S6E10 HEAD INJURIES

There is an emerging pattern developing in the last few episodes. I was bothered by Jack's slow healing forehead injury. Then we have the Jin bump in the same place. Claire was blown up in a barracks house. Sayid was brain dead in the temple. Now we have Sun running into a tree branch and having an injury in the same place (frontal lobe). I am beginning to wonder if these head injuries are connected to the manipulation of the characters by either Jacob or MIB.

The executive functions of the frontal lobes involve the ability to recognize future consequences resulting from current actions, to choose between good and bad actions (or better and best), override and suppress unacceptable social responses, and determine similarities and differences between things or events. Therefore, it is involved in higher mental functions.

The frontal lobes also play an important part in retaining longer term memories which are not task-based. These are often memories associated with emotions derived from input from the brain's limbic system. The frontal lobe modifies those emotions to generally fit socially acceptable norms.

It is clear that Flocke (MIB) does want to people not to recognize what he is up to, to mask a person's choices between what is good and what is bad, with the emphasis on unleashing socially unacceptable responses. This may be a loophole: Jacob or MIB cannot make anyone do something against their free will, but MIB may put characters in a position not to know any better.

S6E10 SECURITY

On the Swan blast door, the smoke monster was called Cerberus. Rousseau called it the island's "security system." As the series winds down, it is time to re-examine MIB-Smokey in terms from past seasons:

Cerberus has been described as a three headed monster, with heads of a lion, hound and wolf with a tail of a snake. Cerberus’ three heads relate to the threefold symbol of the baser forces of life. They represent the past, the present and the time yet to come.

Dante described Cerberus as “il gran vermo inferno” thus linking the monsters with the legendary worms and orms.

Cerberus is the watchdog of Hell. He is often pictured with Hades (Satan), his master. He can be found on the banks of the river Styx, where he had the task of eating any mortals who attempted to enter, and any spirits who attempted to escape.

Cerberus was notorious for not allowing mortals who were still alive to enter the Underworld, with the exception of a handful of mythological characters. Ancient Greeks and Romans placed a coin in a small cake in the hands of their deceased: the coin to pay the ferryman who ferried souls across the River Styx, and a cake to pacify Cerberus.

Cerberus has become an archetype for a protector, particularly the protector of a gate, door or boundary (as opposed to a personal protector). In this guise Cerberus features widely in fiction and cultural works from the Middle Ages (in Dante's work, in Canto VI of Inferno (third circle)) to the modern time (as in Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone, in the character of Fluffy) and a number of modern security and warfare-related artifacts named after it.

So what is MIB-Smokey? In Season 6, he is getting into a groove of being a lying, manipulating con-artist mass murderer. In prior seasons, it appeared as an uncontrollable beast (in smoke form) who destroyed just about everyone in its path. If MIB is Cerberus, its job was to eat any humans who attempted to get through the gate to Hell. There were only a few exceptions to that rule. This rule makes some sense from S1E1 forward.

He also stood at the gate to stop any spirits from leaving Hell. If the island is Hell as Richard bellowed last week, then MIB should never have allowed any of the O6 to leave, let alone allow them to return.

There is nothing in the literature that states how one destroys Cerberus. It can only be pacified by drugged cakes, or lulled to sleep by music.

So the conclusion is that MIB as the smoke monster may not be the same smoke monster-Cerberus-security system from past seasons. Did MIB somehow fuse Smokey and himself into the Flocke form? Or does MIB (as Satan) merely "call" his smoke monster guard beast whenever he needs a destructive force?

S6E10 ROTTEN TOMATO

The English word tomato comes from the Spanish tomatl, first appearing in print in 1595. A member of the deadly nightshade family, tomatoes were erroneously thought to be poisonous (although the leaves are poisonous) by Europeans who were suspicious of their bright, shiny fruit.

In many respects, "The Package" was poison to the sprint to the climax of the LOST story.

As with this season's filler, the sideways story line really does not move the island story line ahead. The focus of the first five seasons was the island. Now in season six, the island story is dragging on with missions, reverse course, new missions, wandering, and sitting around campfires waiting for something to happen.

What continues to happen is an assault on the viewer's sensibilities:

1. Sun hits her head and loses her English speech, but can fully understand and write English?!
2. Flocke can't get to Hydra island except in human form by boat? Except he makes smoking fast time around the islands: his camp in the middle of the jungle, the beach camp days away, then to Hydra which would have been several more days away, then a full day's paddle back and forth . . . Flocke must have won gold in the Mount Olympus games.
3. Sun's dumbness extreme: she refused to go to the Hydra to to stop Flocke, but then at the end she agrees to do the same thing with Jack. And what was with the touching of Jack's hand? Was this a hidden message that this was not Jack but MIB impersonating Jack, tempting Sun with a fruit like the serpent from the Garden of Eden, then "claiming" Sun with the trusting touch?
4. How could Widmore's little submarine team construct an entire sonar fence array around the Hydra compound in less than a day? And do a recon assault mission to get Jin?
5. And Flocke at the fence with Widmore, it was like two feuding neighbors over a nuisance complaint. And given the opportunity to tell us what Flocke really is - - - the writers punt with a myth and ghost story gibberish explanation.
6. The reveal of "the Package" was bleh . . . why would you put several locks and an armed guard in the hall when Desmond was OD'd on sleeping pills? And why is Desmond important now - - - except to add another "son-in-law issue" to the Jin-Sun arc?
7. Why return to Room 23 to tell us, it was used for mind control experiments? We already knew that! And was Tina Fey Zoe trying to mimic Juliet in that scene . . . badly?

And those were just on the main island story line.
The sideways world was just as confused: what restaurant does not have workers in the kitchen at noon? How did Sun actually get shot by the magic bullet? When Jin picked her up, I thought he has to be off to the Egyptian Temple in LA to heal her, right?

In the days of vaudeville, patrons threw tomatoes at the actors if their performances were bad. I know more than a few loyal viewers felt like emptying out the refrigerator crisper during this episode.

S6E9 TITLE ANAGRAM

The episode title "Ab Aeterno" has an anagram: "boar eaten."

THE MAKE-BELIEVE THEORY

As you can recall, I have been caught up with two "new" children who recently popped up on the show: the blond jungle boy who told Flocke he could not kill him (presumably Sawyer as they trekked through the jungle), and the dark haired boy in the Temple during the Sayid messenger speech. After some consideration (and if the whole show is not about the dead and afterlife), I think the blond boy is "Jacob" and the dark haired boy is "MIB."

And I think those are the actual representation of those two supernatural, childlike beings. It opens up a gamut of answers to the huge mountain of unanswer(able) questions. This is what I call my "Make Believe" Theory:

Two supernatural childlike beings are playing "make believe" on the Island. Instead of dolls, they can trap human beings (or souls) or reconstruct matter into the forms of people's memories as sets and props during their play time.

When you get to analyzing the structure of the show, the dialog and dynamic between Jacob and MIB, it gets down to child like behavior. When MIB claimed that Jacob "stole his body, his humanity," it sounded like a little boy whose toy was taken by his older sibling. The other kid-like behavior: spying on people, playing games like combat/war, touting the "rules" to one's opponent, manipulating adults (parents), capturing a prize and "claiming" a piece in a game, going on hikes/missions, sending people on wild goose chases and their viewpoint on adult behavior. Why there were no babies born on the island is because existing children are jealous of new siblings. Why did MIB call his mother "crazy?" Maybe, because she was a strict parent who wanted to him to follow rules he did not understand. And not understanding humanity is the key to understanding why the characters have been not asking each other questions, not demanding answers, running around in teams, getting hurt then healed . . . because the island is a playground of illusion.

The literary concept has roots in the Star Trek pilot, The Cage, where the supernatural beings trapped the Enterprise captain on a planet filled with illusions created from human memories in order for the aliens to study humanity. The LOST twist could be that two supernatural children use humans, their memories, fears and emotions to pit themselves against each other for their own childlike (and repetitive) amusement.

The children's minds recreate their characters and send them off through their island maze
of traps, dangers, and battles like little bands of soldiers. The children watch like they are viewing a SimPlanet simulation.

In a stretch, the "sideways" world is the actual reality of the main characters lives, but there is a thread from the island still tapping them for more memories for more game play. That could explain the strange use of multiple mirror deja vu symbolism this season.

If this theory holds water, it really dilutes the original character based premise of the show: survival and the goal of leaving the island. And the final looming battle has nothing to do with the main characters of the show but a tug-0f-war between two supernatural siblings?

