Your Voice: All the Best Castaways Have Daddy Issues
Submitted by Gary Anderson
In the first three seasons of Lost, there have been several themes that run throughout the series and connect the Oceanic 815 survivors and the Others.
However, standing out among all of these themes is one thing that has gone largely unnoticed by these eyes (which admittedly hasn’t read every theory out there, but go with me on this one). What I’ve recently noticed is that an overwhelming number of Lost characters have serious Daddy issues. I don’t mean "Daddy wouldn’t buy me a car on my 16th Birthday" daddy issues, and I don’t mean "Daddy is such an a-hole, he beat up my boyfriend" type issues either. I mean REALLY screwed up in a way that Dr. Phil wouldn’t touch with a 15 foot pole type issues.
By my estimation there are at LEAST 10 characters in the first three seasons of Lost that have had some serious conflict with the fathers in their life.
Those ten are: Sawyer, Claire, Jack, Sun, Jin, Ben, Kate, Hurley, Locke and Walt. There may be others that I’m just not remembering, but these stand out.
Now I realize that a lot of people have issues with their fathers or father figures. That’s a common occurrence in life. However, this commonality has to mean something. This show is so tightly written that everything happens for a reason, and the fact that so many of the survivors or Others have strong issues with their fathers has to mean something. A short recap of said issues will illustrate my point.
Sawyer’s father killed his mother, and then killed himself. Claire never knew her father, Christian Shephard, who was a drunk and was a burden on his son, Jack.
Sun’s father was extremely overbearing when it came to her relationship with her husband, Jin, and in turn was essentially forcing his new son-in-law to do some very bad things in return for his blessing to marry Sun. Jin, the son of a fisherman and a whore, was embarrassed by his family and would tell people that his father was a supremely important person, rather than the truth that he was a lowly fisherman.
Ben’s father was a drunk who constantly guilted him into thinking that it was his fault that his mother died in childbirth. Kate killed her stepfather for beating on her mother, and Hurley’s no-account father was never there until he won the Lottery. It was only then that he suddenly showed up at the request of Hurley’s mother.
Locke’s father conned him into giving up a kidney, and then pushed him out a window, paralyzing him and confining him to a wheelchair. On the island, Locke went and had Sawyer kill his father for him, which Sawyer did, after finding out that Locke’s father was the reason Sawyer’s parents were dead.
Rounding out the Lost-10 is Walt, who, when he crashed onto the island, was just getting to know his father, Michael. Michael had never really been around his son due to conflicts with his ex-wife.
So what does that all mean? Well, that’s the 3.2 million dollar question, isn’t it? There’s been virtually NO theories out there debating this that I have seen, and it hasn’t really been addressed on the show, other than during the individual flashbacks. There’s no comment by Kate saying, "Wow, you killed your father Ben? That’s a coincidence…I killed MY father."
To be honest, there may be nothing more to this other than the nagging question of why so many of the members are linked by a single factor in their lives. Will they ever realize that they are all connected by this, and would it matter if they did?
In all likelihood this will go nowhere, and it’s probably just an accident that everyone happens to have these issues with the paternal figure in their lives. Or maybe it’s something that will come to a head by the end of season six and things will all make sense.
Until then, I’d like to get some people’s thoughts on this. Has this been brought up before other than just the passing, "Hey, anyone notice that?"
Whatcha think?
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I’m thinking you could also add Penny to the list of people with daddy issues, especially now that we know how crazy Charles Widmore is.
I’m not sure if the daddy issues mean anything, or if it’s just a common theme the writers like to explore. The same thing pops up a lot in Joss Whedon shows, but it doesn’t really mean anything. It just causes good drama. But yes, someone on Lost should have mommy issues for a change!
Comment by Don — March 25, 2008 @ 10:01 am
Also, Alex, I didn’t mention. Although it’s been guessed that Ben isn’t her biological father.
And yeah I suppose Penny could be thrown in there as well.
Comment by Gary — March 25, 2008 @ 10:20 am
I think parental issues can lead to a troubled life. All of our favorite characters have ’sinned’ and struggled before coming on the island. I think the daddy issues are the writers way of giving the characters the reason for why they are messed up. It’s the reason why Jack can never “measure up” in his own mind. It’s the reason Kate is scared to trust a man. It’s the reason Ben and Locke need to feel powerful; because their fathers made them feel worthless.
