Quote Originally Posted by Flying Mullet View Post
My wife's following the theory that Locke is actually dead and Jacob inhabits or borrows dead bodies to interact with the inhabitants of the island. This is why Locke, Christian, Claire and Mr. Eko's brother's characters all act differently and omnipotent after they are dead. This is also why no one has ever seen Jacob, as he doesn't have a tangible form. Currently Jacob is using Locke's body and he is testing Richard and Ben when he told Ben that they are headed off to kill Jacob.
At first, I thought this was a very likely answer to the whole "Locke is alive" mystery, but ... (SPOILER)They've cast an actor for Jacob, so he does have a corporeal form - in fact, spoilers say that Jacob will be visiting the remaining survivors at pivotal moments in their lives: Sawyer's parents' funeral, Sun and Jin's wedding, Nadia's (Sayid's love) murder, and outside Athony Cooper's suite after Locke is thrown from the window. I'm assuming he appears to Hurley while he is in jail and helps him escape, since Hurley's journey back to the Island has yet to be explained. I haven't read anything about Jacob interacting with Kate, which sort of makes me think she either: a) is the one who dies in the finale, or b) the black horse is Jacob appearing to Kate.

ANYWAY - Same goes for Jack. No spoilers about Jacob appearing to him. Why? Because Jack is Jacob . More than likely, the reason Locke is going to kill Jacob is because of he and Jack's longstanding rivalry, since their whole dynamic has been slowly turning them against each other. I think Locke has some special knowledge of the future / past since dying ... Jacob, if he is Jack, seems like he exists 'outside' of time, so in killing Jacob perhaps Locke is going to be the one who truly changes the past, not Jack. What I mean is that Jacob has obviously been around for a long time, so my theory is that Jacob is Jack trapped in a giant time loop that never ends (ie. at the end of time, Jacob is sent back to the beginning), and by killing Jacob (at any point in time) messes this loop up and just smurfs up in general. Whatever happened, happened ... but the future hasn't /technically/ happened yet, so it's changeable from Locke's point in time (the present).

Quote Originally Posted by McLovin' View Post
Maybe Jack causes the Incident by taking the explosive parts of the H-Bomb to the Swan Site hence emulsifying the pocket of energy which originally discharged. Just a thought.

Though all of DHARMA are gone and its pre-Purge so maybe they did change things?
I'd wager that Jack is definitely the cause of the Incident. Likewise, he is also responsible for the loss of Dr. Chang's arm in the fray. Jack thinks the drilling causes the Incident, so he's gonna blow up to stop it. In reality, what I think is going to happen, is the H-Bomb causes the Incident and releases the electromagnetic force (wherein the only way to fix it is encasing it in cement, setting up the button ...). So, in actuality, Jack is the cause of the very thing he seeks to prevent. If that doesn't make him believe in destiny, I don't know what will.

Quote Originally Posted by Del Murder View Post
Also why would detonating an a-bomb cause everything to get 'fixed'? Jack's lost it and I'm pretty sure Sayid went along to stop him.
(SPOILER)Naw, previews of the finale show Sayid more or less taking charge of the whole operation. He has personal stake in changing the timeline, too, since it would stop Nadia from dying.

Oh, and I'm really confused about the entire third and second season now. If Richard (and, presumeably Ben) knew Jack and Co. time traveled to the past, why were they so antagonistic towards them? Were they trying to truly hurt (or kill) them in an attempt to change the past? On Ben's part, this seems likely. Or, were they trying to nudge the survivors in the right direction? Making sure they follow their destiny? Evidently, the Others do have some way to predict or see the future, since they built the landing strip for flight 316 to land on and Eloise has remarked that she is unsure what is going to happen "for the first time in a long time." I don't know. The whole behavior of the Others in the previous seasons just confuses me now, since they obviously knew that Oceanic 815's crash was more than just a random occurence.