JACOB MIB COMPARISON

Now that the focal point of Season 6 is on the mystery men, Jacob and MIB, let's chart some traits to see how they compare:

HUMAN BODY:
Jacob: Yes, he was stabbed with blood and burned to ash in fire (which was not crematory hot so could have been an illusion)
MIB: Yes, he said he had a body, and form as MIB

GHOST:
Jacob: Yes, after stabbing appearing on the island
MIB: Yes, as Flocke with no blood when stabbed by Sayid

ABILITY TO TRANSFORM:
Jacob: Yes, into a ghost
MIB: Yes, into Smokey and Flocke

ABLE TO LEAVE THE ISLAND:
Jacob: Yes, touched candidates/O6
MIB: Unknown

VIOLENCE:
Jacob: Yes, beat up Richard
MIB: Yes

MURDER/KILLING:
Jacob: Not directly
MIB: Yes, from pilot to temple Others

MIND READER:
Jacob: Unknown, but had lighthouse ability to get information to manipulate
MIB: Possible, as Smokey to mind scan to get information to manipulate

ABILITY TO GIVE LIFE:
Jacob: Yes, to Locke after his fall
MIB: Yes, to Richard who appeared "dead" in Black Rock hole

PURPOSE:
Jacob: Secondary sources: protector or guardian of the Island
MIB: Secondary sources: Island "security system"

SELF VIEW:
Jacob: "Replaceable"
MIB: "Trapped"

ON RIVAL:
Jacob: MIB "is wrong" on his view of humanity
MIB: Jacob "took my body, my humanity."

POWERS:
Jacob: To bring people to the island; to grant eternal life (to Richard); to "steal bodies" (MIB)
MIB: To shape shift forms

HOMES:
Jacob: Cabin in the woods surrounded by ash, and foot of Tawaret statue
MIB: Beach cave, and under Temple walls.

The last points got me to thinking that much of the island decor may be the ability of the island supernatural residents to create them by shaping matter into physical objects. It is then possible to believe that MIB used the collective memories of the Egyptian people brought to the island to create the Smoke Monster (Apep) from Egyptian mythology. And with the popping up of unknown new children this season in Other-like old clothing, a new theory emerges:

What if these (supernatural) children are playing "make-believe" with other people's memories, fears, and emotions?

S6E9 WHO IS THE ISLAND BOOKING AGENT?

MIB has cursed to Jacob about his constantly bringing people to the island. MIB has found no redeeming qualities in those brought to the island because in the end they all fall prey to corruption.

But the question remains: is Jacob the only one who can bring people to the island?

This was strongly inferred this season: that it is Jacob who brings people, like the Black Rock, to the island. A maneuver which by the way destroyed the Tawaret statue where Jacob was presumably calling home. Why would someone try to do that? Unless, of course, Jacob brought the ship into the sphere of the island, but then MIB caused it to crash toward shore, in an attempt to kill Jacob while he was in the statue. This could explain why Jacob was really ticked off when Richard came to his beach (that, and having a knife with murderous intent). Jacob's tapestries must have gotten soaked in that storm!

Is MIB-Smokey trapped within the "snow globe" effect of the Island? Can he only influence physical matter within that island zone? Or, if MIB can teleport off-island to influence or bring people to the island just as Jacob can, that would make things much more complicated or devious.

For example, it appears that Jacob brought the 815ers to the island, the Ajira plane, Richard, and the Others. We assume that Jacob also brought in Dharma, Ben and the Others, too.

But if only Jacob can bring people to the island, then does that mean Widmore's arrival was with the consent of Jacob? It seems that Widmore's arrival has evil intentions aligned more with the current Team MIB concept.

PARADOX SPELL

When MIB-Smokey-Flocke tells us that Jacob has stolen his body, his humanity we don't know if it is literal or figurative because both present themselves as supernatural beings.

That being said, Flocke states that he is trapped on the island and wants to go home. He was trapped by Jacob, and he must believe that by "killing" Jacob he can escape this place. However, one would think that is too simple of a solution if MIB has been trapped on the island since the beginning of time.

A higher authority than Jacob probably committed them to the island for a specific purpose. Some commentators believe that MIB is like a jinn, or genie trapped in a bottle (with the island as its cork). Spells, magic, universal quantum physics may be the explanation of how MIB is trapped in his place, but not what is the key to releasing himself.

I think the real trap is a paradox that MIB cannot break. For example, the liar's paradox states: this statement is false. It brings one to an illogical or self-contradictory conclusion. In MIB's case, the key to break his island spell: The Truth will set him free; but his only Truth is in lies. It is a self-defeating prophecy.

Another example: To leave the maze you must get to the End. The Maze has no End.
Trap: No matter what you do to find the end, you can never leave the maze.

And over time, this would be extremely frustrating because it would be the perfect trap.

S6E9 RECAP

L: Lo! - - - the whole Richard back story was very good, but the most interesting event was Richard's proclamation to the cast on the beach that they were all dead, and the island is not what it seems, that is Hell.

O: Obnoxious - - - the rules shifting more than shape shifting Smokey. MIB tells Richard that Jacob is the devil who stole his body. But then again, MIB has the form of a body. MIB can turn into Smokey, read people's minds, then apparently project memories as ghosts, that can be seen and heard by some, but not all of the characters. Whether those ghosts are MIB, or parts of MIB, or whether MIB can be multiple ghosts at the same time, is the confusing part of the storybook rules. Then again, ghost Jacob is "dead" but he is running around as a ghost Jacob visible only to a few people.

S: Story line - - - throughout the series, the concept of death has been hammered again and again; and even though TPTB proclaimed the plane crash did not throw the main characters into purgatory, it is clear that Jacob is bringing souls to the island for a final judgment like the ancient Egyptians believed in a journey through the underworld before a final weighing of one's heart. Richard's description and Jacob's bottle confirmation of the island's purpose means that yes, the Island is part of the underworld and the main characters souls are being reconstituted (like MIB and Jacob's appearances) and tried in the after life. The final solution to uncorking MIB is probably a paradox which cannot be solved, thereby trapping the Smoke monster and his guardian on the island forever.

T: Time line - - - Richard's story confirmed that he was on the Black Rock, and it was transported to the island in 1867. We would have thought that the back story could have gone deeper in time to explain the ancient carvings, but Jacob passed it off as his bringing souls to the island for a long time. From the beginning of time it appears.

S6E9 JUNKYARD TURNSTYLE

I can see the importance of the Egyptian sets being diminished now that we have a clearer picture of the Jacob-MIB dynamic.

Jacob brings people to the island. Before 1867, Jacob left these lost souls to their own accord to deal with any interference by MIB. Jacob only brought invited people to the island. So at some point, he brought in Egyptians, lots of them, who brought with them their belief system to construct the temple and statue. What they did bring with them was a sense of "worship" to more than one god-entity, so that may be why the Egyptian culture lasted a long time on the island: both Jacob and MIB were worshipped by the people. And I suspect that even guardians of good or evil find it pretty cool to be worshipped by lower life forms, say, for several thousand years. But at some point MIB probably got bored with them and wiped them out, or Jacob brought competing souls to drowned out the earlier "native population."

It appears from Jacob and MIB's discussions, that Jacob brings a set of outsiders to the island to determine the question of whether good can prevail over evil. And once those outsiders have run the gauntlet of tests, temptations, corruption and judgment, they are discarded like old junk and replaced with a new set of outsiders to try the experiment over again. But there must have been some change in the "rules" of dealing with outsiders after Richard was given his job. Equal opportunity influence and the requirement of "free will" decisions by each outsider. I think the Dharma cult was brought in to see if technology could beat back evil in the end. That is why they were given decades to build their stations, conduct their experiments, to find enlightenment only to be tested by evil forces such as infertility, hostile enemies and their own power struggles.

The 815 cast is just another group of outsiders running through the hellish turnstyle of the Island.

S6E9 SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME

The translation of the episode title is "Since the Beginning of Time."
Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events of the past, present and future regarded as a whole. Beginning means the point of time or space which something starts; the process of coming or being brought into being.

LOST has served up events of the past, present and future in a ball of tangled strings. Bringing Richard to the island was one of Jacob's strings. Richard's presence on the island was the process of being brought into a spiritual being in the realm of the dead.

Richard would have been hanged for killing the doctor. His sin was not absolved, but in a trick of fate he was sold into slavery (another sin) to board a doomed vessel destined for the New World. This New World was death. For the tidal wave that crested over the Tawaret statue had to be more than 12 stories high, and like the 815 plane crash, in reality there would be no survivors. Merely, the souls perceive themselves as survivors in hell. Richard told everyone on the beach that they were dead, and the island was Hell. This is not the first person to tell the castaways their true fate: Naomi told them when she came to the island; Anthony Cooper told Locke and Ben that too.

