Lost Discussion Group: "They're Coming."

As to who "they" are, I'm laying money on "Jacob's chosen:" that is, the '77 Losties as well as Ilayna. I'm thinking that all of the characters he saw (and touched) were picked by him to restore order to the Island, and they are all gonna end up back there in the season 6 premiere.

Saying that, that kind of leads in to my basic thinking on Jacob/ Esau. I'm thinking they are a ying-yang type of relationship, and represent order and chaos. I dunno if they're gods, or just "special" people with divergent personalities that the Island is keeping around. I'm also thinking that some of the remaining Losties are "free agents" (Juliet, Desmond, etc): people who were not chosen by Jacob and who's roles we don't know yet.

The whole black-white/ good-evil/ ying-yang concept is a big Stephen King theme, and Lindoff & Cuse have both said they're fans . . .

A few of us actually just re-watched the episode, and I paid close attention to notLocke's reaction to his comment: he looked towards the door they came through with an unsure, almost fearful look on his face. I think Jacob was talking about the Losties stuck in '77, but Esau thought he meant the SotS folk.
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Watching the episode again, it really struck me how much Jacob seemed to be a Christ figure (granted, I was specifically watching for things that supported my thoughts, so of course I saw those things). With Jacob traveling about and touching people, I think he was setting up his own endgame with Esau. Esau (Lucifer) has been so shortsighted by just wanting to kill Jacob (God - we can get into the theology behind this if necessary, but for the sake of this discussion, just go with it that Christ = God), he doesn't understand that he's just playing a role in everything ("...it only ends once; everything else is just progress.").
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Important spoiler question for everyone's input:
At the end of the episode, ABC played a promo for S6 saying something like, "Next Season/2010/Destiny Found..." And then it flashed up, for a split second, the image of an eye opening (if you think it's a spoiler that they're going to use their absolute favorite shot at some point in the final season, you probably aren't reading this blog). My question: are people uncomfortable discussing this image? We froze the frame on the DVR and tried to pick whatever details we could from it, but I won't discuss it if people would prefer to avoid it.

Three weeks ago, I would have said Dharma without a pause. But now that we know that their reign was but a flash in the pan (yes, the denizens of this site have long suspected the Atlantis era history, but not that the 'management' has been the same since then), I'm not sure their backstory deserves the majority of the Season 6 time anymore...
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But I'm going to stick with my gut: It is Dharma. Now, I've been saying that the Dharma/Others conflict couldn't be a hot war (complete with "Rules" of engagement) for years, but even I will point out that we still don't know why Dharma was allowed on The Island (since we now know that The Others pre-date them).
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Sure, the obvious answer is that Jacob thought their efforts to alter The Numbers go along with his "progress" goal. But for all I know, they were invited by Esau with the hope that they would wipe out Jacob's Others. Extra interesting: Ghost/Dream Horace thought it was Jacob stuck in the cabin, but we know Jacob was physically off-Island since then. Esau, on the other hand...
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As to why it upsets Esau: Either Dharma learned about his doublecross, or Esau realizes that he finally toppled Jacob just to get his next opponent.
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As far as their goals: Alteration of The Numbers by any means necessary (which is why, dramatically, Radzinsky had to be such a jerk). Road to hell and all that.
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As far as Jacob vs. Esau: Probably the usual suspects. Too much time stuck with the same person (forget seven year itch, try seven centuries, if not millenia)? Esauian misanthropy vs. Jacobian hopefulness? I doubt one of them has done anything to the other directly - their conflict is probably emblematic of why man cannot live in peace with his fellow man.
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As to why they are on The Island - that is the question, isn't it? The previous mentions of Carthage/Tunisia indicate to me that The Island has always been roughly in the same spot, and the exit has always been in the same spot as well, and a steady stream of Island-exiles flavored North African culture for centuries. Knowing this show, Jacob was probably quite sick/dead, and Esau (probably Ricardus as well - recall that Cerberus had three heads, and we've conveniently seen three immortals) was tasked with bringing him to The Island. Jacob wasn't worth the effort in Esau's mind (and Jacob 1.0 probably was the scum of the earth), which was the start of their long war...
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@Dave: Err, the eye is clearly Jack's - but it is the Jack filmed years back, with the footage altered to increase the brightness. I hardly consider old footage spoilers.

