LOST theories

[chicken]

Last night, my bunnyohare said to me that LOST is like Sartre's "No Exit" (Huis Clos, also translated as "In Camera") -- and, the Bunny added, "They are all DEAD."

I didn't really get it at first, because my memory of Sartre is fuzzy at best. But I nodded. Interesting theory.

But just now I read a similar theory on the Browncoats board. I think that the Bunny and this guy, they have a compelling theory indeed. L'enfers, c'est les autres.

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The Browncoat guy's articulation of the theory:
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They are dead. The people we are watching are those who were lost when the plane went down. The island is a kind of purgatory where they will face themselves, and come to peace before being able to move on.

This would explain why they were all seated in the part of the plane least likely to have survivors, and most of them walked away with only a few scratches.

It would explain why Locke can walk again (a spin on the old "people who lost a leg on Earth get it back in Heaven" thing).

It could explain why Jack's father was there as a guiding spirit, but could not communicate (he has moved on to a different stage).

It would explain why they have such difficulty killing each other (though the island can kill them - does this death signify failing the island's tests? Or passing on either way?).

I even suspect that the baby lived in it's dead mother's womb for a day or so, which is why she couldn't feel it moving until it passed away, and joined her.

I was toying with the idea vaguely, until Jack's talk with Mary when she insisted that her husband was not dead, and that he and the other people in the tail section probably thought all of them were dead. A little voice in my head said "and they're right".

It's not a flawless theory, but it does open up a new dimension on the show for me. If true, its the kind of thing they won't answer until the final episode, there will have to be a certain amount of misdirection into the more concrete mysteries of the island (i.e. the French woman, and those who were there before).

Comments

[keever.livejournal.com]

I'm almost positive that this theory was directly debunked in the TV Guide cover story from a few weeks ago. They had scans of it up at TheOneRing.net, but for some reason, their news archive page keeps crashing Firefox, and I can't get to it to read it again.

Plus, given that Jack as already used the metaphor of them all being dead, not to mention that now Sayid has said that nobody should have survived a crash in which the tail came off of the plane, that seems a little too hidden-in-plain-sight to me. I tend to think that whatever the deal is with the island, it won't be something that can be explained in one big reveal towards the end of the series, because that will feel like a serious gip to a lot of people. It would work in a book, and maybe a mini-series, but would be pretty crazy-making for a serial drama, I think.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

If you are right, it's still a masterful bit of misdirection, and interesting food for thought. Because, regardless, there are still inevitable existential crises, identity anxieties, etc.