Everything That Rises Must Converge & Red in the Looking Glass by Adrian McDonald

I believe the Smoke Monster (aka MIB, Smokie, Flocke etc) and Jacob are one. It's not an original or novel idea, but one I agree with. LOST, like any mythology, has presented them to us as two opposing forces: Black and White; Good and Evil; Light and Dark and so on. LOST has been quite explicit with this imagery, as we all know.

I often write and talk of the color red on LOST. We saw it again in "Happily Ever After" with Desmond in his red shirt getting his mind sent to the world of LA X after Widmore threw a lever with a red knob. If you think I am grasping, read my other posts on red (available here http://theoriesonlost.blogspot.com/2010/03/seeing-red-laxs-life-through-looking.html and http://theoriesonlost.blogspot.com/2010/04/seeing-red-life-through-looking-glass.html).

Or just take Elloise Hawking's word for it being a "bold fashion choice worth noting." Worth noting indeed. What, if anything does this third color mean? Does it have any significance?

I tried to stop thinking of red as the "third" color on LOST, in addition to Black & White. I have heard and read the posts of others I respect talk of a third unseen force we have yet to meet on LOST, a third power distinct from Jacob and Smokie. Currently, on the show now, there are three groups at work, one might say three forces. There is Smokie and his 'followers', Widmore and his group on Hydra Island, and Team Jack. Perhaps its best not to think of red as a third color or the idea of a third powerful being like Jacob or MIB. And before I return to this, it seems important to make the case for Jacob and Smokie being one, as some may not agree with this or have not even considered it. I don't intend for my case to be seen as "the definitive" or complete case for seeing MIB and Jacob as one. I am sure someone else has done this elsewhere.

Without Yin there can be no Yang:

Why doesn't Smokie have a name? We have seen him call Jacob by name: "Always nice to talk to you Jacob." Jacob responded "nice to talk to you." No name. Smokie refers to Jacob by name when talking to other characters, but Jacob does not. Jacob asks Richard if he spoke to a man dressed in black etc.

Jacob told Hurley that he was killed by an old friend that grew tired of his company. Only this 'friend' has no name and spends very little time in Jacob's company (i.e spatial vicinity) even though they are on the same Island. Hell, Smokie even gets alone time on the Island when Jacob goes away to touch people.

Was Jacob speaking literally or metaphorically? Cork in the bottle anyone? Some people object to applying the notion of good and evil to LOST, which I think is silly and somewhat pointless semantic hangup. The scale of good and evil (or yin and yang if you please) may no longer exist within Jacob--or the entity that he once was along with Smokie. His "friend" was the black side of the scale, Smokie. Smokie grew tired of being balanced by the white, who I think of as Jacob and somehow split into the entity we know as the Smoke Monster. If they were a singular entity, I don't know if it was named Jacob or not...not sure that matters.

Jacob did not steal Smokie's body and/or humanity. Smokie abandoned it when split from Jacob. In this sense, Smokie is the cause of his own suffering...how poetic. Smokie is not able to kill Jacob directly because, in this sense, he would be killing himself. He and Jacob are one.

(In fact, can anyone commit suicide? Locke was going to...right. Fact is he didn't, and probably couldn't. My guess is that had Ben not shown up, the cord would have snapped. Micheal pulled the trigger, the gun didn't fire (car crash didn't work either). Richard said he could not do it and did not even try. Jack seemed to know this as well when he lit the fuse. Jack also had his concrete swan dive cut short by the car accident in S3 during his Oceanic 6 days. Suicide is just not an option for anyone on this show, it seems. This may be why I don't think the bomb exploded when Juliet hit it either, but that is a discussion for another time.)

Jacob seemed somewhat surprised, in "Ab Aeterno", that Smokie tried to kill him. Why? Because Smokie wants to leave. Jacob suggests killing him is futile. Even if he dies, someone else will take his place. Why? Because yin cannot exist without yang. And Smokie seems aware of this now, despite his claim that he would just kill Jacob's replacement too.