Definitely the '77 Losties. They wouldn't have spent an entire episode showing Jacob's interactions with the Losties in the "real world" without implying that it was those interactions that would influence the future (of the show and of the Island). Jacob knew exactly what he was doing the entire time, whether visiting the Losties off the Island or standing in front of Ben, pushing him further and further without hesitation.
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My question is who is in charge of Smokey? If Jacob, then he is the one that set Ben on the path leading directly to murdering Jacob by telling Ben to listen and follow John, no matter what. Jacob's plan is coming full circle, which we'll see in S6. Just as Esau used the image of John to manipulate his followers, Jacob will use John's physical body somehow to lead them on the right path. I wouldn't be surprised if Jacob left his body and entered John's. Real John vs. Faux-John?

@Tom - Well, they also changed the reflection off his eye. I know some folks around here are particularly sensitive to this stuff, so that's why I asked
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As for Jacob and Esau, it seems pretty clear that Esau is inferior to Jacob, but still superior to the mere mortals. Argh. I wish I had more time today.
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"...but we know Jacob was physically off-Island since then." We know he appeared off-Island, but is he bound in his travels by space (and time)? We've hardly seen enough of him to know, I think.

As to who it is that is doing the coming, my gut is the '77 Losties (I hope, but doubt, with Juliet... just sayin'). I agree with alekshy, showing Jacob interact with them in the past - and with the touching thing - has to be pretty significant.
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As to who Jacob & Esau are, I actually don't care. Whether they're supernatural beings, gods, angels, aliens, remnants of an ancient society... who they are is less important that what they do and why they do it. Now, obviously there's a connection between what/why and who, but to me it's the same thing as the numbers.
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Digression: The numbers aren't important in and of themselves (I'm discounting the ARG from some years back because it's non-canon) and they're not important because they randomly pop up in various configurations. They're important because a) it's the code in the hatch (and it seems that's the code because it was the serial number for the hatch door) and b) because they drive Hurley bonkers.
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Back to point: So I don't care who Jacob & Esau are beyond how their identities explain WHY they butt heads, why the former believes in "progress" and the latter doesn't, etc. And identity surely has part to play in the why... but in all honesty, if it turns out they're aliens or Atlanteans or killer robots from the future, it won't inherently matter.

@Tom - interesting thought about the three immortals and the three heads of Cerebus, but I'd expect the third head to be an equal to the other two. Richard's pretty clearly dependent on Jacob (but then again, maybe Cerebus' third head is tiny)

I first thought it was Ilana and her group. But after watching the episode again the other day I have decided that it is the O6ers coming back. The flash brought them back to the present time.
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I really think that it is a yin yang thing. Jacob wearing white and the other wear dark.
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@dave he really is a christ figure in so many ways. You see it in his words and expressions.

I've noticed I see Jacob differently than my religious friends. They see a guy with that look and mannerisms, gently touching people, mysterious but you have to trust he knows what he's doing. I see a guy who manipulates and leads to suffering (Sayid's lady). I'm not saying Esau is the good guy, but maybe they are both bad. Jacob seemed pretty despicable to me, calm demeanor or not.
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Hopefully Lost avoids the boring sci fi route where there is a christ-like figure that magically saves the day and the non-believers are idiots. This was already avoided once when Locke (who everyone assumed was christ-like) ending up not being resurrected and was possessed by a bad dude.

@Rorschach - That's just the thing... people have a hard time reconciling the fact that the guy who's talking gently and bringing people back to life is the same guy who caused (rather, didn't prevent) Nadya from dying. That's a surprisingly accurate God/Christ-figure for today's entertainment (as opposed to, say, Harry Potter).
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The trouble with the "boring sci fi route" you described is this: if that's where a show is going, that's where it's going. Some folks didn't like the way BSG resolved things, but would have it been more satisfying if they tried to use a non-supernatural explanation that just didn't explain everything?

I didn't say it was an inaccurate description of how some people see god, I just think it's funny that even in a situation where there is no need for faith people see the christ type and immediately think "Good guy." There isn't a Lost Bible that says "trust us, he's really good" people are assigning the good label on their own. In error, I hope.
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I liked the BSG ending. I just think sometimes you don't need to say "God did it" as a way of 'explaining' everything. You didn't really think BSG explained much of anything, did you? If Lost has an 'explanation' like that I'd be very disappointed. I've resigned myself to the supernatural ending since season 3ish but I'd like (and expect) a twist. Like maybe the guy who manipulates and allows chaos is really kind of a jerk.
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Don't mean to threadjack, I'm done.

I had no idea that guy's name was Esau! LOST makes so much more sense now.

@meaganclaire - it's just a nickname invented for the character, he was never named in the episode.

