mesrob
04-12-05, 09:09 PM
Hi, newbie here obviously. I've read all the rules and guidelines and searched through the theories but I think my theory is unique enough to be branded new, maybe not though. If someone else has come up with all this too or something really similar and posted it, I apologize, I didn't find it. Anyway, my theory contains minor spoilers about past episodes, so if you don't want to know anything about already aired episodes or don't want to be spoiled on the off chance that any part of or all of my theory is right, turn away now, don't read any more of this post.
SPOILERS
Still reading? OK then, here it goes.
I think the island is alive, but there's much more to it than that, hence the new theory post.
The black/white theme seems to be pretty significant. One side seems to focus on death, while the other side seems to focus on life.
If you try to leave the island, it will kill you, this is probably connected to the "black" part of the island, since black is typically associated with death although it might be opposite, which side does which isn't as important as the fact that the two sides exist.
The other part of the island will try to give you life, but only if you don't fear it. Fear will lead to death, acceptance will lead to life.
Only by canceling both sides out can one remain dead (i.e. not be reanimated like Jack's dad) or avoid being killed by the island. This is why the two skeletons were laid to rest with a black object and a white object. There seem to be a few exceptions, for example, it seems that if the island kills you, or if someone on the island kills you, you'll stay dead.
If you died (or were injured) before coming to the island, the island will give you new life/heal you. The drug runner/fake priest may have been dead before his plane crashed, but he was also wearing a black and white outfit (the traditional black priest garb plus collar).
It appears that there are people that are in charge of keeping the island happy, or maybe maintaining it's "intelligence". It also appears that the island will influence any group (by what seem to be coincidences, but may not be) to split the groups into two sides. One side will focus on accepting fate as the island gives it, while the other side will refuse to accept it and try to escape...and therefore be targeted for death either by the island death side or by the "accept fate" side. At the same time they'll be kept alive by the island's give you life side. Keep the island happy and you'll live regardless of which side you're on, but try to leave or show you're afraid of it and you're dead.
Why does the island attempt to kill (directly or indirectly) those that try to leave? Again this comes back to the two sides to everything theories. Part of it might be that those in charge of creating the island don't want anyone but those they personally select to know about it. Part of it might be that for the island to function properly there must be equally opposing forces at work, if one person is added, one must die or if one person dies, one must be added to replace them.
Now people like Ethan and the pilot dying may seem to dispute that, but remember that we know there are other people on the island. So what if opposing forces are canceled out that way? For every "accept your fate" person that dies there is an "I refuse to accept this fate" person that dies. Now you may mention that Boone died and Claire's baby was born so that doesn't work. But then you must remember that Claire was kidnapped for two weeks and then mysteriously back with absolutely no memory of what happened. What if the "accept your fate" group and/or the island maintainers used that time to sort of program the baby to be an "accept it" member of the island? Then
the canceling opposing forces would still work.
And then you might bring up the fact that a bunch of passengers on the plane died, and what about that agent that was escorting Kate? Well, they died in the crash, the island killed them, so either the island knew exactly which passengers to kill to keep the balance (unlikely) or since they died in the plane crash, the island technically didn't kill them, and/or they died before they got on the island, therefore as far as the
island's concerned they don't count in the grand scheme of balancing sides. But then what about
the people that died soon after the crash? Guy gets sucked into engine, air marshal dies. That's
two. Pilot gets eaten by monster...Ethan dies. The deaths always come in even numbers, not necessarily
on the same day though. Canceling out to keep a balance.
Also, for any deaths I'm forgetting about that make the death count an odd number, remember there are others on the island, so there's a chance one of those people dies if/when only one of the people we know of dies.
Why does the island cancel out opposing forces? So that everything works in harmony. Everything must have a balance. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If the island is man made, then surely as impossible as this island may appear to be, maybe it still has to have that type of balance to be able to give or take away life. To quote the Lion King, the island must still maintain the "circle of life".
The island can kill people on it's own (Boone, Pilot), just like it can give them life on it's own (e.g. Locke's
'rebirth'/Jack's Dad) but usually it influences people to force them to make a choice, either directly via the monster or indirectly by influencing the actions of those who have accepted it as a god. For example, the island influencing Locke by taking away his leg use so that Locke would then manipulate/force Boone to make a choice of whether or not to go to the plane. Boone then decided by his own free will to use the radio, so the island killed him. My hunch is that if Locke had actually told Boone to try the radio directly, it would've been a different story.
