ABC’s LOST explained!
Still wondering what the television show LOST was all about? I have answers!
SPOILER ALERT – the following article will completely explain and therefore give away to the most important puzzle pieces from the hit ABC television series LOST. Therefore if you haven’t seen the show and don’t want the end to be spoiled, stop reading this article right here! As for the rest of you who have wondered… what did it all mean? I have the answer for you!
Now that the spoiler warning is out of the way, lets get right to it…
The most mysterious lingering question remaining regarding the television show LOST is… what is the golden light in the cave at the heart of the island?
If only we knew what the light was maybe we could determine what the island was. And if we knew those facts we could piece together all the remaining details. Some might say the question was already answered when Jacob claimed the island was like a cork (when he said that he wasn’t lying which I will explain later) yet saying the island is a cork really only raises another question instead of giving any type of comprehensive answer, after all… if the island is a cork, what does that mean? I for one am glad that the writers didn’t spell it all out for us because if they had, it would have robbed us the opportunity to ponder the larger questions and solve the puzzle ourselves and ultimately that was the fun of LOST.
SO WHAT WAS THE LIGHT?
The golden light in the cave at the heart of the island is the same light that was behind the frozen donkey wheel that the MIB, Ben, and Locke, all were attempting to manipulate or channel to their benefit throughout the show. It also seems to be the same light (or a type of it) that engulfed the island when Desmond flipped the fail safe, when Juliette ignited Jughead, and each time our losties were bounced around when the island was skipping in time.
Most folks assume the light is God, or spirituality, or possibly the personification of goodness, or life, or something similarly vague. None of those solutions help us piece together the puzzle that is LOST.
Drum roll please…
Continue…
Great theory Eric! I am definitely going to go over it again and mend it with my own theory, which is more on the Spiritual side, with the light being the center of Creation, the Tree of Life, which had to be guarded after man was expelled from the Garden. But since God created Time itself, I like parts of your theory very much.
My only comment right now is about pushing the button and resetting time. Ben said that Two days after he found out he had a fatal tumor, a spinal surgeon fell out of the sky. Which was before Desmond failed to push the button on Sept 22, 2004. And that was just when it was discovered, it was probably there long before that. Any thoughts on that?
Still, overall a great theory and a great read!
Any idea why the smoke monster could only appear in humanoid form as John Locke after Jacob’s death?
Al, thank you for the nice comments. I don’t think I ever stated that the smoke monster coud only appear in the form of something that was dead. Although I admit it’s been a long time since I wrote this theory and maybe I am forgetting something I wrote?
However…
I think what I said was….
“This also explains why the smoke monster can only appear to people as things from their past”
In other words, since the smoke-monster is the past he couldn’t show up in the form of some new character that he invented. He could only show up as something that had already existed and had been woven into the fabric of history.
Again, thank you for reading my theory!!
A very well written thesis, Eric. You obviously gave this one a great deal of thought and you expressed yourself with clarity.
One question: You mentioned above that Walt’s appearance to several Losties were really MIB in disguise. I thought MIB could only imitate or take the form of someone or something that was dead. Walt never died during the series.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks,
Al
Chris, thanks for the great post! I love it. You make some great points about character swaps. I will put some more thought into that myself.
And I really appreciate your kind words my theory, please share it with friends. 🙂
Brilliant. Extremely unifying.
I would like to add that the writers made some character substitutes that the viewer has to accept before the finer details of the story line really come together.
First, that Desmond replaced Walt. Walt was being “tested” by the Others for his electro-magnetic “talents”. Note Walt’s control of the metal knife in season 1 under Locke’s mentorship. When the writers realized that the actor that played Walt was growing up too fast for the role, the scuttled him and introduced Desmond.
Desmond’s electro-magnetic “talents” were learned. Years of pressing the button immunized him to the effects of strong electro-magnetism. This allowed him to enter the cave in the series finale, and this is why he was so valuable as a “weapon”. Walt would have played the same role had the actor played out. This theory is further supported by the fact that Walt burned the escape raft–he knew they had a purpose on the island.
Also, Aaron. He was going to be a clean slate–one that would likely have been raised by someone other than Claire, and manipulated to be a strong force for either MIB or Jacob. It’s hard to tell where they were going with Aaron, but I think it suffices to say that they had plans for him that fell apart.
I believe that they were setting the show up so that all the children/babies would be old enough to play the key roles by the series conclusion (i.e., time would have caught up, new actors would have been brought in to play the adult versions of the characters).
I noticed last night the names Jin and Sun. I think these names reflect a different direction the show was originally going to take with the individual character storylines.
Look up the definition of “Jinn” on Wikipedia–“Jinn are made of smokeless flame or “scorching fire”.[1] Like human beings, the Jinn can also be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent. A Jin (or Djinn) is a genie-like creature (think contained in a bottle) that has been portrayed as a “smokeless flame” and occupies a parralel world to mankind, “mimicking the voices of the deceased”. So, is the name Jin a coincidence? Again, I think they were going to go in a different direction with the character (maybe not a bad one).
And Sun. Her name means light. Coincidence?
So, I believe that the original direction was going to be to have Walt take the lead protagonist role, Aaron would have been the corrupted antagonist, and Jin and Sun’s baby would have been a moderator, or balancer/judge.
