로스트(Lost)에 관한 추측 해설글

[난한벼리™]

1




2
A plague is devastating humanity.



The wealthy and the lucky are already huddled in the bleakest, coldest corners in the hope of avoiding infection.


One pocket of humanity survives on the remotest of islands: scientists from the Dharma Initiative; they are attempting to preserve human existence.



The island shares the same physical space as Manhattan - between 4th and 108th at least - but is superimposed like a shadow. The island and everything on it consists of particles and forces that can exist in our world without us knowing and vice versa, usually sharing only gravity and other weak forces; this is 'shadow matter'.

For the 'survivors', there is the island and the sea that surrounds it - if one sails, as Desmond did, far enough in one direction, one would eventually return to the island from the opposite direction. Desmond referred to it as a 'snowglobe', but there is no perimeter - no glass wall - no beginning or end.

>Desmond: "...stuck in a bloody snowglobe..."

The island did not always exist in this state or location - it had been on the opposite side of the world to Manhattan. Dharma Initiative experiments in Manhattan converted normal matter into shadow matter by manipulating its electromagnetic fields. The antipodean island, at Manhattan's polar opposite, became shadow matter and 'fell' through the earth. Where the island used to be: is now just ocean - except when there is an electromagnetic fluctuation on the island whereupon it becomes a portal - a gateway to the other side of the Earth - to the island world.

Flight 815 and its passengers passed through this gateway and became shadow matter. It fell through the Earth and crashed on the island/Manhattan, killing everybody on board. We never met any actual survivors of Flight 815.

The electromagnetism on the island is not naturally occurring - as suggested by Dr Marvin Candle in the Swan Orientation film - but is drawn from New York's grid, specifically: from Manhattan's substations. Sharing the same space as Manhattan, the various hatches can draw transient energy from Manhattan's huge artificially occurring electromagnetic fields - a by-product of the subway and the huge density of wires and currents that powers the 'Big Apple'. The Swan was set up to channel this leeched energy into a usable current - any excess energy to be dispersed safely by entering the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 every 108 minutes so as to avoid a build-up of power which would be detectable to the outside world: Brooklyn might black out. When Desmond failed to do this, in his flashback, there was a massive surge of built-up energy that opened the portal, pulling Flight 815 from the island's polar opposite in the Antipodes, through the Earth.



>September 22nd system failure and plane crash

The numbers correspond to the locations at which the excess energy can be safely dispersed in Manhattan so as to avoid detection. As planned, minor fluctuations in the island's field are disguised by Manhattan's much greater field, but the excess energy cannot be released in built-up areas as this would affect electrical devices and be noticed - if not by New Yorkers - then certainly by Penny's scientists.




Thus the energy is dispersed throughout the island at locations corresponding to the following open spaces in our world:
Washington Square Park on 4th
Tompkins Square Park on 8th
Union Square Park on 15th
Stuyvesant Square Park on 16th
Madison Square Park on 23rd
Bryant Park on 42nd
and, in the event of the failsafe being triggered, as it was by Desmond in the finale: the energy is released in Central Park at 108th.




For a more detailed (with all parks etc) pdf map of Manhattan and the parks:
http://www.07968826871.com/seventh_jpegs/manhattan_map.pdf


Is this the polar bear that Sawyer shot? His name is Gus and he lives with Ida in Central Park Zoo, Manhattan. Can anyone find a big green bird in Central Park Zoo?

Sayid fixes the radio. He and Hurley pick up the voice of a DJ with an American accent who introduces Moonlight Serenade.

>Hurley: "Whoa - you hear how clear that is? It's gotta be close, right?"
Sayid then explains that the signal could have come from anywhere - thousands of miles away perhaps - they look out into the distance. But perhaps the signal was clear because it WAS local: from Manhattan, where Moonlight Serenade was recorded by Glenn Miller and his band.

The four-toed statue segment as seen through Sayid's binoculars:

...is part of the Statue of Liberty! The Statue of Liberty is made up of separate copper pieces attached to a larger frame; her drapery, in sections, allows for expansion and contraction in New York's seasons. This is her foot:

...from Sayid's angle, the little toe would not be visible OR the little toe has been taken when the drapery above was removed - the rest of the statue didn't make it into this dimension.

Maybe it's stuff that's been struck by lightning in Manhattan that accumulates the requisite electrical energy to make the leap - skyscrapers being so high that they are above the island's bubble and so are out of range - but that just came into my head.

