Can you genetically engineer good and evil? When a good and bad person mate, is their offspring good or bad? Can science predict and engineer this? Placed on an island, with no outside influences, how would they respond?

And then we have the unfolding of the birth of Jacob and Man#2. The two men somehow found mates, developed a society (by luring in ships using the mysterious energy of the island?). They observed and looked for good vs. bad and what would become of it and incorporated them into the island as "protectors." Thus, the first Others. The next question was to introduce society and observe how the native good and bad people interacted with "society." Enter Dharma, under the guise of science experiments.

So my theory is that there is a mix of good and bad in each "group" (Dharma, others, Losties), and the "good" somehow banished "bad" Man#2 from the island (hence the history of being "judged"). Man#2 wants revenge. So does Widmore. Both want to destroy the island, in fear "good" will make "bad" (a reflection of themselves, which maybe they don't consider "bad") obsolete if allowed to continue. Dharma experiements have allowed Man#2 to become the dead. His soul meets their body. The good and bad both want their people back to the island for the war.

Jacob thinks bad people can become good via redemption. Man#2 thinks bad will always be bad. He's there to prove this once and for all to Jacob and reclaim what he had on the island.

-A Tribetastic Creation

LAST EDITED ON 05-15-09 AT 04:35 AM (EST)

Wow, I haven't posted here in a while, but this finale has my mind racing. I have all sorts of theories now, some of which contradict one another, but here's my best guess at the moment. Bear with me, as this is going to be a bit lengthy.

It seems to me that LOST has a number of recurring themes or motifs and chief among them is this notion of Black and White, Light and Dark. It all begins with Locke's explanation of Backgammon: "Two players. Two sides. One is light, one is dark." From here, we see the theme recur several times--in the black and white stones found on the skeletons, Adam and Eve (perhaps two players?); in the colors of the Dharma Initiative logos; and even embodied in two seemingly special children, Walt and Aaron. On several other occasions, the black and white motif is accompanied by a third color--red--as in the joke told to Michael by his nurse in the episode 'Special', "What's black, white and red all over?"; we also see this in the colors of Ben's kitchen, the red hieroglyphs that appear in place of the black and white numbers of the Swan hatch timer, and during the launching of the raft in the first finale where Sawyer wears black, Jin wears white, and Michael wears red. And so it is that when we finally meet the two players, one wears a black shirt while Jacob, the other, wears a white shirt and casually eats his red herring (Thanks go to DoodleBug for pointing out the herring).

An overarching aspect of the Season 5 finale seems to be the delineation of the two players and the two sides. We begin with the black garbed man revealing his desire to kill Jacob and end with him assuming Locke's identity and manipulating Ben to achieve his aims. With Ben having been asked to follow the fake Locke by an apparition of his daughter, it seems likely that the black garbed man is somehow connected to the black smoke monster. What's more, many of the apparitions of LOST seem to be connected to the color black. For example, Jack sees his black-suited father; Kate sees a black horse; Shannon, Sayid, and Locke all see visions of Walt; and Eko sees his brother Yemi, who appears in his black clerical clothes. We could interpret all of this as an indication that, like Jacob, the black garbed man has been manipulating events on a wider scale in order to carry out his plans. In Shannon and Eko's cases, the apparitions prove deadly and seem to be yet another indication that the black side is in fact the bad side. In addition, both of Jacob's followers--the Others and the Shadow Gang--have been known to utter the phrase, "We're the good guys." Finally, we also see that Jacob lives beneath a statue of Sobek, who is said to be "a repairer of evil" that works by "nudging things along, rather than taking an active part" (Thanks go to J Slice for this information). With all of this in mind, it seems very clear who is good and who is bad. Of course, things on LOST are rarely what they seem.

As already noted, another recurring theme of LOST occurs in the manipulation of characters. Simply put, it is the "long con". Where once we had Sawyer the con man and Ben the manipulator, we now have Jacob the nudger (like Sobek) and his nemesis, the impostor. Going back to Jacob's consumption of the red herring, it seems very likely that we have been given a skewed vision of the two sides. Perhaps the idea that Jacob is good is, in itself, a sort of red herring. Couple this with Frank's observation that "The people who go out of their way to tell you they're the good guys, are the bad guys" and we begin to see the possibility of a long con playing out. What's more, LOST also seems to make several references to C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. First, we had a character by the name of Charlotte Staples Lewis (C.S. Lewis). Next, there turned out to be a hatch called The Lamp Post that served as a sort of gateway to the island in a fashion similar to how the lamp post in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe served to mark the gateway into Narnia. In that book, Narnia is ruled over by Queen Jadis who, although seemingly benevolent at first, turns out to be the evil White Witch. It seems likely then that the white garbed Jacob, leader of the island and the Others, could turn out to be the one that's actually evil. As a result, the inverted LOST logo at the end of the finale seems to be an indication of something greater. Up until now, the logo has always featured white text on a black background; but now, we have black text on a white background. This could be an indication that the balance of power on the island has shifted. At first glance, the predominance of white in the logo could be seen as a sign that, after five seasons of struggle and strife, the Losties have changed the past and set the stage for a happy ending. However, with the possibility that Jacob and the white side are the bad ones, we begin to see that the white logo could be a harbinger of greater evils to come. Finally, in the finale, I noticed what may or may not be a significant piece of the puzzle. Just before Jacob meets Kate (the first occurrence of him meeting a Lostie in the past), we see that she is preparing to enter a store named 'Ames Central'. This is an anagram for "Eternal Scam". I believe this may be a reference to the continuing struggle between Jacob and his nemesis. Either Jacob is not what he appears, or both men are part of something larger in which the sides are not so clearly defined.

