So I guess I've been posting in this thread too much as I had a weird Lost dream last night. Everyone was running around fast motion Benny Hill style and Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips were there singing:
If you could blow up the world with the flick of a switch
Would you do it?
If you knew all the answers and could give it to the masses
Would you do it?
No no no no no no are you crazy?
It's a very dangerous thing to do exactly what you want
Because you cannot know yourself or what you'd really do
With all your power
With all your power
With all your power
Anyone seen the film Forbidden Planet? It's basically a scifi version of Shakespeare's Tempest. A powerful magician exiled on an island is helped by a trapped spirit. Interlopers crash onto the island. The magican manipulates these people attempting to protect his family from leaving him and the island. Eventually the magic is lost and everyone leaves the island.
There is also a monster loose on the island. In the tempest it's Caliban, in Lost it's Smokey, in Forbidden Planet it's a monster created from the subconcious id. Ben talked about the island as a "magic box" that makes your desires come true. What if the island functioned like the Krell machine as well, making your hopes
and fears reality? Ben has hangups about his mother dying in childbirth - women now mysteriously die in childbirth, Jack has issues being a leader - he's now put into a postion where he must lead, Locke fears being made a fool and making bad decisons - on the island again he makes bad decisions and feels like Jack, Ben, etc. play him for a fool.
EDIT: season 3 The Unexplored Edition