Troperville
Help us survive. All donations are anonymous on the wiki and unacknowledged, as we don't wish to create a hierarchy among Tropers.
Editing
Tools
Toys
|
"Guys....where are we?"
Charlie
An action/adventure/speculative fiction/horror/drama/insanity show created by J. J. Abrams of Alias fame.
On September 22nd, 2004, Oceanic Flight 815 breaks up in midair and crashes on a tropical island. Forty-eight passengers somehow survive. Unfortunately, this is no ordinary island they've crashed on. To start with, there's something in the jungle which is capable of uprooting trees. It mutilates the pilot, but not before he reveals that the plane was already a thousand miles off course when it crashed, which means the odds of rescue are nil.
The survivors must learn to work together if they want to survive in this strange and hostile environment. This isn't easy, mainly because the most prominent characters are so utterly screwed up. All of them have something they're hiding in their pasts. There's the seemingly nice woman who's actually a fugitive who was being brought to trial. There's the one-hit wonder ex rockstar junkie. There's the former Iraqi government torturer who's searching for the woman he loves. And so on. Their backstories are revealed in flashbacks, with each episode focusing on a specific character.
As the show goes on, more and more questions arise as the secrets of the island are uncovered. There's a hatch in the jungle which, when opened, reveals the existence of a scientific venture that took place on the island in the seventies. More survivors, from the tail section of the plane, are met. Biggest of all, however, is the revelation that there are other people on the island, who have been living there for a long time. They aren't friendly. Flashbacks reveal more and more connections between the characters' pasts, suggesting that it may have been more than coincidence that this specific group of people was on Flight 815.
In season four, rescue seemed to have finally arrived. Unfortunately, the so-called saviors turned out to have quite a different agenda than they claim. And then things get really complicated...
Lostpedia has exhaustively catalogued almost every aspect of Lost. If you want insight into the show or just want to learn some random statistics, it's definitely worth checking out.
This page also has a tool for gathering and voting on Biggest Complaints and Favorite Episodes.
Warning: This page (much like this entire web site) contains no small number of spoilers. Reading it will ruin plot points, drive your pets crazy, and make you get a hair cut.
This program features examples of:
- AB Negative: Jack struggles to find a donor for Boone and, failing to find a match among the other survivors, reveals himself to be O- and performs the transfusion using his own blood.
- Kate is later revealed to be a Universal Donor in Season 5.
- The Abridged Series: Lost Untangled.
- Action Girl: Kate, Juliet, and Charlotte, at different points. Ana Lucia consistently. Ilana is also fully capable of taking care of herself in a fight - good thing, since she's a bounty hunter.
- Abusive Parents: In spades.
- Jack's father is a smug, emotionally cold doctor with a penchant for booze.
- Kate's father is also an alcoholic, and he made sexual advances towards his daughter.
- Hurley's dad left him when he was a little kid.
- Sawyer's father killed his own wife and then shot himself.
- At the provocation of Locke's father (see below).
- Roger Linus treats his son Ben like rubbish.
- Jin's mother is also reprehensible. Sun's father is a mobster.
- Charles Widmore, Penny's dad, considers his relationship with her to be something he's sacrificed.
- Locke's father takes the cake for conning his son out of a kidney and then throwing him from the eight floor of a building.
- Daniel Faraday probably got the worst of it, though: his mother manipulated and emotionally isolated him his entire life, and then, after he suffered from a memory disorder and was unable to live without a caretaker, she convinced him to go to the island, telling him it would finally make her proud of him. She knew full well that this would lead to his being shot in the back by a younger version of herself. Also, Charles Widmore is his Disappeared Dad.
- Ironically, Magnificent Bastard Ben Linus appears to be one of the few decent parents of the whole series and seems genuinely fond of his adoptive daughter Alex - if we don't consider the fact that he imprisoned and tried to brainwash her boyfriend, that is.
- Charlie's father would appear to be another exception, but to date the viewer has only treated to one brief glimpse of him.
- A Day In The Limelight: Everyone gets their day.
- Except Libby.
- And Charlotte, who got her own flashback, but not an episode of her own.
- Aerosol Flamethrower: Used by Locke.
- Air Vent Escape: Performed by Kate at the beginning of the second season.
- All Just A Dream: A few times
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: James "Sawyer" Ford has the fangirls to prove it.
- Reversed because Kate is every bit as bad as Sawyer and has both Sawyer and Jack chasing after her.
- Almost Dead Guy: Best possible subversion for Nikki and Paulo.
