Lost!

[bewitched]

Originally Posted by Eliza Hodgkins 1812

I think my friend Mike and I may be the only two people who don't think he's evil. Heh.

I'm inclined to think he may be more a Judas figure (in the more modern interpretation that Judas was "chosen" by Jesus- as his most faithful servant, to "betray" Jesus in order to fulfill the prophesy of his resurrection).

On a similar note, I think Smokey didn't kill Ben because it (or he, if you are inclined to think he is aligned with the man in black) is unable to kill anyone directly "touched" by Jacob which brings me to another point...

That Jacob (as sleepyjeff notes) went out of his way to touch each of the main characters in their flashbacks. If you throw in the biblical references that have been part of the Lost mythology, I don't think it's a big leap to interpret this as Jacob "choosing" his disciples and ultimately "saving" them in the process.

Doc Jenson (on ew.com) theorizes that the bomb will send them all back to the moment that Jacob touched them but with all of the knowledge they've already accumulated and that they will eventually return to the island of their own volition to fight to save Jacob and the integrity of the island...hence, the "coming war".

Originally Posted by Jacob

they're coming.

(I personally think he didn't save Nadia because doing so wouldn't have "saved" Sayid...she still would have been killed by one of (supposedly) Widmore's cohorts and Sayid would have turned to a dark path in order to exact revenge and/or because he had nothing to live for. Nadia dying by being hit by a car makes it nothing more than a tragic accident, one which requires no act of revenge...and Sayid is thus "saved" from the dark path of vengence.)