This week we're taking a look at the always deceitful and ever resourceful Benjamin Linus.
SPOILER WARNING: Details from the most recent Lost episode, "He's Our You," are discussed, so if you haven't seen it yet consider yourself warned. Also, potential spoilers for upcoming episodes are discussed, if any of Our Theories are correct.
- ABC Expert liar and mastermind Benjamin Linus is one of the most intriguing characters on Lost. We've learned a great deal about him since he was first introduced in season two's "One of Them," posing as balloonist Henry Gale, but we've also learned that you can rarely take what he says at face value. Ben always seem to have a secret, hidden agenda and it's unclear if anyone other than Ben knows his true motives for any of his actions.
Even though he's said that he was born on the island, we know, through the flashbacks in the Ben-centric episode "The Man Behind the Curtain," that Ben first arrived on the island when he was eight. Ben's father, a mean drunk named Roger, got a job with the DHARMA Initiative. Ben's mother died while giving birth to Ben, which Roger resented his son for. One evening, Ben saw his dead mother and followed her into the jungle, where he met Richard Alpert and asked to join "The Hostiles." Richard told him to be "very, very patient." In the last two weeks of episodes, we learned that young Ben met Sawyer, Sayid and the rest of crew stuck in 1973. Ben set a bus on fire as a distraction while he broke Sayid out of the DHARMA jail. Sayid repaid the favor by shooting young Ben.
Ben's earliest evil deed -- that we know of -- was his involvement in the Purge. As a young man working for DHARMA with his father, Ben and the Others gassed and killed everyone in the DHARMA Initiative, aside from a handful of DHARMA recruits who, like Ben, had joined the Others. This time seemed to mark the beginning of Ben's leadership of the Others.
Ben claims to work for Jacob (although it's unclear whether he even hears Jacob, as Locke learned in "The Man Behind the Curtain") and says that he's the only person who has seen him. Ben's used Jacob as a reason/excuse for multiple actions, including convincing Juliet to stay on the island (he told her Jacob would cure her sister's cancer in "The Other Woman"), and telling the Others to kidnap all of the Oceanic 815 women and kill all the men because Jacob ordered it (in "Greatest Hits").
Ben has an uncanny ability to talk his way out of pretty much any situation he gets into, and seems willing to take any kind of physical abuse with an underlying confidence that he'll get out of it. His capture and imprisonment by first Danielle Rousseau and then the Oceanic survivors, in Season 2, resulted in a brutal interrogation of Ben by Sayid ("One of Them"). He's also lived through beatings by Jack ("The Beginning of the End"), Sawyer ("Confirmed Dead"), and whatever happened to him before he arrived on the plane in "316."
Arguably Ben's strongest skill is his ability to manipulate people to do whatever he wants them to do. Over the past four seasons his mind games have controlled the actions of Locke, Jack, Juliet, Sawyer, and Sayid, among others. Somehow Ben is able to make these people who want to kill him trust him -- at least long enough to get what he needs. His manipulations have caused Locke to stop pressing the button on the computer (resulting in the hatch explosion) and prevent his suicide off the island (only to kill Locke himself minutes later), Jack to perform surgery on him to remove a tumor on his spine and later to go back to the island, Juliet to stay on the island, Sawyer to stop trying to escape The Others' captivity, and Sayid to assassinate a whole bunch of people Ben claimed posed a "threat" to the Oceanic Six.
A key to Ben's true motives is his longtime rivalry with wealthy industrialist Charles Widmore. Widmore's team of mercenaries on the freighter had orders to capture Ben. After Keamy killed Alexandra -- who Ben had adopted as his own daughter, but was really stolen from Rousseau as an infant -- Ben claimed that Widmore had "changed the rules" and went about moving the island (while making the curious statement "I hope you're happy now, Jacob"), sending Ben to Tunisia in October 2005. Sometime after that Ben appeared in Widmore's London home and tells him that he will kill Widmore's daughter, Penny, so that he will know the same pain that Ben knows. Widmore claims that everything Ben has he took from him and that he knows "what" Ben is and he wants "his" island back.
This week we're taking a look at the always deceitful and ever resourceful Benjamin Linus. SPOILER WARNING: Details from the most recent
[Welcome to IGN's weekly feature, "Lost Mysteries." Each week we take a look at one mystery from Lost and go over what we've learned to date, what we still don't know, and our theories on what it all may mean.
