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…
Not bad, but compared to Doc Jensen….not as thorough…though Doc appears to be spoon fed by Lost’s producers…especially since ABC is paying Entertainment Weekly for promoting Lost’s DVD/BLU-RAY set coming out soon. So…at least you are still out there thinking about Lost…it shows the show was loved, but simply because people will endlessly come up with these sorts of theories, it shows that there is more out there they can cover with more LOST. So…Cuse…Lindelof…if you’r still out there, GET BUSY and get on with telling us (as Paul Harvey would have said it) “The rest of the story.”
Yeah, sure, that’s why your blog is called ‘Eric knows it all’.
In any other cirumstances i would likely say that is kind of arrogant but that’s just my opinion.
Remember adam and eve and how jack thought their clothes aged only 50 years but the age actually was way way way loder than that.Do you time has effect on them .When desmond failed to push the button , some time diffrence must have happened just like medical facility you explained
Really great theory. One of the best, most coherent I’ve read so far. Thanks so much for posting this!
Dave, my blog post is titled: ABC’s LOST: the ultimate theory and explanation
Even still, thank you for taking the time to read my post.
This theory is genius. It had come to my mind before that the light was time, since they turned the wheel into it to move it, but theyw ay you’ve explained everything into this theory was brilliant to read. If this were the true ending, and the writer’s had played with this from the start, not pressing the button and time fast forwarding months or years could have explained Walt’s sudden aging! To me, one of the most disapointting parts of lost was Walt’s story not being re-visited.
Also the time theory could have expalined why babies couldn’t be born, maybe they needed a stable time to be born into. And maybe Dharma didn’t choose to keep jumping back 108 minutes by pressing the button, maybe they had to after Jughead was detonated as it was the only way of stopping the island from blowing up.
Thanks for writing this, really got me buzzing on working out unanswered questions based on this idea.
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What really anoys me is that you are telling your theory as if it was the ultimate truth, instead of saying it’s just an opinion or a theory.
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Well I think most people are smart enough on their own to figure out that it is just a theory. Nothing to get up tight about!
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What a CRAPPY theory, but hey! good job washing the brains of some dissapointed (and, sorry, not very smart) people with the end of the show.
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Wow, thank you for taking the time to actually put thought into a constructive well thought out comment!
What really anoys me is that you are telling your theory as if it was the ultimate truth, instead of saying it’s just an opinion or a theory.
What a CRAPPY theory, but hey! good job washing the brains of some dissapointed (and, sorry, not very smart) people with the end of the show.
This was an amazing read, I’m not kidding. I really, REALLY like this regardless of whether it was the intended narrative. At this point I’m convinced that either A) it’s an unprecedented coincidence that your theory pulls together so many different aspects of the series, or B) Damon and Carlton are even more brilliant than I was already giving them credit for.
I’m not quite persuaded on a few minor aspects of the theory (i.e. the linkage between Ben’s tumor and anything Hatch-related), but maybe I just need more time to process it.
I loved the entire series (yes, including S6 and the finale) even without this interpretation, but now I’m just blown away all over again. Thank you for the time and effort you clearly put into this.
Carl, thank you for the kind words. As far as the sideways reality is concerned I did write a theory in an earlier blog post. Understanding and learning to love the ending of LOST. I hope you enjoy it.
This is absolutely by far the best theory I have heard on the theory of Lost. Do you have any ideas about the sidways world?
Hi There. Well done on a very interesting theory. Your consideration of “time” is multi-dimensional. You’ve put together a very interesting read. I’d be keen to hear your comment on an ending I put together for LOST. It’s not really a theory, but more of the actual ending I’d like to have seen in the final 1-2 episodes. Maybe there’s room in it to incorporate a few of your ideas. http://how-lost-should-have-ended.blogspot.com/.
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Sorry, but I don’t like your theory. You only regroup the symbols and rebuild a new one. After season 5 the creators said that, the Lost is ended in season 5, everything what will happen in season 6 only possibilty future/prolog/alternative ending – not relevant.
