lost episode 6x15: across the sea
EPIC MYTHOLOGY EPISODE IS EPIC. OMG.
- They were speaking Latin in the beginning of the episode, which made me go "YESSSS" in excitement because I have been waiting to hear more extended conversation in Latin (more than Richard's "Ille qui nos omnes servabit") since "Jughead." I'd like to think that everyone was actually speaking in Latin for the entire episode and they just switched to English so that we wouldn't have to deal with an entirely subtitled episode (and so the actors wouldn't have to spend a whole episode speaking a dead language, haha). Does this mean that Jacob and Man in Black can trace their heritage back to ancient Rome? (Their real mother's name, Claudia, is definitely a name that was used a lot in ancient Rome.) I also read online prior to the airing of this episode that this episode went back to the year 23 A.D., which I believe was during the time of the Roman Empire (my knowledge of Roman history is tragically falling short right now), so that would kind of make sense. (But how the heck would people from a Europe-based empire end up all the way in the Pacific Ocean?)
- So apparently Man in Black just doesn't have a name at all. I've concluded that he's kind of like Tidus in Final Fantasy X in that no one ever calls him by a name. In this episode MIB was pretty much exclusively referred to as "him" or "brother," just like how in FFX Tidus is always "him" or "you" or "new guy" or "Jecht's son." Even if his mother didn't give him a name, though, you'd think it would have been easier for Crazy Mother to give him a name. I mean, I'd feel pretty bad if I was Man in Black and Jacob had a name but I didn't. (Although Jacob always thought MIB was Crazy Mother's favorite, so clearly Jacob didn't feel superior in any way.)
- Jacob and MIB always played a game with black and white stones (an old Egyptian game according to Lostpedia; my mum said that apparently we used to have that game, but I don't ever remember playing it). The fact that in the future they give the other a stone when they one-up each other in some way seems to kind of reference that game. Was that what MIB was referring to when he said that the stones were a sort of "inside joke"?
- So what seems to be the whole purpose for protecting the island is the large source of light. TOTAL KINGDOM HEARTS CONNECTION THERE, FOLKS. Especially when Crazy Mother called it the heart of the island. All I could think of was Ansem being all "Within lies the heart of all worlds... Kingdom Hearts!" Anyway, what really made me think of Kingdom Hearts was when Crazy Mother was talking about how everyone has a bit of the light inside them, and someone has to protect the light on the island or else people will begin trying to claim the light for themselves and fight over it. That totally reminds me of the story that Kairi's grandmother tells her in the flashback sequence towards the end of the first Kingdom Hearts game: "Long ago, people lived in peace, bathed in the warmth of light. Everyone loved the light. Then people began to fight over it. They wanted to keep it for themselves. And darkness was born in their hearts. " There's also the fact that MIB wants to leave the island and see what's beyond it, and at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts Riku (and Sora and Kairi, but mostly Riku) wants to leave Destiny Islands and see the other worlds. And Ansem (well, Terranort's Heartless.... damn, I hate how complicated it is to identify the villains in that series)'s description of Riku toward the end of the game kind of reminds me of Man in Black: "Take a look at this tiny place. To the heart seeking freedom, this island is a prison, surrounded by water. And so this boy sought to escape from his prison. He sought a way to cross over into other worlds. And he opened his heart to darkness." Also, on the subject of wanting to leave islands, I'm pretty sure it was revealed in Birth By Sleep (I've only seen bits and pieces of subtitled Japanese cutscenes) that Master Xehanort was also from Destiny Islands and wanted to escape it too... so that would totally fit in with my postulation earlier in the season that MIB = Master Xehanort.
- A cool little thing that ties into my own life: one of my writing projects that I've been working on for the past two years is called Across the Ocean (almost identical to the title of this episode). It takes place on an isolated island, and much of the conflict in it has to do with whether or not the people should stay on the island and accept new arrivals on the island. Incidentally, the young Man in Black is pretty much exactly how I picture the main character of Across the Ocean.
- So Crazy Mother apparently made it so that Jacob and Man in Black couldn't kill each other (she probably didn't want them fighting over being the protector of the island). Of course, my family seems to think that she didn't really actually make it that way, she just told them so to make them think that they couldn't kill each other. My brother also pointed out that maybe all of the "rules" of the island that Jacob and Man in Black always talk about aren't actually that important; they're just things that got passed down over the years from one protector of the island to the other. I think there was more about that that I was discussing with my mum and my brother, but I can't keep it all straight. My mum tends to overcomplicate things when theorizing about Lost--we spent fifteen minutes after this episode trying to figure out how Widmore fits into everything (considering he lived on the island for a long time, and so might have known something about the light because he was in the same group as Richard and even acted as leader to that group, and we know that Richard is Jacob's go-between). Honestly, I'd just much rather wait until Widmore's motives are actually revealed than break my brain trying to figure it all out right now, but whatever.
