The BBC recently had an article about the scientific research conducted with severely vegetative patients. The most revealing aspect of the article (and study) was that a patient in a deep coma awoke to tell the medical community what she experienced in her vegetative state. It was totally different than what medical science perceived was happening inside the brain of an unconscious patient.
The problem is that the scientific definition of “death” remains as
unresolved as the definition of “consciousness”. Being alive is no
longer linked to having a beating heart, explains Owen. If I have an
artificial heart, am I dead? If you are on a life-support machine, are
you dead? Is a failure to sustain independent life a reasonable
definition of death? No, otherwise we would all be “dead” in the nine
months before birth.
The issue becomes murkier when we consider
those trapped in the twilight worlds between normal life and death –
from those who slip in and out of awareness, who are trapped in a
‘minimally conscious state’, to those who are severely impaired in a
vegetative state or a coma. These patients first appeared in the wake of
the development of the artificial respirator during the 1950s in
Denmark, an invention that redefined the end of life in terms of the
idea of brain death and created the specialty of intensive care, in
which unresponsive and comatose patients who seemed unable to wake up
again were written off as “vegetables” or “jellyfish”. As is always the
case when treating patients, definitions are critical: understanding the
chances of recovery, the benefits of treatments and so on all depend on
a precise diagnosis.
In the 1960s, neurologist Fred Plum in New
York and neurosurgeon Bryan Jennett in Glasgow carried out pioneering
work to understand and categorise disorders of consciousness. Plum
coined the term “locked-in syndrome”, in which a patient is aware and
awake but cannot move or talk. With Plum, Jennett devised the Glasgow
Coma Scale to rate the depth of coma, and Jennett followed up with the
Glasgow Outcome Scale to weigh up the extent of recovery, from death to
mild disability. Together they adopted the term “persistent vegetative
state” for patients who, they wrote, “have periods of wakefulness when
their eyes are open and move; their responsiveness is limited to
primitive postural and reflex movements of the limbs, and they never
speak.”
In 2002, Jennett was among a group of neurologists who
chose the phrase “minimally conscious” to describe those who are
sometimes awake and partly aware, who show erratic signs of
consciousness so that at one time they might be able to follow a simple
instruction and another they might not. Even today, however, we’re still
arguing over who is conscious and who isn’t.
Kate
Bainbridge, a 26-year-old schoolteacher, lapsed into a coma three days
after she came down with a flu-like illness. Her brain became inflamed,
along with the primitive region atop the spinal cord, the brain stem,
which rules the sleep cycle. A few weeks after her infection had
cleared, Kate awoke from the coma but was diagnosed as being in a
vegetative state. Luckily, the intensive care doctor responsible for
her, David Menon, was also a Principal Investigator at the newly opened
Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre in Cambridge, where one Adrian Owen then
worked.
In 1997, four months after she had been diagnosed as
vegetative, Kate became the first patient in a vegetative state to be
studied by the Cambridge group. The results, published in 1998, were
unexpected and extraordinary. Not only did Kate react to faces: but her
brain responses were indistinguishable from those of healthy volunteers.
Her scans revealed a splash of red, marking brain activity at the back
of her brain, in a part called the fusiform gyrus, which helps recognize
faces. Kate became the first such patient in whom sophisticated brain
imaging (in this case PET) revealed “covert cognition”. Of course,
whether that response was a reflex or a signal of consciousness was, at
the time, a matter of debate.
The results were of huge
significance for science but also for Kate and her parents. “The
existence of preserved cognitive processing removed the nihilism that
pervaded the management of such patients in general, and supported a
decision to continue to treat Kate aggressively,” recalls Menon.
Kate
eventually surfaced from her ordeal, six months after the initial
diagnosis. “They said I could not feel pain,” she says. “They were so
wrong.” Sometimes she’d cry out, but the nurses thought it was just a
reflex. She felt abandoned and helpless. Hospital staff had no idea how
much she suffered in their care. Kate found physiotherapy scary: nurses
never explained what they were doing to her. She was terrified when they
removed mucus from her lungs. “I can’t tell you how frightening it was,
especially suction through the mouth,” she has written. At one point,
her pain and despair became so much that she tried to snuff out her life
by holding her breath. “I could not stop my nose from breathing, so it
did not work. My body did not seem to want to die.”
Kate says her
recovery was not so much like turning a light on but a gradual
awakening. It took her five months before she could smile. By then she
had lost her job, her sense of smell and taste, and much of what might
have been a normal future. Now back with her parents, Kate is still very
disabled and needs a wheelchair. Twelve years after her illness, she
started to talk again and, though still angry about the way she was
treated when she was at her most vulnerable, she remains grateful to
those who helped her mind to escape.
