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When Jin, Sun, and Sayid sail around the island in Live Together, Die Alone, they spot the large foot of the Tawaret statue for the first time. Sayid remarks:

I don't know what is more disquieting, the fact that the rest of the statue is missing, or that it has four toes.

Now, both of these aspects sound like they are foreshadowing something meaningful. In particular, Lostpedia knows that "Lindelof and Cuse didn't mind as long as the statue didn't have five toes", so at some point, it appears to have been deemed quite important for the statue foot to have a somewhat non-human appearance.

Later during the series, we learn that the statue used to depict Egyptian goddess Tawaret and that it was destroyed when the Black Rock crashed into it during a storm.

In hindsight, both aforementioned aspects seem like meaningless red herrings to me:

  • The four toes: Had the statue been a representation of an existing being that roams or visits the island, the four toes could indeed have been meaningful. They would have been the first clue that whatever that being is, it is not completely human. Instead, as the statue was merely an artistic depiction of a mythological being (that is otherwise quite marginal to the story and only briefly appears one other time on a woven tapestry), the unusual number of toes turns out to be entirely irrelevant (or at least not at all "disquieting").
  • The destruction of the statue: Again, had the event that caused the destruction of the statue been anything relevant for the protagonists, the ruined statue could have been a first warning sign of whatever cataclysmic event has happened, and might happen again. Instead, it's "just" a storm, and while it is connected to the somewhat plot-relevant Black Rock, the connection is rather coincidental - the Black Rock could have been swept onto the island without being slammed against the statue, or the statue might even have been hit by some other flotsam carried by the same storm. Even so, by the time (most of) the series takes place, that particular storm is long over and violent storms carrying heavy flotsam are not considered a major danger in general for the protagonists.

Hence, my question is: Is it known if there were originally any other plans for what the statue foot signified (and if so, what were they?), or were the seemingly mysterious aspects simply meant to add to the general feeling of outlandishness of the island without any deeper meaning from the start?

O. R. Mapper
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  • I'd argue that "Ancient Egyptians lived on the Island previously" is a pretty good deeper meaning. – Rogue Jedi Jun 13 '16 at 21:55
  • @RogueJedi: And how does either the partial destruction of an unknown statue or a statue foot with four toes point to Ancient Egyptians? To clarify: I'm not saying the existence of the statue as such was meaningless, just the two particular aspects mentioned by Sayid, despite seeming very ominous at first. – O. R. Mapper Jun 13 '16 at 21:56
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    This seems to me to be a very minor example of the major problem throughout the show: the creators setting up interesting mysteries and then having no idea what to do with them. – Daniel Roseman Jun 14 '16 at 08:17
  • The writers had plans? – Greenstone Walker Apr 21 '17 at 00:12
  • I just figured it was a Lovecraftian nod. The idea of a weird island comes from that wonderful age of SciFi. It doesn't need an explanation, since the imagination was Lovecraft's biggest tool. Let your mind imagine an ancient terrible race, or a Dharma Initiative psyop, or anything in between. –  Aug 14 '23 at 20:42

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