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The Lost and Damned: Difference between revisions
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''The Lost and Damned'' plot bears an uncanny resemblance to ''Peter Pan'', down to both the biker gang and Peter Pan's entourage calling themselves "the Lost boys". The biker gang consists mostly of men in their late thirties and early forties, who are constantly pressured to "grow up" by abandoning their rough lifestyles, getting white-collar jobs and raising families. Billy Grey is the equivalent of Peter Pan, who is the most reckless of all and leads the others in a stubborn refusal of rational methodology (even in the case of Johnny, when Billy frowns upon him for making peace with the Angels of Death). Among many other similarities, another important element is the Lost Clubhouse's role as a dingy, dirty, hard-rock version of Neverland, where the gang members are liberated from conventional responsibilities like jobs or children, and free to partake in beer, motorcycles, bar brawls for sport and (even married men in the case of Jim Fitzgerald) strippers. When Johnny Klebitz and his fellow bikers feel compelled to "put this place out of its misery" by burning it to the ground, it is the end of Johnny's 35-year childhood and leads to the moral of the story - everyone has to grow up sometime. | ''The Lost and Damned'' plot bears an uncanny resemblance to ''Peter Pan'', down to both the biker gang and Peter Pan's entourage calling themselves "the Lost boys". The biker gang consists mostly of men in their late thirties and early forties, who are constantly pressured to "grow up" by abandoning their rough lifestyles, getting white-collar jobs and raising families. Billy Grey is the equivalent of Peter Pan, who is the most reckless of all and leads the others in a stubborn refusal of rational methodology (even in the case of Johnny, when Billy frowns upon him for making peace with the Angels of Death). Among many other similarities, another important element is the Lost Clubhouse's role as a dingy, dirty, hard-rock version of Neverland, where the gang members are liberated from conventional responsibilities like jobs or children, and free to partake in beer, motorcycles, bar brawls for sport and (even married men in the case of Jim Fitzgerald) strippers. When Johnny Klebitz and his fellow bikers feel compelled to "put this place out of its misery" by burning it to the ground, it is the end of Johnny's 35-year childhood and leads to the moral of the story - everyone has to grow up sometime. | ||
'''Characters:''' | |||
*[[Johnny Klebitz]] and [[Jim Fitzgerald]]: Johnny is the game's playable protagonist, and vice/acting president of the Lost. He struggles to lead the gang with reason and, at the same time, is pressured to become more reasonable by "model citizen" types outside the gang (such as [[Michael Klebitz|his brother]] or [[Thomas Stubbs]]), eventually realized when he gives up the biker bar at the end of the game. Jim is a very rare role model of responsibility in the gang, an older guy with a wife and child. He is Johnny's closest friend and despite outranking him, he looks to Jim for sagely advice. After Jim is dead, he calls him "the man we all wanted to be", most likely because he could balance the joys of biker life with rationality and a nice family, unlike any other character in the story. | |||
*[[Billy Grey]] and [[Brian Jeremy]]: Billy Grey is president of the Lost and, as mentioned above, leads the gang in a foolish pursuit of pride, fast times and a love of violence. His own immature sense of pride leads him to start a war with the Angels of Death and try to kill Johnny, dividing the Lost. He is very much a regressed child; one clear example is when [[Jason Michaels]] dies, he calls him "just a kid, but [...] the kind of man I'd want to be". Brian is his closest follower, almost a kiss-up with a lack of confidence, who rallies his own sanction of Billy-loyalist Lost members against Johnny after Billy is arrested. | |||
*[[Ashley Butler]]: Johnny's ex-girlfriend, who he still defends when she is threatened by gangs or overdosing on drugs. Johnny's dissatisfaction with her throwing her life away is a major step forward in his maturity. | |||
*[[Elizabeta Torres]], [[Malc]] and [[DeSean]]: Elizabeta is a Puerto Rican female drug lord, while Malc and DeSean are black males in the [[Uptown Riders]] gang. Aside from personal growth, racism is also a theme in the Lost and Damned. While the Angels of Death are often called racist against blacks, Johnny and the rest of the Lost (apart from Billy, who insults Johnny's Jewish heritage) are much more open minded, having a black member named [[Clay Simons]] and cooperating very closely with Elizabeta, Malc and DeSean. | |||
*[[Thomas Stubbs]], [[Ray Boccino]] and [[Dave Grossman]]: All influential, white-collar men who employ the Lost for dirty work that they don't want to be seen doing themselves. Stubbs especially, they talk down to the Lost and are rare examples of the outside world come to influence them. Johnny sees all three of them as bad news because he is attached to his way of life, particularly seen when he harasses the Maitre'D before meeting Stubbs. | |||