It only ends once..and the lighthouse by La Fleur

Im sure this has probably been mentioned before but just wanted to see what everybody's thoughts were.

After watching the scene on the beach between Jacob and MIB in the Season 5 finale and now having seen the extensive list of names inscribed upon the edge of the stage wheel in the lighthouse, one can possibly begin to make some more sense of the words spoken between Jacob and MIB on the beach all those years ago.

MIB: "They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt...it always ends the same...

Jacob: "It only ends once...anything that happens before that..is just progress..."


What is important to note is that when we see all of those names inscribed upon the stage wheel in the lighthouse, they have all only been written once, most of which are now crossed out, leaving us the remaining candidates to replace Jacob. In other words, it appears all of these names had either been written on the wheel over time as Jacob chose them as a candidate, or more interestingly, they may have all been written down all at once at some stage in time long, long ago. This would mean that a lot of these candidates were selected before they were even born.

I believe that over the many years the island has existed, Jacob has been bringing groups of these candidates to the island in order to replace him. Perhaps it is the MIB as the smoke monster who is 'judging' these candidates. When MIB on the beach says, "they come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt.. it always ends the same" i believe he is referring to these groups of candidates Jacob has continually been bringing to the island in order to replace him, only to always end up in failure (not fit to replace Jacob), hence "it always ends the same.."

But we then have the reply "it only ends once..anything that happens before that..is just progress" which i believe refers to the fact that over all these years of people being brought to the island as candidates to replace him, are being systematically crossed off on the wheel in the lighthouse until only one remains..Jacob's replacement...finally ending what appears to be centuries of searching, or as Jacob perfectly puts it.."Progress".


Thank you for your time,

La Fleur