Ep: 1.23 Exodus

WHAT WE LEARNED:

1. Black Rock is in the same area where the Smoke Monster lives.
2. It drags Locke, and Jack and Kate save him before the Monster can pull him down into his hole by throwing dynamite down after it. Locke still does not think the Smoke Monster will hurt him.
3. Locke argues with Jack about saving him. Locke also says he is a man of destiny. Jack says he himself is not.
   

Questions:

1. Why would the Smoke Monster try to take Locke? Protect him? Angry at him? For what?
2. In 16 years, the Smoke Monster has never taken Danielle. Why not? It has taken her family and friends.
   

Ep: 1.19 Deux Ex Machina

WHAT WE LEARNED:

1. The island is definitely talking to Locke.
2. Boone is injured and dies because he tries to send a message for rescue. This is what happened to the pilot in Ep. 1.01.
3. I believe Locke's island dream was not meant to find the plane, but to lead him to the Pearl. His secrecy is now causing him and others around him injury. Locke's faith is taking him somewhere, but his insistence on doing it alone is holding him back.
   

Questions:

1. Did Locke's waning faith cause his legs to fail? Likewise, they were restored through his own resolution.
   

Christian Shephard

What exactly is Christian Shephard's role on the island? As the seasons of LOST pile up, it's becoming an ever more important question.

We all know Christian Shephard is the father of Jack and Claire. Christian's role in Jack's younger life was authoritarian and negative, at one time telling Jack never to play the hero because he "didn't have what it takes." Consequently, a great deal of Jack's life can be summarized by his drive to prove his father wrong.

By the end of S5, the question of Christian Shepherd's role has become central. We know by now he is fronting for someone; dead being dead. With the introduction of Jacob and his Nemesis, the question has become more pointed; which one is it? The answer remains open.

First, besides attempting to be a more positive force for his son later in life, we have this touching scene just before Christian dies. Jack told Sawyer his feeling about his father, claiming that "he didn't want to take responsibility for his actions, so he blamed it on fate." When Jack asked why Sawyer was interested, he simply claimed it was out of curiosity. ("Outlaws"). However, Sawyer later revealed to Jack that he had indeed seen his father a week before the crash. Sawyer repeated Christian's words about Jack being the better man and about how Christian's self-confessed inability to call Jack up and tell him that he loved him. Sawyer remarked, "something tells me he never got around to making that call. Small world, huh?" Such a revelation would have a profound effect on Jack, and give redemption to both of them.

Christian's appearances to most Losties seems good hearted and beneficial. Besides helping to wake up his son Jack via Vincent after the crash, he leads him to find fresh water. Later, as Jack rails against his capture on the Hydra island, his anger consuming both him and his rationality, Jack's father tells him to "let it go," using a communication panel that has not worked in years. This council mirrors an earlier time when Christian tells Jack to "let it go" when Jack's anger consumes him while he tries to identify his wife Sarah's lover. Jack does not let it go, eventually accusing Jack's father of being the cuckold, and throwing him off the wagon.

Christian later is responsible for Claire's disappearance, although she seems to voluntarily leave with him. For the first time on the island, Christian is not wearing his funeral garb. More importantly though, she has abandoned her son Aaron to the other Losties. Leaving her son takes on even more significance since she has been warned repeatedly by a clairvoyant not to allow anyone else to raise her son. Does that make Christian a bad influence?

Christian tells Locke to move the island. Ben initially performs the deed, although he leaves the wheel unseated, causing the Losties to time travel repeatedly, and at least one death. In an attempt to stop the Island's jumps through time, Locke descends down to the Orchid station where Christian claims that when he told Locke they must move the Island, he was referring to Locke specifically, and claimed that nothing good happens when listening to Ben's suggestions. Christian encourages Locke to turn the frozen wheel, and confirmed Richard's statement that Locke would die in his attempt to convince the Oceanic Six to return to the Island, calling it a "sacrifice."

Christian also leads Sun to the 1977 DI picture which includes other LOST members, including her husband Jin.

