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We’re the Good Guys, Michael: The Cultural Significance of Benjamin Linus by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:39:35 +0000

He lied.

The topic before him had no bearing on his words: he deceived in matters large, in details small. The consequences of dishonesty figured into his thoughts only to the extent of laying the groundwork for the next deception, which in turn would provide the foundation for subsequent misdirection. He manipulated facts and fabricated stories to suit his purpose, to frame conditions to his liking, to cause those he controlled to believe he was advancing their agenda so that he could nefariously implement his own well-engineered plans.

He manipulated, coerced, forced those under him to commit the worst offences. When lying was insufficient to his ends, he murdered. He killed with his bare hands or with weapons, with guns, gas, or rope. He actively participated in mass murder. A reasonable jury of his peers would be obliged to find him guilty on all charges and pass down the severest of sentences.

Benjamin Linus was arguably the most villainous, hateful character on the Island. But we found ourselves liking him. Ilana, who knew his crimes, was never taken in my his tricks, pardoned him. The man who was his opposite, who endeavoured never to fabricate an untruth, took him on as advisor. At Ben’s own death he was found worthy to make the voyage to the Church of the Holy Lamp Post, having served well as Hurley’s faithful consigliere.

It is appropriate to ask what might reasonably be considered the greatest unanswered question in the six years of LOST: Who was Benjamin Linus?

Original Innocence

The circumstances of his youth were most similar to those of his future nemesis, John Locke. Both men were born several months premature to a woman named Emily. Both endured a tortured childhood of neglect and abuse without the care of a mother. Each of them later in life would methodically engineer his own father’s death.

At some point their paths diverged. Locke never seemed to grow up. He insisted that the world around him conform to his understanding, that those in charge allow him to be the person he believed himself to be. Locke’s innocence was so integral to his being that he could not conceive of the notion of deception. Even after fifty years of navigating the real world, he never figured out that at every turn people had been taking advantage of his trust in them. His gullibility would be his undoing. He lost his money, lost a kidney, lost the use of his legs, and finally lost his life. Every bit of suffering in his sad life was the bitter outcome of his own innocent trust in the good will of others.

We don’t know which events in Ben’s early years led to his adoption of deceit and manipulation as a default modus operandi. The example of John Locke indicates we cannot blame a motherless childhood or the capricious vagaries of life that placed more than a boy’s fair share of suffering in their paths. Apparently neither of these conditions was sufficient to induce either life-long innocence or habitual deceit. Every generation provides examples of children neglected and abused who become sterling examples of trustworthy industry and responsibility in their adult years. We must look to some other cause of Ben’s manipulative lifestyle.

Both men came to hate their fathers, but at different times, and for different reasons. It is in the Darltonian expression of malignant fatherhood that we see the most vivid contrast between Ben and Locke.

Anthony Cooper, like Ben and James Ford after him, earned his livelihood from a keen facility with manipulation. But a lifetime of seducing women and conniving to take their husbands’ savings made him too busy to check in on young John Locke, even once.

Sins of the Fathers

Roger Linus was a very different kind of father.

Roger might have left his son, if he’d had the opportunity to do so. But on a janitor’s wages, and with most of his meagre income dedicated to nightly rounds of liquid amnesia, he would never get off the Island. So he took the time-honoured path of many men in the same situation: he ignored his son. Child neglect was not a punishable offence in the Dharma Initiative, and besides, these were the disco-drenched 70s; no one was sober enough to figure out what anyone else was doing.

The situation was sad for young Ben, but many boys have grown up under similar situations without becoming psychopathic liars. But few boys under such conditions were exposed to the species of psychological abuse that Ben suffered on a nightly basis. Roger planted in his son’s heart an idea of the kind that should never be expressed to a child, even in a fit of anger. Especially not in a fit of anger. Roger told his son that he, Ben, was responsible for his own mother’s death.

Perhaps this was the unbearable burden of undeserved guilt that caused Ben’s visions of his dead mother. He didn’t question her apparition, but others did. When he entered the deactivation code for the sonic fence and slipped into the Hostiles’ territory, he came upon Richard Alpert. When Ben explained he was looking for his dead mother, Richard’s interest in the boy increased immediately.

RICHARD: Did she die here, on the Island?
BEN: No. When I was a baby.
RICHARD: Did you see her, out here, Ben, in the jungle?
BEN: She talked to me.
RICHARD: What did she say?
BEN: That I couldn’t come with her. She said it wasn’t time yet.

In hindsight we know that the apparition of someone who had not died on the Island would be taken as unusual by any of the Others, and especially by the one member of the League of Jacob who lived through the ages. What did the apparition of Emily Linus mean to Ben? To the Others? Was Ben possibly among those being groomed by Jacob for Island leadership? Did Ben’s visions point to some other “special” aspect of his character that would have significance for Jacob’s band?

Roger’s frequent refrain that Ben had caused his own mother’s death was the inexcusable ranting of a man entirely unfit for the care of a child. I don’t imagine there is any way to accurately calculate the deep psychological damage that must have been inflicted by Roger’s deplorable contempt for his own son’s mental health. The wounds to Ben’s soul must have been painful beyond anything a human being should have to endure.

I don’t believe, though, that Roger’s thoughtlessness and his unsuitability for parenting were sufficient to have caused Ben’s manipulative temperament and his comfort in deception. I believe going to the root of Ben’s character requires that we spend time contemplating a concrete object in Richard’s possession at the time of his meeting with Ben. If we understand this object, we will understand Ben.

The Compass

We saw this compass for the first time in Lost 4.11 (“Cabin Fever”). It was one of the six items Richard showed to young John Locke in 1961, asking the boy, “Which of these things belong to you already?” The compass was one of the items Locke identified as belonging to him.

The boy was correct. The adult John Locke gave the compass to Richard in 1954 during the period of erratic time travels as a proof that he was from the future. Richard kept the compass for the next 53 years. He surrendered the compass to the wounded, time-traveling John Locke in 2007, instructing Locke to give the compass back to him the next time Locke saw him. That next meeting turned out to be their short conversation in 1954, since that was Locke’s next stop on his time-travel tour. Richard accepted the compass, showed it to young Locke in 1961, and returned it to Locke in 2007, who transported it back to 1954, gave it to Richard, who…

With most of the human players in Jacob’s two-thousand-year-old game of backgammon, the compass was caught in an endless time loop. The compass existed in concrete form, but it was never created. The compass had no possible entry point into the loop. It had no beginning, it would never have an end. It just was.

The Man in Black, posing as John Locke just before the real Locke’s time-travel appearance in 2007, asked Richard about the compass Locke had given him in 1956. “A little rusty,” Richard said, “but she can still find north.” Perhaps it was a manifestation of the MIB’s sense of humour, perhaps it was a deeper intention to control people, events, and time itself, but it was the Smoke Monster who told Richard to give the compass back to Locke during that critical rendez-vous in 2007. By instructing Richard to return the compass to Locke, Smokey was ensuring the perpetuation of an endless time loop. If nothing else, the endless circularity through time of people, events, and objects supported the MIB’s understanding of human behaviour. ” They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.”

If all the important events on the Island were captured in endless loops, the Smoke Monster would always turn out to be correct. If every occurrence of any importance was relegated to a time loop, Jacob’s vision of human progress finally ending the loops would never come to pass. Perhaps by controlling all the defining events in this manner he could gain the upper hand over Jacob and make the final move that would end their perpetual game of senet to his advantage.

Destroying the Loop

We were witness to the end of all time loops. The selfless heroism of Boone, Charlie, Locke, Sayid, Kate, and the greatest hero, Jack Shephard, ended for all time the eternal, circular game of senet. The destruction of time loops was the final grand objective of Lost. By accepting Jacob’s gauntlet, these men and women not only showed their mettle and proved their valour, but demonstrated for all the stuff of which humans are truly made.

Those who were “special” were the immortal heroes, the women and men who did not shirk the call of destiny, even when the Island called them to self-sacrifice. “You were special, John,” Ben told Locke outside the Church of the Holy Lamp Post. Indeed. Locke’s heroism was the most magnificent demonstration of the divinity of his soul, for he knew his mission had to end in his own death.

Jack’s mission was the single most important calling anyone had received since Biblical times. Everything else had to be put on hold, even the reconciliation of Jack with his own father. How fitting it was, then, that the Island summoned not Kate, not Sarah, not his sister, Claire, but Christian Shephard, to bring his son back to consciousness after the crash. “I need you to go find my son,” Christian told the yellow Labrador Retriever, Vincent. “He’s over there in that bamboo forest, unconscious. I need you to go wake him up…. He has work to do.”

Ray Shephard never had faith in his son, Christian. Christian never had faith in his son, Jack. Jack ended the cruel, circular Shephard heritage of father-son enmity by raising a fine son, David, and connecting with him. Jack was allowed this final resolution not in his life on earth, but in the life after his heroic act.

Ben’s Loop

Ben was a tragic figure. For many years he thought himself “special”. Perhaps Richard, knowing of Ben’s visions of his mother, considered him “special”, too. Perhaps most or all of the Others considered their leader somehow different from themselves. He had inherited the Island from Charles Widmore, after all. But Jacob didn’t grant him even a perfunctory audience, not a word of gratitude for his long service. Ben never was special. Finally grasping the truth of that fact must have hurt Ben to the very depths of his being.

I believe the tragedy of Ben, the endless, almost unbearably monotonous quality of his grand deceptions and fabrications, and the genesis of his flawed character were all wrapped into a single momentous event in 1977 that captured him forever into a great time loop.

In Season Five, Sayid gave us his understanding of Benjamin Linus:

“He’s a liar, a manipulator…a man who allowed his own daughter to be murdered to save himself…A monster responsible for nothing short of genocide.”

In Sayid Jarrah’s mind, Ben Linus was of the same ilk as Adolf Hitler. Sayid brought young Ben into his confidence, allowing Ben to believe he was one of the hallowed “Hostiles”. The adolescent Ben trusted Sayid so much he engineered an elaborate jail break for the man. Alone with Ben far away from the Dharma barracks, Sayid saw the chance he had been waiting for. He aimed the gun directly at the boy’s heart and fired. Ben fell to the ground, apparently dead.

The waters of the Temple eventually saved Ben. Richard claimed Ben would not remember anything that happened before the immersion in the waters, but he would be changed forever. He would no longer have the innocence of youth.

I believe it was not Jacob’s healing waters that robbed young Ben of his innocence. I believe it was Sayid’s betrayal of Ben’s trust that forever removed any possibility of trust from the boy’s range of conceivable dispositions. After he had placed complete faith in a man he believed a “Hostile”, one of the “good guys” in the boy’s mind, only to become the object of the man’s unjustified but complete hatred, how could he ever again trust anyone? How could he tell anyone the truth ever again? If the only person he ever found worthy of his trust could shoot him in the chest, fully intending to murder him with a single shot, how could he ever place even a modicum of faith in anyone’s professed intentions?

In spite of what Richard claimed, I believe Ben could never have forgotten this event. Perhaps he didn’t remember Sayid, but how could he have forgotten a bullet to the chest? A wound that very nearly killed him? No amnesia-inducing waters would carry a force sufficient to overcome a reality that strong and dark and full of corruption. Ben remembered. Those memories made him into the man he became. And what he became was another tragic loop, just another example the Smoke Monster could point out as proof of his thesis regarding the most enduring and contemptible qualities of the corrupt and rotten human soul.

Redemption of a Soul Lost

Charles Widmore’s instructions to Ben in 1988 could not have been any clearer: Ben was to find Danielle Rousseau’s camp, murder the woman, and kill her child. The young man had wanted to join the Others since his arrival on the Island fifteen years before. He must have been a constant pain in Widmore’s side, this young man who thought himself “special”. A young man who even then must have been using every waking moment of his life trying to discover the means by which he might wrest control of the group from Widmore’s hands. Did Widmore send young Ethan Rom on the mission to ensure Ben’s faithful execution of the gruesome task?

I don’t believe Ben refused Widmore’s orders in an attempt to amass political power. I don’t think he saved Danielle and baby Alex to spite Widmore or usurp his authority. I think his decision to spare baby Alex’s life was the only response Ben could have made in the situation. Just as life experience had turned him into a psychopathic liar, I believe the earlier and even more painful events of life–beginning with separation from his own mother–instilled in Ben Linus a natural affinity for children and an unquenchable desire to ensure the fulfillment of their needs. Roger Linus was the worst father one could imagine. Ben must have had such a deep desire to correct the evils his father had wrought that the prospect of raising a girl with the full intensity of a father’s love must have driven him more than any consequences Widmore might have chosen to mete out for Ben’s insubordination. Baby Alex’s life must have meant as much to him as his own life. When he looked into the little baby’s eyes, he must have seen only one possible outcome.

The Final Blow

Perhaps raising a child to adulthood could have made up for Ben’s earlier genocide. In the Richard Attenborough film, “Gandhi”, one of the most moving scenes occurs near the end of the movie. A Hindu man, Nahari, rushes up to the Great Mahatma, who is weak from the nearly month-long food fast he began in response to Muslim/Hindu bloodshed. The man’s eyes are wide in sheer terror.

Nahari: I’m going to Hell! I killed a child! I smashed his head against a wall.
Gandhi: Why?
Nahari: Because they killed my son! The Muslims killed my son!
Gandhi: I know a way out of Hell. Find a child, a child whose mother and father have been killed and raise him as your own. Only be sure that he is a Muslim and that you raise him as one.

Ben almost fulfilled the self-imposed assignment. Sixteen-year-old Alex had grown into a beautiful young woman, capable in many ways, but still a child, still in need of a father’s care. Ben took a gamble when Widmore’s thug, Keamy, held a gun to Alex’s head. The gamble was almost sure to succeed. Ben and Widmore both knew the rules, and those rules prevented either of them from assassinating family members.

“I stole her as a baby from an insane woman,” Ben said. ”She’s a pawn, nothing more. She means nothing to me. I’m not coming out of this house. So if you want to kill her, go ahead and–”

Ben didn’t get to finish his statement. Keamy put a bullet in the girl’s brain and her lifeless body dropped to the ground.

Final Reckoning

He was a sad and lonely figure seated on the marble bench outside Our Lady of the Foucault Pendulum.

Perhaps he could have entered the church, Alex or Danielle accompanying him as his Constant. He had served admirably as Number Two to the Protector of the Island, Hurley. He was a sad man because he realised the enormity of his crimes. But more than anything, he continued to suffer the devastation of Alex’s death. Sadness and devastation kept him outside, alone, spiritually unable to cross the threshold to the final antechamber before… moving on.

But he was there. Charles never made it anywhere near the church. Keamy died in a place where everyone was already dead–his soul forever expunged from the rolls of those who could call themselves human beings.

Ben was there.

Ben, despite a life of lies, tortures, and murders, mass murder, the cold-blooded execution of his own father–in spite of everything, Ben sat outside the church.

We might think of it as an instance of undeserved grace. I find myself believing something else entirely. Possibly none of us, other than the great heroes–the Jack Shephards and Kate Austens and John Lockes–could be said to deserve the grace that allows us admittance to the final antechamber. Perhaps that grace is extended even to those among us, undeserving as we are, who nevertheless think ourselves somehow a cut above, that in spite of our foibles we somehow deserve redemption. Perhaps even arrogant fools such as these are extended an undeserved and unappreciated grace.

Ben is not among these delusional fools. The pain in his soul is real. He is lonely, devastated, aching in the deepest recesses of his spirit. He stays on in his purgatory because to do otherwise would be to deprive himself of the single honest objective of his life: Raising a helpless girl he was supposed to have murdered, teaching her everything that is good and noble and true in the hearts of women and men, and seeing his helpless baby turn into a capable and beautiful and trusting young woman.

Benjamin Linus was allowed this grace, not because he begged for it or deserved it or thought himself worthy. He was allowed this final grace precisely because he knew himself unworthy, and because the death of Alex forever marked him a sad and lonely and pained man.

In Ben’s pain and humility he found pardon and redemption. And someday, someday soon, taking Alex’s hand or Danielle’s hand in his own, he will cross the threshold, sit with his beloved Constant in a pew, surrounded by the Rousseau family friends and relatives and those cherished and adored, those Ben trusted, and experience the bright light that will carry them to a happier and eternal destiny.

La Mort et La Vie en Vert: Cultural Faith and Metadrama in LOST by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:30:50 +0000

The pill contained enough poison to kill five men.

Jack swallowed the pill and Dogen rushed into action, performing the martial arts equivalent of the Heimlich Manoeuvre, dislodging the green capsule from Jack’s throat and forcing it out of his mouth. Thank goodness for clear thinking and fast action, you say. Indeed. But let us imagine a hypothetical situation in which Jack consumed the pill in private, without Dogen’s knowledge. What would have happened to Jack?

Nothing. Jack would have gone about his business, suffering no ill effects whatever.

You read this thinking “Pearson has lost touch with reality–again. The pill would kill even a person in perfect health.” I do not argue; the pill would indeed kill a person in good health. Death would be instant; the person taking the pill might as well have been holding in his hand a stick of dynamite, fuse lit, sparks flying, seconds left… A person in good health would have been blown to bits, but Jack… not a hair on Jack’s head was harmed. The green pill could have had no more physical effect on Jack than the dynamite had in the belly of the Black Rock.

But what would have been the effect of the green death on Sayid?

Here is a question worthy of deliberation and thought. The only valid answer boggles the mind. The single possible response to this query will bring us to the heart of a new genre of fiction, a radical way of thinking about drama, an audacious expectation of the audience, and the key to understanding LOST.

Des Confusions

Polar bears on a tropical island. A statue with four, not five, toes. Following a precise and undeviating northerly bearing leads a boat north, then west, and finally south. A ship doctor’s dead corpse washes up on shore just as a group on the beach radios the ship, only to learn the good doctor is alive and well, and standing scant metres away from the ship’s communications officer. A dark-haired man standing under the awning of a military tent in 1954 is not a day older when he is next seen in 2004. A rocket payload, traveling fifty kilometres per minute, shot from a boat fifty kilometres away, requires two hours to reach its target. A twenty-minute helicopter ride takes thirty-six hours. With the turn of a wooden wheel hundreds of metres below the jungle, John Locke instantly travels eighteen thousand kilometres and wakes up not in the jungle, but in the Tunisian desert, three years in the future, but not more than a blink of the eye later.

The situations and events followed neither rhyme nor reason. If there was logic to the laws governing the Island, it obeyed no syllogism that science or mathematics could divine.

The physical disorientations forced on the survivors of Flight 815, mind-bending and nose-bleed-inducing as they were, nevertheless paled in significance and impact when compared to the conceptual disorientations the newest inhabitants of Mittelos were forced to confront.

The weirdness of the Island, combined with the mindless violence of life on Mittelos, was too much for some. Rose and Bernard could not move past the ear-blasting disorientation of time travel through a purple sky. “Well, we built this place in ’75… and then the sky lit up again. So God only know when the hell we are now,” Rose told Desmond. She didn’t know which year a current calendar would proclaim, she didn’t understand where the Island was, and she was in no position to predict anything that might occur in Jack’s strange jungle world. But none of that mattered to her. Rose and Bernard, each handed a Number Two lead pencil and an official MIGSAT test (Mittelos Island Governance Scholastic Achievement Test), decided to skip the examination. They turned off, tuned out, and dropped out. Theirs was not a bad choice per se, but their action was tangential to the trajectory required of anyone seeking influence on Island events. The intention was not to provide a foundation for choice or a paradise for those too numbed by reality to continue an examined and thoughtful existence. Rather, the intention was to destroy the foundations of knowledge, understanding, belief–eventually thought itself–so as to render the would-be players in the drama susceptible and amenable to a new way of thinking.

Demande d’Engagement

Turn on, tune in, drop out.

Activate your mind, seek to understand yourself by looking inward, and disengage from all commitments to the outside world. Turn on, tune in, drop out was Timothy Leary’s slogan, and it became my generation’s mantra. The Vietnam War was, in hindsight, a stupid and pathetic response to the perceived threat of Marxism. The “Domino Theory” was flawed, for it was founded on the notion that human beings–selfish human beings–would voluntarily give up their self-centred desires in exchange for collectivism and social tyranny. Leaders in the Kremlin and in the White House had not the intellectual tools to understand the Adam Smith’s capitalism and Karl Marx’s communism were opposite sides of the same counterfeit eighteenth-century coin. The gold standard of human economics is neither laissez-faire free market nor centrally-imposed five-year plan, but the commitment of human beings, governments, and religions to full and harmonious engagement with the physical and spiritual worlds.

Your grandparents, children of the Greatest Generation, decided to disengage. We smoked pot and hash. We drank Sangria, Whiskey, and Budweiser. We shot cocaine, LSD, and heroin. We wore love beads, dressed in Nehru jackets, flashed the two-fingered peace sign, and thoughts ourselves advanced in every way. We were for women’s rights (well, ah, to a point, anyway…) and we even thought Negroes should have equality. Most of all, we were opposed to that oppressive military action in Southeast Asia, the one we saw every night on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in the form of dead, maimed, and dying soldiers in red-earth ditches, on green army stretchers, on Huey helicopters. “Hell no, we won’t go” and “All we are saying–is give peace a chance”, on their own, are among the finest sentiments of the human heart. But my generation suborned the ideals of peace to the lusts of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. We agitated and marched and chanted for peace in Vietnam not because we understood the war to be unjust, but because we saw no reason to die in a far-off jungle when the orgasmic pleasures of responsibility-free life beckoned. “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” and “If It Feels Good Do It” were closer to the governing mantra of my generation than any pacifist or humanist or religious ideals. We temporarily adopted those ideals because they suited our true objectives, which in the end proved to share not a single point of reference with any of the nobility of our parents’ hearts.

Timothy Leary made an appearance on Mittelos. We knew him as Stuart Radzinsky.

The inevitable outcome of a Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Diamonds, navel-gazing approach to life is the imposition of one’s will on others. If the only reality we know is the gut-based impulses of self, we will move to ensure that others secure for us the satisfaction of our urges and desires. We wake from LSD-induced stupor to find our taxes are too high, our government far too socialistic, our responsibilities too broad and too deep. No PTA and bowling league and civic duty for my generation, thank you. That was our parents’ life, not ours. Just give me my remote, a few blow-em’-up action movies on the wide-screen TV, keep my taxes low, and stop telling me to participate, damn it. Life isn’t about giving. It’s about getting.

LOST is emphatic about few things, but this is one of them: The Baby Boomer generation’s response to life is wrong-headed, inhuman, and uncivilised. As I wrote so many essays ago (http://pearsonmoore-gets-lost.com/Magnificence.aspx), it is некультурный. If we are to survive, if we are to make an enduring contribution to this world, if we are to realise Jacob’s Progress, we must engage. We are compelled, by nature, by our truest selves, by everything holy and wise and good, to engage with this world and with each other in every dimension of life, spirit, and will. We all need each other, for the only way into the Church of the Holy Lamp Post is with a Constant at one’s side, and the only way to move on into the warmth and light beyond is as a group, the congregation of all those who have interacted in harmony with each other to improve the human condition. Goodness is not singular, but collaborative. LOST presents all survivors with a Demande d’engagement. It is not a choice. It is our truest and only sustainable destiny.

La Vie En Rose

Most of us engage superficially. Even if we are called upon to overcome adversity, requiring more than a typical level of collaboration, we nevertheless extend ourselves only to the degree that we are allowed to survive and make a minimal commitment. The life of singer Édith Piaf, portrayed by French actress Marion Cotillard, depicts one woman’s struggle to make enough sense of her world to bring us a disciplined and compelling voice and songs expressive of the human heart. Out of her fractured and painful life came great music, great beauty, and an enduring contribution to the arts.

But Piaf is a helpless object of others’ pity. She is blown about by chaotic circumstance and the whims of caring saviours and uncaring contemporaries, somehow managing in this purposeless milieu to train her natural talents into performances of hypnotic grace. But at the end of her life, the best she can say of herself is to repeat the refrain from her most famous song: Je ne regrette rien. I don’t regret anything.

This is not enough for LOST. Overcoming adversity does not suffice. Indulging beauty, celebrating beauty, even creating beauty, is not enough. LOST finds no merit in Helen of Troy, as beautiful as she is.

Kate Austen certainly had beauty to launch a thousand ships, but she was not called to flaunt perfect smile, golden body, or attractive spirit. Her innate charm and grace were as useless to her as Jack’s ability with a scalpel or Bernard’s familiarity with a dental drill. The Island required not that Kate be something, but that she become something. She could be the Mona Lisa or Monica Callis or axe-wielding Lizzie Borden for all the Island cared. For the purposes of Mittelos, she had to move beyond her narrow understanding of life into a realm that would allow her to help the other survivors and bring enduring benefit to the Island. Kate Austen had to become not Helen of Troy, but Joan of Arc.

La Vision de Jeanne d’Arc

Joan of Arc had to let go of childish notions of leading an ordinary life. Her destiny was to take charge of armies and lead a country to freedom. This was no small matter in the history of France, and it was no trifle to the young woman’s turbulent and troubled soul. She faced doubts, distress, and demons every day, for long months and years. She defied generals and princes and kings. The psychological and spiritual confusion nearly killed her, and to any of her contemporaries she must have seemed given to madness, a hair’s breadth removed from complete insanity. Such is the state of mind required of those who move mountains, who conquer nations, who save an Island.

Kate had to be broken down, her former self destroyed, before she could become the woman destined to save her jungle land. The pain and confusion she experienced off the Island was the necessary extension of the physical and mental disorientation begun on Mittelos. This was the expectation of all the Island’s leaders. Jin had to move beyond jealousy and chauvinist expectations to the full appreciation of Sun’s worth as a person and a wife. Sawyer had to grow from his self-centred “lookin’ out for Number One” view of life to become the leader of his people during the Dharma Initiative’s final pre-Incident years. Locke had to move beyond anger and frustration to acceptance of the Island’s role for him, even to the point of accepting the painful inevitability of his own demise off-Island.

Jack Shephard’s journey was the most perilous because it carried greatest importance to the Island. His story was chronicled more fully than that of any of the other survivors. I devoted a full 5700-word essay to Jack’s story (http://pearsonmoore-gets-lost.com/ApologiaProVitaFidei.aspx), but I have only begun to relate the significance of Jack’s voyage from science to faith to Protector of the Island. He was one of the most fully-developed and multi-dimensional figures in fiction, and LOST is not understood without careful consideration of at least several of the deep facets of his well-mapped character.

Most important to LOST, and essential to this essay on metadrama, is the reality of Jack’s identity as fictional embodiment of Campbell’s monomyth of the hero:

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder. Fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won. The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” (Joseph Campbell, “The Hero With a Thousand Faces”)

Kate, Locke, and Jack had to be destroyed and re-built. They had to come to the realisation that their knowledge and almost everything they believed they understood of life was incorrect, impractical, irrelevant to the Island. They were obliged, for the fulfillment of their destiny and for the welfare of Mittelos, to embark on the emotional and spiritual travails of a dangerous and soul-wrenching journey over continents and across decades. Their minds scrambled, their souls in despair, they would become the fertile and receptive vessels for a most precious vision: a vision of life as it was intended to be, a vision of the Light. Armed with a true understanding of life, carrying in their hearts a new-found vision of the Heart of the Island–the core of human civilisation–they would take charge of armies, defy a dark prince, and preserve the fragile heritage of our humanity.

Les Renversements de la Serie «Perdus»

In 2004 Jack was so faith-deficient he based his entire life on principles and logic that had no bearing on Island reality. After Locke threw the knife that killed Naomi Dorrit, Jack lost whatever calm façade he had been able to project to that point.

LOCKE: You’re not gonna shoot me, Jack. Any more than I was gonna shoot—
[Jack pulls the trigger, but no bullet fires]
LOCKE: It’s not loaded.
[Jack attacks Locke. Sawyer and Sayid pull him away]
SAWYER: Come on.
JACK: Let go of me! Do you know what he did?
SAYID: (Shouts) Yes, I know what he did!
[Locke gets up]
LOCKE: All I did, all I have ever done, has been in the best interest of all of us.
JACK: Are you insane?
LOCKE: I know I, I have a lot of explaining to do. But, I never did anything to hurt any of you. I even risked my life to tell you there was a traitor in your midst. (He points to Juliet).
JACK: She helped us, John. All you ever did was blow up every chance we had of getting off of this island. You killed Naomi.

Jack’s life experiences, as broad and useful as they were in the outside world, did not equip him to understand the correctness of Locke’s actions. To logical, law-abiding Jack Shephard, Locke’s expert use of the throwing knife as deadly weapon was illegal, illogical, and insane. Three years later, every breath Jack pulled into his lungs, every step he took on jungle path, was informed by faith, trust, and hope. He not only understood the meaning and merit of all of Locke’s actions, he knew them, felt them in his bones, consciously and unconsciously considered them worthy template for anything he might think, say, or do. Jack’s reversal, from considering Locke a madman to revering him as mentor, was one of the major inversions in LOST. There were many such reversals. Possibly the saddest inversion was the one we experienced at the end of “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”. Locke, at the end of his life, had lost enough faith that he planned his own death. Jack became Locke. Locke became Jack.

But LOST depicted other, even more important reversals. One of the unique twists LOST brings to Joseph Campbell’s template of the hero is the reversal of common and supernatural elements. Jack’s destiny was not to bring Island knowledge or abilities to confront evils in the outside world. Rather, he experienced the greater part of the hero’s journey of disorientation in the common, outside world, and carried back with himself to the supernatural Island a firm sense of purpose, a resolute dedication to serve the Island’s needs. The corrective actions of the great hero were accomplished not at the hero’s common place of origin, but in the realm of the supernatural itself–on the Island. One might consider that this fact did not constitute a reversal at all, though. When, after several years of searching, I abandoned the religious tradition of my youth and became a member of the faith to which I now subscribe, the pastor embraced me and whispered in my ear, “Welcome home.” In like manner, we may well consider that Jack’s upbringing in the outside world was a mistake of geography, that his true spiritual origin was on the Island. Campetin, Administrator at SL-Lost, made this statement with greater eloquence than my muddled thoughts can form into words:

La Réalité Selon «Perdus»

Whether we understand Darlton to have accomplished a fresh and interesting examination of the hero monomyth, we are obliged to agree on this point: The Island is the focal point and most intensely real aspect of the series. With Locke, we understand Mittelos as “… different. Special.” Perhaps we don’t want to talk about it. Perhaps it is too scary. “But we all know it. We all feel it…. everything that happened here, happened for a reason.”

The Island, source of phenomena beyond description or understanding, was more real than anything in the outside world. Jack’s Island was metaphor and examplar of our world–as it was and is (under Jacob), and as it could be (under Jack, then Hurley, and then… whoever replaces Hurley… not sayin’ I know who that might be or nothin’…). The Heart of the Island is the repository of the most enduring and meaningful elements of our humanity, summarised in cuneiform script on the Cork Stone. These are the cultural elements of human society worth living for. They are the precepts of civilisation worth dying for. They are the only possible origin of our rebirth.

The Island is our home, for it is the Source. It is the place that most fully and faithfully expresses the widest range of who we are, that allows broadest latitude in culture and substance, that is the reliable and permanent foundation upon which we live and move and have our being.

Notre Renaissance

Every one of the thirty-five major characters across the six years had to experience life, death, and rebirth. Surgeon Jack died and was reborn as Protector Jack. Fugitive Kate died and was reborn as Dragonslayer Kate. Con-Man Sawyer died and was reborn as Responsible Leader James. They were ordinary, fractured, wounded souls whose essences were ground in a mortar, burned in agonising flame, and redistilled into lives of vital and unrelenting and committed engagement.

I feel a close kinship with the substantial and quite vocal minority of former LOST fans who now express contempt for this most compelling of television dramas. LOST did not end in a manner that anyone could have predicted. The series never engaged in linear, syllogistic, traditional storytelling. Darlton took frequent pains to expand not only the story, but the format in which the story was told. They were visibly and vocally proud of their flashbacks, flashforwards, and flashsideways. Darlton intentionally pushed the envelope in their storytelling. They never appealed to lowest denominators, never explained even the most irrelevant detail of this most complicated of stories. We were left entirely on our own to make sense of their creation. Even now, months after the series ended, Darlton tell us the story speaks for itself. They are not going to explain it. We are alone, and we always will be left to our own interpretive devices with no help from those who gave birth to the series.

This is the true essence of the problem, I believe–the aspect of LOST that separates those of us who believe the story complete, and those who feel The End was a touchy-feely mess that left the greatest mysteries unresolved. For those who believe, “The New Man in Charge” is a pleasant but unnecessary epilogue. For those who lack faith, not even “The New Man in Charge” can begin to assuage their disgust. What we enjoy, those of us who consider the story complete, is full engagement with a very complicated piece of fiction. What we lack, those of us who consider the story incomplete, is a reference point common to ourselves and the story.

Darlton gave birth to LOST. We were never told, but we came to understand over six grueling years, that every one of us participating, the twenty millions of us around the world, would be required to act as midwives to LOST’s rebirth. In fact, little did we know, we ourselves would have to be reborn. With Kate and Jack and Sayid and Locke and Ben we would have to die to our former selves, embrace the truths of the Island, and understand events from the Island’s point of view. With the characters, we would experience pain, confusion, loss, disorientation–whispering “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” (or variants not appropriate to polite society) under our breath or even lobbing a symbolic tomato at the television–or at Darlton–every now and then.

Midwives we are, though, and ever will be. If we appreciate the story of LOST it is because we ourselves have been reborn. Our struggles and pains and eventual rebirth were not accidental, not unforeseen. They were planned, necessary and integral to the story itself; prerequisite, therefore, to any satisfactory understanding of the story as complete in its final 121-chapter form.

LOST is unencumbered with narrative structure. In fact, it barely has structure, and certainly lacks anything that could be recognised as traditional television storytelling. We, dear participants (and I do mean participants, and not “viewers”), supply the narrative structure. We are the ones who, with Leonard Simms (and, ah… some other guy… not sayin’ I know who that might be or nothin’…) Connect Four, connect the disparate stories from flashback and the Sideways World and the Dharma Initiative of 1977 and the post-Dharma Island of 2004 into a cohesive whole that comports with our understanding of syllogistic cause and effect. Without this essential input from our overworked minds there is no story, and The End seems a cheat, a cop-out, a short sale that is really a cowardly foreclosure on something that should have had structure and permanence and closure. But thus will it forever be. For those who have faith, no proof is necessary; for those who lack faith, no proof is possible.

To say we believe is simply to acknowledge that we are no longer beholden to logic as final arbiter of significance and value and causal priority. We have perceived something of enduring grace and beauty and wholeness and magnificence. Through our struggles, we have risen to the mountaintop. Our eyes truly have seen the Glory–it matters not whether we are black men or white men, Muslim or Jew, Protestant or Catholic, for we see now the fog-shrouded green expanse before us, the Island that is Source, the destiny that is freedom, the Light that enshrines the content of our shared culture and depth of our character.

Métadrame

Metadrama is not a frequently employed word, though it enjoys occasional usage among academics and literati. The word is defined by neither the Canadian Oxford dictionary (my authority of first resort) nor Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. The English Oxford may well provide a definition, but I am decidedly North American in syntax and orthography and have not consulted this across-the-pond authority.

From the few academic authorities I have become familiar with, I have learned that metadrama can be thought of as describing a play within a play. A frequently invoked example of this type of metadrama is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare. But this is not metadrama as I understand the concept to be applied to LOST.

Metadrama as I define it is virtually unique to LOST. No other story or theatrical production of my acquaintance (several hundred classics, modern general fiction, historical fiction, and several hundred more works within the genre of science fiction; scores of plays attended over my lifetime) places such an immense burden on audience or reader. In fact, for most of fiction, those on the receiving end of an author’s creative work can be referred to quite accurately as audience or reader or viewer. This designation is not appropriate for those participating in the artistic creation called LOST. If we merely break out the beer and pretzels, plop down on the sofa, and “watch” LOST, we will never make sense of the work. LOST demands our sustained and active engagement. We, the viewing participants, supply the narrative structure.

Without our input, LOST lacks dramatic wholeness. With our active involvement, the piece comes into its own, shining as few other works of fiction ever have. This is my understanding of the new genre created by LOST:

Metadrama is that genre of non-linear, theatrical fiction whose narrative or causal structure is evident through neither chronology nor clear etiology, and must be supplied by engaged audience-participants.

In metadrama, the effect of events in Act Three may play out in the first scene of Act One, a flashback in Act Two may contain the full background required to make sense of the first words of the play, and the penultimate scene may have no apparent connection to the final scene, but may be the precursor to events in Act Two. “Rosebud” in Citizen Kane is a weak example of non-linearity of this type, though Citizen Kane is a story told in mostly linear fashion, and it certainly requires not anything close to the audience engagement demanded by LOST. The events and character arcs and plot are engineered by the audience, who may require several sessions to bring coherence and internal consistency to the structure.

La Vie en Vert

Even before Jack swallowed the green pill, he had solid reason to believe the gelatin liner contained poison. By swallowing the pill, he was essentially committing suicide. According to the rules of the Island, those designated potential Protector (“Candidates” in Jacob’s parlance) could not die of natural causes or by their own hand. The Protector, Protector-Candidates, and the Consigliere (Richard and Ben after him) were granted eternal life on the Island. Therefore, as Jack was aware of the pill as potentially deadly, the Island would have prevented him from ingesting it, or he would have suffered no enduring ill effect from consuming it. If Dogen had given Jack no reason to believe the pill was dangerous, or if he had tied Jack down, forced his mouth open, intubated him, and forced the capsule down his gullet, Jack would have died, because murdering a Candidate, as unsavoury as it might otherwise be, was nevertheless allowed by the rules of Mittelos.

The status and significance of the green pill becomes even more complicated when we bring Sayid into the discussion.

[Jack unfolds the paper and exposes the capsule.]
SAYID: What’s that?
JACK: They want you to take it. It’s medicine, according to them.
SAYID: What about according to you?
JACK: I don’t know. And you know, before when you… when you thanked me for saving your life, I, I didn’t have anything to do with it Sayid. I didn’t fix you. They did.
[Jack takes the capsule in his right palm.]
SAYID: I don’t care who fixed me. I only care about who I trust. So, if you want me to take that pill, Jack, I’ll do it.

These were my thoughts after first engaging with this scene back in February:

We believed at first Sayid to have been reborn. In the physical sense, perhaps he is not. If we trust our intuitions about the interaction last week between Hurley and Miles, it seems clear the seer from Encino knew Sayid was never dead, even if he didn’t say so in as many words to Hurley. If he was never dead, he cannot be reborn.

