Every LOST mystery Explained

LOST is a very popular show and is considered one of the greatest and influential shows of all time, it's one of the most influential non hbo show of this century too, it brought hbo level quality on ABC.

but when criticizing Lost a very popular criticism is that the show left many unanswered questions to us, as the questions kept pulling up but did it? I wanted to see if this criticism hold any water or if it's even valid, I'm not saying Lost shouldn't be criticised, I'm just thinking some of the things it's criticized for is unfair.

Btw I've never seen a show which creates so many mysteries like this is one of the most confusing & complex shows of all time up there with Game Of Thrones,Dark & Twin Peaks, so I decided to explain them one by one and see how many the show solved cause and actually left unsolved.

You can send this post to someone who's very confused after watching Lost.

I might have missed a few mysteries so please correct me so I'll add.

So if some of these are solved in the show that I don't remember please tell me in the comment so I'll edit it. So anything you think I messed up or you don't like my explanations tell me.
Also if you don't like my reasoning too. If you ever think I'm using any head cannon which trust me I'm not.

Obviously There will be spoilers in full detail from every season but before that for people who haven't seen the show, The show has definitely held up the test of time and it's worth watching 20 years later, it's on Netflix US for a year I think.

What's considered canon here is the show obviously

The DVD extras including documentaries like
The Epilogue – https://youtu.be/yY5vV7bp5z8

• The Lost Experience (Semi Canonical)

The backstory revelations from The Lost Experience about the Hanso Foundation, DHARMA Initiative and Valenzetti Equation are all 100% canon, being written and provided by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof themselves but not the overall story like all the comic con and detective stuff by Rachael Blake isn't .

Lost Experience Explained – https://youtu.be/g7eZZ1OKOSg?si=dBwUrR9bHAj5DvAv

Sri Lanka Video (It's like 6 minutes but very important)
https://youtu.be/E-eHEYswgK8

The Lost Epilogue
https://youtu.be/yY5vV7bp5z8

• Lost Missing Pieces

• Mysteries Of The Universe Documentary
& more documentaries.

Here's a list of extra content available

So mysteries will be categorised in colors so

🟢 Solved just straight up solved.

🟡 Also solved but not specifically told to, but it is expected from the viewers to get them because the clues are given in the show itself. You just have to watch the show carefully.

A lot of the so-called "unsolved mysteries" are here, but they aren't actually unsolved I'll explain the reasons too.
So if anything that hasn't been told to us but can be solved by watching the show carefully will be here. If you don't like my explanation just tell me, note that I'm being as critical as I can be here even though I love this show.

🔵 External sources needed maybe the epilogue or One quick Google search required.

(like what's written in Hieroglyphics for example you'd have to translate it from Google)

I won't count the hieroglyphics as a mystery though, they appear way many times that it can be it's own post.

🔴 Unsolved, left to speculation, left so open in the air that everything we speculate will just be speculation with no solid proof but it can have a very logical explanation that makes sense.

These are the actual unsolved mysteries, If some of these are explained in an interview or something please tell.

So just see red and that's an unsolved mystery.

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Season 1 explained post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/lost/s/KIQHm5NNDp

Season 2 Explained

https://www.reddit.com/r/lost/s/pMTUVmU409

Season 3 Explained

https://www.reddit.com/r/lost/s/LzlVOpyiTR

Season 4 Explained

https://www.reddit.com/r/lost/s/JzBl1YhNoE

Season 5 Explained

https://www.reddit.com/r/lost/s/B9T9AHkp9b

Season 6 Explained

https://www.reddit.com/r/lost/s/HVhiOoE8cX

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So Before talking about the unsolved mysteries we have to look at the ending of the show first,
https://youtu.be/dL26K6T3IOw Jack meets his dad, Many people got confused here, Lost was losing some viewers since 2008 writer's strike, It was still really popular but not at it's peak, However the finale got insane viewership, it had about twice as much viewership as The Sopranos finale.

So everyone who had maybe not seen this show for years tuned in to watch that double final episode. And they were the easiest people to be misdirected, they thought that everyone died, and it doesn't help that after Jack closes his eyes there's a scene on empty beach with all their tents but they didn't not die, everything people will describe as not having happened was in flash sideways, other than that everything did happen.

No matter how many times I watch the final scenes I can never say to myself that what I'm seeing is a bad episode, Answers aren't explicitly answered that's why there were so many 🟡 answers but Most importantly, it succeeded to give a fitting resolution and a deserved closure to the characters we invested in.

If the characters never would have met each other, they probably never would have forgive themselves for their past doings. If they hadn't spent that time on the Island with each other, they never would have redeemed themselves and come to a level of self awakening and forgiveness.

The simple explanation for the ending is:

The second timeline is a place where our characters who are ready to go to the afterlife have gathered. Not all characters appear there cause they aren't ready to go.

For example, We never see Richard in The Flash Sideways, because he's most likely with Isabella in a 19th century version of Flash Sideways, he didn't had anyone, he needed her love to move on together, a place where they could be for one more time.

