HURLEY'S REGRETS

As with the earlier post on Jack's regrets, what about the other island guardian?

“ Hope is a waking dream. ”
— Aristotle

 The major life decisions Hugo made come down to the earliest crisis. The profound effect of his father leaving him created a void which Hugo filled with candy bars and shyness. He was helping his father restore a classic car, but when he left Hugo lost the drive to do much of anything. We have no evidence that he excelled in school, or that he liked anything interest except music and entertainment like Star Wars.

The second major life event was the incident where two people were killed in a porch collapse. Hugo was attending this party. When he stepped on the overcrowded balcony, it fell. Hugo blamed himself. As a result, he voluntarily committed himself to a mental institution.  It would seem that Hugo was quite content within the facility. There was little stress on his life. There were no pressures from his mother to do things or go on dates. The dark side of this situation was that Hugo apparently created an imaginary friend, Dave, who controlled much of Hugo's decision making process.

 It would appear that Hugo did the minimum in his life: his appearance, his fast food job, his personal time - - - all were loosely pieced together not to better himself but to blend into the background.

Outside of the mental institution, Hurley did not have many friends. His best friend was his chicken restaurant buddy Johnny, who also hated his job and their boss, Randy. It was the slight encouragement by Johnny that got Hugo to make the giant leap to ask former schoolmate and record store clerk Starla out on a date. But Hugo was betrayed by Johnny, who took Starla away after he learned of Hugo's secret lottery millions.

The next major event in Hugo's life was the winning Numbers. The Numbers were his curse. It created bad luck, including death. He hated the fame and fortune. He really hated that his father returned to the family only AFTER Hugo became wealthy.  It is why he went to Australia to find out why the Numbers, which he learned from Leonard at the mental hospital, were cursed. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the search for the Numbers cursed Hugo again by crashing Flight 815 onto the island.

The next life event of note was Hugo's short lived relationship with Libby. It lasted about two weeks before she was killed by Michael. But before that time, it was Libby who stopped Hugo from following Dave off a cliff. It was Libby who made it known that she was interested in Hugo. It gave Hugo enough courage to ask her out on a date, a date that never happened. The cruel aspect of this event was that Hurley was on the verge of personal happiness but it was taken away (until the after life reunion).

Did Hurley have any regrets on any of his prior 815 decisions? Possibly only one: keeping his lottery winnings secret from his best friend, Johnny, destroyed that friendship. But it was not a great anchor on his soul because Johnny was not part of his sideways reunion.

But what about his decision to take Jack's place as guardian? The circumstantial evidence from Ben was that Hurley did a good job (whatever that means). But it also shows that decision froze Hurley in time; he had no "other" life after the 815 crash. He had no other post-island relationships even though he was a young man with great wealth. We do not know whether he ever returned to his mother and father (or why they were not part of his sideways reunion in the church).

Hurley never really made any life changing decisions. He took the cards that he was dealt. In certain respects, Hurley's life was one of walking through independent events. He may have hoped for a good outcome, but he never seized the moment to try to directly influence its outcome. As a result, he probably had few regrets because it was not in his nature to put himself on the line. He may have wished for a girlfriend, but did very little to make it happen. He may have wished for a better job, but he did very little to improve himself to get better work. He left things literally to chance to change his lot in life so he really had no need to have true regrets.


And maybe that was the point. One theory is that the entire series was Hurley's dream. A dream that worked out quite well for him in the end (a girlfriend and many loyal, close friends which he did not have in his real life).