Post by bobdoc on Mar 23, 2009 19:06:10 GMT -4
Zap2it's resident Lost blogger has been worried about what will happen with the young-Ben arc, and sums up his worries in his weekly letters column. Must we be worried a little bit as well? From blog.zap2it.com/lost/2009/03/lost-letters-from-the-flame-namaste-edition.html
This is my first time posting. Ryan, love your writing, read it all the time, but have never posted till now. I decided to post cause basically you have me worried. I've noticed in the past couple weeks you keep mentioning how introducing young Ben will either make or break the show. I'm just wondering why you think this? Do you really think this one storyline will make and break the whole show? I know it's significant, but why do you feel so strongly about how it will affect the show? Just wondering. Thanks.
Justin
OK, I could write a chapter of a book on the potential pitfalls inherent in this choice, but I’ll try to be as brief as possible. At the outset of “Namaste,” Ben claims he has no idea where Sayid, Kate, Hurley, and Jack have gone. But he is in fact finally putting together a fact that’s lingered in his head for 30 years: he once brought Sayid a brown paper bag while the latter was incarcerated. What the show now has to reconstruct and recontextualize everything we have seen Benjamin Linus do without completely violating everything that’s come along since Henry Gale’s arrival in Season 2.
After all, it’s one thing to argue about whether Danielle Rousseau remembered Jin in 2004 having already met him in 1988. That’s a question that’s peripheral to the main story, easily explainable, and ultimately unimportant. But if we learn that a young Ben Linus came into contact as a child with people that 24 years later he’ll terrorize, then that means we’d all better hope and pray that the writers thought this through a long time ago.
After all, Ben’s not a dumb kid. When captured as “Henry Gale,” he’s almost instantly tortured by the same man he met in the Dharma Sheriff Station. And yet, he doesn’t say a damn thing about this. Either the writers didn’t realize they would send major characters to interact with a younger version of this character, or they have intentionally made Ben’s motivations so obscure for the specific purpose of now unleashing this new revelation. Because almost nothing to date has shown that Ben has been interacting with people that are somehow they same age in 2004 as they were in 1977.
Now, even if the show long-term planned this twist, they are far from out of the woods. Because fans are going to go back and dissect every…single…thing that Ben has ever done or said. Luckily, the show has two aces in its hole: 1) Ben almost never reveals anything about himself, and 2) what he does reveal is inevitably shown to be a lie. But there still needs to be a sound, consistent motivation given to Ben that governs how he acts with the Lostaways.
It’s simply not enough to say, “Oh, Ben knows them, just didn’t tell them.” Not nearly enough. Did Ben know that Oceanic 815 would crash on the Island? Why did he eventually go after them, intentionally or unintentionally getting caught in Danielle’s trap? Why put four people from his childhood on a list for kidnapping? How do babies, Walt, Widmore, Hawking, Annie, and the Purge fit into this knowledge?
See where I’m going with this? All of these things are now affected by a freakin’ sandwich. (Assuming it’s a sandwich and not a bomb. Which it might be. This is Ben we’re talking about.) And if the show presents a scenario in which the last three years of watching one of television history’s most compelling, fascinating, and even sympathetic villains are suddenly rendered senseless, then the show as a whole is forever crippled. Period.
I’m not saying there’s a good chance this will happen, but to deny this possibility is impossible for me. It’s one thing to screw up an episode like “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham.” A lot of people liked it, a lot of people didn’t, and in the grand scheme of things it’s not that big of a deal: it’s a qualitative decision about 42 minutes of a much larger story. That’s the type of micro mix-up that doesn’t sink the ship overall. But if they screw up Ben Linus, then that’s a potentially fatal mistake for “Lost” as a narrative whole. And by placing familiar character in his past, the show has opened up this possibility.