Hell is considered by many religions as a place of evil spirits and suffering, where the wicked are punished after death. When MIB broke the wine bottle, some commented it was to symbolize "all hell breaking loose." That expression is one for sudden pandemonium, the name of the place where all demons dwelled in Milton's Paradise Lost.

The two main story arcs of Paradise Lost have now some connection to LOST: hell and Adam & Eve. According to the summary in Wikipedia (with my commentary inserted):

Milton's story contains two arcs: one of Satan (Lucifer)(which may be MIB's name that has not been spoken yet in the series) and another of Adam and Eve (the two skeletons in the cave, with the black and white stones). The story of Satan follows the epic convention of large-scale warfare. (Widmore has foretold this coming war for some time.) It begins after Satan and the other rebel angels have been defeated and cast by God into Hell (as Richard proclaimed the island) In Pandemonium, Satan employs his rhetorical skill to organize his followers (much as Flocke is doing with the last of the Others and the 815ers); he is aided by his lieutenants (which could be zombie Sayid and Claire). At the end of the debate, Satan volunteers himself to poison the newly-created Earth. He braves the dangers of the Abyss (the realm of chaos between realms) alone in a manner reminiscent of Odysseus. (We have only seen the image of Jacob on Earth, being off-island, which leaves a gray area of who is really evil, or both Jacob and MIB as demons.)

The second story arc is of Adam and Eve's temptation and fall. Adam and Eve are presented for the first time in Christian literature as having a full relationship while still without sin. (The concept that has been a theme throughout the characters temptations on the island; the Seven Deadly Sins). They have passions and distinct personalities. Satan successfully tempts Eve by preying on her vanity and tricking her with rhetoric (which both MIB and Jacob are good at--- manipulation and control), and Adam, seeing Eve has sinned, knowingly commits the same sin. He declares to Eve that since she was made from his flesh, they are bound to one another so that if she dies, he must also die. ("Live together, or die alone.") In this manner Milton portrays Adam as a heroic figure but also as a deeper sinner than Eve since he is smarter than Eve and knows that what he's doing is wrong.

After eating the fruit, Adam and Eve have lustful sex, and at first, Adam is convinced that Eve was right in thinking that eating the fruit would be beneficial. However, they soon fall asleep, having terrible nightmares, and after they awake, they experience guilt and shame for the first time. Realizing that they have committed a terrible act against God, they engage in mutual recrimination. (This is like the infection that changes people toward the darkness, evil)

However, Eve's pleas to Adam reconcile them somewhat. Her encouragement enables Adam and Eve both to approach God, to "bow and sue for grace with suppliant knee," and to receive grace from God. Adam goes on a vision journey (recall, Locke's vision quest) with an angel where he witnesses the errors of man and the Great Flood, and is saddened by the sin that they have released through consumption of the fruit. However, he is also shown hope — the possibility of redemption — through a vision of Jesus Christ. (Redemption has been a major character theme throughout the show.) They are then cast out of Eden (banished from paradise, in such a way that true believers in the island have fought to return to it, like Widmore, Locke and Ben) and the archangel Michael says that Adam may find "A paradise within thee, happier far." They now have a more distant relationship with God, who is omnipresent but invisible (unlike the previous, tangible, Father in the Garden of Eden). (As some suspect, there may be an invisible but more powerful authority over Jacob and MIB who imposed the "rules" upon their conduct and actions).

S6E9 HELL IN A BOTTLE

As a very early adopter of "they're all dead" theories of the show premise, the cork analogy fits nicely into my Nexus-Buffer theory that the island was a gate-portal between heaven and hell to stop Satan from attacking heaven. There are contradictory stories in religious texts that once Satan was banished from hell and thrown into the lake of ice in the depths of the chaos universe, he still had the power to visit Eden and Earth to spread evil, temptation and undermine God's word. An example is Richard's wife, Isabella. She died of the plague, the Black Death. There is an inference that even if Satan is locked up in hell, his evil can still make its way into human existence.

LOST has appeared to mold a "consensus" idea of the devil-evil theology into a secular form, an island prison, with a person called the "devil" trying to escape, and a "guardian" or guard trying to keep the wine (evil) in the bottle. And in a consensus like structure, not fully confirmed at this point, the idea of "dead" people showing up in a place of the dead (hell, purgatory, limbo, the island) is not a far off idea. It makes perfect sense. Having these people appear only to some people as ghosts and to others as living humans, it could be explained as hellish mind games or punishment. As for "killing" dead people on the island, this could be weaved into several concepts that when a person dies his or her soul is reincarnated in the afterlife to make a journey of redemption, and along the way it could be destroyed or saved to pass on to another existence (a bad possibility would be the sideways world, where too many conflicting variables make it into one happy, sloppy finish to the epic story).

I am also wondering if the "infection" on the island is the Black Death in the underworld. In the real world, one contracts the disease and dies, releasing your soul to the after life. In the afterlife, one's soul contracts the disease and turns into pure evil.

BROKEN MIRRORS

There has been a rash of character mirror moments in Season 6. Whether it a metaphor of what is happening in the shifting realities of the show is still undecided. A figurative definition of a mirror is an accurate representation of something else. When a character sees himself in the sideways world mirror, he is not seeing himself but something else (?) (In computer world, to mirror a site is to copy its contents to another site.) A mirror works by reflecting light, and in one sense it means to think deeply upon something.

Jack broke the lighthouse mirrors because someone had been spying on him for a long time.

Sawyer broke a mirror when his sideways partner confronted him on his secret agenda to track down a con man.

Neither were reflective moments. It was done out of pure, spur of the moment anger.

WHAT'S LEFT?

Following our recent theme of the series end, what is left for the main characters?

Jack: to "find" his father.
Sawyer: to "get off the island" with the 815ers.
Hurley: he really has no unresolved personal conflict.
Kate: who she winds up with, Jack or Sawyer.
Sayid: he has morphed into a zombie, what's left to save?
Claire: she has morphed into a zombie, with no drive to ask Kate about Aaron.
Sun: to reunite with Jin.
Jin: to reunited with Sun.
Widmore: to capture (kill) Ben
Ben: to regain leadership of the Others (which seems unlikely now that he is in Ilana's group)
Ilana: to avenge Jacob's "death?"

Nothing earth shattering left in the personal stories of the characters. What is left is the conclusion of the missions that have the characters zipping around the jungle as directed by MIB and Jacob.

JOURNEY TO NOWHERE

If LOST is a show about the depth of characters, what is the ultimate pay-off?

TCM had on Swiss Family Robinson, the 1960 Disney classic film about a family's voyage to start a new life in a new colony in New Guinea being shipwrecked by pirates on a deserted island. The family had to adapt to the island life while hoping for a rescue. The family has to fend off wild animals and a battle with pirates, and finally their own personal selfish behavior. In the end, the parents decide to stay on the island instead of being "rescued."

How will LOST's journey unfold? It was clear from the time of the plane crash, that "rescue" was the ultimate goal. Then after a few days, "survival" was the key. Then with the conflict with the Others, "getting off the island" was paramount. As Season 6 rolled out, the main characters had already achieved those goals. They had survived on the island, they got off the island, and they were rescued. They were tricked, touched or guilted into returning to the island, but if it merely to attempt to leave again, the whole journey falls flat.

If the journey ends with the main characters deciding to "stay" on the island and turn their backs on their mainland lives, that ending would also fall flat. Why would Sun leave her child forever? It would be like how the writers "wrote" off Bernard and Rose into the sunset - - - as happy, hippie, retiree campers in the jungle. It is not a real satisfying conclusion to their story.

If the main characters suddenly take up a heroic battle for the island, it would make little sense because none of the characters know what the battle is about since the island remains a complete mystery to all of them.

If the end is merely separate summaries of the characters troubled past lives, and a hint of island redemption, through a mosaic of slow motion beach scenes, that would also fall flat. One suspects the payoff to be big, not introspective subjective feelings.

MIB AND WIDMORE

On the flip side of the last post, there is evidence that MIB/Smokey could be aligned with Widmore. Widmore was once the (co) leader of the Others before he was banished by Ben after the Dharma purge. It is clear that the Others did not put up any sonic fences to keep Smokey out of their camps. There had to be some clear understanding that Smokey would not harm the Others.

That may have been the presence of Jacob. The Others followed the indirect directions of Jacob. And for some reason, Smokey could not directly kill Jacob. This check and balance system was not totally wiped out with Ben's stabbing of Jacob: Jacob's "presence" is still on the island, and he is still giving directions to the characters.

Widmore has been protrayed as a evil guy; he sent mercenaries to wipe out everyone on the island. His man killed Alex, which was alleged as a violation of the rules. Flocke as Smokey clearly had an evil intent when it wiped out the temple dwellers. So there is plenty of blood on their hands to have a solid evil alliance.

