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Lost

"Guys....where are we?"
Charlie

An action/adventure/speculative fiction/horror/drama/insanity show created by J. J. Abrams of Alias fame.

On September 22nd, 2004, Oceanic Flight 815 breaks up in midair and crashes on a tropical island. Forty-eight passengers somehow survive. Unfortunately, this is no ordinary island they've crashed on. To start with, there's something in the jungle which is capable of uprooting trees. It mutilates the pilot, but not before he reveals that the plane was already a thousand miles off course when it crashed, which means the odds of rescue are nil.

The survivors must learn to work together if they want to survive in this strange and hostile environment. This isn't easy, mainly because the most prominent characters are so utterly screwed up. All of them have something they're hiding in their pasts. There's the seemingly nice woman who's actually a fugitive who was being brought to trial. There's the one-hit wonder ex rockstar junkie. There's the former Iraqi government torturer who's searching for the woman he loves. And so on. Their backstories are revealed in flashbacks, with each episode focusing on a specific character.

As the show goes on, more and more questions arise as the secrets of the island are uncovered. There's a hatch in the jungle which, when opened, reveals the existence of a scientific venture that took place on the island in the seventies. More survivors, from the tail section of the plane, are met. Biggest of all, however, is the revelation that there are other people on the island, who have been living there for a long time. They aren't friendly. Flashbacks reveal more and more connections between the characters' pasts, suggesting that it may have been more than coincidence that this specific group of people was on Flight 815.

In season four, rescue seemed to have finally arrived. Unfortunately, the so-called saviors turned out to have quite a different agenda than they claim. And then things get really complicated...

Lostpedia (which the producers themselves occasionally namecheck in DVD commentaries for its expanse of knowledge) and the other, slightly-spiffier-looking Lost Wikia have, separately and together, exhaustively catalogued ("almost") every aspect of Lost. If you want insight into the show or just want to learn some random statistics, it's definitely worth checking out.

This page also has a tool for gathering and voting on Biggest Complaints and Favorite Episodes, so use them instead of adding a sub-bulleted paragraph of complaints.

Warning: This page (much like this entire web site) contains no small number of spoilers. Reading it will ruin plot points, drive your pets crazy, and make you get a hair cut.

This program features examples of:
  • AB Negative: Jack struggles to find a donor for Boone and, failing to find a match among the other survivors, reveals himself to be O- and performs the transfusion using his own blood.
    • Kate is later revealed to be a Universal Donor in Season 5.
  • The Abridged Series: Lost Untangled.
    • The kicker is that it's not just endorsed, but was made by the airing channel.
  • Abusive Parents: In spades.
  • Action Girl: Kate, Juliet, and Charlotte, at different points. Ana Lucia consistently (although Your Mileage May Vary). Ilana is also fully capable of taking care of herself in a fight - good thing, since she's a bounty hunter.
  • Actor Allusion: Sawyer referring to Charlie as "the Munchkin" in "Tricia Tanaka is Dead" could be construed as a reference to his resemblance to a Hobbit, especially given the slight smile that starts to appear before the shot cuts.
    • Charlie definitely gets one in an earlier episode "Further Instructions" during which a dumb John Locke is trying to convey a message and Charlie remarks, "Trees? Yeah, I've heard they're wonderful conversationalists." This is a direct allusion to the fact that Dominac Monaghan played Merry in The Lord of the Ring films and did in fact talk to the trees.
    • Not to mention him talking to Rose when she was carrying a ring on a chain around her neck.
  • A Day In The Limelight: Everyone gets their day.
    • Except Libby.
      • And Charlotte, who got her own flashback, but not an episode of her own.
  • Aerosol Flamethrower: Used by Locke.
    Charlie: "Hairspray? Uh, I hate to be the one to break this to you..."
  • Affably Evil: Ben, especially at the beginning of the third season. As the story progresses, he has to deal quickly with an increasingly dangerous situation (and he loses Alex), so he becomes more frantic and less affable.
  • Air Vent Escape: Performed by Kate at the beginning of the second season, as well as Ben (as "Henry") consensually later on.
  • All Just A Dream: A few times
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: James "Sawyer" Ford has the fangirls to prove it.
    • Reversed because Kate is every bit as bad as Sawyer and has both Sawyer and Jack chasing after her.
  • Almost Dead Guy: Best possible subversion for Nikki and Paulo.
  • Alternate Reality Game: The Lost Experience, played during the break between seasons two and three, Find 815, between seasons three and four, and the Dharma Initiative Recruiting Project, between four and five. It's fairly safe to assume there will be another ARG between five and six.
    • Turns out a few ARG-ish things happened, most prominently the "Damon, Carlton, and a Polar Bear" website which resulted in a clue hunt for Lost posters.
  • Anachronic Order: It happened twice: in the season one episodes "Solitary" and "Raised by Another" and the season five episodes "316" and "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham." Apparently, there are more than enough storylines to change around the order of episodes without affecting anything.
    • Also happened with two early season 3 episodes, "The Glass Ballerina" and "Further Instructions".
  • Anyone Can Die: Hoo, boy...
  • Archnemesis Dad: Locke's father abandoned him until well into his adult life, at which point he stole his kidney, re-abandoned him, used him as a courier, abandoned him again, and pushed him out of an 8-story window.
  • Arc Numbers:
    • Four Is Death
    • Eight
    • Fifteen
    • Sixteen
    • TwentyThree
      • Jack's row was 23.
    • Forty Two
      • Ana Lucia's row was 42.
    • These numbers come to the sum One Hundred And Eight, which ties into the Buddhist themes of the Dharma Initiative.
      • And it's the number of minutes the timer in The Hatch counts down from.
      • It's also the number of days the Oceanic 6 spent on the island before their rescue.
    • The product of the numbers, 7418880, appears as part of an alert for the "Electromagnetic Anomaly".
    • They also appear all over the place in combination:
      • The flight's number was 815.
      • The Lost Experience ARG revealed that the numbers are core factors in the Valenzetti Equation, which "predicts the exact number of years and months until humanity extinguishes itself."
  • Arc Words: There's dozens of phrases repeated throughout the show in addition to the Arc Numbers.
    • "Live together, die alone" is another very common one, appearing in episodes ranging from the pilot to the Season 5 finale (currently the most recent episode).
    • "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" seems to be the straightest use of this trope.
  • Arthur Dent: Most of the characters with no history in the Myth Arc, but it's most noticeable with Frank Lapidus, especially in Season Five.
