And I appreciate you are watching them :) I'll probably be talking about LOST well into my old age!

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 that’s excellent news!

Still doing them

I think that's a very fair statement. Jack was in denial for a long time. I absolutely agree that he was clearly special but he repressed it all. And when it started to glimmer through -- i.e. with Christian in the hospital -- he self-medicated himself into oblivion.

So true...

I actually think this theory has legitimate weight to it. I've been writing a script for a future video all about the apparitions on the island and I shall explore the possibilities of Harper in that video, including an iteration of this theory. Although I diverge from you on one very particular point: if Harper is the Man in Black in that scene, I don't believe he wanted the gas released. Couldn't risk killing Locke and Ben (two men he needed to kill Jacob). The mission "Harper" tasks Juliet with is to "stop" the Freighter folk from allegedly releasing it. Juliet was being tasked with killing Faraday and Charlotte... both of whom were candidates. Food for thought anyway!

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Cool, but why would he send Juliet to stop them when it was Daniels plan to stop the gas from being released, unless you're saying the MiB didn't know? However, MiB has an all knowing way about him(connection to the source).

Releasing that toxic gas would only kill people at the barracks anyway. It isn't an island-wide spread. Hence why Ben has to kill his father separately and why we see DHARMA bodies with gunshot wounds to the head in the pit. And why the wildlife remains intact. The gas also didn't effect nor reach Jacob the last time it was released. So, even if the Man in Black wanted Juliet to go to The Tempest to start a fight that might accidentally result in the release of the gas, it would only end up killing Locke and Ben's group at the barracks. The Man in Black has spent too much time working on Locke and Ben to risk killing them now. And Jacob would survive anyway and the whole candidate cycle would continue. The only plan that makes sense -- if the Man in Black is indeed Harper -- is if he simply wants to use someone else to wipe another couple of candidates off of the board. In this case, new arrivals Faraday and Charlotte. Daniel's plan was to render the toxic gases inert. We see him essentially do this as Juliet fights with Charlotte. One of the missions of the science team was to shutdown The Tempest so Ben couldn't use the gases on the mercenaries when they arrived. I don't think the Man in Black cares one way or the other about the gas at this point, he already has his own plans in motion for Jacob. But he is still an opportunist and sees an opening in which to play off some candidates against one another. In this case: Juliet vs Faraday and Charlotte.

I agree with your assessment of Eko's story and how it might reflect Michael's unwillingness to move on. I think Ana and Michael need to have a conversation (much like Locke and Ben did) in the flash sideways. As for your question... the most likely answer is that the voice on the intercom was the real Christian Shepherd breaking through to Jack from The Source. We know ghosts can communicate to the living through various mediums. Jack is shown to have psychic sensitivity because he is a predestined island protector. We see this demonstrated again in S4 when he literally sees the ghost of his father at the hospital off-island. But Jack chooses to write off his feelings and visions as hallucinations and psychosis, so he self-medicates to suppress the power. The intercom is an early indicator of what he will experience more fully in the coming years.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Absolutely! It seems that Michael is more concerned about Libby's murder (he has visions of Libby, tells Hurley to apologize to Libby when he sees her again), but I think that he feels guilty more for Ana, since her murder was not accidental, as Libby's, but intentional. thanks, I am also more inclined to think that it was the real Christian!

Yes, he can still appear as himself by copying his old image. He just cannot physically reanimate his actual dead body. That's the main distinction worth noting.

I always saw it as The Source/The Island manifesting as Boone and communicating directly with Locke to guide him. Vision Boone does not behave like Real Boone. I know there is a school of thought that believes the Man in Black gave the dreams to influence people but the show never really demonstrated that the smoke monster had the power to manipulate dreams. However, we do see The Island frequently speak to people through dreams and visions and hallucinations, including Locke, Boone, Charlie, Claire, Hurley, Kate, Mr. Eko, Michael, and Walt.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Sawyer has a nightmare about the boar in his first episode i believe.

