LONERS

If LOST was anything, it was a collective story about loners.

A loner is from parts unknown: a recluse, introvert, lone wolf, hermit, solitary, misanthrope, outsider.

John Locke was such a person. He kept other people from getting too close to himself. He feared that he would be hurt with any new, close relationship - - - still deeply broken from the abandonment by his own parents.

Boone was also a loner. We never saw him in a happy, personal relationship. He was working for the family business, or rescuing his step-sister, Shannon. He was so committed to solving family issues that he allowed his own personal life to atrophy and wither. 

That is why both Locke and Boone were alone at the sideways church.

But society still frowns upon such behavior. Loners are deemed losers in many cultures. It is said that it is better to love and lost, then to never have loved at all. But at the surface, could either Locke or Boone actually be loved?

In order to be loved, a person needs to love themselves first. They need to have inner confidence to allow themselves to expose their deeply secret thoughts and emotions to another human being. For many, this is a difficult task to achieve. They think they can never meet the expectations of others. They think their flaws are magnified to monster status. They fear the unknown consequences of opening their heart, and the possibility that they will be crushed by rejection.

The only true haven for loners is the company of other loners. The series was filled with such characters, drifting through their lives with little purpose or goals. It was the plane crash that forced them to concede the fact that their lives had forever changed; that fate had brought them all together to break down their personal barriers in order to forge something foreign to most of them: solid friendships.

Friends can accomplish many amazing things. And true friendships between men and women can lead to every lasting love, as seen with the coupling of Sawyer-Juliet, Jack-Kate, Charlie-Claire and Rose-Bernard.

ALTERNATIVE LEADS

If one was going to shift the main focus of LOST to two different lead characters, then the "bad" chemistry between Boone and Shannon could have been a good alternative.

Through a roundabout way, Jack and Kate became the lead-romantic figures in the series. Jack was saved from being axed early on for dramatic effect (which ironically Boone would serve that role) while Kate was originally to be the lead lead character, but got downplayed to partial secondary lead (on the missions as surrogate for the fans).

Boone and Shannon could have leveraged their rich arrogance into strong willed aristocratic rule upon the beach survivors.  Shannon was quite the manipulative rich girl who was used to getting her way. Her wiles were downplayed in the series to only be a doting, spoiled, lazy brat. Her character could have been written in a more bold fashion. She could have used her sex appeal to bond loyalty with various male characters, such as Sawyer, Sayid and even Locke. Once she got muscle behind her, she could set herself up in island luxury (almost in the same mold as Ben).

Boone was smart enough to run a large business for his mother, he should have had the skill set to "manage" the castaways in an efficient manner where they would look up to him for their survival, instead of Jack. In fact, Jack was still afraid of authority figures due to his father's belittlement of his skills. Boone could have been the skilled politician who cut the deals to keep everyone in line.

Such a cutthroat couple was not foreign in the writers, since they used that concept with the misguided introduction of Nikki and Paulo, who conspired to kill a wealthy man for his diamonds and wealth.

A ruthless Boone-Shannon couple, linked by their dark secret of a sibling affair, would have added a new layer of darkness to the series. It could be used to keep them together, or later, pull them a part.

BOONE DOGGLE

Locke is a hard guy to like . . . or be a true friend. On the island, Boone was the only character that had any empathy for Locke.

As stated previously, Boone had his own familial issues with Shannon. Boone tried to be helpful from the beginning of the post-crash CPR, which Jack told him he was doing it wrong. Boone tried to fit in to a fractured beach camp, but he never found any true connection.

It is probably because he was a loner, like Locke. Maybe Boone needed an older brother figure to cope with the stress of being a castway, estranged from his stepsister.

Originally, Boone was supposed to be a major presence in the LOST story. However, he got shifted to a secondary role after the emergence of Jack as the lead male character.

Still, Boone was involved in two key moments in the series (or so we thought at the time of original airing): finding the Hatch and finding the small drug airplane.

