A Theory *Spoilers up to Sundown*

[Trippy]

So, watching Sundown on Demand just now, and Dogen says to Sayid about trying to kill him with that pill "It would be better if you were dead" in such a matter of fact way. It just made me think, what if to die on the island takes you to the 'sideways' alternative universe to live? So, if Sayid dies, he gets to know that Nadia lives, albiet married to his brother. Perhaps then, Libby, Ana-Lucia and even Locke live in the 'sideways' universe now.

Waddya think? The only way to really leave the island is to die, and have that life in the alternative universe. That might make Juliet's last thought make sense...she 'crossed' over universes where she can go to coffee with Sawyer (whose 'sideways' universe we haven't seen yet)

 

[Starbreaker]

It would be very interesting to see everyone die and get their happy ending...

 

[Mallet]

But what about people who don't die? Does it mean that since Jack is in the Flashsideways he has to die in the normal reality? that's isn't cool.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Keamy doesn't get a happy ending in any reality.

 

[Capn Flukie]

Good!

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I think the original reality people and the sideways people are different versions of the same people. Two Jacks, two Kates, two Hurleys, two Sawyers, etc.

The point of splitting the story is to allow the writers to run all their original characters off a cliff. Most will die by the finale - I'm expecting a very bleak bloodbath of a finale. Those that survive will be too traumatized for us to assume there's any happy ending for them in the future.

The sideways reality is where the happy endings will occur, but there will never be any literal linkage between the two realities. There might be poetic linkages, like Juliet seeming to know that she's saved them all through her sacrifice or Jack in the sideways reality sensing that something is amiss and he can't quite figure out how (his sympathetic link with his doomed doppleganger?)

Once a character dies in the original reality, they're dead and there's no happy ending for them. But the audience gets the sop of seeing a happy ending for someone who looks and acts a lot like that character, who is played by the same actor. It's a way the producers are going to have their cake and eat it too. Handled deftly, it could just work.

 

[RoJoHen]

Honestly, Temis, I hate your theory.

I don't give a shit whether our characters have happy endings or not. They can all die horrible deaths for all I care (as long as it makes sense within the story). I don't need random dopplegangers running around just so I can see a happy ending.

If the alternate universe doesn't have some kind of connection to the normal universe, I am going to be very upset. It will just end up being a huge waste of time.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

I agree. I really hope in the end there will be no reset, that these flashsideways isnt some matrix world that dying is the only way to truly be free from the island and this matrix type world is there reward, at least if you die at the hands of Cerberus.

which kind of reminds me, you guys remember when Cerberus in Smoke form would scan people's memories or thoughts and you could see that projected image within the smoke, like in Eko's case, not so much in Ben's though. Could this actually be it scanning to see what you truly want and thus granting it of sorta with this flashsideways universe? I dunno maybe this theory needs to be fleshed out a bit more.

 

[Hunter X]

Yeah, Temis, I don't see how your theory could work if we're talking about a coherent narrative. Who cares if some characters in a sideways reality get happy endings? If that's the only point to the flash-sideways, then they really are a big waste of time, distracting from the fate of the characters we've followed and seen grown over the show. That sort of thing only really "works" on a show like Voyager, where they can have an alternate Harry Kim for the entire show from Deadlock on because there's no continuity from episode to episode anyways.

The alternate reality is a very big, very loaded gun shown in the first act of the season. It needs to go off in a big way during the third act in order for it to make any sort of narrative sense.

 

[Mallet]

TPTB have now said that the "Flashsideways" are not an alternate reality or timeline.

So I don't know what they are then, unless the show ends with a big rest which would really piss me off.

 

[zengoth]

i agree they must intersect @ some point. Perhaps the answer will lie in Desmond, who can skirt both timelines and make communications. Using the star trek analogy, i hope this isn't a "holodeck" episode, where Desmond finds each character in L.A. and explains "this isn't real, brother, the island isn't finished with you." That'd be bad storytelling as well, imo.

I like the theory that MIB may be tempting island-characters with their heart's desire (flashsideways), altho Sayid's still rather sucks and Kate's went nowhere (except making sure Claire got to a hospital).

