lost-inanotherlife

[lost-inanotherlife]

yes! absolutely! i wrote a veeeeery long meta specifically about that ep!

you can find it here. it's loooong but i think It's worth it, if i may say so myself!

one thing you should know about me is that i'm an aspiring hater. i wish i were a true hater but i'm affected by a curse called "trying to be as objective as i can". so even if i said that "what kate does" is a meh episode on three different occasions, I also have to admit that I missed something in my analysis that can mitigate my opinion of this episode a little.

so basically in one of my posts about "what kate does" i said that kate is paralleled to jack which is something i've always said from a general perspective but never truly analyzed in depth. like, it was more like "a vibe" but the more i write meta analysis about LOST, the more I realize that no, it's not about "vibes", it's not because I like jate, it's because there was some degree of intentionaliy on the writers' part.

what makes me said that? well, i'm glad you asked! yesterday i've re-watched "do no harm" and, obviously, the first thing i did was to check the hippocratic oath on wikipedia. one thing stood out to me and i'm gonna show it to you:

I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course,

H-h-hello? Doesn't this ring any bell? Like, "what kate does" is basically the s6 version of "do no harm". In both episodes Claire gives birth to Aaron and Kate helps her while, on the other hand, Jack is facing some kind of ethical problem from a medical perspective. In "do no harm" it was about a dying Boone and his definitely dead leg, while in "what kate does" is about a resurrected Sayid (and his sort of dying soul or whatever they were trying to do) and Dogen's request that Jack give him a random pill. Jack won't give Sayid this pill and, as it so turns out, this fucking pill contained a poision which Jack fucking ingested to prove a point.

The episode is almost quoting the hippocratic oath without quoting it. It's interesting to notice that in both episodes Kate's successful in helping Claire and Jack puts himself into great danger to save another person's life. The step forward that Jack has taken so far was to talk with Sayid instead of taking the lead without consulting him, which he didn't do in "Do No Harm" but, I mean, even if he wanted to Boone was in no fucking state to actually talk. So was this really progress on Jack's part? Maybe yes, maybe not, but as much as I don't particularly like "what kate does" I have to admit that the S1 callback was pretty cool, albeit not as impactful and layered as its original.

Whatever the case may be, this is the nth instance of episodes about Jack or Kate where the two are paralleled/contrasted and i'm starting to think that my delusions about "the fugitive" as pretty essential to both their stories are not that much delusional, lol.

[lost-inanotherlife]

one thing you should know about me is that i'm an aspiring hater. i wish i were a true hater but i'm affected by a curse called "trying to be as objective as i can". so even if i said that "what kate does" is a meh episode on three different occasions, I also have to admit that I missed something in my analysis that can mitigate my opinion of this episode a little.

so basically in one of my posts about "what kate does" i said that kate is paralleled to jack which is something i've always said from a general perspective but never truly analyzed in depth. like, it was more like "a vibe" but the more i write meta analysis about LOST, the more I realize that no, it's not about "vibes", it's not because I like jate, it's because there was some degree of intentionaliy on the writers' part.

what makes me said that? well, i'm glad you asked! yesterday i've re-watched "do no harm" and, obviously, the first thing i did was to check the hippocratic oath on wikipedia. one thing stood out to me and i'm gonna show it to you:

I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course,

H-h-hello? Doesn't this ring any bell? Like, "what kate does" is basically the s6 version of "do no harm". In both episodes Claire gives birth to Aaron and Kate helps her while, on the other hand, Jack is facing some kind of ethical problem from a medical perspective. In "do no harm" it was about a dying Boone and his definitely dead leg, while in "what kate does" is about a resurrected Sayid (and his sort of dying soul or whatever they were trying to do) and Dogen's request that Jack give him a random pill. Jack won't give Sayid this pill and, as it so turns out, this fucking pill contained a poision which Jack fucking ingested to prove a point.

The episode is almost quoting the hippocratic oath without quoting it. It's interesting to notice that in both episodes Kate's successful in helping Claire and Jack puts himself into great danger to save another person's life. The step forward that Jack has taken so far was to talk with Sayid instead of taking the lead without consulting him, which he didn't do in "Do No Harm" but, I mean, even if he wanted to Boone was in no fucking state to actually talk. So was this really progress on Jack's part? Maybe yes, maybe not, but as much as I don't particularly like "what kate does" I have to admit that the S1 callback was pretty cool, albeit not as impactful and layered as its original.

