One of Them

Created by: Jeffery Lieber, J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof

Air date: Wednesday, February 15^th, 2006

ONE OF THEM: If you’re not with us…

by Sara Wilcox

A Soulful Spike Society Review

www.soulfulspike.com

One of Them: If you’re not with us...

Well, one day I went up in a balloon and the ropes got twisted, so that I couldn’t come down again. It went way up above the clouds, so far that a current of air struck it and carried it many, many miles away. For a day and a night I traveled through the air, and on the morning of the second day I awoke and found the balloon floating over a strange and beautiful country. ~The Wizard of Oz

We have met the enemy and he is us. ~Walt Kelly

Forget a torturer: what this island needs is an English major. If not that, then a movie buff or a trivia geek—anyone who might recognize some of the allusions and illusions the Others seem so damn fond of. Heck, even Walt might have noticed upon meeting a man with the same name as Dorothy’s uncle that Sayid’s buddy Henry Gale just happened to crash on the island using the same mode of transportation that landed the future Wizard squarely in Oz. But not our intrepid castaways. Maybe if a house had fallen on them...

At any rate, the issue of otherness was obviously front and center throughout the episode, as just about every storyline we saw prominently featured some variation of the “us vs. them” theme: Sayid and Tariq vs. the Americans, Sayid and the Americans vs. Tariq, Sawyer vs. the tree frog (and, to a certain extent, Hurley), Sayid and Locke vs. Henry, and the ongoing castaways vs. the Others conflict.

As I thought about this episode and the process of deciding someone is “other,” one of the things that popped into my head was Orson Scott Card’s hierarchy of exclusion with its four levels of foreignness in Speaker for the Dead: utlänning, a stranger who is human but lives in another city or land; framling, a stranger who is human but from another world; raman, a stranger we recognize as human but of another species; and varelse, the true alien, with whom communication is impossible. More important, though, was the assertion made at the beginning of Speaker’s first chapter: “the difference between raman and varelse is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging. When we declare an alien species to be raman, it does not mean that they have passed a threshold of moral maturity. It means that we have.” Put another way, the difference between inclusion and otherness rests largely on our ability to empathize with the being in question—to recognize and relate to someone else’s feelings and actions from having seen the same thing in ourselves. If we do, they’re one of us. If not, if either their actions or our own make us unable or unwilling to acknowledge there is a bit of ourselves in them, then that’s what the person remains—one of them.

Indeed, this episode demonstrates the ways in which humans make conscious choices as to who is and is not a part of their community, be it a physical community or an emotional one—most noticeably as we watch Sayid’s twin stories unfold. When we first saw Sayid, it was clear that his loyalty was with Tariq; to Sayid, Tariq was one of “us” as Sayid defined it: a fellow Iraqi, a comrade-in-arms, someone to stand with against the American invasion. Inman, our presumed CIA spook, recognized this and knew that the only way he could get Sayid to harm Tariq was by inducing him to remove Tariq from his inner definition of “us” and re-categorize his commanding officer as one of “them.” The easiest way to do this? By showing Sayid Tariq’s crime against those who were a much deeper and more integral part of Sayid’s emotional community than Tariq was: the friends and neighbors Sayid grew up with. Suddenly Tariq was no longer one of “us”—he was “that person” who’d done this horrible thing to “us.” He was now “other.” And if human history teaches us anything, it’s that while we may sometimes hurt the ones we love, we’re capable of doing truly hideous things to the people we perceive of as “them.” So with that one step of remove that is the difference between seeing a human being as “us” or “them,” torturing Tariq went from inconceivable to a necessary evil.

In Henry’s case, it wasn’t so much about Sayid making that switch in perception—it was a matter of his ability to maintain it. Even if Sayid weren’t already inclined to mistrust any stranger he met, Rousseau constantly referred to Henry as “one of them” after bringing Sayid to where Henry was trapped, making it more than likely that Sayid had already put his mental check mark next to “them” before he’d even begun carrying Henry back to the camp. Throughout the interrogation Sayid spoke and behaved in ways designed to reinforce the emotional distance that kept Henry firmly ensconced on the “other” side of Sayid’s mental line, starting with the simple gesture of tying his hair back; once he’s done that, suddenly he's no longer Sayid, the man who crashed on the island—he was the short-haired kid who was handed a box and told to uncover a secret. He was Sayid Jarrah, a torturer, capable of doing whatever it took to protect his community from “them.” He asked questions requiring specific, factual answers, both to try and catch Henry in a lie and to keep him from sharing anything—like, say, a description of what his first night on the island was like—that might inspire a commensurate emotional response and thus shift Henry out of the “them” column and onto the “us” side.

