It only ends once...because someone goes home by daisyrock

I've been mulling this one for a while, and forgive me if it is totally off base after the airing of Episode 5. I am in Australia, so Ep 4 has just aired.

I WANT TO GO HOME

When the MIB uttered this statement to Ben, it immediately reminded me of a kid who has had enough at playing a game and just wants to give up the game and go home. Which seems ridiculous since Flock/MIB sounded and looked so grown up. Which then led me to recall the scene on the beach between MIB and Jacob and their conversation about 'progress' and 'loopholes' and 'it only ending once'.

LOOPHOLES THAT KILL

This statement about finding loopholes and how badly the MIB wanted to kill Jacob sounds at first assumption that MIB is unable to kill Jacob without a loophole. I think that the loophole is the way either can kill each other and end the current game. The MIB wants to badly kill Jacob because up until now he has lost the game and has never had the chance to 'win' by killing Jacob. I also think Jacob's statement about progress is alluding to the fact that Jacob uses the information from each previous game ( with his numbered players because he likes order and patterns ) to make different moves in the game in order to somehow gain more points or just simply play the game with more skill each time.


BLACK STONES AND WHITE STONES AND THE SCALE

I thought it was amusing that the first thing MIB did when he went into the cave with James was to take the white stone off the table and throw it away into the ocean. Private joke? I can picture an unaired scene between MIB and Jacob however many games ago having a conversation about Jacob keeping all of MIB's black stones every time he has won the game and that MIB would not keep them ( being the rebel he is ) would throw 'his stupid stone in the ocean!' Why do I think that Jacob kept all the black stones ? In the scene in Ep 3 between Jack and Dogan, check out the bowl on Dogan's table. Full of black stones.

THIS TIME MIB IS WINNING

And I think it has something to do with someone else (other than MIB ) killing Jacob. I have a hunch that in other games that Jacob has killed MIB and the game ended then began again because MIB did not want to lose. This time, since someone else killed Jacob, the game has gone into 'extra time' and that this time since MIB badly wants to go home, the game will end for good.


Now I cannot even begin to comment on who the players are ( whether it really is MIB and Jacob as we have seen them ), or what the Island is, or why the Others and the LOSTies are on the Island in the first place, or DHARMA, or time travel....and how they can play this many games, and why they are trapped...that's for someone else's theory ! ;)