In applying this real life coma story to LOST, there is a theme of "gradual awakening" of the dead in the sideways world to the events of their recent past (i.e. the plane crash). A person in a coma, or in a state between life and death, still can perceive the world around them - - - and still have strong emotions like pain and anxiety. For those who think most people pass quietly in their sleep may have to rethink that position. With her mind still active, the coma victim is trapped inside her own head. And what was she thinking about? Escape. What was the most driving force for everyone on the island, including the smoke monster? Escape. It was the inability of the coma patient to communicate with the outside world that led to frustration and more pain. Likewise, fans continually barked at the television screens when LOST survivors continually failed to communicate with each other, or ask the simple, common sense questions to get answers.
Many of the same elements of the coma patient study were embedded into the LOST story. It gives those fan theories about mental or coma patients more real scientific evidence to support their viewpoint of the series.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
COMPASS POINTS
A compass is a tool to guide someone to a destination.
A candidate is a person who wants to be a leader to guide others.
A guardian is a person who is a leader who protects others.
A light is symbolic of knowledge, direction, energy and life.
A person who has both the compass and the light is truly powerful.
When we review which LOST characters had the most traits of a compass and a light (which apparently were the embodiment of the heart of the island), the top four people are Locke, Jack, Sawyer and Kate.
Locke had the compass. He knew how to use it. He was aware of the island's special powers. He wanted it to guide him to his destination (destiny). Just as magnetic north is a constant direction, the island pushed Locke towards his fateful demise.
Kate was a natural runaway, a wanderer with a keen sense of direction and tracking skills. She was a survivor throughout her troubled life. She used her internal compass not to find a destination but to flee from one. Just as our forefathers took chances and headed west into the wild unknown, Kate embraced that wild west spirit.
Sawyer also had a focal bearing in his life: to find the person who killed his family. His life's direction was formed by his own promise for revenge. He honed his own tracking skills with the southern charm of a con artist to find the man who ruined his life.
Jack was following a trail for most of his life. The trail that his father had made through the jungles of childhood. Jack was always trying to find a way to get ahead of his father's accomplishments so his father would respect his achievements. He would symbolically look to the East, where the dawn would rise on each new day, to find some hope that the light would empower him to reach his goal.
Locke's direction was north, toward the magnetism of the island's mysterious power to give his life meaning.
Kate's direction was west, to the open opportunities and freedom to run away her past.
Sawyer's direction was south, toward the slow, simmering pace of the long, cruel road of honor and revenge to release his personal demon.
Jack's direction was east, toward the dawn of a new day where he could release himself from the shadow of his own father.
Each character had their own direction. They were set to their own paths. As a result, they did not work well together because their compass points would never align. And perhaps, that was the governor that protected the light cave - - - the candidates needed each other in order to obtain both the full compass points and the light. For in the end, none of these four candidates took the place of Jacob, the island guardian, to put their own rules upon the universe.
A candidate is a person who wants to be a leader to guide others.
A guardian is a person who is a leader who protects others.
A light is symbolic of knowledge, direction, energy and life.
A person who has both the compass and the light is truly powerful.
Locke had the compass. He knew how to use it. He was aware of the island's special powers. He wanted it to guide him to his destination (destiny). Just as magnetic north is a constant direction, the island pushed Locke towards his fateful demise.
Kate was a natural runaway, a wanderer with a keen sense of direction and tracking skills. She was a survivor throughout her troubled life. She used her internal compass not to find a destination but to flee from one. Just as our forefathers took chances and headed west into the wild unknown, Kate embraced that wild west spirit.
Sawyer also had a focal bearing in his life: to find the person who killed his family. His life's direction was formed by his own promise for revenge. He honed his own tracking skills with the southern charm of a con artist to find the man who ruined his life.
Jack was following a trail for most of his life. The trail that his father had made through the jungles of childhood. Jack was always trying to find a way to get ahead of his father's accomplishments so his father would respect his achievements. He would symbolically look to the East, where the dawn would rise on each new day, to find some hope that the light would empower him to reach his goal.
Locke's direction was north, toward the magnetism of the island's mysterious power to give his life meaning.
Kate's direction was west, to the open opportunities and freedom to run away her past.
Sawyer's direction was south, toward the slow, simmering pace of the long, cruel road of honor and revenge to release his personal demon.
Jack's direction was east, toward the dawn of a new day where he could release himself from the shadow of his own father.
