Dead is dead...
and Locke is dead.
Right?
So said the billboards around my town preluding the premiere of Season 5. Locke being in the coffin at the end of Season Four didn't look so downbeat and depressing now. "There will be resurrection," I thought. Praise be the powers that be! Locke will be returned to the island and he will LIVE. Now we have come to find that Locke has died... yet again. Some cheered, others booed. I despaired.
I love Locke. He is quite possibly my favourite television series character of all time. He represents a kind of pragmatism and hope that I rarely see in today’s cynical mass-produced entertainment. I'm sure some people have asked "why are people so angry at the way his story has developed? He is dead. So what? Other characters have been killed off just as frivolously in the past." But some people are angry because if this truly is the big adios for our man Locke, then the audience feels betrayed for one reason, and one reason only. It feels that Locke’s death, his character arc, his journey was abandoned and left without purpose.
Purpose is the word worth noting here.
More than any other.
When he came to the others camp carrying that boar on his shoulders and said to Richard “I have a purpose now…” I smiled. Finally, John Locke has found his way after being so lost for so long. But I suspected pretty much from the halfway point of “Dead is Dead” that he was not “our” Locke anymore. By the time Frank asked Illana what was in the box, I knew it was Locke’s body and my heart sank. It was safe to say this was not how I envisioned my favourite character’s journey ending.
To add insult to injury Locke’s image was now being used as a mask to cover the true face of an evil entity hell-bent on control, power and domination over the island. Is this speculative at this point? Yes, it is. The game is far from over, but there is a long wait for further evidence to support whether this is truly the end of John Locke (or as Charlie once so amusingly referred to him as "the bald headed wanker.")
I am in two schools of thought about Locke’s destiny for the rest of the show now, and they cohere into a potential theory for either side of the argument.
Locke is dead, and Locke will live.
1st school of thought:
The writers AKA Darlton delivered on their promise that I remember reading a long while back when they said something along the lines of “the audience will realise we have been playing one long con on them…” (this is not the exact quote but it was definitely said a couple of years back.) It correlates with what we now know from the season five finale: Locke’s destiny was manipulated, not by Jacob, but by our mysterious new friend in black, who has the temporary fan-assigned name Esau (which I really like).
Esau healed Locke’s paralysis because he/it knew Locke’s vulnerability as a man, the exact same way that Locke’s Father, the young undercover cop Eddie, Sawyer, Ben, plus various others knew that John Locke was “amenable for coercion.” Who would have thought that when John Locke lost his faith in Season 2 that it was actually, in retrospect, a damn good thing! But courtesy of Eko and Desmond’s actions, his faith was renewed, restored and reinvigorated like never before. Was he ever in contact with Jacob? Possibly. But most likely all of his dreams, all of his visions and spidey-sense-like feelings, and all of his directions were given by Esau. His destiny was manipulated into serving not a greater good, but a greater evil. This was the clause in the island's contract. "Have faith in me, believe in me and you will be special. You will be healed." But it seems the small print was too small for Locke to see, and it read, "By following me you give up the right to exe! rcise your freewill. You become my pawn that I, and I alone, possess."
Though this remains to be seen I’ll admit. But it seems kosher from what we now know.
If this is truly the case and the writers have killed off our beloved Locke for good then in a way it compliments the overall big picture story for the show, as we have seen so many clues dropped in by the writers (subtle clues and in your face clues) to signpost that Locke was being used. I once wrote a theory that Jacob was the bad guy, but now it appears Esau was posing as Jacob in the cabin, using the late Christian Shepherd as his mouthpiece to hide his identity. Perhaps Esau’s body is long since gone (hence the theory that he is the smoke monster searching for a “loophole” not only to kill his nemesis Jacob, but also to possess a body permanently).
