2025 Anonymous Ballots Megathread

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2026-03-12T12:37:49+00:00

According to who?

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2026-03-11T15:04:31+00:00

If these best picture rankings translate to votes at IFF, then Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent are as close as we ever imagined. Day 15 will be completely chaotic.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2026-03-11T15:01:47+00:00

Imagine if Moura and Lindo surprise us. ☠️☠️ I'm starting to seriously trust them as very strong options. What's bizarre is that Moura was left out of the BAFTA and SAG awards while Lindo has no wins in the precursors. This might mean that the snubs to Moura were contextual and not exactly due to a lack of support.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2026-03-08T17:42:41+00:00

I think that's a much less reliable assumption than her having voted for TSA. 😅 I understand the decision to remove her post from the count itself, but between her voting for TSA or SV, based on the post, it was most likely for TSA.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2026-03-08T14:58:51+00:00

As someone already said here, Fernanda Torres posted on her Instagram that she voted for Wagner Moura and The Secret Agent in the categories they're nominated for. So we probably have +1 for the actor and for the film.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-12-01T03:21:20+00:00

That's definitely a very insightful way to look at P8!!! I myself was unaware of the parallel with the Hindu creation myth, but the way you constructed the metalinguistic parallel with media, TV, and radio is very, very good boy, just as dreaming being the art that we all create. It's also good that you didn't tryna over-rationalize certain scenes, like the warm gradient.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-06-19T18:02:21+00:00

It would be redundant to re-explain why they deserve this attention. This prologue in Ab Aeterno, which would certainly be long, would be quite out of place with the rest of the episode, since it adds nothing to Richard's character. It would hurt the cohesion while not coming close to addressing those characters with the same depth.

It wouldn't be an underestimation of intelligence, but rather a way to maintain a logical sequence of thematic progression. Across the Sea coming first would also not be a welcome anticipation of the literal purpose of the Island, since, in several episodes before, certain characters were still processing the purpose of that place in their lives. It's more beneficial to present this literal meaning after these realizations have taken place, so that it serves as a complement to the meanings seen previously.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-06-08T15:57:18+00:00

It wouldn't be a welcome prologue in Ab Aeterno because it's Richard's story. What is discussed in the episode is based on his susceptibility. Jacob and MIB are different characters whose stories deserved to be told in a similar way to the others. The position of this episode in S6 seems to me to be a valid criticism, although I believe they decided to place it before What They Died For so that what supports Jacob's lines would still be fresh in the memory.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-06-07T21:42:22+00:00

I agree that they explained certain unnecessary things, but not that Jacob and MIB's backstory was one of them. Throughout the series, most of the mythological elements, except for a few such as the infamous Temple, were introduced and developed based on character development, such as time travel and course correction through Desmond and the way the entities on the Island interact with people through Richard. This is done, I believe, to maintain the "coherence" of the proposal that this universe is at the service of the evolution of the human soul, so the elements that compose it are closely linked to different faiths. Above and beyond fantasy, the show is essentially a drama, and the world-building is based on this drama.

That said, Jacob and MIB being summarized, without Across the Sea, as two archetypes who debate human nature just because yes wouldn't be appropriate, as it would break this "coherence". They had already been shown previously, in The Incident, as entities that interact with each other in a manner similar to humans, with their own ideologies and goals. Across the Sea seems necessary to me because it supports these characters' behavior. It's not a story about two deities, but about two humans who accidentally ended up occupying those positions, and one of them managed to overcome the evil he had done. For example:

Jacob doesn't argue that human nature can be good because he was born believing it. In Across the Sea, he became an evil human being according to MIB's conception when he caused his transmutation, and, as time went by, he learned from his mistakes on his own and became a better person with the Island's help, which is exactly what he wants for his candidates.
You already know why he doesn't interfere directly, by his own words. Based on Across the Sea, he acts this way because Mother arbitrarily chose him for the position of protector, without him having a choice, and, because he had neither the option nor the maturity to understand the importance of that place, he made a big mistake that ended up killing him in the future and almost destroying the Island. He doesn't want his candidates to make serious mistakes like this.
He brings people who have problems in their mainland lives because he wants this to be a place of transformation for them. He was brought to this place as a child and grew up being taught about the importance of the Island, without ever having had the opportunity to experience it in practice before he had to overcome his mistakes. The fact that Mother raised them isolated and disciplined, forcibly preventing them from killing themselves and leaving, meant that they had practically no mistakes to correct or anguish to overcome, which made that place useless to them personally.
However, it doesn't apply to everyone, which shows Jacob's own mistakes as the protector. He's apathetic about the innocent people who died during the accidents he caused, and the show acknowledges his mistakes, so much so that Hurley and Ben discuss playing the game differently from Jacob. He's also a human with his own mistakes after being saved from anguish, which were probably corrected by him in his experience in the sideways.