Each character had their own direction. They were set to their own paths. As a result, they did not work well together because their compass points would never align. And perhaps, that was the governor that protected the light cave - - - the candidates needed each other in order to obtain both the full compass points and the light. For in the end, none of these four candidates took the place of Jacob, the island guardian, to put their own rules upon the universe.
Monday, May 5, 2014
MOTHERS AND CHILDREN
One of my main criticisms about character development in the series was the treatment of children, and in some respects, mothers.
Children were used mostly as disposable props, and mothers were insignificant to evil cast-offs.
The first island mother we encounter is actually in the last season: Jacob's mother. She is a shipwreck victim found by Crazy Mother. Crazy Mother earns her title by killing the Roman woman after she gives birth to twins, Jacob and MIB. So, the precedent set is that motherhood on the island is cloaked by homicidal kidnapping by a deranged island guardian.
Crazy Mother further complicates the bonds between mother and child by lying to Jacob and MIB. She tells them they can never leave the island, which puts MIB on the track of rebellion. Rebellious children will get their penance in the series. In MIB's case, death and soul imprisonment in a smoke monster is his punishment for killing the woman who killed his natural mother.
The island's other birthright was Rousseau and her child, Alex. Rousseau's research vessel was shipwrecked on the island. Her crew is killed and turned into zombies by the smoke monster. Rousseau evades the smoke monster and gives birth. However, the Others led by Widmore and Hawking do not like outsiders. Widmore gives young Ben a mission to kill Rousseau and Alex. Having regrets about his own childhood demons (his father cursed him for killing his own mother during childbirth), Ben kidnaps Alex instead - - - treating her like his own daughter. In some ways, Ben continued the tradition of Crazy Mother.
But how did the writers treat Rousseau? She was still shown as a caring and protective mother, at first, but then morphed into a psychotic crazy person obsessed with revenge and loneliness. And when she finally gets reunited with Alex, Rousseau dies. You cannot even say Rousseau's death was to protect her child, because Alex is captured by Widmore's men and quickly executed because Ben did not give himself up. Ben's decision was another black mark against how parenthood was shown in the series.
The relationship between Eloise and Daniel was also messed up. As I have theorized about the sideways world view, Eloise tried to keep everyone in the dark about the island memories in order to keep Daniel from "awakening" and leaving her in their after lives. This mixed-up reasoning was caused by Eloise killing her time traveling son prior to his own birth (which opens a hallway of unexplained paradox doors). In an unexplainable time loop, Eloise forces her son to become an advanced theoretical scientist in order to unlock the unique properties of the island, including its time travel component. We can question Eloise's motivations as being less than motherly since she would have had some understanding that she was going to sacrifice her son in order to allegedly protect the island. There was a strong undercurrent of selfishness that put aside any honor or respect for other people's lives, in order to create some purgatory "loophole" in the sideways world; her perfect marriage and family dream.
Claire's pregnancy and motherhood was also fraught with dark undertones. Claire, as a young woman, did not have the street smarts to keep herself from getting into trouble or realizing that her boyfriend could bolt at the mere thought of responsibility. Likewise, Claire wanted to discard her own responsibility for her child by putting him up for adoption (not in Australia but far, far, far away in America so there would be no chance he'd ever find her.) It seems this selfishness was caused by resentment with her stormy relationship with her own mother, for whom she severely injured in an automobile crash. It is easier to sever the ties that bind than to work out one's family issues.
And when Aaron's adoptive parents change their minds in the sideways world, Claire is in a panic. She is lost and confused because now she is fully accountable for her past actions. She does not want to be a mother. She does not want to become her own mother. In the island realm, Claire turns into Rousseau, a crazed person after her child is taken away from her. Claire turns to the darkness of the island to follow Flocke in the quest to kill off all the candidates. The series shows mother-child separation as the pathway to manic behavior.
And then, the final straw in this murky soup of mother and child relationships is Sun and her daughter. Sun abandons her own child to return to the island not knowing whether Jin is alive or dead. In fact, she saw the freighter blow up with Jin on board. There was no evidence to justify Sun leaving her own child for a wild goose chase to find Jin. And once she finds Jin, she is unbelievably trapped in the sinking submarine, instead of demanding her motherly instincts to protect her child from losing a parent, she allows Jin to stay and die by her side. (Jin as much at fault as well; he decided death was better than being a single parent.) Such an end is baffling contradiction considering Jin and Sun desperately wanted to have a child throughout their marriage - - - and when that miracle happens, they throw away their parentage like table scraps into the garbage. Sun's decisions left her daughter with a life as an orphan which is the most unmotherly thing she could have done.
