This is the first of (probably) three blog posts I’ll be writing in the run up to the premiere of Lost’s sixth and final season. In this post, I’ll be considering some of the mythological mysteries of the show. In the next post, I’ll have some considerations about individual characters. In the final post, I’ll make some general predictions on where I think the show will go in the final season, and the ramifications of the enormous cliffhanger that ended Season Five.
Spoilers for the first five seasons ahead!
Adam and Eve
This is one of the show’s earliest mythological mysteries: the two skeletons discovered in the caves in season one. One man, one woman, in possession of a pair of stones (one black, one white). Apparently, they had been dead for forty to fifty years. However, we’ve never gotten any information or even a further mention of them, and in light of what we’ve seen in the past five seasons (particularly season five), it’s not terribly surprising that the Island was inhabited fifty years ago. Like… duh. Even so, I have a feeling this will be revisited. But I don’t expect the revelation to be at all earth-shattering or even all that important, mythologically speaking. It’s possible (scratch that—probable) that the skeletons belong to characters we already know, and it’s likely to be one of the show’s beloved couples (Sun and Jin spring to mind, as do Des and Penny). However, wouldn’t it be just like Lost to throw us a curveball and have Adam and Eve be two characters who aren’t romantically linked, but just happened to die together in the cave area?
Ilana’s Group
Ilana’s group is apparently unknown to Ben and hostile toward Widmore, but they are known to Richard and also to Jacob, so this makes me think that they are loyal to Jacob. In this sense, I think that they are a secret offshoot of the “Others.” My guess is that, prior to the DHARMA Initiative’s presence on the Island but after the crash of the Black Rock, Ilana’s group (and possibly Ilana herslef) had to leave the Island under Jacob’s orders (quite possibly because he needed to keep them safe so that they would be prepared for the role they’ll play in Season Six). As for what Frank is a candidate for, this could simply be induction into their group, but I have a feeling it’s something more important. I can’t wait to see what, though, Frank’s awesome.
The “Rules”
Numerous references are made to “the rules.” There are “rules” which stipulate that the Others cannot murder one another on penalty of death, which Ben claims do not apply to Juliet. There are “rules” which govern the conflict between Ben and Widmore, which Ben claims Widmore has changed via Keamy killing Alex. There are “rules” which govern space-time, which Faraday claims do not apply to Desmond. What any of these really mean is up in the air, and whether the three refer to a single set of “rules” that we have yet to hear about, or whether they are entirely separate, all three need clarification and I can barely begin to speculate on any of them. With one exception: It’s possible that the rules don’t apply to Juliet because, unbeknownst to her, she was never really fully initiated into the Others, and so if nothing more is said on that topic it won’t be a terribly loose end.
The DHARMA Initiative
We know a lot about the day-to-day operations of the DHARMA Initiative, thanks to Season Five, but there are still some larger mythological questions that remain. While The Lost Experience (an interactive online ARG produced during seasons two and three) delved into the organization’s history and structure, this information is at best incomplete and at worst non-canonical (Damon and Carlton have not always adhered to information from the ARGs, with the DHARMA recruiting project being particularly dubious). We still don’t know what the DHARMA Initiative really wanted with the Island, how they built the Lamp Post Station that allowed them to find the Island, and whether they continued to exist past the Purge. If not, why was there a supply drop in season two?
The answer to the final question, at least, seems kind of easy: the off-island component of the DHARMA initiative was the victim of a hostile takeover by the Others under either Charles Widmore or Ben Linus. This is suggested in the highly amusing “Mysteries of the Universe” mockumentary feature on the Season Five DVD and BluRay. Although this is also of dubious canonical merit, there are clues in the show that point toward this fact, primarily Eloise Hawking’s access to the Lamp Post station and the strong off-island presence of people working for Ben Linus. After all, why would the Others wipe out the on-island component of the DHARMA Initiative and leave the off-island component (including its powerful benefactor Alvar Hanso, and its founders Gerald and Karen DeGroot) still operative, and still capable of coming to the Island?
Speaking of the off-island component, I have to wonder about the fate of the DeGroots and Alvar Hanso. Part of me thinks that we won’t hear much more about them, but another part of me thinks that their fates, along with further information about the DHARMA Initiative’s origin and purpose, could be revealed in Season Six. I don’t think it’s likely to rock the foundation of the show, by any means, but I think we’re going to find out more about Faraday’s work in Ann Arbor, which is where the DeGroots are based. Also, Alvar Hanso is obviously a relative of Magnus Hanso, the first mate of the Black Rock (and whose journal Charles Widmore spent a considerable amount of money on). This is an area where they may throw us a bone or two, but again, I think it’s going to be peripheral to the main narrative of the show, and that we’re pretty much done with the DHARMA initiative as a major part of the show’s mythology.
The Black Rock
As I mentioned above, I don’t think the Hanso connection is going to amount to much, but you can bet we’ll see the Black Rock and get its story. The ship that appeared in the opening scene of the Season Five finale was almost certainly the Black Rock, and I have a strong hunch that when we learn Richard’s origins we’ll learn that he first came to the Island on that ship. Perhaps Ilana was on it as well. I won’t do too much speculating on how exactly that story will go, because we don’t have many clues as to how the Black Rock wound up inland.