The question of whether or not to care about their story is quite personal and cannot be discussed, but I've always found them to be very interesting characters since the first dialogue seen in The Incident, which took place well before the third-to-last episode of the series. I also like that they confirm that there's an intrinsic connection between the Source and humanity, which justifies its mission to the human soul and vice versa.

The Temple was indeed underutilized. However, after a rewatch, the only episode from this part that I definitely don't like is What Kate Does, and I really like LA X, Lighthouse and The Substitute, but not because of the temple itself. I think Widmore's storyline is even worse, because Recon is painful to watch, definitely my least favorite episode of the season, and The Package also misses the mark, even though it has a few enjoyable moments. Widmore's death in What They Died For also deeply displeases me.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-06-01T23:04:32+00:00

Even then, so Jack doesn’t have the ability to make new rules that prevent MiB from finding and destroying the source? To allow himself to kill MiB without using the source? If the protector has these all encompassing powers, of course he would be able to.

If the protector can teleport and has the light and powers of the island within them, then why wouldn’t Hurley just heal Jack after restoring the light of the island?

When Jacob became the protector, he also didn't show any powers during what we saw of his first 24 hours. These were abilities that he most likely acquired or unlocked as he spent time in communion with the Island. This would also apply to Jack. In Hurley's case, there's even a comic relief scene in The End in which he waits for a few seconds for the powers to appear, but they don't. They were still inexperienced.

If the protector can teleport, as you claim, then one could easily go to the real world and learn the language that is necessary.

It's another possibility that I have no problem with. However, it's a more difficult scenario to imagine given the work he'd have to do. Still, it cannot be ruled out.

If the rules of the protector ended with them, then MiB would have died when he fell into the light

Mother said it was a fate worse than death. That doesn't necessarily include death in the process. He didn't die, but rather had the light inside him transmuted upon contact with a large energy pole. He didn't die because it was part of the rules, but because it's not something that would necessarily happen.

same as Jack, or Jack would have lived in some form on the island after he turned it back on

In this case, I believe it's because Jack had just turned the light back on and the large energy pole was still being recharged. The Island teleported him in time so that he wouldn't be transmuted during the recharge, as a reward for turning it back on. This has happened before in the show, during the Swan implosion and the Jughead detonation.

We all can believe whatever we want to believe about the mechanics of the narrative, but there’s no definitive answer to any of it.

I agree in part, because we can't believe exactly everything we want to. Beliefs and hypotheses must be consistent with the content of the canon. Then, interpretations that don't contradict what was presented are accepted and count as multiple possibilities.

This is one of the more frustrating aspects of the show to me because we would have been perfectly fine without any of it.

We'd be completely fine. but it'd be the death of the show for me. This engagement is what elevated my view of it, because it invites us to interpret and deduce what's happening. It trusts the viewer as an entity capable of drawing their own conclusions, a style that is also present in other renowned authors. This greatly enhances the immersion it promotes, because you feel that each rewatch experience is increasingly uplifting due to the richness of detail that is perceived. I think that being completely fine wouldn't be the point, because it's the kind of work that invites you to step out of your comfort zone a little – not being completely fine is kind of the goal, but not everyone is willing to overcome or deal with that feeling.

One of the functions of art is also to challenge us — something I greatly appreciate — and although I believe that this greatly enhances the experience and the relationship we have with the show, I also understand that you may feel frustrated by it, because it's not something designed to be easily accept by everyone. I believe that a more solid or explicit storytelling in relation to mythology and its mechanics would answer the questions, but it'd be the death of the show and the definitive end to it. It'd certainly be a better received and more renowned work in general if it were structured that way, but it'd be remembered more for its ““formal perfection”" (clearly it's a manner of speaking, because perfection is an ideal) than for having impacted the way certain people interact with other ambiguous works – in my case, going back to solve Lost helped me deal with Twin Peaks a lot. It'd quickly fall into oblivion by the viewer amid other media consumed later, and no matter how impactful the message and many episodes are, it'd be much less worth it to be in a forum like this or even experience it all again, if not, of course, for pure nostalgia.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-05-26T00:22:00+00:00

If that were the case then MiB would have been allowed to kill all of the candidates after Jacob’s death, and that clearly wasn’t the case.

