Poll : Which Reality will the show end on?

[Temis the Vorta]

I'll just use process of elimination here:

1. Both realities will continue to exist and at least some will exist in both - Too inconclusive and a cop out. Won't happen.

2. The Alt. Reality will be the final reality (island reality disappears) - Fans riot after realizing they wasted six years watching an irrelevant reality. Won't happen.

3. The Island Reality will be the final reality (alt. reality disappears) - Fans riot after realizing the final season was pointless filler. Probably won't happen (wouldn't be as aggravating as 1 or 2, so I'll give it some probability.)

4. They end up in some new, merged hybrid of the two realities (a new reality) - The minds of their dopplegangers in the "zapped" reality merge with the minds in the reality that stays so that if Ben learns to be a decent person in Alt-Land, he'll retain that learning in the Island reality. This option is the most likely to happen but the problem is that it's corny and predictable.

5. Some other (specify) - Since I dislike the other four options, I hope this is the one that happens, but I have no idea what it could be that wouldn't be even worse, such as purgatory, hallucination, or other unwelcome notions.

One thought for Door #5: if it somehow included the notion that the 815 crash that Widmore elaborately "faked" was an authentic Flight 815 after all, with everyone onboard (all the characters in one of the realities) dying, that could be pretty cool, depending on how it's handled.

Not according to the producers. Lindelof and Cuse have said unambiguously that the flash sideways are not an alternate timeline in any sense, and the characters are the same characters.

Did they say timeline and not reality? If so, that could be an important distinction.

I'm still clinging to the theory that the flash-sideways are going to happen as a result of whatever happens in the finale

If the flashsideways are the future of a single timeline, then why don't people recognize the famous original survivors of Flight 815? Maybe the characters get amnesia in the final ep, but the whole world can't get amnesia.

The flashsideways could be the future in being the afterlife. That would explain amnesia for the whole world.

[Hober Mallow]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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Did they say timeline and not reality? If so, that could be an important distinction.

I don't remember for sure, but I think the exact words they used were "alternate universe."

If the flashsideways are the future of a single timeline, then why don't people recognize the famous original survivors of Flight 815? Maybe the characters get amnesia in the final ep, but the whole world can't get amnesia.

I don't know what happens to cause the underwater island sideways world -- whatever it is -- but I have a feeling they've set up all the clues we need in this season's episodes and they're going to pull a big surprise ending like they did with last season. At the end of "The Incident," once it was clear Locke was dead, we could go back and rewatch the season and see all the clues we might have missed that screamed out that Locke wasn't really Locke. I think they're going to do something similar in this season's finale. Once it's revealed what the sideways stuff actually is, we're going to have an "of course," moment.

[beneldon]

One thought for Door #5: if it somehow included the notion that the 815 crash that Widmore elaborately "faked" was an authentic Flight 815 after all, with everyone onboard (all the characters in one of the realities) dying, that could be pretty cool, depending on how it's handled.

Not according to the producers. Lindelof and Cuse have said unambiguously that the flash sideways are not an alternate timeline in any sense, and the characters are the same characters.
Did they say timeline and not reality? If so, that could be an important distinction.

And the pilot corpse without the wedding ring Frank saw on TV was in fact him? Creepy...

[PKTrekGirl]

I'm gonna go with merged reality on this one. Seems like that is the way things are headed, at this point.

[Temis the Vorta]

I don't remember for sure, but I think the exact words they used were "alternate universe."

Which means it could be an alternative timeline within the same universe. Or the same timeline within the same universe:

1. The future, in which the whole world has amnesia.
2. The future, in which all the characters are dead and in heaven (which explains the amnesia).
2a. Except for Locke, who has stayed behind on the Island to be the new Jacob (Locke came back to life; everyone else died.)
3. The past, which has been reset.

[chrisspringob]

Rather than a completely merged hybrid of the realities, you could simply have one or two characters permanently cross over from one to the other. Not have their consciousness transfer over. Have their physical body transfer over. For example, alt-Locke could cross over into the prime reality and replace the now-dead Locke Prime.

[Agent Richard07]

Maybe they said the flashsideways timeline isn't an alternate timeline because it's the main one. And maybe everything we've seen on the show is just a sojourn from that "main" timeline.

[Mr Awe]

My guess is that there is only one full-scale reality, which contains a separate mini-universe (the Island). The timelines of each is mostly shielded from the other. So, changes in one timeline won't necessarily affect the other, except in extreme cases like exploding the nuke in the pocket of energy.

So, what we're calling the flash-sideways reality is the only full-scale reality. It is the main timeline. It was just modified by the events on the island. So, there's no way to go back to the 815 crashes reality. That has been changed to the FS reality.

