FATE WORSE THAN HELL

One of the theories about LOST and its quirky sci-fi story line inconsistencies was that the characters were not "living" in a real world environment, but part of some grand experiment or alternative world (through technology like networking brains of coma victims).

Science may be catching up to some wild fiction.

The Daily Mail (UK) reports the scientists have kept alive pig brains outside of the body for the first time as part of a controversial new experiment. The radical experiments could pave the way for human brain transplants and may one day allow humans to become immortal.

The report suggests to ethics experts that any experiments to reanimate dead brains could lead to humans being locked in an eternal "living hell" and enduring a" fate worse than death."

That's according to Nottingham Trent ethics and philosophy lecturer Benjamin Curtis who made the comments in light of controversial experiments on pig brains.

"Even if your conscious brain were kept alive after your body had died, you would have to spend the foreseeable future as a disembodied brain in a bucket, locked away inside your own mind without access to the sense that allow us to experience and interact with the world,' Curtis said. "In the best case scenario you would be spending your life with only your own thoughts for company.

'Some have argued that even with a fully functional body, immortality would be tedious. With absolutely no contact to external reality it might just be a living hell. To end up a disembodied human brain may well be to suffer a fate worse than death."

Last month, Yale University announced it had successfully resurrected the brains of more than 100 slaughtered pigs and kept them alive for up to 36 hours.

Scientists said it could pave the way for brain transplants and may one day allow humans to become immortal by hooking up our minds to artificial systems after our natural bodies have perished. 

In LOST, viewers were conflicted about who, what, where and how the main characters were interacting with each other on an island that was not an island (where the laws of physics and smoke monsters roamed). Immortality was seen through Jacob, who shipwrecked as a baby on the island during Roman times. The Man in Black appears as an immortal smoke monster savagely imposing judgment on humans. Even the character of Michael appears to be trapped as a "whisper" on the island as a soul that cannot move on in the after life.

The idea that LOST could have been merely a network of reanimated brains now has a thread of truthful basis in current science. And the nightmare of being trapped on an island hell is what Mr. Curtis alludes to in his criticism of the experiment's potential outcome.

DYING TO WAKE UP

In Dying to Wake Up, Dr. Rajiv Parti, the Chief of Anesthesiology at the Bakersfield Heart Hospital in California, writes in his new book that an experience from "the Divine" changed him forever. 

Following this experience Parti gave away his mansion, quit his career, and opened a wellness clinic.
Parti claims to provide "rare details of heaven, hell, the afterlife, and angels." According to Parti, during his near-death experience he encountered "archangels" and his deceased father who showed him "through the tortures of hell."

Parti purports that to this day he still converses with angels and "spreads their wisdom to the living."
While there have been many books published by people that have experienced something similar to Parti, the book genre isn't without its critics.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of the book, Hallucinations,  wrote these "life-altering religious experiences" are "hallucinations," and that "whether revelatory or banal, are not of supernatural origin; they are part of the normal range of human consciousness and experience."

What strikes me from this summary account of Parti's experience is that mirrors the basic premise of LOST.  Jack was guided through the tortures of the island hell by his deceased father, Christian. And once Jack survived his initial island test in the underworld, he gave up everything to return to save his friends.

The title invokes another theme of the show, "waking up."  In the after life, the characters had to "wake up" to the realization that they were dead. So what was their experiences prior to that revelation? 

Could each of the characters be going through separate near death experiences that funnel into this island hell gateway? As we speculated in the past, each of the main characters had a back story element where they could have died in real life. 

The idea of Jack's deceased father shepherding him through the stages of death, preparing him for the after life, is an appealing notion. It reinforces major religious symbolism. It also reinforces the bonds of friendship can cross barriers, including death.

HEAVEN AND HELL

One of the interpretive themes of LOST was heaven and hell. Some fans felt that the main characters were in hell, symbolized the by the island and its various monsters, sinners and punishments. Others thought that the characters found their heaven in the sideways world, which ran concurrently in the Season 6 series - - - but if you look at Alpert's back story, it had been running for eternity.

The concept of duality - - - two different planes of existence - - - is also a reoccurring theme. Many scientists believe in the time-space continuum contains multiverses, where each action creates a new and slightly different universe based upon those probable effects of an action.

But there is a simple way of looking at the LOST's split story personality.

From a spiritual perspective, each living person has two states: an awaken state and a sleeping state. When you are awake, you are living and experiencing the good and bad of real life. Over time, daily routines like work and family become grinds. The repetitive nature of living is a drain upon one's creative, adventurous curiosities. In order to fulfill that need, people tend to have deeper, more complex dreams when they sleep. Sleep is a person's way of repairing and re-energizing their body. But it can also be a needed fantasy diversion to a person's "perfect world."

In fact, people sometimes can get "lost" in their dreams. They may not be able to tell what is real and what is fantasy. The illusions in dreams become delusions in real life. And this creates personality disorders and mental mistakes, deep problems at work or with family. A prime example could be Locke, who drifted fantasy games into his real life to the point where he gave up his normal existence to join a commune in the hope of finding a "family"

It can be said that when people are awake in their boring, rotten, habitual work world, they are living in hell. For most of us, we cannot change the relentlessness of this existence. We are trapped by circumstance and obligation.

But when we totally get away from the daily routine, our dreams can appear to be heavenly. Our fantasies make us the star of our own movie. We can be the hero, the lover, the protector, the superhero, the leader, the greatest person in the world.

LOST's island world could be considered the collision of both the heaven and hell aspects of a person's existence. It contains fragmented bits of both worlds which cannot exist together. The show rarely showed anyone sleeping - - - insomnia was rampant. It could be a clue that the characters were trapped in a limbo between being awake and being asleep - - - a place ruled by their nightmares.

CONSPIRACIES OF HELL

LOST has always been a fertile field of conspiracy theorists.

Theories run the gamut from how the show was structured, created, and written with and without trying to decode clues, red herrings and story tangents.

It was one of the things that made LOST interesting and engaging to fans.

But LOST was not alone in creating or reading way, way, way too much into even the tamest of shows.

For example, the simple, iconic comedy series Gilligan's Island. What could be so "hidden in plain sight" about a show about shipwrecked castaways?

Some theorists believe that the setting of Gilligan's Island is not an island, but rather Hell, and that its sinful inhabitants all perished in the crash of the S.S. Minnow. According to this theory, each character on Gilligan’s Island represents one of the Seven Deadly Sins. 

The millionaire Mr. Howell represents Greed, while his work-averse wife represents Sloth. Sexy movie star Ginger stands in for Lust, while innocent farm girl Mary Ann envies Ginger’s beauty and lifestyle. The smart Professor is prideful because he can't admit that he is unable to fix the ship or get them off the island. Skipper, meanwhile, symbolizes two deadly sins: Gluttony and Wrath, because he’s always taking something out on poor Gilligan. Not that you should feel bad for the titular dimwit; these fans believe that Gilligan represents Satan. He's constantly screwing up the group's plans for rescue, and what's more, he's always wearing red. 

That is quite a theory based upon general traits of the characters.

If you add in the mythology that departed souls travel to the underworld by ferry (boat), and that this shipwreck symbolizes the travel through a purgatory, it is easy to see the premise begin to unfold in the mind of a theorist. In fact, this mirrors the early LOST purgatory theories because it was presumed that no one could have survived a high altitude mid-plane break up over the Pacific Ocean.

And with the unassuming Gilligan cast as Satan is quite the plot twist. On LOST, there were numerous characters who could have been Satan: Jacob, the master mind behind the island; MIB who is a dark mass of shape shifting like the serpent in the Garden of Eden; and even Christian who wound up manipulating people's free will. One could create the ultimate premise by saying that Earth itself is Hell - - - we all are born in a purgatory with our "lives" are redemptive steps from a past we know nothing about.

DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

One of the themes was good vs. evil. Most literature has this theme in one form or another. It is the basis for most conflict between characters and it gives a writer a redemption road map to change an evil person to change to good.

Jacob was protrayed in white. White is symbolic of good. MIB was dressed in black. Black is symbolic of evil. But things may not be as they appear.

There are various theories that have Jacob as the Bad Guy. And there is plenty of support for it.

Why would a good, immortal angel like Jacob walk up to Locke just after he was pushed through a skyscraper window to land crippled on the ground just to say he was sorry. Wouldn't a "good" supernatural being heal Locke - - - give him the miracle he was searching for?

Also, when Sayid finally found the love of his life, Nadia, in the O6 story arc, it was Jacob who stopped Sayid from crossing the street - - - which allowed Nadia to be killed by a motor vehicle. Wouldn't a good supernatural being protect Sayid - - -  and stop both of them from harm?

And the clearest story of the series about Jacob came from Dogen. Dogen was the man who supervised the Temple. He said that he was a distracted father. He never cared much for his son. But after he was in a traffic accident, and his son was critically injured, Jacob came to the hospital and offered Dogen a deal. He would save his son in exchange for Dogen coming to the island to serve him.

Dogen made the deal.

He would not see his son again. But he knew that his son would live.

This story is a key foundational element that Jacob was not good. Why would someone good make a father chose between his own life and his son's?  Logically, the bargain was Dogen's life for his son's. That means that Dogen would the substitute soul that the grim reaper was going to take to the underworld. That means that Dogen gave up his life in a bargain with the Devil. That Dogen gave up his life to follow Jacob to the island means that the island is Hell.

In Christian texts, the Devil was fallen angel banished from heaven after he had a jealous rage against God. The Devil vowed one day to return to overthrow God and rule paradise. But the Devil was never strong enough to do so. Other texts believe that the Devil was sent to Hell not as a punishment but to prepare human souls for their journey to Heaven. The Devil is a warden for those sentenced to Hell, the portal purgatory between life, death and the after life.

But even the job of being a warden would be a dull, thankless task. Dealing with the worst, immoral and corrupt people for eternity, far away from the paradise he once enjoyed, the Devil would want to find a "loophole" from God's service. The loophole he sought was a person who would take over his job and become the Devil - - - the guard of the island (Hell).

The candidates were good people who could do the thankless job of helping other people through their sins. But Jacob could not tell them. Each soul retains their own free will. For example, Ben's psychotic anti-social behavior did change after he killed Jacob. Jacob's own followers decided not to kill him - - - which gave Ben a chance to change to become a good person. Even in the sideways world, Ben's new attitude was that he needed to make amends for his past mistakes before moving on to paradise.

If one looks at LOST through the "prison" of various deals with the Devil, Jacob, it is interesting that most characters did achieve something that they were missing or looking for in their pathetic lives. Charlie got his own "family" in Claire and Aaron. Claire actually found a man who would love her unconditionally and never leave her. Locke found something he never had: a group of friends who believed and respected him. How each character got to their revelation moments is actually quite sadistic and dramatic, but there is that underlying theme that the characters were pushed into their decisions, deals, with Jacob for a greater purpose.

WHAT NUMBERS REPRESENT

What do Numbers represent?

A number is an arithmetical value, expressed by a word, symbol, or figure, representing a particular quantity and used in counting and making calculations and for showing order in a series or for identification. It is also a quantity or amount; such as several, in a group, company or order (such as a magazine issue to indicate a position in a series).

In the LOST mythology, the Numbers were the glue that bound many clues.

We really first learn of the power of the Numbers by Hurley hearing them while he was at the mental institution. The Numbers were supposed to have been heard by a patient, who said they were cursed. But despite the warning, Hurley used the Numbers on a lottery ticket. So, the Numbers were at first, lucky. But as Hurley started to embrace his new wealth and fame, the winning lottery ticket became his own curse (with family members being hurt, people dying, etc.)

We also found out that the Numbers were broadcast possibly as an island location beacon to the DHARMA group.  Why the numbers were important to DHARMA has led to speculation that the main purpose of island research was to re-set the Valenzetti Equation, a large doomsday-predicting formula on the demise of mankind.

We also found the Numbers stamped on the Hatch cover. This apparent serial number freaks Hurley out as a bad omen. In some respects, that was true.  The Hatch discovery led to Desmond and the internal workings of DHARMA, and more mysteries and clues (such as the blast door map). Desmond was a lost soul also imprisoned on the island to do unexplained work for an alleged higher purpose.  (One new theory is that the Hatch and electromagnetic fields were being operated by human souls in order to regulate the gateways between life, death, heaven and hell. The operators were not told of their role, least they could interfere and destroy the natural world.)

Finally, the Numbers are the code in which needed to be placed into a computer control every 108 minutes or bad things would happen (an electromagnetic build up would create a lockdown, a purple flash, release of energy, to dangerous explosion-implosion events). Why human beings had to enter the code to regulate the release of an alleged energy build up is unclear, but may take homage to the soldiers who man defense missile silos - - - who have to manually enter launch codes in order to fire destructive nuclear warheads. The idea is that these men and women have the final say on their own fate; and as a check against a computer malfunction.

So the Numbers represented good luck, bad luck, a key, a curse, and tie that bound many different elements of the story together.  But in the end, TPTB merely said that the Numbers were a red herring, with no real significance to the main story. That reveal was one of the major disappointments to serious fans.

EVENT HORIZONS

After composing the last post, and specifically the reference on how Dogen became trapped on the island through his "bargain" with Jacob, there may be another explanation on the concept of Time.

I recall detailed discussions with fellow posters during the series run about the question of time travel, time shifts and the unique electromagnetic properties. A few theorized that the FDW was a control mechanism for a tiny wormhole, which was the center of the island. The power of a wormhole to pull galaxies into its center is immense. To lose control over it would have been the literal end of the world.

Wormholes have strange physics. It is postulated that the edge of the wormhole there is an event horizon. Time and space act strangely in this area as the forces pull matter into the wormhole.

Since Dogen came to the island in a deal to save his son from certain death caused by his car accident, one could consider Dogen paying the penance of his bad act on the island, if the island was hell.  And if you start to look back at the big island players, everyone has something major to repent.

Instead of looking at Time as a linear concept, one should try to look at it as a whirlpool sucking people and their lives into its drain at the center.

