We knew they were dead all along...worst SERIES FINALE EVER!
AWFUL ENDING
shareI think they were dead all along. Since the very first episode. Though I've read the writers insist that wasn't the case -- that they were only depicted as dead in the sideways world of the final season. But that doesn't work for me.
I interpret the entire series as iterations of bardo ("an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth").
So that's what works for me, and as such, the series finale works.
Before LOST came Twin Peaks, which I also interpret as a bardo journey, then Lynch made the film Mulholland Drive which I also think of as such. Then came LOST
Interesting (?) side notes: JJ Abrams was pitching LOST to the ABC executives who were reluctant (because of what happened with Twin Peaks) and JJ said "You're referencing a show that was basically canceled 20 years ago. We should aspire to Twin Peaks." I think Abrams caught on that TP's and Mulholland Drive depicted a bardo journey and used that same idea for LOST. Not to mention, the actor that played Jacob (and one of the other actors) in LOST was in Mulholland Drive (released in 2001 and followed by LOST which premiered in 2004).
Mark Pellegrino rules as Jacob! Great character actor.
Your interpretation is nonsense. People like Tom Friendly leave the island regularly and stay at five-star penthouse suites in Manhattan and drink champagne with male gigolos. Charles Widmore left for twenty years, and returned.
No one is arguing that the scenarios the characters face on the island, and their relation to events of their past lives, do not intentionally read as purgatory-esque long before they get to the flash-sideways. To assume that it was literal just seems like a lightweight notion by someone not fully invested in the series. This is the case because they're close to the Source and because Jacob and The Island, which is essentially a living being, form a communion and choose people as island caretakers—candidates for Jacob's replacement "for a reason." If they were random folks with no purpose or tragic backstory worth telling, then not only would it be a boring show with no legs, but it would relegate the role of Protector to be inconsequential by the time we reach the endgame.
"your interpretation is nonsense"
My interpretation is how the story best works for me. It doesn't have to work the same for you or be agreed upon. Personally, I'm skeptical enough to think that the writers started off with the idea that the island was purgatory and then changed it up later, such that the island events were to be understood as "real" and then only S6 introduces the bardo.
It doesn't really matter one way or the other. The final bardo was what we saw in S6. Whether the story up to that point was bardo or "really happened" is inconsequential. Btw, if seasons 1 - 5 existed in a bardo that counts for "really happening" also, it's just that it happened after they had died. But either way, doesn't matter. We see where there journey ended and we see what got them there.
I remember a poster years ago who insisted the whole series was Jack's dying dream. Hey, that works too if you like to interpret the show in that light (I personally don't). After all, there was a character reading An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge in one episode if I remember correctly.
The Oceanic Six left the island, interacted with the world for three years, and then returned. What are you talking about?!
Sun had her baby. Kate had her trial. Hurley went back to the nuthouse and then surrendered to a triple murder charge that Sayid was responsible for. Jack saved more lives on the bridge and made the news again. Aaron & Walt grew up. Frank Lapidis got a job flying for Ajira Airways. Desmond knocked Penny up. Daniel Faraday went back-and-forth via submarine to Ann Arbor in the 1970s. Richard Alpert & Ethan Rom established Mittelos Labs in Portland and recruited Juliet Burke in Miami. Jacob & his brother occupied the Island since Egyptian times, yet we witnessed Jacob's very real and organic murder and transition to a ghostly realm in 2007. What the hell kind of "bardo" was he in?
Mr. Eko, upon death, attended his own "flash-sideways" with Yemi, where "moving on" was more prompt and his spiritual essence can return at will to lose a game of chess to Hurley.
The only purgatory on the island was for killers and traitors like Michael Dawson who arbitrarily executed Jacob's candidates. Upon his death on the freighter, he seemed stuck there like Man-in-Black, which would be logical and consistent. The whispers are in bardo perhaps.
It's frivolous to argue otherwise unless you simply watch the first season, and then the last—ignoring the bulk of the series. There's such a richness in the mythology and there's no reason to cheapen it with dreams or seven-levels-of-hell nonsense.
"It's frivolous to argue otherwise unless you simply watch the first season, and then the last—ignoring the bulk of the series."
If it's frivolous to argue then why are you arguing? I already said interpretations are whatever works for any given individual and even extended the possibilities to include the "dying dream" interpretation.
Discourse on what happened during the show should be fun, not contentious.
I just want folks reading this thread in interest and possibly deciding to give it a go to have an accurate synopsis. It's not so much an argument with you personally. While there are moments for spirituality and an afterlife is something that certainly exists in the story in a far more concrete way than it how it's presented to us real humans who need faith, the heart of the show is really more like a The Village & Castaway meets The Terminator bitchslapping Marty McFly in an Indiana Jones setting where characters have lots of parental and relationship issues to broaden the audience and pad out the time. People don't watch those films and say, "The ark of the covenant is a metaphor for Jones choosing archaeology over settling down with barkeep, Marion Ravenwood, and he realizes this in a dream which is presented to the audience in the form of a motion picture." There's no reason to hold this view with Lost either because it robs it of all substance.
I'm here to tell readers that while you're free to some interpretation, you will not or should not feel compelled to the "bardo" or OP's "dead since first episode" viewpoint unless you actively chose so and ignore contrary facts. The characters are alive and vibrant, the action and mysteries do matter, and the non-chronological storytelling is not just some gimmick. So, stick with it, folks.
"I just want folks reading this thread in interest and possibly deciding to give it a go to have an accurate synopsis."
No problem with that. Although if I were a potential first time viewer I'd probably skip these message boards for fear of spoilers. Usually one can get a good synopsis by visiting IMDb.
"I'm here to tell readers that while you're free to some interpretation, you will not or should not feel compelled to the "bardo" or OP's "dead since first episode" viewpoint unless you activity chose so and ignore contrary facts."
To be clear, I'm not telling you that my bardo interpretation is accurate or that it is defensible versus your interpretation (which to your point is what the writers also insist upon as well).
Had I more interest in the show I'd go back and collect certain references and have some fun with the discussion. But I just finished re-watching the show (last night actually!) as I was showing it to a first timer so I have no inclination to go back and take notes for discussion at this time. But in the unlikely event that I do another re-watch I'll take notes and revisit this thread and we can have some fun.
If you're interested.
Cheers!
I just poked around for a couple of minutes and came upon this. Now, he is clearly only referencing the sideways world, but at least it confirms bardo, in part:
Lindelof: From a writerly standpoint, it’s impossible for me to convey to you in words what the rules of the sideways were, other than to say we called it a bardo in the writers’ room, which was largely based on a construct in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is this idea that when you die, you experience an afterlife where you do not know that you are dead, and the entire purpose of that afterlife is for you to come to the awareness that you have died.
Which I don't think you'd have a problem with, since what Lindelof is clearly specifying only pertains to a part of the final season.
A couple of more interesting quotes/comments:
Cuse: I think we could have done some things to make it clear that that wasn’t what you were supposed to take away. But one of the big intentions of the show was intentional ambiguity and giving people the opportunity to digest and interpret Lost as they want to if they wanted to. And at some level, you know, you can’t have it both ways.
Holloway: I’m still confused. I’ll be honest with you. I think that’s one theory. We could have all been dead. Or we could have been in like this purgatory thing. I always thought that, and still do kind of really think it was more that. To me, that’s what makes more sense. Then they kind of sidestepped it with the parallel life at the end. But I don’t know, because they always said, “No, it’s not purgatory.”
Again, cheers!