So, in the last entry I made mention of the Man In Black aka Jacob’s Nemesis aka “Esau” taking the form of Locke. While this isn’t universally accepted among Losties, it’s generally accepted and it’s what I’m going with. I also noted that the Biblical Esau was a hunter, like Locke, but posed the question: was Locke really a hunter? That is, was he meant to be a hunter? Remember that scene in "Cabin Fever" (s.4 e.11) where Richard Alpert visits Locke’s (foster) home when Locke was a child? He set objects in front of him and asked him to identify which ones were already his. Locke chooses the vial of sand, and the compass. And by the look on Richard’s face, they are correct choices. Then Locke looks first at the "Book of Laws", then at a knife – one of the objects – and takes the knife. Richard stops smiling and asks, “Are you sure the knife is yours?” Locke nods. Richard takes the knife and disappointedly, almost disgustedly says, “Well, it’s not.” He tells Locke’s foster mother that Locke is “not ready” for their “school”, and leaves very abruptly. Later, as a teenager, Locke is told by a school counselor or teacher that Richard Alpert is offering Locke an excellent educational opportunity in science, (through Mittelos Laboratories in Portland, so this is probably really an invitation to the island), but Locke angrily rejects it, insisting that he is not a scientist, but a sportsman and an outdoorsman. The counselor gently but firmly advises Locke that although he may not want to be a scientist, “that’s who you are, John.” What exactly is going on here with Locke? It seems that throughout his life he has been resisting his true calling, which is not to be a hunter. Where then did the hunter come from? Was in fact Locke’s ambition to be a hunter “Esau”’s idea from the beginning? Has he entered Locke’s mind to influence him away from his true calling as a spiritual leader to be a hunter instead? Has he spent all of Locke’s life setting Locke up to be this person so that he (“Esau”) could use him to kill Jacob?
Consider that when Richard pays Locke that visit as a child, he sees what looks like a drawing of a man attacked by the smoke monster. Richard asks John if he drew that picture and John nods yes. If the Man in Black or “Esau” is the same as the smoke monster, this seems to be powerful evidence that the smoke monster is somehow in Locke’s mind influencing him. Note that this is different from saying that Locke was the Man in Black all along. John Locke is a real person, separate from “Esau”, and called to be a scientist, perhaps even a lawgiver and mystic. But the Man In Black/“Esau” has been with Locke from the beginning of his life, working to steer Locke away from his true calling and be manipulated by “Esau” instead.
By the way, Richard visited Locke first as a newborn baby, then as a child, because in 1954, two years before Locke was born, the grown up, Oceanic 815 Locke told Richard that he was the island’s leader – in fact that Richard himself had told Locke so – and added, “if you don’t believe me, I suggest you come and visit me.” This connects with Lost’s concept of time that seems to reflect the work of mathematician Kurt Gödel. And I’ll write about that later.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
A History of the Others
Here's a summary of my understanding of the history of the Others on Lost.
The Others were originally brought to the island by Jacob, probably on the Black Rock in the 19th century. One of the men on that ship, Richard Alpert, is granted immortality by Jacob. From there they lived in peace and harmony with the environment until theUS
The Others were originally brought to the island by Jacob, probably on the Black Rock in the 19th century. One of the men on that ship, Richard Alpert, is granted immortality by Jacob. From there they lived in peace and harmony with the environment until the
Question: if Jacob brought the Black Rock, who brought the army? I thought no one could find the island. What if the army was also brought – by “Esau”? Jacob brought the Black Rock to prove “Esau” wrong – did “Esau” bring the army to prove himself right? “They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.” The army’s arrival and its consequences certainly seem to tip the argument in Esau’s favor.
By the way, whether The Man In Black’s name is Esau or not, consider this: Jacob in the Bible favors the domestic life as does Lost’s Jacob, Esau in the Bible was a hunter. So is “Esau” a hunter, too? If so, notice how he took the form of Locke, the “hunter” par excellence among the survivors. Ah, but then again, was Locke really a hunter? That is, was he meant to be a hunter? Well, I'll write more about that another time.