Is this Locke’s true destiny? If you are a "the glass is half empty" type of person then yes, this was his only purpose on the show – to signify the danger and ignorance of blind faith. Perhaps it was always the writers intention to make us believe in Locke, just to get to this point where they pull the very soft, very comfy rug from beneath our feet as Lost does so very well. Even if we hate them for it for as long as Lost is discussed and talked about.
It just doesn’t seem fair now does it?
This leads me to –
2nd School of thought:
Surely Darlton realised the massive amount of time spent developing Locke as a character and they must have anticipated, or at least recognised, the large emotional investment many fans have come to have for this once great man (I of course refer to Season 1 Locke). So, would they be so ruthless (a la the "24" writing team) and simply trash such a moving and “important” character’s journey, reducing him to that of nothing more than a pawn in a power struggle between “demi-god-like” figures?
As part of a complete story, I see the reasoning. I see the logic. I understand why this may actually be the case. But one thing the writers may not have anticipated in the beginning was the growing love and outright admiration of a character who represented purpose, belief, wisdom, vulnerability, confusion, anger, hope and faith all wrapped up inside one symbolic enigma of a man. Locke embodies the faith argument, and this latest revelation pretty much decimates his “function” in the longest running theme of the show – science vs. faith.
So, dead is dead.
I now believe this to be true.
Locke as we know him is most likely gone. However, his essence, his soul, whatever we call it, that part of himself, that part of the dead that Miles can communicate with, exists somewhere, somehow. I mean even Esau has access to Locke’s memories, which have come from somewhere. Can he too communicate with the dead like Miles? If he is indeed the smoke monster, he may have scanned Locke in the episode "Walkabout" BUT, that does not account for Locke's memories post-Walkabout. Such as his death. Perhaps Esau can commune with the dead.
Important detail worth discussing is this; Esau is not psychically possessing Locke’s actual corpse, which I find interesting. Christian and Yemi’s bodies were actually gone from their deathbeds (coffin and plane respectively) so why hasn’t Esau/smoke monster, or whatever the hell he really is, possessed Locke’s body like he did with the others? This is the question we should be asking.
Let’s pause.
Rewind.
Boom.
Locke lays dead in the cargo hold. Esau, in whatever form you choose to believe he is currently in, didn’t take him over.
He replicated him.
This is important for what comes next. Either he didn’t want to merge with Locke’s tangible body, or, more likely, he COULDN’T. Why? Surely, it is leaving a big fat piece of evidence for someone to find and prove he is an impostor? He couldn’t take over Locke’s body for whatever the reason, which means there is hope.
This is where the glass gets half full.
Yes, Locke was amenable for coercion. Yes, he was conned by pretty much everyone and their sister. He was a tragic figure riddled with weakness, yet he was strong. He was capable. He represented both light and dark thematically for the show (some people love him, some hate him, ambiguity surrounded all of his actions since Day One) and he also symboliseds that light and dark theme within his own internal character struggle – faith versus science. When he chose the knife as a boy during Richard’s test, he showed Richard he was not special, but he was also showing us that he chose his own destiny. His own path.
Jacob did not heal/save/touch him after his fall because Locke was a pawn used by evil in this giant chess game; he did it because Esau was not the only one with plans for Locke. I am sure someone must have raised this issue already, but Ben killed Jacob, so what happens to Jacob now? Is Jacob dead like dead is dead?
Esau is in Locke’s image. He is the dark. My belief, or rather my hopeful fantasy, is that Jacob will go the way of Obi-wan Kenobi (Star Wars always being a Darlton blueprint) and his spirit/essence/life-force or whatever you want to call it will imbue THE BODY of Locke. The body Esau could not posses himself. This makes narrative sense as well as sense in terms of the show’s mythology.
John Locke did have a destiny. His destiny was to lead his fellow survivors to the places they needed to be, a lot like Abaddon’s destiny was to help others find their own destinies. Hence why he told Locke to go on a Walkabout. Locke’s path was split between following the manipulations of Esau (every time he communed with the island) and making his own choices (choosing the knife instead of the book of laws as a child would have made Jacob proud I would think).
