I really feel that the writers and actors did a great job with Ben's backstory. They accomplished something that is very, very difficult to do. They made us, the audience, empathize with this antagonist and really feel for him and understand so much of how he got the way he got, and then they seamlessly showed us the evolution of the character from rejected, unloved child to cold, calculating monster. It was really chilling and really well done because so often in storytelling and in character development we are never really shown the why of how a character got the way s/he got. We either see a good guy or a bad guy and maybe we know some of their history, some of the why, but it is only the very rare, very well conceived, developed, written and acted character and story that makes us feel for a character who we come to understand has turned out to be a monster. And one really couldn't argue after seeing that backstory that Ben is not a monster, because he was involved in the mass murder of a whole society of people, and in the murder of his own father (speaking of horrible monsters!!!), to name just a few things we know he has done. Yet we were shown very carefully and poignantly just how Ben got to be the person he has become.

I really, really felt for Ben the child. When his father said, in a drunken stupor, that it was hard to wish him a happy birthday because he killed his mother, how utterly awful. Ben had no mother, and a father who was at best cold and rejecting, at worst hostile and accusatory. Ben was totally unloved as a child. Very, very sad. And like I said, I so felt for him.

But then later in the episode, we saw the cold, caculating customer he became. The mass murder and patricide were bad enough, but he really lost moi when he shot Locke!
:eek2: :68: :2: :63:

Very, very extraordinary writing and acting. Ben the rejected, unloved child to Ben the monster. Brilliant. And so very sad.

tragic or not, I can't feel sympathy for Ben, he is a cold blooded killer. Look how many people he killed, not to mention now the fact that he tries to kill Locke. Locke will make it through and I hope he scares the heck out of Ben with his return! Mwa ha ha ha!!

And we don't even know the whole story. What was Ben's relationship with the Hostiles/"natives" during that long, patient wait of some 20+ years? What happened to Annie, the only person who truly seemed to care about Ben? These things HAD to have had an impact on Ben's "devolution" from troubled boy to adult monster. So there is future FB material for Ben!

tragic or not, I can't feel sympathy for Ben, he is a cold blooded killer. Look how many people he killed, not to mention now the fact that he tries to kill Locke. Locke will make it through and I hope he scares the heck out of Ben with his return! Mwa ha ha ha!!
Well, what LOST does so well is make one wrestle with shades of gray. I absolutely agree with you that Ben is a cold-blooded killer. Yet I must say that I do feel for Ben the child. And now when I see Ben the monster, I also see Ben the child, ya know? That is NOT to say I in any way excuse the things he has done. I mean, take the mass murder of the Dharma Initiative society, how awful! He apparently even killed the one person he loved, little Annie, the girl who befriended him and made the dolls as a gift to him. He may not have initiated the mass murder plot but he was an accomplice to it. Chilling. ...Yet--and this is what I feel LOST does so well--at the same time as I see Ben as he is today, I see and still feel for that child with potential who was consistently rejected and never received one speck of parental love. Not a speck. Not a hug, not a kind word, never, nothing, nada. Poor kid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still, he reeeeeeeeally shouldn't have shot Locke. Because now my fellow DOLTs and I are going to have to organize ourselves a posse and go after his sorry self! omg.

I really feel that the writers and actors did a great job with Ben's backstory. They accomplished something that is very, very difficult to do. They made us, the audience, empathize with this antagonist and really feel for him and understand so much of how he got the way he got, and then they seamlessly showed us the evolution of the character from rejected, unloved child to cold, calculating monster.
I agree completely. The little boy who played young Ben was just marvelous both in terms of playing a sympathetic character and in adapting to the mannerisms of the older actor.

Ben was totally unloved as a child. Very, very sad. And like I said, I so felt for him. But then later in the episode, we saw the cold, caculating customer he became.
It's no wonder he became a sociopath but he was not totally unloved. He had Annie. Yet, presumably, he didn't hesitate to let her die with the rest of them. I suspect if he had said something to Richard, the Hostiles would have kidnapped Annie and saved her. Ben must have felt something. He clung to that doll all his life.