Crazy Mom who stole Jacob from his mother was living her own personal hell on the island as the guardian. Her punishment for her sins must have been an eternity guarding the light source. It is a thankless job with no reward, not even death. Until she found her own loophole, finding a candidate, a sinner, to replace her. When Jacob killed his brother, he became that new sinner trapped in the island hell for eternity. That is why he continued to bring candidates to the island to succeed him. Alpert was a sinner most likely killed for his crimes (or died on a slave ship) who found his soul trapped in what he immediately thought was hell, and Jacob being the devil. Likewise, Dogen's story of giving up his life for his son's means that Dogen's soul had to go to a place of punishment, the island. Dogen served Jacob, but did not replace him. We then get the Dharma group, who may have done human experimentation and sinned against nature in the quest for new technologies. Horace found his demise and eventually became a ghost on the island. Then we have Flight 815 characters who each had their own sins to atone.

From this perspective, the island is like a toilet swirling the lives, memories and sins of various people toward their own personal end. As such, the various time line of personal events can interchange, cross connect and flow past each other in non-linear fashion. Each person's event horizon in the island hell is separate and distinct from the real world linear time line.

A DIFFERENT VIEW OF HELL

Many religious people believe in the damnation of Hell. It has been depicted throughout history and various cultures as being a place of fire, brimstone and eternal pain and punishment for moral sins.

Fro Gospel passages, followers overly have a literalistic view about hell.  Jesus Christ speaks about "eternal punishment" for sinners in the afterlife, so believers conjure visions of a cosmic torture chamber in which those who reject God or commit grave sins without repentance are subjected to endless torment as punishment for their transgressions. It is a ghastly analogue to equally crude and comical visions of heaven as a place where the righteous are rewarded with angels' wings and happiness forever.

For if sins are the moral failing of an individual, then it is the individual who must punish himself once he realizes he has missed out on the moral good.

Plato's Socrates stated that most people assume that when a person does something bad, he deserves retributive punishment in the form of inflicted suffering. "Hell" as it is depicted in the popular imagination is modeled on this view: It is where evildoers are sent to suffer punishment, deservedly, for their sins.

But Socrates implies that this view makes no sense. Doing the morally right thing must be good, intrinsically, for the moral person himself. (Otherwise, in what sense would it be good?) But that means that the opposite must be true as well: The person who fails to do the morally right thing suffers intrinsically by virtue of missing out on the good that comes from doing the right thing.

The implications of this position for how we think of punishment are quite radical. It implies, first, that people undergo punishment for their moral transgressions all on their own, without any additional infliction of suffering. The immoral person foolishly thinks she will benefit from her immoral deed. But she is mistaken and suffers from having cut herself off from the good.

As for those immoral people who don't sense any suffering or loss from having committed an immoral, sinful act, their proper punishment should be education in the error of their ways. They must be made to see their mistake. Once they do, they will begin to experience the pain that follows from the realization that they have denied themselves what is truly good.

All of this follows of necessity from the logic of morality itself. What makes no moral sense at all is the popular view of punishment embodied in the vision of hell as a place for the infliction of external torments. To say that an immoral person deserves to suffer for his sins is like insisting that a man with cancer deserves to have his legs broken. It's a prescription of additional suffering for someone who's already suffering.

Why is it nonetheless so common for people to think about punishment in this way? The Socratic view is that it flows from our own doubts about the goodness of morality. Part of us worries or suspects that the perpetrator of an immoral deed who isn't caught and made to suffer won't actually suffer anything at all. We fear she will have gotten away with her deed, as we say, scot-free. Which means that part of us doubts the intrinsic goodness of morality.

It is this viewpoint that begs the moral lapses (and lack of punishment) in LOST. The characters did heinous and criminal actions, but rarely if at all did those characters actually receive any punishment. In fact, several (including Kate) were given their freedom without serving any justice.

If the island was the education center where people who made immoral choices were to learn about their misdeed - - - and that self-awareness would cause them their own emotional pain and suffering - - - LOST does not fill that lesson learned either. If the sideways church was the "class reunion" of the morally deficient, only one person realized that he still had work to do (Ben). The rest of the churchgoers had no moral revelations that made them better souls.

GATEWAY

There may be a stairway to heaven, but there is a gateway to hell. Most ancient people around the globe believed in an underworld or hell. After a person died, their spirit or soul would have to traverse that underworld to be judged by gods or demons.

So universal was that notion, that key elements of the gateway to the underworld emerged:

1. Ancient cultures believed that erupting volcanoes were the openings to the underworld. this brought about the fire and brimstone picture of that place.

2. Ancient people believed that there were several gateways around the world, mostly on remote islands, including Helka north of Iceland.

3. Islands are created by the volcanic eruption and cooling of molten lava above the ocean's surface. Hawaii is the most famous U.S. volcanic island chain. It's native people had great respect for their fire god, Pele.

4. Volcanoes and their associated caves were found to sacred places by many ancient peoples.  Some believed that the caves were closer to their dead ancestors, who may have needed their prayers or offerings in order to escape the punishment of hell.

5. Volcanoes, because of their violent explosive and destructive nature, were feared by natives. And this fear associated with an afterlife under ground in a pit of fire was enough to start the basis of all modern religions. What you did in life on earth would have consequences in the after life.

LOST's setting had many of these aspects. The main story is set on a Pacific volcanic island. Early in the story, Jack found a cave with fresh water (life) and death (Adam & Eve). The frozen donkey wheel was deep underground which had in hieroglyphs the words "Earth gates."  The island rumbled like an earthquake or volcanic eruption during the time travel sequences. All of the candidates were put through tests to be judged as successor guardian.  Everyone on the island feared some form of retribution or punishment for their past behavior. Michael ended up trapped on the island as a whisper (spirit) because he killed Ana Lucia and Libby. The island contained supernatural elements, including the element of movement and stealth.

The ancients believed that these gates were the nexus point between various dimensions. It is a place where humans could actually traverse to hell while still being alive. Likewise, the demons who controlled hell could leave and make it into the human world. Recall, MIB called Jacob "the Devil." Likewise, MIB/Flocke was called an evil incarnate. They could have been demons who foraged into the human world to purge, test and judge souls.

In The End, it is inferred that the island was some sort of gateway for the main characters to find their way into the sideways world (after life).

CONSCIENCE

People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept, but still a religion, it doesn't matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn't the fear of God but the upholding of one's own honor and conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the whole day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that: "A quiet conscience makes one strong!" — Anne Frank

A productive use of dreams to review one's day to judge whether you have been good or bad as a matter of honor and conscience.

Viewers dwelled on science and culture to explain LOST's events.

Perhaps, we should dwell more on honor and conscience to explain things.

Conscience is an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior, i.e. he had a guilty conscience about his desires.

It's meaning is from Middle English (also in the sense ‘inner thoughts or knowledge’): via Old French from Latin conscientia, from conscient- ‘being privy to,’ from the verb conscire, from con- ‘with’ + scire ‘know.’

Were the actions of the characters driven by their "inner voices" which guided them subconsciously?
If there were no conscious intent, then these characters could not be judged for their intentional actions, whether right or wrong. It would erase any religious context to the show.

Or course, psychopaths have no belief that their cruel actions are wrong. In fact, they may have convinced themselves that there actions, including murder, are justified for a greater purpose.

We never really saw any of the characters "sleep on" a major decision, then the next day change course and do the exact opposite. Most of the actors were pretty stubborn in their opinions and beliefs. In fact, critics often quipped that the characters failed to think things through before taking action.

The concept that the island was a dream factory to have the characters re-live their past actions, to judge themselves for themselves, then learn from their experiences is interesting, but flawed.

LEVELS OF DEATH

There is still a nagging question about the sideways purgatory stinger. First, it came out of left field and led many viewers to question the first season plane crash as being unsurvivable. Second, it clearly stated that all the characters were in fact dead, but some died long before and others long after Jack did. But Jack realized his death in the church before we saw him actually "die" on the island. Third, the story telling vehicle of flashbacks, flash forwards and leaps in time create an uncertainty of WHEN the characters "died."

If death is the ending, when did the characters actually die?

It is not as simple answer.  For those who steadfastly believe that the characters survived the plane crash, then bear in mind in the scheme of LOST universe, the characters were "alive" in their own perception and interaction with people and objects in the sideways world. It was "real" to them, even though they did not realize it was not the Earth existence we know as life.

As such, there is no prohibition that this perception of a sideways "real" life could extend to the island world, or even to each character's flashback or background events.  In other words, LOST may have been a show about death from the very beginning.

I speculated long ago that deep within the background stories of the main characters, there were chilling life and death moments which we were led to believe each character survived. But what if they did not?

No one knows what happens after death. Many cultures believe a human soul must travel through inter-dimensional portals to find paradise. Some religions believe a soul is judged in hell or the various levels of the underworld before it is cleansed or purged of its sins to be worthy for heaven.

The LOST universe could be a construction of various levels or stages of the after life. If during childhood, the main characters were killed by the accidents or traumatic events in their lives, then those child souls could have been given an opportunity to perceive or "live" a new life in a sideways world like existence. Those could be contained in the recent or adult flashbacks; illusions and dreams of children coming to "life." Once those souls ran their course in their first after life level, they were rounded up and boarded Flight 815 for the next level of spiritual attainment, the island. With themes like sacrifice, trust, redemption and judgment, the island is the ideal place for a religious component or a place where lost souls could get rid of regrets or selfish desires in order to move on to the next level of spiritual existence.

It is probably hard to imagine that the characters who boarded Flight 815 in Sydney were already dead. But it does make sense in reference to the season finale in the church. The characters died at different times in different places and they could not move on without finding each other. The whole series then did not have to follow Earth bound concepts of linear time, physics, time or any form of relativity because it was not of this planet.

Now, the show's creators and writers would dismiss this theory as nonsense because they continue to be adamant that the characters did not die in the plane crash. Again, it may be parsing words, but if they were already "dead" before the plane crash, then it would be true that they would not die in the conventional sense in the plane crash on the island.

For example, Locke's "miracle birth" aftermath was actually the beginning of his soul's first life in the after life. It would have been highly improbable that a premature baby injured in a car collision in rural America in the 1950s would have survived the trauma with limited medical technology. This theory is bolstered by the fact that an immortal, Richard Alpert, visited him in the hospital.

Jacob was then not recruiting human beings but lost souls who were given a second chance to live a normal (abet fantasy) life.

It would also explain why Michael, after he left the island, could not kill himself. Mr. Friendly told him that the island was not through with him; he had work to do. A supernatural place was affecting Michael's suicide attempts; therefore, off-island was also a realm of supernatural actions. They could be classified as one in the same. If the island was a place of death then so to would be the off-island.

And then there is the Aaron problem. How could he be "born" twice? He was "born" just as the series ended in the sideways purgatory where everyone present was already dead (but just not aware of it). Aaron was so born earlier on the island. How could that be when the island did not or could not allow births of babies (if the island is hell or the after life that makes sense: who can bring new human life in the after life that is made up solely of souls). So this gets the trace back to Claire and her auto accident which severely injured and ultimately killed her mother. It could have also killed herself and her baby, leading the moments after the accident her first stage in the after life. Since Aaron was never born, he was always a spirit in the show who would manifest himself when Claire needed him.

This levels of death theory tries to unify the various aspects of a disjointed story line under one single premise: death.

DARK MESSENGER

In various religions, messengers from the heavens can be considered good, bad, mischievous or indifferent. The character called Matthew Abaddon fits into all those categories by design or mistake.

He played a hospital orderly, an airline lawyer, a recruiter for the freighter mission, and a chauffeur for Locke in his quest to get the O6 back to the island. It is believed that he was an agent for Widmore who needed to move people "to where they needed to be" like pieces on a chess board.

Chronologically, he was first seen suggesting to Locke (after he was crippled by his father) that he take a "walkabout" in Australia (which he said he had once done) in order to find his "purpose in life." This advice ultimately led Locke to the Island aboard Flight 815.

Later, Abaddon was the recruiter who put together the "science team" for Widmore's freighter crew: Naomi would be the point person, along with pilot Frank, Daniel Faraday, Charlotte and Miles. The alleged purpose of the science mission was to find the wreckage of Flight 815. Abaddon told Naomi that there had been no survivors.

Sometime after the rescue of the O6, Abaddon posed as a representative for Oceanic Airlines when visited Hurley at the mental institution. Hurley had cut himself off from the world. Abaddon coyly asked Hurley if "they" were still alive.  This was done to start the "guilt" process to get Hurley to return to the island.

Sometime later, Abaddon was assigned by Widmore to take Locke around the world to convince the people who had escaped the island to return with him. While Locke's attempts to persuade Sayid, Hurley, Jack or Kate to return to the Island were unsuccessful, Locke remained persistent as they traveled to see  Walt and "to find" Helen his old girlfriend. Locke was taken to Helen's grave.  There,  Abaddon posited that Locke's fate, and his death, may be predestined. Locke argued that he didn't want to die, and if it was predestined then that would remove the choice. Abaddon, ending the conversation, simply remarked "Hey, I'm just your driver." As they were leaving the cemetery, Abaddon was in the midst of a pep speech that Locke should keep going when he was assassinated allegedly by Ben's operatives. Ben would later tell Locke that it was he who had shot Abaddon, who he claimed was "extremely dangerous" and would have tried to kill Locke in due time (but that makes no sense within the story since both Abaddon and Ben wanted Locke to succeed in bringing everyone back to the island.)

In all these situations, Abaddon is surrounded by pain, suffering and death. Many people quickly realized that Abaddon's names comes from the Bible as a reference to "the Angel of the Bottomless Pit, " whose job it is to take souls to their destination in the Last Judgment. Many viewers believe that was Abaddon's  role in the series.

Greek for "destruction" or "the destroyer,"  Abaddon the Angel is pictured as a human sized locust, and is known as the lord of pestilence. The root for "Matthew" in Hebrew is "Gift from God." Additionally, in Hebrew, Abaddon is synonymous for Hell or destruction. Very loosely translated "Matthew Abaddon" can be read as "Gift from the god of hell." Jesus refers to God the Father as "Abba" while "-don" is the first three letters of "donate," which comes from the Latin root for "give." The name of the character in the episode referred to by the press release using the spelling "Matthew Abbadon" might be interpreted "Gift of God/Father Gift."

