I think the one calling it a security system was one of the “corrupted” french team members, since apparently not all the others knew about it or what it was.
Jazar
5862
I dunno about that. The island does have some protective qualities what with the bouncing around the earth and the temporal snow globe effect.
That could be and Rasputin’s theory seems plausible. It could be that the danger isn’t from Smokey himself but what might happen if he leaves.
Question: Where is Richardus in the Nuked-island timeline? He’s been off the island I think (to check out young Locke and to recruit Juliet), but would he have left with the Dharma folks evac? The Richard episode seems to bring discussion back to the island and the candidate, but there’s still that pesky alternate reality to deal with.
Someone explain the exchanges between Hurley, ghost-Isabella and Richard to me.
We at one point have Hurley talking in hushed Spanish to nobody at all and he waves Jack off telling him it didn’t concern him. He must be talking with Isabella at that point, agreed?
OK, then he follows Richard and maybe even observes him having his moment of crisis (but maybe not; in any event not essential to whatever happens next I’m guessing). Richard digging up his dead wife’s necklace (a cross, naturally) after what has certainly been ages. He’s pledged himself to Jacob lo these many years but he’s remembering that the other (Esau? is that his name officially… Jacob’s nemesis) told him at the outset that if he ever had a change of heart to get in touch with him. At just this moment Hurley emerges from the brush.
So a tearful moment transpires as Richard is surely convinced that Hurley is communicating with his long dead wife. But the last word from Hurley is that Isabella wants Richard to have nothing to do with the man in black. Teasingly, we do not hear this from ghost-Isabella’s lips; only as imparted via Hurley.
We know Hurley is in with Jacob; has been visited by him (Jacob’s ghost?), etc. etc. We also know that Esau/man in black is currently in the guise of Locke. Who should we see at the end of the exchange between Hurley/Isabella and Richard but a someone downturned Locke/Esau in the vicinity.
So… what did anyone get out of that? Is Locke/Esau manipulating Hurley; did Locke manifest as Isabella to plant those thoughts to both Hurley and Richard or is this happening ‘for real’ and outside of Locke’s control. Did Locke even gather what was going on there with Richard and Locke… had he only shown up because he was summoned by Richard who had just announced he was ready to work for him?
I’m curious what others got out of this part.
Since Hurley has been talking to the dead for awhile I thought it was indeed Isabella until just before the end. But from Hurley’s body language and expression, I think he was lying about the “She told me that you should not ally with the man in black” I thought that was all Hurley…
I think Jacob told Hurley to say the line about the man in black.
Badass? Sawyer has been punched out by nearly everyone on the show. I wouldn’t let him run security for my kids’ lemonade stand.
corsair
5869
“Just go with it regardless rather than pedantically argue it.…”
Anyway, what you are describing are still bottle effects - the island tends to keep it’s contents in and its non-contents out. But the temporal cork for non-Men-in-Black was placed there by Ben turning the wheel, and it was removed by our gallant band of adventurers. Regardless of all that, Jacob-the-cork was still in place for MiB.
JD
5870
Re: Hurley. Nah, I think it was Isabella who, in their first conversation, told him to say that. It’s probably how she got him to follow Alpert in the first place. (You need to find him and tell him that… or else blah blah). He probably just didn’t feel to comfortable talking about all that and mentioning that hell scenario. Not exactly a cheerful outlook.
As for the smoke being a ‘security system’ - wasn’t that said in season 2 or 3? At that point, the writers might not have know where exactly they’re going to head with the whole concept. Not to mention the fact that most if the Others and that French team were never in on what’s exactly going on on the island.
corsair
5871
No mention of “Esau” that I’ve seen except on this board. He is officially the Man in Black by the show’s creators so far. Unofficially, he is probably best expressed as Anti-Jacob as an overall concept (be it as the Smoke Monster, UnLocke, Man-in-Black, various apparitions, etc.), and his current non-Smoke Monster avatar as UnLocke (the Man in Black having the appearance, additional memories, and mannerisms of John Locke).
