I've slept on it. I loved last night's Lost. Amazing finale.
Here's my theory:
Compare those to:
This statue is clearly Egyptian inspired, or Egyptian in general.
Wikipedia says this:
Sobek (also called Sebek, Sochet, Sobk, Sobki, Soknopais, and in Greek, Suchos) was the deification of crocodiles, as crocodiles were deeply feared in the nation so dependent on the Nile River. Egyptians who worked or travelled on the Nile hoped that if they prayed to Sobek, the crocodile god, he would protect them from being attacked by crocodiles.[1] The god Sobek, which was depicted as a crocodile or a man with the head of a crocodile was a powerful and frightening deity; in some Egyptian creation myths, it was Sobek who first came out of the waters of chaos to create the world.[1] As a creator god, he was occasionally linked with the sun god Ra.[1]
This war is clearly a war between gods. I think that the statue being destroyed symbolizes the death of the god of creation on the island, hence why no babies are no longer born on it in the current timeline. Maybe the guy who fights with Jacob is the deity god of creation? The guy can create another Locke, after all.
The guy that Jacob was talking to at the beginning of the episode seems to be another god of the island alongside Jacob. The two clearly do not see eye to eye either: "someday I will kill you. I will find a loophole."
We know very little about that other deity but we do know is that he has the ability to bring them back to life or at the very least, make use of their body. I think that the deity took control of Locke's body and made a copy, one he himself can transplant into. That way he can carry out his goal of killing Jacob. After all, this has happened before. Remember the guy from Rosseau's group that was revitalized after he clearly died? That's the other deity at work. Maybe this is why Hurley sees visions of the dead? Jacob clearly says Hugo's "not crazy" when they meet face to face.
I don't fucking know, I'm goin' in circles here.
Another theory of mine:
Anyone Jacob touches gains the power of immortality while on the island. Maybe this is why Richard is ageless through numerous decades and timelines. All of them were touched by Jacob, except Juliette, Miles, , Desmond, ;etc it seems.
Of course, my theory could be wrong considering Locke's currently laying in a coffin dead.
I think he used the guise of Jack's father to persuade Locke that he was going to die. He used Locke's faith for the island so that he would be killed in some way. Jacob probably wouldn't let Locke be killed on the island; he's special. So he had Locke tell Jack about his father, and then set the chords in motion so that Jack would bring all the others back with him to the island. This way, ol' smokey can use the body of Locke as a host to kill Jacob. Because Locke is special.
About Juliette: It could be inferred that the reason they showed it was specifically for that scene with Sawyer but, that's not very Lost-like and that'd be dumb. I think it's the writers' way of showing us that the others were blessed by Jacob while Juliette wasn't. He did not appear in Juliette's flashback nor was she handed an object like the others were.
