ANIMALS

There were various animals on LOST.

Only one had an official name: Vincent, Walt's dog.

Vincent was an alleged survivor of the plane crash hold. He was found wandering the jungle. He was also last seen coming to Jack when he passed on in the bamboo grove.

Some have thought that Vincent could have been a representation of the White Smoke Monster. Vincent was always near the action, especially running off into the jungle "just" before something bad happens or "leads" the people on a chase that helps them find something important. As a dog, people on the island would not see him as a threat. He is the perfect spy. Perfect cover. He could have been Jacob incognito.

The dog has long been considered a liaison between the physical and non-physical dimensions. Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Celtic and beyond have all prescribed the dog as a sacred guardian of the Otherworlds - those realms outside our daily/mundane experience. If you hear of dogs being symbols of death - this is the connection: Dogs are the guardians of ephemeral domains, and can even serve as spirit guides in non-physical journeys. 

As we learned in the End of the series, the sideways world was a place of death, a purgatory limbo of the character souls waiting to be awakened. LIkewise, the island realm could have been real, semi-real or another underworld of the dead (Hell).

The second most significant animal on the series dealt with birds. Fans named the squawking bird that taunted Hurley the "Hurley Bird"  because it apparently called out his name. When he asked his friends whether they heard it, they made fun of him. Many fans thought that bird was a warning to Hurley to be careful. Others thought that it was just another clue that Hurley was seeing things, like Dave, as in being crazy.

Many people view birds as a symbol of freedom (such as the American Eagle symbol), or even as symbols of the future. Their ability to soar high into the sky and their proximity with the sky makes them desirable for humans who cannot fly without substitute wings. From time immemorial, mankind has considered birds to be signs of eternal life. Many stories and folklore suggest that birds were taken as signs of renewed life, often as a transition between life and death.

Hurley's ability to see and talk to the dead may be part of the Hurley Bird experience. The bird could represent the transition phase from being alive to being dead. In the Middle East and Asia birds are symbols of immortality. In East Indian mythology, all birds represent a "departed soul" and in Christian art, birds are often depicted as saved souls.

The crane is a symbol of long life and immortality. The eagle represents power, resurrection and generosity. The falcon signifies, "A Light that Shines in the Darkness". The nightengale suggests love and longing. The owl is often associated with death and darkness; but it also can bring wisdom, insight and virtue. The peacock heralds in springtime, birth, new growth, longevity, and love. And the tiny sparrow, represents the love of God for even the "least" among us. The Hurley Bird best fits the sparrow symbolism.

The other aviary connection to LOST was with Walt. Walt had a special mental attribute which could cause birds to crash or kill themselves. In Australia, he caused a bird to crash during a fit. Outside Room 23, many dead birds were found after Walt's session. 

In some cultures, a bird is a symbol of betrayal. In Walt's case, his anger at his situation of being abandoned by his father and losing his mother could have set off his ESP abilities to lash out at inferior creatures.

Then there was the polar bear. A bear often symbolizes contradictions.

Indeed, the bear is a  symbol of motherhood and child protection in Native American cultures. Of course a wild bear is potentially explosive so that territorial nature invokes representation o sovereignty, courage and themes of a warrior spirit such as bravery.

In Scandinavian legend the bear was an aspect of the god Odin, and Berserkers were known to wear bearskins to enhance their ferocity in battle. Such vicious looking warriors were insured a victory. 

In Greek cult following of Artemis. a god huntress,  her maiden devotees would don bear dressings as a symbol of hunting prowess and power. 

Ancient  Celtic lore indicates the bear is grounded in a heroic aspect, we also see it connected to the godess Berne who is associated with lunar movements.

 

Bear meanings associated with the moon continue in Pueblo Indian lore in which the bear is connected to underground temples. Here the bear is said to oversee the movements of the night, and lives in time with the tribe's cycles with the moon.

In fact, many ancient peoples understood the connection of the moon and the bear because of the bear's hibernation patterns. But more importantly, our nature-savvy ancestors recognized the dual nature of the bear.

The nature-based mindset followed the "sleeping" (hibernating) and "waking" nature of the bear and assigned specific meaning to each of these phases of the bear's life. In the LOST ending, the characters must come out of a personal hibernation to "awaken" in the after life.