Yet we find ourselves aware of new life in Sayid. When Dogen and Jack have their private talk, the Temple Master tells Jack he must give Sayid the green pill. Jack demands to know the contents of the pill, and when Dogen says Jack must give Sayid the medicine, for the sake of his life, Jack counters with “He already died.” This seems a rare and strange place for a healer to place himself. Jack seems to be hoisting a list of ingredients to a higher plane than Sayid’s life. Dogen expresses concern about Sayid’s “infection”, while Jack insists on broadening his knowledge of herbal medicines, and all the while, a man who miraculously regained consciousness and complete healing of wounds is dismissed as one who “already died.” The strange discussion seems askew, the priorities grossly misplaced.

But this is not the only instance of Sayid’s life being accorded less value than abstract concepts. When Jack presents Sayid with the green pill, Sayid’s response is Biblical: “I only care about who I trust. So if you want me to take that pill, Jack, I will.”

This is breathtaking in its audacity. Neither Sayid nor Jack knows the contents of the pill. Sayid places unrestrained faith in Jack, and now a crushing burden falls on the healer. This is no longer abstract. Sayid may die if he takes the pill. The only useful question at this point in the episode: What is Jack Shephard made of? What value does he place on life, on trust, on knowledge?

As I watch Jack throw the pill in his mouth and swallow, my jaw drops open and I cannot process the event through my shock. The sequence of events remains askew. The problem is not that Jack is placing higher value on Sayid’s life than his own. The problem for me, as I struggle to make sense of this most intense scene, is that Jack is not placing greater value on Sayid’s life. Something else, apparently something carrying an importance more profound even than life or death, is at play.

Jack couldn’t give Sayid the pill. He was planning to do so. He had every intention of doing so. He resolved to tell Sayid the complete truth, and that was what he did. But then Sayid said those words: “I care only about who I trust. So if you want me to take that pill, Jack, I will.”

Ruth et Noémi

The Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible relates a story about a pagan woman named Ruth who shows kindness to a Hebrew woman named Naomi. When it is time for them to go their separate ways, Naomi encourages Ruth to return to her pagan village.

“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”

Ruth just gave up everything: family, village, her former gods, everything she ever knew–turned her back on all of it, and gave herself over to Naomi and her God. Ruth discovered something of greater value than even her own life.

Jack couldn’t give Sayid the pill. Not because he valued Sayid’s life. He certainly did value the man’s life, and his own. But life did not carry greatest value in this scene. Jack was able to risk his own life by swallowing that pill because he placed greater importance on something other than his own life. Jack placed highest value on the trust Sayid had placed in him.

Sayid and Jack place greater value on their trust of each other than on their own lives.

This is audacious. Rare. This is story that burns deep into the soul, engages every faculty of spirit and sense and wonder.

With the intensity of this scene we begin to get a glimpse into the innermost core of LOST. This is not a show about good versus evil. It is not about free will versus determinism. It is not about time travel or electromagnetic anomalies or spacetime displacement. It is about our very humanity. It is about who we are at the very centre of our conscious selves.

The audacity reaches even deeper than this, however, as we now know:

The physical effects of the pill depended entirely on the recipient’s understanding of the provider’s intent.

If the Candidate understood the provider of the pill to have malevolent intent, the pill, if self-administered, could have no ill effect. If however, intent was misunderstood as remedial or beneficial, the pill would have caused immediate death upon ingestion. That is to say, deadly intent would lead to life, and expectation of salutary remedy would lead to death. In the end, whether Sayid lived or died upon consuming the pill was entirely a consequence of what he believed about the intentions of those who fabricated and provided the green capsule.

Imagine now that Jack offers and Sayid accepts and swallows the pill. We cannot know a priori the outcome of this action. In order to predict with any certainty the effect on Sayid, we must have unfettered access to the complete range of his thoughts in the moments around the discussion of the pill, immediately before he takes the pill, and during the time his stomach is dissolving the non-toxic gelatin shell containing the green poison. If at any point in this chronology Sayid believes his life to be in danger, the pill will have no adverse consequences, or some Island-created situation will lead to his body’s rejection of the poison in a way that will protect him from ill effect.

La Couleur de la Confiance

LOST redefines causality. Expectation of death instead brings life. Knowledge of life brings death.

LOST redefines symbol. Yellow is life and death and rebirth. Green is trust and honour and commitment. The green pill, like the Source itself, is at the same time life and death. The pill is symbol of rebirth: of new trust between Jack and Sayid, of deeper rapport between Jack and Dogen, of Jack’s recommitment to all of his people, even one considered to be the intractable agent of his deadly foe.

Just as green is the most prominent colour of the Island, trust is the most prominent expectation among the children of Mittelos. Trust is the virtue that protects and sustains all the other truths of the Cork Stone. It is the virtue passed down from Locke to Jack to Hurley to… whomever might replace Hurley (not sayin’ I know who that might be or nothin’…).

We can sum up LOST as la mort et la vie en vert, or simplify even further to the essential core: Life and death and rebirth are the precursors and the final result of trust. Trust is the basis of human civilisation, the commitment that allows the Source to give Light. It’s what keeps the Island afloat. It’s what makes the world go ’round.

The Audacity of Trust

Darlton entrusted us with the narrative and the plot. They had their own idea of the way in which the 726 pieces (acts) of this 121-chapter, six-volume masterpiece were to be understood. But we will never be granted the privilege of reading or hearing their own interpretation. These two writers trusted us to create the narrative. Never has a collaboration of this type endured the test of six long years. Never have artists thought so highly, or expected so much, of the participating recipients of their most prized creation. I am humbled, grateful, and very happy indeed, to have been a most active participant in this drama beyond dramas.

August 13, 2010
Birthday of director, writer, and audacious storyteller, Alfred Hitchcock

The Green Pill: Cultural Monolithism in LOST by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 22:06:07 +0000

We have no choices.

Morpheus offers us neither red pill nor blue pill. The range of human volition includes provision for neither blue-pill amnesia nor red-pill awareness. Enlightenment is not choice, but responsibility, and amnesia is not comfort in innocence, but oblivion in non-existence.

According to LOST, we have only the green pill.

We live and move and have our being in a world with firm foundation in rules known to all. LOST’s premise is a monopole; the series is without choices, without dilemma, without unified conflict–even the antagonist has no name. Far from positing the vast, intricate, computer-generated, consciousness-bending false comic-book reality of the Matrix, LOST forces us to confront our world as a complexity beyond logic and cognition. Our daily reality is the chaos of the wreckage-strewn beach which we walk aimlessly, our muddled thoughts ruled by confusion, pain, and anxiety.

Lost is not drama, not science fiction, but a fresh genre, unique to fiction. LOST has a protagonist, Jack Shephard. But the antagonist is a nameless, formless black void that comes, fights, destroys, corrupts. Lost is not drama, but metadrama, for we are the story, and we know the antagonist, who bears seven billion names, who reads the words on this page in this instant. The antagonist is the Smoke Monster. We know this because we have met the Smoke Monster, and the Smoke Monster is us.

How deep does the rabbit hole go? There is no Matrix, no Wonderland. But the rabbit hole goes deep. The voyage is long, for the journey ends at the central core of our humanity, at the Source. There, bathed in brilliant light, stands Jack Shephard, bearing in his hand the single object of our contemplation: the green pill.

Chaos as Antagonist

The plane crash was the enemy. In its aftermath three hundred passengers died and the survivors were dazed, confused, injured, and angry. However, we soon learned our initial judgment was flawed. As wounds healed and water became scarce, thirst for answers became the driving force. The survivors were not only hungry and without shelter, they were being watched, then hunted and killed. The plane crash was not the enemy. The Others were the enemy.

The Others moved in stealth, covered their tracks, lied, cheated, stole, and killed. Their leader, Benjamin Linus, was single-minded in thought and deed. His brilliant deceptions and manipulations seemed the embodiment of evil. But when the freighter arrived, we discovered the rationale for his madness and lies. Events showed us again we had been hasty in our judgment. The Others were not the enemy. Charles Widmore and Martin Keamy were the enemy.

Widmore, like Alvar Hanso’s Dharma Initiative, wished to control the Island. Locke put his faith in that control, carved “In Marvin Candle We Trust” into the hilt of his Ka-bar and religiously pressed Execute every 108 minutes. But then at the Pearl he learned the Swan was a psychology experiment. Blind faith, Locke decided, was the enemy. He smashed the countdown computer and–all hell broke loose. Anger and pride clouded his thinking, caused him to confuse trust and control. Faith was not the enemy. Greed, selfishness, lust for power was the enemy.

Whoever was most greedy, we realised, would have to be the enemy. That person was identified at the end of Season Five.

JACOB: I take it you’re here ’cause of the ship.
MAN IN BLACK: I am. How did they find the Island?
JACOB: You’ll have to ask ‘em when they get here.
MAN IN BLACK: [Grimacing] I don’t have to ask. You brought them here.

Jacob. Jacob summoned the ships, the planes, the boats. Jacob enticed Magnus Hanso and Seth Norris, caused the deaths on the Black Rock, on Oceanic Flight 815, caused the dozens or hundreds of airliner crashes and shipwrecks over the millennia. Jacob, Protector of the Island, murderer of thousands. Jacob was the enemy.

But then we learned the Man in Black was Nemesis, opposed to Jacob, but no hero or even advocate for the Common Good; in fact, he hated humanity. He was the Smoke Monster. Not a guardian, not the Island’s Cerberus-like “security system” as the Dharma Initiative believed. The Man in Black was, in Temple Master Dogen’s words, “evil incarnate”. The Man in Black was the enemy.

Jacob’s brother, until he murdered the Protector, was a man of mundane self-interest, a creature of ordinary evils. But then Jacob beat him, kicked him, dragged him to the Island’s great Basic Input/Output System. The BIOS will return only what it is given. If the Source is fed the raw precepts of civilisation (for example, the principles carved into the Cork Stone), it will intensify those tenets and return them as the Light of civility, social cohesion, and human kindness. If the Source is fed a man interested only in self, it will intensify those tendencies, spitting out an entity capable of pursuing only greeds and lusts, the formless black void of pure selfishness: the Smoke Monster.

We come. We fight. We destroy. We corrupt.

SAWYER: Tell me something, Jacob. Why do I gotta be punished for your mistake? What made you think you could mess with my life? I was doin’ just fine ’til you dragged my ass to this damn rock.
JACOB: No, you weren’t. None of you were. I didn’t pluck any of you out of a happy existence. You were all flawed. I chose you because you were like me.

Indeed. All four of the final Candidates were just like Jacob. Flawed, damaged, hurt, capable of infinite selflessness, but capable also of unrelenting evil. In that respect not one of us reading is in any way different from the five gathered at the fire. We all have the potential, with Jacob, to wish on our brother an outcome worse than death. Which of us, if fed into the Island’s BIOS, would come out as pure as Jack Shephard? Most of us–maybe all of us–would rush out of the deep cave as a shapeless dark void. Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night… all of us at one time or another, and most of us on a daily basis, place selfish caprice and desire over the basic needs of others. Every day we do our best to chip away at the foundations of civilisation. Every day we become the Smoke Monster. Every day we unleash on this world, in ways small and large, in thoughtlessness and cruelty, the full chaos of our unmeasured lusts.

Chaos is the antagonist, and we are the creators of its confusing and ill effects. Chaos has no linear etiology, no clear chronology, else we could approach the problem as an exercise in scientific empiricism. The pharmaceutical companies engaging me as consultant could simply send me to the laboratory to whip up an anti-chaos pill, and all the world’s problems would disappear.

Metadrama

In proclaiming our shared identity as the Smoke Monster I bring nothing new to the discussion. The idea that individual evil characters can participate in a story that is allegory for human beings’ inhumanity to human beings is not new to literature. In the introduction to this essay, however, I made a statement, as yet unsupported, that LOST constitutes an entirely new genre of fiction. This is a bold claim, certainly novel; even the unabridged Oxford Dictionary carries no entry for “metadrama”.

I carry in my thoughts the full outline of an argument that might be deployed to support my strange new claim. But I am not going to develop the thought in this essay. I leave the development of the idea, the reduction to practice as it were, to those reading and to your decision regarding its merits as entertaining diversion or engaging analysis or silly drivel–or all of the above! The question I pose is simple: Do you wish to work with me toward the development of the idea of LOST’s dramatic premise as monopole?

If you wish to see this idea developed, leave a comment below. If you are a regular or occasional reader of my essays and you have never commented, now is the time. Based on the 8500 to 10,800 weekly Google hits on these essays, I know you’re out there, and you are legion. If you indicate interest, I will develop the idea.

Registration to leave comments takes a couple of minutes. You can even register as “anonymous”, as I do, which requires very little time and completely protects your privacy. But do leave a comment, especially if you never have before. What do I seek? Fifty is a good round number. If fifty unique individuals express interest, I’ll churn out the best essay my feeble mind can muster. So, bring the comments, and in a week or two we’ll begin a fascinating discussion of the Green Pill!

Ab Aeterno Ad Aeternum: A Cultural Thesis of LOST by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:54:23 +0000

LOST is not a story of good versus evil. When Kate and Jack killed the Smoke Monster no dramatic music played. The credits did not roll. The greater part of the story remained.

LOST is not a story of freedom versus destiny. Jack “chose” to become Protector of the Island, but only because he recognised the office as his destiny. The entire story was built on a continuous assumption of ultimate purpose; free will was given short shrift. But the story was not about fate per se.

LOST is not a story of science versus faith. Once Locke freed Jack from the shackles of logic, the deepest part of the story remained. We discovered with Jack his true purpose, the purpose of the Island, our purpose as human beings.

LOST is the story of our humanity and the cultural elements comprising its essential core. LOST tells us the unceasing perpetuation of civilisation is the source and final goal of all culture, all humanity, all divinity. If we cannot live together, if we die alone, we are lost. But if we recognise and honour the call to civility, allow the Light inside to guide us, we find our way to each other, and we are not lost.

A simple idea. A one-hour Hallmark special ought to suffice. Hell, even a Histori.ca minute oughta do it, right? No. Six years were required, and for good reason. This will not be a short essay.

Live Together, Die Alone

Jack framed a crude, initial statement of the thesis in Episode 1.05, “White Rabbit”. The emphasis is mine.

“It’s been six days and we’re all still waiting. Waiting for someone to come. But what if they don’t? We have to stop waiting. We need to start figuring things out. A woman died this morning just going for a swim and he [Boone] tried to save her, and now you’re about to crucify him? We can’t do this. Everyman for himself is not going to work. It’s time to start organizing. We need to figure out how we’re going to survive here. Now, I found water. Fresh water, up in the valley. I’ll take a group in at first light. If you don’t want to go come then find another way to contribute. Last week most of us were strangers, but we’re all here now. And God knows how long we’re going to be here. But if we can’t live together, we’re going to die alone.”

These are easy words to preach, they are most difficult principles to practice. For one thing, not everyone’s needs and abilities are identical. When needs are great and resources are few, conflict is inevitable. These two elements, differing needs and dearth of resources, are further exacerbated by the natural human tendency toward selfishness. A breakdown in civility could be expected on the basis of any two of these three destructive elements. In a conventional story, these are the only three elements that would be addressed. A power struggle could be expected, and the story would end with the establishment of a chosen, appointed, or assumed leader, and an Island government. The leader, acting as arbiter of the Common Good, would make decisions on the allocation of food and resources, work schedules, communal projects, and any other activities required for the general welfare.

But LOST is not a conventional story. Appointing a leader for the survivors, finding a replacement for Ben, completing the process of turning a Candidate into the Protector of the Island were not the final objectives of the show. If they had been, that one-hour Hallmark special would have done the trick. The problem is much deeper, and required a few years of intense development and discussion.

Jack of the Nuclear Age

One of the more interesting philosophical positions on the scenario of a stranded group of individuals was developed by William Golding in his 1954 masterpiece, “Lord of the Flies”. At the very end of the novel, the boys’ island engulfed in flames, Ralph on the verge of being murdered by Jack Merridew and his lawless gang, a British Royal Navy officer appeared on the beach.

With the arrival of the officer in his dazzling white, perfectly pressed uniform, the boys realised the extent of their depravity. Living without the order imposed by civilisation, the boys had reverted to barbarism, or something that might even be considered closer in character to a pre-human, animal existence. But instantly, with the return of civilisation, represented by the just-so uniforms of the Royal Navy, all was well again.

I believe LOST accepts the notion of selfishness, but I am certain it adamantly rejects Golding’s starched uniform ideal. Golding’s novel was pessimistic. If people are taken outside their normal social milieu, they will succumb to their basest instincts, which are entirely selfish, destructive, and disrespectful of human life itself. All that is needed to restore order are the outward trappings of civilisation: Uniforms tailored, laundered, and pressed just so, British Common Law, a jolly game of cricket, tea time at four o’clock sharp, and a rousing chorus of God Save the Queen. Meanwhile, inside the pressed uniform, the depraved desires are tensed, waiting for their moment to escape the artificial constraints of Victorian sensibility to unleash whatever urges and excitements appeal at the moment.

LOST rejects this idea. The starched uniform is not important and is not the defining aspect of civility. Civility is not external, but very much internal. The body, mind, and soul inside the uniform is what concerns LOST. It is the enormous depth that LOST attempted that rendered it entirely unsuited to the limited format of a brief novel or two-hour movie. LOST started with Golding but would go much, much farther in establishing and delineating its unique thesis.

Pristine Snow Blanketing Putrid Dung

Jack Merridew of the Nuclear Age was inherently depraved. Jack Shephard, the New Jack, was not inherently or even essentially evil. Darlton’s Jack–representing each one of us–was inherently and essentially good.

If we are to understand the ramifications of the thesis of LOST, we must first understand what LOST believes about the nature of humanity. Simply saying “LOST believes we’re all good at heart” will not suffice, because the show took pains to explain its position on humanity. The need to plumb the depths of the human soul inevitably requires that we employ the language of religion. I beg the reader to understand, as I begin delving into religious territory, that I do this within the context of the television programme. It is not my intention to provide commentary on any particular religious tradition or to advocate one strain of religion over any other.

According to apocryphal citation, adherents of some religious traditions have held that human nature is best compared to a seething, putrid dung heap. I advise again that I do not claim that any particular tradition currently embraces this comparison, or that any tradition ever did use this imagery in its teaching, or that the teaching is without religious merit. But the image is powerful and appropriate to this discussion because it relates a way of thinking about humanity helpful in better understanding LOST. According to this apocryphal tradition, the redeeming grace of the Creator can be thought of as a pristine layer of snow, forever covering the dung heap. The disagreeable odour of the dung is replaced by the clean scent of fresh snow, and all of the vile aspects of the dung are hidden, replaced by the beauty of the perfectly white (perfectly clean, without even the smallest stain of sin) powder from heaven.

The powerful imagery is predicated on theological understandings of human nature and the nature of divine grace. According to this way of thinking, not even the omnipotence of the Creator is sufficient to change the essentials of human nature. We are depraved, treacherously sinful creatures, with or without the divine intervention of grace, redemption, or salvation. The covering of our sins by the Creator’s perfect grace (the snow in the apocryphal analogy) is sufficient to render us suitable for redemption or the afterlife or whatever rewards might accrue to a life lived in the Creator’s grace.

I believe this understanding of human nature to be entirely at odds with the view expressed in LOST. I believe LOST proclaims that there is an unalterable basis for positing the inherent goodness of human nature. Further, I believe LOST conveys the idea that tendencies toward evil can be changed; even if the fundamental disposition of an individual is toward evil, with appropriate and effective intervention at the spiritual level, that disposition can be redirected toward constructive intentions and pursuits.

The Source

The Source is the point of contact with the Divine. We might think of it as something akin to the Burning Bush, but the comparison is feeble. The Burning Bush was a divine apparition in a form suitable to Moses’ human understanding. The Source is raw, unfiltered divine power. It is the Burning Bush, but it burns not only with bright light, but with heat, with angry red judgment, with the full majesty and fury and terror of a million suns, with the complete force of divine will.

The Creator is Source of all power, and Her strength is not subject to the whims or puny syllogisms of the most intelligent human mind or the most powerful engine humans could ever create. There is but one way to meet the Source, and that is through an eternal commitment. Theology expresses this commitment as something called “Covenant”. In Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition, one of the most important covenants was expressed as a set of Ten Commandments etched on stone tablets. The physical instrument of Covenant in LOST is the Cork Stone, inscribed in ancient cuneiform script with the most important lessons of human civilisation. We meet the Source by coming into Covenant with the Source. The Cork Stone is humanity’s statement of commitment to the ideals of civilisation. By dropping the Cork Stone into the centre of the Source, we establish the only possible connection between that which is human and that which is divine, and that connection is predicated on and creates the fertile ground for the unceasing propagation of human civilisation. The pledge of civility is our Covenant with the Divine.

The Light

It is by the power of the Source working through the etched-in-stone precepts of civilisation on the Cork Stone that we are allowed to enjoy the chief benefit of the filtered, raw divine energy that we experience as the comforting Light of the Source. Not the “energy field created by all living things” of Star Wars or pantheism, the Light that each one of us carries in our hearts (“a little bit of this very same light is inside of every man,” according to the Guardian in “Across the Sea”) is present inside us only because of our communal commitment to the responsibilities of civilisation.

The Light is that aspect of reality that we share with the Creator. The first book of the Hebrew Bible, Genesis, speaks of humanity’s likeness to the Creator: “God created human beings in the divine image; in the divine image God created them; male and female God created them.” (Gen. 1:27) Human beings, in the Hebrew tradition, are the Image of the Creator. We share with the Creator some ineffable, undefined aspect or substance or quality that imbues us with inherent worth. Our value is not a function of utility, expression, or function in life. Our worth is independent of intellectual or creative accomplishment, and cannot be calibrated against or thought to wax or wane with crimes committed or great works performed. All of us, whether prince or pauper, saint or criminal, bear the divine image and are therefore, of all creation, closest in likeness and actual substance to the Creator; human beings are therefore sacred, inviolate. In the language of LOST, we are all bearers of the divine Light, and our dignity expresses itself in our commitment to the humble and yet earnest maintenance and propagation of that Light. That is to say, commitment to the responsibilities and benefits of civilisation is the source and final objective of our identity and our human dignity.

It is because of the Light that Jack (and all of us) carry the divine spark of goodness in our hearts. The Light renders us inherently good. The Light is always present, so that at any moment we might choose to orient our thoughts and intentions and choices and actions along a fundamental disposition toward the responsibilities/freedoms of civilisation.

The Problem of LOST

If Jack was inherently good, if he worked diligently, even past the point of exhaustion, even to the point of transfusing his own blood to save a dying man, how could LOST possibly say that Jack was in any way insufficient to the position of leader of the survivors, or the office of Protector of the Island? Why did Jack have to endure a three-year ordeal, a series of psychological and spiritual trials that nearly killed him, before he was deemed ready for the great responsibilities of Protector?

Boone was dying. Nothing Jack Shephard did, no course of action available to him on the Island, would lead to any but the most dreaded outcome. Boone would die, had to die, regardless of any of Jack’s many heroic actions. Jack worked ceaselessly, hour after hour, ignoring his own physical needs, giving every ounce of his strength and even his own blood in an attempt to pull Boone away from the clutches of death.

This was not the first time Jack had been forced into a position of confronting the full reality of death. The first instance occurred during their initial night on the Island. Federal Agent Ed Mars, a jagged slab of metal imbedded in his abdomen, could not possibly survive without immediate, state-of-the-art surgical procedures unavailable on the Island. Jack refused to surrender, tending to his dying patient night and day. It was only Sawyer’s botched attempt at euthanasia that eventually accelerated Mars’ demise, though painfully so, as Jack explained to Sawyer. If not for Sawyer’s well-intentioned action, Jack would have spent even more of his precious time tending to a patient who instead should have been triaged into the care of a lesser-trained person.

Jack’s refusal to admit defeat was driven by two important events in his past. The more immediate, and possibly the more important of the two, was the intensely emotional scene of Charlie’s resuscitation after his hanging.

Many consider this scene, fraught with deep, unsettling, raw emotion, the most moving moment in the six years of LOST. Kate, driven to wretched pain and tears by Charlie’s death, implored Jack to stop pummeling Charlie’s chest. He was dead. Nothing Jack did was going to change that. Jack stopped for only a moment, pulled back his own tears, and then raised a strong, angry arm into the air and pulled down the full weight of his fury, beating Charlie’s chest with inhuman force. He did it again. And again. And again. Against all the laws of medicine and physics and nature, Charlie’s heart started. By indefatigable force of will, Jack brought Charlie back from death.

The issue in all three of these incidents was not the extent of Jack Shephard’s medical prowess or depth of his human passion. He was by any standard a most gifted physician and expert surgeon. The issue for LOST was Jack’s intent. He did not exert superhuman heroics to save Ed Mars or Charlie Pace or Boone Carlyle. Jack went to extraordinary lengths to serve his own ends. He had to “fix” every patient because to do otherwise was a personal (not a professional) failure that would, he believed, count against him in his father’s eyes. The well-being of his patients was a distant secondary concern to Jack Shephard. Serving his own selfish urge to prove his father wrong, prove himself always personally and scientifically superior, was the overwhelming force motivating the good works of Dr. Jack Shephard.

In the world of LOST, “being a good person” is not always enough. The measure of a human being is seen in and composed of the same Light. But for those who seek leadership, much more is required. Leadership, of the variety that bears on human endeavour, requires intimate engagement with the primal stuff of our humanity, requires single-minded and sacrificial commitment to the foundations of human civilisation.

Jack, until his enlightenment, lacked commitment. He was not engaging with the essential elements of humanity because he was consumed with the urge to satisfy his unquenchable personal needs for proof of perfection.

Worse, Jack, with all of us, was conditioned to accept as normative, and not only acceptable but expected and desired, behaviours and ways of thinking that he later understood to be antithetical to the best traditions of human civilisation. Somehow Jack had to overcome his perverse, regimented, and useless way of looking at the world. The Island found a means by which Jack could achieve this end: Disorientation.

Disorientation

Jin and Sun react to the loud, piercing sound of Swan Station time/place reset in Episode 2.24, “Live Together, Die Alone”

The full truth of the Swan Station eventually became too much for even John Locke’s mind to accept. He thought himself re-awakening to reality when he marched into the geodesic dome and violently threw the ancient computer to the concrete floor, proving, or so he thought, the lack of meaning behind the numbers and the decades-long practice of entering the six-integer sequence every 108 minutes. Only when steel containers and metal knives flew through the air and the fillings in his teeth threatened to pull loose did Locke realise his error.

There are in this world special places of extraordinary significance, loci of unexplained power and unimaginable beauty: the gigantic Easter Island statues, the perfectly symmetrical Peruvian desert drawings, the “impossibly” perfect Mayan architectures of the Chichen Itza temples. These structures, whose fabrication would tax modern capabilities, were completed hundreds of years ago using materials and methods entirely unknown and apparently as advanced as any modern equivalents.

We rebel at thoughts such as these, conditioned as we are to believe that certain levels of scientific capability must precede any creations such as those we observe on Easter Island, in the Peruvian desert, and on the Yucatán. The rules of cause and effect tell us that some advanced science must have been created to allow the design and execution of drawings several kilometres in length and breadth. At the very least, the ancient desert dwellers must have had access to aerial or satellite photography to ensure straight lines. Our minds cannot fathom alternatives (the artist dreamed the correct orientation of lines over hill and dale, across stream and field; shamans led the construction effort, using knowledge of medicines to predict proper shape of the drawings; etc.).

When Locke told Jack the Island was special, that bizarre communication elevated Locke to a certain level of disequilibrium in Jack’s estimation. When only a couple months later Locke told him the Island had to be “protected”, Jack felt entirely justified in his conclusion that Locke had completely lost touch with reality.

But then the Island disappeared from the ocean, leaving not a trace behind.

Jack saw his dead father, alive, in the jungle, leading him beside fresh waters–and to the casket that contained no body, but only a mystery. Even Locke had conversations with Jack’s dead father, told Jack the old man said hello.

At some point the burden of so many occurrences unexplainable by any rational means became too much for poor Jack. Disorientation was the painful but very necessary means of loosing Jack from the comfortable scientific straight jacket he had spent a lifetime engineering for himself. He came to understand, as the result of one painful or inexplicable event piled on top of another and then yet another, that science could explain only a small and increasingly irrelevant sampling of the important events in his life. The particulars of his connection to the world that carried greatest significance to him were those unfettered by any relationship to logic: his love for Kate, the Island’s hold over his thoughts, the growing awareness that Locke had been right–about everything.

Cognitive Partiality

Shannon tries to make sense of Rousseau’s sixteen-year-old French recording, Lost 1.02, “Pilot”

Disorientation was intensified and broadened by the fact that only rarely could two people agree on anything: the significance of an event transpired, the action that should be taken in response to a problem or threat, the meaning of so many unearthly occurrences on this strange island. No one had a complete understanding of the Island. Ben claimed to know everything, but of course, he did not. Did even Jacob himself understand how the Island had healed Locke’s paralysis and Rose’s cancer? No one had all the answers, but everyone had an axe to grind, an agenda to pursue, a mission to fulfill. The needs and desires of every one of the major players on the Island coloured their understanding of the meaning of Island phenomena and their significance to the group. Differing agendas, the strange nature of the Island, the fear and threat of death looming in unexpected places, engendered confusion, mistrust, and very quickly created hostility, open aggression, and occasionally outright genocide. An entire village was consumed by the Guardian’s wrath. The Dharma Initiative, at Ben’s behest, was wiped out.

Other than the Hansos (Magnus and great-grandson Alvar), who were almost certainly motivated by greed, and the United States Army, which was motivated by discovering another island they could turn into radioactive waste, no one came to the Island by choice. Upon arrival, the survivors or refugees or captives made a decision to find a route off the Island, find a means of exploiting the Island’s powers, or find a way to eliminate competitors or those deemed a danger or a hindrance. These were the primary motivators, and for untold centuries, Jacob found not a single soul motivated by the desire to serve the Island’s needs.

We found ourselves stranded on the Island after the crash of Flight 815 on September 22, 2004. But with the advantage of an almost global view (relevant stories told from four dozen points of view over six years), we pieced together a certain feeling about the Island only short episodes after Locke made his earliest pronouncements on the Island’s import. Long before Locke told Jack the Island had to be protected, we felt the truth of this in our hearts. We had to go through the same disorientation as Jack and Locke. Our thought processes had to be adjusted. We had to come to the realisation that polar bears roamed the Island, illnesses were miraculously cured, the DI continued to make food drops decades after Hanso’s group had virtually ceased to exist as an entity, at least on the Island. None of it made any sense, and no answers were anywhere in sight. We never gave up seeking those answers, but over time we also came to appreciate Locke’s wisdom: The most important aspects of Island life would simply have to be accepted on faith.

Disorientation is integral to the process of preserving human civilisation. History is the ongoing story of our attempts to progress along a path toward more complete harmonisation with the fundamental expectations of civil society. Inevitably, some of our experiments are well-intentioned failures that only serve to pull us away from our goal. Some of the experiments turn out to be deceptions, fabrications intended to serve the selfish needs of a particular group, but serving instead to sever human connection to civility. More often than not, these groups are led by the Charles Widmores, Martin Keamys, and Stuart Radzinskys of this world. Through the pain of disorientation, we come to understand the folly of selfish greed, we come to see its false allure, the inevitable destruction it causes to culture, humanity, and the civility from which every good aspect of human life draws sustenance and meaning.

A Culture of Trust

LOST is about the elements of our humanity that precede and supersede life itself. Our common humanity has a value greater than life. LOST argues that there must be a fertile ground into which we place the fragile seeds of our human existence. This ground is rich in trust, empathy, compassion, respect, and the desire to serve the needs of others. This is our perfection.

Locke, though he was long dead, was essential to the endgame of LOST. Jack, lowering Desmond down to the Source, said, “Turns out [Locke] was right about most everything. I just wish I could’ve told him that while he was still alive.”

If he was so important to the end of the show, Locke must have evinced some quality distinguishing him above every other character. His impact on the endgame was not the result of his fondness for knives, the fact that he was confined to a wheelchair, his natural teaching ability, or any other of the accidentals associated with his existence. There was something about Locke that made him, and no one else, essential to Jack, and therefore essential to the Island.

Locke was connected to the Island. He knew when the rain would fall. He seemed to be able to track anything through the jungle, as if he knew the place, as if he didn’t even need his eyes to make a way through the forest. The Island healed him, restored his ability to walk, gave him boar to hunt, and provided him insight into the Island. Not because the Island felt sorry for him, or saw a “sucker”. No. The Island healed him because Locke, by his very nature, understood the Island. He had an intuitive grasp of the Island’s essence long before Flight 815 crashed near the water. Among other strong bits of evidence, his depiction of the Smoke Monster, committed to a charcoal drawing at the age of five, constituted overwhelming proof of his connection. All of this relates directly to the single aspect of character that is present in John Locke in greater abundance than in any other human being to have walked trail or shore.

The strength of character to which I refer is trust. John Locke trusted, almost without hesitation. If you are new to my LOST articles, you may argue that Locke’s trusting nature was not a virtue, it was gullibility, plain and simple. He was possibly the most gullible personality ever explored on network television. All of this is true. Nevertheless, LOST wishes us to believe that Locke’s trusting nature was essential to the outcome of the story. There was something good and pure and efficacious in Locke’s trusting nature.

LOST tells us that Trust is essential. It is the core cultural value on the Island. But there must be some basis for trust. Even if Locke’s ability to trust was a virtue, nevertheless the trust could be abused so that the person trusted could bend the situation to her advantage and even visit harm upon the one trusting.

At least superficially, the Island seemed to be the most unlikely location to establish a culture of trust. Everyone, it seems, lied. There were people on the Island who lied about things large and small, things trivial and essential, things of life and even things of death. Some people, like Benjamin Linus, seemed to have progressed through life and come into positions of authority entirely on the basis of a complicated structure of lies.

Ben was not alone in his reliance on falsehood. Sawyer also made a career out of deceit. The Smoke Monster lied about a great many things for a long time. Every major character in this six-year drama lied at one time or another, some much more than others. Even Hurley, great saint of honesty and truth, agreed to the Great Lie that Jack fashioned before they were rescued after the first three months on the Island. When he had a choice between telling the truth and remaining subject to Ben’s manipulations or telling a lie and ending up in prison for the remainder of his life, incarcerated for multiple murders, Hurley chose to lie.

If everyone lies–that is, if everyone attempts to deceive others and violate their trust–how could trust ever be possible, especially on the Island?

Basis for Trust

The following is a précis, with minor changes, drawn from one of my earlier LOST articles.

Jack has come to a fork in the road. Ahead are two paths, one guarded by Charlie Pace, the other guarded by Benjamin Linus. One path leads to Shambala, the other path leads to a dark valley where a ferocious monster kills every person who passes by. Jack doesn’t know which path leads to Shangri-La, but he knows the guards are familiar with both paths. After several years of gathering clues, he knows one of the two guards always tells the truth, and the other guard always lies, but he again doesn’t know which is the truth teller and which is the source of false statements. Even though he doesn’t know which guard to trust, Jack decides to ask Charlie the single question he is allowed to pose. What is the question Jack asks?

It’s an elementary school logic puzzle, but it gets to the heart of the question of trust as it played out on the Island. Jack doesn’t know whether he can trust Charlie or Ben, but he knows he can trust one of them. More importantly, he can trust the rules of the game.

He poses this question to Charlie: Which way would Ben say is the road to Shambala? Just as Jack can trust the dynamite above not to explode, he knows that in Charlie’s answer, regardless of whether he lies or tells honestly, Jack will find the truth.

In the same way, Jack relied on his firm grasp of the Rules of the Island to determine the best response to the presence of a bomb in his backpack. He didn’t have to trust the Smoke Monster. He had to trust the Island. Jack understood, not intuitively as John Locke did, but by brute force logic, that he had to trust the Island. It was this trust that allowed him to win the millennia-old backgammon game, making the last move that erased the Smoke Monster’s supernatural advantage, rendered him mortal, and finally ended his wretched existence.

Some of the survivors had neither intuitive nor brute-force understanding of the Island. Sawyer, unfortunately, was among the unenlightened, and it was his action that caused the bomb to explode. But it was not his fault. The nature of the game and the way it was played over the millennia by two very imperfect creatures incapable of love were the elements most worthy of blame.

Trust the Island, Locke said. Jack listened, and he discovered the correct Road to Shambala. The Island civilisation instituted by Jack and continued by Hurley and “Number Two” Ben Linus was based on trust. “I trust you, dude,” Hurley told Sayid in the sideways reality. It was the mantra of Season Six.

Love

The sixth season of LOST launched a continuing series of cultural virtues: Love, Trust, Faith, Honesty, Hope, and in Hurley’s episode (6.12), Charity. But by far, the greatest of these, the virtue to which lavish attention was given, was Love.

As best I can tell, only two individuals received invitations for unaccompanied passage to the “pre-moving-on” party in the sanctuary of the Church of the Holy Lamp Post at the end of the series: John Locke and Boone Carlyle. Everyone else, apparently, had to bring her significant other–her Constant–or she was not allowed entry. My conclusion was that a Constant was the prerequisite to passage onward to the next level (to “heaven”?). The fact that Locke was unaccompanied made sense; his Constant was the Island, and he was connected to it both bodily (his body was buried on Boone Hill, after all) and spiritually. Boone’s case was more difficult. The only valid hypothesis I could muster was a shared Constant: both Boone and Sayid must have considered Shannon their Constant.

The essentiality of the Constant to individuals and to the Island society struck me as a radical statement of the series. In the religious tradition I try to follow, significant others are not a pre-requisite to any aspect of communion with the Deity. If one does cultivate a reciprocal love, romantic or otherwise, this is considered all to the good, but it is certainly no requirement. Single people, married people, those in committed relationship, even hermits with no relationship, are welcome at the table of heaven according to the tradition in which I participate. I am married, and I would like to believe that this fact qualifies me, in my religious tradition, to certain perks. I cannot imagine, for instance, that marriage ends with the death of the human body. But marriage does end at death, at least according to the religious teachings in my faith tradition. In heaven there is no beer, and in heaven there is neither husband nor wife. I can’t say I appreciate or understand or agree with this long-held teaching, but nevertheless, it is integral to the theological positions of many religious traditions. There are no heavenly perks for married people. When you die, that gold band stays on the finger of your rotting corpse–you can’t take it with you.

