x-posted from clubjj
"I mean, think about it John. Imagine how much happier your childhood would have been if you had no idea who your parents were."
The audience can’t help but feel some sympathy for the character who valiantly rescues Claire from her bizarre imprisonment. But then Claire comes to the realization that this girl is Danielle Rousseau's baby. Immediately, and within the very same episode that revelation instantly turns Alex’s story upside down. She’s just not a kind other who had a soft spot for Claire and her baby, she’s the daughter that the french woman has gone crazy looking for.
Suddenly and without even knowing her name, she has more potential than any other character introduced in season 2.
The only difference between Alex and the main cast members is she hasn’t had her own episode and that the gloriously beautiful Tania Raymonde never appeared on the main credits. But Alex has a story as beautifully complex - in some cases even much more so - than other characters to have appeared as the main cast. She has a background so vast, and so involved with so many moments and points of the plot, that her involvement in the show becomes important and rich, provoking some of the most impressive plot twists in the show, much in spite of her short screen time.
A great deal of the attractive in a character like Alex is how her story unfolds for the audience, not only slowly and almost teasingly but in key points of the story and through pivotal moments for characters that the audience finds itself already caring about.
Because that is the other great appeal she has. Alex’s story is layered through her involvement with others, the first one being her lineage. Both biological and adoptive. Through a disjointed timeline - as it’s not unusual in Lost - It becomes fascinating to
find how Alex is first conceived by Danielle and Robert in a time of happiness and tranquility far too unrelated to subsequent insanity with which the audience first encounters Danielle.This insanity that was propelled first by the cruel fate that led her to give birth to Alex in an unknown jungle on her own, and later on heightened by Ben’s brutal and crude kidnapping of baby Alex. A kidnapping Ben did in a kind refusal to follow through Charles Widmore’s order of execution for the baby.
This act becomes later on a testament to the traits of Ben that take the longest to come out to the audience. Because Ben takes the baby and raises her to grow into the only thing he ever cared about and truly loved above his power and his authority - in spite of how long it takes for him to realize it -. But she’s the same young woman Ben gives away to her mother, in an act provoked by Alex’s betrayal, which is in time provoked by Ben’s inability to find a peaceful way to deal with her newfound maturity. But that reunion with her daughter brings a peace of mind to Danielle that she hadn’t experienced yet on the course of the show at that point.
Yet on her own, Alex surprisingly has traits from both her families. She’s fearless and strong like her mother, and passionate and guileful like her adoptive father. And through the slow reveal of these traits, she also reveals herself as kind and smart, compassionate and stubborn. She risks everything to rescue Claire and set her free. She defies Jack’s commitment to saving Ben and later helps him save Juliet from her death.
She isn’t afraid to make a deal with strangers to defy her father or to hand John Locke a gun to defend him from Ben (with a hint of cruelty, adding insult to injury by wishing Ben a happy birthday) and then doesn’t hesitate to warn the survivors of Ben’s plan, setting into motion one of the most captivating season finales of Lost with that. She works her way into the story with a coolness and resistance that is unknown to other - bigger perhaps - characters,
but at the same time does it with a sweet tenderness that is endearing and that ultimately makes her death all the more disheartening.
Because she shows that underneath all her strong defiance of Ben, she cares deeply about him and still trusts his concern for her to be genuine. Until the very last minute, Alex makes the decision to trust Ben with her life, and it ultimately brings death upon her. Is Alex’s death a true testament to the fullness of her character? Perhaps it really isn’t. But then again, few characters experience a glorious or heroic death. Alex’s however, albeit fast and painfully cruel, continues to haunt the show and its characters to this day.
In a show that spins its vortex into so many different directions and with such different intentions - even after death -, Alex stands out and steals the spotlight whenever she comes up because unlike many other secondary characters, Alexandra Rousseau was created to stand in the background but change the course of the show with her blessed and at the same time cursed storyline.