If I had to speculate, I would say that Jack and company were unable to change the past. I believe that the explosion of the H-bomb will turn out to be what had always happened. We also know that Richard claims to have seen them all die, but that of course would prevent the possibility of them returning to their own time. Instead, I believe that Richard witnesses the explosion and mistakenly assumes that the Losties have died in the blast. In reality, the nuclear explosion will have interacted with the electromagnetic energy pocket to create a temporal distortion that sends the Losties back to the present time. Meanwhile, the Dharma folks are left to deal with the aftermath of the Incident. As a result, I believe that when Jacob says, "They're coming", he is ambiguously referring to both the returning Losties as well as the more immediate Shadow Gang. Either way, I do not believe the Losties will die. I find it interesting that they came back to the island on Flight 316 with what we were led to believe was a resurrected John Locke. This seems to be an allusion to John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Jack has now switched to the side of faith and is acting on what Locke once told him. In believing in him, they will not perish. I also believe that Desmond and Penny will return in a major way and that they will wind up becoming the Adam and Eve skeletons found in Season 1. I could also see Rose and Bernard becoming the skeletons, but either couple will need to go further back in time (the skeletons had been decomposing for 40 to 50 years). Overall, Season 6 will be all about uncovering who is good and who is evil. Of course, the Others and the Shadow Gang will begin by pursuing the false Locke, but eventually the truth will be uncovered and sides will be taken. I also believe that Jacob's cabin was intended as a means of imprisoning his nemesis, and that the broken ring of ash is an indication of how he made his escape. I think that when Locke heard Jacob saying, "Help me", it was actually the imprisoned nemesis (the true good guy). Finally, I was also struck by the Shadow Gang's question, "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" Clearly Jacob lives in the statue, but does he actually lie in its shadow? The wording of the question made me think of a baby or small child lying asleep, which then made me think of Aaron. Claire was told that she had to raise her baby, and yet she seems to have just left him lying in the jungle. Something about this seems off. That episode was called Raised by Another, but could it have actually been meant as Raised by an other? Is it possible that the Aaron we have been seeing is an impostor like the false Locke? Could the real Aaron have come under the care of Jacob? If this is indeed the case, then I foresee the return of Aaron and Walt with a white, yet evil, Aaron and a black, yet good, Walt. Notice also that like Jacob, Aaron has blond hair (I believe it was Trigirl that commented on Jacob's blond hair). It may seem insignificant, but with everything taken together, I believe that we are in store for the ultimate twist, where the darkside is good and the lightside is bad. How it all ends I cannot say, but maybe it doesn't actually end; maybe this will all turn out to be part of the "Eternal Scam", the ongoing struggle that will only repeat itself in some other iteration.

Excellent post! I think you are on to something. I remember a podcast with Darlton where they said that we should not decide which characters are evil and which are not....and that was before we were introduced to Jacob and Man2.

The Raised by an Other thing has been bothering me too.

I agree nice post! I think that all the games we have been shown also have meaning, Connect Four(RED!!!), Mouse Trap(kind of a long con right?), chess, backgammon, what else?

Remember Kate asking Jack what color thread he wanted for his stitches in the Pilot? He said Basic Black.

I alos just read somewhere that TPTB said between this finale and the season premiere of season 6 we will pretty much be able to piece together what is going on and this scenario you laid out sounds like it. I would guess next season we will see if they either flash to 2007, further past or further in the future and that will be where the war takes place. We will know if they have to redo it over or not and what place everyone has in this big long game.

Risk. One of my favorite scenes was Locke, Hurley and Sawyer playing Risk in the Dharma house.

I agree that I have been going back and forth as to who is good and who is bad. My hubby has always said that Ben is a good guy. Now I just think Ben has been a pawn. The introduction of Man#2 and Jacob was just fascinating!

Love your theories, Redhawk!