I think it is implied that Jack is developing those abilities but he is in such deep denial that he sees them as hallucinations, which leads to him self-medicating. Seeing his father is what starts him on the downward spiral of repression and de-pression. And that is what ultimately leads him back to the island, with one last push from John Locke. This might be because he is a preordained island protector, so being special is already innate within him. He just isn't ready to accept or embrace it. Hurley is only just developing his ability to see and speak with the dead around the same time too. Speaking with the dead might be something every island protector develops at different stages in their life, either before being ordained or after. And this ties in nicely with your question about Jack hearing his father on the intercom on Hydra Island. I absolutely think he heard his father's voice, an early indication that Jack had a deeper connection to The Source. That's my take on it anyway. I don't subscribe to the school of thought that Jack was genuinely hallucinating the Christian stuff. We know the dead speak and we know that the island is an axis mundi of sorts, and we know Jack's destiny was to become a conduit for the light. Also, thank you for your kind comments and continued engagement on these videos. It's nice to know someone thinks about the show as much as I do, and enjoys exploring the ideas presented within it.

It's a good question. I don't think Jack became a smoke monster because he wasn't sucked into the hole of light in the cave like the MIB was. The events in 'Across the Sea' take place before there was ever a cork installed in the cave, back when the light was at its fullest exposure. A river flowed into the cave and into The Source's aperture directly, which carried the MIB's unconscious body into the hole. He was sucked directly into The Source at its fullest aperture. By the time Jack went down there in 'The End', the cork system had long since been in place. This cork and water pool acted as a coolant system built by the Egyptians following an ancient version of the incident in which they had to plug a leak. By the time Jack re-corked and reactivated The Source, aka turning the light back on, he wasn't being exposed to the fullest aperture; the light was refracted through water. Jack was also still the Island protector at this point and The Source flows through a protector like an electrical current so that also gave him a layer of protection/resistance to the electromagnetic energy in the same way it did with Desmond.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Hello, no , Jack was not the protector when he re-corked the light , he had already given the "torch" to Hugo before going down to the cork area.

@@Trab-man Hello, yes. After Jack ordains Hurley he says: "Now you're like me." As in: now you're a protector too. It means that they both share the power in that moment. It isn't until Jack dies that the transfer of power is complete.

When Mother passed the power to Jacob, MIB was finally able to kill her , even though he was not supposed to kill a protector.. so i guess passing the torch removes that power from you

​@@Trab-man It's about what The Island allows, basically. The Island won't let people die until they have fulfilled their role, including protectors. I think the idea is that a protector senses when their time is over, or about to be. They need a candidate to pass the power onto. Finding a replacement either happens very quickly or over the course of many years. Once the candidate accepts the position, the power is shared between the two people. And a spark of this connection to The Source ignites within the replacement. But that spark still exists in the original protector too, and does not leave them (by all accounts) until they die. It seems every protector that came before had to die in order to complete the transfer of power. We don't know if that is a necessary part of the process -- like a "there can be only one" type-of-deal -- or if that's just how it coincidentally ended up working in each instance seen on the show when the torch is passed, i.e. Mother died shortly after Jacob took over; Jacob died *before* Jack took over but his ghost hung around because no one had actually accepted the position therefore leaving the role open, and once Jack stepped up, Jacob's rules and powers stopped applying and his ghost could rest; and finally Jack died after Hurley took over. We also know that protectors can die from mortal weapons, as we see occur several times. Mother was stabbed. Jacob was stabbed. Jack was stabbed. They are not unkillable. The only reason MiB could not kill Jacob was because it was a specific rule created for him. MiB later cheated the rules to kill Jacob but that loophole left the role of protector open, which required Ghost Jacob to stick around until he could complete the transfer of power. Anyway, basically, Jack and Hurley are "the same" after that coronation scene in 'The End', and remain the same until Jack does what he does down in the cave then succumbs to his injuries, which leaves Hurley as the sole protector going forward.

