Lost (Possible Spoilers)

Symbolism that resonates with the collective unconscious or just with the fact that the Christ story is so pervasive in our society doesn't mean the *story* is Christian. You can throw any sort of easily recognizable Christian symbol in there that you want -- and we all know they did* -- but that doesn't make the story Christian.

I suppose this is why the "all paths lead to God" thing at the tail end of the last episode irked me: Because so many (most?) of their religious symbols throughout the series were more Christian than anything else, and yet they never really understood the true nature of Christian faith (as opposed to other faiths). It's like being misquoted in an interview and the misquote stating a totally opposite view than the one you hold....

I don't mind good Christian symbolism, of course, but it felt a little cheap at times in this last season: as if they were playing off the emotional pull such symbols hold for a lot of people without having to do the legwork on actually making the symbols work beyond a gut reaction.

Also, as for faith being a main theme: Now that I've seen the finale, I'm left with a question: Faith in what? For Locke (the real Locke) it was faith in the island. In fact, that was a lot of the clash between Jack and Locke -- whether to have faith in the island or not. Jack thought Locke was crazy for most of that time, but we (who had seen the magical properties of the island in ways Jack wasn't piecing together yet) KNEW Locke wasn't all that crazy (well, except for blowing up the sub the first time and destroying the radio tower station, etc.). We knew there were good reasons to have faith in the island....

But was that the faith that was revealed in the final ten minutes? No - it was something far more mundane (in terms of storytelling). It was faith in friends, or love conquers all, or something else. I'm not sure we ever really did find out whether it was worth it to put one's faith in the island, because any old secluded island might have served the same purpose of bringing these people together to work out their issues.

And since everybody ended up in the same afterlife situation anyway, why bother with the distinction of faith in the island anyway?

Again, I feel as if they cheaply went for the lovely, serene images of our favorite Losties looking SO fulfilled and happy that we were left to wonder, "So should I NOT have cried with Hurley in that previous hour when he realized Jack was going to die? Because, honestly, who cares now? They're all dead here anyway and the playing field was a lot more level than we thought."

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*side wound, water/wine as a sort of Communion, Jacob/Esau twins, self-sacrifice to save others, Eko's walking stick, Jacob having a bunch of "disciples" that he sits and teaches (in the penultimate episode), etc. etc.

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I really just think people who are condemning the show, and pointing out all the things that didn't tie up, are setting boundaries for themselves. It's almost like they never wanted to be satisfied unless everything made complete and perfect sense. Well, my life doesn't make much sense to me at all. I'm constantly wondering about why we are all here, and what greater purpose there is in everything. Most of my reading comes from researching different world views and religions. If I can suspend my disbelief for the world that I live in, then I can certainly do the same for a T.V. show. Because just like Life itself, I love lost even if I don't know what the hell is going on.

The finale struck a high chord for me. It blended a lot of religions/views/philosophies and what not together. Sure, OTHER forms of entertainment have done the same before. But not exactly the same. Which is what made it special for me. I like to look for the positives in things, because that's what matters most in anything. Sure, there are going to be bad things, and things that don't make sense, but that is not what we as people find joy in.

I think everyone would agree with me if I said "the world would be a better place if people just tried to focus on the positives". Which is why it frustrates me when people seem to be blinded by the negative. Everyone has a different opinion, and I respect and understand every problem people have with the show. But if you look past those problems, that finale (especially the last 5 minutes) was beautiful.
There's also another point I would like to bring up, and it can be summed up in this quote:

"why are you scared to dream of God when it's salvation that you want?"

People say they don't like cheesy, happily ever after endings. But i think there is a little bit in every one of us that ultimately wants that for themselves. Would you rather die alone realizing that it's just going to all go black after your eyes close? Or would you rather die in a bamboo forest, with an old friend, knowing that you are about to see everyone you ever cared about again? I'm not trying to push views on anyone. I don't even know what my views are exactly. It's just something that really gets me thinking.

