Jacob and Man in Black: Similarities
Poor, poor Man in Black/Smoke Monster/Fake John Locke. I say this, this time, without sarcasm doubt, or uncertainty.
As I’ve suggested on numerous occasions, both Jacob and the Man in Black are Good, or were Good. Nevertheless, like the regular people who their adoptive mother hated, they were both corrupted – they both did Evil things.
In my very first Lost related blog posting, I suggested that Jacob and the Man in Black are analogous to Biblical Jacob and Esau. I was close; Jacob and Man in Black are twins, however, despite the black-and-white imagery, neither was evil. Alternatively, maybe both divine men were both good and evil.
Yo Mama's So Old: The History of Jacob and Man in Black
We learned why Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster/Man in Black told Kate that his mother was insane; she sure was. Several times, I muttered, “You crazy b****.” She was rather quick to kill people. She was also rather creepy when speaking to Jacob; her creepy tone might rival Ben’s.
Jacob and Man in Black’s adoptive mother is the previous Jacob – the previous protector of the Island. She killed their biological mother after the latter birthed the twin boys. Their adoptive mother, whom I will refer to as Previous Jacob Lady, wanted them to be born on the Island so that she could raise one of them to become the new protector of the Island when her time would be over. I assume she required fresh babies to ensure their purity and Goodness would not be corrupted – corrupted by anyone other than her, that is.
Previous Jacob Lady’s actions shed a bit of light on Ben and his less evil actions. Ben also stole a baby and raised her as his own; however, he did not kill the baby’s biological mother as Previous Jacob Lady, the original baby thief, did. Ben always had some good in soul, even in his evil days.
Young Man in Black (Boy in Black), guided by the ghost of his dead biological mother, learned that he and his brother Jacob came from across the sea – a place Previous Jacob Lady told them doesn’t exist, and would have been members of the community on the other side of the island with the people who Previous Jacob Lady believed were evil and dangerous. Young Man in Black became determined to live amongst his people and get off the island. As I’ve suggested before, Man in Black was truly trapped on the Island, held prisoner against his will.
Previous Jacob Lady gave her adoptive sons quasi-immortality, and ensured that they could not hurt each other. Clearly, this is why Man in Black/The Smoke Monster could not kill Jacob, and had to find a loophole to do so. Previous Jacob Lady provided these precautions because one of her sons was required to continue the family business of protecting the Island, or more specifically, protecting the Light of the Island. The Light, she explained, is the light within each person; it is some kind of life force, without which, perhaps life could not exist (I wasn’t quite clear on what would happen if that Light were to be extinguished). We learned that the power of that Light is what drives the giant wheel that sends people off the island while moving the island. Man in Black and his people built that wheel so that Man in Black could escape from the Island.
However, Previous Jacob Lady kept him from succeeding. While it is clear that she needed one of her sons to remain on the Island to protect the Light, it is not clear why both sons were required to remain there. As Jacob noted, Previous Jacob Lady loved Man in Black more, and wanted him to be the heir to her throne. Perhaps that is why she kept Man in Black from leaving the Island, and perhaps that is why she murdered all of his people (well, that and they knew about the Light and how to harness it to get off the island). The evil actions committed by Previous Jacob Lady brought forth the evil within Man in Black; driven by vengeance, he murdered his adoptive mother. Evil spread, as Jacob, who could not murder his brother, avenged his adoptive mother’s death by throwing his brother into the Light. Previous Jacob Lady had told Jacob that going into the Light would result in a fate worse than death, and when Jacob threw his brother in the Light, he learned what that fate would be; Man in Black became The Smoke Monster, which it seems might be the concentrated Evil aspects of Man in Black. We now know why Man in Black wanted to kill Jacob. He sought vengeance for forcing him to live an eternity as The Smoke Monster, trapped on the Island.
The Reason for Everything: The Island’s Purpose
Jacob previously explained what I previously postulated: that the Island exists to contain Evil, and to keep it from spreading throughout the Earth. However, we learned in this episode that while that is technically true, it is more accurate to say that the Island contains the Light and the Good of the Earth. If that Good Light is destroyed, Evil will be unleashed throughout the world. Evil Darkness does not live on the Island, Good Light does.
You Have a Choice
Despite Jacob’s love and loyalty to his adoptive mother, he did not want the job of Protector of the Light. However, this man (or divine entity) who believed that we always have a choice, was left with no choice, as Previous Jacob Lady stated, and so Jacob reluctantly accepted the job that was meant for his brother. Perhaps this forced choice drove his belief in free will. Just as he wanted to believe that people could be good, he wanted to believe that people have free will; Jacob optimistically believed that people would ultimately choose Good over Evil; his brother and mother believed the opposite. Jacob spent much of his quasi-eternal life bringing people to the island to prove his point, and thus far, it seems several of our special and less special characters have chosen Good over Evil, even after all hope for Good was gone, as was the case for Ben and Sayid. Jacob, it seems, might have been right.
Good v. Evil: It Isn’t Black and White
The black and white imagery in the Jacob v. Man in Black dichotomy did not indicate that either was good or evil, but rather, it represents the good and evil within each of them, as well as within each person. It is suggestive of the evil actions people take despite good intentions. Some people, including Previous Jacob Lady, Jacob, Richard, Widmore, Ben, and perhaps Others that we have not known, would do anything to protect the Island and its Light. Man in Black would do anything to escape the Island that shackled him. Sayid and Dogen would do anything to save a loved one. Countless people in real life would do anything in the name of the G-d they believe in.
