It's such a cliche/trope, it's gotten very old. If you're killing the really bad guy, you must take thats second shot through the head. Shows that don't really fall down in favor for me.
My feeling is that Ben the kid is dead, the problem is how does the death effect Ben of the future, who is on the island and out of time. I can see how this will 'fix' the island - now for unification.
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There's an important distinction to be made between what we as the audience knows and what a character might now. We've gotten the "you can't change the future" spiel a couple of times now - first with Desmond/Charlie, then Michael/Richard, and then with Faraday a couple of times. However, Sayid hasn't gotten it at all, to my knowledge. So while we know that Ben can't die, because he's alive in the future, Sayid doesn't know this.
In fact, it's been established that it wouldn't have mattered how many times Sayid shot Young Ben - he will survive. Alternatively, fate's course correction would come into play: the gun would jam, or Sayid would miss, or any number of other incidents to cause Ben to live.
So it's completely logical within Sayid's character that he thinks Ben is dead now - he doesn't know that Ben can't die in the past.
Little Ben's not dead. No way, no how. The show's gone out of its way so far to avoid as much of the "time travel paradox" as possible up to now. Killing Ben before the Dharma mass killing would destroy all of that.
However, the more I see of Ben's father, the more sympathetic I am, not to what Ben becomes, but to the boy who could have been something else -- "Sweet Kid."
__________________ "On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place."
Ok now someone needs to travel back in time and kill Sayid...
Well good twist. Definitely a better season with more focused stories. I wonder if that nuclear bomb that's still around will play a part in the destruction of the island, which I see as the probable ending of the series.
Why was Sayid incredibly stupid during all the conversations with Sawyer?
"Hey Sayid - got a plan, we're freeing you and now you can join the rest of us."
"Nah... I'll just sit here and... do nothing. Or get executed. Whatever."
Wha...?
(Cheered at the shot in the end, though there's absolutely no way he's dead.)
Sayid took a risk, but the risk paid off. I don't think he was suicidal.
Great episode last night. Now we know how Ben became one of the Others.
__________________ "And once again, tithing is 10% off the top. That's gross income, not net. Please people, don't force us to audit. Now I'm going to pass this around a second time. Brother Ned, you'll do the honors." - Reverend T. Lovejoy
I disliked it at first, until a friend pointed out that for the first time in a long while, Kate (who we both have loathed as a character since around the middle of the 2nd season) has a personal motivation that isn't "Do I want to screw with Jack, or screw Jack, or screw with Sawyer, or screw Sawyer, or whine and run away?"
She now, apparently, feels a responsibility to Aaron and wants to help Aaron's mother. Sure, it's still guilt-based, but it might actually do some good, instead of just causing trouble for other people.
__________________ Ryan "RangerWickett" Nock
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I think the cute blonde lady turning out to be an angel will wind up alienating some viewers.
Ain't it always the way?
Sayid though obviously had no intention of killing Ben. Had he intended to do so, and since they were alone, and being an experienced killer as others have pointed out, he could have easily delivered a body shot, followed by a shot to the brain stem (people survive random head shots) and one to the heart. I suspect that he was trying to provoke exactly what he did, the transformation of Ben from what he was (as a boy) into what he will become. Though not necessarily into what he has been in the past. That is to say his intention was I suspect not so much to kill Ben as to kill something that has yet to grow in Ben.
To me one of the two really interesting parts of the episode was when Jack said, in effect, "I'm tired of fixing things, maybe the Island wants to fix things." That's the closest anyone outside of John has come to understanding things I think. And secondly when Richard said, in effect, his innocence will be gone. That seems to imply one thing, but it could imply many different things. As in Ben assumes the loss of his innocence means one thing and should lead him in one direction, but it might supposedly lead him in several different possible directions. Loss of innocence often brings about assumptions about the world and ourselves and "Others" that just seem corrupting, but maybe were never meant to be in reality. And I think that was what Ben was attempting to do by killing John. He suspected killing John would lead to a certain "reality" and outcome and instead it led to a resurrection of other realities that had lain dormant since his childhood.
And just because events repeat themselves, or seem apparently immutable in action or outcome doesn't mean things won't or can't change in effect.
It will be interesting to see the judgment placed upon Ben.
To be judged is not necessarily the same thing as being either condemned, or excused.
I don't have anything terribly meaningful to contribute, aside from don't read Jack7's post while hungover. The thinking, it hurts!
I can only echo what others have said. I like Kate having a non-triangular purpose on the island (though I knew the "save Claire" thing was coming a mile away) and the hint that perhaps Smokey is the one for changing the Others into the Others.
Not sure about this episode... to much mumbo-jumbo with a dash of stupid-stick beatings.
"He will never be the same again. He won't remember any of this, he'll lose his innocence, and he'll be one of us forever. Mugga mugga zing wow."
Wha? zugga zugga? Hopefully they'll explain what the heck is going on, as that "temple" seems to be somewhat important. That was the most interesting part of this otherwise dull episode (well, that, and Hurley and Miles essentially making fun of Lost and the silliness of time travel in general).
Jack is the only one who made sense, while Juliet can shut her y self-righteous pie-hole right quick, thankyouverymuch.
Sayid though obviously had no intention of killing Ben. Had he intended to do so, and since they were alone, and being an experienced killer as others have pointed out, he could have easily delivered a body shot, followed by a shot to the brain stem (people survive random head shots) and one to the heart. I suspect that he was trying to provoke exactly what he did, the transformation of Ben from what he was (as a boy) into what he will become. Though not necessarily into what he has been in the past. That is to say his intention was I suspect not so much to kill Ben as to kill something that has yet to grow in Ben.
I´m not sure I´m following you here, but why would Sayid want to start the creation of Ben, the monster? The one who probably is responsible for the killing of Sayids one, true love?
__________________ "Species XR17 feeds upon the mental energies of its victims. This explains why the goblins remain unaffected." -Riptide Project researcher
I´m not sure I´m following you here, but why would Sayid want to start the creation of Ben, the monster? The one who probably is responsible for the killing of Sayids one, true love?
He's not. He's interested in recreating Ben as something else.
Let me put it this way. Ben infiltrated the Dharma group for years and years.
Now suppose you relive all of that in reverse, but Ben infiltrates both groups?
Ben never became what John did, who can and does walk between both groups easily. But John is an outcast in the outside or "real world," whereas Ben is a well-connected and sophisticated and devious player in both the real world, and on the Island. Think about what that means. He's Satanic. He fits in everywhere, but he can't really achieve anything anywhere. John fits in no-where, and yet he is the Key to the Kingdom. Ben can steal the Keys to the Kingdom, and set the prisoners temporarily free, but he can't be the Keys to the Kingdom, and fix things more permanently.
That being said the show can't continue to progress forever from the 1970s to the now. It's too big a period of time to cover. So certain things are going to have to be compressed and then dislocated both forwards and in reverse.
What I suspect the Island wants is to re-write the past without changing it.
Because you can't change the past, per se,, but what you can do is add to it (and/or subtract from it) to such a degree that it comes out different.
Or, let me put it this way. You can't reform a man by going into the past to change his past. But in order to reform a man must go back to the beginning and start all over again so that he comes out in a different place than where he left off when he started his reform. You rewrite the past not by altering it, but by altering yourself. You rework the past when you rework yourself. The old things come out different even though they never changed.
And if Ben becomes altered, so does Sayid.
If it works then it doesn't just help Ben, it reforms Sayid.
It's a kind of resurrection.
But resurrections never happen til the Old Man dies.
So the Old Men keep dying.
Til they don't need to anymore.
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