My favorite theory dates back to the summer break between the first and second season. Pretty much nothing about the over all arc had been established, sofans were free to go wild in theorizing.I liked the idea that Walt had special powers and used them to create the island as an alternate reality for the passengers to escape to instead of crashing. The island seemed much like a child’s fantasy--a vicious monster, a pirate ship, Claire was a kidnapped damsel in distress, and secret doors to unknown places. That is a child’s fairy tale.
There were hints, not only that Walt had powers, but that he knew certain things, such as to not open the hatch. Perhaps he subconsciously knew that because he created the island? He burned the first raft in order to stay because he liked it there. Sounds like it was his playground, no?
The theory was variation of a concept called Heroes Reborn from Marvel Comics in 1996. In that story, Franklin Richards, the sn of two super heroes who has reality altering powers himself, creates a safe haven for his parents and several characters near them when they sacrifice themselves to stop a villain called Onslaught. As far as the world knew, they all died in an explosion, but they were in fact taken to a world created by Franklin. They were unaware their new home was not real.
In some ways, the flash sideways purgatory was a variation of the theory. It was identical to the way the heroes acted in the world created for them by Franklin, down to nascent memories of the real world eventually emerging as things started falling apart. So I guess there was some accuracy in the theory after all, sans walt’s involvement.
