Over the last few years, I’ve become something of a Lost scholar. After each episode airs, I read commentary from Doc Jensen of Entertainment Weekly, The Tail Section, and sometimes Doc Ardzt. I’ve spent hours poring over the Lostpedia, and I listen to The Official Lost Podcast, in which producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse discuss the show in a smart, entertaining way.
I think, perhaps, I’m the kind of person that Lost is geared towards. The show is character driven, with mystery, action, and great acting that would appeal to anyone. But it’s the dense sci-fi plot that keeps me awake at night.
After the fourth season’s finale, I decided to unload my brain, writing down everything I knew and suspected about the Lost universe.
Last night’s premiere inspired me to take another look at what I had written. It was gratifying to see some serious time travel, and so far my theories haven’t been contradicted — except for a couple things. I had supposed that Ms. Hawking (the gray-haired time lady) might be working with the sinister Widmore or on her own. Now it appears she’s aligned with Ben. Also, I had theorized that Widmore himself once used the frozen donkey wheel, but why then did Dharma excavators find it inaccessible behind a wall of solid rock?
So, before the rest of my ideas are vetoed by events in season five, I figure I’ll put this out there for the blogosphere to consider.
Maybe at the end of the season I’ll post an update.
Warning: this might be incomprehensible to casual viewers of the show.
SOME OF MY PAST THEORIES HAVEN’T PANNED OUT
Back in season three, I was disappointed when it was revealed that the Others learned all about the Flight 815 passengers through research post-crash. I had assumed they were somehow selecting who would come to the island, in league with time agents (more on them later). In “One of Us” it seems that they were surprised by the plane crash and did not see it coming. So if the Others didn’t recruit the passengers, who did?
Once season four began, I was also irked by the practical explanation of the plane wreckage. With all the clues towards time travel and quantum physics (“Catch 22” even references the uncertainty principle), I had expected that in another reality Flight 815 HAD crashed in the ocean. Especially after the alternate timeline photograph clues in Miles’ “ghostbuster” house.
Finally, I’m uneasy that we’re not going to see a teleportation device that allows Ben, Richard, Tom, (and Locke’s father) to regularly jump back and forth to the mainland. Did Tom really visit Michael and return via submarine? Did he have enough time, according to island events he was present for?
WHAT WE KNOW AND WHAT CAN WE DEDUCE
WIDMORE VS. BEN
Charles Widmore once controlled the island. Some theorize that he first visited it on the slave ship, the Black Rock. If he did so and jumped forward in time a few times, he could be very rich as a result of old money and careful investments.
We see Widmore buy the first mate’s journal, presumably because it contains some vital information he would like to see, possibly about the island’s location. Did Dharma know its contents? If so, why would it be for sale?
Widmore tells the freighter captain that Ben faked the wreckage. Not impossible.
Tom tells Michael that Widmore faked the wreckage. More likely.
Ben was confident that his daughter wouldn’t die — future knowledge or gentleman’s agreement?
DESMOND
Ms. Hawking wants Desmond to chicken out of proposing marriage, run away from Penny, and end up on the island pushing the button.
Brother Campbell decides the Abbey is not the place for Desmond and fires him on the day Penny comes to pick up wine. Campbell knows Hawking (as evidenced by a photo at the Abbey), so one could surmise that Campbell and Hawking want Desmond to meet Penny so he can run away, etc. (The parallel story in this episode involved Desmond’s struggle with premonitions. If he changes the future by saving Charlie’s life, will that affect other events? Is the future mapped out, or can it be changed?)
In contrast to this, maybe Widmore is pulling the strings on Desmond. Maybe he bought the wine and sent Penny on purpose, if he knows he has to get them together before he can crush Desmond.
Widmore later tried to bribe Desmond to stay away from Penny. He said Desmond would never be a great man. Jacob, the current ruler of the island, is often referred to as a great man. Is this reverse psychology? Does he have the same agenda as Hawking? Unknown. I can’t decide if Widmore wants Desmond to end up on the island or not.
Libby gives Desmond a boat, another necessary piece to get him to the island. This is in line with Hawking’s plan, but is it a coincidence? Probably not, since she also may have had a role in putting Hurley and Numbers Guy in the same room together at Santa Rosa.
MATTHEW ABADDON
Abaddon wants Locke to go on walkabout, which means he will end up on the plane and take his place on the island. Probably not working with Ben, but looking to usurp him by putting Locke in place.
