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“Do you want to die alone?”

Miles’ question went to the heart of tonight’s episode.  The more James Ford remains unchanged, unmoving, the more the world around him whirls about, laughing at him, demonstrating time and again the inadequacy of his actions and plans.  Whether wooing an archeologist with a flower, conning a woman with a too-obvious scheme, or losing a battle of wits with the Man in Black, Sawyer found himself in over his head, rendered impotent by event and circumstance.

The worlds around Sawyer are not only changing.  They are converging.  The challenges James has faced to this point are as molehills to the coming mountains.  If he is to survive, Sawyer will have to do something he has successfully resisted his entire life:  Sawyer must grow up.

Reconnecting with the Island

Miles–Detective Miles Straum–found a date for Sawyer.  An interesting woman, worked with his father (Dr. Chang!) at the museum.  In my mind there were only two possibilities.  One of them was a woman on the run from the law, and not likely to have suddenly discovered enduring affinity for the staid and careful studies and tedious classification chores inherent in museum work.  The other choice was much more likely, and more appealing:  a scientist, familiar with the laboratory, well versed in the rigours of research and careful speciation and analysis.  Of course!  She didn’t seem suited for assignment to a museum, but perhaps this was a museum devoted to obstetrics and fertility.  When I saw her long, red mane from the back I wondered why she dyed her hair–she had been gorgeous as a blonde, and Sawyer loved her as she–

And then she turned around.

Charlotte?  It made no sense to me.  It was supposed to be Juliet.  It had to be Juliet, so that she could suggest they “go Dutch”, fulfilling the promise of her words to Sawyer on the Island in “LA X”, proving the connection between the two realities, demonstrating the instability of the separation of the two spacetimes.

Why Charlotte?  She was the spice of Faraday’s life, not Sawyer’s.  She was connected to Widmore, not the man Sawyer so desperately sought, Anthony Cooper.  She was a dead end for Sawyer.

As the story unfolded, I began to understand the necessity of their meeting in the bar, their bedtime banter about the world’s most famous bullwhip.  She said she wasn’t a museum kind of gal at all–she traveled the most exciting places in the world–dangerous, exotic places.  She was Indiana Jones, no less, and she would show James Ford things he had never even dreamed of.  While Sawyer stood next to her in the bar, imagining her in a fedora and nothing else, I thought about the Charlotte Staples Lewis I knew from Season Five.

Though not much older than a toddler when she left, she remembered the Island.  Something in her imagination, something at the very centre of her being, was captured by the lure of the Island.  She spent her adult life fantasising about returning to the enchanted jungle of her youth.  She must have oriented her entire life toward the singular goal of going back to the magical place that had been her greatest happiness.

This was the portrait we were offered in Season Five.  It made sense that the experiences of a girl at a moment somewhere between toddlerhood and pre-school would provide the warmest childhood memories to the motivated, restless mind of the adult Charlotte Lewis.  Her obsession led her to what seemed a most unlikely profession:  archeology.  But she was more historian than archeologist, and her choice of vocation was not motivated by childhood dreams alone.  The motivation derived of sure, indisputable knowledge she had carried with her from her youth.  Someone–Widmore or someone on the Island–gave her that knowledge early in her life.  “Study ancient Carthage,” that person told her.  “Carthage is the key to understanding the Island you love.”

She obeyed the instructions with every graduate course she took.  She didn’t so much study the assigned texts as absorb them into her psyche.  Field work was what she yearned for, and she grabbed every opportunity to spend time in the desert places that would unlock the secret to her jungle paradise.  Whenever there was a dig in Tunisia, she was there.  It wasn’t Tunisia, of course, that interested her.  It was what Tunisia had been once, two millennia ago.  It was Carthage, the civilisation of Elissa, home of history’s greatest military leaders.

“I know more about ancient Carthage than Hannibal himself.”  It was one of the oddest statements ever made in the six years of LOST.  It seemed disconnected, unrelated to anything else transpiring on the Island.  Charlotte Lewis was an expert–quite possibly the world’s leading authority–on ancient Carthage.  Why?  Why would a woman whose entire being had been oriented toward rediscovering the island home of her youth spend every waking moment studying, thinking, brushing the sand away from, imbibing, eating and breathing nothing but ancient Carthage?

