LOST Afterthoughts by Vozzek69

Now that my recap is out of the way, I've had a chance to read other people's thoughts on the finale. Not surprisingly, it looks like there are two extremes: those who really loved it, and those who hated it to the point of burning their disc sets.

I've also gotten asked a lot of questions regarding my thoughts on the island, so I figured I'd post some additional thoughts here.

The way I see it, the island is what you make of it. Do I think it's real? Yes. But in a sense, it's also a place where you're in control of your own experience. The catch however, is this: most people don't realize they have such power until the end, like Jack did. Until you have the faith to free yourself of your self-imposed bonds (like Rose and Bernard did), you're always going to be held prisoner by your very own thoughts, fears, and past ideologies.

In a lot of ways (and I've said this before), the island is the cave on Dagobah. What's in there? Only what you bring with you. Each of our main characters came to the island with a shit-ton of baggage, and Jacob was their host. He picked each person for a very grim mission, knowing that many of them would leave their past lives behind forever. For this reason, I think he only picked people he thought he could help. These people were already LOST. And while they were on the island, Jacob tried to at least make up for bringing them there by helping them find their way.

One really cool thing we learned is that the island's guardian can make his or her own rules. During Jacob's reign, the island was a black and white place of serious conflict. It was an extension of the game he and the dark man played as children. The survivors of Oceanic 815 were thrust into that game, and they were unknowingly forced to play by those rules. This is what we watched, from S1E1 all the way until the series finale. Once Jacob and his brother were gone, the game element went with them.

Think about this: What rules did mother have? Although she killed Claudia out of what she thought was necessity, the island seemed a much more peaceful place during her reign. If a little girl ruled the island, maybe it would be filled with unicorns and rainbows, and the ice cream man would stop by every 10 minutes. When Hurley ruled the island, it was probably filled with happiness and friendship and giant buckets of chicken. That's always been my take on things, and I think it was backed up by Ben's words to Hugo: "Maybe there's a better way."

So if you're willing to accept that the island's guardian can make up a certain set of rules, why is it such a stretch to take it one step further? Maybe everyone, to some degree, is in control of their own experience. We've seen this happen all throughout the show, and we chalked it up to the island being "magical". In reality however, we are the causes of our own suffering. It's been handed to us a shitload of times, but some people still resist the concept.

Please feel free to totally disagree with me, but I can't accept the island as a cut and dry place floating around the Pacific ocean. I can't separate the two storylines in season six and say "Okay, the ALT timeline was the afterlife... but everything that happened on the island was TOTALLY real". Because hey, what exactly is real, anyway? Are invisible whispers real? Is time travel real? Are smoke monsters and frozen donkey wheels real? On the island they are, sure. But in your life and mine, these things are pure fantasy. If you woke up in such a place tomorrow, you surely wouldn't think you were still in the real world.

The island being another extension or layer of the afterlife is just one theory. It's certainly not the end all, be all answer to the show. But for shits and giggles, ask yourself this: if the ALT universe was all about "letting go" (and it was), why were our characters ALSO told to "let go" so many times on the island? If it were nothing but a real place filled with real life struggles, why were there ghosts, apparitions, and voices traveling over broken loudspeakers telling our characters to let go of their issues? And why did it seem - especially early on - that as soon as people freed themselves from the self-imposed chains of their pre-crash lives, that they seemed to suddenly die and move on?

Because these questions exist, there will always be room for interpretation. And that's one of the reasons why I loved the ending so much: even though it gave definitive answers and endings to a huge chunk of the story, it also left many things open-ended.

Do I think the writers planned everything to turn out exactly the way they did? Not by a long shot! But I think they did an amazing job on most of it, weren't afraid to abandon things that didn't work for them, and stayed true to the ending they always intended. And I for one don't see how anyone could still feel cheated after that.

Believe me, I was an answer-hound like many of you. There were points where I couldn't imagine how they'd wrap everything up neatly. But somewhere toward the middle of season five? I began to realize that certain things just weren't all that important to me anymore. Who was Henry Gale? What the hell was the food drop? Who killed the Ajira survivors? In the scope of a much greater story, I could care less about these answers. Not to sound cliche', but I'd much rather they concentrate on the original characters... and that's exactly what they did.

And for those of you who think I'm drinking the Kool-aid (talk about cliche'...) because I liked the finale? When have I not been honest about my opinions? There were certain parts of LOST that I really didn't like, and other parts that totally sucked. The sickness, for one. The dragging out of the O6 storyline for another. There were times I was unhappy with the show's direction, and I always voiced it. In fact, whenever I did, people would say "Wow Vozzek... looks like you're getting bitter about the show! Maybe you should just post a more subjective recap!" Hehe, sometimes you just can't win.

Anyway, people have been asking me if there were any mysteries I really thought they should've answered. Truth is, there are a few. I'm not sure I needed them to spend too much time on these things, but I did think we were left hanging on the following areas:

Walt - Why was he special? We never really did find that out. If you watch LOST missing pieces mobisode 6, it certainly seems that Walt can do some pretty wild shit. Yet this was never explored, and I assume it's because poor Malcom David Kelley grew up too fast. Not really the writer's fault, but maybe the casting people should've taken this into account. ;)

Aaron - Seemed like they were really going somewhere with this kid, and then suddenly... WHAM! He didn't even matter anymore. I've theorized in my recap about Aaron's significance (or insignificance), but I'd really hoped for a definitive answer as to who he was, and why it was so cataclysmically important that Claire raise him.

The Sickness / Being Claimed - When did it originate? How did it spread? Why would Claire catch it, and can she eventually be cured? The sickness was weird to begin with, but it got downright bizarre with the introduction of squirrel-baby. I didn't need an in-depth explanation here, but maybe a line or two from Jacob about what it was would've settled things for me. I guess my main problem was the inconsistency of symptoms between Robert, Claire, and Sayid. And since two of those three characters were pretty damned important to us, I felt like we were owed a little more.

The Whispers - The explanation we got felt pretty rushed, and because I considered this one of LOST's biggest mysteries I was unhappy about that. If these are people 'stuck' on the island because they can't move on, why did we hear Frank Duckett's voice? We heard Boone's voice too, and possibly Hurley's... I don't know, the whisper reveal just seemed half-assed to me.

Jacob's Cabin - More than anything, this one bothers me. I'd really like to know who was in the cabin when "HELP ME..." was uttered. I'd like to think it was Anthony Cooper, but I guess we'll never know. And whose creepy eye did we see when Hurley peered into the cabin that one time?

I guess that's pretty much it. I know a lot of people felt unsatisfied because they wanted to know more about the cave, the golden light, and the heart of the island. I'm cool just knowing that things were put back the way they were, and that Hugo and Ben got to run things for a while. Those must've been some kickass times.

Vozz