Whatever the case may be, this is the nth instance of episodes about Jack or Kate where the two are paralleled/contrasted and i'm starting to think that my delusions about "the fugitive" as pretty essential to both their stories are not that much delusional, lol.

[lost-inanotherlife]

Ok, so since “do no harm” is fresh in your mind, and taking into account the rest of the series ofc, what are your thoughts in Jack and Sun’s dynamic?

OH MY GOD I LOOOOOVE THIS QUESTION, LOOOOOOVE.

You’re gonna have to bear with me and buckle up because this is gonna be looooong. This is who I am, I’m sorry I have to write long ass essays everyday on this website or I feel sick for the rest of my day (around 1.5K words will follow, I’m not sorry).

Sooooo. BEFORE I can talk about Jack and Sun I NEED to talk about Jack and Kate. Yes, that’s because I’m obsessed with them but that’s also because we need to pay extra attention to the episode STRUCTURE. In “Do No Harm” there are two characters who are the main focus from a structure and themes pov and these characters are Jack and Kate. I’m saying this because it was necessary, from said pov, that Kate and Jack be separated in this episode. Kate could NOT stay with Jack, she HAD TO be separated from him because she’s written to represent one side of the main theme of the episode (life, receiving/taking, letting go)while Jack’s the other (death/ giving/ commitment). I’ve written something about the themes of this episode here so you can check that post out for more info on this topic. Yes, of course I know that it’s Claire who gives birth and Boone who dies so why Kate and Jack? Well, what can I tell you, hypothetical reader, they’re two of the main characters inside the main characters’ clique, ask the writers why, lol. The facts are these and I’m sure of it because the episode ends with Kate and Jack briefly reuniting on the beach before they get separated again because Jack wants to find John.

If Kate and Jack are the focus, what are Claire and Boone, then? Well, they are the embodiment of the episode’s theme: promises&commitment. While Claire is not ready to give birth and “commit” to her son to the point that she will stop breathing, Boone finds himself “committed” to let Jack “off the hook” because he knows he himself has reached the time he has to let go and… stop breathing. This means that Claire needs someone who pushes her towards commitment, while Boone needs someone who lets him go. These characters are Kate and Jack, respectively. The intimacy of their scenes is reinforced by the fact that Claire gives birth with Kate and no one else (immediately around), while Boone dies with Jack and no one else (of course, in the immediate vicinity). However, in order to CREATE this intimacy, something BEFORE that must happen, that is before the fatal moment happens there must be total chaos around it. Like, you can’t just create intimacy out of the blue, you first set up obstacles to it so that you can later remove them.

This is why the episode is structured as follows: Jack, Boone, Sun/Michael and Hurley vs Kate, Claire, Charlie and Jin. Hurley and Jin are the most chaotic ones for different reasons: Jin doesn’t understand English while Hurley can’t cope with all the gore surrounding him. These two must be on the outskirt to convey that the situations are absolutely chaotic, high-stakes and dreadful. Sun/Michael and Charlie are Jack and Kate’s helpers in the sense that they must provide some help so that the action can move forward but, at the convenient moment, they must fade into the background and leave Jack/Boone and Kate/Claire have the mother scene. Charlie is conveniently removed from the scene because Jin prevents him from going and check Claire while she gives birth, while Jack tells Michael to leave if he wants because he doesn’t have to see what’s about to happen (Jack wants to cut Boone’s leg, lol). Michael, understandably I might say, gets the hell out of dodge because that’s going to be scarring for life but what about Sun?

Sun is THEE perfect character to be paired with Jack in this situation and she’s the point of connection between abstract ideas about structures&themes and the story in all its nitty-gritty.

As I’ve said, Kate HAD TO be separated from Jack and that was about structure. But how do we convert structure into a story with established characters dynamics? We know that Jack trusts Kate enough to ORDER Charlie to ORDER Kate that SHE must help Claire. Not Charlie who’s literally standing in front of Jack, no, not him, Jack doesn’t trust him. He trusts Kate and he trusts that Kate WILL get herself together and follow his order. Now I know people won’t like this but if there’s one thing that’s important to understand in order to get Jack and Kate’s craziness is that Kate WILL follow Jack. I understand this might be uncomfortable because #decentermen but Kate will follow that man even in his afterlife. So, I don’t know, it’s up to you to choose how to interpret it.