I've illustrated below what I think happened to Flight 815 and what originally happened to the 'island'. [I know it's bizarre - it's just an idea - calm down.]

Flight 815 takes off from Sydney for Los Angeles; people start drinking.


The flight goes thousands of miles off course [due to Dharma personnel tampering with the plane beforehand OR all electrical equipment going haywire in this part of the southern hemisphere due to Desmond's system failure]. It's in between Australia and Antartica.


The system failure in the hatch on the island on the other side of the world is starting to affect the dimensions of the universe - REPRESENTED by the following distortions of the globe.


The power of the distortion grows such that, at two polar opposites, reality is imploding. The well beneath the plane deepens.


...And the well at its polar opposite also deepens. [Island not pictured].


At this point, the dimensions of the universe prolapse, pulling through each other, and totally flip. Everything is inverted: left is now right, West is now East.


POP! The plane did not move much; the universe moved around it; it continues its little dive and crashes.

The island exists in a bubble created by this process - decades ago - and sustains itself in its own dimension presently.

It is necessary to press the buttons punctually in the hatch to disperse electromagnetic energy otherwise this process would happen again. If the buttons are not pressed at all - and no failsafe is triggered - the dimensional flip is absolute and the island would be returned to the bottom of the ocean in the icy waters on the other side of the world from whence it came years ago.

This part of the theory could explain a few things: the Black Rock was on the bottom of the ocean south of Australia, but when the island was created it took a part of the bottom of this ocean-bed as its land mass; it explains why certain things in the island dimension are inverted; why Lady Liberty's foot is pointing the wrong way; why the Brazilian scientists appeared to be situated in cold climate conditions (Antartica).

As the plane plummeted, the memories of all on board were harvested and stored by the Dharma scientists on the island. The appearance of 'Adam and Eve' (as Locke named them) on the island - the two aged corpses Jack discovered - is a reference to the first ever Star Trek episode. In this episode, Captain Pike is imprisoned beneath ground by a telepathic alien race that has collected the memories of their prisoners, in order to recreate their particular environments so they will procreate happily. Captain Pike and a curvy blonde were the new 'Adam and Eve' - in their own words - and were encouraged to multiply. This was a missed opportunity for Captain Pike, but the point is: memories were recorded, stored, altered, and used to create new realities. [While Dharma did not deliberately crash the plane, it would be a further tragedy to waste solid memories; in the same way that we should all carry Donor Cards!]




>Adam and Eve took the fruit of the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden: the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Could these be the SEEDS of that fruit? And if that 'knowledge' could be erased - could paradise be regained?..

Flight 815's passengers' memories were stored on the island, analysed, and, years later, modified and implanted in the minds of about forty or so Dharma volunteers - who we know as Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Claire, Charlie, Rose and all the others - including Locke who was not so much a volunteer as their leader: Alvar Hanso. The memories are periodically broadcast across the island directly into their minds to sustain the illusion that they are who they think they are. This is the root of some of the madness that has surrounded the broadcast - fragments of memories on the airwaves straight into people's heads in our world.

Henry Gale was an early attempt in this technique. Under interrogation, he said that he arrived on the island when his balloon crashed; he said he buried his wife. Whilst this story was proven to be false (by Sayid, Kate and Charlie finding the balloon crash-site, the real Henry Gale's id, and no wife) 'fake Henry' actually believed he was telling the truth! He remembers being in that balloon, crashing and burying his wife. To his mind, he was telling the truth. Of course, Henry also knew on some level that the memories had been implanted rather than lived (because someone had told him so), but, to him, they were no less real. The 'Others' have undergone the same process; whilst they are conscious of being test subjects, they also keenly remember lives they never actually lived.



>Henry Gale: "Call me 'Henry'... I've gotten used to it."


>the first Henry Gale

That Henry II is white and Henry I is black is testament to Dharma's customisation of the memories; Henry II's flashbacks would have him seeing a white face in the mirror - all memories that explicitly contradicted this deception were removed. All of the memories have been altered in some way, in order to keep the 'survivors' in line or to prepare them for the future. One example is Hurley's snowman joke: knowing the correct repsonse to the joke would identify Hurley as the person to succeed Desmond or Kelvin as button pusher; this joke was buried in his memory to be triggered by the right phrase. Other memories are plundered for visions to guide people more directly; for example, Eko's dead brother re-appearing in a 'dream' to guide him and Locke to the Pearl.

Implanting memories is not a perfect art. The memories have to be constantly broadcast to re-affirm the 'survivors'' adopted identities. And sometimes there is an awareness that surfaces. Two times we've seen Kate being strangled; on each occasion, the consciousness of a dead passenger rose to the surface as the host was weak and delirious.



