Alternate timeline = free will

BanLinus asked me if I am an Alternate Time Liner or not, and the answer is yes. But it is not for any of the reasons I have read on the site yet, so here is my theory about it all, and why I choose to root for the alternate time line.

I have read a lot about Free will versus Fate, Jacob vs. MIB or WHH vs. Alternate Time Line (ATL), but I don’t remember reading anything really connecting all of it. What I mean is that Jacob’s idea ARE that an alternate time line is possible, and MIB thinks that WHH. Let me explain.

First of all, this is based on the fact that we want to avoid the grand-father paradox, and there is only two ways around it. The first is two timelines playing simultaneously, and a “passage” between them, so that the Losties can prevent the crash of O815 in one of them but not in the other one. That way they still have a reason to take A316 and prevent the incident. It has been written here before, to prevent the crash from happening they need the crash to happen, so the only way is to have both, in two different timelines.

The other way around the grand-father paradox is to simply state that there is no way to prevent the incident and the O815 crash. The irony of the show is that it is by trying to do so that they actually set all the conditions necessary for the crash to happen. They kind of “are” the incident.

All of this has been written before so you must wonder what my point is. Well, here it is: by having an alternate timeline, you allow the Losties to live in a future where their actions matter. They can “decide” to prevent the incident, and they live in a world where it did not happen. That is the very definition of Free Will, that is exactly how progress is possible, and that is what Jacob is rooting for. On the other hand, if WHH, it means that the Losties merely “play their parts” in a story that has been previously written by some sort of higher power. That is Fate, and it means you can’t have progress, it means it always end the same because the “variables” have actually no control over their lives, it means that whatever decision they think they take, it has been in fact decided before. That is how MIB sees it.

So, for me, it doesn’t matter if Jacob is dead or not, it doesn’t matter who is the last one standing in the end. If we see O815 landing in LAX during the first episode, Jacob has won. Free Will exists, as there is two timelines. He can die, it doesn’t matter, he was right. Now, if there is no ATL, if WHH and the Losties have created the incident by trying to prevent it, MIB has won. Jacob may have his own loophole, he might kill MIB in the end, it doesn’t matter because everything has been written and there is no way to change that. The end will stay the same, MIB wins.

In conclusion, I’m not really sure which directions the writers are gonna take. For now, I think that whatever they have decided, they can blame any clue you have spotted indicating the opposite on continuity errors. I mean the continuity guys on this show are awesome, probably better than on most other shows, but they are still humans.

I believe in ATL because I want Free Will to prevail over Fate, and for me the two are very strongly connected.