Matthew Abaddon

Season: 4-5, Episodes: 4, Faction: Widmore

Overview

Matthew Abaddon was a mysterious agent of Charles Widmore whose job was to get people to “where they needed to be”. Chronologically, he was first seen suggesting to John Locke that he take a walkabout in order to find his “purpose in life”, an event that ultimately led Locke to the Island aboard Oceanic Flight 815. With Naomi Dorrit, Abaddon also recruited the science team—Daniel Faraday, Miles Straume, Charlotte Lewis and pilot Frank Lapidus—to go to the Island on a mission. Sometime after the rescue of the Oceanic Six, Abaddon, posing as a representative for Oceanic Airlines, visited Hurley at the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute, suspiciously asking if “they” were still alive. Sometime later, he was assassinated by Benjamin Linus while assisting Locke once again.

Fertility (Water)	Fertility (Vegetation)	Sexuality	Sun (Fire)	Space	Protection	War
Death	Underworld	Healing	Magic

On the mainland (As an Orderly)

4×11 – Cabin Fever

   

Posing as a hospital orderly, Abaddon met John Locke who was at a rehabilitation center after having been pushed out an 8th story window by his father, Anthony Cooper. While wheeling Locke back to his room, he stopped, and urged Locke to attend a walkabout, something Abaddon claimed to experience that changed his life. He even claimed to have experienced a miracle. Abaddon told Locke that if he did the walkabout that when they met again, he would owe him one. (“Cabin Fever”)

The Kahana

4×02 – Confirmed Dead

   

Abaddon had some hand in the creation of the four-man team that arrived on the Island. He was seen explaining to Naomi her mission to transport the other team members onto the Island, and to look after them. In spite of her objections, he explained that every member of her team was chosen for a specific reason. When Naomi asked what she should do if they were to encounter survivors from Oceanic 815, Abaddon reiterated ominously that there were no survivors and repeated her assignment, ensuring she was up for the task. (“Confirmed Dead”)

After the rescue of the Oceanic Six

4×01 – The Beginning of the End

   

Abaddon visited Hurley at the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute after Hurley had been re-incarcerated. He told Hurley that he was an attorney for Oceanic Airlines and offered to improve Hurley’s living conditions by moving him to a nicer hospital. When Hurley became suspicious, Abaddon asked him, “Are they still alive?” Hurley became agitated and Abaddon abruptly left. (“The Beginning of the End”)

5×07 – The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

    

Soon afterward, Abaddon was reunited with John Locke when, under the instruction of Charles Widmore, he became Locke’s driver, taking him wherever he needed to go in order to persuade the Oceanic Six to return to the island. Abaddon kindly offered any assistance Locke required, including looking up anybody from his past. After unsuccessful trips to meet Sayid, Walt, and Hurley, Locke finally asked what he exactly did for Widmore. Abaddon replied that he gets people to where they need to be. After visiting Kate, Locke persuaded Abaddon to locate his ex-girlfriend, Helen Norwood. 

   

However, Abaddon discovered that Helen had died from a brain aneurysm, and took Locke to visit the graveyard where she was buried in Santa Monica. As they stood at her grave, Abaddon posited that Locke’s fate, and his death, may be predestined. Locke argued that he didn’t want to die, and if it was predestined then that would remove the choice. Abaddon, ending the conversation, simply remarked “Hey, I’m just your driver”.

   

While preparing to leave the cemetery, Abaddon was suddenly shot by an unseen attacker, his blood showering the now broken rear windshield of the car. Completely astounded, he took two more bullets to the torso before finally collapsing dead on the road. Benjamin Linus later told Locke that it was he who had shot Abaddon, who he claimed was “extremely dangerous” and would have tried to kill Locke in due time. (“The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”)

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Name (Abaddon)

The name “Abaddon” is the name of the biblical Angel of the Abyss (Revelation 9:11). Greek for “destruction” or “the destroyer”, Abaddon the Angel is pictured as a human sized locust, and is known as the lord of pestilence. The root for “Matthew” in Hebrew is “Gift from God.” Additionally, in Hebrew, Abaddon is synonymous for Hell or destruction. Very loosely translated “Matthew Abaddon” can be read as “Gift from the god of hell.” Jesus refers to God the Father as “Abba” while “-don” is the first three letters of “donate,” which comes from the Latin root for “give.” The name of the character in the episode referred to by the press release using the spelling “Matthew Abbadon” might be interpreted “Gift of God/Father Gift.” Abaddon, rendered in Greek as Apollyon and described as king of the locusts which rose at the sounding of the fifth trumpet.

“Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth; they were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those of mankind who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads; they were allowed to torture them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion, when it stings a man. And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death will fly from them. Revelation 9:3-6”

Many Biblical scholars believe Abaddon to be Satan or the Anti-Christ. Others have stated that he may be one of the lesser demons of hell, or even a dark angel. Revelation 8 only has 13 verses. Revelation 9:2 is an alternate way of numbering Revelation 8:15 (815).