JACOB AND WIDMORE

This could be the explanation, using word clues, to try to find out who is good and who is bad in the show's current "team building" story lines.

Widmore returns to the Island, presumably for revenge. In looking for the root origin of "Widmore," one can trace a branch to wider, a Scottish term for "against." There is another old Scottish term called widdershins, which means "in a direction contrary to the course of the sun."

In ancient Egyptian myth, the "sun god," Ra was one of the most important gods. In later kingdoms, the merger of gods found Horus, the son of Osiris, taking on the role of sun god after defeating his uncle Seth for control of the kingdom. Horus is known as the god and protector of the monarchy. One of the traits of the protector, was the Eye of Horus, a scar below his eye, similar to the one on John Locke's face.

One could make the connection that Widmore is on the side opposing the sun god, or ruler of the living kingdom.

The name "Jacob" means "the supplanter." To supplant means to supercede or replace. One seeks to supercede the throne by overthrowing its current king. In its Latin origins, supplant means "to trip up from below." We learned when Desmond failed to enter the code in the Hatch computer, that the warning signal sounded that spelled out "He escapes place of death." This incident caused Flight 815 to crash on the Island. We never saw Jacob before this incident. However, the Hatch occupants were quite familiar with Smokey as he/it is described in detail on the blast door map.

Once Horus defeated Seth, Seth was relegated to the underworld to serve his brother, Osiris and to help protect the sun god on the nightly journey through the underworld. Later cults deemed that the nightly journey had already stopped since Horus defeated all his enemies, so the sun would always rise.

But most believe Seth, a master of trickery and evil, would not sit idle in the underworld. He was once called the god of chaos. One would think that he would mark his time and seek his revenge against Horus and retake the throne in the living world. For that reason, Horus would have imprisoned him in the underworld.

In trying to tie the wordsmith's art into character associations, those who intend on upsetting the current order are Widmore and Jacob, in the role of Seth. Once Seth was able to reach the Island, it was like letting a genie out of a bottle. He "trapped" Horus on the island, and through magic was able to leave the island in search for the pieces to solidify his plan to overthrow the kingdom. (This is very similar to the notion that Satan builds an army to retake the heavens from God.)

That leaves Flocke in the Horus role. He wants "to go home," a place where he permanently lives, which would mean to his kingdom. It appears that the only way to do that is not to physically leave the island, but to defeat Seth (Jacob). For those who believe that Flocke was surprised by Sawyer's intel in the Recon episode, this would be consistent with Flocke's perception that Jacob and his men are out to kill him. And recall, there are (unknown) ways for which a god can be killed, as Seth butchered Osiris and scattered his remains across the desert, as the means to claim the throne. However, we have seen the two supernatural beings stabbed with two different results: Jacob bled out and was burned to ash; Flocke was stabbed with no blood. Maybe that battle has already taken place, and Horus is being kept alive in a spirit form (as Jacob is now) with the help of other underworld gods, like Anubis and Thoth.

I originally thought that Jacob "touching" the characters was a means of putting part of himself in them in case he was killed, so he could be reincarnated like Osiris in the underworld. But now, we are learning from Richard the "touch" is a curse. The touch was a marker for candidates to "replace" Jacob. None of these candidates was given a job application to become the next Jacob. But since we don't know whether Jacob even has a job or Island purpose, we can only assume that Jacob's motivations are self-serving.

Now that both Jacob and MIB appear to be trapped in a ghost-spirit hybrid, they are both recruiting human souls to fight their final battle. In backgammon, the goal is to remove all your pieces in order to win. Maybe Flocke was upset because he thought none of the Temple residents would take his offer so he could mow them all down and have less pieces aligned with him to dispose of; and knowing that, Jacob is actually blocking the removal of those aligned with his enemy because in this game you cannot kill your own followers. That is a twisted rule: to win the game your enemy has to wipe out all your pawns!

SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME

We know that an ancient Egyptian civilization once lived on the Island (the Temple, the hieroglyphs, the Tawaret statue). But the people on the island in present time do not appear to be the direct descendants of that culture. But the original inhabitants still influence all that followed them.

We know that Jacob and MIB were on the island for a long time before the Black Rock arrived in the late 1800s. MIB lamented to Jacob that he continued to bring people for a long time with the same result.

We have seen that around WWII, the U.S. Military was on the Island with troops and a bomb (Jughead). At the same time, the Others were present - - - and they terminated at least two military soldiers. For some unknown reason, the military left the island without its h-bomb.

The next group to occupy the Island was the Dharma Initiative in the 1970s. There was a hostile relationship between the science station(s) and the Others. The Dharma folks were wiped out by the Purge, and the Others under the leadership of Ben took over the Barracks.

The next group to arrive on the Island was the 815ers, for whom the Others found easy target practice. The strange thing is that the Others were protecting the island from outsiders, but were feverish in keeping the survivors on the Island by not allowing them to leave.

Like any conquering force, the victor at times adopts the local culture and integrates it into their rule. Look at the languages still used on the island by the Others: Egyptian, Latin, and English. The languages show a direct path in the evolution of the world's superpowers, the first advanced technological civilization was the Egyptians.

It was the Egyptians who first conceptualized time, with a 24 hour day. So, in essence, the beginning of "time" harks back to that ancient culture. If there was a god of the beginning of time, it would be Ptah, who having dreamt creation in his heart, and speaking it, called the world into being.

We get the impression that the Others are not the respectful heirs of any Egyptian dynasty. The Others appear rather nomadic, and taking camp in older structures. The temple people did not seem interested in maintaining the decaying grounds as a sacred place. They merely used it as a fort shelter. The Others did adopt the technology, knowledge and weapons of outsiders. Very pirate oriented system of collecting wealth and information. They are followers, who have been led for the most part by outsiders.

The only supernatural forces on the island has been Jacob and MIB/Smokey. One could be described as a gate keeper, or ferryman, who brings (diverts, captures) people to the island: Jacob. The other could be described as a janitor, security guard, a disposer of the unworthy: Smokey. Neither has any true allegiance or compassion for the Others or other island visitors.

It is possible to circle back and tie the creation myth of Ptah to the roles of Jacob and MIB. Once Ptah created the world, he needed someone (or something) to watch over it, guard it, and keep it from contaminating the realm(s) of the gods.

ISLAND OF THE GODS

The results of a random search for "island gods" led me to this:

Dol hareubangs, also called tol harubangs, hareubangs, harubangs, are large mushroom-like statues found on Jeju Island (called "The Island of the Gods") off the southern tip of Korea. They are considered to be gods offering both protection and fertility and were placed outside of gates for protection against demons travelling between realities.

It may be the simple explanation for the Island. We have seen clues that match this description: Tawaret, a goddess of protection and fertility once stood guard on the Island shore. We have seen in the frozen donkey wheel cavern the words about opening side (Earth) gates for the eternities. The hatch alarm signaled the release of a gate by one who escapes a place of death.

We are getting closer to the final "reveal," the mystery of mysteries: what is the Island?
Possible answer: the nexus point of the gates where demons travel between realities (island world and the sideways world).

ENHANCED FOR YOUR PROTECTION

Since the "sideways" story line has been used this season, the enhanced episode repeats have consistently said this story line is what would have happened IF Flight 815 did not crash on the Island. This "what if" tangent is a meaningless diversion, mere filler, to the original story line of the 815 characters.

Unless, it is a cue that Flight 815 never "crashed" on the Island.

For the first five seasons, TPTB used the flash back storytelling mechanic to flesh out the characters, and to tell the audience of secrets that the characters were keeping from each other. The viewer has been led to believe that those flash backs were "real" events, just as the Island action was in "real" time.

Unless you believe in parallel or multiverse theory, the sideways world and the Island event time line are inconsistent, incompatible. Some believe that the end would be the merger of these two universes in order to create some sort of happy conclusion. I don't think it is logically possible, and at the very least, a real paradoxical, ho-hum series climax.

The basic premise for the show was that survivors of a plane crash must survive together on a strange place. There sole hope and purpose was to get off the island. There were many hurdles placed in their path, including savage Others and an Island that could disappear. But when the O6 actually got off the island (mission completed), a few then most decided that they had to return "to save" their fellow cast aways, from a new band of savage supernatural beings. It seems odd that people trusted those who once tormented them in order for the self-directed expectation that they would "save" some one else. But that is the reality of the series.

If it is not the reality of the series, the Island, the flashbacks and character interaction was not a truth but at best an illusion contained in the sideways world. In the sideways world, the plane did not really crash - - - it would have to be dream, mind control, delusion or collective nightmare. And those possibilities are not very good for hard core fans who invested their time and intellect in a smart show that cannot end with another Bobby Ewing shower scene.

