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alliecat8Odd, isn't it, that with all of Lost's book references, and Sawyer's library and bibliophillic tendencies, that we now seem to be caught up in a vortex (a bit like Dorothy's vortex inside the cyclone) of Jack's plotline. Jack, who -- as far as we know -- only reads medical reference books and the stray storybook to various younger relatives. In this episode we see Jack fall through a vortex that goes up instead of down, though we don't really see it; a spiral that leads to the top of a Lighthouse. And modest!me, I would never be one to crow about having made a story-nest for Jack at the top of a more modern-day version of just such a lighthouse in my last (and only) AU fic. Nope, not me, not never, ahem. Jack, of all people. And his story – one of my favorites: Alice In Wonderland.
In 4 x 10, "Something Nice Back Home," Jack reads to Aaron, "I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Aha, that's the great puzzle." Now that question has gotten even bigger. Not only is he different because he experienced the island, but he's different again because he didn't experience it at all. And yet similarities persist, despite the vast differences in his life(ves).
Jack has fallen down the rabbit hole, and now we see that he's also fallen "up,” this time a spiral staircase to the top of the lighthouse. In this episode we learned that alt!Jack gave a whole new spin on "Daddy Issues" when he became a father himself. "Changed," indeed.
And yet not so much as he might've thought, if he somehow subconsciously or half-remembered a life where his father arguably wrecked it by expecting too much from him, even though their family portraits make them appear very happy. Alt!Jack seems, from all outward appearances, to be a good Dad, or at least one who's trying to be good – right down to the happy pix of Jack and David wearing a Red Sox cap (are they red, btw? Duh). He took an interest in David's passions, possibly unlike Christian did in Jack's.
However, we learn at the end that even for all his trying, David was still afraid of failing his father, afraid of not having what it takes. And poor Jack, who'd thought he was being a good dad, feels a half-realized sense of regret and failure that despite his desperate attempts, the sins of the father (even when those sins were apparently never realized to the extent that they were in the...what? Not!alt!timeline?)...were so much more benign than the sins perpetrated on Jack by Christian. The phrase "can't win for losing" comes to mind.
Hating mirrors can be seen as an example of self-hatred.
Poor Jack.
I think I might say that once per ep review. Tonight I'll say it twice. Poor Jack.
I'd anticipated plenty of surprises this season, but (being unspoiled for the first time ever) I was completely surprised that alt!Jack is a dad. I wonder, randomly, if alt!Sawyer is still one, as well? Then we would have a dark boy and a fair girl -- the light-and-dark references again. Yet neither island!Jack nor island!Sawyer claim to be cut out for fatherhood.
Clementine looks like Claire. David looks like Kate. I’m just sayin’.
And now back to our regularly-scheduled story: Alice. Rabbits abound. (hee!) And now mirrors do, too, from the moment we see Jack shaving in a cracked one in "Deux Ex Machina," to him peering into one in the not-crashing alt!Flight 815’s, to Jack smashing one in which he sees his childhood home in "Lighthouse." Most of us know that everything we see through the looking glass is backward; we see, literally, a "mirror-image" of reality. Through the looking glass everything is backward. The White Queen speaks of "living backwards" where she remembers best the events that haven't occurred yet. For example, they punish the King's Messenger, who hasn't yet had a trial, nor even committed the crime yet. There are the chess/checkers/backgammon games as well as pack of cards (off with Sawyer's head, Jack!) Is Claire just a pawn? [Is that why "they" claim to have her baby?] Why did Jin lie to Claire about anything? Only to lure her back to the Temple and possilble safety? Or to look for, or possibly be bait for, Sun?
So what does it mean when Jack sees his childhood home? This is quite a stretch, but with all the talk of black and white, could Jack's white house really be black? Metaphorically, according to Katherine Neville’s novel The Eight, red = black; as in the Black Queen “painting the roses red.” A darkness is growing; as if Claire is Alice and she is on the Red Team. There's still more trouble in mirror-land; more "darkness growing” as it might be growing in Sayid.
Was Claire’s “baby” a dead boar, like the Dutchess’ baby in the chapter “Pig and Pepper?” The Dutchess had laid the baby boar under a tree in the same way that Sawyer had found Aaron.
Jacob gave Hurley a list of instructions ostensibly to set the dial at 108 degrees to lure in seagoing vessels. Was this The Black Rock, then? Did Jack change anything by seeing himelf at #23 and smashing the mirror, essentially eliminating himself from the equation? Jacob's formula for luring vessels to island with 360-degree wheel reminds me of Mrs. Hawking's pendulum. Church = lighthouse = steeple. (“Flashes Before Your Eyes.”)
Jacob told Jack: "You have what it takes." Jack doesn't like doing what he's told to do; in fact, he’s likely to yell, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” just like Locke might have done. Unlike Hurley who follows instructions that make little sense "just like old times." Jack is impulsive, the "polar" opposite from Sawyer, who is deliberate. But LIKE Sawyer, Jack has to find out how important he is to himself. Same goes for Mr. Death-Wish Sawyer, who saves own life and the lives of the people he reluctantly calls friends, and he lets his enemy!Jack save his own life, too. They need each other - Jack needs to fix & work miracles; Sawyer needs to be fixed and craves a miracle in his life.
