Many of you already know about this divisive debate between LOST theorist camps, so I won’t rehash all of those points that we’re all arguing about, at least not in the same way. I just want to discuss a few examples to help support my theory that the timeline remains unchanged, with small, insignificant changes by Desmond being the ONLY exception. Desmond is the one who can make any difference, and even if he tries to change things, ultimately course correction will offset them. This sounds pretty consistent with the Novikov Self Consistency Principle, which shines a lot of light on this whole debate.
Let’s first look at Desmond and what we saw in Flashes Before Your Eyes. As we know, he has become uniquely and miraculously special from turning the failsafe key and being in that electromagnetic radiation explosion. Desmond's situation is like a chicken and the egg thing, which came first? This whole episode is full of things that point both ways.
I’ll address the biggest mind twister first. Take, for instance the bartender and the cricket bat. Desmond has a memory of the bartender getting cracked in the head due to a bet, right? Yet in FBYE we see that Desmond gets cracked in the head instead. Before Desmond got hit with the bat, however, he started to gather hope that he COULD change his path, that he COULD change the timeline. The one thing that changed was that Desmond got hit, sending his consciousness back to 2004 and preventing him from changing the past. Course correction stepped in and said, "nope, sorry dude, you have a destiny and you're not going to change ANYTHING, no matter how hard you try." The only thing that would change is the small action that the course correction took to make events remain un-changed.
Then there is the subject of the ring. Let’s assume he went through and never bought the ring the first time, but then his consciousness traveled back and, as we saw, he actually DID buy the ring. Of course, later on as a man took the photo of the couple and Penny paid for it, Desmond realized he wasn't good enough and threw the ring into the lake. Thus, the little action of actually buying the ring made NO difference at all. He still ends up on the island. Thing is, Desmond always had the photo, so that always happened, and was always what made him realize that he wasn't good enough and he had to do something to become better. So what if it was another situation that made him feel that he wasn’t good enough?
Let’s suppose Desmond went through these actions the first time and decided on his own NOT to buy the ring. If he had already decided at that time that he wasn’t good enough for Penny, then would they be walking on the pier together later on to have their picture taken. He has ALWAYS had the picture with him as motivation and a memento, so it would seem that Mrs. Hawking was always there, not to dissuade him from buying the ring, but to push him towards purchasing it in spite of her.
Now let’s look at Desmond in The Constant. His first trip backward sent him to his training in the Royal Scottish Regiment. He keeps flashing back and forth during this time, getting him into trouble, which resulted in him being discharged from the RSR. So if he hadn’t been flashing around, he probably could have obeyed orders and wouldn’t have gotten kicked out of the RSR, resulting in an entirely different path. This would all point to the idea that Desmond’s life had ALWAYS featured a single chain of events, as out of place as they are.
Now let’s look at the survivors and their time travels. When Locke came back to 1954, he told Richard to come visit him in Tustin CA in 1956, and as we saw, Richard was there for the birth of Locke and tried to recruit him at different times in his life. This stuff was always a part of Locke’s past, and has influenced so much of what we have seen in the past 4 seasons. There is also the bomb, and the fact that Faraday told the natives to bury it. I’ll bet 1,000,000 to 1 that the natives buried this “Jughead” bomb, going off of Faraday’s advice, and it will play a huge role in what will happen. Think Swan station, digging, incident, Chernobyl.
Now we can look at the actions of the survivors in the 70’s. The first thing that we see Sawyer and Co do when they arrive in the 70’s is save Amy. Those “hostiles” were ready to execute her. The fact that Sawyer saved her, the fact that Juliet delivered Ethan, and the fact that we know Ethan from Season 1 all point to a single and consistent timeline. Ben was a secret “Other” man, and I think he recruited little Ethan along with him. This is how Ethan becomes and other, not Amy becoming an Other and having Ethan from a different father, I think that one is too much of a stretch.