The other problem with the sideways world is if it is the reincarnated re-boot of the island time line, a realm reward for the souls once trapped on the island, but through redemptive powers have been reborn in another universe, one would have had to have finished their time in the island plane before moving on through the levels of death. In other words, the sideways view is the cart before the horse.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CHILDREN REDUX

In my March 4, 2010 post, I found a third child in the temple courtyard, standing beside Cindy who was guarding Emma and Zach. I have come to the conclusion that that third child was an apparition, probably of a young Sayid, after Sayid had been totally consumed by the darkness caused by the infection.

I make this conclusion based on the fact that the third child is not with Flocke's followers in the jungle. If Cindy put it upon herself to protect all the children, she would have protected the third child and they all would have left the temple together. Only children are Emma and Zach, for whom Flocke individually comforts (see above picture).

There is something inconsistent about the rules of death on the island. Jacob's body, which appeared human form with blood, was killed and burned to ashes. When Dharma buried its dead by fire, it was assumed that it so the Others or some entity could not take the body as a ghost or vessel. Yet, ghost Jacob still roams the island, probably in two forms: his ghost self and the blond jungle boy that Flocke and Sawyer ran into on the way to the cave. Can death divide one's soul into a good soul (a child) and a bad soul (an adult)?

S6E8 WRATH OF GODS

Trickery, hate, anger, mass extermination, trust and loyal followers. Quite the mix of conflicting actions, but there is precedence in ancient Egyptian myths.

The Egyptian gods had their passionate tirades. In the Contest of Horus and Seth, the goddess Neith vows to get angry and cause the sky to collapse if her favorite (Horus) is not chosen to succeed Osiris. The god Seth is so vividly portrayed that he came to be known as 'the raging one' whose irrational anger against the ideal order (implied in the myth of Horus and Osiris) seems to represent all the chaotic aspects of the world.

The god Re-Har-akti goes off to brood when another god reminds him that no one worships at his shrines anymore.

In another myth, the bloodthirsty goddess Hathor/Sekhmet goes beserk and almost annihilates the human race which is saved when other gods intervene, tricking her into believing that red-colored beer is human blood.

Flocke appears to have mastered both the trickery to get people to do what he wants, but also the vengeful wrath for those who do not follow his commands (i.e. the massacre at the temple and the Ajira passengers on Hydra Island).

Jacob also appears to have mastered the art of trickery to get people to do his bidding, in a more subtle way. He also is not concerned by the red shirt body count along the way, or that human sacrifices like Nadia need to be made in order for his plan to be followed.

It seems that Flocke has taken more control of the island through his angry coup against Jacob, who apparently was an equal or slightly higher god in power or position than MIB. But whether Flocke knows it or not, ghost Jacob still roams the island, and he is still recruiting his own "candidates" to follow him. They are two sides of the same coin in many respects. And the concept of them "trading places" puts a bitter seed of playing with other people's lives in a distasteful light.

S6E8 CON DESCENDING

"Recon" was an overdose of liars conning other liars.

Flocke admits that he conned Claire into believing that the Others had stolen her baby, Aaron. It fed that illusion into Claire's marginal brain so she could survive on the hate building up within her. Flocke could be considered a farmer; he is cultivating a crop of Hate.

Flocke has fully darkened the hatred within Sayid. It conned Sayid with the promise that he could be with Nadia again. Flocke never said when or where or how. I just see a distant off-ramp called Hell.

Flocke lets pit bull Claire to attack Kate in order to set up a "double con" on Kate later. By taking responsibility for Claire's actions, Flocke attempts to let Kate's survivalist instincts down and prey upon the reason Kate returned to the island to find Claire. By putting Claire into a fake "time out," it makes it appear that Claire has changed to apologize to Kate. In the bear hug of remorse, Claire is actually "infecting" Kate with Smokey's darkness. When Flocke takes Kate to the beach to wait for Sawyer's return, it claims to have had a "crazy mother." Flocke must be channeling memories of John Locke because when does smoke monsters have mothers? It was a set up of authoritative opinion that Aaron also has a crazy mother in Claire. This is to shock Kate into having no purpose in leaving the island to reunite mother and child. She needs to tether herself to something or someone, and the only confident left is Sawyer, for whom Flocke desperately wants to manipulate to the end game.

I did not buy into Sawyer's "triple cross." First, Flocke already knew what was going on at Hydra (he was heading his recruits there). The Ajira victims appeared to be mowed down like the Temple people. Second, Widmore was too quick to "deal" with Sawyer (besides if both know he is Smokey, no one said they know how or if Smokey can be killed). Third, Flocke expected Sawyer to lie to him, and when he did not, Smokey's plan self-executed. Fourth, when Sawyer told Kate he is going after the sub, he was in essence telling Smokey because after Claire's "hug" I believe Kate is now "infected"= partially under Smokey's control.

History will repeat itself. If Smokey is channeling Locke's memories, Flocke will blow up the sub: no one is leaving the island, including Flocke. Flocke just wants "loyal" worshippers. The rest be damned. I think this is the final glide path of the story line, the slow descent into Hell.

S6E8 RECAP

L: Lo - - - the episode had no real outstanding moment or reveal. TPTB may have wanted us to be "shocked" by the fact that all the Ajira passengers on Hydra are now dead and piled up by Widmore's people. The fact of Widmore's return has the taint of being a recycled freighter story line.

O: Obnoxious - - - many of the characters are turning into mindless puppets. Sayid is now a total zombie, who did not intervene when Claire attempted to kill Kate. Then Claire gets a time out, then gets all emotional in apology to Kate.

S: Story line - - - the set up for Sawyer's attempted "triple cross" was too thin to play out well. Flocke sending Sawyer to Hydra as a test to see if Sawyer would come back with the "correct" information (the passengers dead, Widmore preparing an attack) and the mental gears churning to use a Widmore-Flocke fight to steal the submarine highly improbable. If Flocke has absorbed all Locke's memories, including those of his crazy mother, then Flocke knows the sub must be destroyed to keep everyone on the island. Furthermore, when Claire hugged Kate, she may have infected Kate with smoke monster control so when Sawyer told Kate his master plan, he was also telling Flocke.

T: Time line - - - the Second Purge (see post below) happened very quickly as to be plotted before Ajira landed or an immediate execution after the plane landed on the island. There was no time to sort through these individuals for any sort of judgment or redemption. Extermination is the word to describe it.

S6E8 SECOND PURGE

This one point of the episode probably will not get much attention because it got little time.

Ajira Flight 316 was a Boeing 737-700 airplane. The configurations for this plane is 121-148 passengers. Since it was a two cabin configuration, let us assume there was approximately 128 passengers. Hurley bought the remaining 78 tickets. That leaves 50 passengers plus crew on board the plane. Ilana and her four guards brings it down to 45. Take away the O6 returnees, Ben and Frank the pilot, we are down to approximately 40 Ajira survivors on Hydra Island.

The plane survivors were only on Hydra Island for less than three days in current island time. Widmore henchwoman Zoe claimed that she was piling them up from the beach. They don't appear to have gunshot wounds, but Sawyer's reaction was that they had been dead for more than a day, like dead Locke. So it would appear that they were killed on their Day 2.

It means that after Ilana's crew left for the main island, the Ajira passengers were killed. It is not known who or what killed them, but the inference is that Widmore's boat arrived on Day 3. His men were just putting up the sonic barrier fence, which would have been a priority against a smoke monster attack. But when Widmore sent the freighter to the island, his instructions were clear: kill everyone on the island.

If Widmore killed 40 innocent passengers upon his arrival, what was the purpose? To keep them from Flocke's control?

If Flocke killed the 40 passengers, what was his purpose? To keep them from joining Widmore? Or, is there just a innate disdain for humans as stated by MIB to Jacob in their initial beach scene?

In either possibility, there is no social redeeming quality to either Widmore or Flocke.

Unless there is another recycled concept, like "the Other 48 Hours" for the Ajira folks, we will never know the context of this purge.

DICTIONARY: LOST

From Dictionary.com:

lost

–adjective

1. no longer possessed or retained: lost friends.

2. no longer to be found: lost articles.

3. having gone astray or missed the way; bewildered as to place, direction, etc.: lost children.

4. not used to good purpose, as opportunities, time, or labor; wasted: a lost advantage.

5. being something that someone has failed to win: a lost prize.

6. ending in or attended with defeat: a lost battle.

7. destroyed or ruined: lost ships.

8. preoccupied; rapt: He seems lost in thought.

9. distracted; distraught; desperate; hopeless: the lost look of a man trapped and afraid.

