Reflections on Episode 1: THIS WAS ALWAYS A LOOP

So remember in Season 1, episode 1, Pilot, when Charlie is writing "Fate" on his fingers? Abrams had this whole thing planned from the get go. i've gone back and watched the first episode again (this time rewatching them all with my almost 9 year old... something i had hoped to one day do once he was old enough... which he is now). First thing i mention is this because it demonstrates that the theme of freewill versus fatalism was key to the entire series.

Another thing that i noticed was that the so-called "Smoke Monster" who i will just call "The Temple God," was the main character of the very first episode, and we were somehow tricked into not even noticing it! It was at the treeline the first night, it killed the pilot (for a very good reason i'll have you know... more on that in the next post), and it spared Jack, Charlie and Kate (perhaps even personifying as Jack to comfort Charlie, as there is no indication that Jack actually saved Charlie and then just ran off).

Why did the pilot have to die? God i would love to tell you, but like the creators of the show, i am trying to keep you hooked. i'll post about why in the next two days. Needless to say, the Temple God never intended to kill Jack, et al, as they were "needed;" which is why they were brought there ON PURPOSE, from the beginning...

In the first episode they let you know right away that they had been to this Island before. They give clues that we ignored because it would have been crazy to pay attention to them. First, again regarding the Temple God, Rose said to Shannon in the BACKGROUND (a hidden clue, not a central conversation), "That sound that it made, I keep thinking that there was something really familiar about it." Shannon then asks, mockingly, where she was from (i.e. where are you from if THAT sounds familiar to you). Rose had been there before, as they all had been, in time-space loop of sorts.

Oh and speaking about the beginning, notice the opening of the first episode?

Kinda sorta exactly like the opening of Season 6, from the trailer...

In case you didn't notice, even the reflection in his eye is the exact same thing. Once again, i rest my fucking case. They are back on the Island, but things DID change, the background was thus WHITE as opposed to the normal black that it has been every season and at the beginning of Season one. Thus, they are back there (because the bomb can't stop them from coming there, since they never crashed because of the energy burst in the first place, this was merely Desmond's hypothesis that there was no purpose... this is the show's way of showing you Desmond was wrong about this and thus arguing that such a view of life itself is errant... do remember that the show is preaching, and Abrams has something to say about life through the metaphor of the series).

But Abrams had this figured out from the get go. Look at the pilot write up:

A man awakes in a jungle. He is bruised and bloody, and doesn’t know where he is. A yellow Labrador Retriever watches him from the trees, then suddenly runs off. He forces himself up and winces in pain, leaning against a tree. He checks his jacket pocket and finds a small bottle of vodka. Recognition of where he is begins to float across his face. He winces back the pain and begins to run through the trees, reaching a beautiful beach.

He hears sounds ? ?  people screaming. He wanders around a bend and finds what has brought him here ? ? 

Notice the order of these things: Jack hears no screems and yet her rises up and runs, and runs... and runs, through the bamboo forest, until he gets to the beach and THEN hear's screams. He knew (though didn't know he knew), that he was supposed to go to the beach. Watch this scene a few times. He is walking to the left of the screen and only mid screen does the scene of the wreckage materialize MID-SCREEN. It does not come in from the left side of the screen, it just POPS into the middle of the screen. Watch it frame by frame and you will see this.

Oh and Jack's tattoo? What it REALLY says is "Ying Ji Chang Kong" ("Eagles cleave the air") from a Chinese poem "Changsha:"

Alone I stand in the autumn cold

On the tip of Orange Island,

The Xiang River flowing northward;

I see a thousand hills crimsoned through

By their serried woods deep-dyed,

And a hundred barges vying

Over crystal blue waters.

Eagles cleave the air,

Fish glide under the shallow water;

Under freezing skies a million creatures contend in freedom.

Brooding over this immensity,

I ask, on this bondless land

Who rules over man's destiny?

I was here with a throng of companions,

Vivid yet those crowded months and years.

Young we were, schoolmates,

At life's full flowering;

Filled with student enthusiasm

Boldly we cast all restraints aside.

Pointing to our mountains and rivers,

Setting people afire with our words,

We counted the mighty no more than muck.

Remember still

How, venturing midstream, we struck the waters

And the waves stayed the speeding boats?

...more on all of this later, but remember that this poem, allegory for the ENTIRE SHOW, was so significant to the writers that they put the tattoo on Jack and then made an episode where Jack BELIEVES FALSELY that the tattoo says something else, about him not belonging, and that it was an accidental thing that he had not intended. You see where i'm going with this?

Talk Nerdy To Me...

So the Greek from Jacob's tapestry (see image two posts back), says the following:

ΘΕΟΙ ΤΟΣΑ ΔΟΙΕΝ ΟΣΑ ΦΡΕΣΙ ΣΗΣΙ ΜΕΝΟΙΝΑΣ or "θεοι τοσα δοιεν οσα φρεσι σησι μενοινας," a quote from Homer's Oddessy (6.180), meaning (as best as i can find), "May the gods grant you all that your heart desires." 

Understand that Homer was the closest thing to a Greek "Bible" that there was. At the bottom we read ΘΕΟΙ ΔΕ ΤΟΙ ΟΛΒΙΑ ΔΟΙΕΝ or "θεοι δε τοι ολβια δοιεν," meaning "May the gods grant you riches." These are Odysseus’ words to Nausikaa after Odysseus washes up on her island, following the Trojan War, as he journeys home to his wife Penelope.

All of this together seems strangely reminiscent of Isaac's blessing to Jacob, bearing in mind the term used in the Torah is "Elohim" (used in Exodus for the "gods of Egypt"): "וְיִתֶּן-לְךָ, הָאֱלֹהִים, מִטַּל הַשָּׁמַיִם, וּמִשְׁמַנֵּי הָאָרֶץ--וְרֹב דָּגָן, וְתִירֹשׁ."

