Finally.... The End (Lost)

[The Man]

You keep saying this, and the article you linked to earlier said the same thing, but this strikes me as extremely disingenuous. Go back to that article and count how many "explanations" are simply "magic." Although to be fair, that seems to be about the same level of the thought the Lost writers put into explaining some of their plot points.

Well, I mean, go back to Star Wars and see how many explanations are simply "The Force". I'm not saying Lost was as successful as the original Star Wars trilogy, but it's pretty common in works of science fantasy, which Lost clearly is, to have unexplained powers as an explanation for some plot elements. I don't really mind that as long as it's used consistently - e.g., the Smoke Monster's powers are pretty much consistently used throughout the show. Where do the powers come from? I don't think it matters. It's science fantasy.

And are you seriously trying to justify a lack of explanation in the show by saying some things are explained outside of the show?

Miriel was saying the creators never had any answers for a lot of what happened in the show. They did. I'm not saying that having mysteries explained outside the show is optimal - it would be better for everything to be explained in-universe, as long as it doesn't detract from the pacing of the work (or other aesthetic qualities). But Lost is hardly the first case of answers to unresolved plot questions being given in supplemental material, interviews, etc. - I don't remember anyone complaining when J.K. Rowling gave lots of answers about Harry Potter outside of the books. (Ok, except for conservative Christians, but that's just because she revealed Dumbledore was gay).

Are you bringing this up in response to Miriels last post because if so I'm not seeing the relevance? For the record, I'm exactly the kind of person lost is was targeting in its audience. I watched all but perhaps the last two seasons several times before the show ended, I don't have trouble following convoluted plots, and I tend to remember far more about anything that I watch than most people, and for years longer than most people. And I will gladly state for the record that Lost didn't just become a convoluted mess by the end, but it didn't even have the decency to be an interesting convoluted mess by the end. Sure, most of the characters managed to be interesting enough for most of it's run, but it was pretty clear by about the end of the third season or so that as far as the mythology went, they cared more about leading fans on for several years than telling a tight, well paced, and well structured story. Which is pretty awful really because the structure that season 1 built up was awesome.

Well, as I said, a large part of the purpose behind the story of Lost seems to have been to build up a story that branched out from its original points and recontextualised previous plot points in a manner to make viewers question reality. How well they did this is up for debate, but except for the dip in the third (and to lesser extent second) season, I found it largely compelling throughout, although of course it could have been done better (what TV show couldn't?).

Objecting that the show didn't stay the same throughout its run as it was during the first season is fine for all it goes - if that's what you enjoy the most, that's fine. But I also think it's pretty clear that the tightly controlled structure of the first season was not what the writers were going for. The show didn't completely abandon structure later on, but tight is obviously not what they were going through. The more the conflict expanded beyond simply Others vs. Losties, the less tightly structured it could be.

Here's the big problem I have with all of that. Most of the stuff they explain doesn't need to be explained, and actually worked against them because it deflated the mystery that the first season builds too much. Meanwhile, answers to the really important questions like why they're on the island got such cop out answers that there really are no words to describe it. At the end of all those seasons, we kind of deserve to know why those people ended up there. What did we get? Because Jacob brought them there. We didn't really get any more than that except that protecting the island is important and he needs a successor. The closest thing we get to why it all even matters is an allusion to the fact that it may a cork holding back hell (metaphorical or otherwise). But they might as well have answered the question of why it was important with "because we say it is" for all that really told us. And it did nothing to explain how the island can do any of the things it can do. Now I'm not saying they had to give us full explanations of everything, but they could have done better than that. Hell, they even could have given us several explanations and never told us which was true and it would have been better than that because at least that would acknowledge that the mystery of the show was half the fun after spoiling most of them with lame explanations that frequently make no sense because the island does whatever they think would be cool that week.

That's fine, but that's a much different objection from "Nothing was explained". For the record, I think the stakes for what would have happened if Smokey had left the island could have been raised much better. I was largely fine with the way the protectorship of the island was explained though. It's not really much different from the mythologies of several major world religions.

Except the problem with that analogy is that how the force worked wasn't central to the plot. How the island does what it does and why it's so important that Jacob needed to bring those people to it and so many people are willing to kill for it kind of is. Like I said before, giving an explanation doesn't have to take the mystery out of it. In fact, they were pretty good at giving all kinds of explanations for guys like Smokey early on and never saying which was right.

Really not seeing how the Force's mechanics aren't central to Star Wars' plot. Several of the most important characters use the Force on a pretty routine basis - at least as routine as the Island's powers are utilised by characters. The Protector, Jacob, and Smokey actually make up a smaller percentage of the Lost cast than Vader, Obi-Wan, Yoda and Luke do (yes, Leia has powers but for all they impact the story she might as well not) by virtue of how many characters Lost has. Star Wars would not be the same story if characters could not use "the Force", and what powers "the Force" can convey to people who use it are never explained by the original trilogy.