Never thought that personally, ever since Carlton/Cuse confirmed that it was Smokey that took the form of the spiders that paralyzed and led to the deaths of everyone favorite season 3 additions, Nikki and Paolo.
I guess it's a moot point going forward considering Iliana's assertion that Flocke is the only human form MIB can take from now on, but the whole sequence w/ Isabella on the ship still seemed odd if it was MIB trying to convince Richard that Jacob took her, and not Smokey. EDIT: Basically, it would have been easier for MIB to just tell Richard "ya, that smoke monster is Jacob, you saw him take Isabella, now go kill him before he has a chance to say anything so you can get her back", rather than explaining how he's the smoke monster, and although it looked to be pretty clear that he took Isabella, it was really Jacob, blah blah blah.
Remember Ben meeting his mom on the island? She died out side of portland 12 years before that. The smoke surrounded Ben, then went away, then Alex showed up. He definitely didn't take over Locke's body, seeing as how they had to bury it a few episodes ago when it started to stink. It seemed that once he locked into that specific form, for whatever reason that we don't know yet, he's stuck looking like that when he wants to be man-like.
When would Smokey have had a chance to scan him before that? Wasn't Ben inside the sonic fence w/ all the other Dharma folks the entire time (his mother's apparition actually stops him from crossing the sonic fence into the forest)?
Maybe he scanned Roger. Maybe Ben had run into the jungle before. We don't know. My point was that was a previous example of Smokey appearing as someone dead whose body is definitely not on the island.
I think we can pretty much agree that Smokey can take any form he wants if he can read it from someone's mind, until now where he is Locked (pun) in Locke's body. He's taken the form of Walt without him dying (at least I think that was him), the form of Isabella, and the form of other characters all over the place. Speaking of Walt, did they ever explain his "gifts" and why he was "special"? Quite a loose end I thought.
I guess I just don't subscribe to the school of thought that attributes all/most appearances of the dead to MIB. This includes Walt (I know he's not dead, but Kratos just reminded me of him), Ben's mother, Isabella, and Jack seeing Christian off-island in the lobby of his office. Last point and I'll stop beating (Kate's) dead horse: Ben sees the apparition of his mother just outside his window in the barracks, which is inside the sonic fence.
We never found out who the little blond kid was in the forest, right? Did Jacob bring everyone to the Island or did some people come by accident? Rousseau's team, the guy who parachuted in and Ben Linus used his story, etc.
That is a good point. Why did Henry Gale's balloon crash there (he had the old Minnesota DL too, btw)? How about the drug plane? How about Rousseau's team? I really wish some of these questions would be answered but they probably will not. I remember that these were the type questions that drew me into the series during Seasons 1-3 but they've never been answered.
Ben's mother is a confirmed apparition, not a manifestation of Smokey. Fourth Question in the Questions section confirms/denies whether certain people are Smokey, so we can table this issue once and for all. http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Official_Lost_Podcast/March_21,_2008
That would make me very happy actually. To actually tie something back in like that would be great. EDIT: So I've watched a little of Flash Forward... Sonya Walger looks much hotter in that show.
"Too explain why birds are attracted to Walt would be, I think, very midichlorian" So you're not going to ever find out just what the fuck is up with Walt's weirdness. Nor will we probably find out why Hurley can talk to ghosts or Miles can hear dead bodies. I think it's sort of unfair to call them out on not explaining the little blond kid, I mean, it's been like 4 episodes. Chill. I have to assume we're going to get some sort of back story on Smokey, and when we do, the bandit, errr, the kid will be explained.
Rousseau's name was on the wall in the cave as well as Brennan so I'm guessing he brought the french team there. I looked for Gale on this list but doesn't appear to be there. <a class="postlink" href="http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Candidates" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Candidates</a> I'm assuming that anyone on that list was brought there by Jacob but I could be wrong of course.
I don't know if anyone else caught this so I thought I would point it out. There has been discussion as to exactly which Kwon was on the list of Candidates, but at the beginning of last nights episode Sun said that Illana had confirmed her as one of the candidates. EDIT: Just thought of something I wanted to add. One of the things I am most curious about and that I would like to see explained is how "the others" came to be. It seems that at the time that Richard arrived it was just Jacob and MiB on the island. However, at some point this group of Jacob followers was formed and a leader of this group was chosen, along with the connection to the temple and all of that. Perhaps the others are a group of people that were brought to the island by Jacob and finally succeeded in choosing good without his influence (but with Richards influence instead?) and proving MiB wrong. And one last thought that I want to bring up to provoke some discussion; Did the island being destroyed in the flash sideways world release smokey/evil upon the greater world? Is that effecting everything we have seen of the sideways losties?
I thought she just said "Kwon". It still doesn't really make sense, knowing something about Korean culture and all, that her last name is Kwon. For the most part, when people are married in Korea, (and a some other countries over there), the woman does not change her surname from her father's, thus I would expect Sun's name to be Baek Sun-Hwa. Ji-Yeon, however, I would expect to be names Kwon Ji-Yeon.
I think there is a clear difference between "candidates" and just people brought to the island to see if people are good or evil. The black rock seemed to just show up out of nowhere. It didn't seem like there were any candidates, and it didn't seem like Jacob knew anything about Richard or who he was. That, of course, is the point. MiB and Jacob's argument is about mankind being inherently good or evil. This island is the perfect place to conduct the experiment, because people's pasts do not matter. I think there is some way that Jacob/the island can manipulate certain ships/planes to crash onto the island (something that Mrs. Hawking has figured out judging by the Ajira flight?), but he does not pre-screen every person individually, just sort of waits for a random collection to show up and see what happens. Candidates, however, are people Jacob has somehow seeked out, and believes they have the qualities to take over his job as defender of the inherent good of mankind. Obviously none have worked out so far. Like someone else above, I think that the others are those that were brought to to the island and were good regardless of Jacob's help. I think the bigger question is how the fuck Dharma and Whitmore factor into the Jacob vs. MIB argument.
Vozzek came up with the other time Smokey's split that I'd forgotten. The three drug dealers Eko killed, who were not on the island. Kate's life saving horse wasn't either.
They're on record that the horse was "undead", along with Yemi and Christian. Since we know that Yemi was Smokey, and we suspect that Christian was/is/may be Smokey, it's logical to think that the horse may also be Smokey.
There's one reason I don't think Christian is Smokey... Smokey/MIB wants to get off the island, right? Christian WAS off the island, in season 4 (I think?) when he was haunting Jack after they got off the island the first time. Now, there's always the possibility that this particular incarnation of Christian could have been some kind of drug or alcohol induced hallucination on Jack's part, but I don't think so.