Eloise Hawking

Eloise Hawking's story arc in LOST inspires more questions than answers, questions that when answered will provide integral insight to our understanding of the LOST paradigm.

You can find a detailed recap of Eloise Hawking in Lostpedia, the incredible LOST catalog built by loving hands and minds of fans everywhere.

QUESTIONS

1. Her interaction with Desmond inspires our most fundamental question regarding Eloise. During her interaction with him, she foreshadows a stranger's death, also noting the stranger was wearing red. Viewers are left with little choice but to conclude that red eventually means death. The alternative is that Eloise has at least some omniscient powers regarding the future. Since she is human, the second alternative seems far fetched. But which is it? Her awareness of Desmond and his future role in the island is at least possibly explained by her son's journal, although that seems strained as well.
   
2. In a meeting with Ben, Jack, and Sun, Eloise warned Ben that he had no choice but to collect the O6, and that "God help us all" should he fail. ("The Lie") Although there is no evidence Eloise has been on the island since 1977, she seems to be intimately aware of what is going on there. While her son Daniel Faraday's journal would give her some detail, it would not give her all the information she so obviously has. How does she acquire this information? To be fair, later she meets Penny after Desmond is shot by Ben. When Penny asked if Desmond would be all right, Eloise said she did not know and that for the first time in a long time she didn't know what was going to happen next.
3. Eloise leaves the island shortly after her preparatory actions in 1977's events, and never returns despite knowing how to do so. Does she leave the island by turning the Donkey Wheel? Is there another island exit? Why does she not return?

Is Dark | Anti-Jacob the Smoke Monster

It's a popular theory, and one I first assumed. But remember these two scenes:

1. Ben travels underground to be judged (by the Smoke Monster, right?). He is confronted by Alex who explicitly tells him not to hurt Locke (who was really Dark) and follow his orders.
2. Dark / Locke is walking with Ben towards Jacob. Ben tells Locke that his daughter Alex told him to obey Locke and not hurt him. Locke is surprised!

Questions:
a) If Dark was the smoke monster, why is he surprised to hear Ben say what Alex told him?

The two scenes still make sense if Dark / Locke was not really surprised. He illicits Ben's conversation with Alex to remind him of it, and further bolster Ben's willingness to kill Jacob.

I like that theory.

Framing the Question of Free will

Assuming Jacob principally embodies free will, let's contrast him with Ben, who is the best example of his adversary, Dark that we know on LOST.

BEN

1. Ben does not appeal to your sense of virtue; he parcels out information in such a way that you have no choice but to agree with him, or act for him. To him, information is power. Have you ever had a boss like that? Don't you feel used when you're not told all the facts? Why?
2. Ben's preferred modus operandi is blackmail or coercion, extortion, kidnapping, and if all else fails, murder. These methods all have the same construct; they take away one's freedom to choose.
3. For 5 years, secrecy, one of the basic constructs of LOST, seemed manufactured to me in order to keep the story alive. It greatly frustrated me until the S5 finale. Now I finally see that this is who Ben is. It is not in Ben's nature to approach the survivors, and aid them. He would never openly share any situation with anyone, and rely on them to act in accordance with his wishes. Example: if they were saving Claire and her baby, why not tell them that, instead of kidnapping them? The answer is simple; because Ben never gives people choices if he can help it. He method is always to manipulate and control, which is anti-free will.
   

JACOB

1. Jacob represents free will. For that reason, unlike his manipulating nemesis Dark, he can not interfere with any actions on the island, including convincing Ben not to kill him.
2. All Jacob can do is set the stage for the acts to play out on the island stage. He does this by choosing and touching the people he brings there. Beyond that, he can not interfere at all, or he immediately becomes a manipulator himself. He must rely on people's free will to end the cycle of violence and corruption and do the 'right thing.'
   

Incidentally, it is anything but an age old coincidence that Satan appears able to work actively in the world, while other than the gift of free will to his people, God appears to act not at all. I mean no disrespect to those folks who believe that God does act. I am merely stating that this construct, (the god Odin is a good example), that humans have one unique characteristic; consciousness (free will) and nothing else, to separate us from from animals / savagery and make what we can of the world, is perhaps the most prevalent idea of all religion and philosophy. For example, this was a basic tenet of Luther (who advocates baptism by free will), and Spinoza made it an even more central theme in his great philosophical treatise.

Spinoza is of particular interest as it pertains to LOST. In his epic work Ethics, he uses a mathematically styled treatise to redefine the concept of God's will, saying amongst other crucial stipulations that if God acted in the world as others say He does, he would be robbing the world and man of the very free will He gave us. Rather, God sets the stage of the Universe (LOST'S island) according to such laws of physics and nature, and allows history to unfold within the constructs therein. To this extent, this is God's will. To imply that he interferes in any other way is to imply that he has another will, which would either make him not God, or duplicitous.

In the same way, Jacob as a believer in human's ability to overcome and rise above the violence and corruption of the island, can not be an actor in the daily events there, or he would be underscoring or admitting the very construct he supports.

The good news is that we are watching the story of the survivors of O815. We can be fairly assured their story was not picked at random. Who of the survivors shall overcome their life story and gain finally end the generational cycle of corrupted power? Season 6 awaits.