- Crazy Mother says "They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same," which is what MIB says to Jacob in the beginning of "The Incident" (to which Jacob replies, "It only ends once. Anything before that is just progress"). Crazy Mother and MIB seem to have the same belief that humanity is capable of becoming corrupted (which is why she killed Jacob and MIB's birth mother and raised them as her own, so she could protect them from evil and ensure that they remained good). The difference is that Crazy Mother actually sheltered people from evil, whereas MIB doesn't.
- Early on in the first season (I believe it was in "Walkabout"), Locke comes into contact with Smokey and describes seeing a great light, and later he describes the experience as "I looked in to the eye of the island, and what I saw was beautiful." Does that have any connection to the light at the heart of the island? Was is something that Smokey perhaps showed to him?
- Were there any other people on the island at that time other than Crazy Mother, Jacob, MIB, and the people from the shipwreck? Crazy Mother said that she got to the island the same way as the people from the shipwreck did (by accident), so how did she get to the island/where does she come from?
- Did the wine that Crazy Mother give to Jacob when she named him as the next protector of the island give him immortality? She tells him that it made him "the same as her," and she definitely didn't seem to be getting any older during the thirty-some years that elapsed in the episode. Was that why she was able to die, because she passed her immortality on to Jacob in some way? Does this mean that because Jacob was able to die, he had also already named his successor in some way and granted them his immortality? But the only character we've seen him explicitly give immortality to is Richard... Hmm. (The wine bottle was also the same one that Jacob uses in his analogy for what the island is.)
- So pretty much the only reason why MIB wants to leave the island is because he knows that he does not come from the island and he wants to see what else there is. That seems like a pretty valid reason to me... although the fact that he's done a lot of ridiculous things to achieve that end kind of ruins it.
- I specifically remember noting the bright yellow light visible behind where the frozen donkey wheel was when we first saw it in "There's No Place Like Home"... I remember thinking how cool and fantasy-like that looked. Who knew it would actually turn out to be the awesome shiny light that is the whole reason for protecting the island? (I'm not even going to question how the light can be used to teleport people off the island to Tunisia...)
- Speaking of "who knew that it would actually be THAT" moments... Adam and Eve are revealed at last! (I'll return to them later, after I ponder the creation of Smokey.)
- I totally called that MIB would become Smokey when he went into the light. Except... MIB actually has a physical dead body (the "Adam" part of "Adam and Eve"), so does that mean that Smokey is the dark embodiment of his spirit or something? (I could go all Kingdom Hearts again and say it's like his Heartless...) Even though MIB's physical body is dead, is Smokey the way that he continues to live on, but he can only take the human forms of dead people? I wish we would have gotten a little more information there.
- MIB seems to have a connection to dead people on the island that Jacob doesn't; he was able to see his mother when Jacob couldn't. Is that why in the present, MIB has seen the younger Jacob twice (and is it significant that he's seeing young Jacob rather than adult Jacob?), and is it significant that Sawyer and Desmond have also been able to see young Jacob?
- Going back to the Adam and Eve reveal... I don't think anyone back in season one would have been able to guess who those skeletons where and how they got there. I mean, even a couple of season ago if you had told me that "Adam and Eve" were two people who don't have even have official names, one of whom was protecting the island because it holds awesome shiny light while the other thought the former (his adoptive mother) was crazy because she tried to keep him on the island and so was trying to use the awesome shiny light to leave the island but then the adoptive mother killed the people he was living with so he went crazy and killed her, causing his brother to get angry and throw him into the awesome shiny light turning him into the smoke monster... yeah, I would've thought that was crazy. It was really cool, though, seeing the footage from season one (everyone looked so much younger then!) as Jack, Kate, and Locke came across these two skeletons who end up being central to the mythology of the island by the end of the series. (And, ironically, the Smokey form of "Adam" would eventually end up taking the form of Locke one of the people who came across the skeletons.) I can't wait to go back and rewatch the whole series (which I'm going to do after the finale airs) and see how all of these little things turn out to be hugely significant.
The reality that Lost will be over in less than two weeks is really starting to hit me now. Man, I'm going to miss this show so much. As much as I'm going to miss new episodes, though, I can't wait to find out how it ends, and then go back and watch the whole series to see how everything ties together. Especially over the past few weeks I've had a desire to start watching season one again, but I might as well just wait until the whole series is over.
