THE CHARACTER SUMMATION OF LOCKE

The 7th listed character of importance in the LOST writer's guide was Locke. For many, Locke was a key character study. He was the first person to have a spiritual connection with the island. He was the first person to scare the other castaways with his outback, knife throwing presence. He always seemed to have an answer or a story. He was the one person who really wanted to lead the castaways to safety. He dreamed of being a hero one day, and the plane crash gave him that chance.
  

Intelligent, charismatic, driven and considerably more lucid than the Pilot gives him credit for - All these characteristics only begin to describe the enigma that is Locke. Once a faceless, unhappy office worker, Locke's only solace came from amassing knowledge of survival techniques, playing board games and fighting paintball battles... all traits which made him "quirky" in civilization, but now allow him to shine on the island. For the first time in his life, people look to Locke as
a LEADER...and he likes it. The plane crash is the best thing that ever happened to Locke - - in many ways he views it as A SIGN. He has found his purpose... and that's not all. The others don't know what it is yet, but Locke has a PLAN.

But during the course of the series, Locke's character made dramatic changes. Some of which we would learn about in his back stories, such as his knowledge of survival skills, board playing games and his unhappy existence as a bland office worker. (What we never saw was the action-nerd of paint ball contests or other physical sporting events).

But the great back story sign that energized Locke to action on the island is missing in his character summation: his paralysis. Nothing is mentioned that Locke was an invalid dreamer when he boarded Flight 815. Instead, it appears that Locke was going to have a chance to take his dull, normal life and through the will of his dream personality, become a man of action, a leader, and respected member of his new community. This is a the classic ugly caterpillar turning into a giant butterfly story line.

Locke was clearly set up to be a second guesser and strong personality in the beach camp; a foil to Jack's leadership. But his status as the 7th lead character behind Boone and Shannon means that at some point, Locke's strong will would turn off more people, and he would revert to his unhappy, isolation world of fantasy. In some respects, that did happen in the island time line: Locke started off as a respected hunter, who turned obsessively odd with his island spirituality, then turned obsessive when he found the Hatch as the sign for everything, to a re-broken man off-island who died an unheroic death.

There is nothing remotely in Locke's original character summation that he would be turned into a monster, a smoke monster, or a villain called Flocke. It would be more likely that Locke would have a few followers to his way of thinking in the group of 48, such that they would probably break off from the main group to become the island's new "Others." The contrast between how Locke's camp and Jack's main group would cope with the jungle issues could have been the basis of many story lines. For example, if Locke found the vast underground facility before Jack, would he share his good fortune or destroy Jack as a leader?

But in the main series, after Locke found the Hatch, he became more of a secondary cartoon character than an active co-equal in the Jack-Kate-Sawyer story arcs. Because so many viewers could identify with the Locke character, some believe that Locke's story lines were cut short in favor of maintaining Jack as the focal point of all the story lines, including the kidnapping by the Others to the Hydra Station.