Comments on: Overthinking Lost: Episodes 1.8-1.15

By: Jayemel

Jayemel — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:00:12 +0000

I agree with all you and the other readers have said about purgatory in the comment sections: they’re all alive and living in a state between heaven and hell.

That said, I have to point out something a stoner friend said to me in high school (while high, of course). Isn’t that description of purgatory kind of what Earth is? We’re alive. It isn’t hell. It isn’t heaven. We do good things. We do bad things. We want to be redeemed.

In this sense, the theme of the state of the nature and the philosophies you talked about in your first review continue you.

By: Foo

Foo — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:44:58 +0000

Fantastic – I was waiting for your next Lost article to appear and lo and behold – there are two! Settling down to read both now.

By: Dante

Dante — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:50:41 +0000

Your two posts on Lost so far have been extremely interesting reads. It’s refreshing to read thoughtful remarks about the show in its early stages; Season 1 was just tremendous television. I’ve seen the show up to its current point, so I don’t really want to comment on your analyses and inadvertently spoil something. That said, I didn’t know about Dante’s image of Satan falling to the Earth and creating the Dead Sea, nor did I think about the Island possibly being the antipole of Jerusalem. I like that theory very much.

Anyway, enjoy the show and I look forward to your future posts.

By: Jess

Jess — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:22:49 +0000

@mlawski: Yup, completely agree with you about Animal Farm :D

As for Kate, most of the fans loved her in season 1 then came to dislike her immensely by the end of season 3 (I’ve always liked her the whole way through :S) So if you don’t like her already in season one, I doubt you’ll come to like her at all til maybe season 5 at the latest =[ She’s quite confusing for people to understand, a lot of what she does is more about what isn’t said than what is.

By: dock

dock — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:51:44 +0000

@mlawski: lol my bad, got carried away in the quote ;p

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:49:12 +0000

Excellent stuff. Please continue. I’m greatly looking forward to following your watching of the show. You are thinking many of the same things I thought (and some – am still thinking!) as I watched the show. Keep it up!

By: mlawski

mlawski — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:38:42 +0000

@dock: I’m not a brotha, I’m a sistah! And Sawyer as Gambit would have been SWEET.

By: dock

dock — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:06:22 +0000

Aww man mlawski I wont give anything away except to say your traveling the path as intended. So far your observations have been the quintessential indepth discussions of fans of the series, as we’ve gone over “last nights episode” with other Losties for the past 6 years. Your minds gonna get blown.

See ya in another life brotha

ps. I heard they had considered Sawyer for the role of Gambit in the new Wolverine movie but he couldnt do it b/c of the show. Havent seen the movie to determine if it was any good, but how great of a fit is that, casting wise?

By: Nathan Harrison

Nathan Harrison — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:32:36 +0000

The Redemption angle is a very valid perspective from which to come at the show. But I’d also say don’t let the Lord of the Flies stuff go entirely by the wayside.

When it comes to LotF’s bearing on LOST, I think the most consistently applicable comparison is the idea of factionalism. People on the show are constantly dividing themselves into arbitrary groups, drawing lines in the sand, demanding allegiance, making power plays, and typically end up working at cross purposes, or even actively hostile to each other.

I’ve been rewatching from Season 1 forward this summer with my sister, who’s a LOST newbie, and it’s disconcerting to note how often, how easily and how early people on the show fall back on Us vs. Them categorizing. And for characters that make a big deal about “live together, die alone” as a mantra, they all do a hell of a lot to isolate themselves, intentionally and not.

By: mlawski

mlawski — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:45:31 +0000

@Jess: Ah, good point about about L.A.! I definitely don’t believe the characters are literally dead — that would be a huge cop out, like “it was all a dream.” I think audiences would freak. I just meant that on a more metaphorical level, that may have been what the writers were (consciously or subconsciously) thinking of. Or, if the characters’ being on an island is the doing of some organization/person/something else, maybe that figure was thinking of Dante for some reason. But I still prefer to read it on a metaphorical level.

It’s like reading Animal Farm. It would be weird if at the end of the book, the characters were like, “Hey! We were living in Soviet Russia all along!” But you have to admit it’s clear that Orwell was thinking of Soviet Russia and that it had an impact allegorically on the work.

Oh, and I’m trying to like Kate. I honestly don’t know why I find her flashbacks (and character, really) so boring. Hey, there has to be one weak link in the bunch, right?