- Alternate Reality Game: The Lost Experience, played during the break between seasons two and three, Find 815, between seasons three and four, and the Dharma Initiative Recruiting Project, between four and five. It's fairly safe to assume there will be another ARG between five and six.
- Anachronic Order: No episodes are aired out of order, but liberal use of flashbacks, flash-forwards, and timetravel makes figuring out the timeframe a bitch.
- Anyone Can Die: Hoo, boy...
- Arc Words: There's dozens of phrases repeated throughout the show. The numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42) deserve special mention, as they show up everywhere. (They sum to 108, which also shows up.)
- "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" seems to be the straightest use of this trope.
- "Live together, die alone" is another very common one, appearing in episodes ranging from the pilot to the Season 5 finale (currently the most recent episode).
- Arthur Dent: Most of the characters with no history in the Myth Arc, but it's most noticeable with Frank Lapidus, especially in Season Five.
- As You Wish: Jack realizes he's met Desmond before from Desmond's calling him "brother".
- A Wizard Did It: Apparently the presence of Jacob and his rival, two god-like entities with supernatural powers, is now supposed to fill in every logical gap and to explain every implausible event/coincidence/convoluted twist in the series.
- Back For The Dead: Michael
- Badass: Locke, Eko, Sayid. Everyone has their moments.
- Sawyer also deserves singling out. The man removed a bullet from himself with his bare hand!
- Sayid has killed someone by stabbing them. With a dishwasher.
- And snapped a man's neck with his ankles, while he was bound and the man was armed.
- Beard Of Sorrow: Jack at the end of the third season. The beard was massive, probably because it stood for alcohol and pills.
- Because Desmond Says So: In this case, Destiny goes by the name of "Desmond".
- Practically all of Ms. Hawking's appearances involve this.
- Becoming The Mask: Juliet
- Beleaguered Childhood Friend: Things didn't end so well for Kate's childhood sweetheart.
- Best Served Cold: Sawyer is constantly searching for the man he wants to serve revenge to. Coldly.
- And then in season three, he finds him.
- Better On DVD: For one thing, you don't have to wait an ungodly time between seasons.
- Big Bad: Uncertain at this point, but Jacob sure is being set up as one. Season 5's finale seems to have thrown a curveball as Jacob being the good guy and this new...entity being the true villain of the show
- Bilingual Bonus: Dr. Arzt translates as "Dr. Doctor" in German.
- Bloodstained Glass Windows: Eko kills a bunch of gangsters in a church. This actually causes the parishioners to shut it down.
- Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: Season 5 possibly ended with a hydrogen bomb detonating in proximity to at least eight of the main characters.
- Boobs Of Steel: Juliet, Ilana, middle-aged Eloise Hawking. Inverted with the most clear-cut Action Girl in the series, Ana Lucia.
- Bounty Hunter: Ilana
- Brand X: Would you like some Dharma Initiative cereal?
- Break The Cutie: Done mercilessly to Juliet in the season 5 finale
- Bury Your Gays: Tom, aka Mr. Friendly
- Broken Base: Let's not get into it.
- Car Fu: Hurley's ride to the rescue in a VW minibus.
- Catch Phrase: Hurley and "dude", Desmond and "brotha", Sawyer's "Son of a bitch!" and many nicknames for people, particulary Freckles (Kate). Locke: "Don't tell me what I can't do."
- Can Not Spit It Out: The only time Sawyer verbally admits his feelings for Kate is when he's deliriously sick. The only time Kate verbally admits her feelings for Sawyer is when he's being beaten to a bloody pulp. Even then, it takes her a while.
- Libby's last words claiming Michael betrayed the group. Reason being is that she's been shot in the stomach and pumped full of heroin.
- The Chains Of Commanding: Jack doesn't enjoy it.
- Chained Heat: Brilliantly subverted.
- Changeling Fantasy: Alex discovering that she's Rousseau's daughter.
- Character Alignment: The series provides examples of:
- Lawful Good: Jack, Frank Lapidus;
- Neutral Good: Hurley, Rose and Bernard, Juliet (later seasons);
- Chaotic Good: Kate, Sawyer (later seasons), Desmond;
- Lawful Neutral: Sayid, Richard;
- True Neutral: Juliet, Locke;
- Chaotic Neutral: Rousseau, Sawyer (at first), Miles;
- Lawful Evil: Charles Widmore;
- Neutral Evil: Anthony Cooper, Ben;
- Chaotic Evil: The Black Smoke, inexplicably alternating between this alignment (when it's killing people randomly) and Lawful Neutral (when it's judging them), Keamy;
- Character Derailment: Sawyer and Charlie in season two, though they snap back later. Some might say Kate after Season 1 or 2.