Whoever it was that hit Sayid over the head probably knows at the very least that the island will kill anyone who makes a choice (out of their own free will) to try to leave.
I'll be interested to see how it plays out when the raft sets sail, my gut tells me that the members of the boat will not be able to be affected by the island when at sea, but they'll make a choice to turn back and take their chances on the island, which would probably have the effect of the island not killing them for leaving, since they ultimately chose to come back. There's
that canceled out effect again.
How/why these particular people got onto the island is still a bit of a mystery, well a lot of one, but I believe each of them was manipulated/influenced strongly enough in the real world either directly or indirectly by people who created the island. The catch was that every single person on that plane had to get on by making the choice on their own. No one could force them on the plane. But they could be influenced. More on why the free will had to be in effect later.
How could they be influenced to make such a choice? By the island creators/maintainers guiding or forcing people to influence the eventual passengers. The island creators couldn't force the passengers, but they
could certainly force people to strongly influence or manipulate the passengers.
For example consider:
Boone and Shannon - the guy Shannon hooked up with to con Boone MAY have been manipulated by/
connected to the island creators
Michael and Walt - the guy that was Michael's wife's new husband MAY have been manipulated by/
connected to the island creators
Sawyer and Jack - how did Jack's dad die? I missed that part if it was ever explained. What if the character Robert Patrick played manipulated Sawyer and Jack by first getting Sawyer to kill that guy and then having someone kill Jack's dad, or maybe Jack's dad was in on it. Could be that Sawyer and Jack having any connection is actually just a coincidence, but maybe not.
Air Marshall and Kate - the thing in the safe deposit box which led to the crime which led her to that flight was a small toy/model plane. I'm betting the guy who owned the toy plane originally (who she knew) was a big part of the island creation or at least definitely manipulated by them.
Boone and Sawyer - Boone saw Sawyer in the police station, maybe there was a connection there, maybe not.
Claire was with child - the psychic suddenly changing his mind and convincing her to get on the plane when he knew no one would be at the airport. Psychic powers maybe. Contacted by island creators after
Claire visited with him (maybe before she dropped by too) I'd bet definitely. How'd they know she was going to go to that psychic? Remember her friend convincing her to do so? Hmm.
Woman who's name I can't remember who said the monster sounded familiar, like something in the city and her husband - don't know her back-story yet, but I'm almost positive her husband is still alive and that someone connected to the island influenced them to make the choice to get on that plane.
Jin and Sun - don't remember the back stories of each enough to theorize much, but Sun's dad seems the likely candidate of being contacted by island creators.
Charlie - I can't remember enough of his back-story off the top of my head to cite non-coincidences, but I bet they exist.
Hurley - Hurley got the numbers that are on the hatch of the island. The connection of how he ended up
there is the most obvious one. He got the numbers from the island itself, coincidence that the lady
who's husband knew the numbers was the original source or was she contacted by the island creators, perhaps both?
You'll notice that almost all of those can be paired by connections. Hurley and Charlie are the exceptions
at the moment but I bet future flashbacks will pair them each with another castaway. I didn't see Locke's first flashback episode so I can't comment on that but I bet there's another castaway connection coincidence for him too as well as someone influencing him to take that flight.
The island is all about balance, creating and keeping harmony, it's a living island but only because some
shadowy group created it. Now it is a man made god. I think the experiment is seeing how these particular people who seem to be randomly picked (but were actually carefully picked) would function living with the known existence of a god that can actually know what you do and what you've done and influence your actions all while keeping the idea of free will intact.
What my theory ultimately boils down to is this -
Question: How do you prove the existence of a God that can know all about you, kill you, give you life,
and influence your actions all while keeping free will intact?
Answer: You create one.
Why the free will requirement all over the place? In the traditional Christian cultures humans having free will is a gift God gives humans. Without free will, there would be no actual life. Everyone would be
like a machine, doing only what they've been allowed or told to do. (This is a very basic summarization of that concept, and I don't know enough about other religions to comment on their traditions).
In Lost, that man made god is the island. The crash survivors and the others on the island are now the island god's people whether they want to be or not. The island god is man made so it obviously can't create people in it's own image or anything like that, so people have to be brought in. Every now and
then someone gets there by accident (i.e. the drug runner, the French lady and her crew...or were they picked to be there too? )
That's all I've come up with, and of course I reserve the right to be whole or partly wrong.
