These actions align Claudia directly against whatever protective agenda mother might have for the island. She provides unsolicited knowledge that will turn the boy in black against his adoptive mom, as well as motives for leaving both her and the island for good. It's almost as if she senses that the MIB will take over as the island's guardian, and is somehow trying to prevent this from happening.
By now, it's safe to see Claudia and Isabella as the same type of entity. These ghosts seem somehow different from the non-glowing whisperers we've seen appearing throughout the show. The aura surrounding Claudia draws obvious associations with whatever lies at the heart of the island, beneath the cave of a thousand fireflies.
Claudia also tells the boy in black that he can see her "because she's dead". As a potential candidate, he's allowed this ability - much the way Hurley could see Jacob and Isabella, or Sayid and Sawyer could see the younger boy-version of Jacob. Come to think of it, Jin could not see Jacob during LAX, and maybe this answers the question as to which Kwon was an actual candidate. Not that it matters...
For Someone Who Supposedly Can't Harm His Brother, Jacob's Got a Good Right Hook
This week a long-standing theory I adhered to finally got popped: the idea that Jacob and the MIB were two halves of the same entity. Although we learned this physically wasn't the truth, spiritually and emotionally they really are indeed two halves of a whole. I also found the boy in black's phrase "they're our things" pretty interesting.
Nevertheless, it's even more interesting that mother allows the boy in black to leave. After catching them fighting in the jungle, Jacob's brother gives him his only really big choice: come with me or stay here. Jacob chooses to stay with the only mother he knows. His brother decides to move in with the original Others, and 'mother' does nothing to stop him.
Choices. LOST is, and always has been, about choices. Mother seemed pretty defeated to learn where her son had gained his sudden enlightenment, but she also seemed powerless to stop him from making his own decision. It's as if she knew where glow-Claudia came from: the other side. And apparently, the other side is NOT to be messed with.
Mother and Jacob's following conversation on the beach further defines the roles of 'good' and 'bad'. Looking back, this little talk would be greatly influential in helping Jacob draw up all the lists he'd make later on. Yet despite being told that he's good, Jacob senses - as only a child can - that his mother has more love for his dark-shirted brother than for him. He's not entirely correct in this assumption, however.
"I love you in different ways", mother tells him, and I think she's being totally sincere here. She loves Jacob in pure ways, as a good son, without wanting or needing anything from him. But she loves the boy in black mostly as a successor - someone to finally take her place - someone to relieve her after a long, dutiful stay on the island.
Everything Dies... But Black and White Shirts Never Go Out of Style
Thirty years later, Jacob and his brother are still playing senet. No one's invented chess yet, and Mousetrap is still a long way off.
Turns out that the MIB can't get that golden honeyhole out of his mind. For thirty years he's been searching and digging for it, and with some magnetic help his people have finally found the subterranean source of its power. Since he can't stand his own people he's ready to blow LOST island, with or without Jacob.
Since we know what happens to the MIB at the end of this episode, it's important to stop here and note how jaded he's become. For three decades he's lived in a society that's "greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy, and selfish." This would be the only mankind he really knows - the only people he'd ever get the chance to have any real-life experience with. Once he becomes the smoke monster, the man in black would base all future dealings with the island's inhabitants upon this one small, corrupted subset of society.
Jacob however, is not looking to leave the island. He runs home dejected, where mommy makes him tell about his brother's plans. Mother is not very excited at the prospect of losing her potential successor. Maybe she'd hoped he would eventually come around, but now it looks as if the MIB is staring out over the ocean again... and then some.
This is where mother makes one last play - one final bid to bring her son back to fulfill what she deems are his true responsibilities. She confronts him in the well, hoping to turn things around. Yet instead of agreeing to guard the leprechaun's pot of gold, the man in black is actually breaking down walls to reach it from beneath. He's hooking a donkey wheel up to the golden fleece, and he's spinning himself off this rock at first opportunity... or at least he would be, if he didn't underestimate his mother's ability to deliver brutal headwounds.
