Glad you enjoyed it.
Today's topic: Time Travel
Fair warning: This will be long. And I will probably go off on several tangents. If you want to skip that, scroll down to where I summarize in point form the Man in Black's plan.
So, time travel. The driving force behind season 5 that kept us asking until the series finale "Did whatever happen, happen?" As it turns out, it did. But we were still left with some unanswered questions. Why didn't the Others time travel as well? What was the driving force behind these time flashes? Were they random, or did the Losties end up where they did by design?
My theory attempts to answer those questions and tie time travel into the greater mythology of the show. First, a few important notes.
1. Remember the compass we saw in season 5? The one Richard gave to Locke and Locke gave back to Richard? That plays an important role in this theory. Not the compass itself, but the concept behind something existing in an endless cycle with no beginning or end.
2. When Locke finally stopped the time flashes in
This Place is Death, there were two details that didn't make sense the more I thought about them. One, what was the MiB doing in Christian's form down in that well more than 140 years before (as evidenced by the statue of Taweret still standing) the crash of Flight 815? Two, why was the wheel still off its axis in that year if Ben turned it in 2004? Hell, they may have landed in a time when the wheel didn't even exist yet. It's the answers to these two questions that help explain how time travel on the show works.
If you look at your standard time travel story there's usually two elements: A time machine and a pilot. Lost's time travel is a bit more complicated than that but it boils down to the same thing. The Man in Black's presence as Christian pre-1867 (in what we'll call year X) would seem to indicate that throughout all the time flashes he was traveling alongside the Losties. I'll go one step further and say he was in fact controlling the time flashes. What makes me believe that? For one, the ramifications of the time flashes went a long way in helping the MiB achieve his goals (which we'll discuss later). But also, the writers provided us with a perfectly plausible explanation as to
how the MiB could control these flashes.
In
Across the Sea we learn a few important things about the MiB and the Smoke Monster. He was "special", able to understand things intuitively, like how to play the senet game that washed ashore or how to manipulate the light in the well to escape the island. We also learned that the Smoke Monster was born from this light. It's therefore logical to conclude that the MiB would have the knowledge and capability to perhaps manipulate this energy to his own ends. Only one problem: He can't turn the wheel himself. Remember in
This Place is Death when he told Locke he couldn't help him? Makes more sense now. As we have seen, those who turn the wheel leave the island, and the MiB cannot do that. So he needs somebody to turn it for him to start the time flashes, and another to turn it to stop them. Presumably he jammed the wheel somehow before Ben turned it, as otherwise his plan wouldn't have worked.
Now, if the MiB is the pilot, then what is the time machine? It's not the island because that wasn't traveling with them. But the donkey wheel and its surrounding chamber evidently were. You'll have to suspend disbelief for a moment here and allow yourself to accept the concept of an arbitrary area around the source of light being able to move through time and the idea that two things can occupy the same space. If you can accept that, then you have your answer as to why the wheel was off its axis in year X.
We have the pilot, we have the time machine, but we also have passengers: The Losties. But why them and not anybody else? Why did John Locke disappear but not Richard and the Others? I've come up with two possible explanations, one that I prefer but has some holes, and another that makes more sense but I find less exciting. We'll start with my flawed theory: The Others didn't time travel because they're part of the island. As we saw in
Lafleur, once Charlotte died her body did not continue to time travel. She was dead, just another part of the island. Does that mean the Others are all dead? No, just that they're so in tune with the island that they're considered an extension of it. So why did the flashes affect Juliet? There were a bunch of Others with similar histories to Juliet's, recruited by Ben and having only spent a few years on the island. Hard to say, but considering Ben had everybody moved to the Temple perhaps a process there, like bathing in the Temple waters, would leave people like Cindy, Zach and Emma immune to time travel.
This theory also helps explain why Claire didn't time travel. Being claimed, likely due to her near death experience at the Barracks, she had become part of the island as well. What this theory doesn't explain is why inanimate objects that the Losties were touching, including their clothing, traveled with them. Also, shouldn't all the non-human wildlife have traveled with the Losties as well? Meaning there'd be a serious lack of squirrels on the island post-2004.
So what's the better explanation? The much simpler one: The Man in Black chose who would be affected by the time flashes. He's the pilot, it's his time machine, he gets to choose who's along for the ride. It's kinda boring in its simplicity, but it makes the most sense.
Now that we have all the time travel nonsense out of the way, it's time to explain why it was important.
The Man in Black's Plan
It may have been just me, but upon initial viewing of the series I interpreted the Man in Black's grand plan as follows:
1. Take the form of John Locke
2. Manipulate Ben into killing Jacob
3. Manipulate the Candidates into killing one another
It was only upon further reflection that I realized I mixed things up. It looked more like this:
1. Manipulate the Candidates into killing one another
2. Take the form of John Locke
3. Manipulate Ben into killing Jacob
What makes me believe this? Jacob's last line in
The Incident. As Flocke stood triumphantly over his dying brother, his mood suddenly changed for the worse when he heard him say "they're coming". We've since learned that "they" meant the Candidates, but why would that upset the MiB so much if he was planning to kill them anyway? Because he thought they were already dead.
Now that we've concluded that the MiB was behind the time flashes, we have to discuss the importance of where he sent them. They were all over the place at the beginning of season 5, but 3 years stand out to me.
