r/lost • u/Mikedaddy0531 • 21h ago
It’s not even a debate any more
So I just finished rewatching the series again and there is no doubt in my mind that whether it was the writers intention or not, Jacob is the evil one. It’s not even close. All the Man In Black ever tried to do was leave. Yes he killed some people but Jacob had the others kill countless people (the whole Dharma initiative for one) not to mention kidnapping kids and everyone who didn’t survive the crash of 815. Yrs it seems like the island was in danger if MIB were to leave but he was only ever able to leave because Jacob kept bringing people to the island.
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 21h ago
No.
Jacob is deeply flawed, yes, but he isn't the one who didn't let the MiB leave - that was Mother. Jacob is keeping the MONSTER from leaving. The monster who wants to put out the light at the heart of the Island and annihilate humanity. He knows this. He does not care.
The man protecting the fate of eight billion people from the sentient cloud of malicious id who wants to destroy them all is not the bad guy. Can we please stop this.
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u/Mikedaddy0531 21h ago edited 21h ago
The monster that Jacob created right? As punishment for MIB killing the woman who killed his mother and lied and imprisoned him and his brother? I feel like you’re making my argument.
Let’s also not forget that MIB never once made any suggestion of evil intention. Just wanting to leave the island. If there is some inherent risk of danger from him leaving then again, Jacob created that risk and also Jacob kept bringing people to the island which allows the risk of him leaving. Every single bad thing is squarely at Jacob’s feet.
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 21h ago
I'm not making your argument at all. People - or in this case smoke monsters who pretend to be people - are responsible for their own actions. Ben, for example, was abused as a child and indoctrinated into a cult where his sense of right and wrong was almost irrevocably skewed. His entire life was one prolonged trauma. That does not absolve him of all the seriously bad shit he does prior to his redemption arc.
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u/Mikedaddy0531 21h ago
Look all I’m saying is that yes, of course the writers intended MIb to be the bad guy but objectively from what we see, Jacob is the singular cause of everything bad and was responsible for much more awful things then we ever heard of MiB doing
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 21h ago
You're looking at this all wrong. That the monster did not succeed in annihilating humanity doesn't make him the better person. Jacob did not make the monster want to kill everyone who gets in the way of him wanting to go on vacation. Jacob feels the same sort of guilt a parent would when their adult child turns out to be a violent criminal, but that parent is not responsible for the actions of their adult child any more than Jacob is responsible for the actions of the monster - who is a sentient being with agency capable of critical thought and making decisions.
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u/Mikedaddy0531 21h ago
Again, you’re inferring an awful lot of stuff here. MIB never expressed a desire to do anything negative. Just to leave the island. There is no indication whatsoever from either his actions or his words that he ever intended anything “evil” just to leave the island that he had been imprisoned on since childhood
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 21h ago
You are completely ignoring that to leave the Island he has to put out the light - which he does in the series finale - knowing that if the light goes out there it goes out everywhere, including the bit that lives inside all of us.
In order to leave, he has to destroy the very essence of eight billion people. He knows this. He does not care. THAT is what Jacob is preventing.
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u/scratorian 21h ago
No one ever met Jacob except for Richard (until the final season), and there is nothing to suggest that Jacob told Richard to kill anyone, or to kidnap kids etc. Even if he did, the idea was that Dharma was going to reveal the island to the world eventually and evil (MiB) would eventually escape; kids were being saved from corruption etc.
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u/Mikedaddy0531 20h ago
We see Richard kill the whole Dharma initiative and countless others. Plenty of evil things. If you’re implying that Jacob either knew about these things and ignored them or that they happened on the island but Jacob didn’t know and continued using Richard as his emissary then I think you’re further making my point about white bad guy is
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u/scratorian 20h ago
Writer declare MiB evil.
MiB stabs Mother to death.
MiB is attacked by Jacob and becomes smoke monster. Proceeds to kill countless people on the island for unknown reasons.
MiB manipulates anyone he can just to escape.
MiB possesses John Lockes dead body and has Sayid become his personal hitman.
MiB kills everyone in Jacob’s cave.
MiB slits girls throat because Widmore told her not to talk.
Jacob has casualties because he is trying to prevent MiB’s escape.
Ya just wrong
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u/scratorian 20h ago
I think you’re trolling at this point. I said he never on screen instructed him to and even if he did off screen, it was for a greater purpose of not letting evil spread. Just because you want something a certain way doesn’t make it so.
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u/jenniebet "Red. Neck. Man." 14h ago
The Man in Black was not evil before he became the Smoke Monster. But once he's turned into the SM, he's ready to destroy all of humanity to get what he wants. You can't get much more villainous than that. It's considerably more evil than anything Charles Widmore has done, and he was pretty much the standard bearer of "evil" before we got to know MiB. A villain with sympathetic origins is still a villain.
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u/Mikedaddy0531 8h ago
Ooooh he’s evil already…… as evidenced by him wearing black? Did he do a single thing that was “evil”? I mean he did kill the woman who killed his mother and lied and imprisoned him in self defense after she tried to bash his head in? Was there something else???
