Board 8 > Don't tell me what I can't do: a 10-year LOST retrospective/character ranking

(+) Yeah! (+)

Let me blow your mind even more.

Remember Naomi?

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I think I remember Naomi unless Im confusing her with someone else. Shes the first freighter person?
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I remember Naomi and considered arguing for her inclusion on the list but decided not to when we already failed to convince him that Ethan and Tom were worthy.

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Yep. The hot chick from the U.K. who parachuted onto the island in season 3

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there should just be a sub list of top 5 minor people

need shout out to Tom somewhere
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I get Ilana and Zoe mixed up. The only things I remember about either of them are the Zoe=Tina Fey memes and Ilana Arzting herself.

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We did more yesterday than I anticipated!

1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. Juliet Burke
5. ???
6. Jin-Soo Kwon
7. ???
8. Alex Rousseau
9. ???
10. Sun-Hwa Kwon
11. Sayid Jarrah
12. Frank Lapidus
13. ???
14. Danielle Rousseau
15. Penny Widmore
16. Jack Shephard
17. Rose Nadler
18. Daniel Faraday
19. Ana-Lucia Cortez
20. ???
21. Kate Austen
22. Richard Alpert
23. Bernard Nadler
24. ???
25. Mr. Eko
26. Michael Dawson
27. Eloise Hawking
28. Jacob
29. Charles Widmore
30. Walt Lloyd
31. Claire Littleton
32. Pierre Chang
33. Libby Smith
34. Charlotte Lewis
35. Ilana Verdanksy
36. Shannon Rutherford
37. Boone Carlyle
38. Martin Keamy
39. Paulo
40. Nikki Fernandez

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I remember Naomi, but don"t remember why. She was on Las Vegas i think

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Ive really enjoyed your write ups. I dont think Ill take the time to rank my favorite Lost characters, but Im having trouble picturing Sayid outside the top 5. Of course Ive only watched season 6 once and Im currently in the middle of rewatching the series and have just finished Season 4.

And I 100% agree with what you say about Kate. Shes just an awful character.

Im guessing my top 5 right now would probably be (in no particular order) Ben, Sayid, Charlie, Desmond and Hurley.

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Underleveled posted...

Oof, this thought never occurred to me. Hurley was BIPOC though.

hurley is latino, but I'm pretty sure he's still white

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DeepsPraw posted...

hurley is latino, but I'm pretty sure he's still white

hmmmm

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well he's obviously not black or asian and I don't think he's supposed to be native american or pacific islander either.

please don't tell me you think all latino or hispanic people are people of color...

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People are people. Treat everyone as an individual. Labels don't matter. Stop separating people into categories.

Saying this as a black person. I fucking hate February; I'm glad it's March.

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DeepsPraw posted...

well he's obviously not black or asian and I don't think he's supposed to be native american or pacific islander either.

please don't tell me you think all latino or hispanic people are people of color...

generally the label "person of color" encompasses latinx peoples. I don't know/remember if the fictional character Hurley from Lost identifies as a white hispanic, but even if he did I would still consider him a person of color / non-white.

edit: but I mean I guess it really depends on if Hurley considers himself one or not.

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The only thing I'm touching with a ten foot pole in this conversation is to gently say not to use "latinx" since latin people hate that word and don't use it.

Aside from that, maybe we should leave this conversation elsewhere to not ruin the topic?

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sure I'm done.

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there is a hell of a lot wrong with post #314, but I'll let it slide for the sake of this topic

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Juliet!

She's my #2.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

The only thing I'm touching with a ten foot pole in this conversation is to gently say not to use "latinx" since latin people hate that word and don't use it.

Aside from that, maybe we should leave this conversation elsewhere to not ruin the topic?

My next writeup will now be a 10,000 word tome on the ethnography of Hurley

Hurley confirmed for #9 then?

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I apologize for rolling the ball on that conversation and that's all I'll say about it so as to not reignite it.

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After request, deeps sent me a really informative and totally smart explanation about the complexity of Latino ethnicity that I agreed with completely. He totally didn't need to do it and he did anyway, so thanks. Back to character ranking this truly terrible show.

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It was technically me who started this ethnicity debate, whoops! But it's still worth noting the show killed off three major original non-white characters in one go for shock value.

