#dude was canonically skipping therapy appointments SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE HIM COPE NORMALLY

[fist-of-vengeance]

john locke is such an absolute nutjob and im obsessed with him. imagine having the world's most horrendous daddy issues and chosing to cope with this by forcibly adopting everyone you meet. even if they already have a father. john saw micheal's dysfunctional relationship with walt and went "okay, my son now." charlie's struggling with addiction? adoption time. oh claire's mad at him? i am her dad now and also im raising aaron. boone? my son. this random hitchhiker? my son. dude is collecting surrogate children like pokemon, and he's not even a good father figure. he frequently causes problems for the people in question. BUT BY GOD HE DOES NOT LET THAT STOP HIM

that cop eddie knew all he needed to do was get in john's car and trauma dump about his shitty father and john would immediately go "okay yeah you're my son now."

ben probably could've manipulated him twice as effectively if he used this strategy, but instead he was too busy projecting his own daddy issues by trying to make john kill his abusive dad like he did. meanwhile john is reliving the cycle getting conned by ben over and over again just like he trusted his father. they're competing in the daddy issues olympics and no one is winning