Across the Sea
May. 12th, 2010 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniI'm pretty sure that I am in the minority, but even if there were flaws and heavy dialogues here and there in the last episode of Lost, I liked it.
Here are a few thoughts.
The episode had mythological vibes (Biblical but also Greek-Roman ones)which is always better than stuff like love triangle and tv cliches like that, and I didn't mind not seeing Jack and co. Actually I found it daring from the writers to do THAT so close to the end!
Claudia and mother Island spoke in Latin so I guess she and The Others came from a Roman ship...Jacob was Romulus and The Nameless Son was Remus, and they definitely were raised by a she-wolf!
Above all, I liked it because it worked as an allegory. No realism here, only poetical licence and metaphors. Hence a birth with very clean and big babies!
I liked how "Across the Sea" showed the archetypes of things we have seen before and would happen later on the island. I like the fact Claudia was murdered, for it fit in the mythology: pregnant women are killed by the island!
In French the word meaning island has a female gender("une île"), and so it has on Lost!
Also Mother Island stole the babies, setting a pattern for future characters(Ben, Rousseau...Kate). Her way of thinking was very Rousseau-like (the philosopher, not the crazy woman!): man can remain good if keeping a "state of nature" (Mother and Jacob live in the wild and don't even wear shoes!) because it's society that corrupts! Bad habits are the products of civilization.
Jacob accepted that belief and stayed within Nature while watching society from afar and coming to the conclusion that there was good in it; The Nameless didn't accept the belief Mother tried to instil into him, he went and experienced society and left nature, while having no illusions about people. Faith versus Cynism?
Not sure it's that simple. MiB seems to embody the very human "I want to know what there is across the Sea" and its corollary: "don't tell me what I can't do!". Anyway no matter that Mother told Jacob that he was like her now, Jacob and The Nameless are not in two different teams but the two sides of a same human coin.
I am not sure how to interpret the fact that The Nameless could see the ghost of his biological mother and learned from dead Claudia what Mother did. Not sure it fits in...However it seems to emphasize the fact that The Nameless was indeed the special one, not Jacob.
I liked how Adam and Eve turned out to be mother and son instead of a couple! Nice twist, and sorta subversive. Jacob and his brother obviously had Oedipus issues! "East of Eden" anyone?
Oh, and I liked the wheel stuff (I've always found it very poetical) but I was less impressed by the glowy cave/source of life thing (an the dialogue was really bad there). The invention of the wheel has often been considered as "a proof of civilization", a pivotal moment in late Neolithics when mankind progressed (although some civilizations actually didn't know the wheel!), and the episode made a point of showing The Nameless being attracted to men's devices and "sophisticated" artefacts so it makes sense that he build the wheel that Ben and John would use later to leave the island. I like the metaphor: leaving the island is using/choosing" technology" over "nature".
By the way Jacob tells his brother that he made "the rules" of the game i.e a "social contract" which according to Rousseau is the opposite of the "state of nature".
I like that the brothers started "playing" thanks to an Egyptian game that Nameless kid found on the beach.
Above all, I liked that it was all very grey despite all the white and black stones, and not a matter of good vs evil!
Jacob created the Smoke Monster by forcing his brother into the source!!!!
Mother Island killed the Roman people and destroyed the village and we still don't know where the big statue, the temple and all the hieroglyphs come from. If anything they represent civilization!
Because I missed Desmond, and I think he must have the last word, I will end this with what David Hume thought of "the state of nature" that MiB deserted and Jacob embraced:
"’Tis utterly impossible for men to remain any considerable time in that savage condition, which precedes society; but that his very first state and situation may justly be esteem’d social. This, however, hinders not, but that philosophers may, if they please, extend their reasoning to the suppos’d state of nature; provided they allow it to be a mere philosophical fiction, which never had, and never cou’d have any reality." (Book III, Part II, Section II: "Of the Origin of Justice and Property."
Here are a few thoughts.
The episode had mythological vibes (Biblical but also Greek-Roman ones)which is always better than stuff like love triangle and tv cliches like that, and I didn't mind not seeing Jack and co. Actually I found it daring from the writers to do THAT so close to the end!