@Rorschach - I see what you're saying, and yes, that's an excellent point. Thankfully, with Lost we're (hopefully) assured something a little less predictable than a simple Jacob being the good/bad guy.
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That was hardly a threadjack... I say discussing Sci-Fi (SyFy?) mythological endings is fair game

@Rorschach: Yeah, there was a lot of discussion at the time over whether Jacob can actually be considered "good" yet: Allowing Nadia to die put Sayid on his path of vengeance, allowing Sawyer to put words to paper helped his anger fester, keeping Kate out of the reach of the law probably allowed her to stay on the lam longer. Although it is difficult to view Jacbo's manipulations of Jack, and especially Hurley, in a negative light. It is likely that he simply did whatever had to be done to close the loops.
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And yes, we haven't seen the last of Jacob; he knew exactly which buttons of Ben's to push to result in his own "death". Clearly he caught on to Esau's ploy early on and had a contingency plan.
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Although the more that I think about it, I think my relationship guess above, given that this is Lost, has to be wrong:
Who is the father, and who is the wayward child?

@Tom - good point, given that nearly every fraught relationship on this show is father-child, the best bet is probably Jacob & Son. The archetype after all is that the child kills the father to become him.
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In the Bible, Jacob had 12 sons - the only one he had a contentious relationship with was the oldest, Reuven, who slept with one of his concubines.

@Matt and Tom - just to throw the standard Lost double-reverse triple-twist Yurchenko thought, for all the poor father-son relationships in the Bible (not that there are a ton, but there are plenty), the model Father-Son relationship is between God the Father and God the Son (again, Trinity talk = confusing, but just go with me). So if Jacob is more of a God/Christ figure, of all the Lost characters, he'd be the one to have a good relationship with his offspring. (Not that I think there's going to be a Jacob-and-offspring twist, but it's fun to throw the crazy out there.)

i think it will be the remaining main characters - not just the 1977 O5 (minus Sun) but the remaining flashers at the Incident site - Sawyer and Miles. (Minus the dead or dying Juliet and Sayid, who I hope get proper death scenes in the S6 opener.)There won't be a straight line there, though - the writers will give us some twists and turns.
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Interesting, though, that if "they" include Miles it might be in addition to Jacob's selected few (based on his flashbacks) for his plan to outwit Esau. Miles was recruited by Widmore for his own purposes - I don't see any evidence that Widmore is connected to Jacob or Esau's current machinations, as we understand them.
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I think Jacob's revival/touching of Locke after his fall out the window (did he bring him back to life??) was the big clue that he knew of Esau's plan well ahead of time and was already planning top preempt/foil him - if Locke/Ben was Esau's vehicle to kill Jacob.
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another blog I saw picked up on a visual pun in that opening scene. remember the fish that Jacob was cooking? could it have been a ... wait for it ... RED HERRING? if that's a sneaky easter egg, then maybe the comment is that Jacob in white is the bad guy, and Esau in black the good guy. evidence: jacob wants to keep bringing new waves of humans into the microcosm of the Island, to pit them against each other and create suffering, strife, death, etc. Very Lucifer-like, Esau wants to just stop that and let things remain in harmony.
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Also - does anyone else think the nuke may not have actually gone off? The fade-to-white was a lot like the flashing, caused by electromagnetic discharge. That's The Incident that would have happened anyway without Jack and the nuke following Faraday's half-baked plan. (Faraday's love for Charlotte blinded him to what he knew before and was right about: WHH.)
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plus, i know real science is not an issue on TV, but a real hydrogen bomb blast would have obliterated the whole Island - and its core would not have looked like a cool laser that fits in a backpack. More like several tons and the size of a large room.

One thing that always makes me marvel is the individual conjecture about the plot lines in LOST. Every post has a different take on a scene. What a testament to the writers to keep us talking.

Once I saw the dead Locke in the coffin and realized that Locke is possessed I began to wonder more about Jacob. I had laways though he was part of the others, but now I am not so sure.

I am leaning toward Jacob being an evil entity... and "Esau" being the good. Jacobs, touching in my view drove the character he touched to their path. Sayid and Sawyer to bitterness and revenge, Kate to stealing (giving her the easy out of not having to face her mom), and Locke to his failures later in life. Locke I think was the perfect pawn as his entire life had been one of seeking to be "something". He seems very much the god LOKI in Norse mythology (http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/lokimyth/g/Loki.htm) , and (Esau perhaps the good god Balder http://www.pantheon.org/articles/b/balder.html), constantly causing trouble and watching the mortals figure out things.Over and over, across centuries.