He chose the Freighter Folk to go on Widmore’s boat. So he appears to work for Widmore. Does Widmore want Locke in? Or Does Abaddon have his own agenda?
Abaddon later asks future Hurley pointed questions…. “Are they still alive?” So Abaddon has not learned new information about the island and its inhabitants in the last few years.
BEN VS. LOCKE
Richard did his Dalai Lama test on Locke, but he either wasn’t ready or Richard didn’t know what to look for.
Locke needed to suffer (a la Job) before becoming the chosen one. All his bad luck knocked him down so the island could build him back up.
Once Ben realized that crippled Locke had come to the island and was miraculously healed, he may have deduced (or been told by Richard or Jacob) that Locke was the better candidate.
Part of Ben’s recruitment into the Hostiles/Others was to kill his father. So Ben brings Locke’s dad to the island to prove that Locke can’t do the same.
Once Locke does the deed (sort of) he joins the murderer club. He hears Jacob’s voice, and Ben gets petulant. He leaves Locke for dead. Once Locke regains control, sleeps in Ben’s bed, and Ben’s opponent (Widmore) stops playing by the rules, Ben becomes a tragic character. He now is ready to sacrifice his position to Locke, especially if he can continue to protect the island from Widmore. But is revenge more important to him now? Why does he want the Oceanic 6 to return with “Bentham” to the island?
MAXWELL GROUP, a division of WIDMORE INDUSTRIES
According to the “Find 815” game, the Maxwell Group hired a ship (the Christiane) to look for the Black Rock, but someone within the organization put a sympathetic man on board to hijack the mission and instead find the (fake) 815 wreckage.
If Widmore wanted the wreckage found accidentally (assuming he’s behind the hoax), why do it on a mission to find the real island, which he’d rather keep secret from the public? Could it be Abaddon that tipped off the hero of “Find 815”? We’ll probably never know, as this took place outside canon.
TIME AGENTS
Certainly Hawking is doing some manipulation, as she spoke plainly to Desmond about time and fate.
Someone worked on the Australian psychic to get Claire on the plane. He later admitted he was a fraud, but he paid for her flight. Who paid him?
Libby (on her own or hired?) got Desmond and perhaps Hurley to the island. She’s now appearing to Michael.
Hawking is in league with Abaddon or Widmore or both. The future is known, and her goal is to keep the timeline on track.
Sun’s father, Mr. Paik, is an unknown, but he had dealings with Widmore.
GHOSTS and DEATH
The island gives its dead the ability to communicate. Are they calm and smart because they have a new perspective (being dead) or because they are not themselves?
Yemi says he is not Eko’s brother. Theory: he’s a manifestation of the monster.
If you’re important to the island, you become an extension of it, like neurons in the nervous system. Therefore you cannot die. The island can move the river of time around to provide natural explanations for what it needs (a jammed gun, freak luck).
THE MONSTER
Ben has an emergency call button for the monster, but doesn’t control it. Instead, he knows where it’s going, so he goes the other way.
Dharma built a fence to keep it out. It predated Dharma?
THE HOSTILES
Predate Dharma. Work with the island in a blind, religious fashion. One appointed person can talk with Jacob. Was Richard ever that person?
WHISPERS IN THE WOODS
More than once, we hear the whispers, then a person appears. Walt appears to Shannon, talking backwards, SOAKING WET, then disappears.
In “The Other Woman”, we hear whispers, then Harper appears to Juliet to deliver a message. It seemed plausible that Harper could come and go as mysteriously as most of the Others do. However, it was raining, and if Harper was wet for another reason (like Walt was in Shannon’s vision) we wouldn’t be able to tell. Harper disappears as abruptly as she first appeared.
Theory: The whispers are side-effect of the Others using an astral projection device. Its methods for some reason involve the subject being submerged in water.
MIKE’S THEORY
The island is alive, possessing cosmic intelligence. It lives outside of time and space, but intrudes upon it at specific points. It draws upon the zero point field, a sort of collective unconsciousness for the planet’s energy. (The Casimir effect was mentioned in the Orchid video.)
An ancient civilization lived there (like Skull Island‘s former inhabitants in Peter Jackson’s King Kong). They thought of it as a unique place, perhaps worshiped its monster, and built temples around the island relocation wheel and monster call center.
