mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
I’m a big LOST fan, and have started re-watching first few seasons while waiting for season 4 to start in 2008. If you’re in the same boat (or should I say, on the same island?), the first thing you should check out is the Orchid Station Orientation Video, revealed at Comic-Con earlier this month. Next, I have rounded up a series of theories from around the web for your review. Please DON’T read on if you’re not interested in speculation, and/or haven’t watched all the episodes yet!
(Theories are after the jump, to protect innocent eyes!)
LOST as Postmodernist Text About Meaninglessness. Doc Jensen reviews some of the philosophical bits and pieces present in the series, ultimately concluding that it’s a show about meaninglessness. (There’s a fine, but important, line between that notion and the Seinfeld idea of a show about nothing.)
LOST as Gedanken Experiment About Time Travel. This is pretty interesting — basically a big rambling theory involving 108-minute time travel, the Grandfather Paradox, and the island’s monster. This is an interesting summary: “The question isn’t, Where is the Island? The question is, When is the Island?” (Note that this theory is officially marked as “debunked” on lost-theories.com.)
LOST as Garden of Eden. This Biblical theory puts the pieces together in the context of Genesis, even incorporating the mysterious foot statue.
LOST as Walt’s Dream. This was my personal theory throughout seasons 1 and 2, but I think is now pretty much disproved. I was convinced that Walt was projecting his own psyche across the island — for example, he sees a polar bear in a comic book, then moments later a polar bear appears in the jungle; he projects his daddy issues onto everyone else (this might account for why Michael is so ridiculously obsessed with saving his son); he mysteriously appears in places he can’t physically be; and so on. However, something occurs at the end of season 2 that seems to make this theory impractical.
So what do you think? Have you heard a better theory? (Note: if your theory contains a major spoiler, please warn readers before you spill the beans!)
Comments (16)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
During season 1 I thought they all died in the plane crash and they were lost souls, and perhaps the others were angels who wisked away the innocent people (the children, and those who lead morally virtuous lives), this also seemed to be bolstered by the fact that everyone who has died has done so immediately after coming to terms with whatever moral ambiguity they had…
This season that seemed to be confirmed when Locke’s Dad showed up and relayed the fact that everyone died in the plane and it was found on the bottom of the ocean, and that he had arrived on the island after having a fatal car crash.
But none of this explains the experiments the others have been doing on pregnant women, the wierd invisible guy in the shed this season, or Walt and the Polar bears.
I’ve also noticed the shows creators seem to be inserting Buddhist/Hinduist themes throughout the show, and it makes me wonder if re-incarnation might show up in some form.
Its a fun show, but if it doesn’t end in one or two seasons I think most people will get bored of trying to figure it all out.
posted by Scott on 8-23-2007 at 10:08 am
It will turn out that ‘Lost’ is a reality television experiment involving a cast of 17.5 million participants. The plotline of the program is to see how many of them will keep watching while the show reveals new enigmas without resolving any of the old mysteries. An interesting subplot is to observe how many theories the viewers will form to justify this ‘no answers’ environment.
OR… Mulder and Scully will suddenly appear on the island and reveal the whole thing as a complex illegal government experiment done in collaboration with colonizing aliens.
posted by n2y2 on 8-23-2007 at 10:17 am
Carleton and Cruse have, in the past, denied the “all a dream”, “it’s the afterlife”, and several other theories. They also sort of denied the time travel theory, but I think what they specifically said was that the passengers didn’t travel through time.
However, to me, videos like the Orchid station video where the two rabbits overlap and someone screams something about setting something for 20 minutes would seem to indicate otherwise.
Here is my theory: The island is “unstuck” in time and exists simultaneously in different times. The code machine anchored the island within an isolated bubble of time, but the lapse in entering the numbers made it slip so that the plane crashed there. Now that the machine is destroyed, all bets are off. I think that at least some of the others are from a future where there is 0 birthrate and they were using the island to recruit researchers and potential parents from the past to replenish their numbers.
There are several good points to support this – the one guy who doesn’t seem to age, the ability for the others to know intimate details about all of the passenger’s lives (and to influence them) because they could travel back and research them, the overlapping coincidences of their backstories, Locke’s healing, the high tech smoke monster that even the others don’t seem to know the origin of, etc.
Sorry this so long. What do y’all think?
posted by Christopher Palmer on 8-23-2007 at 10:36 am
n2y2 Says:
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:17 am:
“Mulder and Scully will suddenly appear on the island and reveal the whole thing as a complex illegal government experiment done in collaboration with colonizing aliens.”
That, quite possibly, is the best theory I’ve seen so far. *claps* Well done.
posted by Tara on 8-23-2007 at 10:45 am
Palmer, that’s the best and most interesting theory I’ve heard yet. It fits the facts, somewhat (almost?) fits the producers’ debunkings, and if someone were to come forth and explicitly confirm it as fact I would still watch. I.e., knowing it doesn’t ruin the show for me like some other theories would (because they’re just so typical and boring).
Thanks for that!
posted by dancemonkey on 8-23-2007 at 11:04 am
Yeah, I think Christopher Palmer’s theory above is very interesting. I wonder how the submarine ties into all this. Maybe it’s a time machine, or goes through the underwater wormhole or something?
