Mythology of Lost
Encyclopedia
The television show Lost
includes a number of mysterious elements that have been ascribed to science fiction
or supernatural
phenomena, usually concerning coincidences, synchronicity
, déjà vu
, temporal and spatial anomalies, paradox
es, and other puzzling phenomena. The creators of the series refer to these as part of the mythology
of the series.
from the mid-19th century. In "Ab Aeterno
", the Black Rock set sail in 1867 and was captained by Magnus Hanso and had Richard Alpert
as a prisoner. Jacob, the protector of the island, does not deny when asked by his fraternal twin brother
if he brought the ship to the island, as the two watch it approaching. Eventually it is swept inland by a colossal rogue wave, destroying all but one foot of the coastal Statue of Tawaret
on its way. In "The Constant
", it is explained that the Black Rock set sail from Portsmouth
, England
, on March 22, 1845 on a trading mission to the Kingdom of Siam
, when she was tragically lost at sea. The only known artifact of this journey is the journal of the ship's First Mate, which was discovered among the artifacts of pirates on Île Sainte-Marie
, Madagascar
seven years later. The contents of this journal have never been made public nor known to anyone outside the family of the seller Tovard Hanso. This journal is later bought at auction by Charles Widmore
.
In "Exodus
", John Locke
mentions that this ship must have been en route to a mining colony, probably set-off from the Eastern Coast of Africa, Mozambique
. The ship contains dynamite, mining equipment and several chained skeletons, although slavery had been outlawed in British ships and possessions by 1845. Dr. Leslie Arzt (Daniel Roebuck
) mentions that a tsunami
could have swept it a couple of miles inland as seen later in the episode. The Swan's blast door map has a revision marking "Known Final Resting Place of Magnus Hanso / Black Rock" as seen in "Live Together, Die Alone
".
mathematician
Horace Goodspeed as a sort of retreat for himself and his wife. It is surrounded by a broken ash circle. While at first it is believed that Jacob resides there, it is actually Man in Black
in the cabin, falsely giving orders on behalf of Jacob. The cabin has appeared in three separate locations.
", Jacob instructs Hurley to take Jack
to a heretofore-unseen lighthouse on the Island's coast. At the top of the lighthouse's stone tower is a set of mirrors which can rotate via a large stone dial, labeled with numbers and in some cases the names of the "candidates". Jack is able to see an image of his childhood home reflected in the mirrors when they are turned to his number, 23; whether this is due to some property of the lighthouse mirrors and structure or simply to Jacob's influence is unclear.
", while at sea, Sayid
, Jin
, and Sun sight the remnants of a massive statue standing upon a rock in the surf. All that is left is a large, four-toed marble foot broken off at the ankle. Sayid remarks that he does not know which is more disquieting: the fact that the rest of the statue is missing, or that the foot has only four toes. It has been compared to the Colossus of Rhodes
. The full statue, viewed from the back, appears from a distance in the fifth season episode "LaFleur
". The statue seen from behind has lion-like ears, a crown on the head, long hair, an ankh
in each hand, and ancient Egypt
ian dress. The statue is named Taweret, the Egyptian god of fertility
and life.
At the base of the statue is a secret chamber
in which Jacob resides. All four elements of earth, water, fire, and air are represented in this chamber. "The fire pit in the middle of the room consisted of flames rising from black sand with a ring of water surrounding all of it." The room also housed a weaving loom in which Jacob is shown creating a tapestry. In addition, painted on the ceiling was "an ancient Egyptian astronomical chart which refers to the stars and planets, time, and the goddess Taweret."
Further ruins are revealed in "The Brig
" when the Others tie Locke's father to the broken base of a large, stone column. Toward the end of the third season, Ben tells Richard to continue leading the rest of the Others to the Temple, and in "Meet Kevin Johnson
" sends Alex, Karl, and Rousseau to the same location. His map marks it with a Dharma Initiative symbol, but the Temple has also been mentioned as something the Monster is in place to protect. In addition, in "The Shape of Things to Come
", after Alex is killed, Ben summons the Smoke Monster in a secret chamber hidden in his closet whose stone door contains hieroglyphics. In "There's No Place Like Home Pt 3", when Ben enters the Orchid Station, behind the official Dharma built station, he finds what appear to be ancient tombstones covered with unknown hieroglyphs on his way to the final room, where an ancient man-made wheel rests that is used to move the island. In the fifth season episode, "This Place is Death
" shows a better view of what appears to be the Temple that Ben will one day order Richard to lead his people to, which is directly guarded by the Monster. In "Whatever Happened, Happened
", Richard Alpert is seen taking a young Benjamin Linus into the temple itself as a means of healing a fatal gunshot wound. Alpert notes beforehand that Ben will emerge a fundamentally different person. It is revealed in "Dead is Dead
" that the structure the viewers see is merely a wall concealing the temple and the actual temple itself is a mile away on the other side of the wall.
There is also a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the surface of the Island. The lair of the Monster lies in these tunnels, beneath the site of the Temple wall, and another chamber was used by the Others to isolate a hydrogen bomb
with a breach in its casing, which lies beneath the Dharma Initiative barracks. Some of these tunnels are marked on the blast door map in the Swan Station.
In the sixth season episode "Across the Sea
", young Jacob and his unnamed fraternal twin brother are shown a cave with a waterfall; in "The End
," Desmond
descends into the cave and discovers an ancient chamber. In the chamber there is a pool of electromagnetic energy with a large hieroglyphic stone that sits at the center covering a mysterious hole. When it is removed by Desmond, the water and energy drain from the pool, an infernal red glow infuses the chamber, and the island begins to violently react. When Jack returns the stone, the water begins to flow into the pool again and the electromagnetic energy returns.
). Injuries heal much faster than they normally would, though by no means are people incapable of dying. Disease is also possible, though rare. Since "the Incident", increased electromagnetic immersion caused women who conceive children on the Island to die of an auto-immune
condition during the second trimester of pregnancy
. They can otherwise give birth as long as conception occurs off the island or if they leave before the second trimester.
" that Locke's spine healing itself is not a normal event, even by the Island's standards. It is a sign of Locke being somehow "special". The effects of this specialness can extend to other people. After his spinal surgery, Ben is paralyzed for over a week, but regains the feeling in his legs immediately after coming into contact with Locke. He is able to walk (with the aid of a cane) only days later.
The Others appear to operate on the assumption that cancer is impossible on the Island ("One of Us
"). Ben Linus appears deeply shocked when told he has a tumor on his spine, and Juliet notes the coincidence that Jack, a spinal surgeon, arrived on the island two days after Ben's condition was diagnosed. Similarly, Rose had been dying of cancer before crashing on the island. After the crash, she feels as if the cancer has "left her body" and, in "S.O.S.
", credits her cure to the island. Jack contracts appendicitis while on the Island, which Rose observes is suspicious given that they expect their imminent rescue and the fact that she strongly believes that it is impossible to get sick on the Island.