- They were speaking Latin in the beginning of the episode, which made me go "YESSSS" in excitement because I have been waiting to hear more extended conversation in Latin (more than Richard's "Ille qui nos omnes servabit") since "Jughead." I'd like to think that everyone was actually speaking in Latin for the entire episode and they just switched to English so that we wouldn't have to deal with an entirely subtitled episode (and so the actors wouldn't have to spend a whole episode speaking a dead language, haha). Does this mean that Jacob and Man in Black can trace their heritage back to ancient Rome? (Their real mother's name, Claudia, is definitely a name that was used a lot in ancient Rome.) I also read online prior to the airing of this episode that this episode went back to the year 23 A.D., which I believe was during the time of the Roman Empire (my knowledge of Roman history is tragically falling short right now), so that would kind of make sense. (But how the heck would people from a Europe-based empire end up all the way in the Pacific Ocean?)
- So apparently Man in Black just doesn't have a name at all. I've concluded that he's kind of like Tidus in Final Fantasy X in that no one ever calls him by a name. In this episode MIB was pretty much exclusively referred to as "him" or "brother," just like how in FFX Tidus is always "him" or "you" or "new guy" or "Jecht's son." Even if his mother didn't give him a name, though, you'd think it would have been easier for Crazy Mother to give him a name. I mean, I'd feel pretty bad if I was Man in Black and Jacob had a name but I didn't. (Although Jacob always thought MIB was Crazy Mother's favorite, so clearly Jacob didn't feel superior in any way.)
- Jacob and MIB always played a game with black and white stones (an old Egyptian game according to Lostpedia; my mum said that apparently we used to have that game, but I don't ever remember playing it). The fact that in the future they give the other a stone when they one-up each other in some way seems to kind of reference that game. Was that what MIB was referring to when he said that the stones were a sort of "inside joke"?
- So what seems to be the whole purpose for protecting the island is the large source of light. TOTAL KINGDOM HEARTS CONNECTION THERE, FOLKS. Especially when Crazy Mother called it the heart of the island. All I could think of was Ansem being all "Within lies the heart of all worlds... Kingdom Hearts!" Anyway, what really made me think of Kingdom Hearts was when Crazy Mother was talking about how everyone has a bit of the light inside them, and someone has to protect the light on the island or else people will begin trying to claim the light for themselves and fight over it. That totally reminds me of the story that Kairi's grandmother tells her in the flashback sequence towards the end of the first Kingdom Hearts game: "Long ago, people lived in peace, bathed in the warmth of light. Everyone loved the light. Then people began to fight over it. They wanted to keep it for themselves. And darkness was born in their hearts. " There's also the fact that MIB wants to leave the island and see what's beyond it, and at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts Riku (and Sora and Kairi, but mostly Riku) wants to leave Destiny Islands and see the other worlds. And Ansem (well, Terranort's Heartless.... damn, I hate how complicated it is to identify the villains in that series)'s description of Riku toward the end of the game kind of reminds me of Man in Black: "Take a look at this tiny place. To the heart seeking freedom, this island is a prison, surrounded by water. And so this boy sought to escape from his prison. He sought a way to cross over into other worlds. And he opened his heart to darkness." Also, on the subject of wanting to leave islands, I'm pretty sure it was revealed in Birth By Sleep (I've only seen bits and pieces of subtitled Japanese cutscenes) that Master Xehanort was also from Destiny Islands and wanted to escape it too... so that would totally fit in with my postulation earlier in the season that MIB = Master Xehanort.
- A cool little thing that ties into my own life: one of my writing projects that I've been working on for the past two years is called Across the Ocean (almost identical to the title of this episode). It takes place on an isolated island, and much of the conflict in it has to do with whether or not the people should stay on the island and accept new arrivals on the island. Incidentally, the young Man in Black is pretty much exactly how I picture the main character of Across the Ocean.
- So Crazy Mother apparently made it so that Jacob and Man in Black couldn't kill each other (she probably didn't want them fighting over being the protector of the island). Of course, my family seems to think that she didn't really actually make it that way, she just told them so to make them think that they couldn't kill each other. My brother also pointed out that maybe all of the "rules" of the island that Jacob and Man in Black always talk about aren't actually that important; they're just things that got passed down over the years from one protector of the island to the other. I think there was more about that that I was discussing with my mum and my brother, but I can't keep it all straight. My mum tends to overcomplicate things when theorizing about Lost--we spent fifteen minutes after this episode trying to figure out how Widmore fits into everything (considering he lived on the island for a long time, and so might have known something about the light because he was in the same group as Richard and even acted as leader to that group, and we know that Richard is Jacob's go-between). Honestly, I'd just much rather wait until Widmore's motives are actually revealed than break my brain trying to figure it all out right now, but whatever.
