Lost

Seeing Ana-Lucia (or any Michelle Rodriguez character) cozy up to a guy would be about as believable as Jody Foster and Richard Gere in Sommersby.

Is M.R. a reputed/“out” lesbian or something? Forgive me if this is common knowledge.

I don’t know how out she is, but she and Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3, Bloodrayne) were an item at one point. Not sure if they still are.

I’ll be in my bunk.

No, as far as the people whose self-appointed job is to read all the crap and figure out what among it is credible are concerned.

It’s not gay if you’re both bi.

Sure I was curious but if they did ever revealed it what would have changed? Something like his name is perfectly acceptable to keep secret as it’s a curiosity for the audience but doesn’t impact the story or characters. People will want to know it but the writers aren’t withholding crucial information or misdirecting the audience by not divulging it.

I don’t feel cheated because we never got his name. I feel cheated because they intentionally represented things (the alternate universe for one and various other issues) as something meaningful to the rest of world when it wasn’t or had characters behave in inconsistent or incomprehensible ways and not ask specific, obvious, questions simply to keep information from the audience. In this last season it wasn’t a show about the characters discovering the secrets of the island it ended up being a show about teasing those secrets (with no actual reveal) and trying to fool the audience.

The argument in your second paragraph also applies to MiB’s name. The fact they went to great pains to keep it a secret indicated there was something important about it that would impact the story or characters, so every episode they didn’t reveal it increased anticipation, yet there was never any payoff. It was yet another example of the type of cockteasing the show engaged in on a regular basis, for seemingly no reason other than the writers being either weak or intentional jackasses.

What name could they give him that would have had any meaningful impact to the characters or the story? They got coy about it but it’s not a misdirection and the information is never relevant so they’re not depriving you of anything except satisfying your curiosity. To me that’s fine, it’d be nice to know but wouldn’t have changed anything.

I think we just see this slightly differently. For you it’s one more small piece of evidence about the wankery the writers indulged in. To me it’s a minor and inconsequential detail in a sea of terrible misleading or unrevealed issues.

The only reason I came up why they hid his name was because it was someone we already know. I guessed Aaron.

I don’t know. That’s their job once they introduce it as a potentially meaningful mystery.

I think we just see this slightly differently. For you it’s one more small piece of evidence about the wankery the writers indulged in. To me it’s a minor and inconsequential detail in a sea of terrible misleading or unrevealed issues.

It turned out to be a minor and inconsequential detail (apparently), but they never presented it that way. As I said before, they went to great pains to keep it a secret. There were plenty of moments where they could have said it and revealed it as a minor inconsequential detail but they always refused to do so, indicating that there was some deeper meaning that would have impact when it was finally revealed.

One of the main rules of storytelling that every teacher and practitioner agrees on is “Chekov’s Gun,” based on Anton Chekov’s belief that, “one must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” They made the name equivalent to that loaded gun, had the actors take it down from the wall repeatedly and play with it, then put it back on the wall without firing it. That’s weak storytelling, plain and simple. Either deflate the mystery by casually mentioning the name, or wow your audience by coming up with something meaningful to do with it.

Well said. It’s the crucial flaw in the series.

It seemed to me pretty clear that MIB doesn’t have a name.

It seems preposterous that anyone would be raised without a name. So preposterous that it begs for some sort of explanation, especially when the nameless status is repeatedly rubbed in the audience’s collective faces.

100% agree. Even if the crazy “adoptive” mom never named him, they expect me to believe the kid never came up with a name for himself? Or Jacob never named him? Or he didn’t at least get a name for/from the people he was living among for a while there?

That’s more difficult to believe than all of the time travel and purgatory mumbo-jumbo!

Again how can it ever be meaningful? Would a rose by any other name not smell as sweet? A name is nothing more than a label, the only time it’s ever significant is if the name implicates the character in something. If, for example, we knew Luke Skywalker’s father’s name then discovered Darth Vader’s true name prior to the end of Empire. The name isn’t the reveal, it’s relationship that’s relevant. A name in itself isn’t and unless the name would have had further implications then there’s no name they can give him that would have any significance and the reveal would be a let down.

One of the main rules of storytelling that every teacher and practitioner agrees on is “Chekov’s Gun,” based on Anton Chekov’s belief that, “one must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” They made the name equivalent to that loaded gun, had the actors take it down from the wall repeatedly and play with it, then put it back on the wall without firing it. That’s weak storytelling, plain and simple. Either deflate the mystery by casually mentioning the name, or wow your audience by coming up with something meaningful to do with it.

Agreed, they killed then violated that rule’s dead corpse, though I’m not sure an unnamed character really fits the Chekhov’s gun rule.

