You seem to have a pretty extensive list of his names off the top of your head, thus you already know who is being referred to when any of them are used. Problem solved! :P
Yeah, I'm totally with you there. I just wish we had a bit more consistency with what we call him for discussion's sake. Seems kind of silly for people to be calling him by so many different names within the same conversation.
Fake Locke
Flocke
Man in Black
MiB
Esau
Adam
Smoke Monster
Smokey
Fake Christian
Jacob's Brother
The list of names is just so huge. Lets just pick one and always use that one. I don't even care which one it is.
Let's just call him Bob. Fuck it. On a Lost note...I'm so fucking pissed I'm working Sunday night for the finale. I've had Wed's off and have been able to enjoy lost. Now I have to wait till Monday for the DVR. Dammit...
Also, I wish I could distort my memories of prior seasons as effectively as you guys, so that I could make crazy meta-theories about how the directors want to put me through the same experience as characters on the show. Unfortunately, it's hard for me to perceive any of this as intentional when the writers have abandoned giant plot lines several times and have contradicted themselves in quotes across seasons several times.
Man. You're so smart.
Reading your comments I am like totally convinced that I've been a silly goose for enjoying the show and now that you've laid down your really smart arguments I totally see the light.
Man those damn writers! Making things up! How dare they? Seriously! I hate Lost now!
I was like totally tricked and stuff! Because I really only enjoyed the show because I thought it would be like a puzzle and stuff. And now that you've made your really smart points I totally see that it's like not a puzzle at all and stuff. And they totally tricked me.
And like the show is like totally dumb and stupid now. And I was like really dumb for liking it. But thanks to those smart people on the internet, I can be smart too. And it's like totally awesome because I can now totally shit on other people for liking stuff that is dumb. And that like makes me totally smart and stuff.
He never said anything about whether or not you should like it, or even scarcely anything bad about the show at all. Unless any claim that the show was not consistently about one thing, or that the producers haven't been exactly honest and consistent themselves, is automatically assumed to be a negative criticism. It is true that people will go to great lengths to concoct their own complicated meta-stories into which the episodes of Lost will fit and make sense. But, that's kinda what the show's creators have said they want to happen.
I'm hoping we can get to a point where saying things like, "they've been making this up as they go with little or no consistency or long-term plan, and purposefully created intriguing mysteries without concern or foresight about whether those mysteries would or could get answered" is considered to be a neutral statement, not a negative one. And if it's what they set out to do, and they did it well, then I'd say it's altogether complimentary of their vision and talent.
I mean, the only bad thing we saw him do in the last episode was kill Mother, and that's pretty questionable. She did, after all, murder his real mother, lie to him constantly, keep him from leaving the island, and slaughter the people he'd been living with for 30 years. Killing her wasn't exactly saintly of him, but I can't really call him evil for it.
Presumably, the reason he needs to be kept on the island is because he's Smokey now, and bad things will happen if he leaves. But it should be Jacob's responsibility, as the protector of the island, as the person who turned him into Smokey in the first place, and as his brother, to find a solution. "Stay trapped on the island forever and ever" seems to be his plan, and let's be honest, it's a really shitty one. Especially when Jacob himself is looking for ways to step down, despite having far more freedom.
So yeah, Smokey's trying to kill everyone. But after being alive for centuries and seeing countless generations of people die, I can understand how a few more deaths wouldn't bother him too much. He'll fail in the end, of course, because he's the big scary bad guy, but until then I'll be cheering him on.
Taweret's consort was Apep. Apep was the God of Evil, the Eater of Souls and was constantly being re-imprisoned in the underworld, lest he escape. He was also seen as a giant snake or dragon with a head of flint. (flint == black)
And some more:
Tales of Apep's battles against Ra were elaborated during the New Kingdom. Since nearly everyone can see that the sun is not attacked by a giant snake during the day, every day, storytellers said that Apep must lie just below the horizon. In some stories Apep waited for Ra in a western mountain called Bakhu, where the sun set, and in others Apep lurked just before dawn
It was thought that his terrifying roar would cause the underworld to rumble. Myths sometimes say that Apep was trapped there, because he had been the previous chief god and suffered a coup d'etat by Ra, or because he was evil and had been imprisoned.
In his battles, Apep was thought to use a magical gaze to hypnotize Ra and his entourage
The Egyptians practiced a number of rituals and superstitions that were thought to ward off Apep, and aid Ra to continue his journey across the sky.
In an annual rite, called the Banishing of Apep, priests would build an effigy of Apep that was thought to contain all of the evil and darkness in Egypt, and burn it to protect everyone from Apep's influence for another year
Fearing that even the image of Apep could give power to the demon, any rendering would always include another deity to subdue the monster, and/or knives already stabbed into him.
He never said anything about whether or not you should like it, or even scarcely anything bad about the show at all. Unless any claim that the show was not consistently about one thing, or that the producers haven't been exactly honest and consistent themselves, is automatically assumed to be a negative criticism. It is true that people will go to great lengths to concoct their own complicated meta-stories into which the episodes of Lost will fit and make sense. But, that's kinda what the show's creators have said they want to happen.
I'm hoping we can get to a point where saying things like, "they've been making this up as they go with little or no consistency or long-term plan, and purposefully created intriguing mysteries without concern or foresight about whether those mysteries would or could get answered" is considered to be a neutral statement, not a negative one. And if it's what they set out to do, and they did it well, then I'd say it's altogether complimentary of their vision and talent.
It's more the passive-aggressive, snide remarks that people have consistently disagreed with yet a few posters persist with going on about that Joe Dizzy was making light off
We get it, you don't agree with how the show went. You can stop bringing it up every page. It's seriously childish
does anyone think Smokey might be the evil presence in the glowcave and has just been using MIB's form when we've seen him talk to Jacob in past episodes?
Its an overreaction, but some of us are tired of hearing the same complaints for months (or even years) on end.
We get that you think they are making it up as they go along, but is there any need to post that every single day all season long. It is getting old.
i disagree. Yar's posts help me reconcile my own feelings about the show- namely that it is awesome, but the vast back-mythology can come up somewhat lacking, and hasn't been concretely planned.
They haven't told us his name because they got a kick out of all the various names people in the forums came up with.
That's another thing I didn't cover in the quotes. At one point they admitted that a significant portion of their ideas come through a group whose job it was to keep Cuse and Lindelof up to date on what all the Internets were saying about the show. The statue became Tawaret, even though it couldn't possibly have originally been intended as such, because they felt that was a clever bit of reasoning on the part of some fans to theorize that it was Tawaret. Hurley and Miles have continually been the voice of fan theories. And Smokey was purposefully never given a name because they got a kick out of how frustrating it was for fans to not have an agreed-upon name for him; they made it like their Marcellus briefcase. I'm speculating all that, but it makes sense and goes along with their statements about using fan feedback to drive ideas.
Of course recently they've recanted that, too, saying they don't pay attention to what the intarwebz say, probably because they don't want to tick off the geekier fans any more than they have to by further acknowledging the nature in which they plan the show.
Anyway, regarding characters... that was one of the worst things about the dark times in Lost history (Season 3 or so). They were playing slot machine with the characters. One week someone was evil and violent, the next week they were sweet and misunderstood. No transition in between. They have definitely shored that up quite a bit since then. I love the journey Jack's gone through and where he is now. Sawyer in Dharmaville with Juliet was of course perfect. Desmond, perhaps there's still some love there. Hurley has always been pretty cool, but hasn't developed at all.
But at the same time, you've got Richard. It wasn't even that long ago that he was being overly dramatic about how long he'd been there, and he was speaking in Latin and being called Ricardus. Turns out he was only about 130 and was a Spaniard. Sayid was suddenly evil, then suddenly good again. Gobs of new characters have appeared out of nowhere, only to die in the same episode or shortly thereafter. Jacob is wise and clever in one episode and in another he's like durr mommy lookie at my quilt I made does you like? While I do enjoy the handful of characters they've really pulled through on, for the most part I feel the same way about their idea of characterization as I do about their idea of of mystery - whatever they feel like doing that day is what they'll put in the show, and guaranteed it will be interesting and intriguing, regardless of whether or not it fits into any long-term development
And yes, I know I sound cynical. It is only by being utterly cynical that I feel like I finally figured out what they've been doing, what they've been trying to show us and tell us, and why I've liked it so much.
