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Lost - The Full Series Thread

Goose

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Goose

Goose

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What made Jack suspect he'd been watching them since childhood I wonder? All he saw in the mirror was the reflection of his parent's home. He could have been looking at the alt-time line for all he knew - the near exact same shot of the house was used in the alt-time line earlier in the episode, when Jack went to see his mom.

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Luke

Luke

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What made Jack suspect he'd been watching them since childhood I wonder? All he saw in the mirror was the reflection of his parent's home. He could have been looking at the alt-time line for all he knew - the near exact same shot of the house was used in the alt-time line earlier in the episode, when Jack went to see his mom.

Yeah, why on earth didn't Jack see a reflection of the house where he lived as a child and say "HE'S WATCHING MY PARENTS' HOUSE IN AN ALTERNATIVE REALITY, AAGGGHHHH, JACK SMASH!!"?

Oh yeah, because he instead jumped to the most likely conclusion, that Jacob had been watching him since he was a child.

That's not to say the conclusion he jumped to was correct, of course, but it's fairly obvious why he jumped to it.

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CGMF

CGMF

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Someone earlier mentioned the canoe that shot at the boat Sawyer, Faraday, Locke and Juliet were in (The Little Prince season 5.) If you remember, just before they departed Locke picked up a bottle with Ajira airways on it. There were about four people in the other canoe and I can guarantee Illana, Ben, Frank and Sun were in it. At some point we will witness Illana seeing the old (real) Locke in the boat and assuming it's Evil Bastard Locke and try and shoot him, just before it time-flashes and disappears. Guaranteed. :lol:

Anyway, are they going to explain what was so special about Walt? They can't dedicate almost two seasons to that and just not mention it again. Speaking of which - 'Walt', 'Dharma' & 'Widmore' are three words which haven't been said even once yet this season.

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Goose

Goose

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Mr Friendly worked for Ben if I recall. Given that at some point someone mentioned Jack not being on Jacob's list, I assume amongst a small group of people, the 'who is on the list' was known. One assumes Sawyer is on the list, yet during Walt's kidnapping wasn't Sawyer shot? Which probably wouldn't have gone down too well with Jacob, Ben etc, had he been killed. Yet Walt was the important one back then, he was the one they wanted at that point, no one else. They've got to address that in some way. Maybe not bring Walt back, but at least reference him.

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Luke

Luke

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Mr Friendly worked for Ben if I recall. Given that at some point someone mentioned Jack not being on Jacob's list, I assume amongst a small group of people, the 'who is on the list' was known. One assumes Sawyer is on the list, yet during Walt's kidnapping wasn't Sawyer shot? Which probably wouldn't have gone down too well with Jacob, Ben etc, had he been killed. Yet Walt was the important one back then, he was the one they wanted at that point, no one else. They've got to address that in some way. Maybe not bring Walt back, but at least reference him.

I remember when they handed Walt back to Michael (or agreed to let him have Walt back if he got the other Losites for Ben), they said something like "We got more than we expected" (or "... hoped for", or "... bargained for"), as if they didn't really know Walt was all that special when they took him (and were just taking him because he was a child, and they needed children), and later found out he was actually more special than expected, but for some reason they were happy to let him go.

I think the writers have actually been really clever with Ben though, because he lied so freely to anyone and everyone, and because he was the source of most information we have on lists/rules/how the island works/what Jacob wanted, if they change their mind about something, it can just be made into something else Ben was lying about. Jack wasn't on the list? ah, actually he was, and Ben had just lied to the other Others, etc...

Back to Walt though, I think he could possibly be important to the alt-timeline, as he can appear somewhere where he shouldn't be, which I guess could include a different reality.

The main problem with Walt though is the whole "Big Walt" thing. He just grew too big too quickly. I'm pretty sure we didn't see Michael and Walt on the plane in the alt-reality (or since the plane), and if we are ever given a reason for this, we know the real reason is that Walt is just obviously much older than he was in the original pilot.

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Pekoe

Pekoe

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The lighthouse was there to reinforce the idea of six degrees of seperation, is my take on it. This sideways timeline is showing what would have happened if the island didn't exist, but each story demonstrates that all the characters are naturally one step away from the other person.

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Mercury

Mercury

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How old is Jack? I'm sure he'd have been no older than 8 in 1977, or whenever it was when the bomb went off.

