Remeber the tag line in the previews of the season.
Who will I choose to be.
Eko chose to be the same person. So he is dead.
(that was a great post by me..)
It was a great post Juggy, interesting thoughts on smokie...
But my thoughts on this are: if smokie exists to judge worth (dead or alive), is it merely an issue of who one chooses to be? And does this deal more with fate vs. free will, based on a person's repentance/acceptance/atonement? Refusal to (and fear of) change is a prevalent theme on the island, but I don't neccessarily think it means death if someone cannot come to terms with their "sins" the way smokie wants them to...
Thus, when Locke says "we're next", does it serve more as a warning or as a code of conduct for how to act on the island? IMHO, I think it's more of a precaution to our losties rather than an actual threat to kill... we know that smokie can kill (he achieved that with the pilot and eko) but we still don't understand how or why it chooses it's victims... i suppose we'll find out eventually how important this smoke monster is to the show...