Your Voice: The Healing Powers of the Island
Submitted by Jacob Stolworthy
We all know the island has healing abilities — Locke’s paralysis was cured by arriving on the island, Rose’s cancer was cured, Jack’s recovery was intriguingly quick (I personally know it takes a LOT more time than just a couple of days to be walking around after something like that.)
Where do these healing powers come from? My answer, after much theorizing, is Jacob. Here’s a few reasons why I think Jacob is behind the healing abilities of the island:
– Locke is establishing himself as ‘The Chosen One.’ The island - using Alpert and/or Abaddon - has been trying to lure Locke in from an extremely young age. When Locke finally arrived on the island after the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, Jacob took his injury into his own hands, and immediately healed him.
– In "One of Us," Ben says of Juliet’s sister’s cancer that "Jacob said he would take care of it himself." Taking care obviously means healing - (for Ben previously promised to cure Rachel’s cancer if Juliet remained on the island to figure out fertility problems). Ben knows that Jacob has the power to take the cancer into his own hands - healing her.
– In "The Man Behind the Curtain," Locke hears Jacob say "Help Me." Jacob is obviously either scared or angry with Ben, and this is why he did not heal his spinal tumour; he wanted Ben to die. You could go a stretch further and say that Jacob is causing the fertility problems on the island, for he knew that Ben would get so caught up with trying to solve this that his people would turn against him. (We heard this from the mouth of Richard Alpert - who I personally believe IS Jacob. Think about it — he’s met Rachel Carlson - Juliet’s sister - already, AND Locke. And for all we know, he’s already met Rose.)
– As for Rose’s cancer being cured, maybe the island would benefit in some way if Rose remained there. Her cancer being cured would confirm her decision to stay there with Bernard.
What do you guys think? Does Jacob have the power to heal?
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If the island has the power to keep Michael alive, why wouldn’t it also have the power to heal? You will have a hard time distinguishing Jacob and the island at this early stage, but I would imagine that the power comes from the island and not Jacob. Unless of course Jacob is just a manifestation of all the souls who have lost their lives on the island. Then perhaps they have figured out how to channel the islands power. The donkey wheel Ben cranked had power to transport the island, that wasn’t Jacob’s doing. Jacob could have just snapped his finger if he had that much power. I am more inclined to say Jacob or the beings that form Jacob are able to harness the power of the island, but have no innate powers other than the paranormal.
I find the whole island healing people, but killing off the pregnant women thing odd. If the women die after childbirth, Jacob would have an army of young children to shape and mold in his image. The Others stole the kids out of the 815 camp. There seems to be a cult like atmosphere similar to the strange goings-on with that Utah mormon sect that has been in the news. If you can create fear and brainwash all the impressionable kids…
Comment by blutoschmooto — June 4, 2008 @ 7:19 am
That is interesting, because the healing does seem somewhat selective.
Comment by AnotherOther — June 4, 2008 @ 8:40 am
The above comment about ’selectiveness’ (is that even a word? :)) Brings ol’ Smokey to mind. Remember when Eko first encountered it and it did some sort of scan of his memories or previous actions?
Comment by NotAllWhoWander — June 4, 2008 @ 9:36 am
For a few weeks now (since around the time of Jack’s appendix problems) I’ve been considering that it might be wise to lump the following things into one category:
- The island’s healing powers (Locke’s spine, Richard’s age, Rose, etc.)
- The island’s unhealing powers (Ben’s tumor, Jack’s appendix)
- The island’s keep-alive powers (Michael, Widmore and Ben off-island, Jack’s inability to jump off the bridge)
- The island’s killing powers (Mr. Eko, Nikki and Paolo)
- Desmond’s inability to change the future (Mrs. Hawking’s explanation in London, Daniel’s explanation at Oxford, Charlie dying constantly)
- Locke’s sense of destiny (you’re not supposed to leave)
- The island’s fertility problem
All of these concepts might be manifestations of a single phenomenon: course correction. All of them involve the island’s manipulation of events and characters, though you could suppose that the island is not a conscious entity trying to change things at all, but rather an inanimate one that simply interferes in the natural course of events. In doing so, it runs into Mrs. Hawking’s course correction phenomenon, which in turn manipulates events, killing characters, preventing births, and so on.
Comment by Ed Holden — June 4, 2008 @ 1:04 pm
Personally I totally agree with Jacob causing the problems with fertility but lets extend upon that. Because of Ben and Jacob’s close association its entirely possible that Ben’s psychic connection to the island is actually backchanneling his negative feelings about his mother into Jacob which is causing Jacob to inadvertently kill the babies. Itll be interesting to see what happens with the infertility now that Ben is gone.
Comment by Jalocke — June 4, 2008 @ 7:25 pm
It’s just occurred to me - Jack’s end-of-season ‘illness’ was really of no significance whatsoever - certainly not worth devoting a whole episode to. It possibly highlighted a small point that he may be out of favour with the island, but really, did the writers need to indulge themselves this way? Couldn’t he just have had a stinking ‘Dharma Rum’-induced hangover headache (celebrating their imminent departure) or something more plausible than that?
Comment by El_JimBob — June 4, 2008 @ 11:58 pm
We must not forget the island healing Jin’s balls. Without the island, Sun’s baby would never be…unless the baby is a blasian (yes I’m looking at you dead Micheal). Then in that case Jin is not healed. Well hell, if Jin is really dead, none of this even matters. Poor Jin.
Comment by cougarpiss — June 6, 2008 @ 6:32 pm