Questioning LOST

So here's the things I'd like to know. Some of these will likely be answered in Season 6 but most probably won't unless Damon and Carlton publish some compendium of LOST trivia after the show ends. Nevertheless, as I rewatch the entire series to date over this hiatus, I'm going to collect these questions. After the series ends, we'll see where we stand.

I've decided to color code my questions. Red is for really, really important. Orange is less important, but I'd really like to know. The rest I'll settle for no answer, but still inquiring minds want to know.

1. Are Amelia and Amy the same person?
2. How did Ethan become an Other?
3. Where did Karl come from?
4. Why couldn't Desmond sail out of the influence of the Island?
5. What happened to the Elizabeth?
6. Why the Viking funeral for Colleen?
7. What force (good/bad/Jacob/Smokey/etc) was manipulating Locke's dreams and Smoke Lodge visions and also keeping him from walking and talking?
8. What was the Pearl's original purpose since it seems to predate the Swan and the Incident at the Swan?
9. Was Jacob communicating with Ben as Leader of the Others and if so, how?
10. How many polar bears were there?
11. Was Tom part of the original DI? Of Widmore's Others?
12. What is the deal with the Island pregnancy problem? When did it start?
13. Why did Mittelos go after Juliet? What is Ben's obsession with her including an explanation of the painting?
14. Who created the Room 23 video and to what end exactly? Who has undergone it's application?
15. Flashes Before Your Eyes established the existence of a time loop. When does it start and end and who is aware of reliving it? Does Ellie's statement to Penny at the hospital establish that the loop has ended once 316 returns to the Island?
16. Why mark Juliet in a place no one can see?
17. Cindy and the kids and the other Tailies taken -- what's the deal?
18. When did the Purge occur?
19. Why exactly do the Others have such a superiority complex like Mikhail when talking to Kate and Pickett's attitude to Sawyer?
20. Are things like Kate's horse and the cat named Nadia on the Island because of Jacob? The Man in Black? Are these coincidental occurrences how Jacob and MIB interact with the "players" on the Island?
21. When and how did Carol Littleton's coma end? (I hope it was Jacob.)
22. What the heck makes the Others (like Mikhail) have such faith in their magnificent leader (presumably Jacob) despite never having seen him?
23. How did Tom get off and back on Island post-purpling? And was he the one who brought Cooper to the Island? If not, who did and when?
24. What's the story behind the blond woman with the guinea pig painting in Ben's house.
25. Were Desmond's visions during his flashing period true or lies, especially the flashes when Naomi lied given that he saw both Charlie die and Charlie holding the parachute?
26. Why do Locke's legs stop working at times on the Island?
27. Who told Ben to have the Others build a runway?
28. Who/what was Taller Ghost Walt?
29. Who besides Christian Shephard was in the cabin when Hurley saw it in episode 4.1, and why did the cabin move?
30. What is the deal with the changing photo frames in the house Miles first ghostbusts?
31. What is the deal with The Whispers?
32. What caused the horse to intervene in Kate's escape and why is the same horse on the Island?
33. Was Kate hallucinating or did something inhabit Sawyer to make him seem like Wayne?
34. Did Ben get caught in Rousseau's trap on purpose? If not, where was he going?
35. What is the deal with the injections -- those given to Claire; those in the Swan?
36. Why did the Others want Aaron, but not Claire?
37. How do the food drops at the Swan work?
38. How do the people that Ben had Sayid execute, like Peter Avellino fit into the story? Same with Abaddon. How did he come to work for Widmore?
39. Why did Kelvin and possibly Radzinsky pull the whole quarantine charade in the Hatch?
40. How does Penny's encounter with Desmond at the LA track jive with their encounter in The Constant?

Why The Bomb Going Off Does Not Negate Five Years Of My Viewing Pleasure

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

This is the normal story. At every point in our lives we make choices and based on those choices we end up with one continuous timeline. We're born, to these parents, with these siblings, we go to this school, then this college, then marry this person, and have these children. We live here and then here and eventually we die.

But most of us have wondered what if? What if I'd gone to a different college? Chosen a different major? Gotten that other job? And those are the choices we control. What about the ones we don't like what if I'd been born on a different continent? Had different parents?

