Ya’ll, Season 6 ROCKS! WOOT! If you want to know What (TF) is going on on LOST, just scratch the surface of any number of scenes in Season 6!In the last post, we discussed Jacob's metaphor (Find "Jacob's Bottle" HERE). In this post, we’ll be discussing Jacob's job. To do this, we'll decipher Jacob's explanation of what he does as told to Ricardo in "Ab Aeterno": wine corked in a bottle.
Remember Amy's baseline perspective: NOTHING on LOST takes place in a PHYSICAL world, but it is ALL REAL. There is NO timeline other than the sequence of events AS THEY ARE PRESENTED to us in the show. There's no "past" except what happened in the prior scene/episode(s). HERE WE GO!
RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE
According to my European History professor, the first sign of any great leader is his/her reluctance to go to war. If your country is attacked, you don't have much of a choice really, but barring that, a truly great leader does everything in his/her power to avoid starting or going to war.
Wars are BAD. They are expensive. They require you to shop at the war store for supplies, personnel, and munitions. If they take place in your territory, they cause lots of damage, hurt your peeps and destroy resources. If they take place in someone else's territory, they are even more expensive. You have to convince your pals to help you out, and that risks your relationship with them (What if they say no?). Most importantly, wars make your peeps mad at you because 1) they're the ones fighting for you 2) since you are not made of money, you take the money you need to pay for your war from them via taxes and 3) if "we" lose the war, it's all YOUR fault. That's why, generally speaking, avoiding war as long as you can is good for you, your peeps and yer pals.
That being said, the second sign of a truly great leader is his/her ability to "make war work." That is, going to war at the right time with an achievable objective, winning the war as efficiently as possible and then ending the war in a way that prevents future wars, helps out your peeps, makes your peeps and pals happy and meets your objective. Your objective, btw, is what you wanted. Why you thought you had no choice but to go to war.
According to my professor, these objectives fall into three categories: 1) You're doing something I don't like, 2) you have something I want or 3) because everyone else is doing it. [My professor was awesome!]
Notice that "Because you don't believe what I believe" is NOT on the list. When it comes to war, your beliefs are irrelevant to me until you do something I don't like or have something I want. Granted, I can use your beliefs against you by "proving" that your beliefs are causing you to do something I don't like or have something I want, but you're beliefs themselves are not why I'm attacking or fighting you.
Also notice that "Because you are Evil, and I am Good" is NOT on the list of objectives. That's because, regardless of participation level, EVERYONE thinks that the side they're fighting on is GOOD and the side they're fighting against is EVIL -- even if they switch sides in the middle or turn double agent -- the side they are currently fighting/helping/working for is the GOOD side.
[Unless they're in it for the money, which happens.]
Here's the kicker: No matter what you call yourself during the war, it's whoever WINS that gets to keep calling themselves GOOD and the other guys EVIL. The designation of Good or Evil are 100% dependent on who's calling it, and when it comes to the large scale, who's calling it is whoever's in charge/in control. And when it comes to war, whoever wins gets to be in charge/control.
One last thing: Damon and Carlton discussed the major themes of LOST in their most recent interview with WIRED magazine. In this interview they admit that Science v. Faith was definitely a theme at work on the show. However, CHAOS v. ORDER has been the primary theme all along. Don't be fooled! Chaos and order are as much in the eye of the beholder as good and evil! My pal thinks my office is chaos. I think it's in perfect order. I think the way you run your government is CHAOS. You think the way your government is run is ORDER. In both cases, both sides are right, and both sides are wrong.
If Jacob describes what the wine represents in his metaphor as wrong, bad, evil and in need of containment/isolation, we should NOT I repeat NOT take his word at face value. We need to know MORE about what's being contained and why.
FIRST we need to know WHY Mock Locke really hates Jacob and what he does/represents. Then we need to know what Jacob thinks he does and who he does it for ["Everybody's got a boss, Ilsa"].
