Is the ending as obvious as everyone thinks?

Irish Guitarist

There's a reason that so many people (including me when I first watched The End) think everything on the island was Purgatory. The scene in the church wasn't as clear cut as everyone makes out. When Jack asked if Christian was real he said something like "I'm real and those people out there are real". But Christian and everyone in the church were dead. If that's Christians idea of reality how exactly do we know that he doesn't think of Purgatory as reality too? It could have been reality, but not a reality that happened on Earth.

Up until a few weeks before the finale most people thought what turned out to be Purgatory was a flash sideways. I'm not saying the island was Purgatory. I'm saying that the ending, just like everything else in Lost, wasn't as obvious as everyone seems to think. At least I don't think it was.

cooker3

Nah, it really is that obvious. It was completely spelled out by Christian.

The other point being for years the writers have only ever revealed 1 thing about the finale and to quote "You will not be snowglobed"
They went to great pains to make sure people knew everything that was happening was real and meant something.

Keyzer

I thought it was 100% obvious after Christians explanation...

seadnamac

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

There's a reason that so many people (including me when I first watched The End) think everything on the island was Purgatory. The scene in the church wasn't as clear cut as everyone makes out. When Jack asked if Christian was real he said something like "I'm real and those people out there are real". But Christian and everyone in the church were dead. If that's Christians idea of reality how exactly do we know that he doesn't think of Purgatory as reality too? It could have been reality, but not a reality that happened on Earth.

Up until a few weeks before the finale most people thought what turned out to be Purgatory was a flash sideways. I'm not saying the island was Purgatory. I'm saying that the ending, just like everything else in Lost, wasn't as obvious as everyone seems to think. At least I don't think it was.

The thing that doesn't sit well with me is that Christain tells Jack that, to paraphrase, 'everything he has ever experienced and everyone he knows and has known is/was real'.

When did the flashsideways start? The idea that it only started when Juliette set off the hydrogen bomb doesn't make sense. So has Jack been living in this timeline since birth? That's a whole life where he has formed relantionships, had a son etc.

So when Christian says that EVERYTHING is real, why are we not to assume that includes everything in Jacks life in this timeline, eg. his son.

And finally, if everything in that timeline, where we are to assume he is dead, is just as real as everything in the main timeline, where we are to assume he is alive, the line between the two becomes a lot less clear.

Not that I'm arguing that it was purgatory all along (heaven forbid). Just a thought...

cooker3

It is timeless so when is kind of meaningless. It didn't start after juliette (did not) set off the bomb. We were just shown it from that point on. In much the same way that during season 5 there was no connection between the oceanic 6 storyline and the on island storyline other than we were watching it in the same episodes.

Mr. K

The bomb going off was meant to be a red herring, we all assumed it had created the Flash-sideways timeline. It didn't, the explosion only send the group back to the present.

seadnamac

Well yea that was part of my point. So Jack has lived a whole life in this timeline (36 years at guess? I don't know what age he's supposed to be...), so when Christian tells him EVERYTHING is real, why is it to be assumed that it doesn't include this?

mailrewop

seadnamac wrote: »

Well yea that was part of my point. So Jack has lived a whole life in this timeline (36 years at guess? I don't know what age he's supposed to be...), so when Christian tells him EVERYTHING is real, why is it to be assumed that it doesn't include this?

that's one thing i was wondering about the purgatory place, did they grow up in it or did they just start from around the age they were on island and their life in purgatory was just a memory in their head. like they were never children in purgatory but they had memories of their childhood and growing up without actually doing so.

Sad Professor

Here's my interpretation:

The Sideways was NOT real. As Christian said, the Losties in it were real and everything that happened to them in their actual lives (i.e. on the island) was real. But the Sideways was not. It was just a place after death for them to find each other, accept that they died and let go.

The characters died and their whole lives flashed before their eyes, except things were slightly different. These slight differences (Jack having a son, etc) are very important and give you an insight into the character. These slight differences were a way for the characters to work through some of their remaining issues of guilt, regret, etc.

