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Hand me some more gravel

So, what is the loophole, why can’t MIB kill Jacob, why has it taken so long for MIB to get someone to do it for him, can you change the past, what did Jack do with the bomb????
I think course correction may be an answer to these recurring questions. Based purely on things that have been told to us, or shown in the show, we have heaps of information on how course correction works in the world of Lost. Mrs Hawking told Desmond that the universe will correct itself (the guy in the red shoes, if he doesn’t die this way, he’ll be hit by a car or something). We’ve seen Des try desperately to save Charlie, was partly successful but Charlie still died in the end. Daniel has told us that we can’t change the past, what happened, happened, THEN tells Jack that people are the variables and we can change stuff.
Lost has shown us that you can’t change the big picture. Take the Des mind flashes, he had all the knowledge he needed and a huge incentive to change what had happened. He wanted things to be different and he knew what decision / choices NOT to make. But he couldn’t change it, it still ended up the same, a few details may have changed but the big picture remained. Using Daniel’s analogy, he threw a few stones into the river, but the river kept on flowing.
What if Daniel was wrong in a way? What if it’s not the big things- the universe will course correct, what if it’s the small things that the universe bypasses. Eg, If Charlie had died the first time round, Claire would have drowned, or got smashed on rocks. Who would have gone down to the Looking Glass? Would they have been able to shut off the jamming signal? Even with course correction, things have gone down differently and with all these small changes, there are more small changes, on and on. Rather than throwing a big rock in the river, the slow, small rocks building up along the edges can actually completely change the course of the river — slowly, but the river can be changed without it really noticing.

The Loophole
What if MIB knows that Jacob doesn’t die? They’ve been to the future and Jacob is still well and truly alive — course correction would indicate that MIB can’t change that. No matter how much he wants to, he can’t kill Jacob. BUT what would happen if MIB spends centuries making small, almost imperceptible changes so that by the time we get to 2007 things are very different to how they originally played out. Now if Jacob knows this and is making his own little adjustments to counter MIB, could explain all the visits to the Losties, small little nudges (does the universe care whether Kate got to keep her box or whether Sawyer had a working pen?) these little nudges would have eventually played out in bigger changes (Sawyer carrying and dwelling on, then acting on a letter that he may never have written). Is this the loophole, a game played in miniscule steps over centuries to render course correction and what happened, happened irrelevant?

The Incident
Jack is about to throw a really big rock in to the river that is time, picturing the scene with he and Daniel, yes that rock made a bit of a splash, some ripples, BUT the course of the river did not change permanently. Course correction kept it flowing. What if as the bomb goes off there is a change, the ripples are felt (maybe the crash didn’t happen? Maybe we see them land in LAX?) but the universe will bring them back to where they need to be in 2007 — on the island. People who died on the island, will die some other way. The universe will course correct and the losties will somehow get back to the island ready for the war. They’re coming.

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Written by

Tas

10 thoughts on “Hand me some more gravel

  1. I agree that if there is a reset, that course correction will bring things back to the island in 2007, or possibly later(2010). If 2007 is used, an alternate flight 316 may be used to bring the losties to the island. In fact, the merging of the two time lines may be the secret to the show.
    Imagine if the universe has trouble merging the two time lines all because of whether or not Claire raised her baby. And that merging the time line or not merging the time line will be the difference in the world ending or continuing.

  2. Bravo!
    An excellent post.
    I myself earlier tackled the Charlie situation in an earlier post of mine, that however, got deleted.
    I personally believe the events of Season 4 to Season 5 are a setback in the timeline, a complete course correction. The Losties were never supposed to leave, because Charlie was supposed to die, and thats why everything messed up when they left (Time Skips etc.)
    I think the first 3rd of Season 6 will be a partial reboot of the Series so far, with a Final Destination theme running through it for those who died on the Island…
    It’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out…

  3. Just to clarify my previous comment: I do understand your point regarding MIB having seen Jacob live in the future.

    I just don’t understand why Jacob and MIB are at all present in the show if all they are going to be is subjects to the same course correction as the losties and other visitors.

    Could it be that Jacob and MIB have just been thrown in as a way to explain the course correction to the audience? After all, Jacob and MIB may be the only ones on the show who are fully aware of what is happening. I assume that the losties will not be aware that they are travelling along two time lines in the beginning of episode 6 (if this is what is going to happen). Perhaps Jacob and MIB are just there to provide explanations and company for the viewer, haha.

  4. ilie, Yes I think Jacob and MIBs roles may well be as the two who know what’s going on, they know the rules and how to bend them. There have been characters all the way through who have been used to explain things to us – Hurley gives the audience his observations, Daniel gives the physics explainations to us and Miles the sarcastic in simple terms comments. Seems possible that Jacob and MIB are there to show us how time can be manipulated if you know what you are doing and to keep us aware of the rules.
    There are also the bigger ‘observer’ themes at play as well ‘who’s watching the watcher?’ which I think they could easily fit into.
    I really just wanted to come up with a simple explanation using info that we’ve already been given, because from a stroytelling perspective I think we’ve got most of what we need already. Also one that non theorist viewers can watch and enjoy.
    Glad you guys have liked my thoughts, thanks.

  5. Based on what we have seen, is it also possible to draw some conclusions as to what the island is and why Jacob and MIB sit around on the island hating each other?

  6. We already know a fair bit about the electromagnetic nature of the island and how some of it can be used, the scientific and commercial value of the island is immense. Plus it’s also been linked to the Valenzetti equation predicting the end of the world. have Jacob and MIB seen that and one is happy to let it go and the other isn’t? Don’t know. We have been told quite a lot but I’m really hoping we get some island ‘flashbacks’ to flesh out the history a bit more. but hey, Carlton and Damon may just say it’s electromagnetic, it does cool freaky stuff – that’s enough for you to know about.

  7. Agreed. Nice theory, Tas.

    The other thing is, taking your river analogy one step further – what if the river was flowing one way because of the rocks etc. Then you throw in a big boulder. Heavily diverts the course. But this wouldn’t ERASE the other rocks that determined the previous flow, would it? They’d still be there, as clues to the previous path of the river, like out of place objects in S5.

    On that note I’m going to bed now before I start quoting Zen Koans.

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