Loading ...As of last night’s episode, the battle has finally begun, and the lines have clearly been drawn at long last. Claire, Sawyer, Sayid, Kate, and for the moment Jin have aligned themselves with the Man in Black, and Ilana is leading the Jacobians, including Sun, Miles, Frank, and Ben, presumably to soon meet up with Richard and Jack and Hurley. Have we got our two sides here, Recruits and Candidates?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Candidates recently (who hasn’t?), and I think we’ve been aware of the existence of this elite group for longer than we think. Think about it. When Ben moved the Island at the end of Season 4, only a select group of people began to move through time: the survivors, Juliet, and the science team. The Others who were already on the Island remained in the present. So what does this tell us? I’ll tell you what it tells me. Only the Candidates moved through time. People who were already crossed off the various lists strewn across the Island (the cave, the Lighthouse) were grounded in reality. Their place in the world was already decided.
However, the Candidates still had a degree of unknown affiliation; there was still a possibility that any one of them would end up being the next Jacob. So they were, in essence, “loose,” free to be sent back to wherever they had a place. They still had a job to do; Jacob still had a place for them in history. And when their use was exhausted, they stopped moving through time. That’s why Charlotte’s body remained in the time in which she died. She ceased to be a Candidate, so she became grounded in whatever time that ended. The same goes for all the survivors who died at various points in history, until finally, the only Candidates left were those who were forced to infiltrate DHARMA, and Rose and Bernard (Vincent too? Now there’s a discrepancy…).
Only the Candidates move.
This may also tell us why some people were sent back to 1977 when the Ajira flight crashed and others were not. The names Austen, Reyes, Shephard, and Jarrah were all on Jacob’s list, not crossed out. On the Island, their place in time was with the other Candidates. That was where they were supposed to be. All of them. In short, the Candidates are their own separate group of humanity, and while they can exist at a point in time with people who are grounded, they are also fluid, and can move around. And at the time of the Ajira crash, Kate, Jack, Hurley, and Sayid weren’t supposed to be in 2007 on the Island. They were supposed to be with the rest of the Candidates in 1977.
You’ll remember that there was only one “Kwon” written in the cave and in the Lighthouse. Perhaps that is why Sun was never sent back. It could be that Jin is a Candidate and Sun is not, or that only one of them can be a Candidate, and Jin was already back where the Candidates were supposed to be. Frank, too, was not sent back, and we have never seen his name on any of the lists, despite what Ilana may think. Claire lost her Candidacy before the Island even started moving when she became Infected, and thus remained in the present, like the Others. The Candidacy seems to me to explain many of the series’ past discrepancies, although I’m not quite sure yet how Miles’ name being crossed out on the lists fits into my explanation yet.
Sun is left behind on the Ajira flight.
I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter lately involving the three Season 6 cast photos recreating The Last Supper. A bunch of stuff about everyone to the left of Locke joining the Man in Black and everyone to his right joining Jacob. While this seemed plausible at first (and does seem to be working out, what with Sayid, Claire, Kate, Sawyer, Jack, and Hurley’s placements), there are certain discrepancies that lead me to believe this theory is not correct. First of all, Ilana and Richard seem to be placed incorrectly, to the left (the Man in Black side). Secondly, fans are basing this theory on only one of the three photos. The other two show different placements of the cast, on different sides of Locke. Clearly, this theory doesn’t work exactly how people originally thought. Personally, I’ve been thinking for a while that eventually the entire cast will join the Man in Black, with Jack being his last recruit. Then, the Man in Black will step in and take over for Jacob, his motive all along.
The LOST Supper (Photo 1)
My theory was shot to shreds by Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly’s “Totally LOST,” who recently outlined what I find to be the most spectacular theory for the final season I’ve ever heard. He starts by breaking the season up: we’re a third of the way through, and only one day has passed since the Candidates flashed back to the present from 1977 in “LA X (Part 1).” We can postulate, then, that the remaining two thirds of the season will also each cover one day, totally three days for the final season.
Let’s look back at the cast photo for a moment. It’s the Last Supper. The Last Supper, which occurred on the Thursday before Good Friday (the early morning of “LA X?”), the first of the world’s most famous three-day period, the third of which is Easter Sunday. If we are to assume the first six episodes do indeed represent Good Friday, then they end at Sundown, the time of day Christ died on the Cross on Good Friday. And what happened mere days later, on Easter Sunday? Christ was resurrected. That’s right. And so in Season 6’s final six episodes, Easter Sunday may bleed through the pop culture fabric and bring with it the resurrection of John Locke.
This is all according to Jensen’s theory. Personally, I think it could be either John or Jacob. Regardless, LOST could be in the process of pulling off what my friend calls “the best use of Christian mythology since the Bible itself.”
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Frank Lapidus was on the list of candidates in the cave, but his name was crossed out. I haven’t seen Kate Austen on any of the lists.
The name Austen can be seen on the Lighthouse dial at number 51, although there is some speculation as to whether the name is Kate’s, as it is not signified by one of the Numbers. As far as Lapidus goes, if his name was crossed off before the return of the Ajira flight, as was Ben’s, he still wouldn’t have traveled back like my theory says.