Abaddon as a dark angel makes sense. His first appearance is after Locke should have been killed from the multiple story fall. If Locke had died, Abaddon may have been "collecting" his soul for a trip to the underworld playground called the Island. MIB called Jacob "the Devil." Dogen called MIB "evil incarnate."  The island was certainly a living hell for those taken to it.

There is a possibility that Abaddon was a version of the smoke monster as ghost Christian was a version of Jacob when Jack was back at the hospital after his rescue. There is no known rule that prohibits either Jacob or the smoke monster from materializing off the island. Jacob had been seen in many places, in LA, Korea and on the freighter. Immortal spirits such as the devil or his dark angels could haunt the living as well as the dead.

Abaddon's character is a strong clue that LOST was more about death than life. It was about dead souls attempting to cope with a journey to their after life reunion in the sideways realm.

DOWN UNDER

If one looks to a nexus point of the series, it is Australia.

Australia was a British penal colony. It was founded in order for the British to send the dregs of their society as far away as possible from their aristocratic society. Out of sight, out of mind. At the time, most of the prisoners would have died from the harsh voyage, disease or hunger. But that was the plan, to rid the criminals and their costs from the general, law abiding population.

Australia has been called The Land Down Under. It is a reference to its continental position on the planet in the Southern Hemisphere. It is also a clue to the harsh climate for most of the land mass and the tough conditions for the original settlers who thought they were sent to Hell.

 The LOST characters all converged in Australia.

Ana Lucia came with Christian Shephard as his bodyguard after she murdered Jason McCormick and quit the LAPD. She had a grave sinful secret that she kept with her. She was told by her mother to return home and own up to what she did, but in the series she never came home because of the crash.

Arzt was meeting with his internet "girlfriend" but after his alleged girlfriend ditched him in a restaurant, he was returning home, depressed by the entire situation.

Bernard brought his terminally ill wife Rose to see Isaac, a faith healer near Uluru (Ayer's Rock), on their honeymoon. Bernard was looking for a miracle cure. This trick upset Rose greatly, for she had accepted her fate and she wanted Bernard to do the same. Bernard's plan put a uncomfortable wedge in their marital relationship.

Boone went to Sydney to "rescue" Shannon from her boyfriend. Boone and Shannon had an inferred sinful past coupled with the fact that Shannon was an indifferent spoiled brat who was suddenly left on her own. Boone went to help heal their strained relationship, but never had a chance to work it out.

Charlie was visiting his brother, Liam, in hopes of reuniting their band, Drive Shaft.However, he found his brother content, happy and sober with his new family; a family that Charlie dreamed about but never could have because of his addiction.

Cindy, as a flight attendant for Oceanic Airlines, worked in LA and Sydney as part of her route assignment. Viewers thought that she may have been an Other planted on the Flight since she quickly assimilated into the Other culture.

Claire lived in Sydney. She was going to travel to Los Angeles to give birth and supposedly deliver her baby to adoptive parents connected with Richard Malkin. She was giving up her child because her boyfriend dumped her because he could not handle the responsibility of fatherhood, that she caused her mother's coma state from an auto accident, and that she could not stand her biological father, Christian, who showed up in her life after the car accident.

Eko was investigating the miracle of Charlotte Malkin as a fake priest. He finished investigation and he returning with fake passport as the start of a new wave of criminal dealings.

Edward Mars working as a U.S. marshal, looking for fugitive Kate (which makes no sense since he has no jurisdiction in Australia). But he arrested Kate and he was traveling back with her.

Emma and Zack were two children on the flight who were traveling back to LA to meet their mother. We can only speculate that they may have been children of divorced parents and this was a custody transfer, not unlike Walt to Michael.

Gary Troup was an author on a promotional tour for his novel, Bad Twin; It was believed that he was traveling home with his fiancee, Cindy (the flight attendant) according to the non-canon Lost Experience.

Hurley was following a lead her got from Leonard Simms about The Numbers. He went looking for Sam Toomey, the man Lenny heard the Numbers from. Hurley found out from Sam;s widow that Sam was dead and that confirmed that the Numbers were a curse. Hurley was returning home for his mother's birthday.

Jack, after  his mother, Margo begged him, went to Sydney to find for his father, Christian, and to bring him back home. Jack found his father dead from presumed alcohol poisoning which put Jack's mental state into an unstable mode as he had issues bringing his body home.

Jin was on an errand for Sun's father, delivering  Rolex watches to the criminal bosses, Keamy, in Sydney and LA.

Kate fled the U.S. to avoid criminal prosecution to work on a rural farm owned by Ray Mullen, who would later turn her in for the reward. She was on the flight bound to LA to face justice for her crimes.

Libby is another great unknown. We do no know why she was in Australia, or why she was on Flight 815. She just appeared as a survivor from the Tail Section, even though we would later learn that she was a former mental patient with Hurley at Santa Rosa.

Locke, who was confined to a wheelchair, tried to force his way on a vacation "Walkabout" in the Outback. When he was refused passage by the agent, due to his disability, an angry and frustrated Locke had to return to LA.

Michael, on request from Brian Porter, his ex-wife's widower and adoptive father of Walt, went to pick up Walt, after his mother's death, so he could live with him. Porter was freaked out by Walt's special abilities. Walt had strong abandonment issues from all his so-called parents.

Nikki was an actress who had a role in a TV show. Paulo was her lover, aiding her in the con of her director paramour. They stole the director's cache of diamonds and were fleeing to the U.S. to start a new life together.

Rose thought she was on her belated honeymoon with Bernard, but became upset when she found out that it was a trick for her to see a faith healer.


Sawyer was tracking down a lead on Anthony Cooper, the man who "killed" his family. Using the information from a fellow con man, Hibbs, he found the man he thought was Sawyer and killed him. But that was a mistake, a con; it was hit job for Hibbs. Distraught and drunk, Sawyer got into a bar fight which led to his expulsion.

Sayid was recruited by CIA agents Alyssa Cole and Robbie Hewitt to infiltrate a terrorist cell in Sydney by turn his old friend turned terrorist, Essam Tasir, in exchange for information on his love, Nadia. Sayid could not go through with the plan, but his friend died anyway. He stayed an extra day in Sydney to bury his friend, then he was going to LA to search for Nadia.

Scott had won a sales prize at work: two week Australian vacation, all expenses paid.He was returning home on Flight 815.

Shannon was living in Sydney with her abusive boyfriend. Having lost her meal ticket, she was going to con Boone into giving her money and a new place back in the U.S.

Sun was going to ditch Jin in the airport in order to runaway from her marriage and her father to start a new life, but at the last moment she  changed her mind and accompanying Jin to L.A. on Flight 815.

Vincent was Brian Porter's dog. He was given to Walt; they traveling to U.S. to live with him and Michael.

Walt lived in Sydney with his mother, Susan Lloyd, and adoptive father, Brian Porter. When his mother passed away, Brian freaked out with the responsibility of raising Walt so he got Michael to take him (which legally made no sense.)

Most every character in the series converged in Sydney with deep, dark, haunting secrets, sins and personal issues that could overcome the collective psyche of an entire plane of passengers on their long voyage home. There is a thought that there is a power of positive thinking. If so, then there would also be a power of negative thinking. So many characters on the plane had negative thoughts, fears, and mental issues  - - - could that psychic power brought down Flight 815 into a spiritual dream world of the Island? Or were these negative thoughts and sins the mere sorting device that teleported the "survivors" into the bowels of Hell for punishment or purification or redemption to find a path to the sideways church after life?

REBOOT: EPISODES 117-121

POSTING NOTE: The G4 reruns of LOST have concluded in this final story arc. More analysis will come in the future as we ponder the immediate reaction to the finale.
LOST REBOOT 
Recap: Episodes 117-120/21 (Days ????- - ????)

On the beach Sayid explains to Jack that Widmore attacked their group with mortars and that Locke had saved Jack. He says that the rest of Flocke’s army have scattered into the jungle, so that it is now just Locke, Sayid, and Jack.  Flocke arrives and announces that Jack's friends have been seized by Widmore and that he now wants to rescue them. Jack asks why Widmore would capture them and Locke replies sarcastically that he would ask but he doesn't think Widmore will talk to him. He suggests they break them out, run for the plane and be off the Island before Widmore knows what is happening. Jack says that they are not his people and that he is not leaving the Island. Locke hopes Jack will change his mind but in the meantime he needs Jack to get his friends to trust him. Locke reinforces that Jack can trust him by pointing out that although he could kill Jack and his friends at any time without impediment, he hasn't and has instead saved Jack's life and now he wants to save Jack's friends too.

On their trek to the plane, Kate asks Jack whether he is coming with them now and Jack tells her that he will help them get on the plane but will not join them because he is "not meant to go".  Sayid arrives and says they need to go because Locke is waiting. Locke strides up to the plane, unfazed by Widmore's guards as they shoot at him. He breaks one guard's neck and shoots the other and takes the dead man's digital wristwatch. He goes into the plane and examines exposed wiring leading to a pack of C4 explosives. The survivors arrive and find the dead men. Locke emerges from the plane and admits that he killed them but that Widmore knew he would kill them otherwise he wouldn't have removed his "little fences."  He explains that Widmore wants them all together in a confined space so that he can kill them all, showing them the C4 he found. Locke says their new plan is to leave via the submarine because they can't be sure the plane does not have more booby traps. Hurley tries to remind everyone that Alpert said Flocke is not meant to leave the Island, but Sawyer cuts him off, pointing out that Alpert is not here. Sawyer then thanks Flocke for twice saving them and says that he was wrong about him. Locke says that the submarine will be heavily defended and that they will need everyone. Jack reiterates he will help, but he is not going to leave with them. As they leave, Claire apologizes to Flocke who says he understands. Sawyer whispers to Jack that he doesn't trust “Locke” one bit and asks Jack to make sure Flocke doesn't get on the sub.

Jack asks Jin for his pack to treat Kate's wound, only to find Locke has put the plane's C4 in his bag and rigged a bomb, using the watch he stole from the slain guard as a timer. The timer is counting down from 3:54. Jack realizes what is going on and tells them all that they have done exactly what Locke wanted.  Jack demands that they surface and tells Sawyer that Flocke intended all along to be left behind at the dock. Frank informs them that the captain says it will take five minutes to surface.
The timer nears 3:20. Sayid explains how to disarm the bomb but he has some doubt whether it will work. Sawyer is about to pull the wires but Jack stops him, saying that nothing is going to happen; the bomb won't detonate if they leave it alone. He explains that they have done exactly what Locke wanted: just as Locke had said of Widmore, "He wanted to get us all in the same place at the same time. A nice enclosed space where we had no hope of getting out of." He explains that Locke has been saying he can't leave the Island without them but what is really the case is that he can't leave the Island unless they are all dead. Jack surmises that Locke cannot kill them directly and is trying to get them to kill each other by pulling the wires from the C4.

Jack asks Sawyer why Flocke would use a timer and not just throw the bomb into the sub. He pleads that they will be okay, they just have to trust him. Sawyer says he's sorry and quickly pulls the wires out. The timer stops at 1:31 and nothing happens at first. Then the timer restarts and races down. Sayid says “Listen carefully. There is a well on the main island half a mile south from the camp we just left. Desmond’s inside it. Locke wants him dead which means you are going to need him, do you understand me?” Jack asks why Sayid is telling him this. Sayid hurriedly says "Because it's going to be you, Jack." He picks up the C4 and runs down the passageway. The bomb explodes in his hands, killing him.

Jack swims to the beach with Sawyer, who coughs up some water. Hurley and Kate stumble down the beach to meet them. Kate asks about Jin and Sun but Jack shakes his head. Hurley and Kate sob while Jack walks away to the sea and cries bitterly.

Flocke, still at the pier, tells Claire that the submarine has sunk. Claire is shocked that they are all dead but Flocke says that not all of them are dead. He takes his pack and rifle and Claire asks where he is going. He replies, "To finish what I started."

In a flashback of the Jacob origin story, a woman raises the black playing piece she is run through from behind by the Man in Black's daggar. With tears in his eyes the Man in Black addresses her as "Mother" and asks why she wouldn't let him leave. As she dies she says: "Because I love you... Thank you."

Jacob returns and sees what his brother has done and attacks him as he did as a thirteen year old. He drags his brother through the jungle. The Man in Black reminds him that Jacob cannot kill him. Jacob replies that he has no intention of killing him. He brings him to the glowing cave and throws him down the stream towards the mouth of the cave. The Man in Black hits his head on a rock and goes limp, then is sucked into the source. Moments later the Smoke Monster bursts from the cave and disappears into the jungle. Jacob washes himself at a stream and sees his brother's broken body draped over branches nearby. (The inference is that the Smoke Monster killed MIB).  He hugs him tearfully. Jacob carries his body back home and finds the two jewels and places them in a pouch. He lays Crazy Mother and the Man in Black's bodies side by side with the pouch at Mother's hand.
On the beach, Jack gives first aid to Kate’s shoulder wound. Kate is pale and emotional. As Jack stitches, she reflects on Ji Yeon, crying that Jin never met his own daughter. She and Jack concede bitterly that Flocke must be killed.  Kate leans on Sawyer's shoulder as a deep sadness consumes them all. At Jack's urging, they set off to find Desmond. Jack acknowledges that if Locke wants Desmond then "we are going to need him."

As they hike, a miserable Sawyer wonders why Flocke didn't just kill Desmond. Jack suggests maybe it was one of his 'rules'. Sawyer suggests that he himself was responsible for the deaths on the sub, because he attempted to defuse the bomb against Jack's advice. Jack insists that “Flocke” killed them. Just behind them, Hurley notices the young Jacob standing by an ancient hut. The boy suddenly appears in front of Hurley and demands Ilana’s ash pouch. As Hurley asks what he wants them for, the boy snatches them and runs off. Hurley chases him and comes across adult Jacob seated by a fire. Jacob tells Hurley that the ashes are in the fire and that when the fire goes out, he will not be seen again, adding "We are very close to the end."

