The Story of Lost, in chronological order
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They've got a timeline at Lostpedia.
S
Stone_Cold_Sisko
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the motives for all the characters are plot based. There is no logical reason why a person would do the things the characters do without any info..... like sit in a bunker and push the buttons ... or take the Gatekeeper job without a clear answer as to how everything works or any number of things.
LOST is one of the most aggressively plot driven shows there is (and that's fine, it more or less worked).
LOST is one of the most aggressively plot driven shows there is (and that's fine, it more or less worked).
In a nutshell
Weird island exists, with unexplained woman on it. A shipwreck brings people to it, centuries ago. One of them, a pregnant woman, is murdered by the unexplained woman, & the twin baby boys are raised by her, one becoming the island's immortal protector, & the other becoming a trapped mystical force, inhabiting it. It takes the form of either a column of smoke, or deceased island inhabitants.
Later in 1867, a slave trading ship wrecks on the island. The sole survivor is chosen to be the island protector's immortal ambassador. Some 90 years later, he is instrumental in removing the U.S. military from the island, leaving behind a buried atomic bomb. Within the next couple decades, a scientific institute, named The Dharma Initiative, develops a research community on the island. They maintain an antagonistic relationship with the prior inhabitants.
Separate stations are developed, on the island for each of Dharma's experiments. One boy, Ben Linus, defects from Dharma, to grow up to be the leader of the group of other inhabitants. He organizes the eradication of the Dharma personnel, takes over their stations, & begins developing a bigger, & better community of people devoted to the island's protector
1988 an expedition team wrecks on the island. All of its members end up dead or murdered. The sole surviving pregnant woman has her baby stolen, by Ben Linus, & spends 16 years in search of it. in 2001 a Scottish sailboat racer wrecks on the island, & is convinced to be the partner of one of the station operators. 3 years later, whilst killing his partner, he fails to execute the program that disperses an immense electromagnetism, & accidentally causes the crash of a commercial passenger airliner.
From this plane crash, 22 survive from the tail section, & 48 survive from the mid-section, plus one dog. A couple island inhabitants infiltrate the two survivor camps, Some survivors end up being abducted by the existing inhabitants, while others begin discovering the Dharma stations, most importantly, the one manned by the Scot.
Conflict begins escalating, between the crash survivors, & the other inhabitants. One of the crash survivors betrays the rest, to regain possession of his son, & secure escape. The electromagnetism station is neglected, which results in its implosion. Shortly thereafter, a freighter, sent by a former island inhabitant, is charged with finding the island, & succeeds.
While some plane crash survivors attempt to secure rescue aboard it, others implement a force which relocates the island. The freighter is destroyed, & only six of the plane crash survivors escape the island, along with the Scottish sailor & the helicopter pilot, to be rescued by the Scot's lover
The remaining plane crash survivors find themselves catapulted throughout time, to various points in the island's history, until one of them manages to halt the effect & strand the rest in the 1970's. A group of people who have left the island, including the 6 crash survivors, return to the island, aboard another passenger airliner, some of whom are mystically transported to the 1970's time period. They, along with their fellow comrades detonate the atomic bomb, in order to alter the time line. Meanwhile, in the present time period, Ben Linus, having left & returned to the island, murders the island's protector
After the atomic bomb detonation, those people trapped in the 1970's time period return to the present time period. From this point on, they, along with various other remaining individuals, endeavor to prevent the mystical smoke being from both escaping the island, & destroying it. It is revealed that many of the island inhabitants, including many of the original plane crash survivors were brought to the island, by its protector, as candidates for his replacement.
The smoke being attempts to destroy all the candidates, in numerous indirect ways, but is eventually killed, while in the form of a deceased plane crash survivor. Very few people survive all these events, a handful of whom escape the island again. However, when death comes to the most important of all these characters, they all end up either trapped in a ghost like form, on the island, or they emerge in an afterlife holding zone where they participate in a mutually devised fantasy reality, until they are ready to move on, into the next stage of after life
Weird island exists, with unexplained woman on it. A shipwreck brings people to it, centuries ago. One of them, a pregnant woman, is murdered by the unexplained woman, & the twin baby boys are raised by her, one becoming the island's immortal protector, & the other becoming a trapped mystical force, inhabiting it. It takes the form of either a column of smoke, or deceased island inhabitants.
