AN EPIC JOURNEY

Literature must mimic real life events in order to make the entertainment compelling and believable to the reader. The same is true for visual media.

The classic format for story telling is the epic journey. It is based upon man's innate desire to move about the world. Humanity's survival depended upon its population movement to new places, new climates, and new knowledge acquired along the way. Exploration and discovery are keystones to the human experience.

It could be as simple as ancient man learning to harness fire. Fire allowed groups to settle in camps. Fire allowed the groups to cook and preserve meats, which some medical researchers believe allowed man's brain to develop beyond its animal instincts. In turn, the settlements allowed man to begin to fashion the first agriculture: the cultivation of plants and domestication of animals. Tribal travel became folk lore. They would not need to move unless the environment or food resources changed; meaning that the group would have to leave their "home" in order to survive.

Survival is a great motivator. It is a built-in human mechanism in order to deal with the stress, anxiety, fear and physical demands of a desperate situation. A person gets a massive dose of adrenaline, testosterone and endorphins which in some cases create superhuman feats of strength or endurance.

So the basic roots of the epic journey story go back as far as the first human settlements.

In most epic journey stories, the main character(s), the hero, must suffer hardship, conflicts, difficult choices and possible unintended consequences of his actions, in order to personally grow as an individual and to resolve the main conflict that blocks his path to his destination.

These basic elements are hard to fit into the story line of Jack.

He was brought up in a middle class home. He had a better life than most people. He was estranged from his successful father, so he appears to be a lonely child. He was bright enough to become a spinal trauma surgeon. He would have the respect of his colleagues and staff. He was young, rich, and very good at his profession. But he was still trying to get acknowledgement from his father. He was still a lonely person.

If one believes Jack's journey "begins" with his over-the-top "miracle" cure of Sarah, for which his father told him not to give his patients "false hope," then what was it for?

Jack and Sarah became engaged. At their wedding rehearsal dinner, Sarah gave a speech about how she met Jack through her accident and how, because of him, she would be able to "dance at her wedding." She ended the speech with a toast to Jack, her hero. Later that night, she came downstairs to the hotel's bar and joined Jack at the piano. Noting that there were some girls checking him out, she and Jack played "Heart and Soul"together. On their wedding day, the two of them shared their prepared vows and were pronounced husband and wife.

Sarah was the representation of the pinnacle of Jack's profession. He was her literal Knight in Shining Armor who saved her from a life of misery. In any fairy tale, this would be the happy ending. Jack was no longer alone. He had bested his father's skill and performed a true miracle. Jack had arrived.

But Sarah and Jack ultimately got divorced; one can assume that Jack's family history of alcoholism could have been a factor as Jack began to drink. Jack bitterly contested the divorce, and eventually began stalking Sarah trying to discover the identity of her lover. Jack eventually accused Christian and assaulted him in public, after finding his father's telephone number in Sarah's cell phone call records. Jack's life turned into a paranoid trail of accusations. Instead of having hope, he has personal despair. Jack fell a part, professionally and emotionally.

When a remarried and pregnant Sarah Wagner arrived at the emergency room where Jack was being treated (after he saved a woman from a car wreck which he caused by his attempted suicide on a bridge), she said she was still as his emergency contact person. She was cold and distant. She did not want anything further to do with Jack. She was aware of his recently-developed drinking habit and was highly disturbed by it, as she asked if he was "drinking again." At this point, Jack could never turn back the clock. His wife was gone. His father was gone. He was again alone.

Jack's journey to the island did not change any of those critical facts. He performed no miracles on the island. Two of his patients died in gruesome, painful deaths (Mars and Boone.) In fact, it was Boone who told Jack to let him go. Jack had a problem of rejection and failure. The island did not change those factors as Jack's leadership was always questioned (by Locke, Sawyer, Kate, and the Others). If he believed in the hope of the survivors rescue, Jack did little to make that happen in the end. It was Frank who piloted the few survivors off the island. It was Sawyer who got Kate to the plane; and it was Kate who got Claire to the plane. Jack's decisions actually hurt more people than helped saved.

Yes, Jack suffered numerous hardships on the island. He had multiple conflicts within his own group and the Others. He made difficult decisions on the safety of the survivors, which led to many lives lost.  Jack was not punished for the consequences of his actions. He did not personally grow as an individual since he was a leader prior to the plane crash, and assumed the vague guardian role in the end.  The guardian role did not save anyone, including Jack.  If the main conflict of LOST was Jacob and MIB's escape from the island, Jack was a pawn in that play. If Jack had to sacrifice himself so others could live, that was undetermined at the end.  Jack's destiny was to die. But all humans are destined to die. There is nothing unusual or compelling about that fact. And in the LOST mythology, we don't actually know "exactly" when Jack died or why.

Jack had a lot of island adventures, but they were twists and turns on a path which resolved very little. If you take Jack's character out of the LOST saga, not much would be missing or be the catalyst to the end in the sideways church. There was no grand revelation of what Jack did that made a great change in the outcome of his life, or the lives of his friends. They explored a strange island, but discovered nothing about themselves. No one changed. Their destinies were fixed before they arrived on the island.