[QUOTE=wasson]
I guess the difference is that Jin’s “mistakes” were things he was forced into because of Sun. He didn’t make the choice to become the enforcer… Sun made it for him and resented HIM for it. Jin knew the consequences for trying to leave Sun’s father, and he sure wasn’t going to do that. They were living a good life before Sun messed it up.
Not trying to be argumentative, but have we seen Desmond lie or be selfish? I mean, temporarily getting Charlie into the jungle, but he redeemed himself quickly by saving his life even though his selfish part wanted Charlie dead.
He acted poorly toward Penny, but that was, again, because of “the greater good” and what he felt he was destined to do, not necessarily because he was selfish. If he was selfish, he wouldn’t take on his duty to save the world and dump Penny. Or for that matter, dump (whatever her name was… Ruth?) to become a monk.
He did do something that landed him in jail, but we still don’t know what that was.
Desmond and Jin are my favorite characters, mostly due to their selfless and “good” behavior, on and off the island.
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Well, except that Jin was so concerned about his own reptuation that he denied his own father, depriving his father of the chance to meet his new daughter-in-law, and told everyone his father was dead - including lying to his wife - rather than admit to his paternity. That is both selfish and ungrateful (to his father). Had he not demonstrated by his actions that his own honor was so important to him that he would lie to defend it, Sun likely would not have felt the need to protect him from the revelation that his mother was a prostitute (remember, Sun didn’t care whether Jin was son of a fisherman or son of a king; she genuinely, if wrongheadedly, believed she was protecting her husband by signing him up to work for daddy).
Desmond? Well, perhaps your view of what he did in re: Charlie in last week’s episode differs from mine. He was lying, and also being selfish. That he repented his deceit and selfishness before their consequences became irrevocable is not exactly the point, is it?
And I don’t believe that Desmond really left Penny because he thought he needed to save the world. I think he wanted to leave her because he was scared - after all, he left her on his “first” trip through that time period without any island flashes or creepy jewelry salespeople to push him in that direction - and felt “I have to save the world” would be a good enough excuse.