Friday, July 13, 2007

Wouldn't It Have Made Sense For
The LOSTies To Have Mapped The
Island?














As Sayid leaves at the end of Episode 1.8, Confidence Man,
he tells Kate:

Someone has to walk the shore and map the island,
see what else there is.

So whatever happened to that idea? In Jules Verne's
The Mysterious_Island the very first thing the survivors
of that crash did was investigate their Island, first to
ascertain that it was indeed an island, not part of a continent.
Then they mapped it. Granted, there wasn't something
knocking down trees and ripping their pilot from their
cockpit and leaving him in a bloody mess, but still Ben
managed to get a map.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

While it would be too frustrating for the writers to not have a "well, they haven't been to that part of the island" as an excuse for the Losties not knowing something.

1) It's a really big island
2) As you pointed out, it's dangerous

I think it's pretty reasonable that between the Others drawing their line and the Monster, the Losties would be pretty deterred from wandering around the island unless they were forced too.

Plus, the only reason Sayid didn't continue with his trek is because he ran into the cable and Danielle and came back to tell the others what he found.

Now if they could only get the Elizabeth back from Ben...

memphish said...

Jay, all good points but it's funny to me how much importance most other fictional survivors give to this sort of exploit and none of the LOSTies has really undertaken to even get to the highest point of the Island to learn what they can about it. Heck, even the kids in Lord of the Flies managed to explore their entire Island and they thought there was a monster on it too.

Capcom said...

This has kind of bothered me as well. Granted, not as much as the other confounding points and mysteries on the show, but it's a big deal.

I suppose given that every time the Losties try to do accomplish a task that would be logical for castaways to have on their basic survival checklist, their actions get interrupted by something bizarre or scary, that they might be reticent to make themselves vulnerable by walking into and around the unknown.

On the other hand, if they would have put "learning their surroundings" above "hiding the gun stash from each other" on their list of things to do, a few of the A-team could have stocked up on guns and hiked around the island rather quickly to map it out, I would imagine.

Perhaps Sayid is supposed to be content with the maps that he managed to get from Rousseau, and we are meant to be satisfied with him having that much info. But it is also a good point that you would not even know if you really were on an island, rather than a peninsula or a cape, if you didn't make some effort to scope it out! Good question.

Yessi G said...

It would make perfect sense for them to map out the island. That would be one of the first things I would do once food and water supplies were taken care of. But like capcom said maybe Rousseau's maps were good enough for the Losties.

Cool_Freeze said...

That is annoying in a way. I think Capcom is right though and we are supposed to be content with the maps Sayid retrieved from Rousseau.

Awesome thought..

andrew. said...

-yep, i think Rousseau's maps took care of the map situation

-Sayid then spends his time with Shannon trying to decipher Rousseau's maps

-The compass doesn't work which makes cartography a little tricky.

-the geography of the island is left ambiguous on purpose. A lot of Season 3 depends on the losties discovering new things on the island. They only find the Flame, othersville, and the radio tower when it's convenient. It's also important that they haven't stumbled into the ruins or temple just yet.

memphish said...

Andrew said: the geography of the island is left ambiguous on purpose. A lot of Season 3 depends on the losties discovering new things on the island. They only find the Flame, othersville, and the radio tower when it's convenient. It's also important that they haven't stumbled into the ruins or temple just yet.

That almost makes me want to think that things won't appear until necessary -- kind of magic box style. I don't think that's the case. Season 3 has shown us all these things predate the LOSTies, but it's kind of a neat idea that the LOSTies can't find certain things on the Island until they are ready for them. And it's also the kind of thing Ben implied to Locke when he dared him to kill A Coop. The Island as Arnold in Karate Kid.

Capcom said...

You mean, first the Losties have to learn "wax on, wax off" before they get to learn the real secrets of the island Memphish??? :o)

I think that TPTB are playing us like that too, but that's OK.