But what's the point in playing the what it game? We don't get do-overs. We make the best of what we have and press onward, perhaps with regrets and the capacity to make up for them or move past them, but not the ability to undo time.

But that's the beauty of fiction. I think we're going to get to see what happened had we chosen the road not taken. Well, not us, but Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, etc. But it's not going to take 5 years to tell that story because most of the choices they've made, and we've watched, aren't the ones they want to do over. Most of the choices will be the same. 

But there's one thing or a few things that might make all the difference in the world and I think those are the things we'll get to see a second time in Season 6. We may even get to see them the exact same way we did in Season 1 with a crash on the Island and flashbacks to show us who these people are. I don't think it'll go quite that way. I think the more likely way is to show us the new choices and then crash to end it all. But either way, it won't result in unrecognizable versions of Jack and the rest of the 815ers, but they will be altered or at least have the opportunity to be altered. The question will be do they always do the same thing or will they take the road less traveled and chose as Jacob encouraged them.

Kate's Timeline Changed Too?



In "The Incident" when Kate is caught by the shopkeeper for shoplifting she is approximately 12. According to Lostpedia Kate was born in 1977, and according to Tom and Kate's recording in their time capsule it was then 1989. In "What Kate Did" we learn that Kate's parents divorced when she was 5. And at some point after that Diane marries Wayne Janssen becoming Diane Janssen.

But in "The Incident" the shopkeeper refers to Kate as Diane Austen's kid. Not Diane Janssen's. Now, I know this doesn't prove that things have changed for Kate because maybe it took old Wayne a while to pop the question. Nevertheless maybe it has changed. Maybe Wayne doesn't marry Diane leading to his death and Kate's perpetual fugitive status. Maybe Kate is able to do what Jacob told her to, that is "to be good."

So What Happened In "The Incident?"



Update: Thanks to Gitsie Girl for this screencap! Boy what a great finale. I really enjoyed watching it. I really enjoyed re-watching it. And I even like the idea that I have no idea what could possibly happen next.

One thing though seemed to be clear. Jack failed to prevent "the Incident." Before the bomb could go off the Incident occurred. The pocket of magnetism was breached and was uncontrollable resulting in a catastrophic injury to Chang's arm and the need to create the button pushing protocol. Fitting that Radzinsky, the one that created the Incident was subjected to years of button pushing monotony to the point of insanity and ultimately suicide. Well, that's how it would have worked if the fall had killed Juliet.

Because the second thing that seems clear is that Juliet blew the dike. I think what Juliet did was the equivalent of what Desmond did at the end of Season 2 when he turned the failsafe key. But I don't think the result will be the same. I don't think we'll see a naked Juliet running around the jungle. Sorry guys, but you can rent Gia if you feel the need to see that.

Instead I think what will happen is what did happen in part in Flashes Before Your Eyes in that those close enough to the dike being blown will have memories of their futures as they live their lives from some point in the past. In Desmond's case his 1995/6 body post fall off a ladder contained memories of the Island. While it's not clear if the cricket bat to the head stopped that for Desmond, I'm not convinced that it did. I think the reason Desmond training for the Race Around the World knew that Jack fixed Sarah because he remembered that on Island Jack told him he'd fixed Sarah. This deja vu is imperfect, but I think it is nevertheless present as this scene demonstrates.

So what does this mean going forward into 2010 and Season 6 where Destiny will be Found? I think Flight 815 will crash on the Island. It won't be because of the Swan, it will be for some other reason, but the universe will course correct and bring 815 down on the Island. I also think that the people we find on the plane will not be the same sad lot we first found on September 22, 2004. I think at least part of the flashbacks we saw in The Incident demonstrate that the 815ers have made different choices. The most obvious is Jin and Sun.

In Season 1, Episode 17 In Translation we saw Sun and Jin on their wedding day.



Sun was changing out of her wedding dress into her reception dress. You'll notice both of these are dresses with straps. You can also see that Jin was in morning dress.



Now here's what we see in "The Incident."



Strapless wedding dress and different suit. And different reception dress.



It also looked like during the ceremony that Jin had relatives there. Is this Mr. Kwon?





Finally all I want to know is if it's 2010 yet? While I have lots of fun things to do between now and then, I can't wait for it to get here. Until then, I'll get out my Flannery O'Conner and try to stay lost.