I personally interpret it, re: this specific episode, as a symbol of the importance of “receiving/taking”. Both “give” and “take/receive” can have positive AND negative connotations and I like that in “Do No Harm” the “give” part, usually considered “positive”, is framed as being actually not THAT positive at all. Giving too much is not necessarily a good thing (see Jack almost passing out from the blood transfusion). Just like taking an order and receive a new life in your hands are not necessarily, inherently good or bad things (see Kate accepting Jack’s order, getting it together as he knew she would and help Claire who’s rightly panicking and scared). What’s important is that you are there and you trust yourself and the people around you enough to think that THAT was the right thing to do.

While all this is nice and good, it also implies that Kate could NOT be with Jack and Boone because she would be too compliant with Jack’s orders. Here “receiving/taking order” has a negative connotation because in that scenario Jack needed someone to take the blood tube thingy out of his fucking vein if necessary, override his authority and nervousness with her knowledge and detachment and fucking call Jack out in the open. This character is Sun Fucking Kwon.

Sun is VITAL in this episode because she’s one of the very few (if not the only) character who won’t accept Jack’s proneness to unhinged actions. The episode called for someone who was collected enough to actually sustain such a difficult situation and someone who wasn’t that impressed by authority and was able to defy it. While Michael leaves Jack fucking alone to cut a fucking leg because he doesn’t want to be scarred for life, Sun isn’t there because it’s not gonna be pretty, she’s not there because she doesn’t agree with Jack. In other words, Sun can take Jack’s intensity but she’s also a character who’s able to draw a line to it and tell Jack “no”. While it’s Boone who releases Jack and lets him “off the hook” symbolically, Sun literally releases Jack from that tube and lets him… “off the tube”, lol. In other words, in order for the episode to work, and let’s remember this is a Jack-centric level, two things were needed: someone acting as opposite to Jack (Kate and eventually Claire) and someone actively contrasting Jack (Sun and eventually Boone).

This is one of the reasons why I’m deeply in love with Jack and Sun’s dynamic and I grieve the fact that I didn’t get enough of it. I think Jack and Sun share a lot of similarities but Sun doesn’t live with the same sense of guilt that Jack has. Not saying that she’s a super carefree character because she’s clearly not and has fucktons of problems, but she stands up to her father and to authority figures in general, slaps several men on the regular and what looked at first like submission towards her husband was something else entirely FAR, FAAAAAAAR FAAAAR from that. In the context of the episode, she’s the designed character that’s not in a dangerous medical condition that can actually draw the line as to what she can do and what the others should do. She serves as a catalyst for Jack’s actions by virtue of her “contrarianess” to what he’s doing, lol.

I don’t know if this is “rich girl” behavior because LOST doesn’t deal (or doesn’t deal well) with class as a theme, but I guess I can say that, perhaps, being born&raised in a wealthy environment like Jack did made her a little bit less immune to Jack’s awkward allure (he’s a genius surgeon who’s got too many other skills to be true) and more prone to call out his superego-based behavior. I must say that the contrary is also true, as Jack feels confident enough to basically call Sun out for not telling Jin about her English language skill. There’s an air of familiarity between the two that would’ve been the perfect soil for the writing of a good friendship that I would’ve liked to see. I would’ve also liked to see its fallout once Sun found out that Jack left her husband on that freighter to save Kate but that’s for another day. I’ve literally just gone over the 1500 word, I MUST stop now, lol. I just HOPE I’ve answered your question!

[lost-inanotherlife]

okay so "do no harm". let's talk about it.

if this episode's main theme could be the title of a mid paper for your morals and ethics class it would be: "vows, oaths and promises: what's the difference?"

it seems like a naive question but i SWEAR to god that this shit is fucking difficult, man.

in this episode jack's wedding vows (actually, his inability to write these damn vows) is in contrast to jack's hippocratic oath ( the "do no harm" rule). to make things simpler or more complex (it depends on how you see it), eventually boone will let jack "off the hook" because he knows about the "promise" he (jack) had made.

what the hell is going on? this isn't a simple matter of "private vs public" thing (oaths are public, vows are more private) because marriages are very much NOT a private thing, like at all (from a legal pov). marriages are exactly this: making private relationships public, official&legal. so it's gotta be more than that. and it is. because the core issue of this episode is how jack deals with commitment, aka with that follows a vow, an oath and a promise.