Again, it's incredibly interesting how the donkey wheel gets built totally on faith (because I sure didn't see any science there). As silly as the theory behind it sounds, the MIB fully believes he can somehow "channel the water and the light." His only goal is to leave the island, and he's been building the wheel with that single purpose in mind. So even though he never gets to finish it? It should be no surprise to learn that several hundred years later, the wheel does exactly what the man in black always believed it would do.
I Didn't Have a Choice. It's What he Wants.
Once it became obvious that she couldn't sway her first draft pick, Jacob becomes mother's unfortunate plan B. She leads him to the radioactive gash in the forest, and that's where she swears him in. But first she explains what we've always wanted to know: exactly what lies at the heart of the island.
Life, death, rebirth... all of these themes have been strong throughout LOST. Therefore it stands to perfect reason that they'd all flow right beneath the very feet of our main characters, healing them when they were sick, killing them off when they weren't needed. Mother makes Jacob solemnly promise to never go down into the light, telling him it would be "much worse" than dying. And she's speaking from experience here, because in my opinion this is exactly what she did at one point.
The ceremonial chanting and sharing of wine seemed largely symbolic to me. It was as if mother needed to convince Jacob that once he did this, his path was forever bound to the island. Jacob's still gullible at this point. He drinks up, and he believes her. Whether or not this truly does etch his destiny in stone remains to be seen, but this is where mother does something really, really slick: she recruits both Jacob and his brother to guard the island.
Jacob is 100% right. His brother was always first choice. But what he doesn't know: mother is shrewd enough to recognize that as 'good' as he is, Jacob can't guard the island alone. Jacob's honesty and commitment needs to be tempered by his brother's willingness to lie, be deceitful, and do anything needed to get the job done. Alone, each of them is only half a candidate. But together, they make an ideal guardian for the island's shores.
Uncle Owen? Aunt Beru?
This is where mother's plan gets totally insidious. She knocks the MIB out, and drags him to his village. By the time he wakes up, she's decimated the settlement and killed all his comrades. Even worse, she's filled in his well, eliminating any hope he might've had at getting off the island. THIS is what infuriates the man in black most of all. He couldn't care less about the people he lived with... but messing with his escape plan was the one thing sure to drive him completely berserk.
So how did mother accomplish all this stuff? As the smoke monster, of course. When she warned Jacob not to go into Yoda's cave, she was speaking as someone who'd done it herself. Sometime over the course of her tenure on the island, she'd put her own body through the island's paper shredder... and emerged with the power to commit the carnage we saw here by the time she got to the other side.
Also, consider the wall glyphs we saw during Dead is Dead, involving the worship of the smoke monster. Egyptian hieroglyphics would predate Jacob or the MIB's arrival on the island, indicative of the monster being around for much, much longer. At least that's my take on it.
The next thing mother does is plant the senet board at the scene of the crime. This makes the dark man think Jacob was also responsible for the destruction. Mother knows the MIB will seek them out, and in his rage, finally put an end to her life. She might even have needed him to kill her. Her time was up anyway, and Jacob had already taken her place. Hell, she'd even physically handed him a torch.
After conveniently sending Jacob away to 'get firewood', mother willingly meets her destiny at the end of the now infamous knife. She even thanks the man in black for her release. Predictably, this is when Jacob approaches. He sees his murderous brother holding a bloody knife standing over the body of their mother, and delivers another great flying tackle. A half-dozen punches later, and the final piece of mom's puzzle falls into place: Jacob drags the MIB to the secret stream, knocks him out, and sends him through the island's giant QUIZNOS oven.
In the end, this solves mother's every dilemma. Jacob gets spared the cost associated with going into the cave, and the man in black can no longer leave the island. When she first hatched her plan, mother knew full well this would be the end result - even if she wouldn't be around to see it. Her own long con involved serving out the rest of her time, and getting the best of both worlds when it came to a replacement for guarding the heart of the island.
Meanwhile.. Back When Kate Still Had Lipstick.