The Rest of Ben's Backstory- It fuels everything

[jmckay]

So now we know that Ben was deeply emotionally and psychologically damaged by his mother's death and his father's blaming him for it. This provides the motive for his total obsession with finding a way to procreate, (in addition to the obvious motive which is to perpetuate his cult), and starts tp explain so many of the most important aspects of the plot.

I think it goes like this:

Ben's damage was turbocharged by the fact that at some point he had his own daughter, who's mother(my guess is she was the little girl he met when he arrived-I believe her name was Annie) also died as a result of the island's awful tendency to kill pregnant women. Annie(?) was the only good thing in Ben's Dharma life, and when she was gone, he had no use for a place that would keep him captive with an old man that he hated, working as a work-man despite his obvious (evil?) genius. The death of his own love removed any last vestiges of connection or humanity with Dharma and, nurtured by the "hostile's" facination with his ability to connect to Jacob, it was an easy thing for Ben to change alliances completely and join/lead the hostiles in crushing Dharma, (who I believe the hostiles hated for their technological approach to the island's mysteries, which the hostiles regarded as primarily spiritual).

The death of Ben's own lover and mother fuels so many things:

-The obsession with finding a safe way to procreate- so noone will lose their mother again.

-Ben's hard-line against his daughter's boyfriend, separating them and torturing him. He simply could not take another loss if his own daughter got pregnant and died, so he keeps them apart "for their own good."

-The importation of Julia and why he will never let her go. She is the mechanic that can complete his mission.

-AND... MOST IMPORTANTLY:

Why the rest of the others are getting fed up with Ben's quest. They do not share his personal mission and are starting to show a split between those who are still on board with Ben for the procreation project and those (like Richard) who would like to change course and seek the kind of eternal life represented by the seemingly god-like Jacob. This is the "bigger" stuff that Richard referred to when he confided in Locke. They want to be immortal, that's the true mission of the original others, and it's why they have followed Ben who they believe is connected to the immortal Jacob. You can even see this motive in Richard's appearance- it looks like he uses makeup to look younger than what surely must be his age if he was already a grown man when he met Ben as a child.

Jack and the plane crew fell out of the sky into the middle of this mess, and now they are paying the consequences.

What do you think?

Excellent post. I agree 100%

[irretrievable]

Originally Posted by jmckay

Ben's damage was turbocharged by the fact that at some point he had his own daughter, who's mother(my guess is she was the little girl he met when he arrived-I believe her name was Annie) also died as a result of the island's awful tendency to kill pregnant women.

-Ben's hard-line against his daughter's boyfriend, separating them and torturing him. He simply could not take another loss if his own daughter got pregnant and died, so he keeps them apart "for their own good."

Some parts of your theory are confusing. If Annie fell victim in the same way the other pregnant women did (in Juliet's most recent flashback), then how would the baby (Alex) have survived?

Also, assuming Alex did survive, why wouldn't she have been gassed along with everyone else when Ben switched sides?

Also, how would Rosseau being Alex's mother play into this theory?