A 'Lost' cause found: Kate, Claire, and Aaron
Well, we've heard a lot over the past few days from the Jaters, the Skaters, and the hatahs here on the "Lost" blog. And boy, it's just been a big group hug, hasn't it? But let's just to push beyond all that as we continue Kate Austen Week into what I feel is her most compelling storyline and her ultimate purpose on the show: reuniting Claire with Aaron.
Let's sketch out the quick spine of the important bond between Kate and Claire over the years. In terms of the defining moments in their relationship, we need look at four key episodes:
"Do No Harm": Kate helps Claire deliver Aaron in the jungle, a moment amazingly revisited in Season 5's "The Little Prince."
"Maternity Leave": Worried over Aaron's illness, Kate and Claire find Danielle in order to discover what happened to Claire after Ethan's abduction
"Eggtown": A subpar episode as a whole, but nevertheless vital in understanding Kate's bond with Aaron later on.
"Whatever Happened, Happened": Kate reveals to Claire's mother the true identity of Aaron, and announces her intention to return to the Island and rescue Claire.
The latter nearly single-handedly saved Kate's character for yours truly, which I described at the time as having, "...Evangeline Lilly's finest moments in the history of the show." To me, her reason for returning to the Island was the most surprising as well as most emotionally resonant. I had been struggling all season with the Island's coordinates and this vague notion of recreating the Oceanic crash and Locke's footwear. Not only did I not understand it, but the characters didn't seem to understand it, either. Even Sun's reason for returning (to find Jin) was clouded by her decision to leave the offspring of their relationship behind in order to find him.
But Kate's decision to find Claire simultaneously came out of left field and yet made absolute perfect sense upon closer analysis. You need not merely watch the episodes listed above to get an understanding of the bond between the two characters, but those four in particular highlight the type of kinship not often seen on the show. I hesitate to call it "soft," because that word might produce the wrong connotation, but in a show where so many relationships are based on either antagonism or competition, Kate and Claire formed a uniquely warm relationship.
Kate and Sun also formed a tight, female-centric bond, but Sun's inherently a tougher cookie than Claire. (At least, she was until her seeming lobotomy halfway through Season 5. But that's another topic for another time.) I always viewed Kate's stance towards Claire as a protective one. It wasn't condescending, but was informed from their respective life experiences. Despite the marshal's opinion, Kate wasn't a hard woman, but was hardened by her life on the lam. That life did not squelch Kate's maternal nature, but it certainly preempted it. There was as much room in her life for babies as there was for Taco Tuesdays with Kevin Callis.
If I have a gripe about Kate's storyline with Aaron after leaving the Island, it's in the show's ultimate reason for her keeping him. In "The Little Prince," she and Jack have this exchange on Penny's boat:
Kate: We could say that I was six months pregnant when I was arrested and that I gave birth to him on the Island. No one would ever know.
Jack: Kate, no. You don't have to...There's other ways too this.
Kate: After everyone we've lost--Michael, Jin, Sawyer... I can't lose him, too.
Now, this may be not the most clearheaded way of approaching things, but certainly understandable. Holding onto the one positive thing from their time on the Island as a way to hold onto all that was left behind? It could eventually turn into a daily reminder of the horror of those three months, but at the time, it made sense to her and made plenty enough sense to me.
But in "Happened," we learn that in fact the reason Kate kept Aaron was to dull the pain from Sawyer jumping off the helicopter. In discussing the incident in the supermarket where Aaron temporarily wandered off, Kate and Cassidy have this exchange:
Kate: I mean, why would I expect him to be taken?
Cassidy: Because you took him, Kate.
Kate: No, I...Claire was gone. I mean, she left him. I had to take him. He needed me.
Cassidy: You needed him. Sawyer broke your heart. How else were you supposed to fix it?
At which point I expected Kate to slap Cassidy and declare that the dumbest thing anyone's ever said on the show, but no, Kate completely agrees, which means this is the actual explanation we're supposed to swallow for Kate pretending to be Aaron's mother. I'm not here trying to start a flame war about the legitimacy of Kate's feelings for Sawyer. I'm just trying to connect the dots between the two in a way that makes sense and keeps Kate's integrity in check. Because currently, I'm failing miserably at doing so.
I would have preferred they stuck with the reasoning in "Prince," a reasoning that would have sickened over time as guilt ate her from the inside out until she realized that Aaron's place was with his mother. Or maybe the show would have shown the fruits of Richard Malkin's prophecy, and danger/death surrounding the child without his mother around. But none of that happened. Instead, we learned that Kate was so devastated, so hollowed out, so weak from Sawyer's departure that she sought solace in a child that belonged to one of her closest companions rather than fill out an eHarmony profile.
Regardless of my personal feeling about the reason for taking Aaron, I'm terribly interested in seeing Kate's pursuit of Claire in Season 6. It not only gets away from the romantic triangles that have hampered her character over the years, but gives her a truly heroic, truly SELFLESS task to perform. To repurpose Jack's famous phrase from Season 1: Kate is willing to die alone so that Claire and Aaron might live together. And that's a powerful arc for both Kate and "Lost" as a whole.