One thing I have to wonder is how Michael and Walt got off the island in that rinky-dink boat, though — given that Desmond can’t seem to sail away in his. Or maybe they didn’t get away, and have just been hanging out elsewhere on the island.
posted by Higgins on 8-23-2007 at 11:31 am
I don’t think Michael and Walt got off (well, away from) the island. The actor who plays Michael is signed on for the fourth season and Walt, as you probably know, made an appearance in the season 3 finale. It wouldn’t be at all surprising that Ben let them set sail knowing they couldn’t get away or maybe he just rounded them up a few hours later. Lies and manipulation are sorta his thing. However, if Mr. Palmer’s very interesting theory is correct, maybe Michael and Walt slipped out of the time-stuck island bubble and into the future, were dissatisfied with what they saw, and will return to the island in the 4th season to attempt a course-correct (and so that Michael may redeem himself). At the very least, it’s a plausible way of explaining why Walt looks so much older now, even though the show’s timeline has only been about 3 months.
Fun post. I love, love, love Lost theories, but it is so exhausting filtering through all the crappy ones.
posted by ellen on 8-23-2007 at 12:35 pm
I was all over that show for the first two seasons, but they lost me in the third. It just kept getting weirder and weirder — still interesting to a degree, but I got to the point where I was convinced that even the writers didn’t know what was coming next. No one has yet convinced me otherwise.
posted by Dave on 8-23-2007 at 1:48 pm
It hasn’t gotten weirder than “The Prisoner” yet (especially its final episode). Until that happens, I am hooked.
posted by Sid Morrison on 8-23-2007 at 3:11 pm
I think the submarine was just a prop to avoid freaking out the “recruited” others and that it was indeed either able to travel through time or whatever to the island or something. The drugging and strapping people to their bunks would seem to indicate something other than an undersea voyage.
Yeah, I’m thinking maybe Walt *did* get back with the Other’s help and lived for quite a while before somehow returning, but it wasn’t necessarily in the boat.
This would also explain how some of the “visions” of people like Jack’s dad could appear (since they could be snatched from previous times).
It also fits it pretty well with the really weird Desmond episode with him being in the epicenter of the machine’s destruction stretched him through time and left him with memories of the future.
posted by Christopher Palmer on 8-23-2007 at 3:38 pm
Luckily it’s been confirmed that only 3 seasons of LOST remain. I have a love-hate relationship with the show but can’t stop watching it. And every time I get a theory figured out, something happens to make me question it, so I am content to just enjoy it, see what happens, and take it for what it’s worth- good entertainment.
posted by A.J. on 8-23-2007 at 4:38 pm
I think Ben knowingly pointed Michael and Walt in the direction of the big ship that Naomi’s from. Ben didn’t count on the Looking Glass being infiltrated and destroyed, which took off all cloaking on the island. I think that’s how Michael and Walt return to the island/story. As for dead people appearing on the island, i’m still figuring that one out… Richard asked young Benjamin if his mother died on the island, which I think is a big clue about the nature of apparitions.
posted by Howard Hsu on 8-23-2007 at 8:40 pm
Good theory, Palmer. Very Vonnegutesque.
posted by Becky on 8-23-2007 at 9:10 pm
*possible spoiler unless you’ve seen all of season 3…*
scroll down
Palmer, right on, man!!!
And when Naomi said that they had found the Oceanic flight and all of the bodies were accounted for, it could be that she was from the future after everyone on the island died. She didn’t go into much detail, so as long as all of the bodies were somewhere on/near the island, it would work. Normally that would be a flaw, but if Michael and Walt come back, I could see it happening. Charlie couldn’t wash out to sea though, he’ll have to wash back up on shore and be buried, I suppose.
posted by Beth on 8-23-2007 at 9:40 pm
Palmer, I really think you are on to something. What do you think about the flash forward scenes in the finale? Do you think the “future” Jack and Kate are stuck with these weird “past” island memories? And who was in the coffin?
posted by CassiusClay on 8-24-2007 at 7:09 am
Naomi and Locke’s dad both confirmed that Oceanic 815 was found 4 miles under the ocean and that, offically, there were no survivors. To me, that says there was a cover-up of the fact that the passengers of Oceanic 815 survived. Ben and the others would have the most incentive to cover that up, so that their island doesn’t get found if people go looking for the plane. I just hope we find out how he has the resources to fake a plane crash wreckage.
I really don’t think time travel will factor in the big picture of the show any more than with Desmond’s stories. I think this because Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindeloff said so in one of their podcasts.
Walt hasn’t returned to the island… it’s been heavily hinted that he has a power akin to “The Shining” and can astrally project himself.
As for Jack’s dad and other dead people popping up on the island, I find it more plausable to believe that the smoke monster is either a shape shifter or can reanimate the dead bodies. That was heavily implied in the episode when Eko died (Yemi says “you speak to me as if i were your brother”, then disappears, then the smoke monster appears and beats Eko to death.
posted by Howard H su on 8-24-2007 at 7:54 pm