It was the drop point.  And she knew it.  “You will find something interesting in Medenine, Charlotte.  There’s a dig there.  You’ll find the proof.”  Whoever it was who told her was correct.  The polar bear expired in the desert heat short kilometres from the drop point.  When Charlotte found the skeleton she dropped to her knees and dug at the neck.  This, too, was something she knew–that she would find the leather tag still chained around the dead animal’s neck.  It was a Dharma tag.  The undamaged leather tag, the fresh bones–not even twenty years old–constituted the strongest possible proof that the Island remained.  The polar bear was a love letter, a “wish you were here” postcard from people still on the Island, years after Charlotte left, proclaiming to the world that the Island lived.

Charlotte is key to the whole business of the Island, not only because she made her home on the Island, not only because she loved the Island, but because she is the bridge to the Island’s distant past.

Tunisia is the drop point because Tunisia is where the Island started.  Carthage was the closest neighbour of another ancient civilisation, and many Carthaginians worshipped Egyptian gods.  The statue of Tawaret would not have been at all out of place in Carthage.

Charlotte’s passion is the Island.  Sawyer’s passion is finding his parents’ killer.  Sawyer’s challenge–one I think he will succeed in overcoming–is finding intimacy with Charlotte in spite of his selfish dismissal of her after their one-night stand.  And when he does this–probably just before the wedding party (Locke and Helen’s party) where he discovers the man who killed his parents–Charlotte will confide to Sawyer her greatest passion, the lifelong obsession that has turned her into Indiana Jones.

Does she know of the Island’s submergence beneath the ocean?  Does she require a con artist’s special skill in obtaining knowledge vital to the discovery of the Island?  Is she the person who will create the bridge between the two spacetime realities?  Charlotte Lewis will be a person of interest in coming episodes.

Reconstituting Reality

“What was that all about, then?”

“Just savin’ the world.”

Kelvin Inman didn’t believe the words he uttered in response to Desmond’s inquiry.  Desmond came to share in the CIA agent’s scepticism, too, for a time.  Until Locke destroyed the countdown computer, and the countdown clock turned over from 000.00 to the Egyptian hieroglyphics that mean “Underworld”.

The energy build-up accompanying the failure to enter the numbers and press the Execute key was a demonstration of the power of the Island.  We have seen several such demonstrations of unusual power since the Season Two destruction of the Swan Station on Day 67.  The Island heals and it destroys.  It transports people and things through space and time, and it can move itself, to places far, to times long ago.  It unleashes electromagnetic energy of such force as to pull airplanes from the sky.  It contains within its bowels forces of such magnitude that not even the detonation of a nuclear bomb can surpass its strength.

Such abilities are not localised wonders to be exploited and directed.  Such powers are not controlled.  They control.  They exercise their own need to integrate into things even greater than themselves.

The Island is not an entity subject to containment or detached study or exploitation for personal gain.  It is the world’s umbilical cord, attaching the entire planet to the richness of forces beyond description.  It is the time merchant’s scale in which good and evil, freedom and responsibility, past and future, will and humility are balanced, guarded, nurtured, and rendered into forms suitable to the human spirit and to the greater good.

The strange combination of Sawyer and Charlotte will lead us to this conclusion.  I’m very much looking forward to the wedding party in Locke’s back yard in a few weeks.  It should be wild beyond anyone’s imagining.  People and forces converged on the Island in 2004.  They are reconverging now, on-Island and off.  The entire world is headed for dangerous, completely unpredictable chaos.

Reconflicted, Not Reconciled

“This is completely inappropriate.”

Claire’s attempt to kill Kate made sense.  She believed Kate intentionally took Aaron away from her, and Aaron was all she had.  A psychic had warned her she had to raise the baby herself.  Kate was not only a kidnapper, but she had interfered with destiny itself.

Nothing else about the interaction between Claire, Kate, and Cerberus made any sense.  The Man in Black’s calls for civility were issued short hours after he mercilessly slaughtered everyone remaining in the Temple.  He threw Claire like a sack of potatoes and then in soft, restrained tone said, “This is completely inappropriate.”