so corollary to the episode's main theme, the second theme is: commitment&letting go: how, when and why? jack's relationship to sarah is written in form of analogy: jack can't write the vows sarah had asked him to write just like jack can't seem to be able to break up with sarah because he had promised her he would fix her.

okay so things are starting to make sense now but wait a second.

obviously, the episode's final, third, "secret" theme is... "life and death". which means "giving and receiving/taking". good, i think we can combine all these elements now and start seeing the light, lol.

basically, "do no harm" is about jack's ability (or lack thereof) to receive/take. jack can give, give, give (he gives boone his blood in this episode and blood is a symbol for life in the bible at least) but he's not as generous in the taking. he's not scared of commitment in the average sense this fear is intended, he's actually scared of commitiment in the sense that he commits TOO MUCH to the point where EVERYTHING feels as binding as a legal, professional oath. even his own private, individual life.

so jack gives LIFE to boone (the blood as per above) but he doesn't save boone's life. as a matter of fact, he doesn't even help claire GIVE life, kate does (although because jack ordered it but i won't go there now because it's too juucy to leave it as a passing comment).

so wtf jack does this episode, really? he's let "off the hook" by boone. since jack can't write vows, can't leave sarah, can't let boone die, he needs someone else to give him permission to let go.

in the flashback he asks his father for permission and christian shephard, being the dick he is, denies him that. so poor, dying, island sacrifice boone must act as proxy and he will be the one who will finally let jack off the hook.

to put it simple: "do no harm" marks jack as a character who gives everything, even his own life to the point of risking death. this is, sadly, how his story will actually end 'cause i'm not sure jack actually learns that he can let go in a way that doesn't involve death, other people's deaths and his own.

it's no wonder, then, that's in this episode that jack turns into john and his "don't tell me what i can't do". after all, john is a character who also gives his all (hello john's kidney, how is the dialysis going?).

since there is a metamorphosis, there must be something else to this episode. in the end the episode's silent question is: when does "do no harm" turns into "do self-harm"? and who gets to draw the line? when can a person consider themself "off the hook'? what do we owe to ourselves and to each other?

[lost-inanotherlife]

my god christian shephard is the worst father ever lmao and i'm expected to believe jack's happy in whatever that afterlife is with him lmao, run jack, ruuuuun!

[lost-inanotherlife]

because of @petercaths i'm rewatching "do no harm" tonight and i'm wondering how people watching it today for the first time would react to jack and marty's scene. bc back then it was a little "haha gotcha" moment, it wasn't marty's wedding, it was jack's!!! but today, since same-sex marriages are legal in the us, it does look like jack and marty are getting married, as in marrying each other, in that scene. lmao. *le sudden gay jack appears!*

[lost-inanotherlife]

high-key need a LOST episode where jack meets kevin, kate, uhm sorry, monica's husband. she married a fucking COP of all people! i'm not surprised but... jesus christ, kate... anyway. kinda need that.

[lost-inanotherlife]

that doesn't surprise me at all because 1. Kate's a character that's rarely liked or, if she's liked,it's mainly because people see her as some sort of girlboss feminist lesbian icon; 2. people take the things characters say in a show at face value and haven't yet learnt to understand how unreliability works; 3. imo, in order to understand kate you gotta understand the esoteric meaning of "what kate did" and that is fatherhood as it's imagined by the children. so it's not about who REALLY is a good or a bad father but it's more about how Kate had imagined her fathers.

having said that, starting from s4 kate as a character loses a lot of her charme so i can kinda understand people watching the whole 6 seasons and having contrasting feelings abt her because she isn't exactly well written for 2 seasons and a half out of 6. that's almost half of the whole show.

edit: when i say kate's not liked i mean that BECAUSE she's not liked people don't "waste" their time on analysing her character.

Kate and Diane: a bond. pt II

Part I.

Trying to write something interesting about Kate and Diane is a bit hard because, sadly, Diane isn't a character the show was interested in to begin with. Not only do we not know basically ANYTHING about her, not even her own surname, but what we're told is that, basically, she's just a... bad mother. Being a Bad MotherTM is her only&sole defining feature, a feature I'm not against per se but I'm against it when there's no depth to it.

I'm very invested in stories about motherhood in general and, more specifically, about mothers&daughters but I've rarely come across a story that really gets "it". Unsurprisingly, a story about a woman who also happens to be a mother becomes a story about a woman who IS a mother. Womanhood and motherhood get confused and abused and everthing turns out to be just trite sexism, misogyny and right-wing policy-flavoured.

