Locke: Okay so I need to download and question a lot of information regarding Locke. Mainly my thinking all boils down to is Locke really getting signs from Jacob, or has he always been playing into the hands of the Man in Black? Is he supposed to lead the Others? Certainly Locke has always been an easily seduced dude, and perhaps one of these two leaders (or both) have been taking advantage of his gullible nature in order to further their missions.
Is Locke really meant to lead the Others?: Just for funsies, let’s take a gander at the history of how those dudes in Tibet determine the next Dalai Lama: High Lamas go to a holy lake to watch for signs that will lead them to the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. Once they think they have found the boy, they have him perform a series of tests to affirm the rebirth. The High Lamas ask the boy to choose from a variety of objects. If the boy chooses the artifacts that belonged to the previous Dalai Lama, then this is seen as confirmation that the signs have pointed them to the correct reborn leader.
Locke was presented with a baseball glove, a knife, a vial of sand, a “Book of Laws,” a compass, and a comic book entitled “Mystery Tales.” He picks the vial and the compass, and Richard seems hopeful. However, then he takes the knife and Richard is angry. Locke has failed the test. What was the other object Locke was supposed to pick? The compass is especially interesting because it is a mobius loop. If it is the same compass passed between Richard and Locke, then we have seen Richard give Locke the compass in 2007, then Locke gives Richard back the compass in 1954, and then Richard gives Locke the compass BACK in 2007. So it’s a time-loop conundrum item with no origin, making it pretty special.
So is Locke supposed to be the leader of the Others (and is the leader of the Others really Jacob’s second in command)? He fails the test as a child. However, Richard seems to have changed his mind by the time Locke becomes introduced to the Others in Season Three, saying he’s special. Certainly Locke has some report with the Island, considering it healed his legs and gave him all sorts of visions. The smoke monster lets Locke live on two different occasions. However, Christian tells Locke that HE was supposed to be the one to move the Donkey Wheel, meaning he was supposed to be kicked off the Island for forever… so: What’s the deal with Locke?
Another interesting tid-bit: Locke hears someone say “Help me” in the Jacob cabin. My current theory is that this was the Man in Black, who was trapped in the cabin somehow (and kept in there through a ring of ash). And the end of season five we see that the ring of ash has been trampled through, troubling team Ilana, and of course by this time the Man in Black has embodied Zombie Locke.
Smoke Monster: Who he is and who he isn’t
With the Smoke Monster holding trial against Ben in Season Five, there are a lot more questions about the nature of this ash cloud.
Yemi: I’m fairly certain the smoke monster appeared as Yemi. Notice that Yemi’s body was missing.
Christian: so Christian is also roaming around the Island, and Jack discovered that his dead body was missing from inside the coffin. Is Christian a smoke monster incarnate as well?
ZombieLocke: A reader of this blog (?!), Dean, questioned if ZombieLocke is the Smoke Monster. If this is true, then that means the Man in Black is the Smoke Monster. It would also mean that either Christian is not Smokey, or Smokey can be in more than one place at a time considering Locke is with Ben and Cesar during the same time Christian is with Sun and Lapidus (I think). Delving further, Smokey tells Ben to do whatever ZombieLocke says, leading us to believe that these two could be one in the same. However, I think it could just as easily go in the direction that Jacob wants the Man in Black to find the loophole because he knows something we don’t (is Jacob the Smoke Monster?). ZombieLocke seemed a bit surprised that Smokey told Ben to follow Locke’s lead. Notice also that Locke’s body has not mysteriously disappeared. Ilana has it… In conclusion: I really have no idea what I’m talking about.
Change the future?
Okay so now that we’ve theorized some about Locke, Jacob, the Man in Black, and Smokey, let’s tackle the final scene again.
Throughout my re-watching experience, I’ve also listened to the Official Lost Podcast hosted by the executive producers and head writers Damon and Carlton. They have said a lot of stuff that makes me feel a bit more comfortable, although still confused, with the whole “Did they change the future” question.
To start, throughout their season three finale and season four podcasts, they often discussed the fact that they were “paradox averse.” They do not believe in parallel universes or that the future could be changed. A lot of their discussions about these issues came when fans were asking them if the flash-forwards were definitely what was going to happen in the future, or if they were only one possible vision of a potential future.
