Part of the Big Picture

I wrote this on the other forum, but I thought I would like to place it here as well. It kept getting buried with the Polar Bear and Potato posts, heh.
Things to consider when trying to figure out Lost.

This is only a small part of my thoughts on Lost ans what it is about.

1. Listen to what people say. Jack's mantra "Live together, die alone" This is something that has always given them courage, when they hear it spoken, a light bulb seems to go off and they all cooperate with one another. Even Juliette has embraced the mantra and used it to bring Sawyer to her way of thinking. "We're the good guys" Another phrase that has been used by every significant character with an agenda. Ben, Bram, Charles and Beau. What does this mean? Well in history, wars are fought between people who fully believe they are the good guys in the battle. Hitler believed what he was doing was for the good of mankind. That way of thinking dates back to the great plague, when leaders of many countries thought that the Jewish community were responsible. Of course we know that is hogwash, but they believed in it with absolute certainty. That is what we are witnessing here. Genocide (The Purge) of an entire community for the greater good. Or from Dharma's point of view, changing the human condition for the betterment of man kind. Who is right? Who are the good guys? Are Jacob and the man in black trying to find the answer to this question? Are they playing a game of Risk, with real people as their game pieces to answer the most ancient of questions? Who are the good guys? Who is right in the over all scheme of the world?

2. Details. Now we know the cabin was not Jacob's home. This opens up another really big mystery. Who has Ben really been answering to? We know Ben's list, and Jacob's list did not quite have the same people on it. That was obvious way back when Tom said "why trust Jack, he was not even on Jacob's list?" Richard tells Jack he visited John three separate times and found nothing particularly special about him. This is sort of a history repeating itself for poor John. The under cover police man was told to choose him too. So all who have said John has always been a tool used by others, you were right. John was not who they were looking for, ever. That is just another part of the Long Con played on the poor man since birth, and the sad part is he did it to himself, by talking to Richard in 1954. This will always remind me of the story of Job, tested time and time again his whole life by Satan, in a sort of bet with God to reveal the depth of his faith. Let's hope Johns story has the same outcome, and he is redeemed as good in the eyes of his creator and he is rewarded.

3. Science or Faith? Millions have died in the battle of Religion and Science. Countless writs hidden from the general population containing vital information pertaining to both sides of this single coin. Until recently we have not really seen the two work with each other instead of against. Are we seeing it now with all of the different sides to the Lost story? Are our supreme beings Jacob and his Nemesis showing us the answer to the question. Will there always be a battle between the two very different sides, both as redeeming as the other? Are we going to find out that they are both the good guys, only differ in opinion as many past wars have been fought with this question as the backdrop to the disagreement? Will we finally see that the end is always the same, what happens in between is progress? Or will we see there is no hope for human kind in the end?

4. Choosing sides. Well we can all take a bow. No one has been wrong about what they think Lost is. What they are showing us is there are always going to be two sides, choosing one is always going to end up in a war, no matter how correct both sides are about what they think or believe. What happened happened is correct. Changing your destiny is also correct. It depends on how it is looked at. What happened happened is correct because people tend to make the same choices over and over again, it is part of who they are. It is like tossing a pebble into a river. It will make no difference in how the water flows. This is what Nemesis thinks, and he is right. But Jacob believes if you toss a giant boulder into the river, (people change the way they think and do things) it significantly changes the flow of the river, and he too is correct. This is why we see big changes in our characters from the beginning of the story to now. Nemesis is interacting with them on the notion that they will always make the same choices. Jacob is interacting with them to prove they can change, and make different choices.

So when we look at the Big Picture we see that Lost is telling an ancient tale. We see they are bringing in elements of every type of civilization, every way of thinking. Lost Civilizations versus simple relocating of the civilizations inhabitants. (Atlantis theory) Paranormal occurances. Faith healing and psychics, ghosts and demons. Ancient mythical Gods from many different civilizations, Egyptian, Greek and others. Science and religion, faith and disbelief. Destiny or legacy? These are all part of the big picture of the story of LOST.

A list of things people have said that have brought me to this way of thinking.

Sawyer "Tiger never changes his stripes"
Locke "Don't tell me what I can't do."
Locke "We all get a new life, a fresh start" (Jack also said this same thing to Kate)
Karl "We give them a better life." Kate "Better then what? Karl "Better then yours."
Jack chasing Ethan. "I am not going to let him get away with this, not again." As if Ethan had taken Claire and Charlie before?
Sawyer to Kate when she pounced on him "I made this birthday wish 4 years ago!"

There are so many more. Feel free to add to this and discuss!

