Black Smoke Guilt
+6 8 Votes
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By AngeloComet
- Black Smoke Guilt
- Created: Oct 28, 2007
- Last updated: Aug 14, 2008
- After episode: 3.15: Left Behind
- Status: Current
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‘The monster’ is the collective guilt-repression of the survivors? Give me a break.
— AngeloComet
Way back at the start of Lost, around about the time of the episode Walkabout, I had a thought about the Black Smoke before I even know what the Black Smoke was. Back in those days, the thing in the jungle was just ‘the monster’. Noisy and unseen, crashing through the trees. Back then, I had this thought: That ‘the monster’ was a physical manifestation of the survivor’s repressed or unconscious feelings of guilt.
I mentioned this to a couple of people, and a little bit of half-hearted debate ensued, but went away. We didn’t know Lost was all that clever back then. We assumed it wouldn’t be THAT clever. ‘The monster’ is the collective guilt-repression of the survivors? Give me a break. That’s way too sophisticated for a mass-marketed American T.V. show. And so I had this thought, and then it went away.
Recently I came back to wondering about why ‘the monster’/Black Smoke, in those first few days after the crash of Oceanic 815, was so loud and pounding, crashing through trees on the outskirts of the beach, and since then has become far more subtle. Compare the Black Smoke’s approach on Locke in Walkabout (so loud and pounding it made Kate drop the receiver she was setting in a tree) and compare it to the sleek, stalk of Eko during The Cost Of Living.
I’m not going to belabour this point and I’m not going to pretend it proffers the complete solution. The thousands of speculative words written about the nature of the Black Smoke are so many as to become tiresome. I just want you to consider this difference in the early days of the Black Smoke that haphazardly rampaged through the trees and the Black Smoke that had the focused guile to track Kate and Juliet in Left Behind (and take their picture!?).
I don’t think the Black Smoke IS the collective, repressed swirl of guilt made physically real (the fact that a man-made sonar fence can keep it out suggests the Black Smoke isn’t something quite that ethereal). But I think guilt and other unconscious fears give it things to feed off. I propose the reason why the Black Smoke was so loud, crashing through the trees, at the start of Lost was from a reaction to it attempting to absorb this sudden arrival of the passenger’s multitude of fears and guilty feelings that the crash of Oceanic 815 delivered all at once onto the Island. Given a while, it assimilated these new fears and went about doing whatever a Black Smoke security system does on a day-to-day basis on an Island.
To finish, I give you this. The pilot was the Black Smoke’s first Oceanic 815 victim. Now, if you were the pilot of a crashed plane, were you had to be certain hundreds of people had died, wouldn’t you be feeling guilty? And how about if you were the pilot of Oceanic 815 and you had deliberately been involved in bringing the plane to the Island? Wouldn’t that give you more to be guilty about? If the Black Smoke feeds on guilt, the pilot must have provided quite the feast. . .
Key episodes
| # | Title | Aired | Central character | Theories |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.15 | Left Behind | 4-4-2007 | Kate | 199 |
| 3.5 | The Cost Of Living | 11-1-2006 | Eko | 139 |
| 2.10 | The 23rd Psalm | 1-11-2006 | Charlie, Eko | 97 |
| 1.4 | Walkabout | 10-14-2004 | John | 116 |
I agree that Cerberus existed before the Losties arrived and wasn’t “created” by their collective guilt, fear, etc… This is backed up by the fact that Danielle describes it as a security system which means she has prior knowledge of it.
It’s been suggested that it was created by Dharma and they lost control of it. During Roger and Ben’s processing, Dr. Candle refers to the fence as protection from the “island’s abundant and diverse wildlife.”
A security system that can read thoughts, emotions, and intent is a pretty daunting prospect, especially if control over that entity is lost.
Heh, “…doing whatever a Black Smoke security system does on a day-to-day basis on an Island.”
Just what does ole Smokey do when it isn’t “securing” the island? Does it break into three parts and play poker with itself and while smoking a stogy?
Angelo, I love your take on Smokey. Whether it’s just a security system or feeds on guilt, a plane crashing onto it’s territory would certainly set it off in some way. Very plausible and another +1 for you. :-)
Angelo this is a very good idea—especially the tie in of the crash as Annie said. I had a theory a little while ago which I think fits with what you are saying—it’s based on Wilhelm Reich’s idea of positive and negative life energies. Negative life energies would certainly include things like fear and guilt. http://lost-theories.com/theories/2007/oct/04/positivenegative-life-energy-m/
I like your approach. I dont think you meant to say collective guilt, because the smoke monster is reading the personal guilt of the losie it anatagonizes. But I like your approach…it suggests that monster is more than the monster, but is somehow in tune with the perspective of the lostie.
Obviously the smoke monster, or the thing, whatever it is, is having a personal individual interaction with the lostie…or the lostie is having personal subjective interaction with the formless shapeless black smoke of this thing….this second way would suggest that the black smoke or monster is somewhere inside the lostie him/her self.
But what about the fence? I dont know. Frustrating.
good job
Just sparking off of what kat said—there seems to be one branch of Dharma which was dealing with behaviorism, so with psychology and emotions. Another branch seems to be dealing with the physical (electromagnetism, bilocation). So could they have wound up discovering a way to physically manifest emotions?
Interesting. Ever see “Forbidden Planet?”
There is an invisible monster loose on a planet where a research team has but 2 survivors. By “coincidence” it attacks and sometimes kills everybody that one of the survivors is jealous of, and also anybody who shows interest in his daughter (the other survivor). The protagonists are able to protect themselves with some kind of an energy barrier.
I can’t believe I never noticed all this before. Kewl.
And, you know what? Forget about the pilot’s guilt. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if it was Kate’s, Jack’s and Charlie’s ANGER at the pilot for screwing up that aroused or created the monster?
And furthermore….
Doesn’t it seem that there have to be TWO smokies?
Obviously there is the smokie that terrorizes the losties. But, in “Left Behind” there is a smokie chasing Kate and Juliet who are inside the barrier, and they have to turn off the barrier to get outside of it, and turn the barrier back on in order to escape.
Thus, there are at least 2 smokies, one inside the perimeter, and one outside.
Will, I think you’ve got Kate and Juliet on the wrong side of the fence. They trekked back to the barracks. When the Black Smoke chased them into the trees (and took their picture) they were outside the fence.
It chased them to the fence, where Juliet released the cuffs and ran to the ‘barrack-side’ and convinced Kate to join her. Then she switched it on to stop the Black Smoke following them in.
However, if the Black Smoke is the manifestation of dead people on the Island, it did appear at a young Ben Linus’ window, which definitely IS within the sonar fence. Maybe they forgot to turn it off that night. . .
I kow I’m getting in on this pretty late but I just made it through this episaode last night. Trying to get all the episodes watched before Season 4 drops.
Anyways… I’m not so sure about the Guilt having a factor in Smokie’s actions.
It took out Eko and I’m pretty sure he had no guilt for the things he had done. “I have not sinned… I made the best out of what I had…” does not sound like a man ridden with guilt. Sure, he did bad things in the past… but he felt no guilt for those actions.
So, if anything, Smokie is it’s own judge, jury, and executioner and it doesn’t matter if someone FEELS guilt for things they had done.
This idea of the black smoke makes me think of an episode of red dwarf- “legion” where there is a being that only exists if there are people around the area in which it dwells. My idea of what the black smoke is is very similar to this, this theory would also link into the flashbacks, and the way that when people die the black smoke seems to subside for a period of time. Basically, very good theory.