1. 1954 - This one is the most obvious. It was the year in which future Locke visited Richard and gave him the compass, also telling Richard that Jacob sent him. So, Locke essentially made it so that the Others viewed him as important which was essential to the MiB's plan as he needed to take the guise of somebody who could demand to see Jacob. It was also analogous to the compass as Locke was important because the Others believed he was, because he told them, etc.
2. Year X (pre-1867) - The year we were discussing earlier, in which the statue of Taweret is still standing. I'll warn you, this is a reach because there's nothing in the show to indicate that what I'm about to say happened as it did. So why do I think this year is important? Because it book-ends the Man in Black's plan. This is the earliest time the Losties travel to, with the year 2004 being the other book-end (ignoring when they travel to the future and see the Ajira bottles). But nothing really happened in year X, they were there for less than a minute. Long enough to view the statue and leave something behind: The rope in the ground. And who do I theorize eventually stumbles upon this rope? The Man in Black, of course. This inspires him and his people to dig there, allowing them to discover the light under the island.
What this means is that the entire show was like the compass in season 5. The Man in Black built the donkey wheel only because his future self told him (indirectly) where to find it. The Man in Black was caught up in a scheme to leave the island before he even knew it, which makes his character that much more tragic and brings into question the whole idea of destiny and free will. It also touches on a concept brought up in season 3 that wasn't really explored until season 5.
If you recall (and you probably don't, as I only remember because somebody mentioned it on another forum recently) in the episode
Not in Portland from season 3 we saw a video mentioning Jacob in Room 23. Incidentally, this was also the episode that gave us some of our first clues about time travel on the show. What was also in the video was a message that read
"We are the causes of our own suffering". This was a recurring theme in season 5, as we saw with Sayid shooting Ben, which would eventually lead to Ben putting Sayid through Hell; Juliet detonating (or not) Jughead, causing the pregnancy problems that would bring her to the island; Jack and the other 815 passengers causing the Incident that would eventually lead their plane to crash on the island. We even heard Hurley's voice reciting the numbers in 1988, which I assume was a plot point lost in the writers' room but just highlights again how most of these characters' troubles were brought on by themselves through time travel. The Man in Black is just another victim of his own time traveling actions.
Anyway, back to my main point: The Man in Black could only complete his plan via information he gave his past self. But why go to all this trouble in creating that paradox? Because it creates a time loop. Between the years X and 2004 the MiB's actions are set in stone because you can't change history. He made a plan that can't be stopped because there's no beginning or end to it, much like the compass always has to go from Locke to Richard and back forever. You might even call those years between the book-ends a loophole, but that's a little on the nose.
3. 1974 - The year the Losties eventually ended up in and still part of the MiB's 'loophole'. Three years later the other Candidates would show up and cause 'The Incident'. It was because of this incident that the MiB thought he had won. He thought all the Candidates died when Jughead detonated, as did Richard as he revealed in
Follow the Leader. There was no saving the Candidates either because "whatever happened, happened". All he had to do now was kill Jacob and he'd be free to leave the island.
Summarizing the Key Points of the MiB's Plan
1. Discover the rope left in the ground by time-traveling Losties and build the donkey wheel.
2. Allow John Locke to convince Richard that he is special in 1954.
3. Deposit time-travelers in 1974, eventually resulting in them detonating Jughead in 1977 and killing all the Candidates.
4. Orchestrate the exile of Charles Widmore from the island, circa 1993. I further explain this in a Widmore theory of mine, tying much of his story into the Incident.
5. In 2004, as a direct result of the Incident, a button that needs to be pushed isn't and Flight 815 crashes on the island.
6. Ben, now having an antagonist in Widmore, is forced to move the island to protect it, allowing himself to assure steps 1, 2 and 3 occur.
7. Locke puts the wheel back in its place, causing him to leave the island.
8. Ben brings the Candidates who left the island back, causing them to end up in 1974 and John Locke's corpse to end up in 2007 where the MiB takes his form.
9. The Man in Black manipulates Ben into killing Jacob.
But that's not what happened.
Jacob's Counter-Plan
Through all this, Jacob is essentially powerless to stop the MiB's plan. These events always occurred and mucking with them mucks with time and space. But as we've seen, Jacob is a very intuitive fellow, so he must have at least had an inkling as to what the MiB was up to.
Jacob organizes it so that the Oceanic 6 come back to the island and he himself flashes certain of them off the plane and plops them in 1977: The remaining Candidates. That's Jack, Hurley, Sayid and Kate. But Kate was no longer a Candidate and Sun was, you say. Well, using the logic of the show, Kate regained her Candidacy when she gave up Aaron and Sun lost hers when she had Ji Yeon. Jin was the only Kwon Candidate.
Why did he drop them in 1977 though? Why not 2007? Because he needed the MiB to believe they were dead. If he didn't he would have found another way to kill them. Instead, he let Jughead do it, but instead Jacob caused one more time flash dropping all the Losties back in 2007. Jacob then dies, but the MiB's plan is thwarted, leaving him scrambling all of season 6 to kill the Candidates.
Essentially, the entire show is one giant con by the Man in Black to kill the Candidates via a time travel paradox that is countered by Jacob at the last possible moment.