- Character Development: Everyone.
- Character Focus: The show's bread and butter.
- Characteristic Trope: Revolutionized the use of flashbacks.
- Chekhovs Gun: Multiple times.
- The Chessmaster: Ben is one of the most capable chessmasters ever.
- Un-Locke probably upped him in the Season 5 finale.
- The Chew Toy: Mikhail is severely hurt in every episode he appears in.
- Despite being a very powerful manipulative bastard who brings it on himself, Ben qualifies because he can't go more than two episodes without being dealt a no holds barred beatdown. Although it's worth pointing out that despite all the times he's been beaten up, he's never been defending himself. When he does lower himself to using violence, he's arguably the most dangerous character on the show. After all, he has apparently just killed Jacob himself.
- The Chris Carter Effect: Oh, boys...
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: There are at least two rules on this show. The first rule is that nobody should trust Ben. The second rule is that everybody will disregard the first rule.
- Cliff Hanger: Pretty much every other episode.
- Commitment Anxiety
- Complete Monster: Keamy. As for any others who fit the bill, have fun debating!
- Conspiracy Theorist: Frank Lapidus.
- Continuity Lockout: So, so much in Seasons 4 and 5. But it is generally believed to have improved the show.
- Contrived Coincidence: Pretty much all of the character interactions before the crash. Visits from Jacob suggest otherwise. Destiny also plays a big part in the show
- Conversational Troping: Locke and Boone's redshirt discussion.
- Cool Old Guy: Locke, in spades.
- Although after season 5 he suffers from a serious case of Badass Decay, since it turns out that apparently all his being "special", his quest and ultimate sacrifice were part of the Big Bad's plan in which poor Locke had the dubious privilege of playing the part of the Xanatos Sucker
- And yet, on several occasions he did save the lives of other Losties ( Jack, Sawyer, Juliet, Eko, Ana Lucia, Desmond), and was a strong benevolent force in many episodes (he helped Charlie overcoming his addiction to heroin, for example).
- Cosy Catastrophe: There's the odd soldier or convict, but most of the castaways are normal, middle class people, albeit with an awful lot of trauma in their pasts.
- Crazy Prepared: Ben could make Batman green with envy.
- Keamy's elaborate setup at the end of Season 4 should qualify him.
- Crazy Survivalist: Rousseau in the first season.
- Cross Referenced Titles: "One of Them" and "One of Us"
- Now includes "The Constant" and "The Variable"
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Most characters get one.
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: Desmond and Penny reunite, pity they're still in the show so one of them will die. There are no happy endings in Lost. Recently Sawyer and Jin's though on a much smaller scale but also as a break from the bleakness each has gone through thus far in S5.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome: So many, but particularly Ben's theme 'Dharmacide' and 'Life and Death'. Michael Giacchino is a very talented man.
- Also the use of 'Make Your Own Kind of Music' for the Season 2 opening which not only caused a crazy Soundtrack Dissonance but the lyrics still define the characteristics of the character introduced to this day.
- Cryptic Conversation: Too many damn times. Especially whenever Christian appears in a non-flashback.
- Cuckoo Nest: It's practically poor Hurley's second home.
- Cuffs Off Rub Wrists: People get handcuffed or tied up a lot.
- Deadpan Snarker: James "Sawyer" Ford and Frank Lapidus.
- In commenting on Miles' use of this trope, Hurley reveals his own qualifications for the position:
Miles: Where the hell did they go, Tubby?
Hurley: Oh, awesome. The ship sent us another Sawyer.
- Ben Linus also gets his fair share
- Death By Materialism: Nikki and Paolo
- Death By Sex: Shannon and Ana-Lucia
- Deserted Island: The entire show is the subversion.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Ben and Jacob in the season 5 finale.
- Dies Wide Shut: Numerous times. One minor motif is someone closing a dead person's eyes out of respect.
- Disappeared Dad: Hurley, Claire (which plays a role in the plot)
- Disney Death: Charlie pulls one in the middle of season one. Justified somewhat by the island's habit of selctively curing/reviving its inhabitants. Also Jin in Season 4's finale. And averted with Locke's resurrection only to be subverted in the Season 5 finale
- Dogged Nice Guy
- Door To Before
- Double Aesop: "The best way to find something is to stop looking"
- Dr Jerk: Jack (sometimes) has a terrible bed-side manner and often brutally honest with his patients about their chances, but otherwise is a miracle-worker. His father Christian, on the other hand, was a snarky, condescending drunk who got a patient killed.
