Lost Discussion Group: What Is Smokey?

Another big Island puzzle. I must say I have no idea what Smokey could be exactly.

But I do have a feeling that the source of Smokey's "knowledge" about people's past (i.e. his ability to show them images from their pre-island life) and the source of the Others' knowledge must be the same. And if that source is Smokey itself and all the white flashes, then the Others are either in control of or collaborating with Smokey. That would support the Jacob-is-Smokey theory.

However, I realize there must be more to it, if only because the Others seem to know everything about everyone, not just the ones who have come into contact with Smokey.

I once felt that Smokey was the judge of who is good and who is evil. If he liked you (Locke) he appeared to be beautiful. If he didn't (Eko) you got the crap beat out of you. I felt especially with Eko, Smokey initially felt he had good in him, but I believe his hubris took over and Smokey did him in. That and contract dispute.

Now with Jacob and the powder in the picture, I don't know what to think. I do think, however, that Smokey is one of the most integral mysteries to the island. I wouldn't be surprised if we waited until close to the end to learn what it is. From the first night on the beach, Smokey's been around, if not seen for awhile.

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Come to think of it, didn't the producers once confirm that the secret of Smokey won't be revealed until the very end?

Bad news for us fans, but it does confirm that Smokey is at the heart of the show's mythology.

I agree with James, it's a psychic manifestation of the people on the island. Depending on if it gets a good or bad vibe from you when it comes across you changes how it reacts. It also only seems to appear when tensions are high.

Didn't Rousseau call Smokey a "security system"? What do you think that means?

Perhaps the ash ring, like the high tech fence around the Dharma compound, keeps Smokey away from Jacob's vulnerable cabin. Think of it as a spell that protects Jacob.

About Smokey and the fence: why didn't it just go over the fence like Kate et all did?

The Smoke Monster is referred to as the Cerberus system by the Dharma Initiative. The map in the hatch referred to cerberus vents, locations where smokey comes out. Rousseau referred to it as the island's security system. Once when Locke was caught by Smokey it almost took him into a hole in the ground, one of the vents. If there are indeed vents throughout the island this would imply that the island is not natural, but mad, not necessarily by man.
I used to think that the monster was a giant invisible steam driven robot. I based this on the mechanical and crushing sounds it makes as well as the way it destroys things. I thought the smoke was just steam being released. Now, i realize that this is not the case, but I an still at a loss as to what the sounds it makes are. I the pilot Rose says that it sounded familiar. She could be referring to the NYC taxi ticker sound that the monster initially makes when it appears. If so what does this indicate about Smokey?

One thought: If the monster is a creation or tool of Dharma, there could be an explanation for why Juliet says the Others don't know what it is. It seems as though the Others likely have to rely on Ben for much of their information about Dharma, since he is their one direct link to the Initiative. Is it possible that he knows more about Smokey, but has withheld the information from the rest (as he did with the Looking Glass, etc.)?

I think Smokey is the collective result of too many Dharma hippies' smoke sessions. Why do you think they still get munchies delivered every week? Dude, don't Bogart the ranch dip!

Running with the idea of Smokey as Cerberus, I think that Smokey might be one of the forces keeping the survivors on the island. Possibly from Dharma, possibly pre-Dharma. Cerberus's job included guarding the gates of Hades so that no souls could get out. It took a (literally) Herculean effort to capture him and drag him out, so I think that Jack's purpose on the island is to save everybody from Smokey - Jack the "savor" could represent Hercules, and that's why he isn't supposed to leave yet - he hasn't finished his task, he hasn't worked out his savior issues, he hasn't faced and overcome Smokey, the representation of everyone's demons.

