My Serious, Logical Thoughts on the Substitute

TITLE
Refers to Locke being a substitute teacher. Another good title for this one would have been the candidates.

Notice how the LOSTaways keep finding each other. Locke meets Rose, Hurley and Ben in this episode. And he had already met Jack. It is as if these people are destined to meet each other in any timeline. Helen hints at this when she says that maybe it is destiny referring to AT Locke meeting Jack.
A big hole has been blown in my theory about things disappearing from the AT as the luggage of Locke makes an appearance. But the question still remains what happened to Desmond? He sort of disappeared on the flight while it was in mid-air. Another big hole in my theory about Jacob and Locke being warring gods is the admission by the Locke-ness monster that he used to be a normal guy before he came to the island. He must be very old since the book Of Mice and Men was way after his time. We know he has to be at least 160 years old and may even date back to ancient Egypt. Though Locke-ness said he read books, and unless he lived in Alexandria books were not as common back then like they are today. We also get a slight insight as to what Jacob and Locke-ness disagreed on. Jacob was the protector of the island. But Locke-ness does not think that the island needs a protector. When Jacob brought the Black Rock to the island, it could have been to try to choose who would be the next Jacob from among the viable candidates on the ship.
Notice that Richard has no idea about the candidate system though he has done the will of Jacob for a very long time. So the Others certainly are not all-knowing. Ben did not know who the smoke monster was or even that it was a who. Even though Ben summoned the monster before. Richard seems to know more than Ben as he seems acquainted with Locke-ness.
We learn that Locke-ness is a prisoner on the island and wants to leave. If so then why does he not just leave? Could he not build a boat or is some for keeping him there? Yet he offers Sawyer the opportunity to leave. Does taking Sawyer with him change the rules so he can leave now? I am reminded of the 1967 TV show The Prisoner.
Who was that blonde-haired boy? There must be people who are over both Jacob and Lock-ness. They may be the real ones in charge. Are they then the gods such as Apollo? And they have rules like Locke-ness is not allowed to kill him. I assume him refers to Richard. That is why Lock-ness does not kill Richard when he refuses to follow him.
Notice Locke-ness throw a white rock into the sea. There were two rocks one black and one white perfectly balanced on a scale. This represented Locke-ness and Jacob both on the island keeping each other in check so that no one side dominated. With Jacob gone now, the dark side reigns. Interesting that the crashed ship is also called the Black Rock just as the black rock in the cave represents Locke-ness. Much can be said about the dark-light theme dating all the way back to season one when Locke spoke about the rules of backgammon and the white and dark pieces. There was also a dream sequence in which Locke had a black eye and a white eye. When AT Locke is drinking in the bathtub his mug is black and white with a little green in it. Locke also mentioned how old backgammon was hinting that this conflict has been going on for thousands of years. This agrees with the ancient Egyptian symbols all over the place in the series. To name just a few:

a DHARMA member had an ankh, an Egyptian symbol for life
The guitar case had an ankh inside it
The large statue on the island once held an ankh in its right hand. Only a foot remains.
There are both ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek symbols inside the foot of the statue where Jacob lived
When the timer in the swan hatch hit zero the indicators showed Egyptian symbols
There are Egyptian symbols on the dilapidated building where the team member of Rousseau got his arm ripped off

What can be made of all of these examples? It is telling us that this conflict is very old and dates back thousands of years. Good versus Evil perhaps.
Now that Ben is a teacher he must have survived the H bomb going off? Where was Ben when the hydrogen bomb detonated that allowed him to survive? Was he on the sub or perhaps already transported off the island? In any case the bomb went off after Sayid shot him. But the Others said that the boy would not remember the events so it may be that Ben has no memory of ever being shot, however he should remember at least being on the island. If AT Locke questioned Ben would he recall the island?

Here are the numbers that Jacob wrote for each candidate:

4 Locke
8 Reyes
15 Ford
16 Jarrah
23 Shephard
42 Kwon

The cave is littered with other names that have been crossed off. I would have thought Kate would be 23 since there was a bounty on her head of $23,000. We have not seen a good example of the Hurley numbers for a while so this overt example is great to see. Does this mean that Jacob is behind the numbers? There is evidence to the contrary as DHARMA also used the numbers. Remember the Swan hatch had the numbers imprinted on it, and in a LOST video online it shows how scientists relate each Hurley number to catastrophes that could destroy the world.
A surprise in this episode was to see Helen in the life of AT Locke. The last time we saw Helen she was fed up with Locke and was leaving him because of his involvement with his father. He proposed but she said no. Obviously in the AT something has changed. It may even be that some of the events of the life of AT Locke are a little different that the life of original Locke (the one who is dead).
Richard obviously knows who Locke-ness really is, but they are coy about actually saying his name. Each time you think someone is going to say it; they do not.
Notice how Sawyer is able to tell that Locke-ness is not Locke. His years of being a con man have given him insight into people. Oddly he seems not to be alarmed by this. Perhaps he has been exposed to one crazy thing to many so that he no longer is shocked by this kind of stuff. After all he did travel back in time and then back to the future. And this was a man who was reading the book A Wrinkle in Time during I believe season one. That actually turned out to be a foreshadowing of the time travel he would actually do one day. Nice one.

Q