Friday, April 2, 2010

WHAT HAVE THEY LOST?

Peeling back the layers of the onion skins, at the beginning of the show, what had the main characters LOST?

Jack: his father
Claire: her maternal instincts
Kate: her freedom
Hurley: his mind
Locke: his legs
Sawyer: his parents killer
Rose & Bernard: their life together
Jin & Sun: the spark in their relationship
Sayid: his past
Charlie: his future (as rock n roller)
Boone: his sister
Shannon: her rich lifestyle
Walt: his mother
Michael: his job and his relationship with his son.

Now, halfway through the final season, has anything changed?
Dictionary definitions of LOST include:

"unable to find one's way,"
"something that has been taken away and cannot be recovered," and
"having perished or been destroyed."

Jack still has lost his father. He has not been able to make amends with him.
Claire still has lost her maternal instincts, Aaron is being raised by another.
Kate found her freedom but has trapped herself in her island soap opera.
Hurley still believes he is crazy. He is now the ghost whisperer.
Locke has lost more than his legs, he has lost his life.
Sawyer found his parents' killer and got his revenge. In doing so, he also found a stable,
normal time travel life with Juliet which he lost during the incident.
Rose & Bernard found their happy retirement in the jungle.
Jin & Sun have lost each other once the spark of their relationship was rekindled.
Sayid has lost his past, present and future.
Charlie lost his life.
Boone lost his life.
Shannon lost her life.
Walt lost his father.
Michael lost his relationship with his son by killing himself.

Not very pretty, except pretty depressing: 31 percent of the main characters are dead (not counting the two zombies, Sayid and Claire), and only 12 percent of the main characters found
any sort of personal peace (Rose and Bernard). The rest are still have lost the key component of their initial stories. The resolution of those initial elements seems inconsequential at this point in time.