The Smoke Monster’s camp is a warped, fractured mirror of civilisation.  Cerberus has soaked in bits and pieces of humanity, insists on a deliberate adherence to gentlemanly behaviour one minute but extols the virtues of hatred the next.  The MIB doesn’t have a concept of the natural boundaries of human culture.  He understands an idea here, a lesson there, but he has no sense of the whole of humanity.

He separates Claire and Kate, and frizzy-haired Claire comes around later, the punished child, offering a lame apology to the woman who cared for her son.  The pain in Claire’s cries is real.  But the two women remain unreconciled.

The complexity of Claire’s pain defies understanding.  Even before Claire attacked Kate she reached for her friend’s hand.  And after the Smoke Monster lectured her, she hugged Kate and cried wretched tears on her shoulder.

What is the source of her anguish?  How did Aaron become separated from her in Season Four?  Why did Cerberus have to concoct the fable of Aaron’s abduction by the Others?  Was he responsible for the initial kidnapping?  Did Jacob play a role in Claire’s disappearance or Aaron’s separation?

Rumpelstiltskin

If we are to understand the events surrounding Claire’s separation from Aaron, we will probably need to know more about the Smoke Monster.  But Cerberus has erected overt and intentional obstacles to our understanding.  When Jin repeatedly asked who Claire’s “friend” was, she said quite pointedly, “My friend.”  She knows the man’s name, but nothing will induce her to reveal it to anyone.

In the tradition of many cultures, knowledge of a name confers power over the object named.  The person naming the object may have the power to control its essence or actions, or make it do things against its will.  The person or object named is at the very least diminished in importance compared to the person invoking the name, or may come to be under the complete control of that person.  For this reason, many cultural traditions prohibit the invocation of a person’s name in that person’s presence.

For instance, in the Biblical account of creation, human beings were said to be created in the divine image (Gen 1:27).  That is to say, humans shared important spiritual characteristics with the Deity.  The instruction manual was very short:  “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.” (Gen 1:28)  In the divine hierarchy of Genesis, humans stood above all other parts of creation.  The fact of human beings’ power over the animals was given in Gen 2:20-21:  “So the Creator formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name.”  In the ancient Hebrew understanding, the fact that human beings named the animals was proof that we were given control over them; by invoking the animals’ names, humans established and maintained their superiority.

“Rumpelstiltskin” provides a relatively recent example of the power of invoking a person’s true name.  First published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812, “Rumpelstiltskin” tells the story of a goblin who helped a beautiful young woman attract the attention of the king, extracting from her the promise to give him her first-born son.  The woman became queen and when her son was born, Rumpelstiltskin came to collect his due.  The queen could not refuse, but seeing the woman’s anguish, the goblin agreed to these terms:  If the queen could guess Rumpelstiltskin’s true name in three days, she could keep her son.  With the help of spies, the queen learned the goblin’s name, and told him.  Humbled, Rumpelstiltskin had to honour the terms of the agreement, and the queen kept her son.

The Name of the Beast

The intentional withholding of the Smoke Monster’s true name must have an importance greater than the name itself.  I don’t think this is a case of withholding the name only for the sake of withholding, strictly in order to build suspense.  The circumstances of withholding the name seem qualitatively different from those associated with the re-naming of Locke to “Jeremy Bentham”.  When we learned that “Jeremy Bentham” was John Locke, we learned that John Locke was dead.  We learned nothing additional about the character, since the name “Jeremy Bentham” told us nothing new about John Locke.  We can theorise endlessly about possible connections between the historical philosopher Bentham and his on-Island namesake, but these are all speculative imaginings.  On the other hand, the Smoke Monster is not a name, but more or less a title.  If we were to gain knowledge of the Smoke Monster’s true name, we might be able to guess some means of controlling him.  For instance, if we found out the Smoke Monster was the historical Julius Caesar, we would know much of his personality, personal and professional choices, yearnings, and vanities from the historical record.  Such information would be valuable in defeating him.

Addressing the Smoke Monster, or allowing the Smoke Monster to speak, may have some effect on the entity’s power.  Dogen expressed the belief that Sayid could kill Smokey if he plunged a special dagger into the Monster’s chest before the Monster said anything.

My best guess is that the intentional withholding of the Smoke Monster’s true name is a security measure designed to prevent greater control over the beast.