This is, unfortunately, the case with Diane, a woman we know nothing about: she's a bad mother, a wife who loves her abusive husband and a minimum wage worker and that's all we know about her. The show says that she "loved" Wayne, her former husband, Sam Austen, also seems to agree with that, she herself says that and YET is that all there is to Diane? As I've said in my part I, "love" in Diane's case is a word that can't be taken at face value because her and her daughter's story IS a story about abuse. Diane seems to be economically dependent on Wayne or, at least, she and Kate depended on his house for their living situation. The confirmation of my suspicion comes with the episode "Left Behind":

KATE: Look, if you've changed your mind. If you don't wanna help me, I get it. CASSIDY: No, I do wanna help you, but if I'm lying to federal agents, Lucy, so that you can have a chat with your Mom, then I at least need to know that there's a pretty good reason. KATE: He, uh, used to get drunk, and beat up my Mom. So I blew up his (!!!!) house. I made it look like an accident. A gas leak. Took out an insurance policy on the house, for her. Set her up for life. And then she gave me up. Chose him over me (!!!!). So the reason I need to talk to her is, someone I love, someone who's supposed to care about me, betrayed me. And I wanna know why! CASSIDY: Well, then let's go find out.

We hear from Kate that "their" house was "his" house and so what was only suggested on a subtextual level in "What Kate Did" becomes text. Diane did NOT have her own house or she didn't share ownership with her husband. This is why Kate had to take out a policy FOR HER, to "set her up for life". But something went wrong and this something is what I want to talk about today.

Choice, betrayal and... innocence.

I've stated here that Kate's backstory is a retelling of Oedipus' story and I stand by that but I want to clarify a few things.

In "What Kate Did" it's established that Kate's core "issue" comes from the fact that she was basically marked by the scarlet letter as Bad while she secretely thinks she's Good. The episode also compares Jack and Sawyer to, respectively, Sam and Wayne, Kate's "fathers", the good and the bad. Now, first of all, Sam himself is far from being "good", he's "good" on the surface being a military and all but he's also the man who thought that a child had murder in her heart and left her with her abusive caregivers, SOOOOO. I don't know, you decide, but Kate clealry sees him as the Good Father who (also) betrayed her. Wayne, on the other hand, is textually Bad because he drank and beat Diane but the episode implies that he didn't ONLY beat Diane. This means that Diane was abused but she was ALSO complicit in her own daughter's abuse so it isn't just Sam, her "good" father, who betrayed Kate but her mother betrayed her too. So Kate's story is a story about being betrayed by the persons who are SUPPOSED to care about you and love you. The "betrayal" Kate talks about with Cassidy in the above dialogue cannot be taken at face value as well: it's not (only) about Diane turning Kate in, it's about Diane "accepting" her own daughter's abuse under their shared roof. A roof that Kate decided to fucking EXPLODE.

It's important to say, however, that Kate reframes her own story, too, let's stay she gives her own version of it, but we have THREE different versions of it: we have the "official" version that's one given to her by the Marshal, according to which she's a bad, dangerous fugitive; Kate's version in which she "took care" of her mother who, in turn, "chose HIM over her"; finally we have our own, as audience, version which is what I'm writing about and, as I said, I see Kate's story as a retelling of "Oedipus Rex".

According to this interpretation of mine the fact that Kate is told she's Bad while she thinks she's Good is important but it's not the whole story. We need to ask ourselves the question: WHY does Kate think that she's Good? I think Kate thinks that she's good because, in her own retelling of her own story, she has removed her abuse-related trauma and she's substituted herself with the Good Father that never stepped in in her story. According to Kate, she's not innocent in the sense that she didn't commit murder&other crimes, but she IS innocent because she doesn't think that she did was Bad because it was justice for her, it was GOOD. She WAS the INNOCENT in her story because she was the child who was abused and neglected and who had to do something to "take care" of things. In other words, the word "innocence" in Kate' story has different meanings according to which version you're deciding to buy: in the Marshal's retelling she's NOT innocent, in Kate's re-interpretation she IS innocent because she took care of things while in your interpretation she is... well, it's up to you, it's a CHOICE you have to make: do you think that Diane chose Wayne over Kate? do you think that Kate's parents betrayed her? do you think that Kate's got murder in her heart? Can you see Kate as an "innocent" via different meanings of this word? It's up to you.

