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So I've been thinking about the Finale, and about the show in general. There's a lot of things I think could have been better, a lot of things I would have done completely differently, but I don't think the way they chose to execute either the show or the ending were inherently wrong, just different than how I wish they had done it. And there's plenty of discussion on that in the main Lost Season 6 thread.

What I'm wondering about, and which I felt the need to start a new thread regarding, is this:

From the very first season, the Island itself has been established as a character. Many people throughout the series (most notably Locke and Be) mistake both Jacob or Esau to be the island, but ultimately both of them are just individuals who had plenty of flaws. They finally get a flashback episode, which gives us some insight as to their motivations, but tells us nothing about the island itself, which is what a lot of people actually wanted.

So I'm thinking, is it even POSSIBLE to do a flashback (or, hell, a normal present day scene) in which the Island is a character we can empathize with? I think this is something that, if done right, could have made the show a lot more successful on its own terms (i.e, keeping it a show that's ultimately about characters and faith, where the point of the mysteries turns out to be "seriously, stop obsessing with the mysteries.")

So, leaving all we've seen so far intact and canonical, can we think of ways they could have included flashback scenes that emphasized the island itself, establishing it as something that HAD motivations without breaking down the mystery completely? I thinking along the lines of taking the second to last episode (The one where Jack becomes guardian), and removing the flash sideways scenes (condensing them so they fit in other episodes). Then replacing them with scenes that show the history of the island.

1. A series of panning shots across the island, where the camera is kept low to the ground. We see various animals, but no people. This lasts about two minutes. Ideally it'd show significant natural landmarks that we recognize from earlier, but with no buildings. It starts out by showing the cave with the light. The mood/music is very tranquil. It ends with a small boat crashing into the island and a small group of people (very primitive, basically cavemen) getting out (camera is still low to the ground, so it's clearly not from any of their POV). The camera cuts back to the cave with the light, which flickers ominously. We hear one of the signature lost creepy music sounds.

2. I feel like the full details of the "origin story" of the islands relationship with people is something that isn't necessary to tell (I liked Jacob's mom's statement "any question about my origin will be met with another question."). So I guess the next series of flashbacks would be about Jacob's (and Smokey's) first interaction with new arrivals, but with camerawork that establishes we are not watching it from Jacob or Smokey or the castaway's POV. Ideally it would also introduce a few random ghost characters (possibly including a ghost from the small group of primitives who arrived at the end of the first flashback)

One of the last flashbacks would be one of the newcomers finding and turning the donkey wheel. I think that that act should be physically painful for the island. It should have a sort of fingernails-chalkboard sound that reverberates throughout the landscape (with the camera moving quickly to show how far reaching it is). We hear a groaning sound coming from the rock itself that sounds painful. To emphasize what is happening (because, well, empathizing with rock is hard), we also flashes of the ghosts as well as Jacob cringing in pain. We should the Man in Black smiling slightly and stroking his beard, not quite sure what to make of this but thinking about how to use it in the future.

Possibly have one followup flashback that shows Jacob killing the other humans (or otherwise dealing with them. Since it's his first time dealing with it he should be crude about it).

The final flashback shows Jacob sitting by the cave with the light, resting his hand on a rock, apologizing for letting it happen and promising never to let it happen again.

I think I could work out something better if I had more time, but I already spent way more time writing this than I expected to, and this is a pretty big Wall O' Text anyway. So that's it for now.

It's called the opening to 2001, A Space Odyssey... the island is the Black Monolith... there, you have a scene/s that explains the island in enough detail and is a shout out to a great SF film. But instead of cavemen make them egyptians... a nice tie in with the drawings of Anubis in the temple thing... heck, they could even make the smoke monster some sort of guardian to the island, with Jacob screwing it up by using his brother instead of a willing subject.

There is no explanation of it.

The writers had zero idea what they were doing after seasons one through three and basically made shit up as they went along (with no gameplan for the long term). They painted themselves in a massively small corner, with so many mysteries and questions they either didn't give a shit about answering, couldn't think of answers or simply ran out of time with too many questions.

Lost's first three seasons, were great. After that they went downhill. Season 4 had some great moments like The Constant but they jumped the shark.

This is how you do not write television.

If there was never any intention of answering certain questions, then it's not a failure when they don't answer them. Some of the mysteries were there to provide atmosphere - to give the characters a nemesis that could not be understood, to maintain the level of tension. More than that, though, some of the objects on the island were there for the characters to try and understand, but the show was always about the characters, not the questions. Jack, Locke, etc. might want to understand why the statue has 4 toes, but it's not really important to the story the writers were telling - they're telling a story about how the characters interact with each other.

While it's cool and all that people finally replied to the thread, I'd like to keep this thread to the topic at hand. General Lost discussion can go in any of the other multiple threads about it.

@@Li3n: I do think the Monolith is somewhat an example of an inanimate character, since there clearly is motivation ascribed to it and it even moves around from place to place. I'm not sure it would quite work in these circumstances... Actually, come to think of it I think something Monolith-like would have been great for Lost to use instead of the random "plug" in the middle of the pool. The solid blackness and geometric-ness created a weird mysteriousness that the plug was lacking.

escushion said:

Now I get it.

Click to expand...

that was WAY more than 5 seconds! =D

I think the scenario you proposed would not be very good. Having seen the entire show now I'm of the opinion the island was not a character and functioned more as a Macguffin.

I think you're right that the instances where people think the island is a character can be attributed to the man in black manipulating people. That's all explanation I need as to why the island was portrayed as a character.

I think in order to appreciate the show and how it ended you just need to accept that there's certain things that human beings just don't get to understand fully. For us and the character's in show the island and the nature of it's powers was one of those things. The island like life is both important and inscrutable. We can do our best to make sense of it and sometimes we do. Sometimes we just have to navigate it by intuition and faith. I can understand why people would be upset to invest that much time in a show and get such a simplistic idea as payoff.

The value I took from that show is that it prompted me consider ideas like free will and determinism by packaging it in a goofy but compelling adventure serial. Considering questions like that enriches my life far more than knowing what a fictional smoke monster is made of. So while I may want a spelled out explanation of the exact nature of the island's power as well as what it's motivations were I don't think it's ultimately something I need.

My issue has nothing to do with things not being explained. (Or rather, that is an issue, but not what this thread is about). I think leaving the island as a McGuffin is okay, but I am interested in the thought experiment of how you WOULD have portrayed it as a character if you wanted to. And I do think that successfully communicating its character-ness would have made for an awesome final mindfuck and mother of all flashback episodes.