  • As You Wish: Jack realizes he's met Desmond before from Desmond's calling him "brother".
  • Back For The Dead: Michael. Subverted: when he's asked what he's doing back:
    "To die."
    • And Faraday.
  • Badass: Everyone has their moments.
    • Locke: Knife-throwing makes you a badass by default.
    • Eko: Killed 3 gun-wielding drug lords with a machete without flinching.
    • Sayid: Killed someone by stabbing them. With a dishwasher.
      • And snapped a man's neck with his ankles, while he was bound and the man was armed.
    • Sawyer: Removed a bullet from his shoulder with his bare hand.
    • Ben Linus: took out two gun-wielding horseback Bedouins with nothing but a telescoping baton and the element of surprise.
  • Badass Decay: Played with in Locke's case. He goes back and forth from awesome to pathetic so many times that this duality has basically become one of his main character traits.
  • Beard Of Sorrow: Jack at the end of the third season. The beard was massive, probably because it stood for alcohol and pills.
  • Because Destiny Says So: In this case, Destiny goes by the name of "Desmond".
    • Practically all of Ms. Hawking's appearances involve this.
  • Becoming The Mask: Juliet
  • Beleaguered Childhood Friend: Things didn't end so well for Kate's childhood sweetheart.
  • Best Served Cold: Sawyer is constantly searching for the man he wants to serve revenge to. Coldly.
    • And then in season three he finally gets his chance.
  • Better Than It Sounds: "Okay, so we did crash, but it was on this crazy island. And we waited for rescue and there wasn't any rescue. And there was a smoke monster, and then there were other people on the island, we called them 'The Others.' And they started attacking us. And we found some hatches and there was a button you had to push every 108 minutes or...well it was never really clear on that. But The Others didn't have anything to do with the hatches, that was the Dharma Initiative. They were all dead, The Others killed them. And now they're trying to kill us. And then we teamed up with the Others because some worse people were coming on a freighter. Desmond's girlfriend's father sent them to kill us. So we stole their helicopter, and we flew it to their freighter, but it blew up. And we couldn't go back to the island because it disappeared. So then we crashed in the ocean, and we floated there for a while, until a boat came and picked us up. And by then there were six of us."
  • Better On DVD: For one thing, you don't have to wait an ungodly time between seasons.
  • Big Bad: Uncertain at this point, but Jacob sure is being set up as one. Season 5's finale seems to have thrown a curveball as Jacob being the good guy and this new...entity being the true villain of the show, assuming Jacob had a very good reason to let all the people on the island who have died die.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Hurley in the third season finale.
  • Big Fun: Hurley.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Dr. Arzt translates as "Dr. Doctor" in German.
  • Blatant Lies: Ben.
  • Blipvert: Carl is strapped into a chair and forced to watch one of these when Kate, Sawyer and Alex rescue him.
  • Bloodstained Glass Windows: Eko kills a bunch of gangsters in a church. This actually causes the parishioners to shut it down.
  • Blown Across The Room: Cesar, by a gun that suspiciously resembles the Force-a-Nature from Team Fortress 2 (which has this effect). JJ Abrams and Gabe Newell (head of Valve Software, the game's developer) are in contact and Lost has referenced Valve games before (and vice versa).
  • Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: Season 5 possibly ended with a hydrogen bomb detonating in proximity to at least eight of the main characters.
  • Boobs Of Steel: Juliet, Ilana, middle-aged Eloise Hawking. Inverted with the most clear-cut Action Girl in the series, Ana Lucia.
  • Bounty Hunter: Ilana
  • Brand X: Would you like some Dharma Initiative cereal?
  • Buffy Speak: SHUT UP! Red... neck... man.
  • Bury Your Gays: Tom, aka Mr. Friendly. In fairness, there was nothing but the fact he said Kate wasn't his type to indicate he (a quite minor character) was gay anyway, which was hardly definitive. The reveal only came after he had died, shown in someone else's flashback as a tiny detail likely thrown in because of fan speculation.
  • Broken Base: Let's not get into it.
  • Car Fu: Hurley's ride to the rescue in a VW Dharma minibus.
  • Catch Phrase:
    • Hurley: "Dude..."
    • Desmond: "See you in another life, brother."
    • Sawyer's "Son of a bitch!" and many nicknames for people, particulary Freckles (Kate).
    • Locke: "Don't tell me what I can't do."
    • Ben: "I Lied."
  • Can Not Spit It Out: The only time Sawyer verbally admits his feelings for Kate is when he's deliriously sick. The only time Kate verbally admits her feelings for Sawyer is when he's being beaten to a bloody pulp. Even then, it takes her a while.
    • Libby's last words claiming Michael betrayed the group. Reason being is that she's been shot in the stomach and pumped full of heroin.
  • Celebrity Resemblance: If you think Ben Linus's resemblance to Elon Musk is rather creepy, try not to notice his even stronger resemblance to Klaus Nomi.
  • The Chains Of Commanding: Jack doesn't enjoy it.
  • Chained Heat: Brilliantly subverted.
  • Changeling Fantasy: Alex discovering that she's Rousseau's daughter.
  • Character Alignment: The series provides examples of:
  • Character Derailment: Sawyer and Charlie in season two, though they snap back later. Some might say Kate after Season 1 or 2.
  • Character Development: Everyone.
  • Character Focus: The show's bread and butter.
  • Characteristic Trope: Revolutionized the use of flashbacks.
  • Chekhovs Gun: Multiple times.
  • The Chessmaster: Ben is one of the most capable chessmasters ever.
    • Un-Locke probably upped him in the Season 5 finale.
  • The Chew Toy: Bad things keep happening to Locke's right leg.
    • Mikhail is severely hurt in every episode he appears in.
    • Despite being a very powerful manipulative bastard who brings it on himself, Ben qualifies because he can't go more than two episodes without being dealt a no holds barred beatdown (and he never fights back).
  • The Chris Carter Effect: Oh, boys...
    • Mainly caused by the second and the third season. During the second half of Season 5 some people complained about the show stripping the Dharma Initiative of its mysteries. Can you invert The Chris Carter Effect?
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: There are at least two rules on this show. The first rule is that nobody should trust Ben. The second rule is that everybody will disregard the first rule.
    • Locke has a similar relationship with his father.
  • Cliff Hanger: Pretty much every other episode.
    • Every other?
  • Commitment Anxiety
  • Complete Monster: Keamy. As for any others who fit the bill, have fun debating!
    • Anthony Cooper also qualifies.
