Thank you

@@johnlocke5728 you’re welcome

By far

Sadly due to the time-loop that started with Ben and ended with Locke (and the explosion at the Swan Site), Locke had very little free will his whole life. I guess you could change your attitude, like Desmond did after he glimpsed the flash-sideways, and how you treat people. Maybe he didn't have to kill Naomi, since her living or dying didn't seem to change much, and the island could have killed her if it was done with her?

He is indeed, thus the actor was by far the best of the show.

I agree that the knife represented the boy's future in a different context to what Richard understood at that point in the game. He didn't even have knowledge of candidates back then. All he knew was what Jacob told him.

Wow, thank you so much for the kind words and your support! To quote Ben Linus in the flashsideways: "It matters more than I can say." People like yourself are why I continue to make these videos :)

That's a great reading of the symbolism there! I like it.

He only knew that knife didn't belong to John Locke.

Same with the comic Hurley then Walt owned, that Michael threw in the fire. It's one of the Flash/Green Lantern: Faster Friends books.

@@KmanScan Actually I haven't read that one yet. Thanks for the reminder.

I had planned to do a LOST book reading recently that’s great info the comic is online thanks.

We wondered in the first season or two whether there were polar bears on the island because Walt was reading about them and wanted to see one. I guess it was just coincidence. Although because of the time loop, they could have picked them for Walt's amusement, much like the roundabout and implausible way heroin gets to the island just to give Charlie a fix when his stash runs out.

Thank you :) I’m so pleased these videos are finding some love amongst the fan base.

Ircc he was just being bullied about being a nerd right before being offered to go to the camp which was a science camp. The child Locke picking the knife there was something that happened right before Richards visit too ircc

Maybe he could have gone, or maybe not since he was stuck in a time loop. It really bugs me how little free will he (and the characters) had once they wrote this. What happened, happened is one thing. What happens is predetermined is quite another.

Not only that, but writing the time loop meant that what happened, had to happen. Little free will other than to have a good attitude and treat others kindly (or not).

And this is the story for many IRL throughout the world and even in the U.S. They're done dirty by life, but somehow their optimism, their nobility and self-sacrifice inspire others to virtuous action, the Locke did for Jack!

Would they have believed him if he had told them that though? Or would it just have validated their suspicions that he was a bit crazy? I think in the early days, Locke calculated in his mind that there was nothing to gain from telling anyone. He tells Boone only when he has no choice. I think part of Locke always wanted to separate his identity on the island from his old identity off the island when he was paralysed. He was trying to become a new man and hated being reminded of who he was and where he had been.

It was The Others from 1954, when we meet the twentysomething versions of Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking. They thought our Oceanic 815ers were the U.S. Army having returned to the Island to cause more conflict.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Pretty much they and the Mercenary Team at the Barracks killed off all the remaining "extras" from Oceanic Flight 815. And as we saw with the pile of corpses from the Ajira Flight 316, extras didn't seem to matter, even though those rising to leadership wanted to protect their own.

This is a very visual scene that tells us what the correct objects are from the way it is shot, performed, edited and scored. Also, Richard uses plural to ask the boy which of these items belong to him, not singular. If the compass was the only correct item then the boy fails the test immediately when selecting the sand vial first. Yes, the only literal item that "belongs" to Locke is the compass but, as a future leader of The Others, both The Island and its people "belong" to him too. Hence why Richard smiles at the correct selection of the sand vial and why he smiles again in anticipation as Locke considers the Book of Laws. He almost pulls off the trifecta until he chooses the knife. Choosing one correct item in a blind test like this wouldn't prove anything. Any kid could accidentally choose the correct item. However, choosing three correct items would prove something. This test is directly influenced by the type of test conducted on potential "Kunduns" in Tibet, as mentioned in the video. There are always multiple correct items and multiple incorrect items, so as to make the identification of a future leader more "accurate".

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 thanks for your thorough response. I’m currently rewatching Lost and I stumbled upon your videos. Big props to you; they are excellent!

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Thanks for including that outside clip. What's it from? The kid was obviously thinking, "Oh, you don't like me picking this cane? Then I'll pick the other." Anyway it shows how someone with some psychological training, like Ben might have gotten from The Dharma Initiative, could read Richard's reactions when handling different objects and change their answer. Of course at that point, he could have theorized that the leader of the Hostiles would have the Book of Laws. I like to think he cheated and forgot he was special by seeing and hearing his mother. If he was the candidate Linus-117 then maybe he "settled" for leading the Others instead of seeing the big picture that Jacob's job was open if he wanted it. Do we know when he was crossed-off? Probably when he killed his own father. According to Jacob, "It's just chalk on a wall, the job is yours if you want it," could have applied to Ben too. True psychology tests are double-blind where the subject doesn't know the correct answers and the staff doesn't either. So researchers would pick the six objects (with a 1/18 chance of guessing 3 correctly, less if the correct number is 0-6) and the person giving the test doesn't know the answers so they can't influence the result like Richard nearly did by saying, "Are you sure the knife belongs to you, John?" which he didn't say for the other items. Since Richard knows about the compass, he couldn't administer the test blind, but they wanted the two to interact for our benefit. It should have had a guy going outside, telling Richard the result, and him replying, "Two out of three doesn't cut it."