Locke also makes a miraculously fast recovery in the episode "Through the Looking Glass
", after being shot and left for dead by Ben in the episode "The Man Behind the Curtain
". Locke also comments that he would have died from being shot, had the kidney Ben was aiming for not been removed earlier in his life. In the episode "Lockdown
", his legs are crushed by the Swan station's blast doors. Rose teases Locke later when he is depressed about possibly being immobile, saying that he will recover sooner than he should. In "Because You Left
", Locke gets shot in the leg by Ethan when he is flashed to the past. After Locke gets flashed to the present day, Richard briefly treats his wound and tells him "the island will do the rest."
Other characters like Mikhail Bakunin and Naomi also recover from injuries very fast.
In "The Variable
", Daniel Faraday is shown to have suffered severe mental damage as a result of his experiments in temporal displacement, impairing his long-term memory. Charles Widmore promises Faraday that he will be healed if he goes on the freighter mission he was recruiting him for. Upon his arrival on the island, Daniel is cured of these problems, although he did suffer a temporary relapse after the death of Charlotte.
In "The New Man In Charge" it is revealed that pregnant polar bears who were transported to the Island from the Hydra station would suffer dire consequences due to the high levels of electromagnetism.
The Island also affects fertility in men. Jin-Soo Kwon was sterile before coming to the Island, but impregnates his wife while there. In the episode "D.O.C.
", Juliet reveals that men on the island have five times the normal sperm count.
When Locke is being held captive by Desmond, Desmond asks Locke if any of his people are sick or dying. When Desmond first came to the Island, Kelvin Inman also asked Desmond about his physical health and implied that he was out long enough to have been exposed. A mysterious vaccine is provided by Dharma food drops. It is taken regularly by Kelvin and Desmond in the Swan Station. This vaccine likely exists as a means of enforcing isolation and is of no medical value. Additional vaccine is administered to Claire's unborn child by Ethan after her kidnapping. During this encounter, Ethan confides in Claire that the Others don't have enough vaccine, implying either they or their recent abductees required it as well. This vaccine either serves an alternate purpose that Ethan was unwilling to divulge or represents a dramatic misinterpretation of a sickness' true cause.
is present on the island. While physical objects seem to be affected by the time passage, electromagnetism, such as radio waves
are not affected. People are able to communicate directly to the outside world without a time lapse. A station was built to study the unique form of electromagnetism found there. Radzinski was very vocal in manipulating electromagnetism "in ways we have never dreamed before". At the end of "Live Together, Die Alone
", when Desmond has used the fail-safe device in the Swan Station to destroy it, a monitoring station in the Antarctic detects the electromagnetic event. It is the same energy as that in the heart of the Island. Jacob's brother tried to use the energy to transport himself off of the Island by building the frozen wheel underground.
", a missile fired from a freighter outside the barrier to the Island, carrying a timer in its payload, is shown to take roughly 31 minutes longer to arrive at its designated target area. In the same episode, a helicopter leaves the Island late in the afternoon. Even though the flight only takes about 30 minutes, it arrives at the freighter the next morning. Doc Ray's body washes ashore in "The Shape of Things to Come
", yet when the freighter is contacted via radio for an explanation, he is alive and well from their perspective. Two episodes later, in "Cabin Fever
", the doctor is murdered and thrown overboard.
The barrier poses a threat to those entering or leaving it, particularly if they have been exposed to a high amount of electromagnetism. Doing so under these circumstances can lead to one's consciousness traveling through time (called "temporal displacement" on the show) eventually resulting in death unless a "constant" can be found between the present and the destination time period.
After Benjamin Linus turned the frozen wheel beneath the Orchid station, he found himself in the Tunisian Desert 10 months later. A side-effect of the wheel being turned was that certain people (some of whom, Sawyer, Locke, and Jin were candidates to replace Jacob as the island's guardian) remaining on the Island began to intermittently and seemingly randomly jump through time, each shift accompanied by a blinding purple flash and health deterioration effects (e.g. nosebleeds) until Locke put the wheel back on its axis (at an earlier point in the past, thus implying that the wheel chamber somehow transcends time).
", it is revealed that freighter communications officer Minkowski and a crew member named Brandon tried to sneak off the boat to get a closer look at the Island. According to Minkowski, as they approached "something happened" to Brandon that caused them to turn back. Brandon died as a result of this attempt to approach the Island, and Minkowski suffered from temporal displacement (jumping between past and present in his mind) and, lacking a "constant" (some aspect of his life that was present in both times), died soon after.
One crew member, Regina, speaks with Faraday over a radio regarding a rocket payload experiment. At the time, she sounds normal. By the time Sayid and Desmond have reached the freighter, Regina is suffering from some sort of psychosis. She is pretending to be reading a book, even though it is held upside down and she generally appears as "mentally out of it". Later, Regina commits suicide by wrapping herself in heavy chains and jumping into the ocean. No move is made by the crew to dissuade her, with Captain Gault claiming that "she is too far gone." How Regina, having never gotten close to the Island as Minkowski and Brandon had, became ill is never revealed. In "Cabin Fever
", Captain Gault informs Martin Keamy
that he may be suffering from some sort of dementia connected with the Island.
Unlike time flashes, during a temporal displacement, time is actually being changed. For example, the events of Desmond's displacement are different than that of the original events before he got to the Island. During the displacement, the person can either have their consciousness from the past in both times, or the present in both times (Desmond's experienced his 1996 consciousness, while Minkowski experienced his present consciousness).
In the first episode of season 6, "LA X
", it is revealed that the "Locke" with whom Ben is traveling is The Monster, an incarnation of Jacob's nemesis. It appears in the remains of the statue of Taweret and kills five people. One of the people manages to create a ring of ash around himself, temporarily hindering the smoke monster. The monster throws a rock at the man, knocking him out of the circle and making it possible for it to kill him. After the men are all dead, the smoke monster exits, and Jacob's nemesis, in the form of John Locke, immediately appears, stating that he is sorry that Ben had to see him "like that". It has since been stated that it used to be a man, who lost a loved one, and has the goal of leaving the Island and "going home". After claiming Sayid to his side, and giving the Others the chance to join him, he stormed the temple and massacred all those who did not comply. In "Recon
", he gave Sawyer a mission to investigate Hydra Island to see if the coast was clear for him and the Others to travel over there so they could take the Ajira plane and fly off the Island. Later in the episode it tells Kate he is sorry about Claire. He tells her that his mother was crazy just like Aaron's mother, Claire. In the final episode he is rendered mortal again along with Jack, the new protector of the island when the Light at the center of the island is disabled. Trapped in the form of John Locke, the Man in Black fights Jack on the cliffs, stabs him and almost kills him, but after Kate shoots the Man in Black in the back, Jack kicks him off the cliff, killing the darkness before it could cross over with a boat to the hydra in order to escape the island with the plane.
, 16
, 23
, and 42
appear throughout the series, both in sequence and individually. The numbers add up to 108
, another common number in the series. For example it is said that the Oceanic Six left the island after 108 days. Also, the button in the hatch had to be pushed every 108 minutes.
The numbers are placed throughout the series for a kind of "Easter egg hunt". Sometimes DHARMA test rabbits can be seen that have identification numbers on them; at least twice, the 23rd rabbit has been seen. They can also be seen on items such as sports shirts and on the DHARMA interrogation room door, which is also designated "23". The plane that brought the castaways to the island for the first time was Oceanic 815. During the season 2 episode "Man of Science, Man of Faith
", Jack is giving care to two people who have been in a car crash. After one of them dies, a voice is heard in the background saying, "Time of death, 8:15 AM".
