If we go all the way back to the beginning of the show, the main conflict set up was The Island vs. the Losties. How do our heroes get off this god-forsaken thing and get to safety? As the show progressed, Locke let us know that things weren't quite so simple. He refused to believe that the answer was to escape. He saw the island as a paradise that had somehow fallen into trouble, or the wrong hands, and that he arrived with a purpose: to save it. It took up to the end of last season (or so) to convince Jack of the same thing.
So now a different plot conflict has been set up. It's no longer The Island vs. The Losties, it's now The Wrong Island vs. The Paradise Island. Let me explain:
Let's examine the different objectives of the various groups on the island.
- The Dharma Initiative may have some kind of hippie commune scientific altruism it's going for, but it's obvious that its motives are suspect, even though we might not know exactly why. They're doing mind experiments etc, and messing with things on the island that are probaby best just left alone. And who is behind the Dharma initiative? How do they stand to profit? All we know is that their vision for the Island is somehow flawed. And they get killed off.
- The Others/Insurgents somehow are connected to the island and feel like they should protect it or something, but they tend to be incredibly violent and kill people mercilessly. WTF? Whatever they think they're doing or whoever they think they're doing it for is also somehow flawed.
- Widmore once led the insurgents before Ben took over. Since he hired Keamy, his military team, and enough explosives to kill everyone, we can't exactly say that his motives are pure. He's still a giant question mark.
- That leaves Locke and Jack. They know that they are there to fulfill some sort of purpose, but so far they are the only ones who have shown any kind of altruistic vision for the island and the people on it. They both are there to help their friends, and Locke has shown compassion so often that it even hurts him. We want Locke to succeed in order to take control away from whatever fucked up forces are in control of it now, and Locke knows that the Island is a special place that's powerful and healing, and wants to protect it.
Since we know that the Dharma Initiative fails, at this point it's basically The Others/Widmore controlling the island vs. Locke, Jack and our Losties saving it. The Wrong Island vs. The Paradise Island. We need our Losties to be free of all the danger, loss, sadness, and confusion, and it's clear now that leaving the island is not the answer. They have to resolve these things on the island, which means somehow making the island a safe place.
With that in mind, I'd like to go back to an earlier theory, and discuss some of the notions of rebirth and resurrection that have recently been the focus of the show.
I still believe that at one point early on in the island's history, it was a paradise populated by native peoples. The same people who built the statue and the various temples on the island (maybe they were even Egyptian, due to the insane number of heiroglyphs all over the place. Maybe Richard Alpert is Egyptian, and maybe that explains the portal to Tunisia... a lot of maybes... anyways). Somehow this paradise was interfered with, and chaos has ensued ever since. This is why Jacob said "help me" to Locke. The natural beneficial tendencies of the island have been altered, and the people who now think they are protecting the island are misguided.
Let's talk about that temple that Richard took Ben into on last's night's episode "Whatever Happened, Happened." This temple will resurrect Ben, rob him of his innocence, and make him forget everything from before. Richard said "he will always be one of us," which tells me that this temple is some sort of initiation/conversion device, and this experience makes him loyal to the island and robs him of sympathy for anyone else. Juliet knew about this, but at this point I'm doubtful that she ever went through it herself. Which might be the reason why she traveled through time with the rest of the losties when the record started skipping, instead of staying put, which Richard and the others seemingly did.
We also know that going down into one of these temples (perhaps the same one) is what caused Rousseau's team to come down with "The Sickness" as she called it, and caused people that she knew to become merciless killers.Also, now we know why Ben says he was born on the island. He probably honestly believes that, or at least thinks he was re-born there.
Which brings me to my final point: this will now be the second rebirth we've seen this season, albeit through seemingly different means. Locke (and Christian Shephard, for that matter) were both resurrected naturally, whereas Ben will be resurrected (or healed) through artificial means. I may be going out on a limb here, and maybe it's too Obi-Wan vs. Darth Vader, but it's my guess that this is a metaphor for the two different approaches to the island. John Locke actually can talk to Jacob, is actually a good guy, and was naturally healed and resurrected on the island. It's his destiny to help the island. Ben, on the other hand, didn't actually hear Jacob, developed spinal cancer, is a liar and a murderer, and was resurrected in some sort of twisted way in the cave temples, which somehow perverted his innocence. He too believes he is destined to protect the island.
Anyways, that's how I'm looking at it right now, and it's my guess that we're going to have to travel way into the past in order to see the origins of the conflict on the island, and then we'll have to travel way into the future in order to see how it resolves.
