John Locke (Lost)
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| Locke | |
|---|---|
 Terry O'Quinn as John Locke |
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| First appearance | "Pilot: Part 1" |
| Centric episodes | "Walkabout" "Deus Ex Machina" "Exodus: Part 2" "Orientation" "Lockdown" "Further Instructions" "The Man from Tallahassee" |
| Information | |
| Status | With the Others |
| Profession | Regional collections manager at a cardboard manufacturer; previously, a home inspector; previously, a clerk in the toy section of a department store |
| Portrayed by | Terry O'Quinn |
Johnathan Locke, or John but most often referred to by his last name, "Locke," is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Terry O'Quinn.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Before the crash
Flashbacks in "Deus Ex Machina" reveal a younger Locke, with a full head of hair, working at a large retail store. His real mother, Emily Annabeth Locke (Swoosie Kurtz), makes a sudden appearance at his workplace, claiming that his birth was part of a greater plan, that he had no father and was "immaculately conceived". This leads to Locke hiring a private investigator to track down his biological father, who turns out to be a wealthy outdoorsman named Anthony Cooper (Kevin Tighe). Cooper seems to take his newfound son under his wing, teaching him to be a sportsman. However, he is actually laying the groundwork to con Locke into donating his kidney, which Cooper desperately needs. Once the operation is completed, Cooper leaves the hospital and orders his security guard not to admit Locke back into his estate. Locke is crushed when he discovers that he has been emotionally manipulated.
Following the deception by his father, Locke becomes a very angry and bitter person, even attending an anger-management group. He also loiters outside of his father's house early in the morning in his car every day, hoping to simply ask his father how he could con his own son. When Locke's father finally meets with him again, he shatters Locke by simply telling him to get over being conned, and that no one wants him around. Despite being told that, Locke still continues to loiter outside the house. Locke eventually begins a relationship with a woman named Helen (Katey Sagal), another member of the support group he attends. She successfully convinces him to stop loitering, and to "take a leap of faith" into the unknown. This is later paralleled in Locke's convincing Jack to "take a leap of faith" by pushing the button.
Locke and Helen eventually end up living together, and Locke wants to propose. Helen finds out in the obituaries that Anthony has died. Locke and Helen are the only people at the funeral, and during the event, Locke sees two mysterious men by another grave, as well as a car that drives away after Locke says that he forgives his father. After Locke, now working as a home inspector, leaves a house he has just inspected, the same car from the funeral appears. When Locke approaches it, he discovers that his father is in the car, alive and well. Anthony reveals that he faked his death because he is in trouble with the two men who Locke saw at the funeral, conning them out of $700,000. The money is in a safe deposit box (the number of the safe deposit box is 15.16, two of "the numbers"), but he does not want to risk getting it. He asks Locke to retrieve the money for him with a promise of $200,000 as payment. Locke grudgingly agrees. After he gets the money, the two men — one of them named Jimmy Bane — appear in Locke's house. They question Locke if Anthony is still alive and about the money. After they leave, Helen asks if Anthony is indeed still alive, but Locke denies it. Later, Locke goes to a hotel and gives Anthony the money. Anthony gives Locke his cut, but Locke does not take it because he only did the job to please his father. As Anthony walks out the door, Helen, who apparently has followed Locke, appears. Seeing Anthony and the money, she walks away, furious that Locke lied and seems to prefer his thieving father over her. Locke pleads for Helen to stay and finally proposes, but she says no.
An unknown amount of time later, Locke joins a commune which is secretly growing marijuana. He is treated very well there and considers its members his new family. One day Locke picks up a young man named Eddie who is hitchhiking. Eddie decides to join the commune as well, but six weeks pass and he is never told about the marijuana growing operation. He grows angry that he is kept out of secrets, so he asks Locke to convince commune leaders Mike and Jan to let him into the secret greenhouse so he can see what happens there. It is soon discovered by the commune that Eddie is actually an undercover police officer, gathering evidence on the illegal activities of the commune. Mike and Jan blame Locke for this and are in the midst of fleeing, but Locke promises to take care of everything. He takes Eddie hunting out in the forest, but turns his rifle on him. Eddie admits that he is indeed a cop, and that the police chose Locke to dupe because his troubled past would make him the easiest to trick. Eddie walks away, knowing that Locke will not shoot him because he is a good person. Locke attempts to shoot Eddie as he leaves, but cannot.
