A highlight of Season 5 has been the chance to go back and see the origins of DHARMA, the Truce with the Others, and the events that will lead to the Purge. We've seen a lot more of Horace Goodspeed, and we met Amy who becomes his wife and the mother of his son. So what's going on with Amy and her son, Ethan?
When we first meet Amy she's being held by two of the Others - they've thrown a bag over her head and executed her husband, Paul. Has Amy committed the same crime that resulted in Widmore's banishment from the Island?
What if Amy actually was one of the Others, and she fell in love with a member of DHARMA. Amy was expelled by the Others in keeping with their traditions, but couldn't stand to leave the Island or her lover Paul. Under the terms of the Truce, the DHARMA Initiative kept Amy safe within the barracks, but on this day she wanted to share a picnic with her love out on the traditional grounds of her people. Of course, the Others weren't happy at finding Amy on their land after her banishment, and the penalty was death. Only the timely intervention of Sawyer and Juliette saved Amy from her punishment.
Flashforward three years, and Amy has completed her grieving for Paul and moved on, into a relationship with Horace. They have a baby son and name him Ethan. Ethan is the son of an Other, and still has some rights among his people. As they grow up, Young Ben Linus befriends Ethan and helps him grow in their secret society away from the Barracks. Sometimes at night, they sneak out and do the business of "the Hostiles". In 1988 or so, Ethan and Ben are told they must eliminate a dangerous woman living on the beach.
I think this is a compelling theory. It explains how Ethan was spared from the Purge, how he came to be accepted as Ben's sidekick, and why the Others were so ready to execute Amy and her husband. In episode 510 He's Our You Amy convinces Horace to call a vote to put Sayid to death. Either Amy knows he's not really one of her people, or she worries that the Others will send someone to take her son, and return him to their territory.
I predict it will be revealed that Amy was a "Hostile" before joining DHARMA, and Ethan is an Other by virtue of birth.
Looking back on this period of Lost is particularly dispiriting for me. They had supposedly been planning the end of the series since early 2007. Amy, Horace, and Ethan got a bunch of screen time in season five, but it is apparent that most details about their lives are totally irrelevant. The whole "character" of Amy in fact serves merely for the writers to say, "Ehhhh? Remember that creepy Ethan guy? OoooOOOooh!"
ReplyDeleteI obviously put more thought into who she was and what she was up to than the producers of Lost! What were she and her husband Paul doing in "Other" territory that day, and what was the "truce" really about? Oh nevermind! Look at this glowing light! Isn't it great that Jack and Kate are happy in a church at the end?
Sorry, hard for me not to get off on a rant when I think about this show.
I think this really highlights a major problem with Lost. You can't just sweep it all under the rug or say "It's up to interpretation." People need motivation, character and plot in their stories. Amy offers none of these things. To repeat an already overused phrase, she presents a tale "full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." But I was so desperate to make meaning of the various nonsense being thrown out by the writers, I was ready to grasp at anything.
After they'd given us a few stories about Horace (sorry, involving Horace - hey what ever happened to his wife/sister Olivia Goodspeed?) they gave us stories involving Amy too. We saw Amy lose her husband, get remarried (maybe? Happens off camera. We'll never know!!), have a baby (is his name Goodspeed or Rom?!?), vote to kill Sayid because he's one of the Others, and then she vanishes forever. Let us never speak of her again.
At the end of Lost, it felt a little bit like it was my failure - for grasping too hard. But really it was the fault of the writers. People will always grasp for a story, especially if you play it as vague as Lost. They presented all these details as though they meant something. To pull the rug out at the end and say "Nyah! Nyah! There never was any story, suckers!" is really just awful writing.
I think you can see in this post and the ones that follow that the Lost narrative was coming completely off the rails. They had already stretched their story too thin, and did not have enough left to fill the seasons they were contracted for. So, they threw a bunch of sloppy shit at the wall, kept what stuck, and hoped we'd all be won over by a shiny teary montage of our favorite characters hugging at the end.
As it is, the producers brought back a character (Ethan) who was creepy and mysterious, and had almost no backstory. Then - Hey! A new Ethan story! Whoa! So this is his mom? Is Horace his dad? How did he go from DHARMA to Others? Why is he friends with creepy-ass Ben Linus? Is that how Ethan got to be so weird? WTF?!?
They teased like they would tell us more, but in fact they provided no further details about Ethan's character. It was all irrelevant. Then, they just stunt-casted him into the Sidewa- sorry, Purgatory. The End.
You know Lost really is all about the characters.
Characters are great. But characters don't come from sitting around an empty room staring at each other. Characters come from events and things that change them. What are those things that shaped the characters of Lost? It doesn't matter. It's about the Characters.
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