According to the DHARMA Orientation video in the Lost Experience
, the numbers represent the factors of the Valenzetti Equation, which claims to accurately predict when humanity will be extinguished. A part of the plot is based on certain characters using the numbers to constitute a code that must be entered in a terminal. The writers originally introduced the numbers solely to engineer a meeting between two characters, Hurley and Rousseau
, not because they had a plan for them. Due to viewer feedback, however, they were eventually implemented into a greater part of the story.
The numbers are introduced early in season 1. They were broadcast
from the island's radio transmitter as a message that drew Rousseau
's expedition there. Rousseau changed the message after the deaths of her teammates. The transmission was also heard by military personnel stationed off the island, eventually making their way to Hurley. Hurley uses the numbers to win a lottery before the crash, which brings those around him nothing but misfortune. Another character experienced similar misfortune to others, and eventually killed himself. Because of this, Hurley believes the numbers are cursed. In the "flash-sideways" in season 6, Hurley has again won the lottery, but with different numbers, and appears to have great fortune.
In the season five episode "Some Like It Hoth
", members of the DHARMA Initiative are shown as they are building the hatch which the survivors would later live in. As they are preparing to place the door on the hatch, a worker asks for the serial number to put on the door. Another worker responds by telling him the numbers, which are inscribed on the hatch door. These numbers are later seen by some of the survivors.
The numbers are seen in various occasions in different places during the series. A flashback in season one that shows Jack and Ana meeting at the airport bar mentions their seats on flight 815: Jack sits in row 23 and Ana Lucia in row 42. In season 6 a part of the plot associates each number with a different character, each a candidate, according to the Man in Black
, destined to become the new 'protector of the Island' in Jacob's place. Jack Shepard was number 23, as in Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd.
At the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con International, Lindelof stated that "we may never know what the Numbers mean".
The DHARMA Initiative began to decline around the 1980s, and was virtually destroyed in 1992 when Benjamin Linus orchestrated a massacre of the group. Its facilities were left behind, some of which the Others claimed as their own. As a result of time travel, some of the survivors of Flight 815 become directly involved with The DHARMA Initiative, joining the program in the mid 1970s during the height of its power.
Examples include Sawyer's conversation with Jack's father in a bar before boarding the plane, as well as Locke's father being the man who conned Sawyer's parents. Hurley's accountant buys him the box company that Locke had worked for. Hurley can be seen on a television in one of Jin's flashbacks. Jack is asked to choose between performing operations on his future wife (whom he hadn't met yet) or Shannon's father (and Boone's stepfather).
Jacob, the mysterious leader of the Others, has visited the survivors in different periods of time, indicating that he may have some connections to the crossovers.
The viewers find out the numbers each represent a candidate from the plane to replace Jacob.
The show's producers have always said that there was a reason characters appeared in each other's flashbacks. Damon Lindelof has stated that these are not "Easter eggs", but rather a larger part of the mythology of the series.
" By the end of season six
, it was revealed that they were the whispers of spirits of deceased people who had not yet moved on (or existed in a state of purgatory
). Boone's whispers are heard on the Island after his death, talking about Shannon. Some characters to hear the Whispers were: Juliet, Jack, Rousseau, Sawyer, Sayid, Hurley, and Shannon.
While at first it seems like there are numerous "visions" on Lost, most are in fact not visions, and are either the spirit of a dead person, or Jacob's brother taking on the physical form and memories of a dead person. Visions have helped several characters achieve certain tasks. Many spirits have appeared on and off the Island, such as Michael Dawson, Jacob, Emily Linus, Claudia, Ana Lucia, Charlie Pace, Dave. Some spirits communicate with the living in their dreams, such as Horace Goodspeed and Boone Carlyle, who each appear to John Locke on separate occasions.
Walt has made appearances on the Island in places he could not have been (most notably to Shannon Rutherford in early episodes of season 2) and since Jacob's brother is unable to take on the form of the living, and since Walt isn't dead, the origin of this vision is unknown. Also, while Jacob's spirit was on the Island, Jacob as a child appeared before Hurley and physically took a bag from Hurley's hand, thus showing that he was actually physically present, and not just a spirit.
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
includes a number of mysterious elements that have been ascribed to science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
or supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
phenomena, usually concerning coincidences, synchronicity
Synchronicity
Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner...
, déjà vu
Déjà vu
Déjà vu is the experience of feeling sure that one has already witnessed or experienced a current situation, even though the exact circumstances of the prior encounter are uncertain and were perhaps imagined...
, temporal and spatial anomalies, paradox
Paradox
Similar to Circular reasoning, A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition...
es, and other puzzling phenomena. The creators of the series refer to these as part of the mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
of the series.
The island
As the main setting of the series, the island boasts a number of unusual properties. Its location changes at times and it cannot be reached by ordinary means. The island is surrounded by some sort of barrier in which the normal flow of time does not apply. Electromagnetic phenomena are common on the island, and it seems to bestow unusual healing properties to its residents.The Black Rock
Located deep inside the jungle is the Black Rock, a sailing shipSailing ship
The term sailing ship is now used to refer to any large wind-powered vessel. In technical terms, a ship was a sailing vessel with a specific rig of at least three masts, square rigged on all of them, making the sailing adjective redundant. In popular usage "ship" became associated with all large...
from the mid-19th century. In "Ab Aeterno
Ab Aeterno
"Ab Aeterno" is the ninth television episode of the American Broadcasting Company's sixth season of the serial drama television series Lost and 112th episode overall. The episode aired on March 23, 2010. The episode was written by producer Melinda Hsu Taylor and co-producer Greggory Nations and...
", the Black Rock set sail in 1867 and was captained by Magnus Hanso and had Richard Alpert
Richard Alpert (Lost)
Ricardo "Richard" Alpert is a fictional character played by Nestor Carbonell in the American ABC television series Lost. Alpert is introduced in a flashback of the character Juliet Burke , where he claims to be a doctor for a bioscience company called Mittelos Bioscience; he is later revealed to...
as a prisoner. Jacob, the protector of the island, does not deny when asked by his fraternal twin brother
Man in Black (Lost)
The entity referred to most frequently as the Man in Black is a fictional character on the American ABC television series Lost, and is the main antagonist of the...
if he brought the ship to the island, as the two watch it approaching. Eventually it is swept inland by a colossal rogue wave, destroying all but one foot of the coastal Statue of Tawaret
Tawaret
In Egyptian mythology, Taweret is the Egyptian Goddess of childbirth and fertility. The name "Taweret" means, "she who is great" or simply, "great one"...
on its way. In "The Constant
The Constant
"The Constant" is the fifth episode of the fourth season of the American Broadcasting Company's serial drama television series Lost, and the 77th episode overall. It was aired on February 28, 2008, on ABC in the United States and on CTV in Canada...