- Dropped A Bridge On Him: Poor, poor Mr. Eko. And most of the Tailies, come to think of it. Not to mention Libby. But special mention must go to Rousseau and her entire family!
- What about John Locke? Fans weren't even able to properly mourn his death, as he appeared to have been suddenly resurrected. Sadly, he wasn't really Locke anymore.
- Ducks In A Row
- Dying Alone: "If we don't learn to live together, we're gonna die alone."
- Dying Like Animals
- Dysfunction Junction: More like Dysfunction Scramble Crossing.
- Education Mama: Eloise Hawking
- Ensemble Darkhorse: There are, of course, several in a show with this many characters. Rose and Bernard deserve special mention. Both Desmond and Ben started out this way with their popularity earning them MAJOR roles.
- Epileptic Trees: One wild fan theory was the Trope Namer.
- Estrogen Brigade Bait: Sawyer, Jack, Sayid, Desmond.
- Even The Guys Want Him: There have been a few mancrushes on Sayid, Jack, Desmond, and Sawyer. Even Ben and Locke aren't without their fans.
- Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory: The show is a perfect example of this trope - the whole thing is so labyrinthine and deliberately ambiguous that fans tend to overanalyze everything, to the point of risking a brain aneurysm. That's part of the fun, after all.
- Exact Time To Failure: The countdown clock in The Hatch.
- Executive Veto: Jack was supposed to die in the first episode; ABC nixed that idea and the rest is history.
- Expanded Universe: Consisting of a few books, two online games, and a computer/video game. The canonicity of all of them is questionable, however.
- Expansion Pack Past: Everyone
- Expository Hairstyle Change AKA Flashback Wig
- Eyepatch Of Power: Mikhail, oh so much.
- Face Heel Turn: Michael
- Failure Is The Only Option: Subverted after we start flashing forward and see that some people get off the island. Then subverted again when it turns out they were better off on-island.
- Fake Defector: Hurley pretends to get kicked out of Locke's group and join Jack's.
- Fake Nationality: A fake Iraqi who is a real Brit, and a fake Korean who is a real American. Also a Yugoslavian as a French woman and an Australian as a Brit. Oh yeah and a Peruvian-Scot as a Scot... (that last one's a stretch but his off-screen accent is wildly different, brotha)
- Fake Out Opening: Practically once a Season Premier!
- Fan Community Nicknames: Lostaways
- Fan Nickname: Fenry for Ben when he was "Fake Henry", later known as Benry; Losties for the entire group, Smokey for The Monster. There's plenty of others. Newest of all: Esau and Un-Locke for Jacob's unnamed enemy.
- Faux Death - Charlie in S1 and Jin in S4/5
- Faux Fluency
- Fetish Fuel: This show is the restrainment fetishist's paradise.
- Fingertip Drug Analysis: As a drug lord, Eko knows how to do this, of course. Sayid in one episode too.
- Five Man Band: The fan-nicknamed "A-Team" (The five Lostaways that always involve themselves in everything important happening in the island)
- Flashback: It is practically the Characteristic Trope, after all.
- Flashback Effects: A distinctive sound effect notes the beginning and end of each flashback. This is almost reversed for the 'jumps'
- Flashback Twist: Too many to list here.
- Flash Forward: As of the end of the third season, we get these too.
- The Florence Nightingale Effect: How Jack and Sarah fell in love.
- Foe Yay: Ben and Locke. Lampshaded by Ben in the season 5 finale.
- Freudian Excuse: Ben, oh so very much.
- Fun With Foreign Languages
- Genius Loci: The Island
- Grey And Grey Morality: Played with in the repetition from all different sources about who is a "good person" (or people) or a "bad person" (or people). Naturally, there are contradicting opinions about and from just about everyone.
- The Gwen Stacy: Libby in Season Two, and Charlotte in Season Five. The only purpose that either of their death's served was to further woobiefy their respective boyfriends. Charlotte's death was especially grating, as she died of something which literally ceased to be an issue five minutes later.
- Hearing Voices
- Heel Face Turn: Juliet
- Hes Just Hiding: See "Drop A Bridge On Them" above.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Desmond at the end of Season Two (He lives though), Charlie at the end of Season Three
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: The Monster and the Others during season one. And Jacob, until "The Incident"
- Hitlers Time Travel Exemption Act: In play in some way. What with Sayid shooting, and trying to kill Ben Linus back in 1977.
