BUGS IN THE SYSTEM

What is the meaning of Life?

It is a question that humans have contemplated since they became aware of their own existence, and then their own mortality.

From a purely objective standpoint, what are the roles of humans on this planet.

Basically, we all gather energy, consume energy, store energy, and use energy. The byproduct of all these biochemical factors is the create of waste. Waste that is then used as food/energy source by the smallest microbes. Some scientists have compared the human body to that of a complex industrial factory. Instead of an actual product at the end of the production line, the final discharge is human waste.

Evolutionists believe that from the primordial muck, bits of chemical molecules began to bond together to create more complex life forms like microbes and bacteria. Over time, these single cell creatures evolved into multi-cell beings to the current highly complex animal species. But throughout this entire evolutionary chain, the same basic tenet applies: life needs to find, consume, store and use energy in order to live. The microbe level breaks down chemicals and materials from higher life forms or found in nature. But if nature is a matter of creating efficiencies, in closed ecosystems of mutual cooperation (such as trees releasing oxygen for humans and humans releasing carbon dioxide needed for tree growth), then it makes sense to see that humans are the greatest microbe factory to feed microbes their favorite food sources - - - waste.

The microbe theory can be applied to LOST in the sense that the smoke monster appears to be a complex form of nanobots or microbes that have evolved into an intelligent being. The smoke monster preyed upon human beings - - - but not in the normal biochemical consumption sense, but a different form of energy - - - emotional.

Though never discussed by TPTB, one could tangentially say that one good theory for the show's "big theme" could be the evolutionary process on mankind is really the continuation of micro-biology finding bigger and better ways to support the smallest life forms on the planet. People are the sheep created by then herded by the microbes. Mankind's own self-importance and arrogance would erase any concept that they are food factories for the unseen bugs that populate every surface on the planet.

THE STATION UNDER THE CHURCH

In 2007, after Ben murdered Locke, he found his way to Eloise's church. In the basement was the Dharma location station, the Lamp Post.

This has always been an odd set.

Eloise's church was also the same church found in the sideways world conclusion. Open question: whether they are one in the same, meaning in the afterlife time period. If so, then would not Locke been the only one to get to the Dharma location station since he was the only one "dead." Unless of course, death is nebulous concept that we don't fully understand.

Meeting her one night at the church, Eloise urged Ben that he had only 70 hours to reunite them—else "Then God help us all."  Ben brought Jack, Sun and Desmond to the church,  whereupon Eloise escorted them down into the Lamp Post and explained that it was built as the DHARMA Initiative's means of locating the Island. Eloise then supplied them information about Ajira flight and the warning that they must be aboard that flight and must work to recreate the conditions of Oceanic Flight 815 as nearly as possible. She also gave Jack Locke's suicide note and explained that Locke's body would have to be aboard the flight as well, serving as a proxy for Jack's dead father, and would therefore have to carry something of Jack's father on him.

Now, in retrospect, none of that makes any sense. Jacob was the one power that could bring humans to the island, not some mythical, complex "recreation" of prior events. Even MIB confirmed that it was Jacob's power that brought people to corrupt the island. And at the Lighthouse, Jacob himself inferred to Hurley and Jack that he was the sole power on the island as it guardian; that he spied on all his potential candidates prior to bringing them to the island.

Why did everything have to be "re-created" in Ajira to get the castaways back to the island? Clearly, this was false because the passengers and pilot were different on Ajira. And there were "new" survivors of that crash landing.  Then also, how did Ben "know" about the "need" to build the runway on the Hydra Island "years" before the actual event?  Recall, when Ben had Kate and Sawyer in the bear cages, their work detail was scraping the jungle to create a runway.

No, Eloise "story" or "magic spell" elements does not make sense. Sure, it was a con-job to entice the O6 back to the island, but that did not work either considering Aaron never returned with the group. The "substitution" of Locke's body for Jack's deceased father also made no sense since there was no substitute on the plane for Locke.