Locke was manipulated into his death by Esau I am sure of now. However, Locke had already achieved his destiny – his actions changed Jack’s faith, which in turn will change other destinies, maybe even the course of history (though I subscribe to the whatever happened, happened argument.) His actions set in motion the chain of events that led to the hatch implosion and set Desmond apart from space and time, that made Desmond "uniquely special," which I am sure will be very relevant to the final season's outcome. His actions led to the Oceanic Six returning to the island. His destiny was to set people on their paths. To make sure people were positioned where they needed to be, all be it unknowingly at the time.
But what of his purpose?
"I was never meant to do... ANYTHING! Every single second, of my pathetic, little life is as useless as that button!" he once told Mr. Eko.
His purpose was to die… and be reborn.
Not as an entity.
But as Jacob.
Locke’s body lies in the shadow of the statue and Jacob is the one who will save them all.
Together, they are destined to be one.
Locke will return.
Not as John, but as Jacob. One is light. One is dark. One is Jacob, the other is Esau. One has faith in humanity, the other does not.
These are the two schools of thought on Locke’s ultimate destiny for this series. It will either be that his story, his character had no other purpose then to be a pawn and that will be the end of him, or his purpose was to be the vessel for two opposing forces to wage their war.
This is not fact. This is not theory. This is simply me choosing to believe that there is hope for Locke. That there is a half full glass before us. That in the end, destiny and free will co-exist and Jacob’s belief that it only ends once will be proven true, and that the good guys will win. Let’s just hope Locke is playing for the good guys when the storm begins in Season Six.
The time for playing games is most definitely over now. But there are many pieces left on the board - Jack, Desmond, Ben, Widmore, Richard, even Walt. What are their purposes? What are their destinies? And will Locke have one last chance in one form or another to complete his own?
Darlton? I bloody well hope so.
"Every thing that happened... happened for a reason."
and Locke is dead.
Right?
So said the billboards around my town preluding the premiere of Season 5. Locke being in the coffin at the end of Season Four didn't look so downbeat and depressing now. "There will be resurrection," I thought. Praise be the powers that be! Locke will be returned to the island and he will LIVE. Now we have come to find that Locke has died... yet again. Some cheered, others booed. I despaired.
I love Locke. He is quite possibly my favourite television series character of all time. He represents a kind of pragmatism and hope that I rarely see in today’s cynical mass-produced entertainment. I'm sure some people have asked "why are people so angry at the way his story has developed? He is dead. So what? Other characters have been killed off just as frivolously in the past." But some people are angry because if this truly is the big adios for our man Locke, then the audience feels betrayed for one reason, and one reason only. It feels that Locke’s death, his character arc, his journey was abandoned and left without purpose.
Purpose is the word worth noting here.
More than any other.
When he came to the others camp carrying that boar on his shoulders and said to Richard “I have a purpose now…” I smiled. Finally, John Locke has found his way after being so lost for so long. But I suspected pretty much from the halfway point of “Dead is Dead” that he was not “our” Locke anymore. By the time Frank asked Illana what was in the box, I knew it was Locke’s body and my heart sank. It was safe to say this was not how I envisioned my favourite character’s journey ending.
To add insult to injury Locke’s image was now being used as a mask to cover the true face of an evil entity hell-bent on control, power and domination over the island. Is this speculative at this point? Yes, it is. The game is far from over, but there is a long wait for further evidence to support whether this is truly the end of John Locke (or as Charlie once so amusingly referred to him as "the bald headed wanker.")
I am in two schools of thought about Locke’s destiny for the rest of the show now, and they cohere into a potential theory for either side of the argument.
Locke is dead, and Locke will live.