Remember when Locke went to the past and saw the beachcraft fly into the tree. Suppose Locke wanted to go up there and bring the plane down and save Boone in the future. He climbs the tree, and BAM, he gets shot in the leg! Events will happen to prevent anyone from changing the future that we all know. On September 22nd 2004, Oceanic flight 815 will crash on the island the same as it always did, and the survivors will go through the same struggle that we’ve seen them all go through in all of the previous Seasons of LOST. Theory by Lost Dbutz
Let’s first look at Desmond and what we saw in Flashes Before Your Eyes. As we know, he has become uniquely and miraculously special from turning the failsafe key and being in that electromagnetic radiation explosion. Desmond's situation is like a chicken and the egg thing, which came first? This whole episode is full of things that point both ways.
I’ll address the biggest mind twister first. Take, for instance the bartender and the cricket bat. Desmond has a memory of the bartender getting cracked in the head due to a bet, right? Yet in FBYE we see that Desmond gets cracked in the head instead. Before Desmond got hit with the bat, however, he started to gather hope that he COULD change his path, that he COULD change the timeline. The one thing that changed was that Desmond got hit, sending his consciousness back to 2004 and preventing him from changing the past. Course correction stepped in and said, "nope, sorry dude, you have a destiny and you're not going to change ANYTHING, no matter how hard you try." The only thing that would change is the small action that the course correction took to make events remain un-changed.
Then there is the subject of the ring. Let’s assume he went through and never bought the ring the first time, but then his consciousness traveled back and, as we saw, he actually DID buy the ring. Of course, later on as a man took the photo of the couple and Penny paid for it, Desmond realized he wasn't good enough and threw the ring into the lake. Thus, the little action of actually buying the ring made NO difference at all. He still ends up on the island. Thing is, Desmond always had the photo, so that always happened, and was always what made him realize that he wasn't good enough and he had to do something to become better. So what if it was another situation that made him feel that he wasn’t good enough?
Let’s suppose Desmond went through these actions the first time and decided on his own NOT to buy the ring. If he had already decided at that time that he wasn’t good enough for Penny, then would they be walking on the pier together later on to have their picture taken. He has ALWAYS had the picture with him as motivation and a memento, so it would seem that Mrs. Hawking was always there, not to dissuade him from buying the ring, but to push him towards purchasing it in spite of her.
Now let’s look at Desmond in The Constant. His first trip backward sent him to his training in the Royal Scottish Regiment. He keeps flashing back and forth during this time, getting him into trouble, which resulted in him being discharged from the RSR. So if he hadn’t been flashing around, he probably could have obeyed orders and wouldn’t have gotten kicked out of the RSR, resulting in an entirely different path. This would all point to the idea that Desmond’s life had ALWAYS featured a single chain of events, as out of place as they are.
Now let’s look at the survivors and their time travels. When Locke came back to 1954, he told Richard to come visit him in Tustin CA in 1956, and as we saw, Richard was there for the birth of Locke and tried to recruit him at different times in his life. This stuff was always a part of Locke’s past, and has influenced so much of what we have seen in the past 4 seasons. There is also the bomb, and the fact that Faraday told the natives to bury it. I’ll bet 1,000,000 to 1 that the natives buried this “Jughead” bomb, going off of Faraday’s advice, and it will play a huge role in what will happen. Think Swan station, digging, incident, Chernobyl.
Now we can look at the actions of the survivors in the 70’s. The first thing that we see Sawyer and Co do when they arrive in the 70’s is save Amy. Those “hostiles” were ready to execute her. The fact that Sawyer saved her, the fact that Juliet delivered Ethan, and the fact that we know Ethan from Season 1 all point to a single and consistent timeline. Ben was a secret “Other” man, and I think he recruited little Ethan along with him. This is how Ethan becomes and other, not Amy becoming an Other and having Ethan from a different father, I think that one is too much of a stretch.
Remember when Locke went to the past and saw the beachcraft fly into the tree. Suppose Locke wanted to go up there and bring the plane down and save Boone in the future. He climbs the tree, and BAM, he gets shot in the leg! Events will happen to prevent anyone from changing the future that we all know. On September 22nd 2004, Oceanic flight 815 will crash on the island the same as it always did, and the survivors will go through the same struggle that we’ve seen them all go through in all of the previous Seasons of LOST. Theory by Lost Dbutz
