All Good Ghostbusters Have Daddy Issues

First of all, how cool would it have been for the little onesie Baby Miles was wearing to have said "BABY" under the Dharma logo?

Anyway, on with the post.  This week's story, "Some Like it Hoth" is all about Miles.  I have two thoughts to throw out there - one about "daddy issues" and one about Miles' abilities.

1) So we can agree that almost everyone on this show has daddy issues. I'm pretty sure that will play a role as to why they're on the island, but I can't seem to put my finger on it.

My son and I were talking about this last night after the episode. He's watched most of this season so far, and has watched the 1st on DVD and is still catching up. I mentioned that after all is said and done when we look back on LOST the predominate theme or point that will be made will have something to do with parent issues (specifically, daddy issues). This is the one common, unifying thread between almost all the characters down the line, that in their past or in current times they had specific difficulties or drama with their fathers. And I predicted to him that it would eventually come down (thematically and plot-wise) to Jack confronting his "ghost" father, Christian Shepard. That's the big daddy relationship that's been held over our heads since early in the first season, and will be the last one confronted.

Somehow, the bigger mythology arc of LOST will tie into the relationship between fathers and their children - may it be literal, or figurative in the terms of past generations passing on their wisdom, mistakes and knowledge to the next. That by exposing all these ways fathers relate to their Lostie children and vice versa, we see a broader point about society and humanity.

Jack - Christian was a perfectionist, never gave Jack his due. Alcohol fueled rift between them. Drank self to death
Kate - Real father left early, adopted father was abusive to her mother and she killed him
Sawyer - Father killed his mother, then himself
Ben - Father blamed him for death of mother, was drunk and abuser. Killed by Ben in the Purge.
Locke - Father never stuck around for child, used Locke for kidney transplant, pushed him out window. Was killed by Locke via Sawyer
Claire - Christian never really a presence in her life, came around to pay for mom's hospital care
Sayid - Father taught him that killing made him a man.
Penny - Charles Widmore tried to keep she and Desmond apart, and was a general jerk to her. She has broken all ties to him.
Hurley - Dad left when he was 10, recently made up with him. Only one to see to have resolved his daddy issues.
Charlie - Father was opposed to his musical career, wanted he and Liam to become Butchers.
Sun - Father opposed to her marrying Jin, forced Jin to work for him as hit man. Partially blames him for Jin's "death"
Jin - Kept father's identity secret, out of shame. Mother who abandoned him tried to blackmail Sun. Has more mother issues than dad.
Walt - Dad left soon after born, only knew him a short while on island before leaving. Abandoned again by Michael with grandmother to raise, unsure of Michael's fate.
Boone and Claire - StepDad died in ER, result of Jack choosing to operate on (future) wife. Nothing known about either's real fathers
Miles - Pierre Chang abandoned family when Miles an infant. Reasoning still to be seen.
Tailies and other Freighties (Libby, Ana Lucia, Charlotte, Frank, Daniel) - not on the show long enough to learn about daddy issues (although it's speculated Widmore could be father to either Daniel or Charlotte)

Fans joke about it, but I think this will play out to be the overarching theme behind the entire series.

2) After a whole episode devoted to exploring Miles' abilities to "speak with the dead" and seeing his and Hurley's comparisons I actually think he (and we) are off-base as to explaining it.

I don't think there's anything supernatural about it at all, or has anything to do with communicating with people who are already dead.

I think Baby Miles was exposed to the EM energy as a result of "The Incident". Maybe it was because Adult Miles came into contact with him, maybe because of whatever actual specific "Incident" occurs - but from that point on, Baby Miles was given an ability.

That ability had nothing to do with sensitivity to the dead, but a sensitivity to time. Perhaps when standing over a dead body, instead of reading the "thoughts" or life essence of a dead person, he's actually sensing their immediate past? If he can somewhat look into a person's past by a body that has died, he could have gotten the impression that the dead was actually speaking to him, there and now, from beyond the grave. Instead he's receiving impressions of the past.

This could be a mirror of Desmond's abilities. Where Desmond has premonitions of the future, and recognizes them as such, Miles has, um, "postmonitions" of the past but has always misinterpreted them as listening to the dead.

Desmond's abilities were caused by the overload in the Swan of the EM energy, and turning the failsafe key. Miles' abilities were caused by a very, very similar buildup and overload in the Swan or Orchid, one that gives him, as a baby, very similar but opposite abilities.

---- To expand on my earlier theory perhaps when a person dies - especially violently, as the grandson was murdered - there are traces or ripples in time that remain in an area. Traces and ripples that are normally undetectable to us mundanes but to Miles, who is sensitive to such vibrations, can feel them. So when he's in the room and begins sensing things, he believes he's "communicating" with the spirit of the murdered grandson but in reality he's sensing the past movements of the boy in the room. And one of the last things the boy did was hide the drugs and money in the wall, behind the dresser. Miles found it and went on about his business.

Little boy Miles saw some of the last moments of the dead man in the apartment's life, and mistook them for the man "calling" to him.  He was able to read Naomi's body, but since she died nearby those emanations were plentiful. Rousseau and Karl were buried right where they were killed. Felix's body was there in the restaurant, but Miles likely would've encountered similar vibrations in time near where he was killed. He was able to sense and recognize actions taken by or done to those people in the short time before they died.

The other man's son died in a car wreck and cremated, which accounts for why Miles was unable to read anything from him - there was nothing of the trauma of his death nearby. ---

I think this accounts for all the people Miles has been able to "read" that I know of.

In addition, since I think Hurley actually is seeing/interacting visions of dead people that are created by The Island or Jacob, he's not actually speaking to "ghosts". So it's funny that, as a result of their one-ups-manship conversation in the van, neither can actually talk to the dead :)