Before I even start, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SEASON 5 AND 6
Okay,
now that that’s out of the way, I can begin.
Lost is one of the craziest, most compelling and thought provoking television
shows of all time. As the show went on it began to introduce more fantasy and
science fiction elements which allowed it to address many of its philosophical
themes in a unique way. One of these science fiction elements was of course
time travel. Like any fiction that introduces time travel it has to have rules.
Most sci-fi operates under the rules that time can be tampered with, that the traveler
needs to be careful “Not to corrupt the timeline,” or “Avoid ripples,” or
something along those lines. Lost however
does the opposite. A time traveler cannot change the past because he has always
traveled back and done what he did. Think of time like a book. Most people read
a book from start to finish, but say you skipped forward, or went back and read
the beginning. The book will still have the same words on the page no matter what
order the person reading it experiences it in. More on that later. There are
several ways one can move through time on Lost,
these all seem to be connected to the fact that time on the island is not
the same as the rest of the world. The
first way we see is being “unstuck in time.” This is where someone’s consciousness
jumps back and forth between two times. Another form of time travel seems to
occur when someone comes to or leaves the island. Finally the biggest form of
time travel, one that’s reasons are never explicitly explained on the show, is
the “Time jumps” that several characters experience when Ben turns the wheel.
So what
did anything I just said there mean? Well let’s return to the rules of time
travel. As the show is so fond of saying,
“Whatever happened happened.” This means
that if you somehow travel back to the 70s and try to change something it won’t
work because it already happened in the 70s. Anyone who was around both in the
70s and the present day could tell you that. In fact that is exactly what
happened to our favorite castaways. They tried to make it so that they never
came to the island by preventing an incident, but in the process created the
incident. The simplest way to think of things is actually chronologically.
First in 1974; Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Jin, and Faraday arrived from the future.
Three years later in 1977 Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid also arrived from the
future. These people proceeded to attempt to ignite a nuclear weapon, but only
managed to set off the EMP, they then disappeared, causing many including
Richard Alpert to believe they died in what came to be known as “The incident”.
In 2004 Oceanic 815 crashed and the castaways learned of the incident, not
knowing they were the ones who caused it. One hundred days later Ben turned the
wheel while many left the island and some stayed behind. Some of the ones who
stayed behind jumped through time and seemingly disappeared. Three years later
many of those that left returned to the island and some of them also
disappeared to the past. After a few days everyone who disappeared reappeared.
If none of that was clear here is a discussion Hurley and Miles had about time
travel on the show, which may help….or just confuse you more.
Desmond’s
mind being thrown back and forth between past and present was not over yet,
however. As he had already become “unstuck” once his mind was more vulnerable
than anyone’s to have it happen again. As I mentioned before, time on the
island works somewhat differently than the outside world. This is probably
because of “the source” which also produces large amounts of electromagnetism
and is generally what makes the island so freakin’ special. This time differential
may seem fantastical, but it is based in truth, at least kind of. In reality
time does pass differently depending on things like gravity or traveling close
to the speed of light. So when leaving the island, to make sure that one’s mind
does not become unstuck because of the time differential, a specific bearing
must be followed. When Desmond was flying on a helicopter off of the island, to
a freighter docked nearby, the copter flew threw a thunderhead, which caused
them to deviate from the bearing ever so slightly. This deviation was too slight
to unstick anyone else on the helicopter, but because Desmond had already
became unstuck his mind his mind began jumping back to 1996. Unlike the first
time that Desmond’s mind had become unstuck, it was chaotic, unpredictable and
dangerous. His mind jumped back and forth at random between 1996 and the
freighter in 2004. Desmond needed to find a constant in both times, something
he knew and cared about so that his mind could connect both times and stop
jumping. If he had not been able to find this constant Desmond would have died.
In fact we know that those who could not find a constant develop brain aneurisms,
and die. 
