There are plenty of fair criticisms of the show. I just don't respond to them, because I agree with them and there's nothing to say.

Locke's story is, essentially, a tragedy. Like MacBeth, liking the character is secondary to watching his own flaws undo him and lament that circumstances turned him into this.

In season four, they directly feature VALIS, by the same author, and since absolutely nobody comes to that mindfuck of a novel without going through some other, more popular PKD first, it's a pretty good bet Lindelof has read it. Season six certainly feels like it.

Locke has never cared about absolute proof. He thinks whatever he does is justified because he's attuned to what the Island wants.

It's because Claire was pushing him away a few episodes previously. He used the idea of family as a substitute for his drugs, and it fell apart around him because of his addictive personality.

Have you ever read the book Ubik? Because I'm tempted to say the afterlife was a direct reference to it.

You're ignoring the fact that none of the castaways, save Locke, ever actually buy the Others's self-aggrandizement. Even Jack uses his arrangement with Ben as a marriage of convenience. He clearly doesn't trust the little shit, given their confrontation at the end of season three.

"One of the reasons the first season was such a success is that more viewers love to see a bad person turn good or a weak person turn stronger."

Locke also talks a big game about personal freedom….so long as people use that freedom to embrace his one, narrow view of how the Island works.

The cabin moves because the Island is a giant well of energy that can warp time and space. Radzinsky says tapping into the pocket where the Swan will be located will allow them to manipulate electromagnetism in ways they've never dreamed of. It's a relatively intuitive leap from there to the idea that whoever is the…

It was Smokey saying "Help me". It's later revealed the ash circle was broken, so he can, indeed, go into the cabin.

SPOILERS

There's also an argument that Ben was never supposed to be the leader in the first place, that it was all manipulation by the Man in Black, but Jacob let it happen anyway because of his ineffable design.

To be honest, I think the fact that Charlie wasn't using is more interesting than if he had been. It adds an extra layer of irony: perhaps Locke's method did actually work better than he thought (as Charlie isn't using), but because of Locke's own sense of disenchantment, he savaged Charlie and unintentionally drove…

It's ambiguous to be either/or. I tend towards David being a figment of Jack's unconscious, but I also accept the other view as a possibility.

That's actually supported by the text. In season six, Richard says that he trusted that Jacob had a plan, but then Jacob died, which led Richard to want to blow himself up with dynamite.

There's nothing in the text to suggest Dogen knew what Candidates were. When Hurley says he's a Candidate, he also says "I can do what I want." That's what Dogen is referring to when he asks, "Who told you that?"

Yeah, marrying his success story does not strike me as a healthy basis for a relationship.

Considering he thinks his destiny is to be a shaman who councils people through their issues, I would say his failure with Charlie is intimately connected to it.

My point was the opposite: that Charlie finds the strength to overcome being a druggie asshole because of the religious foundation Eko and Catholicism provides. But until….episode 18-ish?….he is still lost in the dark night of the soul.