The big question is, do the islanders stay on the island, or do they go to the mainland, which would require bringing MiB with them. Presumably MiB will make returning to reality very attractive to them personally. So, it'll become a question of personal benefit versus global costs of having a manipulative smoke monster running around.

Enter the reason why the writers have taken so much effort to make us care about the new reality. The islanders will have to forgo what their mainland counterparts have acquired. Which in some cases, (Hugo with Libby, Jack with his son) would be difficult. But, other cases not so much (Sayid), although even he would know that Nadya is alive.

Mr Awe

[coolghoul]

I think the flash-sideways will remain (as a result of the actions taken in the Series Finale) but the Losties in the flash-sideways will be affected by the Lost island reality. Carry over scars, memories, everything. Kinda like TNG's Inner Light (the one where Picard learns to play the flute! ) or the DS9 ep where O'Brien spends several years in confinement.

[Temis the Vorta]

Agent Richard07 wrote:

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Maybe they said the flashsideways timeline isn't an alternate timeline because it's the main one. And maybe everything we've seen on the show is just a sojourn from that "main" timeline.

But those are two separate realities from each other - if that's what they mean, they are really being devious!

After this week's ep, I'm getting the strong impression that the flashsideways characters are remembering the other reality on the island because that is their past. There can't be two independent realities with two Sun's and two Jin's and two Sawyers, etc. That wouldn't work dramatically because only one of each character is the "real" one for us. They need to literally be the same people, just at different points in their lives, or else the audience will feel cheated that they're watching a bunch of new characters whose stories we haven't spent years fretting and theorizing over.

Something will happen in the series finale that knocks everything on its head and sinks the island. The whole world forgets about the famous Flight 815, and so do all the characters. They don't remember they were on a Flight 815 before. That also explains why Desmond was on the plane - it's not the same Flight 815.

Dead characters like Charlie and Boone will come back to life. The original Locke also revives, yippe! I dunno about Shannon and Juliet. I guess it depends on what happens in the finale, who gets resurrected and who stays dead. Jack's son suddenly pops into being, and both he and Jack, and Jack's ex-wife remember a past that never actually happened, with the kid being born and growing up. Sun and Jin don't recall being married before. Ji Yeon has sadly blipped out of existence but presumably she's re-blipped into fetal stage. Ditto for Aaron.

The finale has the characters increasingly remembering their former lives and realizing their current reality and memories are all wrong. How that situation is resolved, whoooh, I have no idea, but I'm sure that it happens because Smoky gets off the island and timeline havoc is the result.

This is pretty crazy shit, but I'm going with it as my prediction. It's really the only scenario that I can think of that will work dramatically without feeling like a cheat or that this season has been a waste of time.

The one thing that would upend this theory is: has the year the flashsideways are taking place in ever been established? It "should" be happening in November 2004, right?

[Mr Awe]

^^ I don't know. I suspect the islanders either die or are permanently marooned on the island in order to keep the FS timeline (the only timeline outside the island in my theory) intact. They are separate characters but they shall never met. Perhaps the islanders will somehow see the FS timeline and choose to defend it even requires a sacrifice.

Mr Awe

[Hober Mallow]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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The one thing that would upend this theory is: has the year the flashsideways are taking place in ever been established? It "should" be happening in November 2004, right?

Lindelof established in a podcast that the date of flight 815 in the flashsideways is the same as the date in the pilot episode, September something 2004. Claire's ultrasound machine had the date off by a month, late October 2004, but Lindelof's explanation was that the machine was malfunctioning.

[Temis the Vorta]

Hober Mallow wrote:

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Lindelof established in a podcast that the date of flight 815 in the flashsideways is the same as the date in the pilot episode, September something 2004. Claire's ultrasound machine had the date off by a month, late October 2004, but Lindelof's explanation was that the machine was malfunctioning.

Then that means the only on-show date for the FS reality is unreliable! It could be any year.

[Temis the Vorta]

Okay the one thing I'm sure of: the flashsideways characters are the same people as the normal reality characters. The FS's must be in the future (their own future). But the world around them isn't necessarily real.

I wouldn't put it past the writers to create some kind of virtual or "test" world for the characters, to trap them in and see how their lives would play out if the crash hadn't occurred. It could also be a purgatory-style supernatural test as opposed to a scientific one (the characters are all asleep in VR machines or whatnot). The year appears to be 2004 because that's part of the faked reality.

The purpose is to see which of the final candidates should win the prize. Everyone is involved since the characters all interact.

[Kelso]

Yeah, I also think that the "flash-sideways" characters are remembering their past lives in the main universe. Something happens that resets the world and everyone gets an alternate life. Then they all remember their previous lives and have to band together to... do something.

Makes me wonder if this is the first time this has happened. Maybe they're all going round and round through alternate lives until they get it right. That might explain all of the strange coincidences in the season 1-3 flashbacks.