- Crazy Mother says "They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same," which is what MIB says to Jacob in the beginning of "The Incident" (to which Jacob replies, "It only ends once. Anything before that is just progress"). Crazy Mother and MIB seem to have the same belief that humanity is capable of becoming corrupted (which is why she killed Jacob and MIB's birth mother and raised them as her own, so she could protect them from evil and ensure that they remained good). The difference is that Crazy Mother actually sheltered people from evil, whereas MIB doesn't.
- Early on in the first season (I believe it was in "Walkabout"), Locke comes into contact with Smokey and describes seeing a great light, and later he describes the experience as "I looked in to the eye of the island, and what I saw was beautiful." Does that have any connection to the light at the heart of the island? Was is something that Smokey perhaps showed to him?
- Were there any other people on the island at that time other than Crazy Mother, Jacob, MIB, and the people from the shipwreck? Crazy Mother said that she got to the island the same way as the people from the shipwreck did (by accident), so how did she get to the island/where does she come from?
- Did the wine that Crazy Mother give to Jacob when she named him as the next protector of the island give him immortality? She tells him that it made him "the same as her," and she definitely didn't seem to be getting any older during the thirty-some years that elapsed in the episode. Was that why she was able to die, because she passed her immortality on to Jacob in some way? Does this mean that because Jacob was able to die, he had also already named his successor in some way and granted them his immortality? But the only character we've seen him explicitly give immortality to is Richard... Hmm. (The wine bottle was also the same one that Jacob uses in his analogy for what the island is.)
- So pretty much the only reason why MIB wants to leave the island is because he knows that he does not come from the island and he wants to see what else there is. That seems like a pretty valid reason to me... although the fact that he's done a lot of ridiculous things to achieve that end kind of ruins it.
- I specifically remember noting the bright yellow light visible behind where the frozen donkey wheel was when we first saw it in "There's No Place Like Home"... I remember thinking how cool and fantasy-like that looked. Who knew it would actually turn out to be the awesome shiny light that is the whole reason for protecting the island? (I'm not even going to question how the light can be used to teleport people off the island to Tunisia...)
- Speaking of "who knew that it would actually be THAT" moments... Adam and Eve are revealed at last! (I'll return to them later, after I ponder the creation of Smokey.)
- I totally called that MIB would become Smokey when he went into the light. Except... MIB actually has a physical dead body (the "Adam" part of "Adam and Eve"), so does that mean that Smokey is the dark embodiment of his spirit or something? (I could go all Kingdom Hearts again and say it's like his Heartless...) Even though MIB's physical body is dead, is Smokey the way that he continues to live on, but he can only take the human forms of dead people? I wish we would have gotten a little more information there.
- MIB seems to have a connection to dead people on the island that Jacob doesn't; he was able to see his mother when Jacob couldn't. Is that why in the present, MIB has seen the younger Jacob twice (and is it significant that he's seeing young Jacob rather than adult Jacob?), and is it significant that Sawyer and Desmond have also been able to see young Jacob?
- Going back to the Adam and Eve reveal... I don't think anyone back in season one would have been able to guess who those skeletons where and how they got there. I mean, even a couple of season ago if you had told me that "Adam and Eve" were two people who don't have even have official names, one of whom was protecting the island because it holds awesome shiny light while the other thought the former (his adoptive mother) was crazy because she tried to keep him on the island and so was trying to use the awesome shiny light to leave the island but then the adoptive mother killed the people he was living with so he went crazy and killed her, causing his brother to get angry and throw him into the awesome shiny light turning him into the smoke monster... yeah, I would've thought that was crazy. It was really cool, though, seeing the footage from season one (everyone looked so much younger then!) as Jack, Kate, and Locke came across these two skeletons who end up being central to the mythology of the island by the end of the series. (And, ironically, the Smokey form of "Adam" would eventually end up taking the form of Locke one of the people who came across the skeletons.) I can't wait to go back and rewatch the whole series (which I'm going to do after the finale airs) and see how all of these little things turn out to be hugely significant.
The reality that Lost will be over in less than two weeks is really starting to hit me now. Man, I'm going to miss this show so much. As much as I'm going to miss new episodes, though, I can't wait to find out how it ends, and then go back and watch the whole series to see how everything ties together. Especially over the past few weeks I've had a desire to start watching season one again, but I might as well just wait until the whole series is over.