So anyway, back to Others history. So the Others/Hostiles became militant and well armed. Eventually the army leaves, but the Others remain militant. One in particular, Charles Widmore, becomes outstandingly ruthless and Machiavellian about defending the island. He comes to be their leader and perhaps gives orders that claim to be from Jacob, but aren’t really.
Now it’s as a young man that Charles Widmore first meets Ben Linus, freshly shot by Sayid Jarah. Ben goes back to live with his dad and the Dharma Initiative, but in his heart he’s with the Others all the way. But something else is in Ben’s heart: a cold calculated rage and a kind of sociopathy that covers his whole soul except…Ben’s sociopathy has one hole: he has a soft spot for babies and small children left motherless as he was. So he can’t kill Danielle Rousseau and leave her baby Alex motherless, much less kill Alex. So he goes against Widmore’s orders and brings Alex to the Others’ camp, adopting her as his own daughter. But that soft spot doesn’t stop Ben from slaughtering the entire Dharma Initiative for the Others.
Ben then led the Others to the Dharma compound where they changed from a live-off-the-land back-to-nature-lifestyle to a suburban American lifestyle. Widmore was eventually banished (by Ben’s maneuvering? Widmore’s corruption? A combination of both?) Ben began recruiting people, lots of people, who shared his sociopathy and would be brainlessly loyal and completely controllable by him. He adapted all the facilities of the Dharma Initiative to keep complete surveillance and complete control over everyone on the island. Ben ingeniously wove together the people of the Others with the resources and facilities of Dharma to turn the island into his own private universe over which he is God.
Except…
Except that Jacob is still in charge of the island. And it’s a fair bet that he was not too happy with what Ben (and Widmore) had made of his happy little society. No wonder Jacob never showed himself to Ben.
The picture I get from all this is that between Charles Widmore and Ben Linus, the Others are turned from a benign community into the monsterous cult-like controllers and oppressors that Lost fans loved to hate.
Monday, January 11, 2010
A less serious Lost rambling:
Lost = Star Trek (the original series)
If you're unfamiliar with the original series, this might not make sense to you. But I thought it was kind of fun to observe the parallels between chief characters in the series.
Jack = Kirk
First of all, the names are similar: monosyllabic, end with a "k"; ok, they don't start with a "k," but Jack starts with a J which is right next to K in the alphabet. Anyway, more to the point, Jack is Kirk. He's clearly the hero leader of the bunch. In fact, apart from Jack's issues with his dad, and not being quite the womanizer Kirk was, Jack's personality is almost identical to Kirk's; that is, defined by "I'm the dashing hero who never gives up and always wins in the end."
Locke = Spock
Come on! Their names even rhyme! Locke is no Vulcan, but he is the most in control of his emotions (most of the time) and the most philosophical (I love Sawyer's reaction when Locke punched out Charley: "That's like gettin' Gandhi to beat his own kids!"). Also, if you've ever seen the very few Star Trek episodes where Kirk isn't around and Spock is in the top leadership position, you'd see even more parallel between the two. Two outcasts who were perpetually abused for being outcasts, they adhere to unconventional principles ruthlessly, even to the point of being hopelessly out of touch with what's right before them. Even so they also by the same means have access to insights that no one else could hope to gain. Both are ideal as second-in-command. Unfortunately, while Spock relishes that position and is thoroughly loyal to Kirk, just the opposite is the case for Locke.
Sawyer = Bones
Ok, no name games here, but the parallel is still obvious. Two southern rascals who keep bringing the others back down to earth with a very earthy perspective. Also: the very few times you have Jack, Locke, and Sawyer working together in a scene, it's priceless. Exactly like Kirk, Spock, and Bones. Too bad Lost doesn't exploit that dynamic as much as Star Trek did.
If you're unfamiliar with the original series, this might not make sense to you. But I thought it was kind of fun to observe the parallels between chief characters in the series.
