It should be noted that Lindelof's original response was, "George RR Martin is terrified of 'pulling a LOST' by ending Game of Thrones shittily. In related news, my therapist just hit the jackpot."

And he's feuding with Martin with most of his tongue tucked into his cheek.

Speaking as someone who briefly saw the last minutes of the Lost finale explain what exactly was so controversial about the way it ended?

I never have watched the show, I need help understanding.

What I've observed:

People who went into the finale wanting all the island's questions answered felt cheated by the ending.

People who went into the finale wanting closure for the characters and the story were perfectly happy with the way the show ended.

@ Matthew. It wasn't really a controversy. They just said that LOST wouldn't have a "it was all a dream" type ending.

When in fact, that's exactly what it was.

There was also a sort of promise that all the bits and pieces of mystery would add up to something of significance.

When everything was revealed, there were gaping holes, which exposed a majority of episodes as nothing more than filler.

I'm really not sure why it was such a big deal with LOST. A majority of TV episodes are filler for any show. I think fans just believed there was more to LOST than that. And in the end, were wrong.

It may have something to do with the fact that LOST never truly paid off any of its plotlines. It'd solve something with an answer that was even more ridiculous than the question, just raising more questions.

Compare LOST to seasons 2 and 3 of FRINGE and I think you'll see what I mean. Fringe continually sets up and pays off plotlines that make sense within the world. It doesn't feel like they are violating the rules they have established just for the sake of an unexpected or shocking payoff. LOST did that ALL the time.

That's my two cents.

@Nicklaus: Yeah, it's pretty apparent Lindelof is trying to have a bit of fun with this kerfuffle on Twitter.

Count me as a Lostie that was completely satisfied by the show's adherence to its characters during the finale. Yes, there are lots of plotlines left unexplained, but mostly minor, IMO. Want a show that's all plot with terrible characters? Ask NBC how The Event is faring.

As for this feud... Lindelof is having a bit of fun, methinks. I also just watched the Game of Thrones preview on HBO's sight and... WOW.

It's absolutely not true that people who were disappointed by the ending had expected "answers" to the show's mysteries. No, what we wanted was a tone in keeping with the sci-fi nature of the show. Instead, we got some pseudo-mystical crap that belonged to "Touched By An Angel." The most intriguing (and certainly the most commercially capitalized by ABC) aspect of the show was the Dharma Initiative. Yet the final season had virtually no mention of the Dharma Initiative.

I enjoyed the Mystery in the Box... The imagination is so much better than the actuality.

I'll just let Aristotle sum up my thoughts on Lost. From Poetics:

"Of simple plots and actions, the episodic ones are the worst. By an episodic plot I mean one in which the sequence of episodes is neither necessary nor probable. Second-rate poets compose plots of this kind of their own accord; good poets do so on account of the actors – in writing pieces for competitive display they draw out the plot beyond its potential, and are often forced to distort the sequence."

Without getting into a fanboyist debate, I completely agree with George on this one. There were aspects of the Lost finale that were acceptable, but when you build your show on the concept mysteries and keep us coming back week after week because the onslaught of questions, then do a shit poor job of resolving any of those mysteries, I think we're justified in being annoyed.

Yes, the characters played a huge part in the story, but towards the end, they were so far removed from where they started, essentially becoming agents of the mysteries and not of their own goals and desires, that saying the show was only about the characters is a pretty shaky stance.

The first few seasons of Lost were outstanding. The last few I watched simply in hopes of having some sort of closer to the plot and characters. Problem is, we didn't get much in terms of character toward the end. The show was so focused on keeping us there by using the convoluted plot that when they pulled a "character based" ending, I simply didn't care. If they had stayed character driven the whole time, then maybe that ending would have worked, but they didn't, so it didn't.

The characters of Lost were excellent. The storytelling was excellent. The mysteries were excellent. Some of the answers were excellent. Some were terrible. But the worst, and Sir Martin is correct, is the mysteries they didn't explain at all.

