Did Jacob have a hand in the death of Dogen's son similar to how he had a hand in Nadia's death? Was this a push that Dogen needed to fulfill his destiny?

I don't know. It's sort of implied though, isn't it?? It's a good question to ponder as we move on because it may indicate a pattern of Jacob's behaviour.

Did Jacob have a hand in the death of Dogen's son similar to how he had a hand in Nadia's death? Was this a push that Dogen needed to fulfill his destiny?

According to Dogan, yes.

Dogen:
I had too much to drink [...] The accident, it was very bad. I survived, but my son...

Then, in the hospital, a man came to me. A man I had never met. He told me that I could save my son's life- but I would have to come here to this island where I would have a new job, and I could never see my boy again.


Sayid:
Who was this man?


Dogen:
His name... was Jacob.

I don't know. It's sort of implied though, isn't it?? It's a good question to ponder as we move on because it may indicate a pattern of Jacob's behaviour.

Yeah and the sort of pattern that one wouldn't ascribe to "good" incarnate...

-ik

Did Jacob have a hand in the death of Dogen's son similar to how he had a hand in Nadia's death? Was this a push that Dogen needed to fulfill his destiny?

Actually, not sure if this is mentioned further down the thread (Just opened it up) But Jacob actually had nothing to do with Nadia's death, he saved Sayid from an untimely one by asking him a question at the right time. True this made him turn around and he "MIGHT" have been able to save her, but in no way did Jacob cause her death.

Honestly in both these instances it is written to make us believe that Jacob did have a hand in it. But in reality, with the only evidence we have, he has saved two people. Sayid & Dogan's son. Maybe Jacob was looking for someone with his particular situation and he happened to be in the right place at the right time to get his son saved.

I know that in lost things are never the way they are shown, so this tells me that Jacob probably had nothing to do with either death.

But hey, I've been wrong before.

Actually, not sure if this is mentioned further down the thread (Just opened it up) But Jacob actually had nothing to do with Nadia's death, he saved Sayid from an untimely one by asking him a question at the right time. True this made him turn around and he "MIGHT" have been able to save her, but in no way did Jacob cause her death.

Honestly in both these instances it is written to make us believe that Jacob did have a hand in it. But in reality, with the only evidence we have, he has saved two people. Sayid & Dogan's son. Maybe Jacob was looking for someone with his particular situation and he happened to be in the right place at the right time to get his son saved.

I know that in lost things are never the way they are shown, so this tells me that Jacob probably had nothing to do with either death.

But hey, I've been wrong before.

Granted he was not directly responsible for her death, but I would think he was aware of it, he seems to have the ability to show up at opportune times through history (I'm starting to think it might be similar to the Observers in Fringe). He saved Sayid because he needed him as part of his plan, he did not save Nadia because he needed her to die in order to motivate Sayid to follow his plan.

Did Jacob have a hand in who drove the cars that killed Nadia and Dogen's son, I guess that is the question.

Perhaps "saving Dogen's son" wasn't referring to the current timeline but to the ALT. The only way for the ALT to happen (and thus, allow his son to live on) was for Dogen to come to the island and fulfil his role there.

Actually, not sure if this is mentioned further down the thread (Just opened it up) But Jacob actually had nothing to do with Nadia's death, he saved Sayid from an untimely one by asking him a question at the right time. True this made him turn around and he "MIGHT" have been able to save her, but in no way did Jacob cause her death.

Honestly in both these instances it is written to make us believe that Jacob did have a hand in it. But in reality, with the only evidence we have, he has saved two people. Sayid & Dogan's son. Maybe Jacob was looking for someone with his particular situation and he happened to be in the right place at the right time to get his son saved.

I know that in lost things are never the way they are shown, so this tells me that Jacob probably had nothing to do with either death.

But hey, I've been wrong before.

I think you're right about this BUT.....

Jacob used saving Dogan's son's life as a bargaining chip to get him to the Island.

The flipside of that bargaining chip, what makes it compelling is the possibility that Jacob would NOT have saved Dogan's son's life, had Dogan NOT agreed to come to the Island.

