Occam’s Razor – The Simple truth of sideways, present, and future in Lost by Chase

Warning- This is a long post!

In the final season of the epic that is Lost, we are left to wonder ultimately what will become of all the mysteries in regards to how they play out and are revealed to us. Though I use the word “ultimate” to describe the process, I’ve begun to notice a pattern that the show displays, which I feel will illuminate the fate of our beloved characters.

Occam’s Razor (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem) is a fascinating concept in HEURISTICS, which I stumbled upon which deals with the concept that a simple answer is often the best one. In other words, we have literally blown so much out of proportion that the most obvious answers have eluded us.

Now applying this to the show, there are with out a doubt, a crazy amount of mysteries that are complex and intricate, but what I’ve seen more recently and that has played out with some of my theories posted in older essays, is this. The ultimate con the show has for us we play on ourselves.

Looking at the Jughead incident, I always was an advocate to the figure 8 theory in which the Losties detonating the bomb didn’t mean a reset, but a way in which a continuous scenario plays out in light of their attempt to destroy the Island. I can’t explain how they “survived” the blast and got thrown back to their original time, nor how they can be brought back to an untouched present day, but I CAN say that I thought people made it too complicated when stating that they couldn’t have done it or that it contradicted time. Back to the Future gave the best argument and I still stand by that choice. A break in space-time can be like a line in which it splinters off continuous and independent of the original time you came from. In no way did the Jughead incident contridict space time rules because it was a continuous scenario that would occur though the characters existence. If they all died in the blast, that wouldn’t mean that time would just stop or reset. Why c! an’t time continue after their actions, when their past was still in an alternate future?

Why am I so focused on this though you ask? Well in a nutshell as I see it, kind of like how Battlestar Galactica ended and was more character driven then mythology driven, the entire Island storyline doesn’t matter. In fact I believe that almost every single character on the show will die by the end of the season on the Island while we watch the parallel story play out. I believe that in the end, the writers want us to walk away with that line Miles repeated to Juliet “It worked”, from the sense that in another place and another time, when the Island didn’t destroy their lives, they had a better future. Since essentially the Losties created this parallel time, even though THEY might die, they saved themselves and made a happier course correction that would allow the Universe to both except and not interfere as it has previously.

This got me thinking of a lot more ways in which a simple explanation, could be applied to many things that have happened to the characters. One of my favorite moments was probably two seconds after seeing Dogan put his hand in the pool, which made me think about good old Mikhail aka. Patchy, and how he had “died” at the sonic fence and then wow, showed up two episodes later running out of the woods (after seeing the flare go off in similar fashion to the Temple scene with the fireworks). We spent so much time wondering why characters or the Others could get to a place fast or heal, have super strength, speed, whatnot, but did we ever apply the most basic logic to the intricate mythology in the first place?

All I’m saying is that for such a long time the Others could pop up at will and we assumed it was supernatural, but then it turns out that the Island has countless secret catacombs, so obviously they were used a lot without us realizing it. Even the revelation that the numbers were tied to the Losties, being a huge moment, made me chuckle because I realized that this could really be the point of Lost. Two demigods trapped on an Island with a goal to protect and defend it at all costs are both trying to escape their fate. Jacob trying to find his replacement was a great moment because it shows that he and the Smoke Monster both to an extent have the same motive. They both want out, but at the same time they both took radically different approaches to how it could be done.

It’s almost like the Hatch and the button. If Jacob doesn’t “press the button” so to speak and be present as the Islands keeper or find a replacement, the world ends or something to that fashion. The MIB on the other hand wants to leave and thinks that there will be no real consequence if he does. We want so much more then what we might get, that the most simple, basic explanation like this one (which I admit could be 100% wrong) fully explains so much of Lost while keeping it grounded and simple.

I’ll leave it on this note. We are almost 1/3rd done with a very interesting season. Little has happened and yet so much as well has occurred at the same time. With few episodes left to fill in the blanks and more and more mystery being piled on, I feel prudent to state that this is why the shows called Lost, because we’ve made OURSELVES more Lost then we needed too, when in the end, the mysteries of the Island, the Monster, Jacob, and the fates of the characters are all that truly matter, the rest (like did Sun’s lover commit suicide or jump out the window) don’t as much and shouldn’t impact how we approach surmising what finally occurs when the final credits roll.

Namaste!