>"Why did you kill me?"

On the first occasion it was the cop. On the second occasion it was Sawyer. He was murmuring things in a delirium; Kate thought it was the spirit of her real father who she had murdered. Sawyer suddenly started strangling her and said "Why did you kill me?" But it wasn't her father; it was the consciousness of someone trapped inside Sawyer's head; someone who had been on Flight 815. A bit like Being John Malkovich, but with an entire cast.

The scientists' original memories are also suppressed, but can still influence and inform their behaviour. Things and people are often seem familiar. There's a fair bit of déjà vu. One example is Jack - after blowing the hatch open in Season 2 ep1, he is suddenly spooked and does not want to descend. He cites the impracticality of getting everybody down there, but this is not the real reason as noted by Locke and Kate.



> wry smile on Locke's face as he questions Jack, detecting he is freaked. "Why don't you want to go down there, Jack?":

Later on, Locke reminds Jack that him meeting Desmond again - of all the people on Earth - would be impossible. But the truth is that Jack has spent years in the box as a Dharma scientist and hates the place. Literally, he was Jack in the box. This is further hinted at when Locke and Eko find the Pearl's surveillance monitors and see only Jack walking to and fro on the CCTV camera in the Swan hatch. This footage could be (but probably isn't) from years ago.



In fact, both seasons of Lost begin with a close-up of Jack's eye.


>season 1 ep1, Jack's right eye


>season 2 ep1, Jack's left eye

In the intro of Season 2, we see a man get out of his hatch bunk and begin his monotonous routine again. Some of this is Jack but with longer hair.

Other memories are clearly best left buried, such as Sawyer's former music career before he got involved in the whole Dharma thing:



Dharma's greatest purpose of taking dead people's memories and implanting them into other people is to extend life - indefinitely, with any luck...

Dharma researched many things on its island sanctuary. In this unique dimension, they created the 'black smoke' - metallic particles held in a field - its purpose, as Rousseau said, is security - to frighten people away from whatever it is guarding at the time. It taps into their deepest fears. When it came face to face with Eko, his memories can be seen flickering in the cloud.



The island's unique environment consisting of shadow matter - superimposed on Manhattan - allowed the Dharma scientists to do things that would not be possible with a normal set of physical laws. As well as electricity passing both ways from Manhattan to the island, physical objects can partially exist in both worlds simultaneously. In the pilot episode, Rose recognises the sound of the 'monster'; Rose is from the Bronx. Later in the season, we learn that some of the monster noise heard from the beach that 'first' night was made by the black smoke - but not all of it. There is also the sound of the El - part of New York's rail network. In that moment when some of the train's mass exists in both dimensions, it is knocking down trees and screeching. Walt's surreptitious appearances, after being kidnapped, tapped into the same means of translocation: perhaps not via the subway, but at least taking a route in our world to pop up in the island world miles from his starting point; it's damp down there.


.....As a psychotic interlude: when Michael is trying to interest Walt in New York he talks about the Flatiron Building on 42nd Street; he says it was built in 1902 and inspired him. In 1902, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company converted the Manhattan Els from steam to electric - the kind of train Rose heard. "El" is Hebrew for "God" and appears in the Bible several times as part of phrases or larger names such as "Immanuel" meaning "God with us". "El" is also used in the same way in Watership Down for the mythological hero El-ahrairah - the rabbit "Lord with a Thousand Enemies". El-ahrairah meets the Black Rabbit of Inlè in the book - the rabbit equivalent of Death - and tries to bargain and gamble for the lives of his warren. In the same way, the Knight Antonius Block tries to defeat Death at chess to postpone Death from claiming his comrades, in the Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal. More of The Seventh Seal later.....


>Sawyer reading Watership Down.

But the smoke, the monster and other things - like the sharks - are small fry compared to Dharma's greatest achievement: discovering Fate under a microscope.


>John Locke - the philosopher

John Locke - the philosopher - said that Memory is Identity. Dharma proved this by implanting memories into people - and witnessed the change of identities.

For example, Professor Klugh was married with a son, working on humanity's survival in a parallel island world; the next moment after volunteering, he believed he was 'Michael', a New York artist, getting to know his estranged son 'Walt' on a bizarre and dangerous island after his ex-wife had died.

Dharma had learnt that identity was not the only thing that changed with new memories: there was also a biological change. Brains are maps of our memories; when the map changes, the brain changes, and so the body changes.