Jacob wasn't trying to save a life, he was trying to accomplish an agenda. Saving Dogan's kid just happened to be the means to an end that presented itself.

Jacob's motives aren't good or bad, their utilitarian, pragmatic. We've started to see that over the past couple weeks. This notion that he represents "good", in the absolute sense, is starting to come unravelled.

My suspicion is we'll start to see a similar picture of MiB, once they start to tell his story, and we'll learn he doesn't represent "evil" in the absolute sense.

The flipside of that bargaining chip, what makes it compelling is the possibility that Jacob would NOT have saved Dogan's son's life, had Dogan NOT agreed to come to the Island.

Jacob wasn't trying to save a life, he was trying to accomplish an agenda. Saving Dogan's kid just happened to be the means to an end that presented itself.

very well-put.

and maybe the means to the end didn't just "present" itself. There's the distinct possibility that Jacob guided Dogen down the path where something like this would present itself.

Perhaps "saving Dogen's son" wasn't referring to the current timeline but to the ALT. The only way for the ALT to happen (and thus, allow his son to live on) was for Dogen to come to the island and fulfil his role there.
^^ Really well conceived idea!

Dogan, by his own admission, says that he got drunk, really really really drunk, and had a car accident that should have cost him his son's life, and Jacob is the evil one for offering Dogan a choice to save his son? I don't follow the logic of this. We may think that it's unfair that Dogan couldn't have both his son and his old life in Japan at the same time, but Jacob isn't evil for not letting Dogan have that choice.

That Jacob saves Sayid but not Nadia from the speeding car doesn't make Jacob evil either. That Jacob knew a car was coming (like he knew Locke would fall from the building) doesn't mean he's evil for not stopping the event from happening. These events are the cause that trigger the effect Jacob is moving everyone towards--it only ends once.

MiB is the one that says people are all the same--they practice evil as part of their very nature (his "they come to the Island and it always ends the same" speech). By MiB's own admission then, human beings are the ones who are evil. The scale of that evil may not be equal--hello, Ben has a whole lot of dead bodies to answer for--but it's there within all of us, at least based on MiB's long standing observation of humanity.

Before we assign the idea of evil to Jacob based on Nadia's death, we need to remember that Jacob wasn't driving the car that hit Nadia; a person was, a person who didn't stop and even offer aid.

Free Will let that person drive off, and that Free Will set into motion events that played out much later (or earlier as the case may be) when Sayid shoots Little Ben. Little Ben hasn't grown up into Big Ben yet, and Sayid thinks he can change the whatever happened, happened concept by killing a kid, a kid who was actually nice to Sayid. Richard, who works for Jacob, brings Little Ben to the Temple, and we can guess that the Spring did it's job and healed Ben. So Jacob is evil because Sayid chose to shoot Ben as a way to undo what would be done? Sayid tortures Sawyer to find out where Shannon's inhaler is, and it turns ot that Sawyer didn't have it. It was lying in the jungle near the caves. Even if Jacob caused the inhaler to land there, Sayid still had the choice to torture Sawyer or not. And what about Big Ben? He sees no evil in having Sayid work as a hitman later on (or, again, earlier). Ben goes and strangles Locke. He goes after Penny with a gun. Kate is caught stealing and Jacob pays the price for the lunch box. Is Jacob evil for letting Kate blow up Wayne because Kate didn't choice to stop doing bad things? Christian's poor parenting skills create a control-freak son who thinks he can never measure up to his father's expectations. Is Jacob evil for not getting rid of Papa Shepherd via a hit and run Nadia-esque accident so that Jack could have become a differnt person who wouldn't have felt compelled to fix things?

How is Jacob evil for not stopping these things that are brought about by the evil within each of these characters?

Seems that MiB was not far from the truth when commenting about the basic human condition.