Prior to this episode, I thought of Ben as the Others' version of Jack - someone who is concerned about the whole but is so convinced he is the only one capable of seeing to their well-being, he acts without explaining his actions and demands that his group trust and follow him. Now I'm not sure. Ben may actually be the megalomaniac he seems to be.


tragic or not, I can't feel sympathy for Ben, he is a cold blooded killer.
I agree. I felt sorry for the little boy but not the adult. I don't think he shot Locke in cold blood though. Ben shot Locke out of blind fear. That was the most passion I've seen from Ben to date.

He apparently even killed the one person he loved, little Annie, the girl who befriended him and made the dolls as a gift to him.

I don't think he killed her....she was the only person who cares for him! To me, she was either already dead or like him she went on the hostiles side.


He may not have initiated the mass murder plot but he was an accomplice to it.

i think and hope he didn't! But was clearly an accomplice.
I'm so sad he did such awfull things...i mean this is worst than Sawyer's crime, than Kate's crime, than Michael's crime, than Locke's crime...
Now i'm a little disapointed because i'm scared the writers kill him...:frown: hope they didn't, he's such a wonderful character!

I hate Richard now...lol i'm sure he's the one who manipulate a young boy and makes the sort of monster he is now. If only Juliet can "undo the spell" ..but i think i can dream...he go to far ...he probably can't go back...such a waste! This episode makes me sad. :frown:

Uncle Rico's a real jerk.

Or, for folks my age::

Lazlo, the guy who lived in the closet in "Real Genius," is a real jerk.

I mean, take the mass murder of the Dharma Initiative society, how awful! He apparently even killed the one person he loved, little Annie, the girl who befriended him and made the dolls as a gift to him.
That scene where, as an adult, he takes Annie's doll with him as he sets out to "do what I had to do"? The way he looked at the doll--well, I think that Annie was ALREADY dead. An experiment gone wrong? He'd married her, and she died before giving birth? I don't know. But I don't think Ben could've just left the village, knowing the Hostiles were coming in to kill everyone, if Annie were still alive. She is, after all, the only person who'd truly cared about him!

I agree with your whole post Save the Humans. I think Annie was already dead when the purge happened. An experiment they did probably did her in which put fuel on the fire for Ben to destroy them. I have to admit I didn't know if I would really care about Ben's backstory but I was completely riveted to my tv. I felt so bad for that little boy and then wham they show Ben really is a psycho. I actually think this is one of the best backstories they have done and it was done so far in only one episode. Now that's great writing folks.

I agree completely. The little boy who played young Ben was just marvelous both in terms of playing a sympathetic character and in adapting to the mannerisms of the older actor.
It's no wonder he became a sociopath but he was not totally unloved. He had Annie.
So true. I meant that he was totally unloved by any parental figure. He had no mother at all and a father who, like I said, was cold, uncaring and rejecting at best, and hostile and awful-guilt-trip-laying at worst. Now, mind you, I happen myself to have had a very bad childhood. But I just can't imagine never having a speck--not a hug, not a kind word, not a story read to me, not a present on my birthday, NOTHING--of love from a parent. Ben's childhood was just total coldness, rejection and pain. Except for Annie, you are quite right there. So he was totally unloved by any parent, that's what I meant. It was like he was parentless, an orphan in a way. His father was quite alive and present, but on a good day Ben got no attention from him, and on a bad day, he was told that it was his fault that his mom died in childbirth. How awful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Annie did love him and her love was like water in a desert...but as freely given, total, wonderful and good as it was, it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to make the desert bloom. Ben needed the love of a parent. Not only did he not get that, he got overt rejection. No wonder, as you said, he turned into a sociopath. LOST did a chillingly great job of showing us the, as someone else so aptly put it, "devolution" of the child with potential into the cold monster. Even by the time Annie met him, he was already pretty far lost in the wilderness. He didn't talk and he was very closed off. She did reach him, but the love of one friend, profound as that can be and seemingly was in this case, isn't enough to make up for the infinite abyss of no parental love.

I think there is still a part of Ben--and maybe this is only because of the love he got from Annie as a child, maybe it is because some small part of the desert of his soul was watered--that can love, and that part we see come through in the adult Ben when we see him interact with, and even just talk about, Alex. Alex is the key to what is left of Ben's heart.

