'Lost': I want your Man in Black questions

Can we be sure Randall Flagg is on the wrong side? If so, what could Jacob have possible done that makes him want to kill him? There are two possibilities that I can think of.

1) Jacob is punishing RF, and RF is trying to get out of it through the loophole.
2) They are both being punished and Jacob is content with where he is, while RF isn't. And the only way out is if Jacob dies.

Either way, it seems as though RF is more desparate to get out of his situation than Jacob is/was.

Thanks,
Doug

What is The Man in Black's name? For some reason, I don't think that our NOT being given that information is an accidental omission....

1) Do you think the Man in Black's plan, the one that ultimately seemed to work (by becoming Locke and conning Ben into murder) was something he had been planning all along, or something he stumbled into when Oceanic 815 landed on the Island?

Just so I'm clear, I know the Man in Black was working on SOME plan since that day on the beach with Jacob (and probably before that). What I'm curious about is if he knew what that plan was going to be, or if he put the pieces together, wove his own "thread" as it were, after seeing what he had to work with when 815 crashed.

Just got caught up on the rest of "The Man (in Black) with the Plan" series and I'm really impressed with, and stimulated by, all of the great thoughts from Ryan, romana118, Galen, and many others.

While I ponder how to intelligently articulate my questions, let me start by admitting that even though I love "Walkabout" and have seen it many times, until I saw the ABC weekend rerun of it a couple of nights ago I never noticed what Heidi recently pointed out -- that when "Colonel" Locke (after being berated by his boss) goes back to adding up numbers on his calculator, the "adding machine" sound is exactly the same "New York taxicab" sound made by Smokey!

(Although I still think, as I have since I first saw the pilot years ago, that the main smokey sound [at least back then] seems extremely similar to the sound made by the ID monster in "Forbidden Planet".) (Those of you who follow Darlton's podcasts and such -- have they ever admitted this?)

GALEN: "Charlie's vision of baptism, one that still seems entirely out of place in the shows history, may be the closest we have seen to a Jacob intervention."

I fear you may be right, Galen -- but I hope not because "Fire & Water" was the very first episode of LOST I didn't like (despite its reputation amongst the producers as "A Very Special Episode" [like a 70s or 80s sitcom dealing with child molestation]), and I'd hate to have to reconsider my hate.

(Kind of like we'd feel if we found out that the "Tales of the Crypt" episode revealed all the clues to MIB and Jacob, but somehow we just missed it!)

JACOB OR FORREST?

In closing (at least for now), in order to live up to my nome de plume let me just say that as much as I loved the Bernard and Rose scene, I'm a bit "concerned" that it not be taken too far.

I'm reminded of a certain quote by a character named, yes, JACOB in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, which (if memory serves correctly) goes something like this: "How can you pray for peace, or even want it, while your people are enslaved and oppressed?"

I'm with Jacob -- and will be very disappointed if LOST goes with too much of what I call the Gump-producer mentality:

"Just turn off your brain, trust in authority, and you will be rewarded with tremendous material wealth, hand-shakes from famous authority figures, and an hiv-free child. Though, yes, the love of your live will die very young of aids but that's no big deal given everything else, right? I mean, after all, you get to be rich and shake the hands of several presidents!!!"

Two questions -

2) I mentioned this yesterday, but why is MiB apparently so clueless about Jacob's actions? Jacob seems to know almost exactly what MiB is planning, and is setting up counterplans (e.g., runway, touches) in advance. Do you think this is just hubris on MiB's part, or is Jacob just better at concealing his intervention than MiB?

2) Both parties have intervened at several points in our protagonists' pasts (too many p-words, I know...) - at what point in Jacob's/MiB's timelines do these interventions take place? In other words, are the "gods" acting only in the present, with the ability to "see" the future, or are they going back and changing the past? Or are concepts like "present" and "past" completely irrelevant to these beings?

1. How aware of the MIB are "The Others"? Is Charles Widmore working for the MIB? Who else might be a part of his army of darkness that will wage war with the army of light?

2. We have a three year gap on the island between Locke disappearing in front of Richard in 2004 and "Mocke" (MIB + Locke = Mocke) returning to Richard in 2007. We've seen Jacob take action during that time (touching Sayeed and Hurly, meeting with Llana). What was MIB doing?

3. Most importantly....what the heck did MIB "just eat" before he met Jacob on the beach to welcome the Black Rock to the island?

What does MIB want? What is his ultimate goal and exactly how does killing Jacob help him achieve that goal?
More importantly, who (or what) judges MIB after he kills Jacob; if MIB is the smokey who judges Ben, that is? Everybody answers to someone, like Ben said so, who do MIB and Jacob answer to?

Andrei, I was also wondering if Jacob (and the MIB) are going back in time to touch our Losties, or did those Jacob touches always happen? Of course, if Jacob really did bring Locke back to life after his 8-story fall, it would seem that "it always happened" would be the correct answer. Maybe I just answered my own question. Or, not....

We know that MiB interacted with Locke via Richard, telling Locke to kill himself and thus providing the vessel to kill Jacob. From the first few episodes of Lost, we see Christian Shepherd (in white shoes) appearing to Jack on the beach, just at the edge of the brush. Any thoughts on who might have inhabited Christian's body at that point? If the light/dark shoes theories apply, was that Jacob? And, if so, does that then mean that Jacob somehow intervened in Christian's life at some point, bringing his dead body to this island as a vessel to interact with Jack??

I noticed when Jack starts chasing white shoes Christian and then Locke (or maybe Not Locke even in Season 1?) shows up with the Boar. Sun and Frank meet Christan and then he says wait for Locke. What color shoes was that Christian wearing? And the scene where Ben and Not Locke are kayaking across from Hydra to Main island, Not Locke had taken off the Christian shoes and put them back on when they got to the dock. What are we supposed to think about that? That Not Locke doesn't need the shoes to exist? They made a point to show us the shoes were off Not Locke's feet on Hydra island before Ben wakes up and Not Locke is in the waves of the beach staring out communing with the island. My MIB question? What is the deal with the shoes?