Normally, the nervous system deliberately inhibits re-growth of missing limbs because losing a limb is effectively a 'lesson learnt'. The blueprint for a toe is written in our DNA; but if the toe is severed, our bodies decline growing it back. This is because the brain and nervous system are programmed to take the safer option of healing a wound quickly rather than face the potentially fatal step of re-growing it, exposing itself to infection in the process. The re-grown toe could also be a liability if nerves grow back wired wrong: you may intend to wiggle your toe, but instead wiggle your entire leg and fall over. With a new identity - at the synapse level - the former inhibitions are no longer present. It would be possible to re-grow a toe or an arm by assuming a new identity, following the new blueprint.


This is why, in the Swan Orientation film, Dr Marvin Candle looks old and has only one arm, but in the apparently more recent (even though both film and video have "1980 All Rights Reserved") Pearl Orientation video Dr Marvin Candle has already assumed the identity of Mark Whitman, looks younger and has both arms. This is also the significance of the four-toed foot statue; the pioneer of this technique cut off his own toe... had new memories installed and grew that toe back. He also took out his own eye, only to have it grow back; but the greatest gift he gave himself by assuming a new Identity was Faith. Alvar Hanso, the skeptic, became John Locke, man of Faith.


> Marvin Candle before - one arm


> Mark Whitman after - cheeky

The most important thing: Fate is determined by Identity. Dharma discovered that it is written in our DNA when we are born, when we fall in love, and when we die. It was predestined in the DNA of those people on the plane that they were going to crash and die at that moment. Their lives ended; their Fate expired them. But then their memories/identities/fates were adopted by people on the island! Kate, Jack, Sawyer and the rest are all now living past their expiry dates - there is no longer death for them, in the future. The passengers' sacrifice has fulfilled Fate; they paid the price for the 'survivors'.

Jack, Kate, and Sawyer are now exempt from death - the original Jack, Kate, and Sawyer have already died in their place. They have a clean slate - Tabula Rasa (the title and subject of an early episode).

The Others - their former colleagues - observe them and maintain the whole project. The purpose is to preseve humanity - beyond the plague - by re-defining their memories, their identities, their fates. They are invisible to Death as they are considered dead already. As Henry put it: "God doesn't know how long we've been here, John. He can't see this island any better than the rest of the world can...".

In a conversation between Ana Lucia and Henry - when Ana had every intention of killing Henry - he said, "Goodwin... yes, he told us all about you, Ana. How he thought you were worthy and that he could CHANGE you... but he was wrong... and it cost him his life." Goodwin believed that the Ana-Lucia identity was worth keeping. Other identities have been judged to be not worth keeping - either because they would be destructive to the Dharma community or because they are useless; such people are taken away and restored to their former selves.

There are various clues as to this memory theft and implantation of the Dharma Initiative. One clue is Sawyer taking on the name of the man he intends to kill - and then slowly becoming just like him; that clue lasted an entire episode.

Another clue is Locke's father stealing his son's kidney (although did he really?) so he could live longer. And then, later, fakes his own death to avoid being killed; in his own words: "I killed myself off because there were two people out there who were gonna beat me to it.

Another clue is Hurley getting a new life by using - unforgiveably - somebody else's numbers on the lottery.

Also when Claire is about to give her baby away she asks the foster parents if they know the song 'Catch A Falling Star - "Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket."

The best single clue is in Boone's death. Boone clambers up to the light aircraft, precariously balanced in vines on a cliff.



There are dead bodies and Madonna statuettes filled with heroin. Boone throws them down to Locke in disgust.


>"Here's your sign!"

Each one of those drug-filled figurines is like a passenger on Flight 815. The drug for Dharma is the memory - the identity.

He then climbs over the corpses. He picks up the radio. Static - it's working.



He speaks into it: "Mayday! We're the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 - please copy!"

A crackling voice responds "WE'RE the survivors of Flight 815!"

The voice was Bernard's, but the symbolism is there. The plane drops and Boone eventually dies of his injuries. Even as the passengers of Flight 815 were in the air, Dharma was already intending to become them. Dharma did indeed copy.




3

"Bergman is the only genius in cinema today." - Isaac, 'Manahattan' dir. Woody Allen, 1979.


The island being in Manhattan is amusing but peripheral to the big question of why? Why did these people arrive on the island? What is the purpose of it all? The purpose was to beat Death.

This section explains the source for this part of the theory.

