'Lost': Fate versus free will, revisited
I want to return to one of the biggest topics of "Lost" today: fate versus free will. I wanted to address this earlier in the week, but my review of the Season 5 Blu-Ray set got in the way. I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those pesky release dates!
The discussion of fate versus free will was reignited here on the blog on Sunday when I posted my thoughts on the Spanish promo courtesy of the television station Cuatro. According to the poll I placed at the bottom of the recap, it seemed a majority of you had my opinion about it: namely, it worked in terms of its creativity, not its interpretation of the show. But a non-sizeable majority thought it worked on both levels, and in many ways, I was responding to those people more than the promo itself.
After all, my entry was born from the seemingly universal praise heaped upon the promo by the online "Lost" community. While I didn't exactly scour far and wide, I literally could not find one person that had anything bad to say about it. On top of that, I found almost no critical analysis of the promo: everything was essentially an instantaneous, emotional reaction to a non-canon piece of promotional material. I, too, had an initially euphoric reaction to it. But by the third viewing, something didn't sit right. By the fifth, I was stone-faced. By the seventh, I was downright antsy.
To me, the promo works wonderfully as a Rorschach test for "Lost" fans. While I would never say there's a "wrong" or "right" way to respond to the Cuatro promo, I think one's reaction to it says a lot about about his/her attitudes towards the show. For those content to passively watch the show without delving too deeply into it, that promo would have thrilled them. For those that believe in destiny's invisible hand guiding these characters towards their inevitable end, that promo would also have thrilled them. For those that believe in free will shaping the events of the show, that promo would have made them slam their heads against a desk until they bled like Charlotte after a time flash.
Again: I'm not decrying Cuatro's interpretation of the show. I'm merely gauging the reaction to it and trying to understand the two camps' perspective. After all, I know why I didn't like it. My initial entry on the subject lays it all out there for your consumption. What I want to know is why a certain sect of "Lost" fans are happy with the idea that the players in this particular drama are attached to invisible strings, helpless in the face of larger forces to make any meaningful choice whatsoever. Maybe that's a crude formulation of this perspective, but it's essentially accurate nonetheless. And I am not asking that question derisively. I really am genuinely curious.
Now, the show has toyed with both sides of this coin since Day One. Crashing these characters down on the Island with no understanding of their place in this seemingly endless War of the Island has allowed the show to express a variety of subtle philosophical and religious perspectives that analyze the potential meaning of the events on the show. You can look at Desmond's failure to push the button in a timely manner as Oceanic 815 flew nearby as either fated to always happen, or simply the sum total of a series of events that ended in that failure. Both broadly describe Desmond's tardiness as ever always occurring. But the former perspective implies that nothing else could have happened, no matter what. The latter implies that nothing else could have happened, but only due to the series of choices that resulted in an ever-narrowing path that ultimately led Desmond to follow Kelvin out of the Swan on that particular day.
On some grand level, yes, it's silly to argue the difference between these two vantage points on a PIECE OF SCRIPTED FICTION. I understand the irony. Everything that happens on "Lost" happens due to a writer putting words onto paper. But that being said, "Lost" actively wants us to question the tension between fate and free will in terms of the ultimate endgame of the show. Whereas The Man in Black believes change is impossible, Jacob believes that choice is always present. The question "Lost" fans have to ask is the same one that its characters constantly confront: "Am I more comfortable believing that a higher power is guiding me, or am I more comfortable knowing I alone have the power to make something happen?"
I have a lot more to say on this topic, but I'm going to table it until next time. For now, I want to here from people on both sides of the aisle: Team Fate and Team Free Will, explain your preferences in the comments below! And leave suggestions for characters you'd like to see me put through both perspectives in order to gain insight into their arcs.
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Photo credit: ABC
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I voted that I side with Team Free Will (and Team Jacob--but the Lost version). However, that does not mean I automatically hate that promo. I looked at it as third-person interpretation. Not canon. Not a promise. But one view. And this lasse-faire view of mine to something that projected the opposite of what I think is happening might be because this text was not original. It was not written to explain Lost. It was not developed to describe Lost. It was a poem creatively applied. And so I respect that creatively and imagination. But I don't think it really means anything about the fates of my beloved castaways.
I say both fate and free will play in varying degrees in everyone's lives. How much fate is allowed to play is dependent on the will of the individual. An example, fate decides to offer you an opportunity, whether you take advantage of it is up to you. Another example is fate decides your profession, you're meant to be a doctor perhaps, but where you end up working is purely a matter of preference (free will).
"Am I more comfortable believing that a higher power is guiding me, or am I more comfortable knowing I alone have the power to make something happen?"
Comfort is less important than what's true. There can't be a higher power scripting the drama of our lives, at least without turning everyone else into puppets. But Team Free Will is no better off, because "I alone" doesn't have the power. Never did and never will.
Physiscs suggests that time is an illusion. If all events are already determined, with the "future" as fixed as the "past," they are determined by the interaction of each person's choices with natural, unwilled events.
