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!