I reckon The Seventh Seal has been an inspiration for some of Lost's themes, characters and plot. I'll try to juxtapose The Seventh Seal and Lost to show this. If true, The Seventh Seal could provide clues that can't be picked up by watching the show only.

The Seventh Seal is a film by INGmar BergMAN.




>Kelvin INGMAN

The story goes:

In the beginning , our heroes - the knight and his squire wake up on a beach.














It becomes apparent that they (the knight, at least) ought to be dead... as Death appears and tells him so.



Antonius Block - the knight - postpones Death by challenging him to a game of chess. Death accepts the challenge - he loves chess.





>Death picks black







>Charlie's chequered chess 'horse' shoe.

The knight is not afraid of dying; it's just that his faith is troubled and he wants some kind of guarantee from God - that there is a life after this and there is meaning.



The knight and squire journey inland and discover that the Plague is abroad. "Death walks these shores" .






We are introduced to a travelling troupe of three actors who live and perform from a caravan. Two of them are married with baby - Mia and Jof.

Jof has visions. His first vision we see is of the Virgin Mary.












>Charlie's vision of the Virgin Mary (Claire) - always in blue - and [possibly] Elizabeth (Charlie's mum Megan).




>Claire in blue

Jof also writes and plays his own songs. It's not exactly Driveshaft, but still.





>Charlie tries to find E flat.

On the way to town, the squire saves a damsel from a ravaging at the hands of Raval who is also stealing from the dead. Raval is the scoundrel who sent the knight and squire on their Crusade.

The squire says he will mark him as a thief if he sees him again.


>Raval

He does bump into him later in the tavern and cuts him about the eye:



>The squire on left. Raval on the right.









>Alvar Hanso

RAVAL... ALVAR. 'Hanso' means 'his island' in Swedish. According to the theory, Alvar Hanso steals from the dead: their memories.



>"He's a great man." - one acolyte's adoration - it will pass. There had been a time the squire followed Raval's wishes - even to The Crusades.

The squire enters a church and drinks with a mural painter. The mural is about the Plague:





The knight, on his quest for faith, inadvertantly confesses his despair - and his chess strategy - to Death in church, thinking he was a priest....



But when he realises this he becomes energised by his struggle.











This scene reflects the mood of the 'survivors' on the island - it's a 'last chance saloon' - they sense it's a deadly game, but they are in the moment. It's the opposite of Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquoy - it's life-affirming. If your blood is pumping you have hope; it's in the misty-eyed look Locke has occasionally.

Various things happen: Jonas and the blacksmith's wife get it on in the bush during an interval. Some self-flagellators pause with their actual-size crosses long enough to remind everybody that they are really going to die.

The knight senses that , although the end is coming, comfort can be taken from the present. In the scene below, he sits with the Squire and his damsel, and Mia and Jof. Sun breaks over the grassy clifftop. Jof plays his instrument. Mia hands round wild strawberries.







Yes - he will die. But he holds this memory in his hands and it is some comfort. Maybe memory is the antidote to death? Are we immortal if people remember us forever? Or is it more self-delusion: we live vicariously through other people's thoughts - only to avoid looking critically at ourselves and facing death? This is the premise of the theory: the Dharma scientists are living vicariously through other people's memories in a bid for immortality. But, in reality, they only distract themselves from Death not distract Death from themselves. It's a metaphor that can extend to television - it's a glittering distraction from death! Oh well.

While the relevance of this scene to Lost can easily be disputed; the importance to the film cannot be overstated: Bergman's next film was called 'Wild Strawberries' and dealt specifically with memory. In 'Wild Strawberries' an old man approaches the end of his life and involuntarily remembers all the pivotal moments in his life - a bit like the characters in Lost - even walking through some of them.



Death wipes the smile from Block's face shortly after by threatening his travelling companions. Death intends to claim them all; the knight is now playing chess for all of them.

They go through the woods. The blacksmith catches up with his slutty wife and Jonas the lover; the blacksmith intends to harm Jonas. Jonas does the old fake-knife-suicide-trick:







He successfully tricks the smith; they move on, and then he removes his fake beard.



But Death takes him anyway - that was his last performance.


>Fake Beard Man

We briefly meet Raval again. He dies.



Death and the knight near the end of the game. The knight - in his last meaningful act - knocks the board over so as to create a distraction so that Jof and Mia can escape.





Mia and Jof escape.



Death always remembers! Death eventually claims the others.

Later, Jof - safe with Mia and their baby - sees Death at a distance leading them in a dance over the hills.



>le territoire foncé