The episode where Sayid turned evil was actually pretty convincing. Smokey had big plans for Sayid because he had such a long history of both loss driven rage, and inability despite his own efforts to be away from situations where he would kill. I can't think of anyone who needed something Smokey was offering as much as he did.
The way he turned back was believable too. Desmond is someone he would feel morally accountable to from their long shared experience, unlike the others he's killed.
I mean, the only bad thing we saw him do in the last episode was kill Mother, and that's pretty questionable. She did, after all, murder his real mother, lie to him constantly, keep him from leaving the island, and slaughter the people he'd been living with for 30 years. Killing her wasn't exactly saintly of him, but I can't really call him evil for it.
Presumably, the reason he needs to be kept on the island is because he's Smokey now, and bad things will happen if he leaves. But it should be Jacob's responsibility, as the protector of the island, as the person who turned him into Smokey in the first place, and as his brother, to find a solution. "Stay trapped on the island forever and ever" seems to be his plan, and let's be honest, it's a really shitty one. Especially when Jacob himself is looking for ways to step down, despite having far more freedom.
So yeah, Smokey's trying to kill everyone. But after being alive for centuries and seeing countless generations of people die, I can understand how a few more deaths wouldn't bother him too much. He'll fail in the end, of course, because he's the big scary bad guy, but until then I'll be cheering him on.
Eh, even assuming brother got turned into smokey and wasn't just already evil-smoke-thing-now-in-brother-form, it's kind of hard to root for the (alleged) destruction of all life (or whatever the consequence is) just because some guy got a raw deal for a few hundred years. I mean, ok your fake mom and brother were REALLY mean to you, that sucks, here's my sympathy card, still not going to root for releasing evil into the world. Needs of the many and all that. Sorry.
I mean, the only bad thing we saw him do in the last episode was kill Mother, and that's pretty questionable. She did, after all, murder his real mother, lie to him constantly, keep him from leaving the island, and slaughter the people he'd been living with for 30 years. Killing her wasn't exactly saintly of him, but I can't really call him evil for it.
Presumably, the reason he needs to be kept on the island is because he's Smokey now, and bad things will happen if he leaves. But it should be Jacob's responsibility, as the protector of the island, as the person who turned him into Smokey in the first place, and as his brother, to find a solution. "Stay trapped on the island forever and ever" seems to be his plan, and let's be honest, it's a really shitty one. Especially when Jacob himself is looking for ways to step down, despite having far more freedom.
So yeah, Smokey's trying to kill everyone. But after being alive for centuries and seeing countless generations of people die, I can understand how a few more deaths wouldn't bother him too much. He'll fail in the end, of course, because he's the big scary bad guy, but until then I'll be cheering him on.
Eh, even assuming brother got turned into smokey and wasn't just already evil-smoke-thing-now-in-brother-form, it's kind of hard to root for the (alleged) destruction of all life (or whatever the consequence is) just because some guy got a raw deal for a few hundred years. I mean, ok your fake mom and brother were REALLY mean to you, that sucks, here's my sympathy card, still not going to root for releasing evil into the world. Needs of the many and all that. Sorry.
The key question is what he thinks will happen when he leaves. Considering how much people have lied to him, I think he genuinely believes that Jacob's BSing him and nothing will happen. And he could very well be right. If they reveal that he does believe the world will end and wants to do it anyway, that's a different story.
I mean, the only bad thing we saw him do in the last episode was kill Mother, and that's pretty questionable. She did, after all, murder his real mother, lie to him constantly, keep him from leaving the island, and slaughter the people he'd been living with for 30 years. Killing her wasn't exactly saintly of him, but I can't really call him evil for it.
Presumably, the reason he needs to be kept on the island is because he's Smokey now, and bad things will happen if he leaves. But it should be Jacob's responsibility, as the protector of the island, as the person who turned him into Smokey in the first place, and as his brother, to find a solution. "Stay trapped on the island forever and ever" seems to be his plan, and let's be honest, it's a really shitty one. Especially when Jacob himself is looking for ways to step down, despite having far more freedom.
So yeah, Smokey's trying to kill everyone. But after being alive for centuries and seeing countless generations of people die, I can understand how a few more deaths wouldn't bother him too much. He'll fail in the end, of course, because he's the big scary bad guy, but until then I'll be cheering him on.
Eh, even assuming brother got turned into smokey and wasn't just already evil-smoke-thing-now-in-brother-form, it's kind of hard to root for the (alleged) destruction of all life (or whatever the consequence is) just because some guy got a raw deal for a few hundred years. I mean, ok your fake mom and brother were REALLY mean to you, that sucks, here's my sympathy card, still not going to root for releasing evil into the world. Needs of the many and all that. Sorry.
The key question is what he thinks will happen when he leaves. Considering how much people have lied to him, I think he genuinely believes that Jacob's BSing him and nothing will happen. And he could very well be right. If they reveal that he does believe the world will end and wants to do it anyway, that's a different story.
Exactly Smokey has no reason to believe the world will end if he leaves the island. There is no good in story reason to believe that false mother was telling the truth about the light.
A lot of your arguments follow a general 'Death of the Author' bent--that if they're making everything up then they're also lying outside of the show in order to fool us. With that in mind, there is absolutely no need for any of us to be insulting each other right now. I understand your perspective, it's an interesting perspective, and I have my own. None of us have watched the end of the show, so there's no need for any of us to be insulting each other over some theories.
I agree with Yar to some extent about audience manipulation, I mean that's why the characters are attractive people, amongst other things. I just dont think he has enough evidence(or that he's overestimating what he does see as so) to make the conclusion he's come to.
Listen to the season 6 podcasts. I believe I remember them stating in one of them that they would create mysteries only if they could then create the solution or end to them as well, before they would put it in the show.
I mean, the only bad thing we saw him do in the last episode was kill Mother, and that's pretty questionable. She did, after all, murder his real mother, lie to him constantly, keep him from leaving the island, and slaughter the people he'd been living with for 30 years. Killing her wasn't exactly saintly of him, but I can't really call him evil for it.
Presumably, the reason he needs to be kept on the island is because he's Smokey now, and bad things will happen if he leaves. But it should be Jacob's responsibility, as the protector of the island, as the person who turned him into Smokey in the first place, and as his brother, to find a solution. "Stay trapped on the island forever and ever" seems to be his plan, and let's be honest, it's a really shitty one. Especially when Jacob himself is looking for ways to step down, despite having far more freedom.
So yeah, Smokey's trying to kill everyone. But after being alive for centuries and seeing countless generations of people die, I can understand how a few more deaths wouldn't bother him too much. He'll fail in the end, of course, because he's the big scary bad guy, but until then I'll be cheering him on.
Eh, even assuming brother got turned into smokey and wasn't just already evil-smoke-thing-now-in-brother-form, it's kind of hard to root for the (alleged) destruction of all life (or whatever the consequence is) just because some guy got a raw deal for a few hundred years. I mean, ok your fake mom and brother were REALLY mean to you, that sucks, here's my sympathy card, still not going to root for releasing evil into the world. Needs of the many and all that. Sorry.
The key question is what he thinks will happen when he leaves. Considering how much people have lied to him, I think he genuinely believes that Jacob's BSing him and nothing will happen. And he could very well be right. If they reveal that he does believe the world will end and wants to do it anyway, that's a different story.
Exactly Smokey has no reason to believe the world will end if he leaves the island. There is no good in story reason to believe that false mother was telling the truth about the light.
I don't see how it matters what he believes, only what will happen. If he skips off the island and destroys the world and says "whoops, sorry, thought they were joking about that," well the world is still dead.
At this point you have fake mom saying man should never get the light or bad things will happen, you have Jacob saying Smokey can never leave the island or bad things will happen, and you have Smokey saying nothing will happen if he leaves. I'm not really sure how you determine what anyone actually believes or knows within the context of the show. It's pretty clear to me that they've all been lying at some point or another, so I can't really say which version is true or not. As such I guess I err on the side of not letting possible evil force into the world until more information is shown that he is actually not the bad guy.
