[LOST meta] Island colors
Jul. 1st, 2020 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stefanie_bean"There are two sides, black and white," Locke says early in Season 1. Unfortunately for Locke, most of what he thought he knew was wrong.
As the series proceeds, we see that ultimately it's not so simple as Jacob being the white game piece and Smokey the black. The "white vs. black" dichotomy is how Mother saw the world, and she imposed it on the twins from the moment of their birth, as we see in "Across the Sea."
Mother is the one who reinforces that thinking in the Boy in Black, when he "accidentally" finds the senet game. Also, Mother sees herself as one of "the good people," compared to the Roman settlers, and passes that on to both the boys.
Black-and-white ultimately serve as misdirection in the story. The source of all power, of all magic if you will, is the Island - and the Island is the least black-and-white aspect of the show. It's brown and green and blue: earth and vegetation, water and sky.
Note that when Jack is inaugurated, he's wearing blue (sky.) Hurley wears earth colors (the land.) With Jack and Hurley, the game is over. Everything up to that point has "just been progress."
* * * * * * * *
More thoughts on colors:
Color symbolism in LOST usually isn't part of the "mysteries" (maybe with orange as an exception.) Instead, I'd argue that most of the color "language" is very straightforward, based on common usages in Western art history.
For instance, in Charlie's hallucinations in "Fire+Water," the colors derive directly from the Verrocchio "Baptism of Christ" painting. Thus Hurley is shown in gold-trimmed maroon (actually royal purple) to signify his coming protectorship; Claire is dressed in blue and positioned like one of the angels in the painting. Later, Claire is shown in a lot of light and dark blue; in some scenes she looks just like a Renaissance madonna.
The black and white imagery is very stark, especially in the Pilot. Both Locke and Hurley wear the same shirt (Hurley remarks on it in a deleted scene.) Interestingly, Claire and Libby share a deleted scene where Claire is wearing Libby's light blue shirt. Not sure of the significance, except that by the end of the series, both Locke and Libby are dead, and both Claire and Hurley are wearing earth tones (again, being tied to the Island.)
Kate is often shown in greens and earth tones (changing to a cooler forest green in the final FSW scene of the finale.) She is the hunter, the tracker, the tree climber; more in touch with the Island in an instinctual sense, even though Island "mysteries" don't interest her.
"Bad guys" do seem to wear black: MiB, Ana Lucia, the "dark Sayid" of later seasons. As I mentioned above, I don't think that's a metaphysical expression of the Island's nature, so much as a dichotomy imposed on Jacob and MiB by Mother.
Mother is shown wearing both earth tones and blues together: the protector - like the Avatar in Avatar, the Last Airbender - is the master of all the elements.
Orange is specifically called out: "Love is orange," says Jin's friend in Seoul. I wasn't able to find any Korean culture reference for this. I'd argue that orange does have direct story-specific significance: it seems to be tied to betrayal, loss, and emotional conflict.
As the series proceeds, we see that ultimately it's not so simple as Jacob being the white game piece and Smokey the black. The "white vs. black" dichotomy is how Mother saw the world, and she imposed it on the twins from the moment of their birth, as we see in "Across the Sea."
Mother is the one who reinforces that thinking in the Boy in Black, when he "accidentally" finds the senet game. Also, Mother sees herself as one of "the good people," compared to the Roman settlers, and passes that on to both the boys.
Black-and-white ultimately serve as misdirection in the story. The source of all power, of all magic if you will, is the Island - and the Island is the least black-and-white aspect of the show. It's brown and green and blue: earth and vegetation, water and sky.
Note that when Jack is inaugurated, he's wearing blue (sky.) Hurley wears earth colors (the land.) With Jack and Hurley, the game is over. Everything up to that point has "just been progress."
More thoughts on colors:
Color symbolism in LOST usually isn't part of the "mysteries" (maybe with orange as an exception.) Instead, I'd argue that most of the color "language" is very straightforward, based on common usages in Western art history.
For instance, in Charlie's hallucinations in "Fire+Water," the colors derive directly from the Verrocchio "Baptism of Christ" painting. Thus Hurley is shown in gold-trimmed maroon (actually royal purple) to signify his coming protectorship; Claire is dressed in blue and positioned like one of the angels in the painting. Later, Claire is shown in a lot of light and dark blue; in some scenes she looks just like a Renaissance madonna.
The black and white imagery is very stark, especially in the Pilot. Both Locke and Hurley wear the same shirt (Hurley remarks on it in a deleted scene.) Interestingly, Claire and Libby share a deleted scene where Claire is wearing Libby's light blue shirt. Not sure of the significance, except that by the end of the series, both Locke and Libby are dead, and both Claire and Hurley are wearing earth tones (again, being tied to the Island.)
Kate is often shown in greens and earth tones (changing to a cooler forest green in the final FSW scene of the finale.) She is the hunter, the tracker, the tree climber; more in touch with the Island in an instinctual sense, even though Island "mysteries" don't interest her.
"Bad guys" do seem to wear black: MiB, Ana Lucia, the "dark Sayid" of later seasons. As I mentioned above, I don't think that's a metaphysical expression of the Island's nature, so much as a dichotomy imposed on Jacob and MiB by Mother.
Mother is shown wearing both earth tones and blues together: the protector - like the Avatar in Avatar, the Last Airbender - is the master of all the elements.
Orange is specifically called out: "Love is orange," says Jin's friend in Seoul. I wasn't able to find any Korean culture reference for this. I'd argue that orange does have direct story-specific significance: it seems to be tied to betrayal, loss, and emotional conflict.