Finally able to find a 'loophole' and kill Jacob, wipe out the Temple and have Dogen assassinated...one has to wonder why he does not simply kill, or have killed, the remaining candidates. Considering what he has done and what he has proven capable of doing, wiping out five or six of the Losties should be a cake walk. Could be as simple as telling Jack that if he drinks a bottle of whiskey and downs some Oxycontin then he will save Kate's life. Am I wrong? But he cannot kill them because he needs them. Yin cannot exist without Yang....for Yin (Smokie) to leave the Island, Yang (Jacob/candidate) has to go with him. And this, of course, explains why he needs all of the candidates to get on the plane with him whether there are five of them or five hundred...in the end, it's all about the one.

This begs many questions, not least among them is why could Jacob leave. If Jacob could leave without Smokie, why cant the opposite be true? The explanation might be that Jacob does not intervene in human affairs (outside of 'bringing' people to the island). Since Jacob does not interfere, the balance of good and evil (yin and yang) that exists in all of us remains just that, in a flux of balance. It's how the universe works, yada yada. Were Smokie to escape, the result, it seems, could mean everyone in the world ending up like 'zombie' Sayid. Any notion of balance in Sayid was knocked on its ass in "Sundown"--an appropriate metaphor for this. Perhaps 'good' Sayid's episode would be called "Sunrise" and balanced Sayid's "High Noon."

Concerning The End of the Universe and Jacob's Notion it Only Ending Once:

The stakes are, apparently, high on LOST. We have heard Ben, Charles and Elloise all speaking about the stakes of "winning" or "not winning". If it doesn't work, we have heard, nothing will matter. The world will end, existence will cease, "dogs and cats living together....mass hysteria." What are we to make of this?

In terms of the "two" timelines (2007 on Island & 2004 LA X) or universes or dimensions if you please, the end could refer to the destruction of one, or both. I reject any notion that one is any less real than the other. I am inclined to think if one of these two times is going to cease, it's going to be that of LA X. I like David and all, but he has no past (at least one we are aware of). To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, Without past, there can be no future.

I am not sure how the timeline logistics will work out, but I am somewhat certain the "two" times will merge into one. In this sense, both will end. In another sense, one will begin. This fits nicely with the notion of life from death and reincarnation. I can see some of the characters preferring their lives in LA X, however, over life where 815 crashed. Maybe the two versions of the people will merge and then have a choice of which line to live in, it seems unlikely but not impossible. All of the folks that died on the Island, one can imagine, might prefer LA X world. Of course the relevance of death is chucked out the window on LOST. Often, we see people more after they die. Life and death, black and white, good and evil. One begets the other.

It may be that if Smokie manages to escape the Island, the balance of yin and yang in the world will be so one-sided that, in effect, the world ceases to be. Maybe people will just die off, because like zombie Sayid, they don't feel anything and just don't give a fuck. Nihilism. Whatever.

I am much more intrigued by what Jacob meant when he said "if it all ends once, everything before that is just progress." What, Jacob, do you want to end? Because if it includes the world and/or existence, I am going to exercise my choice, which I know you are a fan of, and side with whatever person or thing wants the world to keep going. It's pretty insane to think Jacob meant the end, like his "friend" or the "cork" in the literal sense of the word. Rather, I think the end he wants to see is the end of his own separation from, in essence, himself. Jacob is Smokie and Smokie is Jacob. They are one, once were "one" and have been split into two since who knows when. Maybe split since Ab Aeterno, the translation, not episode. Jacob wants it to end because he is probably just as tired of existence on the Island as Smokie is. Until the two that were once one are reunited, Smokie must be contained on the Island and Jacob or his replacement must keep it that way. If Jaco! b wanted things to end, literally end, he would have let Smokie go long ago.

