Time Travel? Time Warps? Or are we just imagining it?

[Steve Jordan]

There have been some interesting speculations on the "time travel" aspects of Lost, what might be going on, and what affect it might be having on the characters.

Some have speculated that characters have a destiny that the island can somehow manipulate, though not actually change. Example, Mr. Friendly's pointing out to Michael that he "can't kill himself, because the island won't let him." Another, Charley's death, after Des had repeatedly saved him from other prescient "deaths," as if it was inevitable, the island's insistence that a prescribed destiny be satisfied.

In last night's ep, Ben met Widmore, and when Widmore asked if he was there to kill him, Ben replied, "You know I can't do that." Some people believe that this implies Widmore cannot be killed... something about his exposure to the island has immortalized him.

The "constant" idea brought up by Desmond's unexpected mental time-jaunting has brought up suggestions that other characters on the island have "constants" of their own.

And finally, Ben's appearance in Tunisia, and subsequently asking a local what the date and year was, suggests time travel (on top of teleportation, no less).

I can recognize that the island is somehow "time-warped" from the rest of the world, which affects the perception of time from one place to the other. On the other hand, the idea that the island somehow locks-in a destiny that cannot be changed, I don't know about that. And I still haven't figured out the whole "constant" thing. Any ideas?

[TK-421]

I am really liking the sci-fi aspects creeping into the show. I remember Daniel's line when he answered Jack that how long Desmond and Sayid have been gone is "relative".

All in all, that was one of the best episodes so far.

[Raalix]

The time discrepancy between the freighter and the island (as demonstrated by Daniel's experiment a few episodes ago would suggest that the island experiences time passing at a different speed to the rest of the world. The rocket had a discrepancy of 31 minutes or something like that. Michael was told to leave the island following a particular bearing - perhaps this has something to do with the time differential.

However, in "The Constant" it is the same day for both Desmond and Penny. And in a season three episode, Ben shows Juliet video footage of her sister and nephew as well as a newspaper which shows that it is today's date - which also happened to be the date the plane crashed in the first place.

What is the point of this time barrier if there is no actual time difference? There seems to be some discrepancy when in close proximity to the island, but in countries further away from the island, the time is exactly the same as it is on the island.

Can anyone explain this further?

[Steve Jordan]

I'm trying out an allegorical way of thinking about the time-travel element:

I'm beginning to think that the whole time-travel thing is supposed to represent America's being so out-of-touch with much of the rest of the world. Many countries seem to be decades behind the U.S. in terms of technology, resources, or other services, and some are ahead, and the U.S. either doesn't notice, or doesn't care.

In that light, the time discrepancies in the script make little difference, as the U.S. feels more and less out-of-touch depending on what part of the world it's dealing with at any moment.

(Really, though, I tend to think the discrepancies are caused by writers' struggles, but I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt...)

[Steve Jordan]

Last night's ep suggests a more significant time dilation that previously hinted at: We watched the death of the doctor who had already washed up on the island. And as we know it takes time for anything to drift with the tides from one place to another, and the freighter is not within visual distance of the island, there must be much more than a 30-minute delay operating here. Or the time dilation is somehow variable. Curiouser and curiouser...

[Dave]

I'm not reading this thread (I haven't seen any of Season 4 yet) but I just wanted to say that there is certainly some "Time" element involved. Several years ago, I remember that either JJ Abrams or Damon Lindelof, in reply to an interviewer's questions regarding where they were, said something like we should ask 'when' they were, or at least that people should not assume they were in the present-day. At the time, because of all the retro-70's equipment in the stations, that was then assumed to mean that they were somehow in the past, but it could mean anything.

[TK-421]

Just to say, without spoiling it too much, there are alot of new revelations in Season 4 about "time" and the island.

[boeing.chick]

I think time travel is a cheaters way to write yourself out of difficult plot twists.
They should not have introduced it.
Now anything can happen, anything can be undone, any character can re-appear.
Totally lame.

[TK-421]

However, time travel explains alot of what has been going on since Season 1.