The LOST Writers' Island

lisagwilkins · Site Administrator

The Shayid (Shanon/Sayid) Discussion Thread

fricksgurl75 · The light on the dark side of me..

I'll write a little something over here cause I feel like it. I think it's interesting to note the dynamic involved, the Iraqi soldier and the Valley Princess, it was a bit unusual. But i'm gonna get something out of the way here.

A poster on another site was talking Sayid and the relationship he had with Shannon. Something about how maybe it wasn't supposed to taken serously. That they never understood what he saw in her, cause she wasn't on his 'intelliectual level' so to speak. I've heard that one quite a bit actually and it rather annoys.

First of all it's insulting to Shannon, to say she was a 'dumb blonde' in a sense. That it was never serous for him, like a fling or something. And that unfortunatly the way she's thought of in some circles. I think she was far more important to him that that. Cause from what we know about this man, he dosen't just have flings that mean nothing. The man falls in love and he falls hard.

What she was something that didn't remind him of who he used to be. What he was, what he did. They had no pre-conceived notions of eachother, cause they didn' t know eachother before. So unlike Boone, he wasn't gonna throw her past in her face, or vice versa.

Truth was this was a relationship about starting over. About being happy with eachother. Getting to know one another. It was healthy and built on a good base that was healing for both of them. And they certainly surprised eachother, and everyone else. It was fun to watch. And stll would be if they let go further.

Starlight · Charlie's Angel

I think you're right Patti. I think they were both trying to put their pasts aside and start over and help each other heal. It's a shame that the writers cut it off where they did. There was plenty of places they could have gone with their story.

lisagwilkins · Site Administrator

I agree. I remember Shannon saying that Locke told her that it was about time for her to start taking control of her own life and that if she was getting all upset over Boone, then that was exactly what he wanted and she was giving it to him.

Sayid never had an expectations, "hopes, but not expectations" as he told her that night by the fire. Everything about their relationship was about coming out of the norm and out of the comfort zones they'd both been in before.

I agree with Patti, Sayid is not the love 'em and leave 'em type. When he falls in love, it's forever or as long as forever has been allowed to be for him, which unfortunately is not very long. Every woman he's loved has been taken from him in one way or another.

I still would like to see more come up about why the women in his life seem to turn up dead, ie. Shannon and Nadia, and what this curse is that seems to befall everyone one loves. Did the same hold true for his mother? We know nothing about her. I'll be interested to see how this all eventually plays out. But of course now that Shayid is over, I find myself wishing Shannon was still there, and as Ann has mentioned to me before, and I believe Patti and talked about this as well. He hasn't smiled since before she died.

fricksgurl75 · The light on the dark side of me..

Well i think would be accurate to say he didn't smile much on the iisland much after she died. I think he did with Nadia, he was married to her for about 9 months I think. He was probably happy with her too. But the losses affect so it's not genuine now as it was with either of them.

Like I said in the other thread, i'm not sure he's cursed as much i think he probably believes he is. That's the difference. That much bad luck would make anyone thing that after awhile. I just think his life puts the people he loves in that postition of being in danger all the time.

See the thing you said about her problem with Boone was interesting cause I wrote stuff on the Skate thread about about unhealthy relationships and wondered how and why people ship them. Shannon and Boone had one of the most unhealthy relationships on the show, the only close being Jate of course, and they have shippers. And i'm like 'What?"

Let me put it this way, up until !x13 they were brother and sister as far as anyone knew. And she shows up in hotel room trashed and proceeds to screw him. Now Boone thinking she was sick, and he would be right on t hat, didn't stop him from nailing his step-sister. Who btw wanted him to pretend nothing happened at all.

Shannon was messed up at that point, incapable of loving him the way he loved her. She did love about much as she was capable of loving anyone, but wasn't 'in love' with him and never would be, as she told Sayid, and we have no reason not to believe that.