So why would it be necessary to con the O6 people?

More importantly, when did the "con" start?  It may have started early on prior to the rescue of the helicopter crash survivors and the arrival on Penny's boat. If you try to tie Eloise's church and the sideways church as the same (in time and space), logic would conclude that the O6 never "survived" their helicopter crash. Penny's boat was an illusion - - - the ferryman to carry the lost souls to the after life (the sideways world). Because the Coast Guard, press conference and their "life" afterward (especially Kate's trial) were all messed up fantasy. If the O6 had died, they needed to be brought back to the island to be "reborn."   So the direction was coming from the sideways Eloise from the beginning.

Even today, some theologians are unsure whether heaven or hell exists; and some believe that people living on Earth are actually living in heaven or hell, depending on their circumstances. We just believe that this is Life, but in one respect we cannot prove it one way or the other.

The symbolism of using a church as the Lamp Post (itself symbolic of giving light in the darkness, death) and in the sideways reunion hall is a key clue. When Christian told Jack that some people lived and died well before and well after Jack (and Jack's island's death was still to come) that may mean that Jack died during the freighter story arc with the O6. The reason Eloise wanted Jack and the others to return to the island was simple: to make them "forget" about their deaths caused by the island - - - in order for her to keep up her sideways world illusions of life in the afterlife since she was desperate to keep her son, Daniel, from knowing the details of his own island death. In this theory, Eloise is the supreme puppet master, who created the mythology of the island, Dharma, an evil husband trope and the ability to suspend logic and intelligence in her subjects. But like all lab rats, the characters had retained enough free will to muck up Eloise's plans.

Another factor is that if the island could not be found without the Lamp Post, how did Widmore find it? Eloise must have told him about it since she controlled the station. It also goes to what the island really was: was it a cloaked space craft or a portal to a different dimension in time and space. More evidence seems to point to the latter, as in life and afterlife.

The island was a prison, but for characters that Eloise needed to keep at bay in order to keep her illusion with Daniel alive. That would mean that even Jacob and his brother were pawns in an elaborate scheme - - - tricked into becoming candidates and guardians for eternity. That could mean that everyone on the island had a connection to Daniel and his mother - - - like Dogen at music recitals because Daniel was into that. Or Jacob, Patchy and the Others were former teachers, students, colleagues in business that Daniel had met. The idea of erasing Daniel's past and implanting the perfect sideways memories in him was Eloise's ultimate goal. She turned time and space, physics and energy against the laws of nature and human evolution to make it happen.

MULTI-VERSES

One of the bothersome aspects of LOST was its backhand use of Time to distort the plot lines.

Most people consider a time line as a lineal progression of events in a daily second, minute, hour grid. Ancient people felt that time was a cycle that progressed like the seasons.

One science fiction genre is the parallel universe. It is trope that allows a writer to "alter" present reality but mask it with the all the familiar settings of our current world.

Multiverses is the plural of a parallel universes. In some fictional mythologies, every action one does in real life affects and changes the pathway and development in an alternative universe. And since there are trillions of daily decisions, there are almost infinite parallel universes based on the outcomes.

A basic example of this change is this:

You are in Universe A at a stop sign. Your plan is to turn left to go to the store. But if you turn right, you suddenly alter the decision to create a Universe B. In Universe A you get to the store and buy your goods. But in Universe B you drive into a gas station, to be shot and killed during a botched robbery. In Universe A you go home to your family. In Universe B your family comes to the morgue, setting off a series of unintended consequences. In Universe B, your spouse can either remain single or remarry a close friend, which creates a new Universe C. In Universe C, the second marriage complicates the relationships between your children, splitting them onto various destructive paths in other universes. It is an avalanche or domino effect.

One theory about LOST is that the show's premise is that of multiverses. The continuity errors between shows and seasons are not errors per se, but the effects of previous actions.

