User talk:Matt Parkman was the pilot?

I want to address some of the main points that people use to say that Lost doesn't follow and has plot holes or generally don't understand the final season/ending, starting with Walt. Walt's importance is actually answered to an extent on the show, although it's never directly addressed. Essentially, from what we can extrapolate, Walt was the only person whose form MIB could take while still alive. If you look at all of Walt's appearances, he is leading candidates to their death, just as Christian Shepherd did to Jack, just as Dave did to Hurley (almost made both jump off a cliff). He is clearly acting as MIB would have done, and I always thought that this is why he was special. Which explains the Others' interest, and his randomly showing up to try to kill people. That seemed to be his most direct importance to the others. But to clarify here, I'm not saying apparitions only ever showed up to have people killed (as MIB couldn't actually kill anyone). He also tried to confuse them, just as he did to Richard by appearing as his wife, ie Kate and the horse; it is through this that he promotes apathy and tries to turn people against Jacob. Furthermore, never is it said that MIB can only take the form of those who died on the island, he becomes the horse, Richard's wife, and I'm sure there are more.

Another big "error" that people don't usually mention is the general misdirection of the Others. They never really followed Jacob in any major respects. But this also is explained through some inductive reasoning. As we saw in "across the sea", Jacob and MIB battled for the free will of those who were brought to the island. Take Senor Ricardo. MIB tried to convince RIchard to kill Jacob, Jacob allowed Richard to choose to be his right hand man, even if Richard knew nothing. If you extrapolate this idea, you can take Richard's apparent incompetence as a sign that Jacob's plan failed, and that MIB began directing the Others in some ways, just as he did when we see him in search of the light on the island as a man. It can even be argued that MIB was the shadow in the Cabin, as it clearly was not Jacob. Jacob didn't need help. At that point, he was chilling in the foot amidst the hundredth group of candidates to have come to the island. Been there done that, he's sipping Mojito's, he's all good. MIB needed "help", not Jacob. Furthermore, he instructs Ben and John in all of their doings after that point, as he knew Ben's jealousy would lead him to kill Locke, just as he knew that same jealousy would lead him to kill Jacob. Then, John lives, is told by Walt (MIB) that he still has a job to do, at which point he moves the island to avoid a minor power scuffle, one Jacob had likely experienced a hundred times in the name of "progress" and thus was of little relevance to him, and set in motion the events that precipitated Jacob's death. Hell, you could even take the others' construction of an airstrip as orders from MIB to get off the island. We already know that Jacob's perfectly happy with plane crashes anyways, only MIB would want an intact plane. All of these things merely represent the power struggle between Jacob and MIB, one the show explicitly explains to us. Ok, next.

You fundamentally misunderstand the "parallel universe". It is not real. It is There's no travelling back and forth. Desmond does so mentally, just as he time travelled mentally. That is why he is special. But anyways, it's just a place that the candidates "created" (vague as to who/how exactly made it), so that they can enter heaven together. It has no time, no location, none of it. Hell, all the non-candidate characters who appear in it, for all intents and purposes, only matter as they relate to the candidates. The point is that their spirits come together before leaving the earth after they all die (Christian:"some before you, some long after you"/Kate:"I've missed you so much")

Speaking of Desmond, specifically with the electromagnetism, I assumed that he got it through spending however many years in the hatch. As this is not explicitly explained, however, I'll give it to you.

