Peter Ho-Sing-Loy writes:
Do you think this is a Cain and Abel story where they are fighting for
Eden…over and over and over
I have to say that I don’t believe this theory, simply because there is too much Egyptian imagery on the show. The four-toed statue, for example is of Taweret, the Egyptian god of childbirth and fertility.
Now that’s not to say that I believe that Jacob was really Taweret – the big reason for this is that Taweret is female. I think it’s much more likely that Jacob is in fact, Sobek-Ra.
From Wikipedia:
Sobek’s ambiguous nature led some Egyptians to believe that he was a repairer of evil that had been done, rather than a force for good in itself, for example, going to Duat to restore damage done to the dead as a result of their form of death. He was also said to call on suitable gods and goddesses required for protecting people in situation, effectively having a more distant role, nudging things along, rather than taking an active part. In this way, he was seen as a more primal god, eventually becoming regarded as an avatar of the primal god Amun, who at that time was considered the chief god. When his identity finally merged, Amun had become merged himself with Ra to become Amun-Ra, so Sobek, as an avatar of Amun-Ra, was known as Sobek-Ra.
Following along this line, the Man in Black could be the personification of Ammut, the demon that devoured souls that were considered unworthy when judge in the afterlife. (Yeah, that goes against the who male/female thing I stated earlier, since Ammut is female).
It’s possible that what we’ll learn is that while the Egyptians believed all this, the real “truth” that will be revealed in LOST may be that the people the Egyptians considered to be gods are actually placeholders for good and evil. Maybe vessels would be a better word. In other words, I don’t think that Jacob and the Man in Black are good and evil personified, rather “good” took over whoever Jacob was in a previous life to look after “evil”. Evil had to be held in place (You folks who play World of Warcraft and know the story of Arthas the Lich King, and his successor will understand what I mean by “held in place) by someone willing to do so. That’s where the Man in Black came into the picture. He wanted the power, but didn’t fully understand what the implications of that power were. In other words, he can have all the power he wanted, but he’s stuck on the island.
He was probably tricked into that role by the previous vessel. I think his plan is to give that over to Widmore or really has no idea what he’s getting himself into.
Jacob’s role is likely to be taken over by Ben… at least that’s my current guess. Widmore and Ben are already enemies, and there’s nobody else on the island who wants to keep it safe more than Ben does.
The island itself? Likely the original Garden of Eden. ….Hey, I know, I know…but if you have a better guess for what that place is, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
Thanks for the question, Peter!
Did Claires “baby” look like the statue of Taweret to anyone else but me?
Ha! That’s great! You’re right!
I just discovered this site (thanks to Dave Barry) and I am already hooked. This is awesome, Amazing Steve- thanks!
As far as Taweret being a female, didn’t MIB say to richard that jacob stole his body?
oops, sorry, I meant Ammut
How about this?
An island society thought by some to be the forerunner of the Egyptian, suddenly disappearing through some sort of catastrophe…a vastly advanced society whose abuse of some sort of ‘power’ caused their island to disappear, (some mistakenly think it sunk beneath the sea, instead of just simply ‘moving’) An incredibly powerful ancient society whose two top ‘priests’ found the secrets of life and death, and whose eternal conflict with each other gave rise to the Egyptian myths of Ammut, Taweret, Sobek.
Unfortunately, someone in history heard the story of this and ’embellished’ the island to make a good story, therefore the ‘real’ history of the island and it’s inhabitants was ‘lost’…….
something else –
Ben has killed before, so I don’t think he can be the next caretaker of the island.
Now, who of the candidates hasn’t killed anyone yet? (I think I know….)
Another observation – Jacob can grant the power to live forever (Richard), but he couldn’t even grant Richard Hugo’s power to see dead people?
Clearly if you saw last night’s episode Jacob and the MIB are really Cain and Abel. I think it is a bit twisted version – but you couldn’t miss the biblical references at all. “Take this cup and drink from it” Puhlease!
So I think Mom of Cain and Abel is really Mother Nature/ female religious figure. I think the well of light/waterfall thingy is really the ‘well of souls’ I think the island is a kind of purgatory/recycler of souls. When MIB killed Motha nacha, thus making Jacob the new keeper of souls, Jacob threw him into the well where he became what he truly is and that is evil. Good and Evil must always balance each other in some forms of religion and thus neither can leave the island and get off. I think the plane crashed and they are in purgatory. I cannot explain in my theory however, what the heck the whole electro mag stuff is about and why can’t we just decide where the Oceanic people are supposed to go up or down. I can’t for the life of me figure out how they are going to wind this thing up in three hours of TV. My daughter thinks it will be continued in some form in a new show. I have titled that show ‘Found’ LOL
Katies one flaw in her theory is that Jacob did leave the island, multiple times in fact to talk to each passenger on oceanic.