If one breaks a part the show, one can find four different parallel universes:

1. The Pre-Flight 815 World.
2. The Post-Crash Island World.
3. The O6 World.
4. The Sideways World.

The Pre-Flight 815 World seems to be the "real" world in the context of the characters' background stories, and how they came to Sydney, which was the focal point of change. There was something in the preboarding that altered the normal time line to create the post-crash island world. Perhaps it was the airline not putting Christian's body on the plane. As a result, the normal universe created a second parallel universe where the plane lands safely in LAX. However, there is an alternative explanation that the pre-flight world was actually part of the sideways continuum.

The Sideways World where Flight 815 did not crash could be considered by some to be the first or "real" world view. This is because in normal course of events, planes arrive at their destination. In the sideways world, people go forward with their lives unaffected by the flight events. (This is problematic for some viewers because that would infer that the real world began as an afterlife setting.)

Some event on board the plane, such as Bernard going to the back cabin, altered the normal universe event line, which in turn caused a parallel universe to be created where the plane crashes on the island.  This can be considered true because in the sideways universe, Ben was seen as an Sydney airport employee, which would be impossible since he was on the island at the time of the plane crash unaware of Flight 815.

Once the second world, the island, was created, it spawned two more parallel universes.  The island world seems to be a "closed" system since it was difficult for outsiders to find. The barrier could be considered the border between universes. Some scientists believe that time and space (or Einstein's concept of space-time) can be the separation fields between universes. The next universe created would be the O6 world which had different events and outcomes than the sideways world.

Since each universe is self-contained, the timing of the life events can be different. This is the only way to logically explain why Aaron and Ji Yeon could be "born" both in the sideways world and in other worlds. On the island world, Sun was found pregnant on the island and gave birth in the O6 world. However, she had to be far along her pregnancy in the sideways world because in that time line (a few weeks) she gave birth to her child in the hospital.

When the show runners talk now about asking the big questions like life or death to help temper the complaints about the show's direction and conclusion, that seems like a throw-a-way bone to fans. It does not help explain the apparent inconsistencies in scripts and seasons. The bigger question is whether the multiverse theory is the best foundation to help understand the show's big premise.

HOW FAR CAN ONE FALL?

One of the first plot contentions in LOST was the survival of the passengers in the plane crash. Whether or not the passengers could survive a mid-flight, high altitude, broken apart plane crash set the path of science/reality vs. fiction/fantasy; life or death.

There are exceptions to the rule, but for the most part when a commercial airplane is in distress during flight and crashes in the ocean or on land, there are no survivors. The recent Germanwings and the Malaysian Airlines crashes are evidence that plane crashes are a violent end.  Planes are flying approximately 500 miles an hour during flight.  The momentum of a sudden change in flight path toward the ground, and resulting impact forces creates a deadly end.

The first hurdle in the believability of LOST's story is whether so many passengers could have survived a mid-air plane break-up from approximately 33,000 feet.

There is an example of a flight attendant, Vensa Vulovic, who survived a Serbian plane crash in 1972 after falling 33,000 feet. How she survived is not fully clear. Some scientists think one raises their chances of survival by becoming "wreckage riders," holding on to parts of the plane debris like a glider to lessen the impact forces. But it highly unrealistic to have so many panicked passengers thinking about improvising paragliders while the plane falls a part around them.  Besides, we know that the passengers "landed" on the ground (or ocean) such as Jack in the bamboo field.

In another example, a World War II pilot survived a bail out of his plane at 20,000 feet when he crashed through a glass roof which science believes "spread out the impact" of the crash force to survivable levels. (Mythbusters tried to re-create a similar story where an airman fell toward a building that blew up below him, creating an "air cushion" to lessen his impact. It was not confirmed.)

The facts seem straight forward. 

Terminal velocity is 120 miles per hour. That is the maximum speed an object, like a human body, reaches when in free fall. 

It is not the height that causes fatal injuries, it is the impact.