I have also seen this Q&A, and he does say that sometimes the whispers were Man in Black related. But he also said the whispers were sometimes an out for huge story problems they encountered. He was being honest about the fact that they didn't always know which it was and they flip flopped over this throughout the show. However, if we are being generous to the writers, I think we can assume that whenever the MiB appears accompanied by whispers, such as on the freighter, the whispers are fine to be linked to him. Perhaps it is the voices of all the people he has absorbed over the years. Any instances where MiB doesn't manifest, the whispers are simply the voices of the dead. As for the manifestations of Walt being MiB, this was never confirmed by the writers before at any point. And certainly not outright confirmed in that Q&A. I have searched high and low for some kind of absolute confirmation or denial on this very subject and the closest they came to touching on it was in a S4 podcast in reference to "Taller Ghost Walt", but not the Shannon apparitions. They tease the idea that Taller Ghost Walt could be MiB, but do not confirm. Then they follow up that statement by saying Jack could also be smokey too. None of that matters now because they eventually established the rule that the Man in Black could only take the form of dead things by season six. He was never Walt.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Yea, I know it's weird since Walt isn't dead but Damon gives that as an example of MIB's appearance among other ones like Yemi and Christian in that same Q&A before he answers the Whispers. I don't know what to make of it really. PS: Okay, I went back and rewatched it and after mentioning Walt, Damon adds "who was not..." but doesn't finish. What a bastard xD

@@MatiZ815 Yeah, I understand that this is tricky territory. On the one hand, the creator of the show seems to be implying one thing. But on the other hand, the show's established rules and mythology contradict his implication. I suppose there is a reason they haven’t sat down and explained their intentions behind everything and want the show to speak for itself. They don't want to trip over their own feet. LOST is full of potential plot landmines for them if they say the wrong thing because we have all watched it so closely. And we're often ready to pounce lol. If we really unpacked his statement, it is a bit of a rambling run-on sentence. In one breath he says: “The monster was kind of a quasi-ghost in the sense that it could take the form of the dead.” And then he mentions Christian and Yemi, which is fine because they *were* dead. But then he suddenly mentions Walt. Is this a confirmation? Or a conflation? Is it his misremembrance of the established rules? Or a plot hole in the established rules? We know Walt wasn’t dead, so how him being MiB works is anyone's guess, especially since they took great pains to establish that Smokey could only become the dead. Unless, of course, he could appear as living people too. Which opens up a whole can of worms in terms of plot logic and plot holes. Why did Locke need to die before he could look like him? Why did his body need to be returned at all? Why didn't he appear as more living people to trick characters? Etc. This is why I try not to base too many of my explanations on things the writers have claimed because it can't always be taken as gospel. I try to only use the internal logic of the show to guide me. As a result, things have come to make sense. But the moment I reach for all the various statements Darlton have made over the years as being definitive, the show does start to fall apart. I have to trust the tale, not the teller.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 I agree with the last sentence. The only idea I have about Walt is that maybe he could only project an illusion of him. He couldn't copy his physical body or personality. But that creates plotholes too: if MIB could cast illusions like that then why he didn't use that very useful power again?

I don't think Harper was a whisper ghost either, just a sneaky "Other". We see The Others on various occasions appear and stealth-sneak around the island; implausibly perhaps but not supernatural. The whispers just tend to be observers as events unfold and occasionally pipe up when things are getting interesting, or conflict is about to go down. As for why Richard is asking if Ben's mother died on the island, I think it is to ascertain if Ben is special and can speak to the dead. After all, the average island resident can only hear whispers, not actually see the dead and interact with them. Whether or not Emily Linus was the smoke monster or a real ghost (which would mean Ben did use to be special) can be seen in either context. If it was smokey then he must have scanned Ben or his father in another form somehow, as suggested to be a possible ability in my prior video. That means her saying "It isn't time yet" takes on a "loophole" meaning. If it was genuinely Emily's ghost then she had been summoned on behalf of the island in order to lead Ben to Richard, so her saying "It isn't time yet" simply means she won't see him until the flash-sideways. I can accept either explanation.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 I like both of these explanations for Ben’s mother appearing. However, how would MiB appear outside of his window, inside the sonic fence? Just a case of the teleportation abilities you mentioned? Maybe the fence had been turned off?

@@davidnaffie It's a good question. We know that there are underground tunnels and chambers beneath the Dharma barracks, used by Richard in 1974 and later by Jack and Sayid in 1977, with various entry points within this large compound. We also know that smokey sometimes uses these underground tunnels to roam around the island, uprooting trees in his wake as he bursts up from below to surprise his prey If Emily Linus was indeed an apparition of the Man in Black then he most likely infiltrated the barracks using these tunnels and vents.

