Okay this is something I have been pondering since the finale aired. What if Jack is back on the island? What if he found it?
I think that there is credence to this theory in the show, and during our rewatch I am going to bolster this theory.

For starters, I think he returned to the island at time of crash. This is why he lands in the jungle -- not near the rest of them on the beach. and seemingly, he knew where to run -- because he did it all before.

There has always been an issue with TIME on this show. I'm not saying he is from an alternate reality, but, much like the possibility shown by Desmond in his storyline this season, I think Jack got back to that island. Problem is -- he got back to the island at time of crash and I suspect has lost a bit of his mission along the way.

His ideas have always been ill-founded but with good-hearted intentions for the Losties. I suspect he may have so many HEROIC ideas due to his belief he can change the outcome. He just can't figure out what he needs to do.

I also suspect that this is why we saw his father in a vision on "White Rabbit". This was Jacob -- leading Jack towards how to protect not just himself, but THE ISLAND. I think Jack messed up in that episode, and since then cannot "course correct" to fix the impending doom of their future.

I see a poster at DarkUFO shares my theory, and I will post his thoughts here:

Quote :

At the end of season 3 the producers tried to make us think that we were in the future, they even put an anagram to confuse us. What we really saw was a flashback of Jack. When Jack finally gets back to the island he is transported through time to the first time he was on the island. So in the pilot Jack knew Kate, but he knew that she didn't know him so he introduced himself. Now this doesn't explain why he's shocked to find out that Kate is a fugitive. I believe that when traveling through time he lost some of the information that he had known. This also explains why Richard appears so young. We know he has left the island and returned. When he returns to the island he is transported back to the first time he got to the island. He would have to keep a diary so he would be able to remember everything in between his previous arrival on the island. Back to the main part of the theory. Since some information had been lost in his passage through time (no pun intended) he isn't realizing that he is making the same decisions he made last time. In this Jack would be enslaved by time. In "Not in Portland" it is said that 'only fools are enslaved by time and space.' Jack knows he needs to change something every time he comes to the island but he can't remember what. He is trying to change his future but he is stuck in a time loop trying to change something. Theory by Taterific

Now throw those mangoes. I'm using the rewatch to support this though  

--Last edited by Penelope on 2007-06-03 07:12:24 --

Interesting theory, Pen. I'm not sure I buy it, but I'll be curious to see how it works with what we see in the rewatch.

I think the biggest problem I have with it is that if you go back to your past, you have to already be there, right? Think Harry Potter when he and Hermione go back to try and save Sirius and Buckbeak. They have to be careful not to run into their past selves.

How could Jack go back in time and have everyone else be there... but his past self is not? How does his present self replace his past self?

Jeannie that is my biggest hole so far. I'm working on finding some answers to that. This is going to be a challenge for me. I have never really set myself to an idea about the show, usually I go with the flow. We'll see what I find during the rewatch. Since TPTB always intended to do a "flash forward" as we saw, I believe if my theory has any merit, there will be something in past episodes to solidify it. (OR - to debunk it)

Got it. Like I said, it's an interesting theory, but that one point sticks out to me. I'm going to be watching to see how the rewatch affects this.

Pen's first supporting evidence:

"The Third Policeman" <--- book found in the hatch.

TPTB said it was an influential book with creation of the show. (I am trying to find the podcast or article that is in but all I know now is that I remember that bc without knowing what the book was, at the time I said "huh?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Policeman

To summarize -- the main character at the end of the books loops back to the beginning of his story, WITHOUT knowing he did this before. Like Jack methinks!

I'll return with more evidence....

I'm wondering if Jack didn't loop back to the beginning, but back to his "stay" with the Others, and maybe that explains his drastic personality change after Kate and Sawyer left.

Pen, I'm going to have to search too. I swear I remember them saying that the book was just one that someone gave them and they threw it in there. I mostly remember because I actually bought it and was trying to read it (and finding it incredibly bad) and when I saw or heard that I immediately stopped reading.

Though that ending is interesting in light of the flashforward and your theory.

It was the November 15, 2005 podcast. I didn't go back to listen, but read the podcast thread elsewhere.

The comment is made that on that podcast, Damon and Carlton were asked if a fan should read the book to help understand LOST. Their response was to laugh and say that neither of them had ever read it, that a writer from the first season had read it, and had it placed in the scrïpt.

