GAME THEORY

Another popular fan theory from later in the show's run: the Chess or Game Theory.

Fan Theory: The Chess Game Theory 

At the end of Season 5, we not only saw Jacob for the first time, but also a mysterious Man in Black. He suggested that Jacob was bringing people to the island, "still trying to prove me wrong." He says: "They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same." Jacob counters with: "It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress." Their dialogue suggests that Jacob was the one who brought the plane to the island as part of some long cosmic battle between these two entities, turning the Oceanic 815 survivors into nothing but pawns in a huge chess game of the gods.

This was a clear that Jacob and the Man in Black would be  two key figures in the last season, and their epic war is definitely part of the show's end game. Or that is what we were led to believe.

In the Jacob back story, we would learn that Jacob and his brother were shipwrecked in vitro on the island. Their mother gave birth to them and shortly thereafter was murdered by Crazy Mother, the island guardian. Growing up, the boys found a box which contained the ancient Egyptian game of Senet, a very early board game. In the game, the goal is to roll a counter or dice to move your pieces (black or white) off the game board.

Viewers have tried to match the parallels of the Senet game with island events. Some believed that Jacob played white (good) and MIB wearing black was bad. Yet, the whole Jacob story line really fizzled into a mishmash of gray.

If there were two teams and the pieces were represented by the loyalty of the characters to a specific leader in Season 6, then what was the key moment of the game? Who won? If the character pieces needed to be removed in order to win, did that mean the candidates had to die in order for someone to claim full victory? But in the end, several of Jacob's crew (Sawyer and Kate) left the island - - - did that make Jacob the winner (but he died) or MIB (who was really the smoke monster taking the form of his dead brother)? It is quite confusing considering the grand build up and introduction of two major players near the end of the series.

Some believe that the writers threw in the Jacob story arc as a means of trying to find a way out of their hopeless prior plot twists that were supposed to lead us to a logical, rational and clear explanation for all the island events. An immortal man and a smoke monster are playing a board game on the beach . . .  . just does not provide the answers promised by TPTB.

Again, if this was just a game, there was nothing important by the characters actions, reactions or decisions because they were mere pawns in a chess game run by supernatural beings.