- Lampshaded in the following episode by Hurley and Miles - and even better, it's implied that Jack's refusal to save Ben's life as a child - and Sawyer and Juliet's subsequent plea to Richard Alpert - turned him into the Magnificent Bastard he would become in the future.
- Ho Yay: Jack and Sawyer, Jack and Locke, Hurley and Charlie, Charlie and Desmond, Sawyer and Hurley... take your pick!
- Hope Spot: Locke banging on the Hatch door at his weakest moment only for it to miraculously turn on. Which is actually a double-whammy as by doing so he saves Desmond from a suicide attempt.
- I Am Your Father: Most notably, we eventually learn that Claire is Jack's half-sister.
- Eloise Hawking is Faraday's mother.
- And Charles Widmore is his father.
- And Pierre Chang is Miles's father
- I Just Want To Be Special: Locke's backstory
- I Know Kung Fu: Kate suddenly has tracking skills; they weren't revealed before because You Didnt Ask.
- I Lied: Ben says this so often that it might as well be his Catch Phrase.
- Infant Immortality: Damon Lindelof stated that by the end of the series, Vincent the dog will still be alive. Chances are Aaron, Ji Yeon, and little Charlie will live to the end as well.
- Inferred Survival: As of season 3, this is the game people play with the characters left on the island.
- I See Dead People: Miles.
- Technically, he doesn't actually see them, but can communicate with them.
- Hurley is a much more straight example these days.
- I See Them Too: Kate and Sawyer go through this in "What Kate Did".
- Island Help Message: the characters build one in the episode "S.O.S.," as the title would seem to indicate.
- Jerkass: Sawyer in season one.
- Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Sawyer after season 1. Thank you Character Development! By S4, the Jerk may as well be completely removed.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: We still haven't been given half the pieces.
- Killed Mid Sentence: This is how Boone died. Arzt as well.
- Killed Off For Real: Many, many people.
- Knife Nut: Locke
- Kudzu Plot: The whole show, inside and out. There may be no better example.
- Land Down Under: The show's portrayal of Australia is laughably inaccurate, mainly appealing to stereotypes.
- Claire's mom. You'd swear she's on the verge of saying "Dingoes stole moi baybee" every other word.
- Land Mine Goes Click: Happens every time someone activates one of Rousseau's traps.
- Letting Her Hair Down: Ana-Lucia goes back and forth in the second season.
- Ley Line: An intricate fan theory has it that the island moves along ley lines. Interestingly, there is in fact a ley node in Tunisia. Ley node number 4 actually corresponds with one of the possible locations of the Island.
- Liar Liar: Ben.
- Loads And Loads And LOADS And Loads Of Characters - it helps with Anyone Can Die
- Love Makes You Dumb
- Love Triangle: The one involving Jack, Kate and Sawyer has been played throughout all seasons so far with an insufferable, obnoxious insistence.
- The addition of Juliet to the mix makes things slightly more interesting.
- Mafia Princess: Sun, though she does not really approve of it.
- Magnificent Bastard: Ben. Also, given the implications,
Locke, er, Jacob's currently unnamed enemy.
- Man Behind The Man: Jacob's enemy.
- Manipulative Bastard: Ben owns this. And, again, Jacob's enemy.
- Mary Sue: Jack and Kate especially in the first two seasons.
- Jack's gotten a lot better ever since they made him a suicidal drug addict with an awful, awful beard. But Kate? Just the first two seasons? Really?
- Except by this point they've become so boring and ineffective that they might not even qualify anymore.
- Jack seems to be going through a sort of de-Sueification in the last seasons. He did indeed start the show as "Mr Awesome Who is Good at Everything"; then, at the end of season 3, the flash-forwards started to show him as a bitter loser. Now, with the season 5 finale, he seems to be approaching the Well Intentioned Extremist territory. Kate's still poison, though.
- Well intentioned? In the season 5 finale we learn that his main reason for detonating the NUCLEAR BOMB is that the relationship between him and Kate was over - which may count either as a Moral Event Horizon or as a Crowning Moment of Narm.
- Mauve Shirt: Rose and Bernard.
- Meanwhile In The Future: Done throughout all Season 5.
- Message In A Bottle: Attempted and failed... or was it?
- Messianic Archetype: Locke seems to definitely fit this role. A whole race of people awaiting his arrival? Suffering a lot and eventually dying to save everyone? Having a resurrection?
- Cruelly subverted in season five when it is revealed Locke was never brought back to life at all.
