Enemy turf

[prog]

Just watched three more Losts at dougo's. I have some problems with elements introduced during season two. I find one particular character deeply unlikable, not in a boo-hiss way but in a STFU way. And tonight I actually managed to find an episode politically repugnant.

Comments

[ruthling]

ack, spoilers!

I know real folks are waiting for 3rd season, but I'm just a few eps behind you on second. can you please, as a favor to me, cut any additional LOST musings?

[prog]

I'm sorry... I tried to keep it free of effective spoilers, but with a serial show like this I should really play it safe and hide everything. I'll do so in the future.

[ruthling]

Eh, it's no big deal, it's just funny you being ever so slightly ahead of me. And I'm sad because the last few eps we've seen were, I thought, really quite good, and I know more suck is coming...

[prog]

If it makes you feel better, I thought another of the three eps we saw kicked ass; it was dark, acid and sweet.

I enjoy honest intercharacter conflict, but this bit of business was just... ill-timed.

[kahuna_burger]

If you find any show or movie that doesn't go with the "info obtained by torture is 100% reliable and the only issues are morals/squeamishness" trope, I will be VERY impressed. In fairness, I'm not sure its a political thing so much as it is an "easy storytelling" or fantasy fulfillment thing

[prog]

Yes, I think you're right about it not being intentionally political. In some ways the assumptions about the world that it's based on is no uglier than "Everyone is a selfish liar", but the fact that it hits very close to a certain international political controversy that I've been following, and following angrily, really gets my hackles up.

I submit that what happened on this show was of a different class than typical action-hero beat-the-info-out scenes because it didn't even try to equivocate. One of the good guys was torturing someone who continued to profess his innocence, and the only person who moved to stop it (maybe the most A-grade hero-type character on the show) did so more out of concern that the guy was getting seriously hurt than out of objection to the practice altogether.

[dougo]

Hm, I thought you were talking about the flashback, not the main plotline. The person who was "moved to stop it" was actually pretty adamant about saying "what if he's innocent?" and tried pretty hard to get it to stop. I really don't think you're supposed to feel sympathetic to the pro-torture side. (Especially the "I know he's guilty because I didn't feel guilty" speech at the end-I think that was supposed to sound as monstrous as it did.) (Actually I don't think you're supposed to feel sympathetic to any character on the show-they're all anti-heros in one or more ways. Which also answers the "everyone's a selfish liar" question-this is not supposed to be a representative sampling of the population as a whole. In fact there's a lot of speculation that someone arranged for these particular people to end up on that plane, but that's another whole topic

[prog]

Jack's objection was not to the fact that there was torture at all, but concern that the torture was being misused. After all, he was all in favor of torturing Sawyer way back in one of the first episodes.

I just wanted anyone to raise the point that information gained through torture is suspect, at best. (Or to call out Sayid for acting like a straight-up sociopath, as one of our friends noted, instead of just a conflicted soldier.) There was lots of opportunity for this to happen without changing the path of that episode's story, but it didn't happen.

You're correct that the torture wasn't very sympathetic, but I think it was unsympathetic for the wrong reasons. As I said to Ms. Burger, I split hairs over this because of unfortunate timing: I watched this episode while possessing a low-level burning rage over the Bush admin's position on torture. You can't blame me for transferring some of that to a TV show that seems, in some way, to agree with that same position.

[radtea]

But I think it crossed a line in an episode that hinged on the assumption that confessions extracted under torture are reliable and true

I would love to see a show in which the macho hero does all the things that macho heros always do--shoot people, torture people, break the law--and every single time have it result in a complete mess that the macho hero is held completely blameless for because "no one could have predicted" that it would end in a complete mess, with dead dead or incarcerated innoncent people and monsters given free reign and massive profitteering and the like.

It would have to be played completely straight, with no element of humour, just like the real world. After a few seasons of continual disaster people would be screaming at the TV, "No, you idiot, don't try to torture the information out of him! He'll just tell you what he thinks you want to know so you'll stop hurting him! Haven't you learned yet that it never works!? What are you, some kind of morally debased imbecile?"

[daerr]

I stopped watching for a while, somewhere around there, and kinda just let the episodes accumulate. (There were new BSG episodes at that point and I wasn't feeling motivated to watch more Lost.) IMO, the season does improve after this.

(Also, on the basis of the admittedly silly Lost podcasts, I think I can say that the Lost creators are not on the other side of the fence politically.)

[prog]

Unfortunately I feel pressured to hurry up and watch the rest of these DVDs coz Season 3 is starting soon and it feels way too much like a deadline. :b

[aspartaimee]

hehehe. you said "taint."