This chapter does actually explain this and might be worth watching again. While it is probably better stated in the video above, I shall try to sum up the point in brief using Charlie as our example: Charlie dies. Wakes up in the sideways. Finds his soulmate(s). Remembers his death. Moves on into the light. Time has no meaning there. The Island calls upon those that have re-joined with it to help in the "real world" and make sure the "doorway" to it remains intact. Charlie returns to help Hurley on his path back to The Island (and becoming protector). Charlie's Ghost is existing simultaneously in The Source (beyond the sideways) and in the living world, similarly to how Desmond's consciousness can exist in two time periods at the same time. See also a more defined example of this with Richard and Isabella. She has died and gone to the sideways and found Richard there (their version of the sideways is presumably back in the 1800s). The Island calls upon her to help guide Richard in the living world. She speaks to him through Hurley and softly tells her love that they are already together (in The Source, where time has no dominion).

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Okay, I grasp that. Does this mean, in theory at least, that the "ghost" of Richard (who is together with Isabella in the afterlife) could actually pay a visit to the living Richard, given the timeless nature of the afterlife?

@@drewc.4061 Yes, I suppose so. You could take this thought even further potentially. When Michael heard the whispers in the jungle when returning to his camp with the tailies in S2 or even the whispers on the freighter in S4, what if his ghost-self was already among the whispers, watching his own actions in the past? It's quite a mind-bending, metaphysical idea. Did you ever see the film 'A Ghost Story'? That film demonstrates a similar notion; that a person can haunt themselves in some way because time has no meaning in the afterlife, in whatever form that takes.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 I hadn't heard of it, but I just watched the trailer and it looks interesting. I'll have to see if I can find it somewhere. It sounds like something I'd like.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 A supplementary question to this. Do you think the MiB (as in Jacob's brother prior to being thrown into the Source) would have experienced his flash-sideways immediately after his body was thrown back out, or was he, in a sense, still "alive" because his essence was absorbed into the new "Smoke Monster"?

It didn't disappear.

I think the intention was (in season one) that the whispers were supposed to be The Others. But the writers didn't know who The Others were at this point. So, they could very well have been supernatural in nature. They left wriggle room and a backdoor into this mystery. For instance, in Season One, we can hear the whispers say things that The Others couldn't possibly have known. Example: Sawyer hears the dying words of the man he shot in Sydney parroted back to him in the jungle. I mean, that is more of a sign that the whispers are supernatural in nature than human. It certainly makes more sense than it being people hiding in the trees literally whispering. Especially once we learn more about The Others. The idea that it's people like Ben and Tom and Juliet whispering in the jungle to be creepy for no reason is actually pretty laughable. So, the ghost explanation actually does make more sense and is baked into the early seasons if you look at the transcripts for the whispers. I agree that the whispers are associated with The Others on several occasions, but not every time. There are multiple times when the whispers appear in places where The Others were either not around or could not possibly be around, or were associated with other supernatural events. Examples that spring to mind: Walt's appearances in the jungle to Shannon in Season Two; during the monster's appearances Season Three; at the cabin and on the freighter in Season Four, etc. There are enough instances of the whispers appearing independent of The Others. The most consistent thing about their appearances is that they tend to show up when either death is near or conflicts are about to happen. Almost every time.

Just about every time the MiB shows up too. I like the theory that his appearances are preceded by whispers. What is your theory on why Ben might've said that though? I suspect his mommy issues propelled him to want her to be safe even though he was stealing her baby and that the others had an idea that whispers usually meant danger.

@@TheFourthAct I'm currently working on the next video in the Theory of Everything series that will delve into every supernatural event on the show. I'll be remaking this chapter as part of the new video. And I want to break down the whispers by appearance and discuss the whole MiB-adjacent stuff too. I'll get into Ben and his warnings as well. Hoping to have it live on the channel in August.