JACOB & THE BOTTLE REVIEW
In the last post, we dissected Jacob's metaphor of the wine, the cork and the bottle [you can find that post HERE]. After checking out the wordplay, we discovered that 1) Jacob is a wordplay master and 2) the WINE in his metaphor represents SOMETHING THAT CAUSES ALL SUFFERING (or something that is blamed for causing all suffering).
If the "wine" is the cause of all suffering, and it is contained by the "bottle" (where it belongs) and the bottle is corked to keep it from getting out and spreading, then we need to know:
- Who's trying to avoid suffering in this scenario? In order for suffering to take place, someone needs to suffer.
- How are they trying to avoid it? Suffering didn't start out in the bottle. Who pinpointed the cause of suffering specifically enough to go after it? What's the procedure for collecting it? Who figured out how to contain it? How is it contained?
- Why are they trying to avoid it? Suffering sucks, sure, but timing is everything. What motivated them to PURGE the cause of suffering in the first place?
- What is "the cause of suffering?" What's in the bottle?
- MOST IMPORTANT: Is what's in the bottle ACTUALLY responsible for causing all suffering OR is it just BLAMED for causing all suffering?
Add to these questions the following: What can be blamed/named as the cause of all suffering, collected and placed in artificial confinement ("where it belongs") and would get out if it could?
MOCK LOCKE DOESN'T HEART JACOB
Excerpt from Mock Locke/Jack parley from "The Last Recruit":
- Mock Locke: ...This may be hard for you to believe, Jack, but all I've ever been interested in is helping you.
- Jack: To help me? To do what?
- Locke: Leave. But because Jacob chose you, you were trapped on this Island, before you even got here. Now Jacob's dead. We don't have to be trapped anymore. We can get on an airplane and fly away anytime we want to.
- Jack: If we can just fly away whenever we want, why are you still here?
- Locke: Because it has to be all of us. What?
- Jack: John Locke was the only one of us that ever believed in this place. He did everything he could to keep us from leaving this island.
- Locke: John Locke was not a believer, Jack. He was a sucker.
WTF is going on with this conversation? This entire exchange doesn't make much sense to me. You wanna know why?[HINT: Because Darlton are SNEAKY BASTARDS!] Let’s turn to my favorite website for wordplay study: www.thefreedictionary.com.
- Island – (originally meant "watery land.") [n] a zone or area resembling an island, especially in being isolated or surrounded. [v] to place on an island; insulate; isolate [Verb use is rare.]
- Because: as a result of
- Choose (past tense, chose) – to prefer above others [Syn. anoint, set apart, assign, specify, single out, extract]
- You – 2nd person, singular [Not ME];
- We – 1st person plural [Not YA’LL]
- You/Ya’ll -- 2nd plural; [Not US]
- Us – 1st person plural [all ya’ll AND me; Not THEM]
- Trap – (past tense, trapped) to catch or ensnare; to prevent from escaping; to deceive or trick by means of a scheme or plan.
What if Mock Locke means CAUGHT or ENSNARED or DECEIVED when he uses the word "trapped?" Think of Claire’s bear trap, John’s Mouse Trap Game and Rousseau’s many crazy, wild-woman traps. Think of how many peeps have been caught in a trap: Sayid, Ben, Jin, Charlie, Hurley, Kate & Jack. Jack sets a trap for the Others with the dynamite. The boys set a trap for Ethan (with Claire as bait). A con, even a long con, is basically a trap to get your money. Claire sets a trap to catch a bird. Ben and Mock Locke are all about trapping you with manipulation.
If I’ve trapped you, you’ve been snared, hooked, netted, cornered, hemmed in, out-flanked, out-played, and checkmat-ed. You were free, but because of the machinations I’ve applied to you, you are free no longer (and you are at my mercy).
Let’s look over Mock Locke’s line one more time, and then let’s use the wordplay to decipher it.
- Mock Locke: But because Jacob chose you, you were trapped on this island, before you even got here. Now Jacob's dead. We don't have to be trapped anymore. We can get on an airplane and fly away anytime we want to.
