Lost and PKD

[prog]

I just realized that the Others remind me of PKD's depiction of androids in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. They are perfect sociopaths, possessing complete personalities except for an utter lack of empathy.

They don't kill the Losties, presumably because whatever scheme they are working towards doesn't call for that. However, they think nothing of heaping painful and degrading abuse on the ones they've captured, if that seems to be the most direct way to get what they want. Furthermore, they don't appear to react emotionally when their one of own number gets hurt or even killed by the Losties (which is practically a once-per-episode occurrence at this point).

Part of what makes the Others so compelling is that they look like a diverse group of "ordinary" folk, like a sampling of people living in some American city block, and even act like it in contexts that don't call them to become unfeeling monsters. The contrast would be much less effective if they appeared to be an obvious outpost from some unknown military force, or the like.

And, yes, a whole little self-governing town of extreme sociopaths living together on an uncharted island, scrambling to deal with an invasion of "normals"? That's totally Alphane Moon, too!

It seems likely to me that even the "good" ones, like Alex, suffer from the same complex, though I'd also buy that she and the other Others who started out as kidnapped children aren't broken in the same way.

I dig this idea and I hope that the writers don't drop the ball.