It is from this faith background that I consider LOST’s position on love to be radical. But in examining the Season Six sideways statements concerning Faith, Honesty, Charity, Hope, and especially Trust, this radical and possibly unique statement regarding Love fits perfectly, and becomes the seamless expansion of an essential clause in LOST’s thesis statement.

The essential aspects of civilisation that must be safeguarded, even at risk of life and limb, are these:

Trust
Love
Faith
Honesty
Hope
Charity

There are no “isms” worthy of preservation in the world of LOST. The liberalism of Jacob (“It only ends once. Everything else is just progress”) gives way to the conservatism of Hurley (“That’s not cool, dude,” as Hurley often said; Hurley has rendered many decisions regarding what he considers inappropriate behaviour by others–behaviours that probably would have been accepted by the more liberal Jacob.), but neither is a virtue as far as I can tell on the Island of Mittelos. The Protector is apparently given virtual carte blanche regarding her leadership and government style. ” That’s how Jacob ran things,” Ben told Hurley. “Maybe there’s another way. A better way.” Ben recognised the wide latitude the Island gave the Protector.

The unifying characteristic of these aspects of civilisation is their expectation or requirement for human collaboration and broad participation. A life grounded in faith is preferred over existence based on science. There are many reasons for this, but surely one of the major reasons for favouring faith must be centred on the horizontal nature of faith (all share equally in the Light; multiple approaches are invited–”You do what you do best, Hugo”), compared to the rigid, sceptical, show-me-the-proof, hierarchical nature of logic-based science.

Destructive Cultures

One might well imagine Island civilisation whole-heartedly embracing broadly-accepted human cultural ideals, such as La Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen of the French Revolution, or the more modern version, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as promulgated by the United Nations in 1948.

LOST appears to condemn certain features of historic cultures. The Dharma Initiative is seen as not only flawed, but almost laughably so. Science in general is considered inadequate to complete understanding of civilisation and culture. Any human activity destructive of collaboration or the essential tenets (faith, love, trust, etc.) would certainly be condemned. Selfishness of any kind, antithetical as it is to healthy civilisations, would be considered the worst of the offences against humanity, an attitude shared with many matricentrist and aboriginal civilisations. In some aboriginal cultures, extreme selfishness was a capital offence. The most selfish players in the series (Charles Widmore, Stuart Radzinsky, and Martin Keamy) were not given invitations to the big fête at Our Lady of the Foucault Pendulum, and Keamy died, even in the sideways reality. Poof! He ceased to exist. In heaven there is no beer, and in heaven there is no Martin Keamy. I would guess, in the theology of LOST, anyone pursuing selfish agendas damaging to the human condition might expect the same final outcome as the one dealt to Keamy.

A Cultural Thesis for LOST

Two players. Two sides. One light. One dark.

The world’s longest running game of backgammon was a life-or-death struggle for control of the Island, for control of the destiny of humankind.

The unceasing perpetuation of civilisation is the source and final goal of all culture, all humanity, all divinity. Human life bears sacred responsibility to disorient from and disavow destructive cultures, aligning always with trust, faith, and love, even at risk of death, to preserve the foundation of our humanity, which is human civilisation.

Ex Fragilitate Fortis: The Culture and Faith of John Locke by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:28:48 +0000

“Psyche profiles said you would be amenable for coercion.”

Deputy Sheriff Eddie Colburn was matter-of-fact in his delivery, and his words were in accord with everything we understood of the man. He trusted Anthony Cooper and lost a kidney, then his self-respect, and finally his ability to walk. He trusted Benjamin Linus, and received in payment for his good faith a brutal strangulation by electric power cable. “Amenable to coercion” was a polite way of stating the obvious: John Locke was gullible.

He cried tears of frustration and disappointment, shouted and railed against Jack, against Ben, against the Island. He had faith and courage, but at critical moments doubt and fear overwhelmed him. When the world was against him, he planned and nearly executed his own demise. He gave up.

Weakness.

In the ordinary world, John Locke was a nobody. Not a single person, other than his most vociferous enemy, grieved his passing. He was a noisy, ignorant, gullible fool. But that was the reality of the ordinary world, the fragmented, incomplete reality of a world consumed with buying and selling, wealth and power, human creations over divine beings.

The attributes we consider weaknesses were John Locke’s strengths. The world’s measure of John Locke was flawed, warped, inhuman and insane. The Island’s measure of the man was true: Gullibility meant trust; tears meant unwillingness to accept setbacks. And his greatest failure, his inability to convince even one of the Six to return, proved instead to be his greatest strength.

LOST was about our humanity, and the story’s natural narrator was its strongest and most faithful voice: Prince of the Island, Man of Faith, John Locke.

Things Known and Possessed

Richard Alpert had a deeper understanding of the Island than any single person before him, perhaps including even his boss, Jacob. The Island’s leadership saw Richard as the person most suited for recruiting tasks: locating and coercing Juliet Burke, and three times over a period of eighteen years gathering intelligence on a most remarkable boy: John Locke of Tustin, California.

Richard placed six items in front of five-year-old Locke. “Which of these things belong to you already?” Richard asked. Locke claimed the bottle of sand, the compass, and the knife. Richard didn’t like the choices. He gathered the items into his bag, stood up suddenly, and left with few words.

Eleven years later, Richard attempted to entice Locke to a summer science camp. The teenage Locke’s response was inevitable: “I’m not a scientist.” Richard was again disappointed in the young man he thought might one day become their leader. Six years later, in 1977, Richard confided his doubts to Jack.

RICHARD: … John Locke… never seemed particularly special to me.
JACK: You said you had a question.
RICHARD: You know him? Locke?
JACK: [chuckles] Yeah. Yeah, I know him. And if I were you, I wouldn’t give up on him.

Richard took Jack’s words to heart. Seeing John Locke again on the Island in late 2004, the ageless one confided to Locke his doubts about Ben Linus’ leadership, while at the same time giving his future leader a nudge toward realising his destiny.

RICHARD: … when word got back here that there was a man with a broken spine on the plane who could suddenly walk again, well, people here began to get very excited because that, that could only happen to someone who was extremely special. But Ben doesn’t want anyone to think you’re special, John.
LOCKE: And why are you telling me this?
RICHARD: Ben has been wasting our time with novelties, like fertility problems. We’re looking for someone to remind us that we’re here for more important reasons.
LOCKE: What do you want from me?
RICHARD: I want for you to find your purpose.

Richard had the first glimmers of an understanding that science “novelties” had nothing to do with the Island’s purpose, and work along those lines was pointless. Good soldier that he was, he nevertheless spent long months preparing for Juliet Burke’s recruitment, creating out of nothing the shell company “Mittelos Bioscience” for that very purpose, and learning the languages of microbiology and biochemistry so his pitch would appear authentic.

He had his doubts. He finally accepted Locke as leader, but never embraced his leadership. Had the Island ever delivered a leader worthy of the title? Charles Widmore and Benjamin Linus were dire enemies, but cut from the same self-centred cloth, neither of them truly suited for leadership. Locke didn’t seem to be any more capable than the two miscreants before him who had accepted (or stolen?) the mantle of Leader.

We cannot blame Richard for his lack of vision. No man of faith, Richard seemed to accept whole, without thought, Jacob’s warped view of the Island (for a broader discussion of this issue, please see http://www.sl-lost.com/2010/03/27/siempre-juntos-part-ii-cultural-inversions-in-lost-609-by-pearson-moore/). This blind acceptance is not faith, for faith is never truly blind, but always grounded in critical judgment. Richard did not exercise judgment, and he was therefore perfect in the role of consigliere. With such an intellectual disposition Richard could never be leader, but his lack of vision also meant he was not adequate judge of the qualities that might be presented by a true leader.

Disorientation

The compass young John Locke picked up from among Richard’s objects is usually a symbol of orientation, of finding one’s way. As with many common cultural artifacts, however, the significance of this symbol was shaken, inverted, and twisted into something entirely new for the purposes of our more complete understanding of LOST.

The history of the compass began in 1954, when Locke gave the compass to Richard as proof that he was from the future. Seven years later, Richard showed the compass to five-year-old Locke. Richard carried the compass until 2007, when he presented it to Locke, who conveyed it back to 1954 so it could be handed off to Richard. Thus, the compass became the visible symbol of disorientation, of an endless time loop between 1954 and 2007. Further magnifying the disorientation around this new symbol of etiological disorder, as Lostpedia notes, “It is also something of a self-contained paradox, since the compass was never created.”

Plotting a meaningful timeline for LOST is virtually impossible. As Rose said, “God only know when the hell we are now.” Time paradoxes, inversions of cause and effect, and inversions of chronology were only the most obvious of LOST’s assault on social, cultural, and storytelling convention. From the very beginning, LOST attacked our pre-conditioned views of reality. The person we assumed the natural leader, Jack, instead proved to be reckless, destructive, and self-absorbed. Peaches-and-cream Kate turned out to be a thief, a liar, and a murderer. And Locke, the dangerous, possibly unhinged man with a suitcase full of knives, turned out to be the person most committed to the survivors’ safety and the continuity of life on the Island.

Locke’s name was in itself a part of the disorientation effort. John Locke of the Island was named after the eighteenth-century English philosopher John Locke. Locke, the philosopher, is best known as the major enlightenment proponent of empirical science as the pinnacle of human understanding. LOST’s position, as articulated through the foundational speeches of the Ka-bar-wielding Prince of the Island, was that empirical science is the most baseless source of human knowledge, far surpassed by faith, which imparts true wisdom.

Faith Versus Science

Faith, properly executed, is collaborative, and must serve collaborative ends. Science may be carried out by a single investigator or in collaborative teams, but it almost always serves the ends of those in power, those who would place their selfish interests above the basic needs of others, those who would gain control of the world and the people who inhabit it (for a more complete examination of this idea, please see “What the Island Is Not” and following sections in “Magnificence: The Cultural Mythology of Lost” here: http://www.sl-lost.com/2010/02/07/magnificence-the-cultural-mythology-of-lost-101-to-618/, and also “The Limits of Logic” and “Deception” here: http://www.sl-lost.com/2010/02/14/impartial-risk-cultural-musings-on-the-resurrection-of-john-locke/).

Most of the world’s practicing scientists, myself included, work long hours to advance the agendas of corporate entities driven not by compassion, but by greed and thirst for power. Even those who believe themselves exploring science as an end in itself, or as a means of human advancement, or as a tool of the Common Good, are the unwitting participants in the warped agendas of those in power. My colleagues and I regularly speak of exploiting an idea or phenomenon, or working around patents. Dr. Pierre Chang may have been a concerned and loving father, he may have believed he was pursuing science for the good of humankind. But he was a corporate tool, a means to the Dharma Initiative’s final goal of controlling energy, time, and all of humanity.

Science is devoid of context and compassion. It is passionless, and is all too easily corrupted. In fact, as I pointed out in “Impartial Risk”, science and logic are more naturally the tools of deception and perversion than they are the “impartial” tools of altruism and empathy. Humanity, at its core, is not based on science. Humanity is based on trust, on faith, on collaboration and compassion. As I noted in “Risk: A Cultural Thesis for Lost”, “LOST tells us if we do not form bonds like those of Jack and Sayid, if we do not respect, if we do not have compassion, we will likely end up in Widmore’s camp, wearing the black uniform of Stuart Radzinsky, ready at a moment’s notice to enforce our desires over the needs, even over the lives of others.”

Things Believed and Shared

If one is to pursue of life in science, one must, with Father Roger Bacon (see last week’s essay, “Apologia Pro Vita Fidei”), assert that things believed through faith are more relevant and enduring than things known through science. Richard’s compass is relevant and endures–even outside the constraints of time and place and chronology–because it is the symbol of Richard’s faith in Locke, and Locke’s faith in Richard, because it is something without beginning or end, because it is something shared. One must assert, even on pain of death, the absolute value of Roger Bacon’s embrace of poverty, for it is through Franciscan poverty that true sharing, true compassion, true participation in the fullness of our humanity, becomes possible.

Such were the teachings of John Locke, even as a kindergartener. Richard asked the wrong question. He asked, “Which of these things belong to you already?” He ought have asked instead, “Which of these items do you and I share, and which do you share with the Island?” Locke, in his three choices, answered the question Richard should have known to ask. The sand–for it was from the Island Locke loved and therefore shared; the compass–for it was from Richard from Locke from Richard and therefore shared; and the knife, for it was through the Ka-bar and the Master Bowie that Locke hunted, protected the Candidates, and enforced Island law, and therefore shared. None of the items “belonged” to Locke, any more than they belonged to Mr. Friendly or Dr. Halliwax. The three items were not objects of knowledge, but articles of faith. They were not possessions–not the accoutrements of acquisition–but rather symbols of shared ideals and actions.

Richard should have known. The five-year-old Locke’s drawing of a man attacked by the Smoke Monster should have been sufficient evidence of direct connection with the Island. Locke’s demeanour and the way he spoke of the Island should have signaled his true standing as Leader. But we can forgive Richard. He wasn’t on the beach with the survivors of Flight 815. He didn’t get to hear the speeches that planted the seeds of Jack’s and Hurley’s ascension to leadership–the speeches of the Island’s best and truest teacher and prophet.

Teacher and Prophet

The words of John Locke resonated through LOST like those of no other character. There is no better proof of this than the most heavily quoted fan-made Season Six trailers. The creative directors at SL-Lost knew Locke was dead, but they believed his words most faithfully conveyed the full message of LOST, and they used them as narrative backdrop to a most amazing soundtrack and beautifully sequenced series of images:

Even at the end of the season, when it was clear to everyone (but not at all clear, for some reason, to Pearson Moore) that Locke would not return, at least not in physical form, TheBlackBox created this masterpiece of sound and imagery, choosing to make Locke Rising the final image of the trailer:

The interested LOST aficionado can revisit any of the excellent, earlier fan-made LOST trailers and again find Locke’s voice giving substance to our Island dreams. This one was created by SL-Lost in the months before Season Five, and remains my favourite fan-made trailer:

But this one, also for Season Five from SL-Lost, is excellent, too:

The most famous speech is probably his first one, in the Pilot episode.

LOCKE: Backgammon is the oldest game in the world. Archeologists found sets when they excavated the ruins of ancient Mesopotamia. Five thousand years old. That’s older than Jesus Christ.
WALT: Did they have dice and stuff?
LOCKE: [nods] Mhhm. But theirs weren’t made of plastic. Their dice were made of bones. WALT: Cool.
LOCKE: Two players. Two sides. One is light … one is dark.

Locke was privy to the essentials of the Island’s 2000-year power struggle–even to the details of the board game that was the allegory of their life-and-death battle over the millennia.

Not long after that, in Episode Five, “White Rabbit”, Locke gave perhaps the central defining speech of the entire series:

I’m an ordinary man, Jack, meat and potatoes, I live in the real world. I’m not a big believer in magic. But this place is different. It’s special. The others don’t want to talk about it because it scares them. But we all know it. We all feel it…. what if everything that happened here, happened for a reason?

He goes on to say “I’ve looked into the eye of this island, and what I saw… was beautiful.” We did not learn until Season Three, in “The Cost of Living”, that Locke “saw a very bright light. It was beautiful.” This was the revelation that occurred when Locke first confronted the Smoke Monster, and may be why he tried, over Jack and Kate’s objections, to be carried away by Smokey. Even in this instance, Locke’s intuition was entirely correct, for as we now know, the Smoke Monster was prohibited from directly harming any of Jacob’s Candidates. Locke, while he still lived, was Candidate #4, the first of Jacob’s Candidates at the time of the crash. It is tempting now to believe that Locke was the first to be given a glimpse of the Light emanating from the Source. In fact, such a vision of the Centre of the Island may be the only means of explaining Locke’s experience.

The second important speech was delivered at the end of Season One, during “Exodus”:

LOCKE: … Jack… you’re a man of science.
JACK: Yeah, and what does that make you?
LOCKE: Me, well, I’m a man of faith. Do you really think all this is an accident — that we, a group of strangers survived, many of us with just superficial injuries? Do you think we crashed on this place by coincidence — especially this place? We were brought here for a purpose, for a reason, all of us. Each one of us was brought here for a reason.
JACK: Brought here? And who brought us here, John?
LOCKE: The Island. The Island brought us here. This is no ordinary place, you’ve seen that, I know you have. But the Island chose you, too, Jack. It’s destiny.

Locke gave important instructions to Jack at the end of Season Four, minutes before he left on the helicopter that would take him off the Island and eventually to rescue by Penny’s team:

LOCKE: You’re gonna have to lie.
JACK: Excuse me?
LOCKE: If you have to go, then you have to lie about everything…everything that happened since we got to the island. It’s the only way to protect it.
JACK: (Sighs) It’s an island, John. No one needs to “protect” it.
LOCKE: It’s not an island. It’s a place where miracles happen. And–and–if you–if you don’t believe that, Jack, if you can’t believe that, just wait till you see what I’m about to do.
JACK: There’s no such thing as miracles.
LOCKE: Well…we’ll just have to see which one of us is right.

Even then, at the end of Season Four, Jack should have been able to distill from Locke’s words the powerful wisdom of protecting the Island. He had witnessed first-hand the attempt by Widmore’s goons to take control of the Island and to kill everyone there. He must have been able to surmise that Widmore’s intentions were anything but altruistic, and that he intended to subsume to his desires and quest for power the full force of the Island’s unearthly abilities. But Jack was nearing the bottom of his journey to spiritual freedom, and not nearly in a position to take to heart any pearls of wisdom from Locke. Was the disappearance of the Island enough of a shock to logic-bound Jack? Whatever the reason, Jack did follow Locke’s instructions, informing the Six that they would have to lie. Not yet a true believer, though, Jack replaced Locke’s reasoning with his own rationale: they would have to lie, not to protect the Island, but to protect those who remained on the Island.

Doubts, Fears, Frustrations

Locke was consumed by the need to uncover the full meaning of the Island, to discover his true destiny in this place of miracles. He communed with the Island as no one ever had. No one–not Ben, not Richard, not even Jacob himself–was connected to the Island with the same titanic spiritual and emotional forces connecting Locke to this place. The forces connected him to a raw power, to that “beautiful, bright light” that we now know was the Source. But the Source was the origin of all life, all death, all rebirth. It was unimaginable and untamed power, of the variety that cannot be harnessed or tapped for any purpose.

Until Desmond and Jack’s descent to the Light, Locke was the person in closest spiritual proximity to the awful forces of the Heart of the Island. He enjoyed the full force of insight and intuition emanating from the Source, but he also suffered the full force of its awful and uncontrollable power.

He cried. He cried often. It was not unusual for Charlie or Jack or Boone to run into Locke in the jungle, crying bitterly into his arm or into the branch of a tree. These were not the tears of some petty disappointment. They were the tears of a man pulled to the painful raw edges of emotional existence, the laments of a man feeling not his own pain, but the pain of thousands, the pain of the Island itself.

His faith was deep, and therefore his doubts nearly consumed him. The importance of doubt in a life of faith may not make sense to the lukewarm, to those who have not experienced the highs and lows of the spiritual journey. The Dark Night of the Soul is a horrible, angst-ridden but entirely necessary component of the spiritual life, integral to any honest attempt to commune with the Creator. Mother Teresa, soon to be Saint Teresa of Calcutta, was brutally honest in letters to her spiritual advisor, Fr. Michael Van Der Peet. Daily, day after day, weeks and months turning into years and then into long, unrelieved decades of spiritual pain, Mother Teresa confided to Fr. Van Der Peet and to her journal that she doubted. She doubted that Jesus listened and heard, doubted He was with her, doubted even the very existence of God. David Van Biema of Time magazine wrote an excellent article on the subject (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415,00.html), and I encourage everyone to read this most enlightening essay.

Locke’s tears were not the tears of weakness, but the tears of one whose great strength was nevertheless no match for the awesome and terrible forces of creation, the forces of life and death and rebirth that made the Island the very centre of the earth.

But Locke’s pain always received a response of hope from the Island. Sawyer and Locke, time traveling in Season Five, saw the brilliant column of white light pierce the darkness. They both understood what it was. It was the night Boone died. The night Aaron was born. The night of Locke’s deepest pain.

SAWYER: That light in the sky – it was from the Hatch, wasn’t it?
LOCKE: The night that Boone died … I went out there and started pounding on it as hard as I could. I was … confused … scared. Babbling like an idiot, asking, why was all this happening to me?
SAWYER: Did you get an answer?
LOCKE: Light came on, shot up into the sky. At the time, I thought it meant something. SAWYER: Did it?
LOCKE: No. It was just a light.
SAWYER: So why’d you turn us around then? Don’t you wanna go back there?
LOCKE: Why would I wanna do that?
SAWYER: So you could tell yourself to do things different, save yourself a world of pain. LOCKE: No, I needed that pain – to get to where I am now.

Locke recognised the necessity of that Dark Night to his journey. The path to enlightenment is not easy. We do not seek enlightenment because it is fun. We seek it because it is difficult, because those things in life that are attained only through danger, adversity, and sacrifice, are the things of greatest value to our truest selves.

Even when Locke had reached the very end of his emotional capacities and in hopeless resignation sought his own death, the Island sent an angel to save him. The suicide would not have worked, anyway. Would Locke have become even more deeply depressed at his inability to take his own life? Would he have recognised the futility of it all, and devoted himself instead to the Island’s well-being? We cannot know the answer, since the angel who believed himself to be preventing Locke’s suicide (the suicide would never have succeeded, since Locke was still a Candidate), only minutes after talking Locke down wrapped a power cord around his neck and choked the life out of him.

O Happy Fault

Locke’s was the sacrifice truly demanded by the Island. He was the spirit closest to the Island. In many religious traditions, foremost among them Christianity, those closest to the Creator are the ones required to make the greatest sacrifice. Jesus died a criminal’s death. All of His apostles were executed by the most painful means available at the time. Locke was attached to the Island unlike anyone else in history. He would suffer the most emotionally and spiritually gut-wrenching journey of any of the Island’s servants.

Locke was the sacrifice demanded by the Island. His death was the final push that Jack required, finally ending the good doctor’s drug-induced stupor and self-pity and redirecting him toward the final great service to the Island.

In the end, Locke’s doubts, fears, and frustrations, as much as his wisdom, strength, and intuition, proved to be the necessary elements in the redemption of Katherine Anne Austen, the salvation of Dr. Jack Shephard, and the preservation of Locke’s Constant, the Island.

Canton-Rainier

In Season Five Jack Shephard was portrayed as the Doubting Thomas, the disciple who required proof before he would believe the resurrection. But resurrection was not the event we were asked to dwell on. In Season Four and Season Five, a van labeled “Canton-Rainier Carpet Cleaning” became the focus of our attention. Even before any of the episodes had aired, enterprising internet analysts found the surreptitiously obtained photographs of the van and tore apart the name. Within hours we knew what “Canton-Rainier” meant: It was an anagram for “Reincarnation”. I expected resurrection, but the plan was much grander than anything I could imagine prior to the last episodes of Season Six. Reincarnation means returning in a different physical form but containing the same essential spiritual substance. Resurrection means spiritual continuity into a fully reanimated formerly dead body. How could I have known that LOST would attempt a fusion of the two forms of rebirth?

SMOKEY: This remind you of anything, Jack?
JACK: What?
SMOKEY: Desmond…going down into a hole in the ground. If there was a button down there to push, we could fight about whether or not to push it. It’d be just like old times.
JACK: You’re not John Locke. You disrespect his memory by wearing his face, but you’re nothing like him. Turns out he was right about most everything. I just wish I could’ve told him that while he was still alive.

With these words Jack paid tribute to the man who, with his own blood, had paved the way for Jack’s redemptive salvation of the Island. But Jack’s words were a sign of something much more significant taking place.

By the end of LOST, Jack’s thoughts were one with those of his master, John Locke. The prophesy of Canton-Rainier came into full reality with the breathtaking illumination of Jack Shephard. Jack, falling to the very nadir of his spiritual journey at precisely the moment of Locke’s murder, became the happy recipient of all of Locke’s teachings, all his prophesies, all his intuitions. Just as Boone died at precisely the moment of Aaron’s entry into the world, so too Locke’s death ushered into the world a new Jack Shephard.

John Locke died, but he was reincarnated into the soul of his former nemesis, now his closest disciple. The dead soul of Jack Shephard was reanimated, resurrected by the spiritual force of will of the Island’s most beloved son.

Regardless of the way in which we choose to contemplate The End, there is one truth upon which all of us I think might find common ground. Locke’s spirit did not die at the conclusion of “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”. Locke’s spirit guided Jack to the Source, just as Locke guided all of us, along every one of the 121 steps to The End. “You were special, John,” Ben told the man he had murdered. Long after all of them had died, Locke continued to affect Jack, Hurley, and Ben–everyone whose lives had been touched by this trusting soul, this man of faith. Locke is the soul of LOST, and just as his spirit will never die, the Island will forever remain a place to contemplate, wonder at, a place of highest joys and deepest sorrows, where human weakness and doubt become unopposable strength and unwavering faith. A place of things believed, things shared, things of our common culture and deepest humanity.

Apologia Pro Vita Fidei: The Cultural and Spiritual Journey of Jack Shephard in LOST by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:54:37 +0000

It was preposterous.

Push the “execute” button every 108 minutes. Why? Because Marvin Candle commands you to do so. That is, accept on faith the instructions of a man in a white lab coat–a man of science–to perform a nonsensical task on obsolete equipment in an ancient facility built by a long-dead organisation.

The orientation film’s use of scientific imagery to perpetuate the charade was an assault on the very foundations of reason, logic, and science, an absurdity not worth any thinking person’s indulgence, least of all that of expert spinal surgeon Jack Shephard, M.D.

Jack left the Swan Station after viewing the orientation film with Locke and arguing with him over the significance of the film. But something drove him back to the station. Was it the fact that John had saved his life a few weeks before? Or was something else in play?

LOCKE: You have to [push the button].
….
JACK: No. It’s not real. Look, you want to push the button, you do it yourself.
LOCKE: If it’s not real, then what are you doing here, Jack? Why did you come back? Why do you find it so hard to believe?
JACK: Why do you find it so easy?
LOCKE: It’s never been easy! …. It’s a leap of faith, Jack.

Jack Shephard, without a word, reached out his right index finger and depressed the execute button. He had taken the first step on an arduous, lonely, soul-shaking journey. In just over three years, Jack Shephard, man of science, would be transformed into Locke’s disciple, the Island’s supreme shaman, committed man of faith.

Disorientation

“Jack is here because he has to do something. He can’t be told what that is. He’s got to find it himself.”

Jacob’s words in “Lighthouse” were in full force on the afternoon of September 22, 2004, when Jack experienced the most bewildering set of conditions he had ever been forced to confront.

It took Jack only a few seconds to figure out what might have required several minutes of anyone else. But Jack had been trained in logical thinking all his life, and his nimble mind quickly strung the facts together into sequences of empirical findings that could lead to only one rational syllogism: the wreckage on the beach, the people screaming and moaning and limping, those unconscious but still alive, and those who would never again draw breath were all the aftermath of a tragedy in the air. The plane had crashed.

Jack sprang into action, calling upon every skill he had learned in medical school and in the school of hard knocks going back to the grade-school punch in the face and his father’s contempt for Jack’s abilities. He brought a pregnant woman to safety, freed a man pinned under wreckage, resuscitated a woman with neither pulse nor breath, saved several people from the concussive effects of explosion, gave instructions to others trying to help, organised the relief effort, and became the de facto leader of the forty-eight who survived.

None of it seemed to matter. Not the several lives he saved, not his leadership speech six days later, not his ability to triage actions into tasks immediate, tasks for later, and tasks not actionable. Save those close to death, treat minor wounds as time allows, and say a prayer and wrap a red tag around the toes of people whose injuries are beyond the limits of a septic and deadly environment. Federal Agent Edward Mars should have received a red tag. Anyone else would have given him morphine and a prayer. Or Sawyer’s remedy. But euthanasia was not in Jack’s medical playbook, and allowing anyone to die was not in Jack’s personal playbook. He had to save everyone. He had to fix everyone, even if he caused them pain. He had to prove his father wrong, and the reproducible exactitudes of science and medicine provided the path toward the spiritual and professional redemption that his father had taken from him.

“You don’t have what it takes, Jack.” Christian’s words to Jack were a gauntlet thrown to the ground, a summons to determined and sustained action to prove valour and substance. The island, this ordinary, tropical oasis in the sea, was to be Jack’s operating suite, the place where he would demonstrate forever that he did have what it takes.

It was not until that evening that Jack and those who now looked to him as leader and medical saviour would realise that the crash was the least of their present concerns, and that this island was not ordinary, perhaps not even tropical, and it was definitely not an oasis. Some being or force or entity was able to fling a one-hundred kilogram man several hundred metres and spew tonnes of dirt and trees into the air in a split second. Polar bears roamed the Island, seeking human flesh for their next meal. Mysterious music and scratchy voices came from places–or times–distant. A recording in French was being broadcast every thirty seconds–for the last sixteen years.

These were phenomena beyond Jack’s abilities, and therefore beyond the scope of science. Nothing in experience or training or intellect of even the most gifted scientist or accomplished physician could bring coherence to the events and conditions manifest on the Island. Charlie framed the problem:

“Guys, where are we?”

The Island was unlike any other place on earth. Science was not only useless here. It was invalid. It did not contain the assumptions, tools, or processes required to deal with any of the Island’s questions.

The crash was the first step, the grand cataclysm that would reach into Jack’s soul, violently loose him from the solid foundations of reason that had grounded him, oriented him, provided him with objective bases for decision and deed. It was the first punch to the gut. There would be many more, a flurry of punches over three years, not only painful, but deadly. The Island was not gentle with Jack.

Foundations

His name is Roger Bacon. Nowadays he would be addressed as “professor” or “doctor”, but he conducted his experiments and gave his lectures in the early years of the University of Paris and Oxford University, starting in 1237 and ending in 1294. His title at Oxford was Master, though after his death he was known worldwide as Doctor Mirabilis (“wonderful professor”).

Bacon was the first in a long line of philosophers who adhered to the intellectual rigours of empirical science. His latter-day disciples include the British philosophers John Locke and David Hume. Bacon is most often credited with the first full development of what we now understand to be the scientific method. His decree at Oxford: Accept nothing on faith. Believe only what eyes see and ears hear. For Bacon, the only legitimate route to scientific understanding was the difficult, time-consuming road of empiricism. Before Bacon, the world’s most authoritative “scientist” was the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle.

Aristotle, if he had witnessed Bacon’s slow, determined, precise placement of mirrors, lenses, and torches in his optics laboratory, would have scoffed at the medieval professor’s slavish devotion to unnecessary experiments. Observation of natural phenomena (not laboratory creations) and armchair philosophising was all that was required to reveal the secrets of nature, even phenomena as apparently complex as the behaviour of light as it passes through lenses and bounces off mirrors. Raw syllogism and understanding of Causes was sufficient to any scientific endeavour. Bacon would have listened (he understood the Greek language, after all), but patience wearing thin, he’d probably have responded in Latin or French, chuckling to himself over the ancient philosopher’s inability to understand.

Among the several areas in which Bacon faulted Aristotle for lack of rigour was the notion of Final Cause. The Final Cause was an entity’s purpose. The Final Cause of a pencil is writing. One need not have any experience to assign a Final Cause. The question of a pencil’s purpose, a pencil’s destiny, was not a question Bacon could address in the laboratory. He could load a sharpened pencil into a crossbow and with it pierce a man’s chest. Did this mean the pencil’s “Final Cause” was instrument of death? The question of purpose or destiny is not a question admissible to empirical science, and to pose it in the laboratory is to misunderstand the entire methodology and intent (purpose!) of experimental science.

Science Without Purpose

I provide below a précis drawn from earlier essays regarding science as it relates to LOST. For those who wish to view the original passages in their entirety, please consult the appropriate headings at these addresses:

http://www.sl-lost.com/2010/06/01/humanitas-insulae-the-culture-of-lost-by-pearson-moore/
http://www.sl-lost.com/2010/02/14/impartial-risk-cultural-musings-on-the-resurrection-of-john-locke/

Science is confined by logic. If I expand the limits of research to any inquiry that might be included within the scope of logic, science, and mathematics, I must necessarily accept that certain limits nevertheless exist. Most importantly, I may not ever claim to investigate or to have discovered any facet of reality. The best I might hope to accomplish, even after a lifetime in the laboratory, is to establish the adherence of certain observed phenomena to models of reality that I create through inference, induction, and deduction. These models are most often referred to as theories, but they can never explain the real world. We rely on assumptions that negate any possible connection with reality.

One of the most important assumptions underlying science is Ockham’s Razor (http://www.galilean-library.org/manuscript.php?postid=43832). In plain language, Ockham’s Razor insists the scientist must accept the simplest solution to a problem as being the correct solution. If I can imagine a chemical reaction as being the result of the collision of five molecule, but I can equally imagine that the reaction is the result of the collision of just two molecules, and if every observation I have made supports either of the fruits of my imagination, I must accept as valid and correct the imagined event that includes just two molecules. The reality may be that only one molecule is required, or seven molecules are required, or the event occurs only when there are sunspots on our solar system’s star, but I can never know this. Even if the model I develop happens to support a theory that is close to reality, I may not ever claim to have elucidated even the slightest aspect of reality. I am allowed to conclude only that certain behaviours seem reproducible and that they also seem to adhere to a model consistent with Ockham’s Razor and the other underlying assumptions of the scientific method.

Science and logic are imperfect subsets of reality. If we rely on logic as revelation of reality we will discern only an incomplete, warped world far from true reality.

Science makes sensory observations, catalogues these data, uses the rules of mathematics and logic to create connections among the observations, and builds empirical findings into models of reality that we call hypotheses and theories. A scientist truly comfortable in her laboratory will never claim she is revealing reality, only a poor model for certain physical behaviours that seem to follow a reproducible pattern. There is no truth in science. Science is not a tool for illuminating the fulness of reality.

I pick up a pen with the five fingers of my right hand. Science notes this fact, records the observations associated with the act. And that is all science can do. Science cannot tell us my motivation for picking up the pen, cannot predict what I will do with it, how I will do it, what the future outcomes will be, or how the ramifications of the simple act will ripple through the greater world, how the act will affect others.

Science cannot place even the simplest act within the continuum of reality. Complex interactions are so far outside the realm of pure science that they virtually defy adequate description. In fact, no interaction can be fully characterised. Science and logic must be forever partial, incomplete statements of certain events, and they can never claim to explain a basis in reality.

Scroll up to the photograph of Roger Bacon and take a few moments to scrutinise the image. Look at the clothing he is wearing and his haircut.

Life With Purpose

Imagine now you are approaching Master Bacon on a cold winter day on the busy Oxford campus. You see his brown robe–the Franciscan habit–and his strange haircut, called a tonsure. The good friar is on his way from the lecture hall to mass at the basilica, where he is to be the celebrant. He carries two books in his arms: his Opus majus V (collected works in optics), and the Bible.

Perhaps you are Aristotelian in your outlook, but whatever your philosophy of life, you carry an ornate and very sharp pugio (Roman dagger) and when you draw close you raise it to his neck, ready to end his life.

“Renounce your belief in optics,” you say, “or prepare to die.”

Bacon laughs, hands over the book he laboured over for many years, and says, “Fine. I renounce my belief in optics.”

Probably you are emboldened by this unexpected and easy success, for the next words out of your mouth are these: “Renounce your belief in your Deity, or prepare to die.”

The response is immediate and unexpected.

“I cannot but renounce the way in which I practice my faith, for I am a weak and unworthy servant of my Master. But the One I worship as Creator I embrace as Redeemer, never to be renounced, always to be served and adored. I hope your dagger is sharp, for your path to this Bible lies over my dead body.”

Roger Bacon was a practitioner of pure empirical science. He was also a priest, a friar in the Franciscan tradition. There was for him no conflict between faith and science. But if push came to shove, Bacon would sacrifice science in an instant. He would never sacrifice his faith.

Becoming Roger Bacon

One man became a persistent thorn in Jack’s side. Like his father, this man was essentially telling Jack that he was not up to the tasks before him. Everything he had based his life on, according to this man, was fundamentally flawed, insufficient to the daily struggles of life in this hostile place, invalid to the enormous problems of the Island.

LOCKE: You and I don’t see eye-to-eye sometimes, Jack… you’re a man of science.
JACK: Yeah, and what does that make you?
LOCKE: Me, well, I’m a man of faith. Do you really think all this is an accident — that we, a group of strangers survived, many of us with just superficial injuries? Do you think we crashed on this place by coincidence — especially, this place? We were brought here for a purpose, for a reason, all of us. Each one of us was brought here for a reason.
JACK: Brought here? And who brought us here, John?
LOCKE: The Island. The Island brought us here. This is no ordinary place, you’ve seen that, I know you have. But the Island chose you, too, Jack. It’s destiny.

This video, narrated in John Locke’s own voice, is arguably the best fan-produced Lost trailer (though my favourite remains this one, also produced by SL-Lost: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swHST-s0s3E), and one of the reasons I decided to submit essays at SL-Lost. The video I think captures something of the essence of LOST; I find it difficult to view it now without becoming a bit misty-eyed.

Locke was primary proponent of the nonsense Jack had heard on the Swan Station orientation film. By the time Locke and Jack viewed the film they were firm adversaries. I am not certain about Jack’s rationale for resolving the conflict depicted in the image above. As I speculated in the introduction to this essay, he may have pushed the “execute” key out of some feeling that he “owed” Locke something for saving his life. Or perhaps he realised pushing the button was the quickest way to end a pointless argument that had already consumed precious time of far too many people.

Most likely, Jack had no rationale. No syllogism led to the conclusion that he had to press the button. Rather, I believe he had the first glimmers of a “Final Cause”. He could not yet discern a purpose for pushing the button, but he was willing to admit of the possibility of a destiny not distilled from logic. He had already tasted failure, in the death of Boone on his makeshift operating table. That same night he found his advanced training of no use, and minimum medical knowledge not indispensible to the survival of his flock; Kate, with no medical training, delivered a very healthy Aaron Littleton into the world. I think that first bit of doubt regarding the universal applicability of science was what allowed him to follow another man’s instinct. Locke referred to any decision to push the button as “a leap of faith”. Compared to the enormous leaps that would be required of Jack in the next thirty-eight months, depressing the execute key was a small step. But it was the first movement, a significant step, toward a life of purpose.