", it is explained that the Black Rock set sail from Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, on March 22, 1845 on a trading mission to the Kingdom of Siam
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, when she was tragically lost at sea. The only known artifact of this journey is the journal of the ship's First Mate, which was discovered among the artifacts of pirates on Île Sainte-Marie
Île Sainte-Marie
Île Sainte-Marie, known as Nosy Boraha , is an island off the east coast of Madagascar. The main town is Ambodifotatra. The city covers an area of 222 km2, and had a population estimated at 16,325 in 2001.- City :...
, Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
seven years later. The contents of this journal have never been made public nor known to anyone outside the family of the seller Tovard Hanso. This journal is later bought at auction by Charles Widmore
Charles Widmore
Charles Widmore is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of over forty people after their plane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the south Pacific. He is primarily portrayed as an older man by Alan Dale; Tom Connolly and David S...
.
In "Exodus
Exodus (Lost)
"Exodus" is the first season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 23rd through 25th episodes of the first season and the show overall. The episodes were directed by Jack Bender, and written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. "Part 1" first aired on May 18, 2005 and "Part 2"...
", John Locke
John Locke (Lost)
John Locke is a fictional character played by Terry O'Quinn on the ABC television series Lost. He is named after English philosopher John Locke...
mentions that this ship must have been en route to a mining colony, probably set-off from the Eastern Coast of Africa, Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
. The ship contains dynamite, mining equipment and several chained skeletons, although slavery had been outlawed in British ships and possessions by 1845. Dr. Leslie Arzt (Daniel Roebuck
Daniel Roebuck
Daniel James Roebuck is an American television film actor, writer and producer, primarily in films, soap operas and television.-Life and career:...
) mentions that a tsunami
Tsunami
A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
could have swept it a couple of miles inland as seen later in the episode. The Swan's blast door map has a revision marking "Known Final Resting Place of Magnus Hanso / Black Rock" as seen in "Live Together, Die Alone
Live Together, Die Alone
"Live Together, Die Alone" is the second season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 23rd and 24th episodes of the second season. It is also the 48th and 49th episodes overall. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and directed by Jack Bender. It first...
".
The cabin
The cabin was built by the Dharma InitiativeDHARMA Initiative
The Dharma Initiative, also written DHARMA , was a fictional research project featured in the television series Lost. It was introduced in the second season episode "Orientation". In 2008, the Dharma Initiative website was launched. Dharma's interests were directly connected with fringe science...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
Horace Goodspeed as a sort of retreat for himself and his wife. It is surrounded by a broken ash circle. While at first it is believed that Jacob resides there, it is actually Man in Black
Man in Black (Lost)
The entity referred to most frequently as the Man in Black is a fictional character on the American ABC television series Lost, and is the main antagonist of the...
in the cabin, falsely giving orders on behalf of Jacob. The cabin has appeared in three separate locations.
The lighthouse
In "LighthouseLighthouse (Lost)
"Lighthouse" is the fifth television episode of the American Broadcasting Company's sixth season of the serial drama television series Lost and 108th episode overall. The episode aired on February 23, 2010 on ABC in the United States and 2 hours earlier on A in Canada due to the 2010 Winter Olympics...
", Jacob instructs Hurley to take Jack
Jack Shephard
Dr. Jack Shephard is a fictional character and protagonist of the ABC television series Lost played by Matthew Fox. Lost follows the journey of the survivors of Oceanic Airlines flight 815 on a mysterious island and their attempts to survive and escape, slowly uncovering more of the much broader...
to a heretofore-unseen lighthouse on the Island's coast. At the top of the lighthouse's stone tower is a set of mirrors which can rotate via a large stone dial, labeled with numbers and in some cases the names of the "candidates". Jack is able to see an image of his childhood home reflected in the mirrors when they are turned to his number, 23; whether this is due to some property of the lighthouse mirrors and structure or simply to Jacob's influence is unclear.
The ruins
There are ruins on the Island, many with hieroglyphs. In "Live Together, Die AloneLive Together, Die Alone
"Live Together, Die Alone" is the second season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 23rd and 24th episodes of the second season. It is also the 48th and 49th episodes overall. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and directed by Jack Bender. It first...
", while at sea, Sayid
Sayid Jarrah
Sayid Hassan Jarrah is a character from the ABC show Lost portrayed by Naveen Andrews.-Season 1:Sayid fixes the transceiver recovered from the cockpit, and leads a group into the jungle in order to send out a distress signal. Instead, he picks up a looping message . He tries to locate the...
, Jin
Jin-Soo Kwon
Jin-Soo Kwon, better known as "Jin," is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Daniel Dae Kim.- Prior to the crash :...
, and Sun sight the remnants of a massive statue standing upon a rock in the surf. All that is left is a large, four-toed marble foot broken off at the ankle. Sayid remarks that he does not know which is more disquieting: the fact that the rest of the statue is missing, or that the foot has only four toes. It has been compared to the Colossus of Rhodes
Colossus of Rhodes
The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the Greek Titan Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC. It is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was constructed to celebrate Rhodes' victory over the ruler of...
. The full statue, viewed from the back, appears from a distance in the fifth season episode "LaFleur
LaFleur (Lost)
"LaFleur" is the eighth television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost. The 94th episode of the show overall, "LaFleur" aired on March 4, 2009 on ABC in the United States, being simulcast on A in Canada...
". The statue seen from behind has lion-like ears, a crown on the head, long hair, an ankh
Ankh
The ankh , also known as key of life, the key of the Nile or crux ansata, was the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic character that read "eternal life", a triliteral sign for the consonants ʻ-n-ḫ...
in each hand, and ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
ian dress. The statue is named Taweret, the Egyptian god of fertility
Fertility
Fertility is the natural capability of producing offsprings. As a measure, "fertility rate" is the number of children born per couple, person or population. Fertility differs from fecundity, which is defined as the potential for reproduction...
and life.
At the base of the statue is a secret chamber
Secret passage
Secret passages, also commonly referred to as hidden passages or secret tunnels, are hidden routes used for stealthy travel. Such passageways are sometimes inside buildings leading to secret rooms. Others allow occupants to enter or exit buildings without being seen...
in which Jacob resides. All four elements of earth, water, fire, and air are represented in this chamber. "The fire pit in the middle of the room consisted of flames rising from black sand with a ring of water surrounding all of it." The room also housed a weaving loom in which Jacob is shown creating a tapestry. In addition, painted on the ceiling was "an ancient Egyptian astronomical chart which refers to the stars and planets, time, and the goddess Taweret."
Further ruins are revealed in "The Brig
The Brig
"The Brig" is the 19th episode of the 3rd season of Lost, and the 68th episode overall. It aired on May 2, 2007. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Eric Laneuville...
" when the Others tie Locke's father to the broken base of a large, stone column. Toward the end of the third season, Ben tells Richard to continue leading the rest of the Others to the Temple, and in "Meet Kevin Johnson
Meet Kevin Johnson
"Meet Kevin Johnson" is the 80th television episode of the American Broadcasting Company's Lost and the eighth episode of the fourth season. It was written in October and November 2007 by supervising producer Elizabeth Sarnoff and co-producer Brian K. Vaughan, and directed in November by...
