Blind, unquestioning, makes-you-behave-stupidly faith (not faith IN something–just…y’know…faith in general) vs unthinking, rock-solid, unwilling to be swayed by any facts materialism.
I’m not at all convinced that Ben killed Widmore. Shot, yes. Killed, don’t know.
Remember that Ben shot Locke in the stomach and dumped him in the mass Dharma grave, but with the help of taller ghost Walt, Locke survived. As we’ve seen before, you can’t die if the island isn’t done with you yet, and it may not be done with Widmore.
I don’t think so. The fence was around the barracks…
I’m pretty sure the MiB never was planning on leaving the Island; it was a long con to get all the Candidates in the same place at the same time, and allow them to kill each other. And he damn well near succeeded too - I guess Jacob was right when he told Hurley that Sayid’s premature death would be very, very bad.
As to his motives, I’m not sure. Possibly he thinks that by destroying the Source, he’ll be able to get his body back, or put his soul to rest, or something.
As to why he gave up killing the Candidates, the main reason I’m sure is two-fold: 1) The finale is coming in a few days; and 2) I’m expecting a Smoke Monster/Guardian showdown, and at least one Candidate has to be alive for it to happen.
Oh, in-show reasons? It would have been a lot easier to explain if he hadn’t mentioned that he knew he hadn’t killed all of them. So maybe there are a multiple ways of reaching the Source: Drinking the enchanted liquid, being taken by someone who has already drunk the enchanted liquid, or having the Guardian (and touched Candidates) killed. Even if options 1 and 3 are no longer open to him, maybe he’s trying for option 2.
The only reason he told Ben was for the audience’s sake.
Funny, until you think about it and remember Ben was living in those houses thirty years ago, too.
I don’t know why people think its so inexplicable that Ben and Widmore couldn’t kill each other.
The Others are not allowed to kill each other. Both Ben and Widmore want to go back and become King Other again. They can’t do that if they break the rules. But after the Others are pretty much wiped clean off the face of the earth (well, except for stewardess lady and the kids I suppose, and that weird smiling black dude extra) and Jacob got his ass killed, it ceased to matter anymore. The rules died with the rulemaker… at least until someone else takes over and makes new rules. There may be more too it than that, but I don’t see why there has to be. There may ALSO be RULES as in rules of reality that Jacob sets that really are mystical preventions. But in this case, in Ben v Widmore, we may just be talking about rules that are more like laws. They’ve left that part ambiguous. But there’s more than enough pieces in place, in that case, that I don’t feel like they cheated, even if they never explain further.
The MiB’s rules, on the other hand: THOSE better get explained.
I was thinking it was Daniel Widmore’s concert–has something to do with the museum, doesn’t it? Or maybe I’m remembering completely wrong…
I don’t want to begrudge you your opinions of the show and how it’s ending - YMMV and all that - but the above paragraph makes me suspect that nothing the writers do would make you happy. This entire season (and even before) shows Jack desperate to get back to and then stay on the island because he’s been chosen, the island needs him, he’s there for a reason and a purpose, etc. So, after all that, someone who to his mind knows more about the island than anyone else says “The island needs protecting and it needs to be one of you.” WTF did you expect him to do? “Well, I’m not sure, can you tell me what the hours are like before I decide?” Gimme a break. Whatever other gripes you have, griping about how that played out is frankly ludicrous.
There’s a little bit of that, but even if Jack would blindly accept the job… Why would he NOT, oh… use the time he had with Jacob to talk about what the hell it is he’s going to be doing, and what the hell he’s gaurding.
Or, someone in the group!? Right?
His “thing for numbers” is that those numbers are the angle that the lighthouse lens needed to be turned to in order to observe the people next to the numbers.
I assume Jack knows SOMETHING now. Otherwise they may as well all just kill themselves.
(paraphrased)
“We’re gonna have to kill Locke”
“Locke is unkillable”
“Yeah, we’re going to have to hope we think of something”
Oh, well, good luck then, guys.
