#mib lost

[theafictionados]

Every Afictionados Best Line Award (Brittany)

LOST Episode 516: The Incident Part 1 by the Afictionados Podcast Network

[lost-inanotherlife]

for the preamble to this post read here.

we need to talk about Mother.

so Mother, unlike the other people in LOST, isn't written like a character but like an archetype. And the category is: NO.WIRE.HANGERS!!!! that is, for the uninitiated, Bad, Evil Mothers, even more specifically... Step-Mothers. which is. like. a pretty common thing in fairy tales. So we need to treat her story accordingly, which is to say that the writers wrote only as a "pure" function: realistically speaking, she raises A LOT OF questions but from a narrative pov these questions don't *actually* matter because she's there to enact a myth and myths are made of symbols not. like. real people.

The first thing we know about Mother is that she's a single parent. As a matter of fact, in her story, men in the role of fathers are utterly useless. She doesn't need/want them but she also needs/wants a "successor" to be the next Protector. However, she categorically refuses to mingle with the people living on the island because they're "bad people". So we have a problem, Houston. Actually, make it two (2).

problem n.1: Mother thinks that people, particularly adults, are BAD. what does she mean by that? we don't actually know! what we do know, though, is that she clearly considers herself "good" and she also thinks she can raise good people, specifically children. So the majority of people are inherently bad but she, who is good, can raise other good people. Interesting.

problem n.2: Mother needs/wants a child, the only category of people who can *still* be "good" in her eyes, that she can raise as future protector, but she doesn't want to have anything to do with other people. That is, specifically,... men. If only parthenogenesis were an option! So the conundrum is this: the next Protector of the Island can ONLY come from outside. But he (because it must be male, as we will see) cannot simply come as an adult, he must be raised on the Island. By Mother. who is a mother who doesn't (need/want to?) conceive.

I think this is very important because it plays into the White Saviour trope that LOST eventually sort of embraces. I say "sort of" because the topic is a bit too complex to explore here but, yeah. Jack Shephard does fit into that trope, although the whole thing about his character is that he doesn't want to be one. But that's "fine" because reluctance is, historically, part of this trope. This also explains why Mother's children had to be males. Because this is, at its very core, a white male imperialistic fantasy.

Before explaining how the show resolves Mother's problems I want to say something more about her in regards to her relationship with Jacob and the MiB. Because yes, obviously Mother will become a mother to these twins and she will raise them as she sees fit. And Mother sees fit that these two boys must live by VERY strict rules.

Rule n1.: there must be NO CONTACT with other people.

Rule n2.: they cannot hurt/kill each other and they can't die (well, they can but let's say they can live very long lives).

Rule n3.: they, specifically the MiB, can never leave the Island.

So, as you can see, Mother is written like a stereorypical castrating mother, something that seems to be bothering film-makers for decades. Much to think about that projection.

If for Mother going no-contact and have zero relationshio (sexual or otherwise) with other beings is fine, she doesn't think that, perhaps, her sons would like to experience these things. She makes it so that Jacob and the MiB can't leave, can't be in contact with other people and can't hurt each other. In other words, for Mother Jacob and his brother must live.together.forever. When the time comes, they will find in other people the next protectors but they cannot actually create their own family/community/whatever. They can't ever LEAVE their own family of origin.

The incestuous subtext of this dynamic becomes explicit when we discover that the two corpses that Jack and Kate found in the cave in s1 and that they named "Adam and Eve" are ACTUALLY... Mother and one of her sons. Buried together by the other son who "killed" his brother who, in turn, had killed their mother because he wanted to LEAVE.

Basically, Mother is "evil" because she is the one who had created the conditions and the rules under which Jacob and the MiB were raised and that would later inform their "game". And the rules said that Jacob and the MiB could never leave the island nor meet new people.

which can be interpreted as them never being able to leave the emotionally incestuous relationship with their mother;

which basically means that Jacob and his brother weren't allowed to form (sexual) relationships with people other than their family;

which practically means that they HAVE TO bring new people to the Island if they want to leave (MiB) or if they want to find a "successor" (Jacob).

So , in this context, "leaving the island" and "forming romantic/sexual relationships" mean the same thing.

[dogondoss]

Thinking about how the concept of John having to die to save the Island was a bootstrap paradox in itself. Because the only reason Richard told John this is because Man In Black said it. And the only reason the Man In Black said it is because John being dead made it easy to take his identity when they all came back to the island, setting in motion his plan from the future. AKA > John being dead made MIB have the idea that John has to die etc etc.

Now it’s debatable if this matters much considering the fact that Ben’s the one that killed him and he probably would have whether John believed he had to die or not…. But you know it’s a fun thing to think about. I love overthinking time travel stuff.

[roadkillkitty16]

Smoky Redesign!!

I loveeeee Smoky/Mib and I was always a little let down by the costuming because aside from color scheming they looked rather lame.

Wanted him to look a lot more creatureish and almost decaying, hence the greying skin, but of course because he’s a formless being he can keep himself from actually looking rotted. Hope that makes sense.

I also wanted his outfit and general silhouette to be really unclear and flowy (yknow, like smoke)

He has his “human” form which is how he appears to Richard and such but overtime his memory of his former appearance starts to dim and his only reminder is his own corpse in the caves, warping his own perception and slowly corrupting the way he presents himself

[stripesysheaven]

the smoke monster

fuck

marry

kill

Voting ended onJun 5, 2023

[theafictionados]

Every Afictionados Best Line Award (Casey)

LOST Episode 516: The Incident Part 1 by the Afictionados Podcast Network

[theafictionados]

Every Afictionados Best Line Award (Casey)

LOST Episode 517: The Incident Part 2 by the Afictionados Podcast Network

[stripesysheaven]

the man in black

fuck

marry

kill

Voting ended onMay 25, 2023