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Mother
Mother
"Every question I answer will simply lead to another question."
Played By: Allison Janney
The foster mother of Jacob and his brother. Murdered their birth mother, Claudia, just after the twins were born, and raised them herself.
- The Ageless: From Jacob's childhood to adulthood, she doesn't age a day. She herself implies she's extremely old.
- The Bad Guy Wins: She doesn't exactly have a happy life or a happy ending, but she does achieve the somewhat meagre victory she worked for: she gets to finally die, and is succeeded in her role as protector of the island. However, it's something of an imperfect victory, since she wanted the Man in Black to be the protector instead of the less cunning and more naive Jacob.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She rescues Claudia, takes her to a safe place and helps her give birth...before brutally killing her. From there on, she shows herself to be a manipulative and ruthless figure who blankets her nature in shows of semi-sincere affection.
- Character Death: The Man in Black stabs her in revenge, and she dies quickly afterwards.
- Death Seeker: Although she doesn't say it outright, Mother is clearly tired of her long, lonely life. As she's dying from a knife in the back, she thanks her attacker for killing her.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Averted; she does claim to love her adopted sons, but that love is highly conditional. She manipulates them, openly favors one over the other, and ultimately traps them both in lives they don't want. In the process, she turns them against each other.
- Evil Matriarch: She's the domineering mother figure to Jacob and the Man in Black, even if she isn't their biological mother.
- In the Back: The Man in Black plants a knife right in her back, killing her.
- Karmic Death: She's murdered by the son she manipulated, in retaliation for her slaughter of his entire village.
- Knight Templar Parent: "Mother" believes completely and entirely in her cause, and is willing to kill for it. She instills the same dedication in her son, Jacob.
- Manipulative Bitch: She manipulated the Man in Black for years, and Jacob for even longer. Even after her death, her manipulations last. Jacob keeps following her orders for hundreds of years.
- Misanthrope Supreme: "Mother" is deeply distrustful of humanity, and keeps Jacob and the Boy in Black from other people for this reason.
- Mysterious Past: We know absolutely nothing about her; how she became the Guardian, how she ended up on the island (if she wasn't born there), where she comes from, or even her name.
- No Name Given: She's variously known only as "Guardian" or (more often) "Mother". To the present day crash survivors, she's "Eve".
- One-Winged Angel: It's never been confirmed, but heavily implied by
Word of God that she was the monster prior to her death. Hence how she was able to fill a well and kill 20 armed men off-screen. It also explains how she knew that going into the light would be 'worse than death'. Of course, that raises the question of how the Man in Black was able to kill her at all. It may have something to do with the magnetism of the knife used, or because she'd already passed the torch to Jacob, perhaps ridding her of those powers. - Posthumous Character: She's killed by the Man in Black in a flashback, never appearing during the present timeline ... well, apart from as a skeleton.
- Screaming Warrior: She tends to shriek when being violent, screaming when she kills Claudia and later when she knocks out the Man in Black.
- Small Role, Big Impact: "Mother" appears in only one episode, but she sets the events of the series in motion by screwing up her sons so badly via brainwashing and manipulation that their actions ripple out long after her death.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: She most certainly doesn't. "Mother" has become extremely weary and tired from her desperately lonely, unnaturally long life. Subsequently, she manipulates events to find a replacement so she can finally rest in peace.
Claudia
Claudia
"I only picked one name."
Played By: Lela Loren
The biological mother of Jacob and The Man in Black.
- Character Death: "Mother" bludgeons her to death with a rock after helping her give birth.
- Dead Person Conversation: She has one with the Boy in Black.
- Missing Mom: Claudia ends up as a Missing Mom to her sons, but only because "Mother" killed her less than a minute after she gave birth.
- Posthumous Character: She only appears in flashbacks, and has the dubious honor of being the first chronological death in the show's timeline.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Despite her single-episode appearance, she's the mother of the two chessmasters who basically create the impetus for the show. Her Dead Person Conversation with the Boy in Black is also vital to him turning against his adoptive mother.
- Sole Survivor: Appears to be at first. Later subverted when it turns out there are other survivors of the boat.
