A Revisit of My Previous Work!

So...... little time left before the final season of Lost begins and with many viewers now turning to the online community, most notably Nik@Nike, I thought I would bring back some of the documents I've worked on over the course of last season. There are three such pieces of information created using the top of the line graphic technology of 1995 in Paint! Keep in mind that these documents have remained untouched since their original publications nearly a year ago and therefore could be brought up to date, either through information from the show or personal learning.

The first piece emerged as we were discussing the episode He's Our You: Who was Sawyer going to see? The second was a short essay stemming from the Season 6 teaser at the very end of the season, the one with the shot of an opening eye at the end! The last piece was written as a technical work of mathematics and probabilities with respect to time travel: can a paradox be avoided?


1. Whose house is it? Who was Sawyer really going to see?

In the episode He's Our You, after trying to free Sayid, Sawyer feels angry and decides to go seek advice/answers from one of his friends. As Kate opens the door, his demeanor changes. Many argued he obviously was going to see Kate and asked why she came back only to come face to face with the one he loved and seeing her changed his attitude. Another camp was arguing that Sawyer was looking for help in how to approach Sayid and therefore was heading to see Jack and ask his help and was surprised at finding Kate in his house.

The purpose here is not to restart the debate. We obviously all know Sawyer still has feelings for Kate, this has always been undeniable. Also, the question I attempted to explore was never explicitly answered on the show itself, leaving the two camps at a standstill. After the exciting season and the long wait, it becomes clearer that some aspects of the show are better left unanswered, creating different perspectives for different viewers and ultimately different experiences.

The original document on the subject can be found here.

After the original posting, some people commented that the end map I had 'painted' was inaccurate and pointed to this one here:


Focusing on the bottom group of houses and with some rotation, one can easily see the likelihood of my own designed house schematic:


Perhaps at four (4) days before the start of the ultimate season, this document has only one purpose: showing our obsessiveness and geekiness with the Lost phenomenon!


2. The EYE teaser!

At the end of the season 5 finale, ABC had pre-prepared a teaser for season 6 (they were on TOP of that!) This is the teaser in question:



Remember this? Some pointed to the smoke in the lettering which could represent wither the smoke monster or an explosion. Others focused on the eye opening at the end, some said it was Juliet waking up; others posited it could be Jack, or Desmond; and there were even some fans praying to Jacob for Charlie (and there were other theories).

While completely pointless, my goal here was to prove without a doubt that this was, unquestionably, Jack's eye. Not only did I stop there, but I also wanted to suggest it was identical to the opening shot of the series, you know the poignant opening shot from the Pilot? While we may very well have an answer this coming week, focusing on such details was somewhat moot, use of archived footage would be common and proving the shot was a specific one had no substance in determining the plot.

Regardless, enjoy these results!


3. A survival guide to avoiding paradoxes when time traveling.

The final piece is one of my favourite and probably the more serious document of the three. It is akin to a short mathematical essay in theoretical time travel (don't squirm yet!). It started of as a page or two on rational for changing the past while still avoiding paradoxes.

When the plan to detonate a hydrogen bomb to cancel the energy source and therefore preventing 815 from crashing, many fans jumped on the web and exclaimed how this was impossible and therefore suggesting with near guarantee that they were going to cause the 'incident'; they were citing the oft discussed grandfather paradox.

The name (if you are not familiar with the concept) comes the following scenario. Imagine that you invent a system that allows you to travel to the past. You decide to head back fifty, seventy, one hundred years into the past and accidentally/purposely kill your grandfather before your father is conceived. The result is that your father never gives birth to you, therefore you do not exist to invent a time machine and kill your youngling grandfather. This re-establishes the timeline in which you do travel into the past and kill your ancestor... and so on! The result is a paradox.

This argument is the one often cited in the case of Lost and is occasionally used in line with the statement "whatever happened, happened." (For fans of Futurama, remember how Fry becomes his own grandfather?) This chain of thinking seemed to conclusive and removed the a big part of the doubt heading into season 6. Therefore, I set out to write some short equations suggesting that changing the past was possible without creating such paradoxes.

The document eventually grew by a few pages into this. I do not believe it to be too technical and it certainly does not prove any plot development, it only suggests that no one can prove where the plot has been heading by the end of season 5. So I certainly hope you can enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing.


Hopefully, these documents will re-ignite (if not already done from Nik's Rewatch blog) your thinking cap and maybe even give you a new way to look at the mystery of the Island.