 

These animals appear to represent the spiritual aspects of the series storylines and theories that surround the show as being one of a journey or passage to the after life.

ACTIONS

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. — Dale Carnegie

 There are two general types of people: leaders and followers.

Leaders are those who take charge of a situation or group. They want to be in control. They have analytical skills to motivate people around them towards a common goal.

Followers are those who don't want to be in charge. They do not want the responsibility to oversee or control the collective work group. They would rather be told what to do rather than be proactive and seize the moment.

Leaders: Jack, Ben, Widmore, Eloise, Keamy, Sawyer (only by default), Horace.

Followers: Hurley, Charlie, Claire, Kate, Sayid, Sun, Jin, Boone, Charlotte, Daniel, Dogen, the Others, Dharma workers.

Then there are few characters who were independent and did not want to lead or follow: Rose, Bernard, Juliet, Michael, Shannon.

All these characters had continuous fears and doubts about themselves:

Hurley: being liked, respected, useful.
Charlie: being alone, addicted, useful.
Claire: being a mother.
Kate: having a commitment, being responsible or accountable to anyone.
Sayid: being evil, inability to change, to find happiness.
Sun: being dependent, weak, controlled.
Jin: being poor, ashamed of his family past, respected. 
Boone: being acknowledged, respected, trusted, useful.
Charlotte: finding a purpose, a talent
Daniel: being acknowledged, respected, and worthy of affection.
Dogen: being punished, martyred.
The Others: belonging to something
Dharma workers: belonging to something.

Their LOST experiences did involve those characters coming face to face with their fears and doubts. Most fell back to the comfort of their habitual inaction. Their fate was held by the people around them. They could not trust themselves to change to become fully confident and courageous in their own abilities. Hurley wept in fear when Jack passed on the guardian role to him. Claire never reconciled her fear of motherhood when she left the island as a zombie shell of herself.

The characters who were followers were the most "lost" in the LOST bunch. They would defer decisions to other people around them who had stronger opinions, even though they knew that it was the wrong course of action. Kate was especially keen on doing this mental gymnastics as she attempted to follow many opposing leaders at the same time (Jack and Sawyer dynamic.) As a result, she never grew as a person. It solidified her personality of being a runner, someone who avoided responsibility or accountability (the hallmarks of leadership).

But in the end, curiously, both leaders and followers who took two different paths in their island adventures and decisions, wound up at the same place.

DESIRES

The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat. — Napoleon Hill

Many characters had strong feelings of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen. Ben informed Locke that the Island was a metaphoric "magic box" where wishes could be granted. In Locke's mind, he wanted to have a showdown with his father. He believed the island granted him that wish.

But desires can also include emotional feelings, sexual wants or an acceptance to belonging to someone else. Kate had numerous sexual relationships during the series but was left with an unfulfilled desire for lasting happiness.

Desire could also be the quest for status or achievement. Charlie always wished to be a rock star, and for one fleeting year he lived his dream. But that dream collapsed quickly under the trappings of stardom. On the opposite end, Hurley tried to run away from his fame and fortune.

Maybe opposites do attract like magnets.  Charlie wanted the fame and fortune but Hurley despised it. On the island, they became good friends.  Kate was always looking to run away from her problems while Jack ran head first into problems in order to solve them. The same could be true with Sawyer and Juliet. Even people in a close relationship had polar opposite beliefs. Rose was a realist on her cancer fate, while Bernard was a dreamer looking for a medical miracle in any corner of the planet. Sayid did the dangerous, hard, dirty work while Shannon was the rich girl who would not lift a finger to help another person.

Some people believe the whole story was just about the main characters finding their "soul mates."
This generalization has too many exceptions. Rose and Bernard were already soul mates before coming to the island. Locke and Boone never found their soul mates because they were alone in the end church. 

Was the final bonding moment commonality? The reason Charlie gravitated towards Claire and her baby was that Charlie was alone in the world. He wanted to have a family, his own family. But his drug addiction and fleeting fame made it impossible for him to correct his path. Claire was also on a downward path. Her car accident destroyed her family relationships with her mother and sister. Her boyfriend dumped her. She wanted to have her own stable family life, but thought she could not do it alone. 

