The Return of Shangri-La

Ok, things are starting to gel.

Charlie to Desmond: "We were in love, it was like we've always been, and always will be"

Isabella to Richard: "We are already together"

Pa to Laura (Sawyer watching little house): "people aren't really gone when they die."

Juliet to Sawyer (via Miles): "It worked"

I've said before in previous posts (here and here) that death on the island is not what it seems to be. I think that there is still yet another aspect to the island that we haven't seen yet, which is that it acts as a kind of gateway to a heavenly place, and death on the island might be one way to get there. Jacob, believer in humanity, is trying to help people get there, and Smokey, doubter of humanity, is trying to keep people out of it. Like the rocks on the scale, they are there to balance each other out. When Smokey says that he wants to go home, this is the heaven-like place he years to return to.

Recruitment

At the ending of last season, we saw Jacob touch each person somewhere in their past life, as if he was somehow choosing them for their future roles on the island.

I think it's likely that in this new 'parallel' reality, Jacob (or the man in black, or eloise hawking, or charles widmore) is likely to show up again and try to recruit our characters, for this upcoming conflict we've been told about.

Us vs. Them

"They're Coming"

From the very beginning of this show, one of the biggest questions we had to face was this: just who/what are the Losties up against? Who is the adversary? The answer to this has been a constantly widening circle from season to season.

1. Losties vs. The Island - in season 1 it was the island itself, complete with polar bears, smoke monsters, whispers, psychotic french women.

2. Losties vs. The Others - as the story moved further along into season 2,"The Others," stole children, tried killing Charlie, instigated Michael to murder, deceived, and kidnapped. In season 3, this battle comes to a head with our losties winning out on the beach, only to discover:

3. Losties vs. Widmore - in season 4 we discover that the people out there on that boat are even more malicious than the others are, and this mysteriously evil Charles Widmore is behind it. SO the losties team up with the others to take on this opponent.

4. Losties vs. Fate (Jacob) - in season 5, our losties start to discover that everything they think they've been doing to save themselves has been fruitless. They've left the island, but now realize they have to go back. They've befriended Ben and tried to kill Ben, each to no avail. Widmore comes across as relatively powerless. So what's to be done? Well, let's try to do everything we can to destroy the heart of the matter: Let's nuke the island and kill Jacob, and hope this somehow frees us. But not before one more us vs. them is introduced:

5. Jacob vs. The Man in Black - obviously we have a rivalry that has lasted a long time between these to guys, and our Losties have been caught up in it. I'm sure as season 6 evolves we'll get more backstory about these two, but in the spirit of the show, I don't think we're done widening the circle here, and this is where Jacob's final line comes in: "They're coming"

He seems to be saying this not as a challenge, but as a warning. (If he was truly in a battle with this man in black, why would he warn him? Why not just let him be a victim to whoever "they" are?) I think he's saying it in reference to a common enemy. So once again, the circle will widen and it'll be:

6. Jacob + The Man in Black + the Losties vs. ????????

This may be the war which Charles Widmore was referring to when he told John Locke that he needed to be on the island when it takes place.

Novikov's self-consistency principle

Igor Novikov is a Russian theoretical astrophysicist. In the mid-80's he theorized about time-travel, and how the paradoxes normally associated with it can be ruled out.

"The Novikov consistency principle assumes certain conditions about what sort of time travel is possible. Specifically, it assumes either that there is only one timeline, or that any alternative timelines (such as those postulated by the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics) are not accessible."

Read up here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle

Misguided

If we go all the way back to the beginning of the show, the main conflict set up was The Island vs. the Losties. How do our heroes get off this god-forsaken thing and get to safety? As the show progressed, Locke let us know that things weren't quite so simple. He refused to believe that the answer was to escape. He saw the island as a paradise that had somehow fallen into trouble, or the wrong hands, and that he arrived with a purpose: to save it. It took up to the end of last season (or so) to convince Jack of the same thing.

So now a different plot conflict has been set up. It's no longer The Island vs. The Losties, it's now The Wrong Island vs. The Paradise Island. Let me explain:

Let's examine the different objectives of the various groups on the island.
- The Dharma Initiative may have some kind of hippie commune scientific altruism it's going for, but it's obvious that its motives are suspect, even though we might not know exactly why. They're doing mind experiments etc, and messing with things on the island that are probaby best just left alone. And who is behind the Dharma initiative? How do they stand to profit? All we know is that their vision for the Island is somehow flawed. And they get killed off.
- The Others/Insurgents somehow are connected to the island and feel like they should protect it or something, but they tend to be incredibly violent and kill people mercilessly. WTF? Whatever they think they're doing or whoever they think they're doing it for is also somehow flawed.
- Widmore once led the insurgents before Ben took over. Since he hired Keamy, his military team, and enough explosives to kill everyone, we can't exactly say that his motives are pure. He's still a giant question mark.
- That leaves Locke and Jack. They know that they are there to fulfill some sort of purpose, but so far they are the only ones who have shown any kind of altruistic vision for the island and the people on it. They both are there to help their friends, and Locke has shown compassion so often that it even hurts him. We want Locke to succeed in order to take control away from whatever fucked up forces are in control of it now, and Locke knows that the Island is a special place that's powerful and healing, and wants to protect it.

