The Theories: Fantasy Island (healing vs. infertility)

At the heart of the Fantasy Island theory is this tension between the island’s giving new life to the sick while denying life to the unborn and taking it from their mothers. Healing versus. Infertility. Is there a pattern to any of this? The Fantasy Island theory says no, that it is just an unintended consequence of the island’s unique properties. The Good vs. Evil theory wonders if maybe Locke was healed just he could play his particular role in the battle. After all, all of Locke’s mistakes derive from his need to feel special. That need went into overdrive when the island restored the use of his legs. Still, this post argues that the randomness of the island’s healing suggests a lack of sentient guidance.

The best example of the island’s powers is not Locke’s legs; it’s the disappearance of Rose’s cancer. Before coming to the island, Rose’s doctors give her only a short time to live.[1] But once arriving on the island, her cancer disappears.[2] Of course, the only evidence we have of her recovery is her own feelings, but then she is still alive, looking quite healthy, over three years later.[3] So we will assume she is cured. The faith healer she visits in Australia before boarding Flight 815 talked about certain spots on earth with energy pockets that can cure the sick.[4] Though we shouldn’t take anyone’s word on this show, especially potential conmen, he seems to give an accurate if imprecise explanation for the island. Rose and Bernard also speculate that her cancer will return is Rose leaves the island, though there is less evidence for that.

One reason Rose is so convinced her cancer has disappeared is because she is the one survivor to have seen Locke in a wheelchair in Sydney airport.[5] Then when she sees him walking around the island, she is convinced that the island is a cure for everything. She seems to be right and the Others, the people who have been on the island much longer, back her up.

After Locke’s leg is partially crushed by the blast doors,[6] Rose tells Locke it will not take 4 weeks for him to heal as Jack predicts.[7] Sure enough, a few days later he cuts off the spilt and walks without assistance.[8] Mikhail, the Other who himself won’t die, tells the survivors that Naomi’s lung wound will heal in a day and a half.[9] She does recover rapidly and is in great shape until Locke puts a knife in her back. Later, when Locke has been shot and once again faces the prospect of losing a leg, Richard, the oldest and wisest Other, tells Locke to keep the wound clean and the island will do the rest.[10] Lastly, Ben, the Others’ leader, tells Juliet that there is no cancer on the island…just before he himself gets cancer.[11] So, do you have to be a good person to experience the island’s benevolence?

The third prominent beneficiary of the island’s gifts is Jin. He was sterile before coming to the island but now Sun is pregnant with his child.[12] Juliet, the Others’ fertility specialist, tells Sun that the sperm count for men on the island is five times higher than average.[13] It is an interesting contrast for the island to destroy women’s ability to conceive while restoring a man’s virility. But is not necessarily illogical (ignoring the actual science). Juliet tells Ben that the problems seem to start at conception.[14] The body treats the pregnancy as a “foreign invasion”.[15] Please correct me if I way off, but I think in real life women’s bodies can attack sperm if not the actual zygote thingy. We do have to be a tad skeptical though, because Juliet gave that explanation while she was infiltrating the survivors for Ben; she needed a plausible story about an immune system suppressing serum in order to appear to save her and earn the castaways trust.[16] I do not think the Others have any idea what really prevents women from giving birth on the island and the only thing that saved Claire and Aaron was her getting pregnant off island. Of course, if that is true, why was Sun and Ji Yeon ok even though she did conceive on island? I guess whatever starts at conception, which might still be immune system based, goes away if one leaves the island early enough.

Overall, the island’s ability to heal is impressively broad. It is the miracle cure for the plague of the 20th century. It restores lost limps. And it helps men shoot straight again. It gives life, freedom and youth. But the consequences are random: seemingly all good for Rose and mixed blessings for Locke, Jin and Sun. If either Jacob or his adversary do control the island’s healing powers, or if it was always them and not the island, what were the motives for good or evil? With Rose, the good is that she’s a good person whose faith is rewarded. For evil, well, Locke never knows she was cured so it does not really affect him. With Locke, the evil motive was to fill him with pride so he was easier to manipulate. For good, it allowed him to help feed the castaways and he could have chosen the right path. With Jin and Sun, the good is it got Sun off the island and did result in a healthy daughter, further cementing their “special love.” For evil, it could have resulted in death of mother and daughter and maybe getting Sun off the island was part of the long con.

[1] “S.O.S.”
[2] “S.O.S.”
[3] “The Incident”
[4] “S.O.S.”
[5] Id.
[6] “Lockedown”
[7] “S.O.S.”
[8] “Three Minutes”
[9] “D.O.C.”
[10] “Because You Left”
[11] “One of Us”
[12] “The Whole Truth”
[13] “D.O.C.”
[14] “One of Us”
[15] Id.
[16] “One of Us”

The Theories: Good vs. Evil (the survivors' sins)

I just don’t see that much sin among the castaways. Sure, Sun committed adultery[1], a very traditional sin, and Charlie stole on top of his drug habit[2], but what did Michael or Walt every do pre-crash to deserve a stint in limbo? Ditto Claire, Rose and Bernard. Jin often risked himself saving the people he had been ordered to kill, even if he had to punch them in the face to do so.[3] Hurley was the nicest, least selfish lottery winner ever. Shannon lied and conned a little but were Shannon and Boone condemned for having consensual, adult sex?[4] Jack was just a workaholic and Locke a sad, lonely guy.

In sharp contrast, a not insignificant number of characters committed murder. Early on, it was imaginable that flashbacks would eventually reveal everyone to have taken life prior to coming to the island; call it Ten Little Gilligan’s. But that never came to pass. Among the castaways, murders remained a vocal minority compromised of Sayid, Sawyer, Ana Lucia, Kate, Eko and Nikki and Paulo. These are the people in need of atonement.

Sayid’s crimes are the toughest to judge. He tortured people, and he did so to advance his career, but he never appeared sadistic. He tortured suspected criminals in relatively banal ways: electrocution, nails under fingernails. Those are aggressive interrogation techniques, but probably do not crimes against humanity. The one murder that we know for sure that he commits pre-island is shooting and killing his superior officer.[5] It is an extremely sympathetic act from all viewpoints since it saved Nadia’s life. Still, it was an act of vigilante murder, the same type of act he later committed while serving as Ben’s assassin.

Sawyer committed the second pre-island murder by shooting Frank Duckett.[6] The killing would be more sympathetic if Duckett was the real Sawyer (in fact, the eventual death of the real Sawyer is very audience satisfying), but the dangers of revenge is that sometimes one shoots an innocent person. Either way, Sawyer flew half way around the world and shot down an unarmed man on the orders of loan shark. Ana Lucia similarly stalked and shot an unarmed man in cold blood, the only difference being that he was presumably guilty.[7] In their defense, Sawyer and Ana Lucia both thought they were avenging lost loved ones, Sawyer his parents and Ana Lucia her unborn child, taken in heinous crimes.

None of those three hold a candle to Kate’s advance planning for her murder of her step-father/father Wayne.[8] She herself denies that she killed Wayne to protect her mother or because he made advances on her. Rather, she killed him because she hated that he was “part of her.”[9] Killing someone because his existence is disconcerting would presumably not earn that person a spot on the good guys’ roster. Of course, when it comes to motive, no one holds a candle to Nikki and Paulo. Their crime had none of the others’ grief, guilt or justification; they killed a rich old man for his shiny diamonds.[10]

Lastly, Mr. Eko holds the record for number of victims pre-island. As a boy, first kills his priest to save his younger brother (and probably the other children in his village) from being kidnapped by the militia.[11] In the real world, duress is no defense to murder. Whether it is a defense on Jacob’s world is less relevant since Eko then murders two of his drug suppliers as an adult.[12] He kills another three while disguised as a priest.[13] They attack him first, but only after he makes other plans to sell their drugs, and he kills at least one of them well after the threat has passed.

It isn’t exactly clear how much sympathy the writers have for these characters crimes. For sure, those who killed are often called out on it by their follow survivors. Locke brings Sawyer to meet Anthony Cooper because Locke says he is not a murderer but knows Sawyer has killed.[14] Juliet calls Sawyer and Sayid hypocrites for judging her when they have both done terrible things.[15] Diane Sawyer tells her daughter that Kate killed Wayne for Kate’s benefit and not her mother’s.[16] And Sam Austen, the man who raised Kate, draws a contrast between himself and Kate by telling Kate that he never had murder in his heart.[17]

Despite their crimes, Kate, Sayid and Sawyer all escaped unarmed through the most of the first five seasons. What do we call a place where the worse sinners hang around longer? Sounds like purgatory to me. But my own evidence contradicts itself. Ana Lucia, Mr. Eko, and Nikki and Paulo do all die. The order of dead castaways goes: two unknown red shirts, Boone (maybe some light lust and anger), Shannon (light lying and stealing), Ana Lucia (murder of criminal/murderer), Libby (nothing known), Mr. Eko (six murders, questionable motives), Nikki and Paulo (one cold-blooded murder for profit), and then Charlie (slight stealing). I would love to hear a theory that explains those deaths in terms of their past choices. If the survivors are on the island caught between Jacob and his adversary’s battle of good versus evil, there seem to be a lot of stray bullets taking out innocent civilians.

[1] See “The Glass Ballerina”
[2] See “The Moth”, “Homecoming”
[3]See “…In Translation”, “The Glass Ballerina”
[4] See “Hearts and Minds”
[5] “Solitary”
[6] “Outlaws”
[7] “Collision”
[8] “What Kate Did”
[9] Id.
[10] “Expose”
[11] “The 23rd Psalm”- 2.10
[12] Id.
[13]
[14] “The Brig”
[15] “One of Us”
[16] “Left Behind”
[17] “What Kate Did”

The Theories: Time Travel (introduction)

In my Lost theory sandwich, if Good and Evil are the bread and the Fantasy Island is the meat, Time Travel is mustard. It’s that extra layer on top that flavors the whole sandwich. Time travel is almost a bridge too far. On this mysterious and powerful island, home to a pair of opposing, near god figures, we also have to contend with laws of physics being tested at every step? Well, it does keep things interesting. To explain it in one sentence, the Time-Travel theory assumes that future, on-screen actions of the central characters will ultimately account for past and current conditions on the island. It also has a strong sense of déjà vu that maybe everything we have seen since day 1 has been done before and this is the second or third time around for these characters.


Rewatching the series it is easy to see many instances of déjà vu in the first couple seasons, even if most are probably imagined. For example, when Jack, Kate and Charlie go into the jungle searching for the plane’s cockpit, the series’ first A mission, Kate says Charlie looks familiar.[1] He assumes, of course, that she recognizes him from Driveshaft. But since Driveshaft is later revealed as a middling one-hit wonder, would Kate really remember the face of a guy who wasn’t even the band’s front man? It’s a short trip though to seeing these moments everywhere. At the end of the first season, during their classic man of science vs. man of faith debate, Locke tells Jack that Jack does believe in destiny, he just doesn’t know it.[2] Locke is 100% right. But the fifth season, Jack will be a destiny true believer. Is just the writers articulating a theme? Or is anyone really going to be an argument that Locke knows what he’s talking about, that he knows Jack will be converted. Or do we spilt the difference and think Locke might not consciously remember having heard that conversation before, but he has an intuitive sense derived from constantly repeating the same chain of events?


I am going to leave with a question for the audience. Very early on, when the castaways discover Adam & Eve and Locke says the bodies must be 50 or so years old, did we have an initiative sense that these would be people we knew before? I feel like we had that sense if not immediately then at least by the middle seasons, certainly before the island jumped back in time.



Or is that totally my imagination?


[1] “The Pilot”
[2] “Exodus”

The Theories: Fantasy Island (Introduction)

The Fantasy-Island theory encompasses all the generally strange, quasi-natural phenomena on the island. The theory emphasizes the natural aspect of the island: raw forces unguided by a conscious being. It also emphasizes the no-free lunch concept; the island’s gifts do not come without a cost. The island’s healing powers and its curse of infertility lie at the foundation of the theory.

If the Good vs. Evil theory bookends the first five seasons, the Fantasy Island evidence is in the middle: seasons two and three. And if the show had ended after the third season, the Fantasy Island may have seemed persuasive, if not neat and tidy. It wasn’t an answer because there wasn’t a mystery, just an anomaly. The island has the power heal: a super immune system that heals the sick but as result makes it impossible for women to give birth.

The Theories: Goods vs. Evil (light and dark; island as purgatory)

Goods vs. Evil is on everyone’s mind as the last time we saw Lost a seemingly benevolent, God-like figure had just been killed by a seemingly malevolent, Satan-like figure as an end to their seemingly century-spanning battle for the souls of mankind. The show hit us over the head with the lights versus dark theme for the a couple early episodes and then it mostly disappeared until Jacob walked out of the jungle and watched the Black Rock arrive over a fishy breakfast only to be told by a man in black: I want to kill you.[1] It now seems nearly irrefutable that the events of the last five seasons have been guided by a battle between Jacob and Jacob’s his nemesis, who most people are reasonably calling Esau. Frankly, the whole: what if I told Jacob and Esau made a bet makes me think of a hackneyed screenplay probably staring Keanu Reeves.

Let’s take a step back. Locke’s speech to Walt about backgammon is a pretty big anvil: “There are two players. One side is light, and one side is dark.”[2] Adam & Evil, the two corpses found at the caves by the survivors, have stones in their pockets: one white and one black.[3] There are scores of other black and white pairings through out the show. The occurrences are listed over at Lostpedia, but for my money none are as obvious, or as heavy-handed, as those from the first season. By the middle of the first season though we have met all the main characters and none of them, despite past or future mistakes, are evil. Where is the dark at that point? The Others are soon introduced as the castaway’s counterpoints, but they are primal and animalistic more than evil, at least at first.

At the risk of inciting groans, I have to talk about the island as purgatory. We cannot contemplate a God versus Satan chessboard and then refuse to consider that board as a potential purgatory. Even if no one wants to call if purgatory, substance prevails over form.
The island as purgatory was the first wide spread Lost theory and the first explicitly refuted by the show’s creators. Several of the show’s inherent characteristics point that way. A group of people wake up after a life-ending event with some memory gaps, isolated in a very primal place, and then spend their time remembering regrets from their pre-island lives. Then they start dying off, some right after achieving closure. Purgatory, or any other afterlife based island, also answers a question asked by the survivors themselves: how did they all survive such a horrific plane crash? Sayid questioned it during the first few days on the island.[4] Locke also argues that it could not been just luckily that they all survived a major plane crash.[5] That’s the answer then: they didn’t. The question of their initial survival nags throughout the series. Christian Shepherd tells Sawyer they’re all in hell even before they board 815.[6] Anthony Cooper again tells Sawyer they’re in hell when he wakes up on the island following a car crash.[7] Finally, post-island, Hurley tells Jack that his living with Kate is must be Heaven.[8] The writers are probably just teasing us with half hearted attempts to keep the purgatory theory on life-support, but alive or dead, the theory is on their minds.

My personal objection is that purgatory requires the survivors all to be sinners and I do not think there is enough evidence for that. A show of hands for those who think a dead Hurley wouldn’t deserve Heaven? Putting aside heaven and hell and assuming the Jacob and Esau are having their battle on the mortal plane, why did these particular people get pulled into it? We are back asking the same question: where they chosen because they had sins to atone for? And how did Jacob and Esau draft their rosters?

[1] “The Incident”
[2] “The Pilot”
[3] “Housing of the Rising Sun”
[4] “The Moth”
[5] “Exodus”
[6] “Outlaws”
[7] “The Brig”
[8] “Something Nice Back Home”

The Theories: Introduction

I would prefer to jump right into a substance theory, but this morning I must settle for a quick introduction to what I mean by a Theory, as opposed to a Mystery.

When people discuss answers to Lost, what they want is an identifiable external text: Stephen Hawking's theory of time-travel or The Tempest. They want a mold in which all the pieces of Lost. This type of answer appeals to a particular group of Lost fans because it offers the possibility of solving Lost before other people and before the creators have revealed the entire board.

What other people want is just a unified whole: essentially a theoretical 10 page synopsis devised by the creators that answers all the unanswered questions that was written before the first camera rolled. That synopsis, if possessed at the “Pilot”, would make everything that proceeded it more accessible. The talent of the creators, or the success of the experiment, is measured by how complex the theory is actually is, how much of the actual plot it predicts.

For me, there are three possible grand theories for Lost. Or, more accurately, three broad frameworks in which to operate: Good vs. Evil, Time-travel and Fantasy Island. The next three postings will address each one.

The Mysteries: The Whispers, Part II

In an earlier posting I argued for a monster-central theory of the Whispers. I acknowledged in that posting that I was in fact ignoring a host of evidence pointing towards the Others as the source of the Whispers. I was referring to multiple incidents of the Whispers during the show’s earlier season that indicated, nearly indisputably, that the Whispers functioned as an early warning system of the Others’ approach. I am now ready to attack those early instances and show that the Whispers-Others connection was never that strong.

