Alpert and Ben and Jacob

[lostinva]

Lately I have been going over and over again on the issue of where Jacob has been all along. During much of the show, it was always shown that Ben was the one who spoke to Jacob, not Alpert. Like the times he took Locke to see him and all. Now, we know that Alpert knew all along that Jacob was actually at the base of the statue. How come he let Ben go around thinking that he was actually talking to Jacob and all. I am having a hard time putting this all together about what was actually going on with this scenario.

[Omega128]

There's a phrase, 'the devil makes work for idle thumbs'. Perhaps the thumbs can be changed into minds. Richard knows that he tells Ben where jacob resides, he wouldn't just be able to leave it alone. And as we know you can only see jacob if he summons you

[Talontbo]

if Dark Shirt Guy can take the Form of Locke, and Dark Shirt Guy wants Jacobs dead.

who is to say that all the scenes we saw of Jacob off Island gathering our Losties was actually Jacob.

Couldn't it have easily been Dark Shirt Guy setting his plan (loophole) in motion>? by posing as Jacob?

We know Jacob likes to bring people to the Island, and Dark Shirt Guy does not. But to what extent would Dark Shirt Guy go to in order to kill Jacob?

As for Richard. Of course we could assume he has seen Jacob, and that he regularly converses with him (it)... but do we really know that.

As for Ben... if Ben was the leader,,, why in all those years didn;t he just order Richard to take him to see Jacob..

Seemed easy enough for Locke (Dark Shirt) to order Richard and have that order followed...



And now that it appears Jacob is dead... What will Dark Shirt Guy do with all the people on his Island...?


Of course if the Bomb worked, and flight 815 never crashes. .. and Jacob is still alive, how sad would Dark Shirt be that all his hard work failed???

Of course Desmond would still have shipwrecked??? right??? and some of Dharma would survive an atomic blast because it was not an airburst...

All to convoluted if you ask me...

[g8rfan]

What do we know about Richard? He’s a gate keeper for Jacob. He’s immortal and he is that way because of Jacob. It seems to me that Jacob made him that way so he could trust him. If he can’t die, then dark shirt can’t impersonate him. Jacob is also aware of everyone who dies on the island. Eventually, when he is sure that the Other’s leader is not black shirt, Jacob will ask Richard to summon him/her.

He could never trust Ben because Ben used to come and go on the sub. If he had died off the island and his body was brought back, black shirt could have taken him over without Jacob knowing. Since he couldn’t trust Ben, he decided to start using the cabin for fake meetings with Ben, never revealing himself, probably knowing Ben would lie about it to protect his position with the Others.

Richard doesn’t know any of this. He just follows orders. He is taken aback by John’s appearance and his demand, in front of all of the Others, to meet Jacob. He obliges thinking that Jacob can handle the situation. After all, the leaders of the Others are entitled to meet with Jacob. So the fake new leader, who Jacob is unaware of (because Locke died off the island), brings the old leader and convinces him to kill Jacob. The loophole is achieved.

[Talontbo]

The question on the Table is this.......


Was the Jacob we saw OFF ISLAND rounding up all our Losties,

Locke, Kate, Sawyer, Sayid, etc etc etc...

Really Jacob????

or

Was it Dark Shirt Guy???

Getting all his ducks in a row so he could create the Loophole?


As a follow up


How would Richard know if Jacob was Jacob?

Who is to say that Dark Shirt Guy did not impersonate Jacob in order to fool Richard prior to the whole Locke/Dark Shirt Guy events we have just seen?