–verb (used with object), verb (used without object)

10. pt. and pp. of lose

—Idioms

11. get lost, Slang.

a. to absent oneself: I think I'll get lost before an argument starts.

b. to stop being a nuisance: If they call again, tell them to get lost.

12. lost to,

a. no longer belonging to.

b. no longer possible or open to: The opportunity was lost to him.

c. insensible to: lost to all sense of duty.

—Related forms

un·lost, adjective

—Synonyms
forfeited, gone, missing. confused, perplexed. squandered.

—Antonyms
found.

HALFTIME RECAP

We are about halfway through the final season. Time to review where the show is by looking back in time. Here is a list from 2007 of the common LOST theories posted on the Internet:

Purgatory Theory - The island is purgatory and you have to battle your sins and overcome your fears before you can leave/pass on.

Compound Name Theory - The character Alvar Hanso is named after two actual scientists Hannes Alven and Hans Oersted, who predicted Earth would endure an electromagnetic disaster.

Theorist Theory - John Locke's character can be compared with political theorist John Locke.

Reincarnation Theory - Where do babies go when they die? Immaculate Conception? Many children may have died at or just after birth, including Locke, Ben, Aaron.

Angelic Dog Theory - It is suggested that yellow labs, like Vincent, are clairvoyant and are guardian angels. In the pilot, ghost Christian did tell Vincent to go wake up Jack.

Fateful Boys Theory - Bad things always surround the two boys Walt and Aaron, for whom the Others kidnapped or tried to kidnap because they were "special" as the island had infertility issues.

Mystery Dad Theory - Claire's boyfriend, Thomas, might be fathered by another character, like Widmore.

"Valenzetti Equation” Theory - The numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 from the Sri Lanka video), hieroglyphics and “Valenzetti Equation” have to do with the apocalyptic end of planet Earth.

Black Fog Theory - Similarities have been drawn between "The Smoke Monster" and "Tulpa” (a Tibetan mythical being of materialized thought, created by willpower that takes a physical form).

King King Theory - Stephen King used the “Tulpa” myth in his story “It” and his novel "Carrie," which was introduced as a book club selection for the Others.

Greek Mythology Theory - Many things to do with “Lost” and the Hanso Foundation have some Greek references, including: the Apollo Candy, the Hydra station and the hatch as Pandora's Box.

Egyptian Afterworld Theory - The hieroglyphs within the countdown timer could be translated as "to cause to die” and "underworld."

Amazing Grace Theory - The plot of the show is closely related to the lyrics of the song “Amazing Grace.” -- “The characters in 'Lost' are 'found,' the closer this serialized saga gets toward it's inevitable, natural, end."

Latin Psychic Theory - The blast door map has Latin writing that can be translated as "He is made worse by his cure / medicine" and "It's a bad plan that can't be changed."

Coach's corner discussing each 2007 theory:

Purgatory Theory - This was my initial gut reaction after viewing the pilot episode. It made sense then, and it still makes sense now (even with TPTB denials). When we add in the Egyptian afterlife images, the story arcs of redemption and death, this theory is still plausible.

Compound Name Theory - It is interesting to note that "hidden" characters like Alvar Hanso has not come up in the LOST plot discussions for years. It used to be the key to try to unravel the clues about Dharma, which has fallen by the wayside as a major component to the mystery. There has been so many tangents on whether names of characters have any material relevance in explaining the mysteries of the show, that the shear weight of speculation dooms it as a reality.

Theorist Theory - John Locke's character can be compared with political theorist John Locke. Locke defined the self as "that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or material, simple, or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends" He did not "substance", writing that "the body too goes to the making the man." One's self is therefore a self-aware and self-reflective consciousness that is fixed in a body. Locke explained the gradual unfolding of this "conscious mind." Locke believed that an "empty" mind is shaped by experience; sensations, reflections to bring about all of our ideas. Most of the characters are self-absorbed individuals. An early theory that the characters were in a collective conscious mind of another person or entity was dismissed as being an oversimplification if the layers of the story lines meant anything. The concept of mind over matter was also the basis that this entire elaborate construct was merely in the mind of a mental patient (Hurley), or a call back to the Star Trek episode, "The Cage."

Reincarnation Theory - This has resurfaced with the "sideways" story line, in an effort to explain why there is a new arc which appears if flight 815 did not crash land on the island. This "what if" explanation is very troublesome because it either negates all of the first five seasons if true, or if truly a tangent, wasteful filler to the main story arc. Some believe that that the "reincarnation" is a better term than a Purgatory theory, and could explain why dead characters like Charlie can show up later in the flesh and slap Hurley at Santa Rosa mental hospital.

Angelic Dog Theory - Vincent is one of the characters who is lost the past two seasons. He was the companion of a "special child, Walt" who was a focal point for the first two seasons. But since then, Vincent has played no role in the character missions, or time fooms.

Fateful Boys Theory - People try to tie back in a time travel loop which puts Walt and Aaron back as the Jacob and MIB roles. Ever since the Dharma arc closed, and the Others dispersed, the question of children being "special" has been lost; the "infertility" issue being a major component of Ben's leadership agenda a non-issue. In the pre-pilot pitch, LOST was to be a story about two brothers, one rich and one poor, one favored and one disfavored by their father, and how they would compete among themselves to build a new island society. It is hard to conceive that this basic premise will play out in the end here. The only other fateful sibling story line that may have merit is under the Egyptian myth below.

Mystery Dad Theory - One of the early "daddy issue" was who were the "bad dads" that messed up the characters lives. We sort of know now through the flash backs most of the childhood dynamics of the characters parents. Of the 815ers, there is no big final reveal or surprise of a mystery father lurking in the jungle, especially as a determinative climax to the show.

"Valenzetti Equation” Theory - The rush to stop the apocalyptic end of planet Earth would have been a noble mission of our heroic and clueless characters, but it seems that the Numbers have been displaced from a paramount position of mystery into a miscellaneous Jacob's index card numbering system. It seems that as the show winds down, a Darwin "survival of the fittest" or everyman for himself is becoming a driving force.

Black Fog Theory - Mythical beings of materialized thought, created by willpower that takes a physical form can be a way of now describing Smokey-MIB. We still do not know what is MIB--- he has taken on Locke's form (but not his body), and can transmute into a smoke monster that cannot be injured by conventional weapons. The idea of an alien, superhuman, advanced technology as being the foundation for the story was the farthest from the roots of the viewers, who believed that show was first based as a drama, a science show, then has creeped into science-fiction and now supernatural myth.

King King Theory - Stephen King has been used as a possible explanation or inspiration for the complex maze of mysteries thrown at the audience, but it would be a disappointment at this stage if the climax of the show is deemed a "luke warm Steven King" novel (rip-off).

Greek Mythology Theory - Many Greek myths deal with powerful gods, bored with their supernatural state, going down to Earth to mess up the inferior human race with plagues, wars, conquests of flesh, and vengeful punishment for those who do not properly worship them. But the biggest Greek connection could be Platos', Atlantis, the lost advanced civilization which could be the basis for much of the advanced scientific references in the show.

Egyptian Afterworld Theory - The story of Osiris is that his brother Set killed him in order to control the kingdom of Egypt. He cut up his body into pieces and scattered them. Osiris wife and sister reconstructed the parts, and through magic, reincarnated Osiris as the lord of the underworld. Osiris son, Horus, then avenged his father by defeating Set. This family dynamic tale could be retold as a battle not for the world of Egyptian Earth, but a battle between Set and Osiris for control of the kingdom of the underworld.

Amazing Grace Theory - The funeral song to mourn the passing of souls, and possible redemption in the next life, has been a theme throughout the show. Desmond was fond of saying "see you in another life." Any quest through purgatory, the after life, Garden of Eden, a nexus point in time-space between realms of good and evil, or Hades are plausible explanations for the show premise.

Latin Psychic Theory - The blast door map has Latin writing that can be translated as "He is made worse by his cure / medicine" and "It's a bad plan that can't be changed." It also made reference to flee this Hell. The blast door was another one of those highly detailed background clues that has been lost as the seasons rolled on. It referenced Smokey as a Cerberus, and charted its locations. It also showed that there was a sense of despair, that the occupants knew their fate was sealed in the hatch. It is sort of bleak ending scenerio: life is about death, and in life there is nothing you can do to change the end.

LOST & DEATH

A new random thought bouncing off the inner skull lining:

Jacob is looking for a "replacement." MIB feels "trapped" to the Island and wants to go "home."
In old school corporate America, it sounds like a couple of grumpy cubical workers.

Which got me to thinking that may be the best description of them to date.

It is clear that Jacob has been manipulating people for a long time. He is not adverse to people being killed, even when he could intervene to save them. MIB as Smokey has a clear kill sheet on the Island. (Lostpedia has it down at 21).