Jack’s Reality

Jack enjoyed a reciprocal love relationship with Sarah for the first few years after he operated on her spine and restored her ability to walk. His higher calling at the time of the crash was Science. He enjoyed several reciprocal trusting relationships, the most visible example being the one with Hugo Reyes, though he trusted several others, among them Kate Austen, Sayid Jarrah, and later, Bernard Nadler. Hurley was always special. Even from the earliest days of the crash, Jack entrusted Hugo with essential tasks: the survivor census, the distribution of food from the Swan Station stores, the holding of survivor medical information. Hurley was Jack’s first lieutenant on the Island and closest friend off the Island.

Jack presented a solid exterior persona, but he was near the end of his rope emotionally and intellectually. His closest friend, his wife, left him for another man. He had never really been attached to Sarah the woman, never allowed his spirit to touch hers. She had been a project for him, something to “fix”, not a person to respect and adore and love. Science was the purpose to which he had dedicated his life, but the routines of syllogistic logic could do nothing to alleviate the fact that his father died in an alcoholic stupor and his body had somehow migrated out of its coffin to places unknown.

Jack had no soul mate, only very peripheral trust relationships with a handful of people, he was beginning to question his life’s calling, and he was the victim of two individuals who seemed to torment him at every turn. Christian believed Jack continually fell short of what he ought to be. Locke told Jack that everything he believed in, the purpose to which Jack had dedicated his life, was insufficient.

Jack’s reality is our reality. Who among us has committed heart, mind, and soul to a purpose greater than self? Who among us has a true soul mate? Jack’s lack of clear antagonist, and the pain associated with that ambiguity, was our pain, too. Who was the true antagonist in LOST? John Locke? Christian Shephard? Benjamin Linus? Charles Widmore? Martin Keamy? Stuart Radzinsky? A great deal of thought over several years would be required to discern the identity of the true antagonist.

Jack’s Needs

Sarah Shephard was a beautiful woman. She was kind, gracious, self-sacrificing–in every way beautiful. I would imagine just about anyone looking at the photograph above would say Sarah is a pretty woman. Everyone, that is, except Dr. Jack Shephard. Jack, before 2007, would look at this photograph and note only that Sarah had a perfectly formed spine, that he had “fixed” her. Such were the depths of his psychosis, his self-absorption.

Jack near the end of 2004 was experiencing the beginnings of a life-altering sequence of events. His conversion was accelerated by an emotionally degraded condition, but the extraordinary transformation he was to undergo would nearly destroy him. He would need something–some constant–to ensure his survival through the worst of the storms to batter his soul.

He found that Constant in a woman of extraordinary beauty. Kate Austen never told anyone that she attached the oxygen mask to Agent Ed Mars, that she ensured the survival of the man who had relentlessly hunted her across the United States. She never told anyone of her deep love for her mother, for Tom Brennan, for Claire and Aaron. Her love of others showed in her attitudes, in her actions, in her lovely smile. A fugitive, a murderer, Kate paradoxically had deep inside her an abiding respect and love for her fellow human beings. The great surgeon Dr. Jack Shephard, accomplished and admired, paragon of virtue, exemplar to all, never felt that deep love in his life before the Island. Kate possessed a beauty entirely foreign to Jack’s understanding, but he needed empathy for others, had to understand and act on others’ needs if he was to become the person he was destined to be. More than anyone he had ever known, Jack needed Kate Austen.

Jack’s Descent

The crash of Oceanic Flight 815.
The Smoke Monster.
Charlie’s hanging and almost-death.
Boone’s death.
Shannon’s death.
Capture and imprisonment by the Others.
Desmond’s prediction of Charlie’s death.
Charlie’s death.
Keamy’s band of Blackwater thugs.
Locke, right about everything:
The freighter coming to kill them, not rescue them.
Having faith strong enough to move mountains–and the Island on which the mountains stood.
Their purpose on the Island.
The resurrection of Christian Shephard.
And on top of it all, Locke’s death–by suicide.

Less than two years after their rescue from the Island, Jack was at the end of his endurance. Everything he believed was proven wrong. Everything his greatest nemesis said was true, and then some. Locke had accessed some reservoir of truth that went far beyond the facts Jack had once believed were incontrovertible truth. The truths Locke put into words had nothing to do with science, were unconstrained by even the most generous allowances of logic. Locke had discovered absolutes not subject to the shifting sands of hypothesis or theory. They were true in the past, true now, would remain always true regardless of future events.

Little remained to anchor Jack in this world. His apartment full of maps and protractors and global coordinates and calculations and flight schedules, he was obsessed by a single idea: returning to the Island. It was the only place his life had any meaning, but there was no way to return. He stood on top of the bridge, looking to the bare concrete far below, ready to end his life. He was startled out of his plan by the sound of a crash behind him. He temporarily reverted to his former self, saving a woman and her child from the flames. But his final salvation was delivered by a most unlikely agent. “We have to return to the Island,” Ben Linus told him, and Ben knew exactly the way it could be accomplished. Jack Shephard was ready.

Jack’s Post-Enlightenment Reality

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

Jack was no Übermensch, for belief in such a monstrosity would require a relinquishing of faith. Jack’s transformation was a knock-out blow to the warped Nietzschean ideal of radical individualism and the denial of absolute truth. Jack’s journey almost killed him, and did make him stronger, but his was a strength based on service to Locke’s eternal truths, not a Nazi-like worship of self.

Jack became a man of faith due to the good example of John Locke. The transformation was not instantaneous, but occurred over several months. In the critical weeks leading to Jack’s final purpose, he had still not formulated an understanding of his destiny. At the end of Season Five, only days after he had stopped feeding his body opiates and vodka, he remained largely incoherent. Sawyer beat a confession out of him: Jack wanted to detonate the hydrogen bomb so he could have a second chance with Kate. His mind was still foggy from the drugs, I think.

Had he forgotten Kate’s words on Penny’s ship? “I have always been with you,” Kate told him. Kate was Jack’s Constant. He didn’t need to do anything, least of all risk the lives of dozens of people and the welfare of the Island, to secure his place in her heart.

Such were Jack’s actions as he came out of his psychosis and began to understand his destiny. Attempting to detonate the bomb accomplished nothing that had not already been established. Everyone knew of “The Incident”; it was not until Juliet died and everyone else was transported thirty years into the future that we understood who was responsible for the catastrophic event. Perhaps history would record that Stuart Radzinsky alone was guilty of an over-exuberance that led to the uncontrolled discharge of raw electromagnetic power. But Jack’s folly certainly contributed to the severity and enduring effects of the catastrophe.

Jack was stronger, not only through enlightenment, but through those who came before him, through the one who risked all and died to bring him back to the Island. The one whose body was not resurrected, and lies on Boone Hill, on the Island that was his Constant.

Compare Jack’s pitiful, bottom-of-the-barrel existence in 2004 with the emotional and spiritual wealth and richness of his life in 2007. In 2004, Jack believed John Locke and his own father to be enemies. In 2007, Jack considered Locke his spiritual master. And though he did not yet know it, Christian Shephard did more than bring Jack the physical refreshment of liquid water (in “White Rabbit”). Christian also shepherded his son to the spiritual renewal that only the living water of the Island could provide. In the space of three years, Locke and Christian went from apparent enemies to the spiritual leaders of a vast cohort: Kate, Hurley, Sawyer, Ben, Richard, Miles, Frank, and the great martyrs, Charlie and Sayid. They were all conspiring to pull Jack to greatness, to fulfill his destiny, which was the destruction of evil and the salvation of the Island.

Love and Faith

There are many types of love, and many ways to express and understand faith. Romeo and Juliet, above, express erotic love. Kate’s love of Claire and Aaron was not erotic, but agape, or altruistic love.

Many fans of LOST consider Kate’s decision to leave the Island, and Jack’s decision to stay, to be unrealistic, and not in keeping with their spiritual connection. Wouldn’t Kate have stayed with Jack to the bitter end? Perhaps she could have pulled him to the Temple, to heal his wounds.

No. The depiction of the their parting was entirely realistic. But don’t trust me on this point. Trust your grandmothers and great-grandmothers, and anyone who lived through or fought in the War.

“Casablanca” told the story of a woman and a man who truly loved each other. They went their separate ways, just as Jack and Kate did, and for essentially the same reasons. Ilsa Lund’s feelings for Rick Blaine were stronger than her attachment to the freedom fighter, Victor Laszlo. But Laszlo was Europe’s hope against Nazi plans to enslave the world.

Ilsa: But what about us?
Rick: We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you.
Rick: And you never will. But… Where I’m going, you can’t follow. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

With those words, Rick forced Ilsa on the plane, to maintain her position as wife and help mate to Laszlo. Neither of them wanted to leave the other, but the salvation of Europe, the salvation of the world, literally rested on their decision. Depriving themselves, they made the only possible decision, the only human decision. A decision based in faith.

“Casablanca” was intended to be just another crank-’em-out propaganda piece, something to stir up the boys on the front and keep the fires burning back home. It became much more than that; to this day, “Casablanca” is regarded by many as the finest film of the twentieth century. The acting was first rate, but the production values, even by 1942 standards, were poor.

There can be only one solid reason for Casablanca’s appeal over the decades: It describes something of the true nobility of the human spirit.

Your grandmothers and great-grandmothers know the film, feel its authenticity, because they know of real-life Rick Blaines and Ilsa Lunds. Countless thousands of men gave up family and girlfriend or wife to fight in the war. Many who might have been rejected for service falsified medical records so they could fight. The United States was a latecomer to World War II, but thousands of men in that country smuggled themselves across the Canadian border before the U.S. declared war and fought in the Canadian or British armies. John Paul Merton, U.S. citizen and brother of famed spiritual writer Thomas Merton, died while flying for the RAF. John Gillespie Magee, Jr., author of “High Flight” (the poem that for many years was the “sign-off”, in the days when television stations “went off the air” (stopped broadcasting), usually somewhere between midnight and two a.m.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzQYd_INSOg), was an American eager to fight. He slipped into Canada and died, in flight, wearing a Royal Canadian Air Force uniform.

John Paul Merton and John Gillespie Magee, Jr., and the countless thousands of others, did not leave behind friends and family, wives and girlfriends to fight for England or for Canada. They did it to fight for us, for all of us in this world. Their love for family and spouse was not weak. It was strong. They were willing to die for that love. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” The sacrifice they made is not “proof” of anything, but is the surest testament to the abiding goodness of the human spirit.

Island Faith

The LOST character most closely associated with an organised religion was the Roman Catholic, Mr. Eko. It can be argued, and I think correctly, that the character most truly observant of the meaningful tenets of an organised religion was the Muslim, Sayid Jarrah. We saw Ben praying in a Christian church. Charlie crossed himself before he died (though with his left hand; perhaps a brand of Anglicanism that is not much publicised outside of the U.K.?). Kate was married in a Christian church, though she profaned the proceedings by marrying under false name and false pretense.

But adherence to organised religion is not what LOST means by the word “faith”. Neither is faith on Mittelos a question of simply believing in something. One might be the most devout Muslim, the most observant Jew, the most committed disciple of Jesus, and fall far short of LOST’s definition of faith.

Faith for LOST is not only an acceptance of the validity and truth of things unseen and unprovable, it is the surrender of self to the service of humanity. Kate gave up self, gave up a future with Jack, to serve Claire and Aaron. Jack gave up his self, his very life, to serve the Island, and through it, all of humanity. Faith on the Island of Mittelos is the kind of faith Rick and Ilsa expressed, the sort of faith for which John Paul Merton and John Gillespie Magee, Jr. gave their lives. It is the type of love that requires no tit-for-tat reciprocity. John Locke, at the time wheel, did not ask what was in it for him when Christian Shephard, the Island’s representative, told Locke he would have to die, that he was to become the “sacrifice the Island demands”. He accepted his fate, because he was the Island’s truest and most humble servant. He believed in (we without his brand of faith might say he “loved”) the Island.

The Final Journey

Much will be written about Jack Shephard in years to come. He was one of the most lovingly-created heroes in fiction, and the entire story of LOST will transcend time and culture. This is not “Soylent Green”, a film that really should not be watched without having first consumed at least a quart of hearty ale, and definitely not viewed by anyone who did not live through the seventies. LOST is more akin to Star Trek in its universal and enduring appeal, in its courageous exploration of core human values.

Jack brought people together. They worked together, lived together. “If we can’t live together, we will die alone.” Jack’s work save people, saved the Island society, saved the Island itself. Before Jack first woke on the Island, the shepherd who watched over Mittelos called the dog, Vincent. “Come here,” Christian said. “Good boy…. I need you to go find my son. He’s over there in that bamboo forest, unconscious. I need you to go wake him up…. He has work to do.” Three years later (or thirty years later), Jack’s work completed, the Island again summoned Vincent. The Island’s saviour, the most deserving of the Island’s servants, could not possibly be the one who would die alone. So Vincent, humble servant that he was, accompanied Jack on the last moments of his journey through life. It was an ending fitting to the man, fitting to his faith in things known but unseen, of things unprovable but undeniable. Jack Shephard, man of faith, died in the place for which he had given his life. It was the final apologia pro vita fidei, the best way to complete a story grounded in the highest ideals of our shared humanity.

Born on the First of July: Canada, Culture, and Cunning in LOST by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:49:29 +0000

Her politicians are unknown outside her borders. Her history is subdued; even the most jarring social movement of the last two hundred years is called the “Quiet” Revolution. But her culture?

Hockey. Mounties. Maple Syrup. Molson Dry. We know her culture.

If we know her culture, we must know her citizens. Constable Benton Fraser, Dudley Do-Right, Sergeant Bruce, and Sam Steele taught us. Canadians are decent, polite, trustworthy. When Australian farmer Ray Mullen found a vagabond woman sleeping in his sheep barn he was understandably suspicious. “You’re an American.” Not a question, but a statement. Only Americans could be so disrespectful. The woman shook her head. “Canadian,” she said, correcting him. “I graduated from college and figured I’d see the world.” Her declaration of Canadian citizenship changed everything. Now she was a good neighbour, fellow citizen of a Commonwealth country. She was Canadian. She was decent, polite, trustworthy. He believed her immediately. How could he not? Annie was a fine young woman from a fine country. Ray knew he could trust her with his money, with his farm, with his very life. What could possibly go wrong?

Ethan Rom – from Ontario

Hurley called him “Lance,” until the soft-spoken man corrected him. “I’m Ethan–Ethan Rom. From Ontario.” Hurley’s response was in line with our own thoughts, and in keeping with Ethan’s hope: “Right on, love Canada, great.” Who could not love Canada? Therefore, who could not love Ethan Rom?

Anthony Cooper also said he was from Ontario. Ben traveled with a Canadian passport identifying him as Dean Moriarty. When some of the Others asked about Greta and Bonnie, Ben told them they were “on assignment in Canada”. Charles Widmore gave John Locke a new identity as Jeremy Bentham and new citizenship–in Canada. Sawyer told the woman he was trying to con that he had a business partner “in Toronto”. Kate, just before she stole Ray Mullen’s money and nearly killed him, said she was Annie, from Canada.

Canada was referenced ten times in the span of 121 episodes. Not a single character–even a minor character among the otherwise international dramatis personae–was actually Canadian. So notorious were Ethan and Kate’s fabricated citizenship that by the time Nathan claimed in “The Other 48 Days” to be from Canada, we were immediately suspicious. Even in Season Two we knew a claim of Canadian citizenship meant the character was almost certainly lying. When Ben told everyone that Greta and Bonnie were “on assignment in Canada”, we knew this meant they were anywhere but Canada, and they would be found in a location Ben wished to keep secret. This turned out to be precisely the case: Greta and Bonnie were in the semi-secret Looking Glass Station, awaiting Ben’s confidential command.

The deception was effective. But why?

I blame Sam Steele, and with him, the entire tradition of the NWMP and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP

His name is Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, played by Alberta-born actor Paul Gross. Fraser was a Mountie very much in the tradition of Sam Steele and a sympathetic but over-the-top caricature of the polite, trustworthy, and self-sacrificing Canadian. The dog’s name is Diefenbaker, though I don’t know why. I imagine some residents of Saskatoon may attribute the name to the dog’s faithfulness. I think maybe the dog got the name because he’s deaf. But Friday, February 20, 1959 (“Black Friday”) was a long time ago. If Fraser could forgive and forget, we can, too (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow and also http://www.amazon.ca/Arrow-Dan-Aykroyd/dp/B000065ILG/).

Fraser came into our living rooms every Thursday evening from 1994 to 1998 on CBS in the series Due South. Stationed at the Canadian Consulate in Chicago, Fraser and sidekick Chicago cop Ray Vecchio solved the most difficult of the Windy City’s crimes. In four years on U.S. television, Constable Fraser fired a weapon only once–when the Great Lakes freighter he boarded sailed into Canadian waters, meaning his sidearm was (finally!) legal and he could disable the bad guy’s equipment with a perfectly-aimed shot.

Always-polite Constable Fraser is not the only reason for the success of the LOST deception. If a confidence man has his way with us, it is not because of some independently verifiable fact of life in Canada, but due rather to something internal, something askew in our understanding of the world. The confidence artist plays to that incorrect understanding, exploits it, and achieves her nefarious ends.

Appearances and Underlying Truth

The mysterious man at Jin and Sun’s wedding should not have been able to speak Korean, but here he was, not only wishing them well in their marriage, but doing it in flawless, perfectly fluent Korean. Jin and Sun were amazed. They thought they understood the world and the way it worked. A man of European ancestry–a man who should have had no understanding of Korean–broke through the bonds of appearance and gave them a glimpse into the underlying truth of his mission.

We need to break through to that underlying truth if we are to understand the con artist’s game. It is not enough to laugh and say, “I know Constable Fraser is a caricature; Canadians are not always polite.” True enough. But as I said above, the problem does not derive of some independently verifiable fact of Canadian culture–it derives of a deficit in our understanding of the world. It’s internal, not external.

I served in the Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa, for two years. The culture of West Africa, the way people speak, understand, and carry themselves is very different from what I experienced growing up in the Midwestern United States. One day toward the end of my service I was in a crowd of people in Lomé. Everyone was walking with me in the same direction, and I saw only the backs of people’s heads. One man stood out from the crowd. He was wearing African clothes, wore his hair close to the scalp as the other black men around him. He was of average height and build. I could not see his face. But something in the way he carried himself, in the way he held his head high, shoulders back, moved arms and legs with purpose–gave me confidence, inner knowledge, that he was not Togolese. He was American, maybe European. When he and his friends stopped to purchase some Ghanaian chocolate from a little girl, my curiosity forced me to quicken my stride. “Cent francs,” the girl informed him. Twenty-five cents. I looked at the man. “It’s the going rate for Ghanaian chocolate,” I told him. “You live here?” he asked with a heavy British accent. I tried not to smile. He was from Charlie’s city, Manchester. Two years in West Africa had given me the ability to understand mannerisms, even to the point of pulling a black man from the UK out of a sea of black men from Togo.

I knew the man was from England, but did I know anything else? His motivations? His ideals?

I visited Munich in the summer of 2006. It was a time when Americans were becoming less welcome around the world and some travel experts were advocating a bit of deception: try to make people believe you’re Canadian. As I returned from my one-week stay I gave up my seat on the subway to a woman just boarding. The man in the seat in front of me asked where I was from. “North America,” I said. It was not deception–it was the way I was thinking. But my response could mean only one thing to the German fellow: I was Canadian. Americans simply don’t identify themselves as being from “North America”. He turned to his girlfriend and said something to the effect that he didn’t like Canadians, but liked Americans even less.

What were my motivations for saying “North America”? I was born and raised in Minnesota, I carry an American passport. But I speak and write using Canadian rhythms and norms. I did this for many years before my visit to Germany, and I will be doing it for the remainder of my life. Can anyone say they understand the rationale for my adoption of Canadian sensibilities? Does it even matter that I have U.S. citizenship? Does it matter that I might be able to write my name as Pearson Moore, U.E. (United Empire Loyalist; my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Daniel Smith (Smith #1 in the New Brunswick Provincial Archives), was a resident of Connecticut, fighting for King and Country in 1775 when hostilities broke out.)? We need to look deeper if we are to understand the Canada deception invented by Damon and Carlton.

I’m Henry Gale, from Minnesota

He said the words with a wondrous combination of conviction and fear: “I’m Henry Gale, from Minnesota.” Henry Gale, probably much better known as uncle and legal guardian to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. But we’re not in Kansas anymore, Vincent. This Henry Gale was from Wayzata, western suburb of Minneapolis. Wayzata’s only claim to fame, as far as I know, is that it is the city in which Greg Lemond, three-time winner of the Tour de France, decided to raise his family.

If Sayid hadn’t found that Minnesota driver’s licence, the deception might have worked longer than it did. The discovery of this first of many lies was the beginning of what must have been five dozen or more beatings of the Dharmaville master of manipulation.

Why Minnesota? The original Henry Gale was doing just fine from his home in Kansas. Why did Darlton make the conscious decision to change his domicile to a location in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes?

The state sport in Minnesota is hockey. The state bird is the loon. The first Europeans to visit its shores were French fur traders in the 17th century. If you replace the word “Minnesota” with “Canada” and “state” with “national”, the truth of the first three sentences of this paragraph remains unaffected. Canada and Minnesota share history, languages, culture, and social institutions.

The ties between Minnesota and Canada are commonly recognised. Rick Mercer, maybe the best-known comedian in Canada, a few years ago gave his humorous take on the placement of professional hockey teams in southern U.S. cities. “Now teams from cold places, like Québec, Winnipeg, and Minnesota, are moving to warm places, like Carolina, Tampa Bay, and Nashville. These are places where hockey is about as popular as bull riding, or women’s bowling. People who live in the desert don’t like hockey. They’d rather shoot rats at the dump.” The video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcj7dH2rSHA) is hilarious.

Darlton recognised, with Rick Mercer, that Minnesota and the provinces north of its border share more than five-month-long winters. There are deep cultural connections affecting the way people in these places think, behave, and interact with one another. Kansas wasn’t going to cut it on the Island of Mittelos. The Island’s most notorious deception artist would have to hail from a location indicating decency, politeness, and trustworthiness, but it would have to be a location not as blatantly obvious as Ethan Rom’s Ontario. It had to be Minnesota. And the way Michael Emerson said it–I could almost smell the air.

Knowledge, Truth, and Understanding

The Smoke Monster knew even the master manipulator could be made to act on incomplete knowledge, that he could plant in Ben’s mind the idea that Jacob was not sympathetic friend but ruthless and uncaring enemy. Cerberus’ plan worked perfectly, and Ben ended Jacob’s life with very little prodding in their first and only confrontation.

The Canada deceptions share much in common with the MIB’s fabrications about Jacob. Smokey told Ben the truth, but only those truths that would support his goal of building Ben into the willing and eager assassin of the MIB’s arch enemy. The last two sentence pose a juxtaposition of thought you may not have anticipated. After less than a few seconds of reflection the careful reader will take exception with the first statement in this paragraph. Kate was from Iowa, not from Canada. John Locke was not “Jeremy Bentham”, and he was from California, not from Vancouver. So how could the Canada deceptions in LOST be anything other than the most blatant of lies? How can I say any truth is contained in these deceptions?

If we consider only the obvious aspects of the deception, we will see only the lie. But every good deception contains solid truth, or the deception would not hold its own weight.

We must endeavour to think about the deception in new terms to grasp the reason for its success.

Is Pearson Moore citizen of the U.S. or is he Canadian? I submit we need not make a choice. He is U.S. citizen, but he thinks, moves, and breathes as Canadian. What is Canada, anyway? What is the essential stuff of the country where you make your home? In high school I was told repeatedly that the United States is an idea. So too, I think, Canada is an idea. It is an idea much different from ideas I have come to know in my life, and certainly quite different from the idea that claims its birth 234 years ago this day. The truth of any person’s allegiance is not found in cursory knowledge but in deepest understanding.

Sir Sam Steele, Superintendant, Northwest Mounted Police

What is the truth of any single person’s allegiance?

I wrote at the beginning of this essay that I blamed Sam Steele for the effectiveness of Darlton’s Canada deception. Unlike the other Mounties I have invoked, however, Sam Steele–Superintendant Sir Samuel Steele–is not a fictional creation. He was, for fifty years, the flesh-and-blood leader of the Canadian Mounties. In order to understand why the Canada deception worked, you need to understand Sam Steele, his attitude about police work, and the tradition that flowed from his example. The most striking truth–possibly outside of the realm of belief, even for Canadians, was this simple fact: In his fifty years of police work, Sam Steele did not draw his service revolver. Not once. I trust historian Pierre Berton (Canada’s most widely-read authority on Canadian history, frequent television personality, and author of roughly three dozen tomes in my personal library) to have researched the facts surrounding this most famous of Mounties. Steele believed police work was accomplished by force of character. Modern-day RCMP officers who go about tazering people–literally to death sometimes–could learn deep truths from this man. He faced greater challenges (e.g., the Klondike gold rush) to peace, order, and good government than any of his successors.

Sir Sam Steele is real. His life is stranger than fiction, beyond even the over-the-top perfection of Constable Benton Fraser.

We have to move beyond caricatures to truth. Sam Steele is real, stands for something real, something that has endured even longer than the 143 years and three days that have passed since Sir John A. MacDonald became the first Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada. Benjamin Linus and Ethan Rom and “Jeremy Bentham” stood for something, too. They did not make deception their goal. It was a means to an end. Occasionally even Ben would speak the truth. “Everything I did, I did for the Island,” Ben said into his walkie-talkie. Ben and Ethan and Locke served something greater than themselves, something real, something that has endured even longer than the 143 years of Richard Alpert’s immortality (that one’s for Nikki). They served the Island.

Service to King and Country

Even those we considered for many years to be human refuse, the putrid vessels of all that is and can be corrupted, turned out instead to be fighting for the existence of the one thing above all others on this planet that must be protected. The fought for the idea inscribed on the cork stone, that human civilisation, the work of human hands and joy of human hearts, labouring for the good of all humankind, shall not perish from the earth. Peace, order, and good Island government. It’s a new idea, born in the land of hockey, Mounties, Molson Dry, and Bombardier. But it’s as old as Samuel de Champlain’s handshake with Grand Sagamo Anadabijou in 1603, as old as the hieroglyphs at the time wheel, as old as Jacob and the Man in Black.

The illustration opening this essay has no artistic merit (Dammit, Jim, I’m a scientist, not an artist. Or was it “bricklayer”?), but it does express the thoughts I had after a particular July First on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. We heard them before we saw them, the Canadian Forces 431 Air Demonstration Squadron, better known as the Snowbirds, roaring over the Peace Tower and then instantly veering into the signature “Maple Split” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBsl0g7qXck&feature=related). The never-ending contrails of the precision jets, reaching out toward infinity, signify something unbreakable. The Maple Leaf Forever, as it were. It was the best way I could imagine to begin an article on the Canada Deception, an article that would end with the thought that just as all of us carry a bit of the Source’s Light in our hearts, so too, all of us carry a bit of the Maple Leaf in our hearts–even Benjamin Linus and Ethan Rom. And I knew it would make a fitting and heart-felt tribute to the land I love on the weekend of her birth.

PM
Canada Day Weekend, 2010

Final Stand: The Redemption of Katherine Anne Austen in LOST by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:45:21 +0000

She ran. She didn’t need a reason. She ran from the law, from her lover, from her family. She ran from Sawyer, from Jack, from anyone who sought her heart. She murdered. Not once, but many times. She burned a house to the ground, assaulted federal agents, left her husband, robbed a bank, used a dozen aliases, endangered others’ lives. She took advantage of a physically handicapped old man, then almost killed him.

Perhaps someone like her does not deserve a second chance. But the Island gave her a clean slate. “It doesn’t matter,” Jack told her, “who we were – what we did… before the crash…. Three days ago we all died. We should all be able to start over.”

She learned to love. Not from the strong men who yearned for her affection, but from a helpless infant who needed her care. She gave herself, not to a man’s embrace, but to a mother’s rehabilitation.

She is midwife, surgeon, healer, nurse. She is daughter, mother, friend, and wife. “I have always been with you,” she told Jack in his darkest hour.

She is devotion. She is courage. She is strength. She is Kate Austen.

The Douglas DC-3

Kate held two dozen hostages and shot three men to retrieve this toy airplane from a bank in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

Ed Mars, the federal marshall who tracked Kate over several years, must have thought this important bit of evidence would be safe in a location so far from Kate’s normal haunts. Did he know the plane once belonged to her childhood sweetheart, Tom Brennan, who died trying to aid Kate’s escape?

Kate hired three men and engineered and executed an elaborate bank robbery, not to steal money, but to recover the small plastic toy from Safety Deposit Box 815. The plane had been Tom’s contribution to the “time capsule” they buried in 1989, when they were twelve years old. Thirteen years later, Tom was a doctor. He had a wife and a son. Kate, as usual, was on the run, this time for the murder of her father, Wayne Janssen. The two of them dug up the New Kids on the Block lunchbox and listened to the cassette tape they made in their youth.

TOM: It’ll be totally cool when we dig it up in like twenty years.
KATE: How do you know we’ll be together?
TOM: Because we’ll be married and you’ll be a mom and we’ll have nine kids.
KATE: I don’t think so. As soon as I get my license we should just get in a car and drive. You know, run away.
TOM: You always want to run away, Katie.

Even at twelve years old they couldn’t agree on their future. Both of them were correct in their predictions, though. Tom was happy, married, and well on his way to having the nine children he dreamed of. Kate by then had much experience with a life centred on getting in a car and driving, to “you know, run away.”

The DC-3 in the stolen lunchbox represented the stable life she could have had with Tom, the commitment he envisioned. It represented normalcy.

A Normal Life

Wayne Janssen was almost all Kate understood of “normal”, but as she grew into a woman, she knew something was not quite right about her father’s relationship with her mother. Diane’s face not infrequently bore the signs of struggle: bruises, scratches, a black eye, a bloodied nose. She knew Wayne was responsible, and she intended to give her mother the gift of a normal life without her abusive husband.

When Kate brought her mother the happy news, Diane was horrified. Ed Mars summed up the situation well, with all the sensitivity of his profession. “White trash mom divorces dad, starts up with some guy who’s a drinker. Then he knocks her around a little bit, she marries him, because, you know, that’s what happens. And then this drunk, this Wayne, he moves into your house, and you get to lay there every night and listen to him doing your mom right there in your daddy’s old bedroom. And even that wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t beat her up all the time. But she loves him. She defends him.”

Incomprehensible as it was to Kate, Diane loved Wayne, wished to spend her life with him, got pregnant by him. The result of Diane’s infatuation was the birth of Kate in 1977. Wayne was the father, but he was not the husband. Diane was married to an absentee husband, off fighting a war that should have ended twenty years before.

These, then, were the circumstances of Kate’s “normal” childhood. But they are not the complete circumstances. Just as Kate’s mother “made her bed” in choosing Wayne, Kate made her own adult decisions about the acceptable range of normal human life. In the sufferings she endured sharing a house with an abusive father, we might be tempted to feel pitty for Kate. But she had greater examples than Wayne. Almost all of us, even those who suffered the most oppressive of childhoods, become acquainted with examples of lives well lived. In that regard, Kate was more fortunate than many of us.

Sergeant Major Sam Austen

Sam Austen was serving in Korea when Kate was born. He knew of his wife’s indiscretion, but he never spoke of the matter with his beloved daughter, choosing to allow her to believe that he was her father. In fact, he was her father in all ways that might have any relevance to a girl growing up in a very bewildering world. He was Kate’s anchor, the person who most truly and completely loved her, in every sense her Constant.

Sam provided the correct example at every turn. He taught his daughter to track and hunt game through the forests of Iowa. He stayed with his wife, despite her infidelity. When Kate was on the run, she knew the United States Army employed one man of deep integrity to whom she might turn in a time of great need.

Perhaps if he had explained to her the great value of steering a clean course through life she might have been spared the horrendous rollercoaster ride of so many years on the run. But he was the best father a child could ever hope to have. His life could have served as perfect template for Kate, but rather than cultivating Sam’s sense of balance for her own life, she chose instead to impose her understanding of a normal order on her mother’s life. But not everyone can be Sergeant Major Sam Austen. Kate’s mother made her own choices in life, poorly conceived as they sometimes were. She never lived up to the good example of her first husband, and she could never summon the discipline to order her life according to his rules.

In murdering Wayne, Kate was failing most egregiously to live by Sam’s example. She had never chosen to follow his lead. But Sam would become Kate’s sure example in her own darkest hour, when the fate of the Island, and the world, rested on her decision.

Kate’s World

We need to understand Kate’s range of choices prior to her life on the Island if we hope to make sense of her final disposition at the time of the Island’s greatest crisis. Kate grew up with four life examples: Wayne Janssen’s, Tom Brennan’s, her mother’s, and her father’s.

Diane’s example was a life in the gutter. Take what you can when you can get it. When life gives you a good man, like Sam Austen, it ends up taking him away for years at a time so he can point his gun toward a demilitarised zone that should have been cleared twenty years ago during their fathers’ war in Korea. You can’t count on life being fair or even worth living, so take what you can get.

Wayne’s example was to live life for the moment: eat, drink, and be merry. If it happens that someone else’s wife is there to be merry with you, so much the better. While Diane had scruples, Wayne had none. His was a wild life, lived from one night to another, one bar to another, one woman to another. Instant enjoyment and survival were the only aspects of life he ever contemplated.

Tom offered Kate an ordinary life, a life committed to each other, a life worth sharing. This was a life of equals, of two people who truly respected and loved each other. A mortgage, a car, and nine children. Though with nine children, it would have to be a very big mortgage, and maybe a couple of large vans rather than a car. But all in all, an ordinary life of marriage, work, and family.

Sam called Kate to something higher, to a way of life that would not deviate, no matter the obstacle or condition. Sam did not request from life a woman destined to be unfaithful to him, but this is what he received. He followed the course he knew to be correct regardless of the poor choices everyone around him made. He lived a life of integrity, dedicated to ideals for which he was willing to sacrifice even his personal happiness. One does not extract vengeance, regardless of the crime. A man takes care of his family, no matter the cost. His example was the sure sign of the endurance of a set of principles always available to each one of us. Sam Austen was for Kate, and is for us, an example of our highest humanity.

Kate’s Destiny

Kate chose the wild side, the darker, more exciting angels of her nature. One man understood her, knew the kind of woman she was, was happy in the knowledge he would catch her. Kate telephoned him, always on Roman Catholic Holy Days.

MARS: [Picking up the telephone] Agent Mars.
KATE: It’s me.
MARS: Well, I’m glad. I realized this morning that it was the Feast of the Assumption and I was feeling bad. How many holy days have come and gone since you last called? I thought you and I were friends?
KATE: I don’t want to run anymore.
MARS: What’s his name? ….
KATE: Edward, please. I know you don’t want to spend the rest of your life chasing me. Please, I love this guy. Just let me go.
MARS: I’ll tell you what. If you can really stay put? Really settle down? Then I’ll stop chasing you. But you and I both know that’s not gonna happen.

Short days later, Mars’ prediction proved to be on the money. When Kate missed a menstrual cycle her first thought was pregnancy. Her second thought was the impossibility of that condition. Pregnancy meant stability, it meant responsibility. It meant commitment. Even if she was married to a man much like Tom Brennan, a responsible, decent man, she couldn’t live like him.

KATE: Whatcha workin’ on?
KEVIN: Just finishing some IRs, and that fugitive recovery in Tampa. Being a cop is just endless paperwork….
KATE: What if I told you I was a fugitive? What if I told you I was on the run for blowing up my father, and it was only a matter of time before you found out?
KEVIN: This isn’t funny.
KATE: [Crying] It’s not a joke. I almost had a baby, Kevin. Me, a baby! I can’t do this! Taco night?! I don’t do taco night!
KEVIN: Okay, calm down, Monica…
KATE: My name’s not Monica! I love you. But I can’t stay.

If Agent Mars could have heard this conversation he would have been laughing in glee. He would catch her, because the foul droppings of her misguided life would lead her straight to him, and him to her. Working on opposite sides of the law, nevertheless they shared an outlook on life, and their view took in only the seamy side, the dark side, the side they both inhabited.

Ed Mars was right. Kate would fall into any trap he chose to set–it was going to be that easy. More importantly, Kate’s future was full of sad hours and dark days, and once in the “sideways” world her soul would never know peace, never feel the warm presence of any Constant.

But then Flight 815 crashed.

A Higher Calling

Kate was the midwife. Always Jack’s second, here she was filling in for the surgeon, who had his hands full trying to “fix” Boone. Only Locke understood that Boone was the “sacrifice the Island demanded”, but that is a topic for another essay. For our purposes this weekend, it is enough to say simply that Aaron’s birth was a necessary evolution in Claire’s life, the life of the Island, and most importantly, Kate’s growth from the darkness of Wayne’s world into the light and happiness of life with Jack. With Boone’s death came the first successful birth since the days of the Dharma Initiative, when Amy Goodspeed delivered the boy she decided to call Ethan.

Life was no less confusing on the Island than it had been growing up in Iowa and living as “Monica” in Florida. Life was supposed to be a con, a deception, like the life she had started with Officer Callis in Dade County. Life was drunken Wayne and abused Diane. Was it any wonder she became attracted to the man who promised her “afternoon delight”?

She was attracted to Sawyer, and to her mind the attraction was normal and probably inevitable. But she felt something for another man, too. Jack confessed his love for her, and then he did something entirely beyond Kate’s experience. Ben was under Jack’s knife in the Hydra surgery. Guns were pointed at Jack. When the situation was tense, when lives were on the line, Jack sacrificed his love and risked his own life, not for any hope of being with her, but so that she might escape with her lover, Sawyer. Jack was subsuming his love to Kate’s desire, foregoing his own happiness so that Kate might be happy.

Here was a love triangle worthy of prime time. Kate had experienced this depth of love only once, though she didn’t know it, didn’t understand what Sam Austen had sacrificed to love her in precisely the way Jack was now demonstrating his love for Kate.

The Island was a new world for Kate.

Kate’s Island World

Kate had before her a bewildering array of choices. Should she follow Sawyer for “afternoon delight”? Should she try to re-establish romance with that rock of a man, Jack? The decision was inevitable, even if she didn’t understand the rationale. In the meantime, there were adventures. Kate volunteered for more expeditions than anyone else on the Island. If there was a dangerous trek planned to a newly-discovered Dharma station or 140-year-old shipwreck, Kate was first in line, shoulder pack ready, gun cleaned and chamber full.