However, after Jack had brought an end to the interrogation and it was just him, Sayid, and Locke talking, Jack reminded Sayid of an important point: Rousseau once thought Sayid was one of the Others, that he was raman instead of a framling. And it was only because Sayid managed to connect with her, to tell her about Nadia and establish a fragile bond of empathy, that he was able to get her to reclassify him in her mind. Locke said much the same thing, although being Locke he of course had to sound like a freshman in a philosophy course: we’re all others to someone else. Then again, Locke didn’t hesitate to help Sayid deceive Jack so he could have some quality alone time with Henry, so I’m not sure I’m gonna give Locke’s opinion much weight this time around.

Meanwhile, a few more questions that came to mind as I considered the episode:

Did Sayid actually lose it while interrogating Henry, or was it an act designed to ratchet Henry’s fear levels up another notch? Sayid’s lack of guilt afterwards indicates he was indeed performing a part, as presumably he’d feel something if he had flipped out and just started whaling on the guy. However, beating someone with one’s bare hands is a much more personal way to hurt someone than, say, breaking their fingers with a pair of pliers or driving plant shoots under their fingernails, suggesting that causing Henry pain was no longer a purely academic exercise for Sayid.

Do we trust Rousseau’s intentions? I’m glad that Sayid was as suspicious as of her as he was, yet I wonder if he went far enough in questioning her and her motives. Because at the top of my list of my list of questions for her would have been this one: why give Henry to Sayid? As Jack pointed out, Rousseau is no stranger to extracting information from someone, and we know there’s little love lost between her and those who kidnapped her child. Yet instead of chatting with Henry herself, and perhaps learning news of Alex, Rousseau handed him over to Sayid—no strings attached. Yet not after first priming Sayid to mistrust every word that came out of Henry’s mouth, and then inflicting an injury that guaranteed Sayid would have to take Henry to their camp. I know Rousseau is a few twigs short of a lean-to, but she’s not stupid. And besides: how did she know the castaways had come into conflict with the Others in the first place? My theory? Rousseau made a deal with the Others—she helps install their mole, they allow her to see Alex.

Did Locke help Sayid because he believed, as he told Jack, that when you’re at war you have to do ugly things, or because it was the opposite of what Jack would do? After all, Locke is usually the one advising people to take a breath and calm down before resorting to violence, yet he almost immediately agreed the best course of action was torture. And given that for years countries like the U.S. and Great Britain have trained armies even though they weren’t actually at war, Locke’s argument justifying what he and Sayid have done starts to sound rather hollow.

Was Sayid right about Henry? He told Charlie he was certain Henry was lying because he felt no guilt, and we know Sayid had six years of practice to hone his skills and perceptions. But are we certain his inner lie detector is absolutely unerring? Was Sayid really able to separate his present pain from his perceptions when asking Henry about his wife, as he assured Locke he could?

Then there’s the B story: the tale of Sawyer, Hurley and the tree frog. As we are all well aware, the Lost writers never throw in anything simply for filler. So why show Sawyer stalking and killing a wee little frog? It could simply be that they wanted to reinforce the “don’t forget—Sawyer is a bad, bad man” message from a week ago, and let’s face it: do we really think Sawyer wanted to find the frog so they could commiserate about how it’s not easy being mean?

But as a friend pointed out to me, Sawyer’s actions also mirror Sayid’s in a very crucial way: both were seeking to reassert their sense of control in their worlds. For Sawyer, it was pretty simple. Noise bothering you? Find the source and end it. Accidentally reveal a little of your soft underbelly to Hurley? Squash any inkling of weakness right along with the frog. For Sayid, it was a little more complicated. Remember, as the show’s timeline goes Sayid has seen an old friend blow his brains out from mere inches away, lost his second chance with Nadia, survived a plane crash, broken his vow never to torture again, been tortured himself, heard whispers in the woods, seen backwards-talking Walt, and watched Shannon die in his arms minutes after declaring his love for her—all within the space of two months. I think there’s every chance that, despite his fairly steady outward demeanor, the man is most likely on tilt.

