The Great 'Lost' Debate: Parents, children, and Jacob's progress
In the wake of "Dr. Linus," the Great "Lost" Debate is turning towards the topic of parents. As I talked about in last week's Course Corrections, we're starting to see a pattern emerge in the sideways timeline. That pattern? The primary source of malcontent amongst most of the show's characters - their mothers and fathers - seems to have softened somewhat. Have these relationships been completely fixed? Absolutely not. But the differences between the relationships we've seen throughout the past five seasons and the ones we're seeing in the new (and potentially improved) 2004 are striking. Moreover, they may be at the heart of what's about to happen on the Island.
How so? Let's get into the debate!
Ryan McGee: OK, Rick, let's look at the evidence. Sure, Christian Shephard's still AWOL. But we've seen Jack reach an understanding with him (through his son David) in a way that we've never seen with Island Jack. Ben's relationship turned from gassing his father as part of The Purge to changing his oxygen tank in the sideways universe. And Anthony Cooper, possibly winner of Worst Father Ever on Lost, gets invited to John Locke's wedding to Helen. I'm going to take a chance and put these three developments into the positive column for now.
If that were all that we took away from the sideways universe, though, those positives would be hollow. Jack's dad? Still missing. Ben's life? Not terribly great. Locke's situation? Once-again wheelchair bound. To call these lives lacking isn't to damn them, but rather point out that these aren't exactly fairy-tale endings for these characters. What interests me more is how these small changes affect the way these men see the world: rather than feeling isolated through their experiences with their parents, they feel more connected with the world around them. So Rick: Is that type of connection tied into the two sides of the war that's about to start on the Island?
Rick Porter: What was that season 1 episode called again? "All the Best Plane-Crash Survivors Have Daddy Issues"?
Oh, right - "Cowboys." But your point is well-taken - as is the one you made in this week's Letters from the Flame about the show becoming about "nature vs. nurture" almost as much as it's about "light vs. dark." The show has been obsessed with absent, bad, or otherwise not-so-great paternal figures for essentially its entire run - but if all we've been watching is a six-year-long group-therapy exercise, then I will be the first to be handing out the brooms when we all declare shenanigans on Lindelof and Cuse.
I think what we've seen so far of the father-child relationships of characters in the sideways timeline is playing, or will play, into what happens on the Island. As you said, Jack, Locke and Ben aren't in the best of circumstances in Sidewaysland - the Christian of that world, in particular, still sounds like a pill - but all of them have started to accept that they've been dealt a crappy hand and are trying to make the best of it. That seems to be what Ben and Jack are doing on the Island as well, with Jack finally accepting he's there for a reason and Ben, at least outwardly, coming to terms with the folly of much of what he did there.
What struck me the most in "Dr. Linus," though, were the scenes between Ben and Roger and the markedly different tone they had to any interaction the two had in the past. Roger still regrets joining the Dharma Initiative, but for a different reason - he genuinely thinks things could've turned out better had he and Ben stayed. Even more important, though, the regret is directed at himself, not out at Ben. For whatever reason Ben's mother isn't around, Roger doesn't blame his son. That seems significant to me - how about you?
RM: I think it's significant indeed, because parental involvement has more of an effect in shaping the capacity of these characters than anything Jacob could ever hope to achieve. As I said last week: Jacob can lead you to water, but can't make you drink. You have to decide to do that. But if Jack had a bad fishing trip with his dad when he was 10, well, he's not a big fan of water. OK, this example is prosaic and a bit reductive, but you get the point, I hope: When talking about the discrete, non-infinitesimal choices available to our characters, you have to go back (pun intended) to the source. And that source lies well past Jacob and resides in the homes in which these characters were raised.
There are a few ways you can try to look at the Island version of a character and the Sideways version. You could argue that they both started with the same building blocks, and merely had different ones accentuated or discarded depending on external factors. That doesn't mean that every character started off with the same set of blocks, but the two versions of Ben, for instance, always started off with the same POTENTIAL for love, hate, compassion, aggression, so on and so forth. If that's true, then his relationship with his parents couldn't have helped forge that final assembly of blocks to form the adult figure we see before us.