They set the bar high, and almost got there. So some other show has room to improve on Lost. Imperfection allows Martin to go create his own Lost and do it better.

The ending also provided so much unintentional snark. The series was great at intentional snark, the finale was not. The juvenile "You were a good Number One - great Number Two"?

The church of all denominations? -
CHRISTIAN SHEPHERD
I am your, um, shepherd, and, I'm, like, christian -

HURLEY
Yeah, I got a problem with that. I'm Jewish.

SAWYER
When did you get the cut, Jewsnip?

SAYID
There is the little problem of the Muslim over here too.

The alternate timeline could've been handled much better. If they had asked the fans to explain the mysteries, they would've received thousands of possibilities. Choose the best one, and get a much better ending.

@James - LOST didn't have a "It was all a dream" ending. Why do people keep saying that?

There were two very distinct endings in the finale. The Island ending and the character ending. One did what they all hoped to finally achieve (though only a handful survived). The second had nothing to do with the mystery of the show, but I guess made some people happy to see.

As for Lindelof's comment to Martin - I agree, it was tongue in cheek.

As far as I am concerned Lost seasons 1-5 are flawed but watchable. Season 6 is a travesty on the entire series and anyone who thought that the end of LOST would show some significance didn't watch the last season close enough. I mean, the lazy, and I mean LAZY way that Hurley just walks into the woods and says "So you're all ghosts"? Come on now. From that point on I knew this season and series would end in failure. There are so many issues with season 6 that I could point out that went against all other 5 seasons but I'll just provide one instance in which it actually went against it's own season! What the hell was the importance of Desmond? Until that point we had been led to believe by himself, widmore, and the plot, that there were two realities. Island actaual, and LA manufactured. In Desmonds stand alone episode it was left to be that Desmond was needed to either bring the two alternate characters together into one timeline or make one understand the existence of the other. What happened? They were dead! It wasn't an alternate timeline. it was purgatory/wait before heaven time specifically to wait up for all of them to die together. Dance, dance, dog comes,cry, series over! WTF? BS anyway you put it. Bait and switch in plain sight. Season 6 made even its own episodes worthless.

The ending of Lost was utterly half-assed and phoned in. The writers seemed to be furious at their own audience: "We know that you guys don't really care anymore why Walt was kidnapped, so we'll just give you chumps what you want to see: all of you favorite couples will get to kiss each other and smile in Unitarian heaven. Happy now?" A big slap in the face to anyone who ever cared about the show.

Nothing was, is or will be worse than what David Chase did to us with The Sopranos. I still loathe that man...

Ok, HBO canceling Carnivale is right up there. Even knowing that 4 out of the 6 planned seasons will never ever see the light of day, I've still watched those first 2 seasons 3 times.

LOST wasn't true to itself during the finale. The closing story focused on the characters, which is NOT why the show was popular. I feel confident in speaking for everyone when I say that. Yes, we enjoyed the characters as a means to an end, but we were all following the supernatural plot first and foremost.
Giving us the 'Titanic' ending - everyone who'd experienced the events ending up together - is a safe move. I enjoyed everything leading up to the finale moments, but in the end I was left saying to the show creators/writers/producers 'you're better than that'.

They were not all dead and they did not die together. What happened on the island really did happen. The characters went on to die at different points in their lives (some died young, some, I assume, lived long, full lives). Once they were all dead, they reunited in the afterlife in a timeline that doesn't exist as a timeline.

@ Carlos

Cause my impression from the finale (like a lot of people's) was that Jack died when the plane first crashed.

Which meant he couldn't have had any of those adventures on the island. They were all make believe.

I think Peter nailed it though...

"I enjoyed the Mystery in the Box... The imagination is so much better than the actuality."

That's exactly what made LOST good. The problem was when they came to the end and had to open the box and show us all what was actually in it.