Jacob tried to point her in the right direction in Mr. Springer’s General Store, paying for the lunchbox she stole, but Kate was a tough cookie, and hewed close to her chosen life of take-it-and-run-and-to-hell-with-the-consequences. Jacob must have believed his trip important. Probably he had prepared years in advance to meet up with his beloved Number 51. Hers was not one of the Valenzetti Numbers; was she Jacob’s “Variable”, the person who would introduce the new existence coefficient that would upset the inevitable outcome of Valenzetti? She was important, then, truly essential to the future of the Island, and the world. But for all Jacob’s planning and hard work, Kate was undeterred from her rollercoaster life.

When they left the Island she knew she would have to make a life with Jack. He was the kindest, most considerate man she had ever known. She really, truly loved him. Learning that he was Aaron’s uncle only confirmed the wisdom of her choice. When Jack proposed, she felt the deepest emotion that had ever filled her soul, and through her tears she said, “Yes!”

Weeks later their engagement was off, their romance in ruins. The apparent cause was Jack’s drinking and his jealousy over Kate’s feelings for Sawyer. But these were not the real causes. Jack had long known of Kate’s attraction to Sawyer, and had even been willing to let go his own feelings for Kate. His nature was not possessive and jealous. The real cause was Jack’s gut-wrenching transition from an existence based on science to a life grounded in faith, and that, too, is a topic worthy of its own essay. For our purposes this weekend, it is sufficient to note that Kate never gave up on Jack, never felt the slightest decrease in her feelings for this man. “I have always been with you,” she told him. She meant those words more than any that had ever passed her lips.

Kate was confused. The man she loved seemed possessed by the same forces she was now trying to escape. Her life seemed to be coming together, but now it was falling apart again. She was acting as mother to Aaron, but even here she felt something was not quite right.

Jacob could not help her find a way to her true destiny. Jack was stoned on booze and Schedule II opiates, virtually incapable of holding a conversation, let alone dispensing wisdom or providing concrete assistance. Her mother hated her, wished to see her rot in prison. Her father couldn’t help her. But she was not alone. Help would come from a source she never could have imagined:

The Island.

To Highest Mountain, To Deepest Sea

Claire had to raise Aaron. It was a ruling somewhere etched in stone, an inviolate law of the universe. But Claire in her own way was as obstinate as Kate. No visit from Jacob would have deterred her from giving up Aaron for adoption. Two visits with the psychic, Richard Malkin, could not dissuade Claire from her decision, and his numerous late-night calls only made her angry. But the Island had more endurance than Claire. During her last visit with Malkin, he produced a one-way ticket for Oceanic Flight 815. It had to be that flight, and it had to be the next day. Malkin said he had arranged for Claire’s baby to be adopted in Los Angeles. Of course, he had arranged nothing. But he knew the Island had arranged something: a crash that would instantly kill three hundred of her fellow passengers but would miraculously save her life.

She was not among Jacob’s Candidates. Probably Jacob didn’t even know her, her name, the enormous role she would play in the Island’s endgame. But the Island knew. Claire and Aaron were essential, because Kate was essential. Without Aaron, Kate would never be persuaded to return to the Island after she left as one of the Oceanic Six. But the Island, in the form of Christian Shephard, ensured her return.

Christian–the resurrected Christian Shephard–came to his daughter and asked to be allowed to care for his grandson. We don’t know what he told her. He may have told the truth, or he may have concocted a bold, elaborate deception. But he knew the outcome. He would take the infant, put Claire in the hands of the Man in Black and have her escorted far away. Then, when his daughter was out of sight and too distant to hear even the pleading cries of her own flesh and blood, he would place the infant on the path he knew Kate or Sawyer would walk only short minutes later.

Sawyer, finding the baby, became the temporary and quite flustered guardian. Kate, deprived of a real mother in her own childhood, could not bear the thought of any child being forced to grow up without a loving mother. Now, before her very eyes, was the baby she had brought into the world. Had Claire abandoned him? Could she not face the responsibilities of motherhood? Kate knew all about irresponsible mothers. She wouldn’t allow Aaron to face the kind of childhood she had been forced to endure.

There was no time to decide whether she was acting in haste, no time to locate Claire. She had to leave the Island, and leave now, or she would never be free. With the Smoke Monster looming, with the atmosphere of death that permeated everything on the Island, staying behind was not an option.

Three years later, when Aaron was old enough to laugh at jokes and question the authenticity of children’s cartoons, Kate had second thoughts. She was not Aaron’s mother. Regardless of her implacable commitment to the toddler, she was no substitute for Claire. And what of Claire? If she was alive, she had to be enduring the worst possible torments that any human being can face, knowing only that her son was gone, was nowhere to be found anywhere on the Island. Was he alive? Dead? Suffering? In the hands of one of the Island’s horrible creatures? Was he being tortured? Starved to death? Kate had inflicted on Claire an existence worse than the most painful and unrelenting death.

Losing Aaron in the grocery story, she realised the horror of her action. She had felt enormous, almost unbearable pain in the few seconds that Aaron was missing. Her anguish was relieved in less than a minute. Claire had been enduring the same torment–not for thirty-six seconds, but for thirty-six months. Day after day, year after year, incessant, horrible, mind-altering emotional terror.

Kate felt Claire’s pain. And in that empathy was Kate’s redemption. In Claire and Aaron she found a cause worthy of lifelong commitment. Kate would give everything–her own happiness, even her own life–to bring Claire back to Aaron. Whether she realised it or not, Kate had finally found Sam Austen’s footsteps, and she was firmly planting her own feet in them. She discovered in herself a reservoir of unconditional love, and now she was harnessing that love to serve a mother and a child.

Kate had to go back. No mountain was high enough to stand in her way. No sea was deep enough to keep her away. Kate would overcome any obstacle to return to the Island, find Claire, and reunite mother and son.

Devotion. Courage. Strength.

This is the Kate I know from LOST. Scarred and wounded but strong. Unsure but resolute. Muscular yet feminine. Fearful yet courageous. It is a portrait I know most others–even those who consider themselves unwavering fans of LOST–neither appreciate nor understand. “Ugh, it’s another Kate episode tonight,” many fans said. Whenever I learned the episode centricity was Kate, I was beaming, looking forward with great anticipation. Kate and Locke were my favourite characters, and I always had a special place in my heart for Kate’s character and the actress who played her. Evangeline Lilly bears an uncanny, unearthly resemblance to the protagonist of my first novel (http://pearsonmoore.com/trinity2045.aspx). Whenever Lilly was called on to carry an action sequence, she owned the scene. Her talents were terribly under-utilised during the six years, and I feel this was one of LOST’s greatest weaknesses. She was the female lead, outstanding in action sequences, unequalled in emotional scenes, but the writers chose to use Kate mostly as love object to Sawyer and Jack. Darlton, you created the most amazing series I’ve ever seen, but by relegating Evangeline Lilly to essentially soap opera roles, you fell short. Whether she continues as actress or tries to make a go of it as a writer, I have to believe she will continue to astound with her creativity and authentic humanity.

The Island brought her back. She thought her mission concerned only Claire, finding her, getting her off the Island, and reuniting her with her toddler son. But this was an almost incidental, secondary mission. If the Smoke Monster had decided to do away with Claire, Kate’s raison d’être sûr l’isle would still stand. Her reason for being: a bullet, administered with sudden and destructive force, into the chest from the dorsal side. Hers was the highest calling: to destroy the Smoke Monster. Claire and Aaron, Claire’s insanity and forced alliance with the Smoke Monster, Claire’s suffering, Kate’s many brushes with death, Christian’s risking of Aaron’s life–all of it was the dangerous, risky, inhumane but entirely necessary preamble to Kate’s role as slayer of the world’s most fearful nemesis.

On the black volcanic cliffs Kate did not run. She did not run from the Island. She did not run from the man she loved, did not run from her responsibilities. She stood firm, aimed the rifle, and delivered the final bullet.

Kate was Jack’s salvation, the Island’s salvation. She was the salvation of the world, though she must not have known that. It was almost another day in the jungle for Kate Austen, for she still had work to do. She did find Claire, brought her home, and must have spent the next fifteen or twenty years ensuring Aaron’s future.

I have heard nothing of the epilogue, save that it concerns Hurley as “Number One” and Ben as “Number Two”. But we know already that Hurley was hesitant to take on the role. We also know that Walt was gifted in many of the same ways Locke was. Add to this the fact that Aaron’s birth was pre-destined, known to the ancients, and a most inevitable evolution presents itself. Seems to me most likely that the eleven-minute epilogue we’ve been promised on the Season Six DVD will involve one simple storyline: Hurley will gladly relinquish his role as “Number One” to the young man surely destined to care for the Island: Walter Lloyd. And his “Number Two”? Someday, it will be Aaron. And if the kid has any brains, he’ll invite Aunt Kate to the Island from time to time. She could arrive by plane on the Hydra runway. Plenty of Douglas DC-3s are still in service; Kate would make a most appropriate passenger, visiting in style and comfort the Island whose future she assured.

White Rabbit: The Cultural and Symbolic Significance of Christian Shephard in LOST by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 22:06:33 +0000

He is the most enigmatic character in the six years of LOST.

Jack confirmed his death in a Sydney morgue. We saw his dead body for seventeen seconds. But he made appearances in each of the six seasons, apparently a living, breathing person, all over the Island: on jungle paths, in Jacob’s cabin, in and around the Dharma barracks, at the wheel under the Orchid Station. Locke, Frank, Sun, and Claire conversed with him in the shadow of the statue.

He is the source of Jack’s greatest anguish, but the highest goal of Jack’s yearning. He is many things to Jack, and many things to all of us. He challenges, he consoles, he frustrates. He fails in life example, leads through powers not his own, unites science and faith, triumphs over chaos and death. He is healer, guide, father, shepherd. He is neither good nor evil, neither light nor dark. He does not choose sides, does not play the game. In fact, he writes the rules, he is the game.

Christian Shepherd is the Island.

A Story of a Girl, a Rabbit, and Growth Through Experience

“Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!”

With the white rabbit’s words, Lewis Carroll introduced the strange world of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. Alice followed the immaculately dressed white rabbit down the rabbit hole and there discovered a bizarre menagerie of caterpillars and pigs and frogs and a disappearing and reappearing cat, all ruled by the Queen of Hearts, whose only administrative acts seemed to be limited to the proclamation of writs of execution. “Off with his head! Execute him!” was her reply to anyone whose actions were not in accord with her caprice.

This world made no sense at all to Alice. She often said, “How confusing this is,” or “This is curious,” or even “Curious and curiouser!” She ate cake or drank a beverage or chomped on a bit of mushroom and grew to nine feet tall or shrunk to three inches high. After nearly drowning in Alice’s tears, the animals dried off by racing around in a circle until there was no winner. None of it made any sense to Alice, but she learned quickly. “Let me see,” she said, “four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is-oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!”

But this is not a nonsense world at all. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is not a children’s book of absurdities. It is satire, allegory about life in modern (1860s) Great Britain, biting commentary on the British Monarchy, the British Parliament, and current social norms. It is a book about the confusing, complicated world of adults and the simpler, more just, and entirely more proper world of children.

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” works at several levels. It is the story of a girl’s triumph over confusion, it is a primer on growth from childhood through puberty and to adulthood, and it is Carroll’s bill of particulars regarding a society he sees as depraved.

PhD Mathematics in a Children’s Book

Most of the book makes sense, though only after deliberate thought, and advanced degrees in mathematics, British history, and social anthropology may be required to fully appreciate Carroll’s work. Let us consider as an example Alice’s apparently nonsense multiplications:

4 x 5 = 12
4 x 6 = 13
4 x 7 = (14?)

We don’t know what the third product was going to be, since Alice didn’t finish the thought, but it seems likely that the next number in the series 12, 13 would be 14. Recall that Lewis Carroll (given name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was a mathematician. All three of the multiplications above are correct, but the bases are different than the base ten system we are most familiar with. Four times five gives this many items:

IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII

In base eighteen, we must lump the first, second, and third piles of five and the first three sticks of the last pile into a single pile of ten with two left over:

IIIII IIIII IIIII III + II = 12

10 (base 18) + 2 (base 18) = 12 (base 18)

In the same manner, four times six in base twenty-one is equal to thirteen:

IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII I + III = 13

10 (base 21) + 3 (base 21) = 13 (base 21)

As for the final calculation, it seems likely that the next base in the series 18, 21 would be 24, and in base twenty-four, four times seven is indeed fourteen.

Politics and Progress

What about the other apparently nonsensical elements of the story? We will consider one more example before moving on. Anyone who has participated in a political caucus can appreciate Chapter Three of Alice’s Adventures. The Dodo proposed that the animals dry off by participating in a caucus race, and off they went, chasing each other around and around. Discussions at political caucuses are the worst kind of endlessly circular arguments. No one is ever shy about supporting her particular faction. Everyone has a favourite position or candidate, and they’re ready to tell you why, with excitement and conviction, even at two o’clock in the morning. Participants think themselves the party elite, the movers and shakers whose diligence and zeal will mold the platform into a document representing eternal truths equal in stature with the Magna Charta, more relevant than the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That’s what you think going in, anyway. What do you think after the ordeal is over? The political caucus is pretty much as Carroll described it: a bunch of zoo animals running around in endless circles.

Symbolism

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” chronicles Alice’s intellectual growth from childhood into adulthood. Most of what she experienced in Wonderland was not nonsense, but events that required a very adult, sometimes illogical but usually coherent, interpretation. Some of her experiences were indeed nonsense, and by the end of the novella she was able to separate meaning from true chaos. She did not embark on the journey alone. She followed the lead of the white rabbit, who represented adult authority. The Queen of Hearts represented adult leadership gone awry, and the King represented forces of culture and propriety opposed to the Queen’s selfishness.

For the purposes of LOST, it is important to remember that the White Rabbit of Alice in Wonderland was an experienced guide, an adult, and an authoritative leader. In LOST, Jack Shephard could be thought of as representing Alice, Christian Shephard as the White Rabbit, and the Smoke Monster as the Queen of Hearts.

In the Season One episode “White Rabbit”, Jack has what he later interprets as hallucinations of his father. He sees his father in the waves just off the shore, standing without movement, dressed in a perfectly-tailored black suit. A few minutes later he sees his father again, motionless at the edge of the jungle. Jack abandons his discussion with Boone and runs toward the man in black suit. Jack becomes obsessed, oblivious to his surroundings, and stumbles off a cliff, grabbing a bush to prevent his fall into the gorge below. Locke appears above Jack and pulls him up. The dialogue that ensues is the most quoted conversation of the twenty-first century.

The Four Discoveries

45.01 JACK: How are they, the others?
45.02 LOCKE: Thirsty. Hungry. Waiting to be rescued. And they need someone to tell them what to do.
45.03 JACK: Me? I can’t.
45.04 LOCKE: Why can’t you?
45.05 JACK: Because I’m not a leader.
45.06 LOCKE: And yet they all treat you like one.
45.07 JACK: I don’t know how to help them. I’ll fail. I don’t have what it takes.
45.08 LOCKE: Why are you out here, Jack?
45.09 JACK: I think I’m going crazy.
45.10 LOCKE: No. You’re not going crazy.
….
45.13 JACK: I’m chasing something-someone.
45.14 LOCKE: Ah. The white rabbit. Alice in Wonderland.
45.15 JACK: Yeah, wonderland, because who I’m chasing-he’s not there.
45.16 LOCKE: But you see him?
45.17 JACK: Yes. But he’s not there.
45.18 LOCKE: … then what would your explanation be, as a doctor?
45.19 JACK: I’d call it a hallucination….
45.20 LOCKE: All right, then. You’re hallucinating. But what if you’re not?
45.21 JACK: Then we’re all in a lot of trouble.
45.22 LOCKE: I’m an ordinary man, Jack, meat and potatoes, I live in the real world. I’m not a big believer in magic. But this place is different. It’s special. The others don’t want to talk about it because it scares them. But we all know it. We all feel it. Is your white rabbit a hallucination? Probably. But what if everything that happened here, happened for a reason? What if this person that you’re chasing is really here?
45.23 JACK: That’s impossible.
45.24 LOCKE: Even if it is, let’s say it’s not.
45.25 JACK: Then what happens when I catch him?
45.26 LOCKE: I don’t know. But I’ve looked into the eye of this island. And what I saw was beautiful.
[Locke gets up to leave.]
45.27 JACK: Wait, wait, wait, where are you going?
45.28 LOCKE: To find some more water.
45.29 JACK: I’ll come with you.
45.30 LOCKE: No. You need to finish what’s you’ve started.
45.31 JACK: Why?
45.32 LOCKE: Because a leader can’t lead until he knows where he’s going.

Water has already been a recurring theme in the first three acts of the episode; the survivors have nearly exhausted the Oceanic bottled water, and Claire may be suffering heat exhaustion. Just to be sure we understand the significance, Locke mentions water at the beginning of their conversation and also at the end. Coupled with the water motif is the theme of leadership. At 45.02, Locke tells Jack, “… they need someone to tell them what to do” and at 45.32, “… a leader can’t lead until he knows where he’s going.” But these two themes are not the only ones repeated in the course of this brief discussion.

Chiasm

If you read the scene a few times some interesting patterns begin to appear. First they are discussing water and leadership, then the White Rabbit, then Locke steps out of the normal flow of conversation and makes an important statement that appears at first unrelated to the concrete issues of water, leadership, and Jack’s fatigue-induced hallucination of his dead father. Then they resume their discussion about the “hallucinations”, but the character of the discussion has changed, and finally they speak again of water and leadership.

A   45.01 to 45.07      Water and Leadership. Jack says he’s not a leader.
B   45.08                     Locke changes the subject: Why are you here, Jack?
C   45.08 to 45.10      Jack says he’s crazy. Locke says Jack is not crazy.
D   45.13 to 45.14      Jack chases the White Rabbit.
E   45.13 to 45.15       It’s Wonderland–the chase has no reason,
F   45.17                     The Rabbit is not real.
G   45.19 to 45.21      Jack says the Rabbit is an hallucination.
H   45.22a                   The Island is not magic, it is real.
I    45.22b                   This Island is different. Special.
H’ 45.22c                   The Island is not scary, but real (we all feel it).
G’ 45.22d                  Locke says the Rabbit is probably an hallucination.
F’ 45.22e                    What if the Rabbit is real?
E’ 45.22e                   It’s the Island–it has reason (the chase has a reason).
D’ 45.22e                   Locke says Jack’s chasing the Rabbit.
C’ 45.23 to 45.25       Jack says the Rabbit is impossible. Locke says it is not impossible.
B’ 45.26                     Locke changes the subject: The Island is beautiful.
A’ 45.27 to 45.32      Water and Leadership. Locke says Jack’s not (yet) a leader.

This is a literary structure called a chiasm. Every statement in the passage is oriented around a chiastic centre at 45.22b. The entire scene is essentially an onion with nine layers. Statement A is the outside of the onion, the next layer is Statement B, and so on all the way to Statement I, which is the core of the onion. With Statement H’ we move from the core to the next layer out, then to G’, and so on all the way back to the outside of the onion at A’. The supporting statements flanking the centre mirror each other, so that Statement A mirrors Statement A’, Statement B mirrors Statement B’, and so on. Everything in the sequence points to the core statement, or thesis, and everything within the chiasm relates thematically to that core. Sometimes it helps to visualise the chiastic structure with a bit of reorganisation, as in the illustration below.

Because the structure is chiastic, we are able to draw certain conclusions, at least from a literary point of view. We are to understand, as we bore our way through the layers, that the topics invoked are intimately related to the core concept. Here the concept is the Island as a different, special place which is the ultimate arbiter of reason. The Island imbues all motifs in the chiasm with inherent rationale and deep purpose. Water is not the only thing that flows from (or actually because of) the very Source of the Island. The Island establishes leadership, reality, and beauty. Because the Island is, Christian Shephard is. Jack’s vision is no hallucination.

Jack initiates the conversation at the beginning of the scene. It’s clear to Locke that Jack is distraught, so he takes control of their dialogue by changing the subject, trying to get Jack to focus. But Jack is not ready to relinquish control, he’s trying hard to centre the dialogue on the scientific rationale for his vision, and it’s not working. He concentrates on his feeling of being crazy, of having experienced hallucinations. For the sake of Jack’s argument, Locke is willing to grant that Jack is suffering hallucinations, but he doesn’t believe it. Now that Locke understands the real issue, he drives home his response, and this time he wrests control of the conversation and never again surrenders to Jack.

Locke’s point (thesis at 45.22b) is that the Island is special. The significance for Jack is simple: The Island has direct bearing on everything Jack seeks. When Jack continues to insist that the Rabbit cannot possibly be real, Locke again refocusses (45.26) on what he knows to be obvious: ”I’ve looked into the eye of this island. And what I saw was beautiful.” It is the beauty of the Island that will resolve all the water and leadership issues. It is the deep reality, harmony, and special nature of the Island that means all events transpiring there, even Jack’s visions, are real. The White Rabbit is real, and it is directly related to the Island.

The First Discovery: Jack’s Status as Follower

First he chased the White Rabbit, then he was beaten down twice in the same discussion by a man who had no understanding of science. In fact, the man rejected every plausible scientific explanation Jack attempted. As if this weren’t enough, Locke told Jack at the end of their conversation, “A leader can’t lead until he knows where he’s going.” It was a double slap in the face: Jack didn’t know where he was going, and he was no leader.

The Second Discovery: Faith

In John Locke Jack discovered an adversary who challenged Jack to his very core. Jack had squirreled away nothing in his personal or professional repertoire that allowed him to comprehend a faith-based approach to life. This conversation marked the introduction of the great struggle between science and faith. Locke gained the upper hand almost immediately. It would be nearly three years before Jack finally came to terms with Locke’s wisdom. At this point in his journey, however, every word out of Locke’s mouth seems nonsense.

From Locke’s standpoint, the most important truth for Jack was that his vision of the White Rabbit was real. Because it occurred on the Island, and because everything on the Island happened for a reason, the White Rabbit had to be real. It was more connected to Jack, more connected to the Island, and had greater purpose for Jack than anything he had previously experienced.

The concept of faith in LOST is not tied to traditional religion. By the end of the series LOST made entirely unique statements about faith, but in this first discussion only the mystery of the Island was invoked. In this early phase of Jack’s journey and Christian’s revelation of Island secrets, it was sufficient to say that Locke had faith in the power of the Island.

Symbolically, by having Locke pull Jack up from a certain fall and possible death, Jack was shown to be saved by faith, even if he rejected every aspect of Locke’s faith-inspired vision of life and the Island.

The Third Discovery: Water

Water was in short supply, and helping Jack find it was Christian Shephard’s first order of business. Since it was at the top of Christian’s agenda, it was the first thing Jack discovered after his talk with Locke. It was not until near the end of Season Six that we learned about the “special” aspects of Island water, but we knew there was some type of spiritual connection due to the nature of Christian Shephard.

Psalm 23
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.

Christian led Jack to waters, but they were not still. The agitated pool was a physical reflection of Jack’s turbulent emotional state. His confusion only increased as the scene progressed.

Christian was Jack’s guide, and he led his son directly to water. He was acting in his capacity as the Good Shepherd, who leads and cares for his flock. I don’t believe LOST intends that we understand Christian Shephard to be the full embodiment of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, I don’t believe Christian is intended to represent a pastor in the traditional religious sense. I understand Christian to be a spiritual guide, and in fact, the supreme spiritual leader to everyone on the Island, but he represents no religious faction.

The Fourth Discovery: The Empty Tomb

Jack had no intellectual or emotional tools to deal with the airplane wreckage in front of his eyes, and still less to understand the significance of the wooden coffin so haphazardly placed amid the strewn wreckage. When he opened the casket and found it empty, the bewildering, frustrating, angst-ridden nonsense of the Island finally bested him. Jack busted that coffin into a hundred pieces. None of it made any sense, least of all the empty casket. Was this an hallucination, too, or did the empty tomb prove Locke correct?

During Season One I didn’t know what to make of the empty coffin. I understood the strong religious symbolism of both the empty tomb and Christian’s name, but with so many connections between characters, with no clear vision of where the story was going, I was hesitant to construct any frameworks involving Christian Shephard. Events beginning in Season Four gave me enough confidence to state early in Season Six that we would see the coffin again, and it would be empty.

Something Nice Back Home

The scene was brief but to the point. Christian held Aaron and smiled up at Claire. Would a mother trust her baby to her father? Not for a few minutes, but for a few years?

Claire left baby Aaron in the jungle in the Season Four episode “Something Nice Back Home”. Except for an appearance in Jacob’s cabin, we didn’t see her again for nearly a season and a half. We did see Aaron. We saw a lot of Aaron, especially in the flash-forward sequences off the Island. Kate was the loving surrogate mother to Aaron and the loving fiancée to Jack. Unfortunately for her, Jack was approaching the edge of the abyss in his faith journey, and Kate was in no position to save him. Their painful separation was inevitable. Kate was in a predicament more difficult than anyone could have understood. Kate and Jack loved each other, but the forces acting on Jack were stronger than any that most people ever have to deal with. Kate had no such powerful connection to the Island. Her strongest connection was to Jack, but he would have to face the dark night of his soul entirely on his own.

Kate would leave the Island because Jack was leaving. Their connection meant they would inevitably end up living together, but there would be complications. Kate was on a mission for Sawyer, too, and that connection between the former lovers was enough, in Jack’s warped and confused mind, to justify his separation from Kate. Without Jack, Kate had no reason to return to the Island.

Jacob thought Kate superfluous, and scratched her name off his list of Candidates. The Island knew better than Jacob. The Island knew Kate was no mere love interest of two men. She was the one who would finally upset the balance pans long enough for Jack to make a final end of the Smoke Monster and reignite the Light that connected the world to the Source. But the Island knew Kate would leave the Island, knew she would have no reason to return. Something would have to be done to ensure her trip back.

Christian made arrangements for his daughter. He took Aaron. He may have lied, or he may have told the truth. It didn’t matter. Only one thing was important, and that was being sure that Kate would return to the Island.

Of the dozens of individuals on the Island, two felt a particular affinity for children: Benjamin Linus and… Kate Austen. Christian placed the baby in a place he would be found by Kate or her beau, Sawyer.

All of this–risking a baby’s life, risking a mother’s sanity, risking Kate’s life–all of it in exchange for a single bullet delivered in driving rain on a cliff of volcanic ash? Yes. All of this.

The Last Recruit

By now a fair number of you are about ready to give up on this half-baked analysis. “The writers already told us the Man in Black was posing as Christian Shephard. You’re going in the wrong direction with this one, Pearson.”

I urge you to hold on a bit longer. Things are not always what they seem, or as we believe we understand.

The writers have never said, to my knowledge, that the MIB at any time took the form of Christian Shephard. They have referred to him as being “undead”. They told us he is important to the end of the story. But they never once said Christian was the mouthpiece for the Smoke Monster. In fact, it was the MIB himself who told us he had been impersonating Christian Shephard, in the Season Six episode “The Last Recruit”.

JACK: The third day we were here I saw… I chased my father through the jungle… my, my dead father. Was that you?
LOCKE: Yes, that was me.
JACK: Why?
LOCKE: You needed to find water. This may be hard for you to believe, Jack, but all I’ve ever been interested in is helping you.
JACK: To help me? To do what?
LOCKE: Leave. But because Jacob chose you, you were trapped on this Island, before you even got here. Now Jacob’s dead. We don’t have to be trapped anymore. We can get on an airplane and fly away anytime we want to.
JACK: If we can just fly away whenever we want, why are you still here?
LOCKE: Because it has to be all of us.

Now, apply what you learned in the above section on chiasm. What are the structural features of this exchange that become obvious as you read it over a few times?

Jack asks four questions:
1a. Was that you?
1b. Why?
2a. To help me (do what)?
2b. Why are you still here?

The questions form matched pairs. The first two questions concern Christian Shephard’s appearance in the jungle to lead Jack to water. The second set of two questions concerns the MIB’s desire to leave the Island with all of the Candidates.

Let’s begin with Question 2b. The Smoke Monster tells Jack they all have to leave the Island, and in response to the fourth question, he says when they leave “it has to be all of us.” But we have the benefit of hindsight now, and our backward vision is better than 20/20. We know the real plan was much simpler: the MIB was going to find some way to get all of the Candidates into the same enclosed space so that they could kill each other all at the same time. He couldn’t physically kill them himself, and if he allowed even one of them to escape, he wouldn’t get another chance because they would be wise to his intentions. So he devised a fairy tale. I’m a good guy, just misunderstood by everyone. I just want to leave this place and live in peace. Then he got them all on a submarine.

Human nature being what it is, Sawyer didn’t trust Jack, and he pulled out the wires that activated the bomb. Sawyer proved the MIB right. “They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.” What the Smoke Monster didn’t understand is that Sawyer’s tendencies were only half the story. The man most corrupted by the MIB, the one he probably believed he could count on the most, proved to be the Smoke Monster’s undoing. Human nature being what it is, what it truly is, Sayid sacrificed his life so the others could live.

The Smoke Monster lied to Jack in response to Question #2b. He also lied in his answer to Question #2a. And now we come to the first pair of questions. In response to Question #1b, the MIB said this:

“This may be hard for you to believe, Jack, but all I’ve ever been interested in is helping you.”

In the bright and revealing light of his later responses, this must also be a deception. In fact, we know the MIB had only one abiding interest: killing all the Candidates so he could leave the Island. If anyone knows of a means by which this exchange can be interpreted in such a way that the Smoke Monster is telling the truth, please enlighten me. I find only one reasonable conclusion: the MIB was lying to Jack.

In this exchange the Smoke Monster has provided three lies in response to three of four questions. Recall that the first two questions were paired, and dealt with Jack’s vision of his father back in Season One. The MIB lied to Jack after the second question. In response to the first question did he tell the truth or did he lie?

I suppose it’s possible the MIB was responding in truth to the first question. Maybe the MIB really did impersonate Christian. But why would he have done this? Not to lead Jack to water. Not because all he was “ever interested in is helping” Jack. Maybe he had nothing else to do, was tired of looking like someone whose body had died over two thousand years before. Maybe he had some other reason. Maybe he had no reason.

The MIB had plenty of compelling reasons to lie in response to Jack’s first question at their Season Six rendez-vous. He was in the midst of devising a plan, a long con, to get the Candidates into a confined space so he could trick them into killing each other. He needed everyone, and particularly Jack (the person in his mind most likely to replace Jacob), to believe he was a misunderstood but essentially good and reliable person. What better way to endear himself to Jack than to claim he took his dead father’s form, that he led Jack to water, that his only interest had ever been helping Jack.

I suppose it’s possible the MIB was responding in truth to the first question. I also suppose it’s possible that the sun will rise in the west tomorrow morning, and the cow will jump over the moon.

Some will argue at this point: We have more than this conversation from Season Six. We have the barracks scene from Season Five. Surely this scene proves categorically that the MIB took Christian’s form. Christian appeared to Sun and Frank only after the swaying of trees and noise that indicated the Smoke Monster’s presence. And as soon as he disappeared, the MIB–in Locke’s form–appeared at the barracks. These are not coincidences, some will say. They are the sure sign that the MIB first impersonated Christian and then impersonated Locke.

To this I say you will know them by their fruits. Christian appeared to Sun to help her. If the MIB had found a way to take Christian’s form when he was alone with Sun and Frank, he could have–probably would have–killed her. No one would have known, and he would have had one less Candidate to worry about. No, he came to help Sun reunite with her husband, and his efforts were successful. Christian here was not acting on behalf of the Smoke Monster. Also, if you remain unconvinced, go back again and listen to the noises that accompanied the swaying of the trees. They are not Smoke Monster sounds at all.

The Smoke Monster lied. He lied, and there is no better proof of that lie than the brief exchange in “The Last Recruit” that led to Jack giving a measure of trust to the most untrustworthy of all men. The exchange that led to Sun’s entrapment and Jin’s sacrifice in love.

The Smoke Monster never, not once, took the form of Christian Shephard.

This can be etched in stone. Lostpedia can add this fact to their pages on the Man In Black and Christian Shephard. There are few facts about the characters of LOST upon which all can agree. This is one of those few facts.

If You Build It …

If you build it, he will come.

Not the misunderstood and self-exiled writer, J. D. Salinger. Not Doc “Moonlight” Graham, who made it to the majors but never got to swing a bat. Not Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was unfairly ejected from major league baseball. Not any of these people, as important to history as they might be. Not as compelling as it was to give any of them one last afternoon on perfectly mowed grass, on an Iowa Field of Dreams. Not important or compelling personalities, but the single most important person, the single most compelling soul, the single person who has most influenced your life from its very beginning.

The Incredulity of St. Jack

Did Darlton intentionally pull this idea from W. P. Kinsella’s novel? I don’t recall the book ever being mentioned in conjunction with LOST. Perhaps it was coincidental, perhaps “Shoeless Joe” served as subconscious or unintended inspiration. Regardless of the historical context, I am now convinced that Jack’s Season Five allegorical journey from Man of Science to Doubting Thomas to Man of Faith did not intend the resurrection of John Locke as its final outcome. The expectation instead was that Jack would open his eyes to the reality of what had already transpired: his father, Christian Shephard, was resurrected.

Christian was no figment of Jack’s imagination. He appeared to Sun and Frank when Jack was several kilometres and thirty years away. He conversed with them. He couldn’t walk through walls or ambulate without putting one foot in front of the other. He carried a lantern to show Locke the way to the frozen wheel, two hundred metres below and 150 years before Jack ever came to Mittelos. Christian was the catalyst for some of the most important voyages starting and ending on the Island.

Christian does not represent the MIB. Who, then, does he represent?

LOCKE: Are you Jacob?
CHRISTIAN: No. But I can speak on his behalf.
LOCKE: Well, who are you?
CHRISTIAN: I’m Christian.
LOCKE: You know why I’m here?
CHRISTIAN: Yeah, sure. Do you?
LOCKE: I’m here… because I was chosen to be.
CHRISTIAN: That’s absolutely right.

In this dialogue from “Cabin Fever”, Christian does not claim to speak for Jacob. He claims only “I can speak on his behalf.” If he had been Jacob’s representative, a more likely response would have been “I speak on his behalf.”

Christian is working at cross purposes to Jacob. He is trying to get one of Jacob’s prized Candidates to do some un-Candidate like things. He is very shortly going to tell Locke to “move the Island”. He knows in doing this Locke will disappear from the Island and reappear in Tunisia. And then Christian confirmed something the MIB had told Richard:

CHRISTIAN: I believe in you, John. You can do this.
LOCKE: Richard said I was going to die.
CHRISTIAN: Well, I suppose that’s why they call it sacrifice.
LOCKE: All right. I’m ready.

Christian was actively catalysing a plan that would end in the death of one of Jacob’s Candidates. It is unlikely he was carrying out Jacob’s instructions. The death of a Candidate would be welcome news to the MIB, and he took no small pleasure in informing Richard of Locke’s coming death. He had his own plans for exploiting Locke and his soon-to-be dead body. But these were not Christian’s plans. Christian had worked hard to ensure that both Jack and Kate returned to the Island. Locke would provide that final “little push” (as Jacob may have described it) that would force their return.

Christian did not work for the Smoke Monster.

He did not work for Jacob.

Christian Shephard worked for the Island. Christian Shephard was the sole human representative of the power and majesty that is Mittelos.

The Road to Emmaus

I don’t know how the Island found it possible to resurrect Christian Shephard, nor can I claim any real understanding of the ramifications of the event. I consider myself aware of sentiments spiritual and religious in my own faith journey, but I find among those thoughts and feelings no fact or bit of knowledge that might assist me in my understanding. I know that none of the disciples of the world’s most famous resurrected personality anticipated Jesus’ resurrection, and in fact, several of them conversed with a fellow traveler on the long road to the town of Emmaus just after Jesus’ crucifixion. During that entire journey not one among them realised that they had been speaking with their now-resurrected master. The disciples didn’t understand. I don’t understand. I think it’s fair to say that in the entire history of theological inquiry no one has truly understood. One believes, or one does not. There is no scientific basis for any of this. There is no middle ground. There are no rationalisations, no proofs, no mathematical formulae.

I suppose the only thing we might do is acknowledge appreciation, to a story that managed to weave together science fiction, mystery, mythology, and a heavy dose of spiritual drama into a story about some of the most compelling characters and situations even to have been portrayed on the small screen. Christian Shephard and Jack Shephard were two of the most intriguing characters I have had the pleasure of coming to know.

So much more could be written on this subject, but I will not be the one to do it. For now, all I can say is that I, like the White Rabbit, am an adult, and I suppose in my children’s eyes, anyway, I am an authority. And as I pull the pocket watch from my vest, I see the late hour, and realise–

Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!

The Measure of an Island: Unifying the Cultural, Mythical, and Emotional Aspects of LOST by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 21:28:22 +0000

Did Jack Shephard’s death have meaning?

I believe we might answer this question with any of four different responses. First, some may agree with the Man in Black: Jack’s death had no meaning because the Island has no value. It’s “just a damn island”. Second, a few might say Jack’s death meant something to him, but not to anyone else. Maybe the Island was more than “just a damn island” or maybe not, but in the end, it was not worth sacrificing a life. On the other hand, some may contend Jack’s death was meaningful precisely because he achieved his life’s goal, regardless of any value that may attach to the Island.

I believe the fourth possible response is the one most of us would offer: Jack’s death had meaning because the Island has intrinsic value.

An analysis of the question will reveal that Jack’s death was the dénouement for the cultural and mythical facets of LOST, and was the only conceivable segue to the emotional catharsis inside the church. In Jack’s death LOST brings the plot to its natural conclusion, unifying every aspect of culture, mythos, and character, and ensures LOST’s value as enduring literary masterpiece.

Proof of an Island’s Worth

What is the Island’s value?

We know what Jack did. In killing the Smoke Monster and in reigniting the Light, we consider that Jack accomplished deeds worthy of a man’s life. This is what we believe. Is any proof necessary?

If the Island has no intrinsic value, Jack’s final mission was irrelevant. At the very most, we could grant that Jack had a good heart and he achieved a goal having great personal meaning, but his sacrifice achieved nothing of tangible value for anyone else. The only intangible we might be obliged to surrender is Jack’s effect on Kate. Perhaps she was taken by the good doctor and his quixotic quest, meaningless as it was.

Is any proof necessary?

I believe LOST provided a proof of the Island’s value, and I believe this was achieved in the only way a real proof can be offered. We need to consider observational data before we can delve into a formal proof, but we shall indeed develop a rigorously logical proof, and in doing this we shall come to understand the value of the Island.

Observations of Island Behaviour

He found joy in the rain.

