It seemed anti-self-serving, so I don't get the motivation for the character.

He was being Faith, and exacting penance from people who didn't know what game they were playing. He's not only self-serving, he's self-destructive (within limits).

Oh. Huh. OK, actually I do remember reading something about that in previous posts, but I'd forgotten (the Faith comparison). It's too fast for me to buy it from him. Which is not to say that that's not what the writers intended, what with the relenting on scamming the parents of the kid who reminded him of himself. That one moment of opting out of a scam didn't make me think he'd change his ways or even want to try to in any significant way. Or feel awful enough so as to want others to womp on him for it. Faith earned my understanding. No one on the island has made enough of an impression to earn that kind of understanding from me yet. So there, islanders.

ETA: except for Charlie, because, well, what's not to love and understand? Cutie head.

I just see it as redemption by numbers, and am disappointed (hoping to be proved wrong) in the idea.

I think I'm agreeing with you, and I find it a little sad, too (the area of agreement, not the fact of agreeing).

I do still have some faint hope that Kate, despite being an apparently nice person, is actually guilty of some horrific crime that would have everyone who hears about it (including Sawyer) recoiling in shock. And I don't mean justifiable abused wife Burning Bed scenarios either, but something she made a cold-blooded decision to do no matter how much it hurt whoever.

I want Hurley to be evil, myself.

That would be incredibly cool.

Or maybe Claire could be. Just imagine:

CHARLIE: You never did say much about your baby's father. What's his name?
CLAIRE (cheerfully): Satan!

Sawyer reminds me of a guy Peter Berg told a story about on "Dinner For Five", a friend with, as he put it, authority issues. They were on location in South America and were stopped by bandits who made them get out of their cars and held them up at gunpoint. His friend refused to put his hands up when told, because he didn't want to do what they told him, even though he could have gotten himself and his friends killed. Berg said he and all the other guys were hissing and swearing at the guy to do what the guys with automatic weapons pointed at them said, but he didn't want "To give them the satisfaction." He finally put his hands up..about halfway.

For some guys, death or pain is less important than feeling in control, even if that feeling is not based in reality.

Evidence ita is a judgmental bitch:

They should have shot his ass. Just his, and left the rest of them alone.

Yeah, ita, that's how I felt--that's why I remembered the story.