Also, even ignoring whether or not anything happens if Smokey leaves, Smokey getting off the island involves killing all the candidates. Rooting for Smokey means you're rooting for all these people to die just because one guy had a fucked up life, and I'm not cool with that moral calculus. Hell, think of all the people we've seen smokey kill: Half the candidates, half the temple, Whitmore's crew, Mr Eko, the original pilot of 815 and a bunch more I have probably forgotten or we haven't seen. This doesn't scream sympathetic character to me, no matter how bad things are for him. So no, at this point I'm not going to root against the characters I know, even the ones like Kate that I wouldn't mind dying, in favor of the smoke monster.
Has the obvious point of "Who cares?" been brought up, in regards to whether or not the powers that be had all of this planned out from the start? It just strikes me as so irrelevant to any legitimate discussion of the show. Its not even ABOUT the show, actually. All that matters is the final product, and whether that was meticulously planned out or was made up 24 hours before each episode aired, none of that should really matter to us viewers. They either pull it together or they don't, but why should we care how far back they were planning for Adam and Eve to be Jacob's brother and Mom? It doesn't matter! The same thing addresses most of those "damning quotes" from a few pages ago. Maybe they were lying, or they hadn't decided yet that there was going to be science-fiction and time travel in this show and they put that in there later cause they thought it was cool. So what! There was time-travel, it was cool, and I really do not care if they were planning to do it or not back in Season 1.
If you don't like that its Jacob's brother and Mom, or you don't like that the Island is important because of a magic light, those are complaints that at least have a reason to exist. I can see how people could maybe not want that in their show, I guess? I am sure you are disappointed, and you were hoping that it would be something else, but I also would wager that you don't even know what that something else is. But we spend most of our time bitching about all this 5th wall, behind-the-scenes crap that really has nothing to do with the show we're watching (well, most of us are watching). I guess people who no longer like the show feel like they were duped or something? Like they were entitled to have the show be something that it isn't? I'm not really sure.
I would say that the mysterious nature of the show has always allowed or even required people to build up these lofty yet unmistakably nebulous expectations. There are so many possible explanations for everything in this show that a large portion of people are inevitably going to be disappointed with the answers. Remember this?
Some people probably wish the Smoke Monster didn't come into existence by Jacob throwing his brother into the magic white light at the center of the island. I am sure some people wish the smoke monster was a dinosaur, or nano-bots, or a sorcerer! But then we would just have different people in this thread, complaining about how lame it is that Jacob is an alien and the island is an artificial simulation of purgatory meant to enslave dead humans, while I quietly wished that the show had included time travel at some point.
Haha, I just realized that Gabe was hilariously correct about the guy in the suit. He really DID shift his shape!
I'm hoping we can get to a point where saying things like, "they've been making this up as they go with little or no consistency or long-term plan, and purposefully created intriguing mysteries without concern or foresight about whether those mysteries would or could get answered" is considered to be a neutral statement, not a negative one.
It's more than a neutral statement. It's an irrelevant one.
The thing which is apparently really hard to grasp for some people so disappointed and annoyed by the show and their writers, is that by and large... Lost fans don't consider it a great dramatic betrayal if questions don't get answered.
Really.
You should ask yourself, why would somebody keep bringing up the fact that the writers are making things up as they go along, unless they assume that Lost-fans are eager for answers and explanations. And that their enjoyment somehow hinges on there being some great, majestic and brilliant plan that ties it all together. The fact that these threads aren't filled with posts like mine (only without the sarcasm of course) either means, that these threads are only read by raging fanboys incapable of dealing with criticism of the show... or maybe.. just maybe... they really don't care about there being a great, brilliant plan as much as the detractors do.
And now it should be obvious why the incessant yammering and whining about the writers eventually gets on people's nerves. It feels like being yelled at like an idiot for enjoying a show, that somebody else deems "no good" for trivial reasons.
I mean, the only bad thing we saw him do in the last episode was kill Mother, and that's pretty questionable. She did, after all, murder his real mother, lie to him constantly, keep him from leaving the island, and slaughter the people he'd been living with for 30 years. Killing her wasn't exactly saintly of him, but I can't really call him evil for it.
Presumably, the reason he needs to be kept on the island is because he's Smokey now, and bad things will happen if he leaves. But it should be Jacob's responsibility, as the protector of the island, as the person who turned him into Smokey in the first place, and as his brother, to find a solution. "Stay trapped on the island forever and ever" seems to be his plan, and let's be honest, it's a really shitty one. Especially when Jacob himself is looking for ways to step down, despite having far more freedom.
So yeah, Smokey's trying to kill everyone. But after being alive for centuries and seeing countless generations of people die, I can understand how a few more deaths wouldn't bother him too much. He'll fail in the end, of course, because he's the big scary bad guy, but until then I'll be cheering him on.
Eh, even assuming brother got turned into smokey and wasn't just already evil-smoke-thing-now-in-brother-form, it's kind of hard to root for the (alleged) destruction of all life (or whatever the consequence is) just because some guy got a raw deal for a few hundred years. I mean, ok your fake mom and brother were REALLY mean to you, that sucks, here's my sympathy card, still not going to root for releasing evil into the world. Needs of the many and all that. Sorry.
The key question is what he thinks will happen when he leaves. Considering how much people have lied to him, I think he genuinely believes that Jacob's BSing him and nothing will happen. And he could very well be right. If they reveal that he does believe the world will end and wants to do it anyway, that's a different story.
Exactly Smokey has no reason to believe the world will end if he leaves the island. There is no good in story reason to believe that false mother was telling the truth about the light.
I don't see how it matters what he believes, only what will happen. If he skips off the island and destroys the world and says "whoops, sorry, thought they were joking about that," well the world is still dead.
At this point you have fake mom saying man should never get the light or bad things will happen, you have Jacob saying Smokey can never leave the island or bad things will happen, and you have Smokey saying nothing will happen if he leaves. I'm not really sure how you determine what anyone actually believes or knows within the context of the show. It's pretty clear to me that they've all been lying at some point or another, so I can't really say which version is true or not. As such I guess I err on the side of not letting possible evil force into the world until more information is shown that he is actually not the bad guy.
Also, even ignoring whether or not anything happens if Smokey leaves, Smokey getting off the island involves killing all the candidates. Rooting for Smokey means you're rooting for all these people to die just because one guy had a fucked up life, and I'm not cool with that moral calculus. Hell, think of all the people we've seen smokey kill: Half the candidates, half the temple, Whitmore's crew, Mr Eko, the original pilot of 815 and a bunch more I have probably forgotten or we haven't seen. This doesn't scream sympathetic character to me, no matter how bad things are for him. So no, at this point I'm not going to root against the characters I know, even the ones like Kate that I wouldn't mind dying, in favor of the smoke monster.
OK. You seem to have the impression that I'm trying to convince you to agree with me. You're absolutely welcome to root for the Losties. I'd find it weird if the vast majority of viewers didn't feel the same way you do. But me, I'm on Team Smoke Monster. The other characters have their sideways universe; I don't mind seeing them die on the main one.
On a side note, I just realized that Mr Eko's death makes slightly more sense now that we know Smokey has brother issues.
The thing which is apparently really hard to grasp for some people so disappointed and annoyed by the show and their writers, is that by and large... Lost fans don't consider it a great dramatic betrayal if questions don't get answered.
Really.
No, Lost fans do care that the mysteries the writers spent 6 years building up and they spent 6 years trying to unravel were just random shit that was made up on the fly and has no real explanation. Because no, a magic cave they just made up on the fly is not a real explanation.
Really.
What you're thinking of are Lost fanboys. And you're right, the Lost fanboys don't care that there was no plan or consistency to the show. Much like the Star Wars fanboys think Phantom Menace was a revolutionary and complex movie, and the Star Trek fanboys think Enterprise was a great series, and the Matrix fanboys paid close attention to the rave scene to learn the dance moves of the future. There is simply no displeasing fanboys.
Their alt reality counterparts aren't them though. You're still killing someone.
Don't forget that he seems he may be composed of that which he came from, so he's also the same energy that Dharma didn't want released because it would be a bad thing. Which we then saw the results of being released in the incident and when Desmond and Locke forcibly stopped the button form being pushed.
It's not really a question of if it would be bad for him to escape, but what exactly would happen.
No, Lost fans do care that the mysteries the writers spent 6 years building up and they spent 6 years trying to unravel were just random shit that was made up on the fly and has no real explanation. Because no, a magic cave they just made up on the fly is not a real explanation.
You're just refusing to pay attention to or believe the details given to you at this point. You have yet to prove that there was no plan or consistency for the show. So you've now resorted to calling people fanboys because you can't come up with a legitimate argument.
