Cause he hits people on the head and ties them up in the forest. Of course, Jack and Sayid tied Sawyer up and tortured him. So.

Well, yeah, but Jack and Sayid tied Sawyer up and tortured him because he seemed to be withholding from a suffering person the medications that belonged to her in the first place, and when lines were crossed and things got creeptastic and torturiffic, Sayid felt very obviously like shit and had to go off and be away from the humans for a bout of soul-searching, and even Jack seemed none too pleased with himself. Plus, the whole tie-up-and-torture plan was suggested by Lock in the first place, IIRC.

Whereas Locke, when Boone leapt on him all crazy with grief and OMGWTF YOU CLOCKED ME UPSIDE THE HEAD AND THE TYING UP AND THE KNIFE AND THE CHEWED-UP NOT!SISTER OMGWTF, smiled benevolently like a cat beaming at the wounded mouse it's been toying with and said, "Why, yes. Yes, indeed, that was me, and wasn't it good of me?"

IMO, Locke is the Mayor of Crazytown, Emperor of Crazyonia, and also his side is bad.

Why is Locke's side bad?

This is a good point. To me, thus far, they at least seem more interesting. I was just running with the Locke=Randall Flagg analogy. The exploration into who is good and who is bad (or if there even is such a thing) would likely wait until the lines were more clearly drawn, I'd think.

But, if whatever Locke is tapped into is the same faction involved with Charlie's hanging and Claire's kidnapping, I wouldn't feel wrong about calling it bad.

IMO, Locke is the Mayor of Crazytown, Emperor of Crazyonia, and also his side is bad.

Ahahaha. Yes. I mean, "Why do you care about [Shannon] so much?"

How about, "BECAUSE SHE'S HIS FUCKING SISTER, YOU PSYCHO."

But, if whatever Locke is tapped into is the same faction involved with Charlie's hanging and Claire's kidnapping, I wouldn't feel wrong about calling it bad.

But how do we know that the two are on the same side? What if, while Locke is working with the island, Ethan and 'the others' are working against it?

"BECAUSE SHE'S HIS FUCKING SISTER, YOU PSYCHO."

Aye, and of course, there's the rub.

The thing is, Locke theoretically didn't know the true nature of their relationship. In retrospect, it's somewhat more of a valid question. But at the time, knowing what we (thought we) knew, it sounded ridiculous.

But how do we know that the two are on the same side? What if, while Locke is working with the island, Ethan and 'the others' are working against it?

Yeah, that's why I threw in the 'if'. Someone upthread mentioned the idea of Locke using his crazy peyote on Claire to give her the hallucinations. I feel like I know WAY too little about Ethan and 'the others' to even be able to guess what they are up to.

Thing is, I really, really like Locke. I feel like he's a very good person. So, maybe my tendancy to think he's going to end up as a bad sort comes from being prepared for the show to slap me upside the head and say "Everything you know is wrong!"

I am not sure we'll see two teams at first. There are a lot of little sub-alliances.

What I can't stop thinking about is how this show can go for more than one season.

Maybe the 'sides' that Locke is talking about are ALL the survivors vs. 'the Others', and he's trying to prepare people for the eventual smackdown?

Re: the compass

Either there just is that much magnetic variation (that is, they're not where they think they are), or (as Sayid appears to think) Locke gave him a screwed up compass on purpose, or there is something of significant magnetic whosits on the island that would throw the readings off.

What sort of power generation (ie, such as that necessary to run Rousseau's chamber of music, torture and twisted love) would generate significantly disruptive magnetic fields?