" sends Alex, Karl, and Rousseau to the same location. His map marks it with a Dharma Initiative symbol, but the Temple has also been mentioned as something the Monster is in place to protect. In addition, in "The Shape of Things to Come
The Shape of Things to Come (Lost)
"The Shape of Things to Come" is the 81st episode of the American Broadcasting Company's Lost and is the ninth episode of the fourth season. It aired on April 24, 2008 on ABC in the United States and on CTV in Canada. The episode was written by co-executive producer Drew Goddard and...
", after Alex is killed, Ben summons the Smoke Monster in a secret chamber hidden in his closet whose stone door contains hieroglyphics. In "There's No Place Like Home Pt 3", when Ben enters the Orchid Station, behind the official Dharma built station, he finds what appear to be ancient tombstones covered with unknown hieroglyphs on his way to the final room, where an ancient man-made wheel rests that is used to move the island. In the fifth season episode, "This Place is Death
This Place is Death
"This Place Is Death" is the fifth television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost. The 91st episode of the show overall, "This Place Is Death" aired on February 11, 2009 on ABC in the United States, being simulcast on A in Canada...
" shows a better view of what appears to be the Temple that Ben will one day order Richard to lead his people to, which is directly guarded by the Monster. In "Whatever Happened, Happened
Whatever Happened, Happened
"Whatever Happened, Happened" is the 11th television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost. The 97th episode of the show overall, "Whatever Happened, Happened" aired April 1, 2009, on ABC in the United States...
", Richard Alpert is seen taking a young Benjamin Linus into the temple itself as a means of healing a fatal gunshot wound. Alpert notes beforehand that Ben will emerge a fundamentally different person. It is revealed in "Dead is Dead
Dead Is Dead
"Dead Is Dead" is the 12th television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost. The 98th episode of the show overall, "Dead Is Dead" aired on April 8, 2009 on ABC in the United States and aired on April 12, 2009 on Sky1 in the United Kingdom. The episode was written by editor Brian K...
" that the structure the viewers see is merely a wall concealing the temple and the actual temple itself is a mile away on the other side of the wall.
There is also a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the surface of the Island. The lair of the Monster lies in these tunnels, beneath the site of the Temple wall, and another chamber was used by the Others to isolate a hydrogen bomb
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
with a breach in its casing, which lies beneath the Dharma Initiative barracks. Some of these tunnels are marked on the blast door map in the Swan Station.
In the sixth season episode "Across the Sea
Across the Sea (Lost)
"Across the Sea" is the 15th episode of the American Broadcasting Company's sixth season of the serial drama television series Lost and 118th episode overall. The episode aired on May 11, 2010 on ABC in the United States. The episode was written by Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof and directed by...
", young Jacob and his unnamed fraternal twin brother are shown a cave with a waterfall; in "The End
The End (Lost)
"The End" is the series finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 17th and 18th episodes of season 6. It is also the 120th and 121st episodes overall...
," Desmond
Desmond Hume
Desmond David Hume is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost portrayed by Henry Ian Cusick. Desmond's name is a tribute to David Hume, the famous empiricist author and philosopher. Desmond was not a passenger of Flight 815. He had been stranded on the island three years prior to...
descends into the cave and discovers an ancient chamber. In the chamber there is a pool of electromagnetic energy with a large hieroglyphic stone that sits at the center covering a mysterious hole. When it is removed by Desmond, the water and energy drain from the pool, an infernal red glow infuses the chamber, and the island begins to violently react. When Jack returns the stone, the water begins to flow into the pool again and the electromagnetic energy returns.
Health-related properties
The Island has extraordinary healing properties. The Island can heal normally untreatable conditions, such as spinal damage (Locke), cancer (Rose), and infertility (JinJin-Soo Kwon
Jin-Soo Kwon, better known as "Jin," is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Daniel Dae Kim.- Prior to the crash :...
). Injuries heal much faster than they normally would, though by no means are people incapable of dying. Disease is also possible, though rare. Since "the Incident", increased electromagnetic immersion caused women who conceive children on the Island to die of an auto-immune
Autoimmunity
Autoimmunity is the failure of an organism to recognize its own constituent parts as self, which allows an immune response against its own cells and tissues. Any disease that results from such an aberrant immune response is termed an autoimmune disease...
condition during the second trimester of pregnancy
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
. They can otherwise give birth as long as conception occurs off the island or if they leave before the second trimester.
Healing
Some castaways express the belief that they have been miraculously healed since the crash. Prior to his arrival, Locke was paralyzed, but regains the use of his legs immediately after the crash. Richard Alpert says in "The BrigThe Brig
"The Brig" is the 19th episode of the 3rd season of Lost, and the 68th episode overall. It aired on May 2, 2007. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Eric Laneuville...
" that Locke's spine healing itself is not a normal event, even by the Island's standards. It is a sign of Locke being somehow "special". The effects of this specialness can extend to other people. After his spinal surgery, Ben is paralyzed for over a week, but regains the feeling in his legs immediately after coming into contact with Locke. He is able to walk (with the aid of a cane) only days later.
The Others appear to operate on the assumption that cancer is impossible on the Island ("One of Us
One of Us (Lost)
"One of Us" is the 16th episode of the third season of Lost. It aired on April 11, 2007, making it the 65th episode of the series. The episode was written by Carlton Cuse and Drew Goddard and directed by Jack Bender...
"). Ben Linus appears deeply shocked when told he has a tumor on his spine, and Juliet notes the coincidence that Jack, a spinal surgeon, arrived on the island two days after Ben's condition was diagnosed. Similarly, Rose had been dying of cancer before crashing on the island. After the crash, she feels as if the cancer has "left her body" and, in "S.O.S.
S.O.S. (Lost)
"S.O.S." is the 19th episode of the second season of Lost and the 44th episode overall. The episode was directed by Eric Laneuville, and written by Steven Maeda and Leonard Dick. It first aired on April 12, 2006 on ABC. The characters of Rose Henderson "S.O.S." is the 19th episode of the second...
", credits her cure to the island. Jack contracts appendicitis while on the Island, which Rose observes is suspicious given that they expect their imminent rescue and the fact that she strongly believes that it is impossible to get sick on the Island.
Locke also makes a miraculously fast recovery in the episode "Through the Looking Glass
Through the Looking Glass (Lost)
"Through the Looking Glass" is the third season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 22nd and 23rd episodes of the third season. It is also the 71st and 72nd episodes overall. It was written by co-creator/executive producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse,...
", after being shot and left for dead by Ben in the episode "The Man Behind the Curtain
The Man Behind the Curtain
"The Man Behind the Curtain" is the 20th episode of the 3rd season of Lost, and the 69th episode overall. It was first aired on May 9, 2007 on ABC. The episode was directed by Bobby Roth and written by Elizabeth Sarnoff and Drew Goddard....
". Locke also comments that he would have died from being shot, had the kidney Ben was aiming for not been removed earlier in his life. In the episode "Lockdown
Lockdown
There are several definitions for the term lockdown, the most common of which pertains to a state of containment or a restriction of progression....
", his legs are crushed by the Swan station's blast doors. Rose teases Locke later when he is depressed about possibly being immobile, saying that he will recover sooner than he should. In "Because You Left
Because You Left
"Because You Left" is the television season premiere of the American Broadcasting Company's fifth season of the serial drama television series Lost. The episode is the 87th episode of the show overall, and was written by executive producers/show runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed...