The only protective mother-child relationship on the island is still mixed-up. The best protective parenting skills shown in the series was flight attendant Cindy's adoption and caring for Emma and Zach. She took them under her wing and protected them from harm. She may have been a Ben operative from the beginning, but she was independent enough to leave the temple with Flocke in order to save the children from certain death. So, the parenting lesson of the show is that strangers make better guardians than natural parents?
Children were used mostly as disposable props, and mothers were insignificant to evil cast-offs.
The first island mother we encounter is actually in the last season: Jacob's mother. She is a shipwreck victim found by Crazy Mother. Crazy Mother earns her title by killing the Roman woman after she gives birth to twins, Jacob and MIB. So, the precedent set is that motherhood on the island is cloaked by homicidal kidnapping by a deranged island guardian.
Crazy Mother further complicates the bonds between mother and child by lying to Jacob and MIB. She tells them they can never leave the island, which puts MIB on the track of rebellion. Rebellious children will get their penance in the series. In MIB's case, death and soul imprisonment in a smoke monster is his punishment for killing the woman who killed his natural mother.
The island's other birthright was Rousseau and her child, Alex. Rousseau's research vessel was shipwrecked on the island. Her crew is killed and turned into zombies by the smoke monster. Rousseau evades the smoke monster and gives birth. However, the Others led by Widmore and Hawking do not like outsiders. Widmore gives young Ben a mission to kill Rousseau and Alex. Having regrets about his own childhood demons (his father cursed him for killing his own mother during childbirth), Ben kidnaps Alex instead - - - treating her like his own daughter. In some ways, Ben continued the tradition of Crazy Mother.
But how did the writers treat Rousseau? She was still shown as a caring and protective mother, at first, but then morphed into a psychotic crazy person obsessed with revenge and loneliness. And when she finally gets reunited with Alex, Rousseau dies. You cannot even say Rousseau's death was to protect her child, because Alex is captured by Widmore's men and quickly executed because Ben did not give himself up. Ben's decision was another black mark against how parenthood was shown in the series.
The relationship between Eloise and Daniel was also messed up. As I have theorized about the sideways world view, Eloise tried to keep everyone in the dark about the island memories in order to keep Daniel from "awakening" and leaving her in their after lives. This mixed-up reasoning was caused by Eloise killing her time traveling son prior to his own birth (which opens a hallway of unexplained paradox doors). In an unexplainable time loop, Eloise forces her son to become an advanced theoretical scientist in order to unlock the unique properties of the island, including its time travel component. We can question Eloise's motivations as being less than motherly since she would have had some understanding that she was going to sacrifice her son in order to allegedly protect the island. There was a strong undercurrent of selfishness that put aside any honor or respect for other people's lives, in order to create some purgatory "loophole" in the sideways world; her perfect marriage and family dream.
Claire's pregnancy and motherhood was also fraught with dark undertones. Claire, as a young woman, did not have the street smarts to keep herself from getting into trouble or realizing that her boyfriend could bolt at the mere thought of responsibility. Likewise, Claire wanted to discard her own responsibility for her child by putting him up for adoption (not in Australia but far, far, far away in America so there would be no chance he'd ever find her.) It seems this selfishness was caused by resentment with her stormy relationship with her own mother, for whom she severely injured in an automobile crash. It is easier to sever the ties that bind than to work out one's family issues.
And when Aaron's adoptive parents change their minds in the sideways world, Claire is in a panic. She is lost and confused because now she is fully accountable for her past actions. She does not want to be a mother. She does not want to become her own mother. In the island realm, Claire turns into Rousseau, a crazed person after her child is taken away from her. Claire turns to the darkness of the island to follow Flocke in the quest to kill off all the candidates. The series shows mother-child separation as the pathway to manic behavior.
And then, the final straw in this murky soup of mother and child relationships is Sun and her daughter. Sun abandons her own child to return to the island not knowing whether Jin is alive or dead. In fact, she saw the freighter blow up with Jin on board. There was no evidence to justify Sun leaving her own child for a wild goose chase to find Jin. And once she finds Jin, she is unbelievably trapped in the sinking submarine, instead of demanding her motherly instincts to protect her child from losing a parent, she allows Jin to stay and die by her side. (Jin as much at fault as well; he decided death was better than being a single parent.) Such an end is baffling contradiction considering Jin and Sun desperately wanted to have a child throughout their marriage - - - and when that miracle happens, they throw away their parentage like table scraps into the garbage. Sun's decisions left her daughter with a life as an orphan which is the most unmotherly thing she could have done.
