*takes deep breath*
Let's start with the discourse between the mysterious man in black and the white-garbed Jacob at the start. The first thing I noticed was the traditional usage of the black vs white theme (good vs bad, black hat/white hat, hero/villain, etc). They want the viewers to think the man in black is the bad guy. Which, it seems, is true because he wants to kill Jacob. Jacob seems like the peace-loving type with an eastern philosophy.
We're gonna jump ahead to the Locke/Linus/Jacob confrontation at the end. Jacob says, "I see you found your loophole." He was speaking to Locke, who was later-revealed to be very dead. Now, what other thing on the island has imitated dead people on four other occasions (Christian Shepard, Yemi, Emily Linus, and Alex Linus-Rousseau)? It's been my theory that the monster has been doing these imitations, and that it culminated it's little show with imitating John Locke. Need one more piece of evidence? How about the super-hero-like disappearance of Locke right before Ben meets the monster and then sudden reappearance of Locke after Ben's ordeal is over. I can go on. The monster is the man in black from the beginning of the show.
I know what you're going to say, "But Christian Shepard said that he spoke on Jacob's behalf!" Yes, he did. But, we also know from what Ilana said, that the cabin has been used by someone else.
Alright, on to the next point: the loophole.
What exactly is the loophole? Where are these rules? Could they be in one of the items that Richard showed to young Locke: Book of Laws?
Anyway, here's my theory on the loophole. The monster was created by Jacob. We can determine this from the hieroglyphs - depicting Anubis either communing with or creating the monster - under the Temple walls where Ben was "judged". This also assumes Jacob is the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis... which certainly explains a lot (eg, knowing when people are supposed to die, etc.). Anyway, since he was created by Jacob, he cannot kill him. He has to find someone else who can kill him. Perhaps one of Jacob's own followers or a leader of his followers, who isn't created by Jacob. That person must also do this of their own free will. Hence Jacob saying to Ben "you have a choice". My only problem with this is I feel Ben was extorted into killing Jacob, because he was told by the monster that he would be destroyed if he didn't follow all of Locke's orders.
There are a few other nit-picky things I can go over, like the statue is actually a statue of Taweret, the Egyptian god of fertility (HELLO!). The most important thing I want to discuss is the supposed detonation of a
6 megaton bomb over the electromagnetic pocket on the Swan site. One long Physics lesson short, what Farady had planned to do was generate a Casimir Effect (a wormhole) using the exotic matter within the pocket and the atomic energy of the blast. Which would simultaneously deplete the exotic matter, neutralizing the EM pocket at the Swan site, and shoot our main characters forward (hopefully) in time. The result from the detonation of the Jughead core (which is all kinds of fucked up reality wise, I mean, c'mon! a rock! WTF is that shit!?) would not be an explosion, but an implosion, like what we saw with the failsafe that Desmond activated.
There you have it folks, my very best guess on the happenings of Lost.
GODDAMMIT I HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER 9 FUCKING MONTHS TO SEE WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT CUNT CONCLUSION IS GOING TO BE!
... and now a pictorial representation of my emotions following that show knowing there wouldn't be another episode for 9 goddammed months.