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#9. Miles Straume


Miles is important to the show because he was really the one to take the sardonic comic mantle from Charlie at a time the series desperately needed some levity. But Miles is more than Charlie 2.0. While he has that same cheeky personality, he has a bit more edge to him. He's outwardly selfish--even through the imminent apocalypse, his main focus is Paulo and Nikki's diamond stash rather than the friends he's made over the past 3 years. And I really find that refreshing in a time when everything just gets so damn saccharine or so damn ridiculous.

Miles's backstory is interesting enough (and definitely more unique than even most of the main characters), but the real enjoyment of his character is how he elevates the others around him. He is the perfect partner for the roguish snark of Sawyer; he is one of the few who rightfully rolls his eyes at Locke and Jack; and his scenes with Hurley are some of the funniest in the series. My favorite line perhaps in the entire show is when someone asks if Hurley was able to track Jacob, and Miles says "Not unless he was covered in bacon grease." It's so incredibly rude but all the more enjoyable because we know that Hurley is one of his better friends on the Island.

Miles is just a great stand-out by looking at this sea of terrible personalities and deciding that he doesn't really need to care about anyone but himself.

Also Miles is a surviving minority!

GameStonk posted...

Also Miles is a surviving minority!

I did point this out.

Underleveled posted...

Otherwise who was the most significant non-white character that survived the series? Probably Miles, right?

I have Miles on the lower side of my top 10 (can't check my list right now but I think he's 9th) but after reading your write up I actually appreciate him even more and would probably bump him up a few spots. Easily the best character to be introduced in the back half of the series, and one of the few characters who didn't either die and/or get totally ruined in S6.

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GameStonk posted...

It's so incredibly rude but all the more enjoyable because we know that Hurley is one of his better friends on the Island.

One of my favorite exchanges happens shortly after Miles's introduction. Miles calls Hurley "tubby" or something before even knowing his name and Hurley just sighs, "Great, another Sawyer." Which is exactly what I was thinking.

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#8. Charlie Pace


Charlie is the character I most closely associate with the positives of LOST. Maybe it's because he was killed off before the show got really terrible, but I think it might be more than that. Charlie, more than anyone else, just reminds me of what the show started off as--a modern shipwreck adventure with strangers fighting for survival together.

Like Miles, Charlie's real charm is in his interactions with the other survivors. He brings a sense of heart to the cast that few others, maybe even just Hurley, manage to capture. We all remember the peanut butter scene, which perfectly encapsulates what I mean by this. He is a stranger with next to nothing in common with most of Flight 815, yet the beauty of the early seasons is watching people like him start to form relationships and bonds with these people, as we watch their pasts unfold in the flashbacks. It's LOST in its purest before it became something entirely different (for better or worse).

Watching the Charlie episodes really warms my heart and made me weirdly nostalgic on my second watch-through, especially given how different the latter half of the series feels. With that said, the only thing keeping him out of my top 5 (or even higher) is that ridiculous and uncharacteristic subplot where he knocked Sun unconscious for whatever reason, which was promptly ignored thereafter. Other that this, Charlie is damn near perfect.

Probably my most controversial LOST opinion: I actual dislike Charlie quite a bit until like S3 (can't remember when he turned it around for me, but the low point was Fire + Water, the second worst episode of the show)

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S2 Charlie definitely has some bad episodes, but S1 and S3 Charlie are so so so so amazing.

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While better than S2, I remember thinking he was pretty annoying in S1 as well.

(Of course, he did go out strong in S3)

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Miles was part of my biggest season 6 theory that never came to pass, and I hate it.

The Temple episodes of Season 6 established a bunch of rules about interacting with the Man in Black, how if he talked to you or you looked into him you'd be under his power or whatever. You couldn't kill him if you interacted with him basically. We had those rules in place pretty much just for Sayid ad Claire for a few episodes in a dumb sub-plot, but you know what would've been really great?

Miles, who managed to barely dodge encountering the monster all season and was surviving with Alpert and Lapidus off on the sidelines and has something or other in his possessions that I can't remember now, if anything... he should've been the one to surprise kill the monster. Not Kate. Just showing up during the Jack/Smokey fight and shooting him because that would follow established lore and be a very cool surprise. Not Kate for no reason with that stupid line of hers and....

