You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
That hath to instrument this lower world
And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea
Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island
Where man doth not inhabit; you 'mongst men
Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;
And even with such-like valour men hang and drown
Their proper selves.
The Tempest. Act iii. Sc. 3
Obsession is a common theme on the island (and on this board.)
Locke is obsessed with the hatch, just like he was with his father.
Jack is obsessed with saving people.
Jin is obsessed with building the raft.
Hurley is obsessed with numbers.
Boone was obsessed with Shannon.
Kate was obsessed with the toy plane.
I don't know if Charlie being addicted is exactly the same.
I'm sure others can name more.
LostInWilderness
Tell me more.
Do you think obsession will help them? Hinder them? Will it lead to conflict
or compassion? Hope or despair?
Will it help them discover the purpose for being there? Will it help solve
the mystery of the dead bodies? Will it give them courage? Cause them
fear?
Do obsession rule their lives or do their lives become more valuable with
obsession? Is it what has kept them alive, or will it cause their demise?
Details please.
JacksGirlfriend
Sorry, I was thinking out loud, and looking for help. I'll have to spend
a few more beers of thought on it before I flesh it out, but here's what
I got off the top of my head.
-Jack's dad said his problem was he couldn't let go - his obsession with
saving people who couldn't be saved was clearly a problem for him.
-Sawyer's obsession with the real Sawyer turned him into the thing he
hated most.
-Locke's obsession with his dad cost him a kidney, and his obsession with
finding the plane cost Boone his life.
-Charlie lost his faith and became a junkie.
-Kate's obsession with the toy plane caused her to rob a bank and shoot
three people.
-Jin's obsession with control and his job cost him his marriage.
I don't think Jack's obsession saved Charlie - I think Charlie lived in
spite of Jack.
I think the characters need to come to grips with their obsessions, and
Jack took a step in that direction in "Do No Harm," like Charlie
did in another episode the name of which I can't think of.
LostInWilderness
Shannon is obsessed with herself (although she seems to be improving as
of late).
I'd never noticed that before--good observation, LostInWilderness!
TallHobbit103
I just read somewhere that before Locke sent Boone into dreamtime, that
Boone was "borderline" obsessive about Shannon. That got me
thinking, he wasn't borderline, Boone was obsessed with Shannon. He took
all the water for her. Locke knocked Boone in the head, tied him up, put
his dreamtime paste on the wound, and cured him from his obsession. Shortly
thereafter Boone died from a very contrived "accident."
I think many or most of the characters need to overcome their obsessions,
but does that mean they will die once they do? Is one power on the island
feeding on the obsessions of the lostaways while the other is trying to
cure them? If a character overcomes an obsession, does one power try to
kill them?
LostInWilderness
I think that you are right about the obsession theme. I think it more
specific that just obsession though. I really see a lot of self obsession
with these people. Kind of like a one track mind. They are all extremely
self involved and self centered. Even when someone is helping another
it is usually because it's in their own best interest. I think that it
is going to evolve into something better though. Only if their lessons
are learned. We are all one. Seperateness is illusion.
thoughtform
Quote:
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I don't know if Charlie being addicted is exactly the same.
------------------
Charlie is obsessed with Claire, or rather, obsessed with trying to prove to her (and perhaps himself) that he genuinely cares about her and her welfare. As for himself, maybe he's trying to prove to himself that he's not the "opportunist" that was shown to us in his last backstory (he deceived that girl originally to pinch some items from her home). Just a thought.
anarane saralonde
Do you think Jack got married because he couldn't let go? Did he marry
the girl he "fixed" because he has a problem with letting go?
Does he do this with all the people he fixes?
ODammet
I don't know how Jack was with all the other people he fixed. But from
what we've seen from him so far he is committed if anything. He does know
that he has a problem wtih letting go though. I think that is why he has
been reluctant in the past when asked to get involved in something. He
knows that once he does he can't go back.
thoughtform
thoughtform said:
"I think that is why he has been reluctant in the past when asked
to get involved in something. He knows that once he does he can't go back."
I'm not sure how I feel about the rest of the obssession theme, but this
struck a chord with me...
azteclady
It's like he resents the commitments he makes or has to make. He gets
all crabby and insensitive and then gets involved out of guilt. So it
seems he feels guilty about most everything that happens, wether his fault
or not. Boy, that really is a God complex.
thoughtform
A very interesting discussion here - I agree that some people are acting
obsessed, although, I am not in agreement on a few of them. Here are some
thoughts:
Locke - agree he is obsessed with opening the hatch and with finding the
Beechcraft plane. However, not with his father. He approached that situation
with caution, even hiring a detective and doing DNA tests on his mother
to confirm the story. Once he found his real father, he allowed himself
to feel happiness and began the process of bonding with his father. He
was acting giddy by the mere thought of spending time with his father.
