The sunken island in LA X is all the proof you need by jc1funk

I wondered why they bothered to show us the island sunken in LA X? It HAS to mean something.

I believe ;) that the FST "sideways world" is the timeline in which MIB succeeds in switching off the light, sinking the island and then leaving it. Remember Faraday's analogy of the boulder in the stream? Two streams, or timelines, are created by a major event, which may then later converge. The incident is the main event, "the boulder".

In one stream of time, Jack prevents MIB from leaving the island. "They're coming", Jacob proclaims, for he knows his game-plan will out-manoeuvre MIB's loophole. His plan was indeed grand, he's not a mere incidental mythological figure. He helped save them all and so even redeemed himself. More-over, he had faith in them.

In the other "stream", something is different. There is no life, only death. Why? Because MIB left the island. Time is irrelevant, therefore so is space & matter, etc, and therefore eliminates the paradoxes you're probably thinking of to counter this part of the theory.

How many time's did we hear... If A or B or C happens, "God help us all" or "everyone you care about will die", or my favourite: "everyone you care about will simply cease to exist". These are especially directed at Desmond's coming and going from the island, and when the MIB has his loophole and is trying to destroy the island so he can leave it.

Also, MIB promises many of them things if they help him leave. We see these things in various degrees throughout the FST. By fulfilling their wishes of finding love or redemption in some shape or form, MIB sows the seeds for his own plan's ultimate undoing, as the characters are invariable drawn back together through their connections.

But why does Christian say they're all real? He's implying they actually exist in some form, but they only exist is the FST because of Desmond. Desmond is uniquely and miraculously special. Desmond carries the light into the dark, maintaining the spark of life, which helps them see the truth.

In fact Desmond is so full of light in both timelines that he can't even tell he's dead on the other side, from his point of view, he's just going to another life brotha! (Why else have the dialogue with Jack? It served no purpose other than to show us that Desmond is aware of both sides, but only differentiates them as being "another place"). In this way, he's the failsafe: when the light fails, he's the safety, the pilot light.

So maybe, in the last scene they all return to the light, and hence, life, at the point of convergence. Otherwise, why reunite? I don;t understand why they need to be back together if they're already dead and there is no "now". I reckon they all needed their own constants in order to ground themselves like Desmond did in "Flashes..", except this time, we weren't seeing constants in time, we were seeing constants of the soul, or human existence; the layer that I feel so many people have missed in the finale: That intangible connection between people and within the self that makes life complete.

Life!

There are so many layers this can be read on but I wont go into them for brevity's sake. My point is, all these mysterious elements have to add to something, just as much as all the clear explanations we've been given have to be taken in context and applied to the story.

That's the guts of the theory. It's a complex thought and I've pondering this since the finale... I could back it up with lots of evidence but it's probably more interesting to discuss. I mean... why else show the island on the bottom of the ocean?

On a side note, I reckon the recurring theme of the vending machine is a metaphor for the island: the magic box. Put something in, get out what ever you want (kinda). Juliet even tells us, if its broke, just turn it off and turn it on a again, while Desmond and Jack do the same to fix the island... Nice... Kinda like a PC