Tag: Lovecraft

Lost’s “Solitary:” Karma Hole

~ Piece, of the Sky

Said would be very good in the Gulf Wars version of Apocalypse Now, (not Jarhead, although that’s also a good movie). The Men Who Stare at Goats also comes to mind. Intel and comms.

In Survivor: Borneo, and other seasons, the tribe-mates eat rat. They’re not eating rabbits on the Lost Island. Speaking of rodents, here comes the Island plague. The Losties begin lathering up, to prevent disease. Got to stop the boar rash. Avoid a genetic bottleneck.

Rousseau is a genius. She built her whole bunker and several bunkers – like my underground Minecraft lair, in 2011-2013. She is good at signal, SERE and EOD. She knows her weapons: can’t shoot an M9 without a firing pin.

Rousseau says there are no monsters. Hell is other people. Some people, on the island, are way scarier than random beasts, like polar bears or obscure smoke monsters. Sartre. Cut to Soldier Said executing a prisoner. Nadia’s real name is Nur, Arabic for Light.

There are polar bears on the island, but humans are the most dangerous animal. In a museum I went to, as a kid, they would show you a mirror, after asking you what the most dangerous animal was. They were holding up a mirror to the darkness of the human condition. The true heart of darkness.

As noted earlier, the B plot is a bamboo aqueduct. The Losties get a plumbing system, like in ancient Rome. Showers and bathrooms. Unfortunately, for Rome, many of those pipes, back then, were made of lead. Plumbum. Pb. That certainly made for some wild Saturnalia feasts, near the Winter Solstice.

The Staff Station reminds me of the caduceus, carried by the god Mercury, namesake of another dangerous element. This mystical staff is also often connected, mistakenly, to medicine. Moses lifted up a serpent, on a staff, to heal the Israelites of a disease, in the Old Testament.

Rousseau faced the disease that killed her expedition – an epidemic from the slave ship, the Black Rock, like smallpox blankets, given to the New World. The Black Plague followed one of the Crusades, and was featured in the film, The Seventh Seal. The flu outbreak, that followed World War I, took the lives of millions.

The Others. Polar Bears. Two shipwrecks. Dharma Stations. There are so many threats on the Island. It is a quantum space-time sinkhole, the bottom of the world. One step above the Netherworld, the Other Side. One Step away from the global spirit world. Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun believed that there was life after death. He created the Saturn V rocket that took us to the moon.

The Dark Territory. Smoke monsters. Remnants. The island is a very dangerous pocket dimension. Survivor: Ghost Island is the Lost Island. Rousseau’s expedition was there to study space-time. The Numbers (from the equation) involve all of the planet’s history and time. And of course, the Hatch is a time capsule.

The whole island, itself, is a conduit and a time capsule, from ancient times. It folded away, from the rest of the world, almost 6000 years ago, only to be reconnected by wormholes. The Lost Island is a place that is a medium. The spirit of that place is very strong, like Genius Loci, in ancient Roman spirituality. Some of the statues, of those spirits, that have survived, held up snakes, to offer pilgrims protection and healing. Snakes and rats. Mercury and lead.

LOST. Season 1. The Re-watch!

~ Piece, of the Sky

The switch from the ’90s to the 2000s was like the switch from the ’70s to the ’80s. Science to emotion. 1984. That’s the tonal shift that goes through all of Lost – science to faith and spirituality. From the science of the Vietnam War, back to ancient Egypt, Sumer and Mesopotamia.

In 1984, the world didn’t end – but the world as we know it ended. In string theory, there are 11 dimensions. In 1984, something came through the veil, something so terrible and vast, that even the two Cold War enemies could be united against it. [Fictional references – Watchmen, Akira, FullMetal Alchemist, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Stranger Things, Hellboy, Gravity’s Rainbow.]

People called in the 1920s, and something answered in the 1940s. People called in the 1970s, and something answered in 1984. Heck, some calls in the 1920s, didn’t come through until 1984. What was called to in the deep? It’s all very Lovecraft. That’s the kind of stuff I liked about Lost.

There are more irrational numbers – that can not be represented with fractions – than rational numbers, and even more transcendental numbers – like pi, that can’t be the solution, in an algebraic equation – than even those.

Maybe Lost is secretly on a good exoplanet, with Earth-like oceans and a stable atmosphere. Minecraft and Lost aren’t After the End; they’re new beginnings. After Earth. But in a good way.

I like the idea of the smoke monster appearing differently, to every person. The smoke monster is whatever you want it to be. And, of course, for someone who so desperately needs to believe, like Locke, the smoke monster would be beautiful.