In order for her to truly change and move forward she had to move past the dependance she did have on Boone. She had to move past her past and with him that was never going to happen. Sayid accepted and loved her, having no pre-conceived ideas of who she was. That was the beauty of crashing on that island. Everyone got a chance to start a new life. And she did, with Sayid.

fricksgurl75 · The light on the dark side of me..

ok what i'm donig her is putting up a conversation I'm currently having with a poster on LJ by the name of magali29 about Sayid and Shannon post finale... just for you to read.. i'll put hers in quotes so you can tell the difference.

thanks... I'm trying to get another chapter of this up soon.. been soooo busy lately it's hard for me to keep up with anything of lately... but yes Iloved the finale too.. was great to see Shan and Sayid again it had been waaaaaaaaaay too long :D

So true. I knew that MG was coming back for a cameo but I really didn't expect anything on the Shayid front, to be honest. So I was pleasantly surprised. And now that the show is over, it's easier to analyse Sayid's life post-island and to recognize the hints about him still thiking about Shannon, even if he never mentioned her name.

think your absoluty right.. I saw some hints of that here and there. I think he thought about her alot more that was said. Her death had a such a pround impact on his life, sent him a totally different direction than he would've goen has dhe lived.

Naveen alwaus seemed to mannain the idea that Shannon was very important to Sayid, in spite of the Nadia stuff, even if the writers seemed to but it on back burner. I do think they hinted at it quite a bit in The Economist too.. with him lookng at a bracelet that said 'I will always be with you' and the blonde girl he was with.

Thought I was seeing things but I guess I wasn't.. I'm so glad they ended up together in the end :)

NA always seemed very pro-Shayid and pro-Shannon. It was his idea, at first, that Shannon and Sayid had a relationship. He got along very well with MG. And when you see the way NA played after Shannon's death and Nadia's death, it's obvious that he reacted much more intensely, in the moments following Shannon's death or when he confronted Ben a few weeks later. I wonder if it's the writing or the acting?

Sure, he turned villain after Nadia's death but how much of that was because he felt guilty for letting her back into his life? After all, he didn't go after her when he was rescued, she came to him. It can't be a coincidence, right? So he was back to self-hatred and guiltiness because he felt that he had caused her death, indirectly, by marrying her. Hence the flash sideways. He had to be away from her for her safety and for the sake of his soul because where Nadia was concerned, he was always feeling guilty. Which can eat at one's soul. While with Shannon, it was a fresh start, even in horrible conditions, there was a purety to their love and they made each other better.

I think that's absolutly spot on there. Your right Naveen has slways been a proponent of Sayid with Shannon and he was angry when the killed her off. I think some of those scenes with him were written but alot of it was what he put into to it too. When he told Ben you would remember if you buried the woman you loved, you could FEEL just how pain he was in.

As far as Nadia, I think your right there too. He had alot of guilt when it came to her death, Naveen always said that violence always seems to surround him, and he probablyfelt very responsible for her death. And see I think too, that Nadia was the only choice had after Shannon, he needed someone, and he did love her, and she most likely helped ease the pain over Shannon. And I think when she died, all left over stuff from Shannon came out as well. He probably had a sense that everything he touched turned to shit so it was probably much easier to go out and kill people than try to live normally with all that pain.

I do think Shannon was a fresh startt for him, like you said. She didn't remind of his past. She was about as far as he could get from who he was before. And I think he liked the way he felt with her, he felt like a real person, like a good person. I was always struck by just sweet he was with her, in conttrast with his capability for violence. Shannon brought out the person he always wanted to be, made him see things differently. And that's why in the end... it was her he had to find.

new post... these are gonna get longer hehe..

-- Edited by fricksgurl75 on Saturday 19th of June 2010 04:13:47 AM

fricksgurl75 · The light on the dark side of me..

more from her... magali29

"With Sayid's story, it was very subtle. Some asked "why Shannon and not Nadia?" but if you rewind and analyze Sayid's story, you can see that when he was on this quest to find her (to find absolution? The answers to his questions?), he was alone, cut off from any social link. No wonder Nadia became this ideal, this obsession. He had lost his job, his ideals, his country, his friends, his family, and his identity and Nadia knew who she was and what she was fighting for, hence she had the answers.

