McFarlane's Slightly Softened Sawyer Is Ready to Sail

From the beginning, one of the LOST characters who has intrigued me most is surly, sarcastic sweetheart Sawyer. He starts off his run on the island by antagonizing everyone in sight, but gradually, though he never quite loses his edge, he evolves into a useful part of the survivor pack and forms genuine relationships with the other survivors: fiery Kate, who he’s had his eye on since day one; heroic Jack, with whom he’s butted heads but whose friendship he reluctantly values; vulnerable Charlie, who ends up his co-conspirator in season two; gentle Hurley, who rises above his insults to become both pal and mentor.

The sad thing about Sawyer is that he is on a path to redemption that is consistently hampered by his lust for revenge, which is embodied in the note that serves as his prop. Sawyer winds up on the island because of a misguided attempt at revenge, and since arriving his “overdeveloped sense of vengeance,” as the Six-Fingered Man in The Princess Bride put it, has led him to kill two more people, which has only gnawed away at his soul more. Yet in the most recent episode, he implies that he has a new target for his vengeful impulses. Will he ever learn?

The note is something of a curiosity to me. I’m not at all surprised that it was chosen for his prop, since it’s by far the most iconic object the show has introduced in connection with him. However, I find it quite strange that the wording of the note was altered. Instead of “You had sex with my mother,” the note reads, “You slept with my mother.” Presumably this was changed because these figures are sold at Toys R Us and are in some way considered potential toys for children. Clearly, however, the main market is adults. These are more collectibles than action figures, and while there undoubtedly are some children who watch LOST, I’m guessing a very small percentage of these figures are sold to kids. Moreover, if the kids like the show and Sawyer enough to get the replica, then they almost certainly have heard the note in its entirety before. Finally, doesn’t it seem a little silly to try to soften the phrasing of an adulterous act when the next part of the letter references murder without flinching? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

The figure of Sawyer is pretty nice. He stands in a pair of fading jeans, one hand on his hip and the other leaning against the side of the raft whose construction he’s been supervising. His blue shirt is torn. His muscles ripple. His wavy hair flaps in the wind, as much as plastic can seem to, and his face wears an appropriately cocky expression. It’s a reasonable likeness, though still not as precise as Charlie, which remains my favorite figure. The troublesome thing is that his feet don’t want to fit into their assigned pegs, and one of my pegs actually broke off as I tried to position him. His hand is almost as resistant to resting properly on the raft rigging.

But I just love his base, which is definitely my favorite of the series two offerings. The raft is a very important element in the end of the first season and beginning of the second, and here it is recreated in all its glory, from all the sticks that make up the floor to the metallic underpinnings. It’s a gorgeous vessel, considering that it was handmade, and it rests atop a sandy stretch of beach. Underneath the raft is a little knob that triggers the sound clips, the battery compartment for which is located at the bottom of the base and takes two AAA batteries. Sawyer is almost certainly the most quotable character on the show, since hardly a sentence escapes his mouth that doesn’t have some witty edge to it, so selecting the clips for him must have been especially difficult. I don’t know that I have a favorite Sawyer quote, at least from the first two seasons; I am partial to his lame “I don’t like blankets” comment to Claire in Left Behind, but that’s both too recent and inconsequential to be included here. I also love his speech to Jack about Christian in season one's Exodus: Part 1, but I’m not sure if that could be effectively whittled down to just a sentence or two. So I’m fine with the included clips:

* “I'm a complex guy, sweetheart.”

* “There are nicer ways to wake a man up, Freckles.”

* “Fun time is over, Bongo. Why don't you go hit the buffet.”

* “There's a new sheriff in town boys, y'all best get used to it.”

Of these, I’d say the last is the most iconic, though the first may be my favorite, since he sounds ever so much like Han Solo in that clip, and I’m always up for any excuse to compare the two characters.

And besides, Sawyer is a complex guy, no doubt about it. He’s one of the hardest characters to figure out, and I just hope that by the end of the show, his too-often submerged decency will overpower his misdeeds. Other fans who are just as fascinated by him as I am will want to snag Sawyer for themselves while he’s still on store shelves.