his is my very first attempt at writing a theory, English is not my first language and, besides, I know that probably I'm not the first one who thought about this: I'm only expressing my own ideas hence, bear with me. ^_^
I guess many of us came with the idea that Jacob's nemesis is the Smoke Monster (or one of his forms) after S5 finale. But what I'm trying to do here it's simply find out whether there are hints, confirmations or reasons that may support this theory or not.
First of all, how could the Smoke Monster be Jacob's nemesis? Let’s start from the opening scene of S5 finale, which by now we all know very well. The Man in Black seems immediately to be a character almost as important as Jacob. But while we heard about Jacob for the first time in S3, we never heard about some other “higher power”, which is not believable considering that the duration of his presence on the island is supposedly the same as Jacob’s. Besides, detective stories taught us that usually the “murderer” is a character we already met in the book, right? And what is the only thing that seems to be on the island since the beginning, so to say? Yes, Smokey: my idea is that the Smoke Monster is basically Jacob’s nemesis deprived of his physical form. Now, you’re probably asking: “Ok, but does it fit with everything we know about Smokey so far?”
The first real information we learnt about it is that Smokey is the “security system” of the island, protecting the island itself (S1 Exodus). In the opening scene of S5 finale, Jacob seems to be the one who lead people to the island to prove his nemesis he’s wrong; the Man in Black, instead, disapproves because, according to him, it always ends with fighting, destruction and corruption: he clearly wants everything and everyone to stay away from the island. Could this be enough to consider him a security system? I think so.
We also know that the Smoke Monster, for some reason, “scans” people memories (or, maybe, their souls as well) before deciding whether they can live or not. It can kill and seems to be able to judge sins. It can change people’s behaviors and personalities (Danielle’s group in S5 This Place Is Death) and, supposedly, it can even heal in some way (in the case it also healed dying Little Ben in S5 Whatever Happened, Happened, which is my belief).
If Smokey is the Man in Black, why does he scan memories, kill, judge, heal and influence people?
IMO, his purpose it’s always been finding the perfect “loophole” while protecting the island from “fighting, destruction and corruption”, in order to gain control of the island itself (“You have no idea what I’ve been through to be here” says Fake Locke to Jacob in S5 finale). Scanning a person’s memory allows him/it to find out how much this person is easy to influence; by judging a person’s sins (or by healing) he can gain over control of this person and, if everything is unsuccessful, he/it kills (Eko, even though he had potential, has been killed because by refusing to repent of his sins, he showed to be not manipulable).
I know, you’re probably now asking why our Losties haven’t been seriously chased by Smokey. The answer is simply because they’ve been protected by Jacob himself through his touch (S5 The Incident), for some reason we don’t know yet. And if you’re thinking about Locke, well… my guess it’s that Jacob’s protection over Locke disappeared when he died, enabling Smokey/Nemesis to control him (and therefore, that’s why Locke had to die in the first place).
Locke has been his successful attempt to “defeat” Jacob (as far as we know), but I think he made a previous attempt which partially failed: Ben Linus. The reason why I think Ben never saw or met the real Jacob, why he got cancer and saw her daughter die (as Fake Locke reminds him in S5 finale) is, IMO, that he’s been a leader not chosen by Jacob himself, but by Nemesis/Smokey. I do believe that he successfully conned even Richard induced him to believe that Ben was the next leader of the island. I’m now starting to think that Ben has been manipulated in a Locke similar way since he’s been healed when he was a kid. There’s no evidence yet that Smokey was the one to heal Little Ben, but I think that’s what happened because of the man Ben became after. Hence, he became the leader of the Others dispossessing Widmore (I have a feeling that Widmore was Jacob’s man, whereas Ben was Smokey’s man unknowing) and, since then, he faked his connection with Jacob in orde! r to still be in charge. We know what he did after. His destiny was probably supposed to be similar to Fake Locke’s, but he failed (probably because his thirst for power was higher than his faith) . Meanwhile Nemesis/Smokey was lucky enough to find Locke. He manipulated both Locke and Ben through Christian so that the Frozen Donkey Wheel could be turned (and Christian basically claimed it needed to be turned to protect the island from Widmore), but something he did not expect happened: Ben turned the wheel instead of Locke. Not a big deal though, he had just to wait a little bit more. Besides, revenge is a dish best served cold, right? When Locke died thanks to envious Ben, Nemesis/Smokey finally could accomplish the last part of his plan. He used Ben to reach a more trustworthy leader (Locke), letting him believe that he was the Chosen One and then by taking possess of him.
I know that some things could be too farfetched or that I’m probably forgetting something, but these are just my two cents over this subject, because this is the very first thing that popped into my head after watching the S5 finale.
