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Fanon Alert! This article contains tribute art, spin-off fiction, theories, reference and community material created by fans inspired by the show. It is by definition non-canon, but generally distinct from intentionally fake hoaxes or humorous fan parody material.

One of the original and most popular fan theories was that the characters are in purgatory. However, this theory has been dismissed by the head writer.

Definition

Webster: "A state or place of purification after death; according to the Roman Catholic creed, a place, or a state believed to exist after death, in which the souls of persons are purified by expiating such offenses committed in this life as do not merit eternal damnation, or in which they fully satisfy the justice of God for sins that have been forgiven. After this purgation from the impurities of sin, the souls are believed to be received into heaven.

Theory

• Survivors each have some major problem they're trying to work out

• Each time a character works out their problem, they die ("leave purgatory")
  • Boone comes to terms with loving Shannon.
  • Leslie Arzt gets over being a social outcast.
  • Shannon comes to terms with loving Sayid.
  • Ana Lucia comes to terms with her anger issues and murderous tendencies.
  • Eko gets over his doubts and accepts he only did what was necessary to survive.
    • However, this could also be explained by Damon Lindelof's explanation of the concept of the show. He states that: "This show is about people who are metaphorically lost in their lives, who get on an airplane, and crash on an island, and become physically lost on the planet Earth. And once they are able to metaphorically find themselves in their lives again, they will be able to physically find themselves in the world again. When you look at the entire show, that's what it will look like. That's what it's always been about."
    • Thus, when people solve their problems, they "find themselves", and in order to fulfill the shows concept, they die.

• Many of the problems of the characters correspond closely to the seven deadly sins found in Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio. These categories are taken from the annotations to the John Ciardi translation.
  • Charlie: envy (of his brother), gluttony (heroin)
  • Kate: wrath (she's a murderer)
  • Paulo and Nikki: thievery, avarice
  • Desmond: sloth (unwilling to take charge of his life), Excommunicated (turned out of the monastery)
    • Desmond was not excommunicated. He was not even unordained, as monks simply enter a religious order, they don't recieve an ordination. All this means is that he was seen as unfit for the calling of a brother. Excommunication involves the actual ejection from and shunning by the church as a whole.
  • Sawyer: wrath (murderer), avarice & greed (con man)
  • Sun: lust (cheated on her husband)
  • Eko: excommunicated
    • Neither was Eko excommunicated, as he was in fact still working as a priest when he left Australia.
  • Claire: negligent (caused a fatal car accident)
    • Negligence is not one of the 7 deadly sins.
  • Locke: sower of discord (meddles with everything, does what he's not supposed to)
    • Sowing of Discord is not one of the 7 deadly sins, though you could argue that Locke falls victim to Pride as he considers himself to be a leader of men and to have a special relationship with the Island.
  • Jack: traitor, the gravest of sins (betrayed his father)
    • Treachery is not one of the 7 deadly sin. However, 'Pride' is, which would be an apt description of Jack's self-image as the healer; especially in regards to his wife and there related surgery.
      • Jack never took pride in saving people he only had to keep healing to make himself whole and to sub-consciously strive for the top and be the best like his father taught him to. If you watch his face and body expressions after a hard day of saving lives he's never proud only happy to see his friends alive once again. Even when his wife toasted him at thier wedding for making it so she could dance, he didn't look next to him and nod his head or anything that related to proud once so ever. In fact he looked down as if it just hit him that this was the sole reason for her to be marrying him. I'll rap it up with Jack Shepard is not a proud man. --James Ford 23:08, 16 September 2008 (PDT)
  • Hurley: gluttony, sloth
  • As noted below, the children are removed (they belong in limbo if unbaptized, heaven if baptized, but not purgatory).
• The list could go on and on. Each character is tormented by his or her flaw in the form of flashbacks, and as noted above, the characters appear to be conquering their problems. A compelling example of this occurs in the episode "The Brig," for example, John Locke either conquered or embraced his problem of being a sower of discord by orchestrating Sawyer's revenge; he sowed discord in a way that brought justice and peace for Sawyer. Having conquered his problem, he is fit to join the Others; whether that moves him toward heaven or hell, he is at a new stage.