Time travel. We've got two instances, Jack Sawyer etc in the 70's and Desmond finding Penny. As for Dez, all the things that he did in his "past life" were real, just as Jack's blowing up the hatch was real. The only "iffiness" here is that Desmond actually experienced the things he did in his lifetime: it was all absolutely real, almost like a memory. The things he changed simply became history in a sense, but really there was no "becoming" stage, it just always was. You are trying to think about it in terms of a time-line, but it's really not. They didn't change anything, they just did what had always been done; indeed, if they hadn't gone back in time, the future may have looked different. But Daniel's initial premise was correct: you don't change anything. Anything you do has already been done. You're not writing history, you are history. Like predeterminism. Jack and the others, however, actually went through time to the 70's. That is a little harder to get around. When it comes down to it, though, IT IS a time loop. With John and Richard's interactions in the past and present, the creators even gave us an example of this intentionally (I assume). When Richard gives Locke a compass (look up the scenes, the same compass that Richard later tests John with, later, when Richard gives it to John, he asks what it is and Richard says, "it's a compass" something like that, this is from memory), that watch did not exist until John appeared to Richard and gave him the compass in the first place in his flashes. The compass was never made, never destroyed. It just was. I guess this is how they explain Jack and the others going back in time, they just were there. It's actually a pretty easy concept when you think about it, if you can conceptualize time travel at all. The major point here is that if you accept time travel, it all makes sense. Just as if you accept heaven, the ending and purgatory make sense. They may not be generally scientifically accepted, but neither is anything found in Lost's genre, so get over it. They might as well have just relived it. Anyways, it is simply a measure by which the candidates find eachother such that they can continue into the afterlife. That's the point. They all end up in heaven, why is purgatory such a stretch?

Back to the purgatory thing, I think that we can think about it in terms of seeing the dead people. Some force, whether it was the candidates themselves, Jacob, God or someone else, created that specific purgatory so that they could pass on. One can assume that if such a purgatory is not established, people can't pass on without first finding peace. In that sense, Charlie's spirit was still around (no purgatory yet) to try to help Hurley until he was going to pass on anyways. A little weak, I know, but it does make sense to an extent. We still don't know why Hurley and Miles have some special ability to rock this dead stuff, but we don't know why Jacob or Walt or even MIB are powerful anyways, so it all comes out in the wash.

Jacob. I get that the Protector thing may have bugged you. I was looking for some extreme wisdom from Jack after he became Protector but he seemed just as driven to kick MIB's ass before he drank the water. I actually liked the ceremony though. The point of becoming protector was an acknowledgement that you're filling your emptiness, fixing yourself, through your communion with the island, you protect it just as it protects you. Hence, drinking the island's water, plus a sweet benediction. The point isn't that you become powerful, you just become defined in purpose. It's like Frank the Tank said in Old School after getting married, "I don't feel any different". You're not different, it's merely an acknowledgement of purpose and defining one's sense of self. In that respect, I got it, but again, its personal preference. The point though, isn't the protector. The power doesn't come from him. We need to take as a given that the Island has these properties (undefined location, healing, birth issues*), just like time travel, just like everyone's powers, etc, just like heaven. It's not about knowing, its about believing. Shows like lost are all about suspended disbelief, which is very different from ignoring plot errors. And lost does have plot errors. You point out some of them. Like:

Food drops - unless they come from the Others, but they are never shown to have a plane so we can't assume this.

The numbers- not really a plot hole, we just kind of assumed that they had greater significance than they did due to all the "extra-curricular" lost stuff. But if you think about it, they're enough. The numbers, beyond counting the candidates and the hatch, really only had significance to Hurley, as they brought him to the Island literally (chasing whats his face who heard the numbers) and figuratively, in that they won him the lottery, which made him broken. As for the hatch and the numbers, God only knows why. Maybe you're right and they do have some algorithmic, mathematical significance, leading whoever build the antenna (pre-Atomic US and pre-Dharma) to broadcast them and Hurley's army buddies to hear them. And that's how they come to Hurley. But then why are they assigned to the candidates? Who knows. So you win that one.


 * btw, we never saw a baby conceived on the island be born, so you can see boosted immune systems attacking the fetus, like an allergy or autoimmune disease, ie not a plot fail. Fit's scientifically too... if you accept the island's powers of boosting the immune system.

Nonetheless, I think that we're both missing the most important aspect of this debate. The point of the show is not that everything fits. It may be for some people, but given the ending, it certainly is not for Lindeloff and Cuse. What matters is that the candidates were broken, ruined and hopelessly stranded on an island in the midst of a struggle that threatened our very existence. And through reliance upon each-other, sacrifice and some good old-fashioned elbow grease (and some blood), they not only got the job done, but found themselves and eachother in the process. Lost. Found. Get it?