Survival Of The Lostest
On this blog, we've discussed Lost's potential failings as a unified work of art. But this negative is also a positive. Lost may have to make some things up as it goes along, but as an ongoing piece, it can also learn and adapt.
I'm going to place all 26 main characters--as determined by Wikipedia (I doubt any else's list would be that different) into three categories--Great (almost always like to see them on the screen), Good (usually enjoyable but dull in certain contexts) and So-so (can be okay in the proper plot, but too often boring or annoying).
Great:
Richard
Juliet
Faraday
Sawyer
Desmond
Sayid
Ben
Locke
Hurley
Miles
Good:
Kate
Eko
Jin
Sun
Charlotte
Jack
Libby
So-so:
Boone
Ana Lucia
Michael
Nikki
Claire
Walt
Charlie
Paulo
Shannon
These are my judgments, of course, but, once again, I doubt the consensus of fans would be that different.
Now let's look at the ratio of the dead to all in each category, as of the final episode (the beginning of the final episode) of season 5:
Great - one out of ten dead (Locke doesn't count).
Good - three out of seven dead.
So-so - nine out of nine dead (or MIA).
In other words, the producers of Lost have been able to remove the weak links from their show. Lost may not be perfectly unified, since when they started, and when they introduced new characters, they didn't know who'd click. But as far as fan satisfaction, learning along the way is just as important.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:11 AM
3 Comments:
Very good analysis. But this still doesn't justify them killing my Juliet.
I agree almost completely with your triaging of the list of 26. But I think the list itself is unfairly biased towards the Flight 815 folks and the Freighter Folk. It makes no sense for a list of "major characters" to include Nikki, Paolo, Libby, Ana Lucia, and Boone, and to exclude Rousseau and Alex, who are far more important to the story (and I suspect had more actual screen time than any of these five, even Boone and Ana Lucia, if you don't count large group shots).
So the greatest batch of "unreasonable deaths" isn't noted by the list. This is the genocide of the Season Three Others: Alex, Karl, Tom (Friendly), the vicious Danny, and all the rest. You can include Rousseau in this too.
I think it's very unfortunate that all of them were killed. The loss of virtually the entire group that we knew as "the Others" in season three means, to me, that Richard's current band of barefoot nomads has nothing in common with the house-dwelling denizens of New Otherton we came to know during Season Three. I consider that a severe dramatic continuity problem. Whereas the deaths of Shannon, Boone, and Libby didn't affect the overall story at all (except as an excuse to cause the main characters to quarrel with each other).
But I 100% agree with your main point.
The "main characters," as you no doubt know, I got from the Wikipedia list. Perhaps others could be added, but I believe (with the exception of Richard) that these are the characters played by actors who were listed on the regular roll, and not as guest stars.
It is true the Others have gone through changes as we've got to know them. They were merely mysterious characters in season one. In season two, for all we knew they were essentially hillbillies, with their leader being Zeke/Tom/Friendly. Then we got to know their real leader very well. Weirder was the fake village where Michael was held, which showed they were very organized, knowledgeable and ruthless. By season three we see them regularly, and they seem like regular people--fanatically devoted to the Island, yes, but also people with book groups, lovers, jealousies, tempers, trials, classes, etc. Next we learn about their past. But as we go along, there seem to be two types of Others--the strong Others, who may be crazy, but have personalities, and the sheeple Others, who sit back, say nothing, and need to be led. It now seems those latter Others have taken over, as they've been threatening to do for some time.
PS Juliet's not dead yet. No one's dead yet, not even Boone.
I'm still in mourning. Your reassurances do not stem the flood of my tears.
I guess the only thing I strongly object to on Wikipedia's list is Nikki and Paolo being on it. I think of that as a ruse: the writers may have, at one point, considered them to be potential regulars, but since they were killed in the first episode in which they did anything significant, it seems silly to list them.
One of the cruelest things that a TV producer ever did to me was to take a beloved character, who had been a second-tier character ("below the title line") for two years, and finally add her to the main credits. I was very happy to see her finally get her due. And then in that very episode, she died.
By the way, it's interesting that I agree with almost all of your triaging. I personally would drop Miles down to the middle tier, drop Charlotte to the bottom tier (my dislike for her increased over time), and move Jack and Claire up a notch. Which doesn't change your overall scores at all!
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