  • The Computer Is A Cheating Bastard: Mikhail states that this is why he's never beaten his computer at chess.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: Frank Lapidus, the pilot who was supposed to be flying Flight 815, after seeing footage of the recovered aircraft and noticing that the body in the cockpit didn't match the man who was supposed to be flying it.
  • Consummate Liar: Ben's Catch Phrase is "I Lied".
  • Continuity Lockout: So, so much in Seasons 4 and 5. Naturally, the plot is better off for it.
  • Contrived Coincidence: One of the shows themes is the concept of coincidence versus fate. Flashbacks with Jacob in the last episode of Season 5 have kind of ruined most of the debate.
  • Conversational Troping: Locke and Boone's Red Shirt discussion.
  • Cool Old Guy: Locke, in spades. Even if he was just another pawn the whole time, he still saved several lives and helped countless others.
  • Cosy Catastrophe: There's the odd soldier or convict (okay, maybe about a third of the passengers), but most of the other castaways are normal, middle class people, albeit with an awful lot of trauma in their pasts.
  • CPR Clean Pretty Reliable: Either after 10 seconds they cough up a mouthful of salt water and spring to life or "there's nothing else I can do". Every. Damn. Time.
  • Crazy Prepared: Ben could make Batman green with envy.
    • Keamy's elaborate Dead Man Switch at the end of Season 4 should qualify him.
  • Crazy Survivalist: Rousseau in the first season.
  • Cross Referenced Titles: "One of Them" and "One of Us"
    • Now includes "The Constant" and "The Variable"
  • Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Most characters get one.
  • Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: The reunion of Desmond and Penny.
    • Speaking of Des and Penny, how can you not mention the end of "The Constant""?!
  • Crowning Music Of Awesome: So many, but particularly Ben's theme 'Dharmacide' and 'Life and Death'. Michael Giacchino is a very talented man.
    • Also the use of 'Make Your Own Kind of Music' for the Season 2 opening which not only caused a crazy Soundtrack Dissonance but the lyrics still define the characteristics of the character introduced to this day.
    • The leitmotif of the season four finale, There's no place like home. The heartwarming version of the plane landing becomes the theme of terrible impending doom later on, but it's powerful nonetheless.
  • Cryptic Conversation: "Are you him? What did one snowman say to the other?"
    • "What lies in the shadow of the statue?"
    • Whenever Christian appears in a non-flashback.
  • Cuckoo Nest: It's practically poor Hurley's second home.
  • Cuffs Off Rub Wrists: People get handcuffed or tied up a lot. Of special note is Jin, who went for over a season wearing one shackle of a pair of broken handcuffs.
  • Dead Guy Junior: Desmond and Penny's son is named Charlie.
  • Dead Man Switch: Keamy sets up one of these before leaving to capture Ben Linus.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Miles.
    Miles: What happened to him?
    Horace: He fell in a ditch.
    Miles: He's got a bullet in his head. The ditch have a gun?
    • In commenting on Miles' use of this trope, Hurley reveals his own qualifications for the position:
      Miles: Where the hell did they go, Tubby?
      Hurley: Oh, awesome. The ship sent us another Sawyer.
    • Ben Linus also gets his fair share.
      "No, John, we don't have a code for 'there's a man in my closet with a gun to my daughter's head'. Although obviously we should..."
  • Death By Cameo: Zoe Bell.
  • Death By Materialism: Nikki and Paolo
  • Death By Sex: Shannon and Ana-Lucia (no, not together)
  • Death Is Not Permanent: Yes it is.
    Ben: "Dead is dead."
  • Deserted Island: The entire show is the subversion.
  • Did Not Do The Research: Claire in the tattoo/piercing studio uses a piercing gun to pierce the ear of a girl who already had a septum ring. These are most commonly used in mall jewelry kiosks, but not in piercing studios. Reputable shops will use sterile, one-time-use needles, even for ear piercings.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Ben and Jacob in the season 5 finale.
  • Dies Wide Shut: Numerous times. One minor motif is someone closing a dead person's eyes out of respect.
  • Disappeared Dad: Hurley, Claire (which plays a role in the plot)
  • Disney Death: Charlie pulls one in the middle of season one.
  • Dogged Nice Guy
  • Door To Before
  • Double Aesop: "The best way to find something is to stop looking"
  • Driving Question: Being specific would require a page of its own (and in fact this page can probably be found on Lostpedia), so a good summary is "What the hell is going on?"
  • Dr Jerk: Jack (sometimes) has a terrible bed-side manner and often brutally honest with his patients about their chances, but otherwise is a miracle-worker. His father Christian, on the other hand, was a snarky, condescending drunk who got a patient killed.
  • Dropped A Bridge On Him: Poor, poor Mr. Eko. And most of the Tailies, come to think of it. Not to mention Libby. But special mention must go to Rousseau and her entire family!
    • What about John Locke? Fans weren't even able to properly mourn his death, as he appeared to have been suddenly resurrected. Sadly, he wasn't really Locke anymore.
    • What about every frickin' survivor who's not a main character in Season 5? Not that we cared about them, but still.
    • Or Charlie? This Troper knows some consider it a Bad Ass Heroic Sacrifice but to him it seemed ridiculous contrived (he could have easily escaped and survived).
  • Ducks In A Row
  • Dying Alone: "If we don't learn to live together, we're gonna die alone."
  • Dying Like Animals
  • Dysfunction Junction: More like Dysfunction Scramble Crossing.
  • Education Mama: Eloise Hawking
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: There are, of course, several in a show with this many characters. Rose and Bernard deserve special mention. Both Desmond and Ben started out this way with their popularity earning them MAJOR roles.
  • Epileptic Trees: One wild fan theory was the Trope Namer. Yeah. It's that kind of a show.
  • Estrogen Brigade Bait: Sawyer, Jack, Sayid, Desmond.
  • Even The Guys Want Him: There have been a few mancrushes on Sayid, Jack, Desmond, and Sawyer. Even Ben and Locke aren't without their fans.
  • Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory: The show is a perfect example of this trope - the whole thing is so labyrinthine and deliberately ambiguous that fans tend to overanalyze everything, to the point of risking a brain aneurysm. That's part of the fun, after all.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Ben versus Charles Widmore in season three and four. Then in season five it was revealed that it has been Jacob versus his enemy all along, and now it is possibly Jacob's enemy versus whoever the "they" Jacob was referring to.
  • Exact Time To Failure: The countdown clock in The Hatch.
  • Executive Veto: Jack was supposed to die in the first episode; ABC nixed that idea and the rest is history.
  • Expanded Universe: Consisting of a few books, two online games, and a computer/video game. The canonicity of all of them is questionable, however.