Also, I believe that Jack was going to be on the side of the MIB. The producers made a comment once that they had to change his role because of his popularity. I believe that Locke was going to mentor Walt and lead the protagonist side.
I believe they’ve kept the overall theme consistent, but that the individual character developments were modified. Once that can be accepted, everything makes perfect sense.
I would be interested if anybody else had ideas about character swaps.
Oh yeah, and Dave, Hurley’s friend, was obviously Libby’s dead husband. The MIB manifested himself as Dave and tried to get Hurley to kill himself by jumping off a cliff (thus reducing the likelihood that Jacob would have a replacement).
You’re a beast. What a theory. Way to go!
Just one quick note(loved your analysis by the way), your explanation for why John can walk on the island only makes sense when you look at his situation as an isolated occurence.
What about the fact that people who are hurt once they’re ALREADY ON the island heal quickly? Don’t you feel this could be related? Also, consider that some people (like John) heal quicker than others…If the healing were a result of “skipping” around in time, everyone would be treated equally?
Why the favoritism?
Great work of imagination – obviously the writing team needed you in the room as they finished the final season.
If one wished to remove the metaphors from a unifying theory of “Lost”, quantum mechanics could prove a useful, scientific basis for the fiction.
Quantum mechanics do correlate with this overview at many points. Time/Space is a singular concept – one used by Einstein to envision relativity. Existence is not realized until perceived giving rise to a possible “many worlds” explanation of the universe – which is consistent with this view of “Lost”. Also, light is an elemental particle which could be (one of) the basic building blocks of matter. Light is also a wave since it is a form of electromagnetic energy. So yeah, I like this theory that the treasure which could be found on the island was eternity.
Perhaps all the real life experiments to prove the validity of quantum mechanics have had the unintended consequence of thrusting the poor passengers of Oceanic 815 ping-ponging from one alternative reality to the next. They have become unstuck in time. So it goes.
Ali, thank you so much for your kind words! I appreciate you sharing my theory with others. As to your question, the characters on LOST were traveling through pockets of time in tact. In other words… if they went back in time their bodies would not regress along with time. They would travel in time but continue to age normally yet disjointed from the time “bubble” they happened to be in on the island. Obviously this raises other questions about why time travel might be beneficial to ones health (as I insinuated in the theory) but at some point you have to merely accept the science fiction aspect of the show because after all… time travel is science fiction. 🙂
You have NO idea how much this helped! I showed it to at least 5 people, AND posted it on my facebook! =P However, I’m still a bit confused. It all makes sense with the time not moving and such, then wouldn’t Claire’s baby never have been born? What was the deal with that?
Such a great explanation! Awesome! It would have been interesting too to come back on more precise details in the show, but your theory is such impressive and clear that i just can tell you WAOUH !
Excellent theory — I see the point made above in comments about Free Will, and could go there as well. Consider that Time = Free Will (human construct of being here on Earth — but that is a whole other discussion about FW in and of itself, of course).
One thing I’d love to see more laid out: how the sideways world fits this. I consider it the future, but then… no… (maybe need more coffee…;D)
For those who want more LOST…here’s some fan fiction that I found that takes things up after the church…pretty good: http://theothergeneration.wordpress.com/page/2/
The ending was still bunk.
Nice article!! This theory fits perfectly in the story!!
I have two questions for you… Why there is a giant statue on the island?
Where do “the others” and “the temple people” come from?
Thanks!!
Excellent theory! I just wish the writers had thought of it. Or if they had … explained it.
Great theory, it does explain a lot, but I think there’s a small flaw. When the Oceanic Six are rescued, from both the Island’s perspective and the outside world’s perspective they were missing for 108 days. With all the prior button pushing it makes no sense that the two timelines could be perfectly ‘in phase’… What I still want to know is who gave who the compass? Richard thought it was Locke’s, Locke thought it was Richards. Where did it come from?
Hi there,
Brilliant explanation. But my addition is going to be somewhat more on the psychological side. I believe the show lingers on the two themes of morality and desire (i.e.: can you wish the best for yourself without hurting others? selfishness, etc). When the smoke monsters appears to people, it is almost as if on that moment people realize these and they have to answer to themselves if they have been truly honest (whatever that may be). I’m not sure, because I haven’t seen the episode a long time ago, but I believe Mr Eko stands before the smoke monster almost as ‘comsume me, what I have did is wrong’ (very much referring to his heavy leaning on religion). I may believe there are more moments of these (can’t think of them now, but I will sure go look). Therefore I believe the show is also about a sense of personal righteousness and belonging (or whatever you would like to call it). You pay a price for the desires you make (rose being cured, but unable to leave, juliette saving women’s babies, but unable to leave; locke, etc etc).
what’s your thought on this?
I was wondering what it all meant and I think my brother came up with the best theory of all.
The ones that died on the island, like Jack, were in purgatory and you were watching their dreams of events. Remember at the end, those that died on the island ended up meeting at a church and all ended up going to the light!
Also, notice, that those who flew away in the plane in one of the last episodes did not end up meeting at the church and going to the light.
In season 6, episode 3, an auto mechanic helps remove Kate’s handcuffs. Is it just me, or is the mechanic a spitting image of an old man Sawyer? It can’t just be coincidence – why make this older guy have the same look and accent as Sawyer? As this is a sideways world, is there any significance to it?