The Hatch was supposed to give us viewers the Big Answers to the current island mysteries. It would have been a window into what was the island, who were the Others, and why strange things were happening to the castaways. At the very least, it would have given the beach camp real shelter from the smoke monster, wild animals and the Others attacks (but strangely, that never happened).

The plane was supposed to help guide the viewer into the soul of the island, because it was physically impossible that an African small plane could have crash landed on a remote Pacific Island. The presence of the plane was either a) an illusion taken from Eko's memory; b) an echo of a parallel dimension or realm; or c) a magical trope to create faux drama.

Boone took it upon himself to go up on the cliff to investigate the plane for clues and a possible chance to be a hero, to find a radio and call for help. But the plane fell, and Boone was severely injured.

It was Boone's traumatic demise that got Jack to "let go" of a patient, for there would be no "medical miracle" on an island that allowed at least two big miracles: Locke being able to walk and Rose's cure for cancer. By Jack being unable to save Boone, some consider his death "saving" Jack from the haunting criticism of his late father.

Locke would justify the reckless behavior of his subordinate as "being the sacrifice that the island demanded." But we never get the sense that the island was a conscious being that needed human blood in order to survive. (This is a very ancient, pagan-primitive ritual belief system).  Why Locke made that assertion could only be to ease his own guilt for allowing Boone to do a dangerous task.

It foreshadows Locke's only senseless demise when he tried to be the hero (getting everyone back to the island). Perhaps self grandeur is why both Locke and Boone are alone in the sideways church. For some reason, they could never connect or find their own soulmates.

GUILT & SHAME

One of the undercurrents in LOST was the troubled back stories of the main characters. One of the most pulp fiction background relationships was between Boone and his stepsister, Shannon.

In the category, the Rich have hard lives, this relationship had a creepy guilt and shame dynamic.

Boone Carlyle was Shannon's stepbrother. Before Flight 815,  he had been used by Shannon for money and as a result of this, his love for her was revealed and they had a one-night stand.

Boone Carlyle was the son of Sabrina Carlyle, and stepson of Adam Rutherford, a man who was killed in the auto accident in which Jack "saved" Sarah. When Sabrina and Adam  married when Boone was ten, and Shannon, who was two years his junior, became his step-sister. His parents frequently left him with a nanny when he was young, and Boone, angry at being left alone, called her to his room repeatedly without cause. During one of these calls, when Boone was six, the nanny fell and broke her neck.  This may be the impetus of Boone's character trait of helping Shannon throughout her life; guilt.

By the time he had turned 20, Boone was living in New York. After flying back to Los Angeles for Adam Rutherford's  funeral, Boone comforted Shanno by giving his underage stepsister some alcohol to mollify her grief. He told Shannon she could live with him in New York if it would help get her career as a dance instructor started. After Shannon got the job, Boone was then offered a job by his mother. He accepted the job as the Chief Operating Officer of the wedding clothing subsidiary and he had to move from New York. Shannon had asked him to ask his mother for some money, but he came back empty handed. He that said his mother knew why he asked for the money. Boone then offered Shannon some of his own money to get her started in New York without him, but she refused because she wanted to prove herself. Shannon would fail in her attempts (feeble at best) to be self-sufficient and independent. She was daddy's little girl, who got anything she wanted from him, but when he was gone she was mad that her life had been so disrupted by his death. She would be seeking out other men to take care of her. She polished a devious streak to get what she wanted from men.

Although he would not openly admit it to anyone, Boone was in love with Shannon and he would do anything to help her out of her jams.  He paid men to end Shannon's abusive relationships. Shannon would take advantage of Boone's feelings. He received a phone call from Shannon pleading for him to come and help her with her boyfriend, Bryan,  in Sydney. Boone flew to Australia and, although she initially denied there was anything wrong, Shannon showed him a bruise on her forehead discreetly, as Bryan kicked Boone out of their house. He went to the police station to file a report but the Detective was unwilling to help because Boone and Shannon were not blood related, and joked, they were not the "dating police." Boone decided to take matters into his own hands.