Possible Translation:
- However, Before you even got here [to this place/point], ya'll were trapped [caught/held/deceived] on this island [in/by this isolated environment] because Jacob chose [singled out/extracted] ya'll. Now Jacob's dead. We [ya'll and us] don't have to be [aren't required/mandated] to be trapped [caught/held/deceived] anymore [any longer/ever again]. We can get on an airplane [transport] and fly away [leave] anytime we want to.*
JACOB SPILLS IT OUT
Check out Jacob’s description of his "job" and his opinion about the people he brings "HERE."
- Jacob: Think of this wine as what you keep calling hell. There's many other names for it too: malevolence, evil, darkness. And here it is, swirling around in the bottle, unable to get out because if it did, it would spread. The cork is this island and it's the only thing keeping the darkness where it belongs. That man who sent you to kill me believes that everyone is corruptable because it's in their very nature to sin. I bring people here to prove him wrong. And when they get here, their past doesn't matter.
- Richard: Before you brought my ship, there were others?
- Jacob: Yes, many.
- Richard: What happened to them?
- Jacob: They're all dead.
- Richard: But if you brought them here. Why didn't you help them?
- Jacob: Because I wanted them to help themselves. To know the difference between right and wrong without me having to tell them. It's all meaningless if I have to force them to do anything. Why should I have to step in?
Jacob and MIB discuss the "people" Jacob brings "HERE" in "The Incident."
- Jacob: I take it you're here 'cause of the ship.
- MIB: I am. How did they find the Island?
- Jacob: You'll have to ask 'em when they get here.
- MIB: I don't have to ask. You brought them here. Still trying to prove me wrong, aren't you?
- Jacob: You are wrong.
- MIB: Am I? They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.
- Jacob: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.
LET FREEDOM RING
If we combine Mock Locke's interpretation of what's going with Jacob's interpretation of what's going on and sift out the static, the pieces of the puzzle start to come together:
- They are all currently in some kind of place/destination/system that can't be circumvented [no loophole] as long as Jacob is alive [Because they have the ability/freedom to leave now that Jacob's dead, but they haven't left YET].
- Jacob has singled out or extracted Jack/our losties for a specific reason ["We were brought here for a reason!"], but that reason might be WHAT they are rather than WHO they are. ["I'm not a what; I'm a who!"]
- Since Jacob has singled them out (from other peeps) and placed them in isolation (away from other peeps), there must be (or HAVE BEEN) a pool of peeps for Jacob to choose from.
- This pool of peeps is SOMEWHERE ELSE, but somewhere Jacob still had access to it (until he died!).
- "Here" is "isolation" from the larger group/outside world.
- This extracting/singling out of specific peeps from a pool of peeps is JACOB'S JOB.
- Bringing said peeps "here" is JACOB'S JOB.
- Once they got "here," Jack/our losties were supposed to independently demonstrate that they know right from wrong and aren't helpless [i.e. prove that MIB is wrong] without Jacob forcing them or telling them what to do.
- Deciding whether or not the people Jacob brings "here" know right from wrong is MIB'S JOB.
- Releasing peeps is NOT Jacob's job. He doesn't have the ability to release them for some reason.
- Whoever or whatever is responsible for releasing peeps from "here" isn't doing it/functioning.
- When Jacob wasn't dead, someone else decided who could get on an airplane (and who couldn’t) and when we/they could fly away.
- This system, this testing process (prove you know right from wrong) USED to follow all kinds of rules, but not anymore. This system is in chaos [Chaos v. Order -- Get it?]
[“The soul takes flight to the world that is invisible, but there arriving she is sure of bliss, and forever dwells in Paradise.” – Plato]
A closer look at this one line makes it sound a lot like Jacob bears responsibility for some kind of social filtering system. Some kind of BIASED social filtering system that targets a specific group that is "different" and, therefore, in need of further testing before joining the “rest of us.” [“That is how you turn a soft metal into steel!”].
