I’d be willing to bet otherwise. (of course IMO)
I have a very hard time believing the producers would whack a main character (especially one as loved as Jin) offscreen.
If Charlie dies in a sad profound way from a grenade dropped by Mikhail that changes the way everyone lives on the island, then Jin would have to die by wrestling the Dharma Shark to ensure Sun gets to safety.
I think that “pretty obvious” is overstating the case. The Oceanic Six might have needed to lie about how many people survived the crash even if Jin really died.
I expect that many of the passengers are still on the island or otherwise hidden away. But I also won’t be surprised if Jin is really dead. In fact, I would feel a little cheated by her performance at the end if she didn’t believe that Jin was dead, or at least lost to her forever, like if he fell into an interdimensional vortex or something.
I imagine that they’ll show his death on the island in a future episode, assuming he really is dead as shown in the flashforward. It seems a bit like Charlie last season, where they led up to his death over all those episodes.
In fact, this time I’m going to guess that it ends up that he’s not dead, just because of this similarity to Charlie. Who knows though 
Since we have no idea how the escape of the 6 takes place, isn’t it a little premature to say how “realistic” the break up/selection process was?
During Kate’s trial, Jack gave the bare bones of a story that we know is a lie: Only eight people survived the plane crash and made it to the island. Hurley during his interrogation lied when he said he didn’t know Ana Lucia, and he seemed to lie very deliberately, with an apprehension that surfaces later in his confrontation with the black “representative” from Oceanic Air and his reaction to the ghost of Charlie. And unless we posit a convoluted “alternate reality” theory (a path I hope the producers don’t follow, as at this pint it would be a cop-out), I can’t believe Sun’s reaction to the obviously fake headstone is wholly genuine.
It’s not conclusive, but these bits make it quite plausible that Jin is still alive. I think at this point we just can’t answer the question, but I’m leaning toward the “alive and stuck on the island” camp; it just makes the most sense.
I just don’t understand what this is based on. You’re just overthinking things it seems. What is more likely? Sun and Hurley go to a headstone that they know is fake and pretend he’s dead for some unknown purpose, or they really believe him dead and are actually mourning him?
On what bits? The bits that have nothing to do with Jin? The bit where you decided the headstone is a fake based on no data? Sure, it’s possible that Jin is still alive, but I can’t see anyway where that’s the most likely scenario or a scenario that’s been hinted at.
Sorry if this has already been discussed, but as far as the general public knows, the plan wreckage was found and all of the passengers were accounted for and dead. Now there were supposedly 8 survivors, and 6 lived to get rescued. How is it explained that all passengers were dead at the bottom of the sea, and now there are 8 survivors? Wouldn’t people be wondering where those 8 extra dead bodies at the bottom of the sea came from?
Well, the date on the headstone is clearly a lie, so it’s not entirely unreasonable to suppose there may be more deception going on.
And he might. At no point whatsoever did I say that Jin was going to die offscreen. I said between the “now” of this episode and the “baby birthing future” of this episode Jin is going to die.
-Joe
I don’t propose to know what the DEAL was or is going to be with the 6 getting off the island (whether an organized chosen 6 or a random by chance 6) but just a random speculation of how they were forced into keeping mum could be along the lines of:
“You 6 got lucky to get off the island, this is the story we will go with. The other survivors will remain for the rest of their days to live peacefully and comfortably on the island. If you attempt to alert anyone about them or make a rescue they will all be killed before anyone even gets close to the island. Your choice.”
So Jin could still be living comfortably on the island with Sun knowing this but she’s still grieveing since she can never see him again for the rest of her life. In her mind he may as well be dead.
However, assuming Kate’s “son” Aaron is really Claire’s Aaron, there’s no reason for the O6 to name Claire as one of the O2. In fact it make their story more complicated if they do. I think they’ll likely have two people who’s deaths will need immediate explanation–like Charlie as you suggested.
If Claire is one of the O2 then I could see some situation where Claire dies as they are trying to be rescued and Kate grabs the baby to claim as her own for some reason.
Someone else mentioned the banging on the pipes. My first thought when I heard that was a kid throwing a ball over and over against a wall or something…Walt?
True, but it’s also the easier lie. “He died in the plane crash,” does not open the can of worms that any other explanation of his death would.
Considering that it’s Lost, there’s certainly deception going on. There’s nothing specifically precluding the possibility that Jin’s headstone is a fake (beyond the fudged date). My issue is with the idea that that’s the most probable scenario.
The main reason it seems unlikely is that Hurley and Sun would almost certainly know if Jin is alive or dead. If he’s alive and on the island they’d know it. If he’s alive there’s no logical reason why they’d go and visit his grave. If Jin is stranded on the island they’d just wish him the best from home. They wouldn’t get dressed in their black suits and visit the grave with the new baby unless they think him dead.
It would be a pretty serious reversal/deception if the writers had Jin still alive and Sun/Hurley aware of that fact.
I brought it up, but nobody seems to have cared.
Fact of the matter is there’s a big-ass conspiracy going on and by the time of the Oceanic Six it’s been blown completely open across all the world. Maybe that’s why they’re so famous? Sure, being a plane crash survivor may be all neat-o and everything, but not enough to make your face nationally or internationally famous for months or years afterwards.
-Joe
I thought for sure Sayid was going to identify it as morse code and get reams of information from thirty seconds of whacking. Nice to see they skipped that cliche at least.
-Joe
I don’t see this as a particularly serious sticking point. Finding 324 bodies scattered at the bottom of the ocean following a plane crash would be quite a difficult thing. Properly identifying them would be a challenge what with sea animals picking at the bodies and such. So far no one has said that the wreckage and bodies were recovered, just that they were found. While Ben’s people could come up with 324 bodies, they couldn’t clone them so they’d pass efforts to scientifically identify them. I figure that once the 6 survivors turn up the media and investigators would have no trouble just chalking it up to an honest mistake, especially considering the buzz around 6 “dead” people coming back to life.
And yes, I think that 6 people surviving a plane crash and being stranded for god knows how long after being chalked up for dead would make them plenty famous without the conspiracy being uncovered.
Except Sun got pregnant on the island. What’s the timeline like on that? Could Sun plausibly claim that they conceived before the crash?
Well, it was close enough that Sun herself didn’t know who the father was so it must have happened awfully close to the time of the crash, probably within a week or so. I’d say it’d not be questioned much at all.
Nobody is saying the bodies have to be clones. The whole point is that it has been made very clear and been stated several times that ALL the bodies were found. There were 324 expected corpses and there were 324 corpses found.
They didn’t find scattered hunks of a plane, the found an entire plane with 324 bodies on it. Suddenly, there’s eight of those people who were not only presumed dead but COUNTED up and walking around.
I think that would be a big deal.
-Joe
I just assumed that Sun and Hurley went to the fake grave as a symbolic way of connecting with Jin, and that he’s probably still alive on The Island. I like the idea that Bernard is going to kick the bucket this week-- I thought it was rather odd that he suddenly made an appearance last week.