This series contain many-many symbols and references, you can build anything from them – and can look the meanings.
It was funny to read.
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Ummmmmm what?
😛
I really like your theory. I also have to agree with the comment about Ben’s cancer. All though I think it still fits in with the time theory. The past can be like a cancer that eats at us. Jacob may have manipulated time within Ben to encourage Ben to interact with the Lost people. This seems to make sense within the time theory.
I would say that the light cave is where time is going rather than time leaving from there. The future is all around us and it is chaotic. It comes from everywhere randomly changing. It goes to the cave/light and is sucked in where the past is stored (reminds me of a black hole). That is why the smoke monster is from there. All of the past is held within the light. When Jacob throws his brother in the hole he absorbs the past and becomes the smoke monster.
This also explains why removing the cork would end everything. With the cork removed all of time is sucked into the hole to become the past.
I also feel that this explains some things about the button pushing. Like the previous comment points out. The button was put into place by the Dharma team after the bomb was detonated. I believe it needed to be pushed to fix an issue caused by the bomb the lost people set off.
The electromagnetism is the container for the past (the hour glass). The bomb caused the island to move into the past. I have two ideas as to what the button pushing is for.
1. To get the island and the people on the island back to the present time without issue the button was pressed every 108 minutes to avoid moving too quickly into the future. Jacob understood that the island needed to move back into the future and the safe way to do that was with the cork not the button.
2. The h-bomb destroyed the electromagnetic field and everything was ending. The Darhma people used the button to move back in time only 108 min so everything would not end They chose 108 min. because they figured out that moving that small amount did not kill people with brain bleeds. Jacob understood that the island needed to move back into the future and the safe way to do that was with the cork not the button.
Both of these theories have issues but maybe someone will read all of this and figure out for sure why the button pushing was needed.
AMAZING read. Thank you for this.
Outstanding theory.
My only counter arguments are the following…
I believe Mother had become a smoke monster herself. The way she described the light it seemed as though she went down into the source herself. Plus, I think it’s the only possible way a tired old lady could knock out her “son”, bring him up a ladder, cover the well and kill all the Romans in a short amount of time.
I believe the Island has a conscience due to the light. The island is able to tap into people’s own conscience. This is what I think Kate’s horse is. Not the smoke monster. But things like the boar that haunts Sawyer, and the horse and even the bird screaming Hurley’s name. This is the island communicating with them. That horse represented freedom for Kate before the island. By showing her this horse, the island was trying to tell her she was OK.
Curious to know what your thoughts are on the ash, the sonar fence, how they work? How the protector is able to create rules?
Excellent work!
Sorry, but I don’t like your theory. You only regroup the symbols and rebuild a new one. After season 5 the creators said that, the Lost is ended in season 5, everything what will happen in season 6 only possibilty future/prolog/alternative ending – not relevant.
This series contain many-many symbols and references, you can build anything from them – and can look the meanings.
It was funny to read.
A fine and compelling explanation, and I agree with most of it. However, I’m not sure about the hatch resetting time for Dharma and then the Others. Ben discovered his cancer prior Desmonds failure to push the button causing the crash of the 815ers, thus his quip to Jack about discovering his tumor and the miracle of having a spinal surgeon subseqently fall from the sky. If you recall, its Ben’s cancer that made Juliet so upset prior to her book club meeting, during which the crash occured. She thought he must have been lying about curing her sister’s cancer. It does seem clear that some aspect of the Island does have control over time/aging, etc., and also the power to cure or create illness through time. I’m more of the opinion that the Island (perhaps through Jacob, perhaps as an entity unto istself) created healing for some (Rose, Juliets sister, Locke, and speed healing for everyone) but also caused (even off Island and prior to the crash) injury in order to bring about its final endgame (Locke loosing a kidney so years later he could survive a gunshot there; Jack getting appendicitis so he could longer survive his stabbing in the final showdown with Smocke, and Ben getting a tumor so that he would initiate contact with the Losties and begin the necessary relationships with them). I’m still unclear on who had what powers along these lines. But again- a nicely reasoned theory. Well done.