But he started this quest by killing for Nadia, and just before taking that plane, he ended it by betraying his friend and causing his death. That's... a huge burden to carry. All that for this image he had of Nadia.

On the island, he buried (I think) the picture of Nadia. He had let go of her. Then Shannon entered his life. She trusted him, she loved him, she didn't picture him as this monster but as someone clever, gifted, who could help the group, someone they could all count on. Had she lived longer, we would have seen a more smiling Sayid and someone on the way to redemption. But Shannon was killed and it all went down hill. And then Nadia came back, while he had never mentioned looking for her after Shannon. And after a short time where he was learning to live again, she was killed, too. And then Sayid's dark side took over. Because that's what always happened with Nadia. I don't know if he ever recovered from torturing her and then being indirectly responsible for her death.

So the sideways made so much sense if you study Sayid's life closely. The love for Nadia was there, the killer instinct was, too, but somewhere inside of him (maybe unconscious memories of his life on Earth) had him separating from Nadia and marrying her off to his brother. She was happy, a mother, she had a life and it was better this way. But Nadia, as usual, always brings the dark side in him, even in the sideways so he killed to save his brother and the life that Nadia had. He saved her, doing what he couldn't do in real life but it had cost him his soul, once again.

And then Hurley showed up and he told him that he was a good guy, he had to believe that. Then he saved that blonde woman and we all know how it ended. They both remembered. And it's telling that Sayid remembered his real life with Shannon, not Nadia. And that in the church, he was with Shannon and not with Nadia.

Lost made me think a lot, it was such a beautiful journey. I can watch the 6th season now and see how fantastic it was. And I wonder: are there people on Earth who are here to "test us"? Take Liam, Charlie's brother. He was responsible for Charlie's fall from grace, after all. He made Charlie. And if it was a test, Charlie failed it. He lost faith, became a drug addict and a sex addict. Now take Nadia. She is kind of like Liam. She "created" the pre-island and the post-island Sayid. He was lost because of her, if she was a test, Sayid failed it.

It's just an idea I was thinking about today. "

From me:

I do love what yu just said here, was thiinking to myself awhile back about the fact that he did seem to do alot of bad things in Nadias name, and I never thought about the possibility of a test like mentioned. I think it's spot on.

There were people like Sarah for Jack, and Cassidy/Clem with sawyer as well as the Charile example. Everyone had one, and most of them did fail it off island. Sayid is very much the same when it came to Nadia.. and I do think thats what it was, that was it was Shannon and not Naida.

Sayid told Danielle about Nadia and told hejr that, 'the more I hold onto that, the more I pull away from the people I need to help me." or soemething like that, I don't remembre his exact words, but the general jist was, the more he focused on her and taht aspect, the more he seemed to isolate himself from everyone else. He became more, not so much selfish, but more self-serving in a way. It became all about getting to her no matter the cost.

After that episode, you saw him branch out a little more, start interacting more directly with the group itself, I.e. asking Shannon for help with the maps, which may have always been a way to talk to her as well, but it made a connection with someone else. He developed relastionships with people on the island, starting more with her than anything else. It gave him a sense of belonging, and people to care about and look after as a result.

Followering her death he did continue this, instead of truning completly inward and becaoming the assasin so to speak he worked outwardly, using the pain of what had happened to drive him forward. His torture of Ben, while brutal, and fueled by grief, garnered results, and hhrough his work (with Ana ironically) infrromation was gathered and truth was revealed. He ended up with a cause.

Now I always think about how in pre-island life he was essentially wanted and praised for one particualr abitity. I try to imagine what it would be like to be wanted only for you ability to cause harm to others. And I could see why he went after Nadia with the fervor that he did. But on the island it was other abilities that he had that were needed and valued more. His tech skills nd his intelligence among other things. He was such an intregal part of the group and that must have felt a lot better.

