[arrowheadnation]

This is supposedly from someone at Bad Robot (JJ Abrams' Production Company...AKA...LOST production company). It's a long read, but it's also from the camel's mouth (supposedly).

L O S T: An Explanation...
Hundreds of questions go unanswered, but hey…that’s what the extras on the Season 6 DVD are for. So here’s my overview wrap-up of the major themes and characters. See if you agree.

THE BOMB
At the end of Season 5, Juliet sets off the atomic bomb. But when Season 6 starts, we eventually learn that the Losties apparently managed to survive that explosion on the island. I remember watching that and thinking, “Hmm…so we’re supposed to believe they all survived that blast? We’re supposed to believe that rather than killing them all, this explosion merely transported them to 2007 (island present)? Seems like quite a leap of faith, but whatever…” I entertained the idea that they all actually died in that blast, but if that were true, then I don’t know what we’re to make of the Island Timeline in the final season. So I’m abandoning that idea, and just rolling with what we know: Juliet’s bomb blast accomplished 2 things: 1) transported the real-life, still-very-much physically alive Losties to Island Present 2007, and 2) created the Purgatorical Construct known as the Flash Sideways.

THE FLASH SIDEWAYS
We now definitely know that the Flash Sideways Universe wasn’t “real” at all, but rather, it was some sort of Purgatorical Construct “created” by (some of) the Losties so that they could all find each other before “moving on.” So everything that happened in the Flash Sideways scenes this season was not actually happening.

We also know, thanks to Christian’s explanation, that “there really is no now, here.” So ‘time’ doesn’t really apply. This explains why everyone was in the church despite us never being shown that they had died (Sawyer, Kate, Penny, Desmond, Hurley, etc.). Everyone dies sometime. In other words, Jack wasn’t the last one to ‘die,’ he was merely the last one to ‘let go.’ Once he let go, they could all move on.

THE ISLAND
Before Jack could let go, he had to fulfill his purpose. That’s basically the answer to “why” all this stuff on the island happened. (Well, and also that the Island simply needed to be protected.) Jack was the key character in the whole show. And he couldn’t move on (meaning none of them could move on) until he completed his ‘destiny.’ And that destiny was to keep the Light of the Island going strong.

So here’s basically the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of it all. And again, remember that LOST is partly a show of mythology. It’s fiction, people. So some of these things aren’t supposed to ‘make sense’ outside of the context of the show.

The Light on the Island simply exists. You can ask why it exists, or who put it there…but ultimately those questions have no answers, just like the question “Why does God exist?” or “Who created God?” There are no satisfying answers to those questions. Eventually, to avoid an infinite regress, you just have to draw the line and say “look, this just exists. You can’t go back any farther, and you can’t explain why. It just is.” If you’re unsatisfied by that, join the club. But again, just as with God, you just have to be willing to accept that some things just are. The Light on the Island is the same way.

The Light, then, is what makes the Island special. While the Holy Cork is in place, the Underground Fire is kept at bay and the magical qualities of the Island can thrive. People are healed (Locke, Rose), people are immortal (MIB, Richard), people can travel through time, etc. It seems there is no limit to the possibilities when the Light is powering the Island and can combine itself with the powers provided by the massive electromagnetic energy naturally found on the Island.

Without the Light, however, the island is just any other island (in fact, it even crumbles apart). And everyone on the island is just any other person. No special abilities, no powers, no healing, no immortality. Jack and MIB both figured this out, and they both knew that to achieve their purpose, they had to turn the Light off.

But how? Enter Desmond.

As Faraday told Desmond in Season 5: “The rules don’t apply to you, Desmond. You’re special. You’re uniquely and miraculously special.” Desmond is special, of course, because he’s the only person who can survive a massive exposure to electromagnetic energy…which means he’s the only one who can go down into the Source without being eviscerated by its power. He is the anomaly.

As such, both MIB and Jack knew that Desmond was the key to their purposes. As far as MIB was concerned, since Desmond could pull the Holy Cork out, he was the only one who could effectively destroy the island. And if there is no island, then MIB isn’t trapped on it. He can leave. But as far as Jack was concerned, Desmond’s de-corking of the island was the only way to turn MIB back into a normal, mortal man. Remember, without the Light in place, there’s nothing special about anyone. The only way to kill MIB was to make him mortal. And the only way to make him mortal was to remove the cork. And the only one who could remove the cork was Desmond.

Jack likely figured out the Island couldn’t survive without the Cork in place, which meant he would only have a small window of time to kill MIB before needing to replace the Cork. He took advantage of it. Well, Kate did.

With MIB dead, the mission was on for everyone else to fulfill their own ultimate character destiny. Kate’s ultimate purpose was to save Claire (accomplished); Claire’s ultimate purpose was to raise Aaron (accomplished, we are to believe); Sawyer’s ultimate purpose (I guess) was to get as many people as possible off the island (accomplished); Hurley’s ultimate purpose was to Guard the Island (accomplished); Ben’s ultimate purpose was to be Hurley’s #2 (accomplished); and Desmond’s ultimate purpose has already been discussed.

That brings us back to Jack. His ultimate purpose was to save the Island. It had to be him, Sayid said. Why? Because saving the Island was the only way Jack would allow himself to let go. So he crawls down into the Source, replaces the Holy Cork, turns the Light back on, and makes the Island special again.