 

[Hober Mallow]

I may end up being flat wrong, butI think the whole Flocke "I can get you whatever you want" is a red herring. The writers know we'll automatically make the connection to the flash-sideways, but I don't think it's going to turn out to have any connection to that. After six years, the writers know exactly how to play us.

 

[McCoy]

TPTB have now said that the "Flashsideways" are not an alternate reality or timeline.

So I don't know what they are then, unless the show ends with a big rest which would really piss me off.

I said this a long time ago, and I'll repeat it here. Remember way back in S1 when people theorized that they all died in the crash and this was their purgatory? And the producers laughed it off?

What if that theory was actually correct after all, and ever since they've been dancing as fast as they can to distract us from the fact that the final big twist was guessed at so early on?

The "sideways" flashes are their real lives, or the lives they would have lived if they'd gotten back. Everything on the island has been a world between life and death. Eventually they'll get all the pieces to fit that somehow.

Or maybe not.

 

[Checkmate]

I don't get why you guys are calling the alternate universe the "happy ending" one. Especially regarding Sayid, Jin and Sun so far. The latter two aren't married, Jin was found, beaten, in a freezer, and Sayid is a cold-blooded killer who can never have what he most desperately wants (which sure beats pining for someone who's already dead).

Then you have Ben who's a miserable high school teacher, and Locke who's been fired, progressively angry at his disability, and has been forced to become a subsitute at the same school. Jack's wife is either dead or has left him one way or another, his father's corpse is missing, and his son is all but estranged to him.

I'm not really sure how any of that qualifies as a "happy ending." "Slightly less miserable ending," maybe, but everything I've seen is hinting that things are going to get worse and worse for them.

The only one who seems to be "happy" is Hurley, but we haven't seen his story yet.

I have noticed that he seems to be a Jacob-lite in that universe, though. He keeps touching people's lifes, often in little ways but not always so little, and making them a bit more bright, even if just to a minor degree.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Yeah, Temis, I don't see how your theory could work if we're talking about a coherent narrative. Who cares if some characters in a sideways reality get happy endings?

It wouldn't be easy to pull off, and it isn't done often because having two unrelated narratives doesn't have obvious emotional relevance. The writers would have to go for "poetic" connections between the two realities, where the audience sees the connections even if they aren't literally in the story.

The alternative is some kind of literal connection, but that's what I don't think will happen - characters stepping through to another reality or waking up in the other reality, etc. That just doesn't seem in keeping with the tone of the series.

Remember way back in S1 when people theorized that they all died in the crash and this was their purgatory? And the producers laughed it off?

Maybe Smokey is Satan, and the island is his prison, keeping the world safe from ultimate evil? That would make the island a kind of purgatory.

TPTB have now said that the "Flashsideways" are not an alternate reality or timeline.

Hmm. Uh oh. Maybe the flashsideways are "the real world" and the island has been a hallucination of one of the characters all along?

I don't get why you guys are calling the alternate universe the "happy ending" one.

The characters haven't experienced the death, mayhem and point-of-no-return moments that they have in the original reality, so the endings are likely to be happier or at least have the potential.

 

[Mallet]

I don't get why you guys are calling the alternate universe the "happy ending" one.

It's a hell of a lot happier for the hundred plus people who died in the original crash and the other 40 or so who died later on after the crash.

 

[RoJoHen]

I don't get why you guys are calling the alternate universe the "happy ending" one.

It's a hell of a lot happier for the hundred plus people who died in the original crash and the other 40 or so who died later on after the crash.

...so far.

 

[Hunter X]

Until the universe course-corrects. It already seemed to be happening with Charlie.

 

[Trippy]

So, watching Sundown on Demand just now, and Dogen says to Sayid about trying to kill him with that pill "It would be better if you were dead" in such a matter of fact way. It just made me think, what if to die on the island takes you to the 'sideways' alternative universe to live? So, if Sayid dies, he gets to know that Nadia lives, albiet married to his brother. Perhaps then, Libby, Ana-Lucia and even Locke live in the 'sideways' universe now.

Waddya think? The only way to really leave the island is to die, and have that life in the alternative universe. That might make Juliet's last thought make sense...she 'crossed' over universes where she can go to coffee with Sawyer (whose 'sideways' universe we haven't seen yet)

Whaddya know, I think I might have been on to something