I did not see obsession in any of this.
Jack - agree he is obsessed with saving lifes - but, to me this is a good
quality for a doctor to have - although to marry a patient that he saved
is a tad bit odd. I think he and Locke are also obsessed with proving
themselves to other people - "don't tell me what I can't do".
If these two become tribe leaders, then I think that their followers will
develop a love/hate relationship with both of them.
Jin - disagree on this one - he is helping with the raft to hopefully
earn a spot on the raft and leave the island. He is obviously a hard worker
- which is a good thing - but, I have not seen obsession yet. Jin is misunderstood
IMO - he has good intentions, yet things turn out bad for him. With regards
to his job, he got in way over his head by working for Sun's father -
but, he stuck it out because of his love for her.
Hurley - this is a tough call - yes, he is obsessed with the numbers -
but, it is entirely justifiable. Put yourself in his shoes - if you went
through everything that he has in relation to those numbers, then you
would react exactly the same way. Just wait until he sees his lucky numbers
inscribed on the hatch - he is going to freak!
Kate - jury is still out on her - yes, she went to a lot of trouble to
get into that deposit box - but, the question is what did she expect to
be in there ? We do not know if the toy plane was what she was really
after - someone has a great theory on her, stating that she is being pursued
by the government for knowing too much about a top secret project. I am
looking forward to her next flashback episode - is she good or bad?
Sawyer - agree that he became obsessed about the real Sawyer - but, come
on, he was a small child when he found out that his mother was cheating
and then had to listen to his mother being murdered by his father, etc.
Same as Hurley - justifiable to me. He may have killed someone, but he
is not evil. Self-centered and a slight pervert - Yes ! However, I am
expecting Sawyer to surprise us all at some point by doing something very
heroic. Maybe, this will be how he eventually dies.
runloganrun
That's funny about Jin. Michael says Jin has an obsession with building
the raft.
Also, Jack's fiance called Jack the most committed person she ever knew,
and Jack's dad says that commitment makes Jack tick, but he can't let
go. Jack's obsessiveness is well documented.
LostInWilderness
What point does committment become obsession? By some measure, one could
claim that any committment, held to and continually acted is an obsession.
For me then, the difference between them lies in the effects produced.
A committment should continually enhance one's own self. Strengthening,
informing, supporting, in fact providing stucture and purpose to one's
life.
Obsession destroys those things. While there can be some initial short
term gains to be had from obsessive behavior, it ultimately saps all that
is worthwhile in life. The degree to which this occurs is in direct correlation
to the strength of the obsession.
That being said, I would have to say that Jack seems to be continually
falling into obsessions, only to pull out at the last minute. His following
the "ghost" of his father (imo a hallucination brought on by
fatigue, grief, and alcohol withdrawal) was bordering on obsessive but
finding the caves (and water which helped to refresh him and allow him
to reorder his thinking) called him back to himself. The torture session
with Sawyer, the drive to move everyone to the caves, the hunt for Claire,
the manic need to 'save' Boone, plus a few other incidents all brought
him to the edge of becoming obsessive, but each time he either was able
to pull himself back or the situation gave him a reality check that gave
him time to reassess his behavior.
Locke on the other hand suffers not from obsession directly, but from
delusional thinking. I suspect that he got started down this road due
to the incident with his father and was further pushed into delusion by
whatever put him in the wheelchair. I don't think he is operating from
obsession with the hatch, but from a delusional world view that is causing
him to fight to hold onto that world view. Something about his delusion
and what it caused him to see when he saw the stobor is what is driving
him. I would say it is fanaticism - which one could argue is a form of
obsession - but I believe there is a different quality to his actions.
I believe he exhibits obsessive qualities at times because of his fanaticism
to his delusion.
Now one who seems like he has become obsessive is Michael. His behavior
seems to me to be obsessive: build the raft but lets be vague about how
much supplies we'll need or which direction to go or how to get back if
they find civilization. His single minded drive to complete and launch
the raft without a concrete plan seems doomed to failure. His driving
need to leave seems to have overcome any common sense or basic planning
for a long term sea voyage. If the raft get
s built and launched, those who are on the raft will not all survive,
if any.