Viewers have little evidence to decide whether Christian's influence serves Jacob or his Nemesis. On the surface, viewers are nonplussed that it was a possessed dead Locke that is successful in convincing Ben to kill Jacob, leading us to believe it was also a Nemesis controlled Shephard that reaffirms Locke's need to die. Doesn't 1+1=2?

Unfortunately, as we know in real life, and have been taught repeatedly and sometimes painfully in LOST, all is not necessarily what it seems. The causality seems to form almost too neat a picture, given the other more basic and beneficial actions Shephard has previously taken.

For now, viewers are urged to keep a wary eye on Christian Shephard. But it remains an instinctual truth that by all outward appearances, Christian is aiding and protecting both his siblings on the island. With all the negative father issues on LOST, it hardly seems logical to nay say the only one that seems now to be positive. We're also reminded that to find his own redemption and silence his own demons Jack most assuredly must learn to trust and appreciate the positive messages his father tried to give him.

There is certainly more to come.

The Story of Season 6. A Theory

Elsewhere, we talked about the island and the likelihood of it metaphorically being the Underworld as a good place for the story of LOST. But if that's true, how does the story end?

Well, the Underworld is where souls go to be judged before they enter Heaven or Hell. What is the Balance, you might ask? With the S5 Finale it's becoming more clear. Did you live your life with passion and purpose? Did you exercise your power of choice, and with free will were you able to rise above the destiny that fate lay in your way?

For each LOST survivor (it's becoming clear Jacob picked / touched all of them), that destiny appears to have begun with a father figure. And no one on the island has so far been able to over come it. In fact, all Losties' deaths have to-date been failures in that regard.

Will anyone rise above their fate and choose to live freely, without fighting their past? So far Locke has appeared the worst failure; dying as he lived as the perfect patsy. But there's still hope. Not in resurrection. After all, in the Underworld, dead is dead. And Locke sure ain't going back to the mainland. No, hope lies for Locke in the future. Because there are after all, two Lockes. We know the first story. It ended in failure. We don't know the second. And while Locke may be fooled one time, don't ever tell Locke what he can't do.

We can't help but believe that the man of science and the man of faith still have a chance at redemption if their story threads can somehow come together. And that is how I believe the season will end; a convergence of both approaches by Locke and Jack, proving that in appreciating portions of the other regarding fathers, souls and science, they are able to overcome their pasts, unify the island, restore harmony midst chaos, and find redemption.

It only needs to end well once. And Jacob will be free to give up his physical body, and join his specter 'brother' (it is Nemesis that is the specter, not Jacob) to converge with the rest of the gods. Because we know it's an evolution for the gods as well. But free will is the key. After all, it's humanity's most divine gift.

Do Hieroglyphs Explain Jacob and the Island?

Sometimes the most obvious answer is the answer. And with Egyptian hieroglyphs sprinkled throughout the island, it doesn't take long to begin looking around in that mythology to find a clue. As S5 drew to a close, we have some other critical pieces to add to the Egyptian mythology of the island. Those pieces lead us to some likely theories on Jacob's identity.

ISLAND AS UNDERWORLD
But first lets look at the hieroglyphs. Three of them in particular are illuminating. First is the hieroglyph on the Ajira Airways FL316 ticket; it represents the 'Underworld', confirmed by Darlton. Wow. That seems to be a fairly critical clue. In terms of the LOST paradigm, it's probably useful to at least ask oneself if the ticket is to the underworld or from it. Because if the mainland is the underworld, and we're all living some kind of shadow existence until we get to the island, well then, that's a different story than if the island is the underworld, which is on the way to either heaven or hell.

The second set of hieroglyphs represent 'Time' and 'Travel' and Darlton has confirmed that together they represent 'Resurrection.' Those symbols are on the columns in the room housing the Donkey Wheel underneath the Orchid station. People turning the Donkey Wheel not only shift the island in time space, they transport onto the mainland in Tunisia. Hmmm. Interesting. So right away we're fairly certain the island is indeed the Underworld, and transporting to the mainland 'resurrects' yourself in the real world (RW).

Now on to the Season Finale, where the large island statue is finally seen in its entirety, which ABC confirms is Taweret, the god of fertility. This long in coming revelation is enlightening, but also generates some ambiguity. Egyptian mythology alternately describes Taweret as the consort of Apep or Set, or the wife of Sobek.