The one common trait Hurley and Libby had was that they were both institutionalized at a mental hospital. It was strange that Hurley never recognized Libby from their time together in the same day room at Santa Rosa when the Tailies were reunited with the beach survivors. And we really have no motivations or desires from Libby that matches what Hurley was thinking or feeling about his life.

Then again, one would be hard pressed to find anything in common between Jack and Kate or Sawyer and Juliet.  Medical professionals whose oath is to do no harm are matched in the after life with murderous criminals. Were Kate and Sawyer the best Jack and Juliet could do?

Maybe a closer analogy is that the island's wishing well was more like an internet dating/match site. There may be some good matches, but most of the output data is just random pairings.

MISTAKES

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. — George Bernard Shaw

 It is hard to determine who made the most mistakes on LOST. Every character made their mistakes, some of which had lethal consequences. Then there was point where the background characters who had nothing to do decided to get involved in the action (i.e. the Doc Artz dynamite proposition.)

There was a core set of characters whose lives were basically spent doing nothing productive.

Locke dabbled from job to job, but he really wasn't good at anything. He would have moped through life but for the 815 plane crash.

Kate would not have accomplished anything in her life because it was her nature to be constantly on the run from authority.

Sawyer would have accomplished nothing legal as he was set in his criminal persona to allow him to change.

Hurley, with or without his lottery winnings, would have become a house hermit and he would have not personally accomplished anything.

Charlie led the rock star "one hit wonder" lifestyle, but that sole accomplishment (a footnote in musical history, a trivial trivia questions) meant that he would have accomplished nothing significant as a solo artist.

Claire made a big mistake getting involved with a man who ran off once he knew his was a father, leaving her to be an unwed mother with little apparent work skills to support a child on her own.

Then there was those who made mistakes in order to gain accomplishments in their lives.

Jin made the mistake of marrying Sun because that bond put him into the sleazy debt of his father-in-law in the quasi-criminal world of the family business.

Likewise, Sun made a mistake in marrying Jin as a means of rebelling against her dominant father by bringing home a poor door man. She compounded her mistake by having an affair which would have brought shame on the family name.

I think Jack also made a big mistake in trying to follow in his father's footsteps. I don't know if Jack was happy being a surgeon. He may have been better off playing his music as a free spirit than going to medical school. There was never going to be a recognition by his father of Jack's career accomplishments because Christian had already surpassed his son at every level. What lies in the shadow of a dominant father figure? A cowering child.

All of the above characters had personal regrets prior to boarding Flight 815. What had they completed in their lives? They had achieved some levels of success to none at all. 

Only a few of the characters actually accomplished their goals when surviving the plane crash: leaving the island. Only Kate, Claire, and Sawyer actually made it into the Ajira plane to leave the island. Locke left the island, but in his mission to get back to the island he made the mistake of trusting Ben, which led to his demise. (On the TV series, we only see Hurley next in the sideways world - - - which we now know is when he had already died. We don't know for sure if Hurley ever left the island.) The rest made new mistakes which cost them their chance of rescue.

Jack made the fatal mistake of becoming the island guardian. Sayid made the mistake of coming back to life then trying to be a martyr on the submarine (which cost the lives of Jin and Sun). Charlie made a similar mistake in drowning in the underwater station.

Maybe there was a Darwinian undercurrent through the series. The best and brightest may have a chance of survival, but in reality it is still random chance. If one makes mistakes, it may increase the odds of a bad result.

ISLAND AS THE MAIN CHARACTER

There is a theory about LOST which is beyond Oz. It states that the whole series experience was centered solely on the main character, the Island, as an intelligent life form.

As an intelligent life form, it would be alive. It would have basic instincts. It could have feelings, emotions and needs.

If the Island was a life form, it would need some kind of food source in order to sustain its metabolic functions. Was the Island's jungle its hair? Was the soil and rocks its skin? Or was the Island more metaphysical than actually a physical shape.

I believe life can be summed up simply as "the acquisition, storage and consumption of energy."  That is what every living thing on Earth does on a daily basis. The means of energy consumption may different (plants with photosynthesis; animals with digesting plants or proteins).

So if we look at the perspective that the Island is the main character in the series, how does it view the human beings running around its outer shell?  Many animals need "parasitic" animals to help keep one clean or healthy. Many humans and animals feed off "domesticated" lower life forms.

