THE GAMES

When I heard about Hunger Games, I thought it was probably another food channel battle show. But it is a teen film with a familiar genre: the human hunt. I can see why the film was popular: it had an attractive lead in Jennifer Lawrence who teen girls could identify. She made a sacrifice to save her sister which starts the action toward a dystopian saga of human sport.  The ruling class look like arrogant French aristocrats who keep the peasant classes the outer districts in line by taking two people a year from their ranks to play a vicious winner take all contest.

This genre story line is fairly simple. A person is taken out of their normal routine, and placed in the position of being a hunted animal by some superior being, usually a pyscho millionaire hunter. There is no educational value to the exercise. It is pure kill or be killed mentality. Since humans are the clever ones in the food chain, hunting them is more appealing to the deranged masters.

In LOST, there have been several theories which involved the castaways being human subjects in various Dharma-like experimentation, from female reproduction to psychological evaluation such as watching monitors all day, and sending reports in tubes that go no where (unread). Or, Desmond being placed in a hatch to type in numbers every 108 minutes. Why would anyone need to video that cruelty? To measure the breaking point of the human spirit.

How people cope with the stresses placed upon them is something that scientists continue to try to measure. Even the benign folks at Facebook have been accused of secretly manipulating data streams in order to get reactionary information from its users. Toying with people's emotions seems to be fun sport for some, even in a digital world.

So let us assume the Dharma folk built their stations on the island for the purpose of human experimentation. The various stations were built to test the human operators tolerance for the mundane, the entrapment and the longing for home. Dharma had the ability to view its test subjects, and manipulate the controls to get reactions and more data. The facilities also contained Room 23, a mind control unit.

So what happens when the manipulated realize that they are being manipulated? They rebel, like in Ben's purge. But what takes the place in the new island order is really much of the same. Power corrupts, and newfound power is addictive. The captor leaders then use the same techniques to control their own subjects (the Others). Human nature is a endless loop.

As in the Hunger Games, there are rules, but they can be changed at any time to serve the purposes of the overlords. In an advanced society, technology is used to repress the lower classes. Also, in the Hunger Games, the key point of power to control the unhappy workers was to give them hope. For hope is more powerful than their fears.

Those in power will seek to maintain their power at all costs. So when an unexpected airplane crashes onto the island with survivors, the powerful believe that it is an immediate threat to their order. So spies are sent to the camps. The Others begin to kidnap the children. They spread "fear" through the new visitors in order to mask or destroy any hope they have for rescue or peaceful coexistence on the island. And thus the game of tug of war starts between the factions.

The survivors are like the district tributes, taking out of their normal world and placed in an unfamiliar and dangerous situation. They have to learn quickly, adapt or die. And the Others find hunting humans more fun than trying to avoid the confrontation with the smoke monster.

If one looks at the show as a battle between two factions, the old and the new, then LOST goes back to its pre-pilot roots of being a Survivor like drama show. Perhaps that was supposed to be the real direction of the show. But we will never know since the basic show outline quickly diverged from that path into sci-fi and supernatural mysteries.

The off-premise that the survivors would be pitted against the Others in a battle royal (Jacob vs. MIB as game masters) where sacrifice is badgered on individuals "for the good of their friends" like ghost Christian told Locke in the FDW pit.  Like in the game of Senet, the immortal island rulers could have set up the conflict in order to eliminate players. The game was finally over when Jacob's last ally, Jack, died on the island after the other survivors flew overhead.  (Both Hurley and Ben were technically followers of Flocke at the end). How this actually represents a "game over" moment is quite unclear because we don't know what the actually was the Jacob-MIB game.

Actually, LOST could have worked as a cooking show. Deposit 24 cooks on a deserted tropical island to fend for themselves, and make occasional "offerings" or tributes to their judges (in exchange for needed supplies). The contestants would have to live off the land, and survive the elements and each others if there were "no rules." If the stakes were high enough (one winner only), and losers were destroyed or sacrificed, would the nation view such a bloody spectacle? Probably. There was a undercurrent of cruelty throughout the series that taps the subconscious and whispers that it is only entertainment.