", Locke gets shot in the leg by Ethan when he is flashed to the past. After Locke gets flashed to the present day, Richard briefly treats his wound and tells him "the island will do the rest."
Other characters like Mikhail Bakunin and Naomi also recover from injuries very fast.
In "The Variable
The Variable
"The Variable" is the 14th television episode of the fifth season of Lost, and the 100th episode overall. It originally aired on the American Broadcasting Company in the United States on April 29, 2009. The hundredth episode milestone was celebrated by cast and crew on location in Hawaii...
", Daniel Faraday is shown to have suffered severe mental damage as a result of his experiments in temporal displacement, impairing his long-term memory. Charles Widmore promises Faraday that he will be healed if he goes on the freighter mission he was recruiting him for. Upon his arrival on the island, Daniel is cured of these problems, although he did suffer a temporary relapse after the death of Charlotte.
Pregnancy
The third season reveals that any woman who conceives on the island dies before the baby is born. Specifically, the pregnancy goes well until about midway through the second trimester, where complications arise. The mother's body rejects the fetus as a viral infection, resulting in both the mother and child's death. Juliet states that in her research, no one made it to their third trimester. Animals such as the wild boars do not die during pregnancy. Women who went through their second trimester off the island are able to give birth without incident (Rousseau, Claire). The Others have enlisted the help of Juliet, a fertility researcher, to help find out why this happens, but she never finds an answer. Several women among the Others volunteer to get pregnant for Juliet's research, all with uniformly fatal results.In "The New Man In Charge" it is revealed that pregnant polar bears who were transported to the Island from the Hydra station would suffer dire consequences due to the high levels of electromagnetism.
The Island also affects fertility in men. Jin-Soo Kwon was sterile before coming to the Island, but impregnates his wife while there. In the episode "D.O.C.
D.O.C. (Lost)
"D.O.C." is the 18th episode of the 3rd season of Lost and the 67th episode overall. It was aired on April 25, 2007. The episode was written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and directed by Fred Toye. The character of Sun-Hwa Kwon was featured in the episode's flashbacks.-Flashbacks:In...
", Juliet reveals that men on the island have five times the normal sperm count.
"Sickness"
Contrary to the lack of disease on the Island, Rousseau claims to have killed her team because they had caught a mysterious disease, which necessitated their executions. She also claims that the Others are the carriers of disease. It is later shown that Rousseau's crew was "infected" after entering the tunnels beneath the Temple in order to rescue a member of her team from the Monster. Upon their return, the three crew members show no physical symptoms of anything being wrong with them, but act strangely, even attempting to kill Rousseau. She executed them, believing that they were no longer "themselves". The Temple master, Dogen, refers to both Sayid and Claire as being "infected". This infection is akin to being claimed by the Man in Black, and results in a complete loss of emotion and altered personality, a state which both Sayid and Claire were eventually able to overcome.When Locke is being held captive by Desmond, Desmond asks Locke if any of his people are sick or dying. When Desmond first came to the Island, Kelvin Inman also asked Desmond about his physical health and implied that he was out long enough to have been exposed. A mysterious vaccine is provided by Dharma food drops. It is taken regularly by Kelvin and Desmond in the Swan Station. This vaccine likely exists as a means of enforcing isolation and is of no medical value. Additional vaccine is administered to Claire's unborn child by Ethan after her kidnapping. During this encounter, Ethan confides in Claire that the Others don't have enough vaccine, implying either they or their recent abductees required it as well. This vaccine either serves an alternate purpose that Ethan was unwilling to divulge or represents a dramatic misinterpretation of a sickness' true cause.
Location
The Others transmit a signal that they use to locate the Island. The Island is surrounded by a shield of electromagnetic energy, which causes temporal displacement and death when trying to enter or leave the Island, unless the person is traveling from a certain angle and bearing (which changes when the Island moves). The DHARMA Initiative located the Island, after learning about it through the United States Army, by building The Lamp Post, an off-Island station underneath a church, over a pocket of electromagnetic energy that uses the energy and a complex mathematical equation to locate where and when the Island will be. The Island can be physically moved in space, while many of its occupants have been seen to move through time and space, to wherever the island is located at that moment in time. This phenomenon is achieved by tapping into the Island's energy source, as the frozen wheel does.Electromagnetism
An unusual form of naturally occurring electromagnetismElectromagnetism
Electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. The other three are the strong interaction, the weak interaction and gravitation...
is present on the island. While physical objects seem to be affected by the time passage, electromagnetism, such as radio waves
Radio frequency
Radio frequency is a rate of oscillation in the range of about 3 kHz to 300 GHz, which corresponds to the frequency of radio waves, and the alternating currents which carry radio signals...
are not affected. People are able to communicate directly to the outside world without a time lapse. A station was built to study the unique form of electromagnetism found there. Radzinski was very vocal in manipulating electromagnetism "in ways we have never dreamed before". At the end of "Live Together, Die Alone
Live Together, Die Alone
"Live Together, Die Alone" is the second season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 23rd and 24th episodes of the second season. It is also the 48th and 49th episodes overall. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and directed by Jack Bender. It first...
", when Desmond has used the fail-safe device in the Swan Station to destroy it, a monitoring station in the Antarctic detects the electromagnetic event. It is the same energy as that in the heart of the Island. Jacob's brother tried to use the energy to transport himself off of the Island by building the frozen wheel underground.
Time travel
The Island is surrounded by an invisible electromagnetic barrier in which the normal rules of time do not apply. Daniel Faraday comments that light does not scatter properly on the Island. In "The EconomistThe Economist (Lost)
"The Economist" is the third episode of the American Broadcasting Company's fourth season of the serial drama television series Lost and 75th episode overall. It was aired on February 14, 2008 on ABC in the United States and on CTV in Canada. The episode was written by co-executive producers...
", a missile fired from a freighter outside the barrier to the Island, carrying a timer in its payload, is shown to take roughly 31 minutes longer to arrive at its designated target area. In the same episode, a helicopter leaves the Island late in the afternoon. Even though the flight only takes about 30 minutes, it arrives at the freighter the next morning. Doc Ray's body washes ashore in "The Shape of Things to Come
The Shape of Things to Come (Lost)
"The Shape of Things to Come" is the 81st episode of the American Broadcasting Company's Lost and is the ninth episode of the fourth season. It aired on April 24, 2008 on ABC in the United States and on CTV in Canada. The episode was written by co-executive producer Drew Goddard and...
", yet when the freighter is contacted via radio for an explanation, he is alive and well from their perspective. Two episodes later, in "Cabin Fever
Cabin Fever (Lost)
"Cabin Fever" is the 11th episode of the American Broadcasting Company's fourth season of the serial drama television series Lost and 83rd episode overall. It was aired on May 8, 2008 on ABC in the United States and on CTV in Canada. The episode was written by supervising producer Elizabeth...
", the doctor is murdered and thrown overboard.
The barrier poses a threat to those entering or leaving it, particularly if they have been exposed to a high amount of electromagnetism. Doing so under these circumstances can lead to one's consciousness traveling through time (called "temporal displacement" on the show) eventually resulting in death unless a "constant" can be found between the present and the destination time period.