DUAT OR UNDERWORLD MYTHOLOGY
Duat was the region through which the sun god Ra traveled from west to east during the night, and where he battled Apep. It also was the place where people's souls went after death—for judgment.

The most famous scene from the discussions of Duat is the Weighing of the Heart, in which the dead were judged by Anubis, using a feather, representing Ma'at, the goddess of truth and justice.

There is a significant difference between Egyptian interpretations of the Underworld, and many other western (Catholic, Methodist, Jew) and eastern (Buddhism, Nordic, Orthodox) views of Purgatory. Purgatory nearly always incorporates the chance for souls to redeem themselves and make their way to heaven. In Egyptian mythology, there is no such chance; it is a place for judgment one way or the other. It is interesting to note that if we are to use the Egyptian themes to instruct us in LOST, we must necessarily use the concepts of Purgatory to complete the analogy.


APEP MYTHOLOGY
Apep was evil and resided in the Underworld. He was the sworn enemy of Ra, keeper of the light, God of the Sun, and upholder of Ma'at, the goddess of harmony, order, and truth. As the personification of all that was evil, Apep was seen as a giant snake. In LOST terms, this is an attractive metaphor; the island as Underworld with snakes much like smoke.

Each night Apep would fight Ra as he and his entourage traveled through the Underworld on a huge baroque, on their way through the River Styx to morning. Some of Ra's companions would help him fight Apep, most principally Set, god of chaos, confusion, storms, wind, the desert and foreign lands. He was also the only god strong enough to reliably conquer Apep. Myths sometimes say that Apep was trapped in the Underworld because he had been the previous chief god and suffered a coup d'etat by Ra, or because he was evil and had been imprisoned.


SET MYTHOLOGY
Set was the god of the desert, and chaos. Notice that both order and chaos are needed for the balance of the universe, forming a dichotomy between Ra and Set. Set was viewed as immensely powerful and carried the epithet, "His Majesty", shared only with Ra.

The myth of Set's conflict with Horus, Osiris, and Isis appears in many Egyptian sources, including the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, the Shabaka Stone, inscriptions on the walls of the temple of Horus at Edfu, and various papyrus sources. These myths generally portray Osiris as a wise king and bringer of civilization, happily married to his sister, Isis. Set was envious of his younger brother, and he killed and dismembered Osiris.

Osiris' son Horus was conceived by Isis with Osiris' corpse. Horus naturally became the enemy of Set. In some of these myths Set is portrayed as Horus' older brother rather than uncle. The myth incorporated moral lessons for relationships between fathers and sons, older and younger brothers, and husbands and wives. It is interesting that LOST's survivors universally have father issues. Have we hit on something here?

In the Pyramid Texts he was believed to be a friend to the dead. It was believed that "Horus purifies and Set strengthens, and Set purifies and Horus strengthens" the deceased while the backbone of the deceased becomes the backbone of Set and Set has "joined together my neck and my back strongly, and they are even as they were in the time that is past; may nothing happen to break them apart." Stories of backs remind me of back surgeons named Jack and Christian Shephard, and of course paraplegics like John Locke.

It is also interesting to note that in later mythology, Set evolved into the first supreme God, usurping Ra, while still later, he was again demonized and became evil, associated with Apep. There are definitely many angles to choose from here, including any one of Set or Apep, vs. Ra.

SOBEK MYTHOLOGY

Sobek's early history was ambiguous in nature, and that led some Egyptians to believe that he was a repairer of evil that had been done, rather than a force for good in itself. In one story, Sobek traveled to Duat to restore damage done to the dead as a result of their form of death.

Originally, Sobek was probably a dark god who had to be appeased to give the people his protection against crocodiles. Sobek had a dark streak that stayed with him for the time he was worshiped. In The Book of the Dead, he was showed as four crocodiles who were believed to attack the deceased in the underworld. This dark side sometimes put him in the camp of Set.

Sobek, as with many of the other protective gods, also had a benign side. In a different version of the tale of Osiris, it was Sobek who carried the dead body of Osiris to the bank of the Nile on his back. And under the orders of Ra, the four gods were rescued by Sobek in a net, and brought them to land.