Like the DHARMA Initiative, though, I think the Black Rock will be used as a plot device rather than a major revelation about the core mythology of the Island. The Black Rock will turn out to be simply another vessel that, very much like Oceanic 815, wound up on the Island and brought its own group of castaways.
The Others
The Others are another mystery from the show’s early days, and although we’ve seen them in action and learned a bit about who they are, a lot of the more fundamental questions about them remain utterly unresolved. What is the origin of the Others, and what is their purpose? What do they want? I think the answers to these questions are all relatively simple. The Others are Jacob’s people. In the season five finale, Man #2 chides Jacob for always bringing people to the Island, and it seems obvious to me that Man #2 is referring to the Others. Throughout history, Jacob has brought lots of people to the island, including the crew of the Black Rock and also the Losties. Possibly also the DHARMA Initiative and maybe even the US military, but also possibly not. The Others are composed of the people Jacob has brought to the Island, their descendants, and their recruits.
What is their purpose? Well, it seems to me that Jacob simply wants them to be his stewards of the Island, and he wants them to be happy. I have a feeling that the real reason for the existence of the Others is that Javob wants to create a Utopian society on the Island (in contrast to Man #2, who cynically derides this project). What the Others want is simple: to carry out Jacob’s utopia project and to be left alone by the outside world. However, sometime between 1977 and 2001 this became problematic because it became impossible for them to have children, which led to their seizing the DHARMA Initiative’s resources for the purpose of facilitating contact with the outside world.
One of the most perplexing questions about them is the whispers. The Others seem to control the whispers, but the whispers seem to be something more than… well, just whispers. Perhaps this is a special power given to them by Jacob for the purpose of intimidating intruders.
The Monster
Like most of Lost’s mysteries, the monster needs a nuts-and-bolts explanation like Jack needs anther flashback episode about his strained relationship with his dad (ie, not at all). What we really care about are its purpose, its origin, and its loyalty. There’s a part of me that thinks that it’s simply a security system that protects the Island in general and its more sacred spaces in particular (ie, the Temple), and that it’s basically non-sentient. There is, on the other hand, another part of me that thinks that the Monster and Man #2 are one in the same. This theory is based on the notion that the Monster manifests itself as dead people, something that Man #2 has also been seen to do (in the case of Locke).
There’s a particularly vexing problem related to the Monster that may be either a continuity error or a major mythological issue: the fact that the monster appeared to Locke during Season One as a bright light rather than a cloud of smoke. The real-world reason for this is probably that the producers didn’t have a concrete idea of what the monster was during the early stages of Season One. However, this discrepancy was later referred to in a conversation between Locke and Eko in Season Three. And during the same season, Kate and Juliet saw BOTH the Smoke and some intermittent flashes of light. This means that, even if this was initially a continuity error, the producers have kept the discrepancy in mind as the mythology has solidified.
So here’s my crazy theory: there are two monsters: a Smoke Monster and a Light Monster. This is in keeping with the dark/light imagery that was prominent in Season One and suddenly gained renewed importance in the end of Season Five when we saw Jacob (in white) and Man #2 (in black). So I think the Smoke Monster either is, or is closely associated with Man #2, and the Light Monster with Jacob. Of course, this could be a load of nonsense, and I’m not aggressively insistent upon this, but it seems plausible to me.
Connections (and Numbers)
The numbers have often been touted as one of the core mysteries of the show, but I think that’s a load of baloney. The Numbers aren’t an answerable mystery. The Lost Experience provided some additional information about the Numbers (that they are the coefficients in an equation which predicts the end of the world), but that’s hardly an “answer” to them. That’s nothing more than another instance of their mysterious appearances! It certainly doesn’t explain why those numbers bring bad luck, win contests, have to be entered into the computer in the Swan station, or why they keep appearing all over the freaking place.
I think we may get a bit more information on the numbers, but I don’t think we’ll get a nuts-and-bolts “answer” as to how they are proliferated throughout the continuity (ie, something akin to the rather silly answer to “Bad Wolf” in Doctor Who) because deep down we already know the answer to the Numbers, and it’s the same answer to the mysterious pre-crash connections between the Losties: destiny! These little things are nothing more than easter eggs signaling the mysterious force of destiny that the Island exerts over the lives of these individuals.
I expect we will learn a bit more about how that destiny operates, and it may provide some additional explanation for the Numbers and the mysterious connections, but let’s face it: no explanation, no matter how comprehensive, is going to explain why the numbers appeared on the dashboard of Hurley’s Camaro. That’s a sign of destiny. Destiny is one of the central tenets of the show, and you simply have to buy into it if you’re going to buy into Lost. There’s really nothing more to it than that.
