The First Evil…

Ok, so welcome to part three of the Lost finale where I will try to   make some sense of what exactly is going on in Carlton and Damien’s heads. If you missed parts 1 and 2 you catch them here and here

So, Joss Whedon fans might recognise the title of this blog. Throughout this final episode I found myself thinking, “This feels familiar” and it wasn’t until I re-watched the episode with my mum (of all people) that she pointed out where we’d seen it before… Buffy! Remember the season 7 baddie, The First Evil? An evil entity that could take on the form of any dead person it wanted? Ringing any bells? That’s right, Man #2, the man I suspect to be Jacob’s brother (possibly called Esau.), the man who has taken the form of John Locke in order to get close enough to Jacob to kill him. We can now safely assume that he is also Christian Shepherd, Harper (When she appeared to Juliet) and possibly even Walt, although I have not yet figured out how, unless that is why Walt is “special”. More importantly though I’m almost definitely positive that he was, in fact, Dead Alex who conned Ben into doing everything John asked.

This raises a question about the relationship between Jacob, Esau and the Black Smoke. Firstly I am assuming they are, in fact, three different entities and that the Black Smoke is under the control of neither man. Although if I am right that Dead Alex is ‘Esau’ then the Black Smoke retreated from Alex and I although I doubt it was working for him it certainly could have been afraid of him. If this is the case then the Black Smoke is a lesser entity than either Jacob or ‘Esau’. Also, if this is the case we can assume that Smokey didn’t finish judging Ben and that possibly it would have killed him for his crimes. Maybe ‘Esau’ knew that Smokey couldn’t kill Ben while he was around (hence it not coming when called) and so was not worried about losing the instrument he needed to kill Jacob. (I’m assuming he couldn’t kill Jacob himself as he would have done so that first flashback on the beach.)

So, what about the whispers? The whispers came before Harper’s appearance (in Season 4 Episode 6 “The Other Woman”) and if Harper was ‘Esau’ then are the whispers related to him? In that episode Harper tried to help Juliet stop Daniel and Charlotte who were planning to take a weapon from Ben, the poison gas. If Ben could not defend himself and was captured then he would be useless to ‘Esau’. It’s just a theory, but there were other times too when the ‘Esau’ tried to stop people coming to the island. For example, he was unhappy that the Black Rock was there. Also I believe he may have assumed the form of the seemingly indestructible Mikhail (remember eyepatch?) and blown up the Looking Glass station to prevent Charlie from letting Widemore bring his freighter to the island. If you take this a step further and assume that Jacob wants the opposite, he could have been the one who dislocated Desmond in time, saving him from the imploding hatch and giving him the insight into the future, so he could save Charlie, the only person capable of bringing the freighter to the island, through his musical background. Taking it a step further and assuming that the two entities, Jacob and ‘Esau’ are in fact brothers, then would it not stand to reason that they both have the same power, to assume the forms of dead people? So could Yemi appearing to Echo have been Jacob? And the same for the dead people who talk to Hurley?

Anyway, if the whispers are not ‘Esau’ then we have to assume there is a forth entity on the island and that might just be a little too much. Also Ben’s cryptic comment in episode 12 “Dead is Dead” to Rousseau “Every time you hear whispers, run the other way…” seems to suggest that Ben knows what the whispers are, or at least that they are not a friendly entity, especially to those who aren’t supposed to be there.

Speaking of Dead is Dead, what do you make of this image on the Temple wall?

I notice three points of interest, I even circled ‘em and numbered ‘em and everything.

1. Clearly we have Jacob’s statue, which I assume represents him, feeding the Black Smoke, like a pet, or a guard dog.
2. Behind Jacob there is a snake, poised to bite his back. This I assume is the entity I am calling Esau. Interestingly the Snake in the old testament also represented the Devil.
3. The final point is odd as I can’t really make it out but can anyone else see what look’s like a drowning man? The squiggle beneath could easily be the sea with the odd oval shaped bit being the island. Is this a depiction of the Oceanic 815 plane crash on the wall on an ancient temple?

