The rules, themes, timelines, Mib and Jacob and fate of the characters by Thomas

My theories and thoughts about the rules,Mib and Jacob, timelines and the fate of the characters.

The rules:

I’m talking about the rules regarding the killing of the remaining candidates, not the rules between Jacob and MiB in regards to killing each other, or the rules Ben and Widmore were talking about (although these might be the same) . So lets define a few things , there are/were candidates (crossed out or not) , candidates who were touched by Jacob, non candidates and non candidates who were touched by Jacob(just Richard really, but he can never become a candidate or the actual leader of the others). Now I think the non candidates can be killed by anyone including MiB and themselves, candidates not touched by Jacob can be killed by any other candidate or by themselves, intentional or not, but not MiB. The rules for candidates that were touched by Jacob (and Richard) were made clear in the scene between Richard and Jack, they can not kill themselves and can not be killed by MiB, they can however die as a result of something that another “touched” candidate does.

However there are a few problems obviously with my understanding of the rules . For one, this would make getting all the touched candidates together the worst idea ever by MiB, seeing as the touched candidate who set off the bomb wouldn’t be able to die. Which would mean that would be the only one left with nobody else left with the power to kill him (maybe Richard still could, or once candidates, like Claire, can still kill candidates touched by Jacob).

Also this would mean that if the bomb stayed next to Sawyer it wouldn’t have gone off, which makes Sayid’s final action completely counter productive, which I’m not sure the producers would be willing to do.

Lastly, why wouldn’t Jacob just touch every candidate? But I think Jacob had no real choise in who the candidates were, that he followed them during their lives and the ones he chose as possible replacements, he touched. I also don’t think MiB knew who the touched ones were, he’s been trying to figure it out, and he got Kate wrong.

MiB and Jacob:

There is no way to predict the mythology, it’s not going to come from to bible or any other book, Lost has a mythology of its very own. So I don’t know how what I think is the situation has happened but I think the broad strokes are the following.

First off, the it seems clear to me that MiB and Jacob were ones humans and that they arent the one enforcing the rules, I think the island is enforcing the rules and MiB and Jacob have to follow like everyone else. A huge theme in the show is the fact that no person is born evil or good, so neither were MiB or Jacob. There is no way the show is having a human just “born” evil or good. So what I think happened is that Mib and Jacob came to the island like everyone else. I believe the island has always been a place that harbors a certain “ power” , again I can’t know how this will manifest in the show (although I think it will be something unexplained about the electromagnatism). For a certain reason that fits into the mythology, MiB will have this “power” bound to him, maybe it will be his own fault, this happening has bound him to the island forever, trapping him there.

However this happened, he blames Jacob for this, I believe there will be some abiguity about this. But even after this happened he wasn’t evil yet, but I think that over the years his obsession over the fact that his happened to him, and he regards it to be unfair, the punishment not fitting the crime, has turned him evil. That in this point in time he really is evil with no other objective than to leave the island by whatever means. Also him leaving the island would mean the power bound within him can leave to and will end mankind, but he no longer cares.

Jacob on the other side will get the role of making sure the island(the prison for the power), can not be destroyed, how all this happened will be explained by the mythology of Lost I don’t think you can predict how exactly it happened.

I’m sure the electromagnitism will have a lot to do with it, but will never fully explained, I think the electromagnitism will be like the force in the original trilogy. And it will be left up to us if it is supernatural or not with no real answer.
Lastly, I believe this power was neither good nor evil, both Jacob and the Mib had something happen to him, both had to make a sacrifice. It put one on the path to evil and one on the path to good.

Themes:

Destiny vs. free will. Basicly I think that in Lost it is destiny that certain events will take place and the free will part is that you have the choise of how you handle those events,for example the losties were always going to get to the island, what they do there nobody can predict. Neither Jacob nor MiB can change the destiny, they try to influence the choises, Jacob clearly less than MiB. This theme appears to be very important to Jack, he keeps trying to change the destiny part, he has to learn how to focus on the choises and stop looking back.

