Loophole re-visited
I have been trying to catch up on reading everyone’s posts, but have not quite finished, so please excuse me if someone has already mentioned this—I just wanted to get it written down before I lose the thought AGAIN!
I think we all seem to agree that the show has been leaning towards an association of MIB and/or Smokey with darkness and death and Jacob with light and re-birth. I think that MIB uses the souls of the people who have died over and over again in the game (they “infect” the bodies of the unburied dead-like Claire/Rousseau, focused on finding her baby to the exclusion of all else) which always brings about the same results and Jacob can only use live, “fresh” people, giving him the chance for some new choices to be made and new destinies to unfold–maybe no babies have been born in many years because of something that MIB has done, in an attempt to foil Jacob. He is obviously trying to find just the right mix of people to prove his point to MIB.
So now, back to the Loophole theory: What if Locke is MIB’s loophole because he was touched by Jacob? Locke died off of the Island, which meant that no other soul had a chance to “infect” Locke’s body before Smokey could. MIB chose to “infect” Locke for two possible reasons: one (which I think I have seen here before) is that, with Lockes visage, MIB would be able to more easily bring Losties and Others to the dark side (Ben and Sawyer)–he is someone that they all know and some of them trust–the second is that “infecting” a candidate gives MIB special powers–Like maybe Jacob can’t kill him, or none of the other candidates can kill him or maybe he can enter the temple proper instead of staying below.  I am not sure of the details, but I really feel that Locke being a candidate now housing a dark force gives him a special advantage–more than just being able to influence someone to kill Jacob.  Oooh, maybe the ash will not have an effect on him now?  Â
It seems like the “infected” stay themselves for at least a short while before they start taking on the traits of the soul that is in them– Now we can only hope that some of Locke’s good character traits manage to shine through….
ash still seemed to effect him in at least the form of the smoke monster. im not so sure that he has gained extra abilities. i just believe that the choice of locke was the best choice for infiltrating the others to get to jacob. only locke was in a position of leadership. he didn’t choose ben because he knew he could convince ben to kill jacob a lot easier than it would be to convince locke.
Oh, and this would also explain why Richard never ages–his spirit is merely inhabiting a body–that body will not continue to age (although I wonder why they don’t rot–must be island magic) I have not paid close attention to the faces of the Others, but I bet that none of them age as well (accept the leaders, who have to freshies). I know that they wear all different types of clothing: professional, military, jungle. I think I’ll watch the episode where they flashed to 1954 and check out the faces of the Others and see if I can compare them to the (what we think is) 2007 Others…..
widmore and ellie def age
Yea but Widmore and Ellenor have been off island for a while.
they aged on island between 1954 and the 70s. ben aged his entire life.
I’m sorry–I did not explain that part of my theory very well. The Others are locked in the bodies that they have “infected”–until they “die” at least. The LEADER of the Others is necessarily alive and in his or her original body. I don’t think that Benjamin was ever the leader of the Others. I believe he died from his wound and one of the loose spirits “infected” him, thus making him an Other. I think Richard said something like “He will always be one of us” or “He will never be one you again” or something like that. Richard took him when he was close to death, not to heal him, but so that he would be “infected” and possibly the spring allows the Others to control who the dead person is “infected” with (or did before Jacob died). I am beginning to think that none of the Others, including Richard, can actually speak to Jacob. I think Jacob can only be seen by the live people on the island–Richard was once alive, so he knows who Jacob is, but he relies on a live leader to communicate with Jacob. Maybe that is why Richard did not go into the statue–he would not have been able to interact with Jacob anyway if he had. So, yes, Whidmore and Hawking age because they are still alive. I wonder if the Leader has to be under a certain age to see Jacob or has to have a certain mindset or openness of mind, and I wonder why Whidmore still wants to go back?