Kelvin Inman

Season: 2, Episodes: 3, Faction: DHARMA Initiative

Overview

Kelvin Joe Inman maintained the Swan station, originally with his partner Stuart Radzinsky, then by himself for a time, and later with Desmond.

War

Death

Before arriving on the Island

2×14 – One of Them

Before Kelvin arrived on the Island he was involved with the U.S. military in the Gulf War. During the war, he was connected with Sam Austen, Kate’s stepfather, and manipulated Sayid, forcing him to act as a translator and torture Iraqi prisoners for information (although later Kelvin reveals that he can speak Arabic himself).

After the war ended, Inman transferred a handcuffed Sayid to a deserted area and gave him money, including “bus fare” back to Ramadi. Addressing Sayid’s disapproval of the torture methods he forced him to use, he tells him in Arabic that it will come in handy in the future before releasing him. (“One of Them”)

2×23 – Live Together, Die Alone, Part 1

Kelvin later told Desmond that he had been a spy for ten years but left because “…men followed my orders.” (“Live Together, Die Alone, Part 1”)

Official LOST Podcast (January 29, 2009)

He was later recruited by the DHARMA Initiative, possibly before the Purge, which presumably brought him to the Island. (Official Lost Podcast transcript/January 29, 2009)

On the Island

2×23 – Live Together, Die Alone, Part 1

Kelvin joined the DHARMA Initiative sometime between 1991 and December of 1992. It is likely that he joined in 1991, since the Purge took place in 1992. It is unknown exactly how Kelvin came to the Island. He became the operator of the Swan research station with his partner, Stuart Radzinsky. According to Kelvin, Radzinsky committed suicide by putting a shotgun in his mouth and firing it, leaving a blood stain on the ceiling. Kelvin later buried him in between pushing the button. Kelvin and Radzinsky were the only known survivors of the Purge that hadn’t defected to the Hostiles.

When Desmond’s boat shipwrecked in 2001, Kelvin was on the beach and rescued him. He asked Desmond the snowman joke, and “Are you him?”. When Kelvin realized that Desmond was not the man he expected, he showed him the station’s orientation film, and enlisted him as his partner to push the button in the Swan.

Kelvin continued working on the blast door map after Radzinsky died. This map was meant to plot the locations of the other DHARMA stations on the Island. Kelvin also told Desmond about the fail-safe key. (“Live Together, Die Alone, Part 1”)

2×24 – Live Together, Die Alone, Part 2

Kelvin planned to escape the Island by secretly repairing the sailboat Elizabeth, under the guise of investigating the Island. He always donned a HAZMAT suit when he left the hatch. On September 22, 2004, as Kelvin went to repair the boat, Desmond noticed the suit was damaged.

He followed Kelvin and watched him take it off outside the hatch. Desmond continued following him until Kelvin confronted him at the cove. He asked Desmond to join him, but Desmond refused. He attacked Kelvin, and accidentally killed him by slamming his head against the rocks. He then left to go push the button, leaving Kelvin’s body behind on the rocks. (“Live Together, Die Alone, Part 2”)

Post-Death

Kelvin’s surname was listed on the Lighthouse as one of Jacob’s Candidates. His number was 62.

Images Source | Source

Related Character Images

Associated DHARMA Station

Decoded Season 1 & 2 Characters

Sayid Jarrah	Desmond Hume	Stuart Radzinsky	Sam Austen	Tariq	U.S. Soldier No. 1	U.S. Soldier No. 2
Sgt. Tony Buccelli

Key Episode(s) to Decoding the Character

2x14 "One Of Them"

2x24 "Live Together, Die Alone, Part 2"

Wiki Info

Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and generalship.

The Greeks were ambivalent toward Ares: although he embodied the physical valor necessary for success in war, he was a dangerous force, “overwhelming, insatiable in battle, destructive, and man-slaughtering.” Fear (Phobos) and Terror (Deimos) were yoked to his battle chariot. In the Iliad his father Zeus tells him that he is the god most hateful to him. An association with Ares endows places and objects with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality. His value as a war god is even placed in doubt: during the Trojan War, Ares was on the losing side, while Athena, often depicted in Greek art as holding Nike (Victory) in her hand, favored the triumphant Greeks.

Ares plays a relatively limited role in Greek mythology as represented in literary narratives, though his numerous love affairs and abundant offspring are often alluded to. When Ares does appear in myths, he typically faces humiliation. He is well known as the lover of Aphrodite, the goddess of love who was married to Hephaestus, god of craftsmanship, but the most famous story involving the couple shows them exposed to ridicule through the wronged husband’s clever device.