The only protective mother-child relationship on the island is still mixed-up. The best protective parenting skills shown in the series was flight attendant Cindy's adoption and caring for Emma and Zach. She took them under her wing and protected them from harm. She may have been a Ben operative from the beginning, but she was independent enough to leave the temple with Flocke in order to save the children from certain death. So, the parenting lesson of the show is that strangers make better guardians than natural parents?
Sunday, May 4, 2014
DIFFERENT NIGHTMARES
Men and women do think differently. Now, research believes they dream differently too.
Geneviève Robert and Antonio Zadra, researchers from the University of Montreal, asked more than 550 subjects to keep daily "dream journals" which resulted in a total of 9796 dream records. The researchers then analyzed the dreams, finding that of the almost 10,000 dreams, there were 431 bad dreams—which cause some unpleasant feelings—and 253 nightmares, which include an emotion so disagreeable that it wakes people from sleep. Subjects said that nightmares felt more “emotionally intense” than bad dreams.
“[N]ightmares were more bizarre and contained substantially more aggressions, failures, and unfortunate endings,” the study says. Only 331 of the participants experienced unpleasant dreams. They found that 35 percent of nightmares and 55 percent of bad dreams involved emotions other than fear.
After looking at the nightmares for general content, the researchers looked at more specific themes and found the stuff of nightmares varied by gender. Women had nightmares that focused on interpersonal strife—a fight with a partner, a disagreement with a mother-in-law, a conflict with a willful child. The emotions involved in those nightmares included feelings of humiliation, inadequacy, and frustration.
Men, on the other hand, tended to have nightmares about natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, fires and volcanoes), chases, and bugs. The women’s nightmares frequently involved a friend or family member trying to navigate the scary situation with them, while the men worked alone in their nightmares. On average, they found that women experienced more nightmares than men.
“The results have important implications on how nightmares are conceptualized and defined," the researchers wrote, "and support the view that, when compared to bad dreams, nightmares represent a somewhat rarer—and more severe—expression of the same basic phenomenon.”
Depending on how character-centric you believe LOST was, can the raw data from this dream study shed any light on the series or character motivations?
Men tend to work alone with issues involving intense problems like natural disasters, chases and insects. On the island, the intense problem was the survival after the plane crash. The main male characters did seem to try to solve their personal issues alone. Jin went off fishing to provide food for Sun and himself. Jack wandered off into the jungle to tend to his own wounds. Sawyer went scavenging to hoard supplies to make his survival more comfortable. Locke went assassin commando to go boar hunting alone in the jungle.
Women tend to try to work through personal strife like discord with friends and family members which include feelings of humiliation, inadequacy and frustration. Women tend to try to work through problems with another person, a navigator, to find a solution. Sun confided in Kate about her marital problems and then her miracle pregnancy. Alex confided in her boyfriend Karl about running away from Ben's control. Juliet confided with her sister about her mixed up emotions of a failed relationship with her boss, and the pitfalls of her pregnancy research. Kate told Jack about her darkest secret (being a fugitive), to which Jack remarked that everyone had been given a second chance on the island.
The dreams and nightmares of individuals may be shaped by the cultural cues of the person's upbringing and society. Men still tend to believe that they are the hunters and gatherers, the protectors of the clan. Locke embodied that role early on as the provider of food. Women tend to be defined by domestic roles, such as cooking, cleaning and running the household. Rose was seen tending to the chores at the beach camp with other female survivors. Men tend to be protective; women tend to be supportive.
Except that those roles can change inside the dream state. Kate was probably on the most missions and "jungle chases" in the series. She was out of the traditional woman role battling the Others, Widmore, Flocke and dangers of jungle. Likewise, Hurley was more timid on the island. He was a follower who rarely made any decisions (the prime exception was driving the VW bus through the Others to rescue his captured friends).
If LOST was a dream scape, then the themes of men and women's nightmares make sense. But those same traits are cultural icons to standard operating behavior.
Geneviève Robert and Antonio Zadra, researchers from the University of Montreal, asked more than 550 subjects to keep daily "dream journals" which resulted in a total of 9796 dream records. The researchers then analyzed the dreams, finding that of the almost 10,000 dreams, there were 431 bad dreams—which cause some unpleasant feelings—and 253 nightmares, which include an emotion so disagreeable that it wakes people from sleep. Subjects said that nightmares felt more “emotionally intense” than bad dreams.
