Grand Theory of Everything by MotherGinger

There have been countless theories about what the underlying backbone was behind all the island mythology. Aside from amazing acting, great character development, beautiful relationship work, and amazing filmography, what is the key to one of the story's main characters: The Island?

It's a relief we now have the answer. To all the questions below that remained unanswered until the finale, the answer is:

For Dramatic Effect.


-Why was the smoke monster able to scan people, read their memories, take on their appearance, etc.?
-Why (for what purpose) were Locke & Rose healed? Why was that able to happen?
-Why would a sonic fence keep Smokey out? Why would it be able to keep him out if he could go as high as a treetop (pilot)?
-Why was Walt special? Why did it matter to our story, esp. the Others’ interest in him?
-Why the insistence that Claire MUST raise Aaron?
-Why the insistence that Aaron must be baptized?
-Why did the Others kidnap the children?
-Why did the Others kidnap Cindy? Why some and not others of the survivors and tailies?
-Why the emphasis on Annie?
-Why the apparent psychological experiment of spying on the Swan occupants?
-Why emphasize the apparent importance of what was found in the abandoned Dharma station the Tailies found? Even the film clip didn’t seem to matter much.
-Why did Ms. Klugh insist on death?
-Why was Mikhail resurrected at least once?
-Why did someone keep dropping food to the Swan over a decade after the Purge? (actually, I guess the Why is b/c the button did keep needing to be pressed… or did it? No one released that pent-up EM energy after the second Incident (the Swan implosion), so the real question, maybe, is who did it?)
-How did Ben heal Juliet’s sister?
-Why did ash (presumably always Jacob’s ash) stop Smokey?
-Why was Kate’s off-island dream & vision-phone-call re: Aaron so emphasized?
-Why the emphasis on the importance of Amy burying the Others?
-Why kill baby Alex?
-What really happened to the French team?
-Why did Ethan become seriously evil and join the Others?
-Why were there course-correction cops? Why course correction at all in this story?
-Why did Ajira need to re-create some of the circumstances of the first flight?
-Why did some of them get zapped back to the 70s while the rest didn’t?
-Why was the donkey wheel frozen?
-Why the time-distortion effects?
-Why could Jacob leave if MIB couldn’t?
-Why burn Jacob’s cabin? (I can’t remember much about Bram & Ilana, but there was much they did that it seemed would make sense later, and ultimately, never made any sense.)
-Why was WhoeverItWas “trapped” in the cabin? Smokey was running free – was it only Smokey’s body, looking like Christian, pretending to be Jacob – but then, he was running around looking like Christian & Yemi outside the ring, anyway…
-Why did Jacob bring all those folks to the island, if he was only broadcasting (and apparently causing to have supernatural effects, like winning the lottery) the numbers of the final six?
-Why did Jughead send them back to the exact point in time they wanted to be, lol? But only the Losties! And not Sun!
-Why was Jacob associated with Egyptian symbolism (tapestry in the Foot, giant ankh, etc.)?
-Why was the island intact & at the bottom of the sea in the FST?
-Why the differences between the Island timeline and the FST? (Sun/Jin relationship, Dharma-but-not-really, Sawyer a cop, etc.)
-Why did Sayid come back to life?
-Why did Dogen say that Sayid and Claire had the same thing happen to them – he was just wrong?
-Why couldn’t the whisperers move on?
-Why would MIB leaving the island be the end of all?
-Why did Ms. Hawking know this?
-Why bother not giving MIB a name?
-Why are guardians mortal only if you stab them with a special knife before letting them speak to you?
-Why was Jacob appearing as young himself, why did Smokey bother chasing him, why did the ashes “burning” mean his end, and why was he able to know anything about any of his job (including his arbitrary ability to keep people on the island, or his ability to leave it) if “Mother” didn’t tell him and the “ritual” didn’t confer any knowledge? Why were the effects of the Golden Glory Hole so random? (honestly, though, by this point, I stopped caring about the logic behind anything b/c it was clear they didn’t intend any)
-Why the visible and clear emphasis on water (esp. drinking) on-island in Season 6?
-Why was Desmond needed if Jack did the same thing in reverse and wasn’t killed by the EM (which would have happened before making it (salmon-like) out of the Glowing Cave of Wonder)?
-Why was Desmond so resistant to EM, and why were its effects so random and inconsistent?
-Why the sudden changes from night to day and vv in season 6?
-Did all MIB's promises boil down to "I'm promising to kill you and send you to a FST where you will live (partially) happily ever after until you go on the great Church Bus to Glory"?
-Why spend five years emphasizing things (Dharma, Others, Widmore, “the war”, the Donkey Wheel & its effects) that ultimately meant nothing to the main plot (Jacob & MIB – otoh, these seem like “Just another story” that would ultimately mean nothing if there were four more seasons to introduce new stories) so that the whole series basically becomes The Wild & Wacky Adventures of Some Castaways instead of the deeper, more intricate and fulfilling story it was purporting itself to be?


There were a few questions that were “answered,” but it's now clear that the real answer is "for dramatic effect":
-Why couldn’t women conceive & bear children after the Dharma period? (I can guess at this one w/ Jughead, but the real answer is … for dramatic effect.)
-Why the persistent black/white symbolism that ultimately, meant just a silly game between two guys that inexplicably got magic powers from a murderous pseudo-Mother?
-Why couldn’t they get off the island?
-Why does turning the wheel land you in Tunisia?

And the most pressing question: If the truth is that they were just making up weird stuff, not only in season 1, but all along, without any explanation in mind, why didn’t they just hire a really smart fan to tie up all the loose ends in a satisfying way for the final season?

Or is it: In a story full of rich character AND mythology throughout five season, why couldn't both the character and mythology aspects be resolved in the final season? (IMO, the character resolution was very well done, esp. Jack's character arc.)

Disclaimer: My great disappointment comes from realizing they had absolutely no vision at all for this world they created. It was all random adventures that made no sense as a whole.


(Please feel free to add your own now-answered questions, plot lines, and character motivations.)