Yes, he would have been 8 in 1977 - I reckon that will end up being significant. I am sure there was something in Locke or Kate's that tied back to 77 as well but I'll have to watch again to check.

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Chaz

Chaz

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Yes, he would have been 8 in 1977 - I reckon that will end up being significant. I am sure there was something in Locke or Kate's that tied back to 77 as well but I'll have to watch again to check.

I guess the visit from Richard to Locke when he was a kid could tie in very close to 1977, but if so it would be a bit of a tough sell that Locke's only meant to be in his 30's on the island, seeing as he would have been about 10 or probably younger in those flashbacks we saw.

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son_of_helvetica

son_of_helvetica

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I kind of liked the heavy-handed nods to Alice In Wonderland on the flash-sideways with Jack. The fact he had a son in the alt-universe wasn't all that amazing, seems like I'm set for any kind of surprise which is thrown my way regarding it. 108 on that lighthouse compass though... I can only presume it would be the view of the ultimate goal of the six Losties? Something surreal like that. Jack had to go and smash those mirrors up though.

Not too keen on the whole "How did we not see this lighthouse?" thing either. "We weren't looking for it, dude?". Unless the island is fecking huge and no one has traversed all the way around the coastline of it. I'm hoping this season ends in a satisfactory non-fuck manner. The very fact they're poncing around with an alternative timeline has me a little worried though.

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Campfire_Burning

Campfire_Burning

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I kind of liked the heavy-handed nods to Alice In Wonderland on the flash-sideways with Jack. The fact he had a son in the alt-universe wasn't all that amazing, seems like I'm set for any kind of surprise which is thrown my way regarding it. 108 on that lighthouse compass though... I can only presume it would be the view of the ultimate goal of the six Losties? Something surreal like that. Jack had to go and smash those mirrors up though.

Not too keen on the whole "How did we not see this lighthouse?" thing either. "We weren't looking for it, dude?". Unless the island is fecking huge and no one has traversed all the way around the coastline of it. I'm hoping this season ends in a satisfactory non-fuck manner. The very fact they're poncing around with an alternative timeline has me a little worried though.

Buildings in Lost have a habit of appearing and disappearing - see Jacob's (or possibly NOT Jacob's) cabin.

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Luke

Luke

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i've totally lost track with the time line. What time are we in on the island now?

Three years on from when the Oceanic 6 first left the island, which is when the Ajira Airways plane crash landed there.

I get a little confused as well, so when the Others mentioned Rousseau had died years ago, I thought "oooh, Rousseau wasn't real either", but then I remembered we were three years on from when she was killed by the mercenaries.

Oh, mentioning the Ajira flight, it landed on a runway on Hydra island, which I assume is the runway that Kate and Sawyer were breaking rocks for when held captive by the others, now, were they building that because Jacob, or someone else, knew the Ajira plane would crash there, or was there another reason? I'm sure this has been discussed in the past, but I've always avoided Lost threads previously as every time I've dipped in I've been smacked with a spoiler.

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davejm

davejm

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Luke and SomethingWitty have touched on some thoughts I've been having about the alternate time-line.

Essentially, it doesn't sit right with me that the bomb going off actually happened in the history of this alternate time-line; or that any of the events featuring the 'Losties' in the 70s actually happened (I stress, in this new alternate time-line). If we're seeing a time-line where the Losties don't ever crash on the island, they obviously don't time-travel to the 70's either and events would have played out a lot different to our more familiar time-line - even events before the date/time that the bomb was supposed to go off.

So yeah, it's not a branching of one timeline (events up to the bomb going off) into two (flash-sideways and our familiar time-line). It can't be. It'd be even more of a paradox than we've seen with the time-travelling Losties setting a bomb off, and that paradox seems to have been resolved by a 'reset'. You don't solve a paradox by creating an even bigger one.

I think we've got a situation where the Losties have found themselves time travelling and have managed to alter events of the past, but due to a paradox being created, the 'universe' has corrected itself and they've snapped back to the time-line that would have occurred had they never set the bomb off; i.e the time-line that we were familiar with before they started time-travelling. This is how we see them now, skulking around on the island as if nothing had happened (aside from their memories).

The key, is that 'conciousness' seems to be transferring between time-lines. For example, as far as the Losties can remember, they've been back in time and have set a bomb off; yet in the time-line that they are in now (the more familiar one!) that didn't happen.