So I suppose that it could add some credence to your theory, if that writer snuck it in because he/she knew the game plan for the series and thought it would be a cool clue for the fans. It doesn't sound like Damon or Carlton have any idea about it though, and I'm not sure how many of the writers are actually privy to long-range plans.

It's certainly something to keep in mind though. Maybe the unnamed writer was JJ.

And I still refuse to read the book. It absolutely sucks.

eta: I just re-read this thread, and I'm not trying to kill your theory, honestly. I like it, I'm just playing devil's advocate.  

--Last edited by Jeannie on 2007-06-01 19:54:16 --

Meh, at least WOC will play with me and this theory.

At least i know they had referenced it.
I would just like to point out that most of the literary works found in Lost contain elements of TIME. Why do this unless at some point time is part of the show???

Ok, a little further digging found where you heard that it was influential. According to LostPedia:

Quote :

According to a BBC report & an article in the Chicago Tribune on September 21, 2005, The Third Policeman was to contain key insights into the show, a fact that led to it selling more copies in the 3 weeks following the episode's airing than in the 6 years that preceded this.    * Lost scrïpt writer Craig Wright said the book was chosen "very specifically for a reason."    * However, head writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse admitted that they have never read the book in the Official Lost Podcast, but heard from Craig that it is a very interesting book.

Hmm... the book also contains a "one-legged man" and a "magic box" that is purported to give you whatever you desire. So maybe this Craig Wright did talk them into putting it in because of that, and they just didn't know since they didn't read it.

aha! I knew I was not crazy!! I remember reading the "specific choice" thing before.
But I started to read it over the summer when I was home sick, from the library, and fell asleep three times reading it and took it back....

I am sure that a lot of the books we have seen on the show are props chosen without much thought. But too many of them contain the theme of TIME and its anomalies, which makes me think this was deliberate with many of the choices.

Back to finding my hard evidence....

ETA:

More proof for me:

Quote :

CUSE: The answer to that question goes to the nature of the timeline of the island. We don't want to say too much about it, but there are a couple Easter eggs embedded in "Not in Portland", one of which is an anagram that actually sheds some light on the skeletons and hints at a larger mythological mystery that will start to unfold later in the season. LINDELOF: There were certain things we knew from the very beginning. Independent of ever knowing when the end was going to be, we knew what it was going to be, and we wanted to start setting it up as early as season 1, or else people would think that we were making it up as we were going along. So the skeletons are the living -- or, I guess, slowly decomposing -- proof of that. When all is said and done, people are going to point to the skeletons and say, "That is proof that from the very beginning, they always knew that they were going to do this."

The anagram is what??? I searched Lostpedia and I'm not sure this was found?

"Only Fools are Enslaved in Time And Space" was what we found in the video. Not so much an anagram to me but a clue....

The skeletons could be Jack and Kate -- he gets her back there - and in that loop - they end up dying together on the island.  

--Last edited by Penelope on 2007-06-01 20:23:29 --

This is very similar to my Dark Tower theory.  Slightly different, but on the same wavelength.  And since we know TPTB are King fans, as we've seen throughout the series.  And said The Third Policeman inspired them, (I forgot about that), it is really looking like there is definitel;y a time loop of sorts.  

I totally agree Pen that time has something to do with this. I'm putting aside the problem of meeting yourself in the past for the moment. You got me thinking, and I woke up and couldn't sleep, so started my rewatch.

Quote :

The skeletons could be Jack and Kate -- he gets her back there - and in that loop - they end up dying together on the island.

I noticed that Jack and Kate both do not seem to end up on the beach with everyone else from the mid-section of the plane. (I'm saying seem since we never see Kate until she walks by Jack when he needs stitches. She could have landed on the beach and hurried off to remove the handcuffs I suppose, but she doesn't appear to be anywhere in the crash scene.) So if Jack convinces her to go back, maybe they re-inserted/re-started at the time of the crash, but not quite physically with everyone else.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who couldn't read that book!

Oh the anagram in Not in Portland, wasn't that Mittelos? Which anagrams to Lost Time?

I definitely think time is the key, in one form or another.

Quote :

This is very similar to my Dark Tower theory.  Slightly different, but on the same wavelength.  And since we know TPTB are King fans, as we've seen throughout the series.  And said The Third Policeman inspired them, (I forgot about that), it is really looking like there is definitel;y a time loop of sorts.