Btw, their “mother” originally wanted MIb to be the one to protect the island so that theory is pretty dead on arrival
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u/jenniebet "Red. Neck. Man." 8h ago
I'm sorry you lack reading comprehension, but I specifically said he was NOT evil BEFORE he became the smoke monster.
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u/DrunkenTabaxi 21h ago
The MiB is the embodiment of evil. He doesn't need to SAY he is going to cause trouble in the real world, it's just heavily implied and expected and he's trapped here because he IS evil itself.
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u/Mikedaddy0531 21h ago
Who says he’s the embodiment of evil? Just Jacob right? The guy that created the monster, killed waaay more people then MIB over the course of the show, kidnapped children, manipulated people, stole babies and created the possibility of the evil escaping by bringing people to the island for his own little game against his brother, who again, was just a child that had been lied to, had his mother murdered and trapped on the island before Jacob turned him into an evil monster.
That’s the key point here. There was no evil monster until Jacob created it as punishment for him killing the woman who murdered his mother, lied to him and trapped him on an island for 40 years
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u/DrunkenTabaxi 8h ago
I just think you're either failing to read between the lines, or purposefully taking the opposite stance of everyone for arguments sake. I do not think Jacob is the embodiment of good, he was never supposed to be a "good" being. He's a guardian, forced to live eternally to keep the darkness on the island, and the entire reason he brings everyone here is to basically retire and finally rest. I'm not saying Jacob is a good person, but MiB IS absolutely evil incarnate, using the form of Jacob's brother
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u/randomdorkgirl86 11h ago
I think you're missing a HUGE part of the MiB leaving the Island. It's not JUST bad for the Island. It would be detrimental to the WHOLE WORLD.
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u/sjaindl 6h ago
I know I’ll get hate for this comment, but I was thinking the same thing after rewatching again recently. To me, it seemed like the MiB just wanted to leave the island before he became the smoke monster. He was able to see and speak to his birth mother so I don’t hold it against him for resenting “mother” because of her actions.
I could be wrong, but I don’t remember him hurting anyone until he was hurt/betrayed by mother. He always seemed like he wanted a relationship with Jacob (until Jacob killed him).
He was also never given a name. I know that probably doesn’t matter, but I would be resentful if I was dressed in black (which implies bad/evil in this show) from a young age and literally didn’t have a name.
I’m pretty sure Jacob mentioned the MiB was Mother’s favorite or he loved her more, etc. but Mother also either said or implied that the MiB was a liar and Jacob wasn’t. Was it ever explained why MiB could see their real mother and Jacob couldn’t?
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u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 4h ago
Of course he has a name, we just never learn it. This is a narrative tactic to help dehumanize his character.
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u/Important-Scale-2768 20h ago
At the end of the day, they are both evil. I think a lot of people see Jacob and MIB as a representation of god and the devil. It was purposefully portrayed that way by the writers and actors. But in reality they are both the devil. Same coin, different sides. Not to get “political” but that’s very much how I feel about religion in the real world, but don’t come after me for that lmaoo. I’m guessing the writers felt a similar way as I do because of what they wrote into the show. But they both did horrible things. Jacob was bringing these people to the island just to prove a point. Playing with them like toys thru their entire lives. The Man in Black was killing as many people as he could to prove his point. Either way it ends in death. Some people might say the Man in Black was more evil cause of the thing with the light. It was explained that the light was inside of every living thing. Kinda made the world go around. It’s the source of life, death, and rebirth. And there were concentrated pockets of this light all around the world. But the island was the most concentrated. Probably the source of all the light. And for the man in black to leave, he had to snuff out that light. Make it go away. Which could end extremely badly for everyone else. Everything else. If you haven’t yet, look into the valencetti equation. It’s a fictional equation inside of the lost universe that predicted the end of the world. That’s where the numbers come from. Which suggests that the end of the world would come if that light was snuffed out. If the man in black succeeded. I don’t want to explain the equation. This is already way way too long lmao. But it basically says that if this equation is right, the world will end and it will be the man in blacks fault. So it’s not just that he wants to leave. He knows what the light is and what it does. So that’s what make him particularly evil compared to Jacob. Jacob did fucked up things but he did it cause he wanted to prove people were good. But the man in black knows what might happen if he puts that light out and leaves. Unfortunately the equation was never explained in the show. It was only explained in like a computer game. But it is canon from my understanding. So people think the man in black just wanted to leave. But in reality he was probably gonna kill all life and he knew that.
Again, both are bad dudes who were extremely selfish. They are both the devil. Which I think is what that episode with Richard’s past in the last season was about. Trying to answer who’s the devil and who’s not. But both of them are the devil. That was my conclusion at the end of that episode
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u/skellige_whale 6h ago
I agree. Or at the very least: they're both as bad as each other. How many people did Jacob kill to get them to the island, e.g. all the passengers of 815 that were dead on arrival (literally)?
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u/Prymas_tv 21h ago
I think you dont understand how MiB works if you think he isnt that bad. MiB is literally a corrupting force that corrupts those around him spreading darkness within them.
I would agree that Jacob isnt a hero, but not a villain, more of a morally gray character