I’m a nerd when it comes to boardgames. I co-taught a class about sociology through the lens of board games (check out a sub-par editorial I wrote about the class experience and teaching if you’re interested), I regularly check out boargamegeek.com, I devote whole days to getting together with friends and playing games, and of course, from the moment in the first episode that Locke explained the rules of Backgammon to Walt, I insisted that games could and would be a huge metaphor in this show. Am I right or am I right?!
As a premise for this discussion, you might want to check out the Games page of Lostpedia. There, you can find a list of all of the games that have been featured on the show either directly or by reference. Risk, Chess, Connect Four, Ping Pong, Senet, and on and on. Let’s also keep in mind the key elements of many games: rules, strategy, a playing board, pieces, players, an objective, an end.
We can all agree that games are often played or referenced, and that the characters on the show have used games to explain situations (ie Locke referencing Operation while discussing the finer points of dynamite). Since games are so important in Lost, it doesn’t seem like so big a leap explain almost everything that’s happened in Lost using a games analogy.
One side is light, the other side is dark. But does this necessarily mean good versus evil, as has oft been assumed? No. When the Yankees play the Red Sox in the ACLS, there’s certainly a widely recognized good guy and a bad guy here depending on who you are, but who is evil and who is good is not a set characteristic. It all depends how you look at it. Jacob may appear to some as good and sincere in his efforts, but to others he’s evil by not asking questions and preparing to enslave someone else (perhaps Richard? Ben? Jack? Kate?) when his time is over. He can’t represent uniquely good or evil, because nothing is that black and white beside physical pieces in a board game.
Players play towards an objective. Anyone playing a game is playing towards an objective within a set of predetermined rules. If both players are playing towards the same objective, to win, we can see who’s the better player by whose strategy is stronger and who ultimately reaches that objective first. If the name of the game was to get off the Island and resume life, congrats to Walt. If the game was to not get captured by the Others, Kate, Jack, Claire, and Sawyer definitely lost.
In Lost, not all of the players are on the same page. The set of rules, the playing board, a strategy summary, and a description of the end goal don’t come neatly in a boxed package with parameters for the number of players and length of play. Each character on Lost is playing a game, but each of them have a different version of the game in their mind. Just as there are many variations on Poker, and more than 1,000 versions of Monopoly have been published, the Oceanic passengers, members of Camp Widmore, Others, the Man in Black, and Jacob may very well each be playing a variation of a game. The game board seems to be shared – the Island – although not every player has discovered all parts of the game board or knows it in the same time. Some rules are shared (though again, unknown to some) – an unknown camp is considered dangerous territory, a white flash of light will place you in a different time, anything that grows on a tree is edible, a dead person may appear to talk to one or many players – just the general stuff here. The objective seems to vary the most among players. Let’s take three examples: Jacob seeks to keep the light protected, Claire seeks to get Aaron back and kill Kate, and Richard seeks to obey Jacob and Jacob’s wishes. Jacob’s precious light will only be protected by finding a viable candidate to replace him when it’s time and by feeling his way through any situation that comes his way, and he’s bounded by the magic his mother left him and the willingness of other players to accept his objective and play cooperatively to an extent. Claire’s objective will be achieved only by getting off the Island to where Aaron is staying and killing Kate, but she has to follow the wishes of the man she accepted as her rule-maker – Locke. With the set of rules and strategy pulled from under Richard’s feet, he flounders at every next move because the objective has disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
What’s my point? As we approach the finale, it’s important to think about how each player’s games fit together and how (and if) there can be a widely recognized resolution. Can this game has one victor? Whose turn is it to play? Will the players ever know everyone else who was playing? Can the game be played again? SURPRISE! Lost has once again created a set of questions! This is just how I’ve been thinking about the show from the beginning and some of the questions and thought processes that I’m hoping to in some ways reconcile.
That’s all. I should rewrite this when the show is over and pitch the new version of Lost the board game.
Jen Bokoff 