The Lost Thread

[golem09]

I thought he had spent the last time studying variables in time travel, and was thus convinced that he could change things. And he was on that trip when he busted the Others. So I think he could have just as well thought "Oh crap, now I messed the past up, and get shot by my own mother" instead of instantly returning to his old system of believe.

And I would be alienated if smokey was NOT a smoke monster. I mean it manifests into people that only exist in the memory of others. And for me, the whole show is still about faith. Beginning in season 1 where Locke, the ONLY man of faith was the best character, BECAUSE he had his faith. And I think everyone is still talking abotu "the island" almost as a person. Do I want that to be ruined by "Oh, the island has nanobots in the air that make everyone healthy" shit? (I know they already said that there are NO nanobots, but one scientific explanation is just as good as the other in this case) NO!
I want the fate controlling, healing, getting people after their death-like magical island. I have no problem if all the time travel will be explained by the science, but the rest? No

[Inaudible-Whisper]

Originally Posted by golem09

And I would be alienated if smokey was NOT a smoke monster. I mean it manifests into people that only exist in the memory of others. And for me, the whole show is still about faith. Beginning in season 1 where Locke, the ONLY man of faith was the best character, BECAUSE he had his faith. And I think everyone is still talking abotu "the island" almost as a person. Do I want that to be ruined by "Oh, the island has nanobots in the air that make everyone healthy" shit? (I know they already said that there are NO nanobots, but one scientific explanation is just as good as the other in this case) NO!
I want the fate controlling, healing, getting people after their death-like magical island. I have no problem if all the time travel will be explained by the science, but the rest? No

The smoke monster is able to manifests itself because it scans people. We have seen it appear to scan people on at least two occasions, once when it appears to Eko and we see his memories flash in the smoke and again when it corners Kate and Juliet in the vines and we see huge, white flashes. It may not definitely be scanning them but it certainly appears that way, and whatever it is doing it, like always, appears to be technology based (flashes of electricity and sparks, plus the sounds are nowhere near being natural).

I don't think every single thing on the show will have a purely direct scientific explanation, but I feel that the majority of the mysteries will centre around Earth-based physical explanations. Mystical stuff is too sloppy, dumb and not grounded with anything. If the Smoke monster is a literal creature made of smoke that judges people, where did it come from and what is it's purpose? If it's not technology based, then you're moving into the realms of a deity and that isn't a place I think the show is going to go. You can have faith in science, and Locke's faith is purely in the island without at all understanding what that is or means. His faith is no longer void if the island is explained via scientific methods and the amazing things we've seen on the island don't become less magical with scientific explanations, they become more-so in my mind. The way I see it, using an analogy of the Universe for Lost -- we see a huge complex thing, and we can create some wonderfully complex theories on how it came to be such as the big bang or we can just say "uh.... god did it?". You seem to be routing for the latter, which I think would be a weak way to explain the happenings on the show. My faith is with science, as ridiculous a scientific explanation they can come up with. If I can happily believe in the shit that's happened in Fringe, Lost should be no problem.

To quote Darlton: "We function on Jurassic Park rules which are, if you can convince me that a mosquito can bite a dinosaur and then get preserved in amber, and that the DNA will not degrade over all that period of time; then you can show me a cloned dinosaur and I won't call it a science-fiction movie. And, you know, we try to do the same thing on the show. If something highly unlikely occurs, we try to offer up some grounding in the actual physical world that we understand in an effort to explain it—except in the case of things that don't potentially have a scientific explanation, which is where the show begins to go into its own territory.".

What I believe they're saying is, "we'll explain everything with Science as best as we can, and when it comes to the really unlikely circumstances and events we'll make Science up to get it to work physically in our world, like the made-up Science in Jurassic Park".

Darlton: "The science needs to be right enough that we create a sense of believability to the storytelling".

[golem09]

Well, I think they could to better than say "it was god" if they chose the mystical explanation. Maybe but some MEANING behind it, instead of reason. "The island was created because" and not "the island accidently got these properties because of this and that experiment gone wrong".

With all the egypt stuff, we're even getting into the "afterlive" direction again, which was pointed to several times, the biggest one maybe the appearance of Lockes dad. And the "box" on the island, making wishes come true. I don't want that to be spoiled by some scientific reason, I want MEANING to it.

[Inaudible-Whisper]

The box was simply a metaphor Ben made up for the island. Ben was just, like always, manipulating Locke into thinking that if he killed his father he'd be accepted as one of the Others (his father could have simply been captured and brought in on the sub). Richard knew that such a sacrifice wasn't necessary so he gave Locke Sawyers file, knowing that Sawyer had just as much reason to want him dead and that Sawyer was more the man to get the job done. There wasn't much mystical about any of that storyline.

The afterlife stuff seems to mostly be smokey. We know that the majority of the sightings of dead (and some living) folk such as Jack's dad, Yemi, Walt, Alex etc. are manifestations of smokey which manifests itself as a person close to the person it is wanting to interact with in order to get things done. Jack's dad leading Jack to the caves and fresh water, Yemi finding out if Eko sought forgiveness, Walt leading Shannon into the path of Ana-Lucia's gun etc... the "afterlife" is merely the smoke monster reanimating people to get things done. How it does this, I have no idea, but it'd be easy to see how Egyptians would worship it and build a statue of Anubis (God of the afterlife). To the Egyptians, this is the island where the dead walk with the living, but in my opinion they are merely misunderstanding a much more complex technological entity possibly from the future. It may sound slightly absurd, but it isn't really that much of a stretch at all considering we know the island can freely travel through time. It makes more sense to me than a mystical explanation (which wouldn't really be an explanation because you can't explain something which defies the laws of Science -- it'd have to be literally entirely made up fantasy).