While everyone else scrambled for shelter, John Locke reveled in the rain, embraced it with arms outstretched, soaked it in as if it were wet manna from heaven. It was the first rain on the Island. We didn’t know the significance then, but we quickly learned. Rain was the harbinger of darkness, of death, of things frightful and terrible beyond human understanding. Yet Locke found his greatest peace in these moments of communion with his Constant, the Island.

It was during that first rain that the Monster appeared. It tore the pilot out of the cockpit of the plane, crushed him, whipped him around until his neck snapped, and dropped him into the trees. Unable to kill Jack or Kate, it terrorised them, bellowed out from the forest with blasting screech and crash of thunder.

Locke was the second man to confront the Monster.

I remember the strong emotions I felt the first time I saw Walkabout. There was Locke, knife drawn, looking up at the Monster that had surely come to kill him, just as it had killed the pilot. I felt dread at the coming revelation of the poor man’s mangled body when the story resumed after commercial break. Jack and Kate and the others on the beach were trying to figure out how to survive, and Locke was not with them. When would they discover his bloodied corpse?

Locke was blooded when he returned, but it was the blood of a victorious hunt. He grabbed the dead boar from around his shoulders and dropped it to the ground. The survivors would eat.

The revelation at the end of Walkabout is considered the first miracle. Locke, paralysed, consigned to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, lay on the beach immediately after the crash. He looked down at his toes and saw them move at his unspoken command. He lifted himself up, first on one knee, then on both feet, feeling the weight of his body in his legs for the first time in four years. Of course he would stretch out his arms in the rain. Of course. This was the Island that had cured him.

But the healing of John Locke’s paralysis was not the first miracle. The first miracle occurred when a man looked into the black smoke, looked into the eye of the Island. He looked up not in fear, but in awe. For what he saw was not a terrible Monster, but something no one else on the Island would understand without undergoing the ordeals of a lifetime.

The first miracle was John’s communion with the Island.

This is the most-quoted conversation anywhere in the last six years:

LOCKE: I’m an ordinary man, Jack, meat and potatoes, I live in the real world. I’m not a big believer in magic. But this place is different. It’s special. The others don’t want to talk about it because it scares them. But we all know it. We all feel it. Is your white rabbit a hallucination? Probably. But what if everything that happened here, happened for a reason? What if this person that you’re chasing is really here?
JACK: That’s impossible.
LOCKE: Even if it is, let’s say it’s not.
JACK: Then what happens when I catch him?
LOCKE: I don’t know. But I’ve looked into the eye of this island. And what I saw was beautiful.

Locke walked, watched with a smile as his wheelchair burned in purifying flame. He was a man reborn, a tabula rasa free to make himself anew, free to plot his own walkabouts, free to chase white rabbits with Jack and hatches with Boone.

Before Oceanic 815, Rose Nadler was dying of cancer. The Island cured her, of course. We were not surprised by this knowledge, for we knew already that the Island cures. Thus is the Island. The miracle for Rose was the return of her husband, the man who meant more to her than life or death. Theirs was the only relationship always intact over six years, even in the midst of deadly attacks and jungle treks and time shifts across the centuries. Their relationship was the sign of yet another of the Island’s strange capabilities: Communion.

The Island moved people around the globe and across time.

The entire Island moved from place to place across the oceans, back and forth through time, even to the point that occasionally an event in the future could only be referenced in a time traveler’s past. Ben jumped months into the future, Locke was displaced three years. Those on the Island moved from past to future and back again, stopping in the 1950s, back to the 2000s, and making a brief visit to a time prior to the 1860s before finally stopping in 1974. The relentless time travel took its toll on everyone. Charlotte Lewis, her consciousness no longer able to keep up with her body, finally died of time-shift-induced stress.

The air they breathed, the light through the trees, the sunlight in the sky was affected. “The light… it’s strange out here, isn’t it? It’s kind of like, it doesn’t… it doesn’t scatter quite right.” The very fabric of spacetime around the Island was bent. A fifty-kilometre-per-minute rocket launched from a ship ten kilometres away might take an hour to reach the Island when it should have completed its journey in seconds. A twenty-minute trip to a freighter might take a day and a half. A surgeon, dead from a knife wound to the neck, might wash up in the waves a day before he dies.

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 crash of Flight 815 was no accident or random effect of magnetic energy. The crash had a greater purpose than the death of innocents and the suffering of survivors.

LOCKE: Do you really think all this is an accident — that we, a group of strangers survived, many of us with just superficial injuries? Do you think we crashed on this place by coincidence — especially, this place? We were brought here for a purpose, for a reason, all of us. Each one of us was brought here for a reason.
JACK: Brought here? And who brought us here, John?
LOCKE: The Island. The Island brought us here. This is no ordinary place, you’ve seen that, I know you have. But the Island chose you, too, Jack. It’s destiny.

Observations of Human Behaviour

The Temple Master, Dogen, told Jack he must give Sayid the green pill. Jack demanded to know the contents of the capsule. When Dogen replied only that he had to give Sayid the medicine, “for the sake of his life”, Jack countered, “He already died.” This seemed a rare and strange place for a healer to place himself. Jack appeared to be hoisting a list of ingredients to a higher plane than Sayid’s life. Dogen expressed concern about Sayid’s “infection”, while Jack insisted on broadening his knowledge of herbal medicines, and all the while, a man who miraculously regained consciousness and complete healing of wounds was dismissed as one who “already died.” The strange discussion seemed askew, the priorities grossly misplaced.

But this was not the only instance of Sayid’s life being accorded less value than abstract concepts. When Jack presented Sayid with the green pill, Sayid’s response was Biblical: “I only care about who I trust. So if you want me to take that pill, Jack, I will.”

This was breathtaking in its audacity. Neither Sayid nor Jack knew the contents of the pill. Sayid placed unrestrained faith in Jack, and now a crushing burden fell on the healer. This was no longer abstract. Sayid might have died if he took the pill–no one except Dogen knew. The only useful question at that point in the episode: What was Jack Shephard made of? What value did he place on life, on trust, on knowledge?

As I watched Jack throw the pill in his mouth and swallow, my jaw dropped open and I could not process the event through my shock. The sequence of events remained askew. The problem was not that Jack was placing higher value on Sayid’s life than his own. The problem for me, as I struggled to make sense of this most intense scene, was that Jack was not placing greater value on Sayid’s life. Something else, apparently something carrying an importance more profound even than life or death, was at play.

“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

Ruth just gave up everything: family, village, her former gods, everything she ever knew-turned her back on all of it, and gave herself over to Naomi and her God. Ruth discovered something of greater value than even her own life.

Sayid and Jack placed greater value on their trust of each other than on their own lives.

This was audacious. Rare. This was story that burned deep into the soul, engaged every faculty of spirit and sense and wonder.

With the intensity of this scene we began to get a glimpse into the innermost core of LOST. This was not a show about good versus evil. It was not about free will versus determinism. It was not about time travel or electromagnetic anomalies or spacetime displacement. It was about our very humanity. It was about who we are at the very centre of our conscious selves.

The Island changes people.

This place establishes relationships with people, the most spectacular example being John Locke. Locke knew instinctively where to find wild boar, the Nigerian plane, and countless other people, places, and events. Far exceeding young Widmore’s expectations or understanding, he tracked the boy through the jungle to Richard’s camp in the early 1950s. He found the Swan Hatch, the Pearl, and the Flame. Locke could predict the weather and events past and future. The Island changed Jack and Sayid. We have seen numerous examples of individuals and groups with a sixth sense about the Island: Rose, Hurley, and Walter, and to lesser extents Ben, Richard, Boone, and Sayid. The Others, through the leadership of Jacob and his liaison, Richard, were somewhat tuned into the Island. Even certain members of the Dharma Initiative seem to have enjoyed some extra-dimensional understanding. Paul and his wife, Amy (later to become Amy Goodspeed), owned an ankh necklace, for example, which may have connected them with some of the earliest cultures on the Island or the Island itself.

The Ontological Proof

This entire section may seem a bit dry to those without strong interest in the rigours of formal logic. However, the exposition provided here is necessary to a complete understanding of the Island’s critical importance, as will be revealed later in the article.

Nine hundred years ago a professor of natural philosophy, Anselm of Canterbury, proposed a simple but radical idea. The gist of his argument was that logic contained within its very structure the ability to establish a firm link with reality. Here is what St. Anselm wrote:

1. If I am thinking of the Greatest Being Thinkable, then I can think of no being greater.

1a. If it is false that I can think of no being greater, it is false I am thinking of the Greatest

Being Thinkable.

2. Being is greater than not being.

3. If the being I am thinking of does not exist, then it is false that I can think of no being

greater.

4. If the being I am thinking of does not exist, then it is false that I am thinking of the

Greatest Being Thinkable.

Conclusion: If I am thinking of the Greatest Being Thinkable, then I am thinking of a being that exists.

According to this argument, the Greatest Being exists. Anselm is speaking here of the Creator, the Deity worshipped by Muslims, Jews, and Christians. A full discussion of St. Anselm’s Proof is given here: http://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/ontological.html

To those not schooled in logical argument, the conclusion seems groundless, even childish. If you reject St. Anselm’s argument, you are in good company: A doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, in fact the Church’s recognised expert in all matters theological, St. Thomas Aquinas, rejected the ontological proof. Unfortunately, Thomas Aquinas lacked the philosophical understanding to prove that Anselm’s Proof was groundless. The proof was eventually knocked down, but not until the work of Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century, almost seven hundred years after Anselm. It would be another two hundred years, but one man, a philosopher at the University of Notre Dame, fitted St. Anselm’s argument with a bulletproof jacket.

Alvin Plantinga, Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame, appealed to modal logic to establish an essentially irrefutable proof of the existence of the Creator. The proof relies on Modal Axiom S5, which states that when confronted by multiple (stacked) modal operators, only the final operator is definitive as qualifier. In layman’s terms, any qualifier other than the definitive qualifier is more or less unnecessary fluff that can be removed from the argument. In mathematical terms the axiom is stated this way:

Or in verbal argument: Possibly Necessarily P implies Necessarily P.

Here is Professor Plantinga’s proof:

It is proposed that a being has maximal excellence in a given possible world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good in W; and
It is proposed that a being has maximal greatness if it has maximal excellence in every possible world.
Maximal greatness is possibly exemplified. That is, it is possible that there be a being that has maximal greatness. (Premise)
Therefore, possibly it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.
By Axiom S5, possibly is it necessarily true is replaced by necessarily true.
Therefore, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.
Therefore, an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.

A formal discussion of Plantinga’s Proof, in his own words, is provided here: http://mind.ucsd.edu/syllabi/02-03/01w/readings/plantinga.html

The Inadequacy of Logical Proof

St. Anselm and Professor Plantinga are great thinkers, but I doubt even they would insist that their proofs represent actionable bases for life decisions. Does even a single person exist who has said, “I was an atheist until I read Plantinga, but he opened my eyes to the Truth, and now I believe.”? I very much doubt that any such person exists. If she does exist, there is probably something a bit strange about her, something most of us would consider not necessarily attractive.

Those the Island called felt an attraction greater than the pull of any magnet. Even years later, try as he might, Jack Shephard could not deny the Island’s persuasive voice. Neither could Jack find comfort in the science and logic that had been his strength since earliest youth. A full examination of the capabilities and limitations of science is essential to understanding LOST.

The argument in this article is contingent on a sound understanding of the true limits of science. Those who have not read my previous articles should familiarise themselves with my understanding of logic and science as recorded in my article on Locke (Read the sections headed “The Limits of Logic”, “Deception”, and “Man of Science” at http://www.sl-lost.com/2010/02/14/impartial-risk-cultural-musings-on-the-resurrection-of-john-locke/), and also the more recent article on the culture of LOST (Read the sections headed “A Place Beyond Science” and “Time-traveling Bunnies” at http://www.sl-lost.com/2010/06/01/humanitas-insulae-the-culture-of-lost-by-pearson-moore/).

The inadequacy of science to discovery of reality was examined at length during Season Two of LOST.

There are no coincidences on the Island. Perhaps Jack understood this, but when he went searching for reasons, he used the tools of science to guide him. To his surprise and his torment, science was unable to reveal any of the recurring, non-coincidental truths of the Island.

JACK: No. It’s not real. Look, you want to push the button, you do it yourself.
LOCKE: If it’s not real, then what are you doing here, Jack? Why did you come back? Why do you find it so hard to believe?
JACK: Why do you find it so easy?
LOCKE: It’s never been easy!

Faith is more difficult than science, because faith is the only means by which we can make sense of our connection with reality. Science can deliver only models–human fabrications–of reality, which can never account for the infinite variability of that which is real.

The Essential Argument

I intend to boil this argument down, render it in terms immediately accessible to anyone reading, in a way I hope will force every reader to make a choice.

Not a single person reading this article bases her life on logic. I offer a simple proof. If anyone reading this article is willing to die for the truths contained in “Advanced Euclidean Geometry” by Dr. Alfred S. Posamentier, published by Key College, 2002, please leave a detailed comment at the end of this article. I imagine I’ll receive a few prank comments along these lines, but I sincerely doubt anyone so responding will be able to do so without at least a smirk on her face.

Why is no one willing to die for these truths? “Advanced Euclidean Geometry” contains solid mathematical logic, good science that has stood well the test of two and a half millennia. If science is truly necessary to our understanding of the world, if we literally cannot live without it, shouldn’t it be something worth dying for?

Is anything worth dying for?

All of the men in this photograph believe the soldier whose body lies inside the coffin died for a reason. Not one of these men wished his death, but every one of them would say his was a worthy death. He will be honoured now and forever as a man who gave his life for his country, for the world, and for the greater good of humankind. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, but even more fitting to die for the good of everyone living.

Many of us would not hesitate to give our lives to protect our spouse, our children, or friends. “There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.” Many might consider it axiomatic that a human life has greater value than any idea, such as the logical truths contained in Dr. Posamentier’s mathematics textbook. Is human life always accorded greatest value, or can we identify instances in which an idea is found to have greater worth?

This is the oath taken by officers in the United States military:

“I, [NAME], do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me…”

The soldier making fealty to the above oath is not swearing to protect human beings, national boundaries or other territory, the wealth of her country, or trade routes. She is not swearing to protect the President of the United States or even the Vice President or the Postmaster General. She is swearing to protect–to give her life if necessary–for an idea. She is swearing to protect the Constitution of the United States.

I want to believe that if I were forced to make a choice, I would choose to give up my life rather than surrender the tenets of my faith tradition. I would die for my faith. With Mohandas Gandhi, though, I hope that I would never kill in the name of my religion.

It seems to me likely that many reading this article would be willing to sacrifice their lives for the tenets of Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, or Christianity. To those of us who believe, the articles of faith are of course more than just ideas, more than facts–they are Truths. But from the point of view of an objective outside observer, our beliefs are nothing more than dusty old words in a book–ideas from long ago. Yet millions of us–perhaps billions of us–would give up our lives rather than profess something less than the full truth of our faith.

Proof in Faith

Jack Shephard made a conscious decision to surrender everything–to sever all ties with friends and loved ones, to give up health and happiness–even give up his life, if necessary–to protect the Island. We cannot doubt that he placed great value on the Island, but what is the Island’s true worth?

I contend that we have all the proof we need of the Island’s value. No mathematical or logical proofs exist. But we know that any such proof would be meaningless. No one in this world worships at the altar of St. Anselm’s Ontological Proof. We worship at altars based on the deeper proofs of faith, those arguments that defy categorisation according to the laws of logic, mathematics, or physics. LOST demolished the idea that science could adequately respond to the phenomena present on the Island. The programme positioned John Locke’s faith, trust, and communion with the Island as the ideals upon which any effective Island society would have to be based.

Can anyone prove, with rigorous scientific logic, that the Island cured John Locke’s paralysis? Can anyone, using the laws of physics, prove the direct causal connection between the Island’s properties and the fact that no one, other than Benjamin Linus, was ever found to have succumbed to cancer? Can anyone prove, with full adherence to the laws of mathematics, that the Source is in fact the umbilical, the connection between the world we understand through our senses and the world known only to the Creator?

I contend we have more than sufficient proof, but it is proof of the type that cannot be squeezed into the artificial constraints of human logic. For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who do not believe, no proof is possible. Logical proof requires an almost endless chain of custody going back to an absolute authority. But since we are speaking of absolutes upon which there can be no definitive agreement, there is no authority to whom we might appeal in order that all become satisfied.

Symbolism of the Cork

The cuneiform symbols on the cork stone have been traced to earliest Mesopotamia, to the Sumerians of 5000 to 10,000 years ago, according to Lostpedia and other sources on the Internet. The intention is to indicate the cork stone is as old as civilisation itself. The cork stone, then, represents all of human civilisation. It is through civilisation–through this cork stone–that the unbridled, terrible power of the Divine is modulated. Without civilisation, the power of the Creator is unchanneled. We might think of the sun, giver of heat and life. Without the modulating effect of Earth’s atmosphere, there could be no life, because the full effect of high-energy solar radiation would destroy every nucleic acid, every amino acid, and all living things would die in very short order. But the atmosphere is there to modulate, to transform destructive cosmic and solar rays into life-giving heat and light. In the same way, the cork stone transforms the angry red energy of the Source into life-giving warmth and Light.

Civilisation–the systematic embodiment of trust, love, faith, and self-sacrifice in entire populations–is the only mechanism by which raw power can be transformed into a basis for human existence anywhere on the planet. The Island is the place where civilisation and the Divine meet. It is the final guarantor and full statement of our humanity.

LOST is about the essence of who we are as civilised human beings. The show centres on our humanity, on the essentials of culture. It is not about good versus evil, for we are both good and evil. It is not about free will versus destiny, for we are all free and we all share a final destiny. LOST is neither adventure story nor study in psychology. LOST is about the mature integration of body, mind, and soul. LOST describes the adventure of being fully engaged–immersed-in our humanity, yet having abundant faculties of temperance, judgment, and prudence to execute responsibilities with mature bearing, confidence, and valor.

What is the Island’s value?

We know what Jack did. In killing the Smoke Monster and in reigniting the Light, we consider that Jack accomplished deeds worthy of a man’s life. This is what we believe. Is any proof necessary?

Pearson Moore
June 6, 2010

Humanitas Insulae: The Culture of LOST by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:05:41 +0000

A single question fascinated us for six years.

One question, posed over six seasons, in each of 121 episodes, in thousands of scenes, the query was always the same. Thirty-five characters tried to answer the question; twenty-one of them died in the attempt.

The scope was measured not in years but in millennia, not in lives lost but in the hundreds of souls sacrificed. Time itself had no meaning, for those asking the question and seeking the answer could move about unrestrained by the forward march of the clock. Each character formed the question into unique words. For Pierre Chang, the question centred around the origin of exotic matter. Charles Widmore wondered how the place might be exploited. The question in its most essential form was simple:

What is this Island?

Paradise

Life is what we make of it. One couple witnessed the anger and fights and bloodshed and decided none of it made any sense. Rose and Bernard found a quiet corner of the Island and built a hut. Occasionally one of the zealots would happen upon their camp, trying to talk sense into these contented people. The visitor would prattle on about this or that imminent catastrophe. Rose and Bernard listened patiently, even if the visitor really had nothing to say.

JULIET: Rose, we just need to know which way the Dharma Barracks are from here so we can stop Jack, or you’re gonna be dead. We all will.

BERNARD: So we die. We just care about being together. That’s all that matters in the end.

The wise old couple knew more about the Island than Juliet and all of the Others combined. Not one of the almost daily fights on the Island required their presence. No one anywhere suffered injustice because these two gentle souls refused to raise a hand in violence. And when their time came, they found out they had held the secret of life all along. What would have happened if everyone else, or even a small handful of them, had adopted the Nadler attitude toward life and the Island? Could Ben, living in such a blissful state as theirs, ever have plunged a knife into Jacob’s chest? Would the Island ever have known discord or death?

Rose was never a candidate for any position of authority, and yet the Island cured her of cancer. Jacob had the power to bestow eternal life. Could it be that Richard Alpert was not the only resident of this Pacific paradise who had been granted immortality?

Hell

“This place is death.”

Rose and Bernard knew the secret of life, but this was not the only facet of their character that allowed them to enjoy paradise on earth. Others, not as fortunate, paid with their emotions and their psychological well-being. Some ended up paying for the Island’s unique powers with their very lives.

The Island had the ability to heal, but it could also induce suffering and death. Charlotte Lewis was among the unfortunates who could not physically endure the Island. Hers was not an unusual case. Only a small percentage of those brought to the Island survived more than a few weeks. Danielle Rousseau and Claire Littleton outlasted their contemporaries, but gave up their sanity to do so. Of those who arrived on the freighter, onl y Miles Straum and Frank Lapidus survived. Everyone from the tail section of Flight 815 ended up dying, with the notable exception of Bernard Nadler.

The Island was a living hell for almost everyone. By the time Daniel Faraday returned from Ann Arbor with a plan for re-setting all of their lives to a time before the Island, most of them were immediately receptive to the idea. After the leaders of the Dharma Initiative revealed their true allegiances to power and exploitation, every one of the survivors joined the plan to drop the nuclear bomb on top of the electromagnetic anomaly.

A Game

“Two players. Two sides. One is light … one is dark.”

Life is what we make of it. Some players in the game of life have the power to make decisions about life and death not only for themselves, but for anyone in the vicinity. Jacob didn’t wait for people to accidentally make their way to the Island. Sometimes they just needed a little push, and no matter where they were on the globe, Jacob appeared and gave the little push that would send them to the Island.

The Game was more important than life. Hundreds of people died in the game, but Jacob continued to look into the lives of thousands around the world, seeking individuals he deemed strong enough, with depth of character sufficient to endure the travails of the Game. He valued human life, but he valued the well-lived life even more.

SAWYER: Tell me something, Jacob. Why do I gotta be punished for your mistake? What made you think you could mess with my life? I was doin’ just fine ’til you dragged my ass to this damn rock.

JACOB: No, you weren’t. None of you were. I didn’t pluck any of you out of a happy existence. You were all flawed. I chose you because you were like me. You were all alone. You were all looking for something that you couldn’t find out there. I chose you because you needed this place as much as it needed you.

Sawyer didn’t protest enough in his only conversation with the backgammon master. It was his last chance to get answers, but for some reason he chose not to ask. The important question was finally asked and answered, but this event had to wait until a conversation between the new Protector and his freshly-appointed “Number Two”. The question is simple:

How is anyone on earth different from the Candidates?

Very few people on earth would ever claim they are not flawed, that they are not “looking for something”. An unbiased scrutiny of any life would find the person lacking in the way she had decided to respond to the crises and unjust events and ordinary turns of life. All of us at one time or another–and most of us on a daily basis–make judgments and take actions we consider favourable to ourselves, regardless of the way our personal biases and actions affect those around us. We hurt others so as to come out ahead. We are all selfish. We are all flawed. We are all “looking for something”.

The Rules of the Game

I believe it is essential to point out that the Man In Black had no name, and he was given no name by design. At the very least, even if he had a name, this knowledge was intentionally withheld from us. A year and a half ago, in audition scripts for the character that eventually came to be called the Man In Black, the character was referred to as Samuel. We might reasonably ask why such an important character was never given a name.

This is no small matter, and I believe this conscious decision on the part of the writers goes a long way toward understanding the way in which we are meant to look at the series as a whole.

The creators of the series elevated the importance of the character by plucking the show’s first Emmy winner from the role he had given award-winning depth and substance. I intend no offence to any of the other actors, but polls over the years have shown Terry O’Quinn the favourite actor on the show. The role of the nameless man was assigned to the series’ most capable actor, but even then the character was never given a name.

I cannot tell you why Benjamin Linus was dispatched to kill the suicidal John Locke in a Los Angeles hotel room. I cannot tell you why Aaron and Walt were deemed critical to the story, but by the end of the story were almost-forgotten details. I can make a few guesses here, but the fact is we were not told, and we do have to guess. I can tell you that some of these unresolved details have contributed to a certain level of dissatisfaction, even disappointment, in the way the series ended. But I realise now some of that dissatisfaction was intentional. The writers intended a certain level of dissatisfaction. They wanted us to seek answers.

Answers

What are the true Rules of the Game? Many answers apply, most of them are similar or identical, but the only answers that have any enduring value are those provided by faith, or by grace through faith, or by trusting in the Tanakh, or by surrendering to the Creator and His Prophet, Mohammed, may peace and blessings be upon him. The terminology and rubrics of dialogue and faith vary from one religious tradition to another, but they are all surprisingly similar.

Darlton are not telling us that we must launch into immediate studies of any of the world’s great religions, or that we must experience spiritual epiphany and conversion of the heart in order to understand LOST. But they have imbedded into the very fabric of the series critical markers that guide us in our understanding. A hierarchy of values has been created in these six years. The systemic placement of values gives us a route to questions and responses otherwise obscure. This hierarchy can be applied to ferret important answers out of critical scenes. I intend to illuminate some of these markers on the road to understanding. The questions remain, but our responses do not constitute guesses. Rather, they constitute the hopes of our heart, the desires of our soul. Our response is not the stuff of guesswork or theories. Our answers are the response to John Locke, stretching out his arms and lifting his face to the rain come down from heaven. Our answers are the response to Jack Shephard, standing ankle-deep in sacred waters, hands clasped in humility, lips chanting words of invocation. Our answers are the response to faith.

A Place Beyond Science

Perhaps no one among us can speak with authority on a subject as broad as “science”. The only exception might be “Dr. Science”:

“Ask Dr. Science. He knows more than you do.”

Dan Coffey of Duck’s Breath Mystery Theatre took the ludicrous notion that any one person could speak on behalf of “science” and turned this impossible conceit into one of the most amusing series on radio. No one can speak for the diverse set of logic-based disciplines to which we apply the broad term “science”.

I make no claim to be able to speak for other scientists. However, I am a scientist, and I have been working professionally in laboratories across the North American continent, Canada and the United States, for the past thirty-four years. My deepest expertise is in a sub-discipline of purification process design, but I have led teams in analytical development, pharmaceutical discovery, late-stage formulation development, early-stage research in various fields, interfacial and surfactant behaviour, and protein purification. While I may not understand the nuances of much of science, I have been entrusted over the decades with ferreting out various types of natural behaviour that might be exploited for the development of life-saving drugs and low-cost natural supplements beneficial to happiness and health. Thanks to my efforts and the good efforts of colleagues, the cost of taxol was reduced from over a hundred dollars per gram to less than ten dollars per gram. You can walk into any supermarket in North America and purchase, at very low cost, a bilberry or blueberry extract that will greatly improve your body’s ability to ward off colds and other ailments. I hold over a dozen patents on the technology related to berry extraction and purification. I am no expert on “science”, but I have been a practitioner, and I speak from that perspective.

For a more complete discussion of the limitations of science and their application to understanding LOST, please see my article on John Locke (http://www.sl-lost.com/2010/02/14/impartial-risk-cultural-musings-on-the-resurrection-of-john-locke/) under the headings “The Limits of Logic”, “Deception”, “Man of Science”, and “The Nature of Evil”.

Time-traveling Bunnies

PIERRE CHANG: In our first demonstration, we will attempt to shift the test subject 100 milliseconds ahead in four-dimensional space. For the briefest… of moments, the animal will seem to disappear…
LOCKE: Hey. Uh… was he talking about what I think he was talking about?
BEN: If you mean time-travelling bunnies, then yes.
LOCKE: You do know that he said specifically not to put anything metal in here.
[Ben stares at Locke for a second, then gives an exasperated nod and turns back to the task of filling the chamber with metal objects].

Benjamin Linus is no man of science, but he does understand quite well the limitations inherent to science. He ignores the prohibitions regarding the placement of metallic objects inside the time chamber because he knows the injunction is based on nothing more than a feeble understanding of the nature of the phenomenon the Dharma scientists studied. Pierre Chang dared approach no closer than his time chamber. He had seen x-ray images of what lay beneath the Orchid Station. He knew civilisations from ancient times had manipulated space and time to extents he would never be able to duplicate.

FOREMAN: There’s something in there. And the only way to get to it is to lay charges here and here and blast through it and take a look–
CHANG: Under no circumstances! This station is being built here because of its proximity to what we believe to be an almost limitless energy. And that energy, once we can harness it correctly, it’s going to allow us to manipulate time.

FOREMAN: [Chuckles] Right. Okay, so, what? We’re gonna go back and kill Hitler?
CHANG: Don’t be absurd. There are rules, rules that can’t be broken.
FOREMAN: So what do you want me to do?
CHANG: You’re gonna do nothing. If you drill even 1 centimeter further, you risk releasing that energy. If that were to happen… [Chang looks at the fallen workman and the blood all over his face.] …God help us all.

For twenty years the Dharma Initiative controlled most of the Island. But never during that time did even the most adventurous among the scientists attempt to unravel the full mystery of the Island’s underworld. Stuart Radzinsky, using the full force of the science at his disposal, came closest to unlocking the Island’s mysteries, but his experiment failed in a most spectacular manner, illustrating again the limitations of science.

Science is limited in the behaviour it is allowed to posit and explore. Since logic is a small, man-made, artificial construct, it follows that science is unable to study and develop models for most of the reality we interact with on a daily basis. Pierre Chang would not go within fifty metres of the Light, could not go within fifty metres of the Light, because not a single observation in the history of science could explain for him the true nature of the Light. Benjamin Linus could approach the Light, not fearlessly, but with a proper attitude of humility. He knew of the Light’s power, and he knew that power was not anything that would ever be catalogued or studied or rendered as model by any discipline within science.

Ben Linus knew the experiments at the Orchid Station could only scratch the surface of the Island’s capabilities. The Dharma Initiative made bunnies travel hundreds of a second through time. With the ancient wheel far underneath the Orchid, Ben could travel across the globe and across months, years, or even centuries, far exceeding the feeble capabilities of Alvar Hanso’s scientific corps. But time travel, too, barely scratched the surface of the Island’s capabilities. Ben knew Jacob’s Number Two, Richard, was ageless, made that way by Jacob, whose powers were in turn granted by the Island.

Most of reality is unknowable to science. The person most fitted for life on the Island was the one who understood this intuitively. John Locke was a man of faith, and because of his deep trust in the Island, he understood her better than anyone, better even than Jacob or the Man in Black.

A Cork

The Island knew no greater authority than Jacob, son of a Roman shipwreck survivor named Claudia. Jacob was given Protector status by the Island’s former Protector, the woman who raised Jacob and his brother. Jacob knew the Smoke Monster obtained its power from the mixture of water and light in the illuminated cave. As long as the Light shone in the cave, the Smoke Monster would be unable to leave the Island. Jacob understood the position of Protector as more than anything the Guardian of the Cork. He explained this to Richard and to Jack and impressed upon them the absolute necessity of preventing the Monster from ever leaving the Island. He was, in Temple Master Dogen’s words, “evil incarnate”. Allowing him free reign in the outside world would lead to more than an exponential increase in suffering. The consequences were nothing less than the complete destruction of all human life. This was because the only way for the Monster to leave the Island was by snuffing out the Light. But the Light was the very stuff of life and death and rebirth; its destruction would lead to the end of life, the end of death, the end of rebirth, the end of all events and conditions making up the cycles of existence.

A Sanctuary

Life is what we make of it. Jack inherited the Island from Jacob, but he was no disciple of Smokey’s brother. From his epiphany off-Island to the detonation of Jughead and the sharing of Communion with Jacob to his final breath in this life, Jack Shephard was the unapologetic disciple of John Locke. For Jack, the Island was not a “cork”, not the Monster’s leash, not an abode of evil. The Island was, in the words of his master, “a place where miracles happen”. Jack understood something Jacob never did. The Island had a multi-dimensional character that went far beyond acting along the narrow constraints of anything that might be understood through logic and science. There was no logic to the Island, for nothing so joyous could be crammed into the narrow etiologies of human understanding. There was no science capable of modeling her abilities and powers, for nothing so terrible could be forced into a syllogistic stream.

It was Jack’s more mature understanding of the Island that allowed him to plot and execute the Smoke Monster’s destruction. Jacob knew the Smoke Monster originated in the terrible power of the Light, but he seemed not to understand, as Jack did, that the Monster was a child fed by the Light. If the Light went out, the Smoke Monster’s powers would go out with it. Jack, man of faith, trusted his understanding of the true nature of the Island, trusted in something Jacob never imagined.

The Source of Life and Death

The Light has the power to create and destroy, heal and wound. It is the source of life and death and rebirth. Jacob’s adoptive guardian expressed her limited understanding of the Light in these terms because they were the only words suitable, because the full reality of the Light is ineffable. Here there can be no logic, no science, no words to compare, contrast, or describe. The Light is at once terrible and glorious, life-giving and deadly.

It is the Source, which means it is not of this world. That which is the Source of life and death and all things cannot possibly have physical residence in the created world. We experience the Source as Light, but it is of course entirely beyond our understanding. It is the only visible sign of the Alpha, the Omega, that which was and is and will be.

The Source is the umbilical, the connection between the natural world and whatever lies beyond the realm of the senses. It is through the Source that we live and move and have our being. Each of us carries a bit of the Light inside our hearts, as Jacob’s guardian told us. When the Light goes out, we lose our identity, our connection to reality, we lose any possibility of life, death, or rebirth.

A Theory of Immortality, Cancer, and Childbirth

The Source is the guarantor of the cycles of life. The severe cyclic regulation imposed by the close proximity of the Source means that any bodily process–and especially cellular processes–will be subject to more than the normal level of control. Any cellular process that would normally proceed unchecked is kept in complete balance so close to the Source. Thus, disease cells, which normally spread quickly, are forced to spread slowly. Because they multiply slowly, the body’s defence mechanisms are able to kill the disease much more easily on the Island. So it is that wounds heal quickly in Mittelos, and disease is uncommon.

In general, any type of cellular activity that occurs rapidly is slowed or even arrested on the Island, due to the regulation of life cycles through the Source. In this special place, women and men may live forever. In scientific terms, we can understand immortality as an inhibition of the normal processes of aging and apoptosis–cellular death. Apoptosis, like the spread of disease, is a rapid process of cellular death. The Source, with its ability to regulate life processes, slows apoptosis and leads to a kind of reinvigorating of the cell. Thanks to this dampening of cellular processes, people can and do live forever in this place.

Cancer cells multiply much faster than the surrounding tissue. The Source again forces the cancer to slow and eventually the body kills the foreign cells. Cancer is virtually unknown on the Island.

When a human egg is fertilised it undergoes rapid mitosis into a zygote and then into the differentiated tissues of a fetus. Like cancer cells, the cells of the fetus multiply quickly. The Source seeks to slow this process, but the mother’s body, primed for new life, fights the unnatural dampening effect of the Source. After several months of fighting the Source–an essentially unopposable force–mother and baby are overwhelmed. The mother, her hormonal system entirely out of whack, goes into shock, and within minutes, both mother and baby are dead.

Taweret

The earliest inhabitants of Mittelos were grateful to the gods that none of their loved ones ever had to suffer disease or cancer. Human nature being what it is, though, there were no statues of thanksgiving on the Island. No days set aside to celebrate another cancer-free year. One quite prominent statue greeted every visitor to the Island. This statue was the islanders’ grand attempt at appeasing the very angry goddess of fertility, Taweret. This ancient Egyptian goddess was so angry, in fact, that every woman who ever became pregnant died several weeks before the baby was due. The unusual state of the Island that prevented disease and cured cancer was the same state that interfered with pregnancy and eventually caused the death of mother and child.

I must point out that the preceding explanations are all based in science. The observations of lack of disease, lack of cancer, and death of women during pregnancy are consistent with the hyper-regulation of cellular function by some entity on the Island. Since we know the Source to be a regulator of life, death, and rebirth, a hypothesis stating that the Source is the entity responsible for all these observed phenomena is entirely valid, and draws support from a wide variety of repeating events on the Island.

I don’t know that this is the type of explanation of Darlton had in mind. This is a nitty-gritty science-based theory, and in the end, science is going to prove inadequate to the elucidation of most phenomena on the Island. The fact that the Man in Black was not given a name, the fact that faith was demonstrated to be far superior to logic, and the fact that the Source and the Light and the Island itself were shown to be multi-dimensional entities I believe points us toward an inevitable conclusion: Some of the remaining mysteries will forever remain veiled to human logic.

I believe this was Darlton’s intention. If they had wanted us to believe all the mysteries were subject to rational understanding, that A causes B causes C therefore A causes C, they would have shown us the superiority of Dharma science, rather than belittling the hippie-scientists. If they wanted us to treat this story as a linear unfolding of black and white, good versus evil, they would not have made Jacob a flawed man, and they would have made sure every character addressed the Man in Black as “Samuel”, rather than flagrantly leaving him without appellation of any kind.

I believe many of the remaining mysteries might be unraveled with application of the type of analysis I provided for the death of women in pregnancy.

Four Theories of Life

Life is what we make of it.

During the last 150 minutes of LOST we witnessed four distinct theories of life. The proponents were the Man in Black, Rose and Bernard Nadler, Desmond Hume, and Jack Shephard. I’m going to begin the discussion with the Man in Black.

Carpe Diem

Life is tough, and no one has suffered more in this life than the Man in Black. Even before he lost his body and his soul, he was trying to find ways to rectify the injustices of life. He knew the Light to be sacred, but he knew his objective–leaving the Island–to be more important than something as simple as a light shining from underground. When did the Light ever suffer anything? The Man in Black had to live every day with the knowledge that his people were far away, somewhere across the sea. [Oh! Accident pop culture reference! And I don't even like Bobby Darin! Taking "La Mer" and turning it into "Somewhere Across the Sea" must be one of the worst musical perversions of the twentieth century]

After he came thundering out of the Cave of Light he knew he was even more tightly tethered to the Island than ever before. Extreme measures were called for. Jacob was preventing his escape and guarding the Source. Anyone aiding and abetting Jacob would be dealt with in a most severe manner. Those he killed were just ordinary, mortal human beings. And hadn’t Mother told him people were selfish and untrustworthy? They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same. People are vermin. The only suitable way to lead one’s life is to take what one can get. If a few people–or even hundreds of people die so one’s life goals might be attained, well, so be it. Take what you can get. Fulfill your dreams, and to hell with everyone else.

Crawl Under a Rock

“We don’t get involved,” Rose said. It’s a common enough sentiment. Who among us would not want to settle down in a little cabin by the sea, catch enough fish to live, steal enough Dharma tea to enjoy breakfast. They have their dog… and their walking stick to protect them. Entire songs have been written about this way of life.

I’ve built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

….

