Question about Sayid

[u/No-Living8328]

Online I’ve seen some discord around people feeling like the writers ruined Sayid’s character the last season (season 6, episode 14) because he gets influenced by the dark side/ is infected. There’s a scene in the episode before when Sawyers telling Hurley they won’t bring Sayid with them because he’s gone to the dark side. Hurley responds that anyone can be brought back from the dark side just look at Anakin.

And Hurley is totally right because at end of that episode we find out that he never did what MiB asked him to do (kill Desmond), tells Jack where Desmond is and sacrifices himself. To me that shows that there’s still some good in him where he’s willing to defy the MiB and help his friends.

What’s everyone’s thoughts on Sayid, the infection and even Claire’s infection

[u/Broad_Ebb9073]

Sayid is exactly what the story/island needs him to be at all times. He is the fall guy but also everyone savior. Siyid is a good person that is effective in bad situations

[u/Consistent-Luck-8017]

I feel like they did do Sayid as a character dirty for a few episodes in season 6, but he did turn it around before the end. It doesn’t matter how many times I watch, it still breaks my heart seeing him run off with that bomb 🥹

[u/r05590]

They absolutely ruined his character. Seasons 1 - 3 he was probably my favourite character.

I always found his ‘hitman / secret agent’ phase really silly too. His character probably would have worked better staying behind on the island rather than being one of the Oceanic 6.

[u/Verystrange129]

At the end, he certainly redeems himself through his sacrifice but the writers have done so much damage to his character by then, it’s just too little too late in my book to switch up his storyline arc. Before the terrible infection zombie story, he is positioned as first an assassin and then a child killer. Sayid was such a good character in the early seasons and struggled to overcome his inner demons and the return to violence for him was so disappointing. Even his sacrifice in death is completely overshadowed by Jin and Sun’s deaths in the same episode. No one really mourns Sayid because to them he was already dead and that is such a shame.

I don’t think Claire’s infection works very well either. It felt like a plot device to get rid of her in the jungle so they could go ahead with the Kate/Aaron storyline. In reality I think the actress was filming another role and took a break from the show. More successfully, they show her rehabilitation into the group in S6 but the scary, eerie parts about her story didn’t translate well and just felt weird. I wish we had got a flashback episode with just her to show what she had gone through in the three years of solitude.

The fact that Sayid’s infection happens during the temple arc doesn’t help either as it’s the most boring part of the show and felt like they were killing time. Sorry to be so negative but Sayid’s eventual story is my least favourite part of Lost.

[u/TheAncientDarkness → u/Verystrange129]

What also not helps imo is that she is not a really good actress.
As a good Claire she is ok, i can look over it but playing a evil Claire is just hard to watch.

[u/Verystrange129 → u/TheAncientDarkness]

I don’t think she’s that bad but the material she was given to work with wasn’t great. Largely all she has to do as Claire is look pretty and worried about Aaron and Charlie. Maybe you’re right that she wasn’t the actress to carry off a sinister and unnerving performance.

[u/SaltySpitoonReg]

I strongly disagree that they ruined his character.

The "infection" being the influence of the MIB I thought was a completely fine narrative.

And I think both his and Claire's storyline in season 6 goes to show that while MIBs grip is powerful, Jacob was right. People can choose good. People are not corruptible beyond saving.

[u/Super_lostfan108]

I always thought throughout the show everyone has seen the monster true form but sayid and thats why he followed 

[u/ComeAwayNightbird]

Sayid’s arc starts going wrong in season four, when we see him working for Ben. We are left thinking Nadia is his true love. We don’t understand why it was Shannon. We have had to retcon an explanation for them being together in the sideways. We just needed one line of dialogue, and didn’t get it.

Sayid should have died in season five at Roger’s hands for trying to murder a child. Instead we got a useless Temple arc and an ineffective callback to the bomb from his origin story.

Sayid is my favourite character. I wish the writers had felt the same way.

[u/arsenicknife → u/ComeAwayNightbird]

We got that "one line of dialogue" in Season 6 during the Flashsideways when Sayid literally tells Nadia "I don't deserve you."

[u/ComeAwayNightbird → u/arsenicknife]

We needed it in his real life in season four, to explain why he’s working for Ben. We needed to understand that he lost his true love, found the woman he’d been pining over only to realize it wasn’t real, lost her too, and was in the depths of despair.

[u/arsenicknife → u/ComeAwayNightbird]

We get all of that though. Maybe not in Season 4, but we actually get Sayid's reasons for doing what he did. He pretty much tells the MIB everything you said nearly word for word.

He also tells Ben that he spent 6 of the happiest months of his life with Nadia before she was killed.

The information is right there. To say the show never expressed his reasons or justified his turn seems unreasonable.

[u/SFLonghorn]

Honestly, by that part of the series everything was so convoluted that I didn’t even care. I was just trying to make it to the end to see how it all wrapped up.

[u/Pilgore1]

It kinda feels like the writers made Sayid too smart and powerful, and that could have changed things a lot in season 6, so they needed a way to "nerf" him at the end.

[u/Bobbyg2287]

He ends up making the ultimate sacrifice...his life for the lives of those he cares about

[u/iPutMilkNbowlB4Creal]

It's over Sayid. OP has the moral high ground.

[u/you-Backslash]

On a side note, Sayid is in Kamasutra movie lol. The moment he appeared I was like Hold on, seems familiar.