[Ghoulish Delight]

I'm of the belief that the death of a character is pretty meaningless. With the number of deaths already piled up, and foreshadowing like, "Things don't stay buried for very long on this island," death most certainly isn't enough to prevent a character from being integral to the story going forward. So even if Locke "dies", I'd wager a good amount of money that he'll be back in the story before long. Especially now that they've set him up as practically being the lynch pin to the whole island enigma.