Interesting no? The image could be of the coming War, with the 815ner’s trapped in the middle? There are also various pictographs around the edge of this image, one above for example is an all seeing eye, possibly suggesting the presence of someone else who is watching to see who the winner will be in the final conflict (Isaac?). After all, it seems that Jacob and ‘Esau’ have been waging this conflict for some time now, but as Jacob says “It only ends once. everything else is just progress.”

So I pose the question then, if it is Jacob that brings people to the island, like the Black Rock, and it is ‘Esau’ who wants to keep them away, then, who are the Others? Are they Jacob’s only successful settlers? Did Jacob bring the Dharma people too? Was that his attempt to supplant the Others with a better more civilised group? If so, then did the Other’s go over to the other side? Join Esau? Was that why Widmore insisted on killing Rousseau’s party, to stop another group being brought in to take their place. Certainly the 815ner did a very good job of wiping out most of the Others, those, at least, that were not at the temple. Does ‘Esau’ have his own group of Others, or does he rely on his ability to assume the forms of the dead and manipulate others?

And what about those Others at the Temple? Why were they chosen? How were they chose, are they in fact Jacob’s chosen people? We have had many theories on Lost about the island being purgatory, however now I am willing to suggest that it is something much more than that, I believe it might just be the Garden of Eden. Or at least within the Temple walls is. Certainly it seems only the pure were allowed to enter, children. Is Jacob trying to start over again, is that what he means by progress? If so, and Smokey is a security system, when it retreated from ‘Esau’ could it not have been returning to the Garden to warn them he was coming, you know, to keep the Snake out of the Garden? And if it is the Garden and Jacob and ‘Esau’ are brothers, could they no be Kain and Able?

Just supposing I’m right, then I think that the island wanted Eko to teach at the temple, to show the new Children the ways of the world. However first he needed to realise that what he did was wrong, that killing was wrong, no matter what and when the island saw that Eko could never be the person it needed… Well you know the rest.

And, still supposing I am right, that the island is the Garden of Eden, then I propose that Jacob is not the be all and end all, but instead he is a guardian (hence living beneath the guardian statue.) and gate keeper, like St. Peter and it is his presence that has stopped the Snake from entering the Garden and that is why ‘Esau’ would want him dead.

Woa! This is getting heavy now no? Right then. let’s wrap this up.

Somehow ‘Esau’ has stopped islander’s being able to reproduce, which means that Jacob has no more Children for the Garden, so Jacob brings down 815 and the Others take the Children. ‘Esau’ however sees the opportunity to corrupt the new group and turn them against Jacob’s chosen people. He takes on the guise of Christian Shepherd and convinces Locke to move the island. Unfortunately Ben does it and instead of getting rid of the chosen leader of the Others (possible saviour) he loses his instrument to bring down Jacob. However because of the botched experiments by the Dharma folk Christen can still put things right. He gets Locke off the island by conning him into pushing the wheel. Somehow he knows that Locke will die off-island, thus solving the possible saviour problem. However Jacob interferes and convinces at least Hurley and Ilana to come to the island, although he could possible be behind several of the incidents that bring back Jack and co (Jack's attempted suicide perhaps?) When Ben discovers that John really does know how to return to the island he kills him, to stop him from taking over as leader. ‘Esau’ then uses Locke and Alex to manipulate Ben into killing Jacob, while Jacob transports Jack and co. back to 1977 to act as a reset switch, knowing that he can’t stop what’s about to happen, not without John Locke anyway. ‘Esau’ then uses Richard to secure an audience with Jacob. As Richard points out  “Only the leader can request an audience with Jacob and the island can only have one leader at a time.” But ‘Esau’ cannot actually harm Jacob himself, which is why he needs Ben. Jacob is killed and his dying words are, “they are coming…” And I can only assume that ‘They’ are Jack and company…

Right, well that’s all I can get my head around, until next year this has been My Two Cents on Lost.