‘Lockwood & Co.’: These Kids Are Fighting Ghosts With Swords – A Breakdown
Lockwood & Co. shows us a world where ghosts are a problem and kids fight them. But where did these ghosts come from and why kids?
Lockwood & Co. is one of the biggest shows on Netflix at the moment. Based on a series of books by Jonathan Stroud, the series takes place in a world where ghosts are real and only teenagers can fight them. But why is the world like this? How did it get this bad? And why kids?
History
Within the history of the series, a noticeable number of hauntings began to happen during the middle of the 20th century. These events slowly happened more and more often and became simply known as “The Problem.” One of the overarching mysteries of the world and the series is why these hauntings started. But from a practical perspective, one day ghosts, also known as “visitors”, began attacking, possessing, and killing people – and it only ever got worse from there. Hauntings would happen predominantly at night, causing widespread fear among the people. And in response, the government issued a mandatory curfew to keep civilians off of the street and hopefully safe at night when these visitors were about.
The Problem paved the way for a few key individuals to rise to prominence as they experimented and learned how to fight back against the ghosts. Most notable is Marissa Fittes, who established the entire framework of ghost hunting. She founded the Fittes Agency, the first paranormal investigative agency, and literally wrote the book with which future agents would be taught.
As more of these agencies came about, a ruling government body was formed to monitor and regulate the activities of these agencies. DEPRAC would help establish rules and regulations for these ghost-hunting agencies to abide by. But even as more agencies are established and more ghost hunters are trained and dispatched into the field, the problem with the visitors never seems to get better.
Ghost Hunters
via Netflix
Ghost Hunting in this world is seen as a prestigious profession. Agents are usually between eight and eighteen years old and gifted with the “Talent” to see or hear ghosts. They go through four grades of training before they can work in the field as full-blown agents. Ghost Hunting is also an incredibly dangerous profession. All of the spirits encountered are hostile by nature, and as a result, many agents have been injured or killed on the job.
All agents use the same tools including a rapier, magnesium flares, iron filings, chains, and salt bombs. And using nothing but these basic tools and a little courage, they must find the item tethering the ghost to the living world and destroy it so that the ghost can move on. Or at least not be an active threat anymore.
Why Kids?
In order to hunt ghosts, agents must have a natural-born Talent for spotting ghosts. Children can tend to show talent at a young age and go in for training at about eight years old. But by the time they turn eighteen, their Talent begins to fade.
While adults generally take on managerial and leadership roles in various agencies, children and teens are the only ones able to actually take on the nitty-gritty of ghost hunting. Generally, though, the older members of agencies were former ghost hunters themselves and know the ropes.
Have you been watching or did you read Lockwood & Co.? What do you think of the story so far? Would you become a ghost-hunting teen if given the opportunity? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
