The Long Con

OK my first written theory here hasn’t passed moderation. I’m not sure if the mod thought because I was writing as though what I thought was fact that I had some inside information and was “spoiling” – but I really don’t I’m just guessing like everyone else. So I’ll give it another go: [edit by admin: your first post was accepted here: https://www.theoriesonlost.com/2009/06/coming-soon-locke-vs-smokey/]

Straight off the bat, Smokey is MIB – Lost is all about dualism so I do believe they’d boil everything on the island down to two figures – Jacob and Smokey/MIB, two demi gods playing some kind of game.

Jacob – has the power to heal people and ressurect people among other powers which I don’t fully understand.

Smokey – has the power to know everything about anyone who has died and to create illusions of those people.

BOTH – Have the power to take human form when a “blank slate” comes to the island – meaning either a baby is born, or a recently deceased person lands.

Jacob is trying to prove people can live in harmony while smokey beleives people to be rotten at the core. Jacob brings people to the island and tries to make them live in a community. He influences this in two principle ways – 1) By ordaining a leader from birth who he imbues with a bit of his spirit 2) Through a gabriel style messenger – currently Richard, who communicates his messages to the humans.

Obviously this is cheating, but Smokey cheats too by manipulating and frightening the people with visions of their dead loved ones.

Regardless of the game it has long since transcended all of this as they both now hate each other and want each other killed. But neither can be killed by the hand of man only by another god, but not each other either for some unknown reason, maybe because, representing black and white they are part of the same whole. Smokey wants a loop hole and in Jacob’s imbueing of the leader with a bit of his spirit, he has one – as that person is part god. If he can someone manipulate one of Jacob’s leaders to kill him he can succeed in finally killing him.

Smokey has been working on this plan for a long time, since Ben was a child when he first appeared to him as a his mother, I am sure we will find out his mother has been paying him regular visits throughout his life in the next series. He has never entertained using Ben as a candidate as he knows that the part of Jacob’s spirit inside him could overpower him if he tried, so it is all manipulation. He has also been standing beside him physically – as Ethan.

Ethan was the last child we know of (except Aaron but we’ll come to that later) to be born on the island and I believe was possessed by Smokey. He is clearly darker and more sinister than any other hostile we’ve seen. He apparently over ruled Ben in kidnapping Claire to try and make sure another baby was born and also inexplicably survived the purge, the only Dharma we know of besides Ben who was in on it to do so. If Ethan was Smokey from birth it would make sense for him to train as a surgeon to try and help more children be born, he was personally involved in Juliet’s recruitment. Was there anyone more committed to children being born again than Ethan? Since we know that Richard was not keen on the whole fertility issue from his chat with Locke we can assume that neither was Jacob, and indeed it was Jacob who detstroyed the statue in the first place to bring an end to Smokey’s human roaming.

After Ethan is killed by Charlie, somehow (hopefully we will find out how) he is trapped by Jacob in his old cabin. This stops him from possessing further children and Aaron is spared possession. Now limited to roaming in his true smoke form and projecting spirit forms Smokey turns to a new idea – manipulate one of the islanders to submit to him through faith and then ask for a sacrifice as a candidate. The first choice is Eko, a poweful and young physical form that will last him a while. Despite his best efforts to break Eko through shame and guilt Eko stands strong, and seals his fate. “You’re next” he tells Locke, and quite right he was too. Locke is not only strong in faith but is also gullible as we have seen throughout his life – the perfect mark for a con-man, or a con-demigod that is. If we watch back the series’ with Smokey as all the ghosts in our mind, we see that Smokey has had his hooks into John from very early on, and we now know it was not Jacob but Smokey we saw in the cabin, possibly in the guise of his very first physical manifestation (we can only assume from MIBs “always ends the same” that the game had been going on for a long time, and the man we saw speak to Jacob was only the latest in a long line of physical manifestations).

By the time Locke’s body returns to the island dead and ready to allow Smokey’s physical manifestation somehow (we will find out how next series I hope) the ash spell around the hut had gone, and smokey was now Locke. Smokey cons Ben, who still thinks that Smokey is a force of judgement rather than evil, into doing whatever Locke tells him, who tells him to kill Jacob.

Oh no Jacob’s dead and Smokey’s won! Of course he hasn’t. First off, Jacob had long since found himself a safe new body to manifest as – Christian Sheppard’s. Second off, Jacob had been playing the long con all along. The topic of conning comes up over and over again in Lost. Sawyer1 cons John, undercover cop cons John, Sawyer1 cons Sawyer2s parents, Sawyer2 cons lots of people, Hurley cons Sawyer, Ben cons everyone. Everyone’s conning everyone, and Jacob has been conning Smokey all along.

While he never let Richard know this, and never let Ben know anything, and therefore kept it from Smokey, Locke IS THE CHOSEN LEADER and DOES have a bit of Jacob’s spirit in him, therefore Locke himself, preserved by the strength of Jacob’s spirit will fight back Smokey for control of his soul; an epic internal battle which Locke will win. This is why Jacob very subtly helped John without ever appearing to care too much about him – he wanted Smokey to take his form all along.