He tried to bribe Bryan to leave Shannon. He took the money, but when Boone came to pick up Shannon, Bryan was still there - - - willing to share the loot with Shannon. In other words, Boone was conned into giving Shannon $50,000. There was a fight, and Boone lost.  Later that night, Shannon appeared at Boone's hotel room and told him that Byran had left her, taking all the money. They had drinks, and the alone Shannon seduced Boone. Afterward, Boone felt confused and dejected when Shannon suggested that they return to LA and act if nothing happened that night.

Throughout his time on the Island, Boone would spend a lot of his time with Shannon before finally getting over his love for her and letting her go. He later became Locke's apprentice when the two discovered the Hatch and they formed a close friendship.  Unable to open the Hatch, they followed a dream Locke had and found a small plane sitting on a cliff. Boone climbed up into the plane but suffered severe injuries when the plane fell to the ground. Despite Jack's  best attempts to save him, Boone realized he was going to die and told Jack to let him go. After Boone's death, Locke described him as a "sacrifice the Island demanded."

Shannon's time on the island was not one of personal growth. She kept to her spoiled trust fund persona, rarely helping out. Boone's death did affect her deeply, but it may have been slightly more shame on how she treated him that deep affection. For Shannon, being totally alone, began to seek out company of someone to support her. That person was Sayid, but their relationship was very brief, as Shannon was killed accidently by Ana Lucia.  Sayid's grief over Shannon's death was much more than Shannon had when Boone perished.

So despite the close relationship between Boone and Shannon, they were not "together" in the after life reunion. For little apparent reason, Sayid was reunited with Shannon (and not Nadia). And Boone, like his friend Locke, had no one to sit next to during the final church sequence. Why Boone, who only tried to help his step sister throughout her life, was punished with a lonely eternity, is one of those major downers in the story. And Shannon, who used men to support her, and had little moral principles in doing so, was rewarded in the after life. Life is not fair.

THE CHARACTER SUMMATION OF BOONE

The next main character in the LOST writer's guide is oddly enough Boone. Looking back today, Boone would not have been considered a major or main character. At best, he turned into Locke's short-lived side kick.

Boone grew up in a world of wealth and privilege provided by a vast commercial empire run by his mother, "The Martha Stewart o f the Wedding Industry." Fatherless from a very young age, Boone quickly assumed the role of family patriarch. In one fell swoop, he became the heir apparent and self-appointed guardian of his sister. But Boone has a dark secret - one even Shannon doesn't know. 

Diagnosed with schizophrenia during adolescence, he has since managed his illness with
ongoing therapy and a cocktail of anti-psychotic medications - medications he stopped taking roughly a month before the crash. Ongoing survival crises find Boone at odds with his slipping sanity, leading to an inevitable breaking point which will not only put him at odds with the others, but make him an outright DANGER. 

This character summation is quite different than the actual character shown in the series. First, Boone relationship with Shannon turned from sister to half-sister, with a seedy love-hate relationship context. Second, the idea of Boone being a dangerous schizophrenic was never even hinted at in any episode. 

In a self-contained community of characters, having a psychotic off his meds would be a vehicle to drive conflict among the survivors. How would a group of people forming a new society deal with a person who was mad, a potential danger, a violent person? Do they isolate him, imprison him or kill him when resources run low? In a show whose original theme was to build a society amongst the ruins, how does one deal with an anti-social personality? It is unclear why the writers quickly negated Boone's potential role in the series. It really downplayed his significance to a secondary character.

But it did show that the producers were setting up at least part of the show around character behavior, more specifically mental illness. We have discussed in detail the layers of mental illness themes, including the possibility that mental illness was a major part of the overall premise to LOST.