Tonight’s the big night! In advance of tonight’s debut I thought I’d do a brief outline of what I’m thinking:
It’s every story in one
I first noticed this when trying to explain the appeal of the show. LOST is not just a survival drama – it’s also a medical drama, a crime show, a cop show, a sitcom, a sci-fi series, a Korean gangster series, and so much more. It just keeps growing in scope as to what genres it includes.
But it doesn’t stop at including all genres. Take a look through Lostpedia for a few theories about LOST being based on other stories or myths: The Tempest, Lost Continent (Atlantis, etc.), The Wizard of Oz, Gates of Hades, etc. Other possibilities include Shambhala.
Numerous literary works are referenced and many of them seem to have parallels with the series.
Then there are pop cultural sources such as Watchmen, The Stand, and, my favorite, The Prisoner.
So my theory is that LOST is an attempt to integrate as many stories as possible into one.
Time travel
I suspect time travel is responsible for most of the paranormal/supernatural phenomena that have occurred – Alpert’s apparent non-aging, the whispers, Walt appearing in places he shouldn’t be, appearances by the dead, moving the Island, etc. The “synchronicities” that occur regularly could be explained by time travels deliberately manipulating certain events.
Some things aren’t quite explained by this though – how can the whole island be physically moved while usually time travel is consciousness only? How does Walt do the bird killing thing? What the hell are numbers? How does the island heal the sick? Time travel might not be the grand unifying theory, but I’m guessing it will explain a lot.
Plenty of unanswered questions remain. Can’t wait for the debut!
January 21, 2009 at 11:21 am
Really indepth look at literature and mythology in LOST:
http://www.powells.com/blog/?author=104
(thanks to @mfcrawford for reminding me of this great column)
January 23, 2009 at 9:22 am
Time travel could still account for the location shift (the island stops moving along with earth and appears elsewhere along a track it has already bee located (or will be located).
Healing: a body’s damage is simply reversed due to time travel energy vectors or whatever.
February 14, 2010 at 5:21 am
re: the island moving
see: “Shocking: New Zealand and Australia are out of their place on the map” posted 13-2-2010 @ 03:44 PM at http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread543455/pg1
note that this seems to be similar to something that happened to myself, when I saw a report on the anniversary of the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The loss of which I specifically remember NOT happening until I saw the report. Say what you will but I chalk it up to an alternate reality not reaching a certain threshold of uniqueness causing a hyperdimensional collapse of some kind and the merging of two similar universes, possibly indicating some sort of multidimensional Conservation of Actuality.
May 4, 2010 at 10:27 pm
If it is every story, then maybe the whole thing will just be a dream like in the Wizard of Oz. There doesn’t seem to be any grand-unifying theory to it. It just seems to be that anything goes, and the only place that can truly happen is in a dream or perhaps in the thoughts of a crazy person. Maybe that’s how it ends. All of this is nothing more than a crazy person in a mental hospital. That would explain it. Good luck figuring it out.
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