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To reiterate what LB said, what we know about Smokey:
Dharma calls it the Cerberus system.
The map indicates Cerberus vents; the natural assumption is that Smokey is stored underground and released through the vents.
Rousseau calls it a security system, but given that we don't know where she got that information, I don't know if we can rely on that statement to be truthful.
It attempts to drag Locke into a vent; this appears to be the only case where Smokey got ahold of someone and didn't simply kill them. Is this evidence that the Island actually does think Locke is important? Everyone heals on the island, after all, while only Ben has said Locke is important, and we can't trust anything he says.
When Smokey catches up to people, you see flashes of images from that person's memories (Eko sees his brother, etc.). Therefore it is likely that Smokey can somehow read minds.
Smokey may or may not react violently to a given person; Smokey does not always react to a person in the same way every time. Therefore Smokey's actions may be generated by chance, be a judgment on the person it runs into, or controlled by someone else.
Dharma's security fence works against Smokey. The fence may actually be primarily used to keep Smokey away - people can certainly get over it, after all, and there appear to be no dangerous animals indigenous to the island, although in Ben's flashback they seemed to emphasize that they kept dead space near the fence to prevent people/animals from using trees to get over it. If Smokey is actually Dharma controlled, why would they need a defense against their own technology? Or should this be viewed as proof that Dharma had "gone bad" (see Ben's view of history), that the island was fighting back against them?

As such, I can only draw two conclusions: That either Smokey is actively controlled by someone, who is using it to control events as it sees fit (not provable either way), or the consensus, that Smokey is some sort of Judgment tool that keeps the population in line.

So why would someone (presumably Dharma, as given how ridiculous the Smokey "technology" is, I find it even more unlikely that the Ruins-era culture built Smokey) create something to cull the population? In my mind, like most things related to Dharma, we have to go back to the Numbers.

As revealed in the Lost Experience( http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/The_Lost_Experience for a summary), the Numbers are really just status indicators for the various parameters of the Valenzetti Equation( http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Valenzetti_Equation ), which is a mathematical estimate of when humanity will end. So one of the numbers, say 42, is just the current value for human overpopulation, 23 could just be the value for nuclear weapon stockpiles, etc. One of the goals of Dharma on the Island was apparently to monitor and report those values as an independent observer; presumably the Others stopped / were unable to keep up the observations and just replaced the status reports with a looped tape of the numbers (which Danielle then replaced with her distress signal ~16 years ago). The natural follow up question is a) why wasn't outside Dharma wondering what happened to their status reports, and/or b) was the Looking Glass still transmitting the numbers, and now that it is turned off, will outsiders start wondering about the status reports?

So how are they testing using Smokey to alter those numbers?
Smokey could be used to kill off a portion of the population and only leave the good/social ones alive for the Dharma reboot of civilization.
Smokey could be used as a sort of neutral supercop, keeping governmental power out of the hands of mankind that have proven incapable of handling it responsibly.
Smokey could be used to keep the peace, by force (as others noted above, it rarely, if ever, shows up when people are having fun and chilling out), to stop conflicts from spiraling out of control.

P.S. As far as Smokey and Jacob go, it could be that the powder ring is keeping Jacob in, or keeping Smokey out, or they could be completely independent.

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I don't think Smokey so much reads people's memories as hypnotizes them and makes them face their pasts. He causes them to see images from their pasts and gauges their reactions to themselves. Really, I think that's why one minute he can look like Yemi, and the next be a smokey fist slamming Eko up against a tree. Smokey can probably sense the same things that we can sense about other people from body language and expression. I think at the instant that Smokey decided Eko had to go, Eko was defiant. Smokey doesn't like defiance. It explains why one day Smokey likes Locke, yet another day he doesn't seem to like him anymore. More likely, Locke didn't like himself that day. Maybe they are kind of judging themselves, and Smokey is just an enforcer. YMMV.

I couldn't place the name Cerberus until I Googled it and remembered it to be the 3 headed hound of Hades. Interesting that when it was trying to drag Locke down the hole you could hear chains dragging.

