Two Related Theories...Who are the good guys?....What is the Island? by Vincent

I have two theories regarding what the island is, and who is good and who is bad.

Regularly spoken phrase: "we're the good guys". This has always been one of the show's mysteries. The obvious answer is that Jacob is the good guy, with his merciful eyes and his mild-mannered personality; while the Nemesis is the bad guy, he slaughtered a bunch of people, so no doubt about that.

Has anyone seen that interview with Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson? (this is not considered a spoiler, is it Dark?) One thing that struck me from that interview is when TOQ said something (I forgot the exact words) to the effect of it is possible that who the audience perceives as good/bad may not actually be good/bad. I also noticed as soon as TOQ said this, Michael Emerson quickly looked at him, as if to say, “dude, be careful what you reveal”. I think TOQ’s statement and ME’s reaction definitely hints something.

Now, am I suggesting the opposite of the obvious --- Jacob is the bad guy and Nemesis is the good guy? Well, I’m heading in that direction, but there’s a twist….

First, one important thing to note is that Lost is inspired by several literary works, historical facts, movies, and one I find very interesting: the video game MYST (this is a fact, see Wikipedia). Has anyone played that game? Anyway, to summarize, basically, when you start the game, you stumble across a book, you open the book, and the first page shows you a moving bird’s eye view of an island. You have no choice but to click on the island shown in the book, and then you get “sucked in” to that island, which is Myst island. In the island, you’ll find a library with two books next to each other. One book is red and the other book is blue. When you open each book, you discover that in each book is a prisoner. Each prisoner tries to persuade you to set him free, and claims that he is a good guy, and that the other one cannot be trusted. So basically, you play the entire game constantly guessing which one’s good and which one’s evil. One thing to note is that one o! f the prisoners looks crazy and evil, while the other one looks calm and intelligent…sounds familiar? So anyway, the first time you play the game, you end up releasing one of them, and guess who -- the bad guy! You then take his place and you get trapped in the book, and game over. So the second time you play the game, you think you have it figured out who the good guy is, so you release the other prisoner. But here’s the twist, the other prisoner turns out to be a bad guy too!! Likewise, he gets released from the prison book, and you take his place trapped in the book. Another important thing to note, in another video game, Riven, a sequel to Myst, the blue and red books were shown to be destroyed, which implies that both prisoners were killed with the books’ destruction.

So, if this concept of the Myst video game is what inspired Lost, I think that BOTH Jacob and his Nemesis are the bad guys. “They’re coming.” Jacob said this to Nemesis as if they both did something bad and were both about to get in trouble. Maybe the “real” good guys are coming?

“The island needs to be protected.” Of course. If the island gets destroyed, not only will the prisoners lose their chance for freedom, they also get killed, just like in Myst. And just like in Myst, the only way they can be released from their respective prisons is to trick somebody(s) to take their place. As soon as Jacob finds his “candidate” and Nemesis recruits his replacement, Jacob and Nemesis will finally be free, and two unfortunate and unwilling souls will take their place as prisoners in the island. By the way, everybody else (who’s not a potential replacement for Jacob and his Nemesis) needs to be killed in order to guarantee that it will be Jacob and/or Nemesis who gets released from the island, and not one of the others who are left alive. “It all ends the same.” In the end, everybody gets killed leaving only two entities in the island. “Everything before that, it’s just progress”, meaning it’s just a matter of which two people are left.
To summarize my theories: both Jacob and his Nemesis are the bad guys; both of them are prisoners in the island; both want to be set free, but the only way that can happen is for each of them to find their replacements, and kill everybody else; and finally, the island is.....drum roll please.....a book.