I’d love to be a hater and tell you the writers really LOST our adoration during the finale but I’d be lying. I thought the finale was amazingly beautiful and everything I had hoped it would be.
For those of you hoping for more concrete answers in the final episode of Lost you have to realize that millions of people would never be satisfied no matter the answers given. The finale was ambiguous in certain ways to cater to your own spiritual and religious beliefs. Most of us loved Lost because of the characters and that’s exactly what they focused on in the end.
Some say that we make soul pacts with each other before we are even born into this world. Some say we can have multiple chances to come to earth as we try and become better and better each time. We pick our soul mates, our families, our friends..all in hopes that we can take the journey together.
Sylvia Browne and others talk about how our soul paths were chosen long before you were born. My point is this isn’t some brand new concept. This idea is important because it has to do with how the story played out the way it did. LOST is Jack’s purgatory and the characters around him we’re really in his life at one point or another.
Their essence and purpose remains with him in purgatory to continue to play out what Jack needs to learn in order to pass on. It’s not to say that this wasn’t the other’s purgatory as well, but Jack was the focus in the end.
You can think of the island as a hub for your spiritual body to defeat the ultimate enemy and enter the gates into heaven. In order to gain enough power to defeat this enemy, you have to learn how to truly love and live. None of these characters really knew how to do that before coming to the island. In a way the island makes me feel like perhaps we don’t just have lives on Earth but maybe we live out lives in various planes of existence in order to become true celestial and refined beings. Trippy eh?
The Dharma Intiative doesn’t just encompass the people on the island who were trying to “control” it’s power of destiny. “Dharma” also refers to the following: law, stages of life, religious texts, ethical conduct and righteous duty. This was a direct reflection on the purpose of Jack’s presence on the island- to control what he never could in his real life.
It would make sense that some people on the island were trying to find ways to control and manipulate their destiny or soul contract. Maybe they don’t have to defeat this enemy if they blow up the island. Maybe they can just go back to the way life was before they landed there. Maybe they can build a boat and sail away to safety. Maybe the electromagnetic burst will send them back to what they once called home. What they didnt realize is that they had a few more contracts to live out and these contracts would be decided based upon their choices on the island. If they made bad choices or still needed to learn other lessons, their “earth bound” lives changed to match them. These are the sideways stories.
In the finale, we jump down to earth (or in this case fly on a plane) hoping that we would somehow remember our original soul contracts with each other when we pass each other on the street. We hope that our souls will recognize familiar eyes and fall in love all over again. The fact is, there is no guarantee because you’re jumping into blackness and believing in non-tangible emotions in the midst of a million obstacles. This is the heart of LOST. This is the heart of LIFE.
Will these characters recognize the giant leaps they have taken for each other in their earthly bodies???? Will Jack be able to pass on because he’s lived the way he should? Yes. The bond was so powerful that it held together despite time and distance.
If you recall when the characters came together in the finale they touched each other and suddenly remembered who they were, what decisions they made and why they came back again. This is what was so touching for me because their bond was so powerful that they actually remembered the soul connection on the island. Don’t worry about wondering if they were truly dead or not. The spiritual side of us never dies and that’s the part that takes on our wisdom from this life. We could be dead right now and never know it. Death is always representative of change and moving to the next contract or phase of everlasting life. Yes, these characters could have been dead the moment the plane hit the sand in the season pilot. It doesnt really matter though because your spirit can go back and live as often as necessary until it’s ready to move on.
We always knew the island was some sort of cork between heaven and hell designed to test every last ounce of our character. Jacob says in an episode that the island is between both options so it leads you to believe that work must be done in order to gain access to the “heaven” concept. Some people believe that the reason we are on earth is to refine our souls for something as perfect as “heaven”. Let’s face it, we’re pretty rough around the edges and it’s not until we experience true wisdom that we can be better people.
A lot of viewers had a hard time with the sideways stories but these stories are what made this show extra special. You can say that perhaps the sideways stories were multiple attempts to live in “real” life with each other depending on these incestuous ever-changing soul contracts. In the end, the island gave them the ties that they were not given in their original lives; a redemption. This is why each sideway story changed from season to season. First we see Kate and Jack together and then they come back to the island and it changes again. Next we see Jack with a son and his ex-wife is Juliet. If you follow the stories through the season it mimics the need for redemption they felt on the island.
Jack felt terrible for the loss of Juliet and then he’s suddenly married to her in the next sideways story. As Sawyer progresses and becomes a better person he’s now a good guy detective in his sideways story. Claire realizes she misses her son and wants to be a mother and suddenly she’s pregnant with the chance again. The Oceanic airline was just like the boat taking you across the river Styx. It was a way for soul pacts to come into fruition and these people are just a few we were able to spy on during this process.
If you recall, the creators wrote the story with the computer game “Myst” in mind. Myst is a game where you are trying to find something on an island and opening doors and finding keys. Here is what wikipedia says of the game Myst: “Myst puts the player in the role of the Stranger, who uses a special book to travel to the island of Myst. There, the player uses other special books written by an artisan and explorer named Atrus to travel to several worlds known as “Ages”. Clues found in each of these Ages help reveal the back-story of the game’s characters. The game has several endings, depending on the course of action the player takes.”
Did you notice that Ben decided to stay behind? This is the only character out of the bunch who didn’t earn his stars so to speak. Ben did not grow the same way the other characters did and he was often wishy washy in many of his scenes vibrating from truly evil to sad and lonely. It’s not a surprise that he’s left behind to be a spirit sitting there….waiting…pondering…while the others are ready to move on. Some could say this was a hint at an earth bound spirit. I do believe the Lost creators welcomed the idea that this story could be taken in a very existential manner or a very hardcore time warping Gilligan’s island story. You can pick.
So, to all of you who worked on, acted on, wrote on, produced on, directed on and helped on the production of Lost- thank you for creating something powerful, meaningful and epic.