    • Word from The Powers That Be is that the only true canon is the show itself. The mobisodes are kinda canon, same goes for the Orchid video from Comic Con 2007, but not for the Pierre Chang Video from Comic Con 2008. So yeah.
  • Expansion Pack Past: Everyone
    • Not all characters employ this trope to its full definition, though. For instance, most of Hurley's flashbacks, rather than adding a new period to his otherwise-undefined past, flesh out a period in his life that was alluded to over a season prior.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change AKA Flashback Wig
  • Eyepatch Of Power: Mikhail.
  • Face Heel Turn: Michael, although he eventually redeems himself (to the island).
  • Failure Is The Only Option: Subverted after we start flashing forward and see that some people get off the island. Then subverted again when it turns out they were better off on-island.
  • Fake Defector: Hurley pretends to get kicked out of Locke's group and join Jack's.
  • Fake Nationality:
    • Naveen Andrews (British) plays Sayid Jarrah (Iraqi Arabic)
    • Daniel Dae Kim (Koren-American) plays Jin-Soo Kwan (Korean national)
    • Mira Furlan (Yugoslavian/Croatian) plays Danielle Rousseau (French)
    • Alan Dale (New Zealand) plays Charles Widmore (British)
    • Henry Ian Cusick (Scottish-Peruvian) plays Desmond Hume (Scottish)
      • That one not so much, but his off-screen accent is wildly different, brotha)
  • Fake Out Opening: Every Season Premiere (except for the first, naturally).
  • Fan Community Nicknames: Lostaways
  • Fan Nickname:
    • Fenry for Ben when he was "Fake Henry," becoming "Benry"
    • Losties or Lostaways for the original group
    • Smokey for The Monster
    • Tailies and Boaties for those who arrived in the plane's tail and the freighter, respectively; ** Guyliner for Richard Alpert (later hilariously subverted when the producers denied he was wearing any makeup whatsoever).
    • There's plenty of others. Newest of all: Esau and Un-Locke for Jacob's unnamed enemy.
  • Fan Preferred Couple: Many fans prefer Sawyer/Juliet just because they're so damn sick of the Jack/Kate/Sawyer love triangle. The fact that they, depending on your mileage, have spectacular chemistry only furthers the preference.
    • Most of the fandom, given the question, will probably tell you that their favorite couple on the series is Desmond/Penny.
  • Faux Action Girl: Ana-Lucia. Despite it constantly being mentioned that she was a cop and can therefore handle herself, all she really manages to do aside from talk big is shoot two unarmed people and barely manage to stab someone before getting killed ignominiously by Michael after barely stopping herself from shooting another unarmed man. This Troper had started watching Lost with high expectations from all the talk about her being an Action Girl on this page and was consistently disappointed. YMMV if others qualify for this as well, such as Kate.
  • Faux Death - Charlie in S1 and Jin in S4/5
  • Faux Fluency: Naveen Andrews is actually British, and doesn't speak Arabic (which is why all of his scenes with people who should be speaking Arabic switch to English after one or two sentences).
    • At Jin and Sun's wedding, Jacob tells them their love is special. After he leaves, they comment that his Korean is excellent. It doesn't take a knowledge of Korean to notice that this is an Informed Ability.
    • Inverted with Jin: Daniel Dae Kim is a Korean-American and, in a dream sequence of the season 2 episode "Everybody Hates Hugo", demonstrates he actually speaks native or near-native English. In the show, however, he plays a Korean national who doesn't learn English for at least 2 seasons, and still speaks it with a moderate accent after having 3 years of experience.
      • It only slipped once, and only very slightly, when he encountered Rosseau's research party and quickly spoke 5 English words or so in a row without hesitation.
  • Fetish Fuel: This show is the restrainment fetishist's paradise.
  • Fingertip Drug Analysis: As a drug lord, Eko knows how to do this, of course. Sayid in one episode too.
  • Five Bad Band: The Others in season 3, with Ben pulling double duty.
  • Five Man Band: The fan-nicknamed "A-Team" (The five Lostaways that always involve themselves in everything important happening in the island), who had even been referred to as such within the show at least once.
  • Flashback: It is practically the Characteristic Trope, after all.
  • Flashback Echo: Once An Episode or so.
  • Flashback Effects: A distinctive sound effect notes the beginning and end of each flashback. This is almost reversed for the 'jumps'
  • Flashback Twist: Possibly the Trope Codifier. Special mention goes to the third season finale.
  • Flash Forward: As of the end of the third season, we get these too.
  • Florence Nightingale Effect: How Jack and Sarah fell in love.
  • Foe Yay: Ben and Locke. Lampshaded by Ben in the season 5 finale.
    • The amount of FoeYayishness between the two is actually rather amusing.
      Ben: And then you came striding out of the jungle, John, to make my dream come true.
      • So much, in fact, that the Season 5 finale with Ben and Un-Locke confronting Jacob almost feels like a love triangle, with Ben's angry reaction at being treated like the third wheel.
  • Freudian Excuse: Ben.
  • Fridge Brilliance: It is very subtly, but heavily, implied that Rose and Bernard are the elderly couple who's skeletons were found and never mentioned again in S1.
  • Fun With Foreign Languages
  • Genius Loci: The Island
  • Grey And Grey Morality: Played with in the repetition from all different sources about who is a "good person" (or people) or a "bad person" (or people). Naturally, there are contradicting opinions about and from just about everyone.
  • Guinea Pig Family: Juliette practiced her fertility therapy on her sister.
  • The Gwen Stacy: Libby in Season Two, and Charlotte in Season Five. The only purpose that either of their death's served was to further woobiefy their respective boyfriends. Charlotte's death was especially grating, as she died of something which literally ceased to be an issue five minutes later and actually seemed like a character with some skills to contribute and some potential, whereas connection with Hurley and one mystifying flash back aside, at the time Libby was a non entity.
  • Hand Wave: when Abbadon asks if Walt has to come back to the island too, Locke replies that "he's been through enough."
  • Hearing Voices
  • Heel Face Turn: Juliet
  • Hes Just Hiding: See "Drop A Bridge On Them" above.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Desmond at the end of Season Two (although he survives), Charlie at the end of Season Three
  • He Who Must Not Be Seen: The Monster and the Others during season one. And Jacob, until "The Incident"
  • Hey Its That Guy: Survivors include Meriadoc Brandybuck and Link (not the Zelda one).
  • Hey Its That Voice: Also, John Locke used to date Leela (listed above).