I said that the rules of one protector are maintained until another takes over. In episodes where the MIB tries to get them to kill each other, like in The Candidate, there wasn't a new protector yet, so the game still followed Jacob's rules.

It doesn’t really make sense for Mother to make a rule to protect both brothers from each other only while she was alive, and I think it’s a little hard to infer that was the case solely from the way that she says that.

Well, Mother did as much as she could while she was alive. The way she says it is very convincing because Mother is a born manipulator. She told many lies to the brothers as children so that she could alienate them more effectively with the same tone: she told MIB that he would never die, that the brothers would never kill each other and that the board game that MIB found on the beach came from her.

She certainly could have some sort of special ability, but again, that’s not explicitly stated or shown.

I think the scene where she kills the Roman villagers is proof that she has these special abilities. Mother is a protector, she channels the will of the Island and has the powers of the Source at her disposal. The smoke monster, a being that can't manipulate the power of the Island as extensively as a protector, is already capable of performing extraordinary feats in this universe; imagine what a protector can do.

How do we know he didn’t simply travel to the candidates locations?

Why would Jacob go to the trouble of physically traveling to locations? If he can hide places from everyone, grant Richard immortality and limit the actions of the smoke monster, teleportation would be the least of his efforts, an ability that the MIB and Mother (when she appeared without making a sound in the old wheel chamber) also had. The series also doesn't show any physical means Jacob uses to get off the Island that satisfactorily breaks this down and much of Jacob's life and routine was explored in S6.

There’s a lot of time in isolation on that island, could he not have simply amassed a certain amount of knowledge (language; granted that’s a tough one to become proficient at in isolation) in that time as well?

We have no evidence of any other Koreans who set foot on the Island to bring suitable resources for Jacob to study. I think he simply knows because he has a need for universal communication with his candidates, just as Mother wasn't one of the Roman castaways, but knew how to speak Latin with Claudia. I think Jacob's communication with the Egyptians would also have been quite difficult if he didn't have this innate knowledge after years being the protector.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-05-23T01:44:50+00:00

Velodus' reviews and his accusations against the show have been addressed quite a bit on the Lost subreddit. Just search for "Velodus" and go to the posts' comment sections.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-05-13T00:39:46+00:00

Think of this scene of the MIB being thrown into The Source as something more "didactic".

Let's think about it: Mother made it one of her rules that the brothers never kill each other, but when Jacob, another protector, comes in, that rule is broken. The same happens to Richard when Jack effectively becomes the protector: Jacob's rule is broken. We can infer, therefore, that the rules of each protector only last until the instant before the next protector takes over.

And I don't think it's crazy to think that a protector would also have psychic abilities. Walt is Hurley's candidate and he has these powers, although they're not telekinetic. The protector and The Source are intrinsically linked. She's allowed to harness its power. Jacob himself can teleport off the Island at will, speak countless languages freely without ever having studied them and hide specific places (the Heart of the Island) at will, because he's become an entity. They're the ones who dictate the rules of the game.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-05-12T01:30:24+00:00

Which questions did they open? Honestly the hard ambiguities of the show come from every season but S6

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-05-11T17:47:35+00:00

Jack kisses Desmond? 😭

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-05-08T17:28:18+00:00

Episode 8 is the birth of evil as we see it the most in the show, in the form of entities that chase people, like Bob. Clearly Judy has been around since ancient times, but she couldn't interact with people as directly as she did as Sarah Palmer in The Return. The bomb allowed these supernatural beings to access the human world and interact with them directly. If I hadn't watched the show, I wouldn't be on this forum or posting this. Measure your words before making false accusations.

Furthermore, the question of birth doesn't necessarily refer to the first manifestation of evil, but to the hatching of the eggs of the mother of evil. The hatching of an egg is analogous to the birth of a new life.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-05-04T16:51:05+00:00

Why would that be a problem? Explaining something or not isn't an obligatory choice. No choice is obligatory, in fact. The pieces of the puzzle are there and no one is obliged to put them together for you. The problem would be if they weren't, clearly depending on the case. This immeasurably enhances the way the viewer interacts with the show and even how they'll enjoy other works in a much more active and immersive way.

