Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2023-04-25 12:24 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2023-04-25 12:24 pm
Entry tags:
Please Stop Talking About Jack Shephard.
'If you asked both me and someone who hated Jack to write individual assessments of his character, we'd probably hit on similar points,' I wrote in my last entry.
Nobody asked me, but, perhaps inevitably, I ended up writing the assessment anyway. Here is an entry entirely devoted to analysing Jack Shephard of Lost.
Jack is stubborn, can't let things go and has a tendency to overvalue his own judgement: these aspects form the core of Jack Shephard's flaws, and just about every bad decision he makes can be traced back to them. He's impulsive and can be petty or condescending. Obsessive and paranoid. Self-loathing. Can be aggressive, both as a person (acting aggressively when in conflict with someone else) and as a leader (taking aggressive action against threats to their group).
Jack generally takes an ends-justify-the-means stance, but I think it's shaken slightly when he realises he agreed to let Sayid torture Sawyer for information that Sawyer didn't have; he later fought very hard against Henry being tortured. This doesn't seem to be an objection to torture on principle, as he feels he was mistaken to object after learning that Henry was one of the Others, so I suspect he was afraid of torturing an innocent person again. Basically, Jack feels that the ends justify the means but that, beyond a certain threshold of morality, you need to be certain of those ends. Unfortunately, his tendency to overvalue his own judgement means that he can be a little too certain.
On the softer side, Jack is compassionate and has a desperate drive to save people. If he sees a stranger in need of medical attention, he'll help first and ask questions later, most notably with Henry, a stranger on an island where most strangers have proved to be dangerous. If he's had positive experiences with someone, he's prepared to accept them as part of their community, to extend kindness and trust to them, even if the rest of the group rejects them; we see this with Ana Lucia, with Juliet, and in Jack's patience with Charlie after Charlie makes himself unpopular with the rest of the group. Under normal circumstances (and assuming you haven't made an enemy of him), if he finds you in either physical or emotional distress, he'll want to help.
Jack sometimes makes promises he can't realistically keep, in the full belief that he'll be able to keep them, perhaps due to working apparent miracles in the past. He takes his promises seriously and takes it hard if he fails to keep his word.
Related to his inability to let things go: Jack will throw himself into trying to save people long past the point where things seem hopeless. Sometimes this pays off; sometimes it leads to him almost destroying himself by pouring his own blood into a man who can't be saved.
Jack is generally not great at self-preservation or at taking a back seat. He'll put himself on the front line of any conflict, in a position where he's able to know what's happening and make decisions; he always needs to be in control, down to insisting on playing an active role in the removal of his own appendix. What this means is that he constantly ends up putting himself in danger with little thought for what will happen to the group if he's killed; he's their leader and doctor, so they can't really afford to lose him.
It's worth noting that Jack's failures are almost never a result of apathy or not trying hard enough. Jack is competent and skilled, and he tries very, very hard. If a situation deteriorates and Jack is responsible, it's not due to neglect; it's because he is actively making bad decisions. The exception here is Jack's marriage, which I do think failed because he didn't put the effort in - or, rather, because he put too much effort into another area of his life (his work as a surgeon), meaning he never spent time with his wife.
While we're on the topic of Jack's love life, he's not typically a person who makes the first move. People kiss him, not the other way around; unless you're in an established relationship with him, he's not going to take the risk of kissing you. The one exception is when Juliet warns him not to get involved with her for his own safety; he doesn't like being told what to do!
He's not a very emotionally open person, but he might decide to show a glimpse of his heart if it feels appropriate for the situation. Although he has an impulsive streak and can sometimes say things without thinking, he never blurts out anything that could suggest romantic interest; when he does admit to romantic interest, it's because he's thought about it and made a conscious decision to do so. Interestingly, he doesn't always do this in the hope of starting a relationship. When he tells Kate he loves her in 'Through the Looking Glass', he doesn't seem to have any expectations of romance; he just wants her to know.
Jack's actions frequently cause problems for the people in his life, but he's not malicious; he's a fuckup. There's a crucial distinction. He genuinely cares about his fellow survivors and doesn't want to cause them harm, but his impulsive nature and his overconfidence in his own judgements can lead to bad outcomes. He's able to handle pressure on a practical level but not on an emotional one, meaning that, in high-stress situations, he's capable of taking action but incapable of thinking straight; it's a dangerous combination.
If Jack could choose what happened on the island from a menu, everyone would survive together peacefully until being rescued as soon as possible. That's always what he's trying to work towards. Unfortunately, it's not that simple; it's a constant battle against external forces and against his own flaws.
