A KEY TO A LOCK

John Locke was one of the most compelling characters early in the LOST saga. However, after he turned the frozen donkey wheel and teleported off the island, Locke became a throwaway character.

As such, were all the Locke story lines and subtext rendered meaningless?

Much has been written about Locke's name being tied to a English sociologist-writer.

John Locke (b. 1632, d. 1704) was a British philosopher, Oxford academic and medical researcher. Locke's monumental An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) is one of the first great defenses of empiricism and concerns itself with determining the limits of human understanding in respect to a wide spectrum of topics. It thus tells us in some detail what one can legitimately claim to know and what one cannot.

Locke's association with Anthony Ashley Cooper (later the First Earl of Shaftesbury) led him to become successively a government official charged with collecting information about trade and colonies, economic writer, opposition political activist, and finally a revolutionary whose cause ultimately triumphed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Among Locke's political works he is most famous for The Second Treatise of Government in which he argues that sovereignty resides in the people and explains the nature of legitimate government in terms of natural rights and the social contract.

He is also famous for calling for the separation of Church and State in his Letter Concerning Toleration. Much of Locke's work is characterized by opposition to authoritarianism. This is apparent both on the level of the individual person and on the level of institutions such as government and church. For the individual, Locke wants each of us to use reason to search after truth rather than simply accept the opinion of authorities or be subject to superstition. He wants us to proportion assent to propositions to the evidence for them. On the level of institutions it becomes important to distinguish the legitimate from the illegitimate functions of institutions and to make the corresponding distinction for the uses of force by these institutions. Locke believes that using reason to try to grasp the truth, and determine the legitimate functions of institutions will optimize human flourishing for the individual and society both in respect to its material and spiritual welfare. This in turn, amounts to following natural law and the fulfillment of the divine purpose for humanity.

Locke, from a historical aspect, represented the following qualities:

1. Man is limited to understanding a wide range of topics or subject matter.
2. He believes in the Social Contract theory of government, where the nation's power resides with its people and not in its rulers. Legitimate governments need to adhere to principles of natural rights of the individual.
3. The Church must be separately from the State to avoid oppression by authoritarianism.
4. One must be aware of legitimate and illegitimate institutions.
5. One must look to reason rather than opinion or superstition to find the truth.

The writers may have started off with those qualities in mind for LOST's Locke, but it quickly got inverted into a less aware character. We saw a beaten down Locke who miraculously was able to walk after a plane crash. He tried to create a new persona on the island. He wanted to be respected, he wanted to be admired, he wanted to be a leader. The more he tried, the more he failed.

He spouted off on a wide range of topics, but he was not very good at any of them. If one looks back, Locke's first boar catch may have been the only tangible thing he did for the survivors. He also did not believe in the beach camp "electing" Jack to be the de facto leader. He wanted to lead with the iron fist of a warrior. But since the island "healed" him, his mind wandered toward becoming a enlightened spiritual crusader - - - abandoning logic, reason or common sense, for a answer of destiny. He tried to convince Jack of this philosophy, but he was rejected as being a fool.

And Locke played the fool for many people in the series, none more than Jacob and Ben. Locke had been the perfect mark from the day he was born. He was naive but angry. He wanted to change but could never be happy with any situation. He tried to find family but those close to him would eventually turn on him. He would begin to blame others for his miserable life. His self-pity became paramount when he failed to get one person to go back to the island. He was a miserable failure, a rejected pawn who died an undignified and basically meaningless death.

He was not resurrected as an avenging angel when his body returned to the island. There was no rule or need for MIB to have dead body on the island to mimic. (When Locke was buried by Ilana and Ben, that dissolved the theory that MIB could only take the shape of non-buried bodies). Locke's body never had to come back to the island, since MIB merely took his form after the Ajira plane landing to mingle with those survivors.

So what was Locke's purpose in the main story line? To be a counter-foil to Jack? In reality, they never had a lot of critical scenes together; each was off on their own missions, trying to find the answers to their own demons. Was Locke meant to represent part of the fan base who consider themselves lonely, abused by the system, and entitled to a better life? There were many other characters that could have substituted for those characteristics.

And finally, Locke's character had no bearing on the final resolution of the island's alleged conflicts. And Locke's sideways story line was tedious and unbelievable, which makes sense now because it was all a fantasy purgatory wait station. Locke was never the key to solve the island story lines. He just played the fool to enhance the evil elements of other characters.