I woke up this morning a few images flashed in my mind and I went to write them down before I forgot.
The first was of Alpert when his hair was longer, then when it was short and then a few other ones of his off island costumes where he was convincing people to go the island.
I then flashed on his "eye-liner" and Peter Pan just popped into my head.
So let's look at Peter Pan for a moment and see if we can draw some parallels. Not necessarily with Alpert directly but with the kind of effect "the island" – or "Neverland" has on the men/boys who come upon it.
________________________________________________________
The term Peter Pan syndrome was popularized in 1983 by a book with that name, about individuals (usually male) with underdeveloped maturity.
Maybe that is what a lot of this is really about. A dark conceit about underdeveloped maturity played out on semi-cosmic panspiritual scale.
_________________________________________________________
PETER PAN, NEVERLAND AND THE LOST BOYS AS ORGANIZING THEME FOR STORY-ARCS IN LOST.
Pan (Greek Πάν, genitive Πανός), in Greek religion and mythology, is the companion of the nymphs, god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein, meaning "to pasture".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan
A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, he spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with mermaids, Indians, fairies and pirates, and from time to time meeting ordinary children from the world outside.
Let's start with Alpert and go from there.
Alpert can fly through time and space and end up anywhere looking pretty much the same without changing age in either direction, old or young.
He lives on an island and has a gang called the LOST BOYS. (therein lies the rub).
He does from time to time interact with pirates, as in Army, Dharma, Mercenaries etc – people who come to pirate his island. The question is who then is the Captain Hook?
He ventures into the "outside" world meeting ordinary people.
Instead of The Little White Bird associated with Peter Pan, we have instead, The White Rabbit in LOST.
The Little White Bird was called "elaborate book-within-a-book"
Here, the main theme of the book is an exploration of the intimate emotional relationship of the narrator with a young boy born to a working-class married couple in the same neighborhood.
The narrator secretly assists the couple financially, while meeting with the young boy in various "adventures", presented in a disjointed series of episodes in the book in which the narrator seeks to find a feeling of closeness with the boy, expressed as a desire for fatherhood, as well as other less clearly defined ideas.
Alpert could be that "LOST" narrator looking to fulfil some void, some feeling of "fatherhood" that he himself is missing. That's why he had so much vested in either, Ben and then Locke. Who might have also been his objects of affection, Widmore maybe? As I write this maybe Ben could be surrogate Peter Pan.
In the original set-up – there were 6 major characters. Of which one was a dog.
But I digress into the original set up – let me get back to Peter Pan as we've come to know and see if there are any other interesting connections.
Personality of Peter Pan
Peter is mainly an exaggerated stereotype of a boastful and careless boy. He is quick to point out how great he is. This doesn't sound at all like any of the aforementioned characters to which we could attach meaning with Peter Pan.
Peter has a nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude, and is fearlessly cocky when it comes to putting himself in danger. Barrie writes that when Peter thought he was going to die on Marooner's Rock, he felt scared, yet he felt only one shudder run through him when any other person would've felt scared up until death. With his blissful unawareness of the tragedy of death, he says, 'To die will be an awfully big adventure'. This sounds a lot like a few of our men characters in LOST: Swayer, Ben, Locke – even Jack.
In some variations of the story and some spin-offs, Peter can also be quite nasty and selfish. In the Disney adaptation of the tale, Peter appears very judgmental and pompous (for example, he called the Lost Boys 'blockheads' and when the Darling children say that they should leave for home at once, he gets the wrong message and angrily assumes that they want to grow up). Tell me who this sounds like.
In the 2003 live-action film, Peter Pan is sensitive about the subject of 'growing up'. When confronted by Hook about Wendy growing up, marrying and eventually 'shutting the window' on Peter, he becomes very depressed and finally refuses to fight.
Abilities
Peter's archetypal ability is his refusal to grow up (or get old)
Author Kevin Orlin Johnson argues that the Pan stories are in the German-English tradition of the Totenkindergeschichte (roughly, "tales of dead children"), and the idea that Peter and all of the lost boys are dead in a Neverland afterlife is consistent with that genre and that Peter's everlasting youth to his exposure to starstuff is from a magical substance which has fallen to earth.