It is like tossing a pebble into a river. It will make no difference in how the water flows. This is what Nemesis thinks, and he is right. But Jacob believes if you toss a giant boulder into the river, (people change the way they think and do things) it significantly changes the flow of the river, and he too is correct.<<like this a lot.On the other forum I posted a theory about TT where I said that one form of TT could be a flexible timeline where change is dependant on how big the force behind the change.I referenced the movie Deja Vu.There, Denzel tried to change the past by sending a fax to his colleague, to warn him of impending danger to a woman.It didn't work first time, the paper not manifesting until too late-the partner had already left.Then the next attempt the partner found the paper, tried to do something about it and got shot himself.Third time Denzel tries sending himself and actually succeeds.The difference being that he had a greater knowledge of the future.The lesson is the bigger the change attempted, the bigger the sacrifice required.I'll have more later

More of The Big Picture. I wrote this at the beginning of the season when all the time travel stuff was prominent on the ABC forum, I just had to be different.


Jacob has become to me, a bigger and more historical figure, dating back maybe to the Black Rock era. And all the Shepard's we know now are descendants way down a long lineage of great men and women from even years before that time. Michael Emerson said something that sort of sticks in my mind. Jacob is someone we have seen in the show, but have not heard speak, and likely will not hear speak again. This points to perhaps a picture of someone who is long dead. Perhaps at the auction Widmore was attending in "The Constant" Or a painting in someone else's home. Who knows, there is so much footage to look back on before "The Man Behind the Curtain" episode. <------DEBUNKED

We ask if Richard would be able to communicate with Jacob, and I have to conclude that he cannot. That is why he needed Ben. Ben was able to communicate with his dead mother. So perhaps Jacob is dead, and in order to communicate with him, you need someone special, like Hurley or Miles. We as humans living in the real world tend to stick with what we can see, or touch to believe that it is real. So Jacob must be someone we have seen alive and well somewhere, but I am at a point where popping outside of the box is the only way for me to truly understand. <------Also debunked!

The video about the DeGroots sort of reminded me of the shows we had seen in the past about paranormal history. Of course they were scientists, and in the 70's who would want to come work on an uncharted island if the work were as bogus as studying the super natural. Working for a group of scientists who want to better the human condition is so much more appealing!

It is so hard to grasp Lost in it's entirety. We focus on one thing at a time, when I think if we saw the whole picture we would be in awe. I know I joke about lost civilizations turning up on this island, but in reality I cannot help but believe that may be part of the story. No, I am not saying it is Atlantis. But if you know your history, there are entire civilizations of people who just vanished, no trace of them anywhere.

Who would not write a complicated story and link these amazing occurrences to the big picture. Other mysteries like Rozwell, and Ghosts and miracle healing seem to be covered in the Lost story. I doubt Juliette saying the runway was for the aliens was such a big joke after all. Not little green men, that would certainly make Lost laughable at best, but maybe higher beings that have been here since the fall of Troy or some other historical time in our past.

Every day we dig up signs of impossible feats in human history, and even galaxies beyond our own. The possibilities of where this story will end up is just mind boggling. I bet they say it is not purgatory, or aliens, or lost civilizations or any other things they debunked because it is ALL of them. We are just not looking at the big picture-(Sawyer) Maybe that was our clue in season 1...lol!

Remember when Sawyer, Hugo, and locke were playing risk in DHARMAville in season 4? Hugo states that, "Australia is the key to the whole game..."

I'll bet there is something to that...

sniphneris wrote:

Remember when Sawyer, Hugo, and locke were playing risk in DHARMAville in season 4? Hugo states that, "Australia is the key to the whole game..."

I'll bet there is something to that...

<<<I'd love that to be true..I hope it is...

Australia is a huge island....they are on an island....maybe the island is the key to teh game then?

Velleri-deep thinking. Must admit I had to take a break while reading your comments. But hey, I'd rather have to take a break for someone's intellectual comment than put up with a lot of "stupid-reading" like on other sites, so thanks for that input. I also feel that Lost is about all types of beliefs rolled into one big ball such as, the greek, egyptian references, biblical names and references, destiny, science, etc...I'm eager to find out how the producers are going to wrap it all up.

I have thought about the Australia thing so much since that comment. I really can't figure anything out but it is stuck in my head!

I suspect Australia may have to do with world war/catastrophe, etc. If, in fact, we humans were likely to destroy ourselves, it would probably involve America, Europe, the Middle East, Russia, China. Australia would be a very viable location to repopulate and begin again.

I still think the Dharma Initiative is much more crucial to all this than we've been led to believe lately. Keep thinking about world destruction and world resurrection - and what kinds of people we'd want (what qualities, etc.).

I believe "it only ends once" means The End of all of us...and that's what the powers that be are trying to prevent.

Velleri I'll need more time to read..i don't want to miss a thing .I like your idea about Lost containing ALL the debunked theories.I've said all along Lost will please all genre tastes...

Actually LostInz, those debunked theories are really debunked, I moved that post over from the ABC forum to discuss, but the debunked ones were written at the beginning of the season. I didn't want to edit it, because some of our folks here saw it on ABC already, so I just pasted as is and pointed out how wrong I was, lol.