Jacob's Touch

In Dr. Linus, we learned from Richard that Jacob's touch brought about changes, changes that can be seen as either blessings or curses. We know that Jacob's touch made Richard never die (at least, by his own hand) and never age. It also appeared to me that Jacob's touch revived John Locke after his father pushed him out of a window eight floors above ground. We don't know if Locke would have aged, but we do know he could be killed - just ask Ben.

So, what are the rules of this touch? Are there rules? Clearly, some who are touched by Jacob can age, or else Kate and James Ford would be the oldest children ever. Actually, I can hear some of you say that Kate is a child, but you know what I mean. We know that those who have been touched by Jacob can be "claimed" or "infected", as we saw with Sayid.

Can Sayid, Jin, Sun, Jack, and Hurley age? Is it possible that they will never die? Or can they never die until Jacob or the Island is done with them?

Is it Jacob's touch that makes a Candidate? notLocke seems to think so. If so, then Kate is surely a Candidate, as are both Kwons. Is it the touch that makes the Candidate worthy? Or is it just an acknowledgment of their worthiness? Or perhaps the touch is just to make the Candidate safe?

And what about Ben? I don't remember this, but apparently, Jacob actually touched Ben as Ben stabbed him to death. Did this touch pass on to Ben any of the qualities we're looking at? Could it have possibly turned him into a Candidate? Wouldn't that be funny?

We have to adjust to the fact that not all questions will be answered, but I sincerely hope that we get answers to some of these questions. It might help explain why these people were brought together to the Island.

John Locke, Season 5

My next three posts will focus on the characters that changed the most, in my opinion, in Season Five: John Locke, Benjamin Linus, and Sayid Jarrah. Of the three, John changed the most, simply because he went from being alive to being dead, which is quite a big change. It turns out that the man we thought was John Locke in half of the season was not, in fact, John Locke at all. In fact, John died, and remained dead. We know who was pretending to be John Locke, but we know little about him. All of us, myself included, forgot that there is a difference between reincarnation and resurrection. The clue was there, but we thought the producers were sloppy. It turns out, we were.

This season showed us John at his strongest and his weakest (ignoring the dead part for the moment). The season opened with John, the new leader of the Others, separated from them by the time flashes. Because of his location – the Beechcraft airplane in which Yemi died – John quickly ascertained that he was traveling through time. Unfortunately, Ethan didn’t get the memo about the new leader, and he shot John in the leg. John would have probably died had Not-Locke not sent Richard to bandage John up. I won’t go over that conversation right now, especially since we learned that it was actually Not-Locke who told Richard that John would have to die to get his friends back to the Island. That will be covered in my “Not-Locke” post.

John later finds Sawyer and Juliet, saving them from some murderous Others. John didn’t know he killed Others, though, until Juliet identified them as such after hearing “Jones” and his cohort speak Latin. When “Jones” takes off, John refuses to shoot him because, “he’s one of my people.”

For the remainder of the time that John is on the Island, he is clearly the leader. Unlike last season, though, he’s not a dictator, but seems to care about Sawyer, Charlotte, and the remaining Left Behinders. Perhaps buoyed by his conversation with Richard, he has a plan to save them and acts on it. And the rest follow, even Miles. Sawyer questions John a couple of times, but it is a respectful questioning (for Sawyer), and he helps John enact his plan.

Thanks to a time skip, the Orchid disappears, but the well, predicted by Charlotte, remains. John goes down the well on a rope, but the rope was cut in two by yet another time skip, and John plummeted to the bottom, severely injuring his leg. At this point, John changes from the confident and powerful leader to a disabled and disheartened man.

Off the Island, John can convince no one to return to the Island. Kate and Jack treat him with contempt and disbelief, Hurley thinks he’s a ghost, and Sayid outright refuses. John doesn’t even both asking Walt. John seems out of touch during his return, as we saw when Walt told John about his dream, a dream that John summarily dismisses.

At last, John gives up, and starts the process of committing suicide. And that is how Benjamin Linus finds him.

I’ll discuss Ben and this scene in a later post, but I know I’m not the only one who was tremendously surprised, first, at how kind he was to John, and then how cruelly he killed him. Ben told John that he was special, and that they would work together to bring the Jack, Kate, and the others back to the Island. Just what John wanted to hear. But John mentioned the name Eloise Hawking, and that was his death warrant.

The Meaning of John

I’ve made several assumptions through the years about John Locke. I’ve always assumed that he is special. He was healed of his paralysis on the Island. He met the smoke monster and survived. He knew and understood the hearts of his fellow Lostaways. I wanted to believe that he did have that destiny that he desperately sought.

