It was CFL who said that first, no, when she led them to the Black Rock for dynamite? Maybe Ben confirmed it later.
Yeah, I agree. If you look back at the threads from, say, the first 3 seasons, it’s almost embarassing/disappointing how many of the questions, theories, and speculations people had have been rendered totally irrelevant by the turn the plot has taken in the final 2 seasons. I’m still enjoying it too, but man… to think that we once thought it mattered why Tom wore a fake beard! 
Locke’s “dad” in the alternate reality appears to be his real dad: Sawyer. There’s a pic of the two of them together smiling in Locke’s cubicle!
Oh: and I had forgotten about this, but more on why Widmore is still relevant. Ben and he can’t kill each other for some unknown reason, right? Just like MiB&Jacob. Now why would that be?
It’s against the “rules” apparently. But what rules? What happens if they are broken? Can they even be?
Just a thought that hit me last night.
LOST is setting Jack up as taking more and more responsibility for what’s happening to his people. Jack will be offered the job of the new Jacob in exchange for saving the rest. He will take it and the new Jacob/Esau will be Shepard/Locke thus mirroring the antagonism they’ve had the whole series.
Jacob and his followers are the BAD people.
Look, so far without Jacobs influence people have made better choices (Locke, Hurley, Kate) in the alternate world.
What I think everyone is missing is that these are choices… Jacob has always been about obidience, not choice. MIB is about choice. He let Ben choose to kill Jacob. He gave him a choice. Jacob never gave Ben a choice. MIB is a manipulitive bastard, but he belives in people being allowed to make their choices. Jacob ssems to be of the mind that he knows best and we shoudl all follow him blindly. Did he ask any of these candidates if they wanted the honor? No he manipulated events to force them to the island.
One more thing. The ash that Ilana took, I think that is goign with her to the pool in the temple to resurect Jacob.
Here’s an off-the-wall theory:
There are these two beings, chained to an Island. They can travel in tme to look for ‘candidates’ to replace them - if they can find them, they can go home. They’re also in competition with each other.
Jacob’s travels take him to the ‘original timeline’ Losties. He sees this extraordinary set of coincidences and luck that brings them all together (which we’re seeing now), and hatches a plan: He’ll go back in time and herd them all to the island, where he thinks the same fate that brought them together in the original timeline will work to amplify their power on the island, which will give him an edge over Esau.
In that case, the numbers don’t mean anything - except that they were the numbers Hugo used to win the lottery, so Jacob uses them to twist with Hurley and everyone else - since he went back in time and manipulated many of these events, ‘the numbers’ could be nothing more than Jacob’s little in-joke.
Anyway, eventually the Losties set off the bomb, and restore the original timeline, which is now running in parallel with the other one. So we get to watch the timeline where Jacob never gets involved - the one he observed to figure out which people to pick, and at the same time we get to see the end of the other timeline.
Under this theory, the way this should now play out is that in the ‘original’ timeline we’ll see more of the characters come together, and they’ll all wind up helping each other in some way. Locke will get his legs back, Jack and Kate will meet and fall in love, Sawyer will meet Julia, Ben and Locke will become good friends, whatever.
In the meantime, the other timeline will get darker and come to a violent end, perhaps with everyone dying. So it closes off, the parallel timeline goes away, and we’re left with the happy ending. Probably something sappy like Locke’s wedding, with all the other Losties attending like one big happy family.
Sam Stone, when did the timelines diverge, or alternatively, when was the Jacobian timeline created?
It’s the piece we see Jack playing on a piano in an earlier season. In the bonus features of season 3’s DVD, they refer to it quite explicitly as being “Jack’s theme”. I dunno, I guess maybe theme’s change purpose with jumps through time or universes or something.
I never really bothered trying to figure out anything, it seemed more interesting to see how many loophole devices the writers could fit in one story and remain coherent. The latter point being an increasingly loose notion.
I don’t know. I’d guess at just about any time it suited Jacob. Maybe around the birth of each Lostie?
By the way, can someone remind me who knocked up Claire? What it just some one-night stand? If so, I’d add that Jacob may have been the father. Hey, maybe he’s his own father. He is the son of Claire, and he grew up and time traveled and impregnated her with himself. Or as the Professor would said in Futurama, “Oh, lessons in time travel etiquette from Mr. I’m-my-own-grandpa!”
How many timelines are we talking about? I thought there were just two (as per this theory): Losties Not on Island & Losties on Island. In the opening of S6, we see the island submerged and with the barracks on it. Thus, DI was present on the island before it sank. So the timeline-split has to be post 1970-ish.
Don’t remember name, but her (to be ex-)fiancee.
I didn’t mean to suggest even more timelines. Just that it started to diverge from the ‘original’ when the losties were fairly young. Didn’t Jacob interact with at least one of them as a child?
Then… Could be Jacob. That might explain why she wound up with him in the cabin. If she was grabbed, and he revealed himself as her ex-fiancee, he might have convinced her to join him.
Nah, here’s the fiancee.
Wait–what?!
Sawyer is like 20 years younger than Locke…am I misunderstanding you?
Our Sawyer’s real name is James Ford. Which was the name of the con man who caused his father to kill his mother and then himself.
That Sawyer is also Locke’s father. Who in the alternate timeline didn’t throw his son off the roof of a highrise.
I mentioned this in last week’s thread, but I’ll throw it out here. It’s regarding the stones found on Adam and Eve:
Now, after reading Saint Cad’s post, I think they’re all going to draw lots to see who takes over Jacob’s spot. Jack’s going to draw the black stone, which means he was to stay. Kate, realizing that Sawyer will never get over Juliet, decides to stay with Jack on the island.
So, the bodies Jack and Kate found in season 1 were themselves. It fuels the destiny vs. free will meme, and it also lends credibility to the theory that the producers have known the direction of the show since the begining.
Just haven’t figured out the time travel thing yet, and how they’ve managed to be two places on the same timeline.
RE: The Kid. Here’s a dumb theory:
FLocke mentions being human before, feeling joy, sadness, etc. What if both Jacob and FLocke used to be the same person? Something happens that splits them into light side / dark side, fate / free will personas.
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This is why it was impossible for one to kill each other, until FLocke found a loophole. Killing one would mean killing both. FLocke’s loophole was that he could separate himself from Jacob by inhabitaing Locke’s form, somehow.
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This is why Jacob’s spirit still appears on the island (or at least for the first hour after his “death”. He wasn’t killed in a way that exterminated him – he was “killed” in that his persona became incorporeal and dissipated throughout the island. It could be possible to collect it and condense it again.
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The kid was a vision of the former Jacob/FLocke in human form. Seeing the kid reminded FLocke of what exactly he had done, which angered him. “You can’t kill him” means FLocke can’t really kill Jacob (see point 2).
Well, maybe he still did. They just managed to put it all behind them, since the LA X people are all so much more well adjusted. 
Yep, Jacob went to Sawyer during his parents funeral, which according to him was a few months before the bomb went off. He also went to see Kate when she was kid, but I think shes younger than Sawyer so that might’ve been later on.
Didn’t he say you can’t kill him because he’s a candidate? That would mean he was talking about Sawyer, but then again I could be misremembering.