Another thought about the ax...what if it has a greater meaning like the gun and the knives do? Not just that Jack is doomed, but something else. . . It's interesting that the ax is a double-headed ax. In ancient Minoan civilization, this kind of ax was known as the labyris and it was a sign of the goddess. There was an ancient ritual, described by Mary Stewart in the book The King Must Die, where youths from mainland Greece were sacrificed by being sent to Crete where they learned a sport that included flipping over the back of a charging bull. A huge bull, an object of worship as well as fear, was kept in a maze/enclosure called a labyrinth, named after the double-headed ax.