And In This Corner ...

It’s been awhile since I actually “thought” about LOST and possibilities for the future, but like the show, in order to think about the future, one must first go to the past.

If you are up to date on what is happening both on and off the island, you know the O6 need to go back to the island because as Jack put it “a lot of bad stuff happened” after they left. At least that is what Locke as Jeremy Bentham tells him. Ben tells Jack that in order for them to go back, they all have to go back, even Locke. That’s why I have suspicions that the coffin in the picture I posted previously is in fact Locke’s coffin and not Christian’s. When we see Jack way back in season one destroying the coffin in the White Rabbit episode, it looks to be made of dark wood. In comparison, the coffin that we see now looks is lighter, perhaps even made of metal and not wood. Anyway, the message is clear, they have to go back. Jack wants to back, Ben seems to want them to back, before his death Locke said it had to happen, so how come they left in the first place? Well aside from the fact the O6 wanted to, and Ben said they were allowed to, there’s one other part to the equation that wanted them to leave. That other part that I can only describe as a part of the island itself is Christian and Claire. Locke never saw Jacob in the cabin when he was told he had to move the island. Christian told Locke that he, Christian, could speak for Jacob. Possibly, and I think I have said this before, is because somehow whatever power Christian has on the island took control, if only for a few minutes, away from Jacob. So if it had been Jacob speaking to Locke I don’t think the message would have been the same.

The message to “move the island” was accepted by John and then carried out by Ben via the frozen donkey wheel. Now, I don’t think Ben actually thought that the O6 were really going to be able to leave the island. Or possibly, Christian and Claire, I include Claire here because I believe she is either dead or she has been corrupted by the power Christian has and the two of them are working together against Jacob. Perhaps the Christian influence thought that Locke would be the one to turn the wheel and he would be gone from the island and not Ben but Ben actually sacrificed himself and turned the wheel and removing himself from the island. I also feel that somewhere in the past that it was Widmore who turned the wheel and that is why he cannot “find” or go back to the island. Think about it, if you were Widmore and you wanted to find the island and get back and could actually do so, wouldn’t you be on the freighter? The fact that he was not means to me that he couldn’t have gotten to the island even if he was on the freighter.

So far the sides are: Ben and the O6 and I’m going to put them with Locke and the rest of the others as well as the rest of the “left behinders” against Widmore and his faction that I include Christian and Claire in as well. I don’t know exactly what the “power” Widmore may share with the Christian and Claire duo but it definitely seems to be in opposition to Jacob. That means that Jacob is to be included on the side of Jack, Ben, and the O6. Locke definitely has a connection to Jacob, and if it is Locke’s message that they (the O6) have to go back, then that is what Jacob, and at least part of the island, wants. The fact that The Widmore/Christian/Claire faction does not want the O6 to return is supported by the dream that Kate has at the end of last season. Claire tells Kate when Kate finds Claire in Aaron’s room that she should not bring him back. That’s not just because Claire thinks it will cause Kate to stay away from the island, it’s because they don’t want Aaron back on the island either. Why wouldn’t they want Aaron to be back on the island is something I haven’t figured out yet but it has always been in the back of my mind that Aaron has a bigger part to play and this will be played out in the final two seasons. In the bible, Aaron is the great-great grandson of Jacob. He was also described as “special” by Richard Malkin (the psychic). Originally, Claire was to go to California so a couple could raise Aaron in L.A., interestingly, later Jack and Kate become a couple in L.A. and for a while, they raise Aaron together. It is also mentioned to Claire that Aaron must not be raised by another. Perhaps we have a play on words here perpetuated by the writers and produces themselves and the actual message was to be that Aaron could not be raised by an “other”. Foretelling the attempted kidnapping by Ethan and the “others”. I see the psychic returning at some point in the story.

Let’s go back to the island moving and being thrown around in time. We know that time is not “right” on the island. Daniel comments that the light doesn’t spread properly, and through his experiments finds out the island is more than a half hour different than the time on the freighter. The island was a behind but then the doctor is killed by Keamy and the body floats onto the island before Keamy even kills him back on the freighter. So, yeah, time is sort of trippy on the island. Time and direction, remember the compass that couldn’t find true north? The headings that Ben tells Michael to follow is 325, in order to find rescue. Later, the headings are 305 for the freighter to get to the island. Time and the island are indeed, for lack of a better word, slipping ever since the hatch imploded and the sky turned purple. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say the island is slipping through time.

If you are like me, you love a good time traveling story, as long as it’s done well, that is. If done correctly, in my mind anyway, the past happenings we have seen on the island including the crash, the hatch implosion, and possibly even some of the deaths may be moot in the future of the show and in the islands ongoing mythology. Of course all of this could be changed simply by the one wild card in all of this and that of course is the writers having something at their disposal called an “anomaly”. If something doesn’t seem to work or make sense all of it could be simply explained away by writing it off as an anomaly. This can work for and against us, or even them. Us, in that it will give us a lackluster conclusion to the show, and the writers, in that they will rely too heavily on this “get out of jail free” card, but the writers have shown in the past that they know where they are going, it just took a little while to get there. So it’s obvious we will have a little Deus ex Machina, but that’s to be expected, as long as it’s not done as a cheat.