The island characters used the resources available to build structures, to run utility lines, to inhabit the place. What would the Island gain by such activities. The human activities on the island could "stimulate" sensory attributes of the Island creature. We know that the Island can show anger and emotion via the Smoke Monster attacks. Are those attacks on humans like man milking cows for an energy source, i.e. the Island creating strong human emotions is what gives it emotional energy which it needs to survive?

And what defenses does the Island creature have at its disposal? It could time travel. It could disappear in the blink of an eye. Whether that is a physical transformation or bending light into a stealth situation is unknown.

What is the waste byproduct of the Island creature living on Earth? The light in the cave could be a direct result of the Island taking raw emotions of human inhabitants and taking that spiritual energy and transform it into the unique electromagnetic properties of the island. The light or special EM was said to be "life, death, and rebirth."

For if the purpose of the creature is to digest emotions to produce a life force of special EM, is that more like a machine process than a living organism process? Scientists believe that humans are really just biochemical factories that take in elements, transform them, absorb energy produced from reactions, and expel chemically altered waste materials.

Since the creature would feed off emotions, it could have the ability to read human minds, memories, and dreams. Since it can transform energy into matter (Smoke Monster into Flocke), it is possible that the Island creature could have created the sideways world as a subconscious holding tank for the human souls until they physically expired in its island domain. Is the sideways world the recycling bin for human spiritual emotions?

This theory is hard to grasp because the Island as a creature never showed its true form. It did not reveal itself as being anything but a magical place.

THE MAZE

This was an avatar I used on some LOST community sites. It was a depiction of Eloise the Lab Rat.

Eloise was Daniel Faraday's lab rat at Oxford University's Queen's College Physics Department in 1996. Daniel explained to Desmond that the rat's consciousness was sent forward in time one hour in the future, allowing the rat to run an unseen maze perfectly. The experiment was a success, but later in the day, Eloise died. The cause was unknown, but Faraday hypothesized she had suffered a brain aneurysm. According to his theory, not having any constant, her consciousness couldn't differentiate between the future and the present.

An Oxford janitorial custodian had the job of incinerating Faraday's dead subject rats so that no one would discover the purposes and results of his experiments. One would assume that order was at the direction of Widmore, who funded Daniel's Oxford experiments.

Widmore's only purpose was finding a way back to the island. So funding Daniel's experiments had to be tied to this purpose. Was it an actual means of finding the island, or was it payment to Daniel's mother for her help in finding the island for him?

There was some connection in Daniel's mind in conscious time travel and the island. When he first arrived on the island, he observed that the light was different. He also found that time would physically skip (after the FDW was turned by Ben). It was during one of those time skips where he met his mother, who was a leader of the Others. During that encounter, Eloise killed him. There is a debate whether at that moment Eloise knew she killed her (unborn or) time traveling son. But in later events, it would seem that Eloise was doing everything in her power NOT to awaken Daniel to his island's past when he was in the sideways (dead) world.

One of the problems with the LOST story was that it had no consistent mythology on time travel. The idea of mental time travel, based upon premonition theories, was one explanation to Daniel's research. But then, the characters physically time skipped to different years on the island. And further inconsistency, only some of the characters skipped while others did not. Selective involuntary mental and physical time travel is a confusing bunch of story line rubble.

We do not know the details of Daniel's lab rat maze experiment. One could think Daniel used highly charged electric magnetic energy to induce some mental time travel in his lab rats. If so, how can he get "inside" the rat's mind to teach it a maze if the rat itself was unconscious? It would make more sense that both the rat and Daniel physically time traveled an hour in the future, Daniel taught the rat the maze, then returned to normal time to start the experiment. At one point, Daniel said that he was "out" for 75 minutes "after" the Eloise experiment.

There are several theories on why Daniel's research was important.

First, if Daniel had harnessed the power of the island (i.e. mental time travel to the future to either see or alter present events), then Widmore would not have needed to return to the island. Since Widmore still demanded to invade the island for its power, we must assume that Daniel's machine was a failure (as shown with the vegetable state of his former lab assistant.)