I think many parents tend to put up their children's pictures and artwork on the wall, no matter how crappy lol.

"you can't hang that on the wall John" "don't tell me what I can't do!"

Didn't the kid in _The Sixth Sense_ say he stopped drawing what he saw because it upset grownups? Or was that another movie where a child had experienced trauma?

The drawing was definitely a clue/foreshadowing about the Man in Black. But the knife was more representative of Locke's own life choices. As we know, in the future, Locke becomes rather synonymous with knives.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 when the child Locke chose the knife, my disappointment was palpable. To me, it was akin to him not accepting his h.s. counselor's advice of what he's naturally cut out for. In life. When I began rewatching, Locke was who I started digging into first. And for the longest. He both puzzled and irritated me. 😁

@@Eowyn187 He seemed closest to being the next Jacob, once that became known was Jacob's plan for his candidates. I wished someone would have asked Jacob, "Why not give it to Locke? He seemed up for it." An answer was that he was afraid of loss. Another was that he was easily manipulated by Ben and Smokey. Then he quickly became a fanatic: as soon as he got visions he sent Boone to his death, and when Walt appeared he became a murderer of Naomi, something he couldn't do back in the States at the cannabis farm.

Ben might well have been favoured in the beginning as a boy. A person could be a candidate but then crossed off the list for other reasons later. Linus was a name identified on the lighthouse dial, so either Ben or his father was a candidate at some point. I think Ben most definitely was in the running for a while. Every leader of The Others would have to be a candidate. But Ben turned bad along the way. Very bad.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 he turned bad when Others had to save him and says to Jack: "h e might nebver been the same"

Yes, the compass has no origin. It's a paradoxical part of this loop and represents the way time has been manipulated by "The Island" to form this self-perpetuating circle of causality.

A _Doctor Who_ episode discussed something timey-wimey like that, saying suppose you heard Beethoven's music and went back in time but discovered he wasn't there and had never been born (which the Doctor says can happen). Where then did the music originate? The compass does suggest that there are holes in the time loop where decisions made like building the compass and bringing it to the island were outside the loop and got recorded over like magnetic tape. However, they don't really go into more examples, so "blah-blah-blah" as Anthony Cooper said.

You ever watched Lost? 😂

Yes, that is absolutely possible, but it depends on how involved Jacob was with day-to-day decisions at this point. We can reasonably deduce which orders he gave and which he didn't during the events of 2004, but before that?... The reason why I suspect Jacob did not direct Richard to take Locke at his word, or treat him as if he definitely was important, was because Richard later tells Jack in 1977 that Locke didn't seem that special to him. He was unconvinced, which means Jacob could only have offered Richard a coy or vague response. Jacob often let fate and the Island work things out in its own time. Another factor is that we don't know when Jacob fully understood Locke's importance, or relevance. While Jacob has omniscience, it isn't all-knowing knowledge. He only knows what he needs to know, when he needs to know it. I'm actually making a video about the candidates and how/why Jacob chose who he chose, and how that links up with the time loop, and the rules.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Thats going to be a great video. Always wondered how the lighthouse worked in the selection process. There are billions of people on the planet..how do you choose? I guess you don't and the Island or fate directs it.

Desmond essentially detonated the pocket of energy when he turned the key. I recommend you watch Chapter 14 on "The Dharma Initiative" on this channel, as it explains everything to do with The Swan and the electromagnetic energy beneath it.

I think the wheel only ever got turned in emergencies and anyone who ever turned it was banished, so for Richard to leave The Island and come back he would have done it the old fashioned way and travelled to the mainland by boat.

Not that knife, I think. I think he chose it because even if it wasn't his knife, he was into knives later in life and may have picked up on that with his prescient talent.