Having fulfilled his ultimate purpose, Jack could now die. Hurley and Ben stay behind to Shepherd the Island. Desmond presumably heals and leaves the island to be with Penny and young Charlie. Sawyer, Kate, Claire, Frank, Miles, and Richard all leave the island on the plane and presumably go on to live happy lives back on the mainland.

THE TIMING OF IT ALL
I think this is the most difficult part to figure out, but I’ll give it a shot. First off, remember that the Purgatorical Construct (PC) of the Flash Sideways has no time restrictions. So try to ignore questions about which people are there, “when” they got there, and in what order. I think the show was trying to tell us that those questions aren’t relevant, and they’ll only confuse our understanding of everything if we’re thinking of people’s appearance in the PC as making linear sense. (Well, let me clarify that. The question about ‘which’ people are there is probably worth considering, but the questions about ‘when’ they got there and ‘in what order’ aren’t applicable.)

So here’s my explanation: you’re only in the PC if you’re actually in the process of dying back on Earth. But even though everyone on Earth dies at different points, as far as the PC goes they’re all there at the same ‘time.’ A good example of this is Juliet. In the Season 6 premiere, as Sawyer is down in the rubble with her while she’s dying, she makes a few dying comments like “Let’s go dutch,” and “Let’s get a cup of coffee.” At the time, Sawyer (and us) just think her brain synapses are misfiring and she’s saying weird things as she’s about to die. But in the Series Finale, we learn that Juliet’s coffee lines were the same thing she said to Sawyer at the vending machine in the PC. So dying real-life Juliet was somehow ‘progressing’ through her entire PC ‘life’ in the span of a few seconds (the time between the bomb going off until the time she mumbled that to Sawyer as she was dying in his arms). Having fulfilled her Earthly purpose (setting off the bomb to create the PC where they would all meet), Juliet’s dying mumblings to Sawyer were actually the point where she ‘let go’ and had her ‘awakening’ in the PC. Upon her physical death (which happened just a few seconds after her mumblings to Sawyer), she was ready to move on.

Make sense?

Again, to clarify it a little better, we know that Sawyer didn’t physically die at the same Earth-time that Juliet did. In fact, for all we know, Sawyer lived to be 100 years old after escaping on the plane at the end of the Series Finale. So then why were Juliet and Sawyer in the PC at the “same time”? Well, it’s because there is no “time” in the PC.

Let me say it this way: Juliet’s final dying breaths occurred in 2007 on the island. During this time (let’s say it’s 3 minutes), she was in the PC. Sawyer’s final dying breaths occurred, for example, in 2057 in Manhattan. During this time (let’s say it’s 45 minutes in a hospital bed), he was in the PC. So as far as Earth-time is concerned, they both ‘arrive’ in the PC at different times, but as far as the PC is concerned, this is happening simultaneously. It’s hard to wrap your brain around, given the linear nature we’re used to thinking about, but I think this is what the show is trying to tell us. There is no “now” or “then” in the PC. It just exists. And it’s a place where the Losties meet up with each other before moving on. But none of them can move on until they’re ALL ready to move on.

So, I think it’s right to say that the PC was a place they all went while they were physically dying. To be clear, I'm not saying this is where they went AFTER they died, I'm saying it's where they went WHILE they were DYING. In other words, with their dying breaths, they were able to find each other. And by the time they actually died, they were ready to let go.

This isn’t entirely out of left field. Many religions believe that important spiritual things happen as you’re dying. During your final few breaths, people sometimes report seeing bright lights or having their life flash before their eyes, etc. I think that’s what the PC was: a construct (not bound by time) that the Losties souls were transported to during the final few minutes of their Earthly lives. It allowed them to find each other, and the point where they were ready to move on corresponded with the exact moment where they took their last breath on Earth.

But Jack, even though not the last to physically die, was the last one to let go. Again, remember that Earthly time doesn’t matter in the PC. So even though Sawyer and Kate and several others physically outlived Jack (meaning they ‘let go’ when they died, which was long after Jack died), Jack hadn’t yet ‘let go.’

I suppose the only way to explain this would be to say it this way: the final blink of Jack’s eye could have lasted 50 years in PC ‘time.’ It’s wrong to say it that way since there is no ‘time’ in the PC, but it might help to understand how physical death is the point of ‘letting go’ (my theory), yet Sawyer let go “before” Jack even though physical Jack died before physical Sawyer.

Let that sink in for a minute.

I think it works because Jack had to be the last one to let go, since the entire show was really about him.


THE BOTTOM LINE
The writers went out of their way to focus on 1) broad themes and 2) character wrap-ups in the Series Finale. Overall, I think the main theme they wanted to get across was, “No one can do it alone.” The whole show was based around this central idea. From Jack’s “we’ve gotta live together, or we’re gonna die alone” speech in the first season, up to Jack needing to ‘let go’ before they ALL could move on in the Series Finale. So ‘not doing it alone’ was the primary theme, and the secondary theme was something like “if you can’t do it alone, then who are you going to do it with?” And that’s where all the character relationships come into play. They all have a special bond, but within the group, some bonds are stronger than others.

And that’s the point of the show: we’re all searching for a destiny, a purpose. We may not know what it is and there may be unanswered questions along the way, but that’s why we can’t do it alone. We need each other to get through it all because the weight of the pressure and the questions would consume us if we tried it alone. MIB’s ultimate failure is a great example of what happens when you try to do it by yourself. If you find a group of people to do life with, cherish them…and maybe you’ll even form some stronger bonds with someone inside that group.