1st school of thought:
The writers AKA Darlton delivered on their promise that I remember reading a long while back when they said something along the lines of “the audience will realise we have been playing one long con on them…” (this is not the exact quote but it was definitely said a couple of years back.) It correlates with what we now know from the season five finale: Locke’s destiny was manipulated, not by Jacob, but by our mysterious new friend in black, who has the temporary fan-assigned name Esau (which I really like).
Esau healed Locke’s paralysis because he/it knew Locke’s vulnerability as a man, the exact same way that Locke’s Father, the young undercover cop Eddie, Sawyer, Ben, plus various others knew that John Locke was “amenable for coercion.” Who would have thought that when John Locke lost his faith in Season 2 that it was actually, in retrospect, a damn good thing! But courtesy of Eko and Desmond’s actions, his faith was renewed, restored and reinvigorated like never before. Was he ever in contact with Jacob? Possibly. But most likely all of his dreams, all of his visions and spidey-sense-like feelings, and all of his directions were given by Esau. His destiny was manipulated into serving not a greater good, but a greater evil. This was the clause in the island's contract. "Have faith in me, believe in me and you will be special. You will be healed." But it seems the small print was too small for Locke to see, and it read, "By following me you give up the right to exe! rcise your freewill. You become my pawn that I, and I alone, possess."
Though this remains to be seen I’ll admit. But it seems kosher from what we now know.
If this is truly the case and the writers have killed off our beloved Locke for good then in a way it compliments the overall big picture story for the show, as we have seen so many clues dropped in by the writers (subtle clues and in your face clues) to signpost that Locke was being used. I once wrote a theory that Jacob was the bad guy, but now it appears Esau was posing as Jacob in the cabin, using the late Christian Shepherd as his mouthpiece to hide his identity. Perhaps Esau’s body is long since gone (hence the theory that he is the smoke monster searching for a “loophole” not only to kill his nemesis Jacob, but also to possess a body permanently).
Is this Locke’s true destiny? If you are a "the glass is half empty" type of person then yes, this was his only purpose on the show – to signify the danger and ignorance of blind faith. Perhaps it was always the writers intention to make us believe in Locke, just to get to this point where they pull the very soft, very comfy rug from beneath our feet as Lost does so very well. Even if we hate them for it for as long as Lost is discussed and talked about.
It just doesn’t seem fair now does it?
This leads me to –
2nd School of thought:
Surely Darlton realised the massive amount of time spent developing Locke as a character and they must have anticipated, or at least recognised, the large emotional investment many fans have come to have for this once great man (I of course refer to Season 1 Locke). So, would they be so ruthless (a la the "24" writing team) and simply trash such a moving and “important” character’s journey, reducing him to that of nothing more than a pawn in a power struggle between “demi-god-like” figures?
As part of a complete story, I see the reasoning. I see the logic. I understand why this may actually be the case. But one thing the writers may not have anticipated in the beginning was the growing love and outright admiration of a character who represented purpose, belief, wisdom, vulnerability, confusion, anger, hope and faith all wrapped up inside one symbolic enigma of a man. Locke embodies the faith argument, and this latest revelation pretty much decimates his “function” in the longest running theme of the show – science vs. faith.
So, dead is dead.
I now believe this to be true.
Locke as we know him is most likely gone. However, his essence, his soul, whatever we call it, that part of himself, that part of the dead that Miles can communicate with, exists somewhere, somehow. I mean even Esau has access to Locke’s memories, which have come from somewhere. Can he too communicate with the dead like Miles? If he is indeed the smoke monster, he may have scanned Locke in the episode "Walkabout" BUT, that does not account for Locke's memories post-Walkabout. Such as his death. Perhaps Esau can commune with the dead.
Important detail worth discussing is this; Esau is not psychically possessing Locke’s actual corpse, which I find interesting. Christian and Yemi’s bodies were actually gone from their deathbeds (coffin and plane respectively) so why hasn’t Esau/smoke monster, or whatever the hell he really is, possessed Locke’s body like he did with the others? This is the question we should be asking.
