By "Power" I mean the ruling factions, the big dogs, the two sides in the Great War. I do not mean the power that any one character might exert. Think in Star Wars terms and think of who are the most powerful factions in the Force - the Jedi Masters versus the Sith Lords.

By "Island" I myself have adjusted my definition. I used to think of the island as an extension of those most vested in it, say Jacob, Ben or Locke. But now I consider that their destinies more linked to it than it to theirs. I should also qualify that I have never prescribed to the notion that the island manifests itself as any other person or being. For example, I don't think the island whispers, I don't think Jacob is a manifestation of the island's will and, no, I don't think the island appears as Vincent. I am more and more convinced that we have seen enough of this island that we can know it and recognize its characteristics.

Lastly, when I mark a cleaning box as "Protagonists" I am thinking specifically of our remaining Losties, the original 815 survivors: Locke, Jack, Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, Hurley, Sun and Jin. Juliet is only a primary character as long as she keeps her loyalties with the 815ers; otherwise she, Desmond and Penny, Daniel and company, and Danielle are secondary. They might be our favorites they may be immensely important figuring prominently; but their destiny is linked to the decisions, actions and destinies of the Losties. If you can picture the characters as being on a bulls-eye target, then our Protagonists are the ones closest to the middle with the remaining characters in wider circles around them. Think again of Star Wars and know that in the same way, everyone's fate was determined by Luke Skywalker's choices and not by what Chewbacca did. You might like Chewie immensely more than Luke, but Luke simply mattered more to the whole story. Jack and Sawyer are more important than Desmond, Kate is more important than Juliet, Locke is more important than Daniel. If you want a story where the other characters feature more prominently, write it yourself. This one is about the Losties.

One last note: in this cleaning, I will not handle the subject of our two boys Walt and Aaron or our baby girl Ji Yeon. Their destinies are vital to the story, and completely unreadable by us as an audience at this point. Lostpedia calls them Rescued off-Island. If that's all the more they are, if that's the Losties fate, then there still remains a mountain of work to do before they achieve that. I'll add that I believe those children's fates lie on island. I can't explain how. I told you about some things I am clueless.

Let's begin to load our Protagonists Box first. We can look not at the original 815ers but at the people around them to question what could possibly happen to them. There are several significant groups. 1. 1977 Dharma 2. The Others 3. The Hydra island survivors 4. Ben and his people 5. Widmore and his people 6. Jacob and his people 7. The Dead It's important to note that in the last two episodes (La Fleur and He's Our You) an incredibly important thing has happened: the fate of 1977 Dharma is now inextricably linked with Sawyer, Jin, Hurley, Jack and Kate. Does that mean that they will stay aligned with Dharma throughout the end of the story? If they do, will they find themselves pitted against Locke and Richard since they both consider the Others their people? The peculiarity of the island skipping around in time could continue to wreck any kind of havoc; but our protagonists are still going to have to make their moral and personal decisions within that framework. I loved seeing Juliet and Sawyer settle down together not just out of convenience, but out of a real need for both people to connect with one another. Time might be throwing them around a bit, but they are better for the wear. Better because they are learning and adjusting. They are developing morally. A rewind into time can be a blessing.

But of course it can also be a terrible curse. We certainly all feel Jin's pain of separation from Sun and his child. If they have trouble finding each other not physically, but in time, they are going to have an unspeakably difficult trial. Nevertheless, the same dilemma applies to them - can they stay good people doing the right thing for the right reason? Any story worth its salt asks this question of its characters into this dilemma. The fact that the writers are screwing with time only adds to the difficulty, and the poignancy. We likewise wonder how Locke will meet up with those who have been waiting three long years for him and how his progress will be joined, exploited or thwarted by Ben or by Widmore. But that gets in to the Power issue, and we'll deal with that later.

There is the unsavory option that any one of our protagonists could end up in that most mysterious group of all: the dead. But you know, on Lost, dead is not necessarily a permanent or a final state to be in. Let's explore this. We seem to have three categories of dead people: The Visions, the Dead but Here, and the Dead and Gone. The last is the easiest to handle. The Dead and Gone will include Shannon, all the dearly departed of 815, and all the Kahana. (Michael, Minkowski, doctor, captain, Keamy, etc.). Any of them could show up any day, any time. But until then they are not with us.

Now I can't even move on with the rest of the dead without a question popping up: Why are some Dead and Gone while some are Dead but Here? The cynic would say it's because of production schedules and contract negotiations. But I put up a hand to that. I am "reading" this story as a well written novel, not just watching a tv show. If a character is in a specific state of deadness (from whatever cause), I refuse to explain it away with the vagaries of production. If every actor with a contract dispute just needed an exit, TPTB could just have Smokey spank them and shove them out the door, but they haven't. Instead they are displaying various states of death.

So let's accept as Visions the following: Boone and Horace in Locke's dreams, Ben's mother's appearance to him, Libby and Christian in Michael's dilemmas, and Christian every time he has appeared to Jack. These visions are non-corporeal - can't touch 'em, can't catch 'em, can't prove 'em. The Whisperers fit in this category (the Visions and the Whispers if you're looking for a band name). Again, I summarily disagree these are the island either appearing or speaking. Islands don't talk, silly, my eight year old would say. The fact that these ghost-like beings seem to be transmitting the island's will intensifies the story,

Then we have the most intriguing group of dead. Call them what they call themselves: Dead but Here. They include Charlie (able to slap Hurley), Eko (supposedly moving his own chess pieces), Christian (able to hold Aaron), Ana Lucia (able to drive a police car). This by rights is a new category developed by Lost. They are not just ghosts, meaning they are not disembodied spirits. They have some level of human-ness because they can participate with the living by appearing living. In other words, they are corporeal.