Sometime later, Locke is visited by a young man named Peter Talbot, who claims that his mother is set to marry Anthony Cooper (under a different alias), and realized through Cooper's medical records that Locke donated a kidney. Locke lied, saying that it was an anonymous donation. Locke, realizing that Cooper was back to his old conning habits, searched for him and found him. He confronted Cooper, making him swear to end the con with Ms. Talbot. Cooper vowed he would. When Peter ended up dead, Locke traveled to Cooper's penthouse. Cooper tricked him into going near the window, and shoved him through it, making Locke fall eight stories to the ground, breaking Locke's back. Cooper then disappeared. Locke was admitted to a hospital, where he is first placed in a wheelchair, to his great dismay. ("The Man from Tallahassee")
Left paraplegic, Locke leads a lonely existence as a middle manager at a box company, which is owned by Hurley, in Tustin, California, where he is constantly belittled by a snide (and younger) higher-up for his interests in wargaming and survivalism. He decides to go to Australia hoping to fulfill his dream of taking part in a walkabout. The evening before his trip, he has a conversation with a woman on the phone, whom he refers to as Helen (This is also the name of his ex-girlfriend), and implores her to join him. She declines, implying that he's been spending a lot of his time and money talking to her on a 1-900-like phone service, and demands that he not call her anymore. When he arrives in Australia for his walkabout, it's discovered that he is disabled and Locke is forced off the tour and sent back to the United States on the doomed flight. At the airport he hands Rose her pills when she drops them on the floor when he's in his wheelchair leading to her being the only crash 815 survivor that knows Locke was once in a wheelchair.
[edit] After the crash
[edit] Season One
After the crash, Locke miraculously recovers the use of his legs. On the island, Locke demonstrates his many essential skills: as well as being an extremely proficient hunter and tracker, he also has skills in carpentry, engineering and firearm use. Many on the island treat him as a sort of spiritual leader. He is the oldest of the principal characters. He appears to have a connection to the island, to which he believes has some form of sentience and mystical powers . In addition, he was the first survivor to have a direct encounter with the monster and survive, later saying, "I've looked into the eye of this island, and what I saw was beautiful." The monster we see is not beautiful at all, so John may have seen something else. For a number of episodes, he keeps secret his findings and revelations from nearly all, except for his apparent acolyte, Boone Carlyle, with whom he often explores the island's jungles. During one such expedition, the two come across a metal hatch with a glass window, which they unsuccessfully try to force open or break. While trying to open the hatch, their contraption, a makeshift trebuchet, breaks; a splinter is found in Locke's leg but it doesn't hurt. Later that evening, Locke holds a log from the fire to his foot. He feels nothing, no pain. Later, a seeming vision leads the two to a crashed Beechcraft airplane stuck in trees. When Boone climbs into the cockpit, the plane falls to the ground, crushing Boone and eventually leading to his death. Because Locke initially lies about how Boone's injuries were received, the death drives a wedge between some of the survivors and Locke — and both Jack Shephard and Boone's step-sister, Shannon, hold him responsible for Boone's demise. Shannon asks Sayid to find out if Locke did it, but when he tells her he thinks Locke is not responsible, Shannon gets a gun and aims at Locke in the jungle, but Sayid tackles her and the bullet just grazes Locke.
Although he connects mainly to Boone, Locke also develops a friendship with Walt early on, teaching him backgammon and demonstrating knife throwing. Locke is the one who motivates Jack to leadership when he is struggling with the ghost of his father. He helps Charlie work through his heroin addiction, and builds a cradle with Claire for her baby. He also shares a mutual respect with Sayid. Other survivors are wary of Locke, due in part to his mysterious comings and goings, as well as his collection of hunting knives, which he had transported with him intending to use them on a walkabout of the Australian Outback.
