Sayid Jarrah.  Sayid is a great character.  Definitely another one of the characters that makes you sit back and wonder.  Sayid is very strong, heroic, and smart.  As we can see from many episodes, his past is very tragic, and like many others on the island, few know about it.  Like Jack, Sayid is a natural leader, leading people as he sees fit.  He doesn’t steal Jack’s thunder though.  He sits back and lets Jack handle things.  He’s very patient too.  Probably due to his military background.  I think Sayid realizes that most people aren’t inherently good.  Another similar aspect to Jack is the fact that he doesn’t reveal anything about anyone that would cause others to look down on that person.

As we see on the island, people place stereotypes on people like Sayid, and automatically assume he’s evil since he’s Iraqi.  It has to be annoying, if you put yourself in that position.  Think about it, what if you were stereotyped as evil to another nationality?  Of coures I guess all Americans are to an extent, but probably not to his extreme.  But anyway, wouldn’t that make you a little bitter?  But it doesn’t really seem to affect him, and you have to respect that.  Sawyer began casting blame on him very early in the series, about numerous things that were happening.  Although no one else expressed it, I’m sure many others assumed many things were his fault too. 

Sayid’s love for Shannon is amazing, and that’s something that I guess I can’t really grasp.  I can’t see how they really “click” for lack of a better term.  I just don’t see it.  Maybe it’s the fact that Shannon needs someone to take care of her, and he feels the need to take care of someone.  You can tell how someone’s personality changes a bit when a love interest is involved.  Take the episode when Shannon asks him to kill Locke, because she believed that Locke killed Boone.  It isn’t really in Sayid’s personality to jump to conclusions and point a gun at someone; nevertheless, Sayid for some reason seems to think that Locke may have killed Boone, until of course he convinces Sayid otherwise.  It just goes to show you how much of an effect love can have on your life, and it isn’t always on the positive side.

Like Jack, Sayid also looks on the logical side of things.  Take for an example the Walt sightings that Shannon continually had.  Sayid said numerous times that it had to be a dream, or her imagination, because it simply wasn’t possible.  We never get to hear his opinion on the hatch though, whether he believes it was destined or coincidence.  I remember an episode where Sayid had to repair the computer for the countdown clock, and he didn’t even ask why he needed to do it.  I believe his exact words were, “all I know is there is a timer counting down, and I must repair this before it reaches zero,” or something to that extent.  He didn’t ask questions, or feel the need for everything to be explained.  Perhaps that in itself is a demonstration of at least a hint of faith?  Who knows, but he’s definitely a smart guy.  He understood Locke’s logic, when Locke explained that he was the one that had hit Sayid on the back of the head to eliminate their chances of finding the signal that had been transmitted for the past 16 years.

What can we learn from Sayid?  A lot.  We can learn from viewing how people treat him, not to so quickly judge people by their ethnicity.  I hate when people get stereotyped.  Although he gets stereotyped at first, he quickly breaks that by impressing the rest of the survivors.  On a side note, that’s something I love about some people.  If a first impression doesn’t leave a big mark, and they impress me later, that’s very admirable to me.  He’s able to analyze people quite well too.  I think he nailed it when he claimed that Ana Lucia had a lot of guilt from her past.  He was right on.  We can also learn from him that patience is a much better way to handle things than rushing into situations.  There’s something about him that after you get to know him, he’s almost a loveable character.  Two perfect examples, the first when he was taken captive by Danielle, and the second when he was tied up by Ana Lucia.  Although he’s a bit aloof at times, he has a charismatic way about him.