'Light vs. Dark' on 'Lost': Claire's dream
"Raised by Another" made my pre-Season 5 all-time top ten "Lost" episode list, and for good reason. Not only did it give us the first hint that things off the Island were as bizarre as they were on it, but it also presented the start of an arc that will finally pay off in Season 6: the importance of the relationship between Claire and Aaron.
"Raised" contains two moments pertinent to the "Light vs. Dark" series. Next week, I'll look at psychic Richard Malkin's sudden change of heart regarding Claire's need to raise her child. But today, I want to look at the dream that started the episode. Not only is it one of the creepiest scenes the show ever pulled off, but just might have a clue to the eventual end game of this particular plot.
The Episode: "Raised by Another"
The Scene: Claire has a dream in which she is no longer pregnant. She hears a baby crying in the near distance. As she walks towards the sound, she sees John Locke at Richard Malkin's table. He's laying tarot cards down one by one. When she asks what's going on, he replies, "He was your responsibility but you gave him away, Claire. Everyone pays the price now." He looks up at her with one eye fully white, the other fully black. Startled, she moves again towards the crying, and finds a crib filled with a thick pool of blood.
The Case for Jacob: "Look, for reasons that will become clear, your connection to your unborn son is key to my master plan. The Man in Black will kill me soon enough. I can't stop that. But what I can do is set in motion a few things to ensure he can't actually win. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go tell some people to build a runway. It's a long story."
The Case for The Man in Black: "In the immortal words of the band The Offspring, I gotta keep 'em separated. Yes, I like The Offspring. Stop looking at me that way. Well, I wouldn't travel to see them live, no. But they still have about a half dozen excellent songs. Look, that's not important: I need to get Claire separated from Aaron. I already see that Charlie's going to be a problem, so I'll have to deal with him as well. But first thing's first: feed into her innate fear of motherhood and twist the knife via fever dream."
The Zap2it Opinion: Tough call. You could make a strong case either way. I'm really hoping the show doesn't drop the ball on this plot come Season 6 the way they have apparently dropped the ball on Walt's storyline. Claire's disappearance cast a long shadow over Season 5, and with Kate's confirmed reason for returning to reunite Aaron with his mother, the pieces seem to be in place to finish what the show started in the fist half of Season 1. With that in mind, I am choosing to look at this dream as a warning from Jacob, not a scare tactic by the Man in Black.
What do you think?
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I think Jacob may have been trying to send Claire a message, or warning.
By the way, since everyone on this island has daddy issues, could it be possible that the Man in black could be the son of Jacob. He hates the way his powerful dad runs things by letting outsiders continually find the island.
Or the island could be the father of both Jacob and the Man in black, with a Cain and Abel thing happening... Yeah, wrap your head around that!
I have to say it was the Man in Black's doing. Simply just because it seems it was his plan all along to take over Locke's body and it was Locke talking to Claire in the dream.
Claire's absence in season 5 was quite palpable, especially since Aaron has become such a central figure in so many other stories on the show. I've wondered in the past if the warning that Aaron shouldn't be "raised by another" could actually be "raised by an other". Perhaps Aaron being off the island is the perfect place to be because he's not with "the others". Just a thought.
So does that mean that MiB is pretty fly (for a white guy)?
I really can't decide who sent the dream, so I'll settle for a cheap Offspring joke...
@Cat: How do we know that Claire's mother isn't an other? Others are not on the island ( Charles, Eloise ). It's clear that Christian had some tie to the island, so why not Claire's mom? Maybe Kate played right into the MiB's hands by handing over Aaron to his grandmother.
I really hope they wrap up this line. Claire and the baby have been major players since the first episode.
@Cat: How do we know that Claire's mother isn't an other? Others are not on the island ( Charles, Eloise ). It's clear that Christian had some tie to the island, so why not Claire's mom? Maybe Kate played right into the MiB's hands by handing over Aaron to his grandmother.
I really hope they wrap up this line. Claire and the baby have been major players since the first episode.
OOOPS, I meant to say
"Others are not ONLY on the island ( Charles, Eloise )."
who the heck knows? all i know, is that if you're prediction about Walt being done is true, i may have to reconsider all of the fabulous things i've said about this show. that would be a HUGE dropping of ball.
I'm thinking it was Jacob warning her not to abandon Aaron - which is exactly what she did when she fell under Cabin Christian's influence and followed him into the jungle. She literally left Aaron behind. What happened to her after that is unknown, but ***uming she did so basically of her own free will she didn't heed the dream's warning.
What strikes me the most about the dream is Locke's presence. The fact that one of his eyes was white and the other is black suggests a warning of Locke's importance to the MIB's (and Jacob's) endgame.
Perhaps - in ways yet to be understood - Aaron was key to the MIB taking the form of Locke, initiating the loophole.
Considering it is a warning, and it reveals Locke's potential to be an agent for either side, I'm going to go with the dream being a message from Jacob - since he would have more to gain from revealing Locke's nature, and trying to scare Claire into the ramifications of "giving Araon away".