- Mind Screw: Lots of it.
- Misplaced Wildlife and Noisy Nature: Justified; turns out they're all probably escaped Dharma experiments.
- Moral Dissonance: Kate (a fugitive murderer) lecturing Locke about love, while at the same time refusing to go and help one guy who does love her (Sawyer) and the real mother of her adoptive son (Claire) - plus all the other survivors, of course.
- Moral Event Horizon: Jack wants to push the Reset Button because Kate left him.
- Ms Fanservice: Bikini-clad Shannon in season 1.
- Mysterious Past: All the characters, at first. Some of them still have unanswered questions.
- Narm: Jack is a pretty big source of this (Your Mileage May Vary), through facial expression. And let's not forget "THEY TOOK MY SON!"
- Nightmare Fuel: Jacob's cabin, for one.
- No Holds Barred Beatdown: Ben's brutal savaging of Keamy, not to mention his unbridled rage at the man for killing his daughter, and also being one of the few times where Ben shows genuine emotion.
- He probably learned from Jack in season 3's finale. Then there was Locke beating the snot out of Butt Monkey Mikhail.
- And Jack and Sawyer in the Season 5 finale
- No Mr Bond I Expect You To Dine: Ben treats Kate to a pleasant breakfast on the beach, explaining that he wanted to give her something nice to remember, as "the next few weeks are going to be very unpleasant".
- Not Quite Dead: Charlie's Disney Death in season one, Locke in season three. Both stretched credibility, Charlie moreso. Jin's probably now out done both. However, as far as credibility goes, it's most likely the Island's healing properties.
- Not Himself: John Locke after his return to the island.
- And one has to wonder about Daddy Shepherd, too.
- Oedipus Rex: Every. Single. Friggin'. One of 'em! Lampshaded with the season one episode title, "All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues".
- As of Season 5, mother issues are beginning to emerge. Albeit
subtly.
- Older Than They Look: Richard Alpert. Part of why he's so damn creepy. Likewise with Jacob and his rival.
- One Degree Of Separation: Pretty much everyone has encountered everyone else in some way before the crash.
- One Hundred And Eight: The numbers add up to this. And it's the number of minutes the timer in The Hatch counts down from. It ties in to the Buddhist trappings of the Dharma Initiative. It's also the number of days the Oceanic 6 spent on the island before their rescue.
- Ontological Mystery
- Only Known By Their Nickname: Sawyer and Hurley for a while.
Sawyer:Who the hell is Hugo Reyes and why has he got 160 million dollars?
- Oracular Urchin: Walt, maybe.
- Perma Stubble: All the guys. They used salvaged razors to keep from growing full beards.
- Phrase Catcher: Tons of phrases repeated by various characters. Each phrase is a motif all its own.
- Poor Communication Kills: Oh, if only people learned to mention some of those regularly-occurring BLAMs...
- Posthumous Character: A lot of people show up after death, whether by flashback, some Mind Screwy vision or time travel. The Marshal and Ethan are two good examples. Special mention of course goes to Jack's dad who was already dead before the show started, and to the whole Dharma crew, who were
ALL almost ALL dead twelve years before the first episode.
- Ethan has now featured in more episodes since his death than he did while alive.
- Powder Trail: Used to open the hatch.
- Psychic Nosebleed: Appears in one episode of season four, and repeatedly during the first half of season five, all related to the effects of time travel.
- Psycho For Hire: The mercenaries in season four, especially their leader, Keamy.
- Psychotic Smirk: For a good guy, John Locke does flash a lot of those.
- Of course, his more recent examples can be attributed to the fact that it isn't really Locke, but Jacob's unnamed enemy posing as him.
- The Public Domain Channel: While a prisoner of the Others, Jack watches Heckle and Jeckle cartoons on a TV set they provide.
- The Purge: The name given to the Island-wide toxic gas attack that effectively wiped out the DHARMA Initiative's presence on the Island.
- Put On A Bus: Walt, the one kid on the show, had to be written out to hide his clear progression through puberty, while only months pass in-show.
- The Quiet One: Eko, during his introduction.
- Rasputinian Death: Mikhail
- Reality Is Unrealistic: At the start of the show, some viewers complained that Claire's accent was too over the top. The actress is a real Australian.
- Following Maternity Leave, there were also complaints about the actress playing A Lex looking "as old as the actress playing her mother". The actress and the character were the same age at the time.
- Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Richard Alpert, it seems. And, of course, Jacob and his enemy.
