Why the Ending Rocked by Char Aznable

The good thing about the finale is that it is open to your own interpretation. The bad thing about the finale is that it is open to your own interpretation. The following is my interpretation.

To understand what happened you need to remember these key phrases of the series:

What happened happened.
Dead is dead.
Live together or die alone.


What happened happened.


You also need to remember back to when Richard Alpert, or it may have been Ben, told Locke that the Island was like a magic box that gave you what you wanted/needed. This conversation happened around the time that Locke's Dad was shown to be on the Island. It could give you what you wanted depending on the rules you believed in or the rules placed on you by the current protector of the Island. That could have positive results or negative results. I think the Dharma Food Pallets could be explained by this theory. The Island summoned the food drops because they were needed.

In a lot of ways it was like the cave in The Empire Strikes Back that Luke went into on Dagobah. Luke went in there with fear of Darth Vader and so he ran into an apparition of Darth Vader. In the same way MIB went into the cave with the evil in his heart because of his relationship with his fake mom as well as the guilt from killing her. As a result he became cursed and was turned into Smoke.

The Island was the source of life, death and rebirth. The "cork" in the light cave was there to maintain the balance between good and evil. I don't think it was there to keep evil out of the world because evil was in the world. Instead it kept a source of infinite evil from overwhelming the world. It was important in that when the cork was pulled out the Island started to implode. I believe if Jack hadn't put the cork back it would've finished consuming the Island and then moved on to consuming the rest of the world.

Their time on the Island was important. Everything they did on the Island really happened. Jughead was the Incident Pierre Chang/Marvin Candle/Edgar Halliwax/etc. mentioned which was why they needed to push the button. They didn't change time. They just did what they had done in that time frame all along.

Some people think that the footage of the plane wreckage during the credits signified that they were dead all along. This isn't true. ABC put that footage in to make people be able to transition emotionally in time for the news which was coming on after LOST. It was never the producers intent to put it there. It had NO meaning to the story.


Dead is dead.

The Flash-Sideways world was a false reality that the Island created in response to the castaways communal longing to stay connected even after they died. It was like the Catholics doctrine of Purgatory. They were stuck in a spiritual waiting room. They couldn't leave the waiting room and go to Heaven until they reconnected with each other and with their souls/memories from the Island. They needed to wake up and realize that they were dead. They didn't die on the plane crash. They all died at different times. For all we know Hurley and Ben could've died in 2107 AD. But since time didn't apply there they were all there together as if it was the same time. Jack was the focal point so they couldn't move on as a group until he finally let go of his life too and realized he had died which he did at the end. He physically died at the same spot on the Island in the year 2007 that he started the series at in 2004 with Vincent by his side. He had served his purpose and died a hero.

In my opinion it was great that the Flash Sideways wasn't an alternate dimension/reality/timeline. If they were allowed to have a do-over it would've been a cop out that cheapened the various sacrifices they made on the Island.

The producers could've never done the Flash Sideways and just kept the focus on the Island. Jack would've still died at the end and there wouldn't have been a sense of closure or a happy ending. This way you know that although he died he was able to reconnect with his friends and they went to Heaven together.

I also think it was a better ending than if they had lived and stayed on the Island, or just left, to live happily ever after because neither scenario would really bring a sense of closure to the series. While it is sad that Jack died, he had a happy ending in the end.


Live Together or Die Alone

The connections they made as a pseudo-family transcended death. They needed to travel to Heaven together. They couldn't leave anyone behind. Ben stayed behind because he had stuff to work out and to be blunt he wasn't a core member of the Oceanic group. Desmond and Penny got to go with because he became a core member of the group and because his failing to push the button is what caused them to crash in the first place.


Remaining Mysteries

As far as the mysteries that didn't get answered I think some of them could be explained by the interference of the Smoke Monster. He was the Jacob Locke and Ben experienced in the cabin for example. Smokey also took the appearance of the dead Horace Goodspeed. He wasn't Hurley's imaginary friend Dave though as I think that was purely a figment of Hurley's imagination.

Others, such as the Statue and the Temple, could be explained as previous people who lived on the Island trying to worship the Island and/or Jacob as a god. They weren't magical in and of themselves but Jacob was able to extend protection to them by the rules he created as protector of the Island.

I am still going through the other mysteries to resolve them but to be honest most of them really don't matter. The producers weren't kidding when they talked about how the midichlorians ruined the concept of the Force. If they had tried to explain the minutia of every mystery it would've demystified the Island. I am 100000% happy with their ending.