Lost: The Final Boner

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

Not to mention, bringing in some magic light that causes all of these phenomenon changes the genre from Sci-Fi to Fantasy.

Explain.

We've already seen: people who live forever, people who can't be killed or kill themselves until the island decides it's "through with" them, people whose cancer and paralysis are cured by an island, people who see and converse with the dead, smoke that can turn into people, a lighthouse with mirrors that allow someone to see a house thousands of miles away.

But they explain this stuff with a glowing light and all of a sudden Weebs' genres are in disarray?

I would rather see them bullshit through some theory of quantum physics than see a tunnel of light that somehow is overloaded with electromagnetism and causes an island to travel through time when a wooden wheel (I guess) intersects with it.

You see, that would be taking the midichlorian route: making up science-y bullshit to explain a mysterious force in boring, uninspiring detail.

[R-V]

Now, if only I had some idea why Mother said "thank you" when Smokey dispatched her... Was it just because she wanted to finally die?

I think so. She'd been playing the role of protector for a long time. She was probably ready to check out, like Richard was when he lit the dynamite.

[Kermit IV]

As awful as the midichlorians (and everything about Eps. 1-3) were, my buddy had an awesome idea that Lucas was too stupid to see in Episode 3.  (pardon this aside)  Anakin was allegedly the most powerful Jedi of all time, yet when he became Vader, he was a lapdog to the Emperor and was eventually bested by his pussy of a son.  Considering Anakin had half his body burned off, wouldn't it have made sense that he lost a bunch of midichlorians along with his blood, and that was the reason he was no longer the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy?

If they were going to explain the Force as a germ, they could have at least done it better than they did.

[Weebs]

As awful as the midichlorians (and everything about Eps. 1-3) were, my buddy had an awesome idea that Lucas was too stupid to see in Episode 3.  (pardon this aside)  Anakin was allegedly the most powerful Jedi of all time, yet when he became Vader, he was a lapdog to the Emperor and was eventually bested by his pussy of a son.  Considering Anakin had half his body burned off, wouldn't it have made sense that he lost a bunch of midichlorians along with his blood, and that was the reason he was no longer the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy?

If they were going to explain the Force as a germ, they could have at least done it better than they did.

If that's the case, just think how powerful Luke would have been if he didn't lose his hand.  Maybe his hand had all of the Dark Side midichlorians.  #ImagineThePossibilities

[CT III]

As awful as the midichlorians (and everything about Eps. 1-3) were, my buddy had an awesome idea that Lucas was too stupid to see in Episode 3.  (pardon this aside)  Anakin was allegedly the most powerful Jedi of all time, yet when he became Vader, he was a lapdog to the Emperor and was eventually bested by his pussy of a son.  Considering Anakin had half his body burned off, wouldn't it have made sense that he lost a bunch of midichlorians along with his blood, and that was the reason he was no longer the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy?

If they were going to explain the Force as a germ, they could have at least done it better than they did.

He was the most powerful Jedi of all time?

[Chuck to Chuck]

As awful as the midichlorians (and everything about Eps. 1-3) were, my buddy had an awesome idea that Lucas was too stupid to see in Episode 3.  (pardon this aside)  Anakin was allegedly the most powerful Jedi of all time, yet when he became Vader, he was a lapdog to the Emperor and was eventually bested by his pussy of a son.  Considering Anakin had half his body burned off, wouldn't it have made sense that he lost a bunch of midichlorians along with his blood, and that was the reason he was no longer the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy?

I believe in the Ep 3 Lucas commentary, he says just this.  The reason he's the Emperor's lacky is that he's not as strong with the force due to lack of midichlorians.

But, since Obi Wan and Qui Gon both talk about the concentration of midi's in Ep 1, and Yoda says taht "size matters not," wouldn't the lack of body parts not actually change the concentration and leave Anikin wthe the same level of Force mastery?

Lucas is still stupid.

[Kermit IV]

As awful as the midichlorians (and everything about Eps. 1-3) were, my buddy had an awesome idea that Lucas was too stupid to see in Episode 3.  (pardon this aside)  Anakin was allegedly the most powerful Jedi of all time, yet when he became Vader, he was a lapdog to the Emperor and was eventually bested by his pussy of a son.  Considering Anakin had half his body burned off, wouldn't it have made sense that he lost a bunch of midichlorians along with his blood, and that was the reason he was no longer the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy?

If they were going to explain the Force as a germ, they could have at least done it better than they did.

He was the most powerful Jedi of all time?

Didn't he have the highest midichlorian count, or something?  Ah, who cares?  Fuck George Lucas.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

Ah, who cares?  Fuck George Lucas.

That.

Let's not do this.