In "The Greater Good," after showing Sayid the location of the Beechcraft, Locke confesses that he was the one who sabotaged the jury-rigged communication equipment that Sayid used to search for the island's radio transmitter. Later, in retaliation for her brother's death, Shannon tries to shoot Locke, but due to the intervention of Sayid, the bullet only grazes his temple.
In "Born to Run," Locke requests that Sayid brings Jack to the hatch with an open mind. When Jack asks why he kept it a secret for three weeks, Locke replies, "Since when do I report to you, Jack?"
Later, in "Exodus," with the help of Jack, Kate, Hurley, Locke is successful in blowing open the hatchway with dynamite found from a trek taken to an old landlocked slave trade ship.
[edit] Season Two
Shortly afterwards, Locke and Kate attempt to descend down the hatch by rope. When Kate is captured by Desmond, Locke enters alone, and is confronted by Desmond. Desmond initially asks Locke "are you Him?" in which Locke answers "yes", but after asking him a riddle which Locke fails to answer, Desmond holds him at gunpoint and makes him enter "the Numbers" sequence into the computer. After Desmond runs off, Locke creates a duty roster to man the computer console.
Locke first meets Mr. Eko in "Collision" and runs the DHARMA Initiative orientation film for Eko and Michael in "What Kate Did". Eko shows Locke the cored-out Bible found in the Arrow Station discovered by the tail section survivors. Inside is a missing piece of the orientation film, which Locke splices back.
Locke trains Michael on how to use the guns in "The 23rd Psalm." In "The Hunting Party," Locke is knocked unconscious by Michael, who locks him in the gun cache with Jack. Locke and Jack are freed shortly thereafter by Sawyer and Kate, and the four go in search of Michael (although the men do not originally know that Kate has followed them). During the search, they are confronted by Mr. Friendly and the "Others" and are forced to return to their camp without Michael. Upon returning, in a flashback in "Exposé", Locke finds Paulo burying something on the beach. Thinking nothing of his actions, he advises Paulo to hide his possessions elsewhere, as the tide will wash it out to sea.
In "Fire + Water" Locke finds Charlie with a Virgin Mary statue and confiscates it, believing Charlie has been taking heroin again. He becomes more protective to Claire by moving his tent closer to hers. When Charlie steals Aaron for the second time, Locke punches Charlie in the face several times.
In "The Long Con" Locke locks the Virgin Mary statues in the cache because, as he tells Jack, the heroin they contain might become helpful later on since Jack, as a doctor, could administer it in controlled doses as a painkiller or sedative. He also tells Jack that he did not break them and remove the drugs because he is superstitious and doesn't "want to break seven Virgin Marys". Locke later moves both the guns and the heroin to a new hiding place as a result of being conned by Sawyer, from where they are promptly stolen by Charlie.
In "One of Them" Locke is persuaded by Sayid to change the combination on the armory in order that Henry Gale be detained there while being interrogated by Sayid. However, Jack blackmails Locke into opening the door when he realizes that Sayid is torturing Gale by grabbing Locke and refusing to release him to enter the station code unless he opens the door for Jack first. Locke does so, then runs to enter the code, but before he can enter it correctly the timer counts down to 0. As Locke continually presses the "Execute" button, the display flips over to a series of black and red hieroglyphic-style images before resetting to 108 minutes and starting again.
In "Lockdown" Locke's right leg is painfully injured by the blast doors, forcing him to enlist Henry to enter the Numbers. Jack later determines in "Dave" that it is a hairline fracture that will take weeks to heal, forcing Locke to use crutches. While attempting to draw the mysterious map he saw during the lockdown, Locke's faith in the hatch and the entire island is severely shaken when "Henry" — who was revealed to be an "Other" — says he never entered the Numbers at all. He claims that everything simply reverted back to normal.
