Lost Theory #what

I think that Jacob is a guy who has pretty much finished all of the other tasks in life, and is ready to finally settle down by himself. He's done everything. He knows how to use a sewing machine. He knows how to catch his own fish by himself. He knows how to draw stick figures pointing to another stick figure. He can even make statues as tall as you could imagine. You can’t take this guy to a titty joint, brothel, straight out frat-party, or art festival, because he has already finished dealing with that particular scene. You cannot take him to a church, mosque or synagogue because he’s already done that particular scene too. He did that stuff years ago.

Titus (since they don't tell us the real name, I'm just calling him Titus -- fools make up all sorts of names for this guy) is Death. Titus/Death comes to Jacob, telling him that he cannot exist for long in such a perfect state. "There will always be some entropy," says Titus to Jacob. "A loophole."

This is why Jacob tells Titus that it only has to end once. He's trying to explain that despite everything about him being perfect* (a man who IS an island), he's still making even more progress. In a sense, Jacob is trying to 'buy more time' from Death. He believes that his comment will confuse Death, at least a little, during which period he may be able to achieve a level where he cannot be killed.

You may ask "Why does Titus only manifest unto Jacob? What about all the other people on the island? Why do they only see animals, or 'visions'? Or wisps of smoke? Or a scary looking eye of some man pleading for help?"

The answer is that Jacob is the only one who has perfected himself to this extent. The guy has done everything so right that even Death feels the need to manifest in person. Why did Death choose to do this in the form of Titus Welliver? Well -- look at how well he plays the part. He's a neutral figure, basically. Death is not 'Evil'. Death is just ... 'there'. He's trying to to tell Jacob that, eventually, there will be a loophole.

Jacob just smirks back at him, looking a little bit like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. He pays disrespect to Death (and Titus). He feels he is now in a position to totally flip Death off, without consequence. As we see later in the show, Jacob cannot just flip Death off again. Death comes back, in the form of Locke (a long already dead character in the show), and gets this confused-yet-conscientious fellow named Ben to stab Jacob in the chest. Now, this is where Jacob's theory that he has attained perfection (see asterisk below) is exposed to any of the viewers.

Also, this is where you realize what they mean when they talk about the 'rules'. They are talking about boundaries. Boundaries are scary things to transcend, for a lot of people. So those 'in the know', so to speak, use the 'rules' argument to ward off evil. Neither Ben nor Widmore really dared to cross the boundaries. That's why they're still able to scare each other with those rules. But Jacob just went through the boundaries.

He tells Locke that he is 'beyond the loophole'. That this stupid game Locke (Death) has been parsing through was basically a means for him to evolve to a state where it doesn't even matter if he (Jacob) dies.

Disgusted, Locke kicks Jacob into the fire, left with the useless, empty satisfaction of watching him burn.



*Perfection usually comes in rare form. It's not about how good you look, how well you sing, how prettily you paint, how well you write -- it's not even about how well you live your life.