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Underrated ships - #3 Boone Carlyle and Shannon Rutherford (LOST)

This is the third post in my underrated ships meta series. All posts in the series are tagged as #underrated ships. This time around I’ll be analysing Boone and Shannon from LOST.

There are some ships in this series that definitley will have other shippers out there, although they’re a small group and there are some, like Boone and Shannon, that probably have none. In my time on this site, I’ve never seen or heard of LOST fans shipping Boone and Shannon, but I’m sure you guys are out there. If you are, this is for you!

Boone and Shannon are a fascinating pair and despite the fact they both died prematurely and their relationship didn’t recieve too much focus in seasons 1 and 2, I really like the nuances of their relationship. We’re introduced to them as being brother and sister, yet Boone was clearly infatuated with Shannon. When we found out that they were in fact step-siblings and their parents married when they were young children Boone’s feelings made more sense, but there was still an element of taboo-ness (for lack of a better word) to their relationship because of their familial connection. This element of their relationship was one part that made it interesting to me, because I think it’s important to write and portray these sorts of relationships. Regardless of personal beliefs, thoughts or opinions on the topic, there are people in the world who fall in love with and even engage in romantic relationships with their step-siblings and Boone and Shannon are one of the only ships I’ve seen on TV that explore this. In addition, this ship explores unrequited love and the burden and heartbreak of that, the animosity and struggles people can face in their relationships when one of the parties develops romantic feelings for the other and the importance of honest and open communication. There’s a lot to un-pack with Shannon and Boone that may not be obvious on the surface, but there’s a lot of depth and complexity to them and it could have been taken even further if they hadn’t of died so soon. So lets get into the nitty gritty, and start unpicking this relationship.

We learned from flashbacks and Boone and Shannon talking about their childhood and past, that they didn’t have the most supportive or loving parents. Boone’s mother was incredibly cold and emotionally unavailble. She was jealous of Shannon’s relationship with her father so purposefully isolated her from her father and made her feel like an outsider. For Shannon, this was obviously incredibly hard since she had such a close and loving relationship with her father and Boone was the one that was always there for her. Unlike his mother, Boone didn’t push Shannon out or make her feel like an outsider, he was always there for her.

When Shannon’s father died, she was heartbroken and the way her step-mother treated her following his death only added to her grief. Yet Boone turned up at the funeral and it was clear that he was there to support Shannon rather than his own mother.

And Shannon’s relief at seeing him made it clear that he was her only real source of support. Without her father, Shannon had no one and her step-mother didn’t have any love for her. In fact, she wanted to do whatever she could to remove Shannon from her life and cut her off from having access to any of her father’s inheritance.

Although we have few flashbacks of Shannon and Boone, the ones we do have reinforce the theme of Boone being Shannon’s constant source of support and of always running to her side whenever she needed him. He flew half way around the world at the drop of a hat to run to her rescue when she was in Australia. He even offered Shannon’s abusive boyfriend thousands of pounds for him to leave Shannon alone. There were no limits to what he was willing to do for her.

After that, Shannon turned up at Boone’s hotel and it’s the first and only time we saw a romantic scene between them.

This scene is one of my favourites because Ian and Maggie played the tension and angst between Boone and Shannon so perfectly. You can see the connection between them and the impact of Shannon finally saying aloud their secret truth; the thing both of them have always known but never spoken about, that Boone was in fact in love with her. You can physically see how Boone’s inner turmoil and the tortue of trying to resist Shannon’s advances because she’s his step-sister fighting against how much he loves and wants her.

And whilst Shannon is saying these things and making a move on him, he actively tries to talk himself out of it and tell her she’s delusional because he’s so desperate to deny the truth, even though he already knows that he’s going to give into it.

But this wasn’t just something that happened on a whim, it was something that had been building and brewing between them for years and you feel that when you watch the scene. Boone had been in love with Shannon for years and that’s why, no matter where he was or who he was with, whenever Shannon called him he came running. Shannon was pretty much Boone’s entire world, his life revolved around her.

