Lost

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hodj

hodj

Vox Populi Jihadi
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Whether the island was literally purgatory or not is almost inconsequential. It was a stopping off point between this life and the next, which is effectively purgatory. More importantly, the flaw in thinking is that if its purgatory then it didnt really happen. It did. It just wasnt consequential in reality.

The show started strong and got weaker every season, the ending was a cop out. I watched the show and definitely have felt it was purgatory ever since. I didnt listen to lindeloffs bs apologetics afterwards, that has always been MY interpretation of e show. Once it ended I completely stopped caring to the point Id never actually seen the lindeloff video claiming the island wasnt purgatory, but that video is like from 2014 and it just seems like him trying to ret con shit because the ending felt so lackluster and disappointing.

Its a show that should have had the entire major plotline prepared before a single episode was written. Not every fine detail needed hammering out, but they needed a real idea where to go past season 2 from the get go and they clearly did not. The last season felt like ad hoc justifications for copping out with the purgatory crap, whether the island was actually purgatory, or only the side shift time line was.

Clearly, a shit load of people feel the island was purgatory, so the butthurt over people stating they legitimately feel the island was purgatory is unnecessary. Lindeloff and others disagree, thats fine. Either way the ending was overall a disappointment, and just because they finagled it into a technicality where only one side story was purgatory doesnt change the fact that they kinda went back on their own word by entering purgatory i to the storyline at all.

Shit still irritates me because that pilot episode is still one of the best Ive ever seen. The rest of the show just failed to reach that caliber consistently ever again.
 
Slaythe

Slaythe

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Maester Chuk_sl said:
whatever technical reason they gave for the island not being purgatory doesnt change the fact that everyone who wasnt huffing paint and writing this show (lindeloff) thinks the island is purgatory. donkey wheel and golden river be damned
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Well, you and everyone else are wrong and it honestly couldn't have been any more clearly explained than it was in the last episode.

It happens at the very end with this interaction between Jack and his Dad:

Christian explains: I'm real, you're real. Everything that has ever happened to you is real. All the people in the church, they're all real too. Jack They're all dead? Christian: Everyone dies sometime. Some of them before you, some of them long after you. Jack: Why are they here now? Christian: There is no now, here. Jack: Where are we now? Christian: This is a place that you all made together so you could find one another. The most important time of your life was when you were with these people. That's why you are all here. No one does it alone Jack. You needed all of them and they needed you. Jack: For what? Christian: To remember and to let go. Jack: Kate, she said we were leaving. Christian: Not leaving, no, moving on. Jack: Where are we going. Christian: Lets go find out.
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Again, it was really stupid and I think a really dumb way to just invent the side flashes that happen through the season, but this is what happens and it's very clear.
 
hodj

hodj

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If purgatory is a real place, for the purposes of this conversation, in a story setting, then everything that happens there is real, and does not in any way disagree with jacks dad's exposition because of that.
 
Slaythe

Slaythe

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The important part is this:

This is a place that you all made together so you could find one another. The most important time of your life was when you were with these people. That's why you are all here. No one does it alone Jack.

Now if you want to tell me that the Island was some pre-purgatory they went to after they all died in the plane crash or something which they then existed in, and fake died before ending up in real-purgatory to then ascend to post-purgatory...well, you can, I guess.

That seems like a much more complicated and unnecessary explanation that doesn't really jive with the rest of the story. Jack/Kate/Sun/Hurley get off the island, don't they? Is that part of the island purgatory world too? Is there ever a point in the story we see the real world? When the plane is in flight before the crash?

Come on, man. It's ok to just be wrong on this one.
 
Mist

Mist

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LET IT FUCKING DIE, LIKE THE SHOW SHOULD HAVE AFTER THE THIRD SEASON. (ARGUABLY AFTER THE SECOND.)