Maybe i'm reading too much into that though. But clearly there is a mixture of Heiroglyphics and Greek (again, possibly the Minoa connection that i keep hoping aloud for... in part because of the myth of the disappearing island). Anyway, marinate on that for a minute.

"Help Me?"

In case you didn't realize (this keeps coming up in my Lost-obsessed conversations with people today), the ghost in the cabin (as per the previous post today... scroll down), was NOT Jacob, it was Evil Dude. Evil Dude needed Locke to "help him" because he needed his body to assimilate the form of, just as he then did with Christian Shepherd.

FIN. 

The Season Finale!!!

In hindsight, i think that i may have just made this blog to gloat about Lost theories that i figured out early on. Now some of you might be saying (or thinking), "But you were WRONG about Jacob being Christian," and all of that. Actually, i would argue that i was right about everything except the name. We were told the ghost in the cabin was Jacob. i argued that this was taking the form of Christian and that it was not actually Christian.

Now i know few of you probably remember the old leaked script of the Dopplegangers way back in Season 1 or 2 right? Well for those of you who remember me sending that out: SEE! All the did was make it Locke instead of Jack, and make them both alive at the same time (we may yet see this!)

In any event, i was dead on that the ghost Ben called "Jacob" was taking the form of Christian. So i will take bragging rights in spite of them tricking us all with the false attribution of the name.

Ancient Egypt? Remember me saying that? i think this point is beyond argument. i do believe that i also wrote about the Minoan connection, right? i know i talked enough about it with friends. Jacob seems to be Minoan. Notice the Greek in the tapestry. 

Now i WAS dead wrong about Richard. Dude is straight up from the "Black Rock" which Jacob and Evil Dude were watching on the horizon. Wait and see this story explained next season, AS WELL AS the story of how Jacob and Evil Dude came upon the island. 

Now the big theory i would imagine JJ & Co was going for inducing (as a red herring), is that this is "God and the Devil." i don't by it. Maybe the "Devil" and some sort of "Christ" like figure, but certainly not "God" as the Island itself is "higher" than Jacob, and Jacob subbordinate to it. The Black Smoke "Monster" would be "God" before Jacob could be. Recall the Exodus story and Ezekiel, by the way (though i'm not going so far as to claim this is what they are getting at, but perhaps what they are alluding to for those who picked up on it). 

Remember the post about the Dharma still: "God loves you even as Jacob loves you" or something to that effect? Scroll down through these posts and you'll see it. 

Now about Locke being Jacob... the jury is still out for me. We see Evil Dude took on his form. Perhaps Jacob's ghost will do the same thing at some point. We'll see... too hard to figure out at this point. 

Okay now for some ellucidation for you:

1. The "Good Guys" ARE probably the "Good Guys." Remember dude in the van? He said the same thing then, but it seems like they pretty intentionally showed us Jacob recruiting the one Latina chick. 

2. They were coming to fuck up Evil Dude's plot. 

3. Jacob let Evil Dude (in the form of Locke), know this before he "died" so as to let him know he had been in control all along. Evil Locke then kicks him into the fire to prevent some sort of resurrection (chopping into 14 pieces didn't seem to do the trick with Osiris!), out of frustration and rage that Jacob had been plotting all along. Evil Locke lost his cool even when it seemed he was in the position of power!

4. The "Good Guys" were going to Evil Dude's cabin. That was NEVER Jacob's cabin. They were there looking for Evil Dude. They were surprised it didn't looked lived in. i'm guessing they didn't know he was a ghost at this point. Evil Ghost Dude is the one who stuck the statue rag on the wall with the knife as a declaration of war; knowing they would be coming the same way he knew Locke was coming at the "exact" time (which surprised everyone as much as his resurrection surprised Richard). Anyway, they torched the cabin because it was Evil Dude's, not because they thought it was Jacobs. The ash outside? Looks like dude has some crazy power up his sleeves perhaps. It seemed Jacob brough Locke back to life when he was thrown out the window.

5. "Everything that Rises Must Converge." i was as stoked when i saw this as i was when i heard the then unidentified Jacob saying "There's only one End, everything up till then is just progress." Beautiful. This sealed for me which of the two was the "Good Guy."

6. Jacob was going on all those missions to keep EVERYONE (even Richard), in the dark about what he was planning. 

7. The Island "brought" the nuke there for this eventuality just the same as it "brought" the Black Rock there, ala Jacob's statement on the beach.

8. They CAN change things, ala Jacob's last statement to Ben, "no matter what he's told you to do, i want you to know that YOU HAVE A CHOICE."

9. Some sort of blast likely blew up the statue, and Ben seems to know this (and Sun seems suspects he knows), but this might not have been the nuke. It would seem the nuke plan was quite essential to CHANGE events, which is why Jacob had to intervene for Sayyid to both be there and have NOTHING to live for. 

10. Oh don't believe me John Calvin? Well recall the "dream" of Desmond, AFTER Faradey CHANGES things. Desmond awakes with a NEW memory that he REMEMBERED NOT HAVING HAD! The Professor CHANGED things and thus was CORRECT. My guess is the bomb DID change things and was a unique explosion, that did just what he calculated. 

11. "So they never come to the island?" Wrong. Remember the conversation between Sawyer and Jack about Kate? Jack said that if it is meant to be then it is meant to be, and presumably that he had faith Kate's and his paths would intersect somehow anyway. In the same way they will come to the island some OTHER way, even though this who plot that has occurred for four seasons will likely "enfold" on itself. They MAY have memories of it, however, just like Desmond remembered NOT remembering. 

More to come, more to come + images in this post when time permits...