LOST: A Few New TheoriesI didn't come away from the last few eps of Lost with any shockingly new thoughts about the direction of the show (and we haven't had any material in my areas of specialty recently). But there are still some interesting ideas bouncing around out there. Here are a few discussion board threads I've been following (and occasionally contributing to) lately, which I think are worth a closer look:
Chorus of the Dead? - LOST-TV Forums
14 Characters searching for an Author - LOST-TV Forums
Paralells with The Prisoner? - The Fuselage
I-ching/chinese mysticism thread. - LOST-TV Forums
Was Kate in on it? - The Fuselage
Desmond and the Subjunctive - The Fuselage
Some of these links may be difficult to access today. Usually for about 24 hours after an episode airs, the traffic surges to the point of absurdity and crashes or significantly delays, the servers. Should be fine by tomorrow.
Also, over on the Long Lost List (registration required), I read a fascinating post in their section on literary influences by waltisfuture, a well-established Fuselage poster:The Mysterious Island [by Jules Verne] follows the adventures of a group of castaways who use their survivalist savvy to build a functional community on an uncharted island. A hot-air balloon carrying five passengers and a dog escapes from Richmond, Va., during the American Civil War. It is blown off course and deposited near an obscure island. One of the castaways nearly dies after a skirmish with pirates; he is saved by the unexplained appearance of medicine after the pirates are unexpectedly routed. The group later discovers that their secret helper is the reclusive Captain Nemo (first introduced in Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), who dies and is buried at sea in his submarine. The castaways are eventually saved by a passing ship.
The full text of the book can be found here. If you take a good look, you will find several of "the numbers" popping up. I couldn't just leave it at that, however. A quick review reveals that castaways -- who arrive by aircraft crash, despite the era of the story -- are stuck there for four years. Captain Nemo makes an appearance 16 years after kidnapping a French researcher from a boat (!).
The Mysterious Island is populated with wild boars, exotic (and climatologically improbable) critters like kangaroos and koala bears, a strange man with a bushy beard and ratty clothes, homey caves, magnetic rocks, mysterious French maps, patrolling sharks, the remains of a wrecked ship, pirates, and multiple, sinister groups of Others.
There's also a volcano under the island -- which many have speculated, with good reason, may be the case on Craphole Island as well. Sawyer's crack about Mount Vesuvius last week -- strongly highlighted by Jack grilling him about why he chose that particular island -- and the Black Rock, which strongly resembles a ship landlocked by the explosion of Krakatoa, among other clues.
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3 Comments:
After your description JB I see I'm going to have to read it...isn't there an orangutan in it called Jup - short for Jupiter?
Although I've been feeling the "Lost" obsession fading of late, that 14 Characters searching for an Author - LOST-TV Forums is amusing and very creative. The idea all fictional characters are living on this (pantheistic solipsist) island? I love it. ;) An island itself made up of every fictional island / mysterious isolated place that ever existed (whether it be Oz, Pala, Neverland, Prospero's Adriatic island, etc).
Maybe these fictional characters dying and being reborn again and again, but as various incarnations (but retaining semblances or memories of their past fictional selves)? Perhaps 'Sawyer' only takes Josh Holloway's form on the island because of the movies Josh was in (and someone/thing chooses that form), but 'Sawyer' has existed in thousands of fictional characters (including, but not excluded to, Tom Sawyer). Our 'Sawyer' is made up of all of them, yet he's none of them. We've seen variations of these same or similar characters again and again throughout the course of literature, tv and movies. "Lost" = Heroes with a thousand faces (and names). ~Sesostris
Very Moorcockian of you, if you don't mind me saying so. :) Black sword=Black smoke?
My objection to the "14 Characters" theory is that they should have picked better characters. :D I mean, they're great as drawn on Lost (mostly), but there are plenty of underutilized characters out there who would have been more fun...
Can't you just see one show throwing together Bumstead from Dark City, Garak from DS9, Faith from Buffy, Silvio from the Sopranos, Dr. Matt Crower from American Gothic, Thomas Vale from Nowhere Man, Suzanne from To Die For, Al (Tom Arnold's character) from True Lies, Verbal from the Usual Suspects, Trinity from the Matrix, Zeus from Die Hard with a Vengeance, and.... oh, let's say Mr. Frost, from Mr. Frost.
Now THAT would be an island...
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