Despite the different attitudes of people to the god, he was venerated as one who restored sight to the dead, who revived their senses and who protected them from Apep who attacked those souls who travelled through the land of the dead.

Some tales suggested that Set was his father. He was also thought to be husband of the goddess Taweret, who was sometimes depicted with a crocodile on her back.

During the Middle Kingdom, Sobek was linked to the god Amen (also connected to Ra), who seemed to have assimilated him to some degree. He was also connected to the sun god Ra, giving the form Sobek-Ra, who was worshipped as another omnipotent manifestation of the sun deity. Thus Sobek could be shown wearing either the headdress of Amen or the sun disk of Ra.

LOST COMPARISONS

It's possible to see healthy comparisons between the two LOST protagonists, Jacob and his cohort, in any number of the mythological characters noted above. Set and Apep for instance, both have intimate Duat connections and were enmeshed with Taweret according to various mythologies. Placing LOST in the Underworld allows the writers to develop their own laws of physics while playing out many themes they've so carefully developed.

Ultimately, we suspect that it's not important exactly which two characters Jacob and his 'brother' represent. More likely it is the ambiguity that Darlton was looking for, along with the consistent themes that lurk in the mythology of all of them; Chaos vs. Order, Fate and Destiny vs. Free Will and Redemption, Father vs. Son, Life vs. Death, Progress and Evolution vs. Tradition and Stability. In all of these age old dichotomies, there exists a balance, neither good nor bad. In all of them there also exists man's will, and his choice to use it in whatever manner he is inclined. In this I can not help but get the feeling that Darlton has made Jacob come down very much on the side of free will and redemption.

After all, it's what gives man his divinity, and the ultimate power of a god.

Jacob: An Alternate Theory

Popular theories view Jacob and his 'friend' as two opposites; Good vs. Evil or Destiny vs. Free will, or Life vs. Death. Variations include merging religious themes into the dichotomy. But what if the two aren't a dichotomy at all?

What if they're both different components of the same force or entity called Jacob; one physical (Body), the other spirit (Specter)? Specter is tired of watching mankind wallow in his own baseness. He wants to move on to a more interesting plane or universe, where he's no longer witness to the monotony of centuries of mindless slaughter and corruption. Unfortunately, his physical self doesn't want to leave. He's fascinated by the struggle of mankind, and hopes to see them change. Perhaps part of Body's enjoyment of the story entails his own physical pleasure of eating, sleeping, and working; he doesn't want his body to die.

The issue is that Jacob can't enter the next realm without leaving the body behind. That means Body must die, and unfortunately he's not going to voluntarily give up. So if Body won't come willingly, Specter needs to arrange it. But there's the problem. As a specter, he has no power on the physical plane, even if he's possessing a dead body. He needs to convince a physical being to do it. But how to convince a human to get angry at Jacob? There's really no reason to hate him... Oh wait. Maybe there is...

With that in mind, this beach scene reads quite differently...

Specter: I don't have to ask. You brought them here. Trying to prove me wrong, aren't you? (mankind will never change)
Jacob's body: You are wrong.
Specter: Am I? They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same. (I'm tired of watching this)
Jacob's body: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress. (Have patience, some day it will change)
Specter: Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you? (Do you have any idea how badly I want to get out of here, but we can't leave until you die?)
Jacob's body: Yes
Specter: One of these days... I'll find the final loophole my friend. (But I can't kill you since I'm a spirit. I need to find another way to do it.)
Jacob's body: Well, when you find it, I'll be right here. (My body isn't going anywhere).

Elsewhere, we've postulated that Jacob and Nemesis are essentially two very different entities, perhaps both elements of a converged whole.

The Nature of Jacob and Nemesis

Following is conjecture on the nature of Jacob and Nemesis, from the Finale evidence.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

• There is no evidence that Jacob or Nemesis have god-like or superhuman powers. So far the only characteristic they possess unexplained by the island or science seems to be their long, or immortal life. We are also unsure of the effect Jacob's touch has on humans while they are on the mainland.
  
