ENDINGS, BACKGAMMON, POWER CONVERSATIONS, DIFFERENT STATES OF DEATH, LOCKED LOOPS. PART 2 OF 3 by Dishyvaeda

“Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?”
Different arguments can be made for ‘When is Jacob from?’ One way to appear to be the same age at any time in the past is to actually be from the future. In other words, you could spend the next few weeks travelling between past and present, making sure you visited each of the last 50 years. Have your picture taken with the same person (who is ageing normally) during each visit. You would then have photographic proof that you hadn’t aged for the last 5 decades.

Jacob could be from some point in the future, but could just as easily have been on the island for centuries, empowered by the island to travel forward in time. So the ship on the horizon seen during the conversation might have been the Black Rock, summoned by already present Jacob. But I think the Black Rock was already there and the ship on the horizon was just another vessel enticed by Jacob to the island. “You brought them here, didn’t you?” said Bearded Rival accusingly.
The ship was sailing normally just minutes from the island, and would have moored offshore, not ended up inland as the Black Rock did. So how did the Black Rock get that far in? Tidal wave, possible. Smoke monster on crack, feasible. The island appearing underneath the Black Rock while moving in time, more likely in Lost.
Jacob was probably a crew member of the Black Rock. Their arrival, like Oceanic 815, must have been traumatic, but perhaps during the confusion he tuned into the island which identified him as being ‘special’. Maybe the island was after all created to help humans succeed and for some time it had been looking for someone to oppose the ‘cult of undeath’, led by Bearded Rival (See part 1). So perhaps Jacob wasn’t from the future or the distant past, but was simply granted long life by the island, remaining the same age as when he arrived on the Black Rock.
The island must have revealed the long term future to Jacob. He realised that if the dark ending preferred by Bearded Rival was to be avoided, he had work to do. He obviously discovered the method of travelling between the island and the outer world so that he could start his work. Also the wheel which would enable him to move the island if necessary.
The exact method by which Dharma and the Others returned to the island by submarine has never been shown so we can only speculate as to how Jacob may have done this in pre Dharma times. Perhaps in Series 6 we will see wheels and artefacts elsewhere in the world which he used to travel back.
We learn from the Blast Door Map that the Black Rock was the known final resting place of Magnus Hanso who was either the captain or first mate, and who could even be Bearded Rival. Descendant Alvar Hanso later funded the Dharma Initiative and Tovard Hanso allowed the auction of the first mate’s journal, acquired by Widmore.
Adding to the loyal surviving crew of the Black Rock, Jacob gradually enticed enough people to the island to form the Others. While travelling to and from the island he had proven its powers and the importance of his work, to dedicated followers in the world beyond. He would have convinced them to commit their lives to his cause. “We’re all convinced sooner or later.” said Ben to Jack.
Bearded Rival’s side appears to have been unable to actively fight Jacob and the Others for a long time. When Bearded Rival asked Jacob “Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?” perhaps he was already an apparition. This may have made him physically unable to harm Jacob.
Could it be that the whispers are all that remains of Bearded Rival’s followers? Trapped and powerless until Jacob is defeated. We have always associated the whispers with the Others, who are loyal to Jacob. These invisible spectators could in fact be enemies of the Others, but are now limited to whispering warnings to new arrivals on the island when the Others are nearby.
Or they could be the spirits of all those who have died on the island. Lost between places, and unable to complete their journey through the afterlife.
The island does seem to be a realm for different states of death, as Charlotte Lewis testified in her last moments. Corpses are replicated (Christian, John), who then become undead. The smoke can also imitate the dead (Yemi demanding Eko’s confession). Apparitions of both the living and the dead appear (Walt, Libby, Ben’s mother, Harper, Christian, Anna Lucia, Claire, Charlie), offering advice. The odd thing is that the apparitions seem to have become enlightened somehow, as to what the living are supposed to do next.
The living can also be changed. Alpert (“Jacob did this to me”) has extended life. The men from the French Expedition became ‘sick’ after they had tried to rescue Montand, as if enslaved by whatever lurked under that particular temple. We have also seen the crippled and terminally ill cured and yet the island will not permit pregnancies conceived there to go full term.
The Egyptians who came to the island must have at first related its abundance and healing powers to benign religious gods and deities. The statue is thought to be of the fertility goddess, Taweret. They presumably thought that building this immense gesture to Taweret would result in their women at last having successful pregnancies. When this failed they must have begun to accept that death dominated the island. The temple in which Ben encountered the smoke seemed to have glyphs of Anubis (afterlife judgement), and Apep (consuming underworld serpent). It is likely that the Egyptians would have associated the smoke monsters with Anubis and Apep. In ancient Egyptian mythology, Aten, the sun god, passes through the underworld at night. There are 42 deities in the Egyptian underworld.
Because he was unable to kill Bearded Rival who was already an apparition, Jacob had to find a way to outmanoeuvre his enemy. The man behind the curtain appears to have been Bearded Rival all along and Jacob imprisoned him in the cabin, using a circle of ash. This is a bit ominous, as by popular myth it is a method used for restricting the movement of demons.
I don’t think Ben had any real understanding of what resided in the cabin when he took John there. Ben’s attempt at a further humiliation of John backfired when Bearded Rival’s presence told John to “Help…me.” We do not know yet who later broke the circle of ash to make the loophole, but it now looks as if Bearded Rival escaped through it, and was then able to replicate John’s corpse.