[Waco Kid]

As awful as the midichlorians (and everything about Eps. 1-3) were, my buddy had an awesome idea that Lucas was too stupid to see in Episode 3.  (pardon this aside)  Anakin was allegedly the most powerful Jedi of all time, yet when he became Vader, he was a lapdog to the Emperor and was eventually bested by his pussy of a son.  Considering Anakin had half his body burned off, wouldn't it have made sense that he lost a bunch of midichlorians along with his blood, and that was the reason he was no longer the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy?

If they were going to explain the Force as a germ, they could have at least done it better than they did.

He was the most powerful Jedi of all time?

Didn't he have the highest midichlorian count, or something?  Ah, who cares?  Fuck George Lucas.

This.

The whole midichlorian thing is insanely stupid.

[CT III]

Ah, who cares?  Fuck George Lucas.

That.

Let's not do this.

I disagree, let's do this.

Hayden Christiansen may have been the most miscast actor ever.

[PenPho]

This is all Weebs' fault, right?

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

This is all Weebs' fault, right?

For not understanding the reason midichlorians suck?

Yes.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

Okay. Now for the really obnoxious posts.

About that Light...

Jacob's first goal is to protect The Light/Pandora's Box/Ark of the Covenant/whatever you want to call it, because it is the source of all the good stuff in life. It can't be destroyed because then none of us would be able to take naps or eat bacon. It can't be found or exploited by Man, because then we'd become corrupt jagoffs obsessed with naps and bacon, and would eventually melt like the Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

All great. I like the Ark of the Covenant comparison.

Maybe it's even something bigger: something as amorphous and all-encompassing as "God him/itself"—again, kind of like the Force. Is there a God down that hole?

(Actually, the Ark of the Covenant is said to be God's "footstool" on Earth. Wherever the Ark is, that's where God resides.)

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Across_the_Sea_transcript

MOTHER: Don't go in there.

BOY IN BLACK: What's down there?

MOTHER: Light. The warmest, brightest light you've ever seen or felt. And we must make sure that no one ever finds it.

BOY IN BLACK: It's beautiful...

MOTHER: Yes it is. And that's why they want it. Because a little bit of this very same light is inside of every man. But they always want more.

JACOB: Can they take it?

MOTHER: No. But they would try. And if they tried they could put it out. And if the light goes out here... it goes out everywhere. And so I've protected this place. But I can't protect it forever.

BOY IN BLACK: Then who will?

MOTHER: It will have to be one of you.

JACOB: What's down there?

MOTHER: Life, death, rebirth. It's the source, the heart of the island.

The comparisons I kept going to while watching were:

a) The Tree of Life and The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil planted in the middle of the garden of Eden, watered by a river.

b) The fire of the gods.


First, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, from which Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat...

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2&version=NIV

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

...

And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3&version=NIV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

After Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the fruit of that tree and got kicked out of Eden, God denied them access to the fruit of the other tree...

And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

The fruit of the first tree gave man god-like knowledge. Effectively, it's what gave humans their consciousness, separate from the godhead, and free-will. Getting booted from Eden also marks the birth of agriculture.

The fruit of the second tree grants eternal life, but good luck getting past the guard.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

Second, the fire of the gods...

I've been more or less convinced to stay on Jacob's side of things for a while now. But in the back of my mind there's always been a sense that everything could still flip-flop along these lines...

So is anyone else squarely on the side of the Man in Black in this upcoming rumble? The recurring theme throughout all these flashsideways is that all these people would be just fine if not for Jacob and his sneaky meddling.

I'm not so sure.

On the one hand, I've been prepared for a "the evil guy is good" twist for a while now.

Even if EvilLocke is a Satan type, there's plenty of room to look at him the other way around as a hero to man. Like Prometheus, who stole the fire from the Gods for man, Satan in the Garden of Eden can be viewed as a liberating figure, opening men's eyes to their free will through the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

...

And, in this episode, Smokey felt like he had a serious Prometheus-stealing-fire-from-the-gods thing going on. (Which, again, isn't necessarily inconsistent with him being a Satan type. More on that in a moment.)

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0132:card=42

For the gods keep hidden from men the means of life. Else you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste. But Zeus in the anger of his heart hid it, because Prometheus the crafty deceived him; therefore he planned sorrow and mischief against men. He hid fire; but that the noble son of Iapetus stole again for men from Zeus the counsellor in a hollow fennel-stalk, so that Zeus who delights in thunder did not see it. But afterwards Zeus who gathers the clouds said to him in anger: "Son of Iapetus, surpassing all in cunning, you are glad that you have outwitted me and stolen fire—a great plague to you yourself and to men that shall be. But I will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction."