As we approach the endgame of the show, it's time to look at how "Lost" will resolve certain characters' storylines. While we can safely assume it won't be happy endings for all around, we need not assume it will be pain and misery across the board, either. But a few major characters will undoubtedly not be alive when the curtain closes. This, however, need not be a bad thing. Kate's purpose is not in finding happiness for herself, but achieving peace by reuniting a mother and a child. Maybe she lands on one side of the Sawyer/Jack divide along the way, but that's not her end goal. It's not what defines Kate as a character, and it's far from what defines her importance for "Lost."
When Jacob told her at a young age to be good, I think this is what he had in mind all along. What about you?
Ryan invites you to join the hundreds already in Zap2It's Guide to Lost Facebook group.
Again, I agree with a lot of your points here, Ryan, and I love the dynamic between Kate and Claire. But I am mystified as to why you downplay the importance of Kate and Sawyer's effect on each other's character arcs. You seem to think that she is nothing but a love interest for him, that he had no impact on her own story, which isn't the case at all. Even in Season 1, we see her opening up, admitting things to him that she's never admitted to anyone, like the fact that she killed a man. In Season 2, his dangerous fever prompted an emotional crisis which led her to confess to "Wayne," who she thought was possessing Sawyer, why she killed him. This allowed her to exorcise Wayne's ghost, from her own life and from her perception of Sawyer. The black horse she saw immediately afterward was like the island telling her, "You still have a chance to do good." And Sawyer saw it with her. Just like she witnessed him lowering his gun and deciding not to shoot the boar in "Outlaws."
Then in Season 3, we saw her take a huge step in terms of intimacy and commitment. You may think that just reduces her to a love interest, but do you think it's only about a man when a woman is able to let herself commit - something she's been afraid of for years? I can assure you it isn't. We saw in her flashbacks that her life with her husband Kevin, while perfect on the outside, was still a prison for her. She ended up running from him and breaking his heart. But on the island, when she had every reason to run and try to save herself, she stayed in the cage with Sawyer and looked as if for the first time, she'd found peace. Of course it didn't last, but it was a major step for her character all the same. Not just sex in a cage.
And in case you've forgotten, Sawyer is also symbolically connected with Aaron. When the baby was just a few days old, his voice was the only one that would make him stop crying. He found Aaron in the jungle when Claire disappeared, and personally delivered him into Kate's arms. That episode ended with Kate holding Aaron while she cried in her home in LA (after Jack screamed that she wasn't related to him), and Sawyer holding the baby on the island, shouting for Claire. Both images were of the two of them protecting that baby. Also, the episode that first revealed Kate to be raising Aaron was the same one in which we found out she wasn't pregnant by Sawyer, and was strangely disappointed by that. Last but not least, Sawyer witnessed her delivering Aaron in one of the time flashes. Out of all the moments the island could have shown him, it showed him that one.
Think back to the scene where the plane landed and the Oceanic 6 disembarked. Everyone had someone there - Jack had his mother, Hurley had his parents and he also pulled Sayid into his family group, Sun had her father. Kate stood there, totally alone, clutching that baby. When she got on the helicopter back on the island, she and Sawyer were smiling and flirting with each other. It's no stretch to think she planned to try some kind of life with the guy. It wouldn't have worked out, since it's been made clear that neither were ready for each other at that time in their lives. But they would have tried it. After losing even that distant shot at happiness, is it so shocking that she would think of that baby as the one she *might* have had with Sawyer, if things had been different?
It's funny that Skaters are so often labeled crazy or delusional shippers, yet many of us saw this storyline coming from a mile away, and had even gotten used to the fact that Aaron was in some sense a balm to heal Sawyer's loss, long before it was made canon. If you weren't in the habit of thinking of their relationship as such an insignificant or even degrading aspect of Kate's character arc, it probably wouldn't have come as quite a shock to you.
It's interesting that you claim some kind of critical high ground in wanting Kate's storyline to not revolve around the triangle, but how is her story revolving solely around Claire and Aaron the remedy? Just because it's not romantic in nature?
I understand the desire to have her follow through with a completely selfless act in reuniting mother and child. I'm all for that. But you seem to think that after she does so, she should just keel over dead. I don't quite buy your feminist credentials when you seem to want this woman to turn into a saint and then die. I don't find that any better than what you clearly believe to be the shippers' sappy hope for a happy ending. Your hopes for Kate turn her into nothing more than a redeemed bad girl who has to give her life in order to pay for her crime. Die, bad girl, die!
Is it really necessary for her to pay that ultimate price after reuniting Aaron and Claire? Has she earned no chance at happiness for herself, at all? If Lost's moral universe is quite that dogmatic and bleak, I may find myself regretting that I got so invested in the show. I'm not a religious person and I hope not to be force fed that kind of extreme morality tale.
Kate Fan - you're like Swim Fan, but worse.