The thing which is apparently really hard to grasp for some people so disappointed and annoyed by the show and their writers, is that by and large... Lost fans don't consider it a great dramatic betrayal if questions don't get answered.
Really.
No, Lost fans do care that the mysteries the writers spent 6 years building up and they spent 6 years trying to unravel were just random shit that was made up on the fly and has no real explanation. Because no, a magic cave they just made up on the fly is not a real explanation.
Really.
Yeah it is. I'm sorry it's not the one you wanted but, hey, that's your problem.
The thing which is apparently really hard to grasp for some people so disappointed and annoyed by the show and their writers, is that by and large... Lost fans don't consider it a great dramatic betrayal if questions don't get answered.
Really.
No, Lost fans do care that the mysteries the writers spent 6 years building up and they spent 6 years trying to unravel were just random shit that was made up on the fly and has no real explanation. Because no, a magic cave they just made up on the fly is not a real explanation.
Really.
I believe LOST is going to run into the same kind of fan-base split that BSG had in the end
Those who watched the show, looked at the details and what was being said, and then were satisfied with the ending when it synced up with the major themes of the show and how the show was being presented
And those who thought the show was something else entirely and felt that the conclusion and the themes presented there came out of left field and were then angry when it didn't fulfill their misconceived expectations
If you think the magic cave was made up on the fly, you're sitting firmly in category 2, so you should probably stop watching now
I think they haven't told us his name because giving him a name would distract from the essence of who he is. He's Fake-Locke, he's the Man In Black, he's Jacob's Brother, he's the island's nemesis and the show's antagonist. Each of these lenses for looking at the character are more descriptive than "oh, he's George".
Lots of stories wind up not naming major characters, and do so successfully. Lost is no different.
See, while I agree with all your points, I still see the reason for MiB not having a name to be an example of the big problems with Lost. You're right that naming MiB could be distracting, and that he can be much more ominous by being nameless, and that a lot of shows have nameless characters. The issue I have is why he's nameless.
There are a lot of good reasons why a character would be nameless. It could be that he doesn't want to tell people his name to not lose an edge. That reason would actually work perfectly well in the show: the Ancient Egyptians believed that knowing someone's true name gave you a magical power over them. In fact, their most powerful goddess Isis was called "the one who knows all the names" because by knowing the names of everyone, she had power over everyone. So that would be an excellent reason for MiB to remain unnamed. Other good reasons could include that he's forgotten his own name after 2000 years of everyone calling him "smoke monster", or that his name is so foreign that it cannot be pronounced by English speakers, or that in the time it would take to pronounce one letter of his true name a trillion cosmoses would flare into existence and sink into eternal night, or that he's part of a secret para-governmental organization that erased his identity, or because he's an emergency hologram that was never meant to have a unique identity and personality, or any one of a dozen other reasons.
So what's the Lost reason for which MiB doesn't have a name? It's because Crazy Murderous Kidnapping Lady only had picked one name. What? You were expecting one baby and picked one name, but when the second one comes along you can't come up with a second name? Did she only know that one human name? And if she did, was she unable to look around and call him River or Summer or The Rock or something? Was she unable to take a few minutes or even a few days and come up with a good name? The idea that a character is nameless because he's a twin and his "mother" had only picked one name is completely ridiculous.
And that is, in a nutshell, my problem with Lost. They created tons of interesting mysteries but made no plans whatsoever to solve them, and now that the show is ending in a few episodes they're rushing to "explain" various points by throwing at the viewers the most nonsensical explanations ever.
The thing which is apparently really hard to grasp for some people so disappointed and annoyed by the show and their writers, is that by and large... Lost fans don't consider it a great dramatic betrayal if questions don't get answered.
Really.
No, Lost fans do care that the mysteries the writers spent 6 years building up and they spent 6 years trying to unravel were just random shit that was made up on the fly and has no real explanation. Because no, a magic cave they just made up on the fly is not a real explanation.
Really.
Yeah it is. I'm sorry it's not the one you wanted but, hey, that's your problem.
No it's not. I'm sorry that you've deluded yourself into believing it is but, hey, that's your problem.
Do all of you people realize that you can't come in here and say "This show is stupid. Only fanboys like this show. Everything about the show is dumb, and it is made by dumb liars and it is bad" and then in the same breath go "Hey, whoa, why are you guys being so defensive?!" and expect people to not maybe think that you are calling fans of the show stupid and dumb and fanboys?
You are doing everything except literally saying that anybody who likes Lost is an idiot, but we're not being crazy and defensive by taking that little extra step for you, and putting it together ourselves.
In conclusion, can you please take your hate somewhere else or something? Like, start your own thread of Lost hate or something. One is black, one is white, etc.
I think they haven't told us his name because giving him a name would distract from the essence of who he is. He's Fake-Locke, he's the Man In Black, he's Jacob's Brother, he's the island's nemesis and the show's antagonist. Each of these lenses for looking at the character are more descriptive than "oh, he's George".
Lots of stories wind up not naming major characters, and do so successfully. Lost is no different.
See, while I agree with all your points, I still see the reason for MiB not having a name to be an example of the big problems with Lost. You're right that naming MiB could be distracting, and that he can be much more ominous by being nameless, and that a lot of shows have nameless characters. The issue I have is why he's nameless.
There are a lot of good reasons why a character would be nameless. It could be that he doesn't want to tell people his name to not lose an edge. That reason would actually work perfectly well in the show: the Ancient Egyptians believed that knowing someone's true name gave you a magical power over them. In fact, their most powerful goddess Isis was called "the one who knows all the names" because by knowing the names of everyone, she had power over everyone. So that would be an excellent reason for MiB to remain unnamed. Other good reasons could include that he's forgotten his own name after 2000 years of everyone calling him "smoke monster", or that his name is so foreign that it cannot be pronounced by English speakers, or that in the time it would take to pronounce one letter of his true name a trillion cosmoses would flare into existence and sink into eternal night, or that he's part of a secret para-governmental organization that erased his identity, or because he's an emergency hologram that was never meant to have a unique identity and personality, or any one of a dozen other reasons.
So what's the Lost reason for which MiB doesn't have a name? It's because Crazy Murderous Kidnapping Lady only had picked one name. What? You were expecting one baby and picked one name, but when the second one comes along you can't come up with a second name? Did she only know that one human name? And if she did, was she unable to look around and call him River or Summer or The Rock or something? Was she unable to take a few minutes or even a few days and come up with a good name? The idea that a character is nameless because he's a twin and his "mother" had only picked one name is completely ridiculous.
And that is, in a nutshell, my problem with Lost. They created tons of interesting mysteries but made no plans whatsoever to solve them, and now that the show is ending in a few episodes they're rushing to "explain" various points by throwing at the viewers the most nonsensical explanations ever.
Wait.
Really?
You think that he doesn't even have a name, just because they haven't said it out loud on the show? (yet?)
Second point: That is something that ruins the show for you? (I know you have a list of other things that ruin the show for you already prepared, but the fact that this one is even on there...) This goes back to one of my points in my previous long post that nobody wants to read (don't blame you, too long don't read) in that if the lady had said "Oh I didn't have a name for a second one, go ahead and name him Steve" right before she got bashed in the head with a rock, would the show be more tolerable to you?
Oh, also? People spend about 9 months of their lives settling on the names for their children usually. Birthing twins in a cave a few minutes after washing ashore on a magical island can be a pretty intense experience, and maybe she would rather just hold the damn babies for a second before settling on their names. I'm sure you'll name your children solely in the 11 seconds after their birth, and before your head gets smashed in with a rock. (Did you see that part, with the 11 seconds, and the rock smashing?)
The thing which is apparently really hard to grasp for some people so disappointed and annoyed by the show and their writers, is that by and large... Lost fans don't consider it a great dramatic betrayal if questions don't get answered.
Really.
No, Lost fans do care that the mysteries the writers spent 6 years building up and they spent 6 years trying to unravel were just random shit that was made up on the fly and has no real explanation. Because no, a magic cave they just made up on the fly is not a real explanation.
Really.
