Just another thought on Lost
The idea that Jacob is more constrained than Smokey in the games they play is not a new one. I remember a song, whose name escapes me, that has God and the Devil playing cards with the Devil cheating and God letting him, even though many souls are in the balance as the stakes of the game.
And so it goes that backgammon remains the dominant metaphor. I do not think they had the endgame in mind when they developed the scene of Locke instructing Walt, but they certainly have built on top of it over the past two years.
I have also focused on Greek gods playing with foolish mortals more than the biblical God (despite the baptism stuff, the bible and all the rest) because the old testament that I am familiar with has only one God in it. Lost has at least two. But one can read this stuff in various ways. Indeed, I have always wondered if the Christian view is really monotheism since God and the Devil are two separate semi-equal entities.
But this just shows how little I know about Judaism and Christianity. I know far more about TV, which I have always worshiped.
3 comments:
As I just e-mailed you: read Job.
Ah but the devil -- Lucifer -- originally was God's favored archangel, who betrayed God, and was thus banished from heaven. So he's not equal to God... The parallels with the version of God that I learned about in Catholic school -- man has free will and must make his/her own decisions about good and evil -- was what I heard Jacob saying in that scene. And as we remember God/Yahweh did order a number of genocides and other atrocities... (side note: on this point see Regina Schwartz, The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism, really fascinating reading of the Bible).
I also seem to remember that the Judeo-Christian concepts of heaven and esp hell were originally from either Greek or Egyptian sources.
The song you mention is 'Spanish Train' from Chris de Burgh and having relistened to it, it definitely does make me think of Jacob vs. MiB.
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