"Lord of Lost" #2

"Far beneath them, the trees of the forest sighed, then roared... Neither of the boys screamed but the grip of their arms tightened and their mouths grew peaked. For perhaps ten seconds they crouched like that while the flailing fire sent smoke and sparks and waves of inconstant light over the mountain.
Then as though they had but one terrified mind between them they scrambled away over the rocks and fled."

The story told in Lord of the Flies can be captivating to all age groups if told in slightly different ways. The writers of "Lost" took the basic plot of the book and made it more appealing to older age groups by making the characters adults. Adult characters are able to have more complicated interactions with one another, while children are more easily confused and misinterpret things. In this passage from the book, two children named Sam and Eric see the parachute of a dead man billowing in the wind, but instead of recognizing it for what it is, the boys jump to the conclusion that the parachute is a frightening monster. Adding an unknown and terrifying "beast" to the story increases the captivation felt by the reader or viewer. On "Lost," there is a "smoke monster" who literally makes the forest "roar" just as the monster in the book. The difference is that the monster on "Lost" is real, and not something less scary that the characters blow out of proportion. The adults are better at recognizing things for what they are and questioning things that seem impossible, such as the strange "smoke monster." But although the adults on "Lost" possess more common sense than the boys in the book, both sets of characters do not understand the islands they are on. The characters feel that big things are going on that they don't know about, which frightens them.
"Lost" shows the lives of adults because the demographic of the TV show can connect more to the characters, who are forced to deal with mature interpersonal relationships and can come to logical conclusions when faced with conflicts, unlike most of the children in the book. But despite their maturity, the adults on "Lost" are similar to the children in their fear of and confusion about the unknown forces that the island presents them with, creating two stories that are linked by the same major conflicts the characters must face.