John Locke

Name: John Locke

Occupation: Office drone¹ (actually regional collection supervisor for a box company² )

First Appearance: 1×01 – Pilot, Part One

Flashbacks: 1×04 – Tabula Rasa

Click for Timeline

Pre-Island

When he was a child, Locke was a Webelos (between a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout) and won merit badges for things like tying knots and identifying birds. He didn’t have many friends³. He lived most of his life in Tustin, California⁴.

Four years before he board Oceanic 815, Locke suffered a broken back which left him in a wheelchair.⁵

Four years later, he was working in an office reporting up to the much younger Randy and playing tabletop war games with a colleague in his lunch hour. He also had a one-sided relationship with a phone sex operator who went by the name of Helen, although she rejected Locke when he bought a ticket for her to accompany him to Australia to go on a walkabout. Once there, he was rejected again by the tour guide running the walkabout as he had not informed them of his disability, leaving him angry and dejected.⁶

On the Island

In the aftermath of the crash of Oceanic 815, Locke discovered that he could move his feet and actually stand.⁷ He quickly sprung into action, helping Jack free a trapped survivor. Later that night he stares out to sea, lost in thought.⁸

The next day, Locke attempted to cheer Kate up by smiling at her with orange peel in his mouth although his timing was grossly inappropriate. When a storm rolled in, as other survivors ran around looking for shelter, he sat and let the rain wash over him, hands and face turned skywards.⁹

Later, Locke set up a backgammon board and bonded with Walt. He spoke with him about black and white and the history of the game – and then offered to tell him a secret.¹⁰ The secret was that a miracle had happened but he didn’t specify what that miracle was.¹¹ Locke later carved a whistle and the next morning used it to call for Vincent, Walt’s dog. He told Michael where he’d left Vincent so he could return him to Walt himself. He sat watching them from a distance when the reunion happened.¹²

The next day, Locke found his set of hunting knives he’d packed for his walkabout and set out to hunt boar with Kate and Michael in order to feed the camp. After a boar attack, Kate headed back for the beach with an injured Michael while Locke pressed on. He later became the first to see the island’s monster. He returned to the beach with a dead boar in tow, and gathered with most of the other survivors as the fuselage (and the corpses inside it) were burned – along with Locke’s wheelchair.¹³

When the camp’s water supply was stolen the following day, Locke volunteered to trek into the jungle to find a fresh supply. Along the way, he found Jack dangling from a cliff and rescued him. He later confided in Jack that he believed that the island was special, that maybe they were all there for a reason, and that he’d seen the heart of the island and it was beautiful. He also persuaded Jack to look to himself to take on the mantle of leadership¹⁴.

The next day, Locke headed to the caves with Kate, Jack and Charlie to fetch water. The group found two dessicated corpses – christened ‘Adam and Eve’ there, and Jack realized they must have lived there. He stayed behind with Charlie and convinced the younger man to hand over his stash of drugs so he could face withdrawal on his terms¹⁵.

The following day, Locke told Charlie he was going to let him ask for his drugs three times, and on the third time he was going to give him them – he said this meant that Charlie was going to make a choice. That night, when Charlie asked for the third time, Locke gave him then and Charlie threw them in the fire, his choice made¹⁶.

When questioned by Sayid the next day about his whereabouts the night before at the time Sayid was attacked, Locke said he was skinning a boar and suggested Sawyer had something to gain by sabotaging Sayid’s attempts to be rescued¹⁷.

A few days later, Locke was approached by Walt who asked him to teach him how to throw knives – something which he did¹⁸.

When Claire and Charlie were taken by Ethan, Locke lead Jack, Kate and Boone in an attempt to find them,. but clashed with an angry Jack. Eventually, Locke and Boone split from Jack and Kate when the trail split, and Locke bonded with the younger man¹⁹.

That night in the jungle, the pair found a mysterious metal plate embedded in the ground in the jungle²⁰.

After a week of excavating the hatch with Boone, Locke became concerned that he was going to tell Shannon. He knocked Boone out, tied him up, smeared a hallucinogenic on his wound and left with him a knife to cut himself free. On his way back to camp, he encountered Sayid and gave him his compass, saying he didn’t need it anymore. He also lied to Jack, saying that he had been hunting unsuccessfully for the past week²¹.

When Boone returned to camp, Locke realized that the hallucinogen had enabled him to break free of his emotional need for Shannon, and the pair left together to head back to the hatch²².

A few days later, Michael confronted Locke twice for spending time with Walt and teaching him to use a knife, threatening to kill him – but when Walt went missing, Locke helped him find him. He was trapped by a polar bear and he and Michael worked together to rescue him, apparently burying the hatchet²³.

That night while he and Boone were looking for Vincent in the jungle, they instead found a bedraggled and confused Claire²⁴. He and Boone carried her back to the camp where she claimed to have amnesia, and to have forgotten everything since the crash²⁵.

When Ethan attacked Charlie and Jin and demanded that Claire be returned to him or he would kill one person a day, Locke organized the camp’s defenses, posting sentries and setting traps – but Ethan still managed to get to the beach and kill Scott; Locke theorizes that he swam to their camp and bypassed their defenses²⁶.

He suggests and organizes a trap for Ethan using Claire as bait and he, along with Jack, Sayid, Kate and Sawyer, are successful in capturing him – only to have him shot in cold blood by Charlie²⁷.

A few days later, Locke came across Sawyer and Kate while they were hunting for a boar that Sawyer believed was terrorizing him, and he told them about the death of his sister Jeannie and how their foster mother blamed herself until a golden retriever came to their house and allowed her to move on as she believed Jeannie’s spirit was in it²⁸.

When the raft Michael was building was set on fire and everyone blamed Jin, Locke intervened to support Sun and to say that it made more sense that the other people on the island had done it. Later, though, he revealed to Walt that he knew had burned the raft, although he promised not to tell anyone²⁹.

Timeline

1. 1×04 [↩]
2. 1×11 [↩]
3. 1×13 [↩]
4. 1×10 [↩]
5. 1×04 [↩]
6. 1×04 [↩]
7. 1×04 [↩]
8. 1×01 [↩]
9. 1×01 [↩]
10. 1×02 [↩]
11. 1×03 [↩]
12. 1×03 [↩]
13. 1×04 [↩]
14. 1×05 [↩]
15. 1×06 [↩]
16. 1×07 [↩]
17. 1×08 [↩]
18. 1×09 [↩]
19. 1×11 [↩]
20. 1×11 [↩]
21. 1×13 [↩]
22. 1×13 [↩]
23. 1×14 [↩]
24. 1×14 [↩]
25. 1×15 [↩]
26. 1×15 [↩]
27. 1×15 [↩]
28. 1×16 [↩]
29. 1×17 [↩]

Tags: Characters, Locke