Pieces on the board

So, from episode one of the show, they have set up this conflict between dark and light, as first symbolized with the backgammon pieces, and used numerous other times since. Not a new metaphorical vehicle by any stretch, of course, but rather, one of the oldest and most fundamental conflict in human mythology: Good v. Evil.

I am firmly in the camp however that this is not the story of Good (Jacob) v. Evil (Smokey), as that's too simple, and everything we've seen hints at far more complexity and subtly. However, Lost is riffing on a plethora of mythological sources, the Bible now being prime among them, so the tendency of the viewers to see this conflict as "Good" v. "Evil" is understandable, and in fact I suspect the writers are using that in order to provide a nice twist at the end.

But regardless, it seems clear the end game of the show has developed, and all that's left is to find out more of the reasons why this game is happening, and how it turns out for our characters.

Smokey has been trying to get off the island for a long time, probably far longer than the 160 years we saw last night. Glad to see he's improved his sales technique in the interim! Although, his attempt to trick Richard into killing Jacob was pretty good. Too hasty though.

And what of Action Hero Jacob?! He was once an ass-kicker. This makes it seem pretty obvious to me that Jacob was prepared for Flocke and Ben to come and kill him, and he let it happen. I also think this attempt by Richard truly shocked him, and thus represents the beginning of the end game we are currently seeing - Jacob suddenly realized that Smokey is making moves to knock him off, and he's going to have to counter them. Thus, Richard as his first "hire".

Overall though, I suspect we're going to end with the Bible mythology. There's too many strong correlations. Consider the story of Jacob and Esau and their crazy mother; Cain and Abel; the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve; and my favorite, the story of Job, which plays very much like Lost: God and Satan make a bet. Satan thinks anyone would renounce God if they suffer enough; God thinks some people will have faith through anything. They use Job to settle the bet. Hard not to see the parallels to Jacob's "people are good" and Smokey's "All people are corruptible" game they are playing.


But I don't think Smokey is playing by choice. Over and over and over, we get the sense he's trapped, a prisoner, forced to play a role. In my reading of the Bible, I often felt the same way about Satan. Rather than seeing him as some evil monster, rather he's a tragic figure who's service to God is to oppose God - because God made him thus. 


Oh yeah, also, the Numbers for the remaining Candidates also match their corresponding Psalm pretty closely, for example, number 23 (Jack), which begins with "The Lord is my shepherd...  " And of course, Jack (and Christian, hmm...)'s last name is Shepherd. Also, there was an episode of Lost entitled "The 23rd Psalm", which featured Eko and Smokey.


Food, or wine, for thought.