Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
The Tempest. Act ii. Sc. 2
Everyone on the island is special, but they don't all know
it yet. The father of Walt was told that he was special. The mother of
Claire's baby was told that he/she was special.
Maybe the rest of them had no one to tell them they were special? To keep
all of this scientific, we could assume a genetic anomaly, which would
be one way who/whatever is interested in them could track them. We have
seen how Michael and Claire were given specific tickets, i.e. manipulated
to travel on flight 815. We have no such direct evidence with the others,
but it may exist.
Maybe they all survived the crash because they--and only they--were unbreakable.
Not impervious to everything, just possessed of superior healing abilities
which had never been tested before. Who/whatever brought them to the island
was willing to sacrifice the lives of the many to cull out the few with
this gift. Maybe 1000s of such people have been tracked over the years,
and this was the first time that a substantial number could be coerced
on one flight.
We have seen that many of the castaways have survived trauma and/or difficult
situations in their pasts. Perhaps, however, they have never experienced
something so baffling as to cause them to wonder why they survived it
or whether they had any role in causing the experience.
drabauer
What an interesting theory.
Don't call me crazy, or do, I don't care.
I grew up with parents that were SO close to DOD and DOE.
I have this thought that I was implanted with some kind of identifier
in my toe. This toe has not healed for twenty years and doctors cannot
fix it.
One night when I purposely got myself drunk, I dug this toe with fingernails,
knives. I dug out a metallic thingy that was shaped like a (what's the
thing called that has 3 sides and a triangular end)?
I looked at this thing, cut from my bleeding toe, and thought "This
is because of MY PARENTS".
I unfortunately threw it out, so there's no evidence. Except for the toe
that doesn't heal. 20 years folks?.
tenuc
"Maybe they all survived the crash because they--and only they--were unbreakable. Not impervious to everything, just possessed of superior healing abilities which had never been tested before."
That's an interesting idea Doc. Just to reinforce your idea, Charlie was
able to overcome death from hanging so in a sense, "unbreakable"
or had the super healing powers that you talked about(as I find Jack's
healing powers as a dcotor suspect).
Locke also would fit well into your theory for obvious reasons.
What was that movie with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson where Willis
played some dude that was, like, unbreakable? It was directed by M. Night
Shammalammadingdong or something?
schweinhaxe
Good theory!!
Michael did seem quite hurt when he got hit by that car, though, and he
seemed to be in rehab for at least a year. Then again, another person
might have been killed in that crash. And it's possible that their location
(the island) somehow enhances their unbreakability even more than in the
"real world". So... yeah. Good idea.
SelfProjectRealized
Quote:
We have seen how Michael and Claire were given specific tickets, i.e.
manipulated to travel on flight 815. We have no such direct evidence with
the others, but it may exist.
I agree with this angle.....But I don't think that all the castaways were special. Some have been "selected" and others are just here by chance.....can even expand on this further by speculating that some of the chosen may not have survived..
Capaf
Yes!!!
I really like this.
It would explain the ridiculously quick healing rate of everyone on the
island as well. Michael was gored by a boar and fine the next day; Jack
had a two-inch gash in his back but was able to leap into the ocean, swim
out a hundred feet, and drag a struggling Boone back to shore. No one
even has scars from the minor cuts and gouges they got in the plane crash
(and I doubt they were that well stocked with vitamin E).
The only glitch is that it doesn't explain Locke being paralyzed for four
years. (And unlike Michael's, his prognosis seems to be that he would
never recover, hence planning the walkabout rather than waiting until
he could actually walk.) Since he's of an earlier generation than the
rest of the castaways, maybe their regenerative powers are natural evolutions,
and he is a test case for an artificial version?
It's hard to explain how people of such varied ethnic/social backgrounds
would all share quirky DNA, but it's not necessarily impossible. And here's
a thought--if, as Walt and Claire's baby seem to indicate, the castaways'
children have even more defined "powers" (for lack of a better
word), perhaps the reason they've been isolated without hope of rescue
is to encourage them to produce more children, and with other people who
share this trait...
Cassis1
Remember Bruce Willis' weakness in that movie, though: water!
I've hatched some odd ones, but i don't think they're all invulnerable.