Decoded Season 1 Characters

John Locke

Hurley Reyes

Decoded Season 2 Characters

Charles Widmore

Benjamin Linus

Helen Norwood

Decoded Season 3 & 5 Characters

Naomi Dorrit

Jacob

Key Episode(s) to Decoding the Character

4x11 "Cabin Fever" 5x07 "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"

(Sebek, Souchos) The most popular of a number of Egyptian deities depicted in crocodilian or semi-crocodilian form, Sobek embodies the creative potency of the Nile—vested especially in the Fayyum lake, the center of Sobek’s veneration—and, by extension, the primordial creative power of the cosmos itself, in perhaps its most intense form. Sobek is depicted either as a crocodile or as a crocodile-headed man, often wearing a crown with solar disk and plumes. His closest tie is with Neith, who is identified as his mother in PT utterances 308 and 317. A father is named for Sobek about whom nothing is known but his name: Senuy (in Greek Psosnaus), which literally means ‘the two brothers’. Since Sobek was worshiped all over Egypt (sometimes through the intermediary of living sacred crocodiles), he is associated with many consorts and offspring in a purely cultic context. The Pyramid Texts includes a spell identifying the deceased king with Sobek (PT utterance 317). Here Sobek is called, “green of plume, watchful of face, raised of brow, the raging one who came forth from the shank and tail of the Great One who is in the sunshine,” this “Great One” being feminine and hence probably referring to Neith. The “green plume” refers to the vegetation of the marshes. Greenness is a frequent motif in relation to Sobek, linking the greenish hide of the crocodile to the idiomatic sense of ‘green’ (wadj) in Egyptian as ‘healthy’ or vigorous: “I make green the herbage which is on the banks of the horizon, that I may bring greenness to the Eye of the Great One [fem.] who dwells in the field,” (PT utterance 317). Sobek also embodies sexual potency: “I am the lord of semen who takes women from their husbands whenever he wishes,” (ibid.); in the hymns from Sumenu Sobek is said to produce all living seed (pStrassburg 7, 5). In the Conflict of Horus and Seth, when Re writes to Neith seeking her advice in the matter of whether to recognize Horus or Seth as the successor to Osiris, he expresses the transcendence of Neith and Sobek both, remarking that “I your servant spend the night on behalf of Osiris taking counsel for the Two Lands every day, while Sobek endures forever,” (Lichtheim vol. 2, 215). Re means here that while he travels into the netherworld every night and thus has contact with the mortal realm, Sobek and Neith experience no such oscillation in their state of being, which renders them capable of offering a different perspective on the problem confronting the divine tribunal. In CT spell 160 (BD spells 108, 111), Sobek is described as living at the eastern side of the mountain of Bakhu “upon which the sky rests,” a mountain made entirely of crystal, while Sobek’s temple is of carnelian. From the summit of this mountain a serpent with its forepart made of flint attacks the boat of Re in the evening, presumably just before sunset, causing the boat to stop while Seth fights off the snake with his magic, allowing the solar voyage to proceed. Sobek’s role in this myth is unclear, but ‘Lord of Bakhu’ is a frequent epithet of his, and Sobek can be assumed to be friendly to the boat of Re, his presence on the eastern, dawn facing side of Bakhu acting as a counterweight to the flint-headed serpent’s presence on the western side.

Sobek is also called “Lord of Water” (285). In CT spell 636, which allows the operator establish his/her powers of magic in several different locales of the netherworld, the operator’s ka – the source of his/her heka, ‘magic’ (see Heka) – is said to be “in the water with Sobek,” and he is asked to bring it to the operator. CT spells 268 and 285 are both for “Becoming Sobek, Lord of the Winding Waterway,” a term which refers to the celestial ‘waterway’ of the ecliptic, which souls cross on their journey to the northern sky; the operator identifies with Sobek, who “comes, having eaten his brother and lived on his scales,” i.e., his brothers the fish (spell 268), stating that “I live on what he [the fish] knows and on that through which he has power.” Sobek is described in these spells as “eating when he copulates,” indicating that when he copulates he totally assimilates the other. In CT spell 158, the hands of Horus, severed and thrown into the Nile by Isis, are retrieved by Sobek, the spell remarking, “That is how the fish-trap came into being.” As might be expected, identifying with Sobek allows the operator to escape from the netherworld fish-nets of CT spell 474/BD spell 153; it is perhaps significant in this regard that a ‘House of the Net’ was part of the temple complex of Neith at Saïs. CT spell 991 also permits the invocation of or “transformation into” Sobek, described here as “that God whom the eight [i.e., the primeval Gods of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad] row” (compare pStrassburg 2 IV, 6, where Sobek is identified with Hu and Sia, divine personifications of authority and perception, and said to have engendered “the double Ogdoad of the Gods”). Sobek or the operator who identifies with him is also characterized in this spell as a “rebel among the Gods” who has “taken possession of the sky and of the earth” and as one who “has recourse to robbery.” This conjunction of attributes suggests that Sobek is conceived as a primordial God who transcends the lawful order of the cosmos as established by the Gods posterior to him and can thus uphold or transgress this system as he wishes; similarly, a stela from the eastern Delta refers to Sobek as “the Wrongdoer,” (Brovarski, Lexikon 1007). One text (Pap. Sallier IV, pl. XVII, 3, 4) warns of Sobek being slaughtered by Seth in defense of the boat of the sun: “Do not go out at dawn this day to see Sobek massacred by Seth in front of the great bark on this day,” (Gutbub 1979, 428 n. 3). Perhaps surprisingly, however, given his crocodilian nature, Sobek is rarely portrayed as a God from whom humans would require protection, the purely destructive aspects of the crocodile generally being embodied by Seth’s crocodile son Maga, an exception being BD spell 71, which urges “Sobek lodging on his hill” and “Neith lodging on her shores” to “Stop … loose him [the deceased], free him; put him down, grant his desire.” This relationship bears no resemblance to simple fear, however: the implication in general is that Sobek is the object, not of fear, but of the dread and awe appropriate to an ancient and mysterious force of nature which is beyond the ken, not just of humans, but also in some respects of the ‘younger’ Gods.

