Poll : Which Reality will the show end on?

[zengoth]

Perhaps only the dead will get the sideways universe (as a reward). Those few that choose to stay on the island - Jack, for instance, will know that they are giving up some happiness (his son) for the greater good of the island.

Having said that, we can expect most of the main characters to die in the island reality so they can live out the sideways reward.

Could be Jack, could be Hugo (I can see him readily giving up his successful off island life, even without Libby, to save everyone else. The last seen shows him standing on the beach alone - or is he? (pull back and all the dead characters are standing on the beach with him)

[Dar70]

Guess we know the answer now. It blows but we know.

[sidious618]

You referring to Jack's "What happened, happened" line?

[Temis the Vorta]

Wowza, with major characters falling right and left, those flashsideways had better be a virtual reality or purgatory style scenario. It ain't right to kill off characters when their stories are left so unfinished.

Locke and Sayid are the most obvious characters who CANNOT be dead for real and ever. That would be criminally unsatisfying!

At the rate they're going, I think all the characters will be dead by the end of the series finale - but we've already seen how the story really ends.

Something about the flash-sideways determines which of the candidates takes Jacob's place. My brain is too overloaded to figure this out right now, but the whole thing strikes me as one big gigantic test.

[Mr Awe]

^^ I don't know. I think that while this cycle may have happened before of finding replacements. Jacob may have been a replacement for someone/thing. This seems like it's the end of the cycle. Clearly MiB's goal is to end the cycle at least by killing all of the candidates off. Doesn't mean it will happen.

There also seems to be the implication that even though Jacob is dead, the candidate selection process can continue and someone can still be selected. Something knows that there are still candidates alive and hence MiB cannot get off the island. Apparently the test runs independentally of Jacob.

I guess we'll see if the cycle ends or there is a replacement. Agree that it seems like a big test.

Mr Awe

[Temis the Vorta]

Well this thread is certainly interesting now! I find it really interesting how the writers did succeed in avoiding the "emotionally unsatisfying" options of negating either of the realities, or having the flashsideways characters be mere dopplegangers of the real characters.

That left us with only the future of the Losties, but in an unreal place where the world's amnesia about the famous 815 survivors could be explained. I think I would have preferred it to be a hallucination/test vs the afterlife.

Something about the flash-sideways determines which of the candidates takes Jacob's place.

And that would have solved the problem that people are bitching about - the flashsideways had no purpose in the story.

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.

Tsk tsk. He lied.