Opening the mystery box: in ‘Lost’, what do the numbers really mean?
It might have been one of the most heavily-discussed, hotly-debated, and intensely-dissected TV shows in history at the height of its run, but even the most ardent supporters of Lost would be forced to admit the series ironically lost its way the longer it went on.
Even the people responsible for the long-running mystery have admitted it, with Damon Lindelof naming the shark-jumping season three episode ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ as the exact moment he realised the writers’ room needed to set a finite end date for Lost and begin concocting a way to bring the story to a close.
Jorge Garcia’s Hurley contributed a huge part of the show’s mythology when the 18th episode of the first season – aptly titled ‘Numbers’ – introduced the digits 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 into the mix, with the character’s winning lottery ticket bringing him nothing but bad luck. This being Lost, though, it was nowhere near as straightforward as being coincidence and superstition.
Those were also the exact same numbers Henry Ian Cusick’s Desmond had spent three years inputting into the computer in his underground lair every 108 minutes for three years, with Hurley labelling them as cursed when any time the offending numeric sequence was spotted, bad things ultimately followed.
Viewers would have to wait until the sixth and final season to discover their relevancy, though, and it was every bit as convoluted as Lost itself had become. Mark Pellegrino’s Jacob was the light to the dark of Titus Welliver’s Man in Black, and it was revealed that each number represents a chosen candidate the former believed as having the potential to inherit his mantle as a worthy protector of the mysterious island, which was naturally settled upon by measuring degrees on a lighthouse mirror.
Locke was 4, Hurley was 8, Sawyer was 15, Sayid was 16, and Jack was 23, with couple Sun and Jin sharing the distinction of being 42. While the contenders were being selected to protect one world, the numbers themselves were tied directly to the ending of another.
As Lindelof explained to E! Online, the numbers are also the foundation of the Valenzetti Equation, a mathematical formula used to predict the end of the world, as the writer and producer outlined in a fashion befitting Lost‘s labyrinthine nature.
“The Hanso Foundation that started the Dharma Initiative hired this guy Valenzetti to basically work on this equation to determine what was the probability of the world ending in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis,” he said. “Valenzetti basically deduced that it was 100% within the next 27 years, so the Hanso Foundation started the Dharma Initiative in an effort to try to change the variables in the equation so that mankind wouldn’t wipe it itself out.”
Even though there’s an official explanation, fans have concocted their own theories depending on how they choose to interpret the show. At the end of the day, it’s far from simple, but the numbers are both values assigned to Jacob’s candidates for the island’s newest protector, tied directly to an equation developed by the Dharma Initiative to try and stop the end of the world. It’s hardly crystal clear, but that’s Lost in microcosm.