AJ, just to keep things honest - if you re-read what was written above, The Third Policeman didn't inspire them. One of the writers told Damon and Carlton it was an interesting book, and asked for it to be used as a prop, but D & C have also said they have never read it. (Maybe like Pen and I they tried but gave up. Or fell asleep.)

A time loop is a definite possibility. That would solve the problem of meeting yourself in the past if you just went back, since a loop would be like a replay... you wouldn't be going back per se, you'd be reliving it, right?

I get very confused with all this time stuff. LOL.

And adding one more thing from my initial rewatch of the pilot, that may help support this.

When Kate is stitching Jack and he tells her his fear story the following exchange takes place:

Kate: If that had been me, I would have run for the door.

Jack: No, I don't think that's true. PAUSE You're not running now.

The pause there makes me think that for a second he almost remembers her. I may be reading too much into this, but isn't that the fun of a rewatch?

I`m not a huge fan of the time-loop theories
But I think for me it sounds more believable if the starting over happened to everyone, and not just Jack (and/or Kate) if that makes sense LOL

A quote from Damon the other day about Des and time (which is in GB's post in the Pen and Des' visions thread) got me thinking about how TPTB are thinking about the nature of time.  I found this quote from J Wood that explains it pretty well:

Quote :

If time is part of space, our conception of time is way off; time doesn't move so much like an arrow, rather all time is occurring at once. We just don't experience it like that, just like we don't experience all space at once, but only experience our immediate space. Besides, if we experienced all time at once, that'd really twist our heads.

from here:  
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20039837_2,00.html

The fact that one could change locations in time without having separate bodies avoids the paradox.

The idea is similar to the Trafamadorians in Slaugtherhouse Five who see time as a fourth dimension, and therefore are capable of seeing all time at once.  Dead wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five

I believe when Des turned the failsafe key he became "unstuck in time" like Billy Pilgrim, which allowed him to have his flashes and to return to London with Pen and Mrs. Hawkings briefly.  Unfortunately, TPTB have indicated that his flashes had only to do with Charlie's death, so there probably will not be any more of them.

But their emphasis on time seems to indicate that they'll be playing with it in other ways, perhaps with jack and hie "return" to the island.

Give me the padded cell next to Pen's  

--Last edited by WayOffCourse on 2007-06-02 08:03:49 --

That first link doesn't work - where is the proof that one can change locations without having separate bodies though ala Marty McFly? That is the BIGGEST problem with this theory that I wish I could find evidence to disprove.

The commas in the link mess up the French forum's mojo, I guess, but if you copy and paste the link, it works

Okay so if I understand Minkowski's flat spacetime theory -- if spacetime occurs at once, we have no future, we have no past, so hence, if Jack looped -- he is the one and only Jack. Therefore, no "bad twin" leaving us with two Jack's running around or more each time the loop would loop.

Thank you. Now I can continue on with a scientific explanation of how we have just one of each of them


ETA: Applying this to my theory about Jack:

I'm trying to keep it simple in my brain: That there is a fold on the island -- causing people to loop about.
Jack must learn that this exists so he wants to go back and fix things/
The problem is that with spacetime all existing at once -- he cannot retain his memories to properly fix it -- hence why we are watching him screw up again. He returns to the crash without his knowledge. The only way he can change the events is if somehow, something else along the way changes the story. Since he is not the only looper -- if the island has a temporal fold making everything loop, he is going to be dependent on another person changing the smallest detail to get to this point. Say for example -- if Des had let charlie die in the jungle with that arrow -- Des's visions end and we probably do not learn of the Looking Glass Sation. At this point, Jack's mission would become different, and his future would change. None of these characters realize what is going on - but some may have an inkling. Locke saying "You are not supposed to do this" to Jack is one example. All of Ben's comments in the finale allude to him understanding that this path is the path of destruction.  

--Last edited by Penelope on 2007-06-02 08:20:27 --

One thing I don`t get with the whole time loop thing, if say the plane crash is the "start" - how does everyone else fit in; Desmond, the others/dharma, Danielle etc.
I mean, there must be a starting point to the time loop, right? But if that is the plane crash, how does the rest of the island-people fit in?