• • "Innocent" people are taken by the Others
  • Perhaps purgatory is indeed a theme in the show, though not an actual location; the writers explained that they are not physically in purgatory, but perhaps the idea of redemption and karma is something each character encounters while on the Island. So far there are strong themes of faith vs logic, destiny vs free will, good vs. evil, karma, and redemption. Clearly, this show is dealing with the spiritual, despite the debunked puragtory theory.

Pro

• The show starts with an airplane crash which normally nobody would survive. Maybe all the ‘survivors’ died and are now in some sort of purgatory, limbo or an other place between earth and ‘the hereafter’. The ones killed in the crash went directly to the afterlife.
  • In "Tabula Rasa", Kate approaches Jack on the beach and wants to tell him what she did. He says to her, "It doesn't matter what we did before this, before the plane crashed. (dramatic pause) Three days ago, we all died. We all deserve a second chance." (referring to the real-life | "Tabula Rasa" concept, the episode's namesake
  • Sayid says to Ana Lucia, upon her asking him to take revenge on her in "Collision", "What good would it do to kill you when we're both already dead?"
  • Christian tells Sawyer in a bar in Sydney, "We're in Australia. We're as close to Hell as we can get without getting burned."
  • Naomi mentions in the tent that Oceanic Flight 815 was already discovered, and that there were no survivors.
  • Anthony Cooper says to Sawyer, "If this isn't Hell, friend, then where are we?"
• There are numerous references to "a previous life" and "the next life" throughout the show.
  • Michael tells Jack that "In a previous life, I was an artist."
  • The inscription Nadia writes on the picture she gives Sayid says "I will see you again in the next life, if not this one."
  • Desmond has said many times to Jack, "See you in another life, brother" (at the stadium, when running from the Hatch, before triggering the fail-safe, etc.)
• They all seem to have done something that leaves them with a feeling of guilt, or have unsolved problems.
  • Once they confess to these things, they are "taken" or die. If they die in purgatory their souls can rest.
    • Example of that is the death of Shannon. She died after somebody believes in her, Sayid, and that was the thing she had needed to confess before her pass to the afterlife.
• People who are known to be dead appear on the Island (and in dreams).
• Children/Babies are taken because they have no sins yet.
• Eko tells Charlie that his dreams may mean something, and that Aaron should be baptized because he is in danger. Baptizing plays an important role in limbo and purgatory because of the cleansing (remission) of sins.
• While talking to Locke Ben (aka Henry Gale) says: "God doesn't know how long we've been here. He can't see this island any better than the rest of the world can."
• Ben (aka Henry Gale) talks about the people on the Island as good or bad persons, being good or bad is very important while in purgatory.
• In the episode SOS, Bernard tries to make a big SOS sign. One of the given meanings of SOS is Save Our Souls.
• The author of the manuscript and published book Bad Twin, Gary Troup, appears to be a deliberate anagram of Purgatory.
  • In Bad Twin, there are numerous references to Purgatory, talking about how it is the second chance and destinies balance on a knife edge (see Chapter 15, 16 particularly).
• Survivors seem to miraculously ‘heal’ from earthly diseases. Locke can walk again, Rose healed form cancer and maybe Dr. Marvin Candle regained his arm on the Island.
• The Monster forms a tunnel in front of someone, Eko and Locke became very calm facing it, looking inside one (Eko) sees flashes of major events of his own life and Locke refers to what he saw as ‘beautiful’. All these properties (tunnel, calming, life review, experiencing beauty) are mentioned in near-death experiences, the biggest difference is that the smoke is black in contrast to a ‘tunnel of light’. The tunnel of black smoke could be a gateway out of purgatory into heaven (like the ‘tunnel of light’ is believed to lead from earth to heaven).
• When Eko asks Yemi in his dream for forgiveness he says: “Your work being done in ‘this place’ is important Eko, it is more important than anything!” and “what is done is done.”
• In "Something Nice Back Home" Hurley tells Jack that they are all dead
• References to the deaths of the characters on the Island support the idea that they are dead.
• Anthony Cooper being on the Island.
• When Michael dies in the finale of season 4, Jack's father appears and says, "You can go now Michael." meaning that he has made up for his sins, and may pass on to heaven.