Later in 1867, a slave trading ship wrecks on the island. The sole survivor is chosen to be the island protector's immortal ambassador. Some 90 years later, he is instrumental in removing the U.S. military from the island, leaving behind a buried atomic bomb. Within the next couple decades, a scientific institute, named The Dharma Initiative, develops a research community on the island. They maintain an antagonistic relationship with the prior inhabitants.
Separate stations are developed, on the island for each of Dharma's experiments. One boy, Ben Linus, defects from Dharma, to grow up to be the leader of the group of other inhabitants. He organizes the eradication of the Dharma personnel, takes over their stations, & begins developing a bigger, & better community of people devoted to the island's protector
1988 an expedition team wrecks on the island. All of its members end up dead or murdered. The sole surviving pregnant woman has her baby stolen, by Ben Linus, & spends 16 years in search of it. in 2001 a Scottish sailboat racer wrecks on the island, & is convinced to be the partner of one of the station operators. 3 years later, whilst killing his partner, he fails to execute the program that disperses an immense electromagnetism, & accidentally causes the crash of a commercial passenger airliner.
From this plane crash, 22 survive from the tail section, & 48 survive from the mid-section, plus one dog. A couple island inhabitants infiltrate the two survivor camps, Some survivors end up being abducted by the existing inhabitants, while others begin discovering the Dharma stations, most importantly, the one manned by the Scot.
Conflict begins escalating, between the crash survivors, & the other inhabitants. One of the crash survivors betrays the rest, to regain possession of his son, & secure escape. The electromagnetism station is neglected, which results in its implosion. Shortly thereafter, a freighter, sent by a former island inhabitant, is charged with finding the island, & succeeds.
While some plane crash survivors attempt to secure rescue aboard it, others implement a force which relocates the island. The freighter is destroyed, & only six of the plane crash survivors escape the island, along with the Scottish sailor & the helicopter pilot, to be rescued by the Scot's lover
The remaining plane crash survivors find themselves catapulted throughout time, to various points in the island's history, until one of them manages to halt the effect & strand the rest in the 1970's. A group of people who have left the island, including the 6 crash survivors, return to the island, aboard another passenger airliner, some of whom are mystically transported to the 1970's time period. They, along with their fellow comrades detonate the atomic bomb, in order to alter the time line. Meanwhile, in the present time period, Ben Linus, having left & returned to the island, murders the island's protector
After the atomic bomb detonation, those people trapped in the 1970's time period return to the present time period. From this point on, they, along with various other remaining individuals, endeavor to prevent the mystical smoke being from both escaping the island, & destroying it. It is revealed that many of the island inhabitants, including many of the original plane crash survivors were brought to the island, by its protector, as candidates for his replacement.
The smoke being attempts to destroy all the candidates, in numerous indirect ways, but is eventually killed, while in the form of a deceased plane crash survivor. Very few people survive all these events, a handful of whom escape the island again. However, when death comes to the most important of all these characters, they all end up either trapped in a ghost like form, on the island, or they emerge in an afterlife holding zone where they participate in a mutually devised fantasy reality, until they are ready to move on, into the next stage of after life
Your thread sucks.
Are you trying to challenge us to recount the story of Oceanic 815 by ONLY referencing the characters and not the plot?
I'm guessing your big trap is when one of us touches on an unanswered question and you say "Aha! It's all about the plot, isn't it! Not about the characters at all!"
Newsflash dude. It's about both. The series has said since "Exodus" that it was about science vs. faith.
It came down on the side of faith. You don't have to like it but there it is.
Did I mention that your thread sucks?
I'm not going to bother looking up dates, but here are the character arcs for most of the big 3 characters:
Jack Sawyer has daddy issues. He crashes on an island and continues to have daddy issues. He gets off the island and still has daddy issues. Daddy just won't leave him alone! He dies and his daddy welcomes him into heaven.