Since we know that the Dharma Initiative fails, at this point it's basically The Others/Widmore controlling the island vs. Locke, Jack and our Losties saving it. The Wrong Island vs. The Paradise Island. We need our Losties to be free of all the danger, loss, sadness, and confusion, and it's clear now that leaving the island is not the answer. They have to resolve these things on the island, which means somehow making the island a safe place.



With that in mind, I'd like to go back to an earlier theory, and discuss some of the notions of rebirth and resurrection that have recently been the focus of the show.

I still believe that at one point early on in the island's history, it was a paradise populated by native peoples. The same people who built the statue and the various temples on the island (maybe they were even Egyptian, due to the insane number of heiroglyphs all over the place. Maybe Richard Alpert is Egyptian, and maybe that explains the portal to Tunisia... a lot of maybes... anyways). Somehow this paradise was interfered with, and chaos has ensued ever since. This is why Jacob said "help me" to Locke. The natural beneficial tendencies of the island have been altered, and the people who now think they are protecting the island are misguided.

Let's talk about that temple that Richard took Ben into on last's night's episode "Whatever Happened, Happened." This temple will resurrect Ben, rob him of his innocence, and make him forget everything from before. Richard said "he will always be one of us," which tells me that this temple is some sort of initiation/conversion device, and this experience makes him loyal to the island and robs him of sympathy for anyone else. Juliet knew about this, but at this point I'm doubtful that she ever went through it herself. Which might be the reason why she traveled through time with the rest of the losties when the record started skipping, instead of staying put, which Richard and the others seemingly did.

We also know that going down into one of these temples (perhaps the same one) is what caused Rousseau's team to come down with "The Sickness" as she called it, and caused people that she knew to become merciless killers.Also, now we know why Ben says he was born on the island. He probably honestly believes that, or at least thinks he was re-born there.

Which brings me to my final point: this will now be the second rebirth we've seen this season, albeit through seemingly different means. Locke (and Christian Shephard, for that matter) were both resurrected naturally, whereas Ben will be resurrected (or healed) through artificial means. I may be going out on a limb here, and maybe it's too Obi-Wan vs. Darth Vader, but it's my guess that this is a metaphor for the two different approaches to the island. John Locke actually can talk to Jacob, is actually a good guy, and was naturally healed and resurrected on the island. It's his destiny to help the island. Ben, on the other hand, didn't actually hear Jacob, developed spinal cancer, is a liar and a murderer, and was resurrected in some sort of twisted way in the cave temples, which somehow perverted his innocence. He too believes he is destined to protect the island.

Anyways, that's how I'm looking at it right now, and it's my guess that we're going to have to travel way into the past in order to see the origins of the conflict on the island, and then we'll have to travel way into the future in order to see how it resolves.

Jeremy Bentham

Some thoughts on the last couple of episodes.

• Lock may have known that he was supposed to die, but I don't think he knew how or why, or that he would be resurrected. He honestly thought killing himself would be the end. And for that matter, I don't then Ben knew either. After Ben killed him, Ben said "I'm honestly going to miss you." I think he meant it. The writers threw this in just to make it clear that he didn't think John was coming back (even though he gave that convincing speech to Jack about Doubting Thomas).

• Ben talked Locke off the ledge solely to get the information he needed from him, which was how to get back to the island. Once he heard the name Eloise Hawking, that was it. He then finds his way to her, and using his normal Ben wiles, convinces her that he's looking out for the good of the island. When she tells him that he must gather everyone, including Locke's body, he still didn't think it would result in Locke being resurrected, he's just doing what he's told. He also seemed genuinely surprised when Desmond announced that she was Faraday's mother.


• Interesting note about how Widmore used to be a leader until Ben ousted him. To me, this goes back to an earlier theory of mine, that Ben really doesn't have any real understanding of the true secrets of the island (can't speak to Jacob, doesn't know about resurrection), and has conned his way into the leader position. He took leadership of the island from Charles, and now he wants to take that leadership from Locke. Which is why he 1) shot him in the dharma pit after he realized he could actually talk to Jacob, 2) took his place when originally moving the island, and 3) tries to take his place in gathering everyone up and getting back on that plane.