After Benjamin Linus turned the frozen wheel beneath the Orchid station, he found himself in the Tunisian Desert 10 months later. A side-effect of the wheel being turned was that certain people (some of whom, Sawyer, Locke, and Jin were candidates to replace Jacob as the island's guardian) remaining on the Island began to intermittently and seemingly randomly jump through time, each shift accompanied by a blinding purple flash and health deterioration effects (e.g. nosebleeds) until Locke put the wheel back on its axis (at an earlier point in the past, thus implying that the wheel chamber somehow transcends time).
Temporal displacement
In the fourth season episode "The ConstantThe Constant
"The Constant" is the fifth episode of the fourth season of the American Broadcasting Company's serial drama television series Lost, and the 77th episode overall. It was aired on February 28, 2008, on ABC in the United States and on CTV in Canada...
", it is revealed that freighter communications officer Minkowski and a crew member named Brandon tried to sneak off the boat to get a closer look at the Island. According to Minkowski, as they approached "something happened" to Brandon that caused them to turn back. Brandon died as a result of this attempt to approach the Island, and Minkowski suffered from temporal displacement (jumping between past and present in his mind) and, lacking a "constant" (some aspect of his life that was present in both times), died soon after.
One crew member, Regina, speaks with Faraday over a radio regarding a rocket payload experiment. At the time, she sounds normal. By the time Sayid and Desmond have reached the freighter, Regina is suffering from some sort of psychosis. She is pretending to be reading a book, even though it is held upside down and she generally appears as "mentally out of it". Later, Regina commits suicide by wrapping herself in heavy chains and jumping into the ocean. No move is made by the crew to dissuade her, with Captain Gault claiming that "she is too far gone." How Regina, having never gotten close to the Island as Minkowski and Brandon had, became ill is never revealed. In "Cabin Fever
Cabin Fever (Lost)
"Cabin Fever" is the 11th episode of the American Broadcasting Company's fourth season of the serial drama television series Lost and 83rd episode overall. It was aired on May 8, 2008 on ABC in the United States and on CTV in Canada. The episode was written by supervising producer Elizabeth...
", Captain Gault informs Martin Keamy
Martin Keamy
First Sergeant Martin Christopher Keamy is a recurring fictional character played by Kevin Durand in the fourth season and sixth season of the American ABC television series Lost. Keamy is introduced in the fifth episode of the fourth season as a crew member aboard the freighter called the Kahana...
that he may be suffering from some sort of dementia connected with the Island.
Unlike time flashes, during a temporal displacement, time is actually being changed. For example, the events of Desmond's displacement are different than that of the original events before he got to the Island. During the displacement, the person can either have their consciousness from the past in both times, or the present in both times (Desmond's experienced his 1996 consciousness, while Minkowski experienced his present consciousness).
The Man in Black/The Monster
The Island is home to a mysterious entity, consisting of a black mass accompanied by mechanical-like sounds and electrical activity within, dubbed the "Smoke Monster" or just the "Monster" by the survivors. The monster has been described by Lost producer Damon Lindelof as "one of the biggest secrets" of the mythology. The producers have often hinted that the black cloud of smoke is not a monster in the traditional sense, nor is it a cloud of nanobots (as some fans have speculated). It has been repeatedly described as a "security system" for the Island, specifically the ruins of the temple on the Island. It emerges from vents in the ground to attack people, though it does not always attack those it encounters. The Monster is capable of lifting a grown man, and in one instance tosses a man nearly fifty feet into the air. In another it wraps a tendril of smoke around a man's arm, severing it.In the first episode of season 6, "LA X
LA X
"LA X" comprises the 104th and 105th episodes of the American Broadcasting Company's Lost, marking the premiere of the sixth and final season. It was written by show runners/executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by executive producer Jack Bender...
", it is revealed that the "Locke" with whom Ben is traveling is The Monster, an incarnation of Jacob's nemesis. It appears in the remains of the statue of Taweret and kills five people. One of the people manages to create a ring of ash around himself, temporarily hindering the smoke monster. The monster throws a rock at the man, knocking him out of the circle and making it possible for it to kill him. After the men are all dead, the smoke monster exits, and Jacob's nemesis, in the form of John Locke, immediately appears, stating that he is sorry that Ben had to see him "like that". It has since been stated that it used to be a man, who lost a loved one, and has the goal of leaving the Island and "going home". After claiming Sayid to his side, and giving the Others the chance to join him, he stormed the temple and massacred all those who did not comply. In "Recon
Recon (Lost)
"Recon" is the eighth television episode of the American Broadcasting Company's sixth season of the serial drama television series Lost and 111th episode overall. The episode is written by executive producer Elizabeth Sarnoff and newcomer Jim Galasso and directed by Jack Bender...
", he gave Sawyer a mission to investigate Hydra Island to see if the coast was clear for him and the Others to travel over there so they could take the Ajira plane and fly off the Island. Later in the episode it tells Kate he is sorry about Claire. He tells her that his mother was crazy just like Aaron's mother, Claire. In the final episode he is rendered mortal again along with Jack, the new protector of the island when the Light at the center of the island is disabled. Trapped in the form of John Locke, the Man in Black fights Jack on the cliffs, stabs him and almost kills him, but after Kate shoots the Man in Black in the back, Jack kicks him off the cliff, killing the darkness before it could cross over with a boat to the hydra in order to escape the island with the plane.
The numbers
The numbers 4, 8, 1515 (number)
15 is the natural number following 14 and preceding 16. In English, it is the smallest natural number with seven letters in its spelled name....
, 16
16 (number)
16 is the natural number following 15 and preceding 17. 16 is a composite number, and a square number, being 42 = 4 × 4. It is the smallest number with exactly five divisors, its proper divisors being , , and ....
, 23
23 (number)
23 is the natural number following 22 and preceding 24.- In mathematics :Twenty-three is the ninth prime number, the smallest odd prime that is not a twin prime. Twenty-three is also the fifth factorial prime, the third Woodall prime...
, and 42
42 (number)
42 is the natural number immediately following 41 and directly preceding 43. The number has received considerable attention in popular culture as a result of its central appearance in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and...
appear throughout the series, both in sequence and individually. The numbers add up to 108
108 (number)
108 is the natural number following 107 and preceding 109.- In mathematics :One hundred [and] eight is an abundant number and a semiperfect number...
, another common number in the series. For example it is said that the Oceanic Six left the island after 108 days. Also, the button in the hatch had to be pushed every 108 minutes.
The numbers are placed throughout the series for a kind of "Easter egg hunt". Sometimes DHARMA test rabbits can be seen that have identification numbers on them; at least twice, the 23rd rabbit has been seen. They can also be seen on items such as sports shirts and on the DHARMA interrogation room door, which is also designated "23". The plane that brought the castaways to the island for the first time was Oceanic 815. During the season 2 episode "Man of Science, Man of Faith
Man of Science, Man of Faith
"Man of Science, Man of Faith" is the first episode of the second season of Lost and the 26th episode overall. The episode was directed by Jack Bender and written by Damon Lindelof. It first aired on September 21, 2005 on ABC. The flashbacks focus on Jack Shephard's struggle to heal Sarah, who...