Again, making it meaningful is not my job. It’s the storyteller’s job to introduce meaning to the things they set up as being important. Have you honestly never been pleasantly surprised by a clever reveal in your entire life? Seemingly minor things can be extremely meaningful if the storyteller knows what in the hell they are doing when they introduce them and use them to build anticipation, but in the case of the Lost writers they were merely throwing crap out to string people along.

I honestly don’t know how you can provide the “it’s the relationship that’s relevant” argument and not see how that could have applied to MiB’s name. They could have done such a thing. They should have done such a thing after building it up the way they did. The fact they didn’t doesn’t mean it was impossible to do so, it just means the writers threw in the towel regarding that aspect of the story. It turned out they never should have introduced it as a mystery and then made a big deal out of it in the first place.

Agreed, they killed then violated that rule’s dead corpse, though I’m not sure an unnamed character really fits the Chekhov’s gun rule.

In this case it most certainly fits the rule because of the way it was presented. The name (or lack thereof) was always set up as something significant that we would learn when the time was right. In this case it turned out that the gun wasn’t loaded, but they made the amateur mistake of convincing the audience that it was loaded and never telling us that it wasn’t (by casually mentioning it), or firing the gun (by stating it during a clever reveal).

Hindsight is 20/20. Don’t act like just because we now know the name didn’t matter that they didn’t set up our expectations otherwise during the final season.

All that drinking and driving she does is a cry for help. :)

Sure I’ve been surprised by clever reveals but again it’s just a name, if they were to tell you his name was Steve, would that satisfy you?

There is no meaning to his name other than us not knowing it and it’s not relevant, much like Clint Eastwood’s character in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Withholding information you may want to know but isn’t ultimately relevant isn’t a requirement.

I honestly don’t know how you can provide the “it’s the relationship that’s relevant” argument and not see how that could have applied to MiB’s name. They could have done such a thing. They should have done such a thing after building it up the way they did. The fact they didn’t doesn’t mean it was impossible to do so, it just means the writers threw in the towel regarding that aspect of the story. It turned out they never should have introduced it as a mystery and then made a big deal out of it in the first place.

They didn’t, so we’re out nothing. As to whether they should, maybe, but I don’t think they could have presented that very well. They would have had to establish a relationship between a non-existent character and a real one (obviously Jacob) and attached a name to it then reveal it by exposing the MiB as that previously non-existent character. There was never any association of Jacob to anyone other than MiB.

In this case it most certainly fits the rule because of the way it was presented. The name (or lack thereof) was always set up as something significant that we would learn when the time was right. In this case it turned out that the gun wasn’t loaded, but they made the amateur mistake of convincing the audience that it was loaded and never telling us that it wasn’t (by casually mentioning it), or firing the gun (by stating it during a clever reveal).

The only time I found they strained to avoid his name was in “Across the Sea” and whatever they named him there wouldn’t have been very interesting and I realized within the first few minutes of that episode that we’d never get his name.

Hindsight is 20/20. Don’t act like just because we now know the name didn’t matter that they didn’t set up our expectations otherwise during the final season.

I never felt like his name mattered within the show.

Maybe to people who were trying to establish a parallel between his and Jacob’s relationship to historical figures it could have meaning outside the show but that’s just people trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together whether those pieces existed or not. It was never said that their relationship had any kind of external parallel, people just assumed it.

Yes, because that deflates the mystery and removes that aspect of the story as a device used to build suspense. Steve would be just fine.

There is no meaning to his name other than us not knowing it and it’s not relevant, much like Clint Eastwood’s character in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Withholding information you may want to know but isn’t ultimately relevant isn’t a requirement.

This is further evidence that you just don’t get it. In the Sergio Leone films they don’t have scenes like:

“Hey hombre, what’s your name?”

“My name is…” BANG!

The guy just doesn’t have a name. They don’t make a big deal about it, and it’s one of those things you don’t even really realize until someone points it out. Lost took the opposite tack, which is objectively bad storytelling.

They didn’t, so we’re out nothing. As to whether they should, maybe, but I don’t think they could have presented that very well. They would have had to establish a relationship between a non-existent character and a real one (obviously Jacob) and attached a name to it then reveal it by exposing the MiB as that previously non-existent character. There was never any association of Jacob to anyone other than MiB.

If there was no way to present it well, it should never have been introduced as something that needed presenting. Again, it’s objectively bad storytelling. Using the name to establish a relationship between characters is just one of dozens of ways it could have been revealed and had an impact on the show. If revealing it would have no impact, it should have simply been revealed so the audience could move on.

The only time I found they strained to avoid his name was in “Across the Sea” and whatever they named him there wouldn’t have been very interesting and I realized within the first few minutes of that episode that we’d never get his name.

Well, congrats on your prescience. That whole “I will name you …” OMG INTERRUPTION scene was such a major and obvious setup that the name would eventually mean something that it gave greater import to every single scene later where they used pronouns to refer to the MiB. Again, just in case you missed it, that’s objectively bad storytelling.