Peter's ability to fly is explained somewhat, but inconsistently. In The Little White Bird he is able to fly because he – like all babies – is part bird. In the play and novel, he teaches the Darling children to fly using a combination of happy thoughts and fairy dust; it is unclear whether he is serious about 'happy thoughts' being required (since they're not mentioned again), or whether he requires the fairy dust himself. In Hook, the adult Peter is unable to fly until he remembers his 'happy thought'. The ability to fly is also attributed to starstuff – apparently the same thing as fairy dust – in the Starcatcher prequels.
For our discussion flying is a metaphor for time and space travel – the kind that Desmond, Charlie, Walt, Alpert and Christian are doing. Possibly the kind that Locke and Ben are doing physically as well could play into this Peter Panology.
Peter has an effect on the whole of Neverland and its inhabitants when he is there. Barrie states that the although Neverland appears different to every child, the island 'wakes up' when he returns from his trip to London. In the chapter 'The Mermaid Lagoon' in Peter and Wendy, Barrie writes that there is almost nothing that Peter cannot do.
He is a skilled swordsman, (who else do we know skilled with sharp objects of the throwing type?) rivaling even Captain Hook, whose hand he cut off in a duel.
He has remarkably keen vision and hearing. He is skilled in mimicry, copying the voice of Hook, and the tick-tock of the Crocodile. Who else is skilled in being someone else. Ben, Alpert, Jacob even.
In both Peter Pan and Wendy and Peter Pan in Scarlet, there are various mentions of Peter's ability to imagine things into existence, such as food, though this ability plays a more central role in Peter Pan in Scarlet. He also creates imaginary windows and doors as a kind of physical metaphor for ignoring or shunning his companions. He is said to be able to feel danger when it's near.
In Peter and Wendy, Barrie states that the Peter Pan legend Mrs Darling heard as a child was that when children died, he accompanied them part of the way to their destination so that they wouldn't be scared.
Relationships
Peter does not know his parents.
After Peter "ran away" to Neverland, he returns to find his parents forgot about him and had another child (the gender of Peter's sibling is not revealed).
Peter is the leader of the Lost Boys, a band of boys who were lost by their parents, and came to live in Neverland; it is reported that he "thins them out" when they start to grow up. He is friends with Tinker Bell, a common fairy who is often jealously protective of him.
His nemesis is Captain Hook, whose hand he cut off in a duel. Hook's crew, including Smee and Starkey, also consider him a foe.
From time to time Peter visits the real world, particularly around Kensington Gardens, and befriends children there. Wendy Darling, whom he recruited to be his 'mother', is the most significant of them; he also brings her brothers John and Michael to Neverland at her request. He later befriends Wendy's daughter Jane, and Peter and Wendy says that he will continue this pattern indefinitely.
In Hook, Peter states the reason he wanted to grow up was to be a father. He married Wendy's granddaughter, Moira, and they have two children, Maggie and Jack.
Other interesting connections (of sorts).
Peter Pan is depicted in public sculpture. There are seven statues cast from a mould by sculptor George Frampton, following an original commission by Barrie in 1912.
(This a real statue, but do we know of any other statues made after our "Peter Pan" of LOST)
An early 1960s program in which Cuban children were sent unattended to Miami to escape feared mistreatment under the then-new Castro regime was called Operation Peter Pan (or 'Operación Pedro Pan').
(Who was trying to get children to the island in our LOST version of Peter Pan. And what is children in our analogy. Juliet bringing her knowledge to make it happen. Aaron's return, Walt, Kate with child in womb or just children as metaphor for humans – the right kind of humans as we are children in God's eye kind of children.
POST-SCRIPT
I know in my haste to hit the press with this idea I have breezed over a lot of things and made mistakes here and there and left out a reference or connection or two. So please feel free to jabberwocky with on this and throw in your sixth sense two cents if need be. Its all been fun. Theory by Jasper The Friendly Host
The first was of Alpert when his hair was longer, then when it was short and then a few other ones of his off island costumes where he was convincing people to go the island.
