POWER TO THE PEOPLE

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will be at peace."
Bob Marley

Power.

It is a basic human drive. It was a theme throughout the series.

There were many variations of power.

First, there was power as in control.  Widmore and Ben fought over control of the Island. What exactly was the end game of that conflict is mired in the murkiness of The End.

Second, there was power as in leadership. Jack and Locke sparred over the survivor group, just as Ben and Locke wrestled over the leadership of the Others. 

Third, there was power as in energy properties. The Tempest was supposed to be the power station for the Dharma stations, but we are never told exactly what was the source of its power grid. There were no imports of oil, natural gas, or references to being a nuclear power plant. One could assume that it was either geothermic or nuclear. Or, one could say they tapped a light source pocket of electromagnetic energy to harness it for electric turbine power.

Fourth, there was the power in the bonds between people who came to the island. The Others bonded together to form a collective who believed the island was their home. Dharma members brought a cult like bond to their group in researching or taming the island. The 815 survivors bonded because of their major life experience (surviving a plane crash). There were the bonds of matrimony and love by those who came to the island such as Rose and Bernard, which remained constant throughout their island trials.

Which power was the most important?

Was it Jack's love for his fellow man that saved everyone in the end? Or was it really Jack's ego?

A person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance is his or her ego. In psychoanalysis, the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity. In metaphysics it is a conscious thinking subject.

Jack always thought of himself as the hero. He "saved" patients with his miracle skills. He was thrown outside his comfort zone to "save" his fellow passengers. Instead of an operating room where he could control, he had to control and entire island filled with non-medical variables.

If one considers LOST a multiple character study instead of a sci-fi drama, then the quest of various levels of power by the central cast members could be considered an ego study.

In the end, Jack did step outside of himself and become the "leader" his father thought he would never become because he could not accept the "death"  component of life and death decisions. It was only when Jack realized his own "death" in the sideways church did he "save" the rest of people in the church who were "waiting for him."

Does that put the whole island dynamic in the portal between Jack's conscious and subconscious mind? Were the dream like aspects of the island story lines a mere complex fantasy created by Jack's imagination in order for him to personally work out the reality of dying?

If Jack was dying in real life, he may not have accepted his fate. His mind may have shut down (by coma, trauma, drugs, etc.) but his subconscious ran a series of alternative realities to show Jack what would happen in his own life and death scenarios.  So the "character study" analysis of LOST could mean a single character's self-study of his own mortality. 

In the open question of what happens to a lost soul upon a person's demise, Jack's journey is not one of redemption but of acceptance that death is part of life; that death is part of his own life. He could only have eternal peace when he finally accepted his own death. There was a duality of split scenarios: the bad for the island events and the good for the sideways fantasy events. Jack's mind could only reconcile the two with the acceptance of his own death.

The power that Jack sought was to stave off death. He thought of himself as a miracle surgeon. He always had hope. He never gave up. He thought he could do no wrong. He could not accept the failure in the OR which would mean death to a patient. Those same attributes kept Jack from accepting his own mortality. And without that acceptance, Jack's soul was thrown into limbo.

His ego or soul had to find a way to get out of this trap. He had to learn to accept the carnage of death to other people as witnessed on the island. Over time, it would have had to numb Jack's principles.  Mission after mission thrust Jack into life and death decisions that we beyond his power to control.

Even though Jack assumed the power of leadership, he had a hard time accepting the responsibility of that leadership role when people around him died. Everyone comforted him when things went bad, but he had a hard time taking their support.  

In the end when Jack learned he died, we could see the burdens lifted from his shoulders. There was a sigh of relief. He was ready to move on. Jack's own peace came through his soul dispatching his ego to accept his own demise.