Where did the Sideways start? It doesn't really matter tbh. It wasn't a timeline. These characters didn't necessarily live a whole life in this place. All that may have happened is that they died, a slightly different version of their lives flashed before their eyes, and then they were on the plane.

tony1kenobi

In the sideways Jack didn't remember having his appendix out......so they probably didn't live a full life in the sideways (I assume the appendix scar is from Lockes fatal stab).......

dudeitshurley

Firstly let me start by saying:

My reading of the ending is the same reading as anybody else: they crashed on the island, everything that happened there happened, they all died at various chronological points in time and all ended up in the 'purgatory'.

Ok just to throw this out there, it's not what i believe but there is scope for argument:

What if they did all die in the initial crash. (keep reading). Everything that happened on the Island was purgatory. When they atone for their sins they give themselves the ability to create a place for each other within purgatory. A nice little private lounge outside the gates of Heaven for when they are ready to move on, to sit and reminisce about the time they spent on the Island/purgatory. The 'most important time of their lives'. Well what if spiritually the most important time of their lives* happened in death. They were all lost, troubled souls in life, (Jacob said he didn't take any of them from a happy existence. let's assume for a second there can be a deeper meaning to that) they died in a plane crash and in finding each other they were able to find peace through and with each other, the peace to move on. When Christian said everything is real, everything that happened is real it comes down to a concept of what is real. If we are to take a literal interpretation of what is real, then little on this island is real in the sense we know it. People cant travel through time and become smoke monsters, people can't survive nuclear bombs or be projected to where they started etc.

Look to be honest i'm writing it and i don't believe a word of it, i'm trying to play devils advocate to see if there really is a scenario that leaves any of it up to intrepretation. This idea, and it's all it is, leaves open the possibility that the events on Island, what we all assumed and STILL assume/know were real, well perhaps it was all the real purgatory. It would explain why Michael can't go to the 'waiting room' to move towards the Light, why there are so many people stuck on the Island whispering.

* Lives as in the life of your soul. we are talking spirituality here after all!

tony1kenobi

dudeitshurley wrote: »

Firstly let me start by saying:

My reading of the ending is the same reading as anybody else: they crashed on the island, everything that happened there happened, they all died at various chronological points in time and all ended up in the 'purgatory'.

Ok just to throw this out there, it's not what i believe but there is scope for argument:

What if they did all die in the initial crash. (keep reading). Everything that happened on the Island was purgatory. When they atone for their sins they give themselves the ability to create a place for each other within purgatory. A nice little private lounge outside the gates of Heaven for when they are ready to move on, to sit and reminisce about the time they spent on the Island/purgatory. The 'most important time of their lives'. Well what if spiritually the most important time of their lives* happened in death. They were all lost, troubled souls in life, (Jacob said he didn't take any of them from a happy existence. let's assume for a second there can be a deeper meaning to that) they died in a plane crash and in finding each other they were able to find peace through and with each other, the peace to move on. When Christian said everything is real, everything that happened is real it comes down to a concept of what is real. If we are to take a literal interpretation of what is real, then little on this island is real in the sense we know it. People cant travel through time and become smoke monsters, people can't survive nuclear bombs or be projected to where they started etc.

Look to be honest i'm writing it and i don't believe a word of it, i'm trying to play devils advocate to see if there really is a scenario that leaves any of it up to intrepretation. This idea, and it's all it is, leaves open the possibility that the events on Island, what we all assumed and STILL assume/know were real, well perhaps it was all the real purgatory. It would explain why Michael can't go to the 'waiting room' to move towards the Light, why there are so many people stuck on the Island whispering.

* Lives as in the life of your soul. we are talking spirituality here after all!

That post would have been so much better if you had said "This is what I believe"....just like the end of Lost would have been better if the writers had bitten the bullet and said "yup...ya called it 10 episodes into the first season.....it was all purgatory"......

