John Locke (Lost)

For other people named John Locke, see John Locke (disambiguation).

John Locke is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Terry O'Quinn.

Biography

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Locke relates to Sawyer that as a child, he and his sister were raised by a foster mother. When his sister died at age six, his foster mother blamed herself, and sunk into depression. A few months later, a dog came into their house and his foster mother began to feel better. The dog even slept in his sister's bed, leading Locke's foster mother to believe that the dog was the sister reincarnated. When asked whether he felt the same, he replies, "That's just silly." He later reveals that he also had a brother; however, it is as yet unclear whether his siblings were biologically related.

Flashbacks in "Deus Ex Machina" reveal a younger Locke, with a full head of hair and use of his legs, working at a large retail store. His real mother, Emily Annabeth Locke (Swoosie Kurtz), makes a sudden appearance at his workplace, claiming that his birth was part of a greater plan, that he had no father and was "immaculately conceived". This leads to Locke hiring a private investigator to track down his biological father, who turns out to be a wealthy hunter named Anthony Cooper (played by Kevin Tighe). Cooper seems to take his newfound son under his wing, teaching him to be a sportsman. However, he is actually laying the groundwork to con Locke into donating his kidney, which Cooper desperately needs. Once the operation is completed, Cooper leaves the hospital and orders his security guard not to admit Locke back into his estate. Locke is crushed when he discovers that he has been emotionally manipulated.

Following the deception by his father, Locke becomes an angry and bitter person, even attending an anger management group. He also loiters outside of his father's house early in the morning in his car every day, hoping to simply ask his father how he could con his own son. When Locke's father finally meets with him again, he shatters Locke by simply telling him to get over being conned, and that no one wants him around. Despite being told that, Locke still continued to loiter outside the house. Locke eventually begins a relationship with a woman named Helen, another member of the support group he attends. She successfully convinces him to stop loitering, and to "take a leap of faith" into the unknown. This is later paralleled in Locke's convincing Jack to "take a leap of faith" by pushing the button.

Locke and Helen eventually end up living together, and Locke wants to propose. Helen finds out in the obituaries that Anthony has died. Locke and Helen are the only people at the funeral, and during the event, Locke sees two mysterious men by another grave, as well as a car that drives away after Locke says that he forgives his father. After Locke, now working as a home inspector, leaves a house he has just inspected, the same car from the funeral appears. When Locke approaches it, he discovers that his father is in the car, alive and well. Anthony reveals that he faked his death because he is in trouble with the two men who Locke saw at the funeral, conning them out of $700,000. The money is in a safe deposit box, but he does not want to risk getting it. He asks Locke to retrieve the money for him with a promise of $200,000 as payment. Locke begrudgingly agrees. After he gets the money, the two men — one of them named Jimmy Bane — appear in Locke's house. They question Locke if Anthony is still alive and about the money. After they leave, Helen asks if Anthony is indeed still alive, but Locke denies it. Later, Locke goes to a hotel and gives Anthony the money. Anthony gives Locke his cut, but Locke does not take it because he only did the job to please his father. As Anthony walks out the door, Helen, who apparently followed Locke, appears. Seeing Anthony and the money, she walks away, furious that Locke lied and seems to prefer his thieving father over her. Locke pleads for Helen to stay and finally proposes, but she says no.

Prior to the flight, John Locke leads a lonely existence as a middle manager at a box company in Tustin, California, where he is constantly belittled by a snide (and younger) higher-up for his interests in wargaming and survivalism. Most critically, Locke is a paraplegic — apparently for the preceding four years — the reasons for which are unexplained. He comes to Australia hoping to fulfill his dream of taking part in a walkabout, but when it is discovered that he is disabled, Locke is forced off the tour and sent back to the United States on the doomed flight.