Sawyer wouldn't have fealt much whem he got tortured and stabbed by Sayid,
nor would Sayid have been knocked unconscious by the unknown assailant
( who I believe to be Ethan/an Ethan).
jeffsoup
I"ll buy into this, drabauer. The word "special" has been applied to a number of different characters. And they're all special in their own rights...how special even they don't know.
Then again, Boone insists Shannon is special, but man, I've yet to see
the signs...
trinabobina
There has to be some reason they survived the crash, so I'll go for some sort of uber DNA. (possibly ) I know the alien theories are not popular with most on these boards, but alien abduction theories in general (not related to LOST) are rife with the aliens performing medical tests, probes, experiments, etc. including genetic manipulation on those abducted, AND on repeated abductions throughout the victim's life to check on the results.
Could it be that our survivors are the progeny of alien experiments?
Could even be that the survivors' have had their 'Don't worry, be happy' genes enhanced as well.
Seriously, could that be part of why Jack's father was driven to drink?
Either he was abducted, or Jack's mother thinks she was and it drove his
dad to drink. Could also contribute to the demise of Sawyer's parents,
the reason Kate's father hung out in the woods, and the large number of
parental absences among the survivors
deelsee7
Hmmm... this would also explain Charlie's withdrawing from heroin addiction only taking a day! I like the idea a lot, and definitely think the people who survived did so for a reason. I believe each person is special and integral to the group, each person will bring something to the table and be imperative to their survival.
futureidol
Ummm... doesn't explain the two people who did die
Homer Noodleman
I think that the theory doesn't require people to be completely invulnerable, re: Joanna and the fact that Michael and Locke were in wheelchairs for a time (although it must be noted that we still don't know if Locke suffered from hysterical paralysis, or if something was simply out of place, etc. It certainly could explain why his muscles didn't atrophy). And I don't think it requires aliens, either. These individuals could have a natural mutation as well as be the result of experiments; in fact, that might be more interesting. The mutation theory would support 1) that perhaps there have always been 'special' people but no way to isolate or define what made them that way and 2) why now, with a complete map of the human genome as well as portable DNA testing, they have now been identified and catalogued. It would also provide a "Deus ex machina" to explain how and why they are all connected; at some point they would have come into contact with some person or agency etc., that sampled them.
I like the suggestion that they may have been isolated to produce offspring,
as borderline Nietzschean as it sounds. It doesn't mean they wouldn't
feel pain and get hurt, it doesn't mean they would all be savants. We
are starting to see from their backgrounds that (given that Shannon, Boone
and Jack come from comfortable homes) they may not have experienced the
kind of attention or privilege that would have tapped their potential,
hench their success as outlaws or creative types. There is a lot of dramatic
potential in having characters who may have low self-esteem or suffer
from trauma (and I don't mean just PTSD) come to grips with their pasts,
transcend them, and then all of a sudden find themselves able to achieve
things they never knew possible.
This would make Locke, in essence, the canary in the coal mine: he is
an example of what could happen to everyone if they work through their
issues. And likely if they work through them together, rather than apart
(i.e., take a destructive route).
drabauer
I This is all very intriguing. But let's not forget about one of the major themes of Unbreakable: archetypes, and the yin/yang of superhero/supervillian.
Judging from the one episode of flashback, plus a plethora of foregoing
clues, Locke seems the archetype for supervillain. His delusions of grandeur
were tempered by his mistretment at work and what one can assume to be
repeated snubbings, of which we witnessed the "walkabout" coordinator
and his phone-sex "partner." The guy has every reason, in his
own mind, to hold a vendetta against the world. Plus, in Unbreakable,
one of the vilian's prime moda operandi was to cause commercial airliners
to crash.
Jack may be the archetype of superhero. Sure, all the best cowboys have
daddy issues, as do many superheroes, but Jack further cemented his likelihood
as a candidate by acting on his own sense of ethics and justice while
ruining his own father's life. Few people of even the utmost moral responsibility
would have chosen his course of actions.
Of course, these two are not the only ones exhibiting characteristics
of super-villians/heroes, but they seem to be the exemplars. Plus, the
whole comic book thingy may allude to a superhero/villian subplot. J.J.
has a storied history with the comics mythos, in case you didn't know.
EDIT: I have know idea why I wrote "livid" where "storied" is now, other than I was quite drunk. It refer to, among other things, the Superman movie J.J. Abrams was going to write and produce. Look around; I think the script was completed. It also enraged a lot of Superman purists.
Black Dahlia