So...after reading the PT Lost thread I got this interesting nugget: Apparently the fish that Jacob was cutting up in the first scene was a Red Herring. For those unfamiliar with the term "red herring" here it is:
A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:
Topic A is under discussion.
Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).
Topic A is abandoned.
So using this line of thinking, I think this is directed specifically about the time-travel aspect that was so prominent this season...I don\'t think time-travel really has anything to do with the central plot of LOST. I take that to mean this season of LOST was more of a distraction from what the first 4 seasons were getting at, specifically FAITH, FATE, and DESTINY...and how they all revolve around the others, losties, dharma, jacob, and the rest.
I think there are a lot more layers to this episode than I originally realized last night.
