For my first post in this new blog series, I've picked two Losties who have been main cast members from the beginning, are still on the show, and yet, are almost mysteriously disconnected: John Locke and Sun-Hwa Kwon.
LOST does a great job of finding ways to bring each of the 15+ main cast members together, sometimes even though the two seem so unrelated. That brilliant writing is what inspired me to start this blog. They do this through the various "A-Team missions" that take Losties out into the jungle, or through little dramas on the beach, or through philosophical debates and struggles, or just moments of comic relief.
Locke and Sun, however, are curiously detached from each other. One big reason is that Locke is very much a "mission" character, and Sun herself has gone on very few of these missions, and when she did, they didn't involve Locke. Some of Sun's rare adventures include going with Jin and Sayid on the sailboat to check out the Others, and going to the Staff station with Juliet to check on her baby. No Locke involved with any of those.
Throughout the show's first four seasons, it's a challenge even to find a scene where Locke and Sun are in the same shot together, much less having any interaction. In season 2, in "...and Found" (Jin/Sun-centric), we find the only scene that Locke and Sun share. Sun is tearing up her garden, looking for her lost wedding ring, and Locke drops in for a chat. Locke remarks that sometimes he wishes he had a garden to rip apart, and Sun notes that she doesn't think she's ever seen him angry. Locke says that he used to get angry and frustrated any more, but now he's not LOST. Sun asks how he did that, and Locke replies, "Same way anything lost gets found, I stopped looking." End scene.
And that is pretty much it for direct interaction between Locke and Sun. In the season 1 finale, there is however a very interesting bit of dialogue between Sun, Shannon and Claire that suggests in the big scheme, she has something in common with Locke, when she asks Shannon if they are all on the Island because they're being punished, and Shannon asks who would be punishing them. Sun's response is "Fate", which obviously is a red flag keyword in the John Locke glossary.
And yet, when the biggest division of Losties finally happens in the season 4 premiere, Sun (and Jin) doesn't follow Locke, she stays with Jack's camp. Sun does question the situation, talking to Jack about Locke in "Eggtown", she wonders why, if Locke was wrong about the Freighter Folk, why Kate went with Locke. Touche, Jack!
In the flash forwards, we learn that Jack and her father are the two men that Sun blames for Jin's (supposed) death, but we don't know at that point what she thinks of John Locke. Under the name of Jeremy Bentham, Locke dies while in Los Angeles, delivering his message to Jack, Hurley (and probably Kate), but we don't know if he had gotten to Korea yet to talk to Sun. So, we have no idea what form their future relationship might be: friendly or adversarial.
LOST is two thirds through its story arc as of this writing, but I've got to think that the current lack of interaction is just a set up for Locke/Sun storytelling yet to come. In Island time, Sun is obviously no longer there, but in the future story line, I suspect we will eventually see some sort of interaction between Locke and Sun (via a flashback that shows "Jeremy Bentham" contacting her before he came to Los Angeles, most likely). Whether Sun is pro or anti Locke, I can't guess, but I suspect that like Hurley and Locke, she may have since come to regret siding with Jack.
Footnote: Curiously, in an interview about halfway through season 4, Yunjin Kim revealed that if she had her pick of which character she'd like to play, she chose... JOHN LOCKE. Provided she was Caucasian and Male, of course.
1 comment:
Good stuff mate, enjoyable read.
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