As night falls, Hurley leads Kate, Sawyer and Jack to Jacob's fire. Jacob greets them by their first names. Hurley is surprised that they can all see Jacob. Kate asks Jacob whether he is the one who wrote the names on the wall, and whether it is their candidacy that ultimately led to their deaths. She also demands to know that Sun, Jin, and Sayid didn't die for nothing. Jacob says he will tell the group what they died for and why he chose them. He adds that by the time the fire is out one of them will have to take his place as protector of the Island.

Jacob explains that a very long time ago he made a mistake, and as a result there is a good chance that everyone is going to die. (This is an inference to killing his brother and/or unleashing the smoke monster).  He acknowledges that he is responsible for the current state of the Man in Black. The Monster has been trying to kill him and that when it succeeded, someone would have to replace him: that is why he brought them all to the Island. Challenged by Sawyer, Jacob explains that he didn't drag anyone out of a happy existence but that they were all flawed. He says that he chose them because they were all like him - all alone, all looking for something that they couldn't find. He says he chose them because they needed the Island as much as the Island needed them. (Misery loves company). Jacob tells Kate her name was crossed off because she became a mother, but that she is not disqualified. He explains that the task for the candidate is to protect the light at the center of the Island.

Jacob says that they must do what he couldn't do: kill “him.” Jack asks whether that is even possible and Jacob says that he hopes so because Flocke is certainly going to try to kill them. Jacob offers the remaining candidates a choice of who will take his place - Jack accepts, acknowledging that he is on the island for this very purpose. Jacob asks Jack to affirm this decision, and is pleased when he does.
Jacob takes Jack to the creek. As the others watch from a distance, Jacob tells Jack where to find the light at “the heart of the island,” explaining that while Jack has never seen the light before, he will be able to find it now that he has been chosen to protect it. Jacob asks Jack for his tin cup, which he fills with water, recites an incantation, and solemnly offers the cup to Jack. Before he drinks, Jack asks about the duration of the job he is about to accept. Jacob tells him he must do it "As long as you can." Jack drinks. Jacob embraces him and says “Now you are like me.”

At the Barracks, Smokey attacks Richard. Afterward, Ben shows Flocke where Widmore and Zoe hiding.  Smokey tells him to wait outside, but Ben says he wants to see this.

When he turns the light on in the hidden room, Ben says "Sorry Charles." Locke asks who Zoe is and as she starts to reply Widmore tells her not to talk or say anything. Flocke reacts by slashing Zoe's throat. He says that as Widmore told her not to talk to him that made her pointless. Flocke tells Widmore that to motivate him to tell him what he wants to know, the first thing he will do when he is off the Island is to kill Widmore’s daughter, Penny, the love of Desmond’s life. He gives his word that he won't kill her if Widmore talks to him. Widmore says he brought Desmond back because of his unique resistance to electromagnetism and that he was a measure of last resort. Widmore tells Flocke he won't say anything more in front of Ben. Flocke asks him to whisper in his ear. As he whispers Ben shoots Widmore dead with a pistol. Ben says "he doesn't get to save his daughter."

Flocke says that Ben never ceases to amaze him, but Widmore had already told him what he needed to know. Ben then asks whether there are some "other people to kill." Flocke gives a gloating look. Flocke tells Ben that he said Desmond was a fail safe; that if he killed the "beloved candidates" he was one final way for Jacob to be sure that he would never leave this place. Ben asks why Locke is happy that Desmond is still free. Flocke says that when he finds Desmond he will get him to do the one thing he could never do himself: "Destroy the Island."

Sawyer meets up with Jack, Kate and Hurley and tells them Flocke plans to destroy the island and how important it is to find Desmond before Flocke and Ben do. Jack tells him it doesn't matter who finds Desmond because they are all going to the same place anyway. Sawyer asks what happens then. Jack answers, "And then it ends."

Flocke's group and Jack's group meet. Kate reacts by snatching Sawyer's gun and shooting at Flocke, but to no effect. Flocke tells her “to save her bullets.” He walks up to Jack and says: "So it's you", adding that he's somewhat surprised that Jacob chose Jack, as he is sort of the obvious choice. Jack corrects him and says he wasn't chosen, but that he volunteered. Locke assumes Jack is going to try and stop him but Jack admits that he can't and will instead go with him. Flocke then thinks Jack doesn't understand what he plans to do, but Jack is clear that he certainly does, that he's going to the light, the place Jack has sworn to protect, where he thinks he's going to destroy the island. Jack says Flocke won't destroy the island. Instead, Jack will kill him, and how he plans to do that is a surprise.
As they hike towards the Source, Sawyer asks Jack how he is going to kill Flocke. Jack simply answers, "Desmond", but that he's not yet sure exactly how it's going to work. He's sure Jacob brought him back not as bait but as a weapon. When the group reaches the bamboo forest near the Source, Locke draws his knife and says it should just be him, Jack, and Desmond from here on.

Once at the cave of the Source, Locke ties a rope to a tree while Jack ties the other end around Desmond.  Desmond tells Jack that this - killing Locke and destroying the Island - doesn't matter because once he goes into the cave, he'll go to another place where they can be with the ones they love, where they never have to see the island again, and where a happier version of Jack exists. (Desmond is flashing to the after life purgatory of the sideways world, meaning he knows he is already dead on the island.)  After saying that maybe there's a way he could bring Jack there too, Jack says that he found there are no shortcuts or do-overs; that  “what ever happened, happened” and that all of this matters. The three men enter the cave.

Jack and Locke enter the cave and begin to lower Desmond into the brilliant abyss. The Man in Black remembers John Locke's memories of Jack and he, looking at Desmond down in a hole in the ground, lightheartedly commented on their bickering on whether or not to push the button. Jack cuts him short. "You're not John Locke; you disrespect his memory by wearing his face, but you're nothing like him." Jack insists that John was right about almost everything, and wished he got to tell him this when he was still alive. Flocke says John wasn't right about anything and that when the Island drops into the ocean and Jack drops with it, then he will realize this. Jack suggests they just watch and see who turns out to be right, and the two look down the waterfall now that Desmond has reached the bottom.

He finds the Source, a glowing pool, filled by a small waterfall, with an elongated stone with ancient markings engraved on it at its center. He enters the water as electromagnetic energy emanates from the source. Desmond is clearly in pain, and his nose bleeds. Jack and Locke hear his screams. Desmond reaches the center stone and lifts it, like removing a giant stopper in the center of the pool. The stream from the waterfall stops, the electromagnetic force recedes, the light goes out, the pool dries up and there is a red hot glow emitting from the center. Desmond screams "No!" Flocke says to a very worried Jack: "It looks like you were wrong." Flocke says goodbye and leaves as earthquakes begin to wrack the Island.

Jack chases Flocke out of the cave in a fit of fury, punching him in the mouth and jumping on him when he falls. Flocke bleeds from the mouth. Jack sees the blood and says, "It looks like you were wrong too." Jack's hands move towards Locke's throat as they struggle. Flocke finds a rock and hits Jack over the head with it, and gets up and runs off as Jack becomes unconscious.

Flocke stands on the cliff above the cliff side cave, looking at Desmond’s boat anchored a short distance offshore. Before he can make it to the boat, Jack catches up to him. Flocke turns around and the two face each other for the final showdown. Locke draws his knife and they run at each other across the uneven ground.  Jack leaps at Locke and they fight as the storm rages and cliffs disintegrate.

Flocke drops his knife, but during the struggle he picks it up and inflicts a fatal wound under Jack's rib cage. As he tries to finish him off, Flocke tells Jack that "he died for nothing." Just then, Kate shoots him from behind; she "saved him a bullet." Jack struggles to his feet, but another quake shakes the Island and Flocke says Jack is "too late" just before the rumbling stops. Jack kicks him off the cliff to the rocks below, and the evil Man in Black, the Smoke Monster, is apparently dead.
Ben tells the group that Frank and the rest are leaving, and if they are going to catch up they had better get to the boat and sail to Hydra island quickly. Jack says that whatever Desmond turned off, he needs to turn it back on again. But he says that if people are going to leave they need to get on that plane.  Kate tells him that he doesn't need to do this, but Jack is adamant that he does. Jack wishes Sawyer good luck.

Ben passes Sawyer the walkie saying that if the Island is going down then he is going down with it. Hugo refuses to climb the rickety wooden ladders and tells Jack that he is with him. Kate and Jack share a tearful goodbye - they have a final kiss and declare their love for each other. The island continues to shake uncontrollably. Sawyer calls Frank, who tells them he is going to leave while there is still ground to leave on. Sawyer and Kate jump off the cliffs and into the sea. They swim out to the Elizabeth.

Hurley helps Jack as they return with Ben to the Source. Jack tells them he is going down alone and makes it clear that he knows he will not survive. Jack explains to an overwrought Hurley that this is what is supposed to happen. Jack tells Hugo that it is he who the Island needs, that his job was to fix the source but after that it should be Hugo. Jack tells Hugo that he believes in him. Hugo agrees, but only till Jack returns. Ben finds an Oceanic bottle and Jack fills it from a leftover pool of water from the previously active stream and gives it to Hurley. After Hurley drinks, Jack tells him, “ Now you are like me."

Jack finds Desmond and carries him back to the rope. Desmond wants to return the plug but Jack tells him he has done enough and he needs to go home to be with his wife and son. Desmond asks Jack what will happen to him. Jack says that he'll see him in another life, "Brother.”
Jack finds the cork and drops it into the Source. Jack lies exhausted in the empty pool but a trickle of water starts flowing and then the light starts to return. Hugo and Ben haul on the rope and find Desmond on the end of it. Below, Jack sobs with relief as he is engulfed in the light.

Ben and Hugo are with Desmond. Hugo takes in the idea that Jack has gone.  Ben comforts him by telling Hugo that he did his job. Ben tells a frightened Hugo that he can do his job as the island's new protector by doing what he does best: taking care of people. Hugo asks how he can do things like helping Desmond to go home when people can't leave the Island.  Ben says that that is how Jacob ran things and that maybe there is a better way. Hugo asks Ben for his help, saying he needs someone with experience. Ben says he would be honored.

Jack awakens in the creek outside of the light source cave.  Knowing that his life is ending, clutching his fatal wound and in obvious pain, he slowly finds his way back to the bamboo grove where he first arrived on the island after the 815 crash.  As he does, he passes by the white shoe, still hanging from the branch, and collapses to the ground in the same spot where he awoke after the crash of Flight 815.
He hears a dog barking and turns his head to see Vincent running toward him through the trees. As the dog licks his face and lies down beside him, The Ajira plane soars overhead, and he is overcome with joy and laughs.

In the sideways world, a reunion is held.

Jack tells Kate that this is where he was going to have his father's funeral. He asks Kate why she brought him here. She says "Because this is where you were going to have your father's funeral." She goes to leave and she says that they will be waiting for him, once he's ready. Jack asks, "Ready for what?" Kate tells him, "To leave."


Jack goes into the church via a back entrance. In a chapel filled with symbols of different religions, he finds Christian's coffin and touches it, awakening to more memories from the Island. He opens the coffin but it is empty. Jack hears a voice, and it is his father, standing in the room. Jack tells him he doesn't understand, because Christian died, and asks his father how he could be there. Christian simply asks, "How are you here?" Jack realizes that he himself has died too. They embrace tearfully and say they love each other. (Did the cork also repress the memories that needed to be awakened in the dead souls?)

Jack is confused, and skeptical that the man he is speaking with is even real. Christian reassures him that they are real, Jack's life was real, and the people in the church are real. Jack asks if everyone else is dead too, and Christian explains that "everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some before you, some long after you." When Jack asks why everyone is here now, Christian responds that "There is no now here", and that this is a place they all made together to find one another, because the most important part of Jack's life was the time he spent with these people, and that's why they are all here; no one lives life alone. He needed them, and they needed him; to remember, and to let go. Jack tells Christian that Kate said they were all leaving. Christian explains they aren't leaving; they're moving on. Jack asks where to, and his father tells him, "Let's go find out."

Jack enters the nave. He is welcomed by Locke, who kindly tells him, "We've been waiting for you." He then greets Desmond, Boone, Hurley, Sawyer and Kate. Joining them are Charlie, Claire, Aaron, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Shannon, Rose, Bernard, Juliet, Libby and Penny.  After the group has shared embraces and celebrated their reunion, they sit down in the church pews. Christian begins to walk to the back of the church through the middle aisle, and pauses briefly by Jack to put his hand on his shoulder. Christian approaches the back, opens the doors of the church and glowing white light from beyond the doors washes over all present. Jack exchanges a smile with Kate, and then looks ahead as they are engulfed by the light.

Science:

The Kush in Sudan were an ancient people. Scientists last year found a small area that contained 35 burial pyramids in a 5,000 sq. ft area. One of the most interesting new finds was an offering table found by the remains of a pyramid. It appears to depict the goddess Isis and the jackal-headed god Anubis and includes an inscription, written in Meroitic language, dedicated to a woman named "Aba-la," which may be a nickname for "grandmother.”

It reads in translation:

Oh Isis! Oh Osiris!
It is Aba-la.
Make her drink plentiful water;
Make her eat plentiful bread;
Make her be served a good meal.

The offering table with inscription was a final send-off for a woman, possibly a grandmother, given a pyramid burial nearly 2,000 years ago.

This points to the continued ritual tradition that people believed that once a person died, they would live another life in the after life. The descendants gave offerings so that their ancestors could live a good “second” life - - - in some respects, continue the norm of their prior existence in peace. We continue to discover more and more evidence that the earliest cultures had deep convictions in an after life.

Improbable Elements:

A large jetliner with bent wing tips would not be able to take off on short Hydra Island.

The island friends and enemies creating an elaborate, complex, interactive sideways "after life" world without remembering ever creating it.