Of the main women, Kate is the only likely one that seems to have the
possibility of being obsessed. One could make a case that her need for
the case was an obsession. But if that was the case, then why wasn't she
trying to find the case before the lake swim. She knew it existed and
was on the flight. Yet she wasn't looking for it and only honed in on
it once she was aware it was available. This reaction to the case, plus
several other incidents detailed so far, have led me to believe Kate may
be insane. Though I don't hold with the view that the lostaways are all
alter egos of only one of the survivors, I do believe it possible that
Kate herself has a split personality. Whether this is due to her being
a twin as some have speculated elsewhere, or is due to some other factor
that caused her to create an uber-Kate identity (and perhaps it is the
fearful Kate personality as evidenced in the pilot and at the beginning
of Claire's labor that is the alternate personality...) I believe that
Kate is not rational.
And other than Hurley's numbers obsession, which now seems quelled, Sawyer's
hunt (I suppose vendettas are merely a focused form of obsession) for
the real Sawyer, and Charlie's addiction, I don't really see what I would
consider obsessive behavior on the part of the other lostaways at this
time.
ChanceGardener
Good to see you back Chance.
Thanks for pointing out the difference between "committed" and
"obsessed", especially with Michael and his commitment on getting
off the island (building the raft & setting it to sail). While he
hasn't clearly shown this attempt for rescue has been clearly thought
out, I'm thinking that whoever is included to "set sail" with
him might be the one(s) who come up with a game plan.
From what we've been shown, Jin appears to be the one determined to complete
the raft quickly as I've never seen him even take a break during it's
construction. Will he be one of the rafters? If so, does he have a game
plan? It's hard to conclude but it appears this determination borders
with the obsession of getting it built as soon as possible.
anarane saralonde
Quote:
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Jin appears to be the one determined to complete the raft quickly as I've
never seen him even take a break during it's construction.
------------------
I was just going to say that, and add a point about motivation.
Jin is motivated to leave the island. I don't know if he's motivated to
do anything beyond leaving. I feel the same about Michael. It's a kind
of single minded fixation or hyper focus. At least Michael takes breaks,
and Jin was capable of suspending his work to attend to Kate's screams
- which seems less "obsessive".
Jack seems motivated to save lives. The question is what is driving the
motivation. It seems more about himself and fear of losing control, and
less about altruistic concern for his patients. So I don't think he's
all that virtuous, even if the end result seems so.
Kate seems motivated by an agenda that we don't have the big picture of
so far. I think if we new what was driving her, we'd understand the conflict
that seems to get inbetween her "special" empathic skills and
her seemingly irrational behavior.
sawyerhasbestlines
Well..Chance eloquently eclipsed my thoughts.
When a term is used...such as obsession, I go straight to clinical applications.
Obsessive-Compulsive behavior is noted in the DSM as a mental disorder.
So...I like the differentiation that Chance states:
committment! When you really go apeshit with committment...that is when
you are borderline obsessive.
Obsession is the thought; compulsion is the act.
cccourt
First question: Chance, can you give more evidence of Kate as psychotic
or MPD/DID? As far as I can see she is extremely rational with the notable
exception of her reaction to the briefcase; in other words, we are alerted
by that incident to imagine a specific cause for the aberrant behavior,
as we do when she lies. I know a little bit about the major emotional
disorders, and someone who displays the extreme empathy that Kate does
would be unlikely to be psychotic, borderline, PPD, or even ADD. If she
had DID, we would see a profound personality change under stress; she's
been under tons of stress, and is still identifiably "Kate"
in her actions (again, outside of the briefcase incident). So I would
peg her as a more-or-less garden variety neurotic with additional problems.
The major difference between our views: I think everything strange about
her character points towards an event(s) in the past, and not towards
a biological or developmental disorder, and thus her actions take on a
dramatic significance they wouldn't if she was "nuts."
Second point:
Cccourt and Chance are correct: OCD is a disorder with a biological component,
manifested in particular ways with different individuals (hand-washing,
counting, supersitions etc.) Plain old obsession is but a symptom of a
neurotic's need to control his or her environment. So yes, the question
is when does striving after a goal transcend committment to exhibit obsessive
behavior? Usually when the effort expended seems to outweight the results
achieved, always when the means seem to possibly contradict the end (hence
the title "Do No Harm"). Since I have a psychoanalytic view
on these things, I see the obsessive as one who fears the loss of control
and_at an extreme degree_equates this with his/her death. This
is a subject position opposed to the classic hysteric, manifested in a
textbook way by Shannon, who seeks approval and love from individuals
more than achievement towards a more concrete goal (there's a lot more
to the obssessive/hysteric dichotomy, but I won't get into it here, suffice
to say that Lost offers textbook exx. of these personality types).
