Kate Austen.  Kate to me is just annoying as can be.  I hate to start the article out like that but she really gets under my skin a lot.  Nevertheless, she is an interesting character.  To sum her up in two words, persistent and stubborn.  She always wants to “tag” along, and that is really annoying.  Ok enough of the negative, lets focus on the positive.  Ok, well of course we know she has a rough past.  Up to this point, it’s hard to tell if she’s really guilty or not, and is she as guilty as the marshal made her out to be?  That’s a tough question to answer, because we really haven’t seen enough of her past to make that call.  She’s caring and courageous too, I’ll give her that.  She’s always willing to help however she can.  She never reveals anything about her past to anyone.  She even tried to pull the wool over Jack’s eyes, even when she made him think she trusted him.  I think that’s a very unhealthy lifestyle.  Why keep things like that hidden?  It isn’t good for anyone in the long run.

She has a need to please Jack.  Why is that?  Perhaps it’s because of his leader position.  You don’t see her running to Sawyer or anyone like that to talk to about issues or anything.  And another great point, in the second season, when she upset Jack, she did everything in her power to get his approval back.  Inherently, either her stubbornness or need to help caused her, Jack, Sawyer, and Locke to get into quite a pickle.  That’s back to the dishonesty thing.  Dishonesty is never good for anyone in the long run, even if it seems to be the best thing at the time.

I honestly don’t think she means any harm when she asks to join along on the little treks though, I think it’s just a need to help type thing.  Kate was the last person that I thought would be the convict, on the episode where they were all speculating on who the prisoner was.  She has quite a sense of sentimentality too.  Remember using the guy just to break into a safe that had the small airplane in it, simply because it belonged to a lost love?  That’s pretty amazing in my opinion.

What can we learn from Kate?  That dishonesty is a bad thing.  That hiding your past is a bad thing.  Does everyone get a chance to start over on this island?  Yes, but that doesn’t mean that everyone shouldn’t know about what you’ve done in your past.  I think though that she felt that if she revealed that, there would be trust issues, and of course there would be.  We can also learn that we need to listen, and do what we are told by those in leader position, regardless of whether or not we like that choice.