First let me clarify something:

Those are not punishments for sins, or problems for dead people, those are all very clearly delineated problems of the living.

But that's in *your* mind.

No, that's not just in my mind, Cindy, I was very specifically refering to in those stories (Dante's afterlife stories, and Beetlejuice). In Dante's poems, the pains and punisments people suffered were (as I understand it, more knowledgable people please correct me if I'm wrong) specific to their sins, and very much not real world problems, even though there was (I think) actual physical suffering involved. In Beetlejuice we were given problems for dead people to overcome. Neither of these things occured just in my mind, they were facts about the stories in question.

That being said....

Taking what are clearly delineated problems of the living, in your mind/our world, and defining them as such in a 'verse we don't yet know, is akin to saying during S1 Buffy, that Angel couldn't be a vampire, because he didn't sleep in a coffin.

I respectfully disagree. I can't judge what I would have thought about Angel in Buffy S1, because I didn't start watching until S3, but needing food, water, sleep, to not get gored by a boar, and to not die by shooting, drowning, or falling off a cliff are pretty clearly delineating some real world, not dead problems, and it's not doing that just in my mind.

Whether you agree with it or not, that's fine, but to me, that's pretty clearly anchoring the show in "not dead" territory, even if the mythology is not fully fleshed out yet (which I agree, it's not). I just am apparently more willing than you or le nubian to say that the show has textually ruled out a "they're dead" scenario, which I do actually feel the show has done.

Those are not punishments for sins, or problems for dead people, those are all very clearly delineated problems of the living.

But maybe the person being punished was Boone or Jack, and not Nameless Swimmer girl.

Maybe she had a family emergency and Christof let her off the island...

Also, that last post may have come across as snippy. Cindy (or anyone else for that matter), if you felt snipped at, I apologize. That was not my intent.

I would be more than a little pissed if J.J. Jacob's Ladders the story. There are instances where a nihilistic punchline of an ending works for a story, but this is not one of them. We have mysteries and characters we're already pretty damn invested in and god knows how much more complicated and thorny this will get--I don't think they can possibly do "They're all dead" reveal without the whole thing falling into the despair of futility, or turning into a hokey quasi-spiritual kitsch.

RE: Dante

In Dante's afterlife, souls in Hell were being eternally punished, the pain was quite real, but the souls were souls and did not possess physical bodies. The pain transcended the physical. For example, a pair of the treasonous were Ugolino and the guy in charge of convicting him. Ugolino existed in a state of perpetual tormenting hunger and gnawed on the back of his jailer's neck, who was also in deep eternal pain. The lustful were continually being blown about by the force of their passions. They did not have the physical needs of food, water, shelter, etc., but they have full awareness of who they are and why they are being punished. Their punishment is eternal and without end.

In Purgatory, you have the same situation. The souls are experiencing pain and torment. The lustful must burn in the cleansing fire until their souls are pure. They also have consciousness and no physical needs, but they have the hope of reaching eternal salvation eventually.

I understood, and as a result remember Paradiso the least. As I recall, the souls exist merely as lights, perhaps stars, in bands around the Central Light of God. The most pure and good are closest to the center. They exist in a purely metaphysical state, although they still retain their memories.

I hope this helps.

I am having a 'senior moment' but bear with me.

At one point, recently, The Kid said someting to Jin, in English, and she responded immediately.

(After the toothbrush incident)

Serial, though I didn't intend for it to be.

I’ve read everyone’s comments, and I seem to have a completely different take on Jack’s conversation with his mother than everyone else.

The piece of dialogue that seems to get the most focus is (paraphrased)

Jack: I can’t.
Mother: You can’t say “I can’t”. Not after what you did.

This is my take on the whole family dynamic there. Warning: I may be way overidentifying.

Jack has always been the type to be the hero to save everyone. It’s a trait he still has.

Jack’s father (an alcoholic if there ever was one) is most definitely not a hero, though he may have been once. Jack father may have been a great success once, but, even as early as Jack’s childhood, he may have been failing more than succeeding. (The boy he was operating died.) For whatever reason (jealousy? regret?), he tried to discourage Jack from developing that trait.

Jack’s mother is very much the co-dependent wife who is torn between her husband and son. And it is her side of the argument with Jack that speaks most deeply to me about what may have happened.