However, when it was just Sayid and Henry in that room, Sayid was in an environment where he was in absolute control. He dictated the conversation. He decided when and how Henry would feel pain. He determined what was truth and what was falsehood. And it was Sayid who decided to go directly to torture—his forte—skipping Go, the 200 dollars, and any alternatives the average person would try first. I mean, think about it: did the first option when it came to questioning Henry have to be torture? Frankly, I think I’d start by sitting him down with Sawyer and Kate and using our resident con artists to try and suss out the truth—after all, their professions require them to be adept at reading people, and if anyone’s going to recognize a confidence man it’s gonna be a fellow grifter. Not to mention that given the many references to books and movies that pepper Sawyer’s everyday conversations, he’s probably the castaway most likely to pick up on the Wizard of Oz motif in Henry’s story. So I have to wonder: did Sayid torture Henry because he felt he had to in order to get the truth, or because he could?

Let’s not forget the highly entertaining mini-showdown between Locke and Jack. Over the past few weeks we’ve watched them struggle to work together, searching for some sense of balance but constantly undermining themselves through their own actions: Jack tends to decide on a course of action and expect Locke to fall in line, while Locke maneuvers behind the scenes and appears to be a big fan of the “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission” principle. In this episode, the rift between them took on Grand Canyon-esque proportions; Jack was rightly pissed over Locke’s decision to facilitate Sayid’s interrogation, while Locke was just as justified in calling him on having established an army on the side. Usually their conflicts seem to end with Locke gaining or holding the upper hand, but this time Jack had an unexpected bit of leverage to work with: a ticking clock and Locke’s awareness that their resident skeptic was almost assuredly not bluffing. Faced with standing on principle or adhering to his beliefs, it came as little surprise that Locke chose his belief in the island over any loyalty to Sayid.

Which leads me to that tantalizing glimpse we got of what will happen if those 108 minutes pass with nary a digit in sight: or at least that whatever takes place starts with lots of rumbling and some Egyptian hieroglyphs. By now most folks have heard that the hieroglyphs were one symbol away from a sequence meaning “cause to die,” an interesting message to say the least. Are we meant to presume that the island was saying “yep, now you’ve done it—you’re toast. Happy trails!”? Yet doesn’t logic dictate that any message meant to actually be understood by another person would be in a form the average Joe would have a chance of recognizing? Cripes, even Klingon would have had a better chance of being deciphered than hieroglyphs. So I suspect the ‘glyphs were all about the intimidation factor, a final bit of weirdness meant to cause any potential rebel to change their “let’s see what’ll happen” stance to more of a “how fast can I type” demeanor. Especially since it takes a goodly amount of time for all those tumbling images to fall into place, providing more of a “just in case you change your mind” delay than I’d expect from any self-respecting countdown-to-disaster machine.

At any rate, I suspect we’re far from finished when it comes to examining the issue of otherness and the ways in which who is and is not an “other” is almost entirely a question of perception: expand that perception and you expand your community, narrow your definition of who is with “us” and who is an “other” and your circle gets smaller even as your enemies increase in number. In fact, it would appear the castaways are demonstrating that very principle: the longer they’re on the island the narrower the castaways’ definition of “us” becomes. To a certain extent this is understandable, given the behavior of the capital “O” Others—they appear to have stricter inner circle entrance criteria than the Freemasons. But last season, as you’ll recall, Locke spoke to Boone about those they wanted on “their” side, and it appears that now we do indeed have factions forming among the castaways. First Sawyer and now Sayid appear to question having Locke and Jack in charge, and both have reached out to Charlie to share their discontent—a particularly interesting development given how we’ve recently seen all three men regress into darker, less flattering perceptions of themselves. Jack and Ana have the army they’re building, with those they’ve excluded sounding none too happy about it. And we’re already getting the sense that Eko and Locke will inevitably clash over matters of faith and fate.

But ultimately, I’m thinking the stage is being set for a future reckoning between two camps, the beginnings of which we’re already beginning to see, representing two antithetical philosophies. On the one side you’ve got folks like Sawyer, Sayid, Charlie and (at times) Locke, those who increasingly feel the only law that matters is the proverbial law of the jungle. On the other, people like Jack, Hurley, and Eko who strive to abide by the same mores and constraints on their behavior as they did when they were back in civilization. Or, put a slightly different way, we may be looking at a showdown between the astronauts and the cavemen (waitaminute…. maybe Wolfram and Hart brought the plane down. Hey, don’t laugh—for starters, “Wolfram and Hart” can be anagrammed into “Dharma Law Front.” No, really. Maybe all roads really do lead back to Joss...).

Lord of the Flies time, indeed...

Author’s note: This time around, I have Rachael to thank for helping me start to sort through some of the questions and themes of this episode. Without our conversation, I might still be flailing away in front of a blank document.

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