  • Hitlers Time Travel Exemption Act: In play in some way. What with Sayid shooting, and trying to kill Ben Linus back in 1977.
    • Lampshaded in the following episode by Hurley and Miles - and even better, it's implied that Jack's refusal to save Ben's life as a child - and Sawyer and Juliet's subsequent plea to Richard Alpert - turned him into the Magnificent Bastard he would become in the future.
  • His Name Is: Pretty much every character with valuable information to impart on the main characters seems to suffer from this trope. Every time someone has a chance to really expose an important plot point or enigmatic mystery, they dance around the issue with vague words and nonsense until they are forced away/leave/die.
  • Hookers And Blow
  • Ho Yay: By union set:
    • Jack and (Sawyer, Locke, Sayid);
    • Sawyer and (Sayid, Hurley, Jin);
    • Charlie and (Hurley, Desmond)
  • Hope Spot: Locke banging on the Hatch door at his weakest moment only for it to miraculously turn on. Which is actually a double-whammy as by doing so he saves Desmond from a suicide attempt.
  • How We Got Here: Season 4.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Such episode titles as "In Translation" and "And Found".
  • Idiot Ball: A massive handling by the remaining A-Team and Boaties, who spent the last few episodes of season 5 formulating and executing a plan that hinged on the small probability that setting off a nuke would prevent the mysterious "Incident" that happened to the Swan station. It wasn't until five minutes before they were to do it that the Deadpan Snarker asked "what if it didn't prevent it; what if it caused it?" The silent response warranted an exasperated "I'm glad you all thought this through".
  • I Just Want To Be Special: Locke's backstory
  • I Know Kung Fu: Kate suddenly has tracking skills; they weren't revealed before because You Didnt Ask.
  • I Lied: Ben Linus's Catch Phrase.
  • ILLKILLYOU
  • Inconvenient Hippocratic Oath: Jack has to save Ben. When pressed for a reason, however, he neglects to mention the oath.
  • Infant Immortality: Damon Lindelof stated that by the end of the series, Vincent the dog will still be alive. Chances are Aaron, Ji Yeon, and little Charlie will live to the end as well.
  • Inferred Survival: As of season 3, this is the game people play with the characters left on the island.
  • I Pulled A Weird Al:
    Hurley: ...You just totally Scooby Doo-ed me, didn't you?
  • I See Dead People: Miles.
    • Technically, he doesn't actually see them, but can communicate with them.
    • Hurley is a much more straight example these days.
  • I See Them Too: Kate and Sawyer go through this in "What Kate Did".
  • Island Help Message: Bernard begins to build one in the episode "S.O.S.," as the title would seem to indicate. He gives up, because nobody really wants to leave.
  • Is That What Theyre Calling It Now: Sawyer's reaction to Jack telling him that he and Kate got caught in a net.
    • Later:
      Sawyer: I screwed her.
      Jack: What?
      Sawyer: Anna Lucia... we got caught in a net.
  • It Was His Sled: Wanna know what the Fan Nickname for the Monster is now? The Smoke Monster.
  • Jedi Truth: "The box was a metaphor."
  • Jerkass: Sawyer in season one. Justified a few episodes in, where we learn that he is intentionally playing the part of a Jerk Ass so people can hate him as part of a deep self-hatred impersonation complex.
  • Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Sawyer after season 1. Thank you Character Development! By S4, the Jerk may as well be completely removed.
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: We still haven't been given half the pieces.
    • There's a literal jigsaw puzzle you can buy that assists in revealing the plot.
  • Killed Mid Sentence: This is how Boone died. Arzt as well.
  • Killed Off For Real: Many, many people.
  • Knife Nut: Locke
  • Kudzu Plot: The whole show, inside and out. There may be no better example.
  • Land Down Under: The show's portrayal of Australia is laughably inaccurate, mainly appealing to stereotypes.
    • Claire's mom. You'd swear she's on the verge of saying "Dingoes stole moi baybee" every other word.
  • Land Mine Goes Click: Happens every time someone activates one of Rousseau's traps.
  • Large Ham: Jack, old Ms. Hawking, and Ben (occasionally).
  • Letting Her Hair Down: Ana-Lucia goes back and forth in the second season.
  • Ley Line: An intricate fan theory has it that the island moves along ley lines. Interestingly, there is in fact a ley node in Tunisia. Ley node number 4 actually corresponds with one of the possible locations of the Island.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: Averted. They would.
  • Loads And Loads Of Characters - it helps fuel Anyone Can Die.
  • Love Makes You Dumb
  • Love Triangle: The one involving Jack, Kate and Sawyer has been played throughout all seasons so far with an insufferable, obnoxious insistence.
  • Luke I Am Your Father: We eventually learn that Claire is Jack's half-sister.
    • Eloise Hawking is Faraday's mother.
      • And Charles Widmore is his father.
  • Luke You Are My Father: And Pierre Chang is Miles's father.
  • Mafia Princess: Sun, though she does not really approve of it.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Ben. Also, given the implications, Un-Locke / Jacob's currently unnamed enemy.
  • Man Behind The Man: It turns out to be Ben, except he is actually working for Jacob, until he is killed by... Who the hell knows?
  • Manipulative Bastard: Ben owns this. And, again, Jacob's enemy.
  • Mary Sue: Jack and Kate, especially in the first two seasons. [[Discussion/Lost Have fun debating]] over whether this has changed since.
  • Mauve Shirt: Rose and Bernard.
  • Meanwhile In The Future: Done when Desmond (and, by Season 5, the whole island) gets unstuck in time. Averted in name with title cards stating "Thirty years later".
  • Mental Time Travel: Happens if you encounter a large blast of radiation or electromagnetism on or near the island.
  • Message In A Bottle: Attempted and failed... or was it?
  • Messianic Archetype: Locke seems to definitely fit this role. A whole race of people awaiting his arrival? Suffering a lot and eventually dying to save everyone? Having a resurrection?
    • Cruelly subverted in season five when it is revealed Locke was never brought back to life at all.
  • Mind Screw: Lots of it.
  • Misplaced Wildlife and Noisy Nature: Fridge Logic would imply they're all probably escaped Dharma experiments.
  • Moral Dissonance: Kate (a fugitive murderer) lecturing Locke about love, while at the same time refusing to go and help one guy who does love her (Sawyer) and the real mother of her adoptive son (Claire) - plus all the other survivors, of course.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Jack wants to push the Reset Button because Kate left him.
  • Mostly Narmless: One would argue that, Michael's repeated shoutings of "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!", given their justification, come off less narmful than anybody else in the same situation.