Jack = Kirk
First of all, the names are similar: monosyllabic, end with a "k"; ok, they don't start with a "k," but Jack starts with a J which is right next to K in the alphabet. Anyway, more to the point, Jack is Kirk. He's clearly the hero leader of the bunch. In fact, apart from Jack's issues with his dad, and not being quite the womanizer Kirk was, Jack's personality is almost identical to Kirk's; that is, defined by "I'm the dashing hero who never gives up and always wins in the end."
Locke = Spock
Come on! Their names even rhyme! Locke is no Vulcan, but he is the most in control of his emotions (most of the time) and the most philosophical (I love Sawyer's reaction when Locke punched out Charley: "That's like gettin' Gandhi to beat his own kids!"). Also, if you've ever seen the very few Star Trek episodes where Kirk isn't around and Spock is in the top leadership position, you'd see even more parallel between the two. Two outcasts who were perpetually abused for being outcasts, they adhere to unconventional principles ruthlessly, even to the point of being hopelessly out of touch with what's right before them. Even so they also by the same means have access to insights that no one else could hope to gain. Both are ideal as second-in-command. Unfortunately, while Spock relishes that position and is thoroughly loyal to Kirk, just the opposite is the case for Locke.
Sawyer = Bones
Ok, no name games here, but the parallel is still obvious. Two southern rascals who keep bringing the others back down to earth with a very earthy perspective. Also: the very few times you have Jack, Locke, and Sawyer working together in a scene, it's priceless. Exactly like Kirk, Spock, and Bones. Too bad Lost doesn't exploit that dynamic as much as Star Trek did.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
thoughts about the second and third seasons
Originally written November 9
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So okay, before I get too far into the fourth season (only seen two episodes so far) I need to stop and assess the second and third.
The first season was about getting acquainted with the island and its mysteries, Season 2 was about the hatch and learning about the Dharma Initiative, and Season 3 is about learning about the Others.
First I'm just going to ramble about my impressions and then I'm going to talk about my ideas about this stuff.
One thing that I found annoying about the second season was what happened to Locke. Now, I was one of those types who couldn't make up my mind about whether Locke was a "good guy" or a "bad guy". In the pilot he gave me the creeps. But I quickly came to like him, particularly from the fourth episode of season 1 because I saw his backstory and thought now here's a guy who went from being the most pathetic loser in human history to being the ultimate g. And he wasn't just cool and a hunter, but he helped people and had insight into what they were about when no one else understood them.
So I was really rooting for Locke and then he got into the hatch and everything went wrong. It's weird and probably intentional on the writers' part, that as soon as Locke got out of the jungle into the relatively modern setting, furnishings, comfort, and technology of the hatch, he started reverting into the mamby-pamby, whiney mess that he was before the plane crashed. Over and over again he'd lie or believe the wrong person and I'd be like, "Awww, Locke!" I'm totally with Doc Jensen when he talked about how great it was to see Locke become Mr. Island superman again after season 3 started. (Yes, I have read quite a bit of the Doc's web site. I kind of made my head hurt, and I don't read it much anymore. I still go back to it now and then.)
It was cool to have a Nigerian character in the story (and Yoruba at that! It was neat to hear Yoruba spoken on an American TV show). One of the annoying things about Season 2 was that we got interested in the "tailies" as Doc J calls them, only to see almost every last one of them get wiped out. Especially Libby! She was so sweet and it was so cool that she and Hurley made a perfect couple.
And now a word about Ana Lucia. What's with the hate? I couldn't believe all I read from guys (on the hulu website) wishing her dead and stuff. What's their problem?! She was annoying at first, but she was a very tragic figure from beginning to end and I had a lot of sympathy for her. Juliette -- now there's someone who looked really obnoxious more than once. But Ana Lucia was cool.
I do have to hand it to Doc Jensen for two insights that seemed far fetched when he originally posted them, but which panned out in the end: that the Others are not the Dharma Initiative people, but the hostiles who were at war with them once upon a time. And the idea that Desmond and Penelope's quest for reunion is going to be the central theme of the story (well, I haven't seen enough of it to know if that's true, but it's turned out to be a major theme anyway).
