Well, we don't know why Walt was particularly special, I honestly don't have an answer for that. But I don't know what made Hurley special either. Why could he see dead people? All we can assume is that they had some weird communion with the island. Hurley's particular ability was to see dead people, Miles could talk get a sense of their last thoughts...and Walt had other powers, most notably a sort of ability to appear as an apparition. I think they probably had a bigger arc for Walt but changed their mind, and it's a fair gripe. Personally, I think their attempt to work him back in by having him appear to Locke in the Dharma grave (not sure exactly when this happened but I believe late s3?) was possibly the single dumbest loose end opened up by the writers.

Agree on Widmore for the most part, his not being further developed renders a whole bunch of s4 as kind of a head scratcher (particularly all the Ben and Sayid flashfowards). As for the explanation that they were power hungry or corrupt, that's sort of oversimplifying but ya. I mean Ben was one of the most rounded characters in the whole series imo. We didn't know the Others and why they were so hostile and why they did things they way they did. Now we basically do...and it's all centered around Ben's character. Richard tells Locke in some scene about how "Ben is wasting our time with nonsense like fertility issues, we need a new leader, etc" something like that. We basically learn that Ben thought he had all the answers and a special communion with the island and knew what he was doing but he was actually sort of vulnerable a lot of the time. Because he was a master manipulator but also fighting a battle with himself about how he wasn't all that special, he runs the Others in a very crude and aggressive manner. This is all established quite well in Dr. Linus, What They Died For and The End.

The point wasnt the step foot into the white light, it was to let go of their past life to prepare them for the next one.

What I know about the numbers:
- They are the Valenzetti equation
- Hurley heard them from the guy in the asylum who heard it from the voice on the island (Radzinski?)
- The numbers are the numbers of candidates, which as per the the Valenzetti equation, must be altered in some way to avoid the end of the world.

I guess I know what the numbers are. Knowing what the numbers are still doesn't answer the most important question about the numbers: WHY DO THEY KEEP APPEARING EVERYWHERE???

I know what a lion is, but if I started asking why it was in my backyard, and at my workplace, and in my bowl of cereal and the answer was IT'S A ****ING LION! LDO! WE ALREADY TOLD YOU IT'S A LION! I wouldn't feel like I got my answer.

Can someone please explain, or give me a theory as to why they show up everywhere? (I'm not being a dick. The show didn't answer it, so I am hoping someone can help me connect the dots).

It was misdirection, we thought what she said meant that they had changed time, but we were wrong. Authors have been using misdirection for hundreds of years, why is it such a big deal on Lost?

It's only impossible to find the Island if you don't know how, and we know whoever was making the food drops knew how to find the island, otherwise how did any of the food drops make it. Seriously, you don't think that when Dharma/Hanso ordered the food drops they didn't tell the people how to find it?

In my humble opinion...the creators basically explained what the heart(light) of the island is/why it is so important...by having the church fill with the same bright yellow light as the Losties crossed over.

Exactly, this is why I loved the finale/series. I enjoy being able to discuss and theorize about Lost. If the show had told us every little thing about everything that would have ruined it for me.

Kind of. This is all IMO, so take it with a grain of salt.

The DI is created to "change" the VE, and thus "change" the day and time for doomsday. They attempt to do this with any number of experiments and trying to change the variables. All of this fails because we know (but they do not) that the numbers are actually people. When these people arrive on the island, doomsday will be at hand. (Or salvation)

"OMG THEY APPEARED EVERYWHERE" isn't really valid I don't think. I can think of maybe 4 or 5 instances of "the numbers" appearing, and one was on the back of little league jerseys. Maybe somewhere there's a list of the times they appear?

The point was the food drops made no sense given what we find out later about the Island, Dharma, etc.

no they have not. not with what would be such blatantly contrived dishonesty.

doesn't matter though, since i'm convinced the producers had intended the "it worked" and the sunk island to be genuine, and had to rewrite what the ALT was in mid season for some reason. the vending machine "it worked" was just too lame. and the losties creating a sunk island in purgatory representing that they had moved on (or whatever) is unbelievably silly. i can't believe people are thinking that was the producers' original intent.