I have not been crazy about the path they've taken with Kate clinging so tightly to Aaron and suddenly becoming, above all, maternal. Throughout the series, the writers have been all over the map with her character with little consistency. However, I'm sick of the triangle making up every bit of who Kate is, so I like the idea more that Aaron gives Kate something to cling to rather than that it's, once again, all about Sawyer (or Jack, for that matter). The reasoning of the latter seems especially tenuous since in all other instances, when Kate's had to leave Sawyer behind, she's never looked back. I am interested in the Kate/Claire connection, and I also think that Kate's mission to reunite mother and son is a heroic one, fitting of her status as heroine, which is often forgotten in the continual ping pong game between Jack and Sawyer. I'd like to see a strong Kate in the final season, regardless of who she ends up with.
Ryan, I hope you're not setting yourself up for disappointment, because if The Incident causes the crash of 815 to never happen, Kate reuniting Claire and Aaron won't be part of the show.
Unless of course they're replacing flashbacks/flash forwards with what happened to the characters if The Incident changed nothing vs. what happened if The Incident changed everything. That would be pretty confusing though...
I choose to stick by the reasoning in TLP rather than WH,H. It helps me sleep at night. My husband hates Kate, and hates Jack, and loves Sawyer and he agreed it was one of the dumbest things ever uttered on the show. I just hope Cassidy can redeem herself in Season 6. (Kidding.)
One constant about Lost fans, Ryan most definitely included, is their selective memories about the story. Ryan seems to have entirely missed all the cues that Sawyer, not Jack, is being set up as the love of Kate's life. But he has invented this great big Kate/Claire relationship out of whole cloth. Yes, Kate delivered Aaron and that's a bond - with Aaron. After that, she had one or two scenes with Claire the entire series. Ryan mentioned both scenes without ever mentioning that they were the ONLY scenes the two ever had.
Ryan not only missed the crux of the Sawyer/Kate relationship, he invented a fictional Kate/Claire bond that never really came to life onscreen. Why? Because it fits his preferred narrative.
You could make a better case that SAWYER is the one with the bond to Claire and Aaron. Sawyer saved Claire's life when her house blew up and he saved Aaron's life when Claire "died" (or whatever she did). He is the one who brought Aaron to the beach so he could be saved in the first place. There may well be a point hidden in there as well, as there may be a point hidden in the fact that Jack shunned his own flesh and blood, but if you're stuck on your own smarmy narrative, you're going to miss it.
It's annoying to have critics like Ryan diss the writers of Lost because their personal selective memories and interpretations don't coincide with THE STORY BEING TOLD.
KateFan, that first post of yours on this topic should be included in any book, dvd or anything LOST related. When this show is over, it should be included in the "love" chapter of LOST-101. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. The analysis of a person who is watching the show and understands what he/she is watching. I keep telling the Lost fandom whenever I am masochistic enough to want to read their posts;) as long as there are people alive who saw the answers given in WHH coming a full year ago, then accept with humility that you missed the boat on this one and you are not as smart as you think you are. To criticise the writers for "not making sense" instead of admitting your own lack of smarts is just downright egotistical. Like you are supposed to catch everything. Clearly not!
Maureen, Ryan is not unique. Most Lost Bloggers are the same. You should see Doc Jensen. His fanwanking and fanfic is hilarious. His is so bad that some of his followers start quoting it as canon. They can't even tell the difference anymore between Jensen and the show they are watching. Ryan is much better. Atleast he tries to analyse the show even though he does not understand parts of it. Jensen just analyses whats in his own head.
I do think Kate and Claire have a bond but I agree with Maureen that it is the height of bias, when a person talks up the Kate and Claire bond as some kind of dominant force in the show but ignores another bond that has been revealed in the show from season 1 and has links that Katefan mentioned and even more.
I do not want to even go into Lockes Dream with Kate and Sawyer at the escalator in the airport. Not the Kate and Jack, Ryan in his imagination saw as the story the writers are trying to portray. Or Kate meeting Cassidy and actually being the one to encourage her to jail who turned out to be Sawyer. Or Sawyer eating at Kates mothers restaurant. Plus them both being the only 2 that Jacob touched as children. I do not know what more you people need to see to know that this is the epic lovestory Darlton are telling. I could not care less about the quadrangle but it is part of the show and I know the story that the writers seem to be more invested in and it is Sawyer and Kate. I can't wait for the season 6 Skate installment. That's all.
That's it exactly, Dexter. It's hilarious to me how any fan with a blog can declare what parts of the show's CANON they will and won't accept. But it's even more insane how they make things up just to back up the story they WISH was being told.
Ryan's a great example. He doesn't like the triangle, therefore everything that formed the basis for the revelations of WHH just never happened in his mind. He would be ok with Kate having a nonsexual subplot, so he exaggerates the Claire connection and decides he's willing to accept that plot for her. It's like fans think this is one of those stories where you get to pick your own ending.
Don't get me started on Jeff Jensen at EW. That dude is so hung up on his own literary genius that by now he has NO idea what show he's writing. I think he's convinced himself he's the one who's writing Lost now. His eccentric literary tangents are nothing but self indulgent nonsense. Yet the fanboys are eating out of his hand. They really can't see the difference anymore.
I dont think Kate's sole reason for taking Aaron was to get over Sawyer and I dont think that scene implied that. It implied that it was A reason not the only reason.