Free Will let that person drive off, and that Free Will set into motion events that played out much later (or earlier as the case may be) when Sayid shoots Little Ben. Little Ben hasn't grown up into Big Ben yet, and Sayid thinks he can change the whatever happened, happened concept by killing a kid, a kid who was actually nice to Sayid. Richard, who works for Jacob, brings Little Ben to the Temple, and we can guess that the Spring did it's job and healed Ben. So Jacob is evil because Sayid chose to shoot Ben as a way to undo what would be done? Sayid tortures Sawyer to find out where Shannon's inhaler is, and it turns ot that Sawyer didn't have it. It was lying in the jungle near the caves. Even if Jacob caused the inhaler to land there, Sayid still had the choice to torture Sawyer or not. And what about Big Ben? He sees no evil in having Sayid work as a hitman later on (or, again, earlier). Ben goes and strangles Locke. He goes after Penny with a gun. Kate is caught stealing and Jacob pays the price for the lunch box. Is Jacob evil for letting Kate blow up Wayne because Kate didn't choice to stop doing bad things? Christian's poor parenting skills create a control-freak son who thinks he can never measure up to his father's expectations. Is Jacob evil for not getting rid of Papa Shepherd via a hit and run Nadia-esque accident so that Jack could have become a differnt person who wouldn't have felt compelled to fix things?
How is Jacob evil for not stopping these things that are brought about by the evil within each of these characters?

K, you're all over the place here and I'm honestly not sure I see where you're coming from as far as all of those incidents are concerned in the context of this particular thread- since the issue at hand is Dogan's son's death, while Nadia's death is really more of a footnote- but I agree with what you're saying in Jacob's defense... he did no harm directly. There is no evidence that he caused/ set in motion any of the events that did, and he cannot reasonably be considered responsible for harm done simply by not intervening.

There is still, however, a distinct possibility that Jacob DID cause these events or that he manipulated them and those affected... not to help them, but to serve his own agenda. Whatever that is. The fact is that we still don't know how deeply involved Jacob really was or what his true intentions were, and both scenarios are still equally possible. To say that Jacob did absolutely no intentional harm or that he was without a doubt trying to help them based on what we do know constitutes blind faith, which is fine by some people. By me, not so much... and I know I'm no more alone in that than those of with the opposite rationale.

As for MIB's assertion that nothing and no one ever truly changes as opposed to Jacob's "It only ends once" theory, the characters themselves seem are at a crossroads with that very same debate of faith versus fate and good versus evil, as well as who to believe in- Jacob, or Flocke? These are questions that mimic humanity's greatest mysteries. Questions that have divided them throughout history, caused wars, and STILL remain unanswered. Maybe MIB is right about humanity futile existence... or maybe Jacob is right, maybe there's still a chance they'll turn things around. We, in the real-world, have been asking ourselves these same questions since the dawn of *thought*.

Now wouldn't it be a kick if that was the point all along?

K, you're all over the place here and I'm honestly not sure I see where you're coming from as far as all of those incidents are concerned in the context of this particular thread- since the issue at hand is Dogan's son's death, while Nadia's death is really more of a footnote-


Sorry, it was very late at night and my brain was foggy.

Someone posted earlier that Jacob's actions aren't "the sort of pattern that one wouldn't ascribe to "good" incarnate..." so I was all over the place because Jacob's lack of intervention was called into question as if that pattern of behavior was evil, that by NOT letting people make choices about what to do and not do was somehow not what "good" incarnate would allow. Robots function without being able to freely make choices because they are programmed to act certain ways. Jacob's beach speech implied that human beings learn (progress) to use their ability to freely choose to do the "good" thing but how can they learn to do this if they never have any events take place that require a choice? Chicken or egg?

As viewers we don't have any idea if Jacob did or did not manipulate events that caused Nadia's hit and run accident or events leading up to Dogan's accident. What we do know is that characters who are not Jacob acted in certain ways and that certain consequences then happened. If Jacob caused certain events to present themselves, the people still did what they did--that was Jacob's whole speech to Ben before Ben plunged the knife into Jacob. Even if Jacob had ignored Ben, how did doing that make Ben not accountable for his own actions? Characters can't blame their actions on Jacob anymore than they can blame MiB. That was really all that I was getting at. Sorry for the confusion.

Dogan, by his own admission, says that he got drunk, really really really drunk, and had a car accident that should have cost him his son's life, and Jacob is the evil one for offering Dogan a choice to save his son? I don't follow the logic of this. I think the idea is that Jacob had the power save Dogan's son, but refused to use it unless Dogan sold himself into Jacob's servitude. That's not exactly the epitome of goodness...