Whether you liked the finale or not. Whether you wanted all the questions answered, or was content with what we got. We are all fulfilling what the show is all about. It's about questioning things, trying to define right and wrong even though none of us really can. We post on message boards to offer up our opinion, in hopes that it will be taken for consideration by someone else. None of us want to be Lost. We want to be with the people we care about. The show has done it's duty, and it will continue to do so for many years to come.

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" I see in your eyes, the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, whe we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. May and hour of wolves and shattered shields before the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we Fight! For all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand men of the west!!"
-Aragorn: The Lord of the Rings the Return of the King

Oh I SO get you here (especially on the Eko example)! These are things a TV writer has to face that a book writer or even movie screenwriter likely does not.

However, they did it RIGHT with the Eko situation. I don't feel any loose ends regarding Eko's storyline. Not one bit. Bravo to them for circumventing what must have been a frustrating situation.

So why not do that with Walt? Surely there had to have been SOME way to solve that growth problem without just avoiding it altogether.

Again, I think how long-term TV writers solve problems like this can separate the men from the boys. I feel bad for these guys that their "mortality," so to speak, as writers is out on display for everyone like me to nitpick from afar. But such is the nature of fame, even behind-the-scenes fame. For that big wad of sweaty money you get, you open yourself and your work up to scrutiny.

Yes, I wanted them to earn their money on this one. In that final ten minutes, I don't think they did. Seems like they were SO CLOSE while they were writing that entire finale, and then what? the phone rang? somebody had to go put the laundry in the dryer? SO close....

FWIW, Seds, were you a "Six Feet Under" fan? Because that finale -- which also dealt with the deaths of its main characters -- WAS how it can be done flawlessly, IMHO. That ending almost MADE the entire series, it was so well done and thought out.

I did watch some of that show, and I liked it enough, but i did not get to see the finale. I hear it's one of the best finales of a show ever.

Also, I don't think Lost's finale was perfect - far from it, but I feel like they were able to distill what was important about the growth of the show's concepts into an emotionally engaging finale. They failed to extrapolate on a zillion and one tiny details about a place, but I think that worked because the show has always been about the characters first and the island second for me. This doesn;t mean I am not frustrated about a couple of the more pertinent and central mysteries that didn't get answered directly.

Something Darlton said in the regroup show before the finale stuck with me, in that they were sick of TV getting dumbed down and they wanted to go the other direction, perhaps making some stuff a bit too lofty or esoteric so people really had to work things out, or even do some additional reading/research. This is key to the failures of the pure storytelling (which DO exist) that you point out, but I think they know that would happen, and decided to make some sacrifices with the narrative in order to inspire their fan base to go out beyond the world of the story to investigate some of these philosophical concepts further. That aspect worked for me, and i did go out and investigate more.

This show has inspired me to learn more about religion (and Egypt/Phil K Dick/Valis/the list goes on) than any other piece of art - does that count for something?

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I can't answer about Aaron, that puzzles me too...but then most of the other people in the church also lived longer but they also appear as they were when they were on the island.

As for Desmond and Penny's son, perhaps he's still alive? or even if he was dead there's nothing to say you have to enter the afterlife with your parents. Maybe he would choose to go with his own children?

I feel as if you are misunderstanding what I'm trying to achieve by posting here, Uncle Rico. I am not here to emphasize the negative or ignore the positive. (I've mentioned positives throughout this thread, not just about the finale.) But this is where I also come to grind out the whys and wherefores of this show ... precisely because I love it and it's worth trying to rehash these things. I'm not here to gripe or complain for its own sake. Never! I think it's unfair to categorize us as "blinded by the negative."

It's frustrating to come here hoping to hear what others think about things that didn't make sense to me -- and initially hoping to get answers that would help me explain some things -- only to find that folks who liked it without reservation sound as if they want me/us to be quiet and go away. Folks have been rehashing Lost for six years, and that's a feather in its cap. There is no way I'm going to stop theorizing now just because there was an episode ending I didn't like and it happened to be the finale. That's unfair to expect Lost theorizing to stop suddenly just because you liked something and don't really wish to hear it scrutinized.

I'm not sure what your quote in bold meant. In a literal sense, I am not scared to dream of God! I fall asleep that way every night!