I should say that by calling Shannon a hysteric and Jack, Michael, Jin
and Sawyer obsessives, I am NOT branding them as emotionally disturbed.
These labels indicate certain subject positions of neurotics (which, for
me, represent 99% of mankind, the default position of being born into
21st c. society). Our friends and families are composed of both types,
but few people operate at the extremes (although I'm sure you can think
of someone you know who fits these categories!). On Lost the characters
we focus on DO manifest these traits in excess in order to create drama.
So you might ask, if most humans are neurotic, what does that mean for
us, and what would it mean to be neither neurotic nor psychotic/borderline?
It means that we only deal with our neurosis if it becomes self-destructive
or keeps us from achieving some life goal. And it means that a truly self-actualized
person would be someone with the self-knowledge of all his "triggers,"
all the hidden messages of the Other, who can mentally step back from
his/her interactions with other people and see how projection, manipulation,
the screen of the ego, etc. affect those relations. This person may never
be "happy," but he/she will have a certain kind of peace that
comes with this self-knowledge; that is, be released from the anxiety
of the sense that something he can't put his finger on is driving his
actions and relationships.
Back to Lost: it seems that Hurley and Rose may come close to this "non-neurotic"
control character. Of course Hurley has had to deal with tragedy and his
role in it, and we may view his weight problem as a means of compensation
for being laid-back. Rose on the other hand has her faith, which in itself
is a kind of "symptom," but which grounds her.
Sorry to be so long-winded (ODammet has surely tuned out by now!), but
I had to clarify my views on psychology before applying them to the characters.
I will lay that out in another post so as not to clutter this thread further!
drabauer
along with the characters' obsessions comes the characters' guilt. these
are people dealing with serious issues even before finding themselves
stranded on LOST island. or maybe being stranded is forcing them to look
upon their lives more earnestly. there are strange dangers. people could
and do die. reminds me too of Kate in handcuffs. bound to obsessions?
seeking freedom from the past? i work with clients with obsessive and
other psychiatric traits. i am nearly convinced that they handle their
lives more productively than the LOST people. until i go back to work
the next day that is ...
boonian androphile
This observation about guilt is excellent. I can't name obsessions for
every character, but clearly they're a common theme. Locke may be the
only character without any guilt. Maybe Michael and Walt. I can't think
of another. It will be interesting to see if Locke expresses any guilt
over Boone's death.
Michael must have some guilt about not raising his kid. Walt may feel
some guilt about his mother's death. Kids have that tendency even when
they shouldn't.
Vincent probably feels guilty about being the monster.
LostInWilderness
Quote:
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So you might ask, if most humans are neurotic, what does that mean for
us, and what would it mean to be neither neurotic nor psychotic/borderline?
It means that we only deal with our neurosis if it becomes self-destructive
or keeps us from achieving some life goal. And it means that a truly self-actualized
person would be someone with the self-knowledge of all his "triggers,"
all the hidden messages of the Other, who can mentally step back from
his/her interactions with other people and see how projection, manipulation,
the screen of the ego, etc. affect those relations. This person may never
be "happy," but he/she will have a certain kind of peace that
comes with this self-knowledge; that is, be released from the anxiety
of the sense that something he can't put his finger on is driving his
actions and relationships.
------------------
Absolutely and utterly agree with this statement. And kudos on Hurley and Rose being 'at peace' with their neurosis. I think this is leading somewhere quite profound and particularly nasty possibly as it may have something to do with the 'sickness' and how it develops. You were writing something before concerning the 'act' and how it applies to the drama of LOST. What differentiates the castaways the shows concentrates on primarily is their ability to 'act' upon the various social factors of their island and each other.
My interest is that this was in some way suggesting that it maybe their
particularly neurotic dispositions that make them 'special' in the first
place and possibly more in tune to the islands resonance. Perhaps it could
be said that they only suffer from mild 'shadow' forms of what can be
deemed as extreme forms of genetic/social dysfunction, however it has
been their social conditions and the various 'happenstance' of their lives
that has bred the strength of their pathos (even Hurley became obsessed
once he realized the numbers were somehow connected to his 'curse').
I think this pathological nature of the castaways is leading some where
important not simply in regards to a physical sense but in a very real
spiritual sense as well. Let the Drama proceed.
Jays tao