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Twitter'Lost': A tale of two Christians
If you missed the live Q&A, fret not! Check out the transcript by clicking "Replay" inside the chat window. Today, we're going to look at a person that is on the mind of a lot of Lost fans: Christian Shephard. Let's let reader "Other Sean" summarize the issues at hand.I'm more confused about Cabin Christian than ever. Parts of his conversation with Locke tonight made me disbelieve what I've thought (about him being evil) since Season 4, and yet there are still elements about him that make me think he's still up to dirty tricks.
Other Sean
Dude, I'm right there with you. But I'm banking on this season's increasing reliance on overly elaborate verbal misdirection to help maintain my stance that Cabin Christian is one bad... (shut yo' mouth!) Hey, I'm just talking about Cabin Christian!
Let's go over all the appearances of Cabin Christian. I'm defining him as the man we know as Jack's father, wearing brown clothing as opposed to a blue suit.
- "Something Nice Back Home": He appears to Claire in the middle of the night, holding Aaron. Miles sees them both walk away, and Claire refer to him as her father.
- "Cabin Fever": Appears inside the cabin, purporting to speak on Jacob's behalf, alongside Cabin Claire. Claire's demeanor is wildly different than we've seen before. Locke returns, and says that Jacob, "...wants us to move the Island."
- "There's No Place Like Home": Appears to Michael on the Kahana, accompanied by the sound of whispers. He tells Michael, "You can go now," just before the boat explodes.
- "This Place is Death ": Like Ben before, he lights the lantern inside the donkey wheel cave, a seemingly necessary step to making this process work. He scolds John, telling him Ben wasn't supposed to turn the wheel. He confirms Richard's assertion that Locke has to die. "Well, I suppose that's why they call it sacrifice." As the white light grows, CC tells John to say hi to his son.
Put all that together, and Other Sean's instincts are right. A lot of it turns on two things: 1) why there are in fact two differently dressed, differently acting Christians roaming about, and 2) the seemingly parallel paths a pre-2004 Christian Shephard and Jeremy Bentham travel. The word "sacrifice" means, literally, to do or make something sacred. It can also pertain to giving something over to a deity. Did the man we know as Christian Shephard die in order to grant his only son passage to the Island?
Did his long, slow decline into alcoholism in fact create the schism we see now? Remember: active will is an important part of the Lost universe. Christian's lifestyle often suggests the complete opposite, a man willing to drown his sorrows and let Jim Beam take responsibility for Christian Shephard. Let's look at the Bible passage that partially inspires the next episode, entitled "316."
John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
That's a pretty standard translation. What I find interesting is how often the word "lost" enters the phrase, depending on which Bible one reads. Usually it's swapped in for the word "perish," as in, "...that whoever believes in him shall not be lost..." Now, it's very true that this word stands out due to it being the title of the show I am paid to write about on a weekly basis, but it does also point to a type of spiritual purgatory that Christian once lived in. Purgatory is the place between two worlds, and the two Christians represent the pull of both the higher and lower planes of existence once we've shuffled off the ol' mortal coil.
"Eternal life" does NOT refer to the "spirits," for lack of a better word, that inhabit the island. The Biblical phrase above does not speak of immortality on this plane but the next. The Christians we've seen, both Blue Suit and Cabin, are representations of a man that could not make the sacrifice John Locke now needs to make. But he's not the only one who needs to make the sacrifice. For while Locke might indeed have to make a sacrifice for the Island, I think Jack himself will ultimately make a sacrifice for his father.
And that's why, ultimately, I'm still feeling CC as a bad guy. Not due to any crazy, triple-agent spy thing involving donkey wheels and pendula and millennia of Island history, but because Blue Suit Christian can still not find the words to ask his son for forgiveness. Don't forget what he told Sawyer in Australia:
Christian: I have a son who's about your age. He's not like me, he does what's in his heart. He's a good man, maybe a great one. Right now, he thinks that I hate him. He thinks I feel betrayed by him. But what I really feel is gratitude, and pride because of what he did to me. What he did for me. It took more courage than I have. There's a pay phone over there. I could pick it up and I could call my son. I could tell him about all this. I could tell him that I love him. One simple phone call and I could fix everything.
Sawyer: Why don't you?
Christian: Because I am weak.
Sawyer: Why don't you?
Christian: Because I am weak.
Until Christian makes the call, in whatever form that call can now take place, there will be no peace for anyone. There is no eternal life. The island is only death.
