“I was never really much into literary analysis.” –John Locke
Not knowing what to write this week, I went to you, the readers. Some of you e-mailed me; some of you commented on the open thread. I also went back to old comments from my other Lost posts to see if there were any questions I hadn’t yet answered. So let’s do some old-fashioned T & A! Did I say T & A? I meant Q & A! Boy, am I a scamp or what?
Question 1: What’s your take on the “security system”?
I can’t really overthink the Monster without knowing what it is, so I’ll just regular-think it. Without going back to Wikipedia to refresh my memory, these are the things I remember the Monster doing:
- It ate the pilot.
- It tried to drag Locke down a hole. Locke said it wouldn’t hurt him.
- Eko stared it down, scaring it away.
- It makes roaring sounds and knocks down trees.
- Rousseau says it’s for security.
Okay, so it seems to me that the Monster doesn’t want people leaving the island. That’s why it ate the pilot. It’s going after “good” members of the camp like Locke and Eko, which suggests that the Monster’s goal may be similar to the goal of The Others, who apparently write lists of “good” people to kidnap. It is a smoke monster, which always brings to my culturally-Jewish mind that scene in the Ten Commandments where the angel of death whooshes around killing bad Egyptian babies while letting the good Jews live. So my guess is that the Monster is protecting the island and its “good” people (like The Others) and from the nasty people (like Jack, et. al).
But that brings up another question. Are The Others “good”? This week, it did seem like the show was trying to ask, “Who are the real bad guys here?” Especially when Sayid was going around torturing people. (By the way, am I the only one who wishes Burn Notice’s Mike Westen were around? He’d get the info out of Henry Gale, no problem, and without having to resort to physical torture.)
Anyway, the writers seemed to want to pull off a bait-and-switch, where Jack’s crew turns out to the be bad guys, the Evil Empire, and The Others are the good, innocent natives. But, as Sayid himself said, that’s bull, because I remember how The Other’s strung Charlie up by his neck. Tell me how The Others can figure out the difference between “good” people and bad when they’re going around kidnapping and murdering.
So, long story short: I don’t know what the Monster is.
Question 2: What are your thoughts about the major turning point episode that happened this week?
I can only assume, Tom P., querent of this question, that you’re talking about the arrival of Henry Gale, a man I’m going to dub the plot catalyst. The chemicals have been mixed; the liquid’s bubbling. Now Henry Gale is trying to make it explode. Why? I can only assume that he is an Other and that he’s trying to take down Team Jack from within so they’re no longer a threat. Or he’s completely innocent. Don’t look at me; I was the one who thought Locke would turn out to be a villain. Que sera, sera.
But I do find it suspicious that his name is Henry Gale. You know. The uncle from The Wizard of Oz? Yeah, I noticed. Why didn’t anyone else? (I guess for the same reason none of the characters on the show ever said, “Your name’s John Locke? Like the philosopher?”)
The question is, is the name Henry Gale an in-joke by Lost’s writers (like John Locke and Rousseau), or is it a clever alias? I’m leaning toward the latter. Because my guess it that this dude is not Henry Gale. He may very well have flown in on a hot air balloon, but the character in the Wizard of Oz who had a balloon was not Uncle Henry at all. It was the Wizard. Does this mean that we have found the man behind the island’s curtain, so to speak?
I also like to think that this strengthens our theory that Lost’s island is a place where all your dreams come true. At some point Mr. Gale or whatever his name is will say, “Here, Jack, you can have your brains. And Kate, here is your heart! And Cowardly Sawyer, you can have your courage! But really, it was inside you all along! See, you went through all this strife so you could learn a lesson about yourselves!” And then everyone clicks their heels and returns home to their boring black-and-white homes to pet their little dogs, too. The end.
I’m only half-joking about this.
Question 3: Have we figured out yet if we’re watching Total Karma Island or Total Redemption Island? Has anyone slipped down the rungs of the redemption ladder?
Let’s go to the chart:
Click to embiggen.
Question 4: How are Locke and Rousseau like Locke and Rousseau?
Gab asked this question, and I’ll let Gab answer.
I do think there is something to be had in comparing the political philosophies of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau–if nothing else, their “origin stories,” i.e. State of Nature and Social Contract stuff. Locke believes man to be rational and capable at first and that the social contract is done out of a mutually beneficial understanding, while Rousseau basically thinks we’re idiots (but emotional, empathetic ones) and were especially stupid for allowing the first person to declare something as their own (thereby making the first social contract nothing more than a means for one person to achieve their end). It sort of fits the characters on the show in terms of how they treat others and what they do–Locke is open to others and tries to compromise or at least take other points of view into consideration, while Rousseau is paranoid and bossy, sort of, “My way or die,” at times–not as a threat, mind you, but in a sort of “it is what it is” way.
Sounds good to me. It also fits in with my earlier theory that Jack is the island’s version of Thomas Hobbes, who believed that the state of nature was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” unless you socially contract yourself out to a benevolent dictator like Jack for protection. Ana Lucia’s the dark side of Thomas Hobbes’ theory. She’s what happens if the dictator you pick is batshit crazy. And there’s your political theory for the day.
“Does this mean that we have found the man behind the island’s curtain, so to speak?”
*bites tounge*
:D
You’ll know what I mean, eventually.
From the moment he first showed up, my fellow Lost fans and I called “Henry Gale” “Not-Henry.” We just didn’t trust him at all. Why? Because LOCKE didn’t. Oh snap.
So, here are two more: Do guns or people kill people? And, Are drugs bad?
“The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say *this is mine*, and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: ‘Do not listen to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!'”
