Is Ben Linus good or evil?
It’s the questions that has plagued Lost fans from the very beginning. He has done despicable things but he has always stated that they were done to protect the island or under the guise of the direction of Jacob. In Season 2 after lying about his Henry Gale identity and ultimately escaping capture and torture from Team Oceanic, Ben ends up flipping the tables and capturing Jack, Hurley, Sawyer and Kate. On the dock he precedes to tell them that the he and the Others are the “good guys.” The amazing thing is that I believe Ben has always believed this and that all of Ben’s motivations and heinous acts can be attributed to one consistent attribute…blind faith.
This simple revelation plays perfectly to the fact that to date the viewers have been led to believe that Jacob is a God/Christ figure who’s simple touch allows miraculous things as well as immediate Candidacy to take over his gifts and potentially his role on the island. Those that follow Jacob usually do so out of the blind faith and with a devout purpose. Many agnostic and non religious people over many centuries have used blind faith as an example of why religion doesn’t make sense. How can millions of people place their faith in God without true proof that he exists? How can day after day they believe in and carry around that faith? Jacob is a tremendous example of this age old argument and as many religious people have had a crisis of faith in their lives, we are now seeing some of the Losties experiencing this conundrum.
This week Richard comes across Jack and Hurley in the Jungle and leads them back to the Black Rock. He tells them that he hasn’t been back to the ship in a long time. That’s an understatement!!! How about coming clean and telling them, “I haven’t been here since 1845!” We know that Richard was a slave on the Black Rock as in the Season 6 opener MIB/Lockeness Monster (LNM) comes out of the foot statue after Ben has killed Jacob and looks at Richard and proclaims, “Richard it’s good to see you out of those chains.” So know that this has been clarified lets really dig deep into the religious questions that have been discussed above. We know that in the Season 5 finale the MIB and Jacob were sitting on the beach in 1845 watching the Black Rock sail in when they have their conversation about man’s choice vs man’s nature of destruction. Richard is on that ship and we can assume that when the ship crashed or however the ship ended up in the middle of the island it created a traumatic moment for him. As is his protocol, at this moment in time, Jacob touched him and as part of their bargain gave him the gift of ageless everlasting life.
Richard has now led Jack and Hurley back to the place of his spiritual birth. He proceeds to tell them that he thought when Jacob touched him that it was a gift. However now he believe it is actually a curse. He says that, “He has devoted his life to Jacob, who claimed that everything was happening for a reason, that he had a plan, and that he would share the plan with Richard when the time was right.” Richard now tells them that Jacob is dead and that his entire life which as we can now see was built on the blind faith of Jacobs prophecy, is worthless. He asks Jack to light a Dynamite and kill him as he can’t do it himself. I’m not sure if Jack can kill him due to the rules of the same loophole that MIB used to kill Jacob (http://bit.ly/bATdqh) or if anyone can kill him. The irony that Richard has returned to the place that he found faith to now disavow that faith and try and destroy himself is a great wrinkle from the writers.
However it wouldn’t be Lost if it stopped there. Jack now proceeds to light the Dynamite and tells Richard about his experience at the Lighthouse and that Jacob has been watching him his whole life and he’s on the island for a reason. Richard tells Jack he’s in danger but Jack is convinced no harm will come to him because…of his new found faith!!!! The dynamite does not go off and the fuse dies. Is it because it’s over 150 years old? Or is it the will of a higher being that spared Jack’s newly purpose driven life? What an amazing circular dance of spiritual revelation, disbelief and then new found faith!!
Now we have to get back to Ben as this episode was all about him. In my last entry I wrote about Sayid’s life long struggle to understand if his murderous lifestyle is learned or inherent (http://bit.ly/9lcs6T). Upon initial review Ben would seem to have a similar blueprint to his life but the key difference between them is that Ben believes what he is doing is just and consistent with the his faith and that he is doing the right thing. Throughout his time on the island Ben does awful things but he is always doing them for the island. At one point he exterminates the entire Dharma Initiative because apparently Richard, the Others and Jacob want him to do so the Others can be the sole inhabitants. We know this because we see ageless Richard come out of the woods to greet young Ben shortly after the extermination. Later Ben murders Locke because he believes that he will bring the Oceanic 6 back to the island, create balance and most importantly because the island wants it. The more and more I track back into the history of the Others it makes you question some of Jacob’s motives and orders. However it’s most likely not that cut and dry as one has to wonder if Jacob really was giving the orders or was it the free will he gave his followers that ended up with the net result of them making poor choices. As always with Lost things are grey. It must be noted at this point that neither Jacob nor MIB has proven definitively what their motives are…although it definitely should also be noted that MIB kills a ton of people in Smoke Monster Form.
Ben is so devout and faithful to the island and has so much belief in the island that he ends up killing Jacob because he believes MIB is the new leader of the island and as always he will do anything for the island. We of course now know he was manipulated by MIB but what’s extremely revealing is that when he makes his pre murder statements to Jacob he is filled with anger over never having seen him and following him blindly for years. Once again this brings everything full circle to the topic of blind faith. Ben was angered because Jacob never revealed himself to him after a life of servitude. Should that matter? Once again the question of prove in faith rears its head. Prior to his murder Jacob says to Ben, “that you have a choice here.” Then Ben proceeds to kill him.
This week Ben is once again given a choice. MIB helps him escape, then tells him where he can meet up with him and provides a rifle for him to kill Illana. Ben places the gun on Ilana and then Ben tells her that he sacrificed everything, including his daughters life in the name of the Island and that Jacob didn’t’ care about any of it. He tells Ilana he was angry and confused when he killed Jacob and that all that really matters to him is his daughter Alex. He says he’s sorry and to his disbelief Ilana lets him back into the group.
Because Ben’s confesses his sins and is penitent, he is forgiven. He no longer is looking for blind faith as he is now looking for acceptance and he says so much when Ilnana asks him. However isn’t that what religion and faith are all about…acceptance into a common belief system that binds people together and unifies them throughout their life and especially in times of strife? It appears Ben did indeed find religion…it’s just not in the form of blind faith anymore.
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