Comment by JustinSA — March 25, 2008 @ 11:30 am
I see some parallels with Star Wars/Darth Vader daddy issues and each character independently struggling with choosing between dark and light forces. They are foils for each other and it certainly is difficult to peg the good guys Vs the bad guys sometimes isn’t it?
Comment by SomeGal — March 25, 2008 @ 11:37 am
I’m not sure if the daddy-issue thing will ever be addressed, but it clearly seems to be one of the “coincidences” that lurks in the background of the characters. What I’m waiting for is the big WTF moment when the characters start figuring out what these coincidences are. Think about it: let’s say that Jack figures out Claire is his sister; then Desmond figures out who they were having the funeral for when he arrived back on the island drunk (Libby in case you forgot, the woman who gave him the very boat he arrived on); then Kate and Sawyer figure out that they both knew Sawyer’s girlfriend; Locke and Sayid figure out he did a home inspection for Nadia etc etc… Some of the coincidences have come to light, but most still remain hidden. What I’m waiting for is when someone finally wakes up and says “What the hell is going on here?” Whether this moment ever actually arrives will be a factor in deciding whether the show has been completely successful.
Comment by BobW — March 25, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
Did you not watch the first season, there was an episode entitled “all the best cowboys have daddy issues”. This idea has been around since the beginning.
Comment by knowbody — March 25, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
Kate, Locke, Jin, for instance, all had mommy issues. Kate’s mom gave her up after she killed her dad. Locke’s real mother only located him to get money from his father Anthony Cooper. Jin’s mom was a prostitute who wanted money from Sun. Sounds like they all have family issues!!!
Comment by MB — March 25, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
RE: knowbody
um….yeah I did see it. Did you not gather the reference of my title to the title of that episode?
And I KNOW that the issue is on the screen, that much is obvious. I’m talking about in the talkbacks on the net, and in the theories and whatnot.
I haven’t seen anyone bring up the fact that this is a GIANT link connecting at last count 12 members of the cast (including Penny and Alex), and the show has not even remotely addressed the fact that EVERYONE has these issues, other than presenting it in the flashbacks.
Did you even READ what I wrote? If I hadn’t seen that episode, I wouldn’t have known about Sawyer, now would I?
Comment by Gary — March 25, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
Gary, I agree with everything you said. An unusually high percentage of characters do have major father issues. And more could be coming. We don’t know anything about Juliet’s and Desmond’s childhoods yet, but it would not surprise me to, at some point, learn they also have father or at least parental issues. I think a key figure tied to some of the island’s mysteries is centered on one of those fathers, Christian Shephard.
Comment by BCD — March 25, 2008 @ 2:42 pm
The writers clearly saw this from an early time on.
“All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues”was the 11th episode of the season.
I wouldn’t say it isn’t discussed or unnoticed, but there are no clues as to why this is, except for parents can be a big influence on a person’s (character’s)life. This can just be a very good way to create conflict for a character
Comment by zach — March 25, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
Don’t forget Shannon’s step-mother (Boone’s mom) hated her, Ana Lucia had problems with her mother, and now we see Michael had issues with his mother (and who knows where his father is). I also think there is not much to this other than it makes for interesting characters.
Comment by asb — March 25, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
i forget what interview, could’ve been one of the podcasts, but someone asked lindelof and cuse about the significance of the daddy issues, and their answer was cryptic, something like “the people that notice the father link are barking up the right tree”
i feel that this will be addressed more towards the end of the show’s run, along with why there are all these links between the castaways that they don’t know about.
Comment by tony uncle al — March 25, 2008 @ 8:48 pm
Gary, good post about an important theme. I think Penny is the biggest one of all that we’ve been leading up to in the whole series. If you think about, we have yet to get the juicy back story on Pen and dear old dad… why is he so crazy to drive des away? Is there some heartbreak in his life that makes him control penny? What is his true motivation??
I think Widmore and Christian are the two most important daddies on the show.
Maybe ben, too…
Comment by lmz27 — March 26, 2008 @ 3:50 am
Don’t forget that Ben told Locke (in front of all The Others) that ‘he was not who they thought he was’ because he could not kill his father. Seems that dealing with daddy issues is pretty important to people on the island.