I am even willing to speculate that the boy Smokie saw in the jungle was, in fact, himself....the one before it became the two: Jacob and Smokie. Why did this boy have blood on his hands? Was it blood? It could be, once again, that red represents the "bleeding" and signals two becoming one (or flashback of one becoming two). Thus, Richard did not see the boy because he is not connected, at least as directly in a spiritual sense, to Smokie as Sawyer is. Sawyer, a candidate touched by Jacob, was able to see the boy.

Balance through Symmetry--Reflections Between LA X and Island:

To bring this all back to "red", I like the description other have used to talk about the increasing overlap between the two apparent timeline on the show, which they refer to as "bleeding." Bleeding red.

The fusion, the symmetry of this bleeding is on display. And what a show it is...

Instead of Desmond running the stairs at the stadium, we now have Penny. Whereas he was running left to right, she was running right to left.

In S1 Jin and Sun were 'married' but no longer "in" love. In LA X, they are not married but very much in love. Whereas she once spoke English and he did not, now he does and she does not.

Where in one Jack is the son wanting to prove himself to his father, he is now the father of such a son. If Jack is the "Superman" of LOST, the hero always trying to save the day...how appropriate is this "the son becomes the father and the father becomes the son" theme? As a huge fan of Superman and Jack, I, for "one", love it. And the pun was intentional, because this is the point isn't it? The two are one.

Instead of placing white shoes on his father, Jack puts black shoes on his father's "proxy."

We know Widmore as living in London and Elloise in LA--they were not married. In LA X they are married and live in the same place. One Widmore favored daughter Penny, who shared his last name. The new Widmore seems more concerned with son Daniel, who, unlike before, now shares his fathers name and Penny does not.

The overlap between the Shephards and Widmores is, perhaps, more significant than I once thought. Each father had a child with another woman other than his wife. Both affairs produced girls, each a half sister to their father's respective son with another. Son and Daughter from one father....Eve from the rib of Adam. Two as one...Adam and Eve in the caves? Black stone, white stone...the two are one, perhaps reunited in death.

Daniel was a suppressed musical genius in one and a realized master of music in the other. Similarly, Jack has shown ability with the piano in each world. David, Jack's son in one world is, like Daniel, also a genius on the piano. David and Daniel both happen to like playing the exact same music. Daniel seems to have no knowledge of his sister in one world but does in the other. In one world Jack learns of Claire from her mother, but from his father's will in the other. Jack saved the life of the man who would court his sister, apparently in both worlds, with Charlie. Charlie, in a sense, saved Desmond, the suitor of Dan's sister in the other. Daniel told Desmond exactly where Penny would be, perhaps also saving him. What am I leaving out? It seems to go on and on with these two families. This is a leap...but maybe they are one. Will these two families merge? Am I the only one who thought Elloise Hawking was more than smitten with Jack? Jack does like blondes. !

In one world the Island floats, in another sinks. It seems likely in one world Jugghead went off, in the other it did not. Hurley is lucky, now he is unlucky. Sawyer was con, now is cop. And on and on and on. It's almost like a damn record.....

So I will finish with this. I have always hated the literal interpretation of things repeating over and over, like a loop or broken record on LOST. Again, I hate the literal take. Some think this is the millionth time Desmond has been on this adventure. They think he remembers certain things because he has done them over and over, looping. I reject this. The same game, as it were, is being played with the Island, but the players have always been changing. Jack, so far as we know, was not on the Black Rock. Maybe the spirit who is later reincarnated as Jack was on the Black Rock (and I doubt this notion also), but not literally Jack.

Before he touched John Locke, Jacob was sitting on a bench reading Flannery O'Conner's book "Everything that Rises Must Converge." This may be one of the many answers staring us in the face. Maybe the biggest. On the cover of that book is a white bird outlined in black. The bird is flying upwards. It is rising. Striking the bird as it rises is a giant black arrow. And where the arrow pierces that bird is, of course, Red. If Ajira 316 rises, will things converge? From life, death...from death, life...two opposites at the root of existence, one.

Thank you for reading. If you my post, I invite you to visit my LOST blog, where I go off even more, at: http://lost-looking-glass.blogspot.com/