And with Shannon it was his ability to be compassionate and empatthic, and more improtantly, non-judegmental as well. She made mistakes, and so did he, and in the end that didn't matter to either of them. For them both it was a do-over in a sense. And they made eachother better people jsut by being around eachother.

After her death, he still worked within in the infra-structure of the group, not isolating himself like he did after Nadia's death. His torture of Ben, which was brutal and driven by grief, in the end gained valued infomation. He still moved forward and was sitll affected by having been around her and the others. He would've better had she lived yes, but he channeled the anger and grief he had into a cause that actually helped everyone. Unlike what happened later.

It was Shannon because he formed such an intnse bond with her, under the worst possible circumstances. She was the connector for him to the group because she was the one who opened him up, and saw him just as a man and not at the trained soldier that everyone else wanted to exploit. And unlkie Nadia, he didn't lie and kill to get to her. He earned his way there.

And he he earned his way back to her by sacrificing himself rather than killing as well. She was always his path to redemption, and the fact that it took him a longer time to get there should hardly be a rurprise. You have to earn it.

And your so right aboutt the finale, that's what it was all about. Finding your way back to the people you truly loved. And finding redemption in yourrself first. As Hurley said, "you can't let people tell you who are dude.. you have to decide t hat for yourelf.

From her

"Damn, I have internet connection problems and it's been a real pain to post, today. Back to the subject:

Exactly. Good analyse. And yes, the "test" theory also makes sense for the other characters. Jack's test was his father and his relationship with him, Kate's test was the same, Sawyer's test was the real Sawyer, Locke's test was his father, too (the fans were right about the daddy issues), Boone and Shannon's tests were each other, Claire's test was about her son and abandon, Sayid's test was Nadia, Charlie's test was Liam, Michael's test was about being a father, Sun and Jin's test were each other and their relationship.

And all, before the island, failed. That's why they were candidates, they were living the wrong life, they were on the wrong path and the crash and the island provided the environment for them to be better. The group was there for each other. It's revealing that Michael, who has betrayed the group, isn't in the church in the end but a whisper on the island. He failed his test both before the island and on the island. I think he is a whispering ghost because he can't forgive himself what he has done. He isn't being punished by a divine being but by himself. Will he ever be ready to move on? I don't know.

Sayid was a tragic character, in the sense that he was manipulated by the mysterious disease. I believe it was a real manifestation of darkness that took over him. If the island can heal, or has good properties, the contrary is true because there can't be light without darkness, life without death. The light transformed Jacob's brother into the black smoke. His body was destroyed and what was left of him was the darkest part because it was the most proeminent in him. Only remained MiB's dark side, after being thrown in the light. I am just wondering if the disease was a consequence of Smokey and how he contaminates people or if it has always existed on the island.

Anyway, just to say that Sayid had chosen the dark side with Nadia and in the end, it makes sense that he was contaminated because he was half way there. But he never betrayed the group, he wanted to protect them and he sacrificed his life for them. It redeemed him.

You said that in an episode, Sayid wore a bracelet with the words "I will always be with you"? Really, I missed that, in which episode, which scene? Because if it's during or post-Nadia's death, it's troubling and also revealing that Shannon was still on his mind and that the writers, very subtly, were putting this here for a reason. I mean, his last words to Shannon were I will never leave you, which is very similar to I will always be with you. Interesting. Even Elsa, whom he had started to care about, was a Shannon kind of character, except that she was on the wrong side. But still, I wondered if the reason why he seemed to fall for her, wasnt because she reminded him, superficially, of Shannon. "

continued in next post..

fricksgurl75 · The light on the dark side of me..

From...magali29

"Post 1:

I found unsettling, too, that Elsa looked like Shannon, and not just in looks. And that explains why Sayid seemed to fall for her, or at least to care for her: she reminded him of Shannon. And you are not the only one believing that Sayid was sad, when he was in that helicopter. He should have been jumping with joy to leave that place from hell but on the contrary, it was like he was leaving a piece of himself behind. NA really acted great there, and that sadness can only be explained by him leaving Shannon behind and knowing also that nobody would remember her or visit her grave. That has to be devastating.

