Lost Blogging Collective Q&A - Week 2

What Is The Lost Blogging Collective?
The LBC is the title I have given to a group of fantastic Lost bloggers which includes Anna @ The Four Toed Foot, Izi @ Not Confused Just Lost, DarkUFO @ DarkUFO, Karen @ Karen's Lost Notebook, Vozzek69 @ Things I Noticed, Benny Bigggs @ Finally Lost, Paul Burrows @ Room 23, Fiona @ Fishbiscuitland and finally myself @ here.

Each week I raise a question or two for the Collective to answer. You can read last week's Q&A here.

This week's questions are:

Games have been mentioned continually throughout the series - from Locke's backgammon allegories, to Jacob's talk of a "loophole". This week, Sawyer described Sayid's resurrection as him earning "another go around".

Do you believe the Lost characters are taking part in some kind of game/test, and if so, how can they possibly win/pass this scenario?

and

On a lighter note, Kate just can't stop following Sawyer around!! I know it is a question that a large part of the fandom love to ask (and an equally large number loathe to hear), so let's get it out of the way.

Who will Kate finally "end up" with?

Now, on with the answers!!


Vozzek69 @ Things I Noticed
http://www.thingsinoticed.com/

1) Maybe Sayid's resurrection wasn't so much another go-around as his job wasn't finished yet... or the island wasn't finished with him. Like Michael, Sayid might still have work to do. Juliet on the other hand, had reached her happy place. She was allowed to move on.

2) Hopefully Claire and Aaron. The love triangle doesn't seem as important as it once was, and I don't think we'll see the cut & dry answer we always thought we'd get. Sawyer seems to belong to Juliet - hooking back up with Kate now would kinda cheapen that. As for Jack, I'm not sure he's getting out of the show alive. I've always seen him as sacrificing himself to save everyone in the end.


Paul Burrows @ Room 23
http://lostroom23.blogspot.com

1) I don’t believe that it’s a real game exactly, but the idea could be a loose interpretation. I really love the Spanish promo a few months ago that had a giant chess board and compared the characters to playing pieces. Locke was telling Walt while playing Backgammon that there were two sides, light and dark. Darlton every season sets up the characters to be on a certain side and over the course of the season some switch sides.

Season 1 had the castaways vs. the Others then season 2 had the Main castaways vs. the Tallies until most of the Tailies got wiped out. Season 3 was the Castaways vs. the Others to a greater degree and by the end Juliet switched teams and a lot of the Others died. Season 4 the Castaways split into two teams with people switching back and forth a lot. Plus the added team of the Frieghties which also broke into two groups of Mercs and good. The science team joined the Castaways and the rest got killed along with the Mercs. Now we see the final pieces gathering. It looks like possibly Claire, Sayid and Sawyer are going to be joining The Man in Black with Jack, Kate, Hurley and Miles on Jacobs’s team. But Darlton has said recently that people will be switching teams throughout the season.

There’s also the idea of redemption all throughout Lost which points to the test/pass/fail aspect of the series. So far it seams that Jacob is all about free will and MIB seams to be about controlling people to get them to do his will or manipulation. But that could all change since we don’t really know what twists that Darlton will spring on us. We think that we know Jacob to be good and MIB to be bad which most likely is true, but maybe it might just be the opposite.

2) Well it’s going to take a long time and a lot of set up work for me to be able to see Sawyer with anyone other then Juliet, but its possible. I recently posted an E! Kristen interview with Evangeline Lilly where she said that Kate has tried both Jack and Sawyer and doesn’t really fit with ether for different reasons, which the only way might be through the Flash Sideways. Also Matthew Fox said that he doesn’t really think that Jack and Kate will get together. Frankly I would like to see Sawyer somehow sacrifice himself in the finale and be with Juliet in some sort of afterlife and that Jack and Kate find redemption/character conclusion that’s separate from each other.


Karen @ Karen's Lost Notebook
http://karenslostnotebook.blogspot.com

1) LOST is a living breathing chess game and puzzle. There are bits of many other games that make up what we see such as Backgammon, Mouse Trap, even horse shoes and playing cards. We have witnessed the “loophole” or “cheat” utilized more than a few times before. As much as fans don’t like when I use the principles of video games to describe certain situations in LOST, here is exactly where I need to use it again. “Another go-around” in the metaphor layer of the story is very “Dharma”. But as the game layer it may be showing us that the players/subjects have to do-over the levels/scenarios until they get it right. They seem to need to truly see themselves and to face the truth, to heal from past pain, suffering, behavior and addiction, to forgive themselves and others and to learn. These two layers seem to work together. In other words, when they’ve completed these steps and enlightenment has been reached, maybe it is then they can leave the game.

2) Kate needs to stop playing ping pong with these two men. Until she can see her true “self” she won’t end up with anyone.


