What lies in the shadow of the statue?

 

According to everybody’s favorite island metrosexual Richard Alpert, it’s “he who shall save us all.” Having thought about even this mostly obvious answer for way too long, I feel secure in assuming that Richard is referring to the man, the myth, the legend – Jacob.

 

Ah, Jacob. How long I have waited for his arrival, and I was in no way disappointed. I was even pleasantly surprised that he was so attractive. I mean, I was expecting a time-ravaged, rocking-chair-riddled geez. This Jacob was kind of pretty. He managed to be quite passive-aggressive while also maintaining a constant undercurrent of fear-inducing, suspicious serenity. He makes me nervous. You know that scene in The Fellowship of the Rings movie where Gandalf grows all big and turns the air around him dark while yelling at Bilbo Baggins to leave the ring behind? Jacob is like that. Like Gandlaf, I think Jacob can get big and dark, and although I don’t think I could ever out-and-out fear Gandalf because of his overall cheery disposition, I certainly wouldn’t screw with him if I could help it. Possessed Locke-guy certainly has some balls.

 

My favorite scene of the finale was the first scene. It was also the most important. We really got the purpose for the entire show, granted without much detail, but it will come in time. Be patient.

 

Two men – one in white and one in black; two diametric forces representing what? Good vs. Evil? Faith vs. Science? Free Will vs. Fate? Redemption vs. Damnation? In a way, I think they are all supposed to be the same. Whatever they are there to represent, we can tell that Jacob and Man #2 (as he is deemed in the credits) are in some kind of struggle where Jacob brings people to the Island to test them – to create progress, while pessimistic Man #2 seemingly sees no point at all in anything Jacob does: "They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same".  Man #2 has been searching for a loophole since at least 1845 (if we believe the ship off in the distance to be the Black Rock), and he finally finds a way to kill Jacob through one John Locke – a man willing to go to any extreme, a man that is so easily duped, to be considered “special.” Unfortunately for poor Locke, Richard is correct when he notes that Locke never seemed important to him – that Locke never passed any of the tests to be leader. Instead, Locke’s entire “purpose” on the Island has been a manipulative lie from day one. Too bad.

 

There are two interesting relationships that I want to point out that might correspond to our mysterious figures in black and white. I am in no way the first to draw these parallels, but just in case you haven’t seen them…

(Note: I believe these facts to be right based on Internet and Wikipedia research. Please, correct me where I'm wrong, as I'm sure I am in places)

 

First, there is the obvious biblical reference. Jacob was the second son of Isaac, the twin brother of Esau. Through a series of manipulations (and because of Esau’s ignorance), Jacob takes his brother’s birthright, but is eventually sent away in fear for his life (Esau vows to kill Jacob). Now, eventually the two men reconcile; no one gets killed, but there are several other things about Jacob that may be interesting to note.

 

First, Jacob had a son (his 12^th and last) named Benjamin. Benjamin’s mother died while giving birth to him, hence the name, meaning “son of my pain.” (Also, Benjamin is the brother to Joseph, as in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Joseph – isn’t John another form of the name Joseph? Or is that Jack? Or James?). Second, Jacob famously wrestled with some unknown heavenly being (an angel or maybe even God himself). Because Jacob continued to wrestle and was not beaten, he was deemed as “one who fights victoriously with God”. Third, this Jacob is most known for having seen a vision of a ladder that reaches to Heaven.

 

Another duo who seems to play an important role in the Jacob/Man #2 pairing is Horus/Set from Egyptian mythology. Horus is the god of the sky, and Set (or Seth) is the god of chaos and the desert. This is a true Hamlet story where Set kills Osiris, the father of Horus, and Horus is bent on revenge. The two have many historical battles, during one of which Horus rips out one of Set’s testicles, rendering him infertile (no babies on the Island…hmmmm). Later, like Jacob and Esau, these two also reconcile.

 

There are two reasons to connect Horus/Set with Jacob and Man #2. First, the tapestry that Jacob is seen weaving in the finale had the eye and wings of Horus on it. On the tapestry, people are praising and worshiping Horus. Another connection can be seen from the statue. If we take the statue to be that of Taweret (as confirmed, I believe, by Michael Emerson), the Hippo goddess who protects pregnant women and mothers, then we must also recognize the connection between Taweret and Set. Taweret is married to Apep, the god of evil. Taweret was represented by the northern sky, and Apep was seen as being hid below the horizon directly beneath her…(again, this should sound familiar). Now Apep and Set eventually became merged together because of political reasons in Egypt, so while they are not one in the same, Set did come to embody all of Apep’s qualities.

 

With these two stories comes even more questions and even more confusion. If Man #2 is indeed an Esau-based character, what was his birthright that Jacob might have stolen? How could Jacob and Man#2 ever reconcile if Jacob is indeed dead now? With the Egyptian mythology, is Jacob supposed to represent Horus? He was making the tapestry, but he also is residing under the statue like Set would have. Plus, if Jacob represents free will, he might be more of a chaos god than a god of the sky. (On a related note, could the women on the island be unable to reproduce ever since the statue of Taweret broke?!?)

 

These connections seem to bring up more questions, but they are interesting to consider.

 

Another things that I want to make note of in this too-long-blog is that the writers of the show have made a point of showing us that Jacob has physically touched each of the remaining 815-ers at some moment in their life. In an interview I saw with Darlton (the producers of LOST), Damon Lindelof stressed the touching aspect of these meetings. What could this mean? I read a theory somewhere that Jacob has made these people into Harry Potter-like Horcruxes, imbuing them with portions of his soul so that he can bring himself back from the dead later on. Interesting. I think he might have also marked them with “homing devices” that will bring them to 2007 when the bomb detonates (“They are coming”). My last idea about the touching is that Jacob gave each character a specific destiny. Others are suggesting that he gave the characters free will when he touched them. This doesn’t work in my mind, since really, none of the characters aside from maybe Juliet (the only character we did not see him touching) did anything to change anything. Hell, I don’t even think they DID change anything; like Miles said, they just caused the incident.

 

The last thing (I promise) that I want to mention is the cabin. I don’t think Jacob was ever in the cabin. It was always Man #2 manipulating Ben and Locke (and Richard?) into thinking that he was Jacob. The cabin was a prison, with its ring of ash to keep Man #2 in. Note that the ring of ash has been somehow broken in the latest episode. For how long, we don’t know, but I bet it's been long enough for an evil being to escape and possess the body of a certain John Locke...

I have to end this now. I apologize for the ranting. There is so much more, but I’m going to save it for later. Especially the love-quadrangle shenanigans. For now, I have papers to grade. Let me know what you think about Jacob!