I then flashed on his "eye-liner" and Peter Pan just popped into my head.
So let's look at Peter Pan for a moment and see if we can draw some parallels. Not necessarily with Alpert directly but with the kind of effect "the island" – or "Neverland" has on the men/boys who come upon it.
________________________________________________________
The term Peter Pan syndrome was popularized in 1983 by a book with that name, about individuals (usually male) with underdeveloped maturity.
Maybe that is what a lot of this is really about. A dark conceit about underdeveloped maturity played out on semi-cosmic panspiritual scale.
_________________________________________________________
PETER PAN, NEVERLAND AND THE LOST BOYS AS ORGANIZING THEME FOR STORY-ARCS IN LOST.
Pan (Greek Πάν, genitive Πανός), in Greek religion and mythology, is the companion of the nymphs, god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein, meaning "to pasture".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan
A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, he spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with mermaids, Indians, fairies and pirates, and from time to time meeting ordinary children from the world outside.
Let's start with Alpert and go from there.
Alpert can fly through time and space and end up anywhere looking pretty much the same without changing age in either direction, old or young.
He lives on an island and has a gang called the LOST BOYS. (therein lies the rub).
He does from time to time interact with pirates, as in Army, Dharma, Mercenaries etc – people who come to pirate his island. The question is who then is the Captain Hook?
He ventures into the "outside" world meeting ordinary people.
Instead of The Little White Bird associated with Peter Pan, we have instead, The White Rabbit in LOST.
The Little White Bird was called "elaborate book-within-a-book"
Here, the main theme of the book is an exploration of the intimate emotional relationship of the narrator with a young boy born to a working-class married couple in the same neighborhood.
The narrator secretly assists the couple financially, while meeting with the young boy in various "adventures", presented in a disjointed series of episodes in the book in which the narrator seeks to find a feeling of closeness with the boy, expressed as a desire for fatherhood, as well as other less clearly defined ideas.
Alpert could be that "LOST" narrator looking to fulfil some void, some feeling of "fatherhood" that he himself is missing. That's why he had so much vested in either, Ben and then Locke. Who might have also been his objects of affection, Widmore maybe? As I write this maybe Ben could be surrogate Peter Pan.
In the original set-up – there were 6 major characters. Of which one was a dog.
But I digress into the original set up – let me get back to Peter Pan as we've come to know and see if there are any other interesting connections.
Personality of Peter Pan
Peter is mainly an exaggerated stereotype of a boastful and careless boy. He is quick to point out how great he is. This doesn't sound at all like any of the aforementioned characters to which we could attach meaning with Peter Pan.
Peter has a nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude, and is fearlessly cocky when it comes to putting himself in danger. Barrie writes that when Peter thought he was going to die on Marooner's Rock, he felt scared, yet he felt only one shudder run through him when any other person would've felt scared up until death. With his blissful unawareness of the tragedy of death, he says, 'To die will be an awfully big adventure'. This sounds a lot like a few of our men characters in LOST: Swayer, Ben, Locke – even Jack.
In some variations of the story and some spin-offs, Peter can also be quite nasty and selfish. In the Disney adaptation of the tale, Peter appears very judgmental and pompous (for example, he called the Lost Boys 'blockheads' and when the Darling children say that they should leave for home at once, he gets the wrong message and angrily assumes that they want to grow up). Tell me who this sounds like.
In the 2003 live-action film, Peter Pan is sensitive about the subject of 'growing up'. When confronted by Hook about Wendy growing up, marrying and eventually 'shutting the window' on Peter, he becomes very depressed and finally refuses to fight.
Abilities
Peter's archetypal ability is his refusal to grow up (or get old)
Author Kevin Orlin Johnson argues that the Pan stories are in the German-English tradition of the Totenkindergeschichte (roughly, "tales of dead children"), and the idea that Peter and all of the lost boys are dead in a Neverland afterlife is consistent with that genre and that Peter's everlasting youth to his exposure to starstuff is from a magical substance which has fallen to earth.
