Though it was obvious that it was not Anubis (as I had personally thought), I also wasn’t entirely convinced that it was Taweret.  Suddenly, Sobek, an Egyptian god that resembled the face of a crocodile seemed a likely candidate as well.  I did post over at Sledgeweb’s Lost Stuff that Taweret seemed the most likely possibility at the time but I also didn’t really want to believe it, simply because there were so many better deities in my opinion.  But ABC has settled the speculation for us, and in a rather quiet manner, I might add.  According to the most recent recap at ABC.com, the statue is in fact Taweret.   I know, I know, many of you saw this from the very first moment we caught a glimpse at the back of the statue, so go ahead and use the comments below to proclaim your brilliance, cleverness, and aptitude for figuring out the mysteries of Lost, something I obviously suck at.

And now, a little about Taweret.  Wikipedia has this to say about the Egyptian Goddess:

Her name means (one) who is great. When paired with another deity, she became the demon-wife of Apep, the original god of evil. Since Apep was viewed as residing below the horizon, and only present at night, evil during the day then was envisaged as being a result of Taweret’s malfeasance.

As the counterpart of Apep, who was always below the horizon, Taweret was seen as being the northern sky, the constellation roughly covering the area of present-day Draco, which always lies above the horizon. Thus Taweret was known as mistress of the horizon, and was depicted as such on the ceiling of the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings.

Later they go into more detail about how Taweret became known as the Goddess of fertility and child birth:

Early during the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians came to see female hippopotami as less aggressive than the males, and began to view their aggression only as one of protecting their young and being good mothers, particularly since it is the males that are territorially aggressive. Consequently, Taweret became seen, very early in Egyptian history, as a deity of protection in pregnancy and childbirth. Pregnant women wore amulets with her name or likeness to protect their pregnancies. Her image could also be found on knives made from hippopotamus ivory, which would be used as wands in rituals to drive evil spirits away from mothers and children.

In most subsequent depictions, Taweret was depicted with features of a pregnant woman. In a composite addition to the animal-compound she was also seen with pendulous breasts, a full pregnant abdomen, and long, straight human hair on her head.

As a protector, she often was shown with one arm resting on the sa symbol, which symbolized protection, and on occasion she carried an ankh, the symbol of life, or a knife, which would be used to threaten evil spirits.

As the hippopotamus was associated with the Nile, these more positive ideas of Taweret allowed her to be seen as a goddess of the annual flooding of the Nile and the bountiful harvest that it brought. Ultimately, although only a household deity, since she was still considered the consort of Apep, Taweret was seen as one who protected against evil by restraining it.

When Set fell from grace in the Egyptian pantheon, as a result of being favoured by the unpopular Hyksos rulers, he gradually took over the position of Apep, as the god of evil. With this change away from Apep, Taweret became seen only as the concubine of Set. She was seen as concubine rather than wife, as Set already was married to the extremely different goddess, Nephthys, to whom no parallels could be drawn. It then was said that Taweret had been an evil goddess, but changed her ways and held Set back on a chain.

So I have to ask this question, does the reveal of the statue being Taweret give any semblance or meaning behind Jacob and his Nemesis (being called Esau by many of you)?  Could Jacob and Esau be represented in Lost as some form of Apep and Set, deities associated at times as the Gods of Evil?  It seems obvious that Jacob “took” something from Esau in order for him to have such a desire to kill him, maybe it was the taking of his status as the God of Evil.  It would certainly put an interesting spin on things, if both of them turned out to be some manifestation of this tale.  Of course, that doesn’t make much sense when we look at how Jacob was wearing white, as if the producers wanted us to realize he was a “good” guy, and he also seems to have a lot of faith in mankind as well, a trait I wouldn’t expect to see in the God of Evil.  But still, interesting none the less!

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One obvious alteration to the Season 5 cast photo, as DarthVibbert pointed out earlier, is the removal of Daniel Faraday’s foot. I’m certain it is a removal for one undeniable reason: the foot has been replaced with a perspective-correct oval of pant leg. It isn’t merely an errant copy and past. We can see the inner rim of Faraday’s pant leg and all. Faraday has no foot. What could this mean? Here is my explanation for it, and one that I am absolutely convinced is the correct answer.

Faraday is missing his left foot. All that remains of the four-toed statue is a left foot. Faraday is the four toed statue. It seems ridiculous at first, right? Consider a few things. First, if you’ve ever read Cosmos, you are aware of the Ionian people. Carl Sagan suggested that had the Ionian’s risen to prominence we would be incalcuably further along in science and technology than we are today – including visions of interstellar space travel and limitless energy. Arthur C. Clarke’s third law of prediction states that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Put these two notions together and you get the idea that had the Ionaian’s persisted with their scientific ambitions their technology could look like magic to us. Like, say, island magic.

Here is my idea on how this relates to LOST, and particularly why it means that a sequel would not be possible – at least not one as interesting.  So far, with the time-travel, we are being shown that a lot of what is going on with the island is the result of actions initiated by our losties, the others, and the freighter folk.  One of the most incredible suggestions is that Daniel Faraday’s bomb disposal instructions ultimately led to the need and creation of the Swan Station.  Now, let’s extend this thinking a little further.

What if Daniel Farady somehow finds himself even farther back in time, with whatever ancient race occupied the island originally.  Stuck in the past, with no means to continue his mission of undoing whatever the force is that he thinks has messed up the future.  With his advanced technology, he appears to the ancients – true to Clarke’s law – as a magical being.  This results in the erection of the statue as a monument to him.  That’s just the explanation for the statue though.  There’s more.

What if Daniel, thinking he must somehow figure out how to travel through time to set the universe right, utilizes his position as resident deity to begin constructing technology on the island.  The purpose of the technology? Time travel.  The result?  The frozen donkey wheel, amongst other things.  Here’s the clencher.  Sticking with Daniel’s own rules of time travel, he’s already been down this street before – he just doesn’t realize it.  In fact, Daniel’s tampering with technology creates a movement amongst the native population that lasts longer than he does.  Perhaps Daniel himself, assuming the identity of Jacob, becomes trapped out of phase with time during his first experiments – his consciousness now scatterred across the sub-material plane.  Regardless, once Daniel himself is out of the picture, the civilzation continues with his work – eventually evolving into the hostiles we have come to know and love – aimlessly trying to fulfill the work of a lost leader, unknowingly sustaining the loopty loop downward spiral that will lead to the destruction of mankind.

The reason this makes a sequel impossible – at least an interesting sequel – is that it suggests that Daniel traveling to the time of the four

toed statue is the event that caused the island to become special to begin with.  He went back and created, in a sense, a race similar to the Ionians.  Over time, their hidden technology created a magical environment that would become the envy of men.  Obviously, it would have also led to the creation of an imbalance that would eventually threaten the existence of the universe – leading to the current predicament. However, once this is all undone – the island will be just an island. No anachronistic technology posing as magic, just lots of fresh fruit.  A sequel, then, would be pretty boring.

Possible?  You tell me.

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