Something clicked last night.. that made me rethink the entire plot-line..

The island with all the sideways/backward/forward time-lines could be a hell/purgatory/heaven scenario, or it could be reincarnation, or even all of them in a collective comma.. but these sideways lives are too resolved not to be a result of some serious personal struggle and resolution.

Maybe Ben, as a child, never killed his father. He just wanted to so badly at the time, that his imagination took over and made him the king of the Others... but in fact he was just a simple kid who ended up a high school teacher caring for an old man at home.

Maybe Claire was never captured in the jungle and threatened with loosing her baby. Maybe she was just so torn about giving her child up, that she imagined how lucky she was to be able to conceive when so many women cannot, and how protective she really felt towards her unborn child and that the thought of someone else raising him would drive her mad.

Maybe Jack was just an over-working dad that felt guilty about neglecting his son, but he needed to resolve his father issues by imagining himself chasing his dead corpse around a haunted island, before he could show his son some real love.

Maybe Locke just needed to resolve being in a wheelchair, and somehow blamed his father for how he was, so he satisfied the entire walkabout craving in order to learn to accept his handicap and return to his wife a less bitter man.

Maybe the island was only a split second in time , a near-death experience on a flight from Sydney, that woke the people up to who they really are!

The writers have previously stated that the Losties are not dead and the island wasn't purgatory.

The writers have previously stated that the Losties are not dead and the island wasn't purgatory.

At one point they also stated there would be no time travel :rolleyes:

lundi mentioned death and purgatory, byt her actual theory involved the island only existing in the losties imaginations.

I think it's likely symbolic of purgatory or the Underworld. Many ancient cultures believed the underworld to be a place between worlds/lives. So, in that case, sure, why not? I don't think it's literally a purgatory or hell or heaven anymore than I think Jacob and Smokey are Jacob and Esau or Satan and God. Maybe one of the great things about Lost is that the viewer is free to draw whatever parallels that fit best for them.

At one point they also stated there would be no time travel :rolleyes:

I think at one point they said no paranormal and no parallel universe.
100%
Something clicked last night.. that made me rethink the entire plot-line..

The island with all the sideways/backward/forward time-lines could be a hell/purgatory/heaven scenario, or it could be reincarnation, or even all of them in a collective comma.. but these sideways lives are too resolved not to be a result of some serious personal struggle and resolution.

Maybe Ben, as a child, never killed his father. He just wanted to so badly at the time, that his imagination took over and made him the king of the Others... but in fact he was just a simple kid who ended up a high school teacher caring for an old man at home.

Maybe Claire was never captured in the jungle and threatened with loosing her baby. Maybe she was just so torn about giving her child up, that she imagined how lucky she was to be able to conceive when so many women cannot, and how protective she really felt towards her unborn child and that the thought of someone else raising him would drive her mad.

Maybe Jack was just an over-working dad that felt guilty about neglecting his son, but he needed to resolve his father issues by imagining himself chasing his dead corpse around a haunted island, before he could show his son some real love.

Maybe Locke just needed to resolve being in a wheelchair, and somehow blamed his father for how he was, so he satisfied the entire walkabout craving in order to learn to accept his handicap and return to his wife a less bitter man.

Maybe the island was only a split second in time , a near-death experience on a flight from Sydney, that woke the people up to who they really are!

Like a "significant emotional event" that wakes a person wake up to what they have. I don't know how they would write it so that all the Lostie's had the same one, but I think this is plausible.

I think at one point they said no paranormal and no parallel universe.
100%


Like a "significant emotional event" that wakes a person wake up to what they have. I don't know how they would write it so that all the Lostie's had the same one, but I think this is plausible.
yes... it wakes some people up, but at the same time digs others deeper into their bitterness and unresolve. I think that the Sideways parts are gluing all of that together for us slowly.. so we can see how their lives really did intertwine in real life, however slightly but not insignificantly. Locke only met Jack for a moment at the lost and found.. but what Jack said to him and offered him, was huge. Ditto the other way around... what Locke said to Jack about his father, was a momentous eye-opener.

I think you can know people all your life, and they make no real impact on you, and yet a stranger can come by and make a silly comment, and it changes you forever. I can think of a few instances like that in my own life.

Thinking about the other characters...

Hurley with his fear of winning the lottery.. survives a plane crash and goes on to enjoy his win.. all his fear of the numbers gone.
Rose reflects her deep desire to be with her husband forever, and realizes that even if that came true, some day they both will die... that death is inevitable.