[g8rfan]

Sorry Talontbo, I got hung up responding to the middle part of your post and then thought I was getting too wordy to change tracks.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the rules. If Jacob and black shirt are indeed playing a game, then there must be rules. The term ‘loophole’ suggests at least there are laws that can’t be broken. What are they? Here’s what I think so far:

1. They can’t kill each other.
2. Smokey/black shirt can only take the physical form of people are dead on the island and not buried. Exceptions include Walt and Ben’s mother. Walt is special. Who knows what’s going on there. Ben saw his mother who died and was buried off the island. He told Richard who specifically asked him if his mother was on the island (I think). The fact that she was not indicated to Richard that Ben was different and perhaps visited by someone other than Smokey. Also, there was a time when three warlords appear to Eko to attack him. But that seems to be more like a hallucination, taken from Eko’s memories.
3. Smokey/black shirt is confined to the island (to answer your question). If he were not, it would be too easy to interfere with Jacob. One possible exception was when Jack saw his father at the hospital. But was that Smokey or the same phenomenon as Hurley experiences – ghosts? I don’t think Hurley’s ghosts are Smokey. Jacob, on the other hand, can leave the island and does so to make connections that enable people to come to the island. Black shirt takes advantage of this.

As a follow up
How would Richard know if Jacob was Jacob?
Who is to say that Dark Shirt Guy did not impersonate Jacob in order to fool Richard prior to the whole Locke/Dark Shirt Guy events we have just seen?

I don’t think Smokey could impersonate Jacob before because Jacob was not dead. Maybe he can now though.

And now that it appears Jacob is dead... What will Dark Shirt Guy do with all the people on his Island...?

I suppose he could rename it Pleasure Island and turn them all into donkeys! (ref. Pinochio)

[coolriver]

Rules - rules - rules

1) Ben walks into Widmore's bedroom but does not kill him. Why? He'd rather kill Penny?

2) Widmore's guns for hire attack Ben and Alex. When they have Alex captured, Ben does not think they will kill her because that is not how it is supposed to be. I think he quoted something similar to that and which is why he is surprised that the rule was broken. Again, why?

3) Locke was supposed to turn the donkey wheel but Ben talked him into letting Ben turn it. This caused the jumps in time due to a rule being broken. What rule?

4) Ben kills Locke and again takes his place. I would venture to guess that Ben has broken another rule.

5) Kate is told specifically to keep Aaron away from the island. Another rule?

6) Someone was being held in the cabin. Who was it? This is where Ben was sent to speak to Jacob. Some have speculated that the black shirt man was held there. Why then would Jacob have Richard take Ben to the cabin?

7) When Ethan's father is killed on the island by the hostiles, Richard makes a deal with Sawyer that if they can take his body, the hostiles won't attack the Dharma camp. Why is he interested in the body?

Ethan's mother and Horace kept the dead body laying on a bed like they were expecting it to sit up and re-animate itself or something. Why do they not bury bodies on the island? The hostiles seem to know this rule but not our little Losties...who have buried Boone, Ana Lucia, the 2 annoying characters who got buried alive in season 3, the teacher who blew himself up, Eko, Charlie, .... even Ben dug a big trench and dumped all of the murdered Dharma folk in there.

[Grace]

I'm looking forward to that.

[g8rfan]

Hey Coolriver,

I hadn't thought of it that way. I thought the Others were making sure the dead were buried so that Smokey couldn't use them. The Dharma pit, though, is interesting. It's below the surface, but it's not covered up. Does this qualify as not buried? We saw post-purge Horace cutting trees, but I think that was in John's dream, not an actual manifestation.

It could be as you suggested, that the Others don't bury the dead . Perhaps a body is a sort of sacrafice to Smokey at the Temple.

Yeah, it's all about the rules. It's just difficult figuring out what they all are. I think a rule could be that 'Other shall not kill Other'. Perhaps this is why Ben thought his daughter was safe and also why he said he couldn't kill Whitmore.

[Talontbo]

and yet Ben Orders Juliette to kill the guy on the beach. Only later to brand her an outcast.

Other shalt not kill Other??? not buying that one..

Ben also orders Cyclops to go down to the Looking and glass and kill the girlies..

Pehaps if it is to save the Island... then it is the loophole an Other would need to snuff out another Other... LOL