In conclusion, Jack Shephard has a lot of frustrating qualities, but he's a great character and I love him. I know not everyone finds him interesting, but I think he's absolutely fascinating, as evidenced by the fact that I just wrote all this rambling about him for fun.
Nobody asked me, but, perhaps inevitably, I ended up writing the assessment anyway. Here is an entry entirely devoted to analysing Jack Shephard of Lost.
Jack is stubborn, can't let things go and has a tendency to overvalue his own judgement: these aspects form the core of Jack Shephard's flaws, and just about every bad decision he makes can be traced back to them. He's impulsive and can be petty or condescending. Obsessive and paranoid. Self-loathing. Can be aggressive, both as a person (acting aggressively when in conflict with someone else) and as a leader (taking aggressive action against threats to their group).
Jack generally takes an ends-justify-the-means stance, but I think it's shaken slightly when he realises he agreed to let Sayid torture Sawyer for information that Sawyer didn't have; he later fought very hard against Henry being tortured. This doesn't seem to be an objection to torture on principle, as he feels he was mistaken to object after learning that Henry was one of the Others, so I suspect he was afraid of torturing an innocent person again. Basically, Jack feels that the ends justify the means but that, beyond a certain threshold of morality, you need to be certain of those ends. Unfortunately, his tendency to overvalue his own judgement means that he can be a little too certain.
On the softer side, Jack is compassionate and has a desperate drive to save people. If he sees a stranger in need of medical attention, he'll help first and ask questions later, most notably with Henry, a stranger on an island where most strangers have proved to be dangerous. If he's had positive experiences with someone, he's prepared to accept them as part of their community, to extend kindness and trust to them, even if the rest of the group rejects them; we see this with Ana Lucia, with Juliet, and in Jack's patience with Charlie after Charlie makes himself unpopular with the rest of the group. Under normal circumstances (and assuming you haven't made an enemy of him), if he finds you in either physical or emotional distress, he'll want to help.
Jack sometimes makes promises he can't realistically keep, in the full belief that he'll be able to keep them, perhaps due to working apparent miracles in the past. He takes his promises seriously and takes it hard if he fails to keep his word.
Related to his inability to let things go: Jack will throw himself into trying to save people long past the point where things seem hopeless. Sometimes this pays off; sometimes it leads to him almost destroying himself by pouring his own blood into a man who can't be saved.
Jack is generally not great at self-preservation or at taking a back seat. He'll put himself on the front line of any conflict, in a position where he's able to know what's happening and make decisions; he always needs to be in control, down to insisting on playing an active role in the removal of his own appendix. What this means is that he constantly ends up putting himself in danger with little thought for what will happen to the group if he's killed; he's their leader and doctor, so they can't really afford to lose him.
It's worth noting that Jack's failures are almost never a result of apathy or not trying hard enough. Jack is competent and skilled, and he tries very, very hard. If a situation deteriorates and Jack is responsible, it's not due to neglect; it's because he is actively making bad decisions. The exception here is Jack's marriage, which I do think failed because he didn't put the effort in - or, rather, because he put too much effort into another area of his life (his work as a surgeon), meaning he never spent time with his wife.
While we're on the topic of Jack's love life, he's not typically a person who makes the first move. People kiss him, not the other way around; unless you're in an established relationship with him, he's not going to take the risk of kissing you. The one exception is when Juliet warns him not to get involved with her for his own safety; he doesn't like being told what to do!
He's not a very emotionally open person, but he might decide to show a glimpse of his heart if it feels appropriate for the situation. Although he has an impulsive streak and can sometimes say things without thinking, he never blurts out anything that could suggest romantic interest; when he does admit to romantic interest, it's because he's thought about it and made a conscious decision to do so. Interestingly, he doesn't always do this in the hope of starting a relationship. When he tells Kate he loves her in 'Through the Looking Glass', he doesn't seem to have any expectations of romance; he just wants her to know.
Jack's actions frequently cause problems for the people in his life, but he's not malicious; he's a fuckup. There's a crucial distinction. He genuinely cares about his fellow survivors and doesn't want to cause them harm, but his impulsive nature and his overconfidence in his own judgements can lead to bad outcomes. He's able to handle pressure on a practical level but not on an emotional one, meaning that, in high-stress situations, he's capable of taking action but incapable of thinking straight; it's a dangerous combination.
If Jack could choose what happened on the island from a menu, everyone would survive together peacefully until being rescued as soon as possible. That's always what he's trying to work towards. Unfortunately, it's not that simple; it's a constant battle against external forces and against his own flaws.
In conclusion, Jack Shephard has a lot of frustrating qualities, but he's a great character and I love him. I know not everyone finds him interesting, but I think he's absolutely fascinating, as evidenced by the fact that I just wrote all this rambling about him for fun.
