Science Vs. Faith by walcer

My friends and I sat for a few hours after last nights finale and discussed the ins and outs of the show, our disappointments and highlights, and some interesting thoughts came up that I’d like to share…

I think the followers of the show are obviously now split. The shows overall theme that was finally revealed last night was the concept of Fact vs. Faith. Faith obviously won. People who live lives on foundations of either of these belief structures are going to find themselves on opposite sides of the fence in the battle of love/hate for the show. Atheistic/Scientific minds are going to find fault with the overwhelming lack of answers the show provided, where as Religious/Faith based minds will accept it gladly and be satisfied. For what is faith but an affirming belief in that which cannot be explained.

Faith was the answer from the beginning. When Lindeloff and Cuse say they had the series planned from the beginning, Faith was their ending. It was the fail-safe. You can string an audience along with as much or as little filler as you want and sum everything up on the theories of faith – the explanation for the unexplainable. Obviously this was done because of the basic foundations of network television where you don’t know if your show will last 10 episodes or 10 seasons. The core purpose of the creators of lost was to create a cliffhanger show that would keep it’s audience guessing. The root goal of the writers was to create a lure. Part of why Lost was so successful is that it was never predictable. Things could always go either way and you usually never knew which. 2 phrases are important here, “Your audience is smarter than you think” and “Everything’s been done before.” Creating a successful mystery in this shows format for today’s audience (as stretched out as it was) would inevitably lead to such a convoluted and contradicting mess that the questions it would pose could never be answered. The con of this is the inevitable frustration and possible condemnation of your die-hard fanboy audience, the pro is that you’ve just created a never-ending conversation amongst them to discover their own answers – which is really quite brilliant. Art exists to stir and feed the viewers imagination, and in this Lost succeeded admirably. There is always 2 sides to every coin – just as there are 2 or more perspectives on everything in our existence. All of the characters were shades of gray. Typically considered “heroes” were also responsible for reprehensible things and typically considered villains also did genuinely good things. It was not a story about good vs. evil. Good and Evil are black and white concepts – that was a ruse. We never knew if the Man in Black was “Evil” and in the end, although he died, so did our “hero” Jack. Death consumed them both. Nobody really won. Nothing was or is truly black or white – and that was one of the messages of Lost.

One can even go so far as to say that the entire story of Lost was about life itself. We are all truly Lost, constantly seeking answers for things we may never know within our lifetime.

People are free to disagree with me, but from my perspective it seemed as though the core audience of the show changed and evolved throughout the run of the show. The majority of those interested and tied to the characters seemed to dwindle away during the second season and the people who truly stuck with the show and became it’s core audience were mostly the group interested in the mystery and the mythology. In one perspective it can seem as though It delivered the resolve for the (forgive the pun) “lost” audience of season 1. As primarily the latter, I can say it did kind of feel like a kick in the gut when I was denied my resolve on such questions as “What was the smoke monster?” or “Where did all the Egyptian stuff come from?” Although I can see both sides. I was satisfied when I discovered that the Dharma logo itself was a huge clue slapping me in the face from the beginning. The very organization responsible for the scientific study of this mysterious island and quest for logical answers possessed a logo comprised of a religious symbol. What else does that tell us but “hey audience – these guys are really just a ruse!” Part of me still craves the resolve to my answers, good or bad, yet part of me clearly remembers the “midichlorean debacle” of the Star Wars saga and tells myself (much as the creators of the show probably told themselves) that some things are better left up to the imagination of the beholder. I guess a few more open ended ties and connections to things that made the guessing a bit easier would have been nice. I know it’s more satisfying to think that there is an answer out there somewhere and that’s what the authors intended, instead of their intention being purely to deceive and create deception without resolve. But really, how much of art is dumb luck or thoughtful planning? One of the great veils of the artist.

Perhaps Lost is one of the greatest works of proselytizing ever. Delivering a message of the human need for faith to non-believers. Let me make it perfectly clear though that the concept of “faith” should not be held in purely theological eyes, but rather should be as simple as the concepts of trusting a stranger, or remaining optimistic under adversity. I’m sure we’d all agree that that’s a basic human need for all. People need people to survive and we all need to employ faith at one point in our lives in dealing with others.

In summary, one thing we can all agree on as fans of the show whether we were satisfied with the ending or not, it was an amazing ride – like life itself.