The Dream of the Red King

Closing in on some final thoughts (trying to squeeze this in before the next episode):

– Senet and Backgammon
– Through the Looking Glass and The Music Box
– The Dream of the Red King

Senet and Backgammon:

Senet — the object of the game is to get your pieces off the board
Backgammon — the object of the game is to get your pieces off the board

Backgammon — Walt and Locke
Senet — Jacob and Jacob’s brother

The object of the ‘game’ on the Island: to get the candidates off the board (to kill them)
The Smoke Monster: eliminate the 6 candidates in the current timeline
Jacob: eliminate the 6 candidates in the alternate timeline

Seems a bit dark — Jacob eliminating the candidates? Not that it would be by his hand. But to put it in context:

What if the Smoke Monster wins, and he becomes free of space and time, and travels to the ALT (a mirror-image reality, a reality of consciousness), and takes the Light with him? The current reality ceases to exist. Or, perhaps both realities cease to exist, leaving only whatever existed before the Divine Light.

If Jacob wins (or whomever the sixth candidate is), the Light is protected, Life is protected.

And in order for Jacob’s side to win, the candidates in the ALT must become conscious of what is going on — of what their sacrifice would mean to the continuation of life. This may be the end that Desmond is working towards.

Through the Looking Glass:

The ALT has always seemed like a mirror-image, a duality to the current reality, a “consciousness reality”, a “Through The Looking Glass” reality.

Lewis Carroll is referenced countless times in Lost (white rabbits, the Looking Glass station, etc. — check Lostpedia for more) — so I believe the concept of “Through the Looking Glass” is key to the final moments in Lost.

Mirrors have played a role of late: the Lighthouse is a good example. And more recently, the Music Box.

When Claire opens the Music Box, we hear the song that has represented both Aaron and The Smoke Monster at various times. We see Claire’s reflection in a mirror. If we think about “Through the Looking Glass”, are we seeing:

– the reflection of Claire, who is the mother of Aaron, but hearing the music representing the Smoke Monster — in the ALT, is Aaron the vessel that the Smoke Monster will enter the ALT through, thereby causing space/time devastation? Aaron, born on the island, perhaps marked by the Divine Light, a soul that the Smoke Monster can use once the ‘game is won’. And reality as we know it…?

The Dream of the Red King:

A final thought relevant to “Through the Looking Glass”
(Wikipedia): The Red King is a character who appears in Lewis Carroll’s fantasy story Through the Looking-Glass….when Alice first meets him he is fast asleep (“fit to snore his head off”, as Tweedledum says). During this time, Tweedledum and Tweedledee state that if she is part of the Red King’s dream, as they suspect, then she will “go out–bang!–like a candle” when he wakes….
The match ends by Alice’s checkmating of the king, an action coincident with the taking of the Red Queen.

Alice immediately wakes up, no longer in the realm of Through the Looking Glass. Alice acknowledges that the Red King had, after all, been asleep throughout the whole game, and is left wondering whether the whole experience was her dream, or his.
So — not to say it’s all a dream — but if we use this as a clue, the reality ‘disappears’ when the game is up…. Perhaps a clue…..