This is an ongoing conversation that I have had with different people. I know it can be a little contentious because of the ambiguous statements made surrounding the spring and "darkness" and "infections". The spring waters are running murky by the time we see them in 'LA X' (because Jacob had died, but more on this in a bit). Remember, Lennon is surprised by the state of the spring and says: "The water isn't clear - what happened?" Because this is not how the water usually looks. It has, up until this point in time, always run clear. When Sayid goes in there, the spring is not operating under normal circumstances. The "risks" that Dogen and Lennon mention are simply: "Your friend could be healed or he might drown and be killed." The risk is death. It's also worth noting that Lennon is just as surprised as everyone else when Sayid returns from death after drowning. Back when Ben was healed in 1977, the waters were no doubt running clear. Because the water is being channelled in from The Source, as demonstrated in previous videos. Richard's words are often misinterpreted in the scene preceding that, in my opinion. I explore this in Chapter Twenty-Nine on "Good vs Evil" in greater detail, but will reiterate here for the purposes of our discussion... Ben was healed in the spring successfully as a boy. The reason why Richard proclaims that Benjamin Linus will always be one of them after this event is because only Jacob’s chosen people are allowed to use the spring. It is a sacred place to The Others. This event is, in effect, Benjamin Linus being *baptized* and officially becoming an "Other". Therefore, this signals the end of his innocence. Because, to be one of Jacob's people comes with heavy burdens and requires great sacrifice. This idea that the water made Ben evil or corrupted him and made him the way he is, as some often mistakenly claim, makes no sense to me. Because, only a decade later, we see Ben sparing Danielle Rousseau's life then fighting for baby Alex's right to live. If he was corrupted and made bad (the way people believe Sayid was made bad) by the waters then the darkness clearly took a very looooong time to consume him. He is clearly not a "bad guy" at this point in time. In season six, Jacob’s death has broken the circuit and limited the flow of light from the source. The Island is, for lack of a better word, sick. Without a protector in place, its immune system is vulnerable to a metaphorical infection by the smoke monster. It is his chance to destroy the light. Which means the waters are no longer guaranteed to cure those who go in them.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Ben killing his father in the Purge was pretty evil. Religions say killing a parent (or relative) is a worse sin than killing a friend, stranger, or enemy. Locke couldn't do it directly, and I think Jacob acted similarly, wanting his successor to do the job on his evil twin.

Do you see Locke as becoming evil after Cooper's death? To me, Locke never becomes evil. He dies a tragic figure. He does several morally dubious things along the way, such as murder Naomi, but he isn't a bad guy in the same way that someone like Martin Keamy is. What is evil anyway? That's a question the show actively asks us to think about. And it is a question I will explore at some point.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Somehow evil and changed. He and Sawyer changes a bit since Cooper was a big deal for them. Remember how Locke was obsessed with him. Also when he takes people to Ben's camp, he seems ruthless, people don't dare to do anything unless he allows it. He puts a grenade in Miles's mouth :)

I disagree with your reading of the character. I would argue that Locke's behaviour in season four is more like that of a true believer. You could argue that he is acting like a religious zealot. Because he believes so deeply in The Island that he is willing to go to any lengths to protect it. This leads to his undoing in season five. But what he does in season four and five isn't evil. Perhaps extreme in some cases. In the same way Jack puts a gun to Locke's head and pulls the trigger, ready to execute Locke in front of everyone in their group. If the bullet had been in the chamber and Locke had been killed, would that be considered evil on Jack's part? Anyway, if Locke were truly "evil" he would have executed those who trespassed into the barracks, like Kate and Sayid. But he still viewed them as friendlies hence why he treated them with a degree of dignity and let them go in peace. He wasn't a villain. He was sometimes misguided, but ultimately a good man.

Never mind I actually got some explanations on the Egyptian structure watching the very first video you made on the Heart Of The Island.

The Source is alive. And it selectively heals, just as it selectively shifts people through time, or selectively communes with people and gives them instructions. Ben needed to get cancer in order to set in motion a chain of events that led him to Jack and Locke, etc. It's not that the Island gave him cancer, it just didn't prevent it, or heal it. We have to assume that they tried to heal Ben in the temple spring at some point and it did not work. This would have made The Others aware that Ben's time was coming to an end and that the Island no longer wanted him as leader. We know that the Island doesn't heal anyone with paralysis because Richard claims that could only happen to someone very special. So, someone else who was paralysed and came to the Island might not have experienced what Locke experienced. The Island needed Locke to be able to walk in order to accomplish certain objectives and fulfil certain predestined events.

@@TJMalana I will be releasing a video in a few weeks time that goes into detail about the Egyptian period on the Island. Watch this space!

Well was Rose special? She got cured too. Anyway, a science video said people (and animals) get cancer all the time. It's our and their immune system that recognizes it and sends the kill order to those cells. Sometimes that doesn't work.

Me neither. The knife WAS his.

@@DiamondBlade11 Did the knife actually belong to Locke? Locke only give the compass

We know The Others have their own rules and laws. Juliet was put on trial for killing Danny; they had a "Sheriff"; Ben makes mention of "rules" being broken; there are many references to a code of conduct/ethics amongst The Others. Everything Locke was supposed to choose was symbolic of something. The sand vial was representing The Island. The compass represented the time loop. And since Locke was allegedly destined to become the leader of The Others (someone to bring order and direction to the group), the best item to represent that idea would be a Book of Laws.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 I am amazed by your skill in tying things together.

