Locke Theory by Joe

Locke is not possessed by "Jacob's Enemy," nor is the Locke we see manipulating Ben into killing Jacob some sort of duplicate or image created by the Smoke Monster.

Locke IS "Jacob's Enemy," and he always has been. "Jacob's Enemy" somehow reincarnated himself as John Locke, when Locke was born in 1956. Recall that Emily Locke once claimed that Locke was "immaculately conceived" (although she later dismissed this), and that as the infant was taken from her, she urgently cried out, "Name in John! Name him John!"

I think that "John" is the real name of "Jacob's Enemy," and the reason the name was kept from us, is that it would tip us off to the connection between this guy and John Locke.

When Locke was reborn, he was a "tabula rasa," a blank slate, possessing little or no memories of his past life on the island with Jacob. As he grew in this new life as John Locke, he occasionally got brief glimpses or insights into that past, which is how he was able to draw the Smoke Monster as a child. It was a short time after that, that Richard visited him and gave him a "test" that was structurally similar to the Dalai Lama test for reincarnation. Locke was asked to choose the item that already belongs to him. He chooses an ancient knife, Richard gets upset and leaves. We later thought that Richard expected Locke to choose the compass, because Richard got the compass from time-traveling Locke... and maybe that is what Richard expected. But what if young John actually picked the right item after all? Maybe that knife really was the item that already belongs to him.

As John grew older, he was possessed by this intense feeling of destiny, that he had some ultimate purpose to perform. This also explains why Locke's body was in the "Canton-Rainier" van, an anagram of "reincarnation." Not "resurrection," but "reincarnation."

When Locke crashed on the island in Flight 815, that feeling of purpose and destiny became even more intense. He felt that the island had made him "whole." He was convinced he had found his home, that he was close to his purpose, yet still he had no more than brief feelings, brief glances into his past. No real memory of who he once was.

We have seen that the Smoke Monster seems able to scan peoples' memories, and to presumeably store them somehow. I think that, at some time in the past, the Smoke Monster scanned and stored "Enemy's" memories, specifically for the purpose of preserving them, to one day return them to his reincarnated self, in the form of John Locke. I think that this is why, at the end of Season 1, the Smoke Monster attempted to pull Locke into a hole. In Season 5, we saw that when Danielle's crew went into the hole, they seemed to come out with new knowledge imparted to them, calling the Smoke Monster a "security system."

After Locke left the island, Walt told Locke that he had been having dreams about him. That he saw Locke on the island, wearing a suit, surrounded by people that wanted to hurt him. We have not yet see this come to pass. "Locke2.0" has already gotten rid of the suit, but "dead Locke" is of course still wearing it.

And so we come to dead Locke in the box, with a duplicate "evil" Locke manipulating Ben into killing Jacob. Sun says, "But if that's Locke, then who's in there?

The answer... is Locke.

My theory is that something (perhaps actions related to The Incident) will revive dead Locke to a living state, only to find Ilana and her people all around him, wanting to do him harm in order to (somehow) stop the Locke in the statue. Locke will escape somehow, possibly with the help of Frank and Sun. Locke and his friends will attempt to escape Ilana's forces in one of the boats, heading out to sea with Ilana's people chasing them, shooting at them. This will lead to the scene from Season 5 where we see somebody shooting at Locke, Sawyer, Juliet et al for unknown reasons. Locke loses his pursuers when they become confused at which boat they should chase.

After losing their pursuers, the group returns to the island, but in a manner similar to the doctor's body in Season 4, they will come ashore on the wrong bearing, causing them to time-travel a few days into the past (recall how the doctor was still alive on the freighter, when his body was washed ashore and discovered by the Losties). The group will come ashore at The Barracks, and will run into Christian Shephard, who will brief Locke on what he must do next. Finally, Locke will take a boat to Hydra Island just in time to see Flight 316 crash land, and will show up on the beach there to be discovered by them, by which point we realize that there were never two Lockes, just one Locke from different time periods... like the bunnies from the ComicCon Orchid video.

Finally we'll get the flashback "woosh," and this entire sequence of events will be revealed to be a flashback thatLocke was having inside the statue with Ben and Jacob. We will again see Ben kill Jacob, with the new realization that Locke is Locke, but the uncertainty of whether or not Locke's destiny is that of darkness and evil.

Which, of course, I DON'T think it is. Season 1 had multiple examples of having Locke do things which, on the surface, seemed potentially evil, crazy, etc. (tying up Boone probably being the best example), but each time it was eventually revealed that Locke truly is motivated by the greater good, the desire to "do what's best for everyone" (a phrase Locke uses a couple of times during the course of the series), and that sometimes actions which on their surface appear evil, are in reality anything but.