Kate kills her incestuous step father and runs away. She settles down, but runs away when she is discovered. She gets stuck on an island, where she frequently runs away, then gets off the island. She gets parole for her crime, and becomes quite wealthy and settles down. Then she runs back to the island, so she can find some people and run away with them. We have no idea what happens after that, then she dies and has a fantasy in the afterlife in which she is running away. When she realizes she's dead, she runs away one last time, to heaven.
John Locke has a pretty boring life, but he really likes games. He also wishes he knew his parents. He meets his father, who plays a game with him and walks away with John's kidney. Then they play another game in which John's father tosses him out a window and paralyzes him. John flies to Australia so he can play games in the outback, but isn't allowed because he's paralyzed. Then he crashes on the island, where he's not paralyzed and plays games for real and kills lots of bores. He meets the Smoke Monster, who plays a game with him and walks away with John's corporeal body. In the afterlife, John doesn't really have time for games, because he has a hot MILF fiancee and a pretty decent, meaningful job. But he realizes he's dead, and rather than play the game he goes to heaven.
I don't know who informed you that the real story is a character story, but Cuse said Lost was "fundamentally a mystery." Characters are great in mysteries, but they're more or less interchangeable. They wanted Eko to be Locke's foil, but Eko didn't want to live in Hawaii, so they killed him. They wanted Michael to shoot Ana Lucia but realized the viewers would cheer him on, so they killed Libby and dropped the Libby-Hurley-Widmore-Desmond quadrilateral of mystery. Delenn was tired of working in Hawaii, so Danielle got shot. Rose was originally going to be the leader, but she got downgraded to recurring character, then retired. If they wanted to, they could have killed Jack or Kate with minimal repercussions to the show. The mystery would have endured, and that's what was important to Lost.
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That actually made me laugh out loud - which I REALLY needed after a particularly annoying telemarketing call from a Telstra rep.
In a nutshell
....
Great work, Mojochi.
Wish there hadn't been so many "mystical" parts, but it all makes perfect sense to me!
I observed that emphasis on character is "fine," not mandatory.
Mojochi[/i] made a valiant effort, but omitted the details of events. For example, a man shot the child Ben Linus for reasons unknown to him, and Linus was restored to life by the Others.
Considering the effort made, I realize that I'm wishing for the equivalent of the Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5. This is obviously too big for a thread, but a project for a fan website.
A chronological view of the plot would provide a new perspective.
As to character arcs, perhaps a chronological view would make motives plainer.
I don't know why the island even needs a protector.
I don't know why someone good at taking care of people (Hurley) is good at protecting an island. The remark to Jack that he was the obvious choice was meant ironically but he was the obvious choice because he was the only sensible choice.
I don't know how the sideways life can really happen, as Christian says, but Jack still doesn't care about David. Or Juliet for that matter.
I don't know why Jacob is supposed to be good, considering what he's done. The other guy acts mean, so he's obviously bad, but that's not very compelling.
Characters, like real people, have their characters revealed by what they do, not how they share emotions with each other. I hoped focusing on the sequence of events (in other words, what the characters do,) would make character plainer too.
Mojochi[/i] made a valiant effort, but omitted the details of events. For example, a man shot the child Ben Linus for reasons unknown to him, and Linus was restored to life by the Others.
Considering the effort made, I realize that I'm wishing for the equivalent of the Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5. This is obviously too big for a thread, but a project for a fan website.
A chronological view of the plot would provide a new perspective.
As to character arcs, perhaps a chronological view would make motives plainer.
I don't know why the island even needs a protector.
I don't know why someone good at taking care of people (Hurley) is good at protecting an island. The remark to Jack that he was the obvious choice was meant ironically but he was the obvious choice because he was the only sensible choice.
I don't know how the sideways life can really happen, as Christian says, but Jack still doesn't care about David. Or Juliet for that matter.
I don't know why Jacob is supposed to be good, considering what he's done. The other guy acts mean, so he's obviously bad, but that's not very compelling.