John’s seeming resurrection only buttressed me believe in his destiny. How confident and strong he was, how truly connected to the Island he was. Except, it wasn’t him, it was Not-Locke. John was still in his casket, dead.

Richard even asked Jack about John, in the 1970s-era DHARMA days. Richard saw nothing special in John in the two times he had met him (up-to-then). Even though Richard was not impressed by John, he still tried to recruit him when he was in high school. But John rejected the offer.

So, was John a dupe, a sap? Was he truly just a loser with dreams bigger than his potential? Was he so desperate to be special that the Man-in-Black was able to manipulate John into being the vessel he needed to kill Jacob? But why would Jacob touch John if he weren't important?

Is John Gone?

Watching the final half of last season, I felt that John was truly coming into his own. He died, but he had to die to save the Island and his friends. Only in the last minutes of The Incident did we learn that John was still dead – he had not been resurrected but lay in his coffin. I was shocked, horrified, sad. And worried. Is John permanently dead? Will he never have a chance to have a destiny? Other bloggers, primarily Ryan McGee on Zap2It, believe that John is dead, and is never returning. I hope that he’s wrong. But I’m also afraid that Ryan might be right.

The Actor

As far as I can tell, Terry O’Quinn hasn’t done much this year other than Lost. He didn’t seem to do a media blitz as Michael Emerson and Evangeline Lilly did. No commercials, no guest roles. I did find a video of O’Quinn on The View, but it was from 2008. It seems that he has decided to not submit his name for Emmy consideration, because once you’ve won for a role, you shouldn’t try for another Emmy until you have a new role. I believe that he did attend the Kentucky Derby, which is where this picture is from. Maybe he's just enjoying Hawaiian life.

Sacrifice of the Little Prince?

Well, it's Lost-eve night and I know that y'all are as excited as I am to see what tomorrow night brings us. Before my thoughts are completely consumed by what the new episode brings, however, I wanted to discuss a theory that Nicole brought up in the comments last week.

"There's some major Christ symbolism going on:

• The island selects a "chosen one"


• The "chosen one" gets killed


• The island resurrects the "chosen one"


• The "chosen one" goes on the lead the island's people.

Ben was the chosen one, he just got killed and will now be resurrected to lead the others. Then, when it becomes Locke's time to lead, Ben realizes he has to kill Locke so Locke can fulfill that same destiny - if Locke would have killed himself then it would all be messed up. This might also be why Ben tried to kill Locke before - but it wasn't time yet. I bet Richard was at one time a leader too (got killed and resurrected years ago - which is why he doesn't age)."

This is an intriguing theory. I know that there is more to it than an attempt by Nicole to justify some of Ben's more abhorrent behaviors. I don't know that Ben's first attempt to kill Locke was really to help John on his chosen one journey so much as an attempt to keep Locke from supplanting Ben. Whether Ben's eventual killing of Locke had pure or mixed motives will be seen.

We've known for most of this season that Locke would die, which Christian/Jacob called a sacrifice. No one said how he had to die. Let's look back at the event. John, heartbroken from his failure to convince any of the Oceanic 6 to return to the island, takes steps to hang himself. Ben breaks into the room, and talks John out of suicide. After talking with Locke a little while, suddenly Ben chokes John to death. He then arranges the scene to look like the suicide John had planned. The only thing he missed was the suicide note.

If Nicole's theory is right, then Ben will die, only to be resurrected so he can lead.

Similarly, Jesus was the Son of God, you know, the "chosen one". He was killed as a sacrifice to save us from our sins. He was then resurrected, and continued to lead his people. Another tale of sacrifice was found in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, in which Aslan chose to be executed by the Witch to save his people, only to be resurrected later.

One difference between Lost and Jesus and Aslan is that Jesus and Aslan knew exactly what they were getting into. They made a choice to submit to death fully aware of the ramifications of their choices. Neither Locke nor Ben made a choice. Yes, Locke knew he had to die, and he made a conscious decision to die, but he changed his mind at Ben's urging. Ben never told Locke, "I'm sorry John, you have to die. And it can't be by your own hand." Nor did Sayid let Ben know his plan to save the future by killing the young Ben. Unlike Jesus and Aslan, there was no free will on the part of Ben and Locke. Instead, it's only the executioners who acted with free will.

Whatever the case may be, I suspect that we've not seen the end of Ben. After all, tomorrow night's episode is titled Whatever Happened, Happened.