Henry Gale also is able to stir extreme anger in Locke on numerous occasions by implying that he "lets Jack call all of the shots". Locke's faith is rekindled slightly when Rose reminds him that the island cured his paralysis and her illness, and it will probably speed up the healing of his leg.
In "?", Locke is recruited by Eko to track "Henry," who had just escaped. Locke soon finds out that Eko actually wants to know about a "question mark," even going so far as knocking Locke unconscious when he does not get answers. When he wakes up, Locke shows Eko the map that he has drawn from the blastdoor. Seeing the giant "?" in the middle, Eko and Locke head there.
At night, Locke dreams that he is Eko. A wheelchair-bound Yemi appears, asking him to climb the cliff that the Beechcraft plane was on. When Locke awakens and informs Eko of his dream, they trek to the cliff and Eko climbs it. The view from the top reveals that the ground below looks like a giant question mark, and when some of the soil is cleared away, another hatch is discovered.
Locke and Eko enter the hatch - called The Pearl - which has numerous television monitors. They watch a video which explains that its purpose is to see if the denizens of the other hatches perform their tasks, a "psychological experiment," as though they are actually meaningless. Locke is shocked by this revelation and falls to the ground screaming, mainly because he has spent so much time performing and believing in a task that meant nothing. Eko, however, tells Locke that whatever he believes can still be true. Eko explains about the extraordinary circumstances of his brother's plane crashing on the same island that he crashed on. Because of that - and the dreams they both had with Yemi - Eko believes that the island and the button do indeed mean something. Locke is still not convinced, so Eko says he will take over button duty for him.
In "Three Minutes", Locke cuts open his splint and starts walking along the beach and later through the jungle without his crutches, although he still limps slightly.
In "Live Together, Die Alone," Locke confronts Mr. Eko in The Swan, trying to convince him that the whole button procedure was a mind game. He grabs Eko's club and tries to destroy the computer, but Eko overpowers Locke and beats him up, locking him out of The Swan. Locke then approaches Desmond and tells him about what he found inside The Pearl. Desmond accompanies Locke back to The Swan, where Desmond short-circuits the station's security system, causing the blast doors to close and thereby locking Eko out. While Eko, with the help of Charlie, unsuccessfully tries to force his way into the computer room by attempting to blow up the blast doors with dynamite, Desmond tells Locke about what Kelvin told him the button was for (discharging the buildup of the electromagnetic field behind the wall). Although Desmond discovers that his failure to enter the code in time on September 22, 2004 may have been responsible for the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, this does not convince Locke, who smashes the computer when Desmond tries to push the button after all. Instead, Desmond makes his way under the computer room to activate The Swan's fail-safe device before the station's electromagnetic field gets too powerful. Desmond's actions halt the growth of the electromagnetic field.
[edit] Season Three
In "Further Instructions", Locke awakens by himself in the jungle a day later. He is unable to speak, but spots Desmond run by for a moment. Eko's stick suddenly lands on him, so he takes it and heads back to camp, where he begins building a small sweat lodge in the middle of Eko and Charlie's uncompleted church, motioning that he needs to speak with the island. He asks Charlie to guard the sweat lodge while he is inside, and a bitter Charlie reluctantly agrees.
Inside, Locke consumes a paste which acts as a hallucinatory drug (the same paste he gave to Boone in the episode "Hearts and Minds"). Boone himself suddenly appears, much to Locke's surprise. Locke tries to apologize to Boone, but cannot speak nor use his legs. Instead, Boone puts him in a wheelchair and wheels him through Sydney International Airport, telling him that he has to help someone he knows. Locke sees everyone he met on the island in different roles in the airport (Desmond is a pilot, Hurley works behind the ticket counter, entering the numbers into a computer), but everyone he sees is not the person he has to help. Boone dismisses that Sun, Jin, Sayid, Hurley or Desmond are the ones in danger. When Locke points at Charlie and Claire (With Aaron) He says that they'll be fine... For a while. Boone then points Locke towards Kate, Sawyer, and Jack who are checking their bags through security. Boone acknowledges that they are who Locke has to save, but that he can't do anything about it just yet. Eventually Locke is forced to crawl up an escalator, where he finds Eko's stick. A now bloody Boone tells Locke to fix his "mess." Locke snaps out of his hallucination and leaps out of the sweat lodge. Finally able to speak again, he tells Charlie that he has to save Eko's life.