Now here's what's interesting: in the sideways timeline, we see Ben slowly start to revert to a more familiar version over the course of "Dr. Linus." That suggests that discarded aspects of one's core personality aren't truly discarded, merely subsumed. You could argue the same thing about Ben's confession on the Island. He didn't suddenly develop the capacity for compassion and regret: it was always there, just buried under the surface. So in looking at people's ability to change in Season 6, are we really looking at the road not taken, played out over the final 11 hours?
RP: I'm not convinced it will be that simple. I may be falling into the trap of not trusting what the show puts in front of me, but in Ben's case, for instance, I'm not sure whether I buy that the island version of him is really a changed man. I do believe the remorse he projected at the end of "Dr. Linus" was real, but I'm not certain it will be permanent.
What might be happening, though, is that the "progress" these characters are supposed to make is in recognizing the bad cards they've been dealt - because you can't tackle a problem until you acknowledge that there is one. It took Jack literally being shown that his arrival on the Island wasn't just an accident to convince him that there might be another way of looking at things, and even then he seemed to tip a little too far the other way. Sideways Jack still isn't really sure he can be a good father, only that he wants to be.
What I'm really hoping is that the next few episodes show us how the other characters - Sawyer in particular - behave in Sidewaysland. That's going to give us a clearer picture as to how the two realities reflect and diverge from one another, and (I hope) some more clues as to how they're connected. Sawyer seems, more than most of the characters, to have an idea that things aren't always black and white, and as such his experience in this new world could hold a key to understanding the bigger picture.
Which is kind of veering off-point, I suppose, so sorry about that. But I think once we see Sawyer's off-Island story, we'll get a (somewhat, anyway) clearer picture of how one version of a character - and the choices he or she makes - affects the other.
RM: I never meant to imply that "better parenting" is THE thing that will give "Lost" its path towards defeating Smocke, so my bad on that front. Yes, you're right, it would be a touch too simplistic to think that if Jack and Christian hug it out like Ari and Eric from "Entourage" then Smocke will starting screaming, "I'm MELTING! MELTING!
As for Sawyer: well, he's a great case study to figure out how well our theories about parents hold water, no? Hopefully, it'll hold lots of water...like my basement did this morning when I woke up. Ouch. (Home ownership, baby!) Of all the people that we saw on Oceanic 815, I wanted to know more about his changes than any other character. Sure, Hurley's "luck" was interesting, but I wanted to know what cards that version of Sawyer was holding. Does he know when to hold 'em? Fold 'em? If Anthony Cooper's invited to Locke's wedding, does that mean he never manipulated James' parents? Enquiring minds want to know! And hopefully, given the title of this week's episode, we'll find out sooner rather than later.
What do you think? What do the parent-child relationships in the sideways universe say about the nature of that timeline?
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Photo credit: ABC
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Ryan--Methinks that you're trying a little too hard to find the negative in the ways that the parental issues have worked out in the sidelogue. Perhaps it stems from a distaste for the epilogue theory. With that in mind, I'll defer to recording artist Anderson Lynn.
"I beg your pardon,
I never promised you a rose garden.
Along with the sunshine,
There's gotta be a little rain sometimes."
If I could, I would go back and correct the reading of Anderson Lynn, off of my playlist, to Lynn Anderson. (Where's my Jughead??)
I agree that character in the sideways world have seemed to have benefitted from better parenting or at least different parenting but, how could Sawyers sideways life be changed by different parenting? His parents died by murder/suicide long before flight 815 landed safely in LA.
I don't why, but I keeping picturing Sawyer in the sideways timeline coming home and Cassidy and his daughter, Clementine are there waiting for him.
Things that happened long before Oceanic "landed safely" cannot be taken for granted when it comes to sideways, because we have already been shown considerable differences between what we knew of the character's backstories before and what we're learning as backstories now: Jack having a kid, Ben's dad being alive and in good terms with Ben, Locke's father possibly invited to the wedding... all of this things happened long before 815 "landing safely"... It still remains to see what the parenting deal will be for Sawyer... it could be a possibility that his parents didn't die, or he had a different but strong father figure to suplement if his parents did die, or they died of different causes... I guess we'll have to wait and see for what sideways brings to this matter...Â
Interesting stuff! We are also finding out--well, really having reconfirmed--that in the "Island" timeline, Jacob is the ultimate absent father figure. See how betrayed Ben and Richard felt by the suggestion he didn't care, after all their loyalty and sacrifice.