The island’s time/anti-time matter/anti-matter properties mess with the electromagnetic spectrum. Over the centuries, it has acted like a Bermuda Triangle, a magnet for travelers.
In 1845, the island popped into time and space right under the Black Rock. Captain Magnus Hanso and his first mate (Widmore or an ancestor) figure out that the island is special. Widmore kills Hanso, who is buried on the island (referenced in the blast door map). Widmore becomes king of the island. He undergoes some electromagnetic pulses, which give him future flashes. But he is corrupt, and he is tricked into dialing the “frozen donkey wheel” and zaps elsewhere. Some of the ship’s other passengers escape the island with the first mate’s (Widmore’s) journal (it turned up in a Pirate’s possessions in 1852). The journal passes to the Hanso family, whose descendents form the Dharma Initiative. Meanwhile, some of the Black Rock’s inhabitants joined/became the Hostiles.
The Hanso family, with the benefit of the journal, make trips to the island, perhaps after many years have gone by. They naively think they can use the island’s properties to affect global change, both through time travel/prescience and the good vibe theory of THE NUMBERS. They build an electromagnet to harness and increase the power of the island’s own energy leak, but there is a disastrous event. What is the result of this event? Unknown, but the Swan station’s later purpose is to vent the energy every 108 minutes. Meanwhile, a fence is built to protect Dharma’s camp from the hostiles and the monster.
The Hanso Foundation forms the Dharma Initiative, recruiting behavioral psychologists and other scientists. Much like we send plants, animals, and bacteria into space, experiments were conducted on the island. Some were Skinner box experiments, more to see how teams of people behave in such circumstances.
SWAN: to release the pressure valve on the magnet
PEARL: presumably to observe the Swan, but in fact they were observed
ARROW: unknown. Rodinsky may have visited there with his snippet of film that said don’t mess with the computer.
FLAME: contact with the mainland
STAFF: medical, fertility experiments
HYDRA: pavlovian conditioning of animals, for what purpose? perhaps polar bears are meant to turn the donkey wheel?
TEMPEST: power plant, toxic gas dispersal for use against Hostiles?
LOOKING GLASS: unknown. sub station?
ORCHID: heart of the island. built time flicker device over the top of it.
But the Hostiles knew better what the island required. Before the Dharma era, they sent Richard Alpert out into the world (is he dead, immortal, or a time traveler?) to find their prophesied leader. Locke wasn’t ready (or Alpert failed to read him correctly), so they settled for Ben, the son of a Dharma loser. He gives the Hostiles the chance to activate the Tempest, get through the fence, and kill ’em all. They set up camp in New Otherton.
What do they want? Fertility is Ben’s obsession, not theirs, according to Richard. Do the original Hostiles have a breeding problem? Are they dying out? Have they had children before, or are they immortal? The Hostiles had Mittelos Laboratories/Bioscience since the 70s, when high school aged Locke was almost recruited. They presumably have some level of time travel or second sight, since arranging for Edmund Burke’s bus accident seems impossible otherwise. Their mission is not exactly in line with Ben’s. Ben sees himself as one of the good guys, finding a cure to the pregnancy issue is paramount above all other concerns — is this due to Jacob’s orders, or in spite of them? It could only be an obsession because of his own mother dying in childbirth.
Who is Jacob? I say John Locke from the future, unstuck in time and only able to communicate with a select few.
Widmore has been trying to regain the island. But he can’t physically return, because he once used the time displacement wheel to leave.
Possibilities:
A) His future flashes allow him the insight to push Desmond into getting on the island with Locke so they can cause an event that hurts the Others technology and starts a countdown on the island’s stability so Penny can see the event and send her boat… but that’s in conflict with the freighter who found the island because Widmore bought the journal…
B) His future flashes give him some insight, but Abaddon and Hawking use that information against him. They are the third party, getting their own man on the island (Locke) as well as Desmond, Claire, Miles, Faraday, and Charlotte.
Someone wanted Claire and Hurley on the island.
What about Sun? Did someone (her father?) work to get her on the island, or try to keep her from going?
People are guided to the island by at least 3 parties:
1) Hawking
2) Abaddon — may be working with Widmore or Hawking
3) Widmore
4) Hostiles/Others/Mittelos
That’s all I’ve got in me now. More to come after season five!
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