Peter's ability to fly is explained somewhat, but inconsistently. In The Little White Bird he is able to fly because he – like all babies – is part bird. In the play and novel, he teaches the Darling children to fly using a combination of happy thoughts and fairy dust; it is unclear whether he is serious about 'happy thoughts' being required (since they're not mentioned again), or whether he requires the fairy dust himself. In Hook, the adult Peter is unable to fly until he remembers his 'happy thought'. The ability to fly is also attributed to starstuff – apparently the same thing as fairy dust – in the Starcatcher prequels.
For our discussion flying is a metaphor for time and space travel – the kind that Desmond, Charlie, Walt, Alpert and Christian are doing. Possibly the kind that Locke and Ben are doing physically as well could play into this Peter Panology.
Peter has an effect on the whole of Neverland and its inhabitants when he is there. Barrie states that the although Neverland appears different to every child, the island 'wakes up' when he returns from his trip to London. In the chapter 'The Mermaid Lagoon' in Peter and Wendy, Barrie writes that there is almost nothing that Peter cannot do.
He is a skilled swordsman, (who else do we know skilled with sharp objects of the throwing type?) rivaling even Captain Hook, whose hand he cut off in a duel.
He has remarkably keen vision and hearing. He is skilled in mimicry, copying the voice of Hook, and the tick-tock of the Crocodile. Who else is skilled in being someone else. Ben, Alpert, Jacob even.
In both Peter Pan and Wendy and Peter Pan in Scarlet, there are various mentions of Peter's ability to imagine things into existence, such as food, though this ability plays a more central role in Peter Pan in Scarlet. He also creates imaginary windows and doors as a kind of physical metaphor for ignoring or shunning his companions. He is said to be able to feel danger when it's near.
In Peter and Wendy, Barrie states that the Peter Pan legend Mrs Darling heard as a child was that when children died, he accompanied them part of the way to their destination so that they wouldn't be scared.
Relationships
Peter does not know his parents.
After Peter "ran away" to Neverland, he returns to find his parents forgot about him and had another child (the gender of Peter's sibling is not revealed).
Peter is the leader of the Lost Boys, a band of boys who were lost by their parents, and came to live in Neverland; it is reported that he "thins them out" when they start to grow up. He is friends with Tinker Bell, a common fairy who is often jealously protective of him.
His nemesis is Captain Hook, whose hand he cut off in a duel. Hook's crew, including Smee and Starkey, also consider him a foe.
From time to time Peter visits the real world, particularly around Kensington Gardens, and befriends children there. Wendy Darling, whom he recruited to be his 'mother', is the most significant of them; he also brings her brothers John and Michael to Neverland at her request. He later befriends Wendy's daughter Jane, and Peter and Wendy says that he will continue this pattern indefinitely.
In Hook, Peter states the reason he wanted to grow up was to be a father. He married Wendy's granddaughter, Moira, and they have two children, Maggie and Jack.
Other interesting connections (of sorts).
Peter Pan is depicted in public sculpture. There are seven statues cast from a mould by sculptor George Frampton, following an original commission by Barrie in 1912.
(This a real statue, but do we know of any other statues made after our "Peter Pan" of LOST)
An early 1960s program in which Cuban children were sent unattended to Miami to escape feared mistreatment under the then-new Castro regime was called Operation Peter Pan (or 'Operación Pedro Pan').
(Who was trying to get children to the island in our LOST version of Peter Pan. And what is children in our analogy. Juliet bringing her knowledge to make it happen. Aaron's return, Walt, Kate with child in womb or just children as metaphor for humans – the right kind of humans as we are children in God's eye kind of children.
POST-SCRIPT
I know in my haste to hit the press with this idea I have breezed over a lot of things and made mistakes here and there and left out a reference or connection or two. So please feel free to jabberwocky with on this and throw in your sixth sense two cents if need be. Its all been fun. Theory by Jasper The Friendly Host
