"I think it's pretty clear from Christian's quote that the Island timeline was real and that the parallel timeline was the quasi-Purgatory."
Not buying it. What happened on the Island rarely made any (literal) sense. Here's an explanation I came across that makes the most sense to me. I don't agree entirely with the writer's interpretation, but it comes the closest to my own. Of course, the finale was purposely written to be open to multiple interpretations, so no one can be entirely right or wrong.
"Oceanic 815 crashed. Some of its souls awoke in a realm that is neither heaven nor hell. It’s limbo (or purgatory)."
"So let's broaden the definition of limbo or purgatory, to allow that the people on “Lost’s” island were technically corporeal -- alive. They hungered, fell ill, needed shelter, had sex. You can die there, which only makes it worse for your soul."
"It’s a real place. Some people in our world know it exists and have sought to get there, to discover some gateway to heaven. Others just wash up there, or crash there. Everyone who is there belongs there -- maybe for a while, maybe forever."
"In my take, Jack Shephard and his fellow travelers were brought there to resolve a number of problems between heaven and hell. They were fresh souls, there to address a few too many anomalies or machinery issues in some sort of working universal order.
"During their time in purgatory, the Oceanic people (helped by other lost souls, such as Juliet and Desmond and Faraday) brought parallels together and eventually prevented the devil's meddling attempt to get to heaven and, perhaps, destroy the world. They blew up Dharma in the '70s, because it also threatened the balance of things. They killed Smoke. They altered time/space without killing the rest of us. Big jobs."
"But they did it in a limbo – a limbo that they were all in because of death, and they went back and forth between worlds (worlds that occupied different realities – backward, forward, sideways, what have you) that had been created because of that meddling. Sunday night they unwittingly braided all those realities together – fixed the machine -- and their reward was the Hereafter."
"Jack Shephard and his fellow travelers were brought there to resolve a number of problems between heaven and hell. They were fresh souls, there to address a few too many anomalies or machinery issues in some sort of working universal order."
"People in “Lost” died multiple times in a lot of ways. Jack's exit in the final minutes of "Lost" was the death that got him to heaven, but the 815 crash was the death that got him busy on what he was meant to do. That's why the finale takes Jack back to that same bamboo field – where he snapped awake in 2004 (dead, but not technically) and where, in last night’s episode, fully cognizant now of all that has happened (and now un-happened), he lays down and experiences his final peace. His work is done."
"I know some hardcore fans don’t want to believe it was purgatory all along, perhaps because they worked so hard trying to comprehend and decipher “Lost’s” layers and layers of mythology and whatnot. Nevertheless, purgatory is really the best way to explain every problem the series raised. It also explains why everything had to be so frustrating, complicated -- like a dream where you can't solve a problem."
"But not a dream. An actual place -- a purgatory. Or for people who hate that word, an in-between. You don’t go there simply because your soul is stuck. You go there because you’re needed."
Another 'Lost' theory: No, really, it was purgatory
Updated On: 5/24/10 at 01:10 PM
