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Aug. 10th, 2014 12:48 amMore decade-late Lost spoilers:
Desmond's explanation of the Locke/Desmond light moment takes a lot away from it, since he interprets it as about fate and/or faith, not human beings needing each other. Ah well.
Eko's death was still powerful, though there too he says a prayer after his refusal to confess his sins. Which makes the moment odd, since he's been assuming his brother was sent from heaven to get him to repent. One would think his refusal would be tantamount to a refusal of God, on the grounds of His lack of omnibenevolence by human standards, like Mimi Rogers' decision in The Rapture. Though you could say he un-rejects God when he realizes he's dealing with some other entity; since it's not God who's being a jerk it's again okay to ask for his protection, I guess. Protection which of course doesn't come, but in Christianity the good stuff comes when you're past protecting anyway.
But religion doesn't come across well in the episode, given the superstitions of the villagers (and drug dealers), who treat it like a system of cruel, magical rules: priests must never commit violence even to save, sacred places are ruined by unclean acts even when those cause good, it's bad to kill a priest but not ordinary people. And given the cultic presentation of the Others in these episodes, and the drug cult John joined in the previous one, at the very least order-following, explanation-withholding forms are being set up as the show's major villain. The possibility's left at least temporarily alive that the god of the island is that of the world. Without his own conviction he's guilty, the monster can't manipulate Eko, making him a potential obstacle hence worth getting rid of. Killing those who achieve true gnosis so they can't spread it doesn't seem like a bad strategy for a dyspeptic archon (not Eko's brother in two ways, the less obvious being that he isn't a human, hence feels no obligation to care about their lives or breakthroughs). Being killed mid-prayer is a sad irony, but of course we don't see Eko as having been defeated: we react to his epiphany as a gnostic one, as the successful completion of a noble story, hence gaining him more than his being subsequently murdered takes away.
So even if the scene's kept open to vaguer, cheerier ideas of God it's secular values that are at work here. The ones that could judge that God is not God if He doesn't flawlessly adhere to them, which He can't possibly given how the world is, but of course here you can at least choose to not believe your lying eyes. But for things to be good merely because God says they are isn't optically faulty but rationally so. Obliquely attacking old time religion may not seem terribly brave but it certainly wasn't yet common in 2006. But it's narratively legitimate, in that it serves as a reminder of one of those truths we mostly forget when it isn't isolated and clarified through an involving, time-bound example. And it saves a single character's arc in a show that screwed up damn near all the others.
Desmond's explanation of the Locke/Desmond light moment takes a lot away from it, since he interprets it as about fate and/or faith, not human beings needing each other. Ah well.
Eko's death was still powerful, though there too he says a prayer after his refusal to confess his sins. Which makes the moment odd, since he's been assuming his brother was sent from heaven to get him to repent. One would think his refusal would be tantamount to a refusal of God, on the grounds of His lack of omnibenevolence by human standards, like Mimi Rogers' decision in The Rapture. Though you could say he un-rejects God when he realizes he's dealing with some other entity; since it's not God who's being a jerk it's again okay to ask for his protection, I guess. Protection which of course doesn't come, but in Christianity the good stuff comes when you're past protecting anyway.
But religion doesn't come across well in the episode, given the superstitions of the villagers (and drug dealers), who treat it like a system of cruel, magical rules: priests must never commit violence even to save, sacred places are ruined by unclean acts even when those cause good, it's bad to kill a priest but not ordinary people. And given the cultic presentation of the Others in these episodes, and the drug cult John joined in the previous one, at the very least order-following, explanation-withholding forms are being set up as the show's major villain. The possibility's left at least temporarily alive that the god of the island is that of the world. Without his own conviction he's guilty, the monster can't manipulate Eko, making him a potential obstacle hence worth getting rid of. Killing those who achieve true gnosis so they can't spread it doesn't seem like a bad strategy for a dyspeptic archon (not Eko's brother in two ways, the less obvious being that he isn't a human, hence feels no obligation to care about their lives or breakthroughs). Being killed mid-prayer is a sad irony, but of course we don't see Eko as having been defeated: we react to his epiphany as a gnostic one, as the successful completion of a noble story, hence gaining him more than his being subsequently murdered takes away.
So even if the scene's kept open to vaguer, cheerier ideas of God it's secular values that are at work here. The ones that could judge that God is not God if He doesn't flawlessly adhere to them, which He can't possibly given how the world is, but of course here you can at least choose to not believe your lying eyes. But for things to be good merely because God says they are isn't optically faulty but rationally so. Obliquely attacking old time religion may not seem terribly brave but it certainly wasn't yet common in 2006. But it's narratively legitimate, in that it serves as a reminder of one of those truths we mostly forget when it isn't isolated and clarified through an involving, time-bound example. And it saves a single character's arc in a show that screwed up damn near all the others.
