Useful Idiots
Anyone read anything by Terry Goodkind like Wizard’s First Rule? The Wizard’s First Rule is “People are stupid; given proper motivation almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it’s true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.”
Jacob is the wizard; the Others are the believing fools. As in the book though, fooling people through use of the rule isn’t always a bad or evil thing. In the book it’s said that sometimes wizards must use people to achieve good. I believe that it has been Jacob sending lists and instructions to the Others but it’s become obvious lately that he doesn’t completely trust them. He sent his candidates to them at the Temple but later doesn’t trust them to keep the candidates protected, stating that he had to get Hurley and Jack as far away from the Temple as possible because someone is coming, presumably the Smokey Locke Monster…
It’s been made obvious at times that the Others aren’t as powerful and super-awesome as we sometimes are led to believe they are. Case in point, the two idiots sent out from the Temple with Kate and Jin. They can’t track, can’t follow simple instructions and can’t seem to follow the enlightened lifestyle the Others supposedly lead either… As soon as they’re out of the Temple and not being watched by their leaders they turn into a couple of kids.
Richard, I believe, is in on it. Jacob obviously hasn’t let him in on all of the information but he at least knows that Jacob is just using the Others. Sometimes even Richard steps in and uses the Others too, like when he told Charles that he saved Ben because Jacob commanded it. He used Charles’s believe in Jacob to make the Others go along with what he had decided to do on his own. Charles goes along, not because he knows what Richard said is true but just out of fear that it is.
i highly enjoy this idea as it bodes well with my “knowledge, facts, and beliefs” of lost. although maybe it is false… damn you instilling doubt in me.
but yes i do not think MIB has been in charge of the others, it seems jacob has been making them do things like he made hurley do in last nights episode. make them think they are doing something when they are actually doing something else.
First of all, Highbrow, i agree with alot of what you say.
I think Jacob has still got the upper hand, we just haven’t seen it yet. Much like Ben, even when it seems he is down and out, thats just when he pulls the trump card.
I agree that Jacob doesn’t trust the others, but where we disagree is that i think Jacob hasn’t trusted the others for longer than you think, and gave up on them a long time ago, and the Losties are now his new people.
I think the ‘leadership’ role that Locke was to be given, would always entail him to be replaced by Smokie, and Jacob let it happen, and knows that everything that has happened, was supposed to happen.
I think Flocke is now the leader of Richards others, and MIB has been pulling strings before he became Flocke, the others (including Richard) were not aware of this, but Jacob was. Maybe this is why Jacob gave up on them, because they were easily corrupted.
But much like chess, Jacob let MIB make his move and now Jacob is making his, which will hopefully win the ‘game’.
Just one question, apart from the lists, which i agree most likely came from Jacob, All of Jacobs instructions came through Ben (the whole time we knew about the others), until Locke took over and all of Jacobs instructions came through him. Christian was giving Locke Jacobs instructions, do you think Ben had contact with, and got his orders from Jacob?
christian claimed to give locke instructions from jacob once. im pretty sure the lists went through richard before they got to ben. how else would ben get them? only richard was in contact with jacob.
Okay maybe the lists did come through Richard, and Richard is a little more aware of what is happening then it would seem.
But all the orders came from Ben, as the word of Jacob. If Jacob and Richard had such close contact, what is the use of the leader?
Why is the leader the only one who can talk to Jacob, and why is the leadership position so important to the others and Richard, if Richards the one getting the commands from Jacob? Wouldn’t that make the ‘leader’ pretty pointless?
Why wasn’t Richard aware that Locke was getting instructions from somebody else in the cabin?
dunno about richard being aware of the cabin, i guess he doesnt have to be, hes slightly less idiotic, but still useful.
the leader isnt pointless, since we dont know the big picture. what the others were doing (couldn’t just be to try to tame smokey). however richard is sort of the lennon position and dogen is jacob. remember when dogen says something like: i use a translator so there is a buffer between me and my followers. so that unpopular decisions dont make people angry at me.
richard is jacob’s buffer, because sometimes what needs to be done isn’t the most popular thing.