  • Ms Fanservice: Bikini-clad Shannon in season 1.
    • Kate is often scantily clad, showing off her bare legs (and occasionally more). The reason even she manages to have some fans is not because she is a particularly interesting or likeable character, you know.
  • My Eyes Are Up Here: Kate at 8:41 into "Catch-22". (Okay, that's not when she says it, but that's when why she says it.)
  • Mysterious Past: All the characters, at first. Some of them still have unanswered questions.
  • Names The Same: The show's Theme Naming:
    • John Locke
    • Daniel Faraday
  • Narm: Jack is a pretty big source of this (Your Mileage May Vary), through facial expression. And let's not forget "THEY TOOK MY SON!"
    • Which of course spawned from the Narmtacular (big inhale): WAAAAAAAA-HO-HO-HALT!!!!
    • When Kate is telling her husband why they can never be together.
      Kate:Taco night?! I don't DO taco night!
    • YOU ALL EVERY BUTTIES!
    • Every scence that Jack and Achara share in "Stranger in a Strange Land" is made of pure narm. Especially their forced sex scene.
    • Jack's reason for wanting to blow up a nuclear bomb is basically a good ol' case of broken heart:
      Jack:I had her, and I lost her.
  • Never Found The Body: The justification for the return of Jin after the boat explodes is that he was thrown clear of the blast.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Jacob's cabin, for one.
  • No Holds Barred Beatdown: Ben's brutal savaging of Keamy, not to mention his unbridled rage at the man for killing his daughter, and also being one of the few times where Ben shows genuine emotion, possibly from watching Jack in season 3's finale. And after Shannon's death, the scene where an enraged Sayid shows off that Republican Guard hand-to-hand training and just mows through several Tailies trying to get to(and from the look on his face, kill) Ana-Lucia. Then there was Locke beating the snot out of Butt Monkey Mikhail. And Jack and Sawyer in the Season 5 finale. It was pretty even until the Groin Attack.
  • No Mr Bond I Expect You To Dine: Ben treats Kate to a pleasant breakfast on the beach, explaining that he wanted to give her something nice to remember, as "the next few weeks are going to be very unpleasant".
  • The Notable Numeral: The Oceanic Six
  • Not Blood Related: Boone and Shannon.
  • Noticeable Nipples: Eko.
  • Not Quite Dead: Charlie's Disney Death in season one, Locke in season three. Both stretched credibility, Charlie moreso. Jin's probably now out done both. However, as far as credibility goes, it's most likely the Island's healing properties.
  • Not Himself: John Locke after his return to the island. And one has to wonder about Daddy Shepherd, too. In fact, this could very well be the answer to every single "dead person" who's been seen on the island.
  • Oedipus Rex: Every. Single. Friggin'. One of 'em! Lampshaded with the season one episode title, "All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues".
    • As of Season 5, mother issues are beginning to emerge. Albeit subtly.
  • Older Than They Look: Richard Alpert. Part of why he's so damn creepy. Likewise with Jacob and his rival.
  • One Degree Of Separation: Pretty much everyone has encountered everyone else in some way before the crash.
  • Ontological Mystery
  • Only Known By Their Nickname: Sawyer and Hurley for a while.
    Sawyer:Who the hell is Hugo Reyes and why has he got 160 million dollars?
  • Ooh Me Accents Slipping: Evangeline Lily betrays her Canadian upbringing whenever she says something that rhymes with "out" "oat".
  • Oracular Urchin: Walt, maybe.
  • Or Is It: Pretty much the entire series.
  • Pair The Spares: Sawyer and Juliet in season 5, after Jack and Kate leave the Island. It's a testament to Josh Holloway and Elizabeth Mitchell's acting ability that they're able to make their ship infinitely more appealing than the Official Couple's.
  • Percussive Prevention: Charlie prevents Desmond from taking his place drowning at The Looking Glass by smashing him in the face with an oar.
    • In season 5, Richard Alpert does this to Eloise Hawking when she tries to follow Jack and Sayid on their way to nuke The Swan.
  • Perma Stubble: All the guys. They used salvaged razors to keep from growing full beards.
  • Phrase Catcher: Tons of phrases repeated by various characters. Each phrase is a motif all its own.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Oh, if only people learned to mention some of those regularly-occurring BLAMs...
  • Posthumous Character: A lot of people show up after death, whether by flashback, some Mind Screwy vision or time travel. Special mention of course goes to Jack's dad who was already dead before the show started, and to the whole Dharma crew, who were almost ALL dead twelve years before the beginning.
    • Ethan has now featured in twice as many episodes since his death than he did while alive. As has the Marshal who was escorting Kate (that's right, season 1 spoilers!).
  • Powder Trail: Used to open the hatch.
  • Preemptive Apology:
    Michael: "I'm sorry."
    Ana Lucia: "For what?"
    (Michael shoots Ana Lucia)
  • Prisoner Exchange: This is Jack's plan for getting Walt back after he is kidnapped by the Others, lampshaded by Sawyer as "the old Prisoner Exchange". Unfortunately, it doesn't go according to plan.
  • The Producers Think Of Everything: Despite a lot of the show's criticism claiming the contrary, anyone who actually watched the show through 5 seasons knows that way too many things do add up for it to all be "Made up as they go along".
  • Psychic Nosebleed: Appears in one episode of season four, and repeatedly during the first half of season five, all related to the effects of time travel.
  • Psycho For Hire: The mercenaries in season four, especially their leader, Keamy.
  • Psychotic Smirk: Keamy's creepy grin/mouth twitch. For a good guy, John Locke does flash a lot of those.
    • Of course, his more recent examples can be attributed to the fact that it isn't really Locke, but Jacob's unnamed enemy posing as him.
  • The Public Domain Channel: While a prisoner of the Others, Jack watches Heckle and Jeckle cartoons on a TV set they provide.
  • The Purge: The name given to the Island-wide toxic gas attack that effectively wiped out the DHARMA Initiative's presence on the Island.
  • Put On A Bus: Walt, the one kid on the show, had to be written out to hide his clear progression through puberty, while only months pass in-show.
  • The Quiet One: Eko, during his introduction.
  • Rasputinian Death: Mikhail
  • Reality Is Unrealistic: At the start of the show, some viewers complained that Claire's accent was too over the top. The actress is a real Australian.
    • Following Maternity Leave, there were also complaints about the actress playing Alex looking "as old as the actress playing her mother". The actress and the character were the same age at the time.
  • Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Richard Alpert, it seems. And, of course, Jacob and his enemy.