“[N]ightmares were more bizarre and contained substantially more aggressions, failures, and unfortunate endings,” the study says. Only 331 of the participants experienced unpleasant dreams. They found that 35 percent of nightmares and 55 percent of bad dreams involved emotions other than fear.
After looking at the nightmares for general content, the researchers looked at more specific themes and found the stuff of nightmares varied by gender. Women had nightmares that focused on interpersonal strife—a fight with a partner, a disagreement with a mother-in-law, a conflict with a willful child. The emotions involved in those nightmares included feelings of humiliation, inadequacy, and frustration.
Men, on the other hand, tended to have nightmares about natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, fires and volcanoes), chases, and bugs. The women’s nightmares frequently involved a friend or family member trying to navigate the scary situation with them, while the men worked alone in their nightmares. On average, they found that women experienced more nightmares than men.
“The results have important implications on how nightmares are conceptualized and defined," the researchers wrote, "and support the view that, when compared to bad dreams, nightmares represent a somewhat rarer—and more severe—expression of the same basic phenomenon.”
Depending on how character-centric you believe LOST was, can the raw data from this dream study shed any light on the series or character motivations?
Men tend to work alone with issues involving intense problems like natural disasters, chases and insects. On the island, the intense problem was the survival after the plane crash. The main male characters did seem to try to solve their personal issues alone. Jin went off fishing to provide food for Sun and himself. Jack wandered off into the jungle to tend to his own wounds. Sawyer went scavenging to hoard supplies to make his survival more comfortable. Locke went assassin commando to go boar hunting alone in the jungle.
Women tend to try to work through personal strife like discord with friends and family members which include feelings of humiliation, inadequacy and frustration. Women tend to try to work through problems with another person, a navigator, to find a solution. Sun confided in Kate about her marital problems and then her miracle pregnancy. Alex confided in her boyfriend Karl about running away from Ben's control. Juliet confided with her sister about her mixed up emotions of a failed relationship with her boss, and the pitfalls of her pregnancy research. Kate told Jack about her darkest secret (being a fugitive), to which Jack remarked that everyone had been given a second chance on the island.
The dreams and nightmares of individuals may be shaped by the cultural cues of the person's upbringing and society. Men still tend to believe that they are the hunters and gatherers, the protectors of the clan. Locke embodied that role early on as the provider of food. Women tend to be defined by domestic roles, such as cooking, cleaning and running the household. Rose was seen tending to the chores at the beach camp with other female survivors. Men tend to be protective; women tend to be supportive.
Except that those roles can change inside the dream state. Kate was probably on the most missions and "jungle chases" in the series. She was out of the traditional woman role battling the Others, Widmore, Flocke and dangers of jungle. Likewise, Hurley was more timid on the island. He was a follower who rarely made any decisions (the prime exception was driving the VW bus through the Others to rescue his captured friends).
If LOST was a dream scape, then the themes of men and women's nightmares make sense. But those same traits are cultural icons to standard operating behavior.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
GREAT LEADERS
“ A great leader never sets himself above his followers except in carrying responsibilities. ”
— Jules Ormont
Who were the great leaders of LOST?
There is a short list of those who can call leaders.
The Others: Jacob, Widmore, Eloise, Dogen, Horus, Ben, Flocke.
The 815ers: Jack, Sawyer.
Jack was made the de facto leader after the crash because of his medical skills and calm demeanor. Sawyer became the de facto leader when Jack left the island. He also had his followers during the time flash to the 1970s Dharma.
The Others had a longer list of leaders. Jacob was the island leader as his power came from the light source. The first leaders we saw in ancient times were the unknown Roman ship survivors who Crazy Mother killed off. Widmore and Eloise shared the duties of leadership during the 1950s, but both left the island. Horus was the Dharma leader who made peace with the Others, but was killed off in Ben's purge. Dogen was the leader at the temple. And Flocke (smoke monster) used terror to get the island survivors of both the Others and 815ers to his side (in a means to kill off all the candidates leaving the island unprotected so he could leave).
Locke is not mentioned as a leader because he did not have any followers. Boone was his assistant until his death. Charlie was a hanger-on. Locke did not supervise any rescue with Michael's boat. Locke wanted to be considered a leader, but he fails to meet the definition. He could not get the O6 back to the island until after his own death.
Were any of the leaders mentioned "great?"
If you measure it by great wealth, then Widmore was one.
If you measure it by tyrannical power, then Ben was for a time.
If you measure it by likability, then perhaps Horus tenure as Dharma leader was good.
But none of the 815 survivors could hold a trophy as being the greatest leader of all.