The way EYE see it, Kate replaced the IMAGE of the father she thought she should've had (a Good Father who Protects his Children&Wife, the hero-like, Victorian, chilvaric figure for whom children and women are always first) and "took care" of her own mother (Kate's version) in order to "take care" of herself (my version). In other words, Kate killing Wayne means that she becomes her own parents: she's the Good Father who Protects and the Good Mother who's supposed to Love&Care About her children. In this respect, Diane becomes both Kate's "partner" and her "child" while Kate becomes BOTH her traitor parents who, through her, are "redeemed" and are "reformed good" now, because she "took care of it".

So when I say that Kate's story is like Oedipus I don't mean it in the way that "she was jelaous of her mother who loved Wayne and hated her because her mother chose that man over her daughter!". I'm NOT that freudian. No, what I mean by that is that Kate paid the price for the crime (the betryal) both her parents committed against her and when she tried to "take care" of her mother what it really means is that she was trying to get out of a highly, hiiiighly abusive household but that, in the process, the one who was the innocent became the culprit of the worst crime according to the old Greeks at least: parricide.

This is all to say that, in order to understand how cool Kate is, I think it's important to understand that she's not only the Good/Bad Father/Protector but that she's ALSO the Good/Bad Mother/Nurturer. The disconnect in Kate's character derives from the fact that these concepts in her mind are highly gendered because she both needs to distance herself from her fathers (because she doesn't think she's Bad like them) and... "become" her own mother in order to distance herself from her abuse (because she needs to believe that she was, indeed, "innocent", which, of course she was, but the trauma itself makes her feel "guilty").

This is how, I think, Kate and Diane's story can win: if you don't look at it with the superficial lens of Bad Mothers&Bad Girls on the Run but if you see Kate and Diane... sort of... overlap and confuse with one another. If you see it this way, I think, you get a deeper look into Kate and a cool angle to start thinking about an otherwise flat character like Diane.

[lost-inanotherlife]

This scene is so sickening to me. Jack Shephard you really do master the art of yearning.

[lost-inanotherlife]

let's play pretend and think we were writers working on LOST and were crafting a well-made, still cishet bc god forbid queer people exist in this show, love triangle where Jack is the apex as usual. in other words, let's think in terms of "let's come up with other ways in which the story could've still worked the way it did but the roles of the characters changed in it".

If we wanna keep it 2 men and 1 woman I'd say that the character who would make more sense is Sayid instead of Sawyer. Like, in my mind, if LOST was a show that was really interested in Sayid as a character, I see him as the best "love antagonist" to Jack rather than Sawyer. Like, Sawyer and Kate doesn't really do much to Jack apart from a normal jealousy, but I think Sayid and Kate would sting a lot more.

But if we wanna go the 2 women and 1 men route I really don't see another woman Jack is so interested in other than Kate. Like, both Ana Lucia e Juliet are super extra fucking cool but Jack's got zero romantic chemistry with them. Not to mention they're only introduced in s2 and s3 respectively. I personally think Sun would be a good fit but her story is too much connected to Jin to have room for a love triangle (and, as a matter of fact, when they tried it with Michael it kinda failed).

Like, out of all the initial main characters in the show, while Kate's got a pool of possibilities for compatible partners, it's really difficult to me to see Jack emotionally invested in another woman other than Kate.

What are your thoughts? Who would you have picked for the love triangle as a writer?

Okay, because I have thought about this a little.

I def agree with a love triangle that has Sayid making more sense, and I think if that were the case, then the love triangle would play out more like I see people wanting to say it does with Jate/Skate; I.e, there would be begrudging respect between the two outside of whatever weirdness they have about Kate, because these are two character who need each other.

Like, imagine how s3 hydra island would play out; Sayid wouldn’t be okay with leaving Jack behind, and it would be for reasons entirely unrelated to Kate. And if the writers weren’t racist, I imagine Sayid would come out on top in this love triangle, at least in the more conventionally romantic way. I also imagine Jack’s characterization would be a little easier because putting Sayid and Kate together would kind of free the writers from having to consider Jate as something that has happens (aka more room to torture Jack).

I also think that with a Sayid/Kate relationship, Jack would be a harsher character? Like, a lot more of the “Kate dammit run” and a lot less of the “Because I love you” and the difference between Jack and Sayid would lie in Jack’s inability to BE a safe space. Jack can be very removed from his basic humanity sometimes, like yes he’s caught up in wanting to help everyone, but he does it in a very removed way. He isn’t looking out for a mental well-being, he’s looking out for a physical one. Something that can be measured.