I believe LOST is going to run into the same kind of fan-base split that BSG had in the end
Those who watched the show, looked at the details and what was being said, and then were satisfied with the ending when it synced up with the major themes of the show and how the show was being presented
And those who thought the show was something else entirely and felt that the conclusion and the themes presented there came out of left field and were then angry when it didn't fulfill their misconceived expectations
If you think the magic cave was made up on the fly, you're sitting firmly in category 2, so you should probably stop watching now
The difference is that, with BSG, you can point at specific elements to show how they built up to that finale. Angels of the one true god were openly part of the show since the beginning, and clearly intervened (for example with Six giving Baltar information).
There was nothing building up to a magic cave in Lost. There were unexplained phenomena, for sure. But there was absolutely nothing to point to or hint that a magic cave was the explanation for them. Quite the opposite, everything seemed to indicate that Lost was taking place in our universe, on our world, that these people who crashed could have been you or me. There could have been strange but rational explanations for the phenomena we were seeing . In fact, early on there were: the mystery of the Others seen walking around but leaving no trace was simply explained by the fact they were covering their trails behind them, and the mystery of the presence of a polar bear on a tropical island was explained by the fact the Dharma Initiative shipped it there to experiment on it.
Then all the sudden, they decided Lost is actually taking place in a magical fantasy world, and that the explanation for everything was not some rational (if possibly far-fetched) natural or man-made system but a magic cave. There was nothing in Lost that introduced magic as an explanation or a possibility before that point.
The thing which is apparently really hard to grasp for some people so disappointed and annoyed by the show and their writers, is that by and large... Lost fans don't consider it a great dramatic betrayal if questions don't get answered.
Really.
No, Lost fans do care that the mysteries the writers spent 6 years building up and they spent 6 years trying to unravel were just random shit that was made up on the fly and has no real explanation. Because no, a magic cave they just made up on the fly is not a real explanation.
Really.
I believe LOST is going to run into the same kind of fan-base split that BSG had in the end
Those who watched the show, looked at the details and what was being said, and then were satisfied with the ending when it synced up with the major themes of the show and how the show was being presented
And those who thought the show was something else entirely and felt that the conclusion and the themes presented there came out of left field and were then angry when it didn't fulfill their misconceived expectations
If you think the magic cave was made up on the fly, you're sitting firmly in category 2, so you should probably stop watching now
The difference is that, with BSG, you can point at specific elements to show how they built up to that finale. Angels of the one true god were openly part of the show since the beginning, and clearly intervened (for example with Six giving Baltar information).
There was nothing building up to a magic cave in Lost. There were unexplained phenomena, for sure. But there was absolutely nothing to point to or hint that a magic cave was the explanation for them. Quite the opposite, everything seemed to indicate that Lost was taking place in our universe, on our world, that these people who crashed could have been you or me. There could have been strange but rational explanations for the phenomena we were seeing . In fact, early on there were: the mystery of the Others seen walking around but leaving no trace was simply explained by the fact they were covering their trails behind them, and the mystery of the presence of a polar bear on a tropical island was explained by the fact the Dharma Initiative shipped it there to experiment on it.
Then all the sudden, they decided Lost is actually taking place in a magical fantasy world, and that the explanation for everything was not some rational (if possibly far-fetched) natural or man-made system but a magic cave. There was nothing in Lost that introduced magic as an explanation or a possibility before that point.
I think you're stretching it a bit, what exactly does the magic cave explain? All we know about it is that it represents or encompasses "life, death, and rebirth" and it's definitely one main reasons for the island probably, but is it an explanation for everything mysterious? Probably not. There are rational explanations for many mysteries, and other mysteries that are attached to the more fantastical elements that sit at the core of the island.
There have always been fantastical elements to the world of Lost from day one, like healing properties, smoke monsters, and more as we got deeper into the show, you're just choosing to ignore them for another conceived notion of what the island/show is.
I think they haven't told us his name because giving him a name would distract from the essence of who he is. He's Fake-Locke, he's the Man In Black, he's Jacob's Brother, he's the island's nemesis and the show's antagonist. Each of these lenses for looking at the character are more descriptive than "oh, he's George".
Lots of stories wind up not naming major characters, and do so successfully. Lost is no different.
See, while I agree with all your points, I still see the reason for MiB not having a name to be an example of the big problems with Lost. You're right that naming MiB could be distracting, and that he can be much more ominous by being nameless, and that a lot of shows have nameless characters. The issue I have is why he's nameless.
There are a lot of good reasons why a character would be nameless. It could be that he doesn't want to tell people his name to not lose an edge. That reason would actually work perfectly well in the show: the Ancient Egyptians believed that knowing someone's true name gave you a magical power over them. In fact, their most powerful goddess Isis was called "the one who knows all the names" because by knowing the names of everyone, she had power over everyone. So that would be an excellent reason for MiB to remain unnamed. Other good reasons could include that he's forgotten his own name after 2000 years of everyone calling him "smoke monster", or that his name is so foreign that it cannot be pronounced by English speakers, or that in the time it would take to pronounce one letter of his true name a trillion cosmoses would flare into existence and sink into eternal night, or that he's part of a secret para-governmental organization that erased his identity, or because he's an emergency hologram that was never meant to have a unique identity and personality, or any one of a dozen other reasons.
So what's the Lost reason for which MiB doesn't have a name? It's because Crazy Murderous Kidnapping Lady only had picked one name. What? You were expecting one baby and picked one name, but when the second one comes along you can't come up with a second name? Did she only know that one human name? And if she did, was she unable to look around and call him River or Summer or The Rock or something? Was she unable to take a few minutes or even a few days and come up with a good name? The idea that a character is nameless because he's a twin and his "mother" had only picked one name is completely ridiculous.
And that is, in a nutshell, my problem with Lost. They created tons of interesting mysteries but made no plans whatsoever to solve them, and now that the show is ending in a few episodes they're rushing to "explain" various points by throwing at the viewers the most nonsensical explanations ever.
Wait.
Really?
You think that he doesn't even have a name, just because they haven't said it out loud on the show? (yet?)
Second point: That is something that ruins the show for you? (I know you have a list of other things that ruin the show for you already prepared, but the fact that this one is even on there...) This goes back to one of my points in my previous long post that nobody wants to read (don't blame you, too long don't read) in that if the lady had said "Oh I didn't have a name for a second one, go ahead and name him Steve" right before she got bashed in the head with a rock, would the show be more tolerable to you?
Oh, also? People spend about 9 months of their lives settling on the names for their children usually. Birthing twins in a cave a few minutes after washing ashore on a magical island can be a pretty intense experience, and maybe she would rather just hold the damn babies for a second before settling on their names. I'm sure you'll name your children solely in the 11 seconds after their birth, and before your head gets smashed in with a rock. (Did you see that part, with the 11 seconds, and the rock smashing?)
Maybe I wasn't clear? I don't have a problem with nameless characters; they are common enough in most media. Hell, I'll even agree with you that the reason why he's nameless is a really minor point in the show, and that if that was a reason why I was upset at Lost then I would really be going out of my way to find things to nitpick. None of that is my problem.
Rather, I find it symptomatic of everything that's wrong with Lost. While that plot point itself is pretty minor, it's a clear exemplar of the writers' throwing bullshit explanations around in these last few episodes to settle issues they had created with no plans to resolve. And that, is my problem.
The difference is that, with BSG, you can point at specific elements to show how they built up to that finale. Angels of the one true god were openly part of the show since the beginning, and clearly intervened (for example with Six giving Baltar information).
There was nothing building up to a magic cave in Lost. There were unexplained phenomena, for sure. But there was absolutely nothing to point to or hint that a magic cave was the explanation for them. Quite the opposite, everything seemed to indicate that Lost was taking place in our universe, on our world, that these people who crashed could have been you or me. There could have been strange but rational explanations for the phenomena we were seeing . In fact, early on there were: the mystery of the Others seen walking around but leaving no trace was simply explained by the fact they were covering their trails behind them, and the mystery of the presence of a polar bear on a tropical island was explained by the fact the Dharma Initiative shipped it there to experiment on it.
Then all the sudden, they decided Lost is actually taking place in a magical fantasy world, and that the explanation for everything was not some rational (if possibly far-fetched) natural or man-made system but a magic cave. There was nothing in Lost that introduced magic as an explanation or a possibility before that point.
So you have had this same complaint since Season 3? You have to jump from Season 2 to now if you want me to at all agree with your point about not building up to a magic cave. I might make you jump from like the first couple episodes, because "Magic Cave with the source of all life and/or crazy powers of healing and resurrection" was pretty much a theory that people had as soon as Locke could walk when he crashed onto the island. I think that's episode 4.