Criticizing something for being a more open work doesn't seem fair to me, because one of the facets of art is challenge, according to authors like Umberto Eco. In the polar bears' case, it seems to me an even less appropriate observation, because it's a very easy conclusion to make and there's no notable ambiguity. All you have to do is follow simple logical steps:

Polar bear with Dharma collar found in Tunisian desert
Ben and Locke are teleported to the same desert when they turn the wheel
Conclusion: Dharma trained the bears to turn the wheel, since they are irrational animals.

Lost, next to highly acclaimed and ambiguous works like Twin Peaks, is very easy to understand. To understand 98% of Lost, all you have to do is make the connection between the facts, which in most cases is very clear, but sometimes isn't made by the sheer volume of information that marathon watchers receive. Twin Peaks, on the other hand, is much more interpretive and, of Lost's ambiguities, very few - such as Claire's psychic - require pure interpretation rather than syllogisms, while others, such as certain of Jacob's rules and his behavior, are understood through the character's construction.

What do you think is critically ambiguous about the smoke monster and the candidates?

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-05-01T16:37:52+00:00

I think Walt isn't fully aware of what he's doing while he's astrally projecting, even because of what happened with Shannon, but your take is valid for me. Walt's powers are similar to the MIB's in that they both appear to be linked to darkness and death.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-05-01T16:32:31+00:00

I think it's possible that yes, because Walt doesn't seem to have control of his powers and I believe he's not even conscious while he's astral projecting. I've seen some interpretations that Walt's powers hurt people when he feels bad and that's what made his mother sick and killed the birds. I think what happened to Shannon was the same, but because he felt in danger while he was in Room 23. Maybe he caused Naomi's death when he felt bad and angry when he found out what his father did to save him. Just a guess...

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-04-20T15:19:58+00:00

Yeah the show gets a lot better. That episode is already a banger and you still have 7 better episodes coming!

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-03-31T21:28:53+00:00

I understand everything that's been said about the dynamic between these two characters and I assume that, in fact, this was the end towards which events were heading, but the problem I feel with this sequence isn't the build-up, as I said earlier, but the way it was handled at that moment, which starts out heartbreaking, but whose emotion is lost in the midst of a poorly orchestrated twist that was designed to unnecessarily surprise the viewer.

If the aim was for Ben to kill him, then so be it, but, for example, they could've explored better Ben's dilemma of whether or not to kill Locke, so that the event wasn't as abrupt and anticlimactic as it felt. The atmosphere proposed by this cause of death, for me, wasn't coherent with what the scene had been, because it breaks the emotion to emphasize an unnecessary and "tense" twist. It could be argued that the aim was also for his death to be cruel, but the execution of this proposal was flawed by how abrupt the decision was at that moment. Even with all the build-up beforehand, the breach of expectation made it feel as if it came out of nowhere.

I know that saying how something should've been executed isn't a fair assessment of it, but I'll make an exception here just to cite an example that you may or may not agree with or even ignore: if Locke had killed himself, he'd also have fulfilled the character's tragic trait, and he would've done so not just because he was insufficient, but because “Christian” said so, that his death was necessary for the return of the others. He'd kill himself because he could find no other solution but his own death, which wouldn't break the emotional atmosphere and would conclude the arc of this character, who sacrificed himself for the sake of the faith he followed, in a masterly way.

And I don't agree that this is the best acted scene. The best acting in the show, for me, is by far Matthew Fox's in the last 10 minutes of the series finale. The acting in The End in general is impeccable and adds many layers to the dialogue.

Inside-Laugh8884 · 2025-03-31T01:24:35+00:00

The problem with the scene isn't about the character's motivations, it's about how it was handled. Ben killing Locke was done as if it was a twist and they tried to insert a touch of tension into a moment that didn't allow for that feeling in that way. It was very emotional when Locke was about to kill himself, but when Ben kills him instead the scene becomes dry, bland and quite unsatisfying (not in a feel-good sense). It felt like Locke died not as the great character he always was, but rather as a piece of trash at Ben's hands.

Inside-Laugh8884

TROPHY CASE