Sayid isn’t like that, Sayid has a very emotional core, his arc is tied to his compassion, Kate could actually find a kindred spirit with Sayid in a way that’s not always well written with Sawyer. s1-2 would be heavily dedicated to Jate, I imagine s3 is where the Kate/Sayid arc would begin because Jack would retreat into himself post-hydra, and Kate would seek out emotional comfort with Sayid, who is kinda the only other person who understands what it’s like to have Jack cut you off from the “inner circle” because there is this unspoken dynamic between Jack and Sayid where they run things by each other.

I actually don’t think anything would happen between Sayid and Kate until they’re off-island . And I do mean well off-island, like post Kate’s trial because there’s still Shannon and Nadia to consider. I would actually write it so that Sayid’s arc is reverse of canon, meaning that that first year is the worst year of Sayid’s life: Nadia dies, he finds out Ben is alive, and starts working for him. All the while Jack and Kate are going through their fuckery, and Kate is going to trial. I’d change up the trial a little, maybe have all the oceanic 6 testify at Kate’s trial, and that’s how Kate and Sayid reconnect. Sayid manages to get out from under Ben, but he’s also the only person who knows Ben is out of the island and he keeps that secret more so out of shame than anything else.

Then I imagine Jack still has his spiral, I mean Jack and Kate’s arc is basically this same they just aren’t together. Like, Jack is still reluctant to be a part of Aaron’s life, but slowly gives in because that’s his nephew after all. And they become a weird blended family, like they’re essentially co-parents. Kate is still Jack’s closest connection, so when they fight, he suffers the same aftermath. And, obviously the tone of the fight would change. The way I would write it, Jack figures out Kate is hiding something and eventually finds out about Cassidy, and that Kate told Cassidy almost everything about the island, and that sets him off. And then there’s Jack’s addiction which is an issue that Kate throws back at him, and that’s basically their fallout.

Airport scene stays the same, because at the end of the day chemistry is chemistry, you can’t fight it. That scene is always gonna look like these two sad desperate people wanna fuck.

And I am taking chemistry into account here, as in Jack and Kate have a lot of it, Sayid and Kate…don’t. So, it would make the love triangle feel uneven under any circumstance, and because of that Sayid and Kate would have to be approached from a “calm after the storm-friends first” perspective. Otherwise it doesn’t work, it can’t compete. For as sucky as Skate’s writing was, on-island Skate worked because they had a very visceral chemistry that could go toe-to-toe with Jack and Kate’s intensity.

I think after the airport scene, Sayid would be the first person Jack tries to get to come back, and then Sayid would figure out Ben got to Jack, and kinda try to protect Jack which then spirals out of his control. Sayid and Kate fallout would be Sayid not telling Kate Ben is alive, and I’d also turn the “Ben trying to take Aaron” into a much bigger issue.

I mean I’m sure there’s flaws in this, but that’s the general direction I would go.

Now, for a two girls-one guy triangle. I actually have thought about this a lot because Ana Lucia is Jack’s lesbian best friend, and I just hate everything about Jack/Juliet.

I don’t like that pairing. I don’t think it makes any logical sense. Like, it’s actually wild to me that they got married in the first place. David had to be an accident , and I’m sure Jack’s first major fumble as a parent was suggesting abortion to Juliet in a very crass way. I just don’t think Juliet is someone Jack could ever be with, and I think he knows that too. Even if Kate didn’t exist, like Juliet still wouldn’t be an option because, not to be anti-feminist, but Jack’s ex-wife was kind of an asshole. Like even before the cheating, Jack is kinda into girls who hate him just a little. And Juliet pre-island is someone who is not good at standing up for herself, I mean she’s kind of a people pleaser. Too similar to Jack in her ability to put herself in a box for others, Jack would be the dominant one here and I don’t think that’s a role he’s comfortable with that role.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Jack needs someone he can fight with.

I don’t think Jack could fight with Juliet.

All this to say, I think it would take an original character to rip Jack away from Kate, and I also think it would take someone he had a past with before he met Kate. Otherwise it genuinely doesn’t work, because once he sets eyes on Kate, I mean he’s kinda done for.