Haaaaaaa....

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I personally don't care for Charlie but as I said earlier, he served an important role on the show and killing him off literally ruined like three other characters so yeah. Should've kept him around.

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#7. Man in Black


I have no idea if this is an unpopular opinion, but I thought the Man in Black made an exceptional archvillain, especially after my second watch-through. Think about it for a second: Smokey has it all for the bad guy in a fantasy show--he is all-powerful, all-evil, and actually has a clear plan that has stakes of epic proportions.

Where the MIB probably gets a bad rap is in the fact that he is the primary focus of what is easily the worst season of LOST. But despite all of the half-assed episodes and terrible twists, John Locke as MIB stands out as the brightest point in the season. "John" is completely revitalized as the MIB takes over, bringing a new energy and a sense of urgency to a dimming character, played exquisitely by Terry O'Quinn.

Unlike 90% of the show, we actually know what the MIB's motivations are pretty clearly. The guy hates Jacob, hates the Island, and just wants to fucking leave after 2000 years. The writers absolutely missed a golden opportunity to add some complexity to the ending--will the MIB actually bring evil to the world or is this just Jacob manipulating everyone into keeping him contained?--but that is no fault of the character himself. He is a strongly motivated figure who actually makes more sense than almost anything else in the series, and could have been the savior of the final season and show at large if the flash-sideways and a few other key events did not occur.

Long live the Smoke Monster!

I dunno, I thought the whole Man in Black thing was kind of stupid in general and I found it impossible to take that whole mess of things seriously, and I thought it made more sense when the smoke monster was just a terrible thing that shouldn't escape and not some almighty dude. The Man in Black will never be as cool as the Smoke Monster ever was.

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#6. Hugo "Hurley" Reyes


Everybody Loves Hugo. And seriously, what's not to like about this character? He imbues the series with ton of heart and humor, especially when it was in desperate supply of both later on. He's possibly the most memorable of anyone on the Island--ask someone who never watched LOST to pick out a character and I guarantee you they choose Hurley. He's simply iconic.

If I were to give any reason for keeping Hurley out of the top 5, it would probably just be his lack of importance on the Island itself for most of the series. The standout episodes for Hurley are definitely the flashes--the lucky and the unlucky--and not so much the present-time plotlines. Perhaps the plan was to have him more involved with Walt (like he is the epilogue mini-episode), but who knows for sure.

I'd be shocked if anyone had a top 10 without our rotund friend, and I couldn't imagine the show without him.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

I dunno, I thought the whole Man in Black thing was kind of stupid in general and I found it impossible to take that whole mess of things seriously, and I thought it made more sense when the smoke monster was just a terrible thing that shouldn't escape and not some almighty dude. The Man in Black will never be as cool as the Smoke Monster ever was.

But that's the thing--the Man in Black is the Smoke Monster, in all its season 1-2 coolness

Top 5 predictions encouraged!

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Hurley
7. Man in Black
8. Charlie
9. Miles
10. Rose & Bernard
11. Sayid
12. Juliet
13. Frank
14. Jin
15. Faraday
16. Penny
17. Keamy
18. Jackface Line of Demarcation
19. Sun
20. Rousseau
21. Richard
22. Widmore
23. Dr. Chang Fodder Line
24. Jacob
25. Eko
26. Alex
27. Claire
28. Boone
29. Libby
30. Walt
31. Eloise
32. Shannon
33. Charlotte
34. Michael
35. Kate
36. Ilana
37. Paulo & Nikki
38. Ana Lucia

GameStonk posted...

But that's the thing--the Man in Black is the Smoke Monster, in all its season 1-2 coolness

Yeah, and Man in Black is a million times less cool and loses so many points for being a deadly smoke monster and then going back in with all of the stupid island games like who gives a shit he wants to leave, he's a monster but only when he feels like it. Better not let him get out because he's evil, but he's got autonomy. He better not get his stupid cork unplugged oooOOOoooOOOooo. Now the smoke monster is really mortal again and gets shot by Kate.

Like seriously, I would have preferred the Smoke Monster just be some kind of overwrought science experiment gone wrong instead of "Heart of the Island" stuff. It just bogged down the season and I just could not care about him.

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I knew this one would be unpopular! I'm sure one or two other decisions coming up will be as well...

