Let’s start with the good vs. evil thing.
It was timely to read this on the heels of
the Lost season five finale where we saw
Jacob vs. the dark man. There’s the obvious
parallel between Jacob and Mother Abigail -
Jacob coming to the Losties in flashback /
at important moments in their lives vs.
Mother Abigail coming to people in their
dreams.
Trashcan man dragging the bomb to
Vegas and it blowing up the evil camp
was also timely after seeing what we
think was the bomb exploding via Juliet
at the end of this last finale.
Lost and all over the Stand with the dark man.
He sees what others are up to with the eye,
in his dreams, through the eye of the crow,
even giving his chosen ones a necklace that
represents the eye.
The Lost creators have said that an actor’s
eyes are an important element of casting.
It’s the first shot we see in the Lost pilot -
Jack’s eye opening. And it remains a recurring
theme / opening shot throughout the show.
The opening shot is often the character’s eye
who is featured in that episode’s flashback.
This happens early in season one with episodes
centered on Clarie (Raised by Another), Locke
(Walkabout) and Sun (House of the Rising Sun.)
Remember in the season three episode,
The Man Behind the Curtain, Locke looks in
Jacob’s Cabin and sees an eye. Juliet’s eye opens
season three in the episode A Tale of Two Cities.
And the one teaser we have so far for next
season is a greenish looking, Jack(?)
eyeball.
But the thing I found myself thinking
about most while reading was the dark man’s
shape-shifting ways. How that reminded
me of how on Lost, the dark man shape-shifted
into Locke this past season. Has he been
shape-shifting into images of the dead
even though Christian said to Locke, in the season
four episode, Cabin Fever, I can speak on behalf
of Jacob. Has the dark man pegged John
Locke as his loophole all along?
This question of just how much shape-shifting
the dark man has done came to mind when I
re-watched the season five episode,
Dead is Dead.
The Dark Man as John Locke leads Ben down into
the temple to face the smoke monster. Ben falls
and goes into a lower level of the temple by
himself – “John Locke” is no longer with him.
Smokey comes out and passes his judgment -
letting Ben live. Then after Smokey leaves,
we see Alex. Now did Smokey turn into Alex or
conjure Alex? Or since “John Locke” wasn’t
around, did the dark man shape-shift into Alex?
Remember this “Alex” told Ben to follow John
Locke, to do everything he said. This had to
be the dark man, right, telling Ben to follow
him (as John Locke). Is the smoke monster
connected to this, to the dark man and
shape shifting or is smokey a
complete separate entity?
The Stand and Lost like the fertility issue that
the Captain Trips survivors faced. The character
that felt like the biggest homage to me is Charlie
Pace / Larry Underwood. The whole recurring
Baby, Can You Dig Your Man thing made
me laugh and think of Charlie’s one hit
with Drive Shaft: You All Everybody.
Plus how Charlie struggles with
feeling inadequate compared to
the rest of the Losties, then
sacrifices himself.
reference within Lost are also referenced here
- Watership Downis a big recurring one for
Stu Redman. Loved the recurring rabbit
references – with Watership Down, the
rabbits feet, and Lloyd’s tragic childhood
memory. I couldn’t help but think
of the Lost writers snickering as they
put rabbit references throughout
the show.
I loved the Flowers for Algernon
reference which Harold makes as
he’s dying. That book is never directly
referenced on Lost but the protagonist,
named Charley, is a human guinea pig,
turned into a genius by scientists. The
Dharmas probably did something like
that, maybe with Miles. And I wouldn’t
put it past Charles and Eloise to do a
similar experiment with Daniel Faraday.
(Love the name Faraday showing up in
The Stand epilogue.)
how so much happens over a small
span of time (on the island in seasons
1 – 4 for the Losties; the summer the
flu hits in the book). Also, how for the
first half of the novel we are with one
character for one chapter, another in
the next, much like how we got to know
our Losties per episode / flashback in
the earlier seasons.
This was big for me in terms of what
next season could be, theme-wise.
On page 902 in the uncut edition as
Mother Abigail gives Stu, Ralph,
Larry, and Glen their mission, she says:
(I almost hear Lostie Rose’s voice here)
God didn’t bring you folks together
to make a committee or community.
He brought you here only to send you
further, on a quest. He means for you
to try and destroy this Dark Prince,
this Man of Far Leagues.
That reminded me of Jacob’s very last words to
Ben and Dark Man / “John Locke”:
They’re coming.
Are our remaining Losties coming to defeat
the dark man? Has that been the purpose
of everything up to this point?
There has also been discussion on the blogs about Jacob being “free will” and Mystery man being “fate”. What I find interesting about the Stand is Mother Abigail seems to be “God’s will” which though I’m not smart enough to understand a lot of the references, I know there are a lot religious references on Lost, as I rewatch maybe I can pick out some things that touch on this. But Glen Bateman on page 538 does talk about free will. “We’re being given the means to help shape our own futures, perhaps. A kind of fourth-dimensional free will: the chance to choose in advance of event.” Not sure if it can apply much further, but are the Losties being given these opportunities, through dreams/hallucinations/Jacob’s visits? And the question remains to be seen, who really is the good and who is the evil or in Lost is there no defined good vs. evil.
Trashcan Man’s exposure to radiation and then having to move the warhead, totally reminded me of Lost when they had to figure all that out.
I definitely think MM has taken on many forms. I am currently convinced that he is Jack’s dad, Christian, and Alex and any other dead people that are seen. Though I would say that I don’t believe he is Charlie, but he definitely could be. I think that Hurley and Miles have a different talent that does allow them to communicate with the real dead. But I have nothing to base that on, just a feeling. I initially thought the loophole was that only a leader of the others can get in and see Jacob, thus MM had to embody a leader to be able to get access to kill Jacob. I may still kind of believe this, though now after reading the Stand and seeing some similiarities, I wonder if Locke just had the right amount of confidence and lack of fear. In the Stand it seems that the dark man can only kill people that fear him. He is unable to kill people like Glen Bateman, Larry and Ralph that stand up to him. He has to have a normal human kill them. Just like MM/Locke does to Jacob. He has Ben kill him, because he cannot kill him. It’s a little backwards, but maybe there is something in that.
In reference to Charlie/Larry – Also Larry and Charlie started off as losers, Charlie a drug addict, Larry “not a nice guy” but by the end they are the sacrifice. Great parallels between them!
The second they mentioned Watership Down and I had just rewatched the episode of Sawyer reading it, I thought I should probably read that too!
Well I am rambling. I have some other thoughts about Glen Batemen’s discussion on page 322 he talks about Community A and Community B. A has it all, be has to struggle. I wonder if there was a little bit of this going on with The Others vs. The Dharma gang. It looked like the Dharma gang had a lot of comforts and after the incident the Others took those over. So some more things to think about, but very glad I read this!)
Need to throw in another thing to think about in regards to The Stand.
I just finished rewatching “In Translation”. This focus is on Jin. Mr. Paik, Sun’s father, runs a car company. I noticed that he is quite the untouchable and has a bunch of people that fear him and will go out and kill for him. Started to make me think that Mr. Paik has some similarities to the Dark man. And in later episodes Sun comes in to tell him she now has shares in the company, taking away the power of Mr. Paik.