Thirty Days of Lost # 27--The One Thing You Will Miss Most About Lost

I will miss the philosophical conflicts of faith v. reason and good v. evil the most. You do not get to see subjects like that dealt with very deeply on television period, much less the dumbed down network offerings that have to appeal to the masses.

Not to oversell it, mind you. Lost was a Philosophy 101 term paper, not a doctoral thesis in ethics or existentialism. but since most of television is on the level of an eighth grade remedial learning class, that is saying something.

Did I have problems with the conclusions drawn? A few.

First, I do not think it was well defined why some characters found redemption when others did not. Sayid had more blood on his hands than either Michael or Ana-Lucia, yet he wound up going to paradise while they did not.

Chalk it up to two atheists, Damon Lindelof and Charlton Cuse, putting their warped vision of religion on screen. Considering that most everyone in the church during the climax scene had found true love, the writers may have been trying to say that finding love is the ultimate redemption. I would rather not think of it that way. Boone and Locke were there without any true love, so there is a point in my favor.

Second, They had set up Jack as the man of science and Locke as the man of faith with the apparent idea they were going to switchover the course of the series. Jack became a man of faith, perhaps a little to conveniently, but Locke never really changed. I do appreciate Jack had a more reasoned, less blind faith than did Locke, evidenced by the fact jack did not royally screw up everything he touched while expecting everything to magically work out in the end. Jack developed a mature faith. It was about the only mature aspect of the character.

This might be the last time I get to mention it, but the Calvinist theme of predestination ran heavily through the series. Predestination in particular was dealt with in regards to the immutability of pat events and the universe “course correcting” to ensure future events happen the way they presupposed to. Very cool and theologically sound.