"Jacob" in Ab Aeterno is really MIB by Fakob

I just thought of this the other day because for all my rationalizing, I CANNOT square Richard/Ben's behavior (i.e. the Dharma genocide) with the supposedly benevolent Jacob they claim to follow. It is NOT POSSIBLE for Richard to be the appointed representative of THAT Jacob - that THAT Jacob would give them such abhorrent instructions throughout the years rings completely false with everything we've come to know about Jacob... the Jacob who tells Jack "You have what it takes" or the Jacob who acts as a father to Ilana or the Jacob who is trying to prove people can become good. Sorry, something is rotten here.

I can think of no conceivable way to reconcile Richard's lifelong actions or "Jacob's" odd behavior and dialogue during his beach encounter with Richard with the Jacob we’ve seen every other time on the show. Consequently, the only option is to assume that MIB was pretending to be the Jacob that appoints Richard to be his representative. Richard was double-duped that day and both he and subsequently Ben Linus and the Others have been unwittingly carrying out orders from MIB their entire lives.

I've not heard this theory anywhere else, but it seems like precisely the type of huge wool-over-our-eyes trick the LOST writers would pull.

So how do you square that with the jungle conversation between MIB and the real Jacob that purportedly follows Richard's knife-attack? It is a flashback - the implied point in time of that conversation is a ruse by the writers. It is not happening directly after Richard's encounter with the supposed Jacob but in fact happened a LONG TIME BEFORE.

How do you explain this? Watch it - Jacob says he is SURPRISED that MIB tried to kill him. Why would he be surprised if just a few days prior MIB said "Do you have any idea how much I want to kill you... one of these days I'm going to find a loophole..."?

The nature of the whole Ab Aeterno conversation between MIB and Jacob is that of "a conversation that is occurring for the first time" - perhaps from the beginning of time, which is not I think coincidentally the meaning of "Ab Aeterno." Probably this is the conversation they're having after MIB tried to kill Jacob for the first time of many times, which was waaaay back in the day. Watch the clip - it's all there.

Fast forward to present day. In Season 6, for Ilana to say "Richard will know what to do next," (seeming to imply that Richard is really a follower of the actual Jacob), I'm guessing Jacob predicted Richard would have a personal crisis over his allegiance to "Jacob," (really the MIB all along) and at the proper time sent Isabella to tell Richard what to do next. MIB, in the guise of Locke looking on the entire time, seems pissed – and why not? He just lost Richard to the enemy after playing Richard for over a century.

In addition, why does Ilana (a follower of the real Jacob) know all about the candidates and Richard knows nothing? Watch clips of Richard and Flocke talking - it becomes evident that Richard begins questioning whether he is really the representative of the true Jacob he always thought he was. It is after realizing this that he loses his sense of purpose and goes to find MIB, not realizing this decision to be the culmination of a twice over bait-and-switch scheme put into motion over a hundred years prior by that same MIB.

Also notice that when Ilana asks Richard "what lies in the shadow of the statue," the look on her face tells us that she did NOT get the right answer from Richard. She is testing him and since he's been duped into following a false Jacob his entire life, he's under the impression he knows the right answer --- he does not. In fact, watching the entire interaction between Ilana and Richard shows that the two could hardly be more unfamiliar with one another. But why would that be if they’ve both been following the same person all these years? Hmmm…

As for Richard knowing how to open the door to the foot of the statue, it's possible that MIB (in the form of Jacob) taught him how to get in and out. One possibility is that MIB and the real Jacob might both have "equal access" to the foot of the statue. Or, a simpler explanation is, there is no special place to push - you just walk up and push on the door (the door was open when Richard goes to the statue in Ab Aeterno – wouldn’t be hard for him to find it again). That Richard appeared to search for just the right place to push was, my guess, a little red herring thrown in by the writers.

As for the reason MIB was having Richard take him and Ben into the foot instead of taking Ben himself, I think that somehow, everything connected with murdering Jacob has to be done through the actions of other people and not in any way by MIB himself - these are "the rules." MIB cannot interfere, help, or assist in any way with the killing of Jacob - that is why it took him so long to finally achieve this "loophole."

As an aside, watching almost any clip with Richard will bolster the theory that Richard is following a Fakob and not the real Jacob. For example, when Richard's talking to Daniel Farraday in Season 5 he says "I was forced to kill 18 members (of Dharma) because they invaded our jungle space." Farraday, with an incredulous look, replies "forced by whom?" Richard says "Don't you have an authority you answer to? Well, I answer to an authority, too." ----- Does anyone really think the authority he's referring to is the real Jacob? No way - an authority "forcing" you to kill 18 soldiers for no good reason has MIB written all over it.

Or check out any clip with Ben referring to his duties as Jacob’s follower. When Ben calls out the smoke monster to kill people, I'm pretty sure he thinks he's calling out either Jacob or Jacob's "judgment device." He also probably thinks, when being scanned by the smoke monster that he's being "judged" by Jacob. In reality he's becoming MIB's pawn... again - how many times will this have been now? Poor Ben. Poor Richard. Poor everyone that ever got conned by MIB. No wonder Ilana ends up pitying and finally forgiving Ben for his atrocities.

Ultimately, how you fall on this issue comes down to this ----

Do you think the real Jacob gave Richard, and implicitly Ben and the Others, instructions to murder the entire Dharma initiative, have Juliet's ex get run over by a bus, kidnap tons of pregnant women as well as Walt and anyone else "special," build a runway outside the Dharma camp, hang Charlie up to die, kill 18 soldiers that were not threatening anyone, lie to and deceive countless of innocent people...I could go on.

Or... is it just possible that the "Jacob" that Richard met and has been following his whole life is actually the murdering, self-serving, and manipulating MIB we've all come to know (and possibly love)?

I know which one I'm sold on.


P.S. This is by far the coolest twist on LOST yet.