And I fell for just about every trick they threw at me second season. I totally was with Jack thinking the hatch computer thing was a hoax. How could a 70's-Commodore-looking computer be what keeps the world from blowing up? Then it turned out to be for real. I thought the others were primitives even though Ethan and Goodwin were others and didn't seem primitive. I thought the tailies were others before they turned out to be tailies (the account of their first 48 hours after the crash was really chilling, I thought). But I think I'm getting the hang of this: when the finale for Season 3 started, and I saw Jack in a beard, I knew it wasn't a flashback but a flash forward. A few episodes before the finale I'd actually been thinking, "Man! After all these people have been through, how are they ever going to survive civilized life if they get back? They're going to be a mess!" Apparently Danielle Rousseau has already figured that out about herself.
Seeing Bernard and Rose reunite made me cry. Really cry. For real.
The episode where Hurley and Charlie jump start the van was one of the most awesome experiences I've ever had watching a tv show. I had "Shambala" (which I don't think I've heard since I was a teenager) playing in my mind for at least a couple of days afterward.
Seeing Charlie die and just the fact that he died was the hardest thing I've had to deal with on the show. Honestly I still don't see why he had to close that door. It would've taken ages for that huge station to flood and Charlie and Desmond would've been out of there long before that.
So now there seem to be four factions: The survivors with Jack, the survivors with Locke, the Others, and the pseudo-rescuers. It's very cool to see that the Others want Locke to replace Ben. Not that I'm sympathetic towards the Others, or even Locke anymore. It's just....Ben! He's pure super-geek evil. I'm telling you, when I saw him as a kid...I went to school with a lot of kids like that. In a way I was a kid like that myself. Which is precisely why I have no sympathy for Ben. He suffered a lot, with his mom dying and his dad being a jerk, and blaming Ben for his mom's death and all, but Ben made his own choice. He murdered his father when he was an adult. By that time most kids growing up with crap like that have figured out that you let some things go. Ben reminds me a lot of a verse from the Bible:
"Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:" Isaiah 28:15.
Yeah, religion gets into this a lot doesn't it? It's remarkable that Ben's mom's dying words were, "Call him Benjamin."
"And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath [or Portland, whatever]: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour.
And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also.
And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin." (Genesis 35:16-18)
And, of course, in the Bible Benjamin’s father was Jacob.
It's not just biblical stuff, though. Ben shoots Locke, leaving him to die in a mass grave surrounded by corpses. It's there at the point of death surrounded by the dead that he receives his commission (from Walt, no less). That's a near-perfect example of shamanism, where the shaman is killed and goes to the abode of the dead to receive his or her shamanic ordination, so to speak. In college I read some pretty astonishing first hand accounts of shamans who past through such an experience. Some literally order someone else to kill them by shooting or drowning just to go to the underworld to become shamans.
Bad news for Ben, too, because that passage in Isaiah continues:
"And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it." (Isaiah 28:18)
I notice that Ben as a kid saw his mom on the island, before he met the hostiles, but as yet I don't know that he saw her again after that. My guess is that either Ben gets his come-uppance as in the above verse (the “overflowing scourge” from the rescuers?), or he sees his mom who melts his heart and turns him back from his evil ways. I don't know yet.
And what about Jacob? That puts me in mind of the unhappy revelation at the end of Season 2 when Sayid and company find the remains of the colossus statue on the island: a foot with four toes. The statue was huge, apparently ancient, and the foot had four toes. What else could it be but the remains of an alien civilization? I thought, "Oh, no, aliens." Aliens just seem like such a cop-out. "How do you explain this unfathomable mystery?" "It was the aliens!" "Simple! Aliens did it!" But now it seems inevitable that we're going to deal with aliens sooner or later. So Jacob is invisible, but evidently real. Is he an alien? I groan at the sneaking suspicion that he is. I'll soon see.