Even the wannabee leaders like Kate, Locke, Sayid or Michael, each had their own flaws, their own agendas, and their own pitfalls.
Friday, May 2, 2014
NOW
"There is only now." - - - Ernest Hemingway
Words have meaning. There is a certain precision in a few words.
Now means at the present time or moment; at the time directly following the present moment; immediately; under the present circumstances; as a result of something that has recently happened; and as a consequence of a known fact.
In LOST, who was actually living in the Now?
The sideways world was a result of something "recently" happening: the plane crash.
It appears that the time directly after the plane began to tear a part solidified the sideways realm as at that moment, each passenger on the plane had their "lives flash before their eyes."
It could be argued then that the sideways world was the characters "true past." It was in that one moment that capsulized both their past and their hopes for the future into one cosmic present aboard Flight 815.
Some characters did not really change in the sideways world: Jack was still searching for his father; Kate was still a fugitive. But there were other critical changes. Hurley was not the lottery loser in the sideways world but a confident, but lonely businessman. Sawyer was a cop looking for a con man. And the secondary characters actually had prior connections before popping up on the island: such as Miles being Sawyer's partner, and Juliet being Jack's ex-wife.
For if the sideways world would have been the time line IF Flight 815 did not crash, then that is the true core of the main characters.
Such a viewpoint would drastically change the perception of the island world. We would now know why there was an immediate connection between Juliet and Jack when Jack was captured by the Others. In the past "real life," they were once married but now divorced.
And even secondary characters had prior island connections. Arzt and Ben were faculty members at school prior to Arzt being crashed on the island (so Ben's memory was in his time line, and transferred into the island world). Likewise, Alex and her mother, Rousseau, were in Arzt's memory as well. If mere memories were the building blocks for the island world, that puts the island realm into the universe of imagination, fantasy, dreams or supernatural thought transformation.
And the island transformation helps explain away some paradoxes. For example, why Aaron was born "twice," once on the island and once in the after life. We know that Claire was pregnant when she boarded Flight 815. We know that Claire was conflicted about giving her baby up for adoption. We know in the island time line, her "now" was giving birth on the island with Kate. In the sideways world, it was giving birth at the concert with Charlie.
But in Claire's "now" aboard Flight 815, Aaron was not born. In her future thoughts about her child, she could have imagined keeping the child (sideways) or losing the child (island/O6). But in both situations, Aaron is never born.
This sideways concept being the "true" one also helps understand why Ben did not leave with Hurley in the after life church. He still wanted to stay in the sideways "now" to remain close to Alex and Rousseau. If the island was the true past prior to Flight 815, then Ben would have stood zero chance of any happiness with Alex or Rousseau because his island character was brutal, cruel, evil and the cause of their deaths. So it can only make sense that Ben knew Alex and Rousseau prior to Flight 815, but his feelings or discussions with Arzt were transferred into the island world re-creation.
It makes the memories of characters like Arzt the foundation for people who were not on the plane but were on the island. Perhaps, Arzt's emotional state created a darker version of Ben for the island story (because Arzt also had feelings for Rousseau in his "real" life).
But then again, one could remark, the sideways being the true continuum of the characters pre-flight lives does not explain David, Juliet and Jack's child. But actually, it does. As a child of divorce, David may have resented both his parents. He could have blamed himself for having no normal family life. And that may be while David was in the sideways world, he was not in the church because he was living his own life in his "now," totally unrelated to both the sideways and island universes.
That would lead one to conclude that BOTH the sideways and island locations were not real. That the sideways world had its foundation the factual memories of the passengers aboard Flight 815 before it crashed. That the island world had its foundation on the emotional memories of the passengers as they died in the plane crash.
This explanation helps to unify both conflicting story lines and missing characters.
But it goes to show us how the concept of "now" itself during LOST's six seasons. We can agree that the original writer, Jeffrey Leiber, and ABC executives believed that his characters would survive a plane crash and continue their normal time lines. When Abrams and the first new writers were brought on the series, the writer's guide contemplated that the characters would be alive and struggling to survive on the island. But that "now" present changed with the supernatural jumps with time travel and immortal beings clouded in vague mysteries. The show's focus left the present island time to create elaborate flashbacks and flash forwards to the state of illusion, fantasy and dreams.
It was clearly not the original intent of the origin of LOST to switch gears from a reality drama to a supernatural fantasy series, but it happened. The means of shocking viewers with bizarre twists and violence became the standard operating procedure rather than keeping a cohesive story line together with mounting continuity errors. LOST would have been a much different, abet calmer, series if the original story vision kept marching forward in real time.