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

Rose and Bernard are not exactly the hermit of Simon and Garfunkel’s classic song. They certainly had much greater things to worry about than the pain of broken friendships. Of course I’m assuming here that neither Paul Simon nor Art Garfunkel was ever ruthlessly hunted through a Pacific island jungle by an unstoppable, unkillable cloud of smoke that travelled faster than an F16 fighter jet, or stalked by a band of evil mercenaries carrying grenades, bazookas, and 300-round-per-minute machine guns. And as for the final verse of the song, I’m not so sure. Every time something bad happened on the Island, it rained. Sure seems to me like the raindrops might constitute tears.

Rose and Bernard made a good choice. It is not merely a matter of having adopted the philosophy of “live and let live”. The plane crash threw them into an unhealthy environment. The people of Mittelos were much more likely to draw guns on each other than engage one another in pleasant conversation. The Island was reeling and swaying and moving about the ocean and zooming first back in time then forward in time, all of this incomprehensible movement hither and yon accompanied by calamities and catastrophes that literally took six years to catalogue. Rose and Bernard made a sane choice in the face of their fellow survivors’ uncontrolled, irrational, and patently insane lifestyles. Given a choice between peaceful days and nights in a hut, and being hunted by Stuart Radzinsky and his henchmen, who among us would choose to be on the receiving end of rifle fire?

Get Ye to a Nunnery

Desmond Hume had a well-defined mission. Both in Mittelos and off the Island he took upon himself the difficult task of enlightening everyone. It was a holy task, a mission aimed at bringing people together at a spiritual level. The ultimate goal was to get everyone into a church–Eloise Hawking’s Church of the Holy Lamp Post (or was it more properly called Our Lady of the Perpetual Pendulum?), but getting them there would be a complicated endeavour. Desmond would have to choose an appropriate way for all of them to recognise their spiritual connections, their Constants. He would have to provide enough enlightenment that each one could discern her connection to her Constant in both life and death.

In “The Seven Storey Mountain”, Trappist monk Thomas Merton’s autobiography, he referred to the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky as the centre of the world. It was monasteries like his that held the world together, he thought. Desmond was not only helping to hold the world together, he was bringing people together spiritually, helping them see the Light.

Just outside the Cave of Light, Desmond gave Jack the good news.

DESMOND: This doesn’t matter, you know.
JACK: Excuse me?
DESMOND: Him destroying the island, you destroying him. It doesn’t matter. You know, you’re gonna lower me into that light, and I’m gonna go somewhere else. A place where we can be with the ones we love, and not have to ever think about this damn island again. And you know the best part, Jack?
JACK: What?
DESMOND: You’re in this place. You know, we sat next to each other on Oceanic 815. It never crashed. We spoke to each other. You seemed happy. You know, maybe I can find a way to bring you there, too.

For the Common Good

Desmond believed Jack could just leave the Island, forget about what may or may not happen, and settle down to a happy life with Kate. It was not to be. Jack had a calling, a responsibility he could not forsake.

“Desmond, I tried that once. There are no shortcuts, no do-overs. What happened, happened. Trust me, I know. All of this matters.”

Jack had to kill the Smoke Monster. He had to protect the Light. He knew these things from the certainty of faith and no talk of happiness and being with the ones he loved was going to sway him. If he left the Island only bad things could result. If he faced his responsibilities he at least had a chance of making things right again, and preserving the Source for the sake of the entire world.

Living life the Jack Shephard way is difficult, challenging, and at times dangerous. LOST would have us believe that this is the best life one might choose. Life is not just about enjoying good times in a hut by the sea, or spending time with those we love in a church pew. Life is about our responsibility to each other, the human need to work with others toward the Common Good.

Living and Working Together

I loved this scene. Kate was back where she belonged, a full and equal participant in the struggle to free the Island from the Man in Black. Jack would never have been able to kill him on his own. As Christian said, “Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you.”

I enjoyed this series more than any other I’ve seen on television. The story gave us much to consider over the past six years, and I have come nowhere near exhausting the stores of ideas the characters and situations generated. The series gave us more to ponder than any other television programme I can think of, and created some of the most detailed and complicated and human characters ever to appear on the small or large screen. Jack Shephard, in particular, was a masterful artistic creation, a kind of hero we can all believe in–have faith in.

My favourites remain Locke and Kate. Who would have thought Kate Austen would redeem herself by taking a rifle in her arms and putting a bullet in a man’s back? Both the character and the actress were under-utilised in the series, but when Kate did what she had to do, the series was better for it. John Locke ended in a way I never would have guessed. But the other characters, and especially Jack, honoured his memory and revered his wisdom. In this way John Locke’s story ended in the proper place, not hanging by a cord in a third-rate hotel, but living as mentor and example in the minds of those who protected the Island, and those who saw in Jack the fulfillment of Locke’s faith.

A Place Where Miracles Happen

I imagine a considerable length of time will pass before we see anything on television as compelling as LOST. Come September 22, the sixth anniversary of the crash, Wednesday evenings are going to be LOST evenings at the Moore household. Everyone is welcome–except Stuart Radzinsky and Charles Widmore. Remember, though, it’s BYODB (bring your own Dharma beer). We’ll supply the wild boar, coconut, and sea urchins.

A Long Time, On a Crooked Road: “The End” Recap and Analysis by Chris Kirkman

SL-LOST — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:05:10 +0000

Previously, on Lost:

Goodbye to all my friends at home,
Goodbye to people I’ve trusted,
I’ve got to go out and make my way,
I might get rich you know I might get busted,
But my heart keeps calling me backwards,
As I get on the 707,
Riding high I got tears in my eyes,
You know you got to go through hell,
Before you get to heaven,

Big ol’ jet airliner,
Don’t carry me too far away,
Oh big ol’ jet airliner,
Cause it’s here that I’ve got to stay …

This week, on Lost: LA X. Christian Shephard has finally reached his destination – or at least a package with his name in big, bold stencils indicates as such. While his coffin is loaded on board a truck by a pony-tailed baggage handler, AlternaJack sits in his office, going over x-rays. Jack prime washes his face, and ponders his wet, aged hands. AlternaBen steeps some tea with his good arm, while Ben loads a cartridge and ponders how long he’ll have to continue killing people. AlternaLocke takes one last look at his wheelchair as he’s wheeled away on a gurney toward his healing surgery. AlternaSawyer wraps up his day in the police force, as Sawyer takes a seat next to Freckles on a log and checks her gunshot wound. AlternaKate sits in the AlternaCamaro as the Oceanic delivery truck pulls up to a church, and AlternaDesmond meets the pony-tailed delivery guy and signs for the package. The two lift the coffin onto a dolly and Desmond asks pony-tail to wheel it around back. As Desmond heads back to the Camaro, we know it’s time to start. Let’s get to it.

“His name is Christian Shephard? Seriously??” Seriously, Freckles.

Kate wants to know why she’s here, but Desmond can’t tell her that – and he especially can’t tell her why she’s here. As for why he’s here with her – well, Des has to show her. I’d like to have a nickel for every time Kate Austen has heard that line.

On Island Prime, Jack is shin-deep in a pool of water, either zoning out or realizing his destiny – it’s tough to tell which. Sawyer shows up, wondering what the hell just happened all up in here, but Jack has absolutely no idea. All he does know, however, is that Jacob said they have to head over to the local Home Depot, just past their bamboo forest, because that’s where the light at the heart of the Island resides. Sawyer postulates that Desmond is key, because Ol’ Smokey needs him to snuff out the light. Jack says that Jacob didn’t say anything about Desmond, but Sawyer shuts Jack up real quick-like, saying that it doesn’t seem like Jacob said anything about anything. YEAH. “It’s kind of true, dude … he’s worse than Yoda,” says Hurley. DOUBLE YEAH.

Sawyer heads out into the brush to find Desmond, and Hurley admits that he has “a bad feeling about this.” Star Wars geeks around the world rejoice.

Cue the last swirling Lost!

LA X. The Flightline Hotel. Hurley’s Hummer pulls into the parking lot, and Hurley shows Sayid a tranquilizer gun to try and jog his memory. It doesn’t work. Hurley jumps out, telling Sayid to stay put and to trust him, dude. There’s no indication of trust just yet, but Sayid does as he’s told. Upstairs, Hurley knocks on a door and Charlie answers, looking like Richard Alpert, wearing a ton of mascara. Hurley grins like a sodding idiot, announcing that he’s there to pick him up for the concert, and Charlie tells him to bugger off. Hurley apologetically tranqs his bass-playing ass.

Downstairs, Hurley loads the hobbit into the trunk. Sayid asks what that was, to which Hurley responds, “That was Charlie.”

On Island Prime, Jack, Kate and Hurley trek along with the Giacchino trekking music in the background, and Kate and Jack have a little moment about destiny versus free will. Hurley notes that it would all be so sweet if they weren’t all about to die.

Over at the well, Locke is curling some rope, while Sawyer looks on from the bushes. It’s not long before he pulls a Kate and finds himself at the business end of Ben’s rifle, becoming a hostage. Sawyer and Locke engage in some witty repartee in which Sawyer admits that he knows Smokey needs Desmond in order to destroy the Island. Then Sawyer realizes that Ben’s most recent bruises are starting to clear up, so he elbows him in the face and exits stage left. Ben wonders why Locke isn’t going after Sawyer, but there’s no need – oh, and he’s really sorry about destroying the Island, but Ben is more than welcome to join him on his little boat when it all sinks to the bottom of the sea. Sounds fun.

Locke kneels, noticing tracks. “I think there was a dog here,” says Locke.

I really want a Vincent.

VINCENT! Rose, Bernard! Desmond! It seems as though Rose and Bernard rescued the Scot from the well, but Rose doesn’t mince words, telling Des that as soon as he’s up and able, he’s able to get the hell out of their camp. She and Bernard are through with the A-Team’s adventures. It’s about that time that Bernard returns from fetching breakfast, and he’s caught more than fish – Locke and Ben come slithering into camp. Locke whips out his giant knife and informs Des that if he doesn’t follow his every word, he’ll gut the lovers and make it hurt. Des has no choice but to do what Smokey demands.

Locke, Des and Ben trek off through the Jungle of Mystery, past some banyan trees. Smokey eyes them warily. He remarks that Desmond has no idea where he’s taking the Scot, but Des says it’s probably somewhere with a bright light. Just a hunch, says he. There’s a burst of static, and Locke asks what that was. “What was what?” asks Ben, his usual cat-that-ate-the-canary look across his face. Locke turns to walk off and Ben hides the walkie talkie in his pocket. Smooth, Benjamin. Real smooth.

Miles is on the other end of the walkie, wanting to know where Benjamin is lurking. Seems he’s founds something. That something is Richard Alpert, who has seen better days. Richard tells Miles that they need to stay on mission – they need to blow up the plane.

Over in LA X, Miles sees Sayid drive by in the HurleyMobile and gives Detective Ford a call. They need to keep Sun safe, since she’s the one who identified the Iraqi. James heads over to the hospital to check on the Koreans.

At the hospital, Sun and Jin are discussing the suckier parts of being shot, when Juliet pops in for a visit. Wait, JULIET?? Yes! It seems as though Juliet Carlson is alive and well in LA X, and an acting OB/GYN. Juliet squirts some of that magical sonogram gel on Sun’s pregnant tummy and they all have a look-see. That’s all it takes for Sun and Jin to have a full-on awakening, as they get the mystical flashes from their lives on Island Prime. The lovers are ecstatic, and Juliet doesn’t know quite what to make of it. They inform her – in English! – that the baby is a girl, and her name is Ji Yeon. It’s pretty awesome that the awakenings can even transfer language skills. It’s sort of like the Matrix. I half expect the next person to “awaken” and say “I know Kung Fu.”

“Okay, whatever you say … crazy Asians.”

On Island Prime, Sawyer reunites with the other Candidates and fills them in on Locke’s plan. Jack says it doesn’t matter if Locke gets Desmond first or not, they’re all going to the same place, so they might as well head to the bamboo forest and end it all.

In LA X, Locke is getting ready to go under the knife, and he and Jack share a moment. Jack is confident that the procedure will work, and Locke asks if the doc is sure. Jack tells him that there’s always a chance that he could kill him, but he’s trying to make ol’ baldy feel better. Everyone has a big sitcom laugh. Locke asks if they ever found Jack’s dad, and Jack affirms that they have. Locke hopes that’ll bring him some peace. Jack tells John that if he can fix him, that’ll give him all the peace he needs.

Isn’t putting a skull cap on Locke a tad unnecessary? It’s not like he’s going to shed during the operation. Also, not to give anything away, but this sure as hell must be heaven, because there’s no way Locke could walk into Jack’s office in the morning and then go under the knife in the same afternoon.

On the dock on Island Prime, Miles picks a grey hair out of Richard’s head, showing that the pretty old Spaniard can age. Richard smiles, saying that he just realized that he wants to live. Miles quips that it’s really good timing. They untie the outrigger and head out to see toward Hydra Island.

On the way, they bump into something – a dead body – then hear a call for help in the distance. LAPIDUS! Son of a bitch, the old cantankerous pilot is still alive! They haul him in the outrigger and fill him in on the plan to blow up the plane. Lapidus says that’s kind of unnecessary – they should just leave on the plane and make sure Smokey’s not on board. How we gonna do that? says Richard. “In case you haven’t noticed,” says Frank, “I’m a pilot.” Hell yeah you are, Chesty.

Frank doesn’t need to transcend – he’s just too damned cool for that kind of stuff.

Over near the old golf course clearing, Jack and Co. meet Locke and Co. and Kate opens fire. Must be PMS. Ben and Desmond hit the ground – after all, Kate’s usually on the other end of a rifle – but Locke keeps on trucking. “Better save your bullets,” he says. Oh, the irony in that statement, Smokey. Just you wait. He walks over to Jack and they have a little talk. Jack tells Locke that he knows all about his little plan with Desmond, and that instead of stopping him, he wants to go with them. Locke thinks that Jack’s a bit loopy, but Jack is clear about what has to happen. He’s going to go with them, and let Desmond do what Desmond needs to do, and then Jack is going to kill Locke. Well, naturally, this makes Locke pause for a moment, until he asks Jack how he plans to go about. “That’s a surprise,” says Jack. Seems ol’ Doc Shephard has a little Kobayashi Maru up his sleeve. Aww, yeah.

Over in LA X, Jack and Juliet share a moment with young David at the hospital. It seems as though Juliet and Jack were married once upon a time, and produced the virtuoso pianist. Jack hands his ex tickets to the concert and tells David that he should take his Aunt Claire, mentioning that Juliet should like her since she’s extremely pregnant. A little prenatal humor there. Chortle.

Jack sure does like his pretty blondes. It’s amazing that he ended up with a brunette. Still, like the saying goes – “Gentlemen prefer blondes, but they marry brunettes.”

As David and his mother get on the elevator, Sawyer steps off, and he comes this close to reconnecting with his Island sweetheart.

On Island Prime, Jack, Locke and company trek through the Jungle of Mystery towards the bamboo forest. Sawyer inquires as to Jack’s plan, and Jack actually has no idea, other than he suspects Desmond was brought to the Island as a weapon. “Hell of a long con, Doc,” says Sawyer. And how, says I.

The group reach the bamboo, and Locke says it’s the end of the road for everyone except for him, Jack and Des. As they all set off into the thicket, Hurley tells Jack that “I believe in you, dude.”

Jack, Locke and Des reach the golden hole, and Locke ties a rope around a tree while Jack secures the other end to Desmond. Des tells Jack that all this doesn’t matter – he’s seen the other side, and that he’s going to go there. It’s a place where they can all be with the ones they love. Maybe there’s some way that he can bring Jack over there, says Desmond. Jack, in his last bit of protesting, tells Desmond that it all matters – that what happened, happened. Then he and Locke lower Desmond down, down, down … toward the heart of the Island.

Once again, Jack and Locke look down a deep hole, wondering what’s below. And both times, Desmond is the one in the hole. Great symmetry.

In LA X, Hurley and Sayid sit in the dark outside a bar in the Hurleymobile, and the two share a moment. Hurley tells Sayid that he’s a good dude, despite what everyone’s been saying about him. Just then, there’s commotion outside the bar, and a woman is in trouble. Sayid leaps to the rescue, beating the snot out of the guy, and helping the damsel in distress. It’s Shannon! The duo do the little sideways reminiscing two-step and are instantly in love. Back at the Hummer, Boone tells Hurley that it was a pain in the ass getting his sister here from Australia. Hurley says yeah, but that it was totally worth it. Maybe I’m a sap, but this was a totally awesome scene.

At the edge of the bamboo forest, Ben picks up a transmission from Miles. Miles tells Ben that they’re going to fly the plane off the Island and that they all need to haul ass over to Hydra Island so they can escape. This is about the time that crazy Aussie Claire comes out of the brush with a loaded rifle and starts making them all do the meringue. Richard tells her to pipe down, so she does, reluctantly, sitting down to sulk in the sand.

It took six seasons, but I finally discovered the most awkward screen cap in the history of Lost. I have no words.

At the concert in LA X, Juliet is wearing a particularly fetching little black number. If anything else happens in the scene, I’m not really aware of it.

Over in the band tent, Charlotte wakes Charlie up and he gets to drinking. Daniel is there, and introduces himself to Charlotte. They exchange flirty glances, but there’s no shiny Island flashback between the two. I guess they have a few more lives to live before they get their own montage.

David and Claire make their way to table 23, where Desmond and Kate are already seated. Kate and Claire are surprised to see each other. We, however, are not. Up on stage, Pierre Chang introduces Daniel Widmore on piano, with Drive Shaft in accompaniment. Daniel takes his seat and starts up the classical piano, while Charlie and his band look out, awkwardly, into the audience. Charlie spots Claire and the two share a brief moment before little baby Aaron decides he’s had enough and starts the delivery proceedings. Claire makes a run for it, with Kate and Charlie hot on her heels. Has anyone else noticed how big Claire’s stride is? She walks like she’s playing Twister. Is it just me? Maybe it’s just me.

On Island Prime, down in the heart hole, Desmond starts making his way toward the fun part. There are lots of old skeletons strewn about, like in a Dragon’s den. A little further in is a shiny pool, with what looks like four or five handmade ports in the cave wall, feeding water into the pool. It’s all very mystical. Even the music says so.

Anyone ever read It? Deadlights, man … deadlights. We all float down here, Georgie.

Desmond, being all mutant and stuff, steps into the shiny pool and a surge of electromagnetic force wracks his body in pain. He suffers through it, pulling the giant drain plug that keeps all the water from seeping through. Suddenly I’m reminded of a similar scene in Star Trek II, when a certain Vulcan sacrifices himself in order to stop the radiation escaping from the warp core. Anyone … anyone? At any rate, the water starts draining out of the pool and the whole thing starts shorting out and winding down like somebody flipped the switch over at ConEd.

Suddenly, it’s dark. Des tries to pull himself from the pool, but can barely make it from the lip. From the hole where the plug use to sit comes an eerie orange glow, and Desmond screams NOOOOO. Jack and Locke, at the top of the waterfall, look down and hear the screams. Locke points at Jack and tells him that it looks like the good doctor was wrong. He bids Jack adieu. And then the Genesis device kicks in, the whole Island shakes and shimmies like it’s quickly dying, and all hell breaks loose. Does anyone else feel like they’re watching Star Trek II and III, or is it just me?

Outside the heart hole, there are all manner of styrofoam rocks flying about. Locke emerges, but Jack is quick on his heels, jumping on his back and driving him to the dirt. After impact, Locke notices blood on his lips. “Looks like you were wrong, too,” says Jack. Hell yeah! Then Locke knocks his ass out with a rock and gets the hell out of dodge.

If it bleeds, it can die. This is so epic I might just pee myself.

Backstage at the concert in LA X, Claire goes into labor and Kate delivers the baby with Charlie looking on and they all have an awakening and it’s quite beautiful. Whatever. Meanwhile, outside Eloise confronts Desmond, saying that she told him to stop this. Desmond tells her that he chose to ignore her, and that after this, they’re all leaving. Eloise looks up at her son and asks, woefully, if he intends to take her son. Desmond holds her hand and tells her “not with me, no.” The old time lord is appeased.

Back on Island Prime, all hell is continuing to break loose. The whole shack is shimmying, when everybody’s moving around and around and around … ahem, excuse me. Anyways, the cameraman is getting time and a half with all the shaking, and everyone falls to the ground. A tree breaks free and Ben shoves Hurley out of the way, sacrificing himself and becoming pinned. It’s all really touching. Over at the heart hole, rain starts to pour and it wakes up Jack. He heads into the hole, calling after Desmond, but there’s no answer. He runs out into the jungle.

At the entrance to the bamboo jungle, everyone’s trying to get the log off Ben. Shit’s flying everywhere, and it’s raining cats and dogs. Suddenly, there’s a voice on Ben’s fallen radio. It’s Miles. He and Richard and Lapidus are working on the plane and he suggests that they all hightail it over to Hydra Island so they can get the heck off this doomed rock, cuz they’re leaving in an hour. Sonofabitch, says Sawyer, appropriately. Ben tells them they can get there because Locke has a boat. Suddenly, getting Ben out from under that tree seems to be a top priority.

“What the hell is going on, Kate?”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on … there’s a SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING IN CENTRAL MINNESOTA!” God bless lost-media.com for their awesome screen caps through the years.

Speaking of Locke and his boat, old baldy is standing on the cliffs at Jacob’s ladder, rain is coming down in sheets. He’s smiling. Suddenly, Jack screams his name, and Locke turns around. He’s not smiling anymore. He draws his knife. The two old adversaries start toward each other – Jack running down the slope, while Locke tracks close to the ground, skirting upwards. The two meet in the middle, and Jack leaps high in the air, one fist coming down strong, as if it were suddenly apparent that he had read a few X-Men comics in his youth.

Wolverine would be proud, Jackie boy. Berserker rage!

An epic fight ensues, far too grand for this mere mortal to express in words. It’s Shakespearean in theme, Homerian in scope and Bruckheimerian in execution. Basically, they kick the snot out of each other for two or three minutes. Eventually, Locke gains the upper hand and drives his trusty blade deep into Jack’s side. Understandably, that hobbles Jack just a bit. He rolls over and Locke pins him, thrusting the blade toward Jack’s neck. He fends off the newly-humanitized smoke monster, just barely, as Locke carves a wound in his neck. (See, I italicized that so you all would realize that’s the reason why Jack’s been battling a neck wound in LA X.)

Just at the moment it seems that Locke has the upper hand, and old Jack is a goner, a shot rings out. Locke collapses, revealing Kate behind him with a rifle. “I saved you a bullet,” growls Freckles through gritted teeth. HELL YEAH, GIRL! It’s good to see you behind a rifle instead of in front of one.

Locke rolls over, grimacing, pulling himself to all fours. He looks up at Jack, blood pouring from his lips, and tells him, weakly, “You’re too late.” Jack rolls his eyes as if to say “whatever, dude” and kicks his bald ass over the cliff and down to the jagged rocks below.

Sucks to your assmar, Piggy.

In LA X hospital, Locke is out of surgery. Jack is with his nurse, wheeling John to the recovery room. The nurse makes a comment about his neck, and Jack wipes away a bit of blood from the wound that doesn’t seem to heal. Jack wants to shower and catch up with his son, but Locke is already coming out of anesthesia. Locke tells Jack that it works – he has feeling in his legs. Jack is stunned. He says that the probability of that is unlikely and uncovers Locke’s feet. Locke wiggles his toes, and gets his shiny Island Prime montage. He cries. Jack gets a brief glimpse of the Island, but snaps back. Locke is beaming, and is ready to move on, asking Jack to come with him, but Jack says he has to get to his son. “You don’t have a son,” says Locke, shaking Jack to his very core.

Back on the cliffs of Island Prime, Kate helps Jack. He says he’s alright – “Just find me some thread and I can count to five.” Nice pilot reference, dude. Sawyer and company show up to help, and they think it’s over. The Island shakes as if to tell them that they’re so very wrong.

In LA X, Sawyer visits the Kwons. He offers them protection from Sayid, but they just grin and say it’s not necessary. As they leave the room, Jin tells Sawyer that they’ll “see you there.” James is understandably confused.

On Island Prime, Lapidus is resetting the electronics on the plane and flipping a lot of switches, but something isn’t right. He sends Richard and Miles down below with a roll of duct tape to make sure everything is hooked up alright.

Across the way, the Island is still getting the shakes. Jack determines that he has to turn on whatever Desmond turned off. Kate wants Jack to come, but he knows he can’t. Sawyer and Kate make their way toward the Elizabeth, while Ben and Hurley decide that they’re going with Jack. Jack says his goodbyes to Kate, and they kiss deeply. They profess their love for each other. Then Jack turns and is gone, forever. At least until the next life, anyway.

Back at the plane, Miles tapes up some sort of electrical line with duct tape. Richard asks if he can fix it. Miles responds with the best line of the episode: “I don’t believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in duct tape.” Amen, brother.

Sawyer radios in, telling Chesty to cool his jets until they get there. Lapidus tells them they need to get their asses in gear. Sawyer sonovabitches and tells Kate that they’re gonna have to go cliff diving. So they do, and swim off for the Elizabeth.

In LA X hospital, things get interesting. Sawyer asks Jack where he can get some grub, and the doc directs him toward the nexus of all hospital-related activity – the magic vending machine. Sawyer tries to buy an Apollo bar, but it gets stuck. Enter the lovely Juliet.

“Can I tell you a secret? If you unplug it, and then plug it back in, the candy just drops right down.” Whatever you say, darlin’.

Sawyer does as blondie tells him and the lights go out, making it all romantic-like, and then they touch and there’s the shiny Island Prime moment and she asks him if they could get some coffee sometime, just like down in the pit when she dies – they could go dutch – and they embrace and kiss and it’s pretty much wonderfully awesome. The end. Aww, crap, there’s more show. Isn’t this what it’s all about, anyway?

Jack finally shows up for the concert, but everyone is tearing down. Kate’s there in her hot little black number. Jack feels like he knows her from somewhere, and it’s not just a line because she’s in a hot little black number. Kate tells him that they know each other better than just flight 815, and then she takes his face in her hands and he gets flashes of Island Prime. Jack takes a breather, not knowing what’s happening. Kate urges him to come with her. He considers it.

On Island Prime, the Genesis device is in full swing, wreaking havoc on the planet, ummmm, Island. Jack, Hurley and Ben are at the heart hole, and Jack is going down. Hurley is concerned with Jack’s survival, but it’s becoming pretty evident that Jack isn’t going to make it back alive. This doesn’t sit well with Hurley, but Jack tells him that this is the way it’s supposed to happen. Jack tells Hugo that it needs to be him to protect the Island – that of all of them, he is the best candidate. “Hurley, I believe in you,” says Jack. We do, too … we do, too.

Hurley reluctantly agrees. Jack asks for a receptacle, and Ben has an old Oceanic bottle. Jack walks over to a stagnant, malaria-ridden puddle, fills the bottle and asks Hurley to drink it. Insanely, he does. “Is that it?” asks Hugo. Jack smiles and puts his hand on Hurley’s shoulder. “Now you’re like me,” says Jack.

That is one poor choice for a grail cup.

At the plane, Lapidus throws some switches, kicks the tires and lights the fires, big daddy.

At the heart hole, Hurley and Ben lower Jack down. The Island shakes and the lose their grip, dropping Jack to the bottom. He unties the rope and heads toward the pool, finding Desmond passed out. Des comes around, blabbering about the light, and how he was supposed to move on after extinguishing it. Jack helps him to his feet, affirming that it was the stone in big hole that did the trick. Desmond tells him yah, but that it’ll kill him, so it has to be the Scot. Jack tells Desmond that he’s done enough, and it’s time for him to go home to his wife and kid.

“I’ll see you in another life, brother,” says Jack.

On Hydra Island, Sawyer sees part of the main Island sink into the Pacific, and all of a sudden we’re at the climax of a Stephen King novel. Lapidus barks some orders. Kate finds Claire and begs her to come with them, while the Ajira plane starts to taxi, off in the distance. Claire goes apeshit, telling Kate that she can’t leave because the Island has made her crazy and Aaron can’t see her like this. Kate says she’ll help her, and that Aaron can have two moms, if that’s cool. It is, and they all lope off toward the plane.

Lapidus is all set to go, and guns it forward. Sawyer, Kate and Claire manage to hit the runway before takeoff, and Lapidus orders Miles to open the door for the late arrivals.

Down at the heart, Jack grits his teeth and struggles mightily and manages to place the ornate stone back into the power hole. He collapses, exhausted and wounded, as the reddish glow slowly dims.

At the plane, Sawyer, Kate and Claire are ushered on board, and Lapidus guns it as the ground cracks beneath them. The plane speeds along the makeshift runway, and the passengers grip their armrests. Lapidus grimaces and coaxes the plane to go faster, faster, the runway running out quickly, telling it to come on, come on, until, just at the last second, he’s able to guide the plane up and into the air, narrowly missing the end of the line. “Amen,” says Frank. Rock on, says we.

Down at the heart, the Island quakes are subsiding. Jack is still wounded, but water soon starts to flow into the pool and the peaceful, powerful golden glow returns to the centerstone. Up at the top of the waterfall, Ben remarks that Jack did it, and Hurley orders that they should pull Jack up. They tug at the rope, as heroic music plays. Down below, the pool fills with water and the golden glow swells. Jack leans against the sides of the pool, laughing, joyous at the thought that he has finally found his destiny and it is fulfilled.

Yeah, I’m always happy when the hot water finally kicks in, too.

Up top, Hurley pulls on a hand, believing that it is Jack, but Desmond is pulled up instead. Hurley yells down below for his old friend, but it’s no use. Jack is gone.

In LA X, Locke’s cab pulls up to the same church that Desmond ushered Christian’s body into earlier. The cabbie helps him into his wheelchair, and he rolls off toward the entrance. Ben sits on a bench out front, and Locke says hello. He asks Ben if everyone is inside, to which Benjamin replies that most of them are, yes. Ben stops Locke and apologizes for what he did to Locke – he was selfish, jealous and wanted everything that he had. John doesn’t quite understand and asks Ben what, exactly, John had. “You were special, John … and I wasn’t,” replies Ben.

“If it helps, I forgive you,” says John.

Ben agrees that it does help. Locke grins his Lockian grin, and asks what Ben will do now. Ben tells John that he has some things to work out, and that he’ll probably stay awhile. Locke starts to wheel away, but Ben tells John that he doesn’t need to be in the chair anymore. Locke pauses, then pulls one leg after another out of the chair, standing and casting the chair aside forever. “Goodbye, Ben,” says Locke, as he heads up the stairs and into the church.

On the Island, Ben and Hurley are out of the hole, now, Ben braces Desmond’s head with his pack, while Hurley contemplates the future of things. Hugo is fretting about his place on the Island, wondering how he will fill Jack’s shoes. Ben chimes in and tells him that Hurley will do what he does best – take care of people. Hurley can start by helping Desmond get home. “But how,” asks Hurley. “No one is supposed to leave the Island.”

“That’s how Jacob ran things,” says Ben, being awesome. “Maybe there’s another way. A better way.”

Hurley asks Ben for his help, which takes Ben aback. Hurley needs someone with experience, at least for a little while, and Ben is the best candidate for that job. Ben agrees, saying that he would be honored. “Cool,” says Hurley.

In LA X, Hurley comes out the front door of the church, noticing Benjamin sitting on the bench. He urges Ben to come inside, but Ben is reluctant, saying that he thinks he’ll stay out there for awhile. Hurley considers it and moves back toward the door, pausing for a second to tell Ben that he was a “really good number two.” Ben tells Hurley that he was a “great number one” and Hurley tells Ben “Thanks, dude” before turning to head back into the church.

Jack arrives at the church in his old Bronco, with Kate riding shotgun. She asks if he recognizes the place and he does – it’s where he was going to hold his father’s funeral. Kate tells him that he is still holding his father’s funeral there, and that he can go around back – she’ll be waiting for him inside.

On the Island, Jack wakes up on the same rocks that the Man in Black was found after his foray into the heart of the Island. He clutches his side and weakly gets to his feet.

At the church, Jack heads through the back door. He enters a chamber, and notices a coffin. Hesitantly, he circles the coffin, afraid to acknowledge what might be within it. Eventually, he pauses and reaches out a hand, pressing it against the wooden frame. Instantly, Jack is filled with images of his awakening on the Island, and the subsequent moments that made up the most important part of his life – the bamboo forest, his rescue of Claire and the survivors, Boone’s death and most notably, his love and time with Kate. Suddenly, it’s very clear to Jack – he’s lived another life, and it’s time for him to come to terms with the memories and the love from that experience.

Shocked, Jack backs away, then lifts the lid of the coffin, peering inside. The coffin is empty. He sighs, and closes the lid. “Hey, kiddo, ” says a voice behind him. Dad? asks Jack.

He turns. It is, indeed, Christian Shephard. “Hello, Jack,” says Christian.

Jack is very, very confused. “How are you here?” questions Jack.

Christian says, very clearly, “How are you here?”

Jack pauses for a moment, contemplating his father’s words, then doubles over with realization. “I died,” he says, with a sinking finality. Christian comforts him, telling his son that it’s okay. They embrace, and profess their love. Jack asks if his father is real, and Christian says he hopes so. Everything is real – everything that’s ever happened to him is real. All those people in the church are real, too.

“They’re all dead?” asks Jack.

“Everyone has to die sometime, kiddo,” replies Christian. Some before, some long after, says Christian. Jack asks why they’re all here now.

“Well, there is no ‘now’ here,” explains Christian. “This is a place that you all made together so that you could find one another. The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people. That’s why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you.”

“For what?” asks Jack.

“To remember,” says Christian. “And to let go.”

Jack says that Kate mentioned they were leaving. No, says Christian – not leaving … “Moving on.”

“Where are we going?” asks Jack.

“Let’s go find out,” says his father, with a grin.

Jack and Christian walk out from the side entrance and into the main vestibule. All of the main players are there, smiling and reminiscing. Old lovers have been reunited – Hurley and Libby, Sawyer and Juliet, Sayid and Shannon.

On the Island, in the jungle, Jack hobbles along, bleeding.

In the church, Jack greets Locke, and the two smile and shake hands. “We’ve been waiting for you,” says Locke.

Jack continues his Island trek through the bamboo.

Jack turns to see Desmond, with Penny. He shakes his hand, and the two share a cherished moment. Boone makes his way over, and embraces Jack.

Jack stumbles through the bamboo grove, slowly now, inching toward the spot where he began, passing by his father’s white tennis shoe, suspended on a branch.

Jack and Hurley embrace, Hugo wrapping Jack in a huge bear hug. Charlie and Claire hold baby Aaron so tight while Shannon and Sayid look on with love. Sawyer and Jack hug it out, too. A long road, down a crooked path, but straighter than true with friends like you.

Finally, Jack and Kate find each other, and she brushes the hair from her face and smiles deeply. He takes her hand and walks into the group.

Jack, finally exhausted, reaches his destination in the bamboo jungle and collapses.

Jack and Kate take their seat in the pews. Slowly, everyone else does, as well. There are many smiles and kisses, the warmth and comfort of old friends and deep love abiding. Christian walks amongst them, and grips his son’s shoulder in fatherly love.

On the Island, Jack lies in the loose bamboo leaves, his strength waning. He looks left and right, seemingly alone, until a familiar bark echoes in the background. Faithful Vincent is soon with him, and the dog lovingly kisses Jack’s cheek as he smiles at the appearance of his oldest friend. Knowing that Jack is fading, Vincent lies down beside Jack and brings him comfort.

In the church, Christian makes his way to the front doors. Gripping both, he opens them, bathing the inner church with bright, golden light. The dear, old friends look around at each other and smile, knowing that their next journey – no matter where it might be – will be taken together.

On the Island, Jack and Vincent lie together in the bamboo forest, just as they did when Oceanic 815 crashed on the Island so many years ago. Jack gazes up at the sky, his view obscured by the bamboo, swaying in the wind. Suddenly, the Ajira plane rockets past that visible pocket of sky, and Jack smiles, knowing that everything that he’s lived for, everything he’s been searching for – everything that’s real – exists forever in that moment, and his will is done.

The beginning.

FOUND

Needless to say, I found this episode of Lost very moving.

Although I steer very clear from the myriad Lost forums and blogs out there for fear that they will taint and twist the thoughts that spew forth in this column, I do spend a fair bit of time on Twitter. And from my time on Monday hearing the differing opinions bouncing back and forth about the finale, I have to wonder if some people out there were watching the same show I was for six years. There are many out there, like me, who thought that the series ended the way that it should, and that there were enough questions left – very personal questions that would leave you pondering the series and much more important beliefs for decades – but there are just as many out there that seem hurt, confused and, well, lost after Jack closed his eye and moved onto a higher plane.

Honestly, I liken it to a very similar finale from a few years past – that of Quantum Leap. Most thought that Sam Becket would finally leap home and live happily ever after, but the show delved deeper into the concepts of free will versus predestination. Sam was given a choice as to whether he would return home and live out his life, or if he could do one final good deed and then move onto another level of his journeys. In the end, Sam chose the honorable route, sacrificing the one thing he wanted – to go home – for the good of many. It’s the age old choice of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, or the one. Jack made a very similar, personal choice when he volunteered to take on Jacob’s duties, and then again when he chose to relight the fire at the heart of the Island, even though it meant certain doom. How can anyone be disappointed in that ending? These are heady issues, far beyond those of the everyman – Jack didn’t have to sit at a bus stop and contemplate whether to take the #23 or #42 bus downtown, or agonize whether he should see Annie Hall for the fifth time or take a chance on MacGruber. Jack chose life or death – an epic, mythical choice that extends to the very roots of all our cultures and our existence. I can’t comprehend disappointment at that level; clearly it’s a lot of youthful souls crying out because they’re sitting on the bench outside the church, not yet ready to move on.

But enough of that. Let’s get some good old-fashioned religion, shall we?

THE WINDOW TO THE SOUL

You all remember this, right? Well, let’s break it down, from top, left to right: Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism.

Islam. The crescent moon and star have many interpretations, and the exact origins aren’t defined. However, many scholars believe that early use of the icons comes from the Babylonian gods of Sin – the moon god, or father of time – and Shamash – the sun god, judge of heaven and Earth. The symbol was a metaphor for the mystical powers granted to the Babylonian king during his rule.

Judaism. The Star of David may originate from the shield of David mentioned in a blessing used on Saturday and holidays. This shield – basically God – protected David in battle. Of notable mention: the Hebrew word Olam Ha-Ba means “the world to come,” and refers to the age of the Messiah, as well as the afterlife. It is used in the Mishnah: “This world is like a lobby before the Olam Ha-Ba. Prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall.” Another text states that “the world is only like a hotel. The world to come is like a home.”

