That would go counter to what UnMom said. You change (for the worse), not you die and you unleash something else. Now, that’s taking what she said as being accurate, of course, and even then, she may simply believe what she said to be true, and it may still be inaccurate. But whereas the smoke monster can replicate the dead he comes into contact with, and even has their memories, he doesn’t have their motivations, and post-transformation MiB has pre-transformation’s motivations (get off the island by any expedient means). So I think the Smoke Monster is MiB passed through the River Styx and The Light. It may have consumed his body per se, but he still exists as such.
It would certainly seem like Jacob’s brother was not an evil person, in fact all he really wanted was to see what was beyond his known world, and to take his brother with him. He honestly seemed to care for Jacob, and after he found out about their “mom” and what she’d done he was all the more adamant about removing Jacob from her influence, which you could argue was worse than any he may have exerted.
UnMom’s tactics were corrupt and she may have gotten a replacement, but she gravely marked the two boys in the process. MiB seems like the entirely injured party, but damn, what a ruthless bastard he became after his death/rebirth/transformation. Even the honest but UnSpecial Jacob helped create the ensuing problems with his rash actions against his brother.
I think the writers were trying to show that the actions of Jacob, the brother who thought himself the lesser of the two, who struggled and sacrificed to gain his “mother’s” love, were what set the Smoke Monster free. By killing or knocking out his brother, then sending him into the cave he unwittingly allowed the Smoke Monster to escape. The Smoke Monster seems to be the personification of the evil in men’s souls, and the mom seemed to be saying that the cave contained the essense of what makes men, both the good AND the evil. The Evil is now out, and looking to get off the island. The fact that it took his brothers form was simply convenience, and seems to have had nothing to do with anything related to what the unnamed brother did when he was alive (just as taking the form of Locke now seems unrelated to the real Locke, who was certainly not evil).
Nope, I think it is MiB transformed (UnMom did specifically mention rebirth). She bound the brothers actions, and Smoke Monster seems to be constrained by MiB’s constraints, which is a further confirmation.
I think all they’ve tried to do here is illustrate that “concentrated evil” is loose on the island, it’s Jacob’s fault, and he’s been trying for centuries to right the wrong that he caused. The Source Cave is the real secret of the island, and that’s what the Guardian is there to protect by keeping people away.
Pandora’s box. Kind of mixed in with Icarus flying too close to the sun, and the River Styx. Mythology jambalaya.
What I fail to understand about the whole thing is why Jacob wants a candidate to replace him? Smokey isn’t contained, the problem remains, and yet Jacob wanted to retire? If the whole problem is Smokey, then don’t you need to fix that before passing the torch to someone else? Perhaps Jacob felt he wasn’t strong enough to fix the problem because of his connection to it, so he was looking for help? I’m not sure, as that part doesn’t seem to make sense. They still haven’t really explained WHY anyone other than Jacob and Smokey are even on the island.
I don’t think Jacob wanted to “retire” so much as I think he foresaw his own death and was searching for a successor, or at least was continuing the game against his brother. It didn’t seem to be for Jacob to fix the problem - he created it and couldn’t seem to fix it even given an exceedingly long time to work at it. As to other people, it’s been indicated that people have been constantly coming to the island, always coming to bad ends (with those two hanging about eternally, it’s no wonder).