Comment by shg — March 26, 2008 @ 8:04 am
I’ve been keeping an eye on the “daddy issues” theme for a while now! Something I wanted to add…in “The Other Woman” episode, when Juliet is having her session with Harper, Tom pokes his head in and says something like, “she’ll have you crying about your daddy in no time, I’m speaking from personal experience”. That comment jumped out at me.
Comment by Celeste — March 26, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
Lets hope that this is simply not a “going to the deadbeat dad well” because it is effective. One would hope there was deeper meaning since they have played this card over and over again. Could just be that the writers have daddy issues.
Comment by dtt — March 26, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
The most important writer in English had very little time for mother issues and yet lots of fathers and sons, fathers and daughters. Shakespeare.
There are two theories that explain the same phenomenon in Lost: one is that Shakespearean tendencies are an influence on writing in general, especially plotting and character development. The other is that similar deep structural cultural factors influence both. I vote for the second, that is, not an influence model but a structural model.
What that means is that anxieties about paternity are played out at one level, while anxieties about maternity at another. Lost has a pretty strong sexual politics. The island makes men potent, increases the likelihood of paternity. While at the same time, the island is deadly for women in maternity. Women are at risk while men are put on more certain ground–the exact opposite of off island nature, where paternity can always be suspect (minus DNA tests) to a degree that maternity never is.
The story of Sun and Jin is not the only one that fits this model. Remember that it is revealed that Kate’s real reason for killing her father was not that she was protecting her mother but rather that she found out that the drunken bully was actually her biological dad. One of Claire’s problems in life too is that she encountered the fact her biological dad appeared as if from the grave. Little does she know how this has been true, a deep structural irony.
There are mothers too on the show that are significant but they are in relation to loss: Danielle and the kidnapped Alex; Ben’s mother’s death and her haunting of him; Juliet’s sister’s sudden fertility in the midst of cancer and the loss of Juliet to 3 years on the island. Then there are potential threats to women who might become mothers: obviously Sun, but then a fair amount was made of Kate’s and of Alex’s potential pregnancies. And Claire’s motherhood has been featured in peculiar ways that have made her seem vulnerable to threats too, even from Charlie at one point.
I don’t want to do a feminist read on all this. I just want to point out that it is quite typical of Western culture to have a foregrounding of paternal trouble in the form of heroic story telling while backgrounding maternal trouble to a more general issue of pregnancy itself. As if the men can afford the luxury of being “cowboys” or full fledged characters while the women are more cast in light of the body and its biology.
Comment by island — March 26, 2008 @ 5:10 pm
Really, if you think about it, all of the castaways haven’t really had a single “good” relationship in any one of their flashbacks- including the relationships with their fathers.
Comment by B_Locke47 — March 27, 2008 @ 1:18 am
Even though his problems weren’t too bad, it was hinted that Charlie also had some daddy issues. Father was a butcher who probably thought he should get a real job instead of dabbling in music, whereas his mother was saying he was going to save the family with his talents. (Make money)
So there was some pressure there I guess.
Comment by Signus924 — March 27, 2008 @ 2:16 am
I think it is just one of those interesting conceits that lead nowhere. Lost is full of coincidences and I think it would be too burdensome to tie all of them up. I think this is similar to all the references to Hurley’s lottery numbers in seasons 1 & 2. It seems like that is a thread that has been abandoned without any clarity about what the numbers mean.
Comment by SJM — March 27, 2008 @ 9:42 am
I just think it would have been kind of boring to show all the flashbacks with happy friendships and prosperous relationships. I mean seriously what else could they have shown? Jack getting along with his father superbly? Sawyer playing silly pranks on his bar buddies? Hurley winning the lottery and having a great life with all his money? What would be the point of it all? I think all their parental relationships were horrible because that’s good tv.
Comment by DeGroot — March 28, 2008 @ 12:42 am
I think the daddy issues theme may also play out on yet another level. In Meet Kevin Johnson, did anyone else notice this: when Ben was talking to Michael on the radio, he says “What wouldn’t a man do for his son?” in this strange way. I think Ben has another kind of Daddy Issue somewhere in his past — like a lost son?
Comment by whatis6times7 — March 29, 2008 @ 6:12 am