LOST: 815 Contradictory Theories...Only 23 today
My favorite show on TV is the brilliant, emotional, intellectual, puzzling, gutsy LOST. It's a really smart show that bears up under repeated viewings; in fact, you get more out of it the more you watch the episodes. It's both a character show and plot-driven show. It's a show about each individual character's inner conflict. It's also a show about how each individual meshes or clashes with the others around them. It's a show about faith, science, reasons, coincidences, fate, choices, starting over, redemption, time, mistakes, and oh-so-many other things. It's really a show you have to spend time with to get the most out of it.
Since it's a thinking show with lots of mysteries that it sets up, it's also a show where every two seconds I come up with a theory to explain whatever current mystery onscreen. However, none of the theories I have explain everything, and many of my separate theories completely contradict each other. Some of the theories probably contradict things the writers have said about the show. So, for fun, here's 23 LOST theories I have bounced about in my head at one time or another:
23 Contradictory LOST Theories, February 2008
1.) The black smoke monster is a cloud of nanobots that can coalesce into physical manifestations of anything or anyone it wants.
2.) There are multiple parallel alternate universes, and the island is a meeting point for these universes.
3.) In one parallel universe, the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 actually did die.
4.) If Desmond can change the past, we could potentially go back in time and save people who died like Charlie.
5.) Desmond did change the past already, and in the original version, everyone on Flight 815 died...so everyone will die at the end of the show when the universe corrects itself.
6.) Walt caused the plane to be sucked towards over the island, because the island recognized he was special.
7.) The immortal-like "others" are people from the future.
8.) The immortal-like "others" are androids.
9.) The island is real, but everything on it is a virtual reality construction. The survivors were reconstructed after the crash and had computer chips implanted in their minds to try to figure out what they want. So they are basically rats in this giant experiment/rat cage constructed out of their collective consciousness.
10.) The survivors that we know from the crash all died, but the island created android bodies that were so real, it is as if they are alive. The same goes for those who were in the hatch. Don't ask me why certain other people who die seem to (mostly) stay dead.
11.) The people on the plane were mostly handpicked to crash as some sort of experiment or test by some sort of a long reaching conspiracy that crosses multiple corporations and offices. Death of some or all of the survivors was an acceptable risk.
12.) Libby was part of a conspiracy that involves one or more of the people on Oceanic Flight 815.
13.) Once you have been on the island, you cannot really leave the island.
14.) The Adam and Eve skeletons of the first season will end up being someone we know due to some sort of weird time travel/time loop.
15.) Completely ignoring that the writers say this is a science fiction show and everything can be explained by science, how about this one: the island is the original Garden of Eden cut off from the rest of the world. The immortal-like "others" are actually other beings that used to live amongst us mentioned in the Bible, like those who came and walked amongst men (were they called seraphim?--the details escape me). The island holds the metaphorical Tree of Life and can revive the dead or cause immortality; it also holds the Tree of Knowledge which can cause good and bad things to happen as people start to know themselves and others. Also, somehow God or a god-like being fits into it (references to Jacob here might fit this theory, along with and biblical imagery).
16.) The island's magnetic fields unlock certain parts of our brains that we do not normally use, causing alarming effects like people to be able to self heal their bodies through their own belief and psychic abilities to manifest or be strengthened.
17.) The events on the island are manipulated by a human who has basically unlocked super powers that are dormant in most people's brains. R.E.M. sleep or drugged states can increase the effects of communicating with the island, so obviously natural mind barriers make it more difficult for the psychic behind the Island to communicate.
18.) Hurley isn't dreaming the island, but Jacob is. He is like Alice in Alice Through the Looking Glass when they see the sleeping king. There is this interesting point where Alice wonders who is dreaming the world...Alice or the slumbering king? The idea is that all of Wonderland depends on the dreamer continuing to dream, but the question is...who is dreaming this world and us? What happens when they wake?
19.) The dolls, trucks, and other toys seen around the island belong to Annie and Ben when they were growing up.
20.) The island is an intensive experiment in human rehabilitation, meant to try to save or redeem criminals.
21.) Anything that someone does off the island or before the crash is irrelevant. The crash kind of wiped the slate clean, so actions taken post-crash are more important to the Island (whatever/whoever it is) and its moral compass.
22.) An early group on the island dabbled with genetic experiments, creating the immortal-like "others."
23.) Women are barren and babies die on the island because the island wants to remain in control of all new life.