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Character

• despite jacks "heroics" he is in fact the main villain of the series.
• Jack has a major hero complex, and almost all of his actions can be explained by figuring out whom he's trying to save. (Shannon, Boone, Kate, Claire, Michael, Walt, Juliet, hoping to get everyone rescued if he can get off the island, etc..) Jack seems driven with the need to save everyone and will not sacrifice anyone else, though he will sacrifice his personal morals/beliefs.
  • This is one of the conflicts with Locke, who will sacrifice others for his goals.
  • Jack and Locke share the same first name, only different variations. This represents the relationship they have as foils of one another.
• The fact that Jack was originally meant to be killed early on indicates that the the Jack/Ben story arc, where Ben hatches an elaborate plot to get Jack to operate on his tumor, is not central to any important mystery.
  • However the decision to keep Jack alive was made before the series aired, so obviously Jack and whatever he does is central to the series.
• Jack represents the benevolence and brutality of socialism.
  • This is alluded to by the tattoo on his arm, which quotes a poem by former Chinese communist party leader Chairman Mao Tse-tung [1].
• Jack will turn out to be the tragic hero of LOST. So far he shares a lot of common traits with that archetype. His tragic flaw is his stubbornness and compulsive need to fix things and his reversal of fortune was when he called Naomi's people.
• Also, all of Jack's actions of taking all responsibility for the safety of his group are driven by his absolute refusal to trust anyone else. This was probably first a response to his father's betrayal of his mother and compounded by his cheating wife.

Island Role

• Jack is not one of the good guys. When he first met Tom (Mr. Friendly) in the jungle, he was confrontational and looking for a fight. In some ways this is understandable since they took Walt and Claire, however, it would have made more sense for him to say, "We are survivors of a plane crash. We don't want to be here and we don't want any trouble." Perhaps if he had said something like this and asked for help, things would have gone down very differently.
  • Jack opposed the torturing of Ben out of loyalty, if he is connected to the Others.
    • It is clear that Jack was opposed to all torture even of Sawyer, this is not a new behavior in Jack.
      • Jack did not object to torture of sawyer. he full sanctioned and partiscipated in it.
      • Torture contravenes the Hippocratic Oath. It is unlikely that there was an ulterior motive in Jack's opposition to torture.
      • I repeat; Jack did not object to torture of sawyer. he full sanctioned and partiscipated in it.
• Jack is one of the descendants of true natives like Richard, Ethan, Ben, John, Walt, Juliet, Mikhail, Jacob. This could answer why he survived when he fall from the heavens on the Island and didn't hurt and how come he me the Monster and this was offscreen"Pilot, Part 1" and why he is destined to have a hell in life without the Island.
• Jack is on the list of people who will understand why the Others are on the island. The Others have explained their purposes to him and he has agreed to join their cause.
• Jack is central to the future safety of people still on the island. Early on in the series he was making good decisions and provided protection and leadership for the survivors. His decision to get himself and other survivors off the island went against his destiny and was not the role the island had in mind for him. So, as a warning, the island made him sick(as has happened with both Ben and Locke when they strayed from the island's desired role for them). The fact that he is so miserable off the island, in essence, the opposite of the hero he was on the island, is further proof that when he returns to island he will regain a leadership role, this time with the experience of relying less on scientific evidence and more on faith to make his decisions and will play a major role in saving the lives of the people on the island and the security of island secrets becoming a hero once again.
• In "Man of science man of faith” most people assume Locke is the man of faith and Jack the man of science. It is really the other way round. Locke bases his actions and ideas on Empirical evidence, whilst Jack bases his on beliefs even if the evidence suggests otherwise.

Relationship to the Island

• In "Further Instructions", the vision of Boone tells Locke that one of his projects is to "Bring the family back together." This could be referring to an agenda to bring Christian, Claire, Aaron and Jack together (and perhaps more relatives whose backgrounds we don't know). While this message is delivered by a dead person is a hallucinogenic vision, the information given about Eko in the vision proves to be correct.
• In "There's No Place Like Home, Parts 2 & 3", Locke tells Jack that he knows he isn't supposed to leave the island, and that he is lying to himself.

Future of Jack

• Jack's story will parallel Michael's. Both men were offered chances of rescue if they did what the Others wanted. However, while Michael selfishly sold out his friends for Walt and the boat, Jack won't sell out his friends for his own rescue.
  • Jack isn't on the list. Danny Pickett says, "Shephard wasn't even on Jacob's list".
    • Jack isn't on Jacob's list because in the initial draft of the pilot, he died.
      • Jack isn't on Jacob's list because he was only the means to bring Christian to the island and save Ben in order to bring Locke to Jacob. Jack himself is faithless and expendable. In addition, every decision he's made has been detrimental to the island and the survivors.
• Jack's story will parallel Michael's. Jack will do something he feels guilty about in order to get off the island (along with the other O6 members). His guilt will be just like Michael's and he will try to kill himself (drugs, alcohol, bridge jumping). This will not work though because we know that "hes still got work to do". Enter season 6...
• Jack is depressed because, he litterly ruined he's life. After talking to Carole, he realizes that he actually left his sister on a deserted island and took her baby. He gets violent before his fiance (Kate), and his nephew\son (Aaron). And he feels guilty for leaving everybody else on the island, and making lives harder for everyone he saved. Sayid is risking his life everyday on a constant killing mission, Hurley is back in the mental institution, Aaron is separated from his mother, and Kate is hated by other people, and recognized as a murderer in"Eggtown". And he feel's guilty for all the lives that we're lost because of his hate towards the Others in "Through the Looking Glass" , Locke and his group, when he didn't help them defend the Barracks in "The Shape of Things to Come").

Radio Tower Scene/Flash-Forward

• Jack is seeing visions of his father (like Hurley is seeing visions of Charlie), telling him to go back to the Island. This is why he tells Dr. Hamill to get his "father down here"; Jack really HAS been seeing Christian.
• Aaron also upsets Jack because he reminds him of what Christian did and kept from Jack and his mother.
  • Aaron could possibly bring bad memories of Claire and Jack not being able to save her - therefore he blames himself
• Jack still hates Ben, and will kill him after using him to return to the Island.

Past

• Something happened on the Island that Jack feels enormous guilt or pain over. Drug and alcohol abuse are common ways to forget about problems; even if for a short period of time.
• Jack repeatedly stated that he was going to get "everyone" off the island - he failed to do this.

Pilot Opening Scene

• Jack was thrown into the jungle by the Smoke Monster.
  • Although the Monster was not seen directly, it is assumed to be the cause of the pilot's death in the first episode.
• Jack was simply thrown from the plane as it rolled through the jungle as Sayid mentioned.
• As Jack was the first character to be introduced, he will be the last to die.
• Although there's factors that create problems with this theory, sometime in the future, Jack could move the island, ending up like Ben, although he only moved in time, instead of changing place as well (although if moving the island is literally, moving the island's location, then I suppose he would be moving location). The problem with is theory is that Jack would have to somehow forget everything that subsequently happens, however surely that's within the realms of possibility?

At the Barracks

• His time spent with the others was merely to find out about their set up, security, people and find any flaws he may exploit in order to save himself and the rest of the losties.
  • There was no planning involved. He was captured when he thought he was setting a trap and then remained under arrest. After that he thought he had a ticket home so, although Jack may well have gotten this information mainly because of his personality, there is no reason to suspect this was the reason he was there.