And I didn't say I don't like cheesy, happily ever after endings. I said I didn't like THIS ending because of some hackneyed elements. (Well, okay, I admit I don't like CHEESY endings of ANY stripe but happily ever after can ALWAYS be done well and I won't complain!)

Also, don't get me wrong: I don't mind that they ultimately showed us that everyone was happy after they died. IN THEORY that's fine. But they cut out SO much lifetime resolution with these characters -- cutting from the moment of Jack's death to everyone being dead many years/centuries later -- that just skipping over what were obviously going to be ongoing painful trials for these people they made us care about deeply, only to show them after their deaths with nothing in between seemed rushed.

I guess that's another way to look at this (which gives them a lot of credit for their excellent characterizations over the years): I cared about these characters so much, and they paced the DETAILS of this entire last season SO slowly that, to have a huge chunk of their lifetime-timelines just chopped off at the knees at 11:20 on Sunday night -- just to wrap it all up in a neat little bow by 11:30 -- felt like I was robbed of so much more good storytelling from these guys!

Ultimately, it's a compliment to say that I wanted MORE, not LESS. It felt as if there was an entire season missing between what was happening at 11:20 and what happened by 11:30. Hope that makes sense.

I do love this show -- still do. I'm not soured on it at all. I just wish I knew more -- because I could have easily figured out on my own (based on their theology) that the good guys would all end up happy together in the afterlife. The stuff I wanted them to show me was OTHER stuff, not that.

Also, I don't think you can extrapolate that, if life is confusing, the story's allowed to be confusing too. (Well, some stories are meant to be epistemologically confusing, but not this one. The confusion on this show stemmed from far more fun elements!)

I can live with both of those explanations. Dunno what the writers MEANT with those omissions (I admit to a certain curiosity about this from a writer's standpoint), but if they said what you wrote and that's what they meant, it'd work for me.

Aus I also agree with you wanting more. I can live with the people on the plane living out fairly normal lives, but the thing I would've loved to have seen and can now only imagine is Hurley and Ben on the island. I've loved Hurley more than any character, and to think of his gentle self being in charge of the island with the now contrite Ben as number two would've been excellent. Seeing Ben's face unmarked by beatings would be nice too!

This isn't a fair statement at all. I've theorized and enjoyed this show and sung its praises from the mountaintops for quite awhile now, and in the past I've been downright hostile to the repeated notion that the writers had no idea what they were doing. Sweeping everything under the "maybe you didn't even want to like it" rug is a really lazy way to dismiss criticisms, in my opinion.

And, again: this is not an example of people being unsatisfied "unless everything made complete and perfect sense." That's a sizable exaggeration that we're hearing a lot, and forgive me for saying it's starting to bug me. I don't know if you've read the complaints here, but most of them aren't "I hate the finale because we didn't learn anything about Walt" or "I hate the finale because we never found out who was in the outrigger." They're complaints about narrative decisions and inconsistencies, not a lack of answers. Most of the complaints aren't about minute plot points or trivia at all.

Er, couldn't you use this same statement to tell anyone to stop criticizing any movie, film, book, or anything else...ever?

And really, we're talking about making the world a better place by liking the finale of Lost more? Come on. We're analyzing the show, just like everyone who loved the finale was doing right up until the end. And some of us, when we do that, think we see some pretty big flaws/inconsistencies. So we're talking about it, same as we always have.

Yes, much of it was. Even the people who didn't like the finale seem to think so, by and large. A sunset would be beautiful, too, but if you saw it in a movie that took place entirely underground, it wouldn't make a lot of sense.

That's all well and good, but not liking the ending of Lost has nothing to do with whether or not I believe in an afterlife, or happy endings. I believe in both, as it so happens, but that doesn't mean every story should end that way.

Except that you're basically telling us not to do that by suggesting we shouldn't be "focusing on the negative." We are analyzing it, and discussing what makes sense, and what doesn't, and then we're basically told "hey man, have faith. Stop being so negative."