Black vs. white. Purely symbolic I think, there will be no official “game”. No official black vs. white. Jacob and MiB only symbolicly represent white and dark, good and bad, they could both have chosen either side although they ended up this way through choises. It probably represents the good and bad within everyone.

The references to black vs. white in games again I don’t believe is pointing to an actual game being played on the island, it’s a metaphor. Jacob is not a white player and MiB a black player officialy, they only represend those two sides in the story. The metaphorical game is, if people make good choises, the power will stay on the island, if not, it can leave and mankind will end. Those are just the results of the way things are, it’s not an official game.

The timelines:

So clearly we have two timelines, the one with the island above water and one with the island submerged, time line A and B. I think the split came when the bomb was set off in 1977(not sure which year). What I think happened was that Jack made a mistake because of his constant obsession with trying to change the destiny part of things and trying to change the past. That bomb was never supposed to go off, he should have accepted the island part of his life instead of trying to erase it.

However, Juliet setting off the bomb caused the fact that the touched candidates could still not die, but the island still submerged(MiB’s goal). Something outside of the rules happened, the candidates are not dead, but the island is submerged. This impossibility caused the split. And there will be two timelines untill things are resolved according to the rules.

Timeline A will be the one to survive. If timeline B decides they will not sacrifice themselves by letting the timeline in which they never got to the island exist, MiB will have won, there will be no island to hold him and no candidates. I don’t think this will happen however.In timeline A, Jack will be confronted with the choise of correcting his past mistake, by letting timeline B exist in which people are not dead because of him, or accepting the past and letting timeline A continue. He’ll make the right choise this time. I’m not sure how all this will manifest itself, but I think that is the general idea.

Characters left:

Jack. Will make the right decission this time, will learn to “let go”, I think this decission will result in his own death though, but it will be what stops timeline B from happening.
Sawyer. Will also die before the final act I think, is in need of redemption and chose not to believe in Jack. It will also complete the evolution of his character, from only caring about himself to dying for others.

Kate. Will be the next Jacob. I think the Valenzetti equation hinted at it, the other numbers lead to the destruction of mankind. She was crossed out in MiB’s cave but not Jacob’s lighthouse. Jack is far too obvious plus it was the original plan to kill Jack off first and have Kate be the hero.

Hurley. I think he will make it to the end, he has been the moral compass of the show since the beginning, although I wouldn’t put it past the creators to kill him off, it would make everyone cry.But I don’t think so. Wild guess, he’ll get Richards job.

Richard. Will probably die, but not before seeing his part in Jacobs grand plan, feeling like he has redemption, will not go to hell and having his faith completely restored. It just makes perfect sense to eventually let the character who has lived so long and is afraid of death die, but not before no longer fearing it.

Ben. I think he will make it to the end, wild guess, he gets reinstated as leader of the new “others”.

Miles and maybe Frank. I’m really not sure, but I’m going to go with, members of the new others.

Desmond. Will obviously be instrumental in defeating the MiB, because of his resistance to electromagnatism. I think after whatever it is he does to defeat the MiB, he will be bound to the island to. With the abilitity to repel the new smoke monster, and I think he will be the new Dogen. Sacrificing his existance with Penny and his son to keep them alive.

John Locke. Yes John Locke, I think after the MiB is defeated, the form of John Locke will remain. Like MiB now, no longer human, just that form with it’s abilities and John’s memories. Remember, I don’t think becoming the smoke monster makes you evil, it’s the decissions that the current MiB made that lead him to become evil. I think we will be left guessing if the same thing will happen to John.

Widmore. I think he is on nobody’s side but his own right now, but he will see how futile his efforts with technology are( I believe his information about MiB is from the time he was the leader of the others and the fence technology was bought from the old darhma initiative). He will see Desmond being the one to eventually defeat MiB, maybe even while trying to stop MiB from killing Widmore.And Widmore will eventually provide the new others with a sub and tell Penny about her heroic husband he now accepts. (fun random thought, what if he brings Penny and Desmond’s son over).