Hinduism. Hinduism is represented by the Aum – or Om – the most sacred symbol in the Hindu dharma. It represents a mantra, or uttered word, and symbolizes the infinite ultimate reality and the entire universe. The letters in the Aum each stand for something different: A is for creation, U is for preservation, M is for destruction. The three portions of the Aum relate to the states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep.

Christianity. The Christian cross represents salvation, redemption and sacrifice. God the Father sacrificed his only son, Jesus, so that everyone’s sins could be absolved. Jesus acted as the proxy for every person on Earth as he was crucified.

Buddhism. The wheel is one of the most important Buddhist symbols. Buddha was said to have turned the wheel of dharma, and thus the wheel is known as the dharmachakra, or wheel of law. The turning of the wheel symbolizes change and spiritual growth. It also represents the neverending cycle of rebirth – of which no one can escape without the teachings of Buddha. The wheel – and dharmachakra – have been a very large part of the Lost mythos since the very beginning.

Taoism. The Yin-Yang is a familiar symbol that most recognize as representative of balance, or opposite and equal qualities in a paradigm. The universe seeks equilibrium; without such balance, it will fall to entropy and cease to exist. The yin-yang is present in everything, especially nature, as plants and animals are born, live, procreate and die, fulfilling their cycle, but leaving a legacy to preserve balance.

YEAH, GREAT… SO WHAT’S IT ALL MEAN?
I believe that this finale – and, indeed, this series – has ultimately triumphed because it left itself open to personal interpretation. Most anyone could connect to a particular character, and be touched and live vicariously through their eyes. The finale – although mostly centered around Jack’s transition from one journey to another – is the greatest example of this quality. We didn’t get all the answers, but that’s fine by me. I would rather be left with a sense of wonder, and lots of food for thought, as that has been the nature of the series as a whole. Lost leaves a legacy of philosophy and introspection that will be talked about for many years to come, and will certainly be rediscovered by generations beyond ours.

Although I believe that everyone should take what they will from Lost and the finale, I will share my reflections with all of you because, well, it’s my column and I can do what I want. Also, it’s going to be the last time I get to ramble on incoherently about the Island and its mysteries. Let’s do this!

This dimension or plane of existence represents the culmination of many lifetimes and connections – this was the most important time in the lives of those touched by the Island and they were all intertwined intimately. It didn’t matter what time they ultimately died, as this was the pivotal point of their lives – the hub of the wheel. So even though Hurley stayed on the Island and may have died many, many years later, his consciousness shifts to this moment because this is the moment; the moment from which everyone was moving toward and from which their experiences would move away had they not died on the Island.

The beauty of the arc of the series is that this ending is completely open to interpretation. Many believe that everyone died and this is the transition area – purgatory, if you will – before they get to move onto heaven, or achieve nirvana, or whatever afterlife you may believe in. But because the story also involved time travel and quantum mechanics and introduced the possibility of the existence of multiple dimensions, it can also satisfy those that would rather prescribe a more scientific explanation. This other world could be a parallel dimension, and an area where their consciousness would migrate toward when they died. The migration would be independent of time and space, and represent a moment when the two worlds were at their closest. The Island was a conduit for that overlap, becoming a nexus where the consciousness of everyone could overlap. Desmond represented the full culmination of the traits of science and faith in one character – he is the Variable, able to shift his consciousness across time and, ultimately, dimension, but he was also a man of the cloth. He is the embodiment of a man of faith and a man of science.

Personally, I don’t think you have to interpret the end as one path or another. It’s not wholly a matter of faith or science – the two can meet in the middle, and support one another rather than being at odds. As a man of faith and science, the finale represents a brilliant culmination of these aspects. You can believe that this final staging area is the gateway to Heaven, or the final step before nirvana. Alternatively, you can postulate that the group consciousness was able to make the quantum shift to another plane of existence, another dimensional state. In the end, though, aren’t these seemingly-diametrically opposed paradigms actually one in the same? After all, what is heaven but another realm of existence?

In the context of what happened, memory denotes heaven – it’s a place where our greatest memories can live on, and we can reconnect with those people that meant the most to us. This area, the church, was nothing more than a gathering place – a transition spot where everyone’s consciousness could transcend and move onto the next level of existence. Those in the room know that they will be connected forever because they have found what they were looking for – whether that’s peace, love or redemption. Those, like Ben, who stay behind are those that haven’t quite made peace with their soul’s inner turmoil. Ben now has a chance to become a father and live another life, caring for his daughter and, perhaps, finding love and acceptance. Perhaps he will transcend in this life, and move on, or he may live several more lives before he truly finds what he’s looking for.

Could Island Prime have been a glimpse into another reality altogether, another plane of existence, and a stepping stone in the path that branches infinitely? Life – existence – is made up of these never-ending branches. Some choose the right path on their first try, but others stumble and walk down dark, dead-ends. They must retrace their steps. The characters in Lost have all been down those dark dead-ends, but the Island was the beacon that lead them out of darkness. The light that shone so bright from its interior was that which we all seek – it is the light of hope and of truth and of redemption. When it was said that if the light was allowed to go out, it would go out everywhere, that referred to the infinite power of the Island to bring about change – and change for the greater good. In the end, everyone who set foot on the Island found a bit more of that light inside them than was ever there before, and it illuminated everything. Most importantly, though, it showed them the way home.

THE LAST RANDOM BITS
A few quick shoutouts, separate from last week’s: To MeatyDoughnut on Hobotrashcan, thanks for reading through the years and for popping in from time to time with some really heady thoughts. For the record, though, I’m on top of the anthuriums. To makitt on LiveJournal, nicely done with the Juliet call. You totally nailed that. It’s almost as if you wrote that bit. Did you? On Twitter, @powlsy is the biggest Lapidus fan I know, and got a real happy ending on Sunday. I found this bit of fun in powlsy’s Twitter feed on Monday morning.

Speaking of Twitter, the feeds were alive with the sounds of kvetching on Sunday night, as Cleveland ABC station WEWS suffered technical difficulties, rendering much of the finale useless to viewers. For instance, during Christian Shephard’s “What’s it all about?” speech, it was complete silence, so viewers could see Christian was alive, but had no idea what the hell was happening. I can’t imagine being the station manager that night – this would be worse than the infamous Heidi Game. Twitterer and Hobotrashcan reader Stephen Foskett was part of the nightmare and provides a rather amusing reenactment of his Sunday night.

Crotch shot.

The only thing that disappointed me was the fact that Vincent wasn’t in the church. Unless he ultimately ends up with Walt again in this reality, in which case that’s okay. I also loved that Vincent stays with Jack at the end, because no one dies alone. I love that dog so much that I wouldn’t have been disappointed if it had all turned out to be his dream.

I doubt I’ll buy the extended collection that’s due out in August, as I have no desire to know any of the “secrets” that the producers want to share. I’d rather speculate for eternity, thank you very much.

Eloise has always been hip to the multiple dimensions and time. She is like Desmond and can see the paths ahead and behind. There may be others like her, and some may keep the secret to themselves, while others choose to spread enlightenment. This is a fascinating argument for some of the great spiritual leaders throughout human history.

Speaking of the Quantum Leap finale (which you should all watch – what’s wrong with you?), when Sam is taken to his “lobby” to talk to what many assumed might be God in the guise of a simple bartender, the barkeep gave him some sage advice: “Sometimes ‘that’s the way it is’ is the best explanation.”

Watching the finale live was a treat, mostly because of the amazing Target commercials. I think the failing Dharma keyboard was my favorite.

I couldn’t go a whole season without putting fitting this damn thing in somewhere.

There were many unanswered questions after the finale, so I’ll go over some of them very briefly …

Where was Walt and Michael? Michael was not yet ready to move on, much like Ana Lucia. They were both pretty awful in their lives on Island Prime and, even though Michael sought redemption on the freighter, his consciousness was not yet ready to transcend. As for Walt, his time on the Island was important, but brief, so it’s likely that he went on to bigger and brighter things in his life, creating a new transcendence nexus for his afterlife.

Who said “help me” in the cabin? Your mom.

What’s up with the Dharma food drops? Well, Desmond and Kelvin had to keep the Swan stocked with something, right? It’s likely that the Initiative was still functioning in some sort of capacity in order to keep the Swan operational, and after the purge, there was no way in hell anyone was going to set foot on that Island without the Marines in tow.

What about the numbers? It’s likely that they point toward a connection with a reality that’s a “step back” along the journey of the survivors. Each iteration of a lifetime brings with it certain connections that grow and multiply with successive iterations. The numbers are representative of those iterations – they’re simply connective baggage that is tossed about in the Island’s nexus. We’ll probably never know where they originated, or their true significance, but that’s okay by me.

What about the sickness? Either a rumor perpetrated by Dharma for control, or spread by the Others for somewhat nefarious purposes. Still, the sickness could have been real – the sickness relating to being mentally ill and transformed, like Rousseau’s science team. Just a guess, really – they really let this one slide as the seasons wore on.

Yeah, well what about the baby thing? Electromagnetic interference. It was used to explain just about everything else on the Island.

It’s about time to wrap things up, but before I go I thought I would share some future plans with all of you. Although Lost is at an end, Down the Hatch will live on as a column on Hobotrashcan. Joel and I are still working out the kinks in the format, but imagine me taking a different, random TV show or series each week and dissecting it, Lost-style. Yes, that could mean Two and a Half Men or Jersey Shore, God help me. It’s very likely that I’ll rely on readers to supply me with viewing suggestions, so check back in a couple of weeks and see what we come up with. Also, if there are any games enthusiasts out there, I’ve recently become the Durham Games Examiner over on Examiner.com. The articles I write over there might not change your life, but at least they’re guaranteed to be shorter than an unabridged War and Peace. Oh, and don’t forget to tune into the Hobo Radio podcast this week – I’ll be on there, bringing some class to the proceedings for a change.

THIS IS THE PART WHERE I CRY
The end is near; time to pack my things and learn to let go. More than any other show, Lost has profoundly affected my life in ways far greater than this weekly column and the great people who have shared their thoughts, support and affinity. I’ve been with the show since the very beginning, and for over six years I’ve watched these characters rise and fall, suffer and triumph, love and be heartbroken. In a way, Lost has been my constant during those years, as I have done a lot of living in that time, just like the survivors of Oceanic 815. This show has seen me through four job changes, five moves, the loss of two dear friends and four relationships. When Jack’s eye opened in September of 2004, so did mine; I started to let go of an old life and embrace a new one as I applied for a job in Boston. Four months later, I was there, on a new path and beginning a new journey, one which would become a long trek down a crooked path. I’ve come full circle now, and like those intertwined survivors I am ready to let go and to move on – not only from Lost, but from the struggles and heartaches, mistakes and missteps of my past. I’m ready. I’ve opened the door and the light is warm and bright, and full of hope.

For all of you out there who have come along on this journey, I wish you all the best. And as I’ve come to realize, remember always: even though the jungle may be dense, the path strewn with peril and your destination not wholly known, you’re never truly lost if you’ve found yourself.

See you in another life. Namaste.

So You Could Find One Another: Cultural Perfections in LOST 6.17-6.18 “The End” by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:33:25 +0000

This analysis is for Ree Hines.

I write this for everyone disappointed, angered, or confused.

You invested six years. Give it one more shot. Watch the finale again; you’ll thank yourself for the effort. Enlightenment may not require a punch in the face or renewed sense in legs once dead, but it does require careful thought. Enlightenment was not intended for the already-dead inhabitants of the sideways purgatory. It was intended for us. For the thirty millions around the world, most of whom sacrificed a Monday morning to experience the end.

Give it one more shot. If anyone should be disappointed in the ending, it’s Pearson Moore. Not one of my grand predictions proved correct. But I can tell you this, after a third viewing:

LOST is the greatest piece of fiction ever presented on television.

You Can Let Go Now

“You can let go now.”

Rose’s words of comfort, her enlightened wisdom on the sideways voyage of Oceanic Flight 815, make perfect sense in the brilliant white light of the Church of the Holy Lamp Post. So, too, John Locke’s Season-One statement about his vision of the Island’s perfection. He described his first confrontation with the Smoke Monster, telling Jack, “I looked into the eye of this island, and what I saw… was beautiful.” A couple months later, talking with Eko, he described his experience as having seen a “brilliant light”.

The tomb was always empty. The tomb had to be empty. We knew, from the moment six years ago when Jack first raised the lid on that coffin in the jungle, near the cave of Adam and Eve, just south of the Light–we knew even then that Jack would never, ever find his father’s dead body. His body could not be separated from the full reality of the Island. I thought this fact was due to the mystical nature of the Island, that Christian Shephard somehow represented or was connected to the essential core of the Island. The reality of Christian Shephard was greater than the Island, though. He was connected to something more important that the lush green real estate moving hither and yon around the Pacific.

He Has Work To Do

When did Lindelof and Cuse know the ending?

I suggest the creators knew precisely the way in which the voyage would end at least in the weeks before January 28, 2008, when Mobisode #13, “So It Begins”, first aired on Verizon. If you are a casual viewer of LOST–maybe even if you consider yourself a devoted fan–you may not know what I refer to here. The “Mobisodes” were intended as non-broadcast episodes of LOST fully integrated into the canon of the show. Darlton said as much in several interviews, beginning in December, 2007.

Christian, acting on behalf of the Island and not as the representative of the Man in Black, summoned Vincent. Putting on his Doctor-Doolittle veterinary hat, the former chief of surgery gave these instructions to the white labrador retriever:

“Listen. I need you to go find my son. He’s over there–in that bamboo forest. Unconscious. I need you go wake him up. Okay? Good boy. He has work to do.”

Jack’s work, we know now, was his redemption, his reconciliation with his father, his unrestrained embrace of his Constant, Kate, his communion with the Island, his voyage from scepticism to faith, and his decision to hear Rose’s words and let go. Most of the other major characters had equally full slates. This realisation is critical to a deeper understanding of the series.

Twenty-First Century Odyssey

Did Darlton really intend that we view all the mobisodes, read Doc Jensen’s mammoth dissertations on every single episode, try to see, with Vozzek69, “Things I Noticed”, read the novels of Stephen King, the plays of Shakespeare, the philosophy of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, scrutinise and investigate the endless instances of symbolism and mirror imagery and references to literature, music, pop culture, ancient culture, religion, mythology, and history? After such a simple revelation? They’re all dead, the sideways is just purgatory. Hell, it might as well be St. Elsewhere’s snow globe, right? Wasn’t all this just a waste of the last six years of our lives?

No.

Darlton really did intend that we do a fair amount of homework. They really did intend that we spend not dozens, but hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours in trying to understand their creation.

We must understand the Iliad.

Anyone who has tried to read Homer’s masterpiece at one time or another, perhaps after the seventeenth instance of labouring through interminable lists of names of kings and sons of kings and sons of gods and sons of kings who are sons of gods–at one time or another we all have the same feeling. Why the hell am I reading this? I should just shell out five bucks for the Cliff Notes, read it, and get on with my life.

The point of Homer’s lists is not the memorisation of names. The point is that the names are connected to places and deeds, crucial locations and critical events: Kings, countries, and conflicts. They’re all related, they’re all necessary, they all inform Homer’s work. Take away those lists and there is no Iliad. The battles of the Trojan War have no significance without their relation to the men who fought, the lands they died for, the sons and fathers and flesh and blood they mourned for, their example of endurance and strength and fortitude and bearing, and all of this, every name, every relation, a connection to us, a reminder to us, an example to us of our own capacities for endurance, strength, and fortitude, proof of our shared humanity.

The fact that the coffin was empty back in Season One, that it was empty in Season Six, that in fact, it was always empty, is not the point.

The fact that all the characters in the church are dead is not the point.

The fact that we had to experience the repeated instances of misery and pain and death, again and again, on the Island, off the Island, and on the Island again–and understand the inter-relationships of leadership, life, and location before we could truly say we understand–is entirely the point. The complicated aspects of the tangled relationships provide the key to the essential message of the last six years. With Jacob, Jack, and Hurley, we must willingly imbibe the rich water-into-wine from Island streams, dine on mango and coconut, join Locke in hunting and feasting on wild boar, before we can claim to have seen, understood, and appreciated this human epic.

And What Is Good, Phaedrus?

Odysseus slaying Penelope’s suitors

We must study the Iliad and the Odyssey.

We must understand LOST.

The intention of the two statements is the same. Plato, in the dialogue named after Phaedrus, provided the rationale: “And what is well [written] and what is badly [written]-need we ask Lysias, or any other poet or orator, who ever wrote… to teach us this?”

Odysseus fought in a war, took a long, difficult voyage home, killed some men who were pestering his wife, and lived happily ever after. The End.

Jack Shephard fought to leave an island, took a long, difficult voyage back to the island, killed some evil men, and died happily in the jungle. The End.

The point of the Iliad and the Odyssey is not that Menelaus and Achilles and Ajax and Odysseus carried out great deeds in battle. The point is not that they properly mourned those who lay mangled by the bronze spear. The point is that they completed noble deeds of valour, ever aware of their station as kings of Sparta and Ithaca, as men of Greece, as examples of good and complete men. These were men who mourned those felled by the bronze spear, yes, but saw goodness and even excellence in the fact of their comrades’ pain-filled deaths. ”It is entirely seemly,” Homer told us, “for a young man killed in battle to lie mangled by the bronze spear. In his death all things appear fair.” The Iliad is not an adventure story. It is a primer on the necessary qualities of manhood, fatherhood, and leadership. It is not a lesson learned over the course of a 150-minute television movie. It is something acquired through study and toil.

The intention of the Iliad and the Odyssey, shared with LOST, is to enrich our understanding of who we are, who we ought to be, who we can be if we take the time to understand the fullness–the length and breadth and depth and richness–of our humanity.

Darlton’s great work, like Homer’s, is a fictional portrayal of the complete person. As with a recitation of the entire poem, several sessions over a number of evenings are required to absorb the full work. Homer expected his listeners to converse about what they had heard during their daily labours between sittings, draw examples from history, from their own lives, from the teachings of parent and prince. Twenty-seven centuries later, Darlton expected no less of their listeners.

Jack Shephard slaying the Smoke Monster

LOST is about the essence of who we are as complete human beings. The show centres on our humanity, on the essentials of culture. It is not about good versus evil, for we are both good and evil. It is not about free will versus destiny, for we are all free and we all share a final destiny. LOST is neither adventure story nor study in psychology. LOST is about the mature integration of body, mind, and soul. LOST describes the adventure of being fully engaged, immersed–even overwhelmed–in our humanity, yet having abundant faculties of temperance, judgment, and prudence to execute responsibilities with mature bearing, confidence, and valor.

Jack’s Odyssey

Jack’s odyssey had to follow the hero’s journey to unknown lands, the suffering and agony and near-death of self-discovery, and the enlightened and aware return to plan and execute and successfully complete the hero’s task. His mission was nothing less than the complete re-building of every aspect of his broken self. He was obliged to seek redemption, reconciliation with his father, spiritual completion in his Constant, Kate, active communion with the Island, movement of mind and soul from scepticism to trust, and knowledge of when to act with resolve and when to surrender in faith.

This is not a journey summarised in two and a half hours on a Sunday evening (or, for most of you, a Monday morning). The most hilariously funny scene in the six years of LOST occurred in Season Five at the dinner table in Hurley’s mansion. There Hurley relayed to his mother, in less than fifty-eight seconds, everything that had occurred on the Island. Here’s what he told his mother:

Okay. See, we did crash, but it was on this crazy island. And we waited for rescue, and there wasn’t any rescue. And there was a smoke monster, and then there were other people on the island. We called them the Others, and they started attacking us. And we found some hatches, and there was a button you had to push every 108 minutes or…

well, I was never really clear on that. But… the Others didn’t have anything to do with the hatches. That was the DHARMA Initiative. The Others killed them, and now they’re trying to kill us. And then we teamed up with the Others because some worse people were coming on a freighter. Desmond’s girlfriend’s father sent them to kill us. So we stole their helicopter and we flew it to their freighter, but it blew up. And we couldn’t go back to the island because it disappeared, so then we crashed into the ocean, and we floated there for a while until a boat came and picked us up. And by then, there were six of us. That part was true. [Whispers] But the re… But the rest of the people… who were on the plane? They’re still on that island.

The passage is humorous, but Jorge Garcia’s perfectly-timed delivery of this speech in The Lie (Lost 5.02) was hilarious. Mary O’Brien’s “Everything you need to know about Lost in 8 minutes, 15 seconds” was equally amusing. Even as I sit at this keyboard, doctoral students around the world are busy crafting five-hundred-page dissertations on LOST. This will be going on for decades to come. Though I carry the not uncommon conceit of being able to distill into words the ideas presented by Darlton, I recognise my wordsmithing is almost entirely inadequate to the unusual demands of the task. I can only begin to scratch the surface of Jack’s epic journey. And I do all of this very much aware of my former confidence in Locke’s resurrection on the Island, and humbled by the much grander and entirely unique story the writers fashioned out of material I considered within the realm of my understanding.

A Clarification

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, circa 1990

In introducing this essay I said I was writing for the benefit of Ree Hines. I imagine she or at least some of her co-workers at NBC’s The Today Show will read all or part of my words and wonder why I singled out a most excellent television critic. I will clarify. I am not singling out Ree Hines so much as I am appealing to her readers, and to all who believe themselves disappointed or confused by the last episode of LOST. I will point out here that the critic’s mission is necessarily different from the analyst’s. My intention, as analyst, is to illuminate. A critic’s objective, the reason she is paid much more than someone like me, is that she is able to evaluate. The criteria for any valid criticism of artistic presentations must include some determination of the accessibility of the artistic creation, intrinsic merit of the piece, and many other factors that have no bearing on the more subjective type of analysis I have been engaged to perform. Ree Hines’ critique of LOST is entirely on point because she has taken into consideration all of these factors and has provided excellent criticism of the work. If you wish to read a valid, thoughtful, and well-written critique of LOST, you could do no better than by beginning with her essay, currently posted at MSNBC (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/37308154/ns/today-entertainment/), among other locations on the web.

The Big Picture

LOST is not the story of a single hero working alone against all odds, conquering vast armies, vanquishing forces of nature, escaping the very snares of death to achieve godlike ends. It is the story of ordinary people working in concert with each other and in communion with nature and forces beyond nature to propagate very human goals. Our best and most noble virtues are those that require the happy collaboration of those committed to the common objectives of humanity and civilisation.

I predicted last summer that there would be Seven at the end. I was envisioning some close variant of the Oceanic Six, or the Six Candidates (I once included Kate but exclude her now, since Jacob confirmed she was not formally a Candidate). The writers chose not to echo Akira Kurosawa, instead creating their own significant numbers. In decades to come much will be made of Jack Shephard’s status as Prime Candidate (he bore the number twenty-three, the only prime number among the six Candidates), but the six coefficients of the Valenzetti Equation proved to have no significance at the deepest level of Island mythology. I concede the very obvious fact that no intrinsic significance attached to the number seven, and that no importance was given to any of the numbers existing at the end of the series. However, I do wish to acknowledge, as very minor footnote, that seven sentient intelligences existed on the Island with the last light of the final scene:

1. Hugo Reyes (“Number One”, Protector of the Island)
2. Benjamin Linus (“Number Two”, Advisor to Hurley–the “Richard” function)
3. Desmond Hume (angel of enlightenment)
4. Rose Nadler (enlightened guide)
5. Bernard Nadler (enlightened guide)
6. Vincent (intelligent; he understood and obeyed Christian)
7. Jack Shephard (Prime Candidate, Slayer of the MIB, Defender of the Light)

Progress

LOST reveled in disunity and conflict. These are of course the elements of good drama, but LOST took conflict to new extremes. The intent, I believe, was to demonstrate through contrast the good that might derive of collaborative unity. The building of the raft, the distribution of Dharma food, the sharing of button-pushing shifts, the united effort against the Others, the integration into the Dharma Initiative, and the final battle against the Smoke Monster were examples of the salutary effects of people surrendering individual objectives to work toward common goals. Collaboration is not only a benefit, it is essential to our humanity.

“The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people,” Christian said. “That’s why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you.”

The characters of this series were lost. They were lost because they had not found a way to truly share with each other. Last season, with Penny and Desmond’s phone call, we began to understand some of the elements that would provide the foundation for united purpose. Love was shown to be the way indivisible spirits could achieve unification even across dimensions of time and space. Trust was a constant motif throughout Season Six, and was the foundation of social unity in the sideways realm. These are elementary components of civilisation, but they were almost entirely absent for much of Jacob’s two-thousand-year reign. With the ascension of Jack, who loved and was loved, who knew at the deepest core of his person that Kate was with him, was always with him, the Island was finally guided by a person of trust, faith, and love. After two thousand years, the Island truly became, in the words of Jack’s mentor, “a place where miracles happen”.

“This is a place that you all made together so you could find one another,” Christian said, referring to the sideways world, the antechamber to what lies beyond. It was here they found their Constants, understood who they were, felt in the depths of their souls their dependence on each other, their need to cultivate and enjoy every good facet of civilised life.

The Game

Two players. Two sides. One dark, one light.

No one sat beside John Locke inside the Church of the Holy Lamp Post. Almost everyone else was paired into a Constants-couple. But John Locke was not alone. His Constant was with him, the Constant that had always been with him. From the day Flight 815 crashed, he became the guide, the man who understood the game, felt the presence of the players, heard them in Jacob’s cabin. Most importantly, Locke knew the rules of the game. He struggled in his faith, because he trusted, even when others took advantage. But in the end it was Locke whose spirit prevailed. Man of faith, he knew belief provided a sure foundation for the trials of life. Knowledge, science, logic were corrupt illusions.

Locke enjoyed a place of honour in the first pew of the church, even without the physical presence of his Constant. As it was for the others, so also it was for him: he found his Constant, came into perfect communion with that place where miracles happen. John Locke’s Constant was the Island. It is fitting that his body found its final rest on the Island, fitting that his wisdom guided Jack and Hurley, and was source of inspiration and enduring respect for Benjamin Linus as “Number Two”. John Locke played by the rules. Thanks to him, all things on the Island are fair and just. In his death, all things appear fair.

With Jack and Hurley, Locke immersed himself in our common humanity, cultivating abundant faculties of temperance, judgment, and prudence to execute responsibilities with mature bearing, confidence, and valor. Of these three men, we can truly say they embodied the best qualities of men, showed us who we are, and who we might become. As long as we remember their example, we will find one another, delight in our Constants, no longer alone, no longer LOST.

Vivace con brio: Cultural Enlightenment in LOST 6.16 “What They Died For” by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Sun, 23 May 2010 02:27:20 +0000

It was one of the most delightfully playful scenes in the last six years.

Desmond, in league with Hurley, exploiting Ana Lucia’s tendencies toward self-enrichment to stage a jail break for two most important players in the final moves on the grand Cuatro chessboard. But Desmond is not moving pawns about the board. Hurley is a rook–a mighty castle–serving his Island’s queen and her bishop-martyr. Desmond is the great knight, of his own free will serving King and Island. He and Hurley are neither puppets nor pawns, but free agents of conscience, collaborators in a noble and necessary cause, working con brio toward the final move.

The voyage toward the momentous events of the concert will require less than 150 minutes of our time. We will see a woman in black acting as midwife to a most important birth. And two men–one a musician and the other a former interrogator–martyrs whose bodies lie in deep-water tombs but whose spirits can never die–will act as final instigators of the enlightenment of those who will choose a destiny to safeguard the Light for eternity.

It is not a struggle of good versus evil. It is not an argument about freedom versus fate. It is the final battle for the fullness of who we are, for the breadth and depth and richness of our humanity.

Why We Fight

According to the Nürnberger Gesetze, which became German law in 1935, there was no “human race”. German citizens were divided into three classes: Aryans, semi-human Mischlings, and non-human Jews. When the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Great Britain, France, and Canada and the other Commonwealth countries declared that a state of war existed with Germany. They fought because if they did not, they would become slaves to the inhuman Nazi regime. Only with the liberation of Dachau and Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz did the allies understand the depths of Nazi depravity. Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, anyone with Down’s Syndrome–those not meeting the narrow ideals of the Aryan Oberherren–had been gassed and burned to ashes, or were in queue awaiting their fate. Perhaps no war is a “good war”, but the allies posed necessary and costly resistance to defeat and destroy the purest form of evil the world has ever witnessed. The Nazis were not evil merely because they wished to enslave the rest of us. They were evil because they desired above all to twist and bind and wring out of us the essentials of our humanity.

There are rare moments when, even in the face of ambiguity and mixed motives and insincerity, a line must be drawn. The battle must be joined. Not because evil must be destroyed, for the world will always contain evil. Not because we must assert our free will over the exigencies of destiny or fate, for we are free only to the extent that we obey the dictates of conscience and assume the responsibilities inherent to civility. There are moments when the evil inside us threatens to overwhelm everything precious and necessary to our existence as beings of the Light. This is what they died for. This is why we fight.

“We have to kill him, Jack.”

Jack’s expression doesn’t waver, and his voice is even and resolute. “I know,” he says. Even Sawyer, self-centred Sawyer, no longer seeks escape. The stakes are too big even for a wretch like him. Escape is not one of the permissible outcomes. He is no longer Sawyer, no longer the confident coward. He is James Ford, resistance fighter, here to offer his all: “muscle, bone, blood, and the heart that pumps it”. He’s with Jack to the end, come what may. Hurley has Jack’s back. And Kate, good and strong Kate, our own Jeanne d’Arc, is with Jack, has always been with Jack. With Desmond, with the good and perfect examples of Charlie and Sayid, they will fight the good fight.

LOST is not a war of good versus evil. It is about the good and evil qualities each of us finds in herself, and the need to assert every one of those good and noble qualities. Jacob unleashed great evil on the world. He bears evil in his heart, toward his twin brother, perhaps even toward the woman who killed his birth mother. But he has chosen to assert the good in his heart, decided to believe above all that life is a progression, a road to our end, which is not death, but the profound and playful enjoyment of the rich and varied fruits of our humanity.

Our humanity finds no fulfillment in any Wagnerian Triumph des Willens. We are not Randian robots, slaves to ill-obtained wealth, thinking ourselves clever and creative when we amass fortunes and enjoy the unclean fruits of what we perceive to be superior intellects and driven work ethic. The fullness of humanity is expressed in a commitment to the Common Good, aux Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen, to life, liberty, and love, to egalité et fraternité, to the recognition and celebration of companionship, collaboration, and civilisation. This is who we are. This is what they died for. This is why we fight.

The Decision

He is confused. Desmond ignited something in him, some recognition of events imbedded in his soul. But what is it? Is it worth a bloody nose, black eye, and broken arm? What is worth fighting for?

He cares for children. No matter where he is, he takes risks for those unable to care for themselves. He kidnapped Alex after Rousseau’s shipwreck on the Island, not because he wished to deprive Danielle of her baby, but because Charles Widmore would have killed both mother and child. He took time to tutor and mentor sideways Alex not only to expand her understanding of European history, but to instill in her a sense of value and ability–to nurture confidence in herself. Benjamin Linus, expert in human history, master manipulator, is above all one who places himself as surrogate parent, guardian, protector and teacher of the young and frail.

But he is flawed. He sees in the mirror one who would prefer that good men suffer so that his unreasonable and unhealthy ambitions for educational administration might be realised. He thinks his own ambitions laudable, for he tells himself he has only the children in mind, he acts only on their behalf. But when he looks in the mirror, he sees shallowness, a man beaten and bloodied by his own drive for power.

Ben has a choice to make. He has not yet put a choice into action and word. When he pointed a rifle at Ilana several episodes ago, he gave a tearful confession. But he was crying for himself. No one else would have him–take him as he was–so he would leave Ilana’s camp and follow the Man in Black. He did not repent, he merely expressed his failings and a willingness to belong. “I’ll have you,” Ilana said, recognising his desire to rejoin humanity. But he has not joined us again. Not yet. Fearful, aware of his mortality, he knows the knife Smokey wields is the least of the Monster’s weapons. Is he scheming even now to bring down the Man in Black? The answer is only as clear as the image of his battered body in the school nurse’s office mirror. What will he decide? In less than 150 minutes, we will know.

The Sacrifice

It is not an image in the mirror. The wound on Jack’s neck is not an image at all, but a statement of reality: Jack is wounded. He is the Chosen. But this means he has drunk from Jacob’s cup, and we know from Jacob’s example that the cup of communion is a sharing in not only leadership and life, but also a sharing in distress and death. Like his mentor before him, John Locke, Jack must be willing to become the sacrifice the Island demands. But the death of Locke’s disciple is never the final statement of a good life. Boone Carlyle, first of Locke’s disciples, died so that Aaron Littleton could be born. If Jack Shephard becomes the last of the martyrs to the Light, his death will serve as harbinger to the most awaited and most necessary birth in the history of the Island. A rebirth, really. The reincarnation of the man destined to bring final balance to the Island.

I think Jack Shephard will die a few short hours from now. The stakes are high, the symbolism is strong, and Jack has achieved perfection. In the tradition of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, Jack’s example will catalyse the survivors, unifying their resolve to an extent never before seen.

I am not as sure of Jack’s demise as I was when I first saw the wounds of stigmata on his neck. A pivotal relationship remains unresolved, and full reconciliation may require that Jack live. I am speaking of Jack’s relationship with his first mentor, Dr. Christian Shephard.

Whether he is dead or alive, I am convinced Christian Shephard has a unique connection to the Island. Also, whether he lives body and mind or exists spirit and soul, I am convinced his dead body will never be found. Jack has work to do, as Christian told Vincent, urging the dog to wake his unconscious son. I believe that work includes one final moment of quality time between father and son. Jack is perfect only in the sense that he is willing to sacrifice all. Perhaps in reconciling with his father he will gain the insight or strength of purpose or spiritual completion required to face down and finally vanquish the Smoke Monster. Perhaps in coming to truly love his father, in spite of the man’s imperfections, Jack will find the true road to eternal life on the Island.

I am not sure of Jack’s physical fate. But I am sure of one thing. In the end, whether dead or alive, Jack will enjoy full communion with the Island, and with the full depth of our common humanity. In Jack’s struggle we have the perfect example for our own efforts to live as fully engaged human beings, neither women and men of science, nor women and men of faith, but women and men committed to the Common Good.

Here is a very tightly-written character with several spiritual debts, multiple motivations, a number of paths he might follow to achieve the completion of his journey. The writers crafted a multi-dimensional character with such a high degree of complexity that even ninety-eight percent of the way through this series, and after reading several thousand pages of analysis, I cannot discern the most logical outcome of Jack Shephard’s arc. I like to believe I have written interesting protagonists, antagonists, and supporting character into my novels, but I have created no character anywhere near as compelling as Dr. Jack Shephard. Kudos to Darlton and the writing team.

Fellowship of the Ash

They are the four who remain, the chosen ones, preparing for final battle. But they are not alone. Desmond is with them, and Richard, too. We saw Frank Lapidus fall, but we did not see him die. He may be back. More likely than not, Benjamin Linus will join them. There will be at least seven, perhaps more. But even these seven are not alone. Through Hurley, Isabella has made her presence felt and Michael Dawson led them to confront the Man in Black. The whispers in the jungle are the hopes and prayers and words of wisdom not only of Michael and Isabella, but of the hundreds who died in their own attempts to serve and preserve the Island. Whether or not they are somehow able to provide material support, their presence seems likely to figure into the final battle in some critical way.

For the first time in the long and complex six years, everyone is united, mind, body, and soul, driven by a single purpose: To kill the Smoke Monster.

RIP Charles and Zoe… well, RIP Zoe, at least…

I will confess I do not understand the importance or value of this scene. Was it a Nikki and Paolo moment? Fans don’ like Zoe, so writing staff decides to give her a quick and almost painless death? Did Charles Widmore exist only so that he might bring Desmond one last time to the Island? Perhaps if, like other fans of the show, I didn’t like Zoe or Sheila Kelley, I might not mourn her passing or attach much significance or have questions about what might have been. But I do like Zoe. With her knowledge of geophysics, I thought she would turn out to be a key player in the Smoke Monster’s demise. I am sad to see her go. I’m not sad for Charles Widmore. He claims Jacob visited him, that the visit changed his life, made him see the Light. Fat chance. Widmore killed babies, enjoyed killing babies. I’m glad to see him go.

Happily Ever After

It must have been the onions.

It is said that Ben’s request for a glass of milk in Season Two ensured Michael Emerson’s long run as the ambiguous Benjamin Linus. I think it may be Ben’s claim that the onions caused the tears in his eyes that will cement him ever in our memories as one of the most beloved characters of the show. If Benjamin Linus can end in this way, how could the series not end on a positive note?

I originally titled this article “Vivace con fuoco”, but recalling all the stupid jokes about Joey Buttafuoco and recognising the potential for American Idol viewers and beer keg philosophers to twist good Italian to nefarious ends, I changed the title. The original title expressed my concept of this week’s episode. It was serious (that’s the “fuoco” part), but it was lively (“vivace”) and playful, too. The Ben/Danielle scenes were fast and cheerful, like the Desmond scenes. These were little vignettes, tiny tastes of what is to come. The characters who live through this are going to find redemption, peace, and happiness. The characters who die will be remembered as martyrs, heroes, and models of humanity. All’s well that ends well. The tragedy, pain, suffering, and death required to safeguard the Island and uphold the value of humanity will give way to one very merry concert at the end of the show. And probably two men sitting on the shore of an island. “Do you know how badly I want to… beat your ass in backgammon?” They will be friends, not mortal enemies. Predictions will not matter anymore after tomorrow. But it seems likely the two men taking in the waves will be Ben and Locke or Jack and Locke, or perhaps Ben and Jack. In less than twenty-four hours, we will know.

I send sincere apologies for the tardiness of this very brief article. The demands in the laboratory I serve were extraordinarily high this week, and I had few hours even for sleep. The finale is important, and many weeks ago, before the demands for my time were nigh to the breaking point, I scheduled two days of vacation, next Monday and Tuesday. I will complete a first summary of the entire six years of the series less than twenty-four hours after the finale. Next week at this time I will offer a somewhat more detailed analysis of what I consider the major themes of the show. And this summer? I’ve begun a fourth novel. And I have three novels yet to sell. So much to do, I could almost cry. If I do, though, I’ll be sure to blame it on the onions.

The LOST Initiative: 6.16 “What They Died For”

SL-LOST — Fri, 21 May 2010 21:52:34 +0000

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