Clues:

When a mystery story ends, there are not supposed to be more “clues” to what happened. There were many cryptic answers to some of the burning questions, but many of the key story elements were thrown out as immaterial, irrelevant or in pure conflict with the ending resolution.

The only “clue” or piece of information to solve the entire LOST complex is that in the last episode, EVERYONE GOT WHAT THEY WANTED. How in the Hell is that possible?

Discussion:

“ The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration. ”

— Allan Bloom

LOST left a stinging amount of more questions than answers.

Why is Christian the band leader in the sideways church? Why are not the other characters parents, siblings or loved ones present in their after life? Why is Locke still alone (no Helen from sideways world?) Why is Boone alone? Why are there no other parents or family members of the reunion cast in the church?

Also, why do you think Aaron had to be born again in the season six purgatory? How can he born literally be born "twice?" Does he go to heaven as a baby? He presumably lived a long, normal life off the island. Unless he never was born in real life.  A prop in the sideways world or died as an infant. Or he was merely a prop Claire created in herself to obtain some measure of sympathy from others in her measly life. The same is true for David, Jack’s son with Juliet in the sideways world. Did he ever exist, or was he a prop (like  Aaron?)

We are told that Jacob’s  life is ash; when the fire goes out, he ceases to exist. He must pass on his powers at his end (to Jack) who has the guardian’s powers to protect the island from MIB. Where do these ritualistic powers come from? It is a childlike game where one kid, the leader, makes the rules and controls the game.

When the fire goes out, Jacob as a smoke creature, ceases to be - - - much like his brother.

If the cork is removed, the water stops, the light goes out, the island destroys itself, and MIB becomes mortal. If the cork is replaced, the water returns, the light turns on, the island is saved, but the life force does not reincarnate Jacob or MIB - - - they are gone forever. So in one sense, the pulling and replacing the stone cork is exactly like rebooting a crashed computer hard drive. It wipes out the cache (Jacob and MIB) to start the processors all over again. So if Desmond and Jack went into the cave that created MIB as a smoke creature (or an existing beast released from the stone cork assumed his dead body), why did not Desmond or Jack become a smoke beast? Desmond had the electromagnetic spell and the knowledge that he was already dead and awake in the sideways purgatory. Jack continued his personal dilution that he had to stay on the island to “fix” his life, a life which did not really exist as set forth in the sideways reality.

And what happens to the people that left the island? Frank, Kate, Claire, Richard, Sawyer, Miles - - - they were going back to what? Richard had no one for centuries. Kate still has no one. Sawyer wants no one. Frank has no future. Claire is dead and crazy infected evil. And for those who believe these people were “alive” on the island - - - the sideways world was proven not to be real so these castaways did not fly to that fantasy world. How could they return to the real world, especially Sawyer and Claire who were “dead” during the O6 story arc. And how did Desmond get home to Penny? Hurley and Ben had little resources left on the island to do anything.

And what happens to the people that were left on the island? There were about a dozen Others, including Cindy and the children, Zach and Emma. Did they stay on the island to live out their survivor lives? Hurley and Ben as the new leaders of the island (Jacob and Alpert roles) had NO MEANS to leave the island, let alone “shut it down” except for dying - - - like Jack. All we know is that Hurley and Ben awaken in sideways purgatory, but for no justifiable reason, Ben gets to stay “to work things out” with Rousseau - - - which makes even less sense: for Ben tortured her in the island life, kidnapped her daughter, and caused her to be executed for the mistaken sake of the island. So, does Ben get “rewarded” for being bad and evil in the island world? And why would Rousseau or Alex, when they REMEMBER him, want to STAY with him forever? Is he now the new Eloise, who was hell-bent on not awakening Daniel? Ben now gets to live a fantasy existence as a nerdy school teacher? Is that his heaven? So how can people know their past island judgment world and not “move on” upon their island demise?

And where is Helen for Locke? In the sideways paradise world view, she was still with him. They were going to be married. So is this proof that the sideways world was a mere collection of subconscious dream-fantasies of the island castaways? And why was Boone also alone at the End? Was his life so pathetic he could not even be reunited with his parents? What did he do wrong in his life to be left alone forever?

Claudia was first known pregnant woman to arrive on the island, brought by Crazy Mother wrecking her ship. Her newborn children were stolen by Crazy Mother. She killed Claudia to raise Jacob and his brother. The brothers have a sibling rivalry. They become disenchanted with their island life. MIB wants to leave with his fellow Roman villagers; Crazy Mother forbids it. Crazy Mother kills all of them; in a rage, MIB kills Crazy Mother. In a rage, Jacob kills his brother (creating or releasing) the Smoke Monster.

So Jacob is left totally alone on the island, except for his ghost brother/smoke monster. Their sibling rivalry and conflicts continue. Since Jacob is the “most” alive, he gets to set the rules; a game which would allow his brother his final peace (or would it if the evil smoke monster was trying to con Jacob into allowing him to leave his prison to destroy the universe).

Rousseau was the next known pregnant woman to arrive on the island, brought by Jacob. She gave birth to Alex, who was stolen by Ben to be his daughter. Ben’s actions caused Rousseau and Alex to be killed by Widmore’s men. Ghost Alex told Ben to follow everything that Flocke would tell him, which led to Ben killing Jacob.

The last woman to give birth on the island was Claire. Her son, Aaron, was taken off the island by Kate, and raised in LA. Claire was killed (infected) by Widmore’s men on a raid on the barracks. Claire abandoned her baby to follow ghost Christian (MIB). Claire tells her fellow castaways that “she is with him now,” meaning Flocke, because “he was the only one not to abandon me.”

Why were the island "rules" so haphazard and inconsistent, especially during the end sequences where both Jacob and his brother die from false assumption after false assumption of what happens when the light cave is messed with? Do we really know Jacob and MIB actually died? 

And if Jacob "created" the smoke monster by killing his brother (a rule violation) in the classical Roman period, then why is the smoke monster depicted in Egyptian temple mural thousands of years before MIB's smoke creation? Is the chronology of the island actually going backwards towards the first civilizations before the Egyptian period of 3000 BC?

The problem with the sideways world is that Sawyer continues to false legal basis of Kate’s crimes (waiting for the feds to pick her up for murder - - - which is incorrect in American jurisprudence). The sideways world also continues the medical errors and Jack’s surgical miracles. It shows that both the island and the after life are connected in such a fashion that both story lines have the same core operating factors. Which means that both island and after life are post-death states of existence.
Otherwise, how can a dead person communicate with his “living self” as Desmond did with his flashes.

Whose “story” is LOST? Many believe it is about Jack, since it is his eye that opens at the beginning and closes at the end. But it would appear that the man making all the moves would be Jacob. but the first reference to “Jacob” in The Man Behind the Curtain, Season 3, Episode 20:

Act 2
[Inside Ben's tent, Locke and Ben discuss matters over a glass of alcohol.]
BEN: I know I promised to tell you everything, John, and I wish it was as simple as me taking out a dusty old book and opening it up.
[He offers Locke a glass, but is met with a blank face. He places the glass next to him instead.]
BEN: But it's not that simple.
LOCKE: How about you just tell me?
BEN: You probably think I'm the leader of this little community, but that's not entirely true. We all answer to someone, John.
LOCKE: And whom might that be?
BEN: His name is Jacob.
LOCKE: Okay, then. Take me to Jacob.
BEN: I can't do that.
[John gets up and heads to leave.]
BEN: Where are you going?
LOCKE: Hell, Ben, if you don't wanna take me, maybe someone else will. I'll just go and ask Richard...
BEN: Why would Richard take you? He doesn't know where Jacob is. He doesn't talk to Jacob...
LOCKE: Well, who talks to him?
BEN: I do.
LOCKE: So you're the only one who talks to him?
BEN: That's right!
LOCKE: And no one else knows where he is?
BEN: I was born here on this Island. I'm one of the last that was. Most of these people you see—I brought them here. So Jacob talks to me, John. He tells me what to do, trusts me.
LOCKE: And no one else has ever seen him?
BEN: That's right.
LOCKE: How convenient. You know what I think, Ben? I think there is no Jacob. I think your people are idiots if they believe you take orders from someone else. You are the man behind the curtain, the Wizard of Oz. And you're a liar.
BEN: And what might you base that theory on, John?
LOCKE: Because if you were telling the truth, your hand wouldn't be shaking.
[Ben steadies the glass in his hand, which is shaking.]

In the Wizard of Oz, the characters are told not to pay any attention to the man behind the curtain (the Wizard) but when Toto pulls the curtain, it reveals the truth. Dorothy, Lion, Tin Man and the Scarce Crow to no pay attention to the man behind the certain because the man behind the certain is the Wizard of Oz and he has no magical powers so when the dog pulls the certain Dorothy and her friends see that the Wizard uses machines, sounds and stuff to create a strong and powerful illusion.

The urban dictionary states:
"the man behind the curtain":
A phrase used to describe someone who is in the background secretly plotting and conspiring or also a hypocrite of great proportions.

The land of Oz is depicted as real (fantasy place) in the books, unlike the 1939 movie, which presented it as a dream of Dorothy's. Dorothy and Toto are swept away by a tornado to the Land of Oz and, much like Alice’s Wonderland adventures,  they enter an alternative world filled with talking creatures. With so many references to Oz and Alice, there can only be two premise alternatives: one being a dream of a central character (like Jack) or the characters were swept away into a alternative, spirit world while either living their lives or entering their deaths.

Or was the real man behind the curtain Christian Shepard? His body was never found in the casket in either the island world or the sideways world (which could mean his state of death was the bridge between the two places). Why is he the only non-815 survivor at the Church in the End? And how does he allow everyone "to leave, to move on" into the white light, which must symbolize heaven? Was Christian the group's guardian angel? Except on the island, his image was corrupted by MIB. So, is it possible that Christian is not really Jack's father in the end - - - - but an illusion cast upon him by MIB or Jacob?

Magical/Supernatural/Elements:

The light cave being the source of life, death and rebirth for the entire universe.

That a stone cork being dislodged from the light pool would cause the light to disappear
and the island to have an immediate earthquake and destruction to sink into the ocean.
One could argue that the exact opposite would happen if you released any pent-up EM energy stopped by the cork, the island would not suffer any consequences (the Hatch protocol).

Last lines in episodes:

EP 117:

LOCKE: To finish what I started.

[He walks off and leaves Claire alone.]

EP 118:

JACOB: Goodbye, brother. Goodbye.

EP 119:

LOCKE: Because I'm gonna find Desmond, and when I do, he's gonna help me do the one thing that I could never do myself. I'm gonna destroy the island.

EP 120/121:

LOCKE: We've been waiting for you.


New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

MIB plan from the beginning was to kill all the candidates; that is why he scratched them off one by one in his cave. If MIB’s master plan was to destroy the island, why could he not have smoked down into the Light Cave, knock over the cork, and let the island earthquake and sink into the ocean? There was nothing stopping him from doing that, especially after he had Jacob killed. If the candidates were the substitute for Jacob’s guardianship of the island, then why is killing all of them by their own hands necessary to detonate the island?

And if MIB truly wanted to leave, he could have at any time. He was not trapped by the ocean, for he could be immersed in water (as he was at the sub dock by Jack). And why did Jacob say that when the fire containing his ashes would end, so would he? Does that infer that Jacob was also a “smoke monster” and that is the reason for his immortality (that his age was forever fixed at age 42?)

What came first? The chicken or the egg?
It is a classic paradox.
For to have the chicken to come first, one needs to adults to create a fertilized egg.
But for adults to be, they must first be born from an egg.

So what came first, the island world or the sideways world?
The problem with any convention is that TPTB tried to use McGuffins and tropes to answer questions used as dramatic filler as foundational canon which turned into illogical ruins.

For how could the 815 cast “create” the sideways world “to find themselves” in the after life? If the flashbacks and off-island world is to be believed, the cast had no interpersonal bonds before the “crash.” And even after the “crash,” how could they all immediately “create” a new after life world WITHOUT remembering it on the island? If that is what happened, and what happened did really happen, then the only true bridge between the island world and the sideways world is being dead.

The source was called life, death and rebirth. The island could be the place of the light’s death, and the sideways world a place of rebirth. But the sideways world overlap with Kate’s legal problems and the false medical stories (and miracles) shows it was purely a  collective fantasy. So if the sideways world was a collective fantasy, then the island world could have been a collective fantasy adventure.

The sad part of the ending was after the wash of white light from the front doors engulfs the church (which by the way - - - the light came from where Ben was sitting outside the church) the final question was “so what?” 

So what if they reunited in the after life after they died somewhere else?
So what if the “most important people in their lives” excludes most parents and siblings?
So what if the show leaves us pondering what will happen to all the characters next?
So what?, indeed.

REBOOT: EPISODES 109-112

POSTING NOTE: Due to work changes, I may not be able to post updates on Tuesdays after Monday night marathon G4 reruns, but updates will occur later in the week.


LOST REBOOT 
Recap: Episodes 109-112 (Days ????- - ????)

Dogen asks Sayid to make a decision, while Locke sends Claire to give the temple inhabitants a warning.

Sayid is faced with a difficult decision at the Temple when he meets Flocke, then MIB plays out his plan with help from Sayid and Claire.

Ben deals with Ilana’s consequences for an uncovered lie, about killing Jacob. Jack and Hurley follow Alpert to the Black Rock where Alpert asks them to help him kill himself.

Flocke takes Sawyer on a mission to investigate the plane on the Hydra island; and walks into the remains of the ambush of the survivors.

Richard Alpert’s back story is revealed, including how he changed his island allegiance before having an unexpected meeting.

Science:

Modern science still cannot fully explain life and death. We know it is a cycle. We have the knowledge of what begins life and what ends life. But we do not truly know what happens after death except for circumstantial evidence from “near death” experiences of patients or accident victims.

Life is defined as the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.

In religion, life is any of a number of successive existences in which a soul is held to be reincarnated (as in Hinduism and some other religious traditions). Most religions have a concept of life after death, which means part of the intangible human spirit or soul journeys to another life in the heavens.