For whatever reason, MIB is or was part of this testing. [FYI: I’m still not entirely convinced that MIB and Mock Locke are the same guy. That’s why I refer to them separately.] Once a decision is made about the subject [pass or fail] Jacob puts together the LIST – the PLANE MANIFEST passenger list – for a "flight"/transfer to the New World. Those who don’t make the list -- well, why don't you tell me. What do you think happens to the peeps that can't make the grade?
HELP YOURSELF
l'll just admit it. Jacob came off as a jerk in "Ab Aeterno," especially after we’ve watched everyone on the island struggle for five years! But look specifically at what he says. He wanted the people he brought "here" to ALREADY know right from wrong. That’s what they are being tested for. And, dang it! That bugs the crap outta me because that’s a FIXED test!
Sure, there are some things that are Right and Wrong (like murdering an innocent), but if you start digging, even a little, what’s right and what’s wrong is up to the JUDGE. And if you don’t know what the rules are and you break them, the judge hammers you: you fail. YOU DON’T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES. [I just got chills! Well, Jack always gives me chills, so maybe it’s not that big a deal.]
Jacob also wants his test subjects to “help themselves” which smacks of “will they take care of themselves or will ‘we’ have to take care of them?” snootiness (I am way over-sensitive to snootiness in general, so I might be biased). You prove to me that you can struggle and survive without any help. Do you have what it takes to be “one of us?” [Desmond is “helping himself,” according to Boone. Hm.]
And it’s all meaningless – the credential you earn (to become one of “us” by passing the Jacob test) is worthless if Jacob just gives you the answers. [I learned this very quickly as a teacher. I have a duty to let students choose to fail. It validates the students who’ve chosen to work, learn and pass. BUT I pretty sure I wouldn't let the smoke monster eat my students without interceding.]
However, it’s the "Why should I have to step in?" that bothers me the most. [Um, I dunno, Jacob, maybe because it’s your responsibility to make sure the Smoke Monster isn’t eating your test subjects? What a ridiculous and condescending thing to say! Jerky!]
Back to Jacob’s WINE in the bottle “corked” by the island metaphor: what happens if you “fail” the test? You don’t get to be with US, cuz we all passed the test (or we WEREN’T required to take it to begin with because Jacob decided or the rules Jacob is following say we are already better than you). You don’t know right from wrong. You can’t help yourselves. You aren’t “one of us.” You’re the rejects, and guess where rejects go?
That’s what I'm thinkin'. Rejects go INTO THE BOTTLE. The island isn’t just a “cork.” It’s part of a screening device. It’s a FILTER. [Remember Dr. Linus bitching about someone throwing out the old filter in the teachers lounge? That’s why I laughed so hard!] It keeps “darkness” or the undesirables where they “belong.” They can't get out. They gotta stay isolated from the rest of “us” so their not-as-good-as-us-ness doesn’t “spread.”
If this idea doesn’t bother you, you need to read “Diary of Anne Frank.” That’s right. The reference to Jews and Judaism on the show was a HUGE red flag for me. In this system, Jacob uses the island to weed out the undesirables and put them away “where they belong.” The bottle is this world's Jewish ghetto [or the nuthouse. Either way certain peeps are deemed "should not be around the rest of us" by whoever's in charge.]. The wine is the “THEY belong in their own separate space, isolated and away from US” labeled peeps who didn’t make the cut. The WINE is the rejects! They are hidden away with no hope of contact or release.
This is why, when MIB smashed that bottle to bits, I was VERY, VERY HAPPY! Yay! Not only are they shutting down the island. They are eliminating the system entirely.
The idea that people on the island are being screened for “are you good enough to enter/join the rest of us in the New World” pulls together many things we’ve seen on the show so far:
- Rose’s comment to Jack - “You can let go now. We made it.” – in “LA X”
- Jacob’s discussion with Ricardo about what Jacob and MIB do with the island. Jacob brings “the ship/them” here to disprove MIB's belief that “people” have sin in their “very nature.”