", Jack is giving care to two people who have been in a car crash. After one of them dies, a voice is heard in the background saying, "Time of death, 8:15 AM".
According to the DHARMA Orientation video in the Lost Experience
Lost Experience
The Lost Experience was an alternate reality game that was part of the American television drama Lost. The game was developed by ABC in the United States, Channel 4 in the UK, and Channel 7 in Australia. It was written by Jordan Rosenberg and created by the agency Hi-ReS!...
, the numbers represent the factors of the Valenzetti Equation, which claims to accurately predict when humanity will be extinguished. A part of the plot is based on certain characters using the numbers to constitute a code that must be entered in a terminal. The writers originally introduced the numbers solely to engineer a meeting between two characters, Hurley and Rousseau
Danielle Rousseau
Danielle Rousseau is a fictional character on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of over forty people after their plane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific. Croatian actress Mira Furlan plays the scientist who shipwrecks on the island sixteen...
, not because they had a plan for them. Due to viewer feedback, however, they were eventually implemented into a greater part of the story.
The numbers are introduced early in season 1. They were broadcast
Numbers station
A numbers station is a shortwave radio station of uncertain origin. In the 1950s, Time magazine reported that the numbers stations first appeared shortly after World War II and were using a format that had been used to send weather data during that war.Numbers stations generally broadcast...
from the island's radio transmitter as a message that drew Rousseau
Danielle Rousseau
Danielle Rousseau is a fictional character on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of over forty people after their plane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific. Croatian actress Mira Furlan plays the scientist who shipwrecks on the island sixteen...
's expedition there. Rousseau changed the message after the deaths of her teammates. The transmission was also heard by military personnel stationed off the island, eventually making their way to Hurley. Hurley uses the numbers to win a lottery before the crash, which brings those around him nothing but misfortune. Another character experienced similar misfortune to others, and eventually killed himself. Because of this, Hurley believes the numbers are cursed. In the "flash-sideways" in season 6, Hurley has again won the lottery, but with different numbers, and appears to have great fortune.
In the season five episode "Some Like It Hoth
Some Like It Hoth
"Some Like It Hoth" is the 13th television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost. The 99th episode of the show overall, "Some Like It Hoth" aired on April 15, 2009 on ABC in the United States. The episode was written by co-producer Melinda Hsu Taylor and "Eggtown" writer Greggory Nations and...
", members of the DHARMA Initiative are shown as they are building the hatch which the survivors would later live in. As they are preparing to place the door on the hatch, a worker asks for the serial number to put on the door. Another worker responds by telling him the numbers, which are inscribed on the hatch door. These numbers are later seen by some of the survivors.
The numbers are seen in various occasions in different places during the series. A flashback in season one that shows Jack and Ana meeting at the airport bar mentions their seats on flight 815: Jack sits in row 23 and Ana Lucia in row 42. In season 6 a part of the plot associates each number with a different character, each a candidate, according to the Man in Black
Man in Black (Lost)
The entity referred to most frequently as the Man in Black is a fictional character on the American ABC television series Lost, and is the main antagonist of the...
, destined to become the new 'protector of the Island' in Jacob's place. Jack Shepard was number 23, as in Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd.
At the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con International, Lindelof stated that "we may never know what the Numbers mean".
The DHARMA Initiative
From the 1970s to the 1990s, a group known as The DHARMA Initiative operated through numerous stations scattered across the Island, studying its unique properties. They came into conflict with the Others, known to them as the Hostiles, as a result. They formed a tentative truce with them with strict territorial boundaries set for each side.The DHARMA Initiative began to decline around the 1980s, and was virtually destroyed in 1992 when Benjamin Linus orchestrated a massacre of the group. Its facilities were left behind, some of which the Others claimed as their own. As a result of time travel, some of the survivors of Flight 815 become directly involved with The DHARMA Initiative, joining the program in the mid 1970s during the height of its power.
The Others
The Others are a group of inhabitants that have been on the island for an unknown number of years. It is known that their occupation precedes both the Dharma Initiative and the U.S. Army's exploration of the island; as well as the survivors of Flight 815. It is still yet to be revealed how long they have been on the island; earliest flashbacks show they have been on the island since at least the mid-19th century, and both Jacob and his rival existing on the Island for time preceding even that (definitely hundreds, possibly thousands of years). The Others used to reside in the barracks first built by the Dharma Initiative to house their employees, after the Purge, but have left the Barracks during season 3 and have not returned.Crossovers
Prior to their arrival on the Island, both major and minor characters have crossed paths, often unknowingly, sometimes affecting each other's lives. These crossovers are revealed through characters' flashbacks, and are typically obvious only to viewers. Some intersections are quite noticeable, with different characters conversing with each other, but most often the characters are oblivious to these crossovers, which take the form of other characters' appearances on televisions or as glimpses in the background. The crossovers become more frequent in the final episodes of the first season, as all the characters approach each other before arriving at the airport, and finally boarding the airplane.Examples include Sawyer's conversation with Jack's father in a bar before boarding the plane, as well as Locke's father being the man who conned Sawyer's parents. Hurley's accountant buys him the box company that Locke had worked for. Hurley can be seen on a television in one of Jin's flashbacks. Jack is asked to choose between performing operations on his future wife (whom he hadn't met yet) or Shannon's father (and Boone's stepfather).
Jacob, the mysterious leader of the Others, has visited the survivors in different periods of time, indicating that he may have some connections to the crossovers.
The viewers find out the numbers each represent a candidate from the plane to replace Jacob.
The show's producers have always said that there was a reason characters appeared in each other's flashbacks. Damon Lindelof has stated that these are not "Easter eggs", but rather a larger part of the mythology of the series.
Whispers
Whispers can be heard on the Island. They first appear at the end of the episode "SolitarySolitary (Lost)
"Solitary" is the ninth episode of the first season of Lost. The episode was directed by Greg Yaitanes and written by David Fury. It first aired on November 17, 2004 on ABC. The character of Sayid Jarrah is featured in the episode's flashbacks.-Flashbacks:Sayid is torturing a prisoner who will not...
" By the end of season six
Lost (season 6)
The sixth and final season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing in the United States and Canada on February 2, 2010. The sixth-season premiere was the first to climb in the ratings year-over-year since the second season, drawing 12.1 million viewers. The season...
, it was revealed that they were the whispers of spirits of deceased people who had not yet moved on (or existed in a state of purgatory
Purgatory
Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...
). Boone's whispers are heard on the Island after his death, talking about Shannon. Some characters to hear the Whispers were: Juliet, Jack, Rousseau, Sawyer, Sayid, Hurley, and Shannon.
Visions
Walt has made appearances on the Island in places he could not have been (most notably to Shannon Rutherford in early episodes of season 2) and since Jacob's brother is unable to take on the form of the living, and since Walt isn't dead, the origin of this vision is unknown. Also, while Jacob's spirit was on the Island, Jacob as a child appeared before Hurley and physically took a bag from Hurley's hand, thus showing that he was actually physically present, and not just a spirit.
Further reading
- Alan N. Shapiro, "TV’s ‘Lost’: The Crash Out of Globalization and Into the World," http://alan-shapiro.com/category/lost/