The End is the Beginning is the End by lafidaninfa

As we are approaching the Grand Finale I’d like to share some thoughts about what has and is going to happen until the endgame.

In spite of not revealing anything that we hadn’t already suspected for a long time, “What they died for” gave us a definite answer about the main question that was troubling us for the last seasons: Jack will be the new Jacob, full stop.

When it comes to Jack, however, it seems that he is the complete counterpart of Jacob in the following sense: instead of being born in the island and thus a “tabula rasa” like Jacob, Jack had an already formed character outside the island; he was “flawed”, stubborn and distrustful. He was a Man of Science converted into a Man of Faith. Jack had some of the qualities Mother saw in the MIB, he wanted like a madman to get out of the island, but in the end our guy was willing to undertake the task of guarding the Light (God complex), after realizing that it was the only way to save the ones he loved and find a meaning in his existence.

So, Jack gets to be Jacob, but will he be able to vanquish Flocke? I seriously doubt that, given that just as the MIB or Flocke couldn’t hurt Jacob or the candidates directly and as Jacob couldn’t kill Smokey this “rule” of not hurting each other will also be passed on to the replacements.

As I have already stated in another post, I believe that it is now obvious that Desmond’s unique powers will be the ones to help vanquish the Monster, probably detaching the Lost Souls of the MIB and Locke from Smokey. I also believe that the remaining Losties will meet a noble end trying to help Jack and Desmond destroy Smokey, but I am not yet sure how.

But “what about Ben”? In my humble opinion there’s no chance Ben went with Flocke’s side. After “Dr. Linus” we clearly watched Ben’s conversion from a corrupt, power craving weakling to a moral and principled human being who earned his place in the Sideways Timeline. (And as we saw, whoever was redeemed from his sins in the Island was later granted a second chance of a new life in the Alternate Future, unlike the true villains, such as Keamy or Mikhail, who continued their reincarnated filthy existence and were therefore punished). My guess is that Ben has an ultimate plan to double-cross Flocke and possibly deliver him to the Losties, so that he can finally be atoned for whatever he did. His turning point was on the one hand Ilana’s forgiveness and on the other his discovery of Alex’s grave. And as far as his decision to execute Widmore, I guess that it was both an act of revenge and a last attempt to shut his enemy’s betraying mouth once and for all.

When it comes to Widmore himself, however, I am not entirely convinced about the true nature of his character and his purpose. As he testified on “What they died for” he was recruited by Jacob only after the Freighter was destroyed, so that means that all his actions prior to this event were entirely his own effort to track down the Island and regain his throne (?). But why would Jacob entrust the man that was ready to wipe out every living soul on the Island, with the task of protecting the Candidates? Was he the only way to bring Desmond back to the Island? Was it his money and connections? In the end, was Charles Widmore a good or a bad guy? The Alternate Timeline doesn’t give a straightforward answer to that question either, and nor does about Eloise who seems to be rather untrustworthy and secretive. In fact in “Happily ever after” she seemed conscious of the OT and tried to dissuade Desmond from looking for Penny because “he wasn’t ready” (just as Ana-Lucia wasn’t ready?) and thus find out the truth about what really happened. Does that mean that Eloise didn’t want the Losties to remember because it will do them harm? How does one become “ready”?

Ready or not, Desmond and Hurley have complete consciousness of their past lives and it appears that they are organizing together this “classmates meeting”. What’s going to happen after they all remember I really cannot imagine.

Another thing that I would like to point out is my belief that David’s mother will be Juliet. First of all, we haven’t seen her yet in the AT. Secondly, during the OT we witnessed two unfortunate love stories: one between Jack and Juliet and the other between Sawyer and Kate. The fact that they were indeed unfortunate will be revealed on the AT. We already saw a spark between Kate and Sawyer on the AT, but in the end it didn’t lead to an enlightment – Sawyer finally decided to leave her. Something similar must have happened to Jack and Juliet; they were married but got divorced, because they weren’t meant for each other. When Jack asked David if his mother was coming to the concert, I think it was just Darlton’s tricky way to tell us that they’re bringing Juliet back in order to reunite her with Sawyer.

But how is it all going to end? We definitely saw the Island sunk in the beginning of LA X, but does that mean that Flocke was successful with his plan of destroying it? I guess not, because then the so-called Darkness would be unleashed in the world and there would certainly be no “Happily Ever After”. Was the sinking of the Island the result of the explosion of Jughead? I don’t think so because then the Losties wouldn’t have been transported to 2007 for there would be no island any more. So my guess is that the Island was sunk after the Final Battle between Jack, Desmond and whoever else stays alive on the one hand and the Smoke Monster on the other. Maybe its sinking means that they finally found a way to contain Smokey so that he won’t be able to take over any other human soul and that no more replacements and guardians will be needed. But in no way do I believe that the Darkness will be gone forever. Perhaps they will find a way to keep the Light and the Darkness together, so that they could restore the universal balance. After all, the Island was both Paradise and Hell.

That's why I would like to end my theory by quoting the first and last verses of Milton’s Paradise Lost that in my opinion sum up some of the mystery of LOST: “of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit / of that Forbidden Tree whose mortal taste / Brought Death into the World and all our woe / With loss of Eden, till one greater Man / Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat / Sing Heavenly Muse that on the secret top / Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire / That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed […]". " The World was all before them / where to choose their place of rest / and Providence their guide: They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow / Through Eden took their solitaire way”.