On the island

After the crash, Locke miraculously recovers the use of his legs. On the island, Locke demonstrates his skills as a hunter, tracker, as well as a sort of spiritual leader. He is the oldest of the principal characters. He appears to have a connection to the island, to which he ascribes mystical powers, claiming, "I've looked into the eye of this island, and what I saw was beautiful." For a number of episodes, he keeps secret his findings and revelations from nearly all, except for his apparent acolyte, Boone Carlyle, with whom he often explores the island's jungles. During one such expedition, the two come across a metal hatch with a glass window, which they unsuccessfully try to force open or break. Later, a seeming vision leads the two to a crashed Beechcraft airplane stuck in trees. When Boone climbs into the cockpit, the plane falls to the ground, crushing Boone and eventually leading to his death. Because Locke initially lies about how Boone's injuries were received, the death drives a wedge between some of the survivors and Locke — and both Jack Shephard and Boone's step-sister, Shannon, hold him responsible for Boone's demise.

Although he connects mainly to Boone, Locke also develops a friendship with Walt Lloyd early on, teaching him backgammon and demonstrating knife throwing. Locke is the one who motivates Jack to leadership when he is struggling with the ghost of his father. He helps Charlie work through his heroin addiction, and builds a cradle with Claire for her baby. He also shares a mutual respect with Sayid. Other survivors are wary of Locke, due in part to his mysterious comings and goings, as well as his collection of hunting knives, which he had transported with him intending to use them on a walkabout of the Australian Outback.

In "The Greater Good," after showing Sayid the location of the Beechcraft, Locke confesses that he was the one who sabotaged the jury-rigged communication equipment that Sayid used to search for the island's radio transmitter. Later, in retaliation for her brother's death, Shannon tries to shoot Locke, but due to the intervention of Sayid, the bullet only grazes his temple.

In "Born to Run," Locke requests that Sayid bring Jack to the hatch with an open mind. When Jack asks why he kept it a secret for three weeks, Locke replies, "Since when does everyone have to report to you, Jack?"

Later, in "Exodus: Parts 2 and 3," with the help of Jack and Kate, Locke is successful in blowing open the hatchway with dynamite.

Shortly afterwards, Locke and Kate attempt to descend down the hatch by rope. When Kate is captured by Desmond, Locke enters alone, and is confronted by Desmond. Desmond initially asks Locke "are you Him?" in which Locke answers "yes", but after asking him a riddle which Locke fails to answer, Desmond holds him at gunpoint and makes him enter "the Numbers" sequence into the computer. After Desmond runs off, Locke creates a duty roster to man the computer console.

Locke first meets Mr. Eko in "Collision" and runs the DHARMA Initiative orientation film for Eko and Michael in "What Kate Did". Eko shows Locke the cored-out Bible found in the Station discovered by the tail section survivors. Inside is a missing piece of the orientation film, which Locke splices back.

Locke trains Michael on how to use the guns in "The 23rd Psalm." In "The Hunting Party," Locke is knocked unconscious by Michael, who locks him in the gun cache with Jack. Locke and Jack are freed shortly thereafter by Sawyer and Kate, and the four go in search of Michael (although the men do not originally know that Kate has followed them). During the search, they are confronted by Mr. Friendly and the "Others" and are forced to return to their camp without Michael.

In "Fire + Water" Locke finds Charlie with a Virgin Mary statue and confiscates all of them. He later puts them in the gun cache. He becomes more protective to Claire by moving his tent closer to hers. When Charlie steals Aaron for the second time, Locke punches Charlie in the face several times.

In "The Long Con" Locke locks the Virgin Mary statues in the cache because, as he tells Jack, they might become helpful later on. He also tells Jack that he did not break them and get the drugs out is because he doesn't want to tempt fate by destroying them. Locke later moves both the guns and the heroin to a new hiding place as a result of being conned by Sawyer.

In "One of Them" Locke is persuaded by Sayid to change the combination on the armory in order that Henry Gale be detained there while being interrogated by Sayid. However, Jack blackmails Locke into opening the door when he realizes that Sayid is torturing Gale. Jack refuses to let Locke enter the station code unless he opens the door for Jack first.

In "Lockdown" Locke's right leg is injured by the blast doors, forcing him to enlist Henry to enter the Numbers. Jack later determines in "Dave" that it is a hairline fracture that will take weeks to heal, forcing Locke to use crutches. While attempting to draw the mysterious map he saw during the lockdown, Locke's faith in the hatch and the entire island is severely shaken when "Henry" — who was revealed to be an "Other" — says he never entered the Numbers at all. He claims that everything simply reverted back to normal.

