The Lost Book Club- Episode 5: White Rabbit

I’ll readily admit that I enjoy a good bit of post-apocalyptic media—literature, movies, comics, coloring books. It’s not so much that I relish thoughts of the impending end-of-the-world or that the earth in flames warms my soul, but I do appreciate that total societal upheaval provides a nice medium for speculating on how people will respond to a radical shift in their environment. Apocalyptica sidesteps the question of whether or not we humans are products of our environment by throwing its characters into a new dystopia: a Wasteland, a Waterworld, a Thunderdome (and that’s just 90s movies).  

At any rate, apocalyptica takes three main stances on the inherent nature of man absent authority:

1)      Lord of the Flies—Left to their own devices, people will smash asthmatic fat children with large rocks. (The Road)

2)      Heroes and Villains — People are either pretty decent or completely wretched, but the good guys will *most likely* triumph over both the baddies and the circumstances.  Most post-apocalyptic stories fall into this category, because it gives you someone to root for. (Alas Babylon, Jericho, Wool) 

3)      Sheeple—Look to your left. Now look to your right. Pretty much everyone around you will go full catatonic until someone tells them what to do.  (1984, Fahrenheit 451, Atlas Shrugged)

At this point of the show, Lost falls into bucket #3, which I found kind of surprising and a little disappointing.  Sure, this episode is about the birth of a leader, but a really more of a Shepherd---or a Shephard---oh my gosh, I just now got the reference to Jack’s name.  Wow.

From the script: 
JACK

How are they? The others.

LOCKE

They’re thirsty. Hungry. Waiting to be rescued. (then; pointed) And they need someone to tell them what to do.