@@ggeerrppeess he's so good at it because he's Lindelof 😉

The film is called Kundun. Directed by Martin Scorsese. It’s a biopic about the life and times of the 14th Dalai Lama.

On the contrary, Locke's character arc had very specific thematic intention behind it. His story is a cautionary tale about blind faith. He was willing to do anything and everything, often without understanding the tasks or outcomes, in order to reaffirm his faith in both The Island and himself. As a result of that blind faith, he is manipulated by archvillains (both Ben and the Man in Black) and taken down a dark road which ends in his death. I say all this as someone who champions John Locke as my favourite character on the show, and maybe of all time. The way his character journey comes to an abrupt end is really horrible and tragic and unfair, but it serves the wider story and grand themes. Locke's death is the turning point in the plot of the show, even before we know Locke has died. His character is a lightning rod for everything the writers are trying to convey about the nature of destiny and faith. We have to divorce ourselves from what we want for the characters versus what the story needs from them. There's an expression in writing: "Give the audience what they need, not what they want." And I agree with that.

Richard brought items that he knew were representative of an island leader: the sand (which represented The Island) and the book of laws (which represented leading The Others), and the compass (which was specific to Locke as a preordained leader). The knife was a symbol of Locke choosing a different path (his own path) at that point in his life. He wasn't ready for the island. Richard was frustrated by that. It didn't matter that Locke would go on to use knives in the future. That was not the point of the test. The point was very specific: is this little boy special and is he predestined to be an island leader? Richard found the answer to be "no" to both.

Nothing wrong with being argumentative. Lost does encourage robust debate. However, in this case, I implore you to watch this scene again without my commentary. The music and performance of Nestor Carbonell do the heavy lifting. First of all, say your read on this scene is correct and the only item Richard was interested in Young Locke picking was the compass... why does he say which of these *items* belong to you already (as in plural)? And why does Richard smile when the boy selects the vial of sand? In fact, if the compass is the only item of importance then why does he not stop the test right then? We see him obviously perturbed and annoyed when the knife is chosen last. Also, you have to note the camera movement. As Richard waits for Young John to make his final selection, John looks to the Book of Laws. Richard semi smiles hopefully. The camera lingers on a close up of the book. But then John looks to the knife and the music cue changes. Suggesting this is not what Richard was expecting. To me, this scene is fairly overt in its meaning on the surface, but the language of the camera, music and performance also support my reading of the text. Which happens to be a widely accepted reading of this scene. There might even have been confirmation about the items by the show runners in a podcast but I’d have to check on that. I encourage you to watch this scene again on its own terms with all this in mind then check out the page on Lostpedia about it.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 I agree with John 100%. The compass is the only correct item.

​@@rabbitjacket9927 ​ Then why did Richard use plural: "which of these *things* belong to you"? And why didn't he stop the test immediately after Young John selected the sand vial first? The kid was wrong immediately if your interpretation of the scene is correct, so why doesn't Richard storm out then instead of a whole three items later? The boy failed instantly so the test is over. On the contrary, Richard actually *smiles* as Young John selects the sand vial then again when the boy considers choosing the Book of Laws. It is only when Young John chooses the knife instead of the book that we see a change in Richard's body language and facial expression. Which is the scene's way of telling us that Locke finally chose the wrong item. The way this whole sequence is acted, shot, edited and scored tells us exactly which items are correct and which are not. And I am really surprised that this is even considered a contentious reading of the scene.

@@LOSTEXPLAINED108 Why use the events of the test to deduce the answer when the answer is clear? If I were to lay out a rock, a ball, a hat, a cup and an apple, then ask 'which of these things are food' and then smile when you picked up the rock and the hat; it doesn't change the fact that the answer is just the apple. Also if the answer is anything related to the island, why is the knife wrong? That is a lot less of a stretch than the Book of Laws. I really like your content and have watched most of your videos (only found the channel last night so I need time to watch all of them!). So far this is the only one that strays from the evidence. I love discussing Lost, so I appreciate the reply. Do you have a theory on the origins of the lighthouse how it works?

@@rabbitjacket9927 If we go by what you are saying (and assume that is what was intended) and watch the scene back... the very first object that Locke chooses is the wrong one. Which means he has already failed the test. But Richard doesn't get disappointed and storm out until *after* Locke chooses the knife over the Book of Laws. That's three items into the test. Richard only appears puzzled and frustrated after the knife is picked up, and not before. This, to me, is very clear. But, if I can't convince you then I can't convince you... Yes, I have discussed the lighthouse. Chapter 21 on The Candidates gets into its function in more detail. If you're working your way through these videos chronologically then you might already have seen it by now.