His story is so tragic. If it weren't for the pesky business of him participating in mass murder and then the fact that he shot Locke, I could really work up a good sadness for the guy. But instead...well, he isn't a DOLT's favorite person right now, let's just leave it at that.

I really feel that the writers and actors did a great job with Ben's backstory. They accomplished something that is very, very difficult to do. They made us, the audience, empathize with this antagonist and really feel for him and understand so much of how he got the way he got, and then they seamlessly showed us the evolution of the character from rejected, unloved child to cold, calculating monster. It was really chilling and really well done because so often in storytelling and in character development we are never really shown the why of how a character got the way s/he got. We either see a good guy or a bad guy and maybe we know some of their history, some of the why, but it is only the very rare, very well conceived, developed, written and acted character and story that makes us feel for a character who we come to understand has turned out to be a monster.

(out of order) I really, really felt for Ben the child. When his father said, in a drunken stupor, that it was hard to wish him a happy birthday because he killed his mother, how utterly awful. Ben had no mother, and a father who was at best cold and rejecting, at worst hostile and accusatory. Ben was totally unloved as a child. Very, very sad. And like I said, I so felt for him. I agree on these points. The portrayal of his birthday was just heartwrenching - that his father blamed the infant for "killing" his mother. Unbelievable. It's hard to imagine what that constant accusation must have done to the child. I guess we saw - it shaped Ben's self-image in later years into a killer.
Yet still I feel no sympathy whatsoever for the adult Ben. Some of the other Losties have had horrific pasts and not turned into quite the sociopaths that Ben has. He's a creepy megalomaniac, as someone else put it, and gets no pass for what he's done--the killing and torture, not to mention constant manipulation of people-- and what he continues to do.
And one really couldn't argue after seeing that backstory that Ben is not a monster, because he was involved in the mass murder of a whole society of people, and in the murder of his own father (speaking of horrible monsters!!!), to name just a few things we know he has done. Yet we were shown very carefully and poignantly just how Ben got to be the person he has become. However, I do see Ben as a monster.

And we don't even know the whole story. What was Ben's relationship with the Hostiles/"natives" during that long, patient wait of some 20+ years? What happened to Annie, the only person who truly seemed to care about Ben? These things HAD to have had an impact on Ben's "devolution" from troubled boy to adult monster. So there is future FB material for Ben!
Yeah, the missing years where he presumably formed a relationship with Alpert's merry band would be another interesting fb, as they probably eased him slowly into their nefarious ways.
The show still didn't offer any clue as to why the hillbilly crew (the "Hostiles") were so hostile toward Dharma, except for territorial reasons I guess.
I thought one of the dead women Ben saw in the village might have been Annie, but I don't remember exactly.

There's certainly some daddy killing going on in this show.

The portrayal of his birthday was just heartwrenching - that his father blamed the infant for "killing" his mother. Unbelievable. It's hard to imagine what that constant accusation must have done to the child.
Exactly. That is what I found the most heartwrenching and tragic about Ben's childhood. it was awful beyond imagination.
I guess we saw - it shaped Ben's self-image in later years into a killer. Yet still I feel no sympathy whatsoever for the adult Ben.
I don't feel that his childhood excuses his terrible acts. ...But I gotta say, the understanding of how he became what he became, for me, does sometimes take a front seat for me right alongside my horror and judgement for what he later did. I can't divorce my sympathy for the child from my horror, etc. towards the adult. This is what LOST does so masterfully: it shows us the complexity of EVERYTHING: people, situations, choices, everything. Again I stress that I am NOT saying that understanding the complexity of Ben excuses the acts that he did. I guess I'm just saying I feel bad for the child. The child that is already lost and gone and replaced by the monster. So it is being sad and empathetic towards someone who isn't there, I realize that. But STILL! Meanwhile, the adult Ben better hope me and my posse-o-DOLTS don't run across him in the Dark Territory because we are ready to unleash a little "We're gonna have to take the boy!" on his a**!!! I clearly do see that the adult Ben is a reprehensible monster. But now, thanks to how well conceived, written and acted this episode was, at the same time, I grieve for the child who was crushed.