Jacob didn’t kill him. MIB said, “You can’t kill me” and Jacob said he wasn’t going to. Then he knocked him out and threw him in the Well of Souls, where Mommy Dearest had said you won’t die, but it would be worse than dying.
I took from MD saying, “I’m tired” that she was immortal as long as she was the Guardian, and she had had enough. When Jacob took over, she could die.
That was my interpretation - sending Esau down into the Light-Cave was doing something ‘worse than death’ to him, which means that it wasn’t killing him per se. Whatever that something was took away his regular human body, and gave him a different being, that of Smokey, who can assume the forms of many people, presumably including his own original one.
Alison Janney was terrible in this episode, and I thought she was great in the West Wing. The acting of the guys playing Jacob and Esau was also much flatter than in previous episodes, leading me to believe that the dialogue was just unsayable.
I’ve been thinking about the timeline of the Island. Claudia’s people spoke Latin, so I’m guessing they were ancient Romans. However, the Smoke Monster appears in the Egyptian heiroglyphics, so the Egyptians must have come later.
After a quick check with Wikipedia, I see that this is actually quite possible. The Roman Republic began around 500 BC, became the Roman Empire shortly before the time of Christ, and fell around the third or fourth century. Egypt’s glory days were long over by this time, but “Ancient Egypt” didn’t really end until the Third century AD, when the newly-converted Roman Emperor shut down all non-Christian temples.
This would also suggest that the Island is Atlantis, since it was once in a place where both Romans and Egyptians might find it.
Every fan complaining about this episode should read this.
The point of this series is that we live in a world where major mysteries exist (the stuff of philosophical speculation: where did the universe come from, why are we moral beings, etc.), mysteries which defy our best efforts to “solve” them. To explore this theme, the writers use the island as a way to introduce unavoidable mysteries serving as allegories for the deeper mysteries of life. The characters routinely compare/contrast two different approaches to dealing with the basic fact that unsolvable mysteries exist.
Yes it’s a frustrating approach–and I too question its storytelling value–but it is certainly consistent with the overall theme. In fact this thread is something of a meta-narrative for the series itself: Several folks insisting that all the answers should be knowable, others happy to accept on faith that the writers know what they are doing. I also find it interesting that those frustrated viewers who don’t like the lack of answers will still admit they will stay on the island 'til the bitter end–they’re trapped by the island just like MiB.
Exactly. I think when Jacob threw his brother down the path to the light, Esau lost his physical body and became the smoke monster. That could be the fate worse than death.
Oh, gosh. I am so lost right now, I’m watching just to see the beautiful beautiful scenery. And utter some totally random, lame comments. I don’t see how the writers can POSSIBLY wrap all this up in the time that is left… I enjoyed this episode though it raised more questions than answers and I really missed the regular cast… I knew the real mother was a goner the minute she said to the not-mother, ‘may I see him?’…The two boys were cute when young. Jacob grew up looking OK, but Nameless certainly didn’t age well, with his receding hairline and too-big features! He looked much older than Jacob…That’s it. I’m lost. I only hope someone kills off Feisty Kate in the last episode, I would be content and not ask any difficult questions if only that happens.
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[quote=“Skott, post:103, topic:539072”]
[li]The language: My wife speaks Spanish (and I understand it okay) and we could understand what they were saying without subtitles. It sounded almost, but not quite, like Spanish. My guess, therefore, is Portuguese.[/li][/QUOTE]
No need for speculation here: The language was definitely classical Latin. Claudia’s answer when asked what she called herself was “mihi nomen est Claudia.”
It was Latin, but apparently, a lot of Dopers missed the first post on page 2. I didn’t think it was worth repeating (I had two years of Latin and recognized it immediately), but apparently the Spanish speakers cannot grok the idea that Spanish came from Latin, so something that sounds almost like Spanish, but isn’t quite could only possibly be Portuguese. :smack:
That and we’ve established in many prior episodes that all Others speak Latin. Hello. We’ve seen Richard and Juliet communicate in Latin. Last time I checked, there was no Tower of Babel on the island.
Yes, she said thank you.
And actually, Esau first tried to get Richard to use the knife to kill Jacob – with those “don’t let him talk to you” instructions – first (chronologically), in the Richard flashback story. Then more recently in island time (but earlier in the season) we saw Dogan give the knife and those instructions to Sayid to use on Esau. So at some point earlier on, MIB had the knife.
Lostpedia also says Latin. So does knowing Spanish mean one can understand complete sentences in Latin? Odd. It also says Claudia is wearing a Roman stola which was only worn by women from the third century BCE to the second century CE. A prime example of the writers giving enough details for us to deduce our own answers: Jacob and his brother have been on the Island for roughly 2000 years. (Note that hieroglyphics were still in use as late as 196 BCE, as shown by the Rosetta Stone.)
What specifically did they handwave? That the power of the Island is “magic”? The thing is, they didn’t: From Mother’s point of view that’s what it is, but she’s wrong. From a more advance point of view, say Dharma’s, it’s exotic matter that exhibits unique electro-magnetic properties. And even that doesn’t seem to be the whole of it.
I think the major reveal was not that the Island is magic, but that the pockets of exotic matter are not isolated. Instead, it’s the heart of the entire Island (as proven by the MiB gaining access to it via a well) and is the source of souls/life (if Mother gave good information, which considering the ghosts on the Island, seems to fit). That’s a pretty damn big reveal and not a “A wizard did it” cop-out.
How did it end up there? And why does it exhibit these properties? These are quantum “What are quarks made of?” questions that aren’t strictly relevant to the show. For all we know, in the previous incarnation of the universe, a race of super-intelligent beings found a way to keep life alive through the Big Crunch. Thing is, we can never know: No one has that point of view.