EDIT:
Rather, I find it symptomatic of everything that's wrong with Lost. While that plot point itself is pretty minor, it's a clear exemplar of the writers' throwing bullshit explanations around in these last few episodes to settle issues they had created with no plans to resolve. And that, is my problem.
Okay, that more generalized point is something that I can understand I guess. The reason I took so much issue with your post is that the nitpicking manner in which you show your opinion of the show is symptomatic of ... something that annoys me. :P If I'm being combative towards you I apologize, because its not really you that I'm annoyed with.
The thing which is apparently really hard to grasp for some people so disappointed and annoyed by the show and their writers, is that by and large... Lost fans don't consider it a great dramatic betrayal if questions don't get answered.
Really.
No, Lost fans do care that the mysteries the writers spent 6 years building up and they spent 6 years trying to unravel were just random shit that was made up on the fly and has no real explanation. Because no, a magic cave they just made up on the fly is not a real explanation.
Really.
Yeah it is. I'm sorry it's not the one you wanted but, hey, that's your problem.
No it's not. I'm sorry that you've deluded yourself into believing it is but, hey, that's your problem.
Yes it is.
Tell me why it isn't or stfu and stop your whining.
There was nothing building up to a magic cave in Lost. There were unexplained phenomena, for sure. But there was absolutely nothing to point to or hint that a magic cave was the explanation for them. Quite the opposite, everything seemed to indicate that Lost was taking place in our universe, on our world, that these people who crashed could have been you or me. There could have been strange but rational explanations for the phenomena we were seeing . In fact, early on there were: the mystery of the Others seen walking around but leaving no trace was simply explained by the fact they were covering their trails behind them, and the mystery of the presence of a polar bear on a tropical island was explained by the fact the Dharma Initiative shipped it there to experiment on it.
Proof you haven't been paying attention(or being intentionally ignorant for the sake of your argument). The second the monster appeared this show broke with any expectations that this was our world.
The light in the cave is the same damn thing as the electromagnetic energy encountered previously. It has defined powers of time travel, alt reality, healing, life, death, rebirth. It may or may not possess some awareness, but that's really something I believe is left best mysterious. The magic cave is just the way ancient people interpreted this energy. Daniel and Dharma see it as an electromagnetic anomaly. I'm sure they could have had Daniel find out more about it do more research and come up with more theories, but that would serve only to pile on needless exposition and draw away from what the show is really about.
The electromagnetic energy is clearly define in the course of the show as having been what causes the time travel and alt reality stuff. This energy is found out to be the same as what causes the other phenomenon like healing as stated by the mother in her primitive explanation.
There's a point you can get to with explaining exactly what it is and how it works before it becomes needless. It can never be completely rational because like almost all sci fi/fantasy the device being used in this way cannot exist rationally, no matter what it is. It doesn't exist in our reality. Nor could it according to what we know. Even in star trek, they babble pseudoscience, it's just more elaborate of the same kind of explanation.
Come to think of it, I would really like to hear how any of the haters in this thread would prefer Lost explain how Locke could walk again once he crashed onto the Island. Keep in mind that this is a mystery set up about 130 minutes into the story, and it has been constantly relevant to the entire narrative.
If you can come up with something better than "The Island has some magical energy thing going on", I would love to hear it.
I think you're stretching it a bit, what exactly does the magic cave explain? All we know about it is that it represents or encompasses "life, death, and rebirth" and it's definitely one main reasons for the island probably, but is it an explanation for everything mysterious? Probably not. There are rational explanations for many mysteries, and other mysteries that are attached to the more fantastical elements that sit at the core of the island.
There have always been fantastical elements to the world of Lost from day one, like healing properties, smoke monsters, and more as we got deeper into the show, you're just choosing to ignore them for another conceived notion of what the island/show is.
The magic cave explain the smoke monster, the frozen donkey wheel (and its ability to teleport people to Tunisia as well as its ability to teleport the island through space and time), the electromagnetic pockets in the island and thus the incident, the button, and the discharge that happens when they don't push the button (which was the cause of two major events, the original plane crash and the reveal of the island at the end of season 2). I'd say that's a lot of pretty big things to just hand-wave away with "a magic cave did it".
And I disagree with you on the fantastical elements on the show. The smoke monster and the healing properties are certainly unexplained, but that doesn't make them automatically fantastical. The smoke monster was originally hinted to be some kind of security system and one character (who we assume had never encountered an immaterial immortal semi-god before) said it made a sound that seemed familiar. I've seen many sci-fi shows and books with characters that heal or can heal people with incurable diseases or injuries, and they weren't fantastical. The explanations were far-fetched, for sure, but they didn't involve magic at all. What else? Time travel? Flux capacitors. Teleportation? Star Trek transporters. Need I go on? My point is that an unexplained event does not automatically imply a magical explanation.
the electromagnetic pockets in the island and thus the incident
When was the cave noted to be the explanation for this (and in connection the rest of the events that revolve around these pockets)? Why could this not be a separate special property of the island?
And how is a smoke monster not fantastical? Just because it was speculated to serve a purpose doesn't make it not an element of fantasy.
And really, magic is synonymous with the technology you cite. How does a flux capacitor work? How about transporters? It's all technobabble, except one is based on 'magical properties did it' and the other is 'science did it'. You're mad because it's magic and not something that is equally unexplainable and mysterious. Is there a difference besides semantics? No.
There has been a 'science' explanation to this though, I don't see why he continually ignores this or the posts explaining it. Electromagnetic energy being the cause is no different than flux capacitors or star trek transporters.
The electromagnetic energy and the magic light cave are the same thing.
Adam searches for the light cave again, can't find it. Him and his new people search for other ways to get to it. They dig. Adam creates the donkey wheel system. He shows Jacob the knife being magnetically attracted to it. He pulls a brick out to show his mother it's the same light, as the light shines through it and on her.
Posts
EDIT: @Lucascraft
Let's just call him Bob. Fuck it. On a Lost note...I'm so fucking pissed I'm working Sunday night for the finale. I've had Wed's off and have been able to enjoy lost. Now I have to wait till Monday for the DVR. Dammit...
Man. You're so smart.
Reading your comments I am like totally convinced that I've been a silly goose for enjoying the show and now that you've laid down your really smart arguments I totally see the light.
Man those damn writers! Making things up! How dare they? Seriously! I hate Lost now!
I was like totally tricked and stuff! Because I really only enjoyed the show because I thought it would be like a puzzle and stuff. And now that you've made your really smart points I totally see that it's like not a puzzle at all and stuff. And they totally tricked me.
And like the show is like totally dumb and stupid now. And I was like really dumb for liking it. But thanks to those smart people on the internet, I can be smart too. And it's like totally awesome because I can now totally shit on other people for liking stuff that is dumb. And that like makes me totally smart and stuff.
So.. like.. thanks man for being so smart.
He never said anything about whether or not you should like it, or even scarcely anything bad about the show at all. Unless any claim that the show was not consistently about one thing, or that the producers haven't been exactly honest and consistent themselves, is automatically assumed to be a negative criticism. It is true that people will go to great lengths to concoct their own complicated meta-stories into which the episodes of Lost will fit and make sense. But, that's kinda what the show's creators have said they want to happen.
I'm hoping we can get to a point where saying things like, "they've been making this up as they go with little or no consistency or long-term plan, and purposefully created intriguing mysteries without concern or foresight about whether those mysteries would or could get answered" is considered to be a neutral statement, not a negative one. And if it's what they set out to do, and they did it well, then I'd say it's altogether complimentary of their vision and talent.
I mean, the only bad thing we saw him do in the last episode was kill Mother, and that's pretty questionable. She did, after all, murder his real mother, lie to him constantly, keep him from leaving the island, and slaughter the people he'd been living with for 30 years. Killing her wasn't exactly saintly of him, but I can't really call him evil for it.
Presumably, the reason he needs to be kept on the island is because he's Smokey now, and bad things will happen if he leaves. But it should be Jacob's responsibility, as the protector of the island, as the person who turned him into Smokey in the first place, and as his brother, to find a solution. "Stay trapped on the island forever and ever" seems to be his plan, and let's be honest, it's a really shitty one. Especially when Jacob himself is looking for ways to step down, despite having far more freedom.