Let’s pause.
Rewind.
Boom.
Locke lays dead in the cargo hold. Esau, in whatever form you choose to believe he is currently in, didn’t take him over.
He replicated him.
This is important for what comes next. Either he didn’t want to merge with Locke’s tangible body, or, more likely, he COULDN’T. Why? Surely, it is leaving a big fat piece of evidence for someone to find and prove he is an impostor? He couldn’t take over Locke’s body for whatever the reason, which means there is hope.
This is where the glass gets half full.
Yes, Locke was amenable for coercion. Yes, he was conned by pretty much everyone and their sister. He was a tragic figure riddled with weakness, yet he was strong. He was capable. He represented both light and dark thematically for the show (some people love him, some hate him, ambiguity surrounded all of his actions since Day One) and he also symboliseds that light and dark theme within his own internal character struggle – faith versus science. When he chose the knife as a boy during Richard’s test, he showed Richard he was not special, but he was also showing us that he chose his own destiny. His own path.
Jacob did not heal/save/touch him after his fall because Locke was a pawn used by evil in this giant chess game; he did it because Esau was not the only one with plans for Locke. I am sure someone must have raised this issue already, but Ben killed Jacob, so what happens to Jacob now? Is Jacob dead like dead is dead?
Esau is in Locke’s image. He is the dark. My belief, or rather my hopeful fantasy, is that Jacob will go the way of Obi-wan Kenobi (Star Wars always being a Darlton blueprint) and his spirit/essence/life-force or whatever you want to call it will imbue THE BODY of Locke. The body Esau could not posses himself. This makes narrative sense as well as sense in terms of the show’s mythology.
John Locke did have a destiny. His destiny was to lead his fellow survivors to the places they needed to be, a lot like Abaddon’s destiny was to help others find their own destinies. Hence why he told Locke to go on a Walkabout. Locke’s path was split between following the manipulations of Esau (every time he communed with the island) and making his own choices (choosing the knife instead of the book of laws as a child would have made Jacob proud I would think).
Locke was manipulated into his death by Esau I am sure of now. However, Locke had already achieved his destiny – his actions changed Jack’s faith, which in turn will change other destinies, maybe even the course of history (though I subscribe to the whatever happened, happened argument.) His actions set in motion the chain of events that led to the hatch implosion and set Desmond apart from space and time, that made Desmond "uniquely special," which I am sure will be very relevant to the final season's outcome. His actions led to the Oceanic Six returning to the island. His destiny was to set people on their paths. To make sure people were positioned where they needed to be, all be it unknowingly at the time.
But what of his purpose?
"I was never meant to do... ANYTHING! Every single second, of my pathetic, little life is as useless as that button!" he once told Mr. Eko.
His purpose was to die… and be reborn.
Not as an entity.
But as Jacob.
Locke’s body lies in the shadow of the statue and Jacob is the one who will save them all.
Together, they are destined to be one.
Locke will return.
Not as John, but as Jacob. One is light. One is dark. One is Jacob, the other is Esau. One has faith in humanity, the other does not.
These are the two schools of thought on Locke’s ultimate destiny for this series. It will either be that his story, his character had no other purpose then to be a pawn and that will be the end of him, or his purpose was to be the vessel for two opposing forces to wage their war.
This is not fact. This is not theory. This is simply me choosing to believe that there is hope for Locke. That there is a half full glass before us. That in the end, destiny and free will co-exist and Jacob’s belief that it only ends once will be proven true, and that the good guys will win. Let’s just hope Locke is playing for the good guys when the storm begins in Season Six.
The time for playing games is most definitely over now. But there are many pieces left on the board - Jack, Desmond, Ben, Widmore, Richard, even Walt. What are their purposes? What are their destinies? And will Locke have one last chance in one form or another to complete his own?
Darlton? I bloody well hope so.
"Every thing that happened... happened for a reason."
