Fanworks, notes, meta

"The Brig" (plus online discussion of how The Stand is a big LOST influence) led me to put this theory together.

I am not sure how it's possible to have a comprehensive theory of a story whose canon is still open (in the case of LOST, open enough to sail a submarine through), but from Season One I've had the conviction that the LOST story was an afterlife one.

I am well aware of the comments made by TPTB earlier. I am basing my theory on LOST as it has been broadcast. IOW, I'm taking the "text" of the story as what comes over the air, not podcasts, interviews by writers or producers, theories of the cast, easter eggs on the DVDs, etc.

Since this is a contentious view, I'd like to deal with some common objections right off the bat:

1) TPTB debunked it.
That may be, and it's fully their prerogative. I'm talking about what I have seen on the broadcast, and the DVDs (not including special features, easter eggs, etc.) I have no opinion on why TPTB said what they did.

2) People on The Island die. How can they die when they're already dead?
The Island does not have to be theologically "accurate" to any particular world religion or mythology. A fictional afterlife can be structured however the creator wishes. Sometimes a "traditional" view is less compelling and powerful than an idiosyncratic one.

People who die on The Island seem to die, because that is how the Losties perceive and experience it. The people who die may "ascend" to some higher plane or "descend" to a lower one. They may actually be returning to "real" life (although the recent episode "The Brig" seems to discount this, if indeed the entire plane, with bodies, was found in the Pacific Ocean.)

They may reincarnate into new bodies, to be born again on earth.

In Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series, the boy Jake is dead in our world (the "real" world), and alive in Roland's Dark Tower world. Personally, my own ideas don't encompass multiple dimensions/multiple universes, but I consider the possibility that the Losties may be hovering in some dimension between life and death.

3) If people on The Island are dead, how are babies born?
The idea of babies being engendered / born in the afterlife is actually pretty traditional. In Howard Schwartz's Jewish folklore compendium, "The Tree of Souls," he talks about the legend that the souls of converts to Judaism are actually engendered in heaven, when the patriarchs (Abraham, Moses etc.) and their wives enjoy heavenly lovemaking.

Since in this theory, this is a fictional afterlife, not necessarily tied to a fixed religious worldview, women who conceive in earthly life and who die while pregnant can very well continue their pregnancies in the afterlife.

4) How can the "outside world" and the "afterlife" in LOST affect each other?
It's a common folk tradition all around the world that the living and dead can communicate with each other. Originally, people dressed up on Halloween in order to disguise themselves from the spirits who were thought to roam free on earth on that night. The native Hawaiians believed that ghosts could beat people up and hurt them, if not placated or avoided. The Greeks believed that men could go to and fro from the worlds of the living and the dead, and back again - witness the stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, or of Psyche going into Hades at the whim of Aphrodite.

Speculative fantasy writers like Charles Williams (friend of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien) was fascinated by the idea of the supernatural and real worlds intersecting and affecting each other (in novels like "The Greater Trump" and "War in Heaven.")

People who believe in paranormal phenomena (the "ghost busters") believe that beings from the afterlife / supernatural worlds can physically affect ours. Thus it is possible that "war in heaven," so to speak - i.e. some conflagration in the afterlife/supernatural realm *could* ripple over into ours (thus showing up as some seismic or electromagnetic anomaly in the "real" world.)

5) Ethan and the Others seem to move back and forth between the "real"world and The Island. How is this possible if they are dead?
Why are The Others necessarily dead, or even human at all? Currently many of Christian background think of the supernatural world as consisting of angels, demons, and man - but in a fictional supernatural universe, they don't have to be limited to those three. Perhaps there are a whole range of supernatural beings - what we would call fairies (not the gauzy Victorian ones, though!), genies, ifreet, as they've been called in various cultures and tongues. Perhaps some of them have taken on human form and customs - but have purposes of their own, and serve some role in the Losties' redemption.

6) What about Juliet? Is she dead?
Was that really a tranquilizer in that juice? Or poison? Is the passage "rough" because it's literally "out of this world?"

7) What about Cooper? Is he dead?
So far (up through "The Brig," ep 319) I think so. In fact, his comments in "The Brig" led to the title of this thread - he reminded me a lot of Nadine in "The Stand," who after being sexually outraged by Flagg into madness, raves, "We are dead and this is hell..."

8) Are all the Losties "in hell?" What about good and/or innocent characters like Hurley, Rose, Aaron etc?
Many characters in LOST seem to be "working out their salvation in fear and trembling," to quote the Bible. The circumstances, people, "beings" (i.e. The Others), animals both natural and supernatural all seem to provide "tests," one after the other, to see how they react. If "character is what you are, alone in the dark," then The Island is winnowing through the characters of the people involved, separating the wheat from the chaff.

OTOH, the characters that are humble, generous, kind also provide "tests" of their own to the others, as they themselves are tested. A good example are the interactions between Hurley and Sawyer. Hurley is pushing Sawyer towards involvement and responsibility, while Sawyer struggles with making Hurley the butt of his jokes, as well as with his own selfishness and isolation.

9) If they're already dead, why are they still being "tested?"
Mainstream Christianity draws from the Bible "first death, then judgment." This isn't the universal view of all religions, or even Christianity itself. The Eastern Orthodox talk about "apocatostasis," the idea that even after death, people continue to work towards salvation and eventual repentance. In many mythologies heroes continual to struggle, even as gods - and even the gods themselves can die.

Anyway, I hope these points and others provoke discussion. If people reading really dislike the afterlife / purgatory / hell idea, that's fine - but I hope people who like this idea and wish to pursue it further, also find this a congenial space to do so.

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It spurred much discussion.