I believe that Juliet could be The Variable. It was very conspicuous and highly strange that hers was the only flashback out of nine that did not include Jacob. What was the point of including it then, aside from informing her relationship with Sawyer? There has to be something more to it than that. I believe that the point of the flashback was to show us that Jacob had never visited her, and therefore she had never been "chosen" to be on the island. She was brought there by a force working outside of Jacob's influence (Ben) and was therefore not answerable to whatever his motives might be or fate or whatever. He never selected her to be there, and therefore she was the only one who could act outside the strand of fate. She exhibited her free will very strongly earlier in the episode when she told Sawyer she "changed her mind." Perhaps her choice to detonate the bomb will be the thing that changes the tim! eline. This would also explain why she was able to succeed where Jack failed. I think that would be an awesome curveball, when we are all assuming The Variable is someone really important like Desmond or Faraday. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it because I love Juliet so much, but I feel like this might be an idea worth exploring.
