CHARACTER OF JACK

Many people believe that LOST was the story of Jack Shephard.

He was a main character that most of the plot action centered around.

However, initially the character of Jack, as a heroic doctor saving lives immediately after the plane crash, was supposed to be killed by the smoke monster in the pilot episode. TPTB thought that early fatality would set the tone for the series. They thought the series would then center around Kate. But the network executives wanted to keep Matthew Fox on the show (since he had prior television experience and potential fan base), so TPTB wrote in the character of Seth Norris, the pilot, who gets his gruesome demise by Smokey. This back story shows how fluid the series was from its rocky origins and feeds the theorists who believe that TPTB merely made up the story as they went along.

All television shows have pressure to succeed. A series, where each episode builds upon the past, is more difficult to see a finish line when network ratings and cancellation looms large from week to week. There was no commitment to the show until more than halfway through the first season. So, again, when TPTB stated that they had the story lines all worked out early in the show, do not believe it.

So the first "switch" in the series was making Jack a main character instead of a martyr. (Some would remark that would be a close description of Jack's journey when the series ends.)  Jack was born on December 3, 1969 to Christian and Margo Shephard. His father was a successful surgeon. But his relationship with his father was distant, terse. As a teenager, Jack was badly beaten by a bully when he attempted to help one of his friends. Afterward, Christian told Jack to avoid being a hero because he did not have what it took to fail, especially in life and death decisions.

Despite his father's opinion, Jack went to college and "graduated a year early" from UCLA medical school. He began working at his father's hospital, St. Sebastian, as spinal surgery resident. During one procedure, Jack made a mistake and nearly panicked until his father told him to count to five so as not to let the fear overcome his judgment. Jack completed that surgery, but was resentful that his father put him in "a time out." Right after the surgery, Jack was "touched" by Jacob at the Apollo candy bar vending machine, stating "maybe all it needed was a little push."

Some time after that encounter, Jack performed the "miracle" surgery on Sarah, a car accident victim whose spine was severly crushed; she was expected never to walk again. Jack violated his professional relationship with his patient by promising her that "he'd fix her" and when Jack thought he had failed, Desmond told him at the stadium that maybe he did not. When Jack went back to the hospital, Sarah could move her legs. As a result, Sarah married "her hero," Jack, but that marriage turned sour with Jack's phantom jealously of his father. The divorce sent Jack into the depths of alcoholism and a junket to Thailand and a relationship with a mysterious woman named Achara, which means Dharma or "the regulation of daily life." He forced her to give him a special tattoo, which said "he walks among us, but is not one of us."

When Jack returns to practice in 2004, he tries to cover for his father's drunken, botched surgery. But in the end, Jack recants and tells the hospital board that his father was impaired when operating, which caused the patient's death. This broke the bond between Jack and his father; they never spoke again. Approximately two months later, Jack's mother asked him to go to Australia to find his father and "bring him home." But Jack was too late; Christian had died of an alcohol induced heart attack.

Jack had no closure with his father as a result. Jack's emotional state was wired when he tried to get his father's casket on board Oceanic Flight 815. The airline said he had not done the proper paperwork. He pleaded for understanding because he had a funeral to make in LA. On the plane, Jack began drinking - - - and flight attendant Cindy gave him extra bottles of vodka to offset the "weak" drinks.

When Flight 815 crashed, Jack awoke on his back in a bamboo field. He had a large gash in his side. He made it to the beach wreckage and began to help others before himself.

Even before Jack arrived on the Island, he was marked as a candidate by Jacob. Number 23. He was seated in 23B on the plane. The 23rd Psalm states "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want."

CHARACTER TRAITS

Jack had multiple issues prior to crash landing on the Island. First, he had "daddy issues" with his father, who apparently never told him that he could be a successful leader because he could not let go in life and death decisions. Second, he had professional issues of being unwilling to tell patients the bad truth about their conditions; he was anal about being able to "fix people" as a means of showing up his own father and the hurtful words of his childhood. Third, he had relationship problems with the women in his life, especially Sarah. Fourth, he had an addictive, compulsive disorder complex when faced with things that he could not control. He had an angry streak that would boil to the surface. Fifth, he did not have any true friends in his adult life. In some ways, he had little social skills, especially in large, diverse group settings.

JACK'S JOURNEY

One could say that Jack's journey of self-realization to self-respect was the journey of LOST itself. But that would be too simple. He never changed from being a control freak, never wanting to be told what he could or could not do. He was a person who valued objective science observation over that of interpersonal and spiritual relationships. After the crash, the survivors were drawn to him as the de facto leader because he had a critical skill: medical training. People in survival mode look to the best means of staying alive. But Jack rejected their push for leadership, which would result in various factions and cliques being formed that would pull the survivors a part at the seams. But the "Island" pushed Jack into accepting leadership roles because he was a "candidate" to protect the island. The tests thrown at Jack to navigate were Locke's faith based purpose, The Others attacks, the time travel to the Dharma era, the Widmore attacks and the showdown with MIB. But in reality, all those tests never really changed Jack. He never adopted Locke's faith over action. He never stopped the violence from the Others or Widmore that killed innocent lives. He never changed the Dharma scientists plans which would lead to the crash of Flight 815. And he never actually defeated MIB; it was Kate that allegedly fired the fatal shot.