EDIT: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT.
 
hodj

hodj

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im not saying Im right or wrong on this, especially since the shows ending was so disappointing to me, but I perceived that the plane crashed, they all died. The Island and everything after that was a purgatory like testing ground to prepare them for the afterlife, including them escaping the Island, goig back to "normal life" etc.

Their final meeting place was just like heavens foyer basically, a mental construct mutually created as the launching pad to the next life and or afterlife experience.

If purgatory, heaven and hell are real places, and when we die we go there, the the things happening there are really happening to the people there. They just have no consequence in our previous lives, but actions there may effect where we go next.

Godaamit I really didnt mean to start a huge Lost debate when I made that initial post. Even talking about it depresses me because I really wanted that show to be memorable ina good way. So disappointing.

Slaythe_sl said:
Is there ever a point in the story we see the real world? When the plane is in flight before the
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The actual plane crashing was the real world, but once they hit they were dead and everything else was in purgatory. That was strictly my interpretation. Again, though, I never saw lindeloff and abc saying the wreckage in the final scene wasnt part of the story until I mentioned it in the lost thread and started getting negged for it and people started bitching.

A shit load of people came out the same way in terms of interpretation. I think the whole "well the island wasnt purgatory but the side story stuff was" was just a sort of ad hoc cop out, frankly, now that Im aware of this stuff, so they wouldnt be forced to admit they had intended the island to be purgatory until fans figured it out and started bitching.

They tried to zig and zag but couldnt come up with a good alternative so they finagled on a technicality so tephey could break their word without actually breaking it. Tricksy, but ultimately a sign thatthey had dug themselves a hole they couldnt dig themselves completely back out of.
 
Ossoi

Ossoi

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Season 1 and 2 were amazing.

The start of s2 that introduced Desmond in the bunker with the old equipment and retro music blew me away
 
Soygen

Soygen

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Yes, now let's imagine that amazing bunker and scene again, now knowing it means literally nothing to the actual plot(I use that word as loosely as possible for Lost).
 
Cantatus

Cantatus

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Slaythe_sl said:
Again, the island wasn't purgatory, just the lame side flashes in the last season. Still dumb though.
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I'm convinced that having the island be purgatorywastheir original idea. They evenpublished a bookduring the second season with the fictitious author's name being an anagram of "purgatory". But when this became the prevailing theory and the writers started to figure out what the consequences would be for people figuring out the mystery so soon, they thew that all out and decided to go in another direction (that likely wasn't decided on until closer to the end). And I think that's why a lot of stuff started to fall apart towards the end. There were things from the original idea that didn't mesh with where they decided to go, which lead to a lot of those early mysteries being pushed aside and ignored.
 
Ossoi

Ossoi

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Soygen_sl said:
Yes, now let's imagine that amazing bunker and scene again, now knowing it means literally nothing to the actual plot(I use that word as loosely as possible for Lost).
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a poor dessert doesn't render an amazing starter and main irrelevant
 
hodj

hodj

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Cantatus_sl said:
I'm convinced that having the island be purgatorywastheir original idea. They evenpublished a bookduring the second season with the fictitious author's name being an anagram of "purgatory". But when this became the prevailing theory and the writers started to figure out what the consequences would be for people figuring out the mystery so soon, they thew that all out and decided to go in another direction (that likely wasn't decided on until closer to the end). And I think that's why a lot of stuff started to fall apart towards the end. There were things from the original idea that didn't mesh with where they decided to go, which lead to a lot of those early mysteries being pushed aside and ignored.
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Agree
 
spronk

spronk

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Don't forget too that Ben was only supposed to be in like for an episode or two, that actor nailed that part. what a creepy little fucker
 
Falstaff

Falstaff

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I thought I understood this show and then this thread happened and now I have no idea anymore.
 
Chris

Chris

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Eyashusa_sl said:
I thought I understood this show and then this thread happened and now I have no idea anymore.
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I thought that the flashsideways was purgatory and the island was actually real life.

I have no idea what the fuck the magic plug that was turned on and off to kill smoke monster was, did they explain that?
 