Whether you agree or not with this theory, please leave your comment: we need to spend this 7 months hiatus, someway!
I guess many of us came with the idea that Jacob's nemesis is the Smoke Monster (or one of his forms) after S5 finale. But what I'm trying to do here it's simply find out whether there are hints, confirmations or reasons that may support this theory or not.
First of all, how could the Smoke Monster be Jacob's nemesis? Let’s start from the opening scene of S5 finale, which by now we all know very well. The Man in Black seems immediately to be a character almost as important as Jacob. But while we heard about Jacob for the first time in S3, we never heard about some other “higher power”, which is not believable considering that the duration of his presence on the island is supposedly the same as Jacob’s. Besides, detective stories taught us that usually the “murderer” is a character we already met in the book, right? And what is the only thing that seems to be on the island since the beginning, so to say? Yes, Smokey: my idea is that the Smoke Monster is basically Jacob’s nemesis deprived of his physical form. Now, you’re probably asking: “Ok, but does it fit with everything we know about Smokey so far?”
The first real information we learnt about it is that Smokey is the “security system” of the island, protecting the island itself (S1 Exodus). In the opening scene of S5 finale, Jacob seems to be the one who lead people to the island to prove his nemesis he’s wrong; the Man in Black, instead, disapproves because, according to him, it always ends with fighting, destruction and corruption: he clearly wants everything and everyone to stay away from the island. Could this be enough to consider him a security system? I think so.
We also know that the Smoke Monster, for some reason, “scans” people memories (or, maybe, their souls as well) before deciding whether they can live or not. It can kill and seems to be able to judge sins. It can change people’s behaviors and personalities (Danielle’s group in S5 This Place Is Death) and, supposedly, it can even heal in some way (in the case it also healed dying Little Ben in S5 Whatever Happened, Happened, which is my belief).
If Smokey is the Man in Black, why does he scan memories, kill, judge, heal and influence people?
IMO, his purpose it’s always been finding the perfect “loophole” while protecting the island from “fighting, destruction and corruption”, in order to gain control of the island itself (“You have no idea what I’ve been through to be here” says Fake Locke to Jacob in S5 finale). Scanning a person’s memory allows him/it to find out how much this person is easy to influence; by judging a person’s sins (or by healing) he can gain over control of this person and, if everything is unsuccessful, he/it kills (Eko, even though he had potential, has been killed because by refusing to repent of his sins, he showed to be not manipulable).
I know, you’re probably now asking why our Losties haven’t been seriously chased by Smokey. The answer is simply because they’ve been protected by Jacob himself through his touch (S5 The Incident), for some reason we don’t know yet. And if you’re thinking about Locke, well… my guess it’s that Jacob’s protection over Locke disappeared when he died, enabling Smokey/Nemesis to control him (and therefore, that’s why Locke had to die in the first place).
Locke has been his successful attempt to “defeat” Jacob (as far as we know), but I think he made a previous attempt which partially failed: Ben Linus. The reason why I think Ben never saw or met the real Jacob, why he got cancer and saw her daughter die (as Fake Locke reminds him in S5 finale) is, IMO, that he’s been a leader not chosen by Jacob himself, but by Nemesis/Smokey. I do believe that he successfully conned even Richard induced him to believe that Ben was the next leader of the island. I’m now starting to think that Ben has been manipulated in a Locke similar way since he’s been healed when he was a kid. There’s no evidence yet that Smokey was the one to heal Little Ben, but I think that’s what happened because of the man Ben became after. Hence, he became the leader of the Others dispossessing Widmore (I have a feeling that Widmore was Jacob’s man, whereas Ben was Smokey’s man unknowing) and, since then, he faked his connection with Jacob in orde! r to still be in charge. We know what he did after. His destiny was probably supposed to be similar to Fake Locke’s, but he failed (probably because his thirst for power was higher than his faith) . Meanwhile Nemesis/Smokey was lucky enough to find Locke. He manipulated both Locke and Ben through Christian so that the Frozen Donkey Wheel could be turned (and Christian basically claimed it needed to be turned to protect the island from Widmore), but something he did not expect happened: Ben turned the wheel instead of Locke. Not a big deal though, he had just to wait a little bit more. Besides, revenge is a dish best served cold, right? When Locke died thanks to envious Ben, Nemesis/Smokey finally could accomplish the last part of his plan. He used Ben to reach a more trustworthy leader (Locke), letting him believe that he was the Chosen One and then by taking possess of him.
I know that some things could be too farfetched or that I’m probably forgetting something, but these are just my two cents over this subject, because this is the very first thing that popped into my head after watching the S5 finale.
Whether you agree or not with this theory, please leave your comment: we need to spend this 7 months hiatus, someway!