• Walt's dream about the newly crashed passengers wanting to hurt John: I think Locke is going to have to struggle for authority in the "new losties" camp. People are already suspicious of him there, and will be doubly so when he tries to assert his authority over Ben. As we all know, Ben is good at convincing anyone to do anything, something that Locke isn't very good at. Once Ben wakes up, I'm guessing he'll have everyone on his side pretty quickly. Even though Ben isn't expecting to see John walking around again, he might play it off as if he did, and tells Locke that he needed someone to kill him in order to get to the island... or something.


• Remember in the episode "Jughead" when Sawyer, Juliet, and co. found the canoes with the Ajira Airlines water bottle in them? I'm guessing the "new losties" (Caesar and Ilana) used those boats to get to the main island (they're on the jail island now) and are the ones firing on them from a distance in that scene.


• Finally, when Ben told Jack that he needed to fulfill a promise he made to an old friend, undoubtedly he meant that he was going to go find Penny to kill her. I hope he didn't succeed, but something terrible went down. Nothing but foreboding in that scene when he's all bloody at the marina. Whatever he did, it's going to somehow prompt Desmod to go back to the island, because after all Eloise told him that the Island wasn't through with him.

Motorpsycho Lost Dream

Ok, normally I don't post anything on this blog that I haven't done some serious thinking about. If I expect you to spend your time reading something, it should be ideas carefully considered, and not necessarily "off the cuff."

But after last week's show, I had a dream. It was one of those long, drawn out ones that are really intense and highly memorable. And it was all about Lost. In it, I was basically watching the final episode, and the major secret of the show was revealed. I've decided to go ahead and share that dream with you now. So if you're into the more serious-minded philosophical musings with actual thought and merit, you can stop right here. If you're interested in hearing about a crazy dream with no logic whatsoever, but still may contain answers to the show's questions, keep reading, you've been warned.

Ok, I need to start by saying that even though I was dreaming this, I wasn't actually in it, I was just watching it, like watching the show.

The first scene (of the final episode) opens up on a boat, about the size of Desmond and Penny's clipper. On the boat is Juliet and Locke, and maybe a couple other Losties. They're out at sea, in an area that resembles the Caribbean, where clear shallow water goes on for miles and miles. They have something incredibly important on board, and they have to protect it. They're constantly on the watch for anyone following.



We never actually see what they're protecting. It's about the same size as J.J. Abrams' mystery box, and kept hidden deep in the hold of the boat throughout.

There's another smaller boat that they're towing, and Juliet (armed with a serious machine gun) goes out on her own on it to do some reconnaissance. Soon she realizes that they're being followed, and quickly makes her way back to the larger boat. But even as she gets there, she sees scuba divers circling the larger boat, coming in to attack. She warns Locke, and begins firing into the water. In a panic, she points the gun into hold of the main boat, intending to fire. She wants to destroy the Important Mystery Object. She tells Locke that it's better to destroy it than to have it fall into the wrong hands. Too many lives have been lost, too much has gone wrong in the past, we have to just give up and destroy it. Locke does what he can to convince her NOT to shoot, and get her to focus back on the people that are currently trying to attack the boat.



Locke, Juliet, and the others on the boat are able to stop the people who are after the object. They capture them, tie them up and interrogate them about what they know and why they're there. Turns out, they're not so evil. They're all young kids - college students who have been trying to find this thing so they can study it. They don't have evil intentions, they're simply there to learn. Locke feels vilified and Juliet is only somewhat relieved that she didn't destroy the thing. Locke says that they have to come up with another solution.

CUT TO...

A significant amount of time has passed, but we're still roughly in the same location. We can see underwater the base of a small coral reef rising up into an atoll. Part of the reef is submerged, part of it is above water, and rises like a small gentle spiral out of the water. Scuba divers are coming out of the water and getting onto the boat, where Locke and Juliet are standing. We realize that they've buried and hidden the mystery object somewhere in this atoll, hoping that no one will know where to look, even if they knew of this location.

The episode is almost over. They're preparing to say goodbye. As they're pulling up the anchor, they're still looking out over the atoll, at the little bit of reef sticking out of the water, and Locke points, and says to Juliet, "look, you can see it already growing." The camera goes closer, and you can see small leaves of grass multiplying and roots slightly swelling. This mystery object that they planted is now causing a new island to be born.



And here's the part of the dream where nothing happens visually, but I suddenly GET IT. I suddenly understand what the island is. It is an alien life form. A conscious and self-aware alien being that expresses itself by organically causing an island to be grown. It communicates to people psychically, and protects those that protect it. And an alien race (four toes) used to live on it and protect it.

But it was just a dream.