With a title like “What about the children,” this post could certainly focus on the poor kids off island with absentee parents. I’m not, however, going to discuss the neglected Aaron or Ji Yeon, though I am curious about what they are up to and whether or not their parents are going to completely abandon them for the sake of the island (and maybe the rest of the world)? No, I would like to talk about the visions of children that the Man In Black has had a couple times now in the final season of Lost, most recently in last week’s episode “Everybody Loves Hugo.”
The first time Smokey saw the child was when he was escorting Sawyer through the woods. Smokey seemed surprised and taken aback at the sight of the child and the fact that Sawyer could see him. After a chase through the woods, the child taunted Locke, telling him that he “couldn’t kill him,” while reminding him of the rules. The second encounter happened in this past week’s episode under similar circumstances. Smokey was escorting Desmond through the jungle and they came upon another child, older than the first. Again, Locke seemed surprised that Desmond was able to see him, but he was a little less perturbed this time around, telling Desmond to just ignore him.
It seems to be the popular opinion in the Lost fandom right now that these two visions were of the same child, though they were clearly different actors and different ages. Even Lostpedia has the two boys listed as the same character. So, what is the deal with this kid? Jeff Jensen from Entertainment Weekly has an interesting theory in his column this week. He postulates that the child is Jacob, who is in the process of reincarnating himself, aging quickly until he can rematerialize at full strength. I think it’s a great theory, but also have one of my own.
What if it’s not a younger Jacob that the Man in Black is seeing, but instead, a youthful version of himself? He has stated several times that he was a man who lived, experienced pain, had a crazy mom — all that good stuff. We know that at some point things must have gone wrong for this person for him to end up as an insubstantial cloud of evil smoke, trapped on the island. Perhaps he is seeing himself as a young person, literally being haunted by his past as he attempts to escape his own entrapment.
Of course, the possibility remains that there is more to this child than we even know at this point. He could be a manifestation of the island or maybe a different character all together. The thing I found to be the most intriguing is the very first appearance from the child. He appeared as a fleeting vision to Locke, arms outstretched, bleeding. Is that a representation of Jacob, who was killed and bloodied? Was it a vision of the Man in Black as a youth, with blood on his hand? Was it the original victim of Smokey’s true crimes that led to his imprisonment on the island? There are so many viable options at this point. As we move forward in the final season, though, I have confidence in one thing: this boy holds a key piece of the Lost puzzle.
What are your thoughts on the boy? Do you have any theories?
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Apr 19, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
I think I said it here before that the second I saw the kid Sawyer saw I thought it was a young Jacob. I’m still thinking that and I thought it again when I saw the new kid.
I like your theory thought, it sounds plausible. You make Smokey very human by imagining the kid being his conscience. I’m too far removed from that image to be honest but still – it’s a take that sounds interesting.
But the title of the episode is a reflection of a huge question that has been around for at least five years now – why did The Others kidnap all the children? What were they good for? I know that the show kind of tried to check this as answered when we first met Juliet and the cages but I can’t remember if there really was an answer to it – and usually when I don’t remember something about Lost it hasn’t been made very clear. Just like the question about the pregnancies that need to be answered. I think the show tomorrow will tackle all three of these (Aaron and Ji, the kid in the woods, and the kidnapped children). Another nice set of answer I assume all the while annoying us with not showing more of what Desmond’s mission really is and why. But honestly isn’t it nice to complain about getting too many answers for questions that aren’t THAT much interesting right now because there’s more important stuff we want to know? Kind of like what they did with us for five years now :-)
I think you could go with the obviously unobvious, that the kid is the image of the MIB’s child and strikes into the running theme of bad parents
My theory is “both”.
I think Jacob and the Man in Black are the same person. Jacob’s the younger, more hopeful version, and MiB is an older, broken, cynical version. The young kid could be, thus, both.
(Keep in mind that time travel is involved, and we don’t necessarily know MiB’s true appearance.)
I’m actually wondering more about the kids on the plane that we haven’t seen in 3-4 seasons that the plane attendant was teaching.
Zack and Emma? We’ve seen them on more than one occasion this year: They were hanging around with Cindy (the flight attendant) at the temple, and then left with Smokey.
https://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Zack
https://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Emma
I think that maybe the kids that are appearing are the ghost of the children that were never born. I think that the man in black is the reason that the women can’t have kids because he takes them before they can be born but maybe they haunt him and run around the island. He said he had a crazy mom so maybe he takes the kids as an attempt to “save” the children so they dont have a crazy mother. maybe he is evil but he does not see it that way. and the “others” take children to save them from him…. i have go watch lost but i will expand or be proven wrong soon.