Motives by CJR

Was I the only one that, right up until the scene where the Man in Black grabbed Claire and told her she didn't want to be in the submarine and the discovery that he had planted the C4 in Jack's bag, had doubts about the Man in Black being "evil".

The writers did something amazing, at least for me. All the while the MIB was manipulating and scheming everyone into believing he wasn't "evil", they were managing to convince the viewer of the same thing. You feel empathy for this man. Born during (presumably) Roman times and being lied to about his beginnings, and his only wish to leave the island and explore the outside world destroyed by his own "mother". Then, thrown into the heart of the island and forced to be stuck, forever, as a "monster". From then until the events of 2004 (a very, very long time) he has had to play Jacob's stupid games. Seen all of the people Jacob brought, beyond their will, to the island just to die. Just to prove a point. To keep him there.

And that's just facts from the show, not even speculation. It's enough to drive anyone mad. None of this makes him evil. We immediately believe he is evil because the form he can take and because we are repeatedly told that Jacob is good and pure. Even after the C4 revelation it's hard to see him as pure evil. After that long, it's almost justified.

Everyone else died for Jacob, why not them? There is no evidence to suggest that if he did leave that anything bad would happen. He never says it. Of course, why would he? It's not exactly a great way to hey help. "Come with me off the island so I can kill everyone". No. But that's what we hear from Jacob time and time again. It will be bad if he leaves. He needs to stay. Will it? Does he?

My theory (finally), is that the wool might have been pulled over our eyes here. Other theories believe that Jack became the new smoke monster. It's a cool theory if you've ever read it. But it's flawed because we're supposed to believe that this thing is evil. Balance and all that. Jack is not evil. Neither is MIB. They just want different things. I like to think that, while things ended well for our friends who crashed (mostly), it didn't end well for someone who just wanted to leave - just like them - but because of "the rules" that he never agreed to he could not. Jacob is the crazy one.

This wouldn't be the first time we've been shown one thing in LOST and it's been entirely different the whole time. As I said earlier, they had me believing he wasn't "evil" for a while there. Perhaps his actions, the only reason we see them as evil, is because we've spent so long with these characters that threats to their lives must only come from evil. But ask yourself, what would you do in that situation? Probably anything.