The Manipulation of the Others: Clearing Up Inconsistencies by locke_your_door

So here we were, presented with the Others for the first three seasons as a group of evil, murderous villains. They kidnapped babies at will; they murdered each other and the survivors of 815 without regard; they set up cages and forced people into hard labor; they had brainwashing rooms; they would even force potential leadership to murder family members in the name of their organization. At the same time they worshipped Jacob, now revealed to be the Island's Dalai Lama, a man of peace who ostensibly embraces the fundamental, if imperfect goodness of humanity. How did this organization that was started with the noble aims of Jacob after the destruction of the Black Rock become so intertwined with ordinary, commmonplace villainy?

Answer: The Others have been a tool manipulated by the Man in Black, since either the days of Widmore's leadership or upon the ascension of Ben. Consider these points:

(A) MIB's wager was that mankind was predisposed to corruption and destruction. The Others served this goal perfectly - their presence on the island forced conflict with the Dharma Initiative, and later, the Losties. In that conflict, many potential candidates died, more non-candidates died, death, destruction, and corruption reigned, and all of this furthered MIB's ultimate goal. By manipulating them through their top-down leadership, MIB was bringing the very thing to the island that Jacob sought to avoid. This is the first piece of evidence that Smokey was out created and nurtured the violent Island politics while Jacob sat back in his foot, weaving his cloth.

(B) Why wouldn't Jacob step in? To do so would violate the fundamental presupposition that mankind was good by their own volition. Perhaps Jacob knew the Others were pawns in MIB's game of evil, but he believed deep down that they would eventually cast off their dark side and return to the purpose of serving the island in peace. But to step in and manipulate them for good would destroy the very nexus of his argument - that mankind is good by their own choice and through their own means. He tolerated the evils of the Others because he wanted them to one day become good. "What about you, Ben..." means, "What kind of person are you, really..." In the end he was perhaps disappointed, but left a back up plan (discussed later).

(B) What evidence is there that MIB was involved with the Others? Not much direct evidence, because MIB didn't want to the Others to know he was involved, or even that he existed - he was happy to let them worship Jacob while at the same time furthering MIB's own ends. What a great victory, to have minions worship your enemy but follow your will without knowledge! MIB is not about power, not about worship, but about escape. He had no ego issues with being ignored, as long as he could adequately pull the puppet's strings. And that puppet: Ben, and through Ben as the Leader, all of the Others.

(C) Ben's ambiguous relationship with MIB. MIB wanted to kill Jacob, but the person plunging in the knife, in order to be successful, must really, really want Jacob dead. This would explain the failure of Sayid to kill MIB under the same standard - being prompted by another to murder either MIB or Jacob isn't enough, if the heart to kill and proper motivation isn't in place. MIB's entire deception plan consisted of using Ben as his human pawn, building up his love of Jacob through his entire life and then allowing that love to turn to murderous hate upon the death of Ben's daughter. MIB understood a fundamental characteristic of humanity: we can only truly, truly hate that which we once truly, truly loved. He built his relationship with Ben, allowed Ben to summon him, built up Ben as the leader of the Others, fostered their idolatry of Jacob, and pulled at the rug as the last second, in conjunction with occupying Locke's body and creating the elements of the loophole tha! t led to Jacob's death. Ben hated Jacob because he felt ignored, but Jacob neither chose Ben nor allowed any of the suffering to befall him. It was MIB all along. Evidence of Ben's relationship with MIB include: