I have a topic that is very unpleasant to discuss, but one that I feel demands addressing. I’ve gotten into disagreements with two separate friends over this topic recently and I feel the need to make my opinions known on this sour topic. It’s not something that can be discussed easily, so I’ve decided to put into poetry.
Why it is impossible to like…
B ecause he shot Locke in the kidney. And then he killed him. Not cool.
E very move — his, Jack’s, Locke’s, Alpert’s, Widmore’s, probably even yours and mine — is calculated way before anyone (besides Ben) even thinks about the event
N ever cares about anything but himself and his mission. Jack: “And the other people on this plane, what’s gonna happen to them?” Ben: “Who cares?” (Related reason: he’s a smartass.)
L ies! All of his freaking lies and misdirection make it very difficult for viewers to know who to trust.
I f Sayid doesn’t like Ben, then neither do I. Sayid (the antithesis of Ben?) hates the dude, and Sayid is the MAN, so I go with him on character judgments(besides the incident with Sawyer). After all, he didn’t trust Ben from the beginning.
N ever-ending taunts to Locke and Jack and pitting them against each other while he was their prisoner.
Unrepentance. Locke: “You just killed everybody on that boat.” Ben: “So?”
Smartass-ness. I usually enjoy the smartass folks, like Sawyer, because they lighten the mood and make me laugh. Ben, on the other hand, is just an annoying smartass. He knows he’s smarter than everyone else and he loves showing it off.
I admit that Michael Emerson, the actor who plays Benjamin Linus, is a freaking genius. He is a phenomenal actor and he does an extraordinary job of playing with viewer’s loyalties. His portrayal, coupled with the amazing material the writers have given him to work with, make Ben the most intriguing character on LOST. I, for one, am constantly flipping back and forth between feeling sorry for him, being proud of him, rooting for him, and hating his guts (Clearly I spend most of my time on the last one). But through it all, you have to hate Ben. He is a bad, bad man who can not be trusted nor followed. Take, for instance, t hat diabolical smile that crossed his face while he was locked up in the armory after he provoked Locke for following Jack’s orders. That was the first moment I knew he was bad news bears, and he just continues to hammer that point home in every episode. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season because I’ve heard we’ve been promised a long-overdue Ben-centric episode!
See ya in another week, brotha.
