I've been fascinated with the plot elements that they have woven into the show. Yin and Yang seem to be the major components in the writer's idea:
There are two counteracting sides, but they are - ultimately - part of one whole thing. As was pointed out earlier... Locke describing Backgammon - two players, two sides... one is light... one is dark... which is the essential philosophy of yin and yang.
Now that I have seen the side-by-side comparison of Jack's eye... I am firmly established in my belief that;
1) The (first) Incident was NOT the result of the drilling - it was the result of the bomb.
The Blast Door Map (
http://www.caffeine-headache.net/weblog/blastDoorMapOverlay.jpg ) indicates that an "Incident" occured sometime in the early eighties... I have a couple of ideas regarding this -
Since Jack was supposedly not associated with the original variation of DHARMA in 1977, they successfully drilled into the electromagnetic anomally and made "The Swan" station... which included with it a large reasearch lab that would later be known as "The Incident Room" (
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/lostpedia/images/f/fd/Behind_the_Secret_Swan.jpg ). Sometime in the early eighties, (something) went down... resulting in the reactor of the Swan to explode, and forcing DHARMA to contain that reactor in the room stated above, thus requiring the 108-minute protocol to be observed.
If you watch The Swan Orientation Video (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNFDHgjrlK8 ) you will notice a few things... for example, Dr. Marvin Candle is Dr. Pierre Chang (Miles' father) and Pierre Chang has a fake left arm. Dr. Chang states in the video: "Station 3 was originally constructed as a laboratory where scientists could work to understand the unique electromagnetic fluctuations eminating from this sector of The Island. Not long, after the experiments began however, there was... an Incident..."
2) Assuming the previous statement is true... Flight 815 will in fact crash on The Island on September 22nd, 2004. And this whole chain of events will just happen all over again. It seems to be an inevitable catch-22... that is, until you look at the VARIABLES in the situation.
Constants on the island: Jacob, Esau (Jacob's nemesis, sorry), The Island, the military presence circa 1950, DHARMA's presence in the 70's...
Variables on the island: Flight 815 survivors...
It seems that The Others infiltrated DHARMA... during The Purge (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSwNGC30IqI ) it seems to me that The Others were able to initiate the massacre internally; they were wearing masks as they walked out from the shadows - the people that were dead were just that: dead... there seemed to be no struggle or indication that they were aware that hostiles were attacking.
Since I am a believer that Jack did the wrong thing, I also feel that Sayid did the wrong thing when he shot Benjamin Linus... that wasn't supposed to happen!
There remains a slight blank here: How did Benjamin come to control The Others? How did HE pull off The Purge? (Something I am assuming we may learn in Season 6)
Anyway... if the Others were able to infiltrate DHARMA, they knew all of DHARMA's secrets... and even if they weren't aware of some sort of incident originally taking place in 1977, they would sure as heck know about it after Jack screwed everything up.
Open questions at this point:
When/how did Benjamin Linus come back to DHARMA after being cured by The Others?
What happened once Juliet made the bomb detonate?
I have no answer for Ben... but the bomb?
Wayyyy back in Season 2, John Locke decided it would be a good idea to STOP pushing the button. In doing so, Desmond had to turn the key to a failsafe. For those of you that need a refresher:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5UXeJbQTas ... After turning the failsafe key, Desmond wakes up covered in red paint... and begins reliving his life since BEFORE The Island. The entire time, he gets feelings and flashbacks about The Island. Before long, he meets Eloise Hawking in a jewelery store... the second time around, Desmond decides that he is in fact going to marry Penny, but Eloise tells him that his destiny is The Island... not Penny.
After a good knock in the head, Desmond wakes up naked, back on The Island... but with the mysterious ability to predict the future.
I've got a pretty good feeling that THE VARIABLES (Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Jin, Sayid...) are going to wake up at a point previous in their lives (or ahead in the future, whatever way you want to look at it)...
In doing this, we may better understand the flashbacks that we saw in previous seasons.
In addition to all of this, you will have to remember that THE CONSTANTS all stayed the same, primarily The Others and the incidents that happened with DHARMA. It may be bright to point out something here, though... since The Others already have various abilities (Eloise can see the future, for example)... they may not exactly be constants... if anything, they may be the people writing the equation?
We already know all about the Oceanic survivors. We know their past... we know their future... we know how they get on/off the island.
We already know all about DHARMA. We know how they came to be, we know what happens to them...
What's left? THE OTHERS! I firmly believe that Season 6 is going to be Season 1 - from The Others perspective. They know what goes down on The Island... and with orders from Jacob, they try to change the mathematical formula for the future of the island... re-arranging the variables so that the outcome is different.
If I recall correctly from the Season 5 finale... Jacob implies that he is the one who brought the Black Rock to the island, wherein the Nemesis states that they always become corrupt, fight, and kill... and that Jacob is merely trying to prove him wrong. Jacob then says that anything up to that point, is progress.
Now before I go even further on into this exhausting theory, I want to go over something...
Ilana and her macho buddy state that they are "the good guys"...
Ben states that he is "one of the good guys"...
They all work for Jacob.
So who works for Jacob's nemesis? Widmore? Ms. Hawking?
I guess we can't really create a fine line just yet as to who exactly are the good guys and bad guys... we just don't know enough yet. But what I like to remember is that, even though there are two sides, they still make a whole (YIN YANG!!!). And all of these people are here for a reason.
Back to my original statements...
Jacob seems to have hope for the people that come to the island.
His nemesis does not... and he wants to kill Jacob for some strange reason.
It seems, though, that Jacob may be influencing the Oceanic variables in a way to prove himself correct to his nemesis. He tells The Others whom to take from the crashed aircraft (well, he tells Richard, anyway)... and he helps divulge all sorts of information regarding the survivors.
Note: Richard could be working for Jacob's nemesis...
So what I am trying to get at here... is that Jacob is using this new batch of people that HE himself visited before the crash, to change the outcome of how things turn out on the island. The whole while, his nemesis is looking for ways to kill him... through a loophole (in Jacob's plans, perhaps? **in which he would know all about if Richard was a spy**).
And now it's all being reset to the beginning... when the Oceanic variables first came to the island. Only, now we are going to see things from a different POV...
And if that is the case, Jacob is once again alive...
And The Others are going to manipulate the Oceanic survivors in a way that will help Jacob... since they most likely already know what is going to happen...
Any thoughts?
