The miniseries Lord of the Flies is not merely a story of childhood survival, but an anthropological warning of urgent relevance: a civilization only endures when it recognizes the Other as an absolute and inviolable value. Otherwise, freedom turns into dominance, fear replaces truth, and the community degenerates into collective violence. Through the contrast between its protagonists, the work challenges us regarding the formation of the moral subject and the nature of leadership: that which guards the fragility of one’s neighbor versus that which is built upon exclusion and blind power.

In a recent meeting with the film industry, Pope Leo XIV referred to good films as “acts of love” because they educate the gaze by showing the world’s wounds that demand to be made visible[1]. The television miniseries Lord of the Flies, directed by Marc Munden and written by Jack Thorne—creators of Adolescence—is a work in which the Pontiff’s reflection beats strongly. The relevance of this adaptation of William Golding’s famous novel lies in the fact that it functions as a mirror of our social cracks.

Following a plane crash that leaves a group of children alone on an inhospitable island, the viewer witnesses how an adventure for survival rapidly devolves into a crude regression toward barbarism. The four brief chapters echo a thesis present in Golding’s work: no one learns humanity in solitude. From a personalist bioethical perspective, the individual recognizes themselves as a person because they have previously been recognized and loved by Others. In the series, this principle is manifested in the resilience of some of the protagonists. Those who retain a solid affective memory and bonds of belonging manage to preserve empathy and responsibility in the face of disorder and brutality. Conversely, those who lack these references of care seem to seek in violence, dominance, or the gregariousness of the “tribe” a substitute for their affective deficiency.

The Transmission of Values

What occurs on the island reveals that when moral and emotional transmission fails—especially within the family—the human being is left exposed to fear and easy manipulation. In contrast, the awareness of limits and respect for the Other are the fruits of an education in love that orients one toward the good and teaches one to view the neighbor as someone valuable in themselves. The characters of Ralph (Winston Sawyers), Simon (Ike Talbut), and Nicky (David McKenna)—nicknamed Piggy—retain something fundamental: an internal structure of values that resists chaos. In them, morality is not founded on blind obedience. Their interiority has been forged in prior bonds that, while imperfect, taught them to distinguish right from wrong. By valuing friendship, feeling guilt, and seeking to care for the Other, they demonstrate that civilization begins in the experience of being loved, cared for, and recognized as a person.

Nicky lost his parents early on, but his aunt assumed the role of maternal figure and affective support. On the island, he transforms responsibility for the younger children into an act of ethical resistance. He does not just busy himself with feeding them or teaching hygiene; he also nurtures their souls by telling them stories every night to mitigate fear and longing for home. His self-giving embodies Simone Weil’s concept of “attention,” a faculty that at its highest degree constitutes the very substance of prayer, thereby succeeding in preserving the sacred and rescuing human dignity amidst chaos[2]. Despite his father’s coldness, Simon learned from his mother’s sweetness, and something similar happens to Ralph. These three adolescents symbolize the bulwark of conscience against barbarism. They do not merely seek to survive, but to persist in the human, in opposition to the tribal, polarized, and destructive logic of Jack’s (Lox Pratt) group. Jack exemplifies freedom detached from responsibility. He does not lack intelligence, but he lacks ethical formation, and his memories reveal a history of parental detachment. The teenager constructs his power based on dominance and the elimination of the vulnerable, while encouraging the most primal impulses. Thus, he personifies Simone Weil’s notion of “force” by objectifying everyone he subjects, imposing his power over life and death[3].

Jack’s model of leadership is essential to understanding the degradation among children who, after initially recognizing each other as companions, come to see each other as members of rival tribes, sacrificial objects, and instruments of domination. The cruelty directed at Ralph, Nicky, and Simon as the fiction progresses reveals the collapse of the recognition of human dignity: the person does not matter, only their submission and utility to the dominant group. This is characteristic of societies where the strong dominate the weak, utility is valued over dignity, and certain consensuses are founded on logics far removed from truth and morality. The series shows that when autonomy loses its ethical reference, it degenerates into arbitrary power. This explains why the children led by Jack function as a depersonalized mass.

The character of Simon is particularly relevant because he understands that “the beast” everyone fears is not an external monster, but a projection of one’s own inner darkness that freezes the human heart and banishes compassion. The group experiences a tension between those capable of cooperating for the common good and the extreme cruelty that sprouts when the moral sense of the transcendent is lost. Another key message is that technical civilization is not enough to humanize without an internal formation of conscience. The children come from an organized, educated, and modern society. However, as soon as the presence of adults disappears, ethics collapse and the law of the strongest dominates. This suggests that the education received was more external than internal, more disciplinary than affective, and more technical than humanizing.