- Recap Episode: ABC, Sky1 and RTE 2 like to throw together recap specials to air before premieres, finales, or after a hiatus.
- Redemption Equals Death: Many characters, most notably Michael, who couldn't die until he was redeemed. Also the opposite is true concerning Eko's judgement. He refuses to be redeemed and is soundly trashed to death by the monster. Comparable to Ben in S5 who actively repented and thus was spared. In each case they could have made a case for not being penitent about the things they had done very reasonably, and Ben's other monstrous crimes not being included in his 'judgment', leads one to conclude Smokey values obedience rather than objective moral judgment, and those who refuse to abide by its slanted view and play ball suffer.]]
- Redemption In The Rain: Played with in Locke's case. We see him in the rain, but we don't see how he was redeemed until later.
- Red Shirt: Done with an appreciable amount of Lampshade Hanging. Look at the page to see. The show has actually shown a lot of restraint in killing off unnamed/minor survivors. At least until season four.
- Remember The New Guy
- Romantic Plot Tumor: What's the new episode about? Knife-throwing Locke? Badass Sayid? Magnificent Bastard Ben? The mysterious Others? The smoke monster? Time travel? God-like beings using humans as their pawns? One of the thousands of questions which have yet to be answered? No - first we need to know whom Kate loves. Again.
- Reset Button: End of season five, maybe.
- Say My Name: "WAAAAAALLLLLLLLTTTTTT!!!"
- Scary Black Man: Mr. Eko, at first; also Abbadon
- The Scrappy: Nikki and Paulo. They were wisely killed off just half a season after their introduction.
- Screaming Birth: Aaron's birth, as well as Ben's.
- Screaming Woman: One iconic image of the show is Shannon doing this in the pilot. Claire's got quite a set of lungs in her as well. But none can dream of competing with Sun.
- Seasonal Rot: Some say Season 2, others say Season 3, but both seasons got back on track as they approached the finale.
- Secret Test Of Character: Implied to be the point of the entire show in the season 5 finale. Ben fails spectacularly.
- Shaggy Dog Story: The Tailies, for some fans.
- Shout Out: In season 5, Hurley is seen in the airport reading a trade paperback of Y The Last Man, written by current Lost producer, co-writer, and story editor Brian K. Vaughan.
- Spanner In The Works: Hurley, early Season 5. Purposefully, just to piss Ben off.
- Special Effects Failure: Happens a few times, although the special effects are generally decent otherwise.
- Stable Time Loop: Sayid attempts to kill Ben as a child, forcing Kate and Sawyer to turn over the mortally wounded child to the Others, with the implication that these events will inalterably set the kid on the path to being the cold hard bastard he is in the present
- Star Trek Shake: The crash of Flight 815.
- Survival Mantra: "1... 2... 3... 4... 5..."
- "If you say "Live together, die alone" to me, Jack, I'm gonna punch you in your face."
- Take My Hand: Sawyer to Juliet in the season 5 finale. Also counts as a Tear Jerker.
- Tear Jerker: Several, but to start, Charlie's death and the events leading up to it.
- The ending of "The Constant".
- And the even later payoff of that episode in "There's No Place Like Home, parts 2 and 3".
- Temporal Paradox: The magical compass bouncing between the time-travelling Locke and Richard seems to exist in a loop: Present-Locke gives it to Past-Richard in 1954, then Present-Richard gives it to Locke in 2008 before Locke leaps into the past to give it to Richard... so, technically, the compass was never built.
- No, it just means that he had two versions of it at the same time.
- Theme Naming: Many characters are named after philosophers, scientists, or literary figures. Most of the names can grant insight into their characters.
- Lampshaded in season 5, episode 7, by Charles Widmore when he gives Locke a fake ID with the name "Jeremy Bentham", comparing his sense of naming humour to Locke's parents.
- Token Evil Teammate: Ben, starting around season 4.
- Tonight Someone Dies: Done gratingly with Shannon, Eko and Charlotte.
- They also made mention that by the end of season 5 they were going to kill off someone important. They weren't lying since Faraday was killed by his own mother in the last 5 minutes of the show.
- Wait a second. You don't call Faraday "someone important"?
- Can't forget Jacob, can you?
- Ah, but is he really dead?
- Juliet is probably pretty dead too.
- Translation Convention: Scenes in Korea are subtitled, but Sayid's flashbacks to Iraq are generally not — since Naveen Andrews doesn't speak Arabic.
- Trojan Prisoner: "I can't believe you fell for the old Wookiee prisoner gag!"