Jack: He hasn’t spoken to me in two months.
Mother: You haven’t spoken to him in two months.(br>

and

Jack: His friends….
Mother: He doesn’t have any more friends. Why do you suppose that is?

Both of these comments, to me, indicate that Jack’s father did something very wrong and Jack is somehow being blamed for it. This is not uncommon in alcoholic families. You can’t blame the person with the problem, but someone has to be blamed.

I think that Jack’s father did something, perhaps messed up a surgery that could have killed or crippled someone. Jack knows. Maybe others know.

Jack is a hero. The “I can’t” exchange indicates to me that Jack doesn’t use the phrase often, because he truly has that “can-do” attitude. It’s because of whatever it was that he could do, what he did do, that his mother won’t accept the “I can’t” from him now. Her comment of “Not after what you did” seems to indicate that he did something nearly impossible, to the detriment of his father, for which she is angry with him.

I believe that Jack’s father botched a surgery, probably while intoxicated. Ever the child of an alcoholic, Jack tried to fix the problem (maybe fixed the surgery) and succeeded. I think everyone (that is, dad’s friends and colleagues) knew what happened, but Jack continued to cover for his dad, maybe losing his own license in the process. Jack’s dad lost all his friends who were disgusted by Jack’s dad’s professional conduct and willingness to let Jack take the fall. Dad was disgusted with himself and with Jack for once again playing the hero. He stopped speaking to Jack and took off to Australia, where he had a fatal bender.

Jack is torn. His heroic actions have torn his family apart. He loves his father. He hates his father. But, mostly, he doesn’t want to be his father. Note how, when given three extra liquor bottles on the plane, he only uses one to freshen his drink. He is very aware of how much alcohol he can and will consume.

To sum up: Jack may have lost his license, but I don't think it was for something he did medically wrong.

Disclaimer: My mother is a recovering alcoholic. I can’t imagine what my adult life would have been like had my mother not stopped drinking, and I am very thankful that she stopped when I was 12. I remember vividly the years I was 9, 10, and 11. I can see myself living the life I have described for Jack, with the covering and compensating. I did it when I was a child, on a child’s level. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

I think it would be far more interesting to say "They're in a mystical space between living and death" than to say "they're dead". If they're dead, then everything they do has meaning only if you buy into that version of the afterlife. If they're hanging in the balance, then every effort may make the difference whether they wake up in the rescue helicopter, or not.

(Also, it would explain the dead bodies. Those people are dead-dead, while the people walking around are only mostly-dead.)

In Dante's poems, the pains and punisments people suffered were (as I understand it, more knowledgable people please correct me if I'm wrong) specific to their sins, and very much not real world problems, even though there was (I think) actual physical suffering involved.

The punishments in Hell are classified punishments, but not specific to the circumstances of each sin. All the adulturers suffer one way; all the homosexuals another; all the traitors a third (frozen in ice!). The only people whose punishments are specific to the crime are Ugolino's betrayer (Ugolino, also a traitor, sits in the ice right next to him and gets to gnaw on his head), and Judas, Cassius and Brutus, who are so bad Satan is personally chomping on them this very minute (and every minute into eternity).

The idea is that it is indeed actual physical suffering, if that can be said of a soul, but Ugolino's betrayer never dies of being gnawed on.

Thanks, justkim. I think that goes a long way to support my position, though it may only be convincing to just me, who was already convinced).

Inferno/Purgatorio and Beetlejuice != living people problems.

Lost has living people problems (in addition to epileptic tree problems, but those easily fall into the same category of supernatural living people problems as found on such shows as Buffy, Farscape, and all the other shows we like, which feature living people).

No, that's not just in my mind, Cindy, I was very specifically refering to in those stories (Dante's afterlife stories, and Beetlejuice). In Dante's poems, the pains and punisments people suffered were (as I understand it, more knowledgable people please correct me if I'm wrong) specific to their sins, and very much not real world problems, even though there was (I think) actual physical suffering involved.

Yes, but if this is a purgatory story, why ever would the purgatory have to be tied into Dante's anyone's (other than J.J.'s) vision of it? That's the importing I'm talking about. I am ill prepared to say that if the characters are in some sort of purgatory, it is a lame story or a cheat, because I don't know how their world works, and wouldn't assume a Lost 'verse purgatory was anything like Dante's. But again, I really don't think this will end up being a purgatory.