So does that mean Jacob wanted Sayid to go on Ben's killing spree of people that he did in between Jacob touching him and going back to the Island?

If Dogen is just another "candidate" (chosen to protect the temple and those who live within) then are we to assume that Jacob also "interfered" in his life as well? Possibly causing the death of his son, only to use it to extort Dogen? (Afterall, in the other timeline...which I personally believe is what would have happened if Jacob had never interfered with anyone's life...Dogen's son plays piano in LA, not baseball in Osaka.)

I can easily believe that. And I can believe that Jacob was responsible for Nadia's death for the same reason. It's just that Jacob has "died," so MIB can use her as a bargaining tool.

He has a knack for causing car crashes doesnt he?

Thats a very recurring theme in this show.

ya know, I refused to believe Jacob was evil...until now.

He has a knack for causing car crashes doesnt he?

Thats a very recurring theme in this show.Yeah! I've forgotten a bunch, I'm sure. But I am thinking of Juliette's ex getting hit by the bus. Locke in the parking lot? I'm fuzzy on details of that one. Michael's accident...Sarah's accident? Shannon's dad? Am I forgetting some?

I do not believe this. I don't see any evidence that Jacob has been anything other than benevolent except for what has come out of MiB's mouth. And I trust that about as far as I can throw smoke.

I do not believe this. I don't see any evidence that Jacob has been anything other than benevolent except for what has come out of MiB's mouth.

It's benevolent to trick people into coming to an island they can never leave?

It's benevolent to trick people into coming to an island they can never leave?

They can leave the Island. The Oceanic 6 did, and CHOSE to come back (with the exception of Sayid). The Left-Behinds chose to stay when they had an opportunity to leave.

In terms of course-adjusting their lives so that they end up on the Island, there are all kinds of examples of benevolent deities doing this kind of thing in religions from all over the world.

there are all kinds of examples of benevolent deities doing this kind of thing in religions from all over the world.

How does that make it any better or morally correct?

I do not think it is appropriate to harm or manipulate those less powerful than you for your own amusement or side bet. It is like the kid at the ant hill with a magnifying glass or Randolph and Mortimer Duke's $1.00 bet. Just because it has happened in history or in some other morality fable doesn't make it acceptable in my view.

How does that make it any better or morally correct?

I do not think it is appropriate to harm or manipulate those less powerful than you for your own amusement or side bet. It is like the kid at the ant hill with a magnifying glass or Randolph and Mortimer Duke's $1.00 bet. Just because it has happened in history or in some other morality fable doesn't make it acceptable in my view.
We don't know that that's why Jacob is doing what he's doing yet. There could be a much larger purpose involved. Until then I reserve judgment. Again, nothing we've SEEN has indicated that he's anything but benevolent, all speculation aside.

Yeah and the sort of pattern that one wouldn't ascribe to "good" incarnate...

-ik

Bingo.

Actually, not sure if this is mentioned further down the thread (Just opened it up) But Jacob actually had nothing to do with Nadia's death, he saved Sayid from an untimely one by asking him a question at the right time. True this made him turn around and he "MIGHT" have been able to save her, but in no way did Jacob cause her death.
.

Are you certain? Because as I recall...in order to give Juliet that little 'push' towards the island a wish was granted by squashing her ex beneath a bus, after Richard's interview.

I think you're right about this BUT.....

Jacob used saving Dogan's son's life as a bargaining chip to get him to the Island.

The flipside of that bargaining chip, what makes it compelling is the possibility that Jacob would NOT have saved Dogan's son's life, had Dogan NOT agreed to come to the Island.

Jacob wasn't trying to save a life, he was trying to accomplish an agenda. Saving Dogan's kid just happened to be the means to an end that presented itself.




Exactly...A bit like...someone else on their proverbial death bed dying of cancer in season one...and then showing up after so many years at a bogus trial wanting only to see Aaron. ;)

Miracle or manipulation?