Other Alice references
The Looking Glass Station, where Charlie drowned
The Geronimo Jackson poster in the Dharmaville cafeteria of Alice, the White Rabbit, the March Hare, the Hookah-Smoking Caterpillar, and the Cheshire Cat
There is a White Rabbit on Aaron's door in “There's No Place Like Home”
Episodes
“White Rabbit”
“Through the Looking Glass”
********
Randomness:
They all, but particularly Nadia and Flocke, want to go home; Wizard of Oz references - red ruby slippers and “there’s no place like home. Dorothy, Alice, and Suzanne Locke all wore red-and blue (checked?) dresses. All of them seemed to be lost.
David attended St. Mary's Academy, St. Mary’s of the Immmaculate Conception. Emily Locke claims that John was immaculately conceived.
Are Jack and Locke both Catholic? Since we’re never sure what is and isn’t important, it might be worthy of notice that Charlie is, as well as Desmond and Hurley.
Jack needs to fix things. Now thinks that his return to the island to fix his "broken" self was stupid. So much for Destiny.
Did Jacob (or Dogel) want to get Hurley & Jack AWAY from the Temple (and Sayid)? His requests for honesty leave Sayid vulnerable. Miles is maybe left with Sayid (?), but he can't hear him like he can usually hear the dead.
Pool of Tears = Sayid's Pool of "Healing Waters" = Charlie's drowning pool. Jack and Christian were soaking their feet in the pool just before Jack’s wedding. Sawyer jumping out of the helicopter and swimming back to the island to save his friends. And is the ocean itself a pool of tears, presided over by Taweret. She is the “mistress of the horizon” who was rumored to have special healing powers over the safety and security of pregnancy and childhood, and yet not even Juliet the fertility expert can’t “fix” the barren women of the island.
JACK HAS INHERITED SAYID'S JOB OF KILLING DOORS WITH HIS FEET!
Scars: Jack doesn't remember his appendectomy. Christian wanted to do the surgery himself but wasn't allowed. Claire was also scarred, by Other Other Other's needles – does alt!Jack have tattoos? Jack's tattoos caused him to get beat up just like he did on the playground. "Off with his/her head!" – that would leave a scar indeed!
Did Christian ever say "I love you" to Jack? Or did he just give “off with your head”-type concrit?
Claire said she wanted to kill Kate for raising Aaron. Contradictions: Claire's father and her "friend" (Flocke) said Aaron was right where he was supposed to be in S3 finale, and she seemed happy. Yet dream!Claire told Kate "don't you DARE bring him back."
Ha! Kate isn't invited on Lighthouse mission. And she really IS going looking for Claire, but are her motivations selfish or not?
Claire looks like Peter Pan - like the boy from The Substitute. Could he be Aaron; a Lost Boy? He could just so long as he was a boy with “Special” powers like Walt’s, who could control the how and where and when of his appearances on the island..
Other Other Other's appear to believe in Free Will: "Everything is an option," says Dogen.
Alt!Jack's conversation at the conservatory with Dogen: Jack is self-deceptively proud of having "no expectations" of David...maybe because he doesn't expect him to follow in Jack's footsteps? Tho Jack did play a bit of piano. Dogen's opinion that their children (both boys?) are too young to be pressured at their age is culture shock toJack. Jack can't remember when David started playing the piano. David doesn't want his father there because he's afraid he "doesn't have what it takes." Where is his mother? Is David a wishbone between Jack and Sarah? Jack and Kate?
Jack desperately didn't want to fail at fathering...this could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Jack *seems* to be an unassuming father, not self-righteous like Christian was; yet David was devastated at Christian's funeral...and Jack was unaware. Unassuming and un...caring?...unavailable?...unauthentic? They seem to get along okay, yet his room is unauthentically neat room for a teenage boy; unlike he has ever made it his home. Still, he must know about Jack's rebel music, his rebel tattoos.
Quotes
"But I don't want to go among mad people," said Alice. "Oh, you can't help that," said the cat. "We're all mad here."”
“If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
“I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then”
“He was part of my dream, of course - but then I was part of his dream too.”
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-25 10:23 pm (UTC)wearing a Red Sox cap (are they red, btw? Duh)
The team primarily wears a navy blue cap with a red B, which is also the most common hat to buy. There's an alternate cap that's red with a navy blue B but I can't remember the team wearing it during games. Maybe in the 80s or earlier they did?
no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-25 11:31 pm (UTC)I would be not even disappointed at all if Kate didn't meet an end with Claire's axe lol.
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Date: 2010-02-27 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 06:13 pm (UTC)and then there's the stuff I did think of also, like Jack taking over the killing of doors with his feets.
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Date: 2010-02-27 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 03:12 am (UTC)