So why
did some people travel through time, while others didn’t? Why did returning to
the island cause some to teleport back to 1977? Why did the seemingly failed
detonation of a nuke send them back to 2007? The answer, as with many questions
about the island, lies with Jacob. Jacob was the ultimate protector of the
island, the one who orchestrated everyone coming to the island. He did this
because he was looking for a replacement, but not just anyone could be a
replacement. There were certain candidates, chosen not by Jacob but by the
island, who could take his position once Jacob died. Jacob had a thing for
lists and he had multiple lists of the candidates. Once someone either died or “fulfilled
a role” Jacob crossed their name off the list. The candidates were all flawed
or broken people who were “Alone in the world”.
Sometimes Jacob chose to cross out viable candidates because they now
had some purpose in life and were no longer alone. Kate was the only example of
this explicitly mentioned on show, who fulfilled the role of mother. While her
name had been crossed out she was still technically a candidate, and could have
replaced Jacob if she wanted. So as you
might have already guessed, the candidates were the ones who traveled through
time.
So that
solves that. “Wait!” the insanely attentive Lost fan says. There were two crossed
out names on that list of characters who did not jump, Littleton (Clair) and
Linus (Ben). Ah but any Lost fans, attentive or otherwise can tell you there
was more than one Littleton and Linus on the island. Ben’s father, Rodger Linus
lived on the island from the 70s till his death in the 90s, and he also had a daughter, Alex who could have been a candidate. Aaron Littleton,
Clair’s baby, originally never wanted by Clair or the father, was born on the
island. Aaron was taken off the island and never returned, and likely had his
name crossed out by Jacob at the same time as Kate’s was, who “adopted” him
when they left the island. There was of course one more character that time
jumped whose name wasn’t on the list, because he didn’t have a last name.
Vincent, you know… the dog. Was Vincent a candidate? As insane as it sounds,
yes he was; the island as it turns out isn’t too picky. He jumped around with
all the other candidates, and for all we know was depressed about being taken
from his former master, Brian. While
Vincent was a candidate I don’t think Jacob would really have taken him
seriously as a candidate.
Now
that the rules are clear (I hope) let me tell you about the man who can break
them. Desmond Hume is “Special” so the rules of time don’t apply to him, he can
change his past. There is something unique about Desmond, the electromagnetic
energy which would have killed a normal man gave him a glimpse of both past and
future once, then later let his conciseness cross over to the afterlife. For
Desmond the book analogy is more like one of those “Create your own adventure”
stories. He doesn’t have to follow the rules of the universe, however even that
has its limits. Desmond’s ability to change time can alter some things like
everyone getting off the island, which apparently was never supposed to happen,
but he can’t save someone who is meant to die, if he does the universe will just try to kill them again..and again...and again. He saves Charlie over and over
again in season 3, but every time he does he has another fragmented vision of
his friend dying in a new way. It was as Desmond described, “Having the pieces
of the puzzle but not knowing what the picture is.”
So why
does Desmond see the future, but only in a fragmented way, and why does it keep
changing? The reason is because Desmond’s mind traveled to the future as a
result of being in the hatch explosion, which hit him with a nice batch of
electromagnetism. As we see in the show Desmond’s consciousness was temporarily
transported back to his past, and it makes sense that the reason he knew the
future was that it was also transported to the future. This is why at first
Desmond knows all kind of things about what will happen, such as the speech
Locke will give. Desmond doesn’t do anything to alter what he has seen until
Charlie is about to die. Once Desmond intervenes everything changes. From then
on the only visions of the future he sees are of Charlie dying because that is
all he has changed. The visions, however, are distorted and confusing because
in fact they aren’t visions; they are memories of the future he changed. The
memories are so distorted because Desmond’s mind is trying to process the
future which has been rearranged. Once Charlie finally dies Desmond’s mind
stops having to rewrite his altered memories, and the “Visions” stop.
