Did the Hatch tell us everything we need to know about the island? by MJE

The last season of Lost has proven (at least to me) that Team Darlton provided us major clues to the mysteries of the island from the very beginning. After last week’s revelation that the island operates much like a “cork,” I couldn’t help but make parallels to Season Two and the story of the Hatch. The Hatch, after all, operated much like Jacob’s “cork” analogy, keeping a powerful energy contained and thus preventing the complete annihilation of the island. The island (so we’ve been told) keeps a powerful, evil energy contained, thus preventing the complete annihilation of the world. Both the Hatch and the Island are not meant to be discovered, watched over by two men at odds with each other over the meaning behind their responsibilities, with at least one member wanting to escape but needing to find a replacement. I’m sure others could draw many more parallels.

If the writers were using the season on the Hatch to tell us about the island itself, can we also conclude that the island, much like the hatch, needs to be reset and exists only out of necessity—the result of an incident? My theory is this: the island exists because humanity destroyed itself. The world did come to an end or came extremely close. The island, therefore, exists to keep that destruction contained and to give us a chance to prove ourselves worthy of saving. When we are on the brink of destruction the island “reboots” itself, perhaps with the use of the donkey wheel (think the reset button at the hatch) and humanity “starts over.” How far back in time does the island go? To the very beginning? I’m not sure. But this would give some meaning to the “random” time traveling on the island that resulted from the broken wheel as well as Jacob’s line to MIB: “It only ends once. Everything before that is just progress.” What we are leading up to, I b! elieve, is humanity finally proving its worth (does it have to do so on the island?), thus making the island no longer necessary. This may explain the island at the bottom of the ocean in the sideways world, though I have yet to be convinced that the sideways world is that much better.