We saw the reluctant Jack. We saw the take-charge Jack. We saw the presumptive Jack make mistakes. We saw the jealous Jack. We saw they lying Jack. We saw the mopey Jack who no longer wanted to deal with other people's issues. We saw the blank stare Jack. We saw the jerk Jack. We saw the sad Jack. We saw the crazy Jack. We saw the fatalistic Jack.

Many people will feel that Jack has an emotional or spiritual growth as a character by the end of the series. They would point to the fact that Jack volunteered to be the island guardian, not knowing what the meant, making his own life and death decision to sacrifice himself so his friends could escape the island. He went down into the light cave to save Desmond. He went to stop MIB from leaving the island by fighting with him in heroic (abet TV) fashion. He died alone.

SIDEWAYS JACK

The sideways Jack mirrored the island Jack's life in many respects. He was a surgeon. He had daddy issues. He still have unresolved personal issues. He was divorced from Juliet. But there were still on some level on speaking terms. He was estranged from his teenage son, David. But he was making an effort to connect with his son. If one believes that the sideways world was a dream state where the character's subconscious was working out viable solutions to their real life problems, then Jack's sideways fiction was a means to resolve the unsolved Daddy issue in his real life. Jack was Christian and David was Jack. It turned into a happy ending, of sorts, but not with Juliet, or Sarah, or David (he was made up) but with Kate. Why Kate is sideways Jack's eternal muse is open to terse debate. Why would Jack chose Kate, when their relationship blew up as badly as all his other relationships? He never "fixed" runaway Kate. He had fixed Sarah, but she had moved on. Was it the simple fact that Kate was the last person left in the group, even though she left him for dead on the island to finish her quest to save Claire?

Many poets believe that one cannot make common sense when talking about love. Love is the intense feeling of deep affection. It must be mutual in order to last. Jack's life ends in post-time leap Day 14 on the Island, but Kate leaves the island to apparently live out a long life without him. One would think that she would "move on" off-island without him. Otherwise, Kate would have had to move into a convent and pine over Jack for lonely decade after decade.

One can buy the fact that TPTB said they knew how the show would begin and end (with an eye opening and an eye closing). One can see how Jack is the beginning and end character. However, did Jack really change by the time he got to the final church scene? Nothing changed with his relationship with his father, except that they both were now dead. Death, not time, heals all wounds? The most important people in his life were waiting for him - - - but in fact, he hardly knew most of them and a few he did not even like when they were alive on the island.

So how did Jack grow as a person? He took responsibility, but as a doctor he had complete responsibility over the care and treatment of his patients. He became a leader among men, but again, that is what a surgeon does in the operating room. He put his own life ahead of others, as seen in various missions and in the end. But he had put his professional life before his personal life. The island allowed him to become free of professional responsibilities, but it did not allow him to find a fulfilling personal life.

Some believe Jack was redeemed by series end. But redemption means the act of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil, or buying one's freedom. Jack's arrogance, self-loathing and ill feelings for his father were not great sins that were overcome by a torturous journey through the island time. In the end, we see Jack only feeling a calm happiness, almost like a drug induced state of euphoria.

Did Jack learn anything on his journey? Not really. He did not trust other people. He did not delegate well. He did not express himself as a leader. He caused dissension. He make countless errors in judgment. The only thing he sacrificed in the end was the return to his miserable, lonely,  off-island life.

If Jack was lost before Flight 815 crashed, what did he find in The End? His father, to say goodbye. His soul mate, in Kate. His friends in the church. Peace of mind. One could discount those factors to conclude what Jack really found in the church was the release of all his emotional baggage.

Jack was a man of science who may have had his faith in his fellow man restored by his journey. But the finale did not have any religious, moral or spiritual revelations to Jack's character. There seemed to missing some grand significance to the characters in the finale. Some consider the final church scene as a rap party or a 20 year high school reunion. But some believe that even though Lost seemed to be a show about the mythology – the goal of the characters was to solve the mysteries of the island in order to facilitate their personal goals. But the End seems to state that the show was about how flawed people could establish relationships and a community to discover themselves, explore their beliefs, and ultimately make choices that were noble and/or damaging. The mysteries of the island were not designed to be answered, but rather to facilitate the character arcs or character development.

If the finale was supposed to center on Jack's final stage of existence, there were some lingering questions. For example, why wasn't his mother, Margo, at the church? She was just as important to Jack as Christian. Or do we get the sense that important people in a person's life "move on" without them? So, Jack's death like life itself, does not have perfectly happy endings.