I really think the Losties will all return, sans Juliet. I think his marking of them by touching only insures that they will survive whatever cataclysm he already knows is going to happen...It has happened before....I fully expect we will see yet another episode of LOST where Jacob touches Miles, Daniel, Charlotte, Charlie, Claire, Walt, Desmond, Michael and Eko.

Course I could just as well be totally wrong.

Oh and maybe Vincent is the third head of Cerebus.... just a thought.

VF

It's true. Juliet lives. ABC execs made a press statement that she will be both on V and Lost in the spring. Yeah. I know there are those who don't like Juliet, and I agree that her vacillating in the season finale was stupid. Which of course this brings all sorts of different theories out now that if she is back in the last season then she lives, she is healed, so its possible Sayid isn't dead, yeah, and they return to present time, which is my favorite of the theories, only because there is less stress in dealing with all the issues that stem from any other theories. And besides we have dealt with the two parallel timelines long enough. Let's get back to the primary story and flash back/forward style that made the show great.
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the numbers don't just show up conspicuously for no reason. There is a overall meaning to them we have yet to see the root.
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Where do you get this Cerberus reference? I was lead to believe that Ricardus was on the Black Rock and was made ageless by Jacob.
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I am not going to touch who is evil. The first scene easily made the reference that Jacob is good/the Light-via his character and demeanor and symbolism of his light shirt, and Esau/"Fred" wearing a dark shirt, and his demeanor etc...Giving evil. It goes back to the backgammon with Walt and Locke "Light and Dark". Jacob is hopeful and sincere to see people move on. The show, from the get go was about redemption. And that is what he is about. Where as Smokey, and many agree is "Esau", has no mercy, puts judgment out.
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@Rorschach: dude. Locke wasn't resurrected. That was the reveal. It was really "Esau" manifesting as Locke and manipulating Ben to kill Jacob. As for Jacob manipulating people...Yeah allowing Sayid to suffer such pain in seeing his love die...Its hard to see that as good. But perhaps, and take this with a grain of salt, that the suffering is to guide them and lead them to their destiny. The events were bad but necessary to stop bring them to their purpose. Note: Ben told sayid that the man that killed Nadia was Widmore's. So was that man after both Sayid and Nadia and Jacob saved him or was Ben just taking advantage to the initial situation to bring Sayid in as an assassin? Oh and Rorschach. I am not attacking you or being defensive. When watching a show that is known to give us mysteries and not reveal the meaning. It's good to be cautious and take any theory with a grain of salt because we don't want to assume anything to be true just because it fits with our own worldview or another. So thanks for mixing it up in the threads.
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The guys name isn't necessarily Esau. It is just a name that has been assigned to him until we learn his name. It works for now, so we don't have to call him "the dude on the beach"/"Fred"/dark shirted guy/Jacobs opposite etc...
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As for the revealing of the ending of the series whether to be supernatural or Sci-Fi, the story was mapped out before the first shot. Beginning and end was seen ahead of time and I think that will be Lost's strength where BSG didn't have that type of forethought. With a show like Lost it was necessary to plan that far ahead. They always planned on about 6 seasons, they did flesh out the middle and details later and as the show progressed. For instance Jack was originally going to die in the pilot episode. Liked his character before the recent seasons but now....
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The last season will be great. It will be a war but a war between Jacob and his chosen and "Esau". We know nothing about either of them really. And what we don't know is who Esau's will use to battle those that know of his devious ways. I still say that Jacob is the good guy and Esau the bad. Because we have explored the concept with Ben and Widmore, are bad guys in the perspective of certain people but in reality both trying to do the right thing in protecting and serving the island. So to do a switch of who is good or bad in the last season would be disappointing to me. You have one last season left. Use your time wisely.

I keep meaning to add that Wednesday morning tears began to well up knowing that there wasnt going to be a new episode that night...
tear, tear.

I stopped trying to speculate what's in store for Lost.... it's a mug's game. But I did want to bring back up the discussion about the Numbers. I'm actually hoping that there is some kind of Valenzetti-esque significance to them, but after their reveal this season as merely a random serial number, I don't know. If their origin is so mundane, why were they broadcast over and over for Danielle and Hurley's crazy friend to hear? I thought the (to my ears correct) assumption that it was Hurley himself who created the broadcast, as revealed in S5, would lead to some kind of cool revelation. But if the Incident does send everyone back to 2007, I'm afraid we won't really get any kind of definitive answer. *Sigh*