Room 23: God Loves You

Before I begin dissection of the 'God loves you as He loved Jacob' slogan I'd like to take a second considering its origination. Curiously, the video in Room 23 (that features the slogan) appears to be a Dharma Initiative product. It's got that crazy 70s vibe! Even if The Others did somehow edit the video themselves then we have other empirical evidence linking Dharma to Jacob. The Orchid Orientation film also features a brief 'subliminal' flash of the 'God loves you as He loved Jacob' slogan. So Dharma were aware of, and appeared to have some form of reverence for, 'Jacob'.

Maybe it's just me, but that's a pretty striking notion.

I mean, The Others - comprised of 'hostiles', Dharma defectors and new arrivals - have continued a link with Dharma. Post-Purge, having desecrated all that Dharma stood for, The Others have retained this belief in Jacob. Personally, I take the interpretation that The Others (notably 'the hostiles') reclaimed Jacob from Dharma. That makes more sense than The Others taking the Jacob ideology as a hand-me-down from Dharma.

Let me concentrate solely on the 'God loves you as He loved Jacob' slogan. What is the message here? "God loves you" is the bottom line. For all the semantics regarding Jacob, the actual message of the slogan is simply this: God loves you. That's the take-home message. The extra information concerning Jacob is actually peripheral to the meaning. Excess baggage, if you will.

So God loves you, in the same way that He (note the capital - we're definitely still talking about God here) loved Jacob. Curious use of the past tense. There's two interpretations to the "as He loved Jacob" phrase. Either God stopped loving Jacob, or Jacob is considered gone and unable to be loved. And I deliberately chose the word "gone" rather than 'dead'. Death, after all, should be no limit for God's love. Death should be the beginning of when God's love really kicks in, right!?



And pardon me if my Bible-knowledge is rusty but doesn't God's love embrace all? I mean, isn't the idea that no matter what you do, no matter what sin you commit, so long as you embrace God He will love you? Isn't that how it works? And yet "He loved Jacob"! Either Jacob was a very bad man that rejected God outright and even after death, forever into eternity, refused acknowledgement. . . Or Jacob is in such a spot that, even if he did embrace God, God can't love him.



At this juncture I draw your attention to that memorable remark Ben once made to Locke. "God doesn't know how long we've been here, John. He can't see this island any better than the rest of the world can."



If someone were to remark that the Island is a 'God-forsaken place' they may be more right than they realise. And it is in this where I find my conclusion (and it is mine - I feel this is a very subjective argument). Take the slogan 'God loves you as He Loved Jacob' and re-word it to 'God loves you as He Loved the Island' and I start to scratch out meaning. Simply put: Dharma believed in God and the video and the slogan existed to affirm as much.

Think of it like you're walking through the gates of hell, demons everywhere. If you were devout you would clutch your cross, close your eyes, and pray. Keep the demons away. Remember your God. If Dharma, as believers, found themselves on this 'God-forsaken Island' - perhaps plagued by visions of dead people demanding they "Confess!" - then they created this brain-washing Room 23, and the 'God loves you as He loved Jacob' slogan to reinforce God on a Godless Island in people that may be losing their way.



The notion of scientists believing in God is something of an anachronism, perhaps (though hardly unprecedented). Yet Dharma were scientists interested in an end-of-the-world prophecy (The Valenzetti Equation) and involved in a Black Smoke of judgement (the Cerberus System - Cerberus being the name of the guardian of hell!). Even Dharma itself is proclaimed to mean "the one true way". Perhaps Dharma considered themselves a divination of science and faith. It's certainly a concept that sits pretty sweetly in Lost. In such context, a belief in God doesn't appear too ill-fitting.



Jacob, then, becomes a bogeyman. A scare story. A failure to remember God's love may cast you into the damnation of being lost like Jacob; trapped in a bizarre zone where few can see or hear you, where your cries of "Help me" will mostly go unheard. 'God loves you as He loved Jacob'. And don't you ever forget it. Not whilst you're on the Island.

thanks for posting that

AC, I like your explanation, it sounds like you have it pretty well nailed.
I sure can't imagine a better one. In fact I can even see you as a ghost-writer for Lost. Hmmmm....

Hmm, sneaky Angelo when I thought I was going to read a simple analysis of room 23, you slipped in the skeleton of a Jacob theory. I love the disection of that phrase AC. Perhaps you'd like to expland on the Jacob part, I was getting quite interested...

Like Stickman I like where you are going with this but are you saying that Jacob maybe went againts the religious undertones of Darma and was somehow exiled in another dimension or in between two? Or is he simply the Devil? Not trying to put words in your mouth just want to clearify a little.

Way to break it down AC, you did a good job analyzing that simple sentence with so many subtle hints.

Initially, I assumed it was just a biblical reference. I mean, would it sound right to say "God loves you as he loves Moses" - since Jacob was a figure in the Old Testament of the Bible, the past tense would just make sense.

But then we found out Jacob's there on the Island.

So, another justification could be that he loved Jacob differently than he does now, that Jacob was once not as knowledgable and "one with the Island" or some such, and that once he was just like "you" - till God helped him become more than that.

Perhaps God loved Jacob in a mentor/apprentice way before, and now they're closer to associates. Kind of elevates Jacob a bit higher than it should - or does it? That's the question.

Or is it? I've confused myself now.

Very nicely done AC.

I have often thought that the Purge was necassary for the island because of what Dharma was doing to it with their experiments and technology, changing something pure and simple and beautifully natural into something that is no more than a hypothetical quarry for the DI to mine its properties.

Perhaps they did take advantage of Jacob in the same way I think they took advantage of smokie and other phenomena, and perhaps the message in the past tense is that Jacob is no longer loved by their God, because they are more important. A clever mind trick designed to convince brain washees that they are right and just in what they are doing.

SBP - I think both your points are excellently put, and as close to 'right' as we can so far ascertain.

To answer some of the other questions raised here, my personal take on it is that Jacob is definitely pre-Dharma. I suspect he was once an original 'hostile', maybe their great leader, and then suffered a metaphorical 'fall', or incident, that cast him into the situation he currently resides in.

Dharma turned up, learned about Jacob and, as SBP states, perhaps suggested that his plight is a scare story about what happens to those that fall out of God's grace and don't adhere to Dharma's "one true way".

In short: I think Jacob is pre-Dharma. He was revered by 'the hostiles'. Eventually Dharma were erased and 'the hostiles' claimed ownership of their Island once more, and reclaimed Jacob for themselves as their "one true way".

Jacobs crackers

cracking analysis

The notion of scientists believing in God is something of an anachronism, Yet Dharma were scientists interested in an end-of-the-world prophecy (The Valenzetti Equation) and involved in a Black Smoke of judgement

Very well put.

becomes a bogeyman. A scare story

Kayser Sauze style I like it!