-Joe
Coz someone might come along and piss out the campfire and it will be too late!
Jack, what’s going through your mind…
“One of us has to stay here on the island forever. Back in the real world, Sawyer is a con man…and Kate is a murderer who got acquitted because the witness got cold feet but never held a real job…Hurley is rich from the lottery but also never held a real job…they need to be allowed to go off the island. I’m just a talented surgeon, I won’t be missed, I’d better volunteer to stay on the island forever.”
But he did ask several questions about the job. He asked:
[ul]
[li]What is the job? [/li][li]You want us to kill him? . . . Is that even possible? [/li][li]How long am I gonna have to do this job?[/li][/ul]
The others also asked several more general questions about the situation:
[ul]
[li]HURLEY: How about why you brought us to the island?[/li][li]SAWYER: What mistake?[/li][li]SAWYER: Tell me something, Jacob. Why do I gotta be punished for your mistake? What made you think you could mess with my life? [/li][li]KATE: Why did you cross my name off of your wall?[/li][li]HURLEY: So . . . how you gonna pick?[/li][li]KATE: And if none of us chooses it?[/li][/ul]
Is that an exhaustive list of questions that explains everything? Of course not. Are Jacob’s answer completely illuminating. No. But if they had Jack (or the rest) do an interrogation session about everything the way some people seem to want, it would be incredibly long, boring, and expository, and that would suck. But there seems to be such a locked mindset among some critics that “the characters never ask questions or talk to each other” that they’re blind when it actually happens.
Further, I think it’s quite possible that other questions were asked off-screen. The above is enough to dramatically establish - for me - that Jack was asking questions and trying to learn stuff from Jacob. The fact that they may not have shown every question doesn’t mean he didn’t ask them.
And finally, what I got from Jack’s expression after he drank the magic water was that something had changed - did he gain Jacob’s knowledge? Maybe, maybe not. But I would buy it if he did.
Oh, this show has a history of characters not saying; “What?” or, “Can you tell me why?”. I’m not going to search season one to find an example.
This is something people, even under this physiological trauma, would not just say; ‘EXPLAIN THIS TO ME!’ to.
This time it particularly bothered me
I get it. I really do. It has been discussed to death and I’m not going to rehash it here, as it is simply a matter of willing suspension of disbelief, for which everyone’s threshold is different.
Really? So you don’t think that scene could’ve been handled better?
We spent 6 years finding out about how these people were somehow special to the island, that they all had their unique backstories, that they were there for a reason. More recently we learned that for some reason, a particular group of them were candidates to do something very important, but we didn’t know why or how they’d be chosen.
So this scene should be important. We should learn a lot about the fundamental basis of the series. But do they indicate why each person was a candidate and chosen for the job? Did they ask questions to find out what the responsibilities entailed so that the person chosen (out of the remaining 4) could make an informed decision?
We had 6 years of “you’re special, the island picked you for a reason” turned into “Hey, who wants this job? First person to say yes!” “Uh, me I guess” “You got it!”
Yeah, I’m definitely baseless in criticizing the writers for wrapping up one of the fundamental aspects of the stories in this manner.
Yep, if they went through a scene where the characters communicated with someone who really knew something about the island, and the audience learned about it, and there was some satisfying answer to the series-long “why are these people here and why are they special?” question, I would be bored to tears. It’s just not good writing to dedicate a few minutes to something trivial like that. Gotcha.
This isn’t the first time in these last few threads that someone has pulled out the “but if there was a scene where [someone who knew way more than the audience] actually explained things, that would just be boring!” and I have to wonder what the hell show you’re watching. People have been begging for that sort of thing all series long.
There’s a middle ground though. Good story telling and writing can get across important info without being Donny Dialogue.
Well - it didn’t.
Imagine you’re talking to someone rewatching the show and they’re in, say, mid-season 2. They might ask “Wow, these people all have an interesting history and there’s clearly a reason they’re here. A significant part of the story and mystery is centered around the idea. There should be an interesting explanation for all of this, right?”
What are you going to tell them?