Ghost children

As speculation grows about the "ghost child/children" in the sixth season, here's my two cents' worth: I'm going to back pedal on my previous theory that the "ghost child" was Aaron. Now I say: they're the same people as the adults they're associated with. The first one we saw was Sawyer. The second one we saw, in "Everybody Loves Hugo," was Desmond. They do physically resemble their respective adults. Additionally, the first was somber and serious because Sawyer is and he's in dire straits. The second just flashed his million-dollar smile because, well like I said, he's the man. "Go ahead and scheme away, ya MIB. I'm the bloody MAN, Brotha!"

Desmond is the man

Desmond is special because he’s the only person who is only one person in both worlds. That is: there’s an Island Jack and a Sideways Jack: two Jacks. There’s an Island Kate and a Sideways Kate: two Kates. Etc, etc. But there’s only one Desmond. Whether in the Sideways world or the Island world, it’s the same Desmond. Widmore’s jolt fused the two. Now Desmond knows both worlds. In fact, he knows everything; more than any character on the show now; more than we know. He’s the most powerful man on Lost. Fear is weakness and he’s absolutely without fear. Knowledge is power and he has more knowledge than anyone else, including the Man in Black.

Wondering why Desmond ran over Locke? So am I. But the most significant thing about that scene was not what Desmond did, but the fact that he knew exactly what he was doing when he did it. He knows. He freaking knows it all. Desmond is the man.

The destruction of the temple

Okay, this is stepping back a few episodes, but I want to take advantage of this Lost hiatus to say something about the destruction of the Others' temple by the smoke monster.

When the survivors found refuge in the temple I thought, This is cool, for a few reasons: now we got the heart of the Others’ society spiritually and historically; as the heart of their society it not only offered answers to the island’s mythology, but was most untouched by the megalomaniacal influence of Ben Linus and Charles Widmore; and because I thought here will be the final conflict between good and evil. When Smokey came and destroyed everything I was traumatized. It felt like the series had ended and evil won. But I think in part I was blinded by a Jacob-like optimism that overlooked what was wrong at the temple.

See, as we got closer to the temple, the Others seemed to be revealed to have a more complex history than was revealed in Season 3 where they were just bad guys supreme. As I wrote in an earlier post (“A History of the Others”), the Others actually seemed to have started out as a good society which was corrupted first by Smokey’s interference, then in turns by the wanton power lust of first Widmore, then Ben. So by the time we got to the temple at the opening of Season 6, I was convinced that the temple Others were kind of representative of the original Others, and therefore actually good guys. Certainly they seemed more sympathetic than the Others of Season 3. But right from the beginning there was bad stuff. At first sight of the survivors, Dogen orders them all shot. Lennon only briefly hesitates then shrugs his shoulders and said, oh..ok. So much for valuing human life. Lennon and possibly Dogen lie to the survivors. The truth is the Others just aren’t a good community even at their very heart. Maybe they once were, but they have become corrupted also with much the same spirit as the other Others.

When an attempt to revive Sayid failed, Lennon callously announced, “Your friend is dead.” The body was left lying by the side of the pool. No attempt at consolation whatsoever. When he inexplicably revived, Dogen tortured him mercilessly as a test of the evil in his soul. When Sayid failed the test, Lennon lied and told him he’d passed. But that was only so Dogen could trick Jack into killing Sayid by unwittingly giving him poison. How would Jack unwittingly do that? By Dogen lying again and telling Jack that the poison was medicine.

And, as a bit of an aside, since when do so many guys walk around with loaded guns in a sacred place of worship like a temple?

Guns, cold-blooded killing, disregard for life and death, lying – since when are these the ways of a sacred people? Of a temple? Is this the kind of society Jacob wanted?

And so it came to pass that Smokey succeeded in destroying the temple and the people who insisted on staying there. Yes, I’m suggesting that the very corruption of the Others, the very choices they made to allow their ways to be corrupted, led to the very complex web of circumstances that opened the way for what would otherwise have been impossible: for Smokey not only to get out and kill Jacob, but to get in the temple and kill everyone in it. So, given the choices of the Others, this was meant to happen. Perhaps it was even prophesied. “It only ends once,” Jacob once told the MIB. The destruction of the temple seemed to be the necessary beginning of that end.

This means we have here yet another biblical parallel on Lost: the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians. That destruction also looked like the defeat of God by the forces of evil, but was actually judgment for Israel betraying God’s covenant. Like Smokey, Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were the bad guys on the face of it, but when the time of captivity came God declared that He sent the Babylonians to destroy the temple.

“Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.
Then shall the cities of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem go, and cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense: but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble.
For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal.
Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble.”

(Jeremiah 11:11-14)

You can hardly read that without thinking of the smoke monster destroying the temple. But maybe that means that the smoke monster really isn’t a monster.

Interestingly, in the biblical case of the temple's destruction, God's prophet Jeremiah warned the citizens of Jerusalem, just as Sayid warned the others: surrender to the invasion or be completely destroyed. Now, I bet you haven't thought of zombie Sayid as a prophet, have you? But the parallel is inescapable (even if Jeremiah never killed anyone). Maybe Sayid's nasty state is all part of a bigger plan that ultimately works out for the good. In fact, maybe the good is not bound up with either side. Many have said that neither Jacob nor MIB is all good or all evil. Let's think of it another way: maybe good isn't all Jacob or all MIB. Not that they are bigger than good and evil, but that good and evil are bigger than them. Maybe there's some ultimate truth and good in which both Jacob and MIB play a role.

I’ll just say it out: maybe the evil here is not in Jacob or the MIB, but in their mutual alienation. Maybe Jacob and MIB are supposed to work together rather than strive against each other.