Yesterday I discussed the Smoke Monster and his various roles and duties on the Island. Tonight, it’s the Man in Black’s turn. What is he? How did he get to the point he is at now? And how the hell can Ben summon him like a pet? Hopefully, I’ll shed a bit more light on these questions, answering them totally wrong and doing so with little grammatical sense.
THE PET
For such a powerful being, for Jacob’s freaking adversary, the yang to his yin, the dark to his light, how is it that Smokey can simply be summoned by a pool of water draining into a hole?
The rules. According to these alleged rules, the primary role of the Monster is as protector of the Island. Sure, Jacob takes all the credit, but Smokey does the brute work. In a way, he’s Jacob’s bodyguard, except instead of getting paid a large sum of money, he is contractually bound to protect Jacob and the security of this Island at all costs. And these rules go back to ancient times, when pharaohs ruled the land and mummification was all the rage.
Ever since Season Four, Egyptian mythology has played a role in the mythos story of Lost. Ever since we saw those hieroglyphs on the heavy Indiana Jones door leading down to the summoning chamber of the Smoke Monster, the ancient Egyptian culture has been a prevalent theme recurring throughout the Island. The freakin’ Four-Toed Statue is of the Egyptian god of fertility! But that’s aside the point…
What I’m trying to get at is a particular drawing that emerged in “Dead is Dead.” Said drawing depicted Smokey and Anubis. Anubis, of course, was a jackal that escorted the souls of the dead to the Underworld, or the high life, or something along those lines. And we all know how Smokey likes to infect the dead. Was his duty as a protector of the dead, assisting Anubis in his duties? Or was he an enemy of Anubis, seizing the souls of the dead, claiming them for himself? And what the hell does this have to do with anything?
Smokey is old. He dates back. WAY back. And Jacob is sure to date back with him, whether it be Mark Pelligrino or the Jacob before the recently deceased one or the one before him. These roles and positions date back AGES. And perhaps, way back when, Smokey was a pet of the Egyptian gods. Anubis maybe?
Smokey’s duty was to protect the gods and the land they inhabited. He was bound by the laws of the universe and the dictum of a bunch of fake people with animals for heads as a protector. And that’s just the way it was.
Well, Smokey was a man too. And he was, in all practicality, a slave to the Egyptian gods, a slave to Jacob. He does not protect the Island because he cares if the trees burn. It’s not that there’s a rule stating specifically that “Smokey cannot kill Jacob.” As the Smoke Monster, his position is that as protector of Jacob, his land, and the possible future Jacobs – the candidates.
Smokey CANNOT kill a candidate. Should Sawyer have willfully let go of that ladder, it still would have been his duty to grab his arm in an effort to preserve the life of a candidate. He couldn’t kill him, as he was warned by the blonde boy, nor could he let him fall to his death willfully. Such would have been in violation of the rules.
But what about John in “Exodus,” you say? Well, he said it pretty clearly himself. It wasn’t going to hurt him. Maybe Smokey was going to fill him in on the story so far, get HIM, John Locke, to kill Jacob?
THE PLAYER
But he found his loophole. Ever since this Smokey became Smokey, he realized the cruelty of the situation, and schemed every day on how he could free himself of his chains. Day in, day out, he was focused on killing Jacob, on breaking free of the leash that restricted him. He couldn’t just kill Jacob himself – the conditions of his entrapment was that he, as the Smoke Monster, would protect Jacob. And murdering the man you’re supposed to guard from danger is a bit far from protection.
So he plotted, awaiting the opportunity to find his loophole, realize a way to kill Jacob. And he found it in “Walkabout” upon finding John Locke in the woods. It was he who would proceed to implant visions in Locke’s head. He would guide John to the Hatch, convince John that what was inside that Hatch was his destiny. He would test Locke’s faith with the death of Boone and then push it even further down by pushing him toward the Pearl. And why? Why would he have John undergo all these trials?
Because it was easy. Prior to the crash, John’s life was sad, pathetic, depressing. He was a man without friends; his father stole his kidney AND his ability to walk; his girlfriend left him after being proposed to. “The Island” restored his ability to walk; “The Island” led him to the Hatch; it was “The Island’s” decision for Boone to die. In these examples, it would seem that the Island is Smokey. But what of the Others? Jacob and the Island are seemingly interchangeable. “Jacob wanted Ben healed. The Island chooses who the Island chooses.” Is Smokey the Island? Is Jacob the Island? Is it that blonde boy? Or all they all forces channeling into the same energy, able to implant thoughts, control fates, devise the rules to some epic game?
Exactly how much power does one, apparently trapped, enslaved, actually have? Yes, Smokey can read minds, he can uproot trees
Smokey led John Locke off the Island, telling him through Richard he had to be dead to bring the Oceanic Six back. But it was never about getting the Oceanic Six to return – it was a ploy conceived to ensure the death of John Locke so Smokey could assume his role – his shape, his traits, his memories. He took advantage of John’s role as supposed leader of the Others, as someone special in “the Island’s” good graces, to manipulate Ben and to kill Jacob, fulfilling his master plan. And Jacob is dead. He found his loophole. But now, Smokey is apparently stuck as Not-Locke, able only to switch between his Monster form and that of John Locke.
THE PERSON
So what is Not-Locke? Is he simply another shape of the Smoke Monster, akin to Alex Rousseau when she appeared to Ben? Yemi when he appeared to Eko? Possibly, though it seems like so much more.
Not-Locke is the man we saw at the beginning of “The Incident,” sitting on the beach with Jacob, being a good villain and reviewing his plan for world domination before the eventual subject of murder at his hands. Esau, Samuel, Man in Black, whatever you want to call him – he was not the Monster. He was very much a man.
The Man in Black, much like Not-Locke, was once a man with his own life. He experienced joy, betrayal, the loss of someone he loved. And then he came to the Island and fell subject to the same trickery as John. And while I believe the conditions of Esau’s becoming the Man in Black are vastly different from John’s, the circumstances were very much the same. John just seems like a new face and shape for the Man in Black. While he carries around John’s memories, he is NOT John Locke – he is that same man we saw speaking to Jacob.
And who and what is Esau? He was a candidate of Smokey.
His origins were very much like that of everyone else who has come to the Island. He came with a group of people. And they fought, they destroyed, they corrupted. But Esau was different from the others. He wasn’t despicable, he wasn’t the human race the Smoke Monster had witnessed washing ashore his Island time and time again. But most of all, he was malleable, easily manipulated, much like Locke. The process of candidacy, the passing down of a position through means other than death, it’s something unexplained thus far in the Lost universe, something I don’t even want to approach. But that Smoke Monster passed it along to the current one, the same man who hated humans, who manipulated John Locke, who indirectly killed Jacob.
And now John Locke is the face of that man. It could very well have been Locke sitting on that beach with Jacob in the premiere, because their views, their opinions, their minds are one and the same. Not-Locke is not his own Smokey, simply the same one we have seen for the last five seasons, the same one we saw in the sand next to a healthy Jacob and an intact statue.
Why is Smokey stuck, why can he not change his face from Locke’s? Because he killed Jacob and the Island willed it so. With the Island in such a state of imbalance, the rules are even more critical to be adhered to. Just because Jacob is dead doesn’t mean Smokey has won the game. This means that further restrictions will be made to uphold the rules of the game, such as Not-Locke only being able to shift between his John Locke and Smoke Monster forms. It’s only fair in this epic game.
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