First, physics  how and where you land is one of the major factors in whether you get up from the ground or go 6 feet further into it. If you can make the time [landing] longer, the force needed to stop you is smaller. Think of punching a wall or a mattress. The wall is rigid and the time of interaction is short so the force is large. People who have survived falls, they’ve managed to increase that time, even if it’s in milliseconds. From one millisecond to three, that’s three times longer, three times less force needed for the same change in momentum. 

Second, survivors who have plummeted into snow, trees, or something that can better absorb your landing than, say, concrete or water, have a better chance of survival. Spreading out the force of impact away from one's body is a key factor in survival.

Third, another factor is slowing the descent. Increasing surface area means more energy is required to push air out of your way, slowing you down. The “flying squirrel” position, body splayed out, is preferred over falling feet or head first. By increasing that drag is the biggest factor in keeping you alive.  This is why a parachute’s large surface area is best to slow descent speed.  

But some scientists state that there are issues even before one hits the ground. If you start your fall from high altitude, the air is thin. You may not have enough oxygen to survive. Further, if one body spins in the fall turbulence, the blood can rush to one's head and will kill you. Also, the friction of the fall could burn skin or beat up internal organs causing hemorrhages.

So it is probable that falling passengers could die during the fall (especially if they had pre-existing health conditions) or upon impact with the ground.

Now, many will remember the scene from the barracks that showed Flight 815 breaking up over the island at an apparent "low" altitude. This is debatable continuity error, because the prior "on board" sequence of events clearly showed no elevation change of the plane from its cruising 30-35,000 feet level when in seconds, the plane broke a part. Perhaps the second scene was used in order to "white wash" or change the perception of the story from the cries that fans who theorized that everyone died in the plane crash and the show was about purgatory.

But from the physical, objective evidence seen in the show's first season, one has to assume in the normal course of events, there would have been no survivors of the plane crash. But LOST is a fictional show, so it is possible to stretch the truth to create a plausible reality. But the writers did not fully explain how so many passengers could have survived a high altitude plane crash. If the writers said that the plane got caught in the island's sci-fi "unique" electromagnetic field that lessened the impact of the free fall, then why did most of the passengers die anyway? And when the writers added the fact that only Jacob could "bring" people to the island, this shows that the island was not a "real" island but some supernatural place in another dimension of time or space (such as purgatory).

It would have been much easier to start the series premises with a cruise ship disaster and the survivors floating ashore (such as was the case with Rousseau's ship). But having a questionable survival situation from a plane crash, coupled with an immortal being collecting "candidates" to play a game with a smoke monster tends to put the evidence clearly in the camp that the characters never survived the plane crash. Likewise, such sci-fi elements call into question whether the characters were ever even on a plane to begin with . . .  an open ended premise that we can continue to debate ad nauseaum.

THE SUDDEN END

LOST's writing and creative staff admired how The Sopranos ended even though it left many viewers and critics baffled by it.

The Sopranos was one of the most controversial endings in television history. The camera suddenly cuts to black after a quick shot of Tony Soprano looking up from his plate of onion rings in a small town New Jersey diner, loyal viewers were left, quite literally, in the dark as to the fate of the beloved/reviled mobster. Did he die? Did he live? No one, except the show’s creator David Chase, knows for sure. In the past, Chase has rebuffed any suggestion of any fan’s conclusion to his series.

That said, in DGA Quarterly, Chase goes into a lengthy, incredibly detailed, and wildly fascinating dissection of this memorable finale. He breaks down the action shot-by-shot, giving hardcore fans unprecedented access into his thought process and directing choices, including some awesome insight into why he chose Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” to score the scene:

I love the timing of the lyric when Carmela enters: ‘Just a small town girl livin’ in a lonely world, she took the midnight train goin’ anywhere.’ Then it talks about Tony: ‘Just a city boy,’ and we had to dim down the music so you didn’t hear the line, ‘born and raised in South Detroit.’ The music cuts out a little bit there, and they’re speaking over it. ‘He took the midnight train goin’ anywhere.’ And that to me was [everything]. I felt that those two characters had taken the midnight train a long time ago. That is their life. It means that these people are looking for something inevitable. Something they couldn’t find. I mean, they didn’t become missionaries in Africa or go to college together or do anything like that. They took the midnight train going anywhere. And the midnight train, you know, is the dark train.

