LOST: collecting the dots...

I'm gonna collect, but not necessarily connect, some of the LOST "dots"—events, information, mysteries, and relationships we've been shown in LOST so far—and list them below with descriptions, theories, and open questions about them. Just to have, and maybe connect. Y'know what this show needs (or rather, my life needs)? A case board, y'know, like in THE WIRE, THE CLOSER, or FLASHFORWARD, with photos and notes and newsclippings and maps and dates connected by strings or drawn arrows. Granted, it would be a really frickin big board, one that might hafta project into dimensions we can't actually perceive...

Anyhow, the dots. I'll number them, in case anyone wants to refer to them in a comment, but they won't be ordered by any criteria, just listed as they come to me. I may add more to this post or link to subsequent posts as time goes on. Alas, there's not all that much time left...

*sigh*

DOT 1. DESMOND'S FINAL CHARLIE FLASH.

Desmond tells Charlie that he has to die to guarantee Claire and Aaron's rescue. His final FINAL DESTINATION flash of Charlie's death is of Charlie flipping the switch in the Looking Glass and then drowning. According to Desmond's vision if Charlie's death comes to pass in this manner, Claire and baby Aaron will board a helicopter and leave the Island safely. It is BABY Aaron and not-claimed Claire, meaning that their rescue must happen BEFORE Claire dies, is Infected, and leaves Aaron with Sawyer.

I will be disappointed if the journey to the ultimate end of the show does not include or at least address this. All of my endgame theories feature a rebooting and rewinding of LOST1 to a time after the crash, after Aaron's birth, but before Widmore's freighter arrives, allowing for a much less bloody Island stay for the Losties before being rescued by Penny's people. I forget, was Aaron born before Michael completes his raft? Ideally, they'd get rescued before Walt is kidnapped, y'know? And hey, Locke would never end up visiting Jacob's Cabin, and thus, never disturb the Circle of ash, and so, never free Esau from his prison.

Hrmmm... Heck, maybe the Swan failsafe detonation shatters the snowglobe.

DOT 2. WALT'S DREAM ABOUT JOHN LOCKE.

Walt tells John when Abaddon helps him find him after school one day...

WALT: I've been having dreams about you. You were on the Island, wearing a suit, and there are people all around you. They wanted to hurt you, John.
LOCKE: Good thing they're just dreams.

This seems like it refers to Locke-ness on the beach surrounded by Ilana and the bodyguards. They certainly WANT to hurt him, but they don't take arms against him until they reach the Foot. Maybe Walt's vision has yet to be played out?

He's wearing a suit... Could it be that dead and buried Locke would actually be resurrected? Who then would surround him and want to hurt him? Could it be John Locke from LOST2, perhaps in a suit for his wedding? But on the Island, somehow, physically...

I don't know. It seems too difficult to make the vision come true in those ways, but I also find it hard to believe that Walt wouldn't be able to *feel* that the Locke in his vision wasn't actually Esau wearing John's form, y'know?

DOT 3. THE OUTRIGGER CANOE CHASE.

We saw it occur from the POV of Sawyer, Locke, and friends as they skipped thru time. We have yet to see the chase from the other side, from the POV of the group in the second canoe who pursue them and fire on them at sea. I believe that when this period of time comes to pass in the course of the regular forward-moving flow of time we're witnessing on the Island, Locke's living breathing presence will render Esau, "stuck" in the otherwise Dead Locke's form, vulnerable to attack and/or capture.

I think that the pursuers in the other canoe are Miles, Richard, and Ben, loaded up with arms and explosives from New Otherton and en route to Hydra island. They might open fire simply because they think they recognize Locke-ness, but I'd rather Miles remember experiencing this scene three years earlier (subjectively) briefing Richard and Ben in on the chronology and misguidedly inspiring them to believe that they can fix things now by killing Locke back then, before he can leave the Island and return as a corpse to be used as Esau's meat puppet.

DOT 4. THE KID.

He's roaming the Island, apparently shadowing Esau, and only Esau and certain Losties (Candidates?) can see him. So far Sawyer and Desmond have both seen him. Richard cannot see him. He appears to be Jacob as a child, experiencing an accelerated rate of growth. Jim compared him to Spock's regenerated body on the Genesis planet, a pretty nice fit. Although, I wonder if it could actually be Jacob at those ages, temporally displaced? Maybe his appearances match up with the oldest time skips that Sawyer, Locke, and friends experienced after Ben set the Island to time-skipping.

DOT 5. CANDIDATES and THE NUMBERS.

We'll probably never get a proper explanation/origin of the Numbers, but how the heck did they end up in that transmission from the Island radio tower? Was that a DI thing? An experiment to release the numbers "into the wild" in a very isolated and random way? Powerful breadcrumbs meant to lead certain individuals back to the Island?

The broadcast was heard by Hurley's Connect-4-playing friend and his partner while working some Pacific listening station for the military. One of them ended up killing himself, the other ended up in the hospital with Hurley. The same broadcast lured Rousseau's boat into the snowglobe.

Is Jacob or Esau familiar with the Numbers? It seems that Jacob isn't, or he would have seen the correlation between them and his ever-dwindling list of Candidates, right? Esau... I don't think he cares about them, except that they happen to match up to the last Candidates standing. The ones he needs to manipulate into eliminating each other so that he can be free of the Island.

