LOST-Theories.com

Here you see is the pedestal of a statue, with only half a leg and four toes remaining: there were many here once

— HappyAtheist

This is based on the New Websites post by user DavidNixon.

DavidNixon posted to draw our attention to several sites that popped up soon after the finale. The addresses of the sites are the license plate numbers of Kate’s and Jack’s cars in the flash-forward. Most surmise that the sites are not hoaxes, but rather were put up by the show’s creators because they came up very soon after the episode and have flash animation.

First, do you think that these sites are legit? Does anybody know exactly when they went up?

My experience with one of the new websites:

When I clicked on this one, I was redirected to a graphic that looked like a green globe separated into many small, unevenly shaped pieces floating in a shape that approximated the globe. They moved when I put the cursor over them. When I clicked, I was redirected to a page that flashed images of Jack, the Four-Toed statue, and then showed 1) a fragment of a short story that references a destroyed statue wit only four toes 2) the phrase “magazine aloe mal” (probably an anagram) in a mixed font that resembles the anonymous letters written with letters cut from a variety of magazines and 3) the phrase “goto.the.source” at the very bottom of the page.

The story is the early 19th century Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock. The fragment quoted in the Lost-related page is the first 2 paragraphs of Chapter 4.

Interestingly, this citation from Jonathan Swift’s poem “Cadenus and Vanessa” introduces the story: “All philosophers who find Some favourite system to their mind In every point to make it fit, Will force all nature to submit.”

From Wikipedia: “Peacock was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced each other’s work. He wrote satirical novels, each with the same basic setting — characters at a table discussing and criticizing the philosophical opinions of the day.”

“Headlong Hall” is true to this: it’s short on plot, long on conversation—I didn’t read it through, just skimmed it.

Both the citation that opens the story and Chapter 4 deal with the forces of nature. The quote describes the process through which philosphers, or thinkers/intellectuals, once they become enamored of a system of thought, a way of seeing the world, begin to see what they want to see. Instead of perceiving nature directly, their view of what they see is warped by their desire to have what they see fit into their system of thought. The bit from Chapter 4 is about how the speaker’s father, concerned with nothing but the cellar (i.e. that is, he had a substance abuse problem, much like several characters we’ve grown to know and love), let everything on his estate go to ruin. As a result, the once carefully manicured garden (you know how the Brits loved those during the Enlightenment) is completely overgrown. Several statues, representing Greek/Roman gods lie in ruin:

“Here you see is the pedestal of a statue, with only half a leg and four toes remaining: there were many here once. When I was a boy, I used to sit every day on the shoulders of Hercules: what became of him I have never been able to ascertain. Neptune has been Iying these seven years in the dust-hole; Atlas had his head knocked off to fit him for propping a shed; and only the day before yesterday we fished Bacchus out of the horse-pond.”

After all of this, my question is, should we pursue this? Does this mean anything?

Key episodes

#	Title	Aired	Central character	Theories
3.22	Through The Looking Glass	5-23-2007	Jack	1251

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