Tonight on MacGuffin Island: Finding a purpose with no purpose

Along with countless others, I have enjoyed watching LOST for the last six years (or five, actually; I didn’t start watching until Season 2 was underway). There have been a lot of intriguing mysteries, interesting characters, and perplexing questions.

The series is now over, and I find myself asking, “Can you have a good story without having a good ending?”  Reading a few reviews and comments on the series finale, you find some people who are completely thrilled and satisfied with how the series ended. Others, like me, are disappointed and feel like the ending lacked a sense of meaning and resolution.  We had followed the stories of the various characters, hoping to understand the connections between various events.  We were hoping to be let in on the secret story arc that explained “why,” but we walked away empty-handed.

In my view, the letdown is primarily the result of writers who have been infected by existentialism.  Many people have bought into existentialism, whether they realize it or not. To an existentialist, existence is meaningless, outside of the meaning that you bring to your existence. The individual, and their choices, is all that really matters. It is not important for there to be “reasons” that tie the story together.¹

The biggest problem with this (from the standpoint of a compelling story) is that when the individuals pass on, so does the meaning. There is no meaning for an outside observer; the “meaning” of LOST is trapped inside the church with all the characters.

Some good stories feature a mystery that is solved, or a problem that is overcome. When the mystery is solved, we understand what transpired and why certain things happened. When the problem is overcome, we are relieved, because we understand why the problem was bad and why the solution is good.

As LOST ended, some questions were answered and some problems were solved, but there was a lack of meaning. LOST had lots of storytelling, but the overarching meta-narrative or story arc was incomplete.  The smoke monster is defeated, but it’s never quite clear why he was so evil, so powerful, or what would happen if he wasn’t defeated. The island is saved, but it’s never quite clear why that was so important, what role its unique characteristics played, or what the consequences would be if it were destroyed. The primary role of the island seems to be a plot device that generated experiences wherein the characters could interact.

It’s okay to have a character-driven story without mysteries to solve or hurdles to overcome. However, one normally expects the characters to reveal something to us about ourselves or our fellow man.

Throughout LOST, there have been references to finding deeper meaning in life, to pursuing one’s purpose, and exploring the mysteries of free will and destiny. Although we should not expect a TV show to provide satisfactory answers for all these questions, many people were hoping for some explanations that would make some sense of all that has happened on the show.

In some sense, each of the characters discover their purpose and fulfill it. But it’s a hollow purpose that doesn’t add any meaning to the story. If Jack had failed, if Hurley had not taken his place, would it have really mattered? People have experiences; they do bad things; they do good things; they end up back together again with the people they love. But there is no substance behind it. There are no reasons to explain why those experiences mattered.  It might have even been okay if it had simply ended as a battle between good and evil, where good won out.  But the ending made the actual events irrelevant.  It’s simply, “here we are, all together again, isn’t this nice.” As Richard Vine blogged, “Heaven is a Drive Shaft gig: altogether now, ‘You all, everybody!’” Or, as one commenter summarized, “Sentimentality 1, Making sense 0.”

1. Contrary to existentialism, Christianity declares that God defines human essence, He gives us our purpose, and He determines our destiny. We belong to Him, and our life is meaningful if we live according to His purposes. Read/Listen/Watch John Piper give a great explanation of this reality. [↩]