1. ???
2. ???
3. Charlie Pace
4. Juliet Burke
5. Hugo "Hurley" Reyes
6. Jin-Soo Kwon
7. ???
8. Alex Rousseau
9. Miles Straum
10. Sun-Hwa Kwon
11. Sayid Jarrah
12. Frank Lapidus
13. ???
14. Danielle Rousseau
15. Penny Widmore
16. Jack Shephard
17. Rose Nadler
18. Daniel Faraday
19. Ana-Lucia Cortez
20. ???
21. Kate Austen
22. Richard Alpert
23. Bernard Nadler
24. The Man in Black
25. Mr. Eko
26. Michael Dawson
27. Eloise Hawking
28. Jacob
29. Charles Widmore
30. Walt Lloyd
31. Claire Littleton
32. Pierre Chang
33. Libby Smith
34. Charlotte Lewis
35. Ilana Verdanksy
36. Shannon Rutherford
37. Boone Carlyle
38. Martin Keamy
39. Paulo
40. Nikki Fernandez

Prediction: Desmond > Linus > Locke > Sawyer > Christian

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I think I would like the MIB a lot more of not for Across the Sea. I feel like the backstories of Jacob/MIB are something that really should have stayed a mystery. We don't need to know who these dudes are. One is a seemingly sinister force, the other a manipulative avatar (who may or may not be good).

Spelling out their motivations and making the island a literal cork ruins it.

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The S6 MiB and the island's buttplug make me irrationally angry to this day.

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Does anyone have the "What the fuck is a metaphor" meme?

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#5. Christian Shephard


When I first drafted this list, I didn't think it would be fair to include the elder Dr. Shephard. I had to establish some guidelines for this bloated cast of characters, and one of them was "must be present on the Island." And technically, all of Christian's Island scenes are actually the Man in Black. But alas, you all made your voices heard, and now here we are.

Here's the thing with Christian: every single scene with him (yes, even the finale scene) is exceptionally good. Not only is John Terry probably the best actor on the show, but the character of Christian is just played so much differently than the others in the series. He's acting almost with a wink, like he knows how ridiculous the writing and other characters (particularly Jack) are, and he never lowers himself to that level. Let me explain.

Because Christian's flashbacks are primarily with Jack, he offers a really great counterpoint to our psychotic hero. When Jack is panicking, Christian is the calming voice. When Jack is being a maniac stalker, Christian is trying to get him help. Yet it is Christian who is the one who is supposed to be the unstable alcoholic, and it's a wonderful vehicle to highlight how insane the world is around him. It's almost like he realizes that the world and every other character on the show is so preposterously written that he is forced to drink himself into a stupor to hide from it. It's fucking awesome.

So yeah, this one may be a particular personal preference of mine, but Christian's on-camera moments are great 100% of the time, which I can't really say about anyone else on this list.

charlie's brand of pathetic really rubbed me the wrong way. it's kind of astounding that he's the lead in one of the greatest episodes of the show, because most of the time i just wanted to punch him like locke in F+W

might like christian more on a second watch but he was generally... unremarkable?

most people might disagree with me but i mostly am neutral on hugo. maybe his style of humor early on rubbed me the wrong way because of how SERIOUSLY the show took itself overall. i also feel like the writers using hugo as an audience surrogate is kind of an insult to the audience. audience inserts generally aren't my type of character anyway.

that said, "numbers" is one of the iconic episodes of LOST, responsible for perhaps its most enduring meme. and "tricia tanaka is dead" still sticks out in my mind as perhaps the best "pure filler" episode of the show's run.
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Don't get the big deal around Christian myself, I had no strong opinion on him at all. Maybe because he's tied to Jack. MIB played by Terry O'Quinn is tremendous fun, but he makes no sense as an actual character.

Predix: Desmond > Ben > Sawyer > Locke

SeabassDebeste posted...

and "tricia tanaka is dead" still sticks out in my mind as perhaps the best "pure filler" episode of the show's run.

TTID is my go-to for 'great filler episode' in any media.

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How is everyone feeling about the top 4? I figured this is a fairly innocuous selection (regardless of order), but who knows.

I mean, it's pretty much where my top 4 would land.

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I think those four plus Hurley is a pretty standard top 5.

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