Sawyer Essay.

[agilebrit]

I was thinking about what the Hubby said about Sawyer the other day: "He so totally thinks he's better than everyone else." My husband hates Sawyer, because Sawyer's a jerk, but he gets away with it because he's cute, and he's bitter about the fact that cute guys who are jerks get girls, while nice guys often get kicked to the curb. And yeah, Sawyer got a very nice, very hot kiss from Kate the Beautiful--but she clocked him pretty hard in the jaw with her elbow right afterwards. And at this point, he's pretty much a pariah.

However, I disagree with the belief that he thinks he's better than everyone else. In my opinion, he has a massive inferiority complex, and this comes out in snark and jerkness and pushing people away. And then, when they (predictably) react by avoiding him, his poor opinion of himself gets reinforced, so he gets snarkier and jerkier, and more people avoid him...and it's this huge vicious cycle.

Part of his pushing people away is the incessant nicknaming. I don't know if he just can't be bothered to learn names or not, but nicknames can do one of two things. In the Hubby's and my case, nicknames are endearments that bring us together. They're pet names. In Sawyer's case, it's exactly the opposite. He uses demeaning insults to further distance himself from people. If he doesn't have the connection to them by calling them by their actual names, then maybe it doesn't hurt as much when they (invariably) reject him.

Letting people in can hurt. He learned that at a very young age when he lost his parents. Who knows what his childhood was like after that? However, once he embraced the con artist lifestyle, he took advantage of his looks and charm to insinuate himself into people's lives, and then bilk them for all they had. So, he has firsthand experience of what can happen if you allow someone to get close to you. Consciously or unconsciously, he's not going to let others do that to him. However, his embrace of the con artist within has made him into a selfish son of a bitch with barely a shred of human decency. He's turned himself into a horrible person in order to get babes and money, and in the process he's insulated himself from the rest of humanity. Whether he's insulating himself on purpose or not is a question that's up for grabs. Personally, I think that part of him is buried quite deeply.

The inferiority complex goes along with his self-loathing. He's exhibited a wish to die more than once. He faced off a polar bear with a handgun. That was some mighty fancy shootin' there; however, the fact is that, under "normal" circumstances, it would have killed him, not the other way around. And when Sayid cut his artery? He was practically begging Jack to let him bleed out, by goading him. "I'd stand here and watch you die," he snarled. Any man who wasn't Jack or a doctor probably would have just let him croak.

All that being said...he still wants to be treated like a human being. When people ask him--even if they do it not-so-nicely--for stuff they actually need (such as the laptop battery, or the passenger manifest), he gives it up, generally without much of a quibble or a struggle, with maybe one or two sarcastic remarks--just so they know he's in control, yo. In the case of Shannon's inhalers, no one ever actually asked him. They just assumed that he had them and was withholding them. They didn't say "Do you have the inhalers?" They said "Where are the inhalers?" It's a whole different vibe, and who can blame him for getting a little pissy with them? Also, I'm not sure he would have been believed had he just come out and said at the very beginning that he didn't have them. The torture scene may have been inevitable, no matter what he did or said.

But here is the interesting dichotomy of the character. He pushes people away...but he still wants them to come to him. Otherwise, why hide and hoard the stuff? On a basic level, he wants to be accepted and needed by the group, but he can't bring himself to believe that they'd want to interact with him for his own sake, so he hangs onto supplies, thus compelling contact.

I think, of all the characters on this show, Sawyer has the most potential for growth and change. He's stunted and damaged; there's a good chance that in his "other life," he didn't have anyone he could actually call a friend at all. Being forced to be around people for the sake of survival will hopefully allow him to get close to one or two of them. I'd really like to see him become buddies with Hurley, or have (at least) a good working relationship with Sayid. I'll watch the maturation of Sawyer, and how he handles pitfalls and failures, with a lot of interest.

Comments

[petitevanou.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree with you, which is why I love the character, there will be growth, and there is pain, and there is more than we see!
I would be honoured if you added your essay to my archive, you just need to register and post your text here: http://www.kateandsawyer.co.uk/index.php

thanks anyway, it was a great read :)