LOST- I saw the ending and I still don't know how it ends

[NJmaverick]

I am LOST, I haven't figured out what the ending means and I am pissed because there were tons of questions left unanswered.

Where did the others come from and who were they exactly? How did they leave no footprints?

What was Whitmore's deal?

Who built the giants statue?

Who built the control panel for the smoke monster?

Why did dynamite affect the smoke monster when it got Locke?

Why did smokey kill the pilot in the pilot?

What was the deal with Dharma and why was it still doing air drops?

How did the plane with the drugs get to the island?

Why did someone have to push the button at the hatch? Couldn't that have been automated?

What was the quarantine thing all about?

What were the sonic walls and how did they keep smokey at bay?

What was the soul rotting disease that affected so many?

What was the deal with the radio transmission of the numbers?

What was the deal with the Walt's super powers?

How did Jacob get on and off the island?

[graywarrior]

1. Where did Lapidus, Miles and Richard end up?

Where was Michael and Walt?

Who killed Penny?

What happened to the babies, or were they real?

Why am I depressed?

[charlie and algernon]

2. Lapidus, Miles, Richard, Penny, Sawyer, Desmond, Kate, Claire and Aaron

they all died on their own after the island events. Remember, Christian said that the church gathering wasn't happening at a specific point in time, just when they all were there because they died AT SOME POINT in the island timeline. The Island survivors all could have died 30 years after the island events. Christian said that their best times alive happened on the island, so that's why they looked like they did on the island, instead of seeing an 89 year old Kate and a 75 year old Desmond and Penny, etc.

[NJmaverick]

5. So they lived their lives like Al Bundy, knowing their best days were behind them?

[charlie and algernon]

6. I guess that's one of the unanswered questions

we don't know if the survivors realized their best days were behind them. I would imagine that the lives of everyone who got off the island was profoundly changed. Kate and Claire raised Aaron together. Richard, Miles, Frank, and Sawyer become best buds and travel the world together, who knows. :shrug:

No work of fiction reveals EVERY detail about the lives of the characters after the story ends. The show ends on a good note, so you're left to assume that the survivors lived good lives after the island. I think Christian's point was that no matter how good their lives were after the island, their BEST times were the times spent when the group was together. So the group had to get together so they could move on, together.

[dipsydoodle]

7. They were all dead

but died at different times. Soon as the last one had "let go" they were all together again.

[charlie and algernon]

8. they were all dead in the sideways-verse

they were all alive in the island timeline. When they died in the island timeline, the moved to the sideways-verse. Once there, they stayed there until they recognized that they did in fact die.

[LynneSin]

9. "Six Feet Under" did it waaaaaaaaaaaay better

:D

[NJmaverick]

3. Maybe you're depressed for the same reason I am

you wasted 6 years watching a show with an unsatisfying ending.

[graywarrior]

12. LOL, Seriously I have better things to get depressed over

Like GD/GDP.

[NJmaverick]

18. Those places are even weirder than the Island

[graywarrior]

19. Lots of black smoke

[Bucky]

13. More Answers!

Where was Michael and Walt?
          Haunting the island and New York City, respectively

Who killed Penny?
          No one killed Penny. Hurley returned Desmond to her after he bonded with Ben.

What happened to the babies, or were they real?
          They were real. If you mean the Kwons' kid, Aaron, & Little Chollie, they grew up, I guess.

Why am I depressed?
          Like Sayid, you are racked by the guilt that all torturers feel. Free the duck!

[Frank Cannon]

4. It will all be answered in the sequel/movie(s): LOST, The Hurley and Ben Years

You know they're going to do it.

[Bucky]

10. Answers!

Where did the others come from and who were they exactly? How did they leave no footprints?
          Some were brought to the island over the years by Jacob to show Smoky that not everyone was corrupt. Often, but not always, Smoky would just kill them. Occasionally he'd try to trick them into killing Jacob. After Jacob set up Richard in the 1800s to be his intermediary & guide to those he brought on-island, they were able to stay established and started recruiting their own people as well, although that may have been part of Jacob's plan.
          Over the years, they got really good at moving about the island stealthily. Locke & Kate saw their tracks sometimes, but there were really good and doubling back and leaving false trails. As Juliet made clear, recruits to the Island, through their Mitellos shell operation, were given extensive training in philosophy, groupthink, judo, firearms, and Latin.
          The one unanswered question is why, after the Purge, women couldn't conceive on the island. Best guess: Jacob had tired of their shit. He was human & flawed himself, after all, and as Ben pointed out in the end, his way of running things wasn't the only, or even the best, method of protecting the island.

What was Whitmore's deal?
          He was one of the good guys

Who built the giants statue?
          Some of the wayward folks that Jacob brought to the island over the centuries. Probably Egyptians.