Second, if the secret of the island was mental time travel, then why did only Desmond have known episodes of it? He was the person who unrealistically survived the massive EM explosion of the Hatch. This allegedly triggered his premonitions (though some of them proved false, such as Claire leaving the island on a helicopter). So if Desmond could see the future, but he could not control it, who could?

Third, if Desmond was the only one aware of this secret power of mental time travel, why did physical time travel harm Charlotte but not the others. The reason was she did not have a "constant" in both time periods. But in reality, a person has a constant in all time periods based upon family bonds alone. Unless, the time travel was before she was born then she had no one living in that time period. But if that was the case, the other time travelers should have succumbed to the time travel constant rule. Another explanation was that those time travelers had each other as constants in both time periods. But again, so did Charlotte. (Without a consistent rule, it comes down to the writers looking for red shirts to kill off for dramatic effect without realizing the story line consequences.)

Fourth, the cause of death of the lab rat and the time travelers who bled was that if a person failed to complete the events in where the conscious mind traveled to would cause death. For example, Eloise the lab rat Eloise died because the "future" event (instruction on how to complete the maze) that was to occur did not take place. (However, we were told she did complete the maze. So just the fact one mentally flashes to another time is enough to kill you?) Minkowski on the freighter died because he went to the island. The island somehow split his consciousness. But his mission was just to go see the island, which he fulfilled. Minkowski never indicated afterward in his flashes that he needed to complete some task. He was told he had no constant between his flash periods. But again, he did have family bonds in both time periods so that "ante dote" does not have a factual basis. He was merely randomizing into the state of dementia before dying of a brain aneurysm.

But then again, time travel and its alleged effects were immaterial and irrelevant to the island events conclusions. Desmond, as a weapon against MIB, was a non-factor. It was Jack who reset the island cork in the light cave. It was Jack and Kate who defeated MIB. Time travel or electromagnetic power did not destroy MIB or allow any survivor to escape the island.

Based upon the ending, was the concept of "constants" really the mental bridge between the island world and the sideways after life existence? If so, then that would assume that the person's soul (conscious and subconscious) were somehow split to be somehow "reunited" (i.e. awakened) in the sideways world. Time travel is then not time travel but spiritual realm travel.

But even that is inconsistent in the sideways world. Charlotte is in the sideways world. She hooks up with Sawyer through Miles (and Miles was the constant between the island patrol from the freighter with Daniel and Charlotte.) But Charlotte has no contact with Daniel in the sideways world. It is like Eloise is keeping Daniel's island experiences away from his conscious memory . . . that is why she berated Desmond to leave her and Daniel alone. She was willing to sacrifice Penny to move on in the after life, but not Daniel. It would seem that Eloise's guilt for killing Daniel in the island time skip flashed through to her after life fantasy life. Is the ticking time bomb for Daniel's awakening just the sight of Charlotte? If so, why did it take so long for Charlie to reconnect with Claire? Or Kate not remember Sawyer from her island trysts? Or Jack not recognizing the Locke's O6 death drove him nearly insane?

If LOST was a maze of clues, it had no logical exit point. The feature of the "constant" as being a critical requirement to understanding the physics and dynamics of the island does not hold up to any scrutiny. It was neither the cause or the effect of the events in the sideways world.

NADIA

One of the most puzzling aspects of the LOST saga was the final treatment of the Nadia story line.

For 6 seasons were told that Nadia, Sayid's childhood friend, was his long lost love of his life. As a child, Nadia teased him to get his attention. She was from a wealthy family and Sayid was not. After Sayid went into Republican Guard intelligence, he met Nadia when she was a prisoner. She had joined an anti-Saddam group. When it was Sayid's job to interrogate, torture her and finally execute her, Sayid led her to her escape. Before escaping, a panicked Nadia begged Sayid to come with her. When he refused, she left him her photo with the inscription,  " You will see me in the next life, if not this one."

Nadia fled to England at some point. She was saved by Charlie who stopped a mugging in progress. Charlie would never know the woman he helped was Sayid's girlfriend.

Later, Nadia moved the United States. In California, Locke inspected her house. Her whereabouts were later used as a lure by the CIA to get Sayid to betray one of his childhood friends who was a suspected terrorist. The government agents informed Sayid that Nadia was working in Irvine, California as "a lab tech in a medical testing company."