The producers also stand-behind Eliose’s course correction thesis. If something is meant to happen, it’s going to happen no matter what. It’s a “What happened, happened” look at the past and the future.
However, then Faraday comes up with this whole “The Variable” theory that could possibly lead them to believe they *can* change the future. Damon and Carlton said that a scene that was cut from this episode explained Faraday’s new theory pretty clearly: think of a pebble being thrown into a stream. Although it creates a little splash, it does not affect the path of the stream. (Desmond catching a pigeon so Charlie wouldn’t was only a pebble in the stream: Charlie still eventually died.) Now picture tossing in a boulder! Suddenly the stream has a huge obstacle, and it will change its course. Apparently Daniel hypothesizes that doing something super duper major will change the course of the future, like detonating a hydrogen bomb and blowing up the Island. However, I would have originally thought that Sayid shooting baby Ben would have been a boulder, and if we are going to buy into this theory, than we have to classify that action as a pebble.
So my conclusions? Although I think that setting off the bomb is going to mess things up for a couple of episodes at the start of season six, it’s not going to be big enough to stop the Island from course-correcting and getting all of the original fuselage castaways back together (memories intact) at the same time on the Island to face the big reveal of what it all means together. I believe the writers will stick to their guns and avoid alternate universes where the fuselage gang doesn’t remember their Seasons 1 – 5 experiences.
What I can’t develop is a theory for how those scenes where Jacob touched our various castaways at points in their past are going to play-out. Are they going to be relevant for where or when and in what mental state the characters “wake-up” after the bomb detonation? Part of what makes those moments so interesting is that for some of the characters, they are touched before having crashed on the Island, but for others, it is after they have returned as part of the Oceanic Six.
Trivia:
If you made it this far, then you deserve a nice little trivia tid-bit. Did you know that the aforementioned head writers come up with clever codenames for the whopper scenes in the finales?
- Season One’s scene where Walt was kidnapped was called “The Bagel” for no logical reason.
- Season Two’s scene where those dudes call Penny to tell her they “found it” was called “The Challah” only because they wanted to continue the trend of naming these scenes after Jewish breads.
- Season Three’s scene where Jack yells at Kate that they “have to go back,” which was a flash-forward, was called “The Rattlesnake in the Mailbox” because Carlton was telling Damon about how spooky and surprising it would be to find such a thing and they both thought it set the appropriate mood.
- Season Four’s scene where it is revealed that Locke was actually the body in the casket was called “The Frozen Donkey Wheel” as a way to deter spoiler sites (for there was a leaked image of Ben turning a frozen donkey wheel, which is an earlier scene).
- Season Five’s scene where Juliet detonates that son-of-a-bitch of a bomb was called “The Fork in the Toaster.” This name was actually chosen by a fan in a “name the finale scene” contest held by the podcast. There have been rumors that the final scene was actually supposed to be the one where Ben kicks Jacob into the fire, but I think the name fits and the finale works better with the Juliet ending.
I still think that Jacob wasn't "going back" to touch the people, but that he had already done so at that point in the past in the timeline of the castaways as we have alwasy known it. Maybe it's what set them on their path towards ending up on the island in the first place, or it's what sent them back once they got off, in the case of Sayid and Hurley, anyway, and just maybe even Jacob believed he was going to change something somehow, but in the chronology of the characters as we know them, those events always happened that way.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping that there's no alternate realities as well, and to be honest, I hope that a boulder turns out to just be a large pebble, because I don't like the idea of it being able to change how things happen.
I haven't re-watched season 5 yet, but I will soon, and then maybe I'll have more to say.
Yea I completely agree that Jacob has already touched the castaways. I was curious if maybe at some point the castaways will be presented with an opportunity to go back to that time, or somehow revisit that moment.
ReplyDeleteStill not done, but I've got a query. Why does Richard Alpert only look different from the way he ALWAYS looks in the 70's when he meets little kid Ben in the jungle? He's got long scraggly hair there and he's dirty. Every single other time we see him, he's got the short haircut and he's clean, despite living on the island.
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