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: 2010-05-15 01:57 pm (UTC)Yes our Not!Locke still thinks of himself as the MiB but I think he's sorta possessed/influenced by Locke's mind too. He obviously has all John's memories, and we could wonder where the difference is between remembering being someone and actually being that person.
BTW it could explain his "protectiveness" towards Claire. It isn't like she's useful now.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 12:40 am (UTC)That thing about knowing Locke's mind freaks me out. I understand that the Black Smoke/MiB can read minds but dead minds? The MiB stated what Locke was thinking when he died (when Ben killed him). How could the MiB know that once Locke was dead and off the Island? Reading memory engrams from the dead brain of Locke? Sorta doesn't make sense.
While I think he sees both his mothers in Claire, I think the MiB has an ulterior motive in protecting Claire. Might have something to do with Aaron, like the MiB wanting to take control of Aaron once off the Island. That would fit with the reason why Claire was warned not to raise her own son while she was pregnant in Austalia. So there may still be usefulness for him. He/the MiB was denied a lifetime in the outside world, what better way to experience it but to become Aaron.
...
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 05:49 pm (UTC)But I do believe the MiB is somehow connected to death since the glowy cave event and can access the memories of dead people(Christian's, John's). My main problem is about the ghosts appearing in the flash forwards. Hugo played chess with Eko and saw Charlie, Jack saw Christian. Were they projections of the MiB outside of the island?
Not sure that Aaron is that significant, I think he had a role to play in the main characters' journey (Claire and Charlie first, Claire and Kate afterwards)but I would be very surprised if the finale revolved around him. Once upon a time Walt seemed to have a key role and to be special but turned out that it wasn't about him.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-18 01:01 am (UTC)How else did the MiB/Black Smoke know to appear to Richard as his wife and to Mr Eko as his brother (Dimi?)? And how did the MiB know to appear to Jack as his father and lead him to the water at the cave? Simple. The MiB can read minds.
My main problem is about the ghosts appearing in the flash forwards. Hugo played chess with Eko and saw Charlie, Jack saw Christian. Were they projections of the MiB outside of the island?
I see nothing wrong with Hugo seeing Eko and Charlie, I think the Island was done with both of them and set their spirits free. I think we can put Jack's sighting of his father down to Jack being a druggie at the time. Or it might have actually been his father's ghost, it didn't have to be stuck on the Island.
I do wonder what happened to Christian's corpse though.... might have ended up in the sea. Or maybe it fell down the rabbit hole into the light!?!
...