Uncharted Island

After seeing the carnage of the orchestrated gas attack, it’s hard to see how Ben can possibly think that his group is really made up of the “good guys” he claims they are. The castaways versus Others fatality tally really doesn’t matter anymore. We know now that the Others brutally murdered a whole town full of hippies. Would the term genocide apply in this case? I’m not quite sure.

Ben was exposed as a liar from the moment we first met him. He had claimed to be Henry Gale; he had an elaborate backstory that was entirely believable until Sayid and company dug up the grave containing the body of the real Henry Gale. Now we know the extent and depth of his lies. Everyone he’s recruited believes he was born on the island. Why is that so important to him for them to believe that? What would happen if they knew the truth? And more importantly, why hasn’t Richard come out and exposed him for the fraud he is? He gave Locke a means to take Ben down, but he has some damning information of his own. Does he keep Ben’s secret because it would also expose him as a murderer?

I get that Ben was screwed up by his drunk father’s bitterness over his mother’s death and being pigeonholed as a janitor when he thought he was going to be doing something more glamorous on the island. But even that doesn’t explain why he became the monster he is now. Sawyer’s daddy issues are far worse, but he only wanted to kill one man because of it, not a whole village full of people. I wonder if the grown-up Annie had left the island at the time of the Purge, or if Ben allowed her to become a mere casualty.

I was right about one thing, Ben does believe, in some way, that he was reborn after the Purge. He told Locke that that’s where he came from. I guess it’s the truth… from a certain, rather twisted point of view.

And what about Ben’s connection with Jacob? Who or what Jacob is will be the subject of another entry. But Ben certainly looked like a raving lunatic talking to an invisible Jacob, from Locke’s perspective. But then Locke heard Jacob, too. And that’s when Ben lost it. Ben had told Locke that no one else has ever seen Jacob. Apparently that’s because Jacob had never wanted to show himself to anyone else. Ben jealously guarded that honor. I think he shot Locke because he couldn’t stand that Jacob had chosen to reveal himself to someone else. After Locke told him what Jacob had said, it looked as if Ben wondered if shooting Locke had been a mistake, but maybe it just confirmed his need to eliminate the competition.

I want to know why Richard and the other “Hostiles,” the island natives, allowed Ben to step into the role of leader. They had obviously been there for quite some time. It had to be more than just his help in the systematic extermination of Dharma from their island. Was it because of Jacob? I guess it’s with that question that I leave this Ben-centered piece to start working on some Jacob speculation.