Ryan also posts every 108 minutes over at Boob Tube Dude, then peruses Zap2It's Guide to Lost Facebook group. He also encourages you to subscribe to the Zap2It's Guide to Lost Twitter feed.
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What I can't figure out is why CC is telling John to bring everyone back (including Aaron) - weren't all of his Season 4 actions seemingly directed at getting Aaron away from the Island?
Now that John 3:16 is being brought into play, the only thing I can say is this - if Rainbowhead shows up in the DI, I'm outta here!
(For those of you too young to remember, Rainbowhead was a guy with a rainbow-colored afro wig who somehow managed to show up at nearly every major televised sporting event in the '70's holding up a "John 3:16" sign (did I just give away my age?).
I don't know what John 3:16 said, but Austin 3:16 said I just kicked your...
I just looked at the clock on my computer and it said 3:16. Coincidence?????
Of course I'm in a different time zone than everyone else.
RE: Andrei
What you have to consider is Cabin Christian's angle in everything he says or instructs others to do. Granted, that's become more difficult to pin down after "Place."
But let's ***ume for now that CC is still a very bad guy, which means everything he tells Locke to do is NOT in the Island's best interest. Last season, we theorized that CC wanted to remove Ben & Aaron from the Island because they were the two biggest threats to the "dark side's" control of Jacob. But now I'm starting to think Locke, the Island savior, is just as dangerous to their goals.
So perhaps CC tells Locke how to leave the Island and where to go because he just flat out thinks he's going to fail. Remember, whoever turns the wheel can supposedly NEVER return. When Locke says that Alpert told him he'd have to die, CC seems genuinely surprised and quickly gives his "sacrifice" line to make Locke think he knew all about it. And for all we know, dying might be the only way to "get around" the never-return-to-the-Island wrinkle; a wrinkle CC was betting on to eliminate Locke's involvement for good.
But there are two other theories I'm tossing around about why CC let's Locke go to gather the Oceanic 6:
a) Hawking is not what she seems (DUH!), and she's playing both sides or just secretely evil, and the O6 & Co. are walking into a trap.
b) Cabin Christian has CHANGED his plan between "Cabin Fever" and "Place", deciding that bringing the O6 (including Aaron) back is somehow a greater manuever in his endgame.
Thanks OS - hadn't thought about the "doomed to fail" option.
Playing "both" sides seems hardly enough on this show; there are more sides than a Dharma logo! If the writers can straighten this out by the end of Season 6, their next gig should be the Middle East...
Regarding a change in plan:
I don't think there's been a change in plan on CC's part at all. Consider what's happened to the Losties that have been stuck on the island, skipping through time, and bleeding out of orifices. I would myself try to send my love ones away and bring them back when it's safe. Just like I would, if I could, send my family and friends away from the economic disaster, that is Michigan, and bring them back when the current administration and depression have blown over.
Andrei, I had to laugh out loud at your comment that there are more sides than a Dharma logo! I have been watching Lost since the start and also participated in the "We have to go back" endeavor over last year and I'm still confused on who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, and Ben, who is on nobodies side but his own. Just when I think I may have it figured out, something happens on the show to confuse me again. Good thing we have this blog to discuss all the confusing issues.
Given that the producers have said that Jack was supposed to die in the pilot, maybe the he-of-no-faith Jack would have been, instead of the Cabin Christian, the Cabin Shepherd, working against the Island's desires. So even though Blue-Suited Christain, the Christain who talked to Sawyer, thinks Jack is a good man, the Island thinks Jack is among the forces of the dark because of his lack of faith. That would seem to indicate that Cabin Christian, filling in storywise for Jack, is "bad" as far as the Island is concerned just as Ryan suggests. Makes sense?
I believe that in the end it will turn out that Jack is the most important of the Losties. He will have to make some sacrifice and Sawyer will end up with Kate because it is Jack's destiny to be alone and the so-called saviour.
Interesting comment about the Christian phone call. Imagine if all of this came down to Christian not making it.
I also think the 2 C's represent the Temple itself with an underworld bad part (Death eps) and a connected upperworld good part yet to be seen where I think the Others tribe are currently on some Island mountaintop.
In effect they both represent all of us. As the bible says our bodies are "Temples" balancing between good and evil.
If Christian is the father, Jack the son, does that make Smokey the holy spirit?
[Ryan here. I'm editing the last 'graph, which has a minor spoiler potentially.]