How is one any different than the other? Apart from the fact that you want to tell their story your way? I admit, I would like your way better (apart from the goddess part; I would completely hate any extension of existing mythology), but at the same time, there’s no evidence that there is a magic potion. Mother is a liar and quite frankly doesn’t have the ability to understand what’s going on. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s making some stuff up. Perhaps she found the Source, sat down to drink and found she had some weird effects from it. “Must be the wine!” she thinks.
More likely, though, it’s simply part of a ceremony, similar to the Eucharist. The actual transfer of power was probably not shown, so as to be able to reveal it when the power is transferred to one of the Candidates. I swear, some people want to know that the butler did it several chapters before the end of the book, but why read further once you find out the solution?
I thought that was actually pretty clear. Any human woman could not. A Smoke Monster, however, can apparently do it in under twenty minutes and the reign of terror visited upon the village seemed very reminiscent of the destruction at the Temple . Thus Mother = a Smoke Monster. How else would she know that walking into the Source is very dangerous?
If the Light is the Source of all souls, and all souls must return to it (except those who refuse and end up as ghosts), I certainly think it’s possible that some information may cross-contaminate.
Not always, but sometimes, and more readily when the words are very basic and common (like “thank you” or “my name is …”). All the Romance languages – including French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, and a few others less widely spoken – evolved from Latin, and you can’t really draw a bright line between the decayed Latin dialect and modern Spanish (or French or Italian or whatever). Latin evolved into Spanish just as the language of Chaucer evolved into the English of today; most modern English speakers probably can’t read Chaucer with as much fluency or comprehension as they can read today’s newspaper, but they can figure out quite a few words, and can usually get the gist.
I think this was the most disappointing episode of LOST ever for me. It was a mish-mash of non-answers, stupid answers and bad acting.
Well it is all magic. Point by point description of what can and can’t be done and so on wouldn’t really change that.
This is very appealing, and what I thought at first as well, but we’ve already seen what stabbing a Smoke Monster with a big fancy knife (possibly the same fancy knife) does: absolutely nothing. (Think back to when Dogen sent Sayid to kill FLocke.) The only difference, I suppose, is that FLocke managed to get in a couple of words before the stabbing (“Hello, Sayid”), whereas Mommie Dearest was silently surprised. Do you really think that the greeting is what saved FLocke? I suppose it’s possible, being that Sayid was warned not to let FLocke speak at all, or it would be too late. My interpretation of that was that FLocke would be able to talk the traumatized and malleable Sayid into doing his will if allowed to use his persuasive words, but I suppose it could have been literal.
My guess is that Mommie Dearest, and thus probably Jacob after she passed her powers along, has powers that we haven’t seen. She can arrange things such that Jacob and Esau can’t kill each other, and can make Jacob an immortal, life-granting being by giving him wine over which she’s said some sort of incantation. Perhaps she can kill as easily as she can give life, and/or move big volumes of stuff with great ease? On the other hand, if killing is so simple for her, why did she have to use a big rock to kill Claudia?
Wise-ass question - why would a Latin-speaking woman name her son Jacob, a Hebrew name?
The fake mom said Thanks to Esau when she was stabbed.
Perhaps the mom wanted Esau to be the ‘protector’ which was actually a prison. Esau was ‘special’ and had to stay on the island.
But what mom really wanted was to die from her immortality. And she realized only Esau could give her that.
That’s why she realized that Jacob was supposed to be the protector.
I see the purpose of this episode as to provide a little bit more background of the overall story arc. The writers and creators of the show never intended to answer every question about the origins of the island.
The main story is what happens to the remaining surviving MAIN characters: Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley.
Those are the answers we will get through the finale. If you are expecting more, either lobby for a post series book from the creators, or watch out for the rock about to slammed against your head!
Yeah, I have trouble putting stock in the whole “He speaks to you, you can’t kill him” theory. I think it more likely that Mommy passing her role to Jacob made her killable… or maybe that the dagger was magnetized? That could explain why people keep trying to kill Jacob and the MiB with it. I’d buy either of those before buying a human Mother destroying camp.
BTW, the producers said early on that when the Adam and Eve mystery was solved, it would be very apparent that they had this all planned from the beginning. I didn’t get that idea at all. Not even close. The people in the cave could have been replaced with two people from the camp who had been selected by random lot to be a sacrifice to the Island and the storyline wouldn’t have changed.
OK, there’s approximately 140 minutes of Lost left. (One hour=40 minutes without commercials and there are 3.5 hours left).
I’ve seen complex movies introduce problems, show struggle, and then resolve them in 2 hours without having to result in voice over narratives. So I’m not too worried about “how they’re going to wrap it all up”.
At the beginning of the thread, I posted spoilers of what the episode might entail and these would be HUGE spoilers. Turns out that they were true too. What was the origin of smokey? Who were Adam and Eve? Mysteries that we wanted the answers too and now have, but feel still unsatisfied.
The title of next week’s show is very promising as I feel that the show again is going to explain a lot. Again.
I’m still curious where the whole Egyptian thing comes in. Maybe a bit more details on how things showed up in Tunisia. And what up with that alternate timeline? Of course, the successor for Jacob. And an epilogue. And maybe they really have bitten off more than they can chew.
I wouldn’t be concerned if the writers were actually compentent, but they’ve shown time and time again that they have no idea how to properly wrap up mysteries, let alone at a decent pace.
One thing I’d like to see explained: Why does Smocke seem protective of Claire? I mean, he’s already started killing the other Losties. And she isn’t (as some had speculated) his mother. And Smocke already used Claire to help set up his single best (and only) shot at killing the Losties cleanly in one go. Why is she still breathing?