....I know it wasn't because we had Christian to drive the point home with little subtlety.......but they could've just said it was........the atonement aspect would hold far more weight if they atoned on the Island....it would explain a lot.....but they went the way they did and I found it a satisfying end.

blue_steel

seadnamac wrote: »

When did the flashsideways start? The idea that it only started when Juliette set off the hydrogen bomb doesn't make sense. So has Jack been living in this timeline since birth? That's a whole life where he has formed relantionships, had a son etc.

For Jack it started when he died. It is an afterlife and nothing to do with the bomb or timelines or multiverses. Don't really understand why some people are confused about this.

Tragamin2k2

Why was the island underwater in the flash sideways? i think thats whats causin the confusion about the bomb having anything to do with the sideways

cooker3

Tragamin2k2 wrote: »

Why was the island underwater in the flash sideways? i think thats whats causin the confusion about the bomb having anything to do with the sideways

That was the point, to catch everyone out and make everyone assume it was the alternative timeline for when Juliette set off the bomb.

NukaCola

The simple and short answer is Yes, it really is as obvious as everyone thinks.

I_am_LOST

The ending is pretty clear for me except on this point:

My friend keeps saying the flashsideways is all from Jacks point of view, The 'purgatory' (for want of a better word) that we were shown was all Jacks and each other character would have their own.

I can see where shes getting this from, as the last scene was all centered around Jack. But to me, that just confuses things. I would think that this 'world' that we were shown in was for all the Losties. As Christian said, it was ''created by them as a way to meet each other before moving on''. Otherwise, why would Jacks purgatory have such detail on the other characters lives.

What do you all think?

Johnmb

Definitely a joint effort. Juliette had the same conversation with Sawyer in both the real and flash sideways worlds, which I seriously doubt was intended to be just a coincidence. And Des was fully aware of the Flash sideways existence in the real world, he just didn't realise what exactly it was and expected to get there by heading to the source of the light. Also, if it was just Jack's version, there'd have been no need for everyone else to be awoken, their jobs would merely be to awaken Jack.

GAAman

I_am_LOST wrote: »

The ending is pretty clear for me except on this point:

My friend keeps saying the flashsideways is all from Jacks point of view, The 'purgatory' (for want of a better word) that we were shown was all Jacks and each other character would have their own.

I can see where shes getting this from, as the last scene was all centered around Jack. But to me, that just confuses things. I would think that this 'world' that we were shown in was for all the Losties. As Christian said, it was ''created by them as a way to meet each other before moving on''. Otherwise, why would Jacks purgatory have such detail on the other characters lives.

What do you all think?

Totally agree with you, it was not all jack because if it was he would have twigged it or at least a good chunk of it before his dad revealed all to him. He would have seen sun and jin, sawyer and juliet, charlie and claire, faraday and charlotte's flashes (i am calling their realisation of what was really going on a flash as when they touched each other they saw flashes of their lives etc)

I purposely left out locke and kate there as jack did see some of their flash but dismissed it (locke with "i hope someone does for you, what you just did for me and kate at the concert then she brought him to the chapel)

ktc1

What's the story with baby Aaron, he's with everyone in the church at the end and he was "born" in this limbo/purgatory. The real Aaorn would have grown up and probably have been reunited with Claire after she got off the island.

blue_steel

ktc1 wrote: »

What's the story with baby Aaron, he's with everyone in the church at the end and he was "born" in this limbo/purgatory. The real Aaorn would have grown up and probably have been reunited with Claire after she got off the island.

An obvious error. How could the time Aaron spent on the island have been the most important in his life?! He was a few weeks old for petes sake. Guess they couldn't even tie up the sideways without f**k ups

homerun_homer

Mr. K wrote: »

The bomb going off was meant to be a red herring, we all assumed it had created the Flash-sideways timeline. It didn't, the explosion only send the group back to the present.

I don't think the bomb is what sent them back, I think it was Jacob's death. He said "They're coming" as he died. Him sending them travelling back to the 70s may have had the dual purpose of reuniting them with those stuck there and keeping them away from MIB for longer.