Where does all of this lead us? Well, after the wheel is turned by Ben, the island disappears. Ben “moved” the island. I’m still on the side of the fence that says that Ben moved the island in time and not in space. So why did it disappear, I mean think of it this way, if you put something on a table and you leave it there for 30 years (and if you know me, this is a definite possibility!), in order to mark the passing of time we have something called photographs. In those pictures the item on the table is always there. Through pictures of Christmases , birthdays, anniversaries, and anything else there may be to document proof of the items existence and location. Well, this item, in my very rudimentary example, is the island. And I forget where I was going with this… oh okay- SO… the island has some sort of cloaking device, again I call it that for lack of a better term that is destroyed when the key was turned by Desmond. Turning the wheel is sort of a reset button for the island. Ben turns the wheel and the island jumps back in time and the hatch is still there with the computer as well as someone down there pushing the button every 108 minutes to keep the island protected. So yeah, the island disappeared, but only from view. And yes the island moved in time. Go back to the item on the table, if in one Christmas picture Uncle Herb and Aunt Wanda are standing in front of the table where the item is and you can't see the item, did it disappear? No, it's just blocked or cloaked, like the island is and you can't see it in that particular picture. But it is there.

What does the move in time mean then? The island is now back in the 1970’s during the time the island was populated by the DHARMA Initiative. So that means that our Losties that are the left behinders are now either going to be DHARMA (as seen in the pictures of Hurley, Jin, Sawyer, and Jack) or they are going to be hostiles (Richard, Locke, Miles, Charlotte and others). This is of course after the O6 get back to the island which could mean that the O6 themselves will go back in time and be able to course correct the islands fate. This is how Locke is dead in a coffin in L.A. at the end of last season and he is alive and well on the island. No matter what Locke is alive in the past, we can’t change that, and he is dead in the future, that can be changed. Which is the whole point of the O6 going back to the island. Oddly enough what Jack says is “We have to go back!” back to the island as well as back in time, not that he knows he is going back in time but just a little "wink wink" from the writers. Also something very possible since we have those very useful anomalies. Suddenly they are useful and not pesky. "Fate is a fickle bitch."

One thing we probably won’t have to worry too much about is something called the “butterfly effect”, I mean how could things end up worse. Okay, I take that back you never want to challenge “worse” but this is a chance our Losties will definitely be able to take in their attempt to make everything better. Fixing something or someone is exactly what Jack likes to do. Sometimes, he is even good at it. He has a huge job before him but, and I know you never thought you would hear me say this, he is the perfect candidate for the job. He will figure it all out. Just hope he doesn’t do in in perfect Jack fashion and figure it out a few minutes too late. And now looking at it, maybe I should have picked a better picture if i really wanted to get my point across.

So the past is the future and the future is the past. What does all of this lead to? I’m glad you asked! What we have here is Charlotte and Faraday, who know exactly how to stop the purge. The purge was executed by the Others led by Richard and Ben using the Tempest station to gas the DHARMA initiative. We have seen Charlotte and Daniel disable the Tempest station, perhaps this is one of those anomalies that will stay and the purge won’t be able to happen because the Tempest is still going to be disabled. Maybe it already is disabled when it comes time for the purge to happen in the future. Which leads to one more thing; if the Losties, the Others or Hostiles, and the DHARMA Initiative can all find a way to coexist on the island then Jacob could be either Locke or Jack and even Ben could still be on the island (look for Sawyer, Hurley, and even maybe Jack meeting Ben as a child on the island sometime in the future) but not wreaking havoc as in the past and is able to see the error of all of their ways and a true breakthrough happens. The island is as it was always meant to be, the last true Garden of Eden on Earth.

The Garden of Eden had Adam and Eve and way back in season 1 we saw “Adam and Eve” in the caves. Many theories have poured out as to who these people were when they were alive. There is one person in particular I have not mentioned yet in this whole thing. Sun. We saw Sun walking away from Widmore at the end of last season after making an odd proposal to him. It would seem that she is trying to work with him to get back to the island. My thoughts is she is really working with Ben and the rest of the O6 attempting to dupe Widmore and leading him on a wild goose chase while Ben and Jack make their move to get back to the island. This won’t go as easy as it sounds, we know the show by now and nothing is ever “easy”. But if Ben knows that Jin is alive and well on the island, and in tel tells me that he does, this is all Sun will need to know to make her want to go back. If and when she goes back, she will of course bring her and Jin’s daughter Ji Yeon. Wasn’t it Boone who told Locke that he had to “bring the family back together”. Lot’s of family to bring together. Jack and his lot, as well as Jin and his family, including the child he has never seen. Remember, on the island, all children are “special” in some way and it will be the same for Ji Yeon. So therefore, could Adam and Eve be Aaron and Ji Yeon?