you keep getting angry because you think things are "breaking the rules", but they're only breaking your rules about what you've inferred from the show
But, seriously, it's not just my rules. It was THEIR rules. Or at least the rules they told us existed.
Their rules: Some folks in LA had issues they needed to work through in order to move on. Jack is a fine example. His issues in LA were basically the same he had on the island.
Some people, however, who had worked through their issues in life seem to have suffered some sort of setback in the afterlife. Charlie was back on drugs. Sawyer was back obsessing over Locke's dad. Kate was still a fugitive even though she'd been cleared in the real world.
Still others were in more or less exactly the same place they were in their island life.
And for most of the characters, even those who were shown to be in a less spiritually advanced state in the afterlife than they were when we last saw them breathing, never had to work through these issues. They just had to re-meet cute the significant other the writers chose for them (and yeah, I'm sorry, but Sayid not just hooking up with Shannon but the two of them hanging on each other in the church as though they were made for each other was an insult and refutation of every bit of character development Sayid's character went through on the show).
Their rules: This was a place the Losties "made for themselves"
Then are none of the background characters real? Are they all just "magic" and "imaginary" like Jack's kid? Are they all going to vanish now that the Losties went into the light? The ending, at least as far as David goes, all but came right out and said that.
But that can't be, can it, since Ben says he will stay for awhile. So does he get to wander around in a world where some people just stopped existing because Jack died? Unless the vanishing doesn't start until the last of the folks who "created" the place are gone. Would Rousseau be included in that, or is she a mirage? Alex?
We're told Anna Lucia was real but not ready. And clearly Daniel and his mom are real. In fact, Hawking (originally set up as one of the major players and then apparently just another ghost?), seemed to know more about the world the Losties "created together" than any of them did. Or did she only seem to, because she was a mirage created by Desmond's mind to fill a specific slot in his phantom landscape?
And what made you one of the Losties who "created this place together"?
Apparently being on 815 wasn't needed (Ben, Hawking, Widdemore, Desmond, Farraday, etc). And being on 815 wasn't a guarantee, either (Michael, Walt, Eko, etc.)
Apparently you didn't even have to be on the island at all(Penny). Some of these people were meeting each other for the first time on the other side.
We're told that it was for those who lived the most important time of their lives in the company of these people. Mmmm...kay.... You'd think that would certainly be true for Alex, wouldn't you? She grew up on the island, died on the island (well before Jack or anyone else) discovered the truth about her past, met her mother and died at the hands of Keamy all in the company of these people. But there's no Alex in the church. Guess that wasn't enough. Even though it was enough for, say, Penny.
And there are plenty of examples like the one above.
There is also the matter of the kids.
I'll accept the explanation that Walt spent so little time on the island that he wasn't part of the group.
But Aaron? He was in that chapel. Now maybe he was an imaginary Aaron. But then why was an imaginary baby still present in the chapel? And if he was real, was the island really the most important thing in his life? And he went into the afterlife as a newborn? And, if he WASN'T real, why is he allowed in to the group and not the equally imaginary David Shepherd?
And Alex? See above. Similarly, the argument for hanging on was to hang with Alex and be a good influence in her purgatory existence (and maybe make a little purgatory sexy time with Rousseau)...um, at least until Alex remembers that he let her die, and Rousseau remembers that Ben kidnapped her.
And I won't even go into the metaphysical implications of Sun going into the afterlife with her unborn in the void but quite born in the real world child in her belly. Of course, maybe that baby was MAGIC too and now she's having some sort of mystical miscarrige as she walks into the light?
And does anyone care to explain Keamy to me, or any of the other folks we saw die in afterlife LA? Were they all "fake" like David? Even Keamy?
And speaking of Keamy...he, Widdemore, Sayid, Hawking, Sawyer, Charlie and Anna Lucia end up in purgatory, but Michael was doomed to wander the island? All of them were arguably as guilty of murder as Michael. And, arguably, Michael redeemed himself far more than, say, Keamy or Anna Lucia.
And that's just the rules about the
sideways universe purgatory. What about these rules?
- Babies couldn't be born on the island. Except the ones that were.
People who could not kill each other...killed each other. MIB couldn't kill Jacob, even as Locke, but he could kill "Jackob"
Putting the light out was going to destroy the world...until it did not destroy the world.
Internal logic is needed to make fiction. It doesn't matter what rules you set, but there have to be rules and they have to work convincingly on that level to move your story forward. This is nowhere more true than in science fiction or fantasy.
