Adam & Eve and Black & White Stones

At the risk of sounding stupid, let me share something with you. Just hear me out. You know the skeletal bodies in the cave? The ones Locke called Adam and Eve? Well, I have a theory on who they are. At the risk of sounding stupid, let me tell you: I think they might be Jack and Kate. Or, as if that wasn't bad enough, I think they might be Desmond and Penny.



I floated this idea with my girlfriend. "HOW?" she exasperatedly asked me, wearing the same expression of anger and despair you may also be currently sporting. HOW indeed? Well, for now, forget the 'how'. I'll have a run at the how in a while. First let me at least defend this madness by explaining WHY.

Why I think it might be Jack and Kate is, well, it's because of those pesky black and white stones. You know, the ones Jack found on the skeletal body. Jack checked the body out, found a little pouch which held black and white stones and then, deftly, he stashed them in his pocket. So here's a thing: We never see those stones again. Jack just takes them. . . and keeps them. . . and never mentions them again. . . and doesn't that just make you crazy?



So in a nice piece of poetry I envisage Jack keeps the stones on his person and then, once dead, he is laid to rest in the cave. His decomposing body turns into a skeleton that, one day, a spinal surgeon from a crashed plane will chance upon. He'll find a little bag holding black and white stones and take them for himself. . . Yes yes, this all depends on Jack getting back to the Island and, not only that, but being back there at a significantly long enough point in time before his younger self will crash land there. . .

Listen: FORGET the HOW for now - just go with me on why I like this idea.

To augment things, Kate (in the episode House Of The Rising Sun, where Adam and Eve are first discovered) very pointedly remarks to Jack that she does not want to be Eve. She was talking about how she didn't want to go and live in the caves, but it's all very ironic, no? Potentially, anyway. And for this idea to make any kind of sense you have to kind of imagine the Island timeline coming full circle, like a complete revolution. And you know what makes this idea nice? The title of the first 'proper' episode of Lost. It's called Tabula Rasa. Clean slate. What you get when you start something afresh.

You might think the idea stinks, but you must admit, it's got a nice thematic quality to it.

So that's Jack and Kate, and if you thought THAT reasoning was bad then wait until you hear about Desmond and Penny. Basically, my 'logic' for figuring that Adam and Eve are the skeletons is this: In Desmond's flashback, in the episode Flashes Before Your Eyes, there's a moment in Penny's flat when, on the table, we can see what looks like two stones; one black, one white. The black and white stones were in Penny's flat!





(And anyone that tells me these 'stones' were, in fact, just bottle tops or something. . . Well, I'm not listening. You're ruining my party.)

And why else could Desmond and Penny be the skeletons in the cave? Well, you know, Desmond's kind of getting this time travel business under control. He's sort of travelled back in time already. OK, sure, only his MIND travelled back but who's to say that later down the line he doesn't learn how to time travel properly? And then, you know, take Penny with him. . .



OK, shaddap. It's not an easy explain. I didn't say I had the answers, I just wanted to share with you! But, just for the sake of it, let me take a run at explaining HOW this could happen.

Imagine that the Island is running on a loop. It exists outside of regular 'time' and 'space' in its own time cycle. If you don't like the idea of it existing outside time and space, consider it nestled within a rift or a slight tear in the time-space fabric. However you grasp it, this could explain the way healing and ageing are warped on the Island. It could explain why Dharma considered the Island a brilliant, giant-size laboratory (like working out how to prevent the Valenzetti equation coming to fruition and ending the world; if they could reverse-engineer the maths on the microcosmic Island these findings could then be used on the real world to save it - like finding a cure for cancer in test conditions before being mass marketed for the general population).

There's all kinds of reasons why this could make a certain kind of sense (and, for sure, all kinds of reasons why it might not).

The idea of the Island on a time loop fits nicely though. Think of Rousseau's distress signal running on a loop (and the numbers playing previously). Think of Desmond's battle to alter a course correcting future (maybe he's not seeing the future at all - just different versions of previous loops). Think of how the whispers could be the voice-echoes of people from previous iterations of the Island loop.

"We have to go back," Jack cries at the end of season 3. How literally do you want to take that statement?

My point is: If the Island is running on a loop, and things can come full circle upon it, this could explain how Jack and Kate, or Desmond and Penny, could eventually be fated to be Adam and Eve - the skeletons in the cave. Just keep your eyes peeled for those black and white stones, that's my advice.

17 comments:

Arielle Danger said...

