205 17 THE TAO OF JOHN LOCKE Shai Biderman and William J. Devlin “Two players, two sides. One is light, one is dark” Lost is an appropriate title for the series for several reasons. From the opening episode, we find that the characters themselves are lost – they don’t know where they are, they don’t know why exactly they are where they are, and they don’t know where they’re going. Furthermore, as we are introduced to over a dozen characters on the island, we find that they aren’t simply lost while being on the island. Whether we are learning about Jack’s relationship to his father, Sayid’s confrontation with torture, Charlie’s drug addiction, Claire’s dilemma over single motherhood, Ana Lucia’s struggle with revenge, or Desmond’s fight for love, the flashbacks into the characters’ earlier lives tells us that they were lost before they even arrived on the island. We the audience share this “lost anxiety” as we are left confused and baffled after each episode. Each episode reveals new information that leaves us with new questions: Why are there so many “happen- stance” encounters between the passengers prior to the crash, and what does it mean? What is the significance of the numbers? Who are the Others? Why are they obsessed with children? The task of getting answers to these questions is a demanding process and becomes all the more frustrating when, like Desmond sailing west away from the island, we find ourselves moving in circles. The main characters in the series are lost. That is, the characters feel a bit out of place – they are unaware of where they’re going or