- The obsession with Jacob’s list. [Goodwin – “He was not a good person. That’s why he wasn’t on the list.”]
- The idea that Jacob has been “watching us – watching me – the whole time” [Jack in “Lighthouse”]. How’s he supposed to know who goes on the list if he doesn’t know what’s happening with the test subjects? He watches or observes them and makes notes [this process alluded to with the Pearl Station].
- Mock Locke’s indignation, hatred of Jacob, contempt for John Locke and vendetta-like behavior in general [I’m still not entirely sure his intentions are all “bad”].
- Desmond “sneaking” on to the LA X plane.
- The idea that there are “rules.” If you are testing the moral character of someone [or running a clinical trial], in a fair test you can’t kill them and you can’t tell them what to do. [Ben – “Don’t interfere.” Jacob, “Jack has to figure it out for himself.”]
- The idea that “What we’re doing here” is really, really important to Ben’s Others.
- The need for the island to have your memories and experiences at its disposal to manipulate your environment to “test you.” This is why all the funky events on the island are so “coincidentally” personal for our losties.
- Sun’s comment “Are we being punished for the things we did? The lies we told?”
- The fact that many characters are killed right after their point of redemption. [Eko, Ana Lucia, Shannon, etc.]
- The way that our losties in the New World (flash sideways) all seem to have relatively healthy relationships and psychological profiles.
- John Locke’s belief that he was being “tested.”
- Claire’s sullen comment: “There’s no such thing as fate.” She’s right. In this world, there can’t be Fate if your “fate” is decided by someone else (“God Loves Jacob”). It isn’t the “universe” working with you or against you, it’s a set of parameters used to judge your response to custom-created stimuli. If those parameters are met as judged by someone else, you’re deemed “worthy” to join a “screened” society.
- John Locke’s disgust at Ben’s digs before he bombs the submarine. He says “You’re cheating!” This would be true if part of the island’s purpose was to “weed out” the weak as well as those unable to tell “right from wrong.”
This also means:
- Everything that Ben has done “for the island” has actually been done to reinforce the “are you good enough to be with the rest of us” system [or to subvert it – don’t rule that out].
- The sonic fences used by the Dharma initiative and the Others, the protection Dogen and the temple provided were in place to resist what “The island” would do to them. Maybe it’s because the New World wasn’t opened yet, or maybe it was some other reason. But if you can keep Smokey out, you can resist the island’s power over you.
- Richard’s peeps (Locke’s “people”) had some kind of immunity to the island’s affects. That’s why they could roam the island like camping peeps of yore, and why Richard says the sonic fences “can’t stop us.”
- Widmore is trying to take control of the island for a reason. It could be to rescue Penny because she didn’t “make it” or wasn’t allowed in to the New World [Ben says Widmore “had a child with an outsider.” When he kicks him off]. He interested in Power, but what if it’s power to keep the old system from shutting down? But if you end up with loved ones stuck on the island, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine a corrupt system where you could ransom them out somehow.
- More than likely, (and I'll explain this later) Widmore is trying to STEAL the system.
- Naomi’s comment: “Covert military operation into hostile territory” makes a little bit more sense.
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
I got bad news. I'll just tell you up front because I appreciate that you're reading anything I've written, and I feel like I owe you a heads up. Are you ready? Because, I'm just telling you straight out, you are NOT gonna like this. Deep breath now. INNNNNNNN. OOOOUUUUUT. Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh.
I'm looking through all of this, and I'm starting to wonder where the war is. And the more I think about it, the more I try to sift through who wants what, and who's fighting who, and all of that mess, and I'm starting to suspect there's a twist in here we just haven't been stabbed with. [Damn you, Darlton!]
And I'm not cool with being stabbed without taking a stab first.
NEXT UP: Amy Smashes Through The Looking Glass: In The End