Cons

• The purgatory theory was debunked by J.J. Abrams in a Zap2it interview published in March 14, 2005, "though he claimed to like the idea."
• The theory was again expressly debunked by executive producer Damon Lindelof in a New York Times interview published on May 25, 2006. Noting the fact that the finale of Season 2 shows the outside world in the present (as opposed to a flashback) for the first time, Lindelof added: "People who believe that they're in purgatory or that they're subjects of an experiment are going to start reassessing those theories based on the fact that we are literally showing you the outside world."
• This theory was rejected again by Damon Lindelof on the October 6, 2006 podcast.
• Following the airing of "D.O.C." and Naomi's revelation that the wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815 was allegedly found and there were no survivors, the "purgatory" theory was again debunked twice; first by Damon Lindelof in an interview with E! Online [1], stating that "If we did such a thing after repeatedly stating otherwise, we'd be tarred and feathered!"; and second, by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse in the April 30, 2007 podcast, insisting out that "we were not lying, it's not purgatory" and listing several possible other explanations for Naomi's revelation.
• This theory is almost certainly wrong now that we have seen the listening station, hard evidence that the outside world is still there.
  • The theory was debunked in Entertainment Weekly with the sentence "These people have hearts, and when those hearts stop beating, they die."
• Not all survivors have issues we know about, also people die/disappear that are clearly not innocent.
• Not from all people who die it is clear what they came to terms with or why they could leave the purgatory (e.g. Nathan and the Marshal).
  • Its said that Leslie Arzt died after getting over being a social outcast but first of all this problem is not serious enough to get him in purgatory and second of all the process of getting over it is no more than realizing and admitting it to Hurley.
  • The Marshal had an unfulfilled duty, upon passing on that duty to someone else he died.
• It does not explain the Numbers. (unless the Numbers are simply a problem of Hurley which he is confronted with on the Island)
• If the Island is a place that should decide your fate in the afterlife based on your earthly sins then why Aaron gets born here? (In the case of original sin he should have died after being baptized.)
• If Richard Malkin is really a psychic and wants to protect Aaron then why did he put Claire on flight 815 (knowing that it would crash and all passengers would die)?
  • It's possible that Malkin actually wanted to destroy Aaron. Perhaps he knew that Claire would somehow be responsible for his death, so he encouraged her to keep him: when that didn't work, he put her on a doomed flight.
• The theory that they all become "redeemed" before their deaths, could be nothing more than fully realizing a character before they leave the show.
• If the Island is purgatory, all "redeemed deaths" would be caused by the Island. That calls at the very least Ana Lucia and Libby's deaths into question.
• Several characters, such as Juliet Burke and Ben Linus, are depicted as being most certainly alive when they arrive on the Island.
• Richard Alpert is shown to have been living on the Island when Ben was a child up until at least the Purge ("The Man Behind the Curtain"). He is later shown to have gone off-island to recruit Juliet ("Not in Portland"), before returning at Ben's instruction ("One of Us"). This seems impossible if the Island is purgatory.
• Jack and Kate are both shown to have returned to the outside world following the events on the Island ("Through the Looking Glass").
• Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse again debunked this theory in a Lost recap special when they added that the Losties are not dead and "do exist somewhere in the space time continuum"
• With all the events from season 4, such as the freighter people coming to the Island and the flash-forwards revealing that some people will actually leave the Island, this theory seems to be finally dead in the water for good.

Allusions

Although dismissed as a theory by the writers and producers, they did occasionally make allusions to the "purgatory"/"they're all dead" theory. In at least one case, one of the characters actually believes that they are indeed dead.

• The name of the author of the book Bad Twin, Gary Troup, is an anagram of "purgatory".
• In "The Brig", Anthony Cooper tells Sawyer that he believes he is in "hell" and explains why he would come to this conclusion.
• In "Lost: the Answers", Carlton Cuse and and Damon Lindelof state that they dismissed the theory, adding "...or did we?" with tongue-in-cheek. The scene they're referring to is the last scene from "D.O.C." when Naomi tells Hurley that the wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815 had been found, and all the passengers on board were dead.
• The purgatory theory is mentioned by Sayid in The Final Episode (parody), that was screened at CES