I said to Gandolfini, the bell rings and you look up. That last shot of Tony ends on ‘don’t stop,’ it’s mid-song. I’m not going to go into [if that’s Tony’s POV]. I thought the possibility would go through a lot of people’s minds or maybe everybody’s mind that he was killed … I thought the ending would be somewhat jarring, sure. But not to the extent it was, and not a subject of such discussion. I really had no idea about that. I never considered the black a shot. I just thought what we see is black. The ceiling I was going for at that point, the biggest feeling I was going for, honestly, was don’t stop believing. It was very simple and much more on the nose than people think. That’s what I wanted people to believe. That life ends and death comes, but don’t stop believing. There are attachments we make in life, even though it’s all going to come to an end, that are worth so much, and we’re so lucky to have been able to experience them. Life is short. Either it ends here for Tony or some other time. But in spite of that, it’s really worth it. So don’t stop believing.

To Chase’s credit (and to most people’s frustration), he still does not give a definitive answer as to Tony’s fate. 

Some critics still think the Sopranos ending, like LOST's, was a creative cop-out.  A few infer that the creative minds drew so many plot tangents and mysteries the creator's well had run dry on how to wrap things up. Even LOST's showrunners have stumbled upon the vague explanation that the show's finale was about "bigger questions," like life and death.

What was Chase trying to say? That life ends and death comes, but don’t stop believing. There are attachments we make in life, even though it’s all going to come to an end, that are worth so much, and we’re so lucky to have been able to experience them. Life is short.

Everyone can agree "Life is short," but so is the conclusion of someone's favorite weekly entertainment show. Mankind is all about curiosity, exploration, relationships, causes and effects. And answers - - - we need to continually need to final answers otherwise we would apathy and sink like a shark who stops swimming.

But in the Sopranos ending, viewers had a cue to the long history of gangster film tropes, especially the quaint family diner "hits" by a character's rivals. And many assumed Tony got what he deserved as he looked from his plate when diner door opened . . .  but others could presume a fate worse than death such as the FBI arresting him, or an old girlfriend coming in to make a scene to destroy his family. Which such a sudden ending without more, fans were left to their own imagination to figure out what happened next.

LOST's showrunners also keep going down this path, in interviews saying it was never their intent to answer "all the questions and mysteries."  In fact, they boast proudly of not answering the big questions.  But one of the bargains in the creator-consumer entertainment complex is that the viewer or reader is not to being tricked into thinking that the time, energy and resources given to the show, film or book was for naught. A creator who takes a path of creating mysteries is bound by this implied contract with his audience to answer what he created for them. Despite LOST being a highly fan-interactive show, it was not up to the fans to write their own ending to their series.

Yes, creators and writers have the right to see their personal vision to their end. But then they should at least have the decency to explain their ending to questioning fans. Otherwise, there is a smoldering resentment that carries on long after the series' end.
 

LOCKE STEP

Was John Locke the Key to Lost?

Many things have been said and written about LOST, but one thing has not been its clarity. LOST continues to befuddle, confuse and head scratch the best of series scholars. Since the ensemble cast had so many back stories, conflicts and relationship issues, it was the ultimate smoke screen (smoke monsters excepted) to NOT tell us what was really going on.

Let's look at some objective situations with the show's beloved whipping boy, Locke.