What's more interesting is: who are these hostiles? Are they the aliens? At least one of them, Richard, looks like he was the same age when Ben was 10 or 12 as he is now. Are they more recent than the aliens? If they're not aliens (and I can't tell if they keep their shoes on) who are they and what do they want? What do the aliens want? Ah, well, such is the stuff that Lost is made of.
-------------------------
So okay, before I get too far into the fourth season (only seen two episodes so far) I need to stop and assess the second and third.
The first season was about getting acquainted with the island and its mysteries, Season 2 was about the hatch and learning about the Dharma Initiative, and Season 3 is about learning about the Others.
First I'm just going to ramble about my impressions and then I'm going to talk about my ideas about this stuff.
One thing that I found annoying about the second season was what happened to Locke. Now, I was one of those types who couldn't make up my mind about whether Locke was a "good guy" or a "bad guy". In the pilot he gave me the creeps. But I quickly came to like him, particularly from the fourth episode of season 1 because I saw his backstory and thought now here's a guy who went from being the most pathetic loser in human history to being the ultimate g. And he wasn't just cool and a hunter, but he helped people and had insight into what they were about when no one else understood them.
So I was really rooting for Locke and then he got into the hatch and everything went wrong. It's weird and probably intentional on the writers' part, that as soon as Locke got out of the jungle into the relatively modern setting, furnishings, comfort, and technology of the hatch, he started reverting into the mamby-pamby, whiney mess that he was before the plane crashed. Over and over again he'd lie or believe the wrong person and I'd be like, "Awww, Locke!" I'm totally with Doc Jensen when he talked about how great it was to see Locke become Mr. Island superman again after season 3 started. (Yes, I have read quite a bit of the Doc's web site. I kind of made my head hurt, and I don't read it much anymore. I still go back to it now and then.)
It was cool to have a Nigerian character in the story (and Yoruba at that! It was neat to hear Yoruba spoken on an American TV show). One of the annoying things about Season 2 was that we got interested in the "tailies" as Doc J calls them, only to see almost every last one of them get wiped out. Especially Libby! She was so sweet and it was so cool that she and Hurley made a perfect couple.
And now a word about Ana Lucia. What's with the hate? I couldn't believe all I read from guys (on the hulu website) wishing her dead and stuff. What's their problem?! She was annoying at first, but she was a very tragic figure from beginning to end and I had a lot of sympathy for her. Juliette -- now there's someone who looked really obnoxious more than once. But Ana Lucia was cool.
I do have to hand it to Doc Jensen for two insights that seemed far fetched when he originally posted them, but which panned out in the end: that the Others are not the Dharma Initiative people, but the hostiles who were at war with them once upon a time. And the idea that Desmond and Penelope's quest for reunion is going to be the central theme of the story (well, I haven't seen enough of it to know if that's true, but it's turned out to be a major theme anyway).
And I fell for just about every trick they threw at me second season. I totally was with Jack thinking the hatch computer thing was a hoax. How could a 70's-Commodore-looking computer be what keeps the world from blowing up? Then it turned out to be for real. I thought the others were primitives even though Ethan and Goodwin were others and didn't seem primitive. I thought the tailies were others before they turned out to be tailies (the account of their first 48 hours after the crash was really chilling, I thought). But I think I'm getting the hang of this: when the finale for Season 3 started, and I saw Jack in a beard, I knew it wasn't a flashback but a flash forward. A few episodes before the finale I'd actually been thinking, "Man! After all these people have been through, how are they ever going to survive civilized life if they get back? They're going to be a mess!" Apparently Danielle Rousseau has already figured that out about herself.
Seeing Bernard and Rose reunite made me cry. Really cry. For real.
The episode where Hurley and Charlie jump start the van was one of the most awesome experiences I've ever had watching a tv show. I had "Shambala" (which I don't think I've heard since I was a teenager) playing in my mind for at least a couple of days afterward.
Seeing Charlie die and just the fact that he died was the hardest thing I've had to deal with on the show. Honestly I still don't see why he had to close that door. It would've taken ages for that huge station to flood and Charlie and Desmond would've been out of there long before that.