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Oh yeah, that's going to hit very differently! And I can completely see why he'd be unappealing to some people and intensely appealing to others, including you.
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also re: If you asked both me and someone who hated Jack to write individual assessments of his character, we'd probably hit on similar points—yeah, i think i can see that here, though i imagine the Jack-hater essay would make more of his... control issues? which you do mention here, but i remember them feeling like such a huge part of his character—such that it's hard sometimes to tell where the "i'm acting insane because i have so many frustrating masculinity/self-image issues bound up in being in absolute control at all times" ends and the "i'm acting insane because i desperately but genuinely want to save literally everyone no matter how feasible that is" begins.
(which, written out like that, man what an interesting tension... AT THE RISK OF A TANGENT, i think that kind of points at the crux of both what frustrated a lot of people about Jack, AND how Lost does a hell of a lot more work with Jack than most shows to actually delve into that tension? like, ok, watching that show as a teen with my Girl Scout troop—Jack resembled nothing so much as like, a Particular Kind Of Masc Dad who's kind of bark-y and martyr-complex-y and bad at communication and stuff, right? totally infuriating kind of dude to deal with in real life! and in action flicks this dude is always effortlessly successful, but—
—well, in Lost we drop this dude in this woo-woo mysticland, a place that is honestly environmentally designed to grind Jack's gears. shit isn't logical, he can't actually save everyone, he can't even do the full suite of his doctor powers due to lack of equipment, etc...
...and he fucks up. several times! which, on the one hand, is infuriating just on a base "watching people fuck up is stressful!" kind of way, but take a step back and it's like, huh, kind of cool to see this kind of archetype not win for a change. not in a way that feels like it's trying to actively be subversive and dunk on the guy, exactly, just, in reality This Kind Of Dude Fucks Up, Let's Explore What He's Like.
compare that against, idk, Breaking Bad, a show which i think does a number of things extremely well, but there's very little subtlety to what that show's doing with Walt, right? Walt gets to look So Damn Cool and be So Damn Successful and So Damn Macho at what he's doing, and the flip side of that is his weird idea of masculinity is also causing extreme suffering to everyone he loves... it's a well-told narrative, but it's not
MESSY
the way whatever the hell's going on with Jack feels, i think. like it's easy to bounce off Jack because of the ways in which he's frustrating, but, that undercurrent of care, and how genuine it is even while it's mixing with these other impulses of his, in ways both good and bad and everything in-between... GOD i need to go rewatch some Lost episodes you're talking me into becoming a jack stan lol. THANK YOU FOR THE POST)
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yeah, i think i can see that here, though i imagine the Jack-hater essay would make more of his... control issues? which you do mention here, but i remember them feeling like such a huge part of his character
True! Even if my essay and the theoretical Jack-hater's essay might touch on similar points, you'd definitely come away knowing who liked him more. I probably should have talked more about his control issues.
Your thoughts about Jack's treatment in contrast to other characters of a similar mould are really interesting! From Jack's introduction, I wasn't sure if he was just going to be 'the perfect hero who Does What Needs to Be Done', and I was pleased to realise that in fact he's deeply flawed in ways the show acknowledges and wants to explore.
GOD i need to go rewatch some Lost episodes you're talking me into becoming a jack stan lol.
I can't tell you how much this delights me. I don't need everyone to like Jack - he's not the most likeable person! - but I do think he's a great character, and, if I can get one person to look at him and go 'huh, this guy might be more interesting than I thought,' I'll consider my time in the Lost fandom well spent.
I'm glad you enjoyed this; thank you!
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Back when Lost was airing I made a few attempts of 'can someone explain Jack to me' and it never really went anywhere, and I just love this random coincidence that you're the person who finally did that. :D (It's obviously not just this post, it's all your previous posts too, but it has all in one place in a very helpful way!) With my immense love for the show, there was no way I wouldn't love every single character, but there was just this one character I didn't understand and whose motivations confused me, so I was very invested in finding out more from someone who did understand him, and I'm finally satisfied because the search I haven't actually done in all the years in between is now finished, thank you. xD
"Basically, Jack feels that the ends justify the means but that, beyond a certain threshold of morality, you need to be certain of those ends. Unfortunately, his tendency to overvalue his own judgement means that he can be a little too certain."
This is such a good observation and a way to phrase it!
"If a situation deteriorates and Jack is responsible, it's not due to neglect; it's because he is actively making bad decisions."
This too!
"He's able to handle pressure on a practical level but not on an emotional one, meaning that, in high-stress situations, he's capable of taking action but incapable of thinking straight; it's a dangerous combination."
And this I think is my favorite one! (I know you've said it somewhere before, but I still love it. :D)
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