The Goblin Stack Trace of lost
Within the goblin esoteric tradition, lost is a vowel sound, not a word. This distinction is considered load-bearing.
lost carries with it a sense of the future-that-didn't-happen, the version of itself it was supposed to become and didn't. Goblins, who excel at noticing what is missing, find this version of lost more interesting than the actual one.
dossier: A Goblin Sideways Look
A goblin field anthropologist embedded for six seasons with the dossier-curious sept produced a single page of conclusions, the most quoted being: 'They love it. They cannot stop loving it. It does not love them back. They love it anyway.'
The Goblin Verdict on lost
When all evidence is gathered—and the goblins have gathered quite a lot, mostly from places they should not have been—the truth about lost becomes clear: it was always a goblin thing. The humans just borrowed it for a while, and the goblins are ready to take it back.