Free Will: A Battlefield? - Page 2

I think the battle for someone's free will goes beyond a simple good vs. evil notion. I think maybe it is an experiment to see what it is that will cause a man, (or woman) to go against thier own moral code and do something completely against their nature. For instance, what would it take to cause you or I to take an INNOCENT life? Two things come to my mind right away.....

1. Deception: you are lead to believe the innocent is a threat to you.
Examples: Anna Lucia shot Shannon believing she was one of the others coming for them. Sawyer killed an innocent man after being led to believe he was the man that destroyed his family.

2. To Protect a Loved One.
Eko killed an innocent man to save his brother. Michael shot two innocent women to save his son.

I guess the premise would be that everyone of us has a weakness, a breaking point....where we might do the unthinkable and take an innocent life. Now it seems as though Jack is square in the middle of such a crossroad. Is it coincidence.....to me it seems that it is not.

01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by queenbeesteph

I can't remember... how did Locke describe the game of backgammon?

can't recall which episode and exact words, but he was explaining it to Walt as the oldest game of the world, much better than checkers, played with "two players, two sides. One black, one white".

Nevertheless, I think the black-white thing has little to do with a 'good vs bad' or 'good vs evil' theme. Unhatched has a good point: there's never a word of 'bad' on the island. Pretty obvious that every group (losties, dharma people, 'others') and its members are bound to do whatever they think is 'necessary' to do for their 'own' survival. If there is any battle, it's hardly a battle of morality.

I may be wrong, but at one time did locke describe the game as light side and a dark side? I may be wrong though..

This is funny, I actually was posting about the backgammon subject almost a week ago. Mods? I don't suppose you could provide a link back to that. I notice on here that a lot of discussions about the same topics keep emerging...is there any way to keep track? I likewise don't know which topics have come up previously...there's a heck of a lot of posts on this site!

Bad is used a few times (but usually referring to someone 'not' being bad. Also, anyone who ever took any high school english course knows that black and white are metaphors for good and evil. Colors are very powerful rhetorical and theatrical devices and seeing as the writers are obviously well educated in regards to literature, they should know this. Maybe they are trying not to be cliche by saying it outright.

01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wednighter

I may be wrong, but at one time did locke describe the game as light side and a dark side? I may be wrong though..

Locke uses the words 'light' and 'dark' indeed (unlike what I thought earlier). Still neither backgammon nor Locke has much to do with judgements based on good vs bad/ evil. A great deal of this game has to do with keeping an eye on the probability of dice throwing and prob. of filling certain spots across the board rather than intention. I think this makes the suggestion of some free-will connection to the game, rather difficult.

Locke on the other hand, is a character who doesn't rush to judge a situation/person etc right-away but gives/ takes time to 'meet it' instead (an extreme example to this being how he mentioned to Mr.Eko the sky and the white light after the implosion of the hatch- a deadly experience and Locke still finds it fascinating and beautiful.)

The backgammon game surely has some richer meaning to it that I think will become clearer in the coming episodes but I don' think producers would go for the easy connections or cliche metaphors of colors, black & white--good & bad/evil at this point of the show. I mean these people were juggling Homer, Gilgamesh, Old Testament and Bible before

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lizard2112

This is funny, I actually was posting about the backgammon subject almost a week ago. Mods? I don't suppose you could provide a link back to that. I notice on here that a lot of discussions about the same topics keep emerging...is there any way to keep track? I likewise don't know which topics have come up previously...there's a heck of a lot of posts on this site!

I noticed the same thing about the Smoke Monster posts. I wonder if there is a way to re-organize/move those threads with recurring/ similar themes/ discussions etc.