Most of the main characters have had their own "life and death" issues. There has not been any overwrought person debating the choice of not pulling the trigger on someone else. They all appear as potential candidates to replace Jacob.

Jacob and MIB may have the same job description, they just go about it differently. Their whole purpose could be to cause humans to die, the agent that allows the circle of life to keep spinning.
The Japanese culture has a word for them, shinigami (see, Death Note.) Both Jacob and MIB, as merchants of death, want to leave their positions. Jacob wants a replacement, MIB no longer cares.

WHO IS LOST?

At this late stage, what remaining characters are Lost?

The show's title has to mean something. So what characters are truly lost at this point in Island time?

Most of the characters we have seen did not come to the Island as a matter of their own free will. The 815 crash survivors were lost when their plane went down. But the O6 left the island, they were "found" by civilization. When Jack, Kate, Sun, and Hurley came back to the Island, it was their choice - - - so they are no longer lost. Sayid was taken by Ilana, but if Sayid truly did not want to return he could have put up a fight or died trying to escape.

Miles, Frank and Ilana purposefully came to the Island at some point in time. Ben freely came back to the island. On a technicality, both Sawyer and Jin came back to the island as a matter of personal choice (survival) after their rescue attempts were aborted. The only reason Jin lived was that he got back to the island. The integration into the Dharma camp solidified the notion that the 815ers decided to stay. Rose and Bernard were lost with the other survivors, but now are content to stay in quiet retirement because they found their final home on the island.

Flight attendant Cindy had joined the Others. So she cannot be considered lost. The only characters who have not been given a choice to be found are the children who were kidnapped by the Cult of the Scarf. At this time, Emma and Zach are the only remaining "lost" characters.

ROOM 23

Alex's boyfriend, Karl, was punished by the Others in Room 23. It was a brainwashing room that flashed images to a prisoner in order to indoctrinate. I recall one of the parts proclaimed that:

GOD LOVES YOU AS HE LOVED JACOB ( superimposed on yellow carpeted stairs.)

With all the good and evil team concepts floating about cyberspace, Room 23 may be the best circumstantial evidence of who and what we can make of Jacob.

Room 23 was in the Hydra station. It was Dharma's room for psychological experiments. Apparently, it was taken over after the purge by the Others to indoctrinate new island arrivals. We think Walt was the only 815er to be held in that room. This could explain why the Others follow their leader without much discussion.

Now dissecting the reference to Jacob in the indoctrination tape:

God must represent the highest being in a pantheon.

Loves You: is directed toward the captive watching the video. It is used to comfort the person, to let their guard down, so as to reconfigure the person's core beliefs.

As He Loved: this is in the past tense, not the same present tense to the watcher. The screen could have said "as He loves Jacob" putting the person in the same category with God.

Jacob: Is a person/entity that has taken human form on the island and off the island. He has touched many people, and brought them to the island. One of the oldest touched people was Richard, who first thought the touch was a gift, but learned it was a curse.

Jacob could then represent the most famous person who lost God's favor: Satan.

Satan is an embodiment of antagonism that originates from the Abramhamic religions, being traditionally considered an angel in Judeo-Christian belief, and a Jinn in Islamic belief. Religions have used "Satan" as a name for the Devil. As the embodiment of evil, and plays a major role in Christian theology and literature, as well as in many other religions. He is the tempter and spiritual enemy of mankind. He is the adversary of God although subordinate to him and able to act only by his sufferance and is represented frequently as the leader or prince of all apostate angels and as ruler of Hell.

For most Christians, he is believed to be an angel who rebelled against God. Before his insurrection, Satan was among the highest of all angels. His pride is considered a reason why he would not bow to God as all other angels did, but sought to rule heaven himself. His ultimate goal is to lead people away from the love of God — to lead them to fallacies which God opposes. The Book of Revelation describes how Satan will be cast out of Heaven, down to the earth, having "great anger" and waging war against "those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus." In mainstream Christianity he is called "the ruler of the demons," "the ruler of the world" and "the god of this world." Ultimately, Satan is thrown into the "lake of fire"not as ruler, but as one among many, being tormented day and night for all eternity.

Probably, the most effective way to convert followers of God is to subvert God's teachings. Hijack the belief system, so to speak, to become the spokesman of "good" while really using the power being gained by the followers acceptance of you for an "evil" uprising against God. If Jacob is Satan, he has used the mind games of good to con the Others and Candidates into believing he is good when in fact he is evil.

And what were the characteristics of the Devil in religious texts? Satan could shape shift into different forms on Earth. He was a serpent you tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of knowledge, which led to the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. That first sin against God's word evolved a world in which Satan could have influence - - - temptations, sins, crime, murder, pain, suffering . . . but maybe Satan's days of messing with humans has grown tired, and he wants his ultimate revenge: the war to retake heaven.

That last paragraph sounds more like the motivation of MIB. It could be. Satan had a band of rebellious angels who were cast out of heaven. His henchmen or minions could be his followers doing his dirty work (with lower beings like humans). Maybe MIB is tired of being a demonic gangster, and wants to return to heaven not to overthrow it, but to seek forgiveness.

This would put the story clearly in the lines of the Nexus Buffer Theory, where the island is a nexus point between heaven and hell, and the potential final battlefield between the forces of good and evil.

SIDE THOUGHT

The clues we see today may not tell us what the Island is now, but what the Island once was . . .

The Egyptian statue, the temple, the hieroglyphs all point to an advanced, ancient civilization. It no longer exists today.

Within the story framework, we have seen the Temple, but it has not been kept up. The courtyard columns are ruins; the jungle vines have encroached upon the courtyards. It does not have the respect and maintenance of a temple in current use by the Others.

Which gets one to thinking that at one point in time, the temple was the center of the island civilization. But at some point in time, the beliefs of the temple were supplanted, perhaps by blind faith in a person called Jacob, and his devine secret Plan.

So the native people abandoned the Temple to follow Jacob. Now, would ancient Egyptian gods tolerate the abandonment of traditions, worship and offerings of the living to the dead? Perhaps. Or maybe they just spread curses and bad luck upon individuals, knowing that these people have no chance for eternal life by failing to properly respect the old Egyptian ways.

Then who could be MIB? Was he a former temple priest or a spirit of the underworld in charge of keeping the islanders faith? And when he failed, he was converted like the Others to the ways to be in the service of Jacob? And like Richard, MIB has grown weary of Jacob's empty promises and secret Plan, that he is leading a counter-revolution, against Jacob's rule. But in order to succeed to the throne, one must have to kill the existing ruler.

SIMPLE THEORY

I came across a very simple theory on the dynamic between Jacob and MIB. It is not my own.

It states that Jacob has gone around "touching" people for centuries in his search for his replacement. MIB's role is merely to "judge" each of the candidates once they reach the island. So far, none of the candidates have been worthy.

It has the motif of an employment agency-HR department: one person interviews a potential new hire, and another person actually closes the deal.

How did MIB at the beach cave know that Jacob liked numbers . . . and the numbers on his cave walls matched the Lighthouse? Unless, they shared information about the candidates. Flocke scratching off Locke's name in the cave was like literally throwing that person's resume (or in this case Life) in the circular file.

If this theory has merit in the end, this show is one abstract dark comedy. Two beings at some sort of cosmic-realm nexus station, like Penny's arctic station spending months trying to find a needle in a haystack. The dynamic would be like Jackie Gleason-Art Carney working a scam from TV series The Honeymooners. The replacement search would mirror the tedious job that Desmond had putting in the Numbers every 108 minutes. It would have Jacob trying to please MIB so he can get some one to cover for him so he can take a break. Like when Desmond stumbled upon the island, Kelvin found his replacement.

Except here, the candidates have no idea they are being interviewed for a job "of a lifetime." Or, that if you fail the interview test, most likely you will die at the hands of a smoke monster.

COURTYARD TRANSLATIONS

I was directed to an Entertainment Weekly video showing "clues" in the Temple courtyard, columns of hieroglyphs. In all the courtyard scenes broadcast, none of columns in the video were really visible to the viewer.

Even though the video was clear, some of the symbols themselves were rough, odd and not traditional. That makes any attempt at translating them much harder, and more open to interpretation. Normal translation is more of an art than a science to begin with; then add another layer of assumptions for unknown symbols or possible symbols or bad combination of symbols . . . you get the point. So the confidence level on these translations is not high, but this is my best "guess" at what the three courtyard columns said:

ONE DAY (HE) WILL SAVE
BIND THE REFUGE OF EVIL SPIRITS TO SUBMISSION
BIND COSMIC DISORDER (FOR) HEAVEN
EGYPT FOLLOW THE DEATH OF OSIRIS

(WE) MOURN THE TRUTH OF OUR RULER
FOR (IT) BELONGS TO US TO BUILD ETERNITY
STRONGLY, PERMANENT, ENDURING

FOR OUR LIFE BELONGS TO US
ABUNDANCE IF WE (GO TO THE AFTERLIFE)
I DIE REJOICING!