This quote from Jean-Jacques Rousseau sings to the character of Danielle from the show. Danielle is Jean-Jacques’s ideal Man- she sees through the BS, calls it out, and does what she needs to do to survive. But she is empathetic and looks out for others as much as she can, so long as it doesn’t directly interfere with her own self-preservation. She is Man pre-social contract. And she’s friggin’ awesome. I can picture her taking those stakes and telling that guy where to shove them, if not actually shoving them for him. (And I just love that quote, too. “Simple enough.” Heh.)
The follow-up question is, “Where does Henry Gale fit into the political structure, so far?”
You forgot the most important question of all! Mr. Eko: Badass or GREATEST Badass?
Oh, and Mike Westen couldn’t be on The Island, it’d solve too many mysteries too quickly. “When you’re a spy, you learn to recognize when con artists are trying to play you, and you play them instead.” And, BOOM, Kate and Sawyer are out of the game. I guess the smoke monster might give him a little trouble, but the Burn Notice gang would end all the backstabbing in the Land of (the) Lost. Although, I would totally watch that crossover and buy the DVDs.
@Matt – I haven’t seen a lot of Lost. But I’ve seen enough to know that as badass as Eko is, Adebisi could destroy him. Adebisi rules.
(I’ll save you the trouble of Googling – Simon Adebisi is the character Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr. Eko) played on HBO’s prison series Oz. I wouldn’t really call Oz a “good” show, but it’s very entertaining. It’s about a prison where the inmates are totally free to wander around and socialize. Predictably, they all kill each other in horrible ways. It is without a doubt the stupidest prison ever.)
Incidentally, Harold Perrineau (Micheal) also had a major role in Oz. He delivered an opening monologue in each episode, which usually boiled down to something like “Are we trapped on the Island? Or is the Island trapped on us? Think about it!”
Re: Michael Westen, Matt is right. It is inconceivable that Westen et al would sit around punching in those numbers with their existential thumbs up their butts. The first episode of that nonsense, he would be tearing the hatch apart to figure out how the system worked. I won’t say whether that would be a good idea or not – I stopped watching the show right around this point, so I’m honestly not sure – but it would certainly speed things up.
Burn Notice has got to be the most-referenced show in the comments that never gets an article.
Nevermind. There was a gigantic article about Burn Notice just three weeks ago. I’m a doof.
Re: Eko.
Even if his character from “Oz” could beat him up, the way Eko stared down Smokey was just so mind-bogglingly badass that my mental diaper needed a change.
Glad you used my suggested topic. I like your take on it. But keep in mind there may be other ideas of what fate or destiny itself is, not related to religion. Maybe fate is just knowing what will happen, not actually creating it.
Whoa, I missed the third page… So one more thing about the race issue: The initiation videos are hosted by an Asian man. Does that count for anything?
And another point: I can’t remember which man I preferred at this particular stage in the series; but now, after the most recent season finale, I’m tied between Sawyer and Desmond.
So the big spoiler you were spoiled for hasn’t shown up yet?
@Gab: No, the spoiler hasn’t shown up, though the events happening now in the episodes I’ve been watching suggest it might show up fairly soon.
The show kind of loses its way for a bit here as they figure out this storyline is not open-ended and they need to set an end point to avoid episodes where nothing happens (and there are quite a few of them between now and the middle of S3). Until they break out of that, just enjoy the awesomeness of Michael Emerson.
I think “Henry Gale’s” scene towards the end of 2.16 is one of the key scenes all season 2. The one where he asks about where the food and the hatch comes from, and expresses surprise that the Losties aren’t more curious about the place they find themselves in. In essence, he points out that they have been asking the wrong questions.
And as interesting as the parallels to “Lord of the Flies” may be, it might be worth overthinking the fact that this is a place where the crippled walk. Where some survive a plane crash with a few scrapes where most do not survive while strapped into their seats. Where a column of black smoke wanders the jungle killing some, and leaving others. A place in the South Pacific that freaking big that is somehow unnoticed by the outside world. The biggest question on the island is not “Jack vs Locke vs Sawyer,” although most of the time so far Jack, Locke and Sawyer might disagree.
I like to make the parallel between this scene and the one in Season One where Michael and Jin are about to fight, and Locke bursts in with his “WE’RE NOT THE ONLY ONES HERE (FOOLS!)” speech. Our Losties like to be distracted with their own dramas whenever bigger issues rear their heads. In fact, the Losties make a habit of it.
Con men, like magicians and some television writers, like to make a lot of noise to make sure you notice one of their hands. The real magic is taking place in the other hand.
Well said, John.
My comments for this week will be short and sweet and refer back to a couple previous entries.
Last post, you mentioned people starting to question Jack’s power position. I’m extremely surprised you didn’t mention Sawyer’s speech in “The Long Con.”
If you go back to my comment on your first post, I point out that, in contrast to the two you suggest, there are three places the characters can exist: the caves (with Jack), the jungle (with Locke), and the beach (with ??). Could the beach be with Sawyer? Do we have a third leader (and philosophical alternative) emerging? Is he intended to be more “American” than other characters?
Interesting bit of trivia: the bit where Kate points out that John Locke is called John Locke was filmed but cut; probably they thought the reference was too painfully obvious already.
regarding your comments on race in Lost. If you’re watching on DVD be sure to watch the special features on season 1, specifically about casting. The show went out of their way to be open about race, even for specific characters. For instance the actress who plays Sun originally auditioned for Kate, but then they created the role of Sun for her to capitolize on her huge success in Korean films. Also Hurley originally auditioned for Sawyer…ect, most of the characters didn’t have an assigned race until the role was cast then the writers worked with the actor in mind (obviously, in case of somebody like Sayid there are exceptions)
In regard to the series’ approach on race, I suggest people should read Maureen Ryan’s book, “Burn It Down”. It’s very illuminating.