Lost Questions That Need Answering
Last week we got the whispers and with only six hours of Lost left, I think it's appropriate to pose the major questions of the show that still need answering. Personally I came in to the season with mysteries like the whispers and the smoke monster rather low on my list, but the decision to address those mysteries through personification rather than exposition was probably a wise move. I had thought some of the major plot and story points would be addressed earlier on, while the mysteries of the island would have waited until the end, but creatively, I think the writers approach has worked.
So here are my top ten remaining mysteries I feel need to be answered. I'm not including the obvious ones about the Man in Black, Desmond and the flash sideways world, along with any other mysteries that seem likely to be resolved as part of the natural progression of the story from where we are now.
1- Walt
Much of the first two seasons of the show focused on Walt's specialness, but his importance seemed to vanish along with his importance after the season two finale. Let's be clear. I don't need Walt's "powers" explained, any more than I need Miles's or Hurley's powers explained. What I do need is a little more about his connection to the island and why the Others took him and subsequently let him go.
2- Why can't babies be born on the island?
Some Lost fans get very confused about this whole idea, but I thought the season 3 Juliet episodes were pretty clear. Women who conceive on the island die during pregnancy. As we saw with Claire, babies conceived off the island could be born on-island and as we saw with Sun, babies conceived on island, along with their mothers, are fine if they leave the island early in a pregnancy. And as we saw in season 5, there were no issues with babies being conceived and born on the island in 1977. So what happened?
3- Adam and Eve
It's an obvious one and I imagine they must be planning on answering it (otherwise, why bring it up earlier in the season?) But how it fits into the plot is beyond me.
4- The Dharma Supply Drops
Remember in season two, when a mysterious Dharma supply drop occured in the middle of the night? If I'm remembering correctly, it had something to do with the lockdown in the Swan hatch, seemingly designed to prevent the Swan's inhabitants from seeing who was dropping the supplies. So who was dropping those supplies? It's extremely relevant because it represents the rest of the Dharma story. We know the purge occurred in 1991, but we also know that Swan hatch continued to be staffed by Dharma (Radzinsky and Kelvin) throughout the 90's.
5- The rest of the story about the Others
What was the deal with that spring in the temple? Why did some Others live in the temple and other Others live in the Dharma barracks and follow Ben around? How did the Others chose their leaders? And what are the rules that kept Ben and Widmore from actually killing one another?
6- Intrigue Off The Island
Larissa wants to know how Ben and Widmore got all their money, but given that the Others were able to come to and from the island, I figure they both made use of their power and connections to create these networks around the world. What I do want to know about is about this off-island war between Ben and Widmore? More importantly, who did Ben have Sayid killing off? We know Sayid didn't kill off all of Widmore's people, because we see Abaddon (and a quite unworried Widmore) after Sayid stops killing. And, who were all those nutty assassins after Sayid at the end of season five and what did they want with him? I'd chalk it up to revenge on Sayid, except they were also watching Hurley and had Kate's address.
[Side note here - Remember during Miles episode last season, where he was recruited by Bram (the big dude from Ilana's group)? What was the deal with Ilana and the rest of her now deceased group? Neither Ben or Widmore seemed to know about them and I remember Bram telling Miles that in joining Widmore's freighter group, he was joining the wrong side. And actually, we've gotten all this talk about Jacob not telling people what to do, but didn't he ask Ilana to help him?]
7- The Sickness
We've gotta get this answered right? I mean we can't just leave things with unfeeling Sayid, the zombie killing machine exactly as he is now. So what's it all about? And is Claire infected? And was Rousseau infected? And while we're talking about infection, is there any connection between this infection and the quarantine on the Swan hatch doors and the injections Desmond had to give himself?
8- Daniel Faraday Crying
I keep coming back to this because we saw Faraday inexplicably crying as he watched the footage of the faked Oceanic 815 in both seasons four and five. Is there a connection here with the sideways universe? We'll see.
9- Why did some people flash through time and not Others?
This was entirely too convenient to be mere coincidence. At the end of season 4 (beginning of season 5), we see Locke flash away, while Richard and the rest of the Others with them stay in the present. On the beach, all our Losties flash away through time, along with Juliet, a former Other. And Claire, in "Jacob's cabin" with "Christian", doesn't flash away either. So what's the deal?
10- And finally, what's the deal with Christian?
A favorite theory of some has been that Christian was always the smoke monster, but as I've written before, there are far too many holes in that theory. Christian appears to Michael on the freighter and tells him he can leave. Christian appears to Locke down in the well, hundreds or thousands of years in the past. Christian appears to Sun and tells her about Jin being stuck in the past. And Christian takes steps to take Claire with him and separates Claire from Aaron. My theory has been that Christian is some manifestation of the island itself, but as with everything else, we shall see.
So here are my top ten remaining mysteries I feel need to be answered. I'm not including the obvious ones about the Man in Black, Desmond and the flash sideways world, along with any other mysteries that seem likely to be resolved as part of the natural progression of the story from where we are now.
1- Walt
Much of the first two seasons of the show focused on Walt's specialness, but his importance seemed to vanish along with his importance after the season two finale. Let's be clear. I don't need Walt's "powers" explained, any more than I need Miles's or Hurley's powers explained. What I do need is a little more about his connection to the island and why the Others took him and subsequently let him go.
2- Why can't babies be born on the island?
Some Lost fans get very confused about this whole idea, but I thought the season 3 Juliet episodes were pretty clear. Women who conceive on the island die during pregnancy. As we saw with Claire, babies conceived off the island could be born on-island and as we saw with Sun, babies conceived on island, along with their mothers, are fine if they leave the island early in a pregnancy. And as we saw in season 5, there were no issues with babies being conceived and born on the island in 1977. So what happened?