WISHFUL THINKING

At the Black Rock, when Richard wanted Jack to blow him up with dynamite, Jack agreed, lit the fuse and then sat down to chat with the eyeliner one.

Jack stated that since the Lighthouse he thought that Jacob, the Island or whomever wanted him alive for some purpose. So he was not going to die.

However, just before the lit fuse hit the dynamite, Jack closed his eyes. When he opened them, the fuse went out. It was like his wish came true.

The Island is a Wishing Island.

Ben remarked to Locke that his father came to the island as a result of a magic box. If you wished for something, it would come true.

The question is whether that is true . . . and how does one acquire this "wishing ability?"

PURPOSE

In the mish-mash of people reconstituting new groups like a single cell organism ready to divide into two, a basic question of purpose needs to be addressed:

What purpose does/did Jacob provide the Island? "Protection," is the answer, but from what?

What purpose does/did MIB provide the Island? "A rival," is the answer, but why?

What purpose does/did the Others provide the Island? We really don't know why there is a "native" band of Hostiles living on an uncharted, supernatural island in the middle of the Pacific.

What purpose does/did the Others "leader" provide? "To speak to/through Jacob," is the answer, but why is there the need to follow Jacob's instructions?

What purpose does/did outsiders like 815 survivors provide the Island? "Candidates," appears to be the answer, but why does forcing people to the island to succeed Jacob serve the interests of the Island, the Candidates, or the Others?

What purpose did the Dharma Initiative provide the Island when Jacob was supposed to "protect it" from outsiders? "More candidates?"

Why does Jacob want "candidates" to replace him? What is his purpose or motivation to leave?

Why does MIB want to "kill" Jacob? Why can't MIB just transform and leave? Why must he destroy Jacob first?

Are both "trapped" on the Island for eternity? Is there whole purpose, or existence, a way to break the bonds that the Island (realm) has upon them?
Is the solution that Jacob or MIB cannot "leave" or be free unless they are replaced by a qualified "candidate?" After hundreds of years, you would think if they really wanted off the Island, a candidate(s) would be appointed and case closed. That begs the point that the concept of a "candidate" is a ruse, a red herring. Candidates must serve a different purpose than being courted as replacements for the Island's apparent supernatural entities.

S6E7 RECAP

L: Lo- - - no real spectacular moment, but Jack lighting the fuse on Richard's farewell stick, then sitting down next to him to talk was good.

O: Obnoxious - - - the whole build up of Ben digging his own grave, and not having a funeral was a little shell game on the audience. Also, the idea of Widmore returning the island (when he claimed he could never find it) brings the show back to the appearance of the freighter crew story arc.

S: Story line - - - the increasing power of Flocke, now that he can snap metal with a Harry Potter flick of his finger adds evidence that the Island is supernatural place, either a purgatory, underworld or time-space prison.

T: Time line - - - the whole sideways alternative time line was messed up when Sayid, who had just found out that Nadia was alive when he was being deported from Australia in the original time line, returns from his Aussie trip to find Nadia happily married for a dozen years to his brother. Now, in the Ben alternative, his father and Ben leave the Island probably at a very early time (in the original, Roger was not a happy camper being a janitor). It means they jumped back even earlier than Sayid to erase their past history. That is why the sideways material makes no connective sense to the present Island events, and sideways world as "real" would negate 5 seasons of character stories as being the filler.

INSPIRATION

Strange is the world
Why should men receive life in this world?
Men's lives are as meaningless
As the lives of insects
The terrible folly
Of such suffering
A man lives but As briefly as a flower
Destined all too soon
To decay into the stink of flesh
Humanity strives
All its days
To sear its own flesh
In the flames of base desire
Exposing itself
To Fate's Five Calamities
Heaping karma upon karma
All that awaits Man At the end Of his travails
Is the stench of rotting flesh
That will yet blossom into flower
Its foul odor rendered
Into sweet perfume
Oh, fascinating
The life of Man
Oh, fascinating

These are the lyrics from the old woman’s song (sung by evil forest spirit) in the movie Throne of Blood by famed Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa. The movie was on TCM after LOST. The Macbethian movie is about two soldiers who turn back an overpowering enemy. On their way to be rewarded by their king, they travel through a mysterious forest of fog and spider web trails. They veer on horseback through trails and past mounds of dead soldier skeletons. They get lost until they stumble upon an old woman in a wood branch cage, spinning yarn on a hand wheel. This is a evil spirit who foretells their future: one would rise to be the king, and the other's son would rise to be the king of the castle after his friend's reign. As a result of the prophecy, the one soldier who would be king begins to believe its truth so as to affect his own actions and decisions, including murdering the current king. Paranoid that the other soldier would tell the prophecy and take away his control of his throne, he sets out to murder his old friend, who dies to haunt him as a ghost, but his friend's son (the future king) survives to join forces with the kingdom's enemies. The new king is now trapped in his castle fortress surrounded by cowards. He goes back into the forest to find the evil spirit who tells him he will never be defeated in battle until the forest trees rise up and attack him. Impossible, he boasts, to his troops, as he awaits the final battle in his castle, a stronghold that has never been defeated by any army. In the early morning fog, his troops go mad as they see the trees begin approaching the castle. Unaware that it is the enemy troops using trees as camouflage, they panic and kill the new king so as to spare their own lives. Thereby, the spirit's prophecy becomes a self-fulfilling reality.

Kurosawa was considered as a great Japanese director, on par with the John Fords and Howard Hawkes in America. His film, The Hidden Fortress, was an inspiration for the Star Wars films. One technique he used was to tell the story from the perspective of the film's lowliest characters. And this may be where TPTB found their inspiration and story telling framework.

We have led to believe that for the first five seasons that the 815 survivors were the main characters on the show, from the beach campers, to the Tailies, through the Dharma folks and now the Others, but it appears that all are red shirts as the final climax is about to be revealed to us.

If one considers the flashbacks, flashforwards, Island time or even the dreaded flash sideways arcs, no one has a great or profound life. Some may have some meaning, but in the cosmic microscope of a god-like being, mankind is like a colony of insects. Disposal organic matter with a limited life cycle that ends in compost.

All of our characters have the the same fate self-fulling prophecies. Jacob's "gift" to the candidates did not change their personal fates. Fate's Five Calamities could be killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication. One word derivative of "fate" is "fatality," another is "fatalism." Fate implies no choice, and ends fatally, with a death. Fate is an outcome determined by an outside agency acting upon a person or entity; but with destiny the entity is willfully participating in achieving an outcome that is directly related to itself.

Fate and destiny can be distinguished. Modern usage defines fate as a power or agency that predetermines and orders the course of events. Fate defines events as ordered or "inevitable". Fate is used in regard to the finality of events as they have worked themselves out; and that same sense of finality, projected into the future to become the inevitability of events as they will work themselves out, is Destiny. In classical and European mythology, there are three goddesses dispensing fate, the "Fates" they determine the events of the world through the mystic spinning of threads that represent individual human destinies.

Jacob was thread bending on the Island, weaving his tapestry. He takes the form of an evil spirit, controlling people's lives and pushing them toward the path of doomed fates. MIB can also be a malevolent spirit in this supernatural place co-existing with mankind. MIB is made of the same bolt of cloth, so to speak, making deals for the souls of his recruits, and promising them anything in the world. One could imagine that there is a higher power over Jacob and MIB who could try to put this humpty dumpty world back together again. Or not.

Any advanced technological entity could be considered god-like to lesser developed entities. If Jacob and MIB are god like beings towards humans. In ancient myths, only superior gods could harm inferior gods, and any god could harm mere mortals. But humans could not kill gods. So why are humans even needed in this island world? Are humans a god's play thing, a guinea pig, a lab rat, a court jester of complex emotional strings?

In the old woman's song above, the end of man is death and its foul stench that turns into perfume. The origin of the word "perfume" has an obsolete old Italian meaning "to smoke through." In death, one can create a smoke monster?

When Flocke is taking his recruits towards the Hydra station in his plan to leave the Island, there is a question why would he need to go there? The Ajira plane wreck is there along with about two dozen passengers. One would think that a supernatural being does not need an airplane to leave the island (considering he may have been able to teleport anyplace on earth like Jacob was known to do). Maybe he needs to feast on the human souls there - - - to gain enough strength in numbers to transform into his full, final form (cue music for Evil Incarnate).