Locke and Charlie trek through the jungle, although Locke wants to rescue Eko on his own. They spot polar bear fur and Eko's cross necklace, leading Locke to believe that a polar bear found an unconscious Eko and dragged him off to its lair. A polar bear charges after the two, but they both manage to run away, only to find themselves at the former site of the hatch, which is now a giant implosion crater. They also run into Hurley, who explains the kidnapping of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer by the Others, before being sent away by Locke. The two eventually discover a cave, but Locke insists he go in alone because if he believed in the button, Eko would not be in danger, so he should be the one to save him. He enters the cave with a torch and discovers numerous skeletons, some with Dharma Initiative shirts on. He also discovers Eko, injured but alive. The resident polar bear then grabs Eko, but Locke fights it off by spraying hairspray on the torch, shooting a fireball at the bear and burning it.
Locke and Charlie carry Eko to safety. Locke apologizes to Eko and blames himself for the dire situation the survivors are currently in, but Eko regains consciousness and says that Locke can still fix everything. Charlie does not see this and notices that Eko is not awake, so whether this was in Locke's head is unknown. When they return to camp, Locke tells the other survivors that he will rescue Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. His first phase of the plan begins in "The Cost of Living", where he decides to visit The Pearl in order to find a way to communicate with the Others. Unlike Jack, Locke says that anyone can join him, which Sayid, Desmond, Nikki and Paulo do. He also wants to find Eko, who awoke and ran into the jungle, delirious.
Eko is found by a stream, where Locke confronts him about spotting the monster. Locke reveals what he saw so long ago during the first days on the island: a shining white light. Eko, however, did not see that. Locke's party enters The Pearl, where they turn on another monitor, revealing a camera looking into another hatch. A man with an eye-patch (Revealed to be Mikhail) stares back at the camera before turning it off. Suddenly, everyone hears the monster outside and rushes out to help Eko, who remained above. Locke finds Eko lying seriously hurt on the ground. Eko whispers his last words into Locke's ear: "You're next."
In "I Do", Locke is shown, along with Desmond, Paulo, Sayid, and Nikki, alongside the deceased Mr. Eko. He states that Mr. Eko died for a reason, but that reason is unclear as of now. He leaves with Sayid to walk back to the beach to get shovels to bury Mr. Eko. Later on, he returns and says a brief prayer. As he bends down to say his last goodbyes, he notices Eko's "Jesus stick" and some of the words inscribed on it. They say, "Lift up your eyes and look north, John 3:05" John now has his next instructions. He sends Desmond to retrieve Hurley and Charlie, where he tells them about Eko's fate. Whilst being questioned by Charlie, Desmond suddenly sprints off for the beach. He follows, as does Hurley, Charlie and Sayid, to witness Desmond saving a drowning Claire ("Flashes Before Your Eyes").
The next day, in "Tricia Tanaka Is Dead", Locke greets Kate and Sawyer as they return to the camp. Kate tells him and Sayid about events while they were kidnapped, and she tells them that she is going to find help to rescue Jack. He and Sayid follow her into the jungle late at night, and ask Kate why she isn't seeking their help. Kate says they aren't motivated, but Locke tells her that he didn't know where to look. The three of then soon encounter Rousseau in the jungle.