DOT 6. CANDIDATES and JACOB'S TOUCH.

Every Candidate has been touched by Jacob, but not everyone who is touched is currently a Candidate. We've seen that Jacob touched Richard, Kate, Sawyer, John, Sun, Jin, and Jack before the 815 crash, and Sayid and Hurley after their rescue. Richard is not a Candidate. Sayid died, shot by Ben's father, Uncle Rico. Sun and Jin died as a result of Sawyer triggering the failsafe on Locke-ness's bomb. Sayid dies a second time as a result of that bomb, too.

The Rules seem to say that Esau cannot kill anyone who has been touched by Jacob. Those who have been touched, however, can kill one another by accident or intentionally. Richard cannot kill himself. I'm not certain if the 815 Touched can kill themselves. When Jack lights the dynamite in the Blackrock, he seems to want to prove that he's protected by the Island, not that he can't commit suicide. I don't think it demonstrates a Rule about Candidates and suicide.

QUESTION. Would Sawyer have died in the bomb explosion if Sayid hadn't intervened? Since Sawyer pulled the wires, wouldn't his death be considered by the Rules to be suicide? What about Jin's decision to stay with his wife? Do these situations demonstrate that the Touched/Candidates *CAN* kill themselves? Is intent a factor?

THEORY. Jacob has touched Desmond. Locke-ness does not kill Desmond when he has the chance (many chances), but instead sends Sayid to do it. It seems that Locke-ness CANNOT kill Desmond, but Sayid, a one-time-Candidate, can. This points to the notion that Desmond must have been touched by Jacob.

DOT 7. JACOB'S CABIN and THE CIRCLE OF ASH.

When was the circle broken? Did we ever actually see it whole? I think it was broken by Locke when he ran from the Cabin when he visited with Ben for the first time.

THEORY. When the Circle of ash was unbroken, it prevented Esau's consciousness from accessing his Monster body, which roamed wildly (or according to default programming) without his will to direct it. That is, Esau was inside the Circle and the Monster was outside of it.

So, the Monster is a simple creature all on its own. Whether it's a construct or a beast, by default, it roams the Island, perhaps somewhat territorially (security system?), driven by instinctive desires and/or programmed rules or directives. Esau tells Richard that he was once human and that Jacob stole his body. Maybe that's true. As a disembodied consciousness, Esau discovered that he could "enter" and take over the Monster's form. When Jacob started bring humans to the Island, he then learned to mimic their dead forms.

Who could have trapped and split the Monster and Esau? Jacob on his own? An early dynasty of Others? Wouldn't they be more careful about the preservation of that ash Circle? Could enough time have passed since the capture of Esau that he truly did become an Other bedtime story, told to scare wee Others? Was that what Jacob wished? That Esau should be re-introduced to a generation of Islanders unfamiliar with his ways? Does the Circle pre-date the Cabin? Did Esau's presence influence Horace to visit the Circle and build the Cabin there?

QUESTION. What was the protocol for Ben's receiving lists and messages from Jacob during his time as leader? Was the Cabin acknowledge by Richard as a necessary sham? For show in front of the Other congregation and outsiders?

QUESTION. When Ilana and the bodyguards go to the Cabin, who are they expecting to find? They go in with their guard up. Especially so once Bram points out that the Circle is broken, allowing someone or something in or out. Once she inspects the Cabin, Ilana reveals that someone else has been using the Cabin for some time. I want to say that she means Claire, except that she has her very own hovelpile.

DOT 8. CATCH A FALLING STAR.

Claire asks the adopting parents to please sing the lullaby to the baby. She tells them that her father used to sing it to her.

When Claire is under Ethan's care with the Others, they've provided a crib with a mobile for her baby. She turns the mobile on and it plays the tune of the lullaby.

We hear Kate singing it to 3-year old Aaron.

Christian2 leaves a music box to Claire2 in his will. The music box plays the tune of the song.

Passed down from generation to generation of Shephards, what's the significance of this lullaby meme? Did Christian sing this to Jack? Did Ray sing it to Christian? Did Jacob or Esau have this song sung to him as a child as well?

The lyrics can be interpreted in the language of physics, describing a meteorite or perhaps a baby black hole, fallen to earth and captured or contained in a pocket dimension. They can alsy be interpreted in the language of religion and myth, describing the fall of an angel or other heavenly/celestial being, captured or held in a pocket dimension as well.

DOT 9. THE REAL NAME OF THE NEMESIS.

I've been calling him Esau, but we've not been given his real name. Story-wise, this seems significant to me, conspicuous, because it sets up the anticipation for a reveal which would connect his identity to another or others that we already know. Within the story, it's significant because Esau would withhold information that might be used against him, and a connection to one of the Losties could be exploited by his enemies. I assume that Jacob never tells any of his people of Esau's origins out of some sense of fairness, his laissez-faire, "non-interference" policy, or perhaps in accodance with the Rules.

THEORY. Esau is a time-bumped, grown up, Infected-in-the-womb, Aaron, as raised by Kate (at least, for the first three years of his life).

Keep on keepin on~