Lost looking more and more like The Stand by benjamin potter

So, after this week's episode, it has become clearer than ever that Lost's main influence is The Stand.

The Stand is a book by Stephen King. After a deadly virus kills 99.4% of the population, the remaining isolated survivors (just like in Lost) are stucked in the middle of a clash between two opposing forces...a light one and a dark one.
These survivors are influenced by visions and dreams to join either side.
Just like in Lost where the dark side is represented by MIB/FLock and the light side by Jacob, the two opposing forces in The Stand are represented by two characters.
On the dark side, we have "the man in black" (hum...), "The man with no face", Randall Flagg (but he has so many names, this is just one of them). Flagg has the power to change his face, he can shapeshift into wolves, crows, he can "open his eye" everywhere etc (but not into black smoke ;)). He was a man once, but now he's transformed into this dark entity that seems to exist in every universe and at every time.
Oh......and he's recruiting.
He controls people with fear and false promises. The dreams that people have of him are nothing sort of scary as hell.

But they also have good dreams, peaceful dreams. They dream of Mother Abigael. She represent the light side. People believe that she will save them all. She's a woman of great faith. She ask of you that you believe blindly in her and the power that she now owns. She will have to die, but her influence will only be stronger.
Although her side is the light side, it isn't perfect and it has it's share of problems. Like in Lost where the Jacob followers are clearly not all good people.

Mother Abigael and The man in black (or the dark man I'm french, so I'm not sure about the original names, I read the translation)hate each other, but also fear each other. That is why they send normal humans to do their dirty work.

In the season 3 DVD set, there is a bonus material section about books that have influenced the Lost writters. They say that The Stand is their #1 influence.

There are also many references to The Dark Tower by Stephen King. A seven books series that has ties to many of his great books and mainly The Stand.
The sideway flashes are very similar to the different alternate universes in The Dark Tower. But in all of those universes, the virus will spread and the Dark man will be there to wage war to the light side at one point or the other...will jacob and MIB will be in the flash sideways?

Anyway, I strongly suggest that you read The Stand, it's one of my favorite book ever. Lost is doing an amazing job at writing a story influenced by this great book...Lost is probably even better.

But just like in Lost, don't hold your breath for tons of answer, this is a story where the writer has confidence in his audience's intelligence. Like in Lost, you ave to come up with your own answers sometimes.

I'm french canadian, so sorry for the poor spelling. ;)