Sayid hears the Whispers before any other character. He hears them after being released from Rousseau’s bunker-slash-secret underground lair.[1] Earlier, when Rousseau had Sayid tied up under suspicion of being an Other, Rousseau associates the Whispers the Others.[2] She also admits she never sees the Others. In general, hanging out in Rousseau’s neighborhood leads to more interactions with the smoke monster than with the Others.[3] The Lost producers are at their most skillful when presenting information from sources we should know are unreliable, but we still trust to our detriment. We eventually get to see Rousseau’s only prior interaction with the Others, when a younger Ben kidnaps an infant Alex away from her. He warns her to run in the other direction if she hears whispers.[4] That is a hard piece of advice to explain. It makes sense as a piece of advice since the monster presents a grave threat while the Others could probably avoid Rousseau easily without scaring her away. The question is, why would Ben care if Rousseau lived or died? It’s more consistent with Ben’s character to give a grave warning to avoid his own minor inconvenience than to save a strange French woman. Though, Ben is capable of random acts of kindess and mercy. And he definitely fears and respects the monster, I suspect to an even greater degree than we have seen. Maybe it is in his benefit for two unstable forces like the monster and a crazy, grieving mother not to cross paths.

Sawyer is the next character to hear the Whispers. He hears them in the jungle while chasing after a boar that destroyed his tent and otherwise seems unnaturally obsessed with tormenting Sawyer.[5] Unlike other instances, the Whispers give a clear message: “it’ll come around.” Those are the last words of the man Sawyer murders in Sydney, mistakenly believing the man is responsible for the death of Sawyer’s parents. Sawyer committed his crime just prior to boarding Oceanic 815 and he realized immediately after pulling the trigger that he had the wrong man, so Sawyer’s only had a month to resolve his guilt. Who is a master of exploiting unresolved guilt? Well, probably multiple characters on the show. But definitely the smoke monster. Once Sawyer tracks down the boar that may or may not be a reincarnation of the man he killed, he lets it go unharmed, deciding it is just a boar.[6] Now, if it is just a boar, I don’t see why he doesn’t kill it for food like the many other boars the survivors cook up. And I don’t think sparing a big is penance for killing a person. But, I suppose it is character growth that Sawyer stopped from lashing out in anger and fear as is his nature. Maybe it was a test by something to see how easily he could be manipulated into killing something defenseless.

The two instances where the Whispers are most closely associated with the Others are both during the second season. First, when Cindy is kidnapped.[7] The Whispers cause Ana Lucia, Eko, Michael, Jin and Sawyer all to run into the jungle. At the same time, the Whispers help draw Shannon and Sayid into the jungle from their side. It ends with a violent collision: Ana Lucia shooting Shannon to death.[8] It certainly looks like a con used by Jacob’s adversary wanted to give the castaways a little push to fighting amongst themselves. He used the Whispers to bring the pieces together and put Ana Lucia under the threat of imminent attack. It certainly worked; it was one the few times a survivor directly took the life of another castaway and the only time it happened by accident.

The second occurrence is nearly impossible to explain away from the Others. Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley hear the Whispers before and during the Others’ successful ambush at the end of the 2nd season.[9] The smoke monster has no motive or means to be nearby except as an invisible cheering section. Lostpedia has a series of transcripts of the Whispers decoded using audio software, whatever that means. The transcripts make just the bare minimum of sense and are presented as conversations between a male and a female voice. Examples include: “She likes the guy, she likes the guy/Shannon/Your life and time is up/Help Me/Shannon, meet me on the other side”. Another example: “There’s Charlie/Go to Hell/Steadily/He’s trying here/Nothing yet/Now try him from here, okay/Those are the roles (rules) you accept/Go to hell/Nine/Where/Seven…”. And finally: “Where am I?/I need to protect the children.” Oh wait, that last one is Ghostwriter.

So, I find the idea of a disembodied uber-narrator, even if it is collective souls of all those departed from the island, to be stupid. It can explain all the whispers as a kind of inter-dimensional heckling occurring at moments of interest. That is consistent with some of the series’ themes of death, revival and time-travel, but again, that’s just stupid. This blog isn’t just positive theorizing, it’s normative too. Some explanations are more thematically satisfying than others, regardless of the ultimate revelation.

[1] “Solitary”
[2] Id.
[3] See “Exodus”, “This Place is Death”
[4] “Dead is Dead”
[5] “Outlaws”
[6] Id.
[7] “Abandoned”
[8] “Abandoned”, “The Other 48 Days”
[9] “Live Together, Die Alone”