I never noticed how often those were shown except in the first episode with John Locke. I really need to keep my eyes peeled.

Good, though stretched, theory. Thought provoking.

Anonymous said...

As I was watching an early episode of lost i noticed that John Locke's backgammon peices are also white, and black, and when Locke is explaining the game to Walt he says that backgammon is the oldest game, and the peices were once made of bone. So my theory is that either adam and eve just really liked to play backgammon, John Locke is realated to adam and eve, or possibly the two stones r supose to represent Locke, and Rose the two people who not only wanted to remain on the island forever, but were healed by the island, I know none of my theories are particularly solid but at least it is somthing

Michelle-Anè "Molly" Muro said...

I've toyed back and Adam & Eve.
Even gone so far as to suggest they might be Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan.

I feel certain now that they are in fact Jack and Kate. I can't explain why, its just a gut feeling.
As much as I loathe Jack, I know its him in that cave.

Anonymous said...

interesting theories on the "time loop island".all will be discovered soon though(unless the writers dropped this storyline in a vain attempt to make it easier to end!!)

Anonymous said...

Doesn't anyone remember Locke teaching Walt to play Backgammon with the black and white stones? With the whole time travel spin and eventually Locke's body (in a suit) being brought back to the island, it definitely points to Locke being Adam. Now who is Eve? To me that is the next question....

Anonymous said...

The skeleton in the cave has a leather cord around the neck, albeit a broken one. The only character who has worn a leather cord, has been Charlie.

Anonymous said...

Also Charlie and Claire have basically the same name except the "h". One and the same, yet ying and yang? Adam and Eve? The skeletons are not laid side by side; Not as husband and wife or true lovers. I think we will be surprised. I think they may be a miss-matched pair of survivors. Maybe one is jin or sun. Charlotte said she was born on the island. Maybe the pair in the caves raised Aaron and jiYeon (or are them) and they are the parents of Charlotte (she speaks korean) who they named after Charlie.

AngeloComet said...

Crikey, Anonymous. . .! This is certainly plaguing your mind.

Despite my above theory (which was written before Season 4, I think!) right now it could literally be anyone left alive. Aaron and Ji Yeon is not a bad shout. I've also still attached myself to the idea that it's the DeGroots, just for the sheer longshot hell of it.

Anonymous said...

Actually it has to be Jack and someone else.
As he took the pocket it became his, which means, that when he eventually renturns to the island he might take it with him for any reason... this would lead to the fact, tha the stones are some kind of manifestion of time without any origin existence.

...hey if an island can be moved, why should it not be able have its own creations. Maybe the island hs an extraordinary sence of humor

Anonymous said...

I believe they are "Urim and Thummim" from The novel, The Alchemist (and also referenced in the Bible).

* In the novel The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, the king of Salem gives the main character Santiago two stones that the king calls Urim and Thummim. One of the stones is white, which is said to signify no, and the other is black, said to signify yes; a significance applicable when the stones are asked an appropriate question and drawn from a bag.

-Thomas Fletcher

Anonymous said...

Wonderful observation, Thomas

AngeloComet said...

Thomas, I like the idea of the black and white stones in Lost being referenced from the source you have cited.

I won't take the translation word for word and say the characters Urim and Thummin. That the stones signify yes and no ties in with the idea of free will on the Island, which is a key attribute of Lost.

I also like the Anonymous comment above, about how the stones - if the skeleton is indeed Jack - form a symbolic representation of something from nothing, being as they would be produced from a closed loop of time where Jack finds them and is buried with them and finds them and is buried with them eternally, without them ever being introduced from an outside source.

Anonymous said...

There was a leather cord around the neck of Amys husband Paul.It had an ankh on it.
Did Amy break the cord?
Paul's body was taken by Richard to satisfy justice for the others.

Anonymous said...

this full circle finish or something like it is beginning to sound more and more correct. the people involved with lost are known stephen king fans. the dark tower series ended with roland gaining the top of the tower only to return to the beginning of the story. wouldn't be surprised if the series ended with jack waking up in the jungle for the first time again.

AngeloComet said...

Actually, I would have said before Season 5 that the likelihood of the show coming full circle, and ending with Jack in the jungle, was highly unlikely.

Now, given Season 5 and the time travel historical visits, and the re-enactment of Jack waking in the jungle for a second time in the episode '316', I think it's even more remote that such a scenario will occur.

Anonymous said...

And now you know.

AngeloComet said...

lol Anonymous

Kudos to you for you being so quick off the mark to get back here and rubber stamp it!