(Incidentally, that "evil thing" created to bring men to destruction? Woman. [ high-fives Yeti ])

Prometheus is a prototypical "culture hero."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_hero

A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group (cultural, ethnic, racial, religious, etc.) who changes the world through invention or discovery. A typical culture hero might be credited as the discoverer of fire, or agriculture, songs, tradition and religion, and is usually the most important legendary figure of a people, sometimes as the founder of its ruling dynasty.

In fact, he secures mankind much more than fire. Not least of all, he created man in the first place. And, in "Prometheus Bound," he's proclaimed "universal succour of mankind"...

http://classics.mit.edu/Aeschylus/prometheus.html

But hear the sequel and the more admire
What arts, what aids I cleverly evolved.
The chiefest that, if any man fell sick,
There was no help for him, comestible,
Lotion or potion; but for lack of drugs
They dwindled quite away; until I taught them
To compound draughts and mixtures sanative,
Wherewith they now are armed against disease.
I staked the winding path of divination
And was the first distinguisher of dreams,
The true from false; and voices ominous
Of meaning dark interpreted; and tokens
Seen when men take the road; and augury
By flight of all the greater crook-clawed birds
With nice discrimination I defined;
These by their nature fair and favourable,
Those, flattered with fair name. And of each sort
The habits I described; their mutual feuds
And friendships and the assemblages they hold.
And of the plumpness of the inward parts
What colour is acceptable to the Gods,
The well-streaked liver-lobe and gall-bladder.
Also by roasting limbs well wrapped in fat
And the long chine, I led men on the road
Of dark and riddling knowledge; and I purged
The glancing eye of fire, dim before,
And made its meaning plain. These are my works.
Then, things beneath the earth, aids hid from man,
Brass, iron, silver, gold, who dares to say
He was before me in discovering?
None, I wot well, unless he loves to babble.
And in a single word to sum the whole-
All manner of arts men from Prometheus learned.

And for this he is punished by Zeus: chained to a rock (trapped) until he was set free by another great hero to man, Heracles (incidentally, Zeus' favorite son).

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

Going back to Eden, then...

We've talked about Smokey as Satan or Satan-like alot.

The flipside of Satan as the paragon of evil (tempting Adam and Eve to sin against God) is Satan as a rebellious "culture hero" (in the mold of Prometheus), who grants man the gift of a god-like knowledge that God is trying to deny them. The "fall" of man was occasioned by the birth of human consciousness and free-will (both man's blessing and his curse), and saw the dawn of human civilization.

Perhaps it is "in [man's] very nature to sin" (as Jacob claims Smokey believes). But, by the same token, it's human nature to strive towards god-like knowledge. To fly too close to the sun on those wings of pastrami.

MAN IN BLACK: There are very smart men among us. Men who are curious about how things work.

In both the stories of Prometheus and Eden, this striving and the sin of disobedience to God are directly intertwined.

Now, if the writers of Lost indeed looked to Satan as a model for the Man in Black (and I still think that's a big part of his character), a major source for them would have likely been Lucifer (the "light-bearer") in Milton's "Paradise Lost." As it turns out, the connection between Lucifer and Prometheus is particularly pronounced in Milton's poem. Pronounced enough to inspire an entire vein of literary criticism on the topic...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer_and_Prometheus
http://books.google.com/books?id=MsR909HjyGkC&printsec=frontcover

It thus happens that Prometheus, the sinner and culture-hero, can be detected in the Satan of Paradise Lost. Milton's Satan has absorbed so many Promethean qualities that we are in danger of admiring him and sympathizing with him. Satan is in trespass and thus sinful; but at the same time he represents our (Greek and unregenerate) aspiration towards new and higher levels of existence, our human battle against heavy and indifferent odds.

What pushes against this tack a bit for me is the fact that Smokey doesn't seem to give a shit about the people he lives and works with. Yeah, he's helping them find this amazingly awesome Light that Not-Mother and Jacob won't trust them with. (And later on, he presents himself as a liberating figure to Sawyer and his other recruits, freeing them from the island and from Jacob's manipulations.)

But, while Prometheus was a hero to men for siding with them against a tyranical God who wanted to kill them all, Smokey's not really doing it for them as much as he's using their curiosity and industry to get himself off of the island.

In fact, he has nothing but contempt for the people he's lived with for over two thirds of his life.

That seems far from "heroic."

All that said, he's now a kind of tragic (and increasingly sympathetic) figure...

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Substitute_transcript

LOCKE: What I am is trapped. And I've been trapped for so long that I don't even remember what it feels like to be free. Maybe you can understand that. But before I was trapped, I was a man, James. Just like you.

SAWYER: I'm havin' a hard time believin' that...

LOCKE: You can believe whatever you want, that's the truth. I know what it's like to feel joy... to feel pain, anger, fear... to experience betrayal. I know what it's like to lose someone you love.

Not to mention "special."

So I'm kind of starting to pull for him. A bit.