The Candidate by MHKM

First, as usual, if anyone has said this before apologies. I know eagles1405 just posted something that touched on what I have been thinking about.

I want to start by questioning what a Candidate is, or what there purpose is. Up until this point I think most people believe a candidate is someone who is eligible to replace Jacob since that is what we have been led to believe by Ilana and others as well.

What occurred to me is if Jacob has been bringing people to the island for years, a good number of them being candidates themselves, what was their purpose if Jacob was still alive. In other words, if Jacob happened to find his candidate years ago, he would still be alive and not need the candidate. Would he just have him hanging around like inventory until or if the MIB did kill him?

This led me to the conclusion that the real purpose of the candidate, the game they play, and more or less the show itself is to prove to the MIB that humanity is good or decent. The candidate's purpose is not to replace Jacob, but prove to the MIB that humanity is good. The candidate will most likely have to do this through self-sacrifice. (Throwing this out there: What if the self-sacrifice is how they incorporate the volcano, little Joe Versus the Volcano action?)

If you think about what Jacob said in the Incident also, to me, it doesn't make much since that "It only ends once, everything until then is just progress" if Jacob is talking about a replacement, that isn't ending anything just perpetuating it. What can only end once is the MIB's current perception of humanity.

If whoever the candidate is can prove to the MIB that humans are good then there will be no need for a Jacob, a protector of the island, because there will no longer be any threat. That is the true purpose of the candidate in my opinion..."You have what it takes"...

Some other things I have been thinking about but unrelated but not worthy of separate theory or post.

The cabin...Was jawing with my roommate about this last night and couldn't work it out(Although TPTB probably constructed it in such a way that I wouldn't be able to).

We saw Smokey in the pilot so we know he was out and about. Now we also know that someone/something was in the cabin yet we aren't sure if the ash was protecting it or imprisoning it. So if the MIB is Smokey who was in that cabin? People have said it was the MIB trapped in there but like I said Smokey was out and about in the pilot, way before the ash circle was broken unless the spirit of MIB and smokey are two different things and once the circle was broken he melded with Smokey? Seems a little convoluted... I'm thinking it was Christian somehow...Debate please...

Secondly, this kind of struck me like a brick to the head and others have probably pointed this out. Everyone was saying how the boat itself couldn't have knocked down the statue, that it was way to small to do so. What we are forgetting about is that it was riding a 200-300 foot tall tidal wave. That sh-t will knock down quite a bit with relative ease, so that is reconciled for me. Ohh, and it would also carry the ship pretty damn far inland but I am not sure how far inland the Black Rock was really supposed to be anyway...

Little long, thanks for reading...