Oddly, I think Jacob fully intends this. I think the message may be that, in a sense, you have to kill your father--or rather, get over your father issues--to truly grow. Just as Dogen said "It's hard to watch, and not be able to help," and Christian confessed that he was never more proud of Jack then when Jack turned him in for drunk surgery, Jacob wants people to learn to rely on themselves, not their daddies.
I don't know if it is the parent-child relationships, in and of themselves. I think we need to first look at the individual. That said, the individuals seem to better handle what life has given them. Instead of sulking, pouting, becoming angry until they are ultimately consumed by their own self-pity... They seem to be more accepting of their present life. They seem more open-minded to the people, family & friends near to them. Sure, each of them still thinks 'what if' (Roger & Ben stayed on the island?; Sayid sought out Nadia vs pushing her toward Omar?; John could walk Helen down the aisle?). Their paths to self-realization do not seem to be as hampered by their short-comings.
Did this individual progress aid the parent in being better nurturers themselves? Sure, couldn't hurt. (Although this doesn't seem to apply to Christian, just yet. But, Jack seems to have a better ability to 'deal with it & move forward'.)
We still need to wait & see Sawyer's situation, but there appears to be some definite progress to date.
I have been seeing this since last season's finale, and I just don't see the leap...why are we assuming that the "end-game" for Jacob and MIB is progression (or lack thereof)of their character? When I heard their conversation, I likened it to a game of backgammon...MIB says "We roll the dice, we move the pieces, we hand off the dice, and its the other player's turn. It always ends the same." Jacob says "Backgammon only ends once. Every turn until then is progress." That doesn't necessarily mean they want the pieces to go through a metamorphasis of spiritual improvement. They want to manuever the pieces into a spot where they can win....that is progress in terms of the game. I understand why some people think that the people need to show progress, and they may wind up being correct, but it is not a leap I am willing to make, based solely on that conversation.
Like the show itself, I would lean toward an amalgamation of the theories I am reading here. The show deals in equal parts character and plot, with the early and late going being character heavy, while the middle stretches were very plot heavy. Likewise, I see Jacob and MiB moving their pieces around the board, both trying to win their game, but with Jacob equally focused on the character development he knows is needed for his pieces to ultimately win, while MiB is more concerned with the events he needs to happen in order to ultimately win (which, in his case, means suppressing character development).
Both gremlins are trying to win, but one needs man to change, while the other needs man to remain the same, else the die will never roll the numbers they need for their pieces to land on the right spots in the end. In backgammon, the dice are literally dice, while in Island Conflict, the dice are actually each individual's character.
So, in the end, the Losties are pieces on the board, subject to luck and manipulation, but they are also pieces with their own small amount of self determination. They are both the pieces and the dice.
But I think the Sideways daddy and mommy issues are symptoms, rather than the actual cause. The changes in each character's lives there are due as much to their own personal growth, or perhaps lack thereof, on the Island combined with the vagaries of fate that still shape all of our lives to one degree or another. The only major difference here is that their vagaries of fate have also been altered by their time on the Island, because whatever happens on the Island is going to affect Time itself, altering those external circumstances of, for lack of a better word, predetermination that affect our characters lives and take place long before 815 ever takes off, and, in fact, long before our Losties are ever born.
Remember, no 815 plane crash means no Losties traveling back in time, which means the Island world is dramatically altered going all the way back to Locke and Co. walking into The Others' camp in 1954.
So, no cryptic conversation with Richard for Locke; no bomb talk between Faraday and his mum; no Richard/LaFleur tamping down of the conflict between Dharma and the Hostiles; and no Sayid shooting young Ben. There are a lot of other things I am leaving out, but you get the point. These are all long range pebbles that never got thrown in the pond, thus erasing all the ripples that they left in their wake.
Honestly I really don't understand the changing of time. If the island blew up then there is no 815 plane crash and no island survivors to travel back in time to blow up the island so - there can be no changing of time. I'm not sure what the sideways timeline is but I don't know how you can change time. Its so much easier to go with "what happened happened." I'm waiting for a good resolution here - hope I don't get let down.