The Tail Section

LOST - Is Locke the Primary Hero? A.K.A Don’t Take Lost too Literarily

Lost Mythology — May 3, 2007 at 8:39 am by DavidHume

First of all, no that is not a misspelling of Literally; it is my failed attempt at a play on words.  Second I have to apologize.  I had a geek gasm last night about something I had hoped I would get confirmation on and BAM, there it was.  Naturally, this launched me into 2,000 word essay mode.  I feel strongly I’m on to something here, but you might find this a complete waste of time but essentially I have a ‘road map’ theory that I think lays out the direction the show is going in.  LOST is a bit hard to figure out because you have a swarm of overlapping mythological devices going on.  There is definitely no Monomythism going on in the LOST writers room.  This is extremely cool because it keeps even well educated viewers off balance.  What is the central structure?  All myths have structures, and most myths have heroes.  LOST has become a veritable case of "Can’t see the forest through the trees" by keeping the hero of the story a moving target.  Jack seems obvious, so does Kate, and even Sawyer.  At times Hurley has seemed a possible center, after last season a lot of people thought this had really been Desmond’s story all along and our hero had been hidden from us in the first act. Without further delay, here is my theory.  I apologize in advance for its girth!  Hopefully it brings you some enjoyment and food for thought.


Is Locke the hero of LOST?

When Locke turned to Sawyer last night to answer the con man’s assumption that he was going “back undercover” by saying “I’m on my own journey now.” I let out a woot.  Not because Locke was clearly operating on some larger than life mystical journey of understanding, but because he had single handedly shined a light on hopes I have had for some time, and may, just may, have given us some indication as to what point of the story we are at and what will come next. I’ve been operating on a secret theory for quite a while, it’s a bit off the deep end but I think if you look at it for what it is you might find yourself bopping to my groove.

I first became interested in Joseph Campbell the minute that Joseph Campbell became interested in Star Wars.  Identifying the mythological archetypes of Star Wars was hardly the highlight of Campbell’s career, but it was a potent ad hoc platform to proliferate interest in mythological story telling and its role in civilization. Had Campbell not been there to equate Star Wars to “The Heroes Journey”, I doubt I personally would have sought a higher understanding of myth - period.

Since the day that Gilgamesh was first etched into clay, mankind has crafted stories that both create inadvertent records of the collective mindset of their age and - at their height - calm the mass anxieties by providing hope that heroes are amongst us, odds can be overcome, and that our kind can conquer any unknown realm – fictional or otherwise.

If you never listened to Campbell deconstruct myth or pontificate on the great archetypes of plot, you have been deprived a much needed perspective in appreciating LOST.  It’s not that you need to have a head full of mythological archetypes, or a knack for deconstructing symbolism; actually, it’s quite the opposite.  If Campbell were here to take a crack at the mythology of LOST odds are you would get an extremely well articulated version of “It’s a great HERO story, stupid.”

One side of LOST theorizing I have always abhorred was the efforts to get at the ‘DNA’ of the LOST story, particularly which chromosome came from which great work of literature.  Part of the reason I try to avoid that kind of deconstruction is that it is, in some ways, disrespectful to the storyteller.  The last thing a musician wants to hear when they play you a new piece is the various other songs it ‘sounds like’.  Other than that, dwelling too much on the influences is really just a study in pigeonholing LOST into an amalgamation of literary techniques and specific influences; a practice more suited to a grad student desperately trying to demonstrate his chops on the conundrum Du Jour.  I avoid the “LOST Literary Genome Project” because it is like our friend Ouroboros, a process that just winds up swallowing its own tail. 

In the end all that hard work comes to a banal conclusion, the LOST writers have influences and tend to use the same tools of their craft as any other writer on the planet.  A thesis hardly worth reinforcing with thousands of words concentrated on tracing every minute literary equivalent.

So, I have taken a very oblique route to get back to my point, which all centers around the use of the word “Journey”.  The more worthwhile deconstruction of LOST from my perspective is determining what archetypal hero construct the writers of LOST are using.  The reason is that if you know the stages of the archetype, and you can connect them with events in the story you can, gain a little temporal comfort as to where you are in the story.   More importantly for you theorists out there, you can look at the remaining stages of the archetype and work with what you know to come up with a path to the end that makes a little more sense.  How do I know they are thinking in terms of hero myths?  They’re Star Wars fans, people.   I would lay money on the table to wager that the plot of LOST is more derived from a variation of basic hero archetypes than any eclectic mix of books.  As I said before the influences are important, but they are not the backbone of LOST.  This show is much more than a Frankenstein’s monster of great works of literature. 

The problem with applying this to LOST is that it uses multiple archetypes.  For the storytellers, this is an ingenious device.  There are many ‘heroes’ in the story and some of their stories that follow along an archetypal path can be told in self-contained ways.  These are the micro-myths.   Part of what keeps us out of balance, and less conscious of the macro-myth (the BIG story), is that these individual hero stories play out in the same universe as the macro story.  Some of them are complete, most of them are tragedies, and some are still playing out.