- Trust Password: When Desmond starts flashing between the past and present, Daniel actually invokes this trope telling Desmond what to say to the past version of Daniel in order to get Past-Daniel to help him. Later on, the same characters reverse it.
- Unstoppable Rage: Hurley after one insult too many from Sawyer.
- Unstuck In Time: Several characters, and more recently the entire Island.
- Villain Decay: As of the end of Season 5, Ben has been reduced to just another pawn in un-Locke/the enemy's extended chess match against Jacob.
- He knows it too, and isn't the least bit happy about it.
- Though it's implied that Ben's mere existence and free will is the "loophole" that un-Locke needed to kill Jacob, making him the most important character in the show...
- Viral Marketing: The Lost Experience is the biggest example, but also the other between-seasons games.
- Wall Banger: In The Hunting Party, the Others have Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Locke surrounded and disarmed, but they do not capture them. Some episodes later, they ask Michael to lure into a trap Jack, Sawyer, Kate... and Hurley (whom they just use as a messenger and let go immediately). Notice that, in The Hunting Party, Ben already knew he needed Jack to perform the surgery. So Yeah...
- Less a Wall Banger than Fridge Logic. Locke fancies himself "special" and a hero of sorts. Hardly the sort of person Ben might want as a messenger especially since the Others had yet to reveal themselves as technologically advanced and as hostile as they would later become. Capturing Jack with Locke nearby might have put a crimp in a time-sensitive plan.
- Wasteland Elder: Jack
- Well Intentioned Extremist: The Others believe that they are the good guys. Just what good they're working towards is unknown, but most of their actions point to quite the contrary. Locke and Jack have gone down this road at times as well.
- Wham Episode: Every season finale, with a few more thrown in-between.
- Taken to a whole new level in Season 5's finale.
- What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: Since we still have lots of unanswered questions, it's tough to sort out what "symbolic" names, references, or images really mean something as opposed to those just thrown in for the hell of it.
- What Happened To The Mouse: Where does the dog keep getting off to, anyways?
- What The Hell Hero: Everyone has one of these.
- Whole Episode Flashback: "The Other 48 Days", telling season one from The Tailies' perspective.
- Women In Refrigerators: It's a bit of a stretch, and not This Troper's opinion, but a case could be made for Shannon, although Sayid doesn't actually end up doing much because of it; Libby, though likewise with Hurley; and Charlotte, with only drives Faraday into nigh-Heroic BSOD territory.
- Almost played straight with spoiler: Alex, but there's been enough attention given to her death since that it probably doesn't qualify.
- The Woobie: Young Ben. I dare you to defy it. Amazing, considering what he grew up into...
- One could argue for Locke. He seems like a text book case.
- Xanatos Gambit: Ben again again.
- Xanatos Roulette: Sometimes you wonder just how Ben could have planned for some things. He could just be good at improvising and adapting his plans, though.
- Michael Emerson pretty much said himself (in layman's terms) that Ben is playing Xanatos Speed Chess throughout Season Five: "I think Ben has a lot of layers of plans, but I think we're way off the main stem of anything that works for him. I mean, Ben's doing like moment-to-moment scrambling now."
- Ben seems like a rookie compared to Jacob's enemy, whose plan included everything in Ben's plans, plus a couple of twists which ultimately gave him the upper hand and led to un-Locke manipulating Ben into killing Jacob. .
- Xanatos Sucker: After the season 5 finale the (apparently) deceased John Locke probably qualifies as the poster boy of this trope, having been manipulated his whole life, first by his father, then by Ben, and finally by the entity who has now taken his place.
- You ALL Share My Story
- You Cant Fight Fate: One character explicitly tells Desmond this. Free will vs. fate is a recurring theme in the series. So far, no one has been able to Screw Destiny.
- You Cant Go Home Again: Once some of the survivors make it off the island, at least Jack and Hurley end up convinced they shouldn't have left in the first place]]. Also happens to Ben at the end of season four after he moves the island, meaning he can never return there.
- Except he does, so there goes that theory.
- You Fail Physics Forever: The completely impossible behavior of the water in the season three finale.
- You Fail Nuclear Physics Forever: The hydrogen bomb. A 15,000-pound hydrogen bomb according to what the US was building at the time, made up mostly of the fuels required to detonate it. Somehow this can be turned into a (maybe) 30 kg backpack device which survives massive falls and (possibly) detonates when you hit it with a rock.
- You Fail Logic Forever: Hurley's attempts to understand time travel paradoxes.
- Youre Not My Father
|
|
