Many of the questions I have posed in my post (and in my posts below) were written with a heavy sense of frustration with the show. In fact, you've done a great job of stating outright the ideas/suspecisions underlying a lot of my 'complaints', so to say--that is, the guardians are selfish, enslaved beings, aiming towards no higher purpose, for all the Others' claims of being 'good guys', of 'trying to save the world', or any other ridiculous claim they've made. I've suspected (and sometimes stated, in earlier episode dissections) as much, but this episode seems to have sealed it. My questions stemmed from a sense of SURELY YOU MUST BE JOKING, but perhaps they are not, and frankly, it is royally annoying. Six seasons, all building towards a great big nothingness of selfish people being selfish. Everyone is selfish, manipulative, and corrupted. Is that the message? I mean, obviously, no one (in reality) is perfect, and everyone has moments of failing prey to being selfish, manipulative, and corruptible. But it's as if there's no one to root for anymore. Even the Losties are pathetic.

I don't want any of the Losties to end up a new enslaved Guardian. I don't want Smoke Monster to escape. It's like Desmond says, it's all a game to these people, and the Losties are just pawns. Except that 'these people' seems to include just about everyone. Well, except for Desmond. I guess I'm rooting for him.

And I guess I'm just distinctly underwhelmed by the story at this point. Maybe the writers/producers will redeem themselves in the end. I hope so.