I rewatched this episode [1.20: Do No Harm] a while ago and I remembered the first time that I watched it (around two/three years ago). When I watched it, I was struck by the juxtaposition of the death and birth scenes. I know that death is one of the major themes in the show, but why couldn't they have had the death and the birth in different episodes? I know I know the circle of life and yadda yadda but....
This is probably one of the most intense episodes in Season 1, in a way. I remember squirming the first time I saw it that there was so much craziness happening.
My first thought when I saw the end was that Aaron was a reincarnation of Boone. At least Boone's "soul" or whatever. I lovelovelove the last scene of this episode where they play "Life and Death" which is one of my favorite pieces of the Lost score EVER. I could go into how brilliantly Michael Giaccino wrote it but I won't because it'll basically be music theory blah blah. Suffice to say that the way he wrote it makes it happy and sad at the same time and there's no resolution which is perfect for a piece like this. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about it's the scene where you see everybody crowding around Claire and Aaron and then Jack and telling Shannon and Sayid about Boone and then Shannon crying over Boone's dead body.)
But I digress.
The thing that gets me about the whole reincarnation thing is that as soon as we know that Boone's over Claire starts giving birth. And it's scary in both cases because Jack's going bananas and we have no idea if Claire will be okay or not. But why have Claire give birth right then? I think her birth would be scary even if Jack was there to help.
I know that this could just be the writers emphasizing the craziness of life on the Island, but I've sort of always thought it was something more. Although you see Claire give birth first, they happened so close together that it could very well be simultaneous, especially because the birth took place in the middle of Boone's death scene.
(I'd also like to note how surprisingly mature Boone is in this episode.)
Huh. Another interesting thing is that both Claire and Jack fight their situations. Claire isn't ready to give birth and Jack isn't ready to let go. I don't know if that has any significance but I think it's worth mentioning.
Aaron means "bearer of martyrs." I would argue that Boone is a bit of a martyr in a weird way. He didn't mean to become one, but he sort of did. After his death, Locke got to understand the Island better and whatever. People still talk about Boone as a sacrifice and whatnot. And he DID climb up into the plane even after Locke said "No don't do it", even though it was Locke's idea first, so he did it willingly. I know this whole Boone-death thing is controversial among some fans but I honestly don't think Boone's death was all Locke's fault.
Even if my reincarnation idea is silly, I'm really looking forward to what Aaron's role in the future will be. Aaron was the voice of Moses, the message-bearer. I'm really curious as to what that means for the show, because names mean a lot in this show.
For discussion on this theory, please visit the dedicated thread within the forum here.
Posted by jimpbblmk on 26 Aug 2008 at 12:56 | Lost Theories