The counterpart of Ares among the Roman gods is Mars, who as a father of the Roman people held a more important and dignified place in ancient Roman religion for his agricultural and tutelary functions. During the Hellenization of Latin literature, the myths of Ares were reinterpreted by Roman writers under the name of Mars. Greek writers under Roman rule also recorded cult practices and beliefs pertaining to Mars under the name of Ares. Thus in the classical tradition of later Western art and literature, the mythology of the two figures becomes virtually indistinguishable.

Identity

He is an important Olympian god in the epic tradition represented by the Iliad. The reading of his character remains ambiguous, in a late 6th-century funerary inscription from Attica: “Stay and mourn at the tomb of dead Kroisos/ Whom raging Ares destroyed one day, fighting in the foremost ranks”.

The Romans identified him as Mars, the god of war and agriculture, whom they had inherited from the Etruscans; but, among them, Mars stood in much higher esteem. (See also Athena.)

Among the Hellenes, Ares was always distrusted. Although Ares’ half-sister Athena was also considered a war deity, her stance was that of strategic warfare, whereas Ares’s tended to be one of unpredictable violence. Athena and Ares were enemies. His birthplace and true home was placed far off, among the barbarous and warlike Thracians, to whom he withdrew after his affair with Aphrodite was revealed.

“Ares” remained an adjective and epithet in Classical times, which could be applied to the war-like aspects of other gods: Zeus Areios, Athena Areia, even Aphrodite Areia Burkert (1985). Greek Religion. pp. 169. In Mycenaean times, inscriptions attest to Enyalios, a name that survived into Classical times as an epithet of Ares. Vultures and dogs, both of which prey upon carrion in the battlefield, were sacred to him.

Symbols

Ares had a quadriga – a chariot drawn by four gold-bridled (Iliad v.352) fire-emitting immortal stallions. Among the gods, Ares was recognized by his bronze armor; he brandished a spear in battle. His sacred birds were the woodpecker, the eagle, owl and especially in the south, the vulture. According to Argonautica (ii.382ff and 1031ff; Hyginus, Fabulae 30) the birds of Ares (Ornithes Areioi) were a flock of feather-dart-dropping birds that guarded the Amazons’ shrine of the god on a coastal island in the Black Sea. In Sparta, the chthonic night-time sacrifice of a dog to Enyalios became assimilated to the cult of Ares. Sacrifice might be made to Ares on the eve of battle to enlist his support.

In the Iliad (v.890ff) Ares rode into battle and when he was wounded he went back to Olympus where Zeus healed him, but with angry words. Then Ares went straight back to battle with a shield in hand. Though involved in the founding myth of Thebes, he only appeared in a few short chapters within the myths.

Ares in cult

Although important in poetry, Ares was rarely included in cult in ancient Greece, save at Sparta, where he was propitiated before battle, and where youths each sacrificed a puppy to Enyalios before engaging in the all-out ritual fighting at the Phoebaeum. Just east of Sparta there was an archaic statue of the god in chains, to show that the spirit of war and victory was never to leave the city. The temple to Ares in the agora of Athens that Pausanias saw in the second century AD had only been moved and rededicated there during the time of Augustus; in essence it was a Roman temple to Mars. The Areopagus, the “mount of Ares” where Paul of Tarsus preached, is sited at some distance from the Acropolis; from archaic times it was a site of trials. Its connection with Ares, perhaps based on a false etymology, is purely etiological myth. A second temple has also been located at the archaeological site of Metropolis in Western Turkey.

Attendants

Deimos, “terror”, and Phobos “fear”, were his companions in war his children, borne by Aphrodite, according to Hesiod. The sister and companion of the violent Ares was Eris, the goddess of discord or Enyo, the goddess of war, bloodshed, and violence. He was also attended by the minor war-god Enyalius, his son by Enyo, whose name (“warlike”, the same meaning as the name Enyo) also served as a title for Ares himself. Ares was also accompanied by Nike, the deathless spirit of victory.

The presence of Ares was also accompanied by Kydoimos, the demon of the din of battle, as well as the Makhai (battles), the “Hysminai” (manslaughters), Polemos (a minor spirit of war: probably an epithet of Ares, since it had no specific dominion), and Polemos’s daughter, Alala, the goddess or personification of the Greek war-cry, whose name Ares used as his own war-cry. Ares’s sister Hebe also supposedly drew baths for him.

Image & Source

Mythological Family Members & Associated Deities

ZEUS (Father)	HERA (Mother)	APHRODITE (Consort)	ENYO (Sister)	HEBE (Sister)	HEPHAESTUS (Brother)	HERACLES (Brother)
ATHENA (Half-Sister)	PHOBOS (Son)	DEIMOS (Son)	EROS (Son)	ANTEROS (Son)	ADRESTIA (Daughter)	ENYALIUS
POLEMOS