G

Grimey

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hodj_sl said:
im not saying Im right or wrong on this, especially since the shows ending was so disappointing to me, but I perceived that the plane crashed, they all died. The Island and everything after that was a purgatory like testing ground to prepare them for the afterlife, including them escaping the Island, goig back to "normal life."
.
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Were the flashbacks imaginary or real? What about people who got on the Island without taking a plane like Ben, Richard, Juliet, Faraday, Charlotte, Miles, or Frank? Keep pulling this string according to your logic and see where it gets you.
 
T

Tantrik

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Eyashusa_sl said:
I thought I understood this show and then this thread happened and now I have no idea anymore.
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You did. The people who think they all died in the plane crash are either trolling hard, stopped watching after s1 and then came back for the finale, or just plain fucking dumb as shit.
 
hodj

hodj

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Grimey_sl said:
Were the flashbacks imaginary or real? What about people who got on the Island without taking a plane like Ben, Richard, Juliet, Faraday, Charlotte, Miles, or Frank? Keep pulling this string according to your logic and see where it gets you.
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The problem is that the Island, if it is purgatory or whatever, can easily be manipulating otherwise true memories to create memories that fit its intent. I wouldnt actually analyze it that deeply. If they experienced it in the story, it was functionally real.

If it is purgatory, people who got there not on the same plane are easily understandable as people who are being forced to undergo the same tests.

Again, Im no longer saying this is correct, only that this was my way of interpreting the story that led me to believe the island was purgatory or a place of testing for the deceased.

The rules are so fast and loose and ad hoc in the Lost universe that pretty much anything seemed plausible as an effect of the Island as deus ex machina.

Tantrik_sl said:
You did. The people who think they all died in the plane crash are either trolling hard, stopped watching after s1 and then came back for the finale, or just plain fucking dumb as shit.
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The real question at this point is it so hard for people to grasp that people who watched the show from start to finish to legitmately reach an alternative conclusion from you without thise people either being trolls or stupid? Shit was intentionally ambiguous and the authors didnt know where they would go with it till post season 4 when they did the big brainstorm and worked through the final two seasons worth of plotline.
 
LiquidDeath

LiquidDeath

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hodj_sl said:
The problem is that the Island, if it is purgatory or whatever, can easily be manipulating otherwise true memories to create memories that fit its intent. I wouldnt actually analyze it that deeply. If they experienced it in the story, it was functionally real.

If it is purgatory, people who got there not on the same plane are easily understandable as people who are being forced to undergo the same tests.

Again, Im no longer saying this is correct, only that this was my way of interpreting the story that led me to believe the island was purgatory or a place of testing for the deceased.

The rules are so fast and loose and ad hoc in the Lost universe that pretty much anything seemed plausible as an effect of the Island as deus ex machina.



The real question at this point is it so hard for people to grasp that people who watched the show from start to finish to legitmately reach an alternative conclusion from you without thise people either being trolls or stupid? Shit was intentionally ambiguous and the authors didnt know where they would go with it till post season 4 when they did the big brainstorm and worked through the final two seasons worth of plotline.
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It wouldn't be a big deal if they didn't have Christian explain it as clearly as he possibly could have in their *actual* purgatory.

The entire "they all died in the crash and the island and everything afterwards was purgatory" argument is wholly and completely invalidated when Christian said:

"Everyone dies sometime. Some of them before you, some of them long after you."

This cannot possibly be true if they all died in the plane crash.

I know a lot of smart people who continue to ignore that the final episode was crystal clear about what was real and what was not.
 
hodj

hodj

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Some of them before you and after could refer to people like Ben, who was already on the Island before they arrived, though. It isnt as clear as some people feel it is, there is ambiguity there. I think by the final episode some of us were pretty well turned off from the hyper analyzing we did in earlier seasons. I also havent watched that episode ever again. I have all the seasons on blu ray or dvd, but season 6 is still in shrink wrap. Thats how turned off to rewatching the series I was by that time.
 
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