Post by aaronhorton on Mar 22, 2010 14:39:50 GMT -5
Per Jack's request, I'm posting this here on the message board. I hope I picked the right forum. This is an email I sent to Jay and Jack on 3/22:
Jay and others keep questioning Jack’s theory that Jacob and the Man in Black are the same person, asking why Ben (and us, the audience) can see both of them at the same time. First of all, I think Jack is on to something. Second of all, I don’t think Jack needs to defend this theory by saying “but have we REALLY been seeing them both at the same time?” because I think we obviously have, and I think Ben did too. He talked to them both and looked at them both under the Taweret statue.
There are several stories in Japanese mythology/lore dealing with an entity that has both a strong goodness and a strong evil inside them. Unable to handle both strong opposite powers battling inside, the one entity splits into two distinct entities – one pure good and one pure evil. The most popular example of this I can think of is in the Dragonball series: Piccolo split into Kami, who became the good guardian of earth, and Piccolo Daimao, the evil demon king.
Dragonball isn’t perhaps as philosophical as most stories that inspire Lost, but the concept wasn’t original to the series. It occurs in other Japanese tales as well, and fits into the East Asian direction the show seems to be taking, summed up in Dogen’s explanation to Sayid that there is some good and some bad in everyone. The ultimate power, the proto- Jacob/Man in Black, would have had both supreme good and supreme evil. Perhaps these two supreme sides split, like Piccolo, forming two distinct personalities.
In Dragonball, when Piccolo died, so did Kami, although they were split. Maybe this is why the Man in Black couldn’t kill Jacob on his own: he would have killed himself in the process.We've seen how persuasive the Man in Black can be, so I find it hard to believe that all he had to do was pursuade someone else to kill Jacob. He would have accomplished that way before 2007. The loophole, which involved getting Ben to do the dirty work, likely contains other aspects we are not yet aware of, that allowed Jacob to die while keeping the Man in Black alive.
Aaron
Lynchburg, Va
Jay and others keep questioning Jack’s theory that Jacob and the Man in Black are the same person, asking why Ben (and us, the audience) can see both of them at the same time. First of all, I think Jack is on to something. Second of all, I don’t think Jack needs to defend this theory by saying “but have we REALLY been seeing them both at the same time?” because I think we obviously have, and I think Ben did too. He talked to them both and looked at them both under the Taweret statue.
There are several stories in Japanese mythology/lore dealing with an entity that has both a strong goodness and a strong evil inside them. Unable to handle both strong opposite powers battling inside, the one entity splits into two distinct entities – one pure good and one pure evil. The most popular example of this I can think of is in the Dragonball series: Piccolo split into Kami, who became the good guardian of earth, and Piccolo Daimao, the evil demon king.
Dragonball isn’t perhaps as philosophical as most stories that inspire Lost, but the concept wasn’t original to the series. It occurs in other Japanese tales as well, and fits into the East Asian direction the show seems to be taking, summed up in Dogen’s explanation to Sayid that there is some good and some bad in everyone. The ultimate power, the proto- Jacob/Man in Black, would have had both supreme good and supreme evil. Perhaps these two supreme sides split, like Piccolo, forming two distinct personalities.
In Dragonball, when Piccolo died, so did Kami, although they were split. Maybe this is why the Man in Black couldn’t kill Jacob on his own: he would have killed himself in the process.We've seen how persuasive the Man in Black can be, so I find it hard to believe that all he had to do was pursuade someone else to kill Jacob. He would have accomplished that way before 2007. The loophole, which involved getting Ben to do the dirty work, likely contains other aspects we are not yet aware of, that allowed Jacob to die while keeping the Man in Black alive.
Aaron
Lynchburg, Va
