Damon & Carlton's admission in the last podcast that the decay of the compass, and its "chicken or the egg?" paradox question of how did the loop start / which came first, makes me wonder if the plot of the story is to show both "Whatever Happened, Happened" to get a time loop going, perpetually, between 1977 & 2007... and "Free Will Throws Rocks" as a way to BREAK that loop, during one rotation. A causal loop in the plot will be dissatisfying to many viewers, in the same way that "you can't change the past" and "your actions are ineffectual to alter the future" are unsatisfying to those making the actions. But if we assume a loop eventually has a start (and in the case of Lost, we may not ever understand what that is), and if we assume WITHIN that loop that some "wiggle room" is allowed (the "variable actions" that may or may not be "course corrected"), is it possible that, after one "big wiggle" (say when enough variables line up in the right direction), the loop could be broken? And what would that look like?

Furthermore, is the tarnishing of the compass supposed to signify the constantly increasing misery our characters share in each iteration of their own loops, as they act out this story again and again? They're never aware they've been through this before -- no more so than the compass is -- but there may be an increasing amount of "entropy" in their lives, that cumulates in the "big wiggle" this time around.

For the record, I'd rather not see an alternate timeline created for season 6; nor would I like to see our characters finding they CAN alter events, in this way. I'd much rather see them accepting the world as it has been, and will be, and how they change THEMSELVES in response.

I don't know about anyone else, but every time I try to think about how the rust on the compass comes and goes, I break my brain.

I don't know about anyone else, but every time I try to think about how the rust on the compass comes and goes, I break my brain.

Isn't there 2 compasses?

Isn't there 2 compasses?

I think there was a compass back in Season 1 that Locke gave Sayid because either "it doesn't work anymore" or Locke said he didn't need it anymore.

I wonder if there is supposed to be some connection between these two compasses? Would be interesting... but (yet) another tiny Lost thread that may or may not come back into play.