Lost finale thoughts

I have so much to say about this finale that I don't even know how to organize it so this may just be a random spew of my thoughts but here goes.

First off I will say that it was in a way a disappointment. I was happy that the characters got to live happily ever after (especially Sawyer/Juliet and Sayid/Shannon) but not happy with what they did with the "big picture whats going on with the island" story. Basically I didn't like that in the end they went with the religion angle.

I will preface any further rambling with the fact that I am an atheist. I am also a fan of the sci-fi fantasy genre. What I was hoping for was that they would not wrap up this show with the religion explanation. I feel like that is the easy way out that so many of these types of shows take in the end. When I first started watching Lost, I thought it was a show about plane crash survivors kind of like an extended Cast Away. Over time it became something more but early on there was no clear indication what the island was. Sure there was some hints that it might be a religious leaning explanation but I think what we do is just create a false hope for ourselves that the ending will be something else because we have already invested too much time watching and thinking about the show to quit now. Even this season when the whole good vs. evil thing was becoming more clear and the religious explanation more of a possibility, it was hard to stop watching.

Before I go further in why I liked or didn't like it I will give you my interpretation. The sideways world was the characters in a purgatory like state. They could not move on yet to the afterlife without accepting their death and actions in life. Everyone eventually ended up there after they died even though they died at different times, including the few that escaped the island and eventually Hurley and Ben who stayed. The light represented the power of god or creation. If you noticed the light was also accompanied with water, the 2 essential building blocks for life on earth as we know it (almost nothing survives without both in same shape or form and plant life that everything else is dependant on needs almost nothing more than light and water). I think Jacob and future protectors represent something likes Jesus or god's hand on earth. The water/wine references point to this as well. The smoke monster essentially represented evil or the devil.

I think the island behaves as it does because it is right at the source of gods power therefore that power somewhat bleeds into the immediate area and causes the island to behave by different rules. At the same time the 'Protector' can shape and use that power to some extent, as a sword to fight off those who come to extinguish it, as a shield to protect it and as a lasso to bring in others to do the same (all metaphorically speaking of course). When Desmond removes the rock plug, the power goes away causing Jack/Bad Locke to become mortal and the island to start sinking. I've been leaning towards thinking that if the light goes out all life as we know it ends but I also have a second theory I've been thinking about. What if the light really is just for the afterlife? What I mean is if it goes out the island does sink but the world stays intact yet 'heaven' doesn't exist anymore. I came to this idea because of fake Locke. I was thinking perhaps when Jacob put him into the light he died but his soul is forever stuck on earth as a form of evil in the smoke monster. So really his destroying of the island is not destroying the world, but destroying heaven/hell so that his soul can be free once he dies again in the real world. It can also be him fueled by spite of not getting to go to heaven because he was a non-believer and did bad things in his life.

I'm not a good writer and I feel like this is already very much rambling so I'm just going to write some thoughts some characters:

Jack and Locke: As an atheist I think Jack's story is the biggest blow to our cause. He essentially represented our view point up till this season, a man of science, intelligent, non believer in faith and someone who demanded a logical explanation for why things were happening. This was in contrast to Locke who was always a believer from the beginning. I think the writers did a clever thing when they had the man in black, who also was a non believer of what his mother told him, to take over the body of the biggest believer, Locke, and then for Jack to eventually come to that side as well. Not only did Jack come to the side of faith in the end, he made the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good.



Hurley: I think Hurley represents the perfect person. He was good to everyone and never manipulative. I think it was hard to see him as the protector since he was never a leader, a decision maker or even physically looked like a hero compared to Jack and Sawyer but in the end when you think about it Hurley makes the most sense. He is the most pure representation of 'good' in the series.

Anna Lucia and Michael: Just wanted to point out that these 'bad' characters didn't get to move onto heaven. Anna Lucia was still 'not ready' and essentially doing shady things in purgatory while Michael basically is stuck on the island in limbo. 

Final rambling: As an atheist I  feel like you kind of go through life in a struggle against the greater part of the world in belief of god or not. Most atheist don't preach their belief (or in this case non-belief) to the same extent that most religions do. Still, I would be lying if I said that I didn't hope we could one day be in a world where people didn't need religion and the threat of heaven/hell to justify their existence and how they should lead their life. This finale just seemed to say to me, that we can never win. But that may not matter, because just fighting the fight is what really matters. We can lead our entire lives and in the end religion will still prevail in the world but that's OK. Even our thinking mans show succumbed to it in the end, along with its main character. One nice thing was they didn't point to any specific religion (though Jack's fathers name was Christian Shepherd)

 Hell, at least Sawyer got to get with Juliet in the end and for that I am happy.