What makes Jack and friends so Special / Destiny by Alex

I had a really hard time even with the Title for this theory, so bear with me here, I will organize my thoughts the best I can.

What we have all seen is that everyone has been traveling around in time. Each of the characters do something or other while in the past which effects the people in that time (ie: John Locke meeting Richard in 1954 - Present time for Locke, past for Richard). The time traveling losties - this is the present for them but the past for everyone else.

So - In the first few seasons, we as the viewers and the losties themselves, they have no idea that they will eventually time travel. But Ben knows - I'm sure Richard told Ben that John Locke would be coming on flight 815.

Essentially, Jack and the other Losties are moving backwards (or skipping around) in time while the others experience it all in real time.

This leads me to my point - Think back to Season 1/2/3. Because the Others (the actual Others and everyone else) have seen the Losties in the past, they can manipulate the Losties in the present because the Losties do not yet know they will go back in time even though technically it has already happened. Maybe Ben wants to see if he can keep Jack from getting to 1977?

Now, will that manipulation cause a paradox? Or a more important question -

Do the Losties have a destiny only because of the fact that the Others already KNOW to some extent what the Losties will do, thus they have the ability to help direct the Losties paths?

Maybe this is why Ben wanted Jack, Sawyer, Kate captured - because he knew (via Richard) they were in 1977 and he wants to know how this is possible?

When Eloise met Desmond, she basically hinted that events have all played out before - she knew that the guy in red shoes was going to be killed by that falling object.

Are the Others creating self fulfilling prophecies by trying to change the course of the Lostie's paths only to have them end up skipping through time? In other words - they don't get the "What Happened, Happened" rule, or they DO understand it but it is wrong and they are trying to change it.

I hope my theory was clear enough.. If not, point out what isn't making sense and I will try and clear it up in the comments.

But another way to look at this would be this example. Let's say you are 50 years old. You have a really good friend of the same age, he has always gone out of his way to do things for you. You have been friends since you were both 30 years old.

A year goes by and you invent a time machine. What your friend never tells you is that he saw YOU (aged 50-51) when he was only 20 years old, but he never tells you, maybe he doesn't have a reason to believe that it could have possibly been you.

When you and your friend meet, and as a short time goes by, he realizes that you are a pretty smart guy and as you grow older, he becomes absolutely sure that he saw YOU at age 50 over 10 years ago! He concludes that down the road, you will build a time machine and go back in time. Your friend will do very nice things for you and be a good friend maybe because he wants to make sure he can get in on some time machine action and go get a winning lottery ticket.

However, once you build your time machine and go back about 30 years, you see a young version of your friend, he sees you. Since you are pretty smart, you figure out that he was probably using you all along to gain access to the time machine, at which point you cut off all ties to him and never let him get his lottery ticket. This would explain why your friend, who is a bit less smart than you, wasn't already rich before age 50 :)


I'm not saying the Others are manipulating the Losties to find out how they traveled through time (maybe they are) but maybe they are using what they know of the Losties were in the past to manipulate them.

The Losties have a Destiny because to everyone else, they already did things in the past (Locke visiting Richard), but to the Losties that didn't happen yet (from their point of view in the first couple seasons).

WAS it Jack's destiny to drop the Jughead bomb down that well? After all - he already did it (in '77) when Jack and Locke had their first destiny conversation (in 2004).

I suppose the lesson to be learned here is only by knowing all the events in the past can you only be sure you have free will, or something to that extent.