What does Anne Rice have to do with LOST? by CindyChandler

During my college years and in my 20s, I was big into reading Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Although I have a terrible memory, the more I hear MIB/Flocke’s words and see his approach to “recruiting,” the more I am reminded of Anne Rice’s fifth book in the series, Memnoch the Devil. I enjoyed this book thoroughly because it turned what I felt about religion on its ear and then…well…double-crossed me in the last 10 pages.

For those unfamiliar with the book, the basic premise is that Memnoch (AKA, The Devil) takes Lestat (the antihero of the books---a brash, defiant and eager-for-the-spotlight vampire) on a journey of sorts. He brings Lestat to Heaven, Hell and throughout history in order to show Lestat that he, The Devil, is in fact that good guy to counter a God who lets humans suffer and who GAVE the The Devil his role of doling out punishment. The Devil claims it is God who is indifferent to human suffering...God who choses to let people suffer before they go to Heaven. The devil provides examples including how wars have been started in the name of religion, in the name of God. God and the devil have always disagreed in the philosophical handling of humans and their ascension into Heaven…and THAT is why the devil was "thrown out" of Heaven. Long story short, Lestat has a crisis of faith (and trust me, the arguments are strong enough in the book to even get the reader thinking about God�€! ™s “divine plan”)…and Lestat finally does the one thing that the Devil has asked of him. Suffice to say, Lestat is then handed a note signed by The Devil that basically thanks Lestat for his betrayal of God and for helping to fuel an apocalyptic holy war. It shouldn't have come as a shock the The Devil would betray but even I gasped when I read it. The whole book was a bunch of lies and betrayal of the truth.

So, is this where Darlton are leading us?

As I watched The Substitute I actually understood where MIB/Flocke was coming from when he was talking to Richard. How could Jacob have kept Richard in the dark about the candidacy program? After all Richard was doing in Jacob’s name…

And then MIB/Flocke tells Sawyer that JACOB has manipulated Sawyer when he was at his weakest in order to get him to come to the island (and yes, he did touch young Sawyer right after the funeral of his parents).

I believe that the writers with write it so as to appear that MIB/Flocke is perhaps the good guy in this. Perhaps he really is trapped for no good reason. Perhaps he really does want to just go home. Perhaps Jacob really did manipulate our LOSTies and The Others in his sick, little game of “it only ends once, everything before that is progress.”

And then, like that, we’ll see that MIB has conned us all…just like Memnoch.