'Lost': Letters from the Flame, 'The Incident' edition, part 1

Give the number of questions you had about the "Lost" season finale, I've decided to spend this entire week answering as many as I can. Usually I try and knock these out in one entry, but your questions are so vast and the answers so complicated that I am spreading them out. And hey, it's not like we don't have time on our side during the off-season, right?

Do you think that Frank Lapidus might possibly be the new body for Jacob to inhabit?
ChrisDR

At first, I didn't know what the heck ChrisDR was referring to, but then I remember that whole bit about the "candidate" lingo that Bram mentioned upon arriving on the Island proper. And while "candidate" could simply refer to being one of the Chosen People, to use a loaded religious phrase, ChrisDR is right: it could refer to a human vessel into which Jacob could be transferred. Now, I used to think that Aaron was meant for this purpose, but several things in "The Incident" complicate that theory. Let's allow another reader to ask a question that helps point out some of these Avril Lavigne-esque complications.

OK, so here is my question:

Is it safe to assume that both visions of dead Charlie and dead Ana Lucia are somehow related to either Jacob or TMIB since we see that they (or at least for sure TMIB) can inhabit other people's bodies, especially dead ones?

If this is so, I would love to hear some possibly theories on who, either TMIB or Jacob, is doing this and why.
MJ

I think you're basically right, and I know I'm written about this before, but I can't currently find the original article in which the following was originally penned. That's what happened when you publish four articles a week for 18 months.

But here's the essence: we've long seen visions/appearances of things seemingly impossible. Some take the guise of happenstance (Charlie's guitar, the Virgin Mary's statue, the skeletons of those aboard Yemi's plane) and others take the form of seemingly supernatural intervention (Sawyer's boar, Kate's horse, Hurley's imaginary friend Dave). Collected together as images produced from a single entity, they don't add up to a coherent whole. Why would the Island produce both items that inspire awe/love as well as those that inspire fear/weakness?

Well, the answer is, the Island doesn't produce them. Jacob and The Man in Black do, giving them what Jacob would call "a little push." I like Mark Oromaner's comparison to the Duke brothers in "Trading Places," where two immensely powerful people wager over the nature of humanity with a $1 bet. Now, obviously, the stakes on "Lost" are much higher, but clearly these two figures have been subtly inserting themselves into the lives of the Lostaways for some time. Unseen, but deeply felt.

But here's the key: both Jacob and the Man in Black NEED these people. This is an important thing to realize, because rather than demonstrate that the main characters of "Lost" are merely pawns in some larger game only introduced in the finale of Season 5, it shows that we have indeed been following the most important people all along. Which, quite frankly, is a huge relief.

My major question/theory right now has to do with Jacob's cabin. What I want to know is - what was the purpose of the ash circle? In my experience, ash circles are used to magically contain something.

From that vague premise, I've begun to develop a theory that perhaps it was never Jacob in the cabin to begin with, but rather he was holding TMIB there. The person we saw in 'The Man Behind the Curtain' did not look very much like Jacob, and since that point (since the circle has been compromised) we've seen a lot of Cabin Christian (the smoke monster?) in there.

This leads to many questions, such as "why would Ben tell John that was where Jacob was?" It leads me to contemplate why Ben would have never seen Jacob, and think about the allegiances of Richard Alpert.
bluestockingchic

First up: while in my recap I suggested we call Jacob's nemesis The Man in Black, I think we should spell out the name of what I perceive to be his inspiration: Randall Flagg. The Man in Black is only one iteration of his existence in the Stephen King world, and with "The Stand" and "The Dark Tower" as large shadows cast over "Lost," I feel good about calling him Randall for now. I'd check that link out if you want to know more, but if you want to see the greatest reason for the name Randall, I'd read up about a figure called the Trashcan Man.

The cabin is obviously a complicated place in light of "The Incident." From Ilana's visit, we know that Jacob at one point inhabited the location. Otherwise, why wouldn't they go directly to the statue? Jacob's location inside the statue seems to be known by one person, and one person alone: Richard Alpert.

I'm not sure you need to question the allegiance of Richard so much as his motivation. In "Dead is Dead," he tells Charles Widmore that saving Ben was the will of Jacob. But there's no reason to think this is actually true, especially in light of learning that Ben never saw or heard Jacob once during his time on the Island. Did Eloise ever hear/see Jacob? Charles? It casts a shadow on Richard's decision-making process, itself potentially compromised by whatever deal yielded him eternal ... if not youth, then mid-30s. One can't help but watch him tend to the Black Rock replica in the glass jar and compare him to those figures in literature that wished for immortality only to forever watch those around him/her die.

In any case, Ilana tells Bram that Jacob hasn't been in the cabin for "a long time," which is ridiculously vague even for "Lost." Today's study question: did the circle of ash keep something in, as this reader suggests, or keep something out? It's hard to not draw a parallel between the circle of ash and the sonic pylons of the Barracks. I like the idea that the cabin once served as Jacob's home away from statue, with the circle once preventing Smokey from siccing him while there. At some point, Randall's actions got too much for Jacob and the circle went from keeping Smokey out to keeping Randall in. Think "The Phantom Zone."

If this happened, and obviously that's a big if, I think we can assume it all happened before September 2004. Randall abused Ben's inability to hear Jacob, coupled with a lie perpetuated by Richard, to plant a seed of doubt in Ben's head and start Locke down a path that ended in a Los Angeles hotel room. When Ajira 316 crossed over three years later, that broke the ash circle's continuity.

At some point soon, I'm going to flesh out the timeline more, but for now, my take on Cabin Christian from February is worth rereading.

Coming tomorrow: more of your questions!

Ryan also posts every 108 minutes over at Boob Tube Dude. He invites you to join the hundreds already in Zap2It's Guide to Lost Facebook group. He also encourages you to subscribe to the Zap2It's Guide to Lost Twitter feed.

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