The Nature of the Beast

Bram and his team could not harm Smokey with ordinary bullets (Lost 6.01, “LA X, Part 1″).  Sayid was not able to harm the Monster, even with a special dagger (though see possible qualifications above).  At times the Monster appears to be virtually invincible.

We know the Smoke Monster can be summoned, and perhaps in some ways controlled.  Ben Linus summoned the Smoke Monster by loosening a plug to drain a small pool of water (Lost 4.09, “The Shape of Things to Come”).  Somehow, the water, the flowing of the water, the movement of the water to another place, or some hydraulic effect of the movement (perhaps even a hydraulically controlled device to open or close portals or valves), caused the Smoke Monster to appear only minutes later.

We know of some limitations on the Smoke Monster’s power.  He could not kill Jacob directly.  He probably cannot kill a Candidate directly.  He cannot cross a line composed of ash or a certain type of ash.  He cannot traverse a plane along which a sonic field is activated, even at a vertical distance well above the effective reach of the field.  We know the sonic fence around the Dharma barracks had no visible effect on humans who crossed the field above the pylons (Lost 3.12, “Par Avion”), but the Smoke Monster could not traverse the field and was unable to go over it (Lost 3.15, “Left Behind”).  We have never seen the Smoke Monster more than a few metres above ground level; it is possible that the Monster must hover close to the ground.  If so, this would explain the Monster’s inability to go over a sonic fence approximately four metres above ground level.

He has unusual powers.  Apparently he can appropriate the likeness of those who have died.  He has appeared as Alexandra Rousseau and John Locke, and may have taken on the form of Dr. Christian Shephard.  He can shift into a formless cloud of black smoke, though the circumstances of the transformation are not clear, and may be subject to forces beyond whim or volition.  The smoke form may become available only when the Monster is provoked, when the Island is threatened, or when Island rules determine the transformation is required or advised.

He is Cerberus, the Island’s security system.  Although Jacob was called “Protector of the Island”, it is Cerberus who rushed to the scene whenever the Island was under attack.  He protected the Island from Keamy’s band of mercenaries, Rousseau’s science team, and probably many other groups over the centuries.

He was granted or attained some kind of equal footing next to Jacob, perhaps being appointed co-protector of the Island.  An appointment to a position of responsibility seems more likely than forcible seizure of power.  The Man in Black has expressed his disdain for the Island, and has said he wishes to leave, to “go back home.”  His aspirations, and possibly some of his powers, seem to have been kept in check while Jacob was alive.  The white and black stones, evenly weighed on the balance pans in the cave on the cliffs, seem to have symbolised the balance of power between Jacob and the MIB.

Now that Jacob is dead, the MIB is free to pursue his dream of leaving the Island–or whatever his agenda really is.

The Monster is at least 162 years old, and probably considerably older.  We saw him in adult form (Lost 5.17, “The Incident”) sometime after March 22, 1845, the day the Black Rock left Portsmouth, England (Lost 4.05, “The Constant”).

He suffers the psychological scars of his upbringing, or so he would like Kate to believe.  ”My mother was crazy. Long time ago… before I… looked… like this, I had a mother, just like everyone. She was a very disturbed woman. And as a result of that, I had some growing pains. Problems that I’m still trying to work my way through. Problems that could have been avoided had things been different.”  Perhaps this is the beginning of real insight into the nature of the beast.  Or maybe the master manipulator is simply trying to gain Kate’s sympathy.

The Identity of the Beast

I don’t feel we have enough information to divine the true identity of the Smoke Monster.  Assuming his self-revelation as son of a disturbed mother, some possibilities become obvious, and other possibilities become more distant.

Legion

“I am called Legion, for we are many.”  The Gerasene Demon presented himself in the Gospel of Luke as many demons captured in a single human body.  When the demons were released, they fled to a herd of pigs and charged over a cliff to their death.  The Smoke Monster seems to take delight not only in killing, but in capturing.  As Kate held onto the rope ladder above Claire’s prison cell in the Temple, she saw live bodies inside the black smoke rushing above her.  The Smoke Monster captures entire bodies.  Does he incorporate the bodies into his own being?  Does he absorb the thoughts, the souls, the spirits of others?  Is it even possible to say that Smokey is one person?

