Back before this fifth season of Lost got underway, your friendly Vulture editors compiled a list of twenty questions that we would like to see have demanded to be answered over the course of this year. And, as you might expect, near the top of our list was “What’s up with that four-toed statue?†Well, although last night’s episode didn’t exactly answer our question outright, there was a brief reveal of what many believe to be the statue’s backside early in the episode that provided one of the biggest ZOMG moments of the season so far. Then again, maybe that was an entirely different statue altogether? Either way, we scoured the Internets and put together a brief rundown of what some of the most influential Lost recap sites had to say about it.
• “The Statue from behind looks very similar to Anubis from Egyptian mythology, as it appears to have Jackal-like ears and head. Anubis was also the gate-keeper of the world of the dead, and he is depicted in Egyptian mythology as having only four toes.†[Lostpedia]*
• “From the arms, it looked like a female. It looked like it had a crown of some kind too. If she were accidentally whipped WAY back in time, would they consider her a “godâ€, and build that statue? Could this be one of the LOST women? Kate, Juliet, Sun? Maybe they’ll build it after that person dies, as a monument.†[Magic Lamp]
• “Decoding the visible details demands a Doc Jensen column of its own. But briefly: Looks Egyptian. Skirt, but no shirt — so despite the long hair, I’m thinking male. Those appear to be ankhs in the hands — symbolic of life in general and eternal life, specifically. And on the head, two pointy ears (Cat? Greyhound? Pig? Spock?) and a rectangular headpiece, like a crown or Jughead’s beanie. These clues could link to any number of Egyptian deities (Bast, Set, Anubis, and Horus will be popular guesses), though given how the Island’s wormhole exits into a different North Africa nation — Tunisia — I’m mulling Ba’al and Moloch, too. In that spirit, I would like to cover my ass and note that…we never actually saw that famous foot, did we? Was this really Four Toed Statue — or some monolithic companion?†[EW]
• “Yeah, I’m still pitching last night’s tent for the 4-toed statue … But hey, at least we got a solid glimpse of the ass side of it. The statue is clearly Egyptian, and it’s holding the rounded loop of an Ankh in the right hand. The elf-like ears jive well with many of Egypt’s gods, who were often represented as crosses between a man and another animal. I had mentioned Anubis in my review two weeks ago, but the Jackal-God’s ears would be taller. Another good guess would be Horus, Egyptian god of the sun (and of war?). There are some good arguments for him being the best candidate, the first being that this episode had a whole lot of ‘Horace’ in it to begin with. The popular eye of Horus symbol could also be a reference to the glass eye found in the arrow station back in S2. Horus was even half falcon, and falcons have four talons on each claw. But there’s also a big argument against Horus: falcons have no ears.†[Dark UFO]
*Interesting(ish) side note: This theory appeared on the Lostpedia site earlier this afternoon, but has since been pulled off the site entirely. Is it just us, or do you smell a CONSPIRACY brewing, too?