• Jacob is a corporeal entity. He can be seen by humans because he inhabits a real living body.
• Conversely, Nemesis is a spirit. The evidence is that no one has yet seen him. Jacob doesn't count.
  
• At least a couple theories explain his ethereal quality. Perhaps he was killed at some point. Perhaps he is somehow the alter ego of Jacob personified. The reason he is a spirit may not be important.
  
• Nemesis resorts to physical possession of dead bodies, and controlling smoke to act or be seen in the real world. He can not possess live people. Notice that he must possess the body; he can not shape shift, or mimic a body, or he would not need a dead one.
  
• Jacob can recognize Nemesis either through a spiritual sense, or because he knows him so well after all these centuries.
• Their different physical make-ups go a long way to explain why they can not kill each other, although there is little evidence that Jacob wants to kill Nemesis in any case. If Nemesis is Jacob's personified alter ego, it would simply explain why he must convince a proxy to kill him; Nemesis does not wish to kill himself, especially if he does not inhabit another body at the time.

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.

The Power of Life Stories

One of the most foundational themes in LOST is the hugely powerful roles that stories play in our lives. That is not surprising, since it's true in real life, perhaps more than most people suspect. An entire branch of psychology has arisen and developed surrounding this phenomenon, including therapy and treatment approaches. There's another interesting characteristic of the survivors' stories on LOST. They all involve father figures.

Stories, good and bad, have characteristics. They tend to be generational, passed on from father and mother, to son and daughter. At the least our families heavily influence our stories; victims of abuse become abusers, doctors raise doctors, and alcoholics tend to raise alcoholics. It's also interesting that if the son or daughter chooses to break from a dominant family story, they tend to do so in a very strong and powerful, reactive fashion.

JACK'S STORY
In LOST for example, Jack becomes a doctor like his father, yet disdains his father's abuse of alcohol. One of Jack's most powerful stories is avoiding being like his father in that way. It is surprising then, that he abuses both alcohol and drugs later in S5. This is a questionable digression by the writers. But Jack's most powerful story is proving his father wrong about being weak, and not up to the hard choices in life. He's been told he doesn't have what it takes all his life. Jack works hard to measure up, and to be better than his father at everything he does. While that drive makes him a performer, it also leads to stridency, control, and dogmatism at times. To reach his potential, he must stop fighting his father's words, and develop enough self-confidence to listen. This affliction is a common story of leaders.

Some life stories are more popular than others. It has been researched and demonstrated that fairy tales are ageless because they are collections of the most popular life story lines. The story of Little Red Riding Hood, wherein the girl is attracted to the scary bad boy but then is saved by the hero, is argued to be one of the most common woman story in existence.

SAWYER'S STORY
Sawyer represents two stories. The first is more personal. As a boy, Sawyer watched his father gun down his mother and then shoot himself, after a con man cuckolded him and swindled his wife. Sawyer holds great rage for the con man, but then grows up to be the person he hates, playing the con man himself. Consequently he cares only for himself, feeds off others, and lies and steals until he is forced to run.

There is another very popular branch of the Little Red Hiding Hood story; girl falls in love with bad boy, who redeems himself (preferably with the girl's help) and they live happily ever after. This is clearly the story of Sawyer. The question on LOST has been which girl it will be. It had already played out with Juliet. At the end of S5, we don't know if she is dead.

STORY COLLECTIONS
Earlier we saw that fairy tales are collections of popular stories. Mythology is arguably an even stronger source, since the best stories include general life identities, such as good vs. evil. The story of Sobek is often the story of Cain and Abel, or even the origins of God vs. Satan. When we understand the power of stories, it is not surprising that we find popular stories mirrored across religions and philosophies. Almost everyone is aware of the story of Oedipus, who loved his mother. The term Oedipus Complex, in Freudian (another branch of psychology) derives from this popular boy story of penis envy on the way to man hood.

I believe the most astounding collection of life stories ever written is the Bible. Many non-believers denigrate the Bible by accusing it of being impossibly literal, unbelievable, or inconsistent. Wherever you are on the religious scale, the Bible teaches us the outcomes of a vast array of stories, and gives us examples of successful stories if we exercise our free will to live by them. And certainly Jesus, whether you believe in him or not, or his ability to perform miracles or rise from the dead, is one of the greatest life stories ever told.