So now there seem to be four factions: The survivors with Jack, the survivors with Locke, the Others, and the pseudo-rescuers. It's very cool to see that the Others want Locke to replace Ben. Not that I'm sympathetic towards the Others, or even Locke anymore. It's just....Ben! He's pure super-geek evil. I'm telling you, when I saw him as a kid...I went to school with a lot of kids like that. In a way I was a kid like that myself. Which is precisely why I have no sympathy for Ben. He suffered a lot, with his mom dying and his dad being a jerk, and blaming Ben for his mom's death and all, but Ben made his own choice. He murdered his father when he was an adult. By that time most kids growing up with crap like that have figured out that you let some things go. Ben reminds me a lot of a verse from the Bible:
"Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:" Isaiah 28:15.
Yeah, religion gets into this a lot doesn't it? It's remarkable that Ben's mom's dying words were, "Call him Benjamin."
"And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath [or Portland, whatever]: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour.
And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also.
And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin." (Genesis 35:16-18)
And, of course, in the Bible Benjamin’s father was Jacob.
It's not just biblical stuff, though. Ben shoots Locke, leaving him to die in a mass grave surrounded by corpses. It's there at the point of death surrounded by the dead that he receives his commission (from Walt, no less). That's a near-perfect example of shamanism, where the shaman is killed and goes to the abode of the dead to receive his or her shamanic ordination, so to speak. In college I read some pretty astonishing first hand accounts of shamans who past through such an experience. Some literally order someone else to kill them by shooting or drowning just to go to the underworld to become shamans.
Bad news for Ben, too, because that passage in Isaiah continues:
"And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it." (Isaiah 28:18)
I notice that Ben as a kid saw his mom on the island, before he met the hostiles, but as yet I don't know that he saw her again after that. My guess is that either Ben gets his come-uppance as in the above verse (the “overflowing scourge” from the rescuers?), or he sees his mom who melts his heart and turns him back from his evil ways. I don't know yet.
And what about Jacob? That puts me in mind of the unhappy revelation at the end of Season 2 when Sayid and company find the remains of the colossus statue on the island: a foot with four toes. The statue was huge, apparently ancient, and the foot had four toes. What else could it be but the remains of an alien civilization? I thought, "Oh, no, aliens." Aliens just seem like such a cop-out. "How do you explain this unfathomable mystery?" "It was the aliens!" "Simple! Aliens did it!" But now it seems inevitable that we're going to deal with aliens sooner or later. So Jacob is invisible, but evidently real. Is he an alien? I groan at the sneaking suspicion that he is. I'll soon see.
What's more interesting is: who are these hostiles? Are they the aliens? At least one of them, Richard, looks like he was the same age when Ben was 10 or 12 as he is now. Are they more recent than the aliens? If they're not aliens (and I can't tell if they keep their shoes on) who are they and what do they want? What do the aliens want? Ah, well, such is the stuff that Lost is made of.
Friday, January 1, 2010
This was the first of my ramblings on Lost, originally written September 25 of this year after finishing the first season and the beginning of the second.
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Ok, so here's some of what I've got so far: The progress through the first season seems a microcosm of human history: first people find themselves in paradise; the food is just provided for them, but then that runs out and they have to get their own. They start by foraging, then they learn to hunt game. Then they learn to domesticate plants. Then mysteries occur and religious or quasi-religious beliefs arise to make sense of the world. Then there's a conflict between science and religion, personified in Jack and Locke, respectively. The hatch sort of is the concrete object of life's mystery. Locke wants to open it, but Sayid thinks that's crazy so he enlists Jack (Reason/Science) to "talk him out of this madness." To Sayid's dismay, Jack wants to open the hatch, too, but for a different reason: Locke is looking for arcane knowledge and experience, while Jack is looking for safety for the people. Ironically, opening the hatch leads to some modern comfort and bounty, but no real answers or safety. Likewise the modern world that science and religion have both created out of conflicting motivations has not provided answers, only more questions and problems and enslaved us to meaningless tedium (the button). The button is like the status quo: the threat is that if the button is not pushed the status quo not maintained, all hell breaks loose. You know that may or may not happen, but are you willing to take that chance? So far, no one is.
