Karma is key
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By ItsATimeLoop
- Karma is key
- Created: May 25, 2007
- Last updated: Aug 14, 2008
- After episode: 3.22: Through The Looking Glass
- Status: Current
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What we have been watching so far is not the first time Jack and Kate have been to the island. Jack did indeed experience a flashback (with the telltale whoosh! sound before and after each segment), because he remembers how he felt after the first time. These memories are supposed to help him get it right this time, but of course we don’t know which decisions led to which tragic outcome before, or even how many cycles he has been through.
This show is about redemption and transcending one’s past mistakes, and the idea of karma is that everything you do affects the past, present and future, even across multiple lifetimes. Eventually you figure out the “right” path and move closer to achieving nirvana (A buddhist walks up to a hot dog vendor and says, “Make me one with everything.”)
Several main characters seem to be “better” people than their past memories indicate, especially Kate, Locke, Sayid, Ana Lucia and Eko. And Charlie’s sacrifice has to be worth a whole lotta points.
This could explain why people from the island keep appearing in each other’s flashbacks (memories get mixed together), and why Ben knows so much about everybody and what’s going to happen. It could explain Desmond’s “visions”. It might also make it possible for Adam and Eve to be Jack and Kate. Maybe Jakob is a future Jack who has come back, and he’s the one feeding Ben information.
Personally, I like the theory proposed by others that the 108 minutes were a time shift between the island and the rest of the world: every time they pushed the button, the time of the island was reset to the start of the experiment while the outside world moved on. It started, say, in 1989 and went on for fifteen years until Desmond turned the key, destroyed the Swan station, and became apparently unstuck in time.
But it’s almost impossible to figure out all the details in a way that holds together. They’re not gonna make this easy for us.
Definitely could have something to do with karma - which adds to the allusions to Hinduism, namely Dharma and the use of the term Namaste.
Whether it’s Karma or some other personality directing effect it seems to me that the “Others” have a decidely violent streak–- which means the secret they possess or the island contains is powerful indeed. When Locke throws the dagger at Naomi, he doesn’t even give her a warning–-just kills her outright–-Ben’s and now Walt’s influence is quite overpowering because of what they know and now we can be sure that Locke knows the secret too whatever it is!
It is interesting that when Sawyer and Juliette return to camp in order to save the three “Losties” he asks Juliette why, when he was captured by the “Others” they were force to break up rocks and she replies that they were building a landing strip. He asks for whom and she in a nonchalant way answers, for aliens. Is that an inside joke or is there a clue in that remark? Could one of the island’s purpose be as a directional beacon for somesort of a landing, alien or otherwise.
I really like the last paragraph of your theory. I don’t know if it ties in, but I like it anyway.
“Maybe Jakob is a future Jack who has come back, and he’s the one feeding Ben information. ” Loved it!!
One thing is for sure, this show is not about time travel, as the creators of the show have debunked this theory. Certainly Karma and redemption are key factors of Lost and all the characters, but this being Jack and Kate’s second time on the island, while plausible, does not fit in exactly because how do they not know each other after the plane crash and why is the crash in 2004 when the ‘flash-forward’ is in 2006 at least (the use of the Motorola phone). Unless there has been a time shift in the episodes than we have not yet been told about.
Didn’t realize time travel was officially debunked. When Lindelof said the events are happening somewhere in the space-time continuum, I took it to mean it was still possible. I’ll declare the theory debunked.
Thing is, I just can’t believe they changed the flashback mode, with its consistent sound effect before and after, to a premonition.