Here's a question I would really like a good answer to regarding Smokey. And that means you Lost writers.
Why does it seem that Smokey's appearances are either completely random or completely plot driven.
In the first season any time the Losties traveled far from the the beach they encountered the monster. Now it seems like they can travel back and forth at will and almost never encounter the monster.
If it is a security system it does not appear to work very well anymore. Sometimes I just think it is a plot device the writers use to increase suspense. I hope this is not the case and there is a good reason for why it only shows up every once in a while. Does it go out looking for someone specifically, like Locke, Eko and more recently Juliette who it seemed to flash a picture of or look into her soul. I just hope when it is finally revealed it jibes with everything that has happened before.

While not a Lost writer, I would venture to guess that Smokey AKA Cerberus is a kind of security system similar to the way that Cerberus is for Hades. He's something like a watchdog. The Cerberus of classical mythology could be lulled to sleep by music or honeycakes, thus making him a less than reliable security guard. Moreover, the chases from Season 1 had a real rabbit chase quality to them imho. It reminded me of the way a dog will chase a rabbit as long as it is running. When the rabbit goes still in the bushes, the dog quickly loses interest. Of course, that doesn't answer your question with regard to why it's either random or plot driven, does it? Perhaps it could mean that sometimes Smokey is working by command, and other times it is just a random encounter, more like a rabbit chase.

I think there's the possibility that Smokey might be of extraterrestrial origin. Maybe it crashed on the island and is now trapped there. Dharma made some type of contact with it and gave it a home (the vents, etc). Ben found out about it and the connection with Jacob only after he helped wipe out the other Dharma-ites, so he's livingin perpetual fear of Smokey and Jacob.

Or is the "off-planet" theory something that people don't want to pursue...

I like the idea of Smokey being a visual projection of a single person's power. I believe that it is someone, let's say Jacob, who has been on the island for a very long time. After literally centuries of commune with whatever special powers the island posseses Jacob has developed some amazing super-powers: immortality, telekinesis, omnipotence (knowing everything about people, showing them visions), and omnipresence (the whispers). It could be argued that he is offering each person on the island the same salvation he discovered but, having become much more like nature itself, does so in a cruel and absolute way, like a storm, and if the person fails to meet his requirements they are destroyed. Locke is starting to show these cruel absolutes, since he was able to knife Naomi and appears to have become the strong, solitary hunter he always saw himself as.

I think the pilot's death in the pilot (ha!) was before the writers built up the mythology for smokey and at that time it was just a tool used to establish the mood (the island is damn spooky) and create an enemy (since the introduction of the Other's had to wait). Therefore, that violent death must almost be striken from Smokey's individual canon.

I'm not sure as to the explanation for the black smoke. If the visions and smokey are from the same source, why do the visions seem ghostly yet smokey has corporeal form? If the visions are the trial, why is the sentence in a different form?

Also, Tom Shaw's idea about Dharma/the numbers/transmissions/The Looking Glass is ingenious. Good job man!

What if the ash ring around Jacob's cabin IS Smokey? I know someone has posited that theory here before....

It would make sense in a sort of "Jacob as spirit of the island" sense - Jacob is weak right now, but can occasionally summon the power to "manifest" himself as Smokey - literally confronting the islanders, casting judgment, etc. For Eko, a man who rejected judgment on his actions and was unapologetic for his sins, Smokey smited him. For Locke, a man worshipful of the island's power for a time, it wanted to "take" Locke initially.....but around the time Locke turned on the "mystery" of the island, we learn (from dying Eko) that it was coming for Locke next. But now, with Locke back "attuned" to the island, Jacob/Smokey is reaching out for Locke, saying "Help me."

Not sure what this means in general, but I find it too coincidental that Smokey is in essence a cloud of black particles, and then Jacob's lair is ringed by black ash/dust.

Plus, this theory has a somewhat Old Testament biblical feel to it - the Others both worship and follow "Jacob" (and his prophet, Ben, playing the role of Moses), but also greatly fear his power (i.e. Smokey, playing the role of God's plagues against Egypt?)

Because when you think about it, a major part of Exodus - the travels of the Israelites in the desert - is all about being "Lost"....

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