Ancient Stuff
The Statue. The Ruins. The Temple. The Wheel. All of these things clearly predate the Dharma Initiative and even the Black Rock, (with the possible exception of that wheel, but the chamber in which we find it is clearly quite old). We’ll learn more about these things, but ultimately I don’t think it’s going to be all that important. I think all of this stuff is actually rather like the DHARMA stations: there’s a fascinating story behind them, but ultimately it just ends up being the story of a bunch of people who came to the Island, found its mysteries, and made their mark there, either in an attempt to use the Island’s power or to worship it. Just as the Orchid Station was built atop the Wheel Chamber, the Wheel Chamber was built atop something far older and more important to the show’s mythology: the energy pocket. The same goes for the Temple: it’s not the Temple itself that’s important, it’s the far older reality the Temple was built atop (both literally and metaphorically). So while I think we’ll find out some more about the ancient civilization that’s responsible for these structures, we’ll learn that they’re incidental to the Island rather than fundamental parts of its mystery, and are in that sense very much like the crew of the Black Rock, the Dharma Initiative, and the survivors of Oceanic 815.
In fact, I predict that a lot of the preceding questions, which once seemed to be part of the core mythology of the show, will either fade to the sidelines or be used as plot devices in the story of these characters, while we get down to core mythological elements of the story: the conflict between Jacob and Man #2, and the nature of the Island.
Jacob and Man #2
What are Jacob and Man #2? Gods? Angels? I think there’s no way to provide a straight answer to this question without making it seem really silly. I think the show will show them in action, demonstrate that they are powerful, immortal, mystical, supernatural beings, and let us draw our own conclusions as to what we should call them. This has actually been a running element of the show: the people we call the “Others” and the entity we call the “Monster” haven’t been given official names, and probably never will. These are just the names that the Losties have come up with. Likewise, we won’t have a particular name for Jacob and Man #2, although I wouldn’t be surprised if terms like Gods, Angels, Fates, Demons, Genies, Prophets, Sages, or whatever get thrown around.
The binary opposition between them is going to be important, but I also think that the show is going to frustrate our attempts to peg one as good and the other as evil. I think the natural tendency is to see Jacob as good and Man #2 as evil, and the show will probably foster our sympathy for Jacob. But we’ll see that Jacob has done some pretty bad things, and Man #2 will make a pretty good case for why he deserved to die.
It seems, though, that Man #2 has won by killing Jacob… but obviously that’s not quite true, or Season Six wouldn’t have much of a conflict. As we learn more about Jacob’s past and how he’s operated on the Island, I think we’ll learn that he has planned for his own murder. Perhaps he will return from the dead, or perhaps he will be replaced. I think both are equally likely, but since we know so little about him and Man #2, I don’t think I can say much more that won’t be baseless speculation. However, I will baselessly speculate that the Island is their prison (Man #2’s, and Jacob is his warden), and I fully expect that some non-specific references will be made to a vague entity that outranks them.
By the way, I don’t think Man #2 is named Esau. It’s too obvious.
The Island
The core mysteries of the Island are many, but let’s start with getting in and getting out. Why is it so difficult to leave the Island, and why is it so difficult to get back? Why do you need to follow a specific bearing, and why do the Oceanic Six need to recreate the crash to get back? Why is the Island invisible to the outside world (except for a second when Desmond activates the fail-safe)? This is another one of those areas where we shouldn’t expect specific, technical answers. Part of the answer, clearly, is because the Island can move, but it’s probably because the Island is intentionally hidden. The most appropriate question, then, isn’t how the Island is hidden but why, and by whom? Is it hidden for its own protection from the outside world, or vice versa? Is seems to me that it’s Jacob who wants the Island hidden, and it seems to me that it’s because he wants the Island to be left alone by the outside world, which is why he carefully chooses the people that he allows to come to it.
Another mystery about the Island is the strange powers that it has, which seem to be born of a combination between electromagnetism and magic (or perhaps the two terms are roughly equivalent in this show). The powers include the power to heal, but also the power to make people “sick” and also, at some point in history, a power that disrupts pregnancies. And of course, there is a power that manipulates the space-time continuum, and control people’s “destiny.” These powers, too, are unlikely to be explained in any sort of technical way, but we may learn more about the conscious entity that commands this power. Is it Jacob, or Man #2, or both, or is there a consciousness of the Island itself? Characters have mentioned that the Island can “want” things, and this has not always been conflated with what Jacob wants.
So what is the Island? Honestly, I have no real idea. During the early seasons of the show, some fans thought it was an afterlife, but that doesn’t make much sense in light of Season Four and Season Five. It is, however, clearly a very special place. EWs Doc Jensen thinks that it is a manifestation of an older way of looking at the world, that was once much larger, but has shrunk as we began to rely more on science, skepticism, and cynicism. I’m not sure I agree with this, but I think it’s the kind of explanation we’re looking for. I used to be pretty sure that the Island was just a place that happened to have lots of mysterious phenomena, but I’m starting to think that it’s something of grand, epic significance, like the primordial home of mankind, or a place that is closely tied to the destiny of all humankind, not just the characters who come into contact with it.
Hurley Bird
Why is there a bird that appears to squawk Hurley’s name? This is one mystery I think we’re better off never knowing the answer to. It would simply be too shocking for the fans to handle, I’m sure.
The next post will consider some more character-specific mysteries (I’m looking at you, Libby! Kind of). See you then!