3- Adam and Eve
It's an obvious one and I imagine they must be planning on answering it (otherwise, why bring it up earlier in the season?) But how it fits into the plot is beyond me.
4- The Dharma Supply Drops
Remember in season two, when a mysterious Dharma supply drop occured in the middle of the night? If I'm remembering correctly, it had something to do with the lockdown in the Swan hatch, seemingly designed to prevent the Swan's inhabitants from seeing who was dropping the supplies. So who was dropping those supplies? It's extremely relevant because it represents the rest of the Dharma story. We know the purge occurred in 1991, but we also know that Swan hatch continued to be staffed by Dharma (Radzinsky and Kelvin) throughout the 90's.
5- The rest of the story about the Others
What was the deal with that spring in the temple? Why did some Others live in the temple and other Others live in the Dharma barracks and follow Ben around? How did the Others chose their leaders? And what are the rules that kept Ben and Widmore from actually killing one another?
6- Intrigue Off The Island
Larissa wants to know how Ben and Widmore got all their money, but given that the Others were able to come to and from the island, I figure they both made use of their power and connections to create these networks around the world. What I do want to know about is about this off-island war between Ben and Widmore? More importantly, who did Ben have Sayid killing off? We know Sayid didn't kill off all of Widmore's people, because we see Abaddon (and a quite unworried Widmore) after Sayid stops killing. And, who were all those nutty assassins after Sayid at the end of season five and what did they want with him? I'd chalk it up to revenge on Sayid, except they were also watching Hurley and had Kate's address.
[Side note here - Remember during Miles episode last season, where he was recruited by Bram (the big dude from Ilana's group)? What was the deal with Ilana and the rest of her now deceased group? Neither Ben or Widmore seemed to know about them and I remember Bram telling Miles that in joining Widmore's freighter group, he was joining the wrong side. And actually, we've gotten all this talk about Jacob not telling people what to do, but didn't he ask Ilana to help him?]
7- The Sickness
We've gotta get this answered right? I mean we can't just leave things with unfeeling Sayid, the zombie killing machine exactly as he is now. So what's it all about? And is Claire infected? And was Rousseau infected? And while we're talking about infection, is there any connection between this infection and the quarantine on the Swan hatch doors and the injections Desmond had to give himself?
8- Daniel Faraday Crying
I keep coming back to this because we saw Faraday inexplicably crying as he watched the footage of the faked Oceanic 815 in both seasons four and five. Is there a connection here with the sideways universe? We'll see.
9- Why did some people flash through time and not Others?
This was entirely too convenient to be mere coincidence. At the end of season 4 (beginning of season 5), we see Locke flash away, while Richard and the rest of the Others with them stay in the present. On the beach, all our Losties flash away through time, along with Juliet, a former Other. And Claire, in "Jacob's cabin" with "Christian", doesn't flash away either. So what's the deal?
10- And finally, what's the deal with Christian?
A favorite theory of some has been that Christian was always the smoke monster, but as I've written before, there are far too many holes in that theory. Christian appears to Michael on the freighter and tells him he can leave. Christian appears to Locke down in the well, hundreds or thousands of years in the past. Christian appears to Sun and tells her about Jin being stuck in the past. And Christian takes steps to take Claire with him and separates Claire from Aaron. My theory has been that Christian is some manifestation of the island itself, but as with everything else, we shall see.
posted by lonely libertarian at 1:10 PM
3 Comments:
Here's a question:
Do the "trapped souls" on the island need to have died on the island to be there? Wouldn't this explain Christian and some other dead people appearing? Hurley isn't the only one who saw the dead. A lot of people have seen Christian, Locke saw Horace (who was in some sort of eternal punishment too)...
Maybe a question should be why do some dead people manifest themselves to some but not others? Was the Smoke Monster really playing the part of Alex when Ben was being judged, or Eko's brother?
LOST has a nasty tendency to introduce something, keep it's relevance vague and get rid of it right when it's importance becomes clear. One example of this is Jacob, who was introduced relatively early on, who was only talked about and then we finally see him in action and like that he's dead.
Another example of this is the hatch. Right when we learn that the hatch wasn't just being used as some experiment, it blows up.
I bring this up because several of your questions involve the hatch and a lot of last season revolved around the creation of the hatch. You wonder about Desmond injecting himself to avoid the "sickness" and if it's related to what happened to Sayid and Claire and I think the answer is yes. Clearly Dharma and the Others felt protected by the temple and "New Otherton" but the hatch was right in the thick of things. When we first thought the hatch was an experiment the injections just seemed like it was part of it, but those injections (whatever they were) had to be significant.
1 - Walt
I don't think we're getting any more answers on Walt, although I could be wrong. The problem with him from the get go was the fact that he was a child and after 3 seasons of the show we hadn't even gotten through 1 year of action.
I think it's just best to let Walt go. He has no bearing on the plot anymore and really, it was weird enough seeing him in the Jeremy Bentham episode.
3 - Adam and Eve
This is one that doesn't have to fit into the plot at all. It's not even one that has to be explained. Depending who Adam and Eve actually are (my guess is either Rose and Benard or Jin and Sun), it could be a throwaway, just like the re-visiting of the skeletons.
Good point on the souls- I had really forgotten about Horace (and Locke's vision). And I was wondering the same thing about Christian, seeing as he was such a tortured soul during his life time.
And your absolutely right about how they tell these stories- but don't forget too, they love these big, broad, open-ended reveals and then take weeks and weeks to tell us what they mean. What's interesting as far as I'm concerned is how few questions really remain from the first season- you have ideas that were born in the first season (like the Others), but subsequent revelations about those mysteries provide the real basis for the questions we still have. But we still have hatch and Dharma questions from season 2, Child birth questions and Other questions from season 3, Off-island stuff and Widmore stuff from season 4 and 5.
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