As I move further through the second season, I get the distinct impression that the dichotomy between Jack and Locke is not so much "man of science" vs. "man of faith", but "man of responsibility" vs. "man of fate". Jack is willing to take responsibility for everything he does and everything that happens to him. Locke, on the other hand, does not take final responsibility for anything (he does say Boone's death was his fault at first, but he ultimately concludes that the island demanded his death). Locke's fatal weakness is his inability to take ownership of his life, while Jack's fatal weakness is that he takes responsibility not only for his own life, but for everyone else's as well.
I also get the purgatory thing. Very interesting. Apart from the obvious ("we're both already dead," "Are we saved yet?" "Not yet.") there are the cases of those who die: Boone dies shortly after he lets Shannon go, Shannon dies as soon as she finally feels validated and worthwhile. It's like as soon as you've worked through your issues you die and leave the island. If that's true Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Ana Lucia have a long life ahead of them on the island, cause man, I don't remember when I've seen so many messed up issues in so few people.
-------------------
Ok, so here's some of what I've got so far: The progress through the first season seems a microcosm of human history: first people find themselves in paradise; the food is just provided for them, but then that runs out and they have to get their own. They start by foraging, then they learn to hunt game. Then they learn to domesticate plants. Then mysteries occur and religious or quasi-religious beliefs arise to make sense of the world. Then there's a conflict between science and religion, personified in Jack and Locke, respectively. The hatch sort of is the concrete object of life's mystery. Locke wants to open it, but Sayid thinks that's crazy so he enlists Jack (Reason/Science) to "talk him out of this madness." To Sayid's dismay, Jack wants to open the hatch, too, but for a different reason: Locke is looking for arcane knowledge and experience, while Jack is looking for safety for the people. Ironically, opening the hatch leads to some modern comfort and bounty, but no real answers or safety. Likewise the modern world that science and religion have both created out of conflicting motivations has not provided answers, only more questions and problems and enslaved us to meaningless tedium (the button). The button is like the status quo: the threat is that if the button is not pushed the status quo not maintained, all hell breaks loose. You know that may or may not happen, but are you willing to take that chance? So far, no one is.
As I move further through the second season, I get the distinct impression that the dichotomy between Jack and Locke is not so much "man of science" vs. "man of faith", but "man of responsibility" vs. "man of fate". Jack is willing to take responsibility for everything he does and everything that happens to him. Locke, on the other hand, does not take final responsibility for anything (he does say Boone's death was his fault at first, but he ultimately concludes that the island demanded his death). Locke's fatal weakness is his inability to take ownership of his life, while Jack's fatal weakness is that he takes responsibility not only for his own life, but for everyone else's as well.
I also get the purgatory thing. Very interesting. Apart from the obvious ("we're both already dead," "Are we saved yet?" "Not yet.") there are the cases of those who die: Boone dies shortly after he lets Shannon go, Shannon dies as soon as she finally feels validated and worthwhile. It's like as soon as you've worked through your issues you die and leave the island. If that's true Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Ana Lucia have a long life ahead of them on the island, cause man, I don't remember when I've seen so many messed up issues in so few people.
Introduction
I was encouraged to start doing this by a friend of a friend, literally, after emailing long ramblings about the show Lost. I haven't watched this on tv -- in fact, I don't have a tv -- but I heard enough about it to finally get me to see the pilot on hulu.com and I was hooked. So I watched five seasons of Lost in about two months or so. So here I go. My insights into the show pale by comparison to those of other Lost bloggers, but if anyone finds this interesting, fine. After my Lost rantings have been exhausted, I'll see about other ramblings involving the true nature of time, classic vs. quantum physics, and other things that I really know nothing about.
Cheers, and Happy 2010!
Cheers, and Happy 2010!
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