Henry Gale also is able to stir extreme anger in Locke on numerous occasions by implying that he "lets Jack call all of the shots". Locke's faith is rekindled slightly when Rose reminds him that the island cured his paralysis and her illness, and it will probably speed up the healing of his leg.

In "?", Locke is recruited by Eko to track "Henry," who had just escaped. Locke soon finds out that Eko actually wants to know about a "question mark," even going so far as knocking Locke out when he does not get answers. When he wakes up, Locke shows Eko the map that he has drawn from the blastdoor. Seeing the giant "?" in the middle, Eko and Locke head there.

At night, Locke dreams that he is Eko. A wheelchair-bound Yemi appears, asking him to climb the cliff that the Beechcraft plane was on. When Locke awakens and informs Eko of his dream, they trek to the cliff and Eko climbs it. The view from the top reveals that the ground below looks like a giant question mark, and when some of the soil is cleared away, another hatch is discovered.

Locke and Eko enter the hatch - called The Pearl - which has numerous television monitors. They watch a video which explains that its purpose is to see if the denizens of the other hatches perform their tasks, a "psychological experiment," as though they are actually meaningless. Locke is shattered by this revelation, mainly because he has spent so much time performing and believing in a task that meant nothing. Eko, however, tells Locke that whatever he believes can still be true. Eko explains about the extraordinary circumstances of his brother's plane crashing on the same island that he crashed on. Because of that - and the dreams they both had with Yemi - Eko believes that the island and the button do indeed mean something. Locke is still not convinced, so Eko says he will take over button duty for him.

In "Three Minutes", Locke cuts open his splint and starts walking along the beach, without his crutches.

In "Live Together, Die Alone," Locke confronted Mr. Eko in The Swan, trying to convince him that the whole button procedure was a mind game. He grabbed Eko's club and tried to destroy the computer, but Eko overpowered Locke and beat him up, locking him out of The Swan. Locke then approached Desmond Hume and told him about what he found inside The Pearl. Desmond accompanies Locke back to The Swan, where Desmond short circuits the station's security system, causing the blast doors to close and thereby locking Eko out. Desmond tells Locke about what Kelvin told him the button was for (discharging the buildup of the electromagnetic field behind the wall). They discover that Desmond's failure to enter the code in time on September 22, 2004 may have been responsible for the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. Despite Eko and Charlie's attempts to get into the computer room, Desmond and Locke don't push the button as planned. Desmond makes his way under the computer room to activate The Swan's fail-safe device before the station's electromagnetic field gets too powerful. Desmond's actions cease the increasing electromagnetic field. While Charlie seemed to have escaped, the fates of Desmond, Locke, and Eko remain unknown.

Themes

Games

Locke is frequently connected with games. He teaches and plays backgammon with Walt, demonstrates Mouse Trap to a child in a flashback scene in "Deus Ex Machina", and plays Risk with a co-worker in "Walkabout". In "Exodus, Part 2" while handling dynamite, Locke asks Jack if he ever played Operation, joking that he "always got nailed by the funny bone"; he then proceeds to make a buzzing sound while lifting one of the fragile explosives. A startled Jack questions, "Do you like to play games, John?" Locke smiles and says "Absolutely."

Philosophy

John Locke, after whom the character John Locke is named, was a famous social contract philosopher who dealt with the relationship between nature and civilization. Also, the TV Locke's father is named Anthony Cooper, named for Lord Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the real-world John Locke's political mentor and patron. The real Locke believed that, in the state of nature, all men had equal rights to punish transgressors; to ensure fair judgment for all, governments were formed to better administer the laws. This philosophy is paralleled by the character of Locke, who embraces both nature and the need for organization among the survivors.

Faith

Locke's life has a repeated pattern of believing in a higher being or purpose (his father, pressing the button in the hatch) and then discovering that he placed his faith in something that was not as he thought, and feeling betrayed. His disillusionment with pressing the button, and his belief that he was destined to be on the island, coincided with the partial loss of his recovered ability to walk, because of being trapped under the hatch's blast door.