Who built the control panel for the smoke monster?
          There was none. He controlled himself and was only using the devices people brought to the island by Jacob to fool Ben into thinking he was summoning the Monster. But really, as Ben said a few episodes ago, Smokey was really always summoning him.

Why did dynamite affect the smoke monster when it got Locke?
          I'm guessing the percussion of the blast scattered it, just as the sonic fences could set up vibrations that repelled Smokey

Why did smokey kill the pilot in the pilot?
          It's what he does. The pilot wasn't a candidate. He was married (Lapidus noticed Widmore's fake pilot corpse didn't have a wedding ring), so he wasn't lost & lonely like the candidates Jacob wanted to recruit from the plane.

What was the deal with Dharma and why was it still doing air drops?
          The one-eyed Russian was able to request drops from the Flame (as seen in Season 3), until Locke blew it up.

How did the plane with the drugs get to the island?
          The island moves about in space as well as time. That's how it got Latin speaking babies like Jacob & his Red Toga mama as well as the Egyptian shit builders

Why did someone have to push the button at the hatch? Couldn't that have been automated?
          The Dharma Initiative preceded Lee Iaccoca. Besides, they were all into that BF Skinner stuff, so they were constantly having double blind monitors monitoring double blind maze rats. They did automate it somewhat by having a failsafe that could rebury the energy source in case it all went nutzo kablooie. Radzinsky was no idiot.

What was the quarantine thing all about?
          Manipulating the guys in the Swan into not ever going outside. Very Skinnerian.

What were the sonic walls and how did they keep smokey at bay?
          They were sonic walls. They kept Smokey at bay.

What was the soul rotting disease that affected so many?
          When Smokey "possesses" you without killing you, he can manipulate you, making you more murderous. E.g., Robert trying to kill Danielle in the 80s. But it's not total control. Desmond was able to reason with "possessed" Sayid.

What was the deal with the radio transmission of the numbers?
          They were first broadcast by the guys the Army sent to test the bomb. Somehow, they were kooky nutso, probably by Smokey possessing them & driving them mad (as he did to Claire). Only two got off the island: the one in Australia and the guy Hurley met in Santa Rosa Hospital for the Charmingly Wacko--both of them obsessed by the numbers till the end, just like whoever it was who changed the radio transmission to endlessly loop the numbers (until Rousseau recorded her SOS over the numbers).

What was the deal with the Walt's super powers?
          Walt was special. Probably the same way that Locke & Desmond were special. They were in tune with the radio-magnetic frequencies that control life, the universe, and everything.

How did Jacob get on and off the island?
          Donkey Wheel


There, does that help?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

11. good word -

Skinnerian.

[ChazII]

14. Thank you for this information.

It helped tremendously.

[NJmaverick]

15. Thanks it did help. I am still not fully satisfied, but I am a bit happier

[SteppingRazor]

16. Which raises my question: Who built the donkey wheel? And the cork? n/t

[charlie and algernon]

17. the group the Man in Black was with built the wheel

During "Across the Sea," you see MIB in the cave and the donkey wheel is on the ground next to him, his group built it. We never found out who built the cork, it may have been there from the beginning of Time. For all we know, God himself put that cork there.

[SoxFan]

20. My $.02

Everybody seems to be assuming that the ending indicates that everyone is dead.

I dissent.

Yeah, having Papa Doc jump out of the casket was a bit off, but listen closely to what he said. He told Jack that he (Jack) died, but also pointed out that everyone else dies at some point, before or after. He also indicated that they were not experiencing time in the linear manner to which we are accustomed.

Also, let's remember where we first saw this church. It was the Lamppost Station, which hints that it may well be situated at some anomaly in space/time.

I think that the sideways universe is a valid parrallell universe, that the folks are alive in that universe, but that their consciousness has merged with that of their "Lost Prime" counterparts.

[undeterred]

21. The problem with this story is that its more about character than plot

but the writers spent so much effort developing and detailing the plot that the viewer ends up looking in the wrong place for satisfaction.

This is more the story of Jack and the story of connections he made and what he learned in his life.

To a degree it is also the story of other people he comes into contact with and their journeys and connections in life.

I was expecting the end of the story to be either on the island, or after everyone died or got off it. The end of the story was Jack dying on the island and coming into a fuller realization of what his life meant and that the really important thing was his connections with other people. The realization was in the place where he went and found his father instead of his dead father.

So if you are looking for the how and what of the mysterious island- the writers are telling you to look somewhere else. That isn't what's important any more. All those things are just a vehicle for people to learn what they need to learn in this life. Its a pretty large message, actually. I think they dropped a lot of hints along the way that there was a deeper level to all this, but there were also a lot of diversions and distractions.

The whole good and evil thing with Jacob and the MIB and the light on the island just didn't work for me.