*laughing*

That would be funny. But apparently, a red herring is just a kipper (I learned something new today):

images.google.com/images

They don't look anything like what he cooked up last night.

i think he was eating a hawaiian red snapper

But does it have anything to do with the old lady who lived in a shoe? Crust of the bisquit?

I guess we know how half the statue got blown apart.
It will be interesting to see where and where in time everyone left lands.

I would think there is a lot that can be said about Jacob is kind of god like in some way.
Esau had access to Jacob and they eluded to other conversations they have had together.

Richard does not seem to approach Jacob
Ben has never met Jacob

So if it only ends once does this mean it only ends for Jacob once?
Season 6 will tell us!!

>...the dialog between Jacob and the other guy...<

If LOST has a Rosetta Stone, then the conversation between Jacob and his dark counterpart will have to eventually prove to be the bridge language between the numinous and the mundane. My thoughts have been very similar to Enrika's; I think Enrika is either on target or very close to the mark with her well-phrased observations. My schedule has been hellish busy for days such that I have not had enough time to weigh in with a cogent comment, but I have been pondering the season finale as time and energy allow. This conversation between the light and dark beings (dressed one in white and one in black just as Cuse and Llindelof were dressed one in white and one in black in the hour of commentary preceding the finale) is key, I feel sure. There is a very dream-like quality to that interlude in particular, as with much else in the finale, but especially so with the conversation between the light and dark pair on the shore. Look at everything in the episode as dream language, the symbology of the subconscious or race mind or whatever one wants to call it, and the dialogue reads in a more epic manner. Where are they, what is between them, what is on the horizon, and so on- all very primordial and powerful dream symbols. As of course is Jacob weaving on the loom, which ties in with Grandmother Spider and the patterns she weaves with her web, the preserving power of suspended animation (a condition between life and death where the organism seems not to age, or to be ageless) with mummification confers upon those whom she encases in her silk strands, and so on -fitting hand-in-glove as well with the Medusa spider of the LOST island.

A quick note on the shaft and bomb core: again, look at everything which happened as dream symbols and it rads a bit differently than a prosaic story. Power-hungry ambitious men seeking fame and glory (Radzinsky epitomizes the ruthless technological will to power) drilling into the Earth to take her secrets and control them for their own, the overpowering force of attraction drawing dense massive objects downward into the shaft, into the yin dark, toward itself when the balance is disturbed, the blast of mind-searing white yang energy when the cylinder of the core is stroked to a high enough state of excitement with a rock (by the beautiful Juliette) that it erupts and releases the Apollonian fire. [We keep seeing Apollo _bars_ in LOST, right? Chew on that visual pun]. I thought "WTF?" when the drill was shown centered in this vast empty shaft, like a well, since in real-world drilling the shaft is exactly as wide as the drill bit and no wider by reason of both the physics of drilling and the economics of such an operation: there is no huge gaping hole around the drill and pipe which follow it in, just a bunch of fluid pumping at the interface and solid earth around that. By contrast, LOST's drilling operation was out of all proportion to reality, but then the reason for this became apparent when not only all sorts 'o metal stuff and the bomb core but the sacrificial Juliette herself went plunging down inside there. OK, fine, so we overlook the totally unrealistic drilling operation for the sake of the story and wonder "did the core explode or not?" My guess is "yes." Fits with the cover of the LIFE magazine and a bunch of other bread crumbs trailing through LOST's jungle, but it also feels like a good fit for that which must be coming in the final season.

This must have very much to do with awakening from the dream they think they are living. Awakening into a state of understanding and consciousness where they have an enlightened view of the dream they have confused for reality. Uniting or at least finding a healthy natural balance between the yin and yang aspects, the dark and light portions of the whole, is intrinsic to this process, which is akin to a loop or the endless turning of a wheel until something miraculous happens and that third eye finally opens.

Apart from the Promethean nature of LOST as a whole the literary influences which --in my experience-- most have a shared flavor with this specific LOST season finale are Moby Dick, Dark Crystal, Elfquest, and...and... ...hmmm, there is another one which I sense is right there but seems to vanish when I look directly at it. Maybe it will come into clearer view later when I do not try to see it.

Hey, speaking of sleepwalking, I am about to topple off my chair, asleep, myself; this brief note (brief, relative to the bazillion details I've been intending to comment on, though I see others have at this point already said much of it), this brief note will have to do for the moment. When my work schedule calms down in a few days I hope to be able to watch the "special" (which was interesting) feature and the remarkable finale again more closely. LOST is jumping to a higher level with this subtle yet significant contextual shift, I think, and while still operating as per usual on the mundane drama plane of he-said-she-said hormones & ego is also now managing to successfully evoke a sense of the numinous and (largely via the primal symbology of dream language) construct an epic mythos. LOST is very well done indeed.

By the way (I just cannot resist! Sorry, bundt), to attempt to quote the late great Roger Zelazny from Creatures of Light and Darkness [THATS it! This is the literary influence which was eluding me but seems to veritably hover over LOST's season finale: Creatures of Light and Darkness] with reference to Jacob we must wonder "Who is he, really, I wonder? Such heroes do not step forth fully formed from the void." Jacob has such pleasant blue eyes ...and who else in LOST has pleasant blue eyes? Perhaps in the final season we will see what happens when 'lil Aaron grows up, after all "...such heroes do not step forth fully formed from the void."