The black and white imagery also represents the good and evil of the Island. The Island is the epitome of Good, yet so many people and divine entities have done horribly evil things in the Island’s defense. Additionally, the Good Light of the Island created the evil Smoke Monster from the good Man in Black, and probably had something to do with Sayid’s evil infection. Finally, the Good of the Earth could be destroyed if the Good Light of the Island is extinguished, and Evil would be unleashed throughout the world. Therefore, perhaps the evil actions people and divine entities take to protect the Light are justified in terms of the big picture; but are murder and annihilation ever justifiable? Lost teaches us that nothing and no one is purely good or purely evil, but everything and everyone contains both in one way or another; nothing is black and white.
The Motives of Man in Black
We now understand Man in Black/The Smoke Monster/Fake John Locke’s Devil-like ways. He lies, he manipulates, and he appeals to human greed, as the means to the end that he so desperately wanted – the freedom that he needed. Greed and selfishness, the qualities he and his adoptive mother despise in man, the human qualities that he takes advantage of to serve his own purpose, overtook Man in Black. He no longer cares if the Light is protected; he is only interested in his own freedom. He has already arranged for the murder of his brother Jacob, the protector of the Light, and he attempted to arrange for the murder of the candidates who would replace Jacob. If he succeeds in causing the deaths of each of the candidates, perhaps he will be free to leave the Island, or perhaps he will remain trapped on it for eternity. Even if he does attain his freedom, if the Light is left unprotected, darkness would fill the Earth, and perhaps the world could even end. Man in Black’s freedom could mean the end, even for him. Perhaps that is what he wants; perhaps the eternal life of The Smoke Monster is not a life worth living.
Jacob v. Man in Black: Differences
I have spoken of the similarities and differences between Jacob and Man in Black in the current blog posting as well as in previous ones, but I believe there is one essential difference that was elucidated when we first saw the two divine men and expanded upon in "Across the Sea." Jacob believes people are generally good, while Man in Black believes people are generally selfish, greedy, and destructive. Jacob cares about people and wants them to be good, while Man in Black doesn’t care because he doesn’t believe they can be good. That is why Man in Black doesn’t appear to have remorse for killing people as a means to his end, while Jacob has remorse when bad things have to happen to good people. Alternatively, perhaps Man in Black did care about people, until his crazy adoptive mother killed all his people. He didn’t seem to like that, yet he doesn’t seem to have a problem killing countless people as The Smoke Monster. Perhaps then, as The Smoke Monster, he no longer cares; perhaps The Smoke Monster is the Evil within the Man in Black, like the infection was the evil within Sayid’s soul.
Man in Black lived amongst people despite his adoptive mother’s instructions to the contrary. Perhaps she was correct, in that he became corrupted, though his true corruption came at the hands of Previous Jacob Lady herself. Jacob never lived amongst the people, and when the people came to him, they killed him (well, Ben killed him). Again, Previous Jacob Lady was correct, in that the people would hurt Jacob. However, Ben’s actions were driven directly by Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster/Man in Black, who, as I just stated, became corrupt with Evilness at the hands of Previous Jacob Lady. She, rather than the people she called evil and destructive, indirectly caused the destruction of her adopted sons.
Is the Man in Black the Smoke Monster?
On a lighter note, I think I might understand why the producers of Lost claimed that Fake John Locke is not the Man in Black. Man in Black is dead, and perhaps The Smoke Monster is not his full essence, but only a part of what remains of him. Thus, while one could certainly argue that The Smoke Monster is the Man in Black, one could also argue that if The Smoke Monster is not the whole Man in Black, then it/he is not The Man in Black; that is, the part is not equal to the whole. However, regardless of how you look at it, Man in Black and The Smoke Monster are clearly of the same spirit.
The Little Boy in the Jungle
I believe this episode might have answered the question of who that little boy in the jungle was. I think it must’ve been Young Jacob; he seemed very concerned with following rules, as both brothers were. Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster/Man in Black feared him because he represented his lost innocence, and his lost Goodness. He represented a time before Man in Black knew of his adoptive mother’s evil actions – a time before he knew of his own evil potential.
Jacob’s Travels
This episode made me wonder how Jacob goes off the island so frequently. I had assumed he just magically appeared wherever he needed to, however, this episode suggests that Jacob, Man in Black, and possibly Previous Jacob Lady were unable to leave the island. Perhaps Jacob changed the rules, or perhaps he used the wheel that Man in Black wanted to use to escape, and that Ben and Real John Locke used to move the island and leave. Perhaps as Protector of the Light, Jacob does have the power to supernaturally and Sabrina-the-Teenage-Witch
-ily pop in wherever he wants to be. We don’t know if Previous Jacob Lady ever left the Island, so we don’t know what the rules are in that regard.I apologize for the plethora of plot summary in this blog posing. I think I needed to write all that to help me work through it all. Lost is exhausting.
UPDATE May 15, 2010
I thought of more things after posting this, so here is a supplemental posting.
UPDATE May 17, 2010
I wrote a third blog posting about this episode.
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