The cycle of life is the foundation for all human culture. The phrase “bring (or come ) to life” means to regain or cause to regain consciousness or return as if from death. The phrase “a matter of life and death” means a matter of vital importance. The search for the scientific answers to the questions of life and death have led to advances in medical science, human behavior and the quest for immortality.


Clues:

Dogen unearths a carved box from a plant pot which he cleans and opens, revealing a ceremonial  dagger. He explains to Sayid that Claire is a confused girl under the influence of an angry man, that this man has been trapped for years but is free now that Jacob is gone and that he will not stop until he has destroyed every living thing on the Island. He says that the man is "evil incarnate." Dogen gives Sayid the dagger warning him that this person is going to appear to him under the guise of someone Sayid knows and who died and that Sayid should stab him in the chest before giving him any chance to talk. As Sayid wonders why should he do all that for Dogen, Dogen tells him that it's his chance to prove that he is a "good person."

MIB gives newly arrived 1867 Alpert a dagger to kill The Devil, Jacob. MIB tells Alpert that he cannot allow him to speak. But Jacob attacks Alpert first, taking away the knife. Alpert tells him that this place is the devil, he has seen his dead wife, but Jacob says that was not her. It was an illusion cast by MIB after scanning Alpert in the ship hold as the smoke monster. Jacob attempts to “drown” Alpert to prove that he is alive. Jacob tells him he cannot bring back his wife, or absolve his sin of murder, but he can grant immortality with his touch.

Jacob explains to Alpert that he brought him to the island to prove MIB wrong. MIB believes that all humans are corrupt by their very nature. Jacob brings people to prove him “wrong.” Jacob tells Alpert that the wine in the bottle is not hell (per se), it is called many names not malfeasance, evil, darkness. The island is the cork that does not allow the evil to spread. However, this analogy confirms that the underside of the cork where the human souls are brought is hell.

Sayid was dead for two hours. Then came back to life. Is this because Sayid is one of the remaining “candidates?” Or was he possessed by the smoke monster? Dogen said the tests were to balance good and evil in a person, and Sayid failed the test. When Sayid goes to stab Flocke, is Sayid also a smoke monster?

Dogen classifies Flocke as the “evil incarnate.”  It means an evil deity or spirit embodied in flesh; in human form. But when the dagger is pulled from Flocke’s chest, there is no blood.

Sayid could never kill Flocke with a dagger; it is inferred that Dogen sent Sayid out to stab Flocke so in rage Sayid would be killed by the monster, thus destroying the darkness (evil) inside him.  But Sayid turns pure evil after killing Dogen and Lennon in the temple spring.

Sayid could not kill Flocke because Sayid was “infected” by the darkness, i.e. he was one of Flocke’s game pieces now and like colored pawns cannot capture (kill) their leader.

When the remaining Templetons leave with Flocke after the temple massacre by the smoke monster, Flocke gives Claire a knowing nod which she returns (possibly meaning that Claire killed Kate in the temple pit), but then Flocke gives Kate an odd look. Since she is traveling with Flocke’s group, is it possible that MIB believes that Kate is now infected with darkness like Claire? But later on, Claire attempts to kill Kate while Sayid watches in a trance. Flocke intervenes to save Kate from the attack. Kate is sobbing in a grove apart from the others. Flocke joins her and apologizes to Kate for Claire's attack, saying he has to take responsibility for Claire's behavior because he told Claire that the Others had her baby. Kate asks why he would say that and he tells her that Claire was devastated without Aaron, so he gave her something “to hate” in order to keep her going. He goes on to say that hearing the truth from Kate caused Claire to release all of the anger she had been holding on to for so long. Kate replies that his explanation is very insightful considering that he's a dead man. Flocke does not consider himself to be a dead man. He believes Jacob has stolen his humanity.
He claims he will protect her and the others. Key point: Flocke believes Kate is one of his followers now (and as a former candidate, she cannot kill the leader.)

“Sundown” reflects the passage of the Egyptian Day, which the good god, Ra, disappears and must make his dangerous way through the Night (underworld) of his evil brother, Seth, and his powers. The temple massacre in the sanctuary of the temple happens at night because it is protected during the day.

Hurley reveals that Jacob had implied to him earlier that it was unsafe to go to the Temple. Richard is surprised by this and says that whatever Jacob said should not be believed. Richard heads for the wreck, saying that there's something he needs to do: die. Richard leads them through the jungle, and Hurley asks him how it is possible that Richard looks the same as he did 30 years ago. Richard says it is not easy to explain, but that Jacob gave him a gift. Richard admits he lied about going to the Temple because everyone at the Temple is dead, but maybe their friends made it out alive. Alpert’s lie was in self-interest because he needs Jack or Hurley to kill him.

Inside the hull, Alpert informs Jack that this is the first time he has come back to the ship in all the long time he has been on the Island. Richard opens a box of dynamite sticks and fuse wire, and Hurley tells him it is unsafe and the dynamite is unstable. Richard states that he can't kill himself, even though he wants to (he demonstrates this by throwing a stick of dynamite across the room, which does not explode), which is why he wants Hurley or Jack to do it for him. Richard explains that Jacob touched him, which is thought to be a gift, but it is actually a curse. He says that he has devoted his life to Jacob, who claimed that everything was happening for a reason, that he had a plan, and that he would share the plan with Richard when the time was right. Richard reveals that, now that Jacob is dead, he believes that his entire life has had no purpose. He asks Jack to light a stick of dynamite for him, pointing out that he made the fuse long enough to give Jack time to get out. Jack immediately lights the fuse and sits down with Richard. Hurley is uncomfortable and decides to go, but Jack is calm and says he has to talk to Richard. The fuse on the dynamite goes out before it reaches the stick. It means the island would not kill Alpert or Jack. Jack now believes he has some sort of island destiny.

The series confirms a series of “hard bargains.” Both Jacob and MIB make “deals” with human souls for their service, their game. Alpert believes Jacob to be a liar and fraud; his gift of immortality served no purpose. Sayid tells Flocke that the only thing he loved died in his arms. MIB states that he could grant that wish if Sayid would follow him. Dogen previously told Sayid that he made a bargain with Jacob to save his son from Dogen’s drunken car accident. In order to save his son, Dogen could never see him again. (Does this mean his son died and went to heaven, and Dogen was sent to hell to serve Jacob?) Flocke tells his followers that he will get them all off the island if they do what he tells them to do.

Flocke  is annoyed at Sawyer’s interruption of his speech with his new followers (the remnants of the Others from the Temple) and suggests that they talk in private. Once aside, an angry MIB tells Sawyer that he wishes he hadn't interrupted him. Sawyer sarcastically apologizes and asks how "Locke" knew to rescue people from "that smoke thing." The Man in Black says he is the smoke thing. Sawyer is incredulous that all those people were killed and asks why. The MIB replies that he gave them the opportunity to leave peacefully, but they didn't take it. He explains that those people believed they were protecting the Island from him, whereas all he wants to do is leave. He says that it is either "kill or be killed," and he doesn't want to be killed.

MIB tells Kate that he is not a dead man. He says that he knows what Kate is feeling because his mother was crazy. He says that a long time ago, before he looked like he does now, he had a mother who was very disturbed and as a result of that he had some "growing pains," problems that he is still trying to work his way through and that he could have avoided had things been different. (This relates to Crazy Mother killing the Romans who were trying to leave the island with MIB; in anger, MIB killed his mother which resulted in Jacob killing him - - - and throwing him into the light cave to emerge as a smoke monster). Kate asks him why he told her this story and the MIB replies, "Because now Aaron has a crazy mother too."

When Alpert leaves the beach camp, he begs out loud to accept MIB’s offer. His ghost wife speaks to Hurley, who follows Alpert to the jungle bench. Alpert talks to his dead wife in Hurley’s presence, but in the distance after she is gone, we see Flocke with a slight grimace on his face. It is unclear whether Isabella as a ghost is a trapped soul on the island in her own form, or a manifestation of the smoke monster (MIB or possibly even Jacob). But it does give Flocke another follower.

Discussion:

“ A thousand may fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it will not come nigh thee. ”
— Psalm 91:7

“ Whenever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps, and whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues. ”
— Bhagavad Gita

In this story arc, there are numerous, clear references by the characters that the island is Hell. If the Richard back story was put into the beginning of the series, so many viewers would not have been mislead by The End.

After the shipwreck, the survivors are killed by the mechanical clicking smoke monster. We hear a low guttural moan like a bass horn after the rampage. The sound is like a release. Next, the smoke monster returns and “scans” Alpert. Later, to  Richard's astonishment, he is roused by his “dead wife.”  She tells Richard that they are both dead and that they are in Hell. She says she looked the Devil in the eye and saw only evil, asking if Richard saw it too. Richard says that he thinks he did, and Isabella says she will free him before the Devil returns. As she unsuccessfully tries to free him the sounds and shadows of the Monster are heard and seen above deck. Richard pleads with Isabella to leave him and escape while she can. As soon as she has left, Richard hears the sounds of her screaming, accompanied by crashes and the Monster's exiting call. Richard is devastated.

Some time later,  MIB comes to Richard, gives him water and says he is “a friend.”  He confirms Richard's assertion that they are in Hell, and when Richard realizes he was not on the ship, MIB discloses he has been on the Island a long time. Richard asks about Isabella and explains what happened and the MIB says that "he has her,” implying that she was captured by the Devil (Jacob). Richard begs to be freed so he can save her and MIB says he will help, as he also wants to be free. MIB has keys he obtained from the dead officers but makes Richard promise to do anything that he asks before he frees him (“a hard bargain”). MIB unlocks the chains and when Richard thanks him MIB says, "It's good to see you out of those chains." MIB carries Richard out of the ship hold as he explains that the only way to escape from Hell is to kill the Devil.

Richard eats a boar roasted on a spit by MIB. Alpert is directed to the statue, now broken into pieces after the collision with the Black Rock. This is where he will find the Devil. MIB gives him an ornate dagger, warning Richard that he has but one chance to stab the Devil, and that he must not hesitate or let him speak because he is “very persuasive.”  Richard wonders how he can kill the Devil if he is black smoke but the Man in Black admits that he, himself, is the black smoke. He claims that the Devil betrayed him and stole his body and his humanity. He explains that Isabella was not running from the black smoke but from the Devil. (This infers that both Jacob and MIB are smoke monsters; and in the scene we see a slight glimpse of the smoke and part of Isabella leaving the hold). He adds that he saw the Devil take Isabella but couldn't stop him. He deflects questions about murdering the ship's officers and requesting Richard commit murder, saying that if Richard wants to see his wife again he must hurry up. But Richard’s mission is a failure. As a result, Jacob gives him immortality in exchange for working as his representative on the island, to intervene and guide human souls during MIB-Jacob’s humanity experiment.

One of the differences in the grand back story of the island is that Jacob comes to an injured Ilana in a hospital bed, and asks her to “guard” the “six” remaining candidates. Now, this appears to be a request given “before” Jacob’s death since Ilana was on Ajira plane with her crew. But with the lighthouse and its 360 names mostly crossed off except for the six 815 survivors (five if you scratch off dead Locke as MIB did in the cave), it may mean that “the game” is running out of pieces. That is why there is more action and interaction between Jacob and MIB: time is literally running out.
Jacob “brings” people to the island - - - MIB helps “corrupt” them to prove a point: that human beings are not worthy of something (immortality? guardians of the universe? heaven?) But considering the long time frame of island visitors, Jacob and MIB have to have been at least equal in power and strength when they were adopted by Crazy Mother, and MIB slightly weakened by the loss of his “body.” But the Egyptian mural depicting the smoke monster and Anubis pre-dates Jacob and MIB coming to the island, so it is possible that both Jacob and MIB are immortal smoke monsters who were given their powers (and rules) from their Crazy Mother.

Are these truly "The Rules?"

Each man has a special dagger in which can kill the other. But the assailant must not talk or listen to the intended victim or the killing spell is released.

Candidates cannot kill themselves.

Being touched is not a gift, but a curse to remain forever on the island, trapped by Jacob.

Once Jacob is killed, MIB turns into a mortal form when not the smoke monster.

Once Jacob is killed, MIB can leave the island if he is accompanied by another candidate who is his follower.

Jacob is in control of everything; he was the leader of both Dharma (Horace) and the Others (Alpert) before and after the purge. He can only bring people to the island. Apparently, Jacob can leave to recruit new candidates, but MIB cannot. MIB can only recruit or “corrupt” candidates by infecting them with “darkness,” akin to an infection which takes over the person’s soul when it reaches his heart.

What is the end game? Jacob’s death which releases his hold on MIB’s soul so he can “go home” which would be heaven, as the island is his Hell and Jacob is his Devil.

Sacred ash is a barrier for MIB/smoke monster’s movements. He cannot cross it.
Jacob’s touch can give a person’s soul immortality or the appearance of immortality in the island realm.

Creation mythology:

Crazy Mother kidnaps Jacob and MIB and raises them as her own. She sets the rules. The children cannot harm each other.

MIB grows weary of the island and goes to live with the Others, who are tapping the EM Life Force in an attempt to “go home” or leave the island.

Crazy Mother is upset with MIB, and kills all the Others, which makes MIB mad with rage so he kills her. In his own rage over the death of his alleged mother, Jacob kills MIB (or destroys his soul) by throwing him into the Light Cave where MIB is transformed or released into the smoke monster. This transformation binds Jacob and MIB to eternity on the island, together.

Jacob views the island as home and needs to be protected; while MIB views the island as a prison. As the protector, the leader, Jacob sets “the rules” between themselves.

What did we learn from this week’s episode arc about the main characters?

1. Miles is a grave robber.
2. Richard stated that Jacob's "touch" was a curse, which led him from chains of slavery to endless servitude on the island.

3. Jack finally realized that you have to go crazy in order to keep your sanity.

4. Ilana apparently has the mother of all daddy issues if Jacob is the closest thing to a father she has had in her life.