On another forum someone said it is obvious the plane crashed shortly after take-off when it left the island. Does anyone else think that? It didn't occur to me when i watched it and I haven't read anyone else who thought that.

I never watched Lost. Saw the movies Five Came Back and Back from Eternity and figured Lost would be Five Came Back meets Island Survivor. Reading all the responses posted just today tells me I didn't miss much. Sounds kinda like sitting through all of The Sopranos for that lame finale, or Bobby's dream sequence that brought him back to Dallas. They should have taken a page from the successful ending to M.A.S.H.

@Will I don't recall anything like that. Unsure where they picked that up.

@Ruf - Quibbles aside, Lost is one of the best shows on TV, and it is absolutely worth a watch.

I loved the end of The Sopranos!

Agreed! I own all seasons available on DVD and I'm glad I do. I'll be rewatching the entire series, probably starting at the end of the summer! Will definitely be worth a second viewing. I won't let those last ten minutes ruin an otherwise amazingly fun viewing experience!

History wrote the ending of M.A.S.H The war ended.

Just curious in case I missed it somehow before but did they ever explain what happened to all the other passengers on the second flight?
The lostaways seemed to be the only ones who survived it when they began travelling through time.
Obviously the plane landed safely enough to be flown again. Where did the people go?

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They showed a pile of dead bodies, but did not answer what happened to them. I assume Widmore's people killed them. Why, who knows.

To say the show was not very sci/fi driven is like saying they never crashed on the island. Did no one watch season 5? Or even know of the character Daniel Faraday? The show has always been science vs faith and was mostly sci/fi driven until the last season when we got a bunch of symbolism for Christ and faith. All Eko storylines aside.

I do feel a little betrayed by the writers. For the one fact that from the very beginning the said it was NOT purgatory, then to end the series with the characters in purgatory feels like they didn't care. I get the themes they were trying to tell us, but I feel it should work for a different show. Don't tell us it is not purgatory, then end the show in purgatory. I know Chris found it interesting they sidestepped this issue, I find it aggravating.

For me, LOST will now always be about the journey and not the resolution. I didn't hate the last episode, I loved it. But I do feel a bit cheated in some regard.

As for Penny and Desmond's Charlie, I doubt he is still alive. Hurley probably ran the island for hundreds of years. I'm still peeved about Shannon being the one there for Sayid.

Sayid helps Nadia escape torture and death in Iraq
He looks for her before plane crashes
He gets to be with her when he leaves island
She dies and he vows revenge
He goes back to island and turns bad because MIB promises to bring her back

But he is given his memories back from Shannon, his love, because they had sex once or twice in the few weeks he knew her?

If Penny can be there for Desmond, why can't Nadia be there for Sayid? For a show claiming to be about the characters, do they even know who they are and want?

As for mysteries/questions, they definitely did not answers things in which they had no answers for. How does Christian Shepard end of on the freighter when he can't leave the island? He told Sawyer that if he could turn to black smoke and go to Hydra island he would, how does he make it to the freighter? Why appear as Christian to Michael? Michael never met Christian.

Why appear as a kid to MIB and Sawyer and others? It was just a ploy to get people to guess who the character was, it felt unnecessary.

Again, I would have much rather have them simply tie up loose ends with the characters lives, rather than have the spiritual ending.

The best way for me to explain how I feel about it. My heart is satisfied with the ending, my head is not.

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As Desmond would say, "Amen brotha"

My theory is it actually was purgatory until everyone said it was, so they had to change it, but didn't want to completely abandon the idea.

Could be, though we'll never know.

The idea of the Island being Purgatory was a great fit, and I think they may have gone that route if the show had only lasted for a season or two. But it was a breakout hit and there was probably far more speculation than they'd expected, and the Purgatory explanation would have been pretty obvious after two full seasons, I think. Not that they could have anticipated the degree to which the fan community gathered on the Internet and theories flew around with increasing speed and frequency.

But yeah, if it hadn't caught on for whatever reason, and the explanation had been that the Island was Purgatory and the entire series was just a season or two, I think it'd have been quite the cult hit after a few years, and it would have been a pretty elegant explanation for a lot of what happened.