A list of LOST mysteries that we reasonably could have expected to be cleared up before the end.
No doubt, there are some mysteries best left mysterious as any attempt at an explanation would be unsatisfactory. But LOST was unique in having dozens upon dozens of mysteries that were easily explained and that anyone watching could have rightly expected and explanation for. So let’s make a list of them.
- Who is Eloise Hawking and why does she know so much in all realities?
- What did the numbers mean?
- Did the atom bomb actually reset the timeline or did the incident happen as it should have and that reset the timeline?
- Why did MIB get turned into a smoke monster seconds after being sent down the island’s glowing anus but no one else did?
- Why couldn’t the man in black leave? Especially if they were, as Ben said, just Jacob’s rules.
- Why the hieroglyphics when the computer in the hatch counted down.
- How did the pylons keep the smoke monster out and how on earth did anyone ever make such a discovery?
- What was the smoke monster’s problem with circles of ash?
- What was the deal with the temple? Why was asian-guy’s presence somehow able to keep the smoke monster at bay?
- How was Widmore finally able to get back to the island? Why did he want to come back so badly pre-6th season?
- Why did the MIB take the form of new dead people? Why couldn’t he just stick with his normal form and what let him change forms anyhow?
- How did the island heal people?
- What was with babies not being born on the island?
- If you unplug vending machines, do you really get free candy?
- How did a submarine explosion manage to blow Ladpidis’ facial hair off, but leave his head-hair intact?
- Why was Aaron so important?
- Why was Libby in the mental hospital the first time we saw her in Hurley’s flashback?
- Why did some people on the island “get sick” or “turn evil” like Rousseau’s shipmates or Sayid?
- Why did the statue have four toes?
- Who built the statue in the first place?
Do you have more? Add them.
Comments
18. How did Mother get there?
19. How are the egyptian god statue, the glyphs on the countdown clock, and the glyphs on the anus-plug all related?
20. And of the glyphs on the countdown clock are related, did the Dharma initiative know a ton more about the island than anyone let on?
21. How did the Dharma initiative get there in the first place?
22. Why were Penny and Desmond in the death church at the end if they were never on the flight?
23. I missed a bunch of episodes, but whatever happened to Walt?
24. What happened to the people who flew off with Lapidus?
PS…this whole thing reminds me of that movie “Stay” with Ryan Gosling and Ewan McGregor. Ryan Gosling appears to be going insane and the real world falls apart causing hallucinations. Only for us to realize at the end he was in a car accident and the entire movie took place in the flash of seconds before his death.
22. Did the DeGroots ever get their doctorates?
23. Did Dharma Shark encourage anyone to wish for a bigger boat?
24. What happened to time travel bunny?
25. How the hell did Roman Empire era people figure that putting a donkey wheel into a glowing light and diverting water from a pool would help them leave the island?
26. Speaking of that buttplug pool, where did those other streams lead to, and what was the source of the water?
27. Light? Really?
28. What, Michael and Walt weren’t allowed back for the finale?
29. In addition to Aaron, why did the others want Walt so badly?
30. What happened to the Others who didn’t die in the shelling of Omaha Beach? Did those two kids and the stewardess live?
31. Does anyone remember when Smokey was interested in showing people the wrongs they committed in the past and getting people to repent their sins (e.g. Mr. Eko)?
I’m done asking questions and/or thinking about Lost. You can make up whatever answers you want for all of these questions.
Didn’t they answer the numbers? Wasn’t it the numbers assigned to each passenger who was a candidate?
Also, I just assumed anything related to Aaron or Walt was because maybe they thought the successor to Jacob would be a child and so they were most interested in them.
But yeah, what Jay said. If you’re still spending this much time debating these questions……..yeah. Just leave it be. You liked it or you didn’t. If you liked it you are o.k. with the dangling questions. If you didn’t then no answer will suffice.
Maybe when the season 6 comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray, they wil answer some of these questions. But like Jay and Kev stated, the show is over and lets fill the void that will be left in our lives with a poker game or a gangbang.
That being said, wasn’t Aaron the first baby born on the island since Ethan Rom? With the ‘Others’ living on the island between the births, I am sure they wanted Aaron for some tests and what not. And maybe something about kids being pure and clean conscious-ish and they can be molded into whatever.
Heidi said:PS…this whole thing reminds me of that movie “Stay” with Ryan Gosling and Ewan McGregor. Ryan Gosling appears to be going insane and the real world falls apart causing hallucinations. Only for us to realize at the end he was in a car accident and the entire movie took place in the flash of seconds before his death.
…which, in turn, reminds me of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, one of my favourite stories ever from high school (Bierce rules).
“LOST IS OVER, NOW STOP TALKING ABOUT IT!”
….what?
John said:“LOST IS OVER, NOW STOP TALKING ABOUT IT!”
….what?
I just don’t understand why you’re interested in continuing to torture yourself by speculating over things that you now realize were never conceived of with answers in mind.
If I were actually torturing myself. you’d have a point. But Ren and Stimpy had an indelible impression on me and, as it so happens, I like being angry. So I’m just having fun.