5. Ben would give up the promise of power for the chance of having a single friend.

6. Sun's role is now that of show set decorator at the beach camp.

Magical/Supernatural/Elements:

Jacob’s touch will bring you or bind you to the island after your death.
Everyone brought to the island was a “candidate” to be Jacob’s replacement, but in Jacob’s own words, they were lab rats in an experiment on human corruption.

That an 1867 wooden ship would fly through a multi-story stone statue and land fairly intact several miles inland.

That a sonic fence would repel a smoke monster.

That a smoke monster can possibly split into multiple things, such as Isabella in the hold and as a smoke monster outside the ship hold.

That Hurley can have conversations with ghosts like Isabella, even though her body never made it to the island and he never met her before.


Last lines in episodes:

EP 109:

ILANA: Everybody inside, now.
[The smoke monster rushes past just as they escape.]

[Kate, Claire, and Sayid walk through the courtyard, which is littered with mangled corpses. Outside, they meet up with Locke, who has assembled a small group of Temple dwellers. They follow him into the darkness of the jungle.]

EP 110:

CREWMAN AT PERISCOPE: Yes sir, Mr. Widmore.

EP 111:

SAWYER: We ain't taking the plane, Freckles. Taking the sub.

EP 112:

MAN IN BLACK: Sooner than you think.
[The Man in Black raises the bottle of wine and turns it upside down. He smashes the bottle against the log, splashing wine everywhere.]

New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

I continue to view the sideways story line like the vegetables on a high end steak house plate; you move it to the side and concentrate on the meat, the island story. 

Point One: When is Dead Dead on?

Both Jacob and MIB are liars and manipulators. Everything they say has to be taken with a grain, no, a bag of salt. The show has consistently used the game metaphor between light and dark, so why are we assuming that only Light Jacob moved game pieces off-island, and not Dark Smokey as well, such as Locke’s crazy mother being hit by a car driven by Anthony Cooper?

Or if MIB is confined to the island, he needed someone off-island to move the pieces for him such as Widmore. Method of game play? Car crashes. But it is more probable that the evil car crash method was employed by Jacob as a means of manipulating human souls to come to the island.

In the first few seasons, there were frequent, unexplained, game changing car crashes, in almost every case turning that character's life into a downward spiral.

* Michael is hit by a car just as he is trying to keep custody of Walt, putting him in a unhappy cycle not ended until his death
*Adam Rutherford and Sarah get into a serious car accident that will permanently warp Shannon (again, until her death), and maintain her unhealthy co-dependence with Boone.
* Sarah's car accident. No saving Sarah means no Jack marriage that ends in him destroying his relationship with his father and driving Christian to his death in Australia.
* Claire and her mother get into a car accident, depriving her of her mother's support, leading to her reliance on a psychic(?). In addition, this indirectly speeds up Christian's death, as Claire's aunt refuses his request to reconnect with Claire.

Further evidence here: Claire's mom miraculous recovery which allows her to take Aaron and send Kate back to the island.
*Kate has multiple car crashes- we knows she still ends up arrested in Australia, but perhaps Tom Brennan is never killed?
* If Dr. Burke is never hit by a bus, does Juliet ever end up on the island, underwater or not?
*Nadia is hit by a car, sending Sayid into a black spiral he will never full recover from. Jacob probably caused this accident, since he stopped Sayid from becoming a victim of the accident.
* The real game changer was Emily Locke is hit by a car, causing a premature Locke to “be born” with Alpert, Jacob’s representative, at the hospital.

Purgatory theorists have used this list of serious accidents as circumstantial evidence to conclude that the characters involved in those accidents were killed but their "dead" souls were hijacked to the island limbo by Jacob. It makes perfect sense when we learn that the sideways world is the afterlife holding pen for the island souls to reconnect with their dead spirits.

The implication to date is that getting "infected" is done by dying. i.e: Sayid died in the pool and the discussion has long been that Claire actually died in the cabin explosion. So, both of them are "infected", or perhaps "inhabited" because their bodies were available. This infers multiple smoke monsters, including Christian.

It is possible that Kate never got out of the temple pit alive. Claire was at full anger mode when Kate approached her. Nothing would have calmed that anger during the monster’s revenge strike. If anything, it would have enhanced Claire’s desire to kill Kate. I think the 180 degree out of character Claire hug was to accelerate the infection in Kate. So “dying” on the island is different than dying off-island when one’s soul departs the body for the afterlife.

As a very early adopter of "there 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.

If Jacob brought the Black Rock to the island, did he not cause the destruction of the statue? Is this pointing to the fact at that moment, his micro-Egyptian island lab rats had been killed off, resetting the experiment?

And if the whole purpose of bringing souls to the island to see if they were good, bad or corrupt, Smokey-MIB did not waste a second in killing off the entire Black Rock crew (who never had a chance to even leave the ship after it crashed in the jungle). No test shown; pure violence.
In the hold, when it looks like Alpert is dead on the floor, we see a butterfly pass through the scene. (This must be important symbol because it would be difficult to frame an insect in the set shot.)

What does the butterfly mean?
In some Japanese anime, it is used to represent a soul.

The Western view is that the butterfly is a carefree creature. The Dalai Lama explains that, rather than carefree, it is uncaring:

"The butterfly never meets its mother. It must survive independently and remains a stranger to affection. An animal nurtured by mother's milk, however, is dependent on another for its basic survival. A child who grows up in a cold and detached home environment is similar to the butterfly, in that kindness is sparing. Once an adult, it will be very difficult for that person to show compassion."



In other cultures, the butterfly is symbolic of rebirth after death.

In the 1600s, in Ireland, killing a white butterfly was prohibited since it was believed to be the soul of a dead child.

For Christians, the butterfly's three steps of metamorphosis -- as caterpillar, pupa and then winged insect -- are reminiscent of spiritual transformation.

The caterpillar's incessant crawling and chewing reminds us of normal earthly life where people are often wholly preoccupied with physical needs. The chrysalis (cocoon) resembles a tomb and empty, can suggest the empty shroud left behind by Jesus. Therefore, a butterfly represents the resurrection into a new condition of life that is free of any material concerns.

In images of the Garden of Eden, Adam's soul is symbolized by a butterfly, or drawn with butterfly wings. In paintings of Mary and her Child, the presence of butterflies stands for their care for human souls. The Gnostics depicted the Angel of Death by showing a winged foot stepping on a butterfly.

Others have stated that since the insect is so fragile it can be torn apart by a hard rain, the butterfly stands for human frailty, both moral and physical. Also, as its life is not a long one, it is also a symbol of the ephemeral nature of physical existence.

In America among the Aztec and Maya, the god of cosmic fire is symbolized by a butterfly. Fire is considered the element of transformation, as in cookery and the smelting of metals.
The ancient Greeks depicted the spirit of a person as a winged stick figure. Interpretation of that symbol gave rise to the idea of the "soul" as a butterfly.

The ancient Romans associated the butterfly with the wandering consciousness that seems to occur during the dream state.

In science, there is The Butterfly Effect.

This is an aspect of chaos theory: the way a seeming insignificant event can cause dramatic consequences.

From wikipedia: The butterfly effect is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory; namely that small differences in the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. Although this may appear to be an esoteric and unusual behavior, it is exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.

The butterfly effect is a common method in fiction when presenting scenarios involving time travel and with "what if" scenarios where one storyline diverges at the moment of a seemingly minor event resulting in two significantly different outcomes.

Some theorists believed that is what TPTB were attempting by putting in the sideways world in Season 6.

Point Two: What are Jacob and his brother?

Clearly, they are powerful beings. They get knowledge in different ways: Jacob spies on people from the light house, while MIB scans their minds while a smoke monster. Both have the power to manipulate time, space and matter.

For example, MIB is not trapped in Locke's body. Locke's real body is now buried on Boone Hill.  MIB is using a duplicate "body." And he is not trapped inside the duplicate, because he can continue to transform into Smokey after Locke is buried. And it is not human, because when Sayid stabbed him, no blood was on the dagger.

There is an interesting question that was rarely asked when the series first ran. "Could Jacob have manifested himself as smokey or as dead people?"

Yes, and here is a wild tangent explanation: Jacob is MIB. Or more exact, MIB is to Jacob as Dave is to Hurley: an imaginary friend, his conscious incarnate, or his split personality. It is possible that MIB’s resentment of Jacob is that MIB is trapped inside Jacob’s mind (“the island”).

It's possible that Jacob made MIB who/what he is, thus the reason for his resentment towards him. Even if Jacob wasn't the one that made him who/what he is, he certainly is the reason he cannot escape. He knew that as long as Jacob was alive he was trapped on the island and that he could not kill Jacob himself, thus the whole "loophole" storyline.

All evidence points to smoke monsters on the island prior to Jacob and his brother’s arrival. Since they would look the same, we do not know what physical human form is any one smoke creature. (Side tangent: some believe that the mechanical noises, electromagnetic flashes, and swarm like movement of the smoke creature infers that the monster may be a nano-like machine powered by the unique physics properties of the island. And as a machine, it cannot be “killed” in the sense of a human being dying from a mortal wound.)

As a result, 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, which looks like Smokey’s work. Which would negate one of the viewer assumptions, that the monster could not cross water.  Second, Widmore was too quick to "deal" with Sawyer (besides if both know Flocke 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; the war with Widmore would go forth.  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 may have "infected" her, giving partial control of her mind to Flocke. Fifth, even though we hear MIB wanting to “leave” the island, he never says how that is possible for him, as a smoke monster.

If MIB is truly “trapped” on the island, who did it to him? If he was dead, why is his soul fused to the island life force as a smoke creature?

Some viewers  think it's a prison. MIB is the prisoner and Jacob is the guard. Woe be to the world if that angry prisoner escapes.

Most believe MIB is trapped on the island. If the cosmic prison is the final premise of the show, that does not explain why the main characters were brought to the island by Jacob. For recreation for MIB? You would think a guard would want to encourage less violence in his prisoner.

We know that Jacob wanted to retire and brought in candidates for his job, but it still might be that bringing those people in was a form of passing the time while trying to prove a point and find a replacement. And it might be the reason for those damned "rules".

Unless MIB represents something eternal, while the Jacob role is only temporary, requiring periodic replacements? That's more of an idea than a conviction, btw, but how else to explain the whole candidate business?

There is a simple explanation for what could be happening on the island. In a Death Note vibe, Jacob and MIB could have the same job, as Gatekeepers to Hell of the Afterlife. The island is the gate. What do gatekeepers do? Allow people to pass through or hold them up for interrogation or inspection. That may be why both the lighthouse and the cave have the same list of names, which each striking out names who they have allowed to pass through the gate.

Just as a cork keeps liquid in a bottle, a cork also acts as a stopper so more liquid cannot get into the bottle (for example, to make it overflow). Every person brought to the island had some form of sin in their heart; a few truly evil. As a result, to keep the bottle from bursting, the gatekeepers must “test” these souls and release those who have had a worthy redemption, asked for true forgiveness, and accepted their fate, to move on and leave the place of ultimate judgment.

We know that an ancient civilizations, first the Sumerians in 5000 BC, then the Egyptians in 2500 BC, then the  Romans in 500 BC, then Dharma in the 1970s,  were brought to the island and stayed long enough to construct the statue, temple, stations and villages - - - which meant that there had to be a long standing peace between Jacob and MIB to allow all this construction to happen.

Apparently, Smokey left them alone while they did this- he was clearly there, as pictured on the temple walls.

Did they pacify Smokey by worshiping him? Was he not aware/conscious that he was trapped at that time?

We will probably never know what happened between the time of the Egyptians and the arrival of the Black Rock. But when the Black Rock arrived, Smokey was in all-kill mode, as he immediately wiped out the crew- no hesitation, no scanning.

Jacob tells Richard he is the only man alive on the island and then makes Richard immortal. This may have made Richard immune to being killed by Smokey, who may have wanted to keep Richard around anyway for his own future potential use.

Does that mean that between the Black Rock and the US Army encounter in 1954, that there was a gradually growing community of Others, with Richard as the representative to the god, Jacob? Did Richard watch them arrive on the island, live their lives there, have children, and then eventually die after a normal life - - - one which he himself lost? In that vain, Richard’s life on the island would have been agonizing and mental suffering like being in a living hell, trapped there by his bargain with Jacob.

Until Jacob's “death,”  the Others showed no fear or concern re: Smokey, freely walking through the underground passages of the temple, going about their business in the jungle. Smokey lived in the temple wall!

So for 140 years Smokey bided his time, searching for the appropriate "candidates" to corrupt for his plan to kill Jacob? Periodically killing those who he did not find useful, but essentially laying low?

When Richard describes the arrival of the US Army, he says he gave them an opportunity to withdraw in peace- he doesn't say "and then they landed with their bomb, and Smokey immediately tore them to shreds..."

So was MIB more fascinated by the new technologies of the people brought to the island as a means of escape? If that is true, why could he have gone into a human form and turned the FDW and escaped to North Africa?! It seems no matter what Jacob or MIB wanted, they could never have: both were/are trapped on the island forever. And it seems that the candidates were not ever going to “replace” Jacob, but to appease the brother’s boredom.

Point Three: What is the final conflict?

The consensus was that the final battle will be good vs. evil. But what is the the actual battlefield for this conflict?

Author Joyce Meyer said the mind is the battlefield for good and evil.

With Jacob’s alleged demise at the hands of Ben, it would seem that the final showdown for the island is Widmore vs. Flocke. Widmore wants the island because it contains what he must believe is the fountain of youth, the life source that could grant immortality. He must have learned that from Alpert.

We have seen symbols of good (light) and evil (darkness). Jacob appeared to represent the light (the lighthouse) and MIB the dark (smoke monster). But it is now more likely that they are both shades of gray. It was telling that the knife into Flocke came out with no blood. There are no traits of a human body just the mere illusion of one. It infers that there are multiple Flockes (one with Sawyer in the cave, and one at the temple) The most important clue on the night was when Dogen said Flocke/MIB was "evil incarnate," which means an evil deity or spirit embodied in flesh (human form).