But like, okay imagine if that lady Gabrielle who he kissed while married was in the plane crash. Like, that’s the bare minimum level of intimacy he’d have to have with them. Actually, even that’s not enough. Jack would literally have to full on cheat on his wife pre-island (emotional and physical), and then have that person be at the crash to be a potential romantic interest that could rival Kate. Like, it would need to be a fully fledged out life-ruining affair.

Okay those are my 17 cents , I hope I answered your question at least to some extent lol ✌️

[lost-inanotherlife]

one thing about me is that i'll never be normal about LOST.

[lost-inanotherlife]

When I read shit like "LOST is bad because the writers didn't keep their promises" or "the writers wrote themselves into a corner" or "they made us waste our time because [insert the usual wrong take on LOST finale]".... I'm like... just say that you don't enjoy the ART of storytelling. Because you can hate the finale and STILL think that LOST is a great show. Because IT IS! Like, have people watched the show? Or, even better, have people RE-WATCHED the show? Because I can tell you: 20+ years later and LOST is STILL a fucking GREAT SHOW! Because IT IS! This obsession with endings and finales is ruining the joy of storytelling! Something is still worth watching/reading even if you don't happen to like how it ends!!! It's OKAY! It's still VALID!!!

[lost-inanotherlife]

Okay this will hopefully be my last rant post so bear with me.

I kinda hate how writers are so scared to "pull a LOST" and are so eager to say in interviews that they've "studied LOST and its mistakes" and that they assure people that their show won't be like LOST.

What about the good things LOST has? Like, it didn't become a beloved show just because of the mysteries, you know.

What about the (personally) never seen before (and since) foil-dynamic between John and Jack?

What about the complexities and layeres of a character like Juliet (just to name one)?

What about the beauty of a villain like Ben Linus? Yeah, I said beauty because he was beautifully written and acted and LOST gave us one of the best TV villains, period.

What about the tortured love between Sun and Jin? It wasn't always easy to watch but we felt their love and pain altogether.

What about Michael and his need/want to protect his son at the cost of committing terrible things?

What about the sheer greatness of Mr Eko's last words?

I could go on but I think I made myself clear.

Please don't use LOST as a negative comparison against which you'll do better. Because if you do, you have to do better in all senses.

And I just don't know if many characters that we see on our screens today could compare to the depth of LOST characters.

Okay I'm done now. Peace.

[lost-inanotherlife]

This is a genuine question because I really wanna know and try to understand one thing.

This question is for people who've watched LOST and are currently watching Severance.

Why, I ask, do you think people are far more generous towards Severance than LOST? Is it because the first hasn't finished its course yet so people are having faith in the supposedly redeeming qualities of an ending that gives meaning to everything?

Why, I ask, people watching Severance are, absolutely rightfully, saying that one must be patient and wait for the season finale because the audience doesn't like to be spoonfed (completely true) and the episodes must be appreciated and enjoyed for what they bring regardless of the mysteries that they may or may not solve... and yet the same courtesy isn't extended to LOST?

Why, I ask, LOST is generally considered "a bad show" mainly because of its finale that, according to many, hasn't solved any mystery nor answered any question (absolutely wild take but it's the majority's take nevertheless) while Severance is considered a masterclass in storytelling (not saying it isn't, just saying that Severance is using lots and lots of LOST-like storytelling techniques, in a different way and yet... season 1 was, without question, a huge run towards one of the best cliffhangers I've ever watched in a hot minute)?

Like, I'm not making a case for "which one is better?", absolutely NOT, I just want to genuinely understand why the audience's attitude towards these shows (both predicated on the presence of something mysterious and possibly nefarious going on in a shady corporation/on a weird island) is just sooooo wildy different!!!

(Some) People watching Severance are enjoying the ride for the same exact reasons as (some) people who watched LOST hated it and... why? Like, leaving personal preferences aside for a moment (which are, of course, legit), why are the choices of very similar storytelling techiniques/themes/motifs so praised in one case and utterly despised in the other?

Ngl, I'm going a little crazy over this because I don't like how LOST gets repeatedly slandered on social media for no good reason apart from "I didn't like the ending". I can't possibly be the only one who, regardless of its ending, thinks that LOST was actually a very good show that's worth watching.

What do you think?

[lost-inanotherlife]

ben's sashaying away.

[lost-inanotherlife]

me this summer. ben linus is such a mood. liddol drama queen.

[lost-inanotherlife]