Words have meaning. There is a certain precision in a few words.
Now means at the present time or moment; at the time directly following the present moment; immediately; under the present circumstances; as a result of something that has recently happened; and as a consequence of a known fact.
In LOST, who was actually living in the Now?
The sideways world was a result of something "recently" happening: the plane crash.
It appears that the time directly after the plane began to tear a part solidified the sideways realm as at that moment, each passenger on the plane had their "lives flash before their eyes."
It could be argued then that the sideways world was the characters "true past." It was in that one moment that capsulized both their past and their hopes for the future into one cosmic present aboard Flight 815.
Some characters did not really change in the sideways world: Jack was still searching for his father; Kate was still a fugitive. But there were other critical changes. Hurley was not the lottery loser in the sideways world but a confident, but lonely businessman. Sawyer was a cop looking for a con man. And the secondary characters actually had prior connections before popping up on the island: such as Miles being Sawyer's partner, and Juliet being Jack's ex-wife.
For if the sideways world would have been the time line IF Flight 815 did not crash, then that is the true core of the main characters.
Such a viewpoint would drastically change the perception of the island world. We would now know why there was an immediate connection between Juliet and Jack when Jack was captured by the Others. In the past "real life," they were once married but now divorced.
And even secondary characters had prior island connections. Arzt and Ben were faculty members at school prior to Arzt being crashed on the island (so Ben's memory was in his time line, and transferred into the island world). Likewise, Alex and her mother, Rousseau, were in Arzt's memory as well. If mere memories were the building blocks for the island world, that puts the island realm into the universe of imagination, fantasy, dreams or supernatural thought transformation.
And the island transformation helps explain away some paradoxes. For example, why Aaron was born "twice," once on the island and once in the after life. We know that Claire was pregnant when she boarded Flight 815. We know that Claire was conflicted about giving her baby up for adoption. We know in the island time line, her "now" was giving birth on the island with Kate. In the sideways world, it was giving birth at the concert with Charlie.
But in Claire's "now" aboard Flight 815, Aaron was not born. In her future thoughts about her child, she could have imagined keeping the child (sideways) or losing the child (island/O6). But in both situations, Aaron is never born.
This sideways concept being the "true" one also helps understand why Ben did not leave with Hurley in the after life church. He still wanted to stay in the sideways "now" to remain close to Alex and Rousseau. If the island was the true past prior to Flight 815, then Ben would have stood zero chance of any happiness with Alex or Rousseau because his island character was brutal, cruel, evil and the cause of their deaths. So it can only make sense that Ben knew Alex and Rousseau prior to Flight 815, but his feelings or discussions with Arzt were transferred into the island world re-creation.
It makes the memories of characters like Arzt the foundation for people who were not on the plane but were on the island. Perhaps, Arzt's emotional state created a darker version of Ben for the island story (because Arzt also had feelings for Rousseau in his "real" life).
But then again, one could remark, the sideways being the true continuum of the characters pre-flight lives does not explain David, Juliet and Jack's child. But actually, it does. As a child of divorce, David may have resented both his parents. He could have blamed himself for having no normal family life. And that may be while David was in the sideways world, he was not in the church because he was living his own life in his "now," totally unrelated to both the sideways and island universes.
That would lead one to conclude that BOTH the sideways and island locations were not real. That the sideways world had its foundation the factual memories of the passengers aboard Flight 815 before it crashed. That the island world had its foundation on the emotional memories of the passengers as they died in the plane crash.
This explanation helps to unify both conflicting story lines and missing characters.
But it goes to show us how the concept of "now" itself during LOST's six seasons. We can agree that the original writer, Jeffrey Leiber, and ABC executives believed that his characters would survive a plane crash and continue their normal time lines. When Abrams and the first new writers were brought on the series, the writer's guide contemplated that the characters would be alive and struggling to survive on the island. But that "now" present changed with the supernatural jumps with time travel and immortal beings clouded in vague mysteries. The show's focus left the present island time to create elaborate flashbacks and flash forwards to the state of illusion, fantasy and dreams.
It was clearly not the original intent of the origin of LOST to switch gears from a reality drama to a supernatural fantasy series, but it happened. The means of shocking viewers with bizarre twists and violence became the standard operating procedure rather than keeping a cohesive story line together with mounting continuity errors. LOST would have been a much different, abet calmer, series if the original story vision kept marching forward in real time.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
A PROVERB FOR LOST FANS
“
Do not anxiously hope for what is not yet to come; do not vainly regret what is already past.
”
— Chinese Proverb
— Chinese Proverb
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