Personally, I’m not jumping ship, calling bull, or saying anything that rhymes with “humping the bark.” But there’s a bead of sweat there, no doubt. But ultimately, just because I can’t see a way to get through this mess doesn’t mean they don’t. Lord knows I put more faith in them figuring this out than I put into myself. That’s why they write the show and I just write a blog. A critically acclaimed, ladies-wanna-be-with-me-guys-wanna-be-me blog, but a blog all the same. So while I advise caution, I hardly suggest panic. Save panic for when they reveal that Jacob is the buried-alive love child of Nikki and Paulo.
Justin
OK, I could write a chapter of a book on the potential pitfalls inherent in this choice, but I’ll try to be as brief as possible. At the outset of “Namaste,” Ben claims he has no idea where Sayid, Kate, Hurley, and Jack have gone. But he is in fact finally putting together a fact that’s lingered in his head for 30 years: he once brought Sayid a brown paper bag while the latter was incarcerated. What the show now has to reconstruct and recontextualize everything we have seen Benjamin Linus do without completely violating everything that’s come along since Henry Gale’s arrival in Season 2.
After all, it’s one thing to argue about whether Danielle Rousseau remembered Jin in 2004 having already met him in 1988. That’s a question that’s peripheral to the main story, easily explainable, and ultimately unimportant. But if we learn that a young Ben Linus came into contact as a child with people that 24 years later he’ll terrorize, then that means we’d all better hope and pray that the writers thought this through a long time ago.
After all, Ben’s not a dumb kid. When captured as “Henry Gale,” he’s almost instantly tortured by the same man he met in the Dharma Sheriff Station. And yet, he doesn’t say a damn thing about this. Either the writers didn’t realize they would send major characters to interact with a younger version of this character, or they have intentionally made Ben’s motivations so obscure for the specific purpose of now unleashing this new revelation. Because almost nothing to date has shown that Ben has been interacting with people that are somehow they same age in 2004 as they were in 1977.
Now, even if the show long-term planned this twist, they are far from out of the woods. Because fans are going to go back and dissect every…single…thing that Ben has ever done or said. Luckily, the show has two aces in its hole: 1) Ben almost never reveals anything about himself, and 2) what he does reveal is inevitably shown to be a lie. But there still needs to be a sound, consistent motivation given to Ben that governs how he acts with the Lostaways.
It’s simply not enough to say, “Oh, Ben knows them, just didn’t tell them.” Not nearly enough. Did Ben know that Oceanic 815 would crash on the Island? Why did he eventually go after them, intentionally or unintentionally getting caught in Danielle’s trap? Why put four people from his childhood on a list for kidnapping? How do babies, Walt, Widmore, Hawking, Annie, and the Purge fit into this knowledge?
See where I’m going with this? All of these things are now affected by a freakin’ sandwich. (Assuming it’s a sandwich and not a bomb. Which it might be. This is Ben we’re talking about.) And if the show presents a scenario in which the last three years of watching one of television history’s most compelling, fascinating, and even sympathetic villains are suddenly rendered senseless, then the show as a whole is forever crippled. Period.
I’m not saying there’s a good chance this will happen, but to deny this possibility is impossible for me. It’s one thing to screw up an episode like “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham.” A lot of people liked it, a lot of people didn’t, and in the grand scheme of things it’s not that big of a deal: it’s a qualitative decision about 42 minutes of a much larger story. That’s the type of micro mix-up that doesn’t sink the ship overall. But if they screw up Ben Linus, then that’s a potentially fatal mistake for “Lost” as a narrative whole. And by placing familiar character in his past, the show has opened up this possibility.
Personally, I’m not jumping ship, calling bull, or saying anything that rhymes with “humping the bark.” But there’s a bead of sweat there, no doubt. But ultimately, just because I can’t see a way to get through this mess doesn’t mean they don’t. Lord knows I put more faith in them figuring this out than I put into myself. That’s why they write the show and I just write a blog. A critically acclaimed, ladies-wanna-be-with-me-guys-wanna-be-me blog, but a blog all the same. So while I advise caution, I hardly suggest panic. Save panic for when they reveal that Jacob is the buried-alive love child of Nikki and Paulo.