In "Enter 77" Locke, Rousseau, Kate and Sayid find Mikhail, a man with an eyepatch previously seen from the waystation "The Pearl," in a small house in the middle of the jungle. Rousseau decides to leave and Kate, Sayid and Locke investigate. At first, Mikhail is hostile and shoots Sayid in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. After intervention by Kate and Locke, the strange gunman is restrained, and reveals that he is the last surviving member of the DHARMA Initiative. While exploring the house in which Mikhail lives, Locke finds a computer with a chess game on it. Mikhail tells Locke that he's been trying to win that game for years but the computer has always beat him. While Locke is attempting to beat the game, he is distracted by the fighting that breaks out when Mikhail reveals his connection to the Others. After Mikhail is restrained, Locke is presumably conscripted to watch over him while Sayid and Kate explore the basement of the house. During his assignment, Locke beats the chess game, which reveals a video menu with a number of options for apparent communication with the outside world, all of which are broken. One of the options, which calls for the numbers 77 to be entered, is to be used in the event that the "Hostiles" have infiltrated the location. Before he can enter them, Mikhail, who has now escaped with no one watching him, holds a knife to Locke's throat, and takes him hostage.
Meanwhile, Sayid and Kate had found Ms. Klugh hiding in the basement - Mikhail's apparent connection to the rest of the Others. They take her hostage, and while looking for Locke, Sayid and Kate call out for him. Locke responds, and they find him held at gunpoint by Mikhail. While attempting to negotiate for a prisoner exchange, Ms. Klugh and Mikhail have an exchange in Russian, in which Ms. Klugh apparently requests that Mikhail kill her, and then himself. Mikhail kills Ms. Klugh, but before he can turn the gun on himself, Locke and Sayid knock him to the ground, taking him hostage. Later, as the party and prisoner are preparing to continue their search for the Others, The Flame blows up. When asked what he had done, Locke responds that he had pressed 77, because the house had been infiltrated by the Hostiles. Sayid says 77 caused a self-destruct by activating the C-4 inside, but Locke claims he did not even know about the C-4.
As the group continues their journey in "Par Avion", Mikhail says that they would never understand who the Others are because they are not on "the list" and explains that Locke is too angry to be on it. He also shows that he knows personal details about the survivors. He almost reveals Locke's past as a parapelegic but is interrupted, however, nearly revealing this upsets Locke greatly. The group encounters a strange row of pylons that surround the Others' territory. Locke pushes Mikhail past them, which activates a sonar frequency that causes Mikhail to have a cerebral hemorrhage and die. Sayid and Kate are angry at this, but Locke cares little. Sayid discovers that Locke stole some C-4 from The Flame, meaning he did indeed know about the C-4 after all, and suspects that Locke joined the mission for a different reason than rescuing Jack.
Upon reaching the Barracks, Locke sneaks into Ben's bedroom. Alex, who enters soon thereafter, is told to retrieve Sayid's backpack, which contains the C-4. John makes it clear to Ben that he intends to destroy the submarine. Ben and Locke discuss Locke's regained ability to use his legs after the crash, and Locke remarks on how Ben has not regained his after Jack's operation on him. Ben appears mystified as to why Locke has developed an intimate Communion with sentient spirit of the Island in a short space of time when he has not after having lived on the Island his entire life. Locke calls him and his people cheaters for using electricity and communicating with the outside world. Ben attempts to prevent Locke destroying the submarine by promising Locke additional information about the island and offering hints at some sort of "magic box." Locke is not moved, and uses the C-4 to destroy something at the end of the dock (ostensibly, but not certainly, the submarine) before Jack is able to escape via his previous deal with Ben. Locke is then captured, and is later led by Ben to a room containing "what came out of the box," which turns out to be John's father.
[edit] Locke and Stations
- Locke discovered The Swan with Boone in All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues
- Locke first visited The Swan in Man of Science, Man of Faith.
- Locke discovered The Pearl with Eko in ?.
- Locke discovered The Flame with Kate and Sayid in Enter 77.
- Locke has caused the destruction of two hatches; The Swan by trashing the computer and making the hatch implode and The Flame when he entered 77 which caused it to self destruct.
- Locke apparently destroyed the Other's submarine with explosives taken from The Flame.