I have delved, brother, and nearly not made it back. And I think chess (or checkers) is a poor representation of Lost. (its a little bit more like backgammon for me.) I believe in the free will scenario as well. But, the promo didn't bother me, it was just well done artistic fluff, so I enjoyed it for what it was. Who knows how the Lost translates, not just language but culturally? I like the S6 poster more, as simple as it is.
I think there's generally an unhappy tendency to stick fate and free will at opposite ends of the spectrum at to make them incompatible. Which I don't think has to be necessary.
I'm a medieval history geek, so I'm going to throw some of that out there: the belief for most of the middle ages was that fate and free will happily coexisted, without ever getting in each others way, for one reason: God was supposed to exist outside of time, and he could see past/present/future all at once. So you can make a free decision, entirely on your own, but it's also potentially part of fate because someone hypothetically already knew you were going to make that decision (but didn't pull any kind of string to MAKE you make it).
So the problem becomes an epistemological one: maybe people do have fates, but they can't possibly know them because they're within time. With Lost it gets a little more complicated, because time is so bendy. But it's still the same issue, because they only have knowledge of certain points on the timeline. This is where believing in fate gets dangerous - if you think it's your fate to change something in the past, but don't know every single thing that happened on the way, you might just as likely be bringing the thing you want to prevent into fruition (ie, Sayid and Little Ben).
I'm not really sure how clear I was being there, sorry if it didn't make sense. I guess I'm just saying that there's nothing inherently silly about believing in fate, as long as you don't let it overtake your free will (since there's no way for you to know enough/anything about your own fate).
So I don't know what team that makes me. Team Overanalysis!
@Katie: I think your second paragraph explains Jacob's technique quite nicely, and dovetails into what I said Sunday: "It's not about what these characters are always and ever going to do; it's what these characters are always and ever capable of doing." Jacob knows what each of the people he touches can do, but he can't literally guide them to the supposed endpoint.
I'm more comfortable with Team Fate when it comes to this story. What I liked about the Spanish promo wasn't that I thought it had an absolute handle on the show.It was the obvious fact that whoever created it was a fan with a theory - not just a marketing man throwing clips together - which can't be said for the recent abc promos.
@Katie... I like your analysis too. You explained it much better than I did on Ryan's blog about the Spanish video.
Katie said: "So you can make a free decision, entirely on your own, but it's also potentially part of fate because someone hypothetically already knew you were going to make that decision (but didn't pull any kind of string to MAKE you make it)."
I'll just add that making the "free decision on our own" may or may not be our free decision to begin with. We only think/believe it is our decision, but in fact, someone/something else is actually deciding for us, only we THINK it (our perceived free will) is our decision.
Believing in fate is the con game. Like Locke or Sawyer's con victims, you have to want to believe to be tempted. But you always have the choice...
I agree with Kate, but I think that leads to a different dicotomy. The distinction isn't between 'fate' and 'free will' its between: 1) external control; 2) fate / determinism; and 3) free will.
It seems pretty clear that there are external influences on the characters. All the flashbacks showing Jacob at seminal points illustrates this. Of course, 'influence' is different from 'control'. The very fact that he (and presumably his counter part) exercise influence would seem to suggest that aren't able to simply control everything that happens. For that matter, the fact that there are two of them and they are in conflict suggests the same thing. If either had the ability to absolutely control everyone and everything there wouldn't be any conflict.
I think that is completely separate from 'fate'. In this context I'd also equate fate with 'determinism' which is similar to the point Kate raises. You can use the example of God standing outside of time and aware of everything that is and will be or a sci/fi example of a computer that is so sophisticated it can encompass the totality of the universe and predict with absolute accuracy everything that will every happen.
In either case, things are inevitable. Fate can't be changed and what will happen will happen. In that context Desmond was never going to push the button and every choice leading up to that ultimate outcome was also equally inevitable.
Fate is different from external control in that fate is inevitable but not intentionally directed.
That leads to the third option around free will. If everything is being directly controlled by some higher power then that places constraints on free will to some extent. The limits of that depend on the extent to which every single decision is being controlled or only major decisions.
The more interesting divide though is between fate and free will. Given our limits (being neither God nor a really cool computer) the fact that everything is inevitable still looks like free will to us. This is different from option 1) where some external power intervenes to direct the outcome. Our choices may be inevitable but they are still our choices as opposed to being imposed externally.
I am not sure if that actually reflects free will or just the illusion of free will though. It is free will in the sense that someone else isn't controlling us, but how free is it if everything is inevitable?
I think we can rule out option 1 in Lost. We certainly have key events, and people, being influenced, but it's influence not control. In that sense the chess metaphor is too controlling.
I think option 2 is impossible to deal with in any meaningful way. Even if there is fate and everything is predetermined neither we (nor the characters) have the capacity to do anything about it.
I do think there is some support for option 2 though. For instance, the attempt to kill Ben as a child. Zaid clearly exercised what he thought was his free will, but at the same time it just seemed to lead to the inevitable. This would apply equally to Jacob and his opponent, who also exist within a predetermined universe. Of course, since this is a TV show things are in fact deterministic.
Finally, I think it is hard to argue in favour of complete free will on the show. The whole structure of the show at a minimum suggests some level of predetermination. Certainly all the intersecting histories suggest something other than complete free will and coincidence.