Prior to Flight 815, Locke was a handicapped loner who totally screwed up everything in his life. He was abandoned by his crazy teen mother who had been knocked up in the 1950s by a traveling con man. Locke miraculously survived a premature birth in a rural hospital with no advanced technology (but he was visited by Albert, an immortal island liaison who would try to recruit young Locke to the island.)

Locke was literally and figuratively a "broken man" when he got aboard the flight to LAX. His outback adventure turned into a bitter rejection. His final straw in his life snapped when he was not allowed to go on the trip.

One could remark at this point that Locke's outrageous and outlandish dreams had turned into one, big nightmare. And the "crash" on the island could be the manifestation of his nightmare.

Science has tied psychotic tendencies in parents to their children. There may be a genetic component to mental illness. Since Locke's mother was institutionalized, there may have been some lingering paranoia and delusional behavior hard wired into Locke's mind. As such, Locke's mental state could be the real state of the show, as many theories have speculated that the premise of the show had to be the fantasies and fears of a person's mind.

Locke was permanently paralyzed. There was no medical procedure to correct his crushed spinal cord. He would be trapped in his wheelchair for the rest of his life.

But once he "survived" the plane crash, he was no longer "trapped" in his wheelchair. That is a physical impossibility. The physical impact of a plane crash does not "heal" broken bones; it tears a part of person's body upon impact. Locke's transformation from a severely handicapped man to a strong,  outback survivalist was unbelievable. A few people believe that the island's "healing" properties "changed" Locke. But that theory does not objectively hold true as many of the other passengers were in good health but sustained traumatic and fatal injuries. Other viewers believe that Locke was chosen by god to do his work - - - a supernatural intervention. Again, there is little evidence that any spiritual god was part of the show, let alone communicating and giving characters personal miracles. For if the island was a spiritual dimension, our general notions of good vs. evil; right vs. wrong; and the moral litmus tests for eventual good souls to go to paradise, none of those concepts were present in any religious context. In fact, some really, really bad people wound up in the same heavenly afterlife as the good people. So, a minority view Locke as the poster boy for "everyone died" theory.

Now, TPTB continue to vehemently deny that the passengers on 815 died on impact, and the island was about purgatory. But objectively, they contradicted themselves in Season 6 where the run-up to the conclusion was clearly "everyone died."

In fact a few people, including Locke, "died" many times. A few doubt Locke survived the fall from the office building (where he was met by Jacob who "touched" him, perhaps bringing him "back to life?") Some believe that Locke and his fellow passengers did not survive the plane crash. Later, some view the FDW and purple flash as another death portal that a normal human being could not survive. Then, we saw Locke strangled by Ben. Then we saw Locke's form reincarnated by MIB on the island to seek revenge against everyone - - - then falling dead to the rocks after being shot by Kate.

Locke went from an abandoned baby who should not have survived, to a abandoned adult in foster homes, to a loner and loser adult who bounced from job to job with no direction or common sense, to being tricked into giving up a kidney to a con man, to being crippled by the same man, then surviving a plane crash to become a heroic hunter leader. It sounds too made up to be true (even in this fictional series). Locke's path shows the self-grandeur that Locke himself would dream himself to be.  This bolsters the dream theorists who think that the show was about one man's fantasies about himself.

It is a good study to show Locke's dreams (being a leader, a hunter, a lady's man, a jock, etc) seem to collide with his subconscious fears, phobias and experiences (being a worker, without friends, bad with women, anger and authority issues, etc.). The torment of Locke's mind is the sowed fertile fields of his imagination - - - the back and forth between the good (dreams) and bad (nightmares). This sums up the LOST experience, through Locke's own story.

Locke's own story could be the real story of LOST.

REAL TO UNREAL

I never understood why Charlie's character wanted to die. He could have easily saved himself by getting out of the control room, even after Patchy flooded it by exploding a porthole (which is question for another day).

Charlie had much to live for:

1. He wanted very much to protect Claire and Aaron.
2. He wanted to have a family with Claire and Aaron.
3. He wanted to get his career back on track, since the island gave him a second chance at life.
4. He wanted to be a hero, so people would look upon him not as a "one hit wonder," but a real person.