I explore this question across several videos from different angles. Probably the best video to watch on this subject is the one that breaks down all of the human apparitions that we see on The Island to determine which ones were real ghosts, hallucinations or actual smoke monster manifestations, plus looking at the rules that govern Smokey's abilities in this area. You can watch it here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mLGqbMxj2LuYhaM.html

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 thank you, i will look into it

They kept their options open with the whispers. At times it seemed like it was The Others, especially during the first season (and early half of Season 2) when the writers didn't seem sure if The Others were going to be supernatural in origin. That said, in Season One episode 'Outlaws', we clearly hear the deceased Frank Duckett's voice amongst the whispers when Sawyer encounters them in the jungle. Which means the idea of the whispers being connected to the realm of the dead was sewn very early on. There is no way that could have been The Others in retrospect. In fact, looking back, the idea that it was people like Tom and Danny and Juliet in the jungle whispering from the trees is rather laughable now. It probably just took the writers a while to settle on ghosts being the definitive answer, but the clue is there from early on.

Anyone can hear the whispers. You don't have to be psychic. We see multiple non-psychic characters hear the whispers throughout, sometimes even in large groups like the tail section. The Island amplifies the voices of the dead so anyone can hear them. However, you have to be psychic in order to understand and interact with the dead. As for Danielle, her memories of what happened sixteen years ago are clearly muddled in her mind. Watch Chapter Thirteen on "The Sickness", which helps to explain how confused Danielle was by events. It's even possible that she conflated the Others taking Alex with a pillar of smoke being lit because she had seen the smoke monster recently (which is also a pillar of smoke) and perhaps she conflated it with both the whispers, the others, the sickness, and even time travelling Jin. She can never be entirely sure what was real or not. She is not a reliable source for information and what she tells Sayid in 'Solitary' is a mish-mash of experiences and misunderstandings.

The freighter was within the radius. I'm not sure if you're watching the videos in order (or if you've watched them all yet) but in Chapter Ten on the smoke monster, I go into a fair bit of detail on this very issue. The video explains how the Kahana was definitely within the bubble because the island itself moved through dimensional space (along with the present day freighter wreckage off-shore) but our characters moved through time. Watch Chapter Ten for more elaboration on this. It is explained there. As for Frank Duckett's death... whisper ghosts are explained (within the show) as people who have died on the island and are unable to move on. So, the line "It'll come back around" is likely just a whisper ghost repeating that phrase upon seeing/reading Sawyer. Judging from Michael's ghost in S6, the whispers have an awareness of everything happening around them on the island. Time has no meaning when you're dead, especially in a purgatory state, so you can see people for who they really are and what they have done. How rigid the rules are about who becomes a whisper on the island is open to speculation. That's why this doesn't have to be a closed answer. Because we also know that the Island can summon anyone's consciousness back from The Source for any reason. Richard's Isabella comes back. Ben's mother Emily comes back (depending on your interpretation of her appearance). This also happens in the real world as we see with Hurley when he encounters Charlie and Ana Lucia; they are coming from The Source to help guide him. Even Jack sees his father off-island briefly. Since the island is an axis mundi (of sorts) it is possible that Duckett was called upon in some way to echo his final words. There is also a third explanation. One that is inspired in part from Damon Lindelof himself. In a recent interview he made the claim that the smoke monster might have been responsible for some of the whispers from time to time. He said the smoke monster is, in many respects, a ghost himself. So, this would go towards the notion that Sawyer's boar in 'Outlaws' is in fact a manifestation of the smoke monster (and that he can indeed scan people whilst occupying these corporeal states to read their memories), which means that the whisper of Frank Duckett could very well have come from smokey himself. So, there are several valid explanations for the voice. I tend to lean more towards the idea that was confirmed in the show itself; that the whispers are those that died within the radius of the island but cannot move on until they have served their purpose and let go. And they simply know everything about the people they are observing on the island. right down to their sins and secrets.

I have added subtitles to the videos. Didn't realise they had not been uploaded. Thanks for the reminder!

