Reality Reconstruction

The Real Long Con

For those of you who are still scratching your heads wondering what happened on the final episode of LOST, allow me to share my opinion. I think everything fit nicely together in the end, and everything was adequately explained.

However, it wasn’t spoon fed, as most people expect from their passive TV entertainment. This one requires a bit of creative thought to understand, at least according to what I think it was all about.

Some have said that the writers fell into what is called “The Chris Carter” effect, after the writer of the popular series “X Files.” The show kept going on and on, revealing clue after clue, with the fans expecting some huge payoff at the end. Only there wasn’t any underlying theory, and Carter admitted he was pretty much making it up as he went along.

So are some claiming about LOST. However, it is clear to me that the entire story was hashed out before the writing of the very first pilot. As evidence to this, I point out the scene in part two of the pilot (I’m terrible with show names, and probably can’t name all the characters save the main ones.)

Lock is playing backgammon, or rather explaining backgammon to the young kid (Walt I believe, or Walt’s son). He explains that backgammon consists of two pieces, one black, and one white. He holds up each piece on either side of his head, and asks the kid:

“Do you want to know a secret?”

The secret, however, is never answered.

Now keep in mind, when you write a TV show, you never know how many seasons it will last for. LOST was on for a season or two before they agreed to wrap it up after six seasons. So despite having a definite ending in mind, they may have had to stretch out some middle parts, but they still all fit.

Here’s why.

What follows is my basic theory of what the Island was, what Jacob was all about, and the real reason for all those people coming to the island all those years, including the main characters, the Others, and the tailies (or whatever you call them.)

The island is the center of the life force of the world. It has existed as long as the Earth itself. When the island was created, a succession of protectors was also needed to protect the “source” from contamination, exploitation, and destruction.

This job was relatively easy, as all it required was for somebody to keep the location safe, and to kill anybody who threatened to exploit it. (Like that lady who bashed in Jacob and his brothers Mom’s head after she gave birth.)

This went on without a hitch, until Jacob and his brother came along. The writers may have drawn from the Myth (or biblical account if you prefer) of Israel and Ishmael. One favored brother, one who was angry that he wasn’t favored.

Once these two brothers came along, there was suddenly trouble. When the man in black was angry that his “mother” destroyed his camp, he killed her. Jacob, in a fit of rage, threw him down into the “source” where he turned into a shape shifting smoke monster.

Once that happened, Jacob’s purpose became nothing other than to kill his brother. For once his brother was killed, protecting the “source” would be easy again. His brother, now turned into “Smokey” was intent on destroying the island so that he could leave.

So it was Jacob all along who was the master string puller, who needed desperately to kill his brother. However, their “mother” made it so that couldn’t harm each other. They had to kill each other by proxy. And since Jacob’s brother had been turned into a smoke monster, he could only be killed once the island was taken “off line.”

So the only hope for humanity was to find a way to take the island “off line” long enough for somebody to kill Smokey, who would then be again trapped in a mortal body, and once destroyed, restore the island to it’s original state.

So in the episode which started off the sixth season (or maybe ended the fifth, I’m not sure) where Jacob and the man in black were sitting there, and the man in black said “Do you know how much I want to kill you?”

It was really Jacob who needed to kill the man in black. All the people he brought to the island were all pawns to that end.

He even said so in the episode before the finale.

“I brought you here because I made a mistake.”

They weren’t “candidates” to “protect” the island. They were “candidates” to kill the smoke monster.

As far as all the other characters, I suggest you consider the scene in “Ocean’s Eleven” when the two thieves are planning their Casino Heist. They are naming off all the “players” they are going to need in order to succeed, complete with goofy names for them:

“Off the top of my head, I’d say you’re looking at a Bowski, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever!”
So in order to pull off his “long con,” Jacob required many players, and many of them to play against their will, or even their knowledge of what was going on.

He even pulled people to the island that his brother “Smokey” might utilize against him, thinking that he (Smokey) was getting the upper hand.

In that regard, I refer you to “The Last Don,” by Mario Puzo, in which a brilliant Don expertly manipulated everybody, and it wasn’t revealed that he did so until he was on his deathbed.

To support this from the show, the man in black (before he became Smokey) was describing to Jacob the people on the island. Manipulative, deceptive, untrustworthy, but a means to an end. Just how Jacob likely saw all the other characters.

A means to an end.

All of the characters on LOST, from the bit characters that showed up in only a couple of episodes, to the main players, were all merely means to Jacob’s end to correct his earlier mistake.

The goofy three-toed (or four, or whatever) statue, and all the other seemingly Egyptian artifacts were there before Jacob made his mistake, and not really pertinent to the main thrust of the plot.

Jacob’s long con to kill his brother.

Without a smoke monster intent on destroying the island so he can escape, everything can go back to normal, similar to when Darth Vader threw the emperor down the shaft (or wherever). No more Sith Lord, no more apprentice. Peace to the universe is restored.

As far as the actual ending, when they were all in the church and “moving on,” recall that Jack’s father mentioned something about their not being any “time” and Hugo telling Ben that he was (note the past tense) a good number two.

So who knows how long everybody stayed in limbo until Jack finally took care of Jacob’s dirty laundry. Also interesting to note that Jack died in the same place where the original crash happened, but his hair and clothes were different, so it wasn’t some grand hallucination in purgatory.

I suspect the “protector” of the “source” has some kind of power to pull people into some kind of alternate universe should the need arise.

Once that lady in “Across the Sea” bashed the brains in of Jacob’s true mother, (and subsequently killed all the other islanders once they got close to the “source”) it became clear that protecting the “source” was more important than any human life.

Sacrificing an entire plane, then, wasn’t a big deal.

To summarize then, the entire six seasons of LOST was the tale of the long con of one brother-protector to kill his brother-enemy, who he’d mistakenly turned into a threat to the source of life on Earth.

Everything else was incidental.

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