WTF

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Why? We know the drops were supposed to go on in perpetuity.

How did it not make sense? Dharma set up an outpost on this island, and people gotta eat.

Both Ben and Widmore had the same motivations - ego/greed/power etc.
They both thought they were the good guys, that they were doing what Jacob wanted, and what they were doing was just. But in the end all they cared about was themselves. Ben is quasi-transformed at the end...Widmore may have been but probably not.

Walt was dropped in part because his story was essentially created when the writers really did not know where they were going or what the overall story was. Walt turning into Greg Ogden over a summer probably didn't help. Michael killing Ana Lucia/Libby + them leaving the island basically was the writer's way of saying oops, our bad, sorry guys but the whole Walt thing is basically over.

The time loop thing was basically about Faraday being so consumed by his love of Charlotte that he convinces himself that he can save her by changing time...even though he always believed that was impossible. Jack buys into for the same reasons because he wants to fix everything that he thinks is his fault. In the end they simply create what they thought they were both stopping.

Oh look! A blue car!

Couple questions, which I can't seem to find the answers for:

How is Eloise conscious of everything in Purgatory? How was she also on both ends of Desmond's flashbacks with full knowledge of the island and of what was going on with him?

What was Widmore's plan the first time he brought the freighter? I'm guessing to kill Ben and assume control of the Others and the Island again. Why did Widmore bring Desmond to the Island? Was his plan to have Desmond pull the plug at the heart of the Island like he eventually did? How did he plan on finding the Heart? If this indeed was his plan (I can't see any other reason to bring Desmond), why was destroying the Island better than letting Smokey escape?

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1936291

Unanswered questions, pretty good

She's already had her awakening. Probably with Daniel. She's not ready to move on yet, so she stays.

She is awake in purgatory but doesn't want to leave awaken anyone else due to her guilt etc. That is why she is so concerned about Desmond taking a sudden interest in Penny...she thinks he'll take Daniel with them. It's seems likely that Eloise, Charles, Miles and maybe his father/mother, Charlotte, Faraday and hell maybe Frank are all one group who will be awakened and leave together.

Eloise had read Daniel's journal so basically knew Desmond's life etc. So when he goes back and tries to change things...she stops him from doing so.

Jacob knew he needed to get Desmond back to the island...Widmore was a means to an end.

Like I said I grunched this thread big time so for all I know this has been discussed a ton, but we knew this? When did they explain that?

The only thing that made sense to me was Dharma abandoned the island after the gas attack. Why keep sending food but not send more teams after you lost contact with the people that were there? One explanation could be that Mikhail or whomever was manning the communications station kept sending messages indicating that everything was fine, but that makes little sense given that there were many submarine trips back and forth. You'd think the mainland Dharma people would have gotten suspicious when no one ever showed up on the submarine again, especially given they knew there were hostile elements on the island that could declare war at any point.

link?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8259801.stm

Given this is a serialized show, seems unlikely that they would map/beat out the season prior to writing the episodes then just change their minds all of a sudden mid-season, unless like an major actor died or walked off show etc.

It is def. possible, but seems doubtful given the way almost all serialized shows, besides maybe 24, are written now a days.

I think there are very very few if any people off-island who know what the drops are for. Ben has information about the DI, he could certainly "fake" it enough to allow the airdrops to continue. (It's certainly possible that off-islanders think Ben is the head of DI as well) We do in fact him write that the air drop is late, insinuating that they have been going on for some time. Also in one of the videos, Chang announces that everything they need will be supplied via airdrops in perpetuity. We know that the island can only be accessed some times and at certain points, so it makes sense that they would have scheduled the drops far into the future because that's when the island can get them. (Also mentioned somewhere was a mis-drop around 1982 in which a different island got the Dharma supplies)

Yeah, it's a pretty terrible answer. After reading the comments by DL and CC, it's obvious they didn't have an answer when they started putting them everywhere, and just decided it was funny to put them everywhere and invented the VE to try to "explain" it. It fits their MO perfectly- put a bunch of weird stuff in, and just throw it in there when possible without having it actually mean anything.