What I got out of it was that Isabella did the dead thing with Hurley and got him to follow Richard. I doubt Anti-Jacob had anything to do with it. I don’t think Anti-Jacob can selectively appear to one person and not appear to another if he/she/it takes on another form, which would mean that Hurley saw and spoke with Isabella because Richard couldn’t see her. Isabella appeared to Richard on the ship as a trick by Anti-Jacob, but that’s why Richard could see it/her. If he tried that on Hurley in front of Richard, they’d both see her. So, no, I don’t think the Man-in-Black had anything to do with that particular sequence.
I thought so too, because Hurley sees a way to get Richard to help the Jacob contingent by manipulating Richard into helping them and not defecting to the other side.
Is that definitive, I’m not sure we’ve seen a situation in which we know Smokey took on the appearance of someone else where more than a single person saw it. The only situations I can think of are Richard’s wife (Richard was the only one around) and Ben seeing Alex (Ben was the only one around).
corsair
5874
It could be the producers manipulating the viewers by not really showing us what happened, but I felt more like they were trying to streamline the clunkiness of the constant Isabella-to-Hurley-to-Richard-back to Hurley process rather than manipulate us. Hurley manipulating Richard would be a very out-of-character thing for him to do (he has a great deal of problem with deception, and prefers the truth), though the sequence certainly allows for it.
corsair
5875
No, it’s not definitive - but you are approaching the question from the wrong angle. We need to see an instance of one person seeing Anti-Jacob in some alternate form and others not seeing him at the same time. For example, the most obvious example that you left out is UnLocke and the Smoke Monster itself. Everyone sees that simultaneously. It seems more likely that the selective apparitions are more effective when he uses them on an isolated subject - Mr Eko’s brother, Walt to Locke in the pit (though that’s speculation on my part, Walt was noted as “special” though it seems a dropped story-line), Alex to Ben, Jack’s father to Jack or Locke, but note that when two people were present (Claire and Locke), both saw Jack’s father (again, speculation on my part that that was really Anti-Jacob).
If it was an implanted illusion selective to one person, then he could change the setting, background, etc. But none of that changes - it isn’t a complete vision, everything else always stays the same. So I infer that it’s a local glamor that he can project visible by all whether he likes it or not, or a physical change (given UnLocke’s interaction, it would seem the latter). Of course, whether the producers always played by those rules I couldn’t say, since I they may well have not had a clear idea themselves at the start. And perhaps some of those various apparitions weren’t avatars of Anti-Jacob, or were mixed in with real apparitions (though it would be embarrassing for Anti-Jacob for two soaking wet Walt’s to show up at once).
We don’t know the Man in Black’s name yet because his name is Jacob.
Sit on THAT one for a while.
The Man in Black can’t take any non-smoke form other than Locke now. They’ve never explained why as far as I remember (perhaps because Jacob is dead? But that’s just speculation) and if you want to be all jason about it you could argue that maybe he can still take other forms and they just don’t know it, but someone on the show (Ilyana? iirc) did specifically state that his shape-shifting days are over, probably because if he could still look like anyone the random speculation about the plot and who else is really the man in black would get ridiculous.
Also everyone sees him as Locke (at least physically) now when he’s not in smoke form so I’m pretty sure his shape shifting is supposed to be a real physical thing and not sort of mind trick that works on a single person at a time.
The podcast is considered canon as far as they’re concerned, and that’s basically the angle they’re taking. They responded to a viewer question with, basically, “well…I guess SOMETHING happened when Jacob died, eh?”
Shiroko
5879
So the shape-shifting was related to Jacob imprisoning him somehow. He couldn’t shape-shift if you notice. He could jump into dead bodies. Most of them were bodies on the island physically (Aside for Richard’s wife).
Probably killing Jacob removed some of the imprisoning effect making him stuck in the last body. In this case Locke’s body which he needed to kill Jacob.
So who was Jack’s/Claire’s dad in the island? When jin asked claire if the she was all alone in the island she said she was with her father and a “friend”.