So then, where does this new alternate time-line come in? And what relevance does this have? It's natural for people to assume that we're seeing this new time-line because it is a direct consequence of the bomb going off, but I think this is a red herring (a large one, admittedly) on the part of the writers. I don't think this alternate time-line is a consequence of the 'Losties' creating a paradox and the universe 'fixing itself'. The paradox was closed, and the Losties are now back on track in the more familiar time-line; but that's all I think it was.

It's relevance will be explained in due course, but I think we're seeing events from this alternate time-line because I think our 'Losties' are going to interact with it in some way - and that we're seeing it now because it's crucial to the climax of the story (rather than it being a consequence of them setting the bomb off). I think that the bomb/paradox/time-travelling stuff we saw were isolated events, but that some sort of 'convergence' is going to happen and that they'll interact with this alternate time-line in some way. The time-travel/paradox stuff is an important plot point because it shows that this type of thing CAN happen, but I don't think it has a direct bearing (cause and effect) on the alternate time-line and why we're seeing it.

It's hard for me to explain what I have in my head, but I kinda have a logical theory worked out that doesn't leave me seething because of huge plot holes or paradoxes. There's probably something I've missed that would have cut these thought processes off at the first hurdle, so if anyone can highlight something stupid it'd be good to hear it!

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Luke

Luke

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The theory I'm currently trying out in my head, and am definitely favouring at the moment, is that the alternate reality is the one where Jacob chooses the people to be candidates. I think what we're being show will lead up to the point where they each do something that makes Jacob think they can be the ones to save the island from ending up under water, he then resets time somehow (back to before the Black Rock arrives), and we're back to the reality we know and love.

The one issue I have with this though, is that the island already wasn't under water when they got there, so why does he need them to save it from that? Well, perhaps they already have, and the bomb going off actually stopped the incident causing the island to end up under water, and so in the reality we're used to, whatever happened did happen, and it was always the case that they set the bomb off.

The other issue is, why does he still need them now the island is saved? That's a trickier one, but could perhaps be related to how he reset time, perhaps when island time gets to the point where he did the reset, something could all go terribly wrong, or perhaps the candidate has to do something at that point in time for it all to have worked in the first place.

There are definite issues with this theory, but I think it fits the right kind of "gasp" trick they played on us with the first flash forward - we all thought we we're being shown something else, but then it was flipped right on it's head. If the alternate reality turns out to be what led Jacob to getting them there to detonate the bomb, rather than being caused by the bomb, it would be a similar head flipping.

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Pob

Pob

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I think we've got a situation where the Losties have found themselves time travelling and have managed to alter events of the past, but due to a paradox being created, the 'universe' has corrected itself and they've snapped back to the time-line that would have occurred had they never set the bomb off; i.e the time-line that we were familiar with before they started time-travelling. This is how we see them now, skulking around on the island as if nothing had happened (aside from their memories).

The key, is that 'conciousness' seems to be transferring between time-lines. For example, as far as the Losties can remember, they've been back in time and have set a bomb off; yet in the time-line that they are in now (the more familiar one!) that didn't happen.

I'm not sure about this. The actions of the time travelling Losties aren't something that occured in a parellel timeline as a result of their conciousnesses 'slipping' into another dimension. Their actions in the 50s and 70s are clearly felt in the original timeline. There is a photo of them on their first day in Dharma, and present-day Richard remembers them being there.

I do think you're right about the alt-timeline being something to do with conciousnesses shifting rather than a tangental timeline caused the bomb going off. Whatever happened during 'the incident', happened.

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davejm

davejm

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I'm not sure about this. The actions of the time travelling Losties aren't something that occured in a parellel timeline as a result of their conciousnesses 'slipping' into another dimension. Their actions in the 50s and 70s are clearly felt in the original timeline. There is a photo of them on their first day in Dharma, and present-day Richard remembers them being there.

I don't think I explained things well enough. I still think the time-travelling occurred (as you say, too many events linking with each other) but it's clear that things have been 'reset' and that previous events have happened in the same way that they did in our original understanding of the time-line (the hatch being built etc) rather than an alternate reality where the bomb goes off and different events occur. My point is, their conciousness is back in the present; and their time-travelling hasn't changed events (seemingly) in the time-line they're concious in.

What indication do we have (if any?) that events happened differently at the end of Season 5 (through the eyes of the time-travelling Losties) than they had done 30 years previous? Is the bomb detonating the only thing we assume is different?

*brain pain*

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