I think if you're looking for explanations, going against Science is totally going against that. How can you explain miraculous healing without Science? Without rules you have nothing with which to explain how it works. All you can say is "It's a special island that miraculously heals people". That isn't an explanation by any stretch of the imagination. Science mightn't be as magical, but you can at least make up some pesudo-junk that makes some sort of sense such as "time moves slow on the island, but the body's processes run normally so wounds appear to heal quicker".

[golem09]

you can also make up pseudo junk without science. You just have to offers meaning to anything. Just saying "it's magical" is stupid yes, but I don't see any reason why they couldn't develop that.

[Inaudible-Whisper]

Originally Posted by golem09

you can also make up pseudo junk without science. You just have to offers meaning to anything. Just saying "it's magical" is stupid yes, but I don't see any reason why they couldn't develop that.

Could you give an example? I'm not disagreeing, I've just never thought about any Lost explanations in unscientific terms so I'm wondering exactly what type of stuff you're getting at. I'm struggling to see how they can explain magic without any sound basis in modern physics without it coming across as just silly. How do you develop "magic" in a realistic manor? Obviously 'God' is one answer (though that again doesn't explain how anything works) but I can't see the show ending on a religious note at all.

[golem09]

I don't think you need to explain how it works. Not the how, but the why. If you think on godly and mystical terms, there is no need to explain how they did it, because they just can. Instead it's important why they did it, what they intended, what the antagonist wanted, if there is one.

I can't think of any plausible backgroundstory now, but stuff like some (not ultimately the) god created to island as a resting place/paradise/hiding point for special people who shall survive the end of the world.
People manage to overcome him, trying to avoid something (the end of the world). Gods followers (the shadow people?) work against them and try to resurrect god.
SOME explanation like this. I bet they would have a far better story to tell. But I love something like this a LOT more than the scientific (It's all machines from the future) stuff

[Inaudible-Whisper]

I think you're in the vast minority though. Most people revel in the science stuff and love trying to work things out and theorising about how things can work. As I said, I think they'd totally alienate the vast majority of the audience going with a made-up mythological deity explanation and they know they would which is why it probably won't happen. It's OK to have some things explained with fantasy, "this is where we leave Science behind" as Faraday once said. Things like Locke's resurrection which appears to be a full resurrection and not a projection like the other walking dead folk are going to be hard to explain with Science, and that's OK. But to have the big secret behind Lost be that it's God's magical island, or something similar, would just be a giant attack on the intelligence of all of the theorising fans out there in my opinion. Entirely unsatisfying.

[golem09]

I just don't see why a 'godly' explanation was any more stupid than a scientific one. Just to say "it's from god" isn't what the explanation should be. they can have a much more detailed reasoning for everything that's happened.

And for me, everyone is still talking about "the island" as a person. If they know what they are talking about, then finding a scientific reason for that would sound way more silly than anything faithful. And a human, gathering godlike powers through science is just as as silly as a directly godly explanation.

[Inaudible-Whisper]

Originally Posted by golem09

I just don't see why a 'godly' explanation was any more stupid than a scientific one. Just to say "it's from god" isn't what the explanation should be. they can have a much more detailed reasoning for everything that's happened.

But it isn't an explanation. Using the Jurassic Park analogy again, assume they all arrived at the [Jurassic Park] island and see the dinosaurs and they ask Richard Attenborough how this happened and he says "This island is special. God protected it from all disaster and from the eyes of man. Dinosaurs have roamed this land for millions of years without interruption... until now" I mean... that is one direction the Lost writers could go in. But I think most of the audience expect something along the lines of "we found Dinosaur DNA in a mosquito trapped in ember and we were able to clone the dinosaurs". That explanation is entirely Science-Fiction and impossible, but it works in the context of Hollywood and it's understandable, fully explanational and it works.

The god hypothesis is little more than deus ex machina. The writers can lazily make up anything they want to explain seemingly complex events with little in terms of solid actual explanation grounded with ANY kind of logic. That is the total opposite of what the show is about. I think if they struggle to explain something with Science, such as Locke's ressurection, they'll just leave it ambiguous rather than give it a solid mythological answer which I am fine with. But they will not (I hope) be inventing deities and magical creatures to explain the island, else there will be a HUGE backlash from the fans. And because they know that (based on the literally hundreds of thousands of scientific theories and discussions online) they just won't go there for the shows ultimate answers.

Originally Posted by golem09

And for me, everyone is still talking about "the island" as a person. If they know what they are talking about, then finding a scientific reason for that would sound way more silly than anything faithful.

Talking about the island as a person is just purely metaphorical. The truth is, there are many parts of the island that do many things. The island didn't move itself through time, the people on it did via manipulating the electromagnetism. The island didn't bring Christian back from the dead, the smoke monster did. The island is just a land mass, it is just easier to name it in it's entirety when referring to seemingly magical acts. The island itself, of course, cannot possibly have a concious. That would literally be the dumbest thing ever.