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Further Info

Other Names: Sebek

Patron of: the strength of the pharaoh

Appearance: a crocodile-headed man with a feathered crown, rarely as a full crocodile (which was also used as the representation of Apep).

Description: The son of Neith, Sobek was a sort of bodyguard to various gods, especially Ra and Set (in his original form), and was seen as having a similar function for the pharaoh. In times of need, he gives the pharaoh strength and fortitude so that he may overcome all obstacles. He also protects the pharaoh from all harm, especially evil magic.

Worship: Worshipped throughout Egypt, his cult center was in the Faiyoum.

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Wiki Info

Sobek (also called Sebek, Sochet, Sobk, Sobki, Soknopais) and in Greek, Suchos (Σοῦχος)) was the deification of crocodiles, as crocodiles were deeply feared in the nation so dependent on the Nile River. Egyptians who worked or travelled on the Nile hoped that if they prayed to Sobek, the crocodile god, he would protect them from being attacked by crocodiles. The god Sobek, which was depicted as a crocodile or a man with the head of a crocodile was a powerful and frightening deity; in some Egyptian creation myths, it was Sobek who first came out of the waters of chaos to create the world. As a creator god, he was occasionally linked with the sun god Ra.

Most of Sobek’s temples were located “in parts of Egypt where crocodiles were common.” Sobek’s cult originally flourished around Al Fayyum where some temples still remain; the area was so associated with Sobek that one town, Arsinoe, was known to the Greeks as Crocodilopolis or ‘Crocodile Town.’ Another major cult centre was at Kom Ombo, “close to the sandbanks of the Nile where crocodiles would often bask. Some temples of Sobek kept pools where sacred crocodiles were kept: these crocodiles were fed the best cuts of meat and became quite tame. When they died, they were mummified and buried in special animal cemeteries. In other areas of Egypt, however, crocodiles were dealt with by simply hunting and killing them.

Gradually, Sobek also came to symbolize the produce of the Nile and the fertility that it brought to the land; its status thus became more ambiguous. Sometimes the ferocity of a crocodile was seen in a positive light, Sobek in these circumstances was considered the army’s patron, as a representation of strength and power.

Sobek’s ambiguous nature led some Egyptians to believe that he was a repairer of evil that had been done, rather than a force for good in itself, for example, going to Duat to restore damage done to the dead as a result of their form of death. He was also said to call on suitable gods and goddesses required for protecting people in situation, effectively having a more distant role, nudging things along, rather than taking an active part. In this way, he was seen as a more primal god, eventually becoming regarded as an avatar of the primal god Amun, who at that time was considered the chief god. When his identity finally merged, Amun had become merged himself with Ra to become Amun-Ra, so Sobek, as an avatar of Amun-Ra, was known as Sobek-Ra.

In Egyptian art, Sobek was depicted as an ordinary crocodile, or as a man with the head of a crocodile. When considered a patron of the pharaoh’s army, he was shown with the symbol of royal authority – the uraeus. He was also shown with an ankh, representing his ability to undo evil and so cure ills. Once he had become Sobek-Ra, he was also shown with a sun-disc over his head, as Ra was a sun god.

In other myths, which appeared extremely late in ancient Egyptian history, Sobek was credited for catching the Four sons of Horus in a net as they emerged from the waters of the Nile in a lotus blossom. This motif derives from the birth of Ra in the Ogdoad cosmogony, and the fact that as a crocodile, Sobek is the best suited to collecting items upon the Nile.

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Mythological Family Members & Associated Deities

NEITH (Mother)	SET	AMUN	OSIRIS	RA	HORUS	HU
SIA