When I started watching Lost, the show was about three seasons in. It was roughly 2007, my senior year of high school and my relationships with these characters on what became a top three favorite show of mine were cemented even as I finished watching the show into my early twenties through significant life changes. Ten years later I’m re-watching Lost and of course my life experience is changing the way I’m viewing the behaviors and motivations of the characters. My impression from other viewers who may have been much older at the time of their viewing of Lost, still seems off base. While I’m only halfway through season two, I can’t help but to re-examine a selection of characters and who they really are.
Sawyer is fine. When I first watched this show, I and everyone else was largely disgusted with his behavior of looting and pilfering supplies and valuables often from dead passengers. As we learn, his nature as a conman drives him toward such things. He proceeds to tickle everyone’s most vulnerable insecurities using his skills to find the worst in everyone while living for and by himself having few positive interactions with any of the characters. I judged him for this and while my instinct in their situation still wouldn’t be anywhere close to his, I understand it now. Obviously his background plays into his actions and behavior, but at the same time as viewers, we often picture ourselves in roles like Jack, the shepherd of the show, fixing everything, sharing our valuable time and critical thinking skills to make life on the island as efficient as possible while keeping the peace. Maybe we would or maybe we’d give into our selfish instincts and trust issues, doubting the intentions of those around us amidst the trauma of being trapped on an island after a giant plane crash. Sawyer always rebelled against everyone else’s views on societal equity and through my own personal and professional experience, I see that his constant challenges to Jack about the concepts of a fair island society created a forum for everyone else to ask these questions. In life and business, people like Sawyer, assuming they’re not the HR nightmare that he is, bring new thoughts to rooms of group-think and while his delivery methods provide no sort of assurance of success, he understands that he must challenge those around him for them to ultimately benefit. Jack needs Sawyer as his foil to refine his decision making skills. Sawyer’s attempt at mercy by shooting the marshal flies in the face of Jack’s flawed need to fix everything, a life strategy that often doesn’t yield great results. When the marshal dies, Jack, while upset at his failure, subconsciously gains the intra-personal tool of letting go, which serves him as he realizes he must live on as the only doctor in the group and let Boone go.
As season one progresses, Sawyer is tortured for supplies he doesn’t even possess, pushing Sayid this time to examine his sense of self as a humane person. Sawyer sees right to Sayid’s guilt of his pre-island life that he struggles with throughout the show. In that moment, his need to pressure Sayid outweighs his objections to being senselessly tortured. Jack and Sayid don’t live down the guilt from that interaction and Sawyer, like a nagging gnat, always shows them their darkness. Sayid and Jack, while two of the most useful and seemingly upstanding members of the show are forced to examine their dark sides, even while others mostly see the light. It’s a nod to the show’s theme, black and white, dark and light, two sides to everything and everyone. Sawyer’s grapple with his own vulnerability opens the door for coy interactions with Kate as she pushes against his rugged individual veneer and gives him chances, including the torture scenario to be kinder. He helps build the raft, attempts to save Walt and does his objection to everything shtick with Ana Lucia when captured by the tail planers. Going into where I am with the show, he’s finally asserted authority taking the guns for himself and realized that this constant testing of Jack, Locke and everyone else isn’t being heard. I know he becomes more conventionally compassionate as the series unfolds, but not because he changes as a person so much as his own vulnerabilities tear through the dead skin of his life experiences.
The tragedy of Charlie, one of Lost’s favorite characters and most traumatic deaths, haunted me and other viewers as one we wished we had back. I might be fine with it now. Charlie’s struggles with addiction in the context of when this show aired are apparent as that time in our history hadn’t caught up with the reality of viewing addiction as a disease. His drug addiction doesn’t age well, falling into the tropes of lies and deceit that plagued many portrayals of characters struggling with addiction. Those are obviously symptoms of a chemical problem, but I like to think in 2020 Lost would have had more compassion for Charlie’s struggles. He’s initially presented a sympathetic character, grappling with a heroin problem and his failed music career. He somewhat unintentionally reveals himself to Locke who charges him to give up heroin cold turkey. Again, not sure addiction medicine was researched heavily for this story line. He gloms onto Claire and genuinely bonds with her in a stilted platonic way, protecting and defending her against her founded fear of capture. The problem of Charlie is that he’s ill-suited to life on the island, mostly because of his lack of applicable talents (Lock the hunter, Sayid the tech guy, Jack the doctor). His emotionally based decisions whether driven by his addiction or his stereotypical musician’s non-practical way of viewing the world creates real problems for others. When I saw him kill Ethan the first time, I felt it justified, but I now see that he couldn’t grasp the situation rationally and his feelings toward Ethan clouded his decision making to the point of losing a potentially valuable resource that would have revealed so much about the plans of the Others. I don’t remember why the Others are there entirely or all that went into why they took Claire, but the survivors could have possibly skipped some traumas along the way with the information that Charlie shot six times.
I did move on from Charlie’s death in season three, largely because his addiction and obsession with Claire and Aaron pushed him to attack Sun to get Sawyer to give him his drugs. It was ok that he died, because he assaulted one of the purer characters on the show, who while flawed, did nothing untoward on the island to earn spiritual enmity from the island or viewers. This was the culmination of his decisions leading up to using again after finding Ecko’s stash and hiding it from Claire. Again, Claire’s reaction doesn’t entirely age well, but it’s still founded and realistic as she banishes him from her and Aaron’s aura. As an addict, Charlie always exhibited obsessive behavior with Claire, treating her as a drug or methadone for himself. He takes care of her, but addiction doesn’t stop at substances and his craving for Claire and Aaron maddens him to the point of stealing the baby twice in attempts to fulfill his lucid dreams. Locke kicks the crap out of him in front of everyone and that shame of being ostracized by the community gives him the motivation to use again through helping Sawyer and hurting Sun. Part of what drives Charlie to be helpful is his visions of Locke, Jack, Sayid, Kate and even Sawyer excelling on the island using their life and professional skills, while he’s left behind, largely providing very little practical value. Since the time when I first watched the show, life has made that feeling of inadequacy apparent at times, but Charlie doesn’t push through it to better himself and instead veers into the traffic of his own faults. I know his death was ultimately a sacrifice for the good of his people, but he wasn’t made for the world of the island and didn’t handle himself well, so I think I’ll be alright with his death when I get there.
