soul's in the afterlife?
MIB appears to be one of those trapped souls, too. He remembers part of his past "humanity," and shows the ebb and flow of emotions in his Flocke form. But for some reason he has transmuted from a mere ghost form into a shape shifting smoke monster.
The short answer to what the Whispers represent does not answer the bigger question: what is the island?
In the beach talk between MIB and Jacob, it was Jacob who continually brought people to the Island, to the disgust of MIB. MIB charged that Jacob was the person who stole his body, "his humanity," leaving MIB in the form of a shape shifting smoke monster.
When Michael made his deal with Ben to leave the island, he did so by a series of events which included homicide of two people, Libby and Ana Lucia. When Michael returned to New York, he could not commit suicide, either by ramming his car into a brick wall or attempting to shoot himself at point blank range. Tom Friendly told him that "the island was not through with him" so Michael could not die. At the time, it was an unbelievable statement. How can an "island" stop a human being from committing suicide?
When Michael returns to the island, he is Ben's inside man on Widmore's freighter crew. When Michael takes his box into the engine room, it is a case of explosives. He prepared to activate the bomb but Ghost Libby briefly appeared to him and told him not to do it. She quickly disappeared and Michael shook off the apparent hallucination. He punched in a detonation code, but at the end of a short countdown, rather than detonating, the bomb popped up a flag reading "NOT YET". He was then summoned to the radio room by Minkowski. On the other end of the line was Ben, telling him to sit tight and gather a list of names of the crew.
It is some time later when Michael learns that Keamy had set up a room of C4 explosives with a dead man switch. He tells everyone to leave the room as he attempts to slow down the countdown. Once Michael is alone, a person he never met, ghost Christian appears, telling him he can "go now." The freighter then explodes, apparently killing Michael instantly.
Both Libby and Christian were "dead" when they appeared to Michael on the freighter. Why a figure Michael did not know told him he could move on (commit suicide so to speak) when Libby had already contacted him is open to debate. Libby was a survivor who Michael had killed so her spirit could have sought revenge and had Michael kill himself. Christian was a doctor whose oath was to save men but he allowed Michael to die on the freighter. The ghost appearances and their motivations are quite confusing, especially in the context of the Whispers, souls "trapped" on the island.
Michael did not get his reward of death as his soul is now trapped on the island. (Or so it says.) But does that also infer that Libby and Christian's souls are also trapped on the island? It clearly sounds like the island is a form of purgatory. All the ghost visions or reincarnated people (like Patchy) are trapped soul's on an island purgatory?
Or for that matter, can anyone Jacob brought to the island truly leave? Ben seems resigned to the fact that the island "has it in for" everyone, especially after Ilana blew herself up with the Black Rock dynamite. Ben refers to the island almost as a spoiled, vindictive child (which in some respects mirrors his own life story). Which is quite possible since three unknown mystery children have popped up around wandering Flocke this season.
What power could keep souls in a state of being trapped in one place? And is this the true "power" that Widmore is seeking on his return to the island? The power to manage soul's in the afterlife?
MIB appears to be one of those trapped souls, too. He remembers part of his past "humanity," and shows the ebb and flow of emotions in his Flocke form. But for some reason he has transmuted from a mere ghost form into a shape shifting smoke monster.
The short answer to what the Whispers represent does not answer the bigger question: what is the island?
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
S6E12 DEAD IS DEAD
Unless the writers are going to lie to us to the very, very end, the big answers from this episode were:
1. The Whispers are lost souls of the dead who cannot "move on," most likely because they have done something wrong (like Michael murdering Ana Lucia and Libby on the island).
2. There is more than one "island" of electromagnetic energy on Earth, as Flocke explained to Desmond. In the Pacific, that place where compasses go wild is called "The Devil's Triangle."
Most viewers have been convinced that the island was never a place for the living dead to work out issues prior to final judgment. The reason was TPTB said after the pilot in Season 1 that the show was NOT about purgatory (i.e. how could anyone "survive" a plane crash?) Viewers were led to believe that our main characters were living human beings thrust into a weird island survival situation, somewhere between Robinson Crusoe and Lord of the Flies.
But multiple people speaking with ghosts, supernatural demon beasts, and a shoot first ask questions later mentality against the value of (human) life, adds up to the island being a place of death. Hurley's main concern throughout the episode that he did not want anyone to get hurt or "die." Then Ilana goes Arzt and blows up. Then Hurley blows up the Black Rock. It is not that his friends would "die," but they would "move on" without him. As I have theorized in the past, all the characters have been "dead" since S1E1. It is just that they don't know it. It is only after they realize their plight-situation, comes the enlightenment to "move on" to the "next life," which in most respects apparently mirrors your old life (see, sideways world).
It may not be a fairy tale ending to LOST, but the theme may be that if you make mistakes, bad choices in your life, do not worry, because you will have a second chance in your second life after you pass on.
1. The Whispers are lost souls of the dead who cannot "move on," most likely because they have done something wrong (like Michael murdering Ana Lucia and Libby on the island).
2. There is more than one "island" of electromagnetic energy on Earth, as Flocke explained to Desmond. In the Pacific, that place where compasses go wild is called "The Devil's Triangle."
Most viewers have been convinced that the island was never a place for the living dead to work out issues prior to final judgment. The reason was TPTB said after the pilot in Season 1 that the show was NOT about purgatory (i.e. how could anyone "survive" a plane crash?) Viewers were led to believe that our main characters were living human beings thrust into a weird island survival situation, somewhere between Robinson Crusoe and Lord of the Flies.
But multiple people speaking with ghosts, supernatural demon beasts, and a shoot first ask questions later mentality against the value of (human) life, adds up to the island being a place of death. Hurley's main concern throughout the episode that he did not want anyone to get hurt or "die." Then Ilana goes Arzt and blows up. Then Hurley blows up the Black Rock. It is not that his friends would "die," but they would "move on" without him. As I have theorized in the past, all the characters have been "dead" since S1E1. It is just that they don't know it. It is only after they realize their plight-situation, comes the enlightenment to "move on" to the "next life," which in most respects apparently mirrors your old life (see, sideways world).
It may not be a fairy tale ending to LOST, but the theme may be that if you make mistakes, bad choices in your life, do not worry, because you will have a second chance in your second life after you pass on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