The episode Hearts and Minds (1x13) really shows how much Boone loves Shannon. Not just because of the flashbacks (above) that we see, but because of what happens on the island where Boone halluicnates (courtsey of John forcing drugs on him) that Shannon is in danger and dies in his arms.

By this point, it was already clear from Boone’s behaviours and actions that he loved Shannon, but this episode dug even deeper and showed how much pain that love caused him. He knew Shannon would never truly love him in the same way and that because she was his step-sister, his feelings for her were borderline wrong, and that ate away at him. Particularly since Shannon was developing a romantic relationship with Sayid, he was struggling to manage his jealousy and hurt over that. It’s not necessarily framed in a sympathetic light, but on reflection, I can’t help but feel sorry for Boone in this situation. He was introduced to beautiful girl when they were children, and was told she was going to be his new step-sister, he probably developed a crush on her immediately, as he grew up he came to be more and more infatuated until he fell in love with her, then he had to battle against those feelings and deal with the guilt, disgust and immorality of feeling that way towards his step-sister. On top of that, he had to deal with the fact that Shannon would never look at him in the same way and he was doomed to spend his life rescusing her from a string of abusive or toxic men, only to be tossed aside by her when she found someone or something else more interesting. It’s really not difficult to see why Boone was always so twisted up about Shannon.

With all of the emphasis being on Boone thus far, it would be easy to pass Boone and Shannon’s relationship off as being one-sided, but it certainly wasn’t. Boone definitley had more intense feelings for Shannon than she did for him and they were more romantic in nature, but Shannon loved Boone deeply. A lot of the time on the island, this wasn’t that obvious because there was a lot of animosity, bickering and sniping between them.

Despite this, Shannon relied on and loved Boone and there were moments where that shone through.

What we saw in flashbacks of Boone being Shannon’s strength was still the case on the island. Their bickering was a result of the tension that was between them because of the complicated nature of their feelings for one another. Shannon was mean to Boone to push him away and Boone was mean to Shannon to deny his feelings for her. Underneath all of that, they needed and loved each other. Neither of them really had anyone else but each other and from what we learn of them from their flashbacks, that had always been the case.

I really think that Boone’s death acted as a wake up call for Shannon. It made he realise that that Boone wasn’t as inevitiable as she had thought he was; that he wasn’t always going to be there for her. I think losing him made her regret the way she treated him and how she pushed him away because he was in love with her, and that his death put everything into perspective.

Shannon spiralled into grief after finding out Boone was dead, even going as far as to want to get revenge on John because she believed he was responsible for Boone’s death.

And Shannon’s grief wasn’t temporary, it was ongoing. Boone’s loss stayed with her and impacted her right up to her own death.

I’ve always been sad and disappointed that Boone and Shannon’s arcs and their relationship was cut short and never fully resolved. Boone died never fully realising how much Shannon loved and appreciated him. Shannon was full of regret after Boone’s death that she never had an honest conversation with him about everything that happened between them. Although I don’t necessarily think Shannon’s feelings for Boone were the same as his were for her, I think she lived in regret about how she handled it and the way she played with Boone’s feelings, because the the truth was that she truly loved and cared for him.

All of this is why I was so underwhlemed in the final season when Shannon reunited with Sayid in the flashsideways. It felt like a disservice to Boone and Shannon because it wasn’t true to either character or their relationship. Putting aside the romantic aspect of their relationship, Boone and Shannon belonged together. They had been together since they were children; they had been each other’s family; Boone had been there for Shannon through everything, he understood her, saw the good in her where everyone else belitted and criticised her; Shannon knew the struggles Boone faced with his mother and likewise he understood his mother’s cruelty towards Shannon. They knew each other better than anybody and were each other’s strength and support. Boone’s last thought before he died was Shannon and the final word on his lips before his last breath was Shannon’s name. After Boone’s death, Shannon wasn’t the same person. His loss affected her so deeply and changed her perception of everything. Admittedly, the timing of her death occurred for many reasons, but I strongly believe that losing Boone coincided with Shannon’s premature death, because they were so deeply connected. This connection that they shared and the nuances of their relationship are the reason I’ll always love Shannon and Boone.

*Most of the gifs used are not mine*

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