Also, I'm new and while I did read the rules, I may not have understood entirely and just thought I did. If I did anything incorrectly, I apologize.
SPOILERS
Still reading? OK then, here it goes.
I think the island is alive, but there's much more to it than that, hence the new theory post.
The black/white theme seems to be pretty significant. One side seems to focus on death, while the other side seems to focus on life.
If you try to leave the island, it will kill you, this is probably connected to the "black" part of the island, since black is typically associated with death although it might be opposite, which side does which isn't as important as the fact that the two sides exist.
The other part of the island will try to give you life, but only if you don't fear it. Fear will lead to death, acceptance will lead to life.
Only by canceling both sides out can one remain dead (i.e. not be reanimated like Jack's dad) or avoid being killed by the island. This is why the two skeletons were laid to rest with a black object and a white object. There seem to be a few exceptions, for example, it seems that if the island kills you, or if someone on the island kills you, you'll stay dead.
If you died (or were injured) before coming to the island, the island will give you new life/heal you. The drug runner/fake priest may have been dead before his plane crashed, but he was also wearing a black and white outfit (the traditional black priest garb plus collar).
It appears that there are people that are in charge of keeping the island happy, or maybe maintaining it's "intelligence". It also appears that the island will influence any group (by what seem to be coincidences, but may not be) to split the groups into two sides. One side will focus on accepting fate as the island gives it, while the other side will refuse to accept it and try to escape...and therefore be targeted for death either by the island death side or by the "accept fate" side. At the same time they'll be kept alive by the island's give you life side. Keep the island happy and you'll live regardless of which side you're on, but try to leave or show you're afraid of it and you're dead.
Why does the island attempt to kill (directly or indirectly) those that try to leave? Again this comes back to the two sides to everything theories. Part of it might be that those in charge of creating the island don't want anyone but those they personally select to know about it. Part of it might be that for the island to function properly there must be equally opposing forces at work, if one person is added, one must die or if one person dies, one must be added to replace them.
Now people like Ethan and the pilot dying may seem to dispute that, but remember that we know there are other people on the island. So what if opposing forces are canceled out that way? For every "accept your fate" person that dies there is an "I refuse to accept this fate" person that dies. Now you may mention that Boone died and Claire's baby was born so that doesn't work. But then you must remember that Claire was kidnapped for two weeks and then mysteriously back with absolutely no memory of what happened. What if the "accept your fate" group and/or the island maintainers used that time to sort of program the baby to be an "accept it" member of the island? Then
the canceling opposing forces would still work.
And then you might bring up the fact that a bunch of passengers on the plane died, and what about that agent that was escorting Kate? Well, they died in the crash, the island killed them, so either the island knew exactly which passengers to kill to keep the balance (unlikely) or since they died in the plane crash, the island technically didn't kill them, and/or they died before they got on the island, therefore as far as the
island's concerned they don't count in the grand scheme of balancing sides. But then what about
the people that died soon after the crash? Guy gets sucked into engine, air marshal dies. That's
two. Pilot gets eaten by monster...Ethan dies. The deaths always come in even numbers, not necessarily
on the same day though. Canceling out to keep a balance.
Also, for any deaths I'm forgetting about that make the death count an odd number, remember there are others on the island, so there's a chance one of those people dies if/when only one of the people we know of dies.
Why does the island cancel out opposing forces? So that everything works in harmony. Everything must have a balance. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If the island is man made, then surely as impossible as this island may appear to be, maybe it still has to have that type of balance to be able to give or take away life. To quote the Lion King, the island must still maintain the "circle of life".
The island can kill people on it's own (Boone, Pilot), just like it can give them life on it's own (e.g. Locke's
'rebirth'/Jack's Dad) but usually it influences people to force them to make a choice, either directly via the monster or indirectly by influencing the actions of those who have accepted it as a god. For example, the island influencing Locke by taking away his leg use so that Locke would then manipulate/force Boone to make a choice of whether or not to go to the plane. Boone then decided by his own free will to use the radio, so the island killed him. My hunch is that if Locke had actually told Boone to try the radio directly, it would've been a different story.
Whoever it was that hit Sayid over the head probably knows at the very least that the island will kill anyone who makes a choice (out of their own free will) to try to leave.
