If you think this was a good example of learning a rule and properly subverting it, once again, I would hate to read your writing.
I used Checkov’s gun as an example of how they failed in a particular instance, not as a blanket condemnation of all their writing (although it applies to practically everything I had an issue with on the show). Sometimes high school level literary criticism is all that’s needed to point out what’s wrong with a particular piece of writing, and it seemed like a perfect fit in this case. I eagerly await your Ph.D-level refutation since you seem to think I’m wrong.
Among other places, the entire second to last episode, where they went to certain obvious pains to avoid introducing his name into the dialogue in places where it would logically have occurred.
That’s not what’s shown at all. All we see is Allison Janey not giving him a name before she brains the living shit out of his mother. Given the fact that she named one of them, it makes little sense that she would spend the rest of the next eighteen to thirty five years referring to one of them as, “Hey Jackass” while the other has a name.
Do we have to go over this AGAIN? Really? I’ll just spit out the most egregious example: the episode Across the Sea. They go through such incredible lengths to not give him a name that it implies that it’s somehow important and will eventually be revealed when the narrative demands it. Whether it makes a difference or not, well, makes no difference. I said all of this already, so I might as well just quote my original thoughts on it:
“Clearly” is debatable, and there are plenty of people here – writers even – who feel it’s a cop-out to not explain why someone doesn’t have a name if you’ve gone to lengths to establish that they don’t have a name.
Also, how do they clearly show that he doesn’t have a name when, in your opinion, they never make a big deal out of it? You kind of have to make a big deal out of it to clearly show that.
Really? You honestly believe that everyone on the island that dealt with him just shrugged their shoulders and said, “Hey, guy!” when they needed him? You think his adoptive mother called one “Jacob” and the other “Boy?” You don’t think he would’ve protested not having a name once he got old enough to understand that he didn’t have one?
It takes two seconds to show it clearly; that’s hardly spending a lot of effort on it.
Matt, I don’t think it follows that not giving him a name implies that it’s important. Remember, as far as they’re concerned, there are only three people on the island, and two of them are twin brothers. No particular reason to call him “Steve” instead of son, brother, hey you, etc.
And Allison Janey refers to him by his given name. Suggesting that a thing that we’re expected to believe is at least somewhat human would name one thing and not another almost identical thing is less reasonable than thinking that it is an intended mystery, particularly when you consider that we’re supposed to believe at some point during that show that she doesn’t hate Piven, and maybe even likes him best. Everything that I have ever met with a discernible personality named things that it cared about to distinguish them from the rest of the universe. Your explanation isn’t internally consistent - if Allison didn’t care about names, then she shouldn’t have called the blond one by his given name, and if she did, she should have named Jeremy.
So again we get back to he had a name, but it was kept a secret for some unfathomable reason. If it it was unimportant, then I think it would’ve come up at least once in the X number of times someone was talking to him while we were watching. Since it didn’t happen on screen, the audience can hardly be blamed for wondering why.
It’s perfectly fair to wonder. I’ve strayed quite a bit from my original point, which is that it’s a bit silly just to say “this is totally like Chekhov’s gun and thus they suck at writing,” when it’s debatable whether a) it’s actually like Chekhov’s gun, b) whether following that “rule of thumb” is always the right decision, and c) whether it’s the right decision here. For me, it doesn’t go past A: I never wondered or cared what his name was and I didn’t feel like they emphasized the lack of a name.