[edit] Themes
[edit] Games
Locke is frequently connected with games in Season 1. He teaches and plays backgammon with Walt, demonstrates Mouse Trap to a child in a flashback scene in "Deus Ex Machina", and plays Risk with a co-worker in "Walkabout". In a deleted scene from "Tabula Rasa", Locke is shown giving Walt tips on how to play poker, identifying the "tells" of the various castaways. In "Exodus: Part 2" while handling dynamite, Locke asks Jack if he ever played Operation, joking that he "always got nailed by the funny bone"; he then proceeds to make a buzzing sound while lifting one of the fragile explosives. A startled Jack questions, "Do you like to play games, John?" Locke smiles and says "Absolutely." In "Enter 77", Locke plays numerous matches against the Flame Station's chess program, eventually beating it.
[edit] Philosophy
John Locke, after whom the character John Locke is named, was a famous social contract philosopher who dealt with the relationship between nature and civilization. He mostly subscribed to the theory of tabula rasa, (the title of the third episode of the first season, featuring Kate). Also, the TV Locke's father is named Anthony Cooper, named for Lord Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the real-world John Locke's political mentor and patron. The real Locke believed that, in the state of nature, all men had equal rights to punish transgressors; to ensure fair judgment for all, governments were formed to better administer the laws. This philosophy is paralleled by the character of Locke, who embraces both nature and the need for organization among the survivors. Further, the flashback in which Locke donates his kidney to his father mirrors the historical relationship between the philosopher John Locke and Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, whose life was saved by Locke when the latter persuaded Ashley-Cooper to undergo an operation to remove a cyst on his liver. On a side note, Terry O'Quinn also appeared on the TV show Harsh Realm which had a character named Thomas Hobbes who was also a philosopher who also dealt with the relationship between nature and civilization.
[edit] Faith
Locke's life has a repeated pattern of believing in a higher being or purpose (his father, pressing the button in the hatch). He begins to suspect that he was destined to be on the island, this coincided with the partial loss of his recovered ability to walk, because of being struck by a steel splinter during an attempt to open the hatch.
Midway into the second season however, his faith begins to falter as he slowly grows disillusioned with repeatedly pressing the button. The season finale of the second season concludes with Locke ultimately deciding not to press the button, much to Mr. Eko's protest, who tries unsuccessfully to convince John to keep believing. After the cataclysmic events caused by this decision, Locke admits he was wrong to stop believing.
At the beginning of Season 3, Locke's faith seems to be fully restored. This is supported by the fact that Locke's first action after regaining consciousness is to "talk to the Island," a strongly spiritual action that harkens back to the Locke of Season 1, who considered the Island to be a nexus of spiritual energy, and an entity that could be communicated with. After Mr. Eko is killed by the smoke monster, Locke is the one who buries him, thanking him for restoring his faith.
[edit] Trivia
- When Locke beats the chess game on the computer in the Flame station, the message on the screen says "checkmate". But on closer inspection, the game should have continued, due to it being only "check". The finished chess board is a reference to the "Brisbane Bombshell" match between Anatoli Karpov and Garry Kasparov.
[edit] See also
| Lost | |
|---|---|
| Production: | DVD releases | Episode list | Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3 | Soundtrack |
| Main characters: |
Ana Lucia | Ben | Boone | Charlie | Claire | Desmond | Hurley | Jack | Jin | Juliet | Kate Libby | Locke | Michael | Mr. Eko | Nikki | Paulo | Sawyer | Sayid | Shannon | Sun | Walt |
| Supporting characters: |
Alex | Bernard | Christian | Cindy | Ethan | The Others | Pickett | Rose | Rousseau | Tom |
| Organizations: | DHARMA Initiative | Hanso Foundation | Oceanic Airlines |
| Elements: | Crossover list | DHARMA Initiative stations | Flight 815 | Mythology | Thematic motifs |
| Miscellaneous: | Gary Troup | In popular culture | Lost Experience | Rachel Blake | Video game |