Characters, like real people, have their characters revealed by what they do, not how they share emotions with each other. I hoped focusing on the sequence of events (in other words, what the characters do,) would make character plainer too.
Someone has to. Mother buried the original before Smokey could finish it.
I thought lostpedia.org was a compendium of fan theories, most all of which have been exploded or are pointless.
My mistake, sorry.
Lostpedia has more information than anyone would ever care about.
I'm waiting for some ambitious sort to re-edit the whole series in chronological order, starting with Alison Janney murdering a pregnant woman, and upload the whole thing to YouTube.
Who the frak would have ever guessed the story would "really" start like that.
Here's how you can tell that the Lost writers prioritized characters above plot: the characters make sense - they seem believable as people, and don't act uncharacterisitically too often. The plotline makes far less sense than the characters. That's what happens when you put characters first.
For instnace, the plotline probably would have been much better off if the island had just been this powerful place that was fought over by people. Why introduce Jacob and all that confusion, which was never adequately explained? Who was Alison Janney? What was the purpose of Jacob protecting the island? Why did the white light create Smokey? It's all a bunch of nonsense.
But, all that nonsense was good for the characters. It allowed Jack to take over from Locke as the "man of faith" and pursue his plot arc, while giving Terry O'Quinn a role to play as Smokey, and giving Ben a way to team up with the Losties, and pursue his own arc of redemption, by placing him in opposition to Smokey. The whole Jacob/Smokey/blah blah crapola was invented to give the characters some interesting things to do for the final year. It certainly wasn't a satisfying plotline in its own right.
Here are some of the character arcs in a nutshell:
Jack learns to stop being a hyperactive control freak and let go, and finally become a man of faith.
Sawyer learns to not be such a selfish dick.
Ben learns how to play nicely with others. Sorta.
Who the frak would have ever guessed the story would "really" start like that.
No, the plot existed just to show us the characters doing characteristic things and in some cases, allowing them to grow. So it was character-driven in the sense that the plot served the needs of the characters and not the other way around. You see the reverse in shows like Heroes, where characters will be forced into irrationality and stupidity just to get the plot to go from A to B.
Here's how you can tell that the Lost writers prioritized characters above plot: the characters make sense - they seem believable as people, and don't act uncharacterisitically too often. The plotline makes far less sense than the characters. That's what happens when you put characters first.
For instnace, the plotline probably would have been much better off if the island had just been this powerful place that was fought over by people. Why introduce Jacob and all that confusion, which was never adequately explained? Who was Alison Janney? What was the purpose of Jacob protecting the island? Why did the white light create Smokey? It's all a bunch of nonsense.
But, all that nonsense was good for the characters. It allowed Jack to take over from Locke as the "man of faith" and pursue his plot arc, while giving Terry O'Quinn a role to play as Smokey, and giving Ben a way to team up with the Losties, and pursue his own arc of redemption, by placing him in opposition to Smokey. The whole Jacob/Smokey/blah blah crapola was invented to give the characters some interesting things to do for the final year. It certainly wasn't a satisfying plotline in its own right.
Here are some of the character arcs in a nutshell:
Jack learns to stop being a hyperactive control freak and let go, and finally become a man of faith.
Sawyer learns to not be such a selfish dick.
Ben learns how to play nicely with others. Sorta.
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You didn't ask for details. You asked for a recap of the story. I will admit that I did leave out some of it, like the island protector's followers building magical fixtures on the island, like an all seeing lighthouse, & a temple with a healing pool, as well as various other things, like Dharma's actual experiments
but the example you gave is a character arc event, which makes it less involved in the core story of LOST. What I did, was boil down 91 hours of drama into its most basic synopsis
If you were looking for a recap of the near 3 dozen main characters' story arcs. then I'm afraid One would have to type out the same length of synopsis for each one, & in the end, doing so wouldn't necessarily give you a better understanding of the overall story of LOST, because the plot & character arcs work in conjunction with one another, as others here have pointed out
http://www.chronologicallylost.com will have the entire series displayed in chronological order. Anyone's that interested, I encourage you to check it out there.
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