I'll be interested to see how it plays out when the raft sets sail, my gut tells me that the members of the boat will not be able to be affected by the island when at sea, but they'll make a choice to turn back and take their chances on the island, which would probably have the effect of the island not killing them for leaving, since they ultimately chose to come back. There's
that canceled out effect again.
How/why these particular people got onto the island is still a bit of a mystery, well a lot of one, but I believe each of them was manipulated/influenced strongly enough in the real world either directly or indirectly by people who created the island. The catch was that every single person on that plane had to get on by making the choice on their own. No one could force them on the plane. But they could be influenced. More on why the free will had to be in effect later.
How could they be influenced to make such a choice? By the island creators/maintainers guiding or forcing people to influence the eventual passengers. The island creators couldn't force the passengers, but they
could certainly force people to strongly influence or manipulate the passengers.
For example consider:
Boone and Shannon - the guy Shannon hooked up with to con Boone MAY have been manipulated by/
connected to the island creators
Michael and Walt - the guy that was Michael's wife's new husband MAY have been manipulated by/
connected to the island creators
Sawyer and Jack - how did Jack's dad die? I missed that part if it was ever explained. What if the character Robert Patrick played manipulated Sawyer and Jack by first getting Sawyer to kill that guy and then having someone kill Jack's dad, or maybe Jack's dad was in on it. Could be that Sawyer and Jack having any connection is actually just a coincidence, but maybe not.
Air Marshall and Kate - the thing in the safe deposit box which led to the crime which led her to that flight was a small toy/model plane. I'm betting the guy who owned the toy plane originally (who she knew) was a big part of the island creation or at least definitely manipulated by them.
Boone and Sawyer - Boone saw Sawyer in the police station, maybe there was a connection there, maybe not.
Claire was with child - the psychic suddenly changing his mind and convincing her to get on the plane when he knew no one would be at the airport. Psychic powers maybe. Contacted by island creators after
Claire visited with him (maybe before she dropped by too) I'd bet definitely. How'd they know she was going to go to that psychic? Remember her friend convincing her to do so? Hmm.
Woman who's name I can't remember who said the monster sounded familiar, like something in the city and her husband - don't know her back-story yet, but I'm almost positive her husband is still alive and that someone connected to the island influenced them to make the choice to get on that plane.
Jin and Sun - don't remember the back stories of each enough to theorize much, but Sun's dad seems the likely candidate of being contacted by island creators.
Charlie - I can't remember enough of his back-story off the top of my head to cite non-coincidences, but I bet they exist.
Hurley - Hurley got the numbers that are on the hatch of the island. The connection of how he ended up
there is the most obvious one. He got the numbers from the island itself, coincidence that the lady
who's husband knew the numbers was the original source or was she contacted by the island creators, perhaps both?
You'll notice that almost all of those can be paired by connections. Hurley and Charlie are the exceptions
at the moment but I bet future flashbacks will pair them each with another castaway. I didn't see Locke's first flashback episode so I can't comment on that but I bet there's another castaway connection coincidence for him too as well as someone influencing him to take that flight.
The island is all about balance, creating and keeping harmony, it's a living island but only because some
shadowy group created it. Now it is a man made god. I think the experiment is seeing how these particular people who seem to be randomly picked (but were actually carefully picked) would function living with the known existence of a god that can actually know what you do and what you've done and influence your actions all while keeping the idea of free will intact.
What my theory ultimately boils down to is this -
Question: How do you prove the existence of a God that can know all about you, kill you, give you life,
and influence your actions all while keeping free will intact?
Answer: You create one.
Why the free will requirement all over the place? In the traditional Christian cultures humans having free will is a gift God gives humans. Without free will, there would be no actual life. Everyone would be
like a machine, doing only what they've been allowed or told to do. (This is a very basic summarization of that concept, and I don't know enough about other religions to comment on their traditions).
In Lost, that man made god is the island. The crash survivors and the others on the island are now the island god's people whether they want to be or not. The island god is man made so it obviously can't create people in it's own image or anything like that, so people have to be brought in. Every now and
then someone gets there by accident (i.e. the drug runner, the French lady and her crew...or were they picked to be there too? )
That's all I've come up with, and of course I reserve the right to be whole or partly wrong.
Also, I'm new and while I did read the rules, I may not have understood entirely and just thought I did. If I did anything incorrectly, I apologize.