It’s still hard to say what kind of contact, if any, Ben had with Jacob. After Ben took Locke to the cabin I thought he had never had any contact with Jacob and that he’d been making it up the whole time. Then later I started to think that, at the very least, Ben had been doing his best to do what Jacob would have wanted. But right before Ben killed Jacob he made it pretty clear that he’d been receiving lists from someone… but it doesn’t fit with what we saw in the cabin where Ben was surprised to see that something did actually happen.
I think that Ben has been getting lists from Jacob through Richard but he hasn’t been actually communicating directly with him and I think Richard would be able to tell Jacob from a fake. I think the cabin is something that Ben is somewhat familiar with as far as knowing that it’s strange and mysterious but not knowing that someone actually lived there. He took John there to trick him but it backfired on him.
Good point Eko… Richard is the buffer for Jacob.
So if Richard knows Jacob from a fake and has contact with him to get the lists, why would he go along with Ben, and eventually Locke, if he knew that neither of them had ever spoken to Jacob?
I suppose that could become clearer soon, but it is confusing.
well he said the leader can request an audience with jacob. he thought flocke was locke. and gave him an audience. he was opposed to it, but in the end he has to follow the leaders orders.
jacob told him to follow the leader. hes just being another sheep
Yeah, we could get more information about that eventually… the teaser for next weeks episode basically said “we can only show you a few seconds of next weeks episode because it’s just answer after answer”… I’m taking that with a grain of salt but I’m looking forward to it…
Maybe Jacob just told Richard that Ben was in but on a kind of provisional basis and that all instructions were supposed to be given second hand. It does kind of seem like Charles had a similar relationship with Jacob though… Richard tells him that an order came from Jacob and he acts accordingly, even if he was pissed about it.
Then why did Ben never request an audience with Jacob? I suppose it’s possible that he did and maybe Jacob met up with him at the cabin and that’s why Ben thought he lived there… Maybe the leader only gets one audience.
Next ep sounds good, just watched the promo.
I guess when we find out more about Richard, this debate will be resolved. I still think i have a valid point, but i also think your point opposing mine is valid. I guess thats the way Lost is written eh?
Oh yeah… if this wasn’t simply the nature of the show we wouldn’t be here arguing/discussing it 5+ seasons later!
And probably many years after the show is finished, i fear.
Wouldn’t these same arguments lead to a conclusion that Hurley is now the real leader (since he can see Jacob, and it has been made very clear that no one else can)?
Ah Highbrow, i just thought about what you said on Charles relationship with Jacob and Richard.
Could it be possible that when Locke visited Richard in 1954, Richard was the leader?
Yeah, it’s totally possible that Richard was the leader… I didn’t really get that vibe though…
Good point about Hurley seeing Jacob, Halapeno… maybe Hurley will take Richards place…
Ifoundmyloophole,
glad to see another person who shares the view that MIB could have been up to his antics before he took over Lockes body, i think theres three of us now…
I just thought about it, why would MIB say ‘do you know how much i’ve been through to get here’ to Jacob, if it only started when he replaced Locke.
If he wasn’t pulling strings for a long time, what was he doing during the whole show? Just hanging about, killing someone every now and then?
shephardsflocke- i never said i didnt think MIB was manipulating things for a while, i just didn’t think he was the one controlling the others.
hes more of a behind the scenes guy IMO
Eko,
Out of interest, what do you think MIB DID do behind the scenes, and who do you think he was manipulating?
i think he did jacob like work (only on island) appearing as ghosts or medusa spiders or horses to give little pushes in the “wrong” direction. i believe, like jacob, we haven’t been privy to most of his work yet
I agree,
but i also think MIBs ‘little pushes’ are a little more heavy handed than Jacobs.
I just had another thought, much like my belief that MIBs manipulation is what got Locke the leadership position, it could have also been MIB posing as Bens mum who lead Ben to that first meeting which Richard in the jungle which set the ball rolling for Bens future leadership.
Although, Bens mums corpse is not on the island, so i don’t know how the writers will explain that one (if they do).