Honestly, I don't deserve too much credit; Sayid says as much to Nadia in season six.

It could be explained as either a general "Ben knows what he's doing," or a more specific "Ben left us because he had a plan."

There's a lot of different ways you can look at Jacob's actions, and that's certainly one of them. Another one is, like he says, that he was never given a choice in the matter and that he believes people can choose to do good without being forced to.

Considering Libby was also killed off, and she was much more popular, I don't think public opinion is to blame in season two.

It's very interesting to see the parallelism between Sayid and Ana Lucia. Her flashbacks are structured and placed in the season much like Sayid's, and they're both tortured by their pasts. Likely Sayid recognizes something of himself in her. Certainly he forgives her so he can crusade against the Others.

We don't hear the beginning of Kate's conversation with Locke, so he could have told her then. And she says "You show up with an obituary for Jeremy Bentham," which is technically true (at least the part about his name; if it were really an obit, it would have gone out when he died a month prior).

The whole arc of Ben's journey was "O my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Jacob has never once appeared to him, and he has no idea what he's supposed to be doing or why he's suddenly got cancer when the Island should be healing him. He lies and deceives his own people about everything, has compartmentalized knowledge…

"Suck it, Lindelof."

Apparently, Lindelof and Cuse were keen to use the novel as a metafictional experiment that deepens the themes of the narrative. Then the ghostwriter acted like a prima donna who used very little of what they wanted him to use, and, to quote Lindelof, "Having read Bad Twin, Gary Troup got exactly what he deserved."

SPOILERS

Given that the Whispers follow her around, she might be the Man in Black. We don't know if she's dead or not.

That's why I said "reinforce". It helps establish the pattern started by Juliet. Not to mention that it sets up Jacob's later explanation to Richard that he brings people to the Island, and that Richard needs to be there to help them. Cindy was brought to the Island by Jacob, and subsequently became an Other. Mikhail…

The problem is you're not thinking fourth dimensionally!

I'm pretty sure they explained it was just damn good jungle survival skills. I'm particularly thinking of Locke chasing down "Jones" at the beginning of season five.

The really weird way Disqus organizes comments makes it hard to tell the logical order they go in without scrutinizing the time and respondee.

The point of Cindy's character was to reinforce the notion that the Others aren't just an insular group, and that they do "recruit" people who come to the Island into their ranks. Making her a secret Other the whole time would undercut that.

It makes him more like the Man in Black, actually. They're both "special", after all. With Jacob, it seemed more like he only became "special" because of the ritual, whereas the MiB was born "knowing" things.

I think he's talking about the deleted scene with the French guy she au pair'd for. Pretty sure that was season two.

"in hindsight, I wonder why? Was he not allowed to kill them yet?"

"it's definitely Nadia who Sayid has the strongest connection with"