Claudia and mother Island spoke in Latin so I guess she and The Others came from a Roman ship...Jacob was Romulus and The Nameless Son was Remus, and they definitely were raised by a she-wolf!
Above all, I liked it because it worked as an allegory. No realism here, only poetical licence and metaphors. Hence a birth with very clean and big babies!
I liked how "Across the Sea" showed the archetypes of things we have seen before and would happen later on the island. I like the fact Claudia was murdered, for it fit in the mythology: pregnant women are killed by the island!
In French the word meaning island has a female gender("une île"), and so it has on Lost!
Also Mother Island stole the babies, setting a pattern for future characters(Ben, Rousseau...Kate). Her way of thinking was very Rousseau-like (the philosopher, not the crazy woman!): man can remain good if keeping a "state of nature" (Mother and Jacob live in the wild and don't even wear shoes!) because it's society that corrupts! Bad habits are the products of civilization.
Jacob accepted that belief and stayed within Nature while watching society from afar and coming to the conclusion that there was good in it; The Nameless didn't accept the belief Mother tried to instil into him, he went and experienced society and left nature, while having no illusions about people. Faith versus Cynism?
Not sure it's that simple. MiB seems to embody the very human "I want to know what there is across the Sea" and its corollary: "don't tell me what I can't do!". Anyway no matter that Mother told Jacob that he was like her now, Jacob and The Nameless are not in two different teams but the two sides of a same human coin.
I am not sure how to interpret the fact that The Nameless could see the ghost of his biological mother and learned from dead Claudia what Mother did. Not sure it fits in...However it seems to emphasize the fact that The Nameless was indeed the special one, not Jacob.
I liked how Adam and Eve turned out to be mother and son instead of a couple! Nice twist, and sorta subversive. Jacob and his brother obviously had Oedipus issues! "East of Eden" anyone?
Oh, and I liked the wheel stuff (I've always found it very poetical) but I was less impressed by the glowy cave/source of life thing (an the dialogue was really bad there). The invention of the wheel has often been considered as "a proof of civilization", a pivotal moment in late Neolithics when mankind progressed (although some civilizations actually didn't know the wheel!), and the episode made a point of showing The Nameless being attracted to men's devices and "sophisticated" artefacts so it makes sense that he build the wheel that Ben and John would use later to leave the island. I like the metaphor: leaving the island is using/choosing" technology" over "nature".
By the way Jacob tells his brother that he made "the rules" of the game i.e a "social contract" which according to Rousseau is the opposite of the "state of nature".
I like that the brothers started "playing" thanks to an Egyptian game that Nameless kid found on the beach.
Above all, I liked that it was all very grey despite all the white and black stones, and not a matter of good vs evil!
Jacob created the Smoke Monster by forcing his brother into the source!!!!
Mother Island killed the Roman people and destroyed the village and we still don't know where the big statue, the temple and all the hieroglyphs come from. If anything they represent civilization!
Because I missed Desmond, and I think he must have the last word, I will end this with what David Hume thought of "the state of nature" that MiB deserted and Jacob embraced:
"’Tis utterly impossible for men to remain any considerable time in that savage condition, which precedes society; but that his very first state and situation may justly be esteem’d social. This, however, hinders not, but that philosophers may, if they please, extend their reasoning to the suppos’d state of nature; provided they allow it to be a mere philosophical fiction, which never had, and never cou’d have any reality." (Book III, Part II, Section II: "Of the Origin of Justice and Property."
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 12:15 pm (UTC)A much better episode than last week's. I didn't mind some of the more obvious aspects, like Claudia giving birth to twins. And I just love the actress playing Mother - she was brilliant on West Wing as C.J. and here she gave us a fitting mixture of strength and tenderness.
I didn't mind the glowy cave - the CGI was bad, yes, but I like the idea of a source of divine light that has to be protected. Is it spiritual knowledge? The divine spark?
no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 04:26 pm (UTC)Well, a metaphorical 'divine' then. The source of 'knowledge' - and Mother would say it is bad.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-15 09:13 am (UTC)