It was after this mission, which did not work out well for Sayid's friend, Sayid was expelled from Australia on Flight 815. The plane crashed on the island, thereby crushing Sayid's reunion plans with Nadia in America.

After Sayid was rescued as part of the Oceanic Six,  Nadia finally found him again after the group's first press conference. They tearfully embraced, overjoyed to see each other again. Sayid and Nadia later married. At some point before or after the wedding, she befriended the other members of the Oceanic Six, attending Hurley's  surprise party and Jack's father's  funeral service.

Their marriage came to an abrupt and tragic end, however, when she was killed in Los Angeles in late October 2005. She was hit by a car in a hit-and-run collision while Sayid was stopped by Jacob who asked him for directions.  Her last words to Sayid before she died were, "Take me home."

Her death in a hit-and-run incident used by Ben to manipulate Sayid into working for him as an assassin.  Believing Ben's story, Sayid followed and later killed Bakir in a fit of rage. Sayid, still bent on revenge for Nadia's death, came to work for Ben — tracking down other employees of Charles Widmore and assassinating them.

In the sideways purgatory world, Sayid's relationship with Nadia was that of a forbidden fruit. Sayid had encouraged her to marry his brother. She did so. They had two children.

When visiting them, Sayid gets caught up in his brother's business. She detects that Sayid is going to seek revenge for Omer and begs him not to do it. She pleadingly asks him to return to the house and look after the children. That evening Nadia returns home. Sayid is repairing a vase broken by the children playing with a boomerang. Nadia reports that Omer is recovering from surgery and is awake. She makes it clear that she knows about the loan, and she believes dealing with it is solely Omer's responsibility as he brought the trouble on himself. She confronts Sayid about the picture of her from his bag, asking him why he pushed her towards his brother if he has been carrying a picture of her for so long (an obvious indicator that Sayid has always had feelings for her). Sayid explains that he has spent twelve years dealing with his guilt for all the horrible things he did while a soldier. Finally, he explains that he cannot be with Nadia because he "does not deserve" her.

From the analysis of the two different worlds, the island and sideways purgatory, Sayid still has strong feelings about Nadia. And it appears that in both worlds, Nadia has mutual feelings for Sayid. If they were truly meant for each other, why in the made-up fantasy world of the dead souls is Nadia not with Sayid?  The vast majority of viewers could not get over the fact that Sayid wound up with Shannon in the end rather than Nadia.

This is hard to take if one believes that the sideways world was secondary to the main island story arc. In other words, if the island time came first, then Sayid was married to Nadia. They had a short marriage together until the island cut it short (through an evil partnership of Jacob, Ben  and Widmore). But they had been in love for their entire lives. So if Nadia was taken away from Sayid at that moment in time, Sayid spent the rest of his days revenging her death.  That strong bond would have filtered into his soul in his after life in the sideways world.

But if the island world was actually the fantasy world of the lost souls in the sideways realm, where Nadia in real life was married to Omer, then Sayid's attraction to Nadia was not real. Sayid's dream was to take his brother's wife. But in working out that fantasy, it ends badly in Nadia's death and Sayid being thrown into evil darkness to punish his soul in guilt. This may be the only way to explain why Sayid wound up with Shannon, a person he had a short fling with on the island. But again, in this continuum, Shannon was merely a diversion, a prop, imagined in part by Sayid's dream fantasies.

So what was Nadia's role in the Sayid story? If the series was a fantasy inside a dream, then there was no relationship between young Sayid and young Nadia in Iraq. He made up a strong character of an independent, smart and charming woman in Nadia. He carried that dream woman with him throughout his life. There was no physical contact between them. It was only when his soul intersected with Shannon's spirit did he actually have a physical bonding moment with another being. This fantasy trumped his prior dream. Somehow Shannon turned into Sayid's soul mate.

Which is a odd development, even for LOST. If the island was a cosmic dating service where soul mates were found for the main characters, Sayid had more in common with Ilana, Naomi, Ana Lucia or even Kate than with Shannon. And even if the island was to sort soul mates, Sayid in that time sphere had contact and a relationship with Nadia. When Nadia died, she would have helped "create" the sideways world to wait for Sayid. But that did not happen. And this is the fundamental flaw in the Sayid and Nadia story.