It has come to my attention that many people i see talking about th Across the sea episode are disappointed by the creation of the smoke monster.
They always ask "how did the smoke monster just come out of the light? why is it smoke?" i agree at first it doesn't make any sense.
But then i listened to the final podcast, where darlton mentioned something about the heart of the island being an actual sort of heart, imagine the light being the heart, the muscle if you will, while the watr, the rivers as such, such as the stream and the pool in the temple are the blood. It acts as a heart, with the island being the body. If i remember correctly they did say that the temple connected to this light.
This makes sense for a lot of things, firstly:
The frozen donkey wheel
MIB mentioned "channeling the light and the water to make a system"
i believe the water and the light are the two opposing energies, dark and light if you will, negative and positive electromagnetism if you will.
When these two channel together something happens to oppose to each other, creating frozen water maybe? this is just speculation.
The main point i believe is that by channeling the water and the light, h is pumping the heart, activating it. The island, being a crux of energy and all time
"there is no NOW" Christian shepard
MIB is effectively pumping the essence of time, making sense of why his simple invention works.
Another effect of channeling both the light and water, is a change of form in the water, instead of freezing, perhaps it evaporates, creating a cloud of smoke? This is merely speculation aswell but it ties in. Perhaps this is what the smoke monster is.
We also see that when the water was drained, the volcano was activated. Another two opposites - water and lava. Perhaps combining the two created this evaporated cloud of water energy, with the soul that was MIB.
Lastly i believe there was an episode once called "Fire + Water" which points to this exactly.
Watr, light, both essential to the means of Life.
Thanks for reading anyway, im sorry if this has been mentioned before by someone else, but it really hit me after listening to the Final podcast after seeing "The End"