We have to wonder - is this what she Claire is? If she is alive, it opens puzzling possibilities as to what is going on in the Cabin. But the fact of the matter is that she is very likely dead. Miles who can communicate with the dead saw her go off in the jungle with her dad, probably meaning he saw Claire die. If so, there are several options for her: She is an incorporeal Vision, or she is Dead but Here. Since she appeared to Kate then disappeared, she certainly seems to be acting like her ghost-like dad. But if her moment of death was in her bungalow in Othersville yet she interacted with Sawyer and company, she indeed is Dead but Here. Which Christian appears to be also.

But there is a third option. Call it the Jacob or the Dead with Superpowers category. Of course we have to wonder if Jacob is even dead. Maybe he's alive trapped in a netherworld armed with telekinetic power. Maybe this is why he responded to Walt. Walt certainly isn't dead, but he sure seems trapped too, doesn't he? Is Claire perhaps in this class? We haven't see Claire exhibit power, although I have a feeling the only thing that could have put Kate on Ajira flight 316 so sullen, shaken and hopeless was a visit and reprimand from her. But Claire is where no other living person seems to hang out: The Cabin.

If she and Jacob are both dead, like Christian does that suggest that all the dead centered at The Cabin? Maybe it is their guard station. If that is the case and all the dead are centered here doing the island's bidding, then the level of death "achieved" might be because of their willingness or lack thereof to believe in Jacob or the island. In other words, Christian, Claire and Charlie might all be able to manifest because of their adherence to Jacob's doctrine, which so far seems to be about the island's well-being. Libby seems to be working in tandem with Christian, therefore maybe she is also Dead but Here. Maybe the whisperers are all as corporeal as Charlie. The simple fact is that dead on the island is not completely dead in the way we think of it - gone, incommunicable, impalpable. But the closer someone gets to the cabin the more like the alive they appear to be. If the cabin is not a guard station for all the dead, then the story might be suggesting that drawing near to it and agreeing with Jacob is what brings them out of the "less dead" state. Do I think Season Six is the zombie season and all the dead shall rise? No, not really. But if Eko, Joanne, Boone and Shannon all show up I personally won't be surprised.

Most significantly several of our most prominent characters are indeed centered at, pointed at, moving from or to the Cabin. I consider them to be in Jacob's posse: Christian obviously since he can speak for Jacob, Claire by association, Locke for all intents and purposes, Hurley because he saw the Cabin, and Jack very simply based on his connection to Dad, Step-sis and Proxy Dad. I am convinced that Locke will not be able to help Jacob without Jack's help. So we have a nexus of power focused on Jacob aligned with the island's well-being with Locke-Hurley-Jack in the outer ring. If Kate aligns herself doctrinally with Locke and emotionally with Jack, her destiny will be determined by what happens to Jacob. I like the fact that her alliance is undecided and unreliable. I always look at her character with the knowledge that in the original story draft Kate Austen was considered the main hero. People will get mad at me for considering her as only a part of Locke's fate, and I recently read that only lonely housewives still want Kate with Jack, but that is not how I see it. Her yet-to-be decided allegiance is vital because of her own inherent worth and ability. She totally lost herself off island. She was right: she wasn't made for taco night.

Speaking of mainland life, let's consider the Oceanic Six, although that "branding" already seems as outdated as "New Coke." The O6 are no longer any kind of group. Their survivor's guilt and the lie destroyed them from the inside out. But before we completely put away life in LA, Seoul and all of Sayid's locales, let's consider a vivid juxtaposition the writers introduced. Mainland life gave them all the best the world has to give: wealth (think of Sun able to buy Paik Industries), freedom (think of Sayid and Jack globetrotting), professional success (Jack in full practice), settled home life with family (think of Kate and Jack happily raising Aaron, Sun raising Ji Yeon with her mom's help), medical care (Hurley) and love (Sayid and Nadia, Jack and Kate). But everything turned to dust in their hands. Like the Matrix, mainland life turned out to be a mirage, a front, a smokescreen hiding their real life. This dynamic was not wasted on me. For all their on-island longing to be back to the good life, the good life turned out to be insufficient to meet their real needs.

I want to understate something here to make a larger point: They needed nature. Don't think of just a refreshing walk in the woods to clear your head and stretch your muscles. Think of nature the way the 19th century Romantics and C.S. Lewis saw it - as wild, unpredictable, powerful, neutral yet sacramental.

This notion of nature that it can heal, define and change a person is one of the guiding principles of Lost, which I have considered from Season One to be a neo-Romantic work. I am a major fan of the art direction of the show - I'm a sucker for a good prop and set. So when I heard on the Season Four DVD that that the designers purposefully keep the color green out of off-island sets and locales, I just had to sit for a moment and smile. Green, verde, vert, is the island's color. Everyone who notices what happens to the earth in springtime knows with what to associate the color green: Life. Maybe this story is this simple: the Losties belong on the island because they need nature and life in order to be whole. Nah, that's way underplaying it. But there's a kernel of truth here. Nature, from where we spring, must at least be reckoned with, if not embraced and worshipped.

That leads to my next article: Locke, the New Man. See you there!