John Locke, one of most pointedly named after a philosopher characters on the show, provides the surviving group some of the best skills suited for the island, but on the re watch he also kinda seems like a pious douche. Locke’s inability to properly evaluate and apply advice from others drives characters like Sawyer and Jack to hate him at times. His early episode musings concern his destiny and meaning as the island gives him his legs back and it drives him into making decisions that reek of self-flatulence. In his worst moment of self-destiny masturbation, he finds a plane full of heroin and as his legs fail him, dopey Boone gets himself mortally wounded and dies while Locke flees without providing Jack essential information that may have saved Boone. He takes on the role of sponsor to Charlie, telling no one about Charlie’s struggles, putting the burden of isolation on Charlie to a point where his only escape is a despicable act to get his heroin back. Locke’s own experience of being relatively meek and subservient in his off-island life leads him to the place where he finally takes charge of his fortune on the island, using his skills to provide value. He also flatly ignores the needs of many for his own selfish desire to find meaning in everything, a fool’s errand to all in life. Shit happens. I feel like the FCC should have at least let one “shit” in there because I furiously want someone to yell that at him most of season one. He and Boone work towards uncovering the hatch, ultimately a boon for everyone with the supplies, but he ignores the trust the people put in him to hunt. His curiosity and magical thinking about the island completely cloud and neuter the fruits of his survival skills. Jack, as the practical savior of the island, constantly challenges Locke to tell him the full story of his intentions, but Locke returns closeted, vague responses relying on unearned trust. Locke’s downright arrogance is a reaction to his life experience of being held down and while he projects as a purely practical, critical thinker, he’s in the throes of personal chaos just as much as any other character, forced to confront the worst of themselves through circumstances on the island.
Here’s what else Locke does in the name of destiny: he assaults Sayid and breaks a radio, drugs Boone to keep him quiet about the hatch, lies to everyone about who burned the raft and why and somehow convinces everyone to keep pushing that damn button. Locke is blinded by his own namesake, the tabula rasa of his experiences that propel him on his fateful journey towards a destiny only he can see, if it’s even there. I understand that certain events prove Locke right, but it’s more that when I first watched this show, I looked up to John as a character who had the best practical and interpersonal skills to provide to the group. Ultimately, the hatch gave the survivors much needed comforts, but Locke never stops to think that he might have to explain himself to anyone; his destiny trumps the needs and wants of all others and maybe even their destinies. Life doesn’t have shamans like in art that subtly guide a protagonist through tribulations, knowing that “if I tell a person their true destiny, they will not be able to fulfill it. They must suffer to learn their true purpose.” If Lost happened in real life, most people would shortly have an assfull of Locke’s sanctimonious tight lips on valuable information. Maybe we can’t judge his feelings about himself, but his lack of concern for others and his presentation of initiatives has the stench of a crusty old church cleric telling you he knows best, but never why.
I’ll be honest, I have much fonder feelings toward Ana Lucia because of my obsession with the Fast and Furious franchise that’s developed since I first watched the show. At the time I first watched her, I think I literally was gleeful when she bit it on the show. Upon re-watch, her paranoia and mistrust are actually quite poignant today in the midst of our own contention with policing in America, the ideas on which her character provides a fascinating examination. I just recently watched the episode recounting the story of the tail planers first 40-50 days and I gotta say, I see why her lackluster police training and the trauma of her time on the force caused her to shoot Shannon. Her character’s defining theme is damage and really damage beyond repair. In her introductory episode we learn that she suffered a gunshot wound that killed her baby. She got back on the force and wantonly pulled her gun out at an inappropriate time and subsequently murdered the guy who shot her. On the island, she takes charge of her group after the crash, but unlike Jack who fights against the elements and yeah ok Ethan, her mole earns her trust even as his efforts get upwards of eighteen people kidnapped. The Others took the damn children and sowed terror among those survivors and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. When she mistakes the guy who gets dumped in acid on Ozark for the mole, the situation unravels to the point of chaos, until she does finally kill Goodwin, the true mole. At that point, it’s her and four other people that have made it, so she’s a little on edge. I found myself sympathizing with her much more, especially as she admits her own emotional death as a person to Sayid and offers him revenge. I remember wanting Bernard to find Rose so badly amidst the writing tactics to stall their reunion, that I was disappointed when Sayid didn’t shoot her.
Unlike Locke or Kate, for whom the island presents an opportunity for a better life, Ana Lucia relives her anguish, losing more people and her descent into acute misery becomes all the more understandable and sympathetic. She doesn’t break any laws of the jungle, just manipulates Sawyer and is generally kind of a douche. I think in one’s youth like my own, we’re taught that people can just be born evil or at best, jerks, but the older we get, we realize that so much of what make up an adult’s personality and behavior is based on their specific experiences, for which we mostly can’t judge them for. What happens to Shannon is a genuine accident, then and now, but whereas I initially saw it as a trigger happy cop, overly paranoid enough to shoot a non-threat, I now see a person who obviously never saw Shannon before, lived through hell and based on her perspective made a terrible mistake, but one I know now should be forgiven.
Bo's Gamut 