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Originally Posted by Colonial Bread
Whats the deal with Desmond? Ever since the episode where the hatch blew up and he was in some alternate space/time with eloise hawking talking about fate and course correcting he has had special abilities.. able to see the future, among other things. In the finale before he goes into the light and is talking to Jack it seems that he might even be aware of the side-universe.
Also curious whats the real deal with the visible dead people. Sometimes they seem to really be the people who died and other times its just the MiB messing around... why did the MiB see his mother as a child? Is it just a form of course correction leading people to their fate?
Maybe fate of non life and death things are more changeable? The characters seem to be following their fate alot of the time but i guess there must be some key decisions which can change it? For example Ben killing Jacob. Maybe Jacob doesnt necessarily know the future but knows how fate is suppose to play out... Ben was not suppose to kill him but in the moment his anger overtook fate and he did?
OK. So there is two things with Desmond:
1, after the hatch blew up he could briefly see into the future, centred around Charlie. As far as im aware that ability went away after Charlie died.
2, at a few points he was able to flash forward and back within his own life until he found Penny, the Constant.
Ignore 1, but 2 is key.
When he was put into the machine by Widmore he DID flash into the purgatory waiting room - specifically he flashed into his own body, however it was now his life + a little bit more (time will be complex in the purgatory construct, its impossible to pin down when it was created since it can fake memories and other people so it might have been as young as the plane flight or as old as when they were all kids, pick your poison).
This was shown specifically in the finale when he said they would all flash to somewhere better. He assumed this was the ending.
What he was doing in purgatory was created AFTER he found Penny as the Constant. That point when he collapsed on the steps in the stadium is when he got the past life flashes and learnt what they need to do.
In real life he knew of the future and what happened after death since the point Widmore put him in the machine. In purgatory he forgot all of it as that was required for them to "let go" and prepare to move on.
Btw note that Ben was not ready to let go and move on. He stayed behind to see more of Alex and come to terms with his own life before moving into the white light.
MiB saw his real mother who was a ghost like Michael and Richard's wife. Whether they are all trapped as whispers is not for me to say, but its not anything more than in that universe people can see dead people sometimes. Everything beyond that is a leap of faith.
Which is entirely what Lost is, a leap of faith.