| abstract
| - belong to him, he should have chosen the bottle as the island belongs to Locke.
* The bottle belongs to Richard and it contained medicine to cure his sick wife Isabella.
* The compass is different in appearance to the one Locke uses, and later gives to Sayid.
* Locke did not choose the comic book. He never has a comic book in his life as far as we know.
* While certain books of the Old Testament portion of the Bible are considered books of law, and the Old testament is sometimes referred to as "The Law," the book Mr. Eko finds and later hands to Locke is "The Holy Bible." The book that Richard Alpert presents has a very different appearance and is titled "Book of Laws."
* It would seem more logical to conclude that only one of the items is actually from his future on the Island. If they were all from the future, then there would be no correct item to pick.
* Each of the six objects represents one of the Oceanic Six.
* Sayid is the compass based on his use of the compass in the series and his ability to make a compass.
* Kate is the Book of Law based on her legal troubles.
* Sun is the knife because she is severed from her husband.
* Aaron is the sand from the Island, where he was born.
* Hurley is the comic book, possessing a comic book in the Season 1.
* Jack is the baseball glove based on his love of the Red Sox.
* None of these objects belong to Sun, Aaron, Jack or Kate, or Sayid, though he used the compass.
* Alpert specifically asks Locke to choose items that belong to him, not items that simply hold any kind of impersonal significance.
* This theory does not explain WHY Locke is being asked to chose.
* Locke (and Ben, and others like Walt) have always been "special," but the item they pick indicates the time or situation for when they are needed.
* Again, then why does Richard ask his to chose the items that belong to him? This theory is not supported by evidence.
* Locke choosing the items is similar to Daniel and Charlotte conducting a memory experiment with DHARMA playing cards. Daniel only gets 2 of the 3 cards correct. Locke also chooses only 2 of the 3 items correctly.
* Richard is traveling back to Locke, knowing what he will pick in the future. Locke's inability to get it right means he lacks the prescience or that he cannot remember that he has already done this.
* If Locke picks these items in the future, then how can Locke pick wrong?
* Also, what is the point of Richard time traveling to give this test? What is the point of the test? This theory does not make sense.
* The selected items would appeal to someone dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge (the compass, sand, and possibly comic), deep spirituality (the Book of Laws), and both worldly and metaphysical justice (again, the Book of Laws). The knife and/or baseball glove, for purposes of this "test," would appeal to someone less interested in intellectual/spiritual pursuits and more concerned with physicality, competition, etc. Locke chose the knife intentionally because he was trying to develop a "macho" self image.
* Though, Locke was hardly ten years old when Richard came to him, there is no reason why he would be forced by peer-pressure
* The "personality test" theory does not explain why Richard is traveling the world giving personality tests to children. Why Locke? Why ask him to identify the items that belong to him?
* The "personality test" theory is the most consonant with the themes of the episode and with the philosophy of the historical John Locke, as the character Locke is seen repeatedly bucking authority, choosing to go his own way rather than conform to the standards set before him by a higher power (be it a school principal or a representative from the Island). Richard's reasons for testing Locke is a separate issue, and many of the theories presented above offer an attempt at explaining this.
* In 1977, Richard tells Jack that he visited Locke several times as he was growing up but can't understand why he's supposed to be special.
* Richard himself is long lived, but he's not omniscient. He his knowledge is limited to his continuous experience of the passage of time. To him Locke appears to him first in 1954, then in 1974, 2004 after the first crash and 2007 after the second crash.
* Richard seems to have no certain knowledge of the future. This is why he is initially surprised or incredulous about time traveling.
* He is convinced by Locke that time travel is possible and that Locke is engaged in it when they meet in 1954. Richard received the compass at this time and was invited by Locke to visit him off the island over the course of his life to verify his claims about time travel.
* For Richard Locke's claim that he is from the future seemed to be confirmed when he witnesses Locke's birth two years later in 1956.
* What makes Richard think Locke is special in 1954/1956 is this apparent ability to time-jump. So, Richard is looking for indications of little Locke's knowledge of his "future" meetings with him when he comes to "test" him.
* The claim that he is giving kids personality tests is just a cover story for the foster mother so Richard can gain access to little Locke.
* When Richard sees little Locke's picture of the smoke monster he is optimistic that little Locke will "pass" the test because he assumes that little Locke's memories of his future on the island have inspired the picture. In this he is probably correct.
* Richard sets the objects out and poses the question emphasizing the time factor (which item belongs to Locke "already");
* He's expecting little Locke to pick the compass since at this point in time (sometime in 1961), Richard thinks that it belongs to Locke because Locke gave it to him in 1954.
* But little Locke is emotionally distracted by his need to prove his worthiness after being rejected by him mother and cast into a foster home where he is mocked and picked on all the time. So, he picks the knife because,
* he has a future memory of being a hunter/warrior on the island; at least this is how is saw himself (or wanted to see himself).
* He has a future memory that he's supposed to be a leader and thinks being a hunter/warrior is what this entails.
* He actually has a future memory of having knives; he had a case full of them when the plane crashed.
* he thinks by picking the knife this will get him into the special school Richard is talking about.
* When Locke picks the knife instead of the compass, Richard gets frustrated because to him Locke does not seem to "remember" their future meeting. And this may or may not be true.
* Little Locke may have a future memory of the compass, if so then he probably does not pick it because he thinks of it as really belonging to Richard. From his perspective, the time jumps he experienced after Ben turned the donkey wheel are part of his continuous experience of the passage of time. So, to him Richard gave him the compass first in 2004 (2008) telling him to give it back the next time he sees him (i.e. 1954). Moreover, little Locke's future memories were probably random flashes, like Claire's, so he probably couldn't make sense of them.
* The knife is the wrong choice as far as Richard is concerned, even if it belongs to Locke on the island. All it indicates is that little Locke experiences his future memories as premonitions of his future on the island, and that he does not seem to know that these are caused by time travel.
* Meanwhile picking the compass would have indicated to Richard that little Locke understood the temporal paradox it represented and was therefore a prodigy knowing about time travel.
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