LOST

[--Pete]

Hi,

1) As I stated before, Jack had to interact with these people for them to be in his vision. Assuming they (the people Jack saw in his visions) were all passengers on the plane, it can be surmised that some time had to of been spent on the island with these people for Jack to experience the things he did in his visions.

If the whole series was Jack's death vision then we don't know if those people were based on passengers on the plane, people Jack had interacted with, possibly briefly, in life, or even completely imaginary composites. It could just as easily be that Jack is the only 'real' character and everything else a figment of his imagination.

1b) While all the passengers were interwoven somehow with each other, not all of them met before face to face until the plane crash.

They all exist only in Jack's head.

1c) If you are in the "I assume Jack made up all these people in his vision" camp, then there is no way to prove who was actually a passenger on the plane or not, thus this whole conversation is a mute point.

When the writers resorted to the 'it was all a vision' gambit, they opened the door to "which 'all' was only a vision?" Their failure to resolve almost all the issues they brought up is more indicative of a stream of consciousness vision than of a 'real' story. Or, perhaps, it is indicative of their incompetence and stupidity.

And, please, quit using 'mute' when you mean 'moot'. Mute means unable to speak. Moot means academic.

2) Based on the prior assumption that they indeed survived the crash-landing, well the Smoke-Monster was in the Pilot episode, as were the polar bears, so obviously the Island has some mysteries on it before the death of Jack, giving some credence to the idea that Jack died after the discovery of the smoke-monsters origins.

Or it was all in Jack's head, and the Smoke Monster was nothing more than some ethanol impacting some neurons.

2b) I'd say at the very earliest, Jack might have died when he and the other Oceaniac-6 made it back to the main-land. He might have overdosed on painkillers then. Besides, the whole time-travel stuff seemed a bit far-fetched.

The whole point of the series was far-fetched stuff, mysteries, clues and hints. Take that out, and all you've got left is the interpersonal stuff. Interesting in itself, but it could have been done in General Hospital.

3) Most of the rest of my musings were made on the last episode, with what Hurley said to Ben about him being a great #2 implying a long time spent overseeing the island, and about what Christian Sheppard said to Jack about the time on the island being the most important time of Jack's life. I wish I had time to go into more detail at the moment, but duty beckons. I will have to finish this sometime later.

OK.

--Pete