The dialectic between Ralph’s supporters and Jack’s transcends fiction to challenge our contemporary social fractures. In a time of fragile bonds and educational and family institutions in crisis, the series forces us to reflect on the nature of the leaderships that emerge in moments of uncertainty. While Ralph represents a leadership that avoids the monolithic, delegates responsibilities, and encourages dialogue and the protection of the most vulnerable, Jack embodies the rise of a charismatic and destructive authority that appeals to the visceral, the exclusion of the different, and immediate gratification. The narrative confirms that governance devoid of an ethical base degenerates into atavism. Jack’s rise in the work aligns with Ginés Marco’s studies on how populist or violent leadership destroys human dignity[4].

“Who Tends the Fire?”

In this scenario, Ralph’s recurring question, “Who tends the fire?”, acquires a profound metaphorical dimension. The fire is not just a signal for rescue; it symbolizes human warmth and the light of non-instrumental reason. Ralph, Simon, and Nicky understand that maintaining that flame represents the daily effort to guard the group’s humanity: caring for the bond, the hope, and the memory of a home where the person is seen and protected. Opposing this position, Jack’s group uses fire to destroy, subdue, and perform sacrificial rituals. Similarly, the “conch” symbolizes that in a civilization, all voices must be respected.

Ultimately, the island in Golding’s novel, on which this series is based, is not a distant place, but an anthropological warning and a contemporary reflection of a society that has lost the capacity to educate the human interior in the recognition and care of the neighbor. The miniseries invites us to ask ourselves about the model of civilization we are creating: are we educating responsible people with a loving vocation, a compassionate gaze, and critical thinking, or obedient individuals who only behave while someone is watching?

Bioethical Assessment

From personalist bioethics, educating is not reduced to merely transmitting knowledge; it also implies contributing to the development of moral conscience, empathy, a sense of responsibility, and the recognition of the Other as a person. In this sense, the tragedy on the island reveals a paradox: although the children manage to organize themselves technically, they succumb when trying to sustain human coexistence in the face of fear, thirst for power, or collective violence. While the absence of adults underscores the need for guidance and education, both the novel and the series suggest that children imitate an adult world that does not educate for peace, but rather resolves differences through war. Therefore, the offspring mimic the logic of dominance rather than the search for coexistence, the sense of human dignity, and the absolute value of the person. This thesis, shared by authors such as Arendt, MacIntyre, or Bauman, warns us about how modern societies can lose the faculty to bequeath an ethical heritage. The island is not a distant place, but the reflection of a disconnected society that must recover the ability to educate in the inclination toward the good, understanding that the future of civilization depends less on its technological progress than on the commitment to teach each generation to recognize the face of the Other. As Emmanuel Levinas maintains, the neighbor erupts with the mandate “thou shalt not kill,” as an ethical imperative born from absolute respect for the life of another[5].

Finally, leadership devoid of an ethical base inevitably degenerates into atavism. While Ralph attempts to sustain an order based on responsibility, the figure of Jack demonstrates that, without a moral compass, his command becomes a tyranny of fear where the strongest survive, but the group perishes. From a personalist perspective, authority should not be measured by the ability to exercise power, but by the ethical strength necessary to contain a community’s darkest impulses, reminding us that integrity is the only check against dehumanization. The end of the miniseries opens a window of hope at the moment of rescue. While Jack hides in his own cowardice, unable to assume the consequences of his tyranny, Ralph is able to tell the truth and show the fortitude necessary to acknowledge the horror experienced. This final act of honesty symbolizes the triumph of the light of conscience over the darkness of instinct.

Technical Sheet

• Original Title: Lord of the Flies
• Year: 2026
• Director: Marc Munden
• Screenwriter: Jack Thorne (based on the novel by William Golding)
• Country: United Kingdom; Australia
• Duration: Four episodes of 60 min. each.

Amparo Aygües . Master’s Degree in Bioethics from the Catholic University of Valencia. Member of the Bioethics Observatory. Catholic University of Valencia.

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[1] This meeting was held on November 15, 2025, at the Vatican. https://www.vatican.va/ [2] Weil, S. (2025). Gravity and Grace. Trotta. (p. 188). [3] Weil, S. (2023). The Iliad, or the Poem of Force. Trotta. (p. 25). [4] Marco, G. (2020). Loyalty. Tirant Lo Blanch. Also (November 10, 2023). “The persuasive power of the United States has dropped to unimaginable levels” [Interview by G. Maestro]. La Razón. [5] Levinas, E. (1977). Ethics and Infinity. Sígueme.