There
is another way to leave the island. There is a wheel deep beneath the surface
of the island that, when turned, does two very important things. The first
thing it does is “move” the island. It moves through space and certain people
on the island began to move through time. The second thing the wheel does is
transport the one who turned it off the island to the middle of the Tunisian
desert. Because of the time disparity between the island and the outside world
when being transported off it the wheel turner can appear months or after they
left the island, but for the turner it would seem instantaneous. If the wheel
was dislodged when it was turned the certain people on the island would also
become dislodged. This happened when Ben turned the wheel and many of our
favorite characters began to skip from one time to another. The people experiencing
this had similar problems that Desmond experienced when his mind was unstuck.
This however was a different situation, the person experiencing the time travel
did not just have their consciousness jump around, and they were physically
transported to another time, in fact multiple times. As the wheel remained dislodged
the affected people continued to jump from between different points between
past and future. Unlike Desmond a constant would not do them any good, they
needed to put the wheel back on its axis and turn it once again. The negative
effects of the time jumps were amplified by how long one had been on the
island. Charlotte, who had grown up on the island actually died as a result.
Once Locke turned the wheel once again the time jumps stopped, stranding the
time travelers in a random time, 1974. When he turned the wheel Locke ended up
in Tunisia in 2007.
Lost
officially confirmed six candidates; Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, and
Locke. With the exception of Locke, who was dead, all of these candidates
jumped through time. Other important characters such as; Richard, Clair, Ben,
and Lapidus didn’t because they were implied not to be candidates. What’s
interesting to note is Lost confirmed that one of the Kwans, either Sun or Jin,
was also a candidate, but it never officially answered which was. Well wouldn’t
you know it, Jin traveled through time while Sun didn’t. There were also the
two lists of candidates, which upon closer inspection told us hundreds of last
names of more candidates, including many dead characters, which had been
crossed out. The crossed out names included the all the time jumpers who died;
Juliet, Faraday, and Charlotte. One problem with this seems to be that some
characters, who were alive but not on the list, still jumped, namely; Miles,
Rose, Bernard. Here we look to what we learned from Kate’s name being crossed
out. She still could have taken over Jacob’s role as protector, and while Jacob
choose to cross her name out, the island still recognized her as a candidate. Therefore
we know that even if someone is not listed as a candidate the rules of “candidacy”
still apply including time jumps. Going back to the list we saw the names,
Straum, and Henderson. Straum was, of course, Miles’ last name, and Henderson was
Rose’s maiden name. Bernard’s last name Nadler, is the only time jumper’s name
not show, but of course there are roughly 240 names we don’t see. We see these three
all fulfill roles. Rose and Bernard are seen as an old couple who constantly
bicker and worry in the early seasons, however when we see them again in the
season five finale they are quite content to live happily together in the
jungle, without a care in the world. They fill the role of “Happy couple.” Similarly
Miles is seen as having major father abandonment issues, however traveling back
in time gives him the unique opportunity to reconnect with his father and help
him understand why he did what he did.
So how
exactly did these candidates get from 1977 back to 2007? The answer is the
incident and electromagnetism. A lot of the strange powers of time travel were
connected to electromagnetism, remember that’s how Desmond’s mind was unstuck
in time. For those who don’t know the full story of the incident, here it is…A
bunch of scientists were drilling into the island, right into a pocket of
electromagnetism, which they unleashed. Our band of time traveling heroes took
it upon themselves to attempt to prevent the incident to alter history so that
they never arrive on the island. The do this by attempting to detonate an atom
bomb at the site of the drilling. This very attempt to prevent the incident
actually caused it, as the atom bomb’s detonation worked, but only halfway.
Either because of the damage already done to it, or because of the
electromagnetism the, explosion caused by the bomb failed. The electromagnetic
pulse from the bomb succeeded however. The electromagnetic pulse being
detonated while the island was releasing its natural electromagnetism caused an
interesting thing to happen, time was reset. The time jumpers were placed back
where they would have been if they had never jumped at all. Since it had been
three years since time was originally shifted they ended up three years after
they left. AKA they went from 2004 to 1974, so they were sent from 1977 to
2007.
Did any
of that make sense?
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