I think Jacob was simply putting the group on a certain path. Because Jacob places a significance on Richard, it triggers a series of events involving the candidates. It wasn't any one single action that Richard needed to do. But his insistence on blowing up the plane is what led Jack, Hurley and Sun to Fake Locke's camp (which was a necessary step towards the endgame). It is the same for Ilana. It seems her purpose was simply to help our characters find the right path to take towards fulfilling their final destiny. But I also like to think that Jacob was guiding Richard to find his way off the island and releasing him from over a century of service. His reward for his unwavering loyalty was mortality and freedom.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 I guess if Richard never had the plan to blow up the pane they wouldn't have stumbled across Lapidus too, which was a vital element I hadn't thought of at the time. Looking forward to more videos. Something I'd love to see you analyse would be how right was the real John Locke in his assessment of the island, his purpose, and his willingness to sacrifice people as he saw fit for the greater good of the island. So much of the time he is manipulated, while also having a genuine connection to the island that the two can get mixed up and a lot of the time I felt he ended up coming across as a lost cause who looked to be in the wrong on many occasions. For instance, he was right to trust in pushing the button for the greater good, but Ben manipulates and casts doubt, and John ends up being a force of destruction. He seems to undo a lot of his gut/island driven instincts and on the rewatch I found it harder to sympathise with him overall as seasons progressed compared to how I felt when it originally aired.

@@h0merunh0mer Exploring John Locke specifically would be an interesting video to make. I'm currently making a video about the test that Richard gave Young Locke but so far have no plans to do a whole chapter on Locke's history and motivations as I feel they are all reasonably self-explanatory. Besides, most of the mythology actually revolves around him in some way, so he pops up in most of my videos. I've always been Team Locke. I think Jack (and by inference, the show itself) sums up Locke in 'The End': "You're not John Locke. You disrespect his memory by wearing his face, but you're nothing like him. Turns out he was right about most everything. I just wish I could've told him that while he was still alive." Locke was a tragic mentor figure, yes. A victim of his own blind faith, perhaps. But his faith in The Island, and destiny itself, were validated by everything we see take place across the series. They were all brought there for a purpose and everything that happened was for a reason. Sometimes we saw him wrestle with his own faith. After all, what good is a person who never questions their beliefs, or even loses their way? Locke summed up a key theme/lesson from the series with a line to Swayer during all the time travelling of S5. When Sawyer asks him why he didn't try to change what happened the night Boone died to save himself some pain, Locke responds: "No. I needed that pain. To get to where I am now." All the suffering was for a reason. Part of a greater destiny. Locke understood this better than any other character on the show, with the exception of Jacob himself. I don't think he "sacrificed" anybody per se. He simply understood that The Island needed a sacrifice sometimes to set people on the next trajectory of events. It happened with Boone. It happened with Eko. And, in the end, it happened with Locke.

No, it's not in the show. I used the year as an example to highlight that Richard could reach old age and die decades after the events of 'The End', which would make it roughly 200 years after Isabella's death. But those 200 years wouldn't make a difference in the sideways, because they would both "wake up" in that reality at the same time. What happened to everyone on the Ajira flight after it left the island is entirely open to speculation.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Nice one, thanks for clarifying. Btw these vids are epic and make me wonder if you were actually involved in the production (I know I'm not the first to speculate on this!). Keep up the great work. It's refreshing to have such a thoroughly polished resource and fitting tribute to the Lost story. Namaste! 🙂

Yes, I broadly agree that Walt should have been brought back more meaningfully. I'd have brought him back in Season Six on the sub with Widmore and Desmond, and use Walt as the focus of communicating with Ghost Michael. I'd have built a whole episode around those two to close out their story.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 at the bare minimum lol I finished a re watch of the whole show recently ... I was trying to imagine a different path to end the series .. I would have changed the last 3 seasons in major ways

I’m personally happy with Season Five (which is my favourite) but I too would make some changes, more so with the final season. I think it’s much easier for us, with hindsight and time, to reconfigure the story retroactively, whereas during the actual real time writing of the show they were constricted by time, network schedules, money, talent availability, and had to deliver episodes no matter what their preferred plans would have been. That’s not to let the writers off the hook completely though. There are certain narrative decisions they made that were the result of boxing themselves into corners (like shortening the episode orders for the final seasons and running out of time to do everything they intended such as with Ilana for example). But if we could go back and course correct some of the show I would add to it rather than subtract from it.