[Retriever Mama]

Finally! I've been looking for this all morning! And no wonder it took so long..its 7 pages! But FULL of really cool stuff:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1550612_20245769_20278837,00.html

 

[Retriever Mama]

Stuff about the statue:

and we got a full-scale profile shot of the Statue, which was still intact in the 19th century. The mug on the edifice sure didn't look like a jackal to me, thus ruling out the Egyptian God Anubis, protector of the dead. No, that face looked like a crocodile, which gets you Sobek, a morally ambiguous dark god who oversees dark waters and preys on sinful souls in the afterlife. (Very Smokey.) Even worse, Set, the Egyptian god of chaos and evil, was a shapeshifter who often morphed into crocodiles and hippos (another candidate for Four Toed's face) in his clashes with archenemy Horus. Set was linked to infertility (seems Horus once ripped off Set's testicles) (serious!) (and ouch!) and was partial to fish and lettuce. Hey...didn't we see Jacob munching on a filet-o-fish lettuce wrap last night? And aren't devilish gods all for the concept of choice and free will?

 

[Retriever Mama]

About the book Jacob is reading as Locke falls out of the building:

...

, Flannery O’Connor’s short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge...

O’Connor, Catholic and Southern, was known for her ironic redemption stories. She had a penchant for violence but felt it was in keeping with the nature of revelation — that it comes upon you unexpectedly, shockingly, horribly. In her yarns, the righteous are skewed and exposed as hypocrites, while the worst sinners end up becoming unwitting or unwilling conduits for God’s grace. As for Everything That Rises..., reader Adam Sroufe sent me this quote from critic Madsen Hardy characterizing O’Connor’s ambition: ''O'Connor...claims that it is her specific goal to offer a glimpse of God's mystery and, thus, to lead readers — whom she sees as, for the most part, spiritually lost in the modern, secular world — back toward the path of redemption.'' That could indeed be Jacobesque, provided he’s good,

 

[Melissa]

I was just reading through the first little blurb that they put up at ew.com this morning. Some interesting things people brought up.

- When Jacob says 'they're coming', suppose he's talking about our castaways coming back from 1977.
- Jacob was eating a red herring in the opening scene. Literary humor. Everything from all the other episodes were red herrings and it's all about the eternal conflict between Jacob and whats-his-name on the beach.

And this:

In the Old Testament is says "He who is touched by Jacob can never bring him harm. He who is touched by Jacob will forever protect him."

I think it's pretty clear why Jacob made a point of meeting and touching all those characters. And to the extent we have seen Jacob touch certain people, we know now, 100% that they will only do good. Jack was right to detonate the bomb because Jack couldn't do bad (i.e. hurt Jacob).

Can't vouch for any of the comments accuracy.

 

[dweck]

I didn't even notice the touches until EW mentioned it. And what to make, then, of Juliet's flashback, where not only didn't Jacob touch, he didn't even appear?

 

[Retriever Mama]

I didn't even notice the touches until EW mentioned it. And what to make, then, of Juliet's flashback, where not only didn't Jacob touch, he didn't even appear?

I know! It said in there somewhere that if Jacob touches you you will live..does that mean Juliet is really dead? Or if Jacob is the "hand of fate"... does Juliet have free will and can determine her own fate? Is she the lynchpin that had the power to make or break last night's outcome?

 

[dweck]

It all makes my head hurt.

I also thought Miles had a great point last night, that seemed to get swept under the carpet: What if Jughead CAUSES the incident that they're conversely trying to prevent??

 

[Melissa]

I wondered that last week - or whichever week it was Daniel was trying to explain his whole plan.

 

[Princess Zoe]

I noticed that too and thought they were going to rush to stop Jack.

 

[Retriever Mama]

Here's my question: what if everything that has happened...happened the way it was supposed to happen? What if it is all cyclical and nothing changes?

And...if it does change...does it become an alternate reality? Only the eternals will know the truth.

Which brings me to something completely off topic, but has been on my mind since last night's episode: has anyone here read the Incarnations of Immortality series by series by Piers Anthony? Basically it is a 7 book series explaining how the "positions" of Death, Fate, Nature, Time..etc...are filled by humans who become immortal and have to learn the tasks of their new jobs..and about the ongoing battle between God and Satan for everyone's souls. Fascinating series and I kept thinking about Jacob being Fate...

but I digress...

 

[Canula2000]

Which brings me to something completely off topic, but has been on my mind since last night's episode: has anyone here read the Incarnations of Immortality series by series by Piers Anthony? Basically it is a 7 book series explaining how the "positions" of Death, Fate, Nature, Time..etc...are filled by humans who become immortal and have to learn the tasks of their new jobs..and about the ongoing battle between God and Satan for everyone's souls. Fascinating series and I kept thinking about Jacob being Fate.

nostalgia, I read that series when I was a young. hmmmm. interesting theory.