What the flashsideways mean (hint:Jacob) by Adam

I've been trying to think what is so special about the Flashsideways. At first I thought it was just "what happened if the plane never crashed?" Of course it's more than that, because we've seen a lot of differences in the characters' lives before Oceanic 815.
Then I thought maybe it was "what happened if the island never existed past 1977." And that still might be the case, but still I wondered why certain things like Helen still being with Locke would change.

Then it hit me. I think what we are seeing in the Flashsideways is "what happened if Jacob never intervened?" Think about it. From what we saw in The Substitute, Jacob has been making a list of the losties, intervening in their lives (touching them), and prodding them in certain directions.

Think about what we have seen so far. Why did Helen stay with Locke in the flashsideways? Maybe Jacob intervened to force Helen to turn down Locke so he would be “free” to go to the island. Why is Hurley lucky? Without Jacob’s influence and the numbers (which we learned are connected), he is now lucky. Why did Kate’s story seem a little different, maybe because Jacob intervened in her life. And it might have affected the other losties as well as we’ve seen some differences in Rose and Bernard’s story, and the fact that Shannon wasn’t on the plane.

The last thing to think about here is this thought: what if the white flash we saw at the end of Season 5 was not just because of Jughead, but the bigger thing that changed was that Jacob was killed, so now the timelines are changing because Jacob is no more. Just some things to chew on…