Locke

Only two women have been portrayed as certifiably crazy.  One of these was Libby, who spent time with Hurley in the mental institution.  The other candidate for crazed motherhood is Emily Locke, who at the age of fifteen gave birth to a several months premature John Locke.  Almost fifty years later she hunted down her son and claimed he had no father.  “You were immaculately conceived,” she said.  [I groaned and then laughed when I heard this all-too-frequent confusion of Roman Catholic beliefs.  What Emily meant to say was that John was the result of a virgin birth.  The word "immaculate" means clean, and has nothing to do with the absence of a man.  "Clean", in the context of the Immaculate Conception, refers to the spiritual state of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.  Immaculate Conception is the Roman Catholic doctrine that Mary, Mother of Jesus, was born "without the stain of original sin."  All human beings, according to common Christian belief, are born with a kind of spiritually-passed-down sin called original sin.  Mary, who was to carry the Christ Child, had to be free of sin, and was granted the extreme grace of being born without even hereditary sin.  I've absolved the writers in my mind for their ignorance, but I do wish they would make more of an effort to study religion when they wish to delve into these topics!]

Locke certainly “had some growing pains. Problems that I’m still trying to work my way through. Problems that could have been avoided had things been different.”  Time has no particular significance on an Island that is freely transportable from one age to another.  Could it be that Locke has always been the Smoke Monster?

Jensen’s Choice

Doc Jensen this week wrote a most entertaining analysis of “Recon”.  His theory?  Smokey is none other than Daniel Faraday.  I won’t repeat his very detailed and eminently defensible support for the theory.  I will say that his theory offers the quite attractive possibility that Charles Widmore (Faraday’s father, who even now sits on Hydra Island, plotting seizure of the Island) is in fact the true personification of evil, as I have suggested in a few of my analyses.  Jensen’s theory also provides a means of tying together a number of disparate threads and may have proven more than a bit enticing to the writers.  I think it would take a good deal of quite nuanced writing to make this work, though, and I have my doubts about the idea.

Hannibal

I’ve found myself attracted to this idea ever since the end of Season Five.  Not only does the greatest military strategist of all time tie into Charlotte’s connection to Carthage and the Island, but there is also this gem, found on Wikipedia by LOST theorist Erowyn:

A youth of divine beauty appeared to Hannibal in the night. The youth told Hannibal he had been sent by supreme deity, Melqart, to guide the son of Hamilcar to Italy. “Follow me,” said the ghostly visitor, “and see that that thou look not behind thee.” Hannibal followed the instructions of the visitor. His curiosity, however, overcame him, and as he turned his head, Hannibal saw a serpent crashing through forest and thicket causing destruction everywhere. It moved as a black tempest with claps of thunder and flashes of lightning gathered behind the serpent. When Hannibal asked the meaning of the vision Melqart replied, “What thou beholdest is the desolation of Italy. Follow thy star and inquire no farther into the dark counsels of heaven.”

I find this connection most compelling.  And even though I find no evidence that Hannibal’s mother was crazy, the firm connection between Island and Carthage provided by this historical figure constitutes yet another way to bring together many of the loose threads on our favourite television programme.  Of all the Smoke Monster theories I have read, this one has most captured my attention.

The Party

Regardless of the Smoke Monster’s identity, key players will reconverge in coming weeks.  I have a feeling that the humble little wedding party at Locke’s house (or at the hall rented for the occasion) will reveal the immediate future course of events.  Perhaps it will become the event that triggers the final cascade toward the convergence of separate realities.  I still believe, and offer as reasonably supportable speculation, that the man of honour at that party will find himself offered a one-way trip to another dimension, and that once there, he will again find he has strong legs and, this time, an even stronger will.  Evil forces gather.  But the forces of trust, faith, and sacrifice converge, too.  It will be a fight worth engaging with every faculty of mind, body, and spirit.  I’m ready.

PM

Related posts:

1. Risk: A Cultural Thesis for LOST 6.03 “What Kate Does” by Pearson Moore
2. Mirror, Mirror (Part II): Cultural Reflections on LOST 6.05 “Lighthouse” by Pearson Moore
3. Mirror, Mirror: Cultural Themes in LOST 6.05 by Pearson Moore

Tags: Charlotte, Episode 6.08, LOST Theories, man in black, Pearson Moore, recaps&reviews, Sawyer, Season 6, Smoke Monster