The biggest mystery involving Benjamin Linus involves his motives. Is Ben truly a protector of the island? Or does Charles Widmore truly have a stake in the island? Why did Ben assist with (or even plan) killing off all of the DHARMA Initiative? Does Ben truly take orders from Jacob, or does he just make them all up? Does Ben really always have a plan or is he just figuring things out as he goes along? How did Ben become the leader of The Others?
How has Ben learned about all the secrets of the island? He must have learned about all of the DHARMA stations from his time working for them, but how does he know about the older secrets, such as the smoke monster and the frozen wheel?
What exactly did Ben do to Widmore (or vice versa) that started their rivalry? What are the rules they go by and who decided them?
In "The Economist" Sayid discovered that Ben had a secret room in his house where he stored passports from various countries and assorted currency -- why did Ben need all of that? What were the purposes of all his trips off-island?
What did Ben do that Miles threatened to reveal if he didn't pay Miles $3.2 million (in "Eggtown")? Why did Miles think Ben has that much money? When (and where) was the photo taken of Ben that Miles showed to Jack and Juliet?
How did Ben get injured before boarding Ajira Flight 316?
Did Sayid kill young Ben in "He's Our You"? If so, doesn't that cause a major time paradox? If not, how does he live?
This week we're taking a look at the always deceitful and ever resourceful Benjamin Linus. SPOILER WARNING: Details from the most recent
[Welcome to IGN's weekly feature, "Lost Mysteries." Each week we take a look at one mystery from Lost and go over what we've learned to date, what we still don't know, and our theories on what it all may mean.
First we need to discuss something that will likely be addressed in next week's episode: Did Sayid kill young Ben? Our guess is no, mainly because Daniel Faraday said that you can't make changes to the past even if you tried. So Sayid going back in time and killing Ben can't stick. So we think Ben is saved, either by the island or by people. It could be like Michael off the island, where even when he tried to kill himself, he couldn't, because the island wasn't done with him yet. Or it could simply be a matter of a DHARMA doctor, or one of the Hostiles, coming to young Ben's rescue.
As we said on our What We Don't Know page, the biggest mystery surrounding Benjamin Linus involves his motives. He's claimed that he and The Others are "the good guys" but his history of violence -- from the Purge to his ordered attacks on the Oceanic survivors to his strangling of Locke -- is a strong argument against him being considered "good." Our guess is that Ben's overall plan has nothing to do with the safety of the island, its inhabitants, or Jacob -- instead, it's all about Ben controlling the island.
Ben seems to have an understanding of everything on the island, from DHARMA's experiments and stations to the older mysteries, including the black smoke monster and the frozen wheel. But his use of all those things seems to be for his purposes only, and nothing to do with the island. Ben had put DHARMA's resources to full use, from the monitoring stations to the submarine, all for The Others' own purposes, and nothing to do with the stations' original purposes. He's able to summon the black smoke monster at will -- and sends it after Keamy and his men). And Ben knows that the frozen wheel will move the island send him off the island… but he doesn't either know or care that it would "break" the island, sending people left on the island hopping around between time periods until Jacob & Christian would get Locke to fix it. It seems that the real reason Ben moved the wheel at all was twofold: to hide the island from Widmore and so that he could wage his war against Widmore off-island (primarily by manipulating Sayid to assassinate Widmore's people).
Lost appears to be building up to a huge battle between Widmore and Ben for control of the island. Ben's injuries before boarding Ajira Flight 316 could have been from an attack on Penny -- resulting in deaths of Penny and/or Desmond -- which would certainly escalate the Widmore-Linus war. Widmore told Locke that he's helping send him back to the island because a war is coming and if Locke isn't back, "the wrong side" is going to win. Considering how much Locke must hate Ben now for killing him, one assumes that Locke will be on Widmore's side, against Ben.
Widmore and Ben's fight for over control of the island makes us think that Widmore may have been the leader of The Others before Ben took over and forced Widmore into exile. Ben may have tricked Widmore into pushing the frozen wheel, sending him to the Tunisian desert, which is why Widmore would have known to watch for Locke's appearance there.