So yeah, Smokey's trying to kill everyone. But after being alive for centuries and seeing countless generations of people die, I can understand how a few more deaths wouldn't bother him too much. He'll fail in the end, of course, because he's the big scary bad guy, but until then I'll be cheering him on.
Its an overreaction, but some of us are tired of hearing the same complaints for months (or even years) on end.
We get that you think they are making it up as they go along, but is there any need to post that every single day all season long. It is getting old.
The statue where Jacob lived was Taweret.
Taweret's consort was Apep. Apep was the God of Evil, the Eater of Souls and was constantly being re-imprisoned in the underworld, lest he escape. He was also seen as a giant snake or dragon with a head of flint. (flint == black)
And some more:
It's more the passive-aggressive, snide remarks that people have consistently disagreed with yet a few posters persist with going on about that Joe Dizzy was making light off
We get it, you don't agree with how the show went. You can stop bringing it up every page. It's seriously childish
The episode where Sayid turned evil was actually pretty convincing. Smokey had big plans for Sayid because he had such a long history of both loss driven rage, and inability despite his own efforts to be away from situations where he would kill. I can't think of anyone who needed something Smokey was offering as much as he did.
The way he turned back was believable too. Desmond is someone he would feel morally accountable to from their long shared experience, unlike the others he's killed.
Eh, even assuming brother got turned into smokey and wasn't just already evil-smoke-thing-now-in-brother-form, it's kind of hard to root for the (alleged) destruction of all life (or whatever the consequence is) just because some guy got a raw deal for a few hundred years. I mean, ok your fake mom and brother were REALLY mean to you, that sucks, here's my sympathy card, still not going to root for releasing evil into the world. Needs of the many and all that. Sorry.
The key question is what he thinks will happen when he leaves. Considering how much people have lied to him, I think he genuinely believes that Jacob's BSing him and nothing will happen. And he could very well be right. If they reveal that he does believe the world will end and wants to do it anyway, that's a different story.
Exactly Smokey has no reason to believe the world will end if he leaves the island. There is no good in story reason to believe that false mother was telling the truth about the light.
A lot of your arguments follow a general 'Death of the Author' bent--that if they're making everything up then they're also lying outside of the show in order to fool us. With that in mind, there is absolutely no need for any of us to be insulting each other right now. I understand your perspective, it's an interesting perspective, and I have my own. None of us have watched the end of the show, so there's no need for any of us to be insulting each other over some theories.
Listen to the season 6 podcasts. I believe I remember them stating in one of them that they would create mysteries only if they could then create the solution or end to them as well, before they would put it in the show.
I don't see how it matters what he believes, only what will happen. If he skips off the island and destroys the world and says "whoops, sorry, thought they were joking about that," well the world is still dead.
At this point you have fake mom saying man should never get the light or bad things will happen, you have Jacob saying Smokey can never leave the island or bad things will happen, and you have Smokey saying nothing will happen if he leaves. I'm not really sure how you determine what anyone actually believes or knows within the context of the show. It's pretty clear to me that they've all been lying at some point or another, so I can't really say which version is true or not. As such I guess I err on the side of not letting possible evil force into the world until more information is shown that he is actually not the bad guy.
Also, even ignoring whether or not anything happens if Smokey leaves, Smokey getting off the island involves killing all the candidates. Rooting for Smokey means you're rooting for all these people to die just because one guy had a fucked up life, and I'm not cool with that moral calculus. Hell, think of all the people we've seen smokey kill: Half the candidates, half the temple, Whitmore's crew, Mr Eko, the original pilot of 815 and a bunch more I have probably forgotten or we haven't seen. This doesn't scream sympathetic character to me, no matter how bad things are for him. So no, at this point I'm not going to root against the characters I know, even the ones like Kate that I wouldn't mind dying, in favor of the smoke monster.
If you don't like that its Jacob's brother and Mom, or you don't like that the Island is important because of a magic light, those are complaints that at least have a reason to exist. I can see how people could maybe not want that in their show, I guess? I am sure you are disappointed, and you were hoping that it would be something else, but I also would wager that you don't even know what that something else is. But we spend most of our time bitching about all this 5th wall, behind-the-scenes crap that really has nothing to do with the show we're watching (well, most of us are watching). I guess people who no longer like the show feel like they were duped or something? Like they were entitled to have the show be something that it isn't? I'm not really sure.
I would say that the mysterious nature of the show has always allowed or even required people to build up these lofty yet unmistakably nebulous expectations. There are so many possible explanations for everything in this show that a large portion of people are inevitably going to be disappointed with the answers. Remember this?
Some people probably wish the Smoke Monster didn't come into existence by Jacob throwing his brother into the magic white light at the center of the island. I am sure some people wish the smoke monster was a dinosaur, or nano-bots, or a sorcerer! But then we would just have different people in this thread, complaining about how lame it is that Jacob is an alien and the island is an artificial simulation of purgatory meant to enslave dead humans, while I quietly wished that the show had included time travel at some point.
Haha, I just realized that Gabe was hilariously correct about the guy in the suit. He really DID shift his shape!
It's more than a neutral statement. It's an irrelevant one.
The thing which is apparently really hard to grasp for some people so disappointed and annoyed by the show and their writers, is that by and large... Lost fans don't consider it a great dramatic betrayal if questions don't get answered.
Really.
You should ask yourself, why would somebody keep bringing up the fact that the writers are making things up as they go along, unless they assume that Lost-fans are eager for answers and explanations. And that their enjoyment somehow hinges on there being some great, majestic and brilliant plan that ties it all together. The fact that these threads aren't filled with posts like mine (only without the sarcasm of course) either means, that these threads are only read by raging fanboys incapable of dealing with criticism of the show... or maybe.. just maybe... they really don't care about there being a great, brilliant plan as much as the detractors do.
And now it should be obvious why the incessant yammering and whining about the writers eventually gets on people's nerves. It feels like being yelled at like an idiot for enjoying a show, that somebody else deems "no good" for trivial reasons.
OK. You seem to have the impression that I'm trying to convince you to agree with me. You're absolutely welcome to root for the Losties. I'd find it weird if the vast majority of viewers didn't feel the same way you do. But me, I'm on Team Smoke Monster. The other characters have their sideways universe; I don't mind seeing them die on the main one.
On a side note, I just realized that Mr Eko's death makes slightly more sense now that we know Smokey has brother issues.
No, Lost fans do care that the mysteries the writers spent 6 years building up and they spent 6 years trying to unravel were just random shit that was made up on the fly and has no real explanation. Because no, a magic cave they just made up on the fly is not a real explanation.
Really.
What you're thinking of are Lost fanboys. And you're right, the Lost fanboys don't care that there was no plan or consistency to the show. Much like the Star Wars fanboys think Phantom Menace was a revolutionary and complex movie, and the Star Trek fanboys think Enterprise was a great series, and the Matrix fanboys paid close attention to the rave scene to learn the dance moves of the future. There is simply no displeasing fanboys.
Don't forget that he seems he may be composed of that which he came from, so he's also the same energy that Dharma didn't want released because it would be a bad thing. Which we then saw the results of being released in the incident and when Desmond and Locke forcibly stopped the button form being pushed.
It's not really a question of if it would be bad for him to escape, but what exactly would happen.
You're just refusing to pay attention to or believe the details given to you at this point. You have yet to prove that there was no plan or consistency for the show. So you've now resorted to calling people fanboys because you can't come up with a legitimate argument.
Yeah it is. I'm sorry it's not the one you wanted but, hey, that's your problem.
I believe LOST is going to run into the same kind of fan-base split that BSG had in the end
Those who watched the show, looked at the details and what was being said, and then were satisfied with the ending when it synced up with the major themes of the show and how the show was being presented
And those who thought the show was something else entirely and felt that the conclusion and the themes presented there came out of left field and were then angry when it didn't fulfill their misconceived expectations
If you think the magic cave was made up on the fly, you're sitting firmly in category 2, so you should probably stop watching now
There are a lot of good reasons why a character would be nameless. It could be that he doesn't want to tell people his name to not lose an edge. That reason would actually work perfectly well in the show: the Ancient Egyptians believed that knowing someone's true name gave you a magical power over them. In fact, their most powerful goddess Isis was called "the one who knows all the names" because by knowing the names of everyone, she had power over everyone. So that would be an excellent reason for MiB to remain unnamed. Other good reasons could include that he's forgotten his own name after 2000 years of everyone calling him "smoke monster", or that his name is so foreign that it cannot be pronounced by English speakers, or that in the time it would take to pronounce one letter of his true name a trillion cosmoses would flare into existence and sink into eternal night, or that he's part of a secret para-governmental organization that erased his identity, or because he's an emergency hologram that was never meant to have a unique identity and personality, or any one of a dozen other reasons.