We don't know that that's why Jacob is doing what he's doing yet. There could be a much larger purpose involved. Until then I reserve judgment. Again, nothing we've SEEN has indicated that he's anything but benevolent, all speculation aside.Don't forget the whole Others thing! All they did was done in the name of Jacob, who was presumably active and speaking to them (through Richard at least). If they weren't supposed to be terrorizing the Losties, blowing up their rafts, leaving those aboard to die in shark-infested waters, or kidnapping their children and subjecting them to "tests," etc., he had ample time to speak up, or otherwise voice his disapproval..

Don't forget the whole Others thing! All they did was done in the name of Jacob, who was presumably active and speaking to them (through Richard at least). If they weren't supposed to be terrorizing the Losties, blowing up their rafts, leaving those aboard to die in shark-infested waters, or kidnapping their children and subjecting them to "tests," etc., he had ample time to speak up, or otherwise voice his disapproval..


Exactly. Let alone the murder of the soldiers (1950's)...the mass murder of Dharma....and who knows what before all that!

Don't forget the whole Others thing! All they did was done in the name of Jacob, who was presumably active and speaking to them (through Richard at least). If they weren't supposed to be terrorizing the Losties, blowing up their rafts, leaving those aboard to die in shark-infested waters, or kidnapping their children and subjecting them to "tests," etc., he had ample time to speak up, or otherwise voice his disapproval..
Ben has been shown to have largely deviated from Jacob's will. But even if not, I've never been against a little bloodshed in the name of a higher cause. I'm likening him to a typical Judeo-Christian deity, and he pretty much fits the definition of a good guy.

Claire's mom
100%
Yeah! I've forgotten a bunch, I'm sure. But I am thinking of Juliette's ex getting hit by the bus. Locke in the parking lot? I'm fuzzy on details of that one. Michael's accident...Sarah's accident? Shannon's dad? Am I forgetting some?


I forgot to include quote ^^. Also, Claire's mom, Locke's dad two others.

Dogen says something like "Jacob would save my son's life if I came to the island and that I would never be able to see him again." Then Sayid says that "Jacob drives a hard bargain." What's the hard bargain? Either way you are never going to see your son again. At least Jacob saved his life and it was Dogen's choice to do so. He could have said no and stay a business man with no son.

Whatever.

Claire's mom
100%
I forgot to include quote ^^. Also, Claire's mom, Locke's dad two others.
Oh, thanks! How could I forget Claire's mom's accident?! But Locke's dad...I still can't recall that one. Oh well, doesn't matter. I appreciate the info.

Cooper claims he was in a car accident in Tallahasee then woke up in hell, or the Island, he never did figure out which it was

Did Jacob have a hand in the death of Dogen's son similar to how he had a hand in Nadia's death? Was this a push that Dogen needed to fulfill his destiny?
Do we know Jacob had a hand in Nadia's death?
"The Shape of Things to Come"
BEN: There was a man at her procession... goes by the name of Ishmael Bakir. He's one of Widmore's men.
[Ben removes a picture of Bakir from his pocket, the same man he was photographing in the street only moments earlier, and shows it to Sayid.]
BEN: Bakir was last seen five days ago... in Los Angeles... caught by a traffic camera, speeding away from the corner of La Brea and Santa Monica.
If Bakir was working for Widmore then it was Bakir's fault because he's the one who made the choice to run down Nadia. Jacob didn't make that choice for him he made it himself. He could have chose not to do what Whidmore told him to do. If Jacob had not been there Sayid would most likely have been killed right along with Nadia.

Was Jacob responsible for the death of Mr. and Mrs. Ford. If their murder suicide had not occurred Sawyer would never have wanted to write the letter in the first place.
Was Jacob the one who made Kate steal the NKOTB lunch box?
Was Jacob the one who made Anthony Cooper push Locke out the window?

I would say Jacob saved Sayid's life but did not save Nadia's.

Dogen's story did not make me think of Sayid and Nadia, but of Juliet. Telling her that her sister would be saved if she stayed on the Island. As others have posted already, that bus accident killing her ex always seemed too convenient, and it is why she was available to come in the first place. Very suspicious I think.