Doing my first rewatch in about six years and I am realizing just how much grace Jack Shephard deserved early on. Pop culture always remembers him as this stubborn, self-righteous guy with a savior complex, but nobody on that beach actually wanted the burden of responsibility.
Whenever something went wrong with the water supply, shelter, or the cave move, forty survivors would literally circle his tent in silence and stare at him until he made a call. Then the second a choice had uncomfortable trade-offs, people immediately started grumbling about him being controlling. The man was operating on zero sleep, doing field surgery with sewing needles, and trying to keep panicing strangers alive while processing his own grief.
Locke was off playing jungle mystic and Sawyer was hoarding inhalers, so Jack was forced to be the adult in the room by default. It makes his eventual mental breakdown in later seasons hit way harder.