Jacob and Dark | The Struggle

Find the Season 5.16 The Incident pt. 1 here.
Fine the Season 5.17 The Incident pt. 2 here.

In a nutshell, here's what I think I saw in the S5 Finale.

THE TWO ADVERSARIES
Two immortal adversaries, call them Enemy and Jacob. And as a ship which looks like the Black Rock floats offshore, but definitely puts us in the 1800s, perhaps the most important conversation yet in the series then enjoins:

JACOB: I take it you're here 'cause of the ship.
ENEMY: I am. How did they find the Island?
JACOB: You'll have to ask 'em when they get here.
ENEMY: I don't have to ask. You brought them here. Still trying to prove me wrong, aren't you?
JACOB: You are wrong.
ENEMY: Am I? They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.
JACOB: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.
ENEMY: Do you have any idea how badly I wanna kill you?
JACOB: Yes.
ENEMY: One of these days, sooner or later... I'm going to find a loophole, my friend.
JACOB: Well, when you do, I'll be right here.

Here is the first real glimpse at the secrets of LOST. Obviously this game between the two adversaries has been going on for a long, long time, even in the 1800s as dated by the ship. Enemy has grown weary of it because the ending is always the same; violence and corruption. The implication is that mankind is not worth saving. But the adversarial game is clearly a competition; Jacob is out to prove Enemy wrong; that mankind is better than that. All he has to do is prove it one time. For generations now, humans have failed.

The alternative endgame is that there is no relief from man's cycle of depravity. Either Jacob can admit it, and defeat, or Enemy can find a loophole, and kill him. It appears the loophole to kill Jacob is having someone else do it. Who better than the murderous, conniving, sociopath Ben. It's worth noting that it is not necessarily true that Enemy has always been intent on killing Jacob. It rather looks more likely that he is just horribly tired of the story that never ends, and is by now driven to kill Jacob to finally finish it.

RULES OF THE GAME
There are rules to the game they are playing. From the conversation, and later scenes, I believe they are as follows:

1. Neither can directly kill each other.
   
2. Neither can be direct actors on the island stage.
3. Enemy influences the humans on the stage to bring about the violent end even he has no taste for anymore. Because he can not act directly, he uses dead bodies and perhaps smoke as substitute. It now becomes something more than interesting that the Others burn their dead bodies and send them out to sea. Enemy's side of the game does not prevent him from swaying humans. It was Enemy who was trapped in the cabin by ashes, but found a way to get out by coercing someone to break the ash barrier. Perhaps it was Jacob who trapped him there to limit his interference. It appears he has been using Christian and Alex as proxies, but for some time now has impersonated a dead Locke. Dead is dead, after all.
   
4. Jacob does not act at all. His only role is to arrange people to come from the mainland. He chooses them. Beyond that, he makes no further interference. More on this later.

At least some of these rules are also used by humans on the island. Remember Ben telling Widmore that he had broke one of the rules; he had killed his daughter. Clearly we need to learn more about the Book of Laws.

WHAT IS THE DOMINANT THEME OF LOST?
The two adversaries embody two sides of the same coin in their struggle. What is it? While I suspect the LOST series is really a multi-layered combination of dichotomies, and good vs. evil is too simplistic, here are some possibilities:

• Fate vs. Free will
• Good vs. evil
• Baseness vs. Virtue
  
• Animal vs. Spiritual
• Damned vs. Redemption
• Nature vs. Nurture

All are essential and recurrent themes in religion and philosophy.

GOD vs. SATAN or GOOD vs. EVIL
Satan was God's right hand. The first conversation appears to be a bet about whether mankind is capable of governing on the island with virtue. Enemy doesn't think so. Jacob says they only have to do it once.

If indeed Jacob represents God, and the statue is Anubis, Guard of the Afterlife, then the island is Purgatory, and the humans there fighting for entry into either heaven or hell. It would also explain why no women can have children there.