My search has always been for the primary hero.  Who is the hero of the macro story?  It cannot be “everyone”, even if each character is a hero in his or her own right it still must be an individual for the story to fit neatly in one of my coveted archetypes.   Find the hero, find the archetype, and know the path of the story.   Pick the wrong one, and you have no idea where things are going.

I have to admit, maybe it’s my age, but I always hoped Locke was the hero and now I am convinced of it.  The archetype that I propose is in play fits very nicely with the themes of the show:  the Cosmogonic cycle.  Cosmogonic heavy describes stories that deal with the creation and destruction of the universe; farther down the dichotomy, on the more liberal branches, we find stories that deal with these extremes of birth and death in terms that are more symbolic.  They usually begin with the creation of a force that represents reality (the island) by entities who become invisible to us (in the sense of story), and whose creation is placed in peril and must be saved by the hero.

There are six stages to the cycle.  Here is how I propose they apply to Locke.  I think the fact that his myth is the only one — aside from Desmond and I’ll tackle that next — that ties directly to the island is a clear indicator that Locke is the central hero of LOST and that this Cosmogonic cycle is the definitive skeletal mainframe for the story.  Below I will detail how the cycle runs, and why it fits with John Locke’s story so well.

The actual cycle goes like this: 

The call to adventure

1.    The Call to Adventure.  Where the hero gets his urge to embark.

This is the walkabout.  Locke feels it is his purpose to do this, he is seeking spiritual enlightenment from the adventure.  So his journey begins on a quest to find himself, confident in a higher force to guide him.

2.    Refusal of the call.  The hero or someone with power over him/her impedes the beginning of the journey.

He is not allowed down this path of enlightenment because of his disability and is ultimately sent home.

3.    Supernatural Aid.  Where a force intervenes to both start the journey and infuse it with meaning.

After the crash, his ability to walk is restored and he begins to seek the source of the gift, confident that he has been set upon a path.  He believes that the power that healed him holds his ultimate purpose.  Through his character flaws, we see that Locke feels a purpose will bring him acceptance.

4.    The crossing of the first threshold.  The hero arrives into the unnatural realm that he/she must ultimately conquer.

The challenge is the hatch and gaining entry.  Like any good hero story, a friend is sacrificed on the way to securing entry, and a band of helpers assist with a different agenda.  His flaws continue to impede his progression towards enlightenment because the legitimacy of his quest is in question.

5.    The belly of the whale, which is really to say the dark period of incapacitation and disconnection from the adventure that causes the hero to reflect on his purpose.  His enemy here is not the confinement.  The confinement represents his own self doubt.

Locke begins to doubt the work in the hatch is of importance.  The swan phase of the story is the entrapment, having to punch the button, the realization of the entrapment and the questioning of the self and ultimate need for escape.

The Trial

6.    The road of trials.  Here the hero walks in the realm of the gods and faces their dangers head on, fully expecting and embracing the challenges.

Locke challenges the power of the hatch with the belief that it has no power, and convinced that he has in fact become enslaved to it.  Even though he is surprised to learn that the power does exist, he still succeeds in freeing himself from the belly of the whale. 

7.    Rebirth.  Having survived the trials of the gods, the hero emerges with restored youth and vigor.

The button no longer needs to be pushed, and the display of power by the island has refocused him.

8.    Temptation by the nemesis.  The nemesis, now aware that the hero is a threat, tries to bring the hero into his ranks.

We are at this point now.  We can assume that Ben is playing a game of keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.  (And Jacob hiding in plain sight!)

9.    Apotheosis.  The hero is deified.

This is also part of what we are seeing right now.  We know there are good people amongst the others, the tailies that were kidnapped etc, and to them Locke has now become a hero.  The nemesis, however, has a different plan as we saw; he plans to humiliate the hero to prevent him from gathering support.

10.    The hero receives the power. (Now he just needs to figure out what to do with it!)

Here is where we are leaving off.  As you can see, we are pretty close to the end of the second act of the myth.  What happens here and in the following steps is what predicts the end of the show.

The Return

1.    The hero is tempted by his power and wrestles with a desire to maintain his gifts for self-use.
2.    The hero ultimately Journeys back to his world, but is faced with new or old challenges.
3.    Rescue from without.  Someone with no power aids the hero, usually; this infuses humanity back into the hero.  (In some cases this connects with the return step one and it is a supernatural being which aids his escape, think Darth Vader standing against the Emperor.)
4.    Crossing into the ‘natural’ world.  The hero must now face the ‘normal’ world with his changes exposed.
5.    The bridge.  The hero brings access to the wonders of the hidden world, eradicating the barrier between them.
6.    Freedom.  Having accomplished his mission, the hero is now free to live the improved world having conquered the threat of death and improving the lives of all around him.

Of course, there are other ‘distraction’ story lines that belong to the other individual more monomythic stories going on on the island, but this, if I am correct, is the cycles of the primary myth that the LOST writers are creating.

So what do you folks think?  Normally, I don’t wear my geek hat in public, but hopefully you all did not find this a total waste of time.  If you are interested in getting a much better description of this, read “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” By Joseph Campbell.

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