  • Recap Episode: ABC, Sky1 and RTE 2 like to throw together recap specials to air before premieres, finales, or after a hiatus.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Cause-Effect flipped with Michael, who is unable to die until he redeems himself.
  • Redemption In The Rain: Played with in Locke's case. We see him in the rain, but we don't see how he was redeemed until later.
  • Red Shirt: Done with an appreciable amount of Lampshade Hanging. Look at the page to see. The show has actually shown a lot of restraint in killing off unnamed/minor survivors. At least until season four.
  • Remember The New Guy: Subverted.
    Hurley: "Dude... Nikki's dead."
    Sawyer: "Who the hell's Nikki?"
  • The Reveal: Plenty. Usually reserved for season finales. However, only one question that existed since the very beginning of the show (how did the plane crash?) was properly answered.
    • The page quote has also been explained in fairly heavy detail. The island is constantly moving.
  • Romantic Plot Tumor: What's the new episode about? Knife-throwing Locke? Badass Sayid? Magnificent Bastard Ben? The mysterious Others? The smoke monster? Time travel? God-like beings using humans as their pawns? One of the thousands of questions which have yet to be answered? No - first we need to know whom Kate loves. Again.
  • Reset Button: The events of the season 5 finale are designed to be a Reset Button reaching beyond the beginning of the series.
  • Sassy Black Woman: Rose is a Closer To Earth example.
    "If you say "Live together, die alone" to me, Jack, I'm gonna punch you in your face."
  • Say My Name: "WAAAAAALLLLLLLLTTTTTT!!!"
  • Scary Black Man: Mr. Eko, at first; also Abbadon
  • The Scrappy: Nikki and Paulo. They were wisely killed off just half a season after their introduction.
    • Ana-Lucia as well.
  • Screaming Birth: Aaron's birth, as well as Ben's.
  • Screaming Woman: One iconic image of the show is Shannon doing this in the pilot.
    • Claire's got quite a set of lungs in her as well.
    • But none can dream of competing with Sun.
  • Seasonal Rot: Some say Season 2, others say Season 3, but both seasons got back on track as they approached the finale.
  • Secret Test Of Character: Implied to be the point of the entire show in the season 5 finale. Ben either fails or succeeds spectacularly.
  • Seinfeldian Conversation: Charlie and Hurley debate the old "Who would win in a race between The Flash and Superman" question in the beginning of the episode "Catch-22".
  • Senseless Sacrifice: Most of the death scenes in the show tend to be rather bleak and nihilistic more than heroic ( Shannon, Ana Lucia, Libby, Charlie, Daniel, Alex, Rousseau) - even fan favourites like Locke and Eko have died in a rather miserable way. Whether Juliet's sacrifice will turn out to be useful or not, it has to be seen.
    • Further detail on the complete sadistic senselessness of Charlie's sacrifice:
      • He could have escaped (Fridge Logic justifies this as he wanted Desmond's prediction to be accurate in order to allow Claire's rescue).
      • The ship which arrived because of his death was full of bad guys.
      • The one person he wanted to save most of all (Claire) didn't get off the island.
      • Those who actually did get rescued thanks to him had to negate it and go back.
  • Sexy Back: Kate in Every Man For Himself and Juliet in One of Us and The Other Woman
  • Shoot The Shaggy Dog: Most characters' ongoing and complex development ends in their sudden, avoidable, and horrible deaths, which renders all of their hopes, dreams, aspirations, and resolutions utterly and depressingly irrelevant.
  • Shout Out: In season 5, Hurley is seen in the airport reading a trade paperback of Y The Last Man, written by current Lost producer, co-writer, and story editor Brian K. Vaughan.
  • Show Within A Show: Expose, starring Billy Dee Williams. It's pretty cheesy. Locke is shown watching it in the episode before it is featured.
    "Razzle dazzle!"
  • Sigil Spam: The Dharma Initiative logo is on everything on the Island
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: "Make Your Own Kind Of Music" is played by Desmond in the first scene of Season 2 from inside a hatch built to contain a cold, frightening secret.
    • "Downtown" playing as Flight 815 crashes in "One Of Us".
    • "Better Every Day" playing as Michael revs his car into a wall.
  • Spanner In The Works: Hurley, early Season 5. Purposefully, just to piss Ben off.
  • Special Effects Failure: Happens a few times, although the special effects are generally decent otherwise.
  • Stable Time Loop: Sayid attempts to kill Ben as a child, forcing Kate and Sawyer to turn over the mortally wounded child to the Others, with the implication that these events will inalterably set the kid on the path to being the cold hard bastard he is in the present
  • Star Trek Shake: The crash of Flight 815.
  • Strangled By The Red String: Sayid - a solitary, stoic man - after two weeks forgets about the love of his life, Nadia, whom he has been trying to find for years, and falls for the whiny Shannon, possibly because... she looks good in a bikini? The unlikely pair didn't last long though.
  • Survival Mantra: "1... 2... 3... 4... 5..."
    • "Live together, die alone" also qualifies.
  • Tactful Translation: Sayid pulls this one.
  • Take My Hand: Sawyer to Juliet in the season 5 finale. Also counts as a Tear Jerker.
  • Tear Jerker: Loads, but everyone remembers Charlie's death.
    • The ending of "The Constant".
    • And the even later payoff of that episode in "There's No Place Like Home, parts 2 and 3".
  • Temporal Paradox: The magical compass bouncing between the time-travelling Locke and Richard seems to exist in a loop: Present-Locke gives it to Past-Richard in 1954, then Present-Richard gives it to Locke in 2008 before Locke leaps into the past to give it to Richard... so, technically, the compass was never built.
    • No, it just means that he had two versions of it at the same time.
  • Theme Naming: Many characters are named after philosophers, scientists, or literary figures. Most of the names can grant insight into their characters.
    • Lampshaded in season 5, episode 7, by Charles Widmore when he gives Locke a fake ID with the name "Jeremy Bentham", comparing his sense of naming humor to Locke's parents.
    • The pseudonyms Dr. Chang uses in the orientation films all have last names related to candlemaking.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Ben, starting around season 4.
  • Tonight Someone Dies: Done gratingly with Shannon, Eko and Charlotte.
    • They also made mention that by the end of season 5 they were going to kill off someone important. By the end of the last episode, Faraday had been killed by his own mother, Sayid was shot by Roger Linus, Big Bad Jacob had been (probably) knifed to death by Ben, Juliet fell down a pit on the island with everybody else and repeatedly hit an armed H-bomb with a rock, and Locke was revealed to have been dead the whole time. So Yeah.
