It only ends once…

Written 17th February

“It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress…” as spoken by Jacob.

The writers of LOST are far too creative to retell the same old story of GOOD vs. EVIL that we have all learned about in Sunday school, but they cannot completely abandon the major themes we’re use to expecting in tales such as what we’re witnessing through this series. Themes like betrayal, manipulation, redemption, and salvation are all evident in the T.V. series LOST wrapped up in an epic struggle between the forces of light and dark. Notice how I use Light and Dark-be careful in assuming either force represents ‘Good’ or ‘Evil’. That’s far too easy or presumptive. No, Jacob does not represent ‘Good’ any more than the man in black represents ‘Evil.’ The colors black and white were chosen because they are in complete contrast of one another- one exists only in an absolute absence of the other, any other shade of gray found between the primary colors is only progress towards each respective color… hmmm… sounds familiar….

Anyway… we witnessed flashbacks, which made the story of lost so interesting. Then the writers began to provide us glimpses of flashforwards, which was a revolutionary idea. Season six, we all now understand is built on this concept of flashsideways. What is a flashsideways- as I understand it, a flashsideways is a telling of events as they WOULD have occured had an event TAKEN / NOT TAKEN  place that would entirely altered all subsequent events that follow. In other words, To use a football example to best illustrate my point, what would have happened if Dwight Clark hadn’t caught the gamming winning reception most famously referred to as “the Catch” from quarterback Joe Montana in the January 10, 1982, NFC Champsionship Game between the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers? We know from history that this game served as a watershed for historic fortunes of the 49ers and misfortunes for the Cowboys. After being a losing team in the 1970s, San Francisco went on to win four Super Bowls in the 1980s, and made the playoffs eight out of the next 10 years. Meanwhile, Dallas, the most successful team in the NFC in the 1970s, never made it back to the Super Bowl in the 1980s, and suffered losing seasons in the last part of that decade. But what would have happened had Clark dropped the ball?? Well, a Flashsideways would have served as a perfect sedgeway from reality to an alternate reality in which Clark dropped the ball and the 49ers never won the superbowl, while the Cowboys reign as the team of the century with consecutive championships, etc…

but I digress…

My point is not necessarily how the reality of the survivors of Oceanic 815 would have changed, but how they would have all ended the same… anything inbetween is only progress. Jin, who found himself the suspect of burning the raft (Season 1, episode: …”in translation…”), he was handcuffed to a raft and separated from everyone. Sun, who had an opportunity to stand up for him, instead chose to remain silent by pretending to not understand English. Well, we see that Jin in the flashsideways is again led away in handcuffs by authorities in LAX as Sun is left able to defend Jin, but instead remains silent. We see that Jack’s father, who is mysteriously lost on the Island, is once again lost on another flight in LAX in the flachsideways. We see that Kate, who helped Claire give birth to Aaron on the Island, still is present to help Claire through labor in LA.  Finally, but most definitely not lastly, we saw how John, who was suffering the limitations of his paralysis in the flashsideways while in LA, was given a new perspective from Rose, who revealed she had a terminal cancer. This scene reminds us that on the island, Rose and John also shared a similarly deep conversation in Season 2, episode: S.O.S, in which she reveals she understands where John is coming from because like John’s miraculous healing, Rose too enjoys a miracle of her own by being healed. We are witnessing something quite interesting and at the heart of the themes in the Series LOST…”It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress…” Fate is exactly that… destiny is exactly that… there is no escaping fate or destiny. Everything only ends one way… the events that lead us to our ending are varable… they are not locked in stone. They are subject to freewill, choices, and decisions… but the end is the end, and it only happens once. It never matters that Oceanic flight 815 landed on the island. Daniel Faraday had this idea that if they could undue past events, everything would turn out differently… and perhaps it would have… but all events that occured would STILL occur, only they would have occured under different circumstances.

So where does that place our favorite characters, that is ‘White’ and ‘Black’? THEY ARE the end! They each represent the absolute absence of one another.

“MAN IN BLACK: Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?
JACOB: Yes.”

In fact, we all know how badly ‘Black’ needs to eliminate ‘White’… its just as badly as ‘White’ needs to eliminate ‘Black’ to exist. They cannot coexist. Who set the island in motion, or who is responsible for the events that portray the battle between opposing sides, I don’t know. Who bound these two equal entities by rules is unclear. The consequences for either force “breaking the rules” is equally unclear. The only thing we do know that seems clear is the ‘White’, represented here as Jacob, is just as eager to attain a realty in where ‘Black’ is eliminated, and all of Jacob’s actions, (to include lying, kidnapping, killing, torture, etc…) will be aimed as accomplishing his own self-interests- making him no more ‘Good’ than ‘Black’, represented as “Locke”, who is ready to do exactly the same.

They both will only settle for a realty in which every major character sees the world as they see it- absent of the opposing side that is in staunch contrast.

‘Black’ and ‘White’… any shade that exists in bewteen is just progress…