Fair enough, and so am I, for the record. I’m all about continuing the Lost discussion by the way. I’m just done looking at details. Now it’s all about trying to convince people that they’re just a bunch of suckers.
Agreed. There are some hardcore kool-aid drinkers out there. They’ve actually managed to convince themselves that what they really cared about this whole time were the characters and not the cool island stuff; as though they actually would have watched this dreck if it had taken place in a jersey suburb or something, sans immortal smoke monsters and time travel.
John said:Agreed. There are some hardcore kool-aid drinkers out there. They’ve actually managed to convince themselves that what they really cared about this whole time were the characters and not the cool island stuff; as though they actually would have watched this dreck if it had taken place in a jersey suburb or something, sans immortal smoke monsters and time travel.
Please refer to my most recent post in the “The End” thread.
John said:Agreed. There are some hardcore kool-aid drinkers out there. They’ve actually managed to convince themselves that what they really cared about this whole time were the characters and not the cool island stuff; as though they actually would have watched this dreck if it had taken place in a jersey suburb or something, sans immortal smoke monsters and time travel.
As I alluded to in the other thread, you know darn well that extremely early on the debate you and I were having was me saying “I hope this doesn’t become science fiction” and you saying “I hope this becomes more science fiction.”
I’d probably like the show even more if it had just taken place in a Jersey suburb and had the same type of characters and relationships. My complete and utter inability to get more than a few episodes into Star Trek, or the X Files or Buffy, or Battlestar Galactica or any other show with annoying, poorly written characters saying stupid things like “frack” or “tribble” or whatever else is evidence of this.
It’s also evidence of how good Fringe is that it’s managed to be sci fi and interest me.
The sci fi segment of Lost fans were and are as annoying as people who complained about seasons or episodes of the Sopranos that didn’t have enough people getting wacked.
Polar Bear? I remember they found a place in the desert with a polar bear cage, but does that really answer anything?
• Jacob’s cabin, why it moved around, and what the hell was living in there.
• The outrigger canoes flashing through time and firing upon each other
• Why Widmore wanted to raze all human life on the Island during his Ben-Revenge Quest even though he seemed to know Jacob had pulled a new set of candidates.
• Most of Widmore’s intentions in the 4th and 5th seasons, actually.
It was frustrating because it felt like all of these things could have been wiped away with a spare line of dialogue or little more careful editing.
- WHO MADE THE DHARMA FOOD DROPS?!
I wrote this elaborate comment about the Dharma Food Drops and how they’re an example of the worst sort of writing that constricts the size of the universe. It also lacks the trap-door plot connections that make most of the unanswered mysteries easy to explain away on one’s own.
Then I decided that post-show Hurley, as the future protector of the Island and wielder of its immense powers, somehow manipulated the space-time continuum so that a hungry Hurley in the past would be regularly supplied with lots of food.
Motherfucker loves to eat.
hahahhahahhahahaha, fair enough.
I just assumed the food drops were either A) happening in a different time period (along the lines of when they shot the rocket things or whatever they did once Faraday, etc. came to the island), or B) They (the outside world) just didn’t know that they weren’t there any more.
But how would the outside world even find the island to drop food on it if not even Widmore could find his way back?
Because it was a mystery that never had an answer and they awkwardly failed to tie into something more nebulous?
One reason why most of the unanswered questions are okay with me is because the writers often had the foresight to connect them with multiple facets of the unspooling plot.
Example:
When Ben shows Locke the magical Box that creates things, the writers provide themselves with a nice little trap-door by tying it to Ben Linus specifically. Sure, they could pick up the thread later and use the magical Box if it helped move along the plot in a direction they liked… but they don’t lose anything by just casting it aside. After all, that Ben is really quite a liar, right?
The supply drops fail because there’s it’s too simple. Planes aren’t magic, someone had to fill that with supplies and dump it over the Island. It wasn’t a wizard or a dragon. It also manages, through its banal practicality, to strip away the eerie atmosphere of isolation surrounding these decayed ruins of a research station.
I only vaguely remember such a box… explain?
Maybe they’re weren’t food drops? Maybe they came on the submarine?
Ben takes Locke to an underground system of hallways and claims there’s a special box that would take the innermost desires of a chosen few and manifest them to the Island. He brings Locke to a small, box-like room where Anthony Cooper is tied to a chair. Groundwork for something mystical or strange further down the line if the writers need it.
But since we’ve seen that Ben’s deceptive as hell and that the Others have commandeered ways of traveling back and forth from the Island to the rest of the planet, it’s easily concluded to be another lie/rhetorical flourish on the part of Ben to easily manipulate a very easily manipulated Locke.
It’s a pointless moment in the long run… but a good example of how to properly set up a mystery in a serial narrative.
WOW. I totally forgot that episode.
That’s the kind of shit that made me so mad about this season. Not that I neeeeed these mysteries answered, but a combination of two things:
1. Disdain towards the writers who I, perhaps mistakenly, expect some aspect of foresight in terms of what they’re putting out there that they have to finish later.
2. The promise are far, far more interesting things, unrealized.