  • Translation Convention: Scenes in Korea are subtitled, but Sayid's flashbacks to Iraq are generally not — since Naveen Andrews doesn't speak Arabic.
  • Trojan Prisoner: "I can't believe you fell for the old Wookiee prisoner gag!"
    • Also, this is how Ana Lucia determines that the raft passengers are telling the truth.
  • Trust Password: When Desmond starts flashing between the past and present, Daniel actually invokes this trope telling Desmond what to say to the past version of Daniel in order to get Past-Daniel to help him. Later on, the same characters reverse it.
  • Underwater Base: The Hydra and The Looking Glass.
  • Unfortunate Implications: When it turns out that Libby, who had fallen in love with the nice but overweight and unattractive Hurley, was actually a former mental patient.
  • The Unreveal: And how!
  • Unstoppable Rage: Hurley after one insult too many from Sawyer.
  • Unstuck In Time: Several characters, and more recently the entire Island.
  • Villain Decay: As of the end of Season 5, Ben has been reduced to just another pawn in un-Locke/the enemy's extended chess match against Jacob.
    • He knows it too, and isn't the least bit happy about it. It should be noted that only a few episodes after we learned Ben led the Others we found out Jacob gave the orders (the list for instance), so we should have seen this one coming.
      • Though it's implied that Ben's mere existence and free will is the "loophole" that un-Locke needed to kill Jacob, making him the most important character in the show...
  • Viral Marketing: The Lost Experience is the biggest example, but also the other between-seasons games.
  • Wall Banger: In The Hunting Party, the Others have Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Locke surrounded and disarmed, but they do not capture them. Some episodes later, they ask Michael to lure into a trap Jack, Sawyer, Kate... and Hurley (whom they just use as a messenger and let go immediately). Notice that, in The Hunting Party, Ben already knew he needed Jack to perform the surgery. So Yeah...
    • Less a Wall Banger than Fridge Logic. Locke fancies himself "special" and a hero of sorts. Hardly the sort of person Ben might want as a messenger especially since the Others had yet to reveal themselves as technologically advanced and as hostile as they would later become. Capturing Jack with Locke nearby might have put a crimp in a time-sensitive plan.
      • Also, Ben didn't know who he needed to capture with Jack in order to manipulate him into performing the surgery. Capturing Kate was just lucky for Tom. Ethan was probably too obsessed with Claire to pick up on the relationships; we see that Ben gives his x-rays to Juliet, not to Ethan. This might even be the main reason he let himself get captured by Rousseau, because this is his life we're talking about here. Presumably, he overheard the triangle somehow while in the armory and went on from there.
  • Wasteland Elder: Jack
  • Well Intentioned Extremist: The Others believe that they are the good guys. Just what good they're working towards is unknown, but most of their actions point to quite the contrary. Locke and Jack have gone down this road at times as well.
  • Wham Episode: Comes along every once in awhile.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: Since we still have lots of unanswered questions, it's tough to sort out what "symbolic" names, references, or images really mean something as opposed to those just thrown in for the hell of it.
  • What Happened To The Mouse: Where does the dog keep getting off to, anyways?
    • As of the S5 finale, we know.
  • What The Hell Hero: Everyone has one of these.
    • Season 5, in particular, was one big "What the hell, Hero?!" for Jack. Interestingly, many fans actually started to warm up to him when his usual gratingly perfect facade fell apart.
  • Whole Episode Flashback: "The Other 48 Days", telling season one from The Tailies' perspective.
  • Women In Refrigerators: It's a bit of a stretch, and not This Troper's opinion, but a case could be made for Shannon, although Sayid doesn't actually end up doing much because of it; Libby, though likewise with Hurley; and Charlotte, with only drives Faraday into nigh-Heroic BSOD territory.
    • Almost played straight with Alex, but there's been enough attention given to her death since that it probably doesn't qualify.
  • The Woobie: Young Ben. I dare you to defy it. Amazing, considering what he grew up into...
    • One could argue for Locke. He seems like a text book case.
      • Dan Faraday takes the cake though. He and Shinji would be best buds.
  • Xanatos Gambit: Ben again again.
  • Xanatos Roulette: Sometimes you wonder just how Ben could have planned for some things. He could just be good at improvising and adapting his plans, though.
    • Ben seems like a rookie compared to Jacob's enemy, whose plan included everything in Ben's plans, plus a couple of twists which ultimately gave him the upper hand and led to un-Locke manipulating Ben into killing Jacob.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: Michael Emerson pretty much said himself (in layman's terms) that Ben is doing this throughout Season Five:
    "I think Ben has a lot of layers of plans, but I think we're way off the main stem of anything that works for him. I mean, Ben's doing like moment-to-moment scrambling now."
  • Xanatos Sucker: After the season 5 finale the (apparently) deceased John Locke probably qualifies as the poster boy of this trope, having been manipulated his whole life, first by his father, then by Ben (no spoilers there), and finally by [[spoilers:the entity who has now taken his place]].
  • You Already Changed The Past: Whatever happened, happened. Maybe.
  • You ALL Share My Story
  • You Cant Fight Fate: One character explicitly tells Desmond this. Free will vs. fate is a recurring theme in the series. So far, no one has been able to Screw Destiny.
  • You Cant Go Home Again: Once some of the survivors make it off the island, at least Jack and Hurley end up convinced they shouldn't have left in the first place.
    • Also happens, from the other side, to Ben at the end of season four after he moves the island, meaning he can never return to it.
    • Until he does. He admits that he broke the rules by doing so, and that there would be consequences (which he was ultimately spared from).
  • You Fail Physics Forever: The completely impossible behavior of the water in the season three finale.
  • You Fail Nuclear Physics Forever: The hydrogen bomb. A 15,000-pound hydrogen bomb according to what the US was building at the time, made up mostly of the fuels required to detonate it. Somehow this can be turned into a (maybe) 30 kg backpack device which survives massive falls and (possibly) detonates when you hit it with a rock.
  • You Fail Logic Forever: Hurley's attempts to understand time travel paradoxes.
  • Youre Not My Father: Claire's response to her father.
  • You Wouldnt Shoot Me: Subverted when Sawyer has Tom at his mercy. After he surrenders, Sawyer (remembering his capture and threatening of Kate, as well as his involvement in kidnapping Walt, shooting Sawyer, and attempted murder of everybody on the raft) takes deliberate aim and kills him.
    Hurley: Dude...he'd surrendered.
    Sawyer: I didn't believe him.

lonelygirl15
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