There were never two timelines. Connecting the bombing of Jughead was a red herring by the writers.

Christian Shepard explains

"this is the place that you all made
together, so that you could find one
another, the most important
part of your life, was the time that
you spent with these people, that's
why all of you are here. nobody
does it alone jack. you needed all of
them, and they needed you"

Now this is not a Christianity's or any other religion's heaven or hell, infact Desmond moved between these present and flash sideways multiple times. And time doesn't exist there so people who died at different points of time where gathered there.

Did the source made this reality for them ? Is there someone who controls the source ? Who knows, Some mysteries are better kept mysterious, like the 2001 a Space Odyssey Monolith.

https://youtu.be/FvnNF-NWmc4 Daemond Lindelof the showrunner corrects the misconception about all of them dying.

A lot of room was left open for various
interpretations co-creator and showrunner Damon Lindelof has discussed how much he disliked the explanation that George Lucas gave the Star Wars fandom in his prequel film The Phantom Menace there's a scene in which the supernatural mystique of the force is revealed as being not so much this unknowable magical energy that links everything in the universe together but in fact small microscopic life forms called midichlorians and these midians can be controlled and manipulated it's perhaps an understatement to say that Star Wars fans had problems with this scene and this explanation these kinds of information download scenes always tend to be divisive there is nothing more inelegant in storytelling than long scenes of exposition and characters according to his opinion. He also dislikes the scene in The Matrix Revolutions where the architect explains what the matrix is to Neo.

Explaining the plot to one another for our benefit lindeloff has made it clear in interviews that he certainly didn't need to know what the force was in fact the midiclorian explanation in the Phantom Menace might well have been the scene that informed how he approached his own storytelling going forward , lost wanted to explain itself to us in a way that would keep some of the mystery alive long after the series finale had aired they wanted us to keep talking about out the show to keep the mythology alive.

If we had gotten lost's version of the midichlorian scene about the light beneath the island would it have really made the show more complete and satisfying or would it have proven just as divisive I think the power of lost lies in its ability to include us within its storytelling to get us to participate in the creation of its meaning and to stimulate ou answers to connect the dots lost is in part about perception.

A show like Twin Peaks also leaves a lot of unanswered mysteries, I swear no one complaints about that.

Another criticism is they were making things up as they went on and this one basically means that all the fantasy/ sci-fi elements that series had.

ABC forced Lost to drag on more than it was intended, it's a miracle it still turned out great.

So About the unsolved mysteries, at the end of the show only big major plot related unsolved mysteries left are

Everything about Mother
How does time travel choose people's destiny, why do only certain people travel through time ?
Do the numbers carry bad luck? Or good luck maybe even ?
What happened with Egyptians on the island ? How was cork made ?
Where did Jacob get the ash that blocks Man In Black ? How does that work?
What happened to Man In black at the cave?
How exactly do the rules work ?
What happened to the people who left the island in the Finale .

So that's it, these are the major unsolved mysteries ,this number isn't really that big as much as people claim it to be, it's just the show never did a lot of spoon feeding about the audience, it most of the time expected viewers to piece together everything by the end which even at binge-watching isn't easy but the showrunners thought a network show running for years and people will figure everything out. But all things considered the show had a great run, season 4 & 5 still have great ratings, and even 6 doesn't fall behind by that far.

Another criticism is that the creators made up things as it went on well, first they had to make new seasons so obviously that's basically how network television works, however saying all the mystical elements weren't planned years in advanced is false.

Man In Black and Mother’s dead bodies were shown in season 1.
Time travel was hinted in early Season 2.
The Ajira Plane coming to the island was foreshadowed in Season 3.
The ending of the show from Desmond’s perspective was foreshadowed more than 50 episodes earlier than the finale. And I think lost does this best even, Making older scenes part of new lore, when ekko died we see a scene of him & his brother when they were kids , that can easily be interpreted as a scene from the flash sideways.

What I think is the show stayed true to it’s themes, on a rewatch i noticed that almost all the themes of this show

All the people who were lost got to meet their loved ones one last time so they don't die alone like Jack said & everyone moved on and made piece, Jack found his purpose everything every struggle of everyone throughout centuries all led up for Jack to save the world and his life ended with a purpose fulfilled and seeing his friends leave the island.

So I'll encourage everyone to see Lost from a new perspective, I know it must have felt unsatisfying to some in 2010 when their mysteries weren't solved , And I'll agree the first half of season 6 is very misdirected in the first 10 episodes about 5 are good, others are mid eps with good scenes sprinkled throughout not as in bad writing kinda way but more like whytf are you wasting the time ?

Also the temple arc was disaapointing, however as the season went on and was getting close to finale, It did get a lot better and I still think the ending is brilliant, Lost is currently on Netflix US so maybe 20 years later to the exact day, you can give it a second chance ? It's best seen with someone else so you can discuss it with them, It's really one of the best shows of all time at the end of the day.