His relationship with Claire was not that unusual. Claire was the damsel in distress after the crash. Who wants to deal with a pregnant woman in shock? But Charlie did - - - instinctively. But initially Charlie felt he did not have the skills to impress and keep her: Jack was the medical savior protecting her baby, while Locke was the hands on guy who could build her shelter and a crib. All Charlie could give Claire was kindness, something that apparently was lacking in her life.

And Claire did not know how to react to Charlie's affection.  She was put off by his imposition of himself into her island situation. She did not have the same feelings for him. Some would say her hormones were all out of whack, and the added stress of the Others wanting to take her child made her mad. But even as frustrated as Charlie got, he never gave up. When she was kidnapped, he went into the jungle to confront the Others - - -  and he wound up hanged by a tree. Jack had to cut him down - - - which brings us to an island tangent: did Charlie actually "die" in that encounter to be reincarnated as a smoke monster or soul seeking forgiveness of Claire for not being able to protect her like he had promised her?

If Charlie was Charlie 2.0 (soul/smoke monster/reincarnation) that would put a whole different spin on "what" the island was . . . . beyond a metaphysical dimension in time or space but a soul proving ground for redemption.

But after Desmond's purple fail safe moment (which like Charlie's hanging should have killed Desmond, who was found naked in the jungle), Claire seemed to gravitate toward Desmond rather than Charlie. It made Charlie jealous.  Then when Desmond told Charlie he could see future visions, including Claire and Aaron leaving the island on a helicopter, Charlie knew he had to make that happen. But when Desmond told him that he also saw Charlie dying - - - they connected the two visions as being a cause and effect. In order to save Claire, Charlie had to die.

There were no "rules" which made that connection true. Charlie's own weaknesses: his low self-esteem, his jealousy, his rejection, his self-pity, all contributed to his suicidal but heroic stance in the control room. In order to radio for rescue, Charlie had to recognize a musical pattern code to unlock the panel. This always seemed to contrived to be true reality. But it made Charlie the "only" person who could figure it out - - - his own supernatural power. But once he got contact established, he found out that Desmond's vision was wrong: it was not Penny's boat coming to save them. It was Widmore's freighter coming to kill them.

So instead of doing anything possible to bring that news back to the island - - - and to protect Claire from the coming harm - - - Charlie decided not to open the control room door. As Desmond pleaded with him to open it, Charlie drowned in what could be considered a senseless death.

The only thing that Charlie's death did was to cause other people, especially Desmond, pain. Dez's flashes were not reality and not true premonitions. Desmond's own personal motivation to get back to Penny clouded his judgment. It cost Charlie his life. It cost Charlie his chance to make things right with Claire.

After Charlie's death, Claire went insane when Aaron was taken away from her. Some believe that Claire may have been killed during that three year period of darkness - - - since she could see "Christian" a smoke monster, she too could have been recreated into one. She did not ask about Charlie at all when she encountered Kate. She did not miss him. Her sole focus was revenge.

So why did Claire rejoin up with Charlie in the after life? There connection was broken on the island when they were not on the best of terms. The sideways was an afterlife plane of existence, but it has the troublesome unreal aspect in which Aaron and Sun's baby have in common:

Why did the island pregnant women give birth to their children in the afterlife if they had already been born in the real world? 

Logically, an afterlife birth would mean that Claire and Sun never gave birth in their real worlds. That would mean the island was not in fact real. Their motherhoods were illusions. Their relationships and interactions with other people were merely dreams. The sideways world was the ultimate "do-over."

Charlie got his second chance with Claire, to experience the birth of Aaron. Claire got a loving partner in return. Their reconnection seems to be the most real of the final pairings, as we still have issues with how Jack and Kate wound up with each other while Locke never reconnected with Helen.