The final conflict is not about Widmore, the 815 survivors, the Ajira people, or the remaining Others. The conflict remains Jacob vs. his brother.

But Widmore is a powerful piece in the game, what is his true relationship with the brothers?
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. One could presume that if Jacob is light, Widmore is an agent for darkness, MIB.

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!

On the flip side,  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 shown 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.

When Widmore was co-leader of the Others, he was a follower of Jacob. But MIB did not disturb that clan, or wipe them out. When Dharma joined the island, they followed Jacob but were opposed by MIB. Is this the time when Widmore turned away from Jacob’s control and toward MIB? It would seem that this is the time where there are two equal sides or “teams” occupying the island - - - the perfect situation for the brothers to battle their pawns to the death. And it was the “corruption” of young Ben at the temple waters that turned Ben into evil to wipe out Dharma and exile Widmore.

From an earlier theory of mine: Touched by an Angel Devil:

There is a growing debate on whether Jacob is good or bad.

We saw Jacob touch many people off-island. I theorized that it was to put a piece of himself in these vessels to be reincarnated if killed on the Island (the Osiris story).

That may come to be true, but looking at things now from the Lighthouse spy glass into the lives of the 815ers, Jacob may be darker than we have imagined:

Every person we have seen Jacob "touch" has had their lives torn a part on an emotional roller coaster: Sawyer, Kate, Jack, Jin, Sun, Locke, Ilana, Sayid and Hurley.

Sawyer was touched at his parents funeral. He needed a pen to write down his vengeful thoughts. Jacob enabled him to do so with a pen. That letter caused Sawyer to turn down the dark path of conning people to murder.

Kate was touched in the midst of a shop lifting caper. Jacob's intervention with the shop keeper actually rewarded Kate for her bad behavior. This led her down the path of self-destruction including murder because she was ingrained at an early age that she could get away with things.

Jack was touched by Jacob in the hospital. He gave the candy machine "a little push," but in reality pushed Jack to stand up to his father, which led to his paranoia and failed relationships, to the betrayal of his father (and malpractice induced alcoholism that killed Christian). In other words, Jack's turn from being afraid of his father to turning in his father screwed up his life.

Jin and Sun were touched by Jacob at their wedding. As Jacob reached out to them, he brought them together. In one respect, Jacob's touch may have solidified Sun "staying with" Jin even though she wanted out of her subservient marriage. It also put pressure on Jin to be his father-in-law's muscle in the dirty family business. They both wound up doing shameful things during their marriage.

Locke was touched by Jacob after Cooper tossed his son eight stories to his perceived death. Jacob's touch brought Locke back to life, with an apology. From that point forward, Locke would have been better off dead. His life was a crippling failure, leading to an unseemly death at the hands of Ben after failing in his one faithful mission to return to save the island and his friends.

We think Jacob touched Ilana in the Russian hospital bed. Jacob needed her help "again." It is not clear that her current injuries were a result of helping Jacob in the past, but her life turned into a bloody mess with four of her comrades killed by the Smoke monster, and she is on the run for her life on the island.

Sayid was touched just before crossing the street - - - which saved him but killed his Nadia. As a direct result of that touch, Sayid could not be a happily married man. His life reverted back to a cold blooded killer and a dark soul.

And finally, Hurley was touched in the back of a cab. Jacob convinced Hurley he was not cursed, so Hurley made the decision to go back to the island. If he did not go back, he would have lived the life of leisure with his parents as a millionaire. Instead, his life is on the edge in a supernatural war zone hell, created in part, by Jacob.

One could say the worst thing that happened to the touched characters was Jacob's intervention in their lives.

In the pivot final scene of  Season 5, Flocke  is recognized by Jacob as the MIB from the beach scene. Flocke acknowledges that he (MIB) had found the loophole to kill Jacob. The only motivation we know of is that MIB did not want Jacob to continually bring human (souls) to the Island. All they do, MIB insisted, was fight, kill and make a mess of things. This is the Conflict. The loophole the apparent solution to the Conflict.

Some comments on the relationship between Jacob and MIB. Both are apparently equals in some regard. They must have equal status or equal powers on or through the Island. The balance of power may be as simple as one controlling above ground and the other controlling above ground. They cannot directly kill each other, otherwise MIB would have killed Jacob on the beach. However, one can apparently get a human soul to do the evil deed under the right circumstances (the loophole).

Since we are fairly certain that MIB can manifest himself as Smokey, there is an open question on how Jacob can manifest himself.

It may get down to contact or touch.

We have seen Jacob "touch" the following characters: Sawyer, Kate, Jack, Jin, Sun, Locke, Ilana, Sayid and Hurley. All those contacts occurred off-island in public places.

We have seen MIB, as Smokey, have contact with the following characters: Seth the Pilot, Locke, Eko, Kate (scanned), Juliet (scanned), Nikki & Paulo (spiders), Ben (as shot boy taken to the underground chamber), and Alpert (? who took Ben into the underground chamber).

We can also suspect that since MIB is Flocke, that he can reincarnate the Dead who arrive on the Island: Christian and Locke. We have also seen MIB ghost in contact with Claire and Aaron (though Christian).

When we compare the Lists, we find that only one character was physically touched by both Jacob and MIB: Locke. And the tipping point in MIB's favor was bringing Dead Locke to the Island so MIB could reincarnate into Flocke, to lead follower Ben into a treasonous rage which results in Ben killing Jacob (the loophole) for MIB.

It may be a simple as a game of tag: with MIB "tagging" Locke twice to Jacob's once in so far as MIB creating and controlling Flocke in the end.

Point Four: The Rules

The key episode, "Ab Aeterno," which means "from eternity" in Latin, the series may have found its mission statement that it is a character driven show about basic human behavior:  good, evil, temptation, redemption, life and death. Those are eternal struggles of mankind. The underlying hidden cake, the layers and layers of mystery, is the nature and purpose of the island.

From this episode, we can glean seven golden island rules:

Rule #1: No one comes to the island without Jacob’s permission. Except, Jacob himself was brought to the island by someone else. And "the island" had powers to control people off the island, such as Michael not killing himself in NYC.

Rule #2: MIB is trapped on the island because Jacob won’t let him leave. MIB cannot leave if Jacob (or his successor) is alive. We don't know if Jacob is telling the truth, or that MIB is merely gaining sympathy from his followers. Both brothers had the mantle of being immortal gods.

Rule #3: MIB cannot leave the island even by killing Jacob because someone will take his place. Again, we don't know if this is true or not. Jacob was given his powers from the island guardian, and there was no ceremony to pass it on to Jack.
Rule #4: Jacob can grant eternal life (with his touch to Richard), but he cannot give resurrect dead people or absolve people of their sins. Then why are so many ghosts and  trapped souls (whispers) on the island? Many believe that the whole island experience, its danger and tests, are all means to get to a final judgment on a character's soul: pass fail, heaven or eternal nothingness.

Rule #5: MIB believes that it is in all human nature to be bad, to sin, to corrupt or destroy, and Jacob brings people to the island to “prove him wrong.” All prior people brought to the island to prove MIB wrong are dead. Then what is the point of continuing this experiment in humanity unless there is a more important purpose: to judge souls.

Rule #6: The island is a gate or cap that stops evil, malevolence from spreading (to somewhere?) The fallen angels were set to work to manage hell, where evil souls were tormented for their sins. In some ancient writings, there is a possibility that souls in hell could be redeemed and sent to heaven.

Rule #7: Jacob does not intervene or interfere with people brought to the island (even though MIB can), so he appoints Richard to be his intermediary, to act on his behalf. But in reality, Jacob can intervene any time he wants to, including appearing to Hurley as a ghost within a hour of his "death" at the hands of Ben.

Rule #8: Escape from the island is difficult. MIB calls this place Hell, and tells Richard that Jacob is the devil. In order to escape Hell, one must kill the devil. Richard's attempt to kill Jacob was MIB's first attempt to kill Jacob. We can infer that MIB cannot directly "kill" Jacob. He needs to act through some one else. But the survivors do leave the island, to be awakened in the afterlife.

Point Five: The Loophole?

If one believes that the sum of the series is the butterfly effect of avalanche of unrelated events converging at the island's final conflict of MIB defeating Jacob for the first time, here are THE MOVES MIB HAD TO MAKE TO WIN:

What did MIB/Flocke have to “go through” in order to kill Jacob? What were the moves required to get the result he wanted? I have yet to see anyone try to piece together the Rube Goldberg/Mad, Mad, Mad World time line of interrelated events, but here is my an outline of what MIB may have meant:

1. MIB needed BEN to kill JACOB, which required
2. FLOCKE planting the seed/justification for killing in BEN, which needed
3. DEAD LOCKE in order to trick BEN on his island return, which meant
4. BEN killing LOCKE when he heard LOCKE was working with HAWKING to get back to the island (and thereby assuming the leadership role), which would not have happened without
5. WIDMORE and ABBADON helping LOCKE try to round up the O6 group for the return flight to the island, because

5 A. the O6 had a deal with RICHARD to leave the island for saving BEN from WIDMORE’S team, which BEN knew about by
5.B. placing his man MICHAEL on the freighter, as a result of
5 C. a deal to free MICHAEL and WALT in exchange for capturing JACK, KATE, SAWYER and HURLEY by the Others, which lead to
5 D. JACK, KATE, SAWYER escaping Otherville with ALEX, who
5 E. was caught by WIDMORE’s man and killed, causing
5 F. BEN turn the FDW to hide the island from WIDMORE, causing

6. HAWKING in her pendulum Dharma station to try to find the island, because
7. BEN’s FDW causing the island to time skip, requiring
8. LOCKE to turn the FDW to reset the island with the instructions of CHRISTIAN,

8 A. Whose past fathered CLAIRE in Australia, which led to
8.B. Daddy issues with his son JACK, which led to
8.C. JACK turning on CHRISTIAN, leading him back to drinking and
8.D. CHRISTIAN dying in Australia, which made
8.E. JACK fly to Sydney to claim CHRISTIAN’s body and get it on Flight 815, so,
8.F. when Flight 815 crashed on the Island, CHRISTIAN’s body could be used by MIB to influence JACK and LOCKE, since
8.G. DESMOND’s failure to input the Numbers in the Hatch caused 815 to crash,
8 H. since DESMOND’s need to prove his honor to WIDMORE caused him to enter a sail boat race after
8. I. a stranger named LIBBY gave him her deceased husband’s boat, since
8. J. DESMOND had no job since he was fired from the monastery vineyard by BROTHER CAMPBELL, (who was friends with HAWKING) but
8. K. as a result, DESMOND meets PENNY, who he falls for, but WIDMORE objects to the relationship, which leads
8. L. PENNY to search the globe for the lost DESMOND, which leads to
8.M. a listening station finding a signal in the Pacific, which leads both
8.N. WIDMORE’s freighter soldiers to the island and
8.O. PENNY’s boat finding the O6 survivors after LOCKE turns the FDW, taking,
8.P. The O6 back to their problems stateside, including:

KATE on trial for murder;
JACK finding out CLAIRE is his half sister;
SAYID’S wife NADIA being killed,
SUN taking over father’s company and seeking revenge on BEN;
HURLEY going back into mental institution; which leads

8.Q. BEN to scheme with HAWKING to get the O6 to re-create Flight 815, which includes killing LOCKE, who was suicidal because he had failed to convince anyone to return with him, which could be caused by
8.R. LOCKE’s pathetic life of personal failures, which may have influenced

9. The island splitting into two time frames when he turned the FDW,with

9.A. 1974 flash where SAWYER takes the lead with JULIET, MILES, and JIN, who
9.B. in order to survive and await LOCKE’s return, join Dharma by helping AMY who was attacked by the Others, and in turn
9.C. SAWYER telling RICHARD about time traveling LOCKE which creates a truce between Dharma and the Others, which
9.D. changes SAWYER and JULIET into a happy Dharma couple, until
9.E. Flight 316 crashes on the Island causing a time flashes to 1977 and 2007, which leads to,
9.F. KATE, JACK, SAYID meeting up with SAWYER’s Dharma group,
which causes,
9.G. JULIET to doubt her relationship with SAWYER because of KATE, but adds complication when
9.H. SAYID shoots young BEN in order to save SAYID from his future killings, which requires,
9.I. JACK and KATE to bring dying young BEN to RICHARD to be saved,
9.J. which creates BEN as an Other, which leads to
9.K. BEN banishing WIDMORE from the Island after Purging Dharma, including killing his own father ROGER,
9.L. who blamed BEN for killing his wife by being premature, but that lead to,
9.M. HORACE coming across ROGER and BEN at birth for later recruitment of ROGER to the Island, which led to
9.N. ROGER blaming BEN for his crappy life, which led BEN to seek a way out with the Others, who are

10. The island’s native population that needed outside leadership “candidates,” which led them to BEN, who recruited many off-islanders including,
11. JULIET, who was recruited to deal with the island’s fertility problems, for which,
12. RICHARD thought was unimportant to the Other’s prime mission, but which led to
13. JULIET being the lead scientist with the Hydra confinement and manipulation of JACK, SAWYER and KATE, which led to

13.A. JULIET joining the 815 survivors as a spy and as a way to get off the island, away from the captivity of BEN, which
13.B. put her in the position of the 815ers who time flashed back to 1974, which
13.C. led her to have a long term relationship with SAWYER, which caused her
13.D. sacrifice herself to detonate Jughead to bring the time lines together, which
13.E. brought ghost JACOB to HURLEY when SAYID was dying at the van,
13.F. making HURLEY leader to direct the group to take SAYID to the Temple, where,
13.G. Dogen and Lennon drowned SAYID as his friends watched in horror,
13.H. then learning JACOB was dead from HURLEY causing the Temple to be on guard from “him” and laying out ash to repel Smokey, who
13.I. was at the Tawaret foot in the form of FLOCKE, recognizing RICHARD as a man once in chains, and beating RICHARD unconscious while being extremely “disappointed” with the Others, which now makes

14. MIB/FLOCKE in position of power on the Island by killing JACOB.


There is no way that TPTB had this mapped out at the beginning of the show.