It's interesting to note that the struggle to find virtue is also personified in the LOST crew as every main character struggles for redemption of their life stories. All are trying to overcome their pasts in their own way. All are growing and maturing towards it; especially the most spiritual Locke, who in his quest ironically opens himself to Enemy's manipulation and coercion, and dooms his life story to tragic, fatalistic repetition.

But the story is essentially about the O815, so we have reason to believe that at least one of them will be successful and suppress the killing and corruption. The explosion just gave them all a do over, arguably with their memories intact. Who will it be?

RA vs. APEP or GOOD vs. EVIL
An Egyptian variation on the Good vs. Evil theme would have Jacob represent Ra, god of Good and light, making his Enemy Apep, the Egyptian deification of evil and “Eater of Souls,” who is often portrayed as a snake not unlike the Smoke Monster.

Just as with the Devil scenario, Apep (Smoke Monster) confronts characters and consumes their soul, and absorbs their experiences if he finds that the character can not be used to his own evil ends. Ecko, perhaps the most tested and therefore self-actualized character on the series, was therefore one of the first to be consumed. Ben on the other hand, was already evil, and Locke the perfect patsy, making them both perfect for Apep’s grand plan to defeat Jacob (Ra).

Notice that in this analogy the imagery is somewhat richer, with only slightly less emphasis on Good and Evil, but the difference between this scenario and the one above is only slight. It matters little in the end.

FREE WILL: THE DOMINANT THEME
The intriguing thing about great stories is that they are multi-layered. There is no doubt that Enemy represents destiny and Jacob free will on its most basic level.

It is argued in many philosophies and virtually all religions that it is only man's free will that breaks the instinctual brain stem function of selfishness, violence and corruption. It is what sets us apart from animals (who kill each other all the time) and gives us our divinity or virtuosity. Free will is our most precious and holy attribute. It allows us to rise out of the savage muck and become good or virtuous, not because it's our nature, but like the gods, because we choose.

Jacob mentions, implies, or encourages free will in every conversation in the Finale. He says to Jack, "We all need a little push." Earlier in the operating room his father gave him a push in the right direction as well. Unfortunately Jack took his father's guidance in a knee jerk reaction (he didn't exert his free will) to the life long negativity of his father. Often in life the hardest lessons are those that come from people we have a hard time listening to. When Jack learns to appreciate at least some of the lessons his father taught him, he will be well and on his way to find his own redemption. Until then, Jack, like many of us, is caught in the never ending cycle of fighting against the demons of his life stories rather than realizing his potential.

In this same way, all the characters in LOST are fighting their pasts instead of exercising their free will and becoming who they could be. We thought Locke was the furthest along. It appears in the Finale that he is back at square one again.

With Hurley, Jacob's admonition of free will is even more direct. He expressly gives him the option of not going to the island, and encourages him to think of himself as blessed, rather than how others see him (crazy).

Finally, I believe that free will (and personal redemption) is the dominant theme of the story because of the powerful last scene; Jacob's death. The most illuminating point of the scene is what Jacob doesn't do; he doesn't plead for his life, the most logical thing for anyone to do. At the impending moment of is death, he addresses Ben, telling him he has a choice. When Ben asks Jacob who he is, Jacob replies, "Who are you?" There is never any attempt to sway Ben, only encouragement to avoid manipulation and act for himself. This scene, more than any other, convinces us that the story of LOST centers around free will and redemption (which leads to the end of violence and corruption) between the two ancient adversaries, but also on a personal level for our survivors.

THE DEATH SCENE
Enemy has finally won the age old struggle by finding a loophole to kill Jacob. That is, until Jack and his group blow up the Swan. Does that act give Jacob a new chance at life, as well as for each of the Losties?

Notice that the premise that Faraday / Jack's group worked under (that blowing up the Swan would erase the last months and land the plane in LA) is certainly not necessarily true. This reflects real life when we try to do the right thing but we often don't know all the facts...

Perhaps the LOST group will wake up on the island in much the same manner that Ecko, Des, and Locke did during the explosion at the Swan in S3, when they were thrown clear of the terrible blast. Maybe they flash to another time. Maybe they will just land on the island in a storm again. But I doubt they are going to LA, don't you?