Izikavazo @ Not Confused, Just Lost
http://ncjl.wordpress.com

1) I certainly hope it's not some kind of game. But there's no doubt that it's a test. Morality is one of the main themes in Lost, and all of the characters have faced many tests over the last five plus seasons that have tested their moral fortitude. They've all been given a second chance (in some cases a third or fourth chance) to start their life over. So to pass this test they have to put their past mistakes behind them and become better people.

2) I'd like to think that Sawyer will end up with Juliet off the Island so I guess I want Kate to end up with Jack on the Island... and then I want Jack to die.


Benny @ Finally Lost
http://finallylost.wordpress.com

1) Absolutely! Locke and pre-puberty Walt set the tone for the entire series during their backgammon scenes. At first we thought the Losties were the pawns of The Others with Ben pulling all the strings, but as the wise Richard Alpert says, "Everyone has a boss", and clearly Jacob and Smokey are the Tony Danza on this island. The writers keep telling us not to prejudge which of our mysterious "friends" are good/evil but I'd throw my hat in the ring with Jacob. Besides the fact that he pals around with my boy Hurley, Jacob has done a much better PR job simple by not randomly turning into black smoke and killing Losties (will we ever learn why Smokey did that??) Now just because we know who the players are doesn't mean we understand the game, this IS Lost after all. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the series Jacob pulled out a dollar bill and handed it to Smokey "Trading Places" style and said, see I told you Kate would go for Sawyer!!!

2) On the "Official Lost Video Podcast", Evangeline Lilly (Kate) said she thought that Aaron is really the man in her life and her Jawyer relationship was almost moot. If you look at Aaron being the reason Kate's returned to the island and Aaron being the crutch she leaned on to mend her Sawyer-induced broken heart, then I think it's clear she's right. I don't any of us think it's a coincidence in the flash-sideways that Kate ended up in that cab with Claire and helped her out with an Aaron problem. Aaron is the reason Kate stopped running and Aaron is the reason Kate doesn't have room in her heart for Jack or Sawyer. In an Aaron-less world I think Kate would have picked Sawyer, like any sane woman that's seen him without a shirt. Unfortunately for Kate, in timeline Prime (where the island is still above the ocean) Sawyer's known 3 years of a life with a woman who didn't constantly lie and who wasn't bouncing between men like a employee at the Vegas Bunny Ranch. That unfortunately leaves her with a consolation prize of Jack "the crying man" and we all saw how those off-island romances work out...


Chris @ SuperDuperStream
http://superduperstream.blogspot.com

1) Every time I read those three letters that describe Smokey/NotLocke - MIB - I am instantly thrown into a terrifying recollection of the Will Smith movie Men In Black. No, I'm not saying I dislike that movie (for the record, I'm indifferent) instead those letters constantly remind me of the final scene. In a very 'burbs-esque move (read: plagiarism), the camera pulls back, waaaaaaaaay back, and shows us that our world is nothing more than a marble in a game played by beings we have no ability to comprehend. I fear that Lost will end in such a way - our characters (read: human beings) are trapped in a pre-destined game between beings we can't understand, be they gods, angels or aliens. In simple terms, this is a game - to go deeper, this is an extended discussion on nature vs nurture, free will vs fate; a TV show that will be dissected for years to come.

The second part of this question asks how the characters/game pieces can possibly win. I don't think survival is merely enough. Hopefully by the end of the show - whether it is the original show or this "X" show - we will see our characters fundamentally changed in a manner no other show has dared attempt. We know that Jack is our hero with a hero complex, Hurley is our depressed comic relief, Sayid is our tortured torturer, Kate is our villainous heroine, Sawyer is our sympathetic anti-hero. This is who these people are - conflicted, sure, but fundamentally the same people they were at the start of the show. I think they "win/pass" when they finally settle into one aspect of their personality - will Kate become an honest hero, will Hurley ever find happiness, will Jin raise a happy and stable family? These are the things I hope we find out.

2) I've never found it easy to like Kate. Sure, there are arguments to be made that for every bad thing she does, she does something good. But the problem there is that she always does bad things - she murders, she lies, she puts lives at risk, she ignores the requests of others, etc. I find it hard to root for her being with anyone, but I think her and Jack could be good for each other if they dug past the surface - this isn't about the Doctor and the female lead getting together, this is about two tortured souls who try to do good but fail to realise that true "goodness" sometimes lies in letting others make their own choices, whether you agree with them or not. So I guess I am on the side of the Jaters, but traditionally I have felt she was more suited to Sawyer (until Juliet came along).


That's it for this week - tune in next time for more Questions & Answers (and wild guesswork!). If you are interested in taking part, pop me an email at lostquestions23@gmail.com - the more the merrier, and you don't necessarily have to be a Lost blogger to join in (although it does help!).