So what's the Lost reason for which MiB doesn't have a name? It's because Crazy Murderous Kidnapping Lady only had picked one name. What? You were expecting one baby and picked one name, but when the second one comes along you can't come up with a second name? Did she only know that one human name? And if she did, was she unable to look around and call him River or Summer or The Rock or something? Was she unable to take a few minutes or even a few days and come up with a good name? The idea that a character is nameless because he's a twin and his "mother" had only picked one name is completely ridiculous.
And that is, in a nutshell, my problem with Lost. They created tons of interesting mysteries but made no plans whatsoever to solve them, and now that the show is ending in a few episodes they're rushing to "explain" various points by throwing at the viewers the most nonsensical explanations ever.
No it's not. I'm sorry that you've deluded yourself into believing it is but, hey, that's your problem.
You are doing everything except literally saying that anybody who likes Lost is an idiot, but we're not being crazy and defensive by taking that little extra step for you, and putting it together ourselves.
In conclusion, can you please take your hate somewhere else or something? Like, start your own thread of Lost hate or something. One is black, one is white, etc.
Wait.
Really?
You think that he doesn't even have a name, just because they haven't said it out loud on the show? (yet?)
Second point: That is something that ruins the show for you? (I know you have a list of other things that ruin the show for you already prepared, but the fact that this one is even on there...) This goes back to one of my points in my previous long post that nobody wants to read (don't blame you, too long don't read) in that if the lady had said "Oh I didn't have a name for a second one, go ahead and name him Steve" right before she got bashed in the head with a rock, would the show be more tolerable to you?
Oh, also? People spend about 9 months of their lives settling on the names for their children usually. Birthing twins in a cave a few minutes after washing ashore on a magical island can be a pretty intense experience, and maybe she would rather just hold the damn babies for a second before settling on their names. I'm sure you'll name your children solely in the 11 seconds after their birth, and before your head gets smashed in with a rock. (Did you see that part, with the 11 seconds, and the rock smashing?)
The difference is that, with BSG, you can point at specific elements to show how they built up to that finale. Angels of the one true god were openly part of the show since the beginning, and clearly intervened (for example with Six giving Baltar information).
There was nothing building up to a magic cave in Lost. There were unexplained phenomena, for sure. But there was absolutely nothing to point to or hint that a magic cave was the explanation for them. Quite the opposite, everything seemed to indicate that Lost was taking place in our universe, on our world, that these people who crashed could have been you or me. There could have been strange but rational explanations for the phenomena we were seeing . In fact, early on there were: the mystery of the Others seen walking around but leaving no trace was simply explained by the fact they were covering their trails behind them, and the mystery of the presence of a polar bear on a tropical island was explained by the fact the Dharma Initiative shipped it there to experiment on it.
Then all the sudden, they decided Lost is actually taking place in a magical fantasy world, and that the explanation for everything was not some rational (if possibly far-fetched) natural or man-made system but a magic cave. There was nothing in Lost that introduced magic as an explanation or a possibility before that point.
I think you're stretching it a bit, what exactly does the magic cave explain? All we know about it is that it represents or encompasses "life, death, and rebirth" and it's definitely one main reasons for the island probably, but is it an explanation for everything mysterious? Probably not. There are rational explanations for many mysteries, and other mysteries that are attached to the more fantastical elements that sit at the core of the island.
There have always been fantastical elements to the world of Lost from day one, like healing properties, smoke monsters, and more as we got deeper into the show, you're just choosing to ignore them for another conceived notion of what the island/show is.
Maybe I wasn't clear? I don't have a problem with nameless characters; they are common enough in most media. Hell, I'll even agree with you that the reason why he's nameless is a really minor point in the show, and that if that was a reason why I was upset at Lost then I would really be going out of my way to find things to nitpick. None of that is my problem.
Rather, I find it symptomatic of everything that's wrong with Lost. While that plot point itself is pretty minor, it's a clear exemplar of the writers' throwing bullshit explanations around in these last few episodes to settle issues they had created with no plans to resolve. And that, is my problem.
So you have had this same complaint since Season 3? You have to jump from Season 2 to now if you want me to at all agree with your point about not building up to a magic cave. I might make you jump from like the first couple episodes, because "Magic Cave with the source of all life and/or crazy powers of healing and resurrection" was pretty much a theory that people had as soon as Locke could walk when he crashed onto the island. I think that's episode 4.
EDIT:
Okay, that more generalized point is something that I can understand I guess. The reason I took so much issue with your post is that the nitpicking manner in which you show your opinion of the show is symptomatic of ... something that annoys me. :P If I'm being combative towards you I apologize, because its not really you that I'm annoyed with.
Yes it is.
Tell me why it isn't or stfu and stop your whining.
Proof you haven't been paying attention(or being intentionally ignorant for the sake of your argument). The second the monster appeared this show broke with any expectations that this was our world.
The light in the cave is the same damn thing as the electromagnetic energy encountered previously. It has defined powers of time travel, alt reality, healing, life, death, rebirth. It may or may not possess some awareness, but that's really something I believe is left best mysterious. The magic cave is just the way ancient people interpreted this energy. Daniel and Dharma see it as an electromagnetic anomaly. I'm sure they could have had Daniel find out more about it do more research and come up with more theories, but that would serve only to pile on needless exposition and draw away from what the show is really about.
The electromagnetic energy is clearly define in the course of the show as having been what causes the time travel and alt reality stuff. This energy is found out to be the same as what causes the other phenomenon like healing as stated by the mother in her primitive explanation.
There's a point you can get to with explaining exactly what it is and how it works before it becomes needless. It can never be completely rational because like almost all sci fi/fantasy the device being used in this way cannot exist rationally, no matter what it is. It doesn't exist in our reality. Nor could it according to what we know. Even in star trek, they babble pseudoscience, it's just more elaborate of the same kind of explanation.
If you can come up with something better than "The Island has some magical energy thing going on", I would love to hear it.
The magic cave explain the smoke monster, the frozen donkey wheel (and its ability to teleport people to Tunisia as well as its ability to teleport the island through space and time), the electromagnetic pockets in the island and thus the incident, the button, and the discharge that happens when they don't push the button (which was the cause of two major events, the original plane crash and the reveal of the island at the end of season 2). I'd say that's a lot of pretty big things to just hand-wave away with "a magic cave did it".
And I disagree with you on the fantastical elements on the show. The smoke monster and the healing properties are certainly unexplained, but that doesn't make them automatically fantastical. The smoke monster was originally hinted to be some kind of security system and one character (who we assume had never encountered an immaterial immortal semi-god before) said it made a sound that seemed familiar. I've seen many sci-fi shows and books with characters that heal or can heal people with incurable diseases or injuries, and they weren't fantastical. The explanations were far-fetched, for sure, but they didn't involve magic at all. What else? Time travel? Flux capacitors. Teleportation? Star Trek transporters. Need I go on? My point is that an unexplained event does not automatically imply a magical explanation.
Some people don't share your disdain for it. I guess we're done here.
When was the cave noted to be the explanation for this (and in connection the rest of the events that revolve around these pockets)? Why could this not be a separate special property of the island?
And how is a smoke monster not fantastical? Just because it was speculated to serve a purpose doesn't make it not an element of fantasy.
And really, magic is synonymous with the technology you cite. How does a flux capacitor work? How about transporters? It's all technobabble, except one is based on 'magical properties did it' and the other is 'science did it'. You're mad because it's magic and not something that is equally unexplainable and mysterious. Is there a difference besides semantics? No.
The electromagnetic energy and the magic light cave are the same thing.
Adam searches for the light cave again, can't find it. Him and his new people search for other ways to get to it. They dig. Adam creates the donkey wheel system. He shows Jacob the knife being magnetically attracted to it. He pulls a brick out to show his mother it's the same light, as the light shines through it and on her.