This was by no means random or unintentional creation of mythos. However, it wasn't tied neatly together and expounded to the audience either.
As for the polar bears, they were there, and hte shark, from dharma initiative expiriments. Remember the animal cages?
The dharma wheel is an ancient symbol... and "turning it" was about different paths to buddhist enlightment. so the "donkey wheel" (as some put it) was a nicely placed bit of symbolism.
The Tawaret statue (of which we saw the 4 toed foot only, then finally the full thing) underwhich, Jacob resided, is an egyptian fertility goddess... so that tied into the idea of women couldn't get pregnant, the children were stolen etc...
Also, Tawaret, in egyptian mythology, kept her evil in check So the idea of keeping the man in black on the island, seemed to have been consistent.
from wikipedia:
"As a protector, she often was shown with one arm resting on the sa symbol, which symbolized protection, and on occasion she carried an ankh, the symbol of life, or a knife, which would be used to threaten evil spirits. As the hippopotamus was associated with the Nile, these more positive ideas of Taweret allowed her to be seen as a goddess of the annual flooding of the Nile and the bountiful harvest that it brought. Ultimately, although only a household deity, since she was still considered the consort of Apep, Taweret was seen as one who protected against evil by restraining it."
One idea I thought interesting - the writers could be implying that those ancient people who came to the lost island rationalized what they saw there, and this formed the mythology of Set and Tawaret that became egyptian mythology that we know.
Also, the relevence to the nile flooding type of element could be tied together in some way into the river and light, symbolic of life, etc.
So, I think the writers clearly did have a conception to all of this. Just probably not a complete narrative. They probably realized trying to tie everything together was going to be unending, and ultimatlely unsatisfying, as it would require going to the nth degree to make it otherwise. Hence that is the why they offered the "questions only lead to more questions" statement.
Personally I was really dissapointed with it. My wife and I had thought they just gave up on it, and were just wanting everything to hurry up and end already. I had reset my expectations to zero prior to the finale, and so that alone made watching it mildly satisfying. On the other hand, my wife loved it and balled like a baby all of hte way through. So the storytelling affected her in ways it did not myself. I was still wanting all of the intellectual/scientific/logical dots connected for me.
Soon afterword, or maybe even during, I decided I didn't care what happened, it was just a show. I know many people took it to a deeper level though and are angry.
My biggest gripe is where the hell is Walt? That was the worst loose end, even if it was going to tell a "story about the character's". That one was just too much.
Also the smoke monster seemed completely irrelevant by the end.
[There was a forum called the fuselage where you could hear from a lot of people about their theories and questions, and a LOT of the gripes. ]
One area that I didn't bother thinkng about as i had pretty much tuned out in the last few episodes, but was pointed out on the fuselage...
so the candidates were chosen because they were "losers" and isolated... ok that is pretty bad. But then when you think of it what? how? It is pretty harsh to cast a young kid (Sawyer) who lost his parents as doomed to be alone... -because that is when Jacob touched him.
-Tony