For those who don't get the importance of Shannon... I think they have forgotten her because she died in season 2 and we are up to season 6. But that didn't mean that the character in the show, Sayid, had forgotten her. I was rereading on a forum comments for "Sundown", to see if among the 42 pages of comments, someone would realise that Sayid had never asked for Nadia to be back, only that the only thing he ever wanted had died in his arms. One poster pointed out that Shannon had died in his arms but barely anyone noticed that poster. But it was a strong hint that he was talking about Shannon. When you rewatch the scene where Nadia dies, she is lying face down in the street and Sayid is kneeling beside her. While Shannon has litterally died in his arms. There's no doubt here.

I find also troubling that Nadia's last words were "Take me home". For me, it explains why she wasn't in the church with Sayid. And it wasn't just because she hadn't been part of the island. After all, Penny was linked to the island through Desmond and her father but she had never been on the island, same for Nadia, her link to the island was through Sayid. But Penny was in the Church, not Nadia. Why? I think that those in the church were linked by the island but also by their feelings. The island was where the most important moments of their lives took place, with the most important persons in their lives.

Nadia's "island", IMO, was her fight in Irak. She had convictions, she wanted to fight a tyran, she had friends who were fighting with her. For Nadia, that time spent fighting in Irak was "her island", her resistant friends there were her "lostaways". She is with them in the afterlife because she belongs with another group of souls, not with Sayid. She was in fact a test for Sayid, one that he failed in this life, and he partially failed or partially succeeded, in the afterlife (he married her off to his brother to escape his "Nadia fate", but he still killed for her and his brother). Anyway, her last words weren't about her love for Sayid, but to be taken back to her country, which, in a way, could be "her great love".

People only see Nadia as Sayid's wife, or obsession. But she was Sayid's childhood friend. So she was probably 40. She had a past, she might have loved other men than Sayid, she had fought in the resistance against Saddham Hussein so she wasn't JUST Sayid's wife (and for a short time at that, one year of her life, and she died when she was around 40) and therefore, her afterlife doesn't have to be with Sayid, if she lived more significant moments in her life with other people than Sayid. I think that both Sayid and Nadia settled for each other and they were happy, no doubt. But I still see them as settling for each other. They were around 40, no family, away from their country, no real friends, living in a foreign country, I can see why they would have gravitated towards each other. But if Shannon had lived, I don't see Sayid ever trying anything with Nadia, only trying to meet her to have her forgiveness, nothing more.

Besides, I don't get the "but Sayid had spent so little time with Shannon while he searched for Nadia for years and was married to her." Jack was married before, was his wife there in the end? No.

Hurley and Libby. They didn't even date in real life. But she was there in the church. Shannon and Sayid had known each other for 2 months? more or less. How long had Sayid really known adult Nadia? One week in prison, that's all. And then one year of marriage. So time isn't really a factor.

To end this long post (sorry about that), when Sayid saves Shannon and he remembers his life and his death, Nadia has to be a part of that life. But he doesn't flash back to his marriage with her, or his long years searching for her. He dloesn't question where she is, or why she isn't there, or why he hasn't remembered his real life when he was with her in the sideways world. He remembers his life and he puts Shannon first. Nadia isn't who he thinks about, even if he knows who she was in this past life. To me, it says that Sayid had learned his lesson, Nadia was the past, his failed test, Shannon was this new beginning he could have had until MiB showed up as Walt to lead Shannon to her death, by having her shot by Ana Lucia (Shannon was a candidate, I believe. Her last name was crossed on a wall).

And in the end, Sayid knew that happiness could only be found with Shannon. It's just a matter of looking deeper and not staying on the surface."

lisagwilkins · Site Administrator

Wow Patti, that is unbelievable! I'm so glad you posted that...I'm in agreement with every word!