I missed the TV show Lost the first time it aired, but I tried it out over the summer, and it hooked me from the first scene. One of the best parts about the show is the island itself. In the DVD extras, the creators described the show as a central character. In that sense, it’s the main character, the one around which every other character and the main plot revolves.
Yesterday morning, it struck me that I know where and what the island is.
Out of respect for those who don’t wish to read such things before they’re revealed on the show, the details of my theory appear after the break. If I’m right, these are spoilers. If not, I’m just harmlessly blathering. Either way, you’ve been warned.
The island in Lost is Neverland. That’s right, the mythical island from J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.
Neverland is a place where the dreams of children–both conscious and unconscious–come true. That’s why in Peter Pan’s version it’s full of pirates, mermaids, Native American tribes, and lots more, all so the kids can have their adventures.
This is why the Others always capture the kids. The Others know that the kids have the ability to shape the island’s reality. Remember how the polar bear shows up after Walt reads a comic book featuring a polar bear? Or how he can’t ever lose at backgammon against Locke? Walt makes that happen because he’s on Neverland.
Notice the pirate ship in Season 1 finale? Sure it’s not Captain Hook’s Jolly Roger, but it might as well be.
In one of the early episodes this season, Michael and Jin hide from the Others and watch them traipse by at ankle level. They see that one of the Others walks by with a teddy bear tied to him. The Others are the Lost Boys from Peter Pan, all grown up. (The link to the show’s name is no coincidence.) As they age, they lose the ability to alter reality to suit themselves. Some of them cling to that through keeping to childlike ways: walking barefoot, keeping teddy bears, and so on.
I’m sure there’s a lot more to this revelation than I can think of without rewatching the series, which I don’t have the time to do right now. Still, what I’d can recall seems to fit perfectly.
Here’s one of the wilder notions that goes along with this. The invisible force that kills the pilot? That tries to haul Locke underground? Fairies (like Tinkerbell) gone mad. Really. They control the magic of the land. They bring the various castaways to the island, and they make sure that some of them survive the experience, which explains how anyone survives the plane crash.
Perhaps the kids unwittingly control the fairies through their childlike nature, to which the fairies respond. Or maybe the fairies are just the product of the kids’ imaginations. It’s hard to tell right now.
One of the more ironic connections is that Lost runs on ABC, which is owned by Disney, a company that’s made a lot of money off Peter Pan over the years.
All right. Go ahead. Tell me I’m nuts. That I spend too much time thinking about these things. That’s the geek curse. 🙂
Time to get back to work.
