I thought you were special.
I'm still running after my scattered thoughts with a butterfly net.
I want fic. I want Ben to wake up Alex and hear that she also forgives him. I want to read about Ben meeting Londo Mollari and discussing redemption and regret and the desperate, poisonous desire to be noticed. I want Mr. Morden to arrive on the Island (yet another Man In Black) and try to ask Ben what he wants. I want Hurley to teach Ben to golf and for them to have awkward dinners with Rose and Bernard.
Has there been a more fully realized redemption story than the one Lost told about Benjamin Linus? I would say Londo Mollari, but we didn't meet Londo as a villain. Whereas Londo fell before out eyes Ben started out black, the leader of a group of kidnappers and murderers. Who could have guessed back then that seasons later we would see that same man would risk his life to save Hurley's? Ben is exactly why I'm glad everything about Lost wasn't written in stone; this is a character that was only supposed to last three episodes. Looking back now, can anyone even imagine Lost without Ben Linus? I'll happily sacrificed learning, say, exactly what was up with that statue if it means I get to watch Ben claw his way back to the light by his fingernails.
"Well, for what it's worth, I forgive you." How long had Ben waited to hear that? And as awful as it was that he killed Locke, in a way it saved him. If he hadn't done it, he would never been put on the path to kill Jacob, and if he hadn't done that he never would have realized just how profoundly wrong he had been about everything. The process had started when Alex died but he could still tell himself that he was doing the will of the Island, that it was all for the best. Killing Jacob and finding out that the man he thought was Locke resurrected was actually a thing wearing his face shook him down to his core. What was he now? Who was he?
Ben spent his entire life being unwanted. His father abused him. He took control of the Others by trickery and murder. His daughter resented him. And Jacob, the being he'd devoted his life to serving, barely acknowledged his existence. No wonder the Man In Black liked him so much; he must have seen so much of himself in Ben's frustrated ambition.
"Because no one else would have me." Ilana said she would have him, but she didn't want him. He was still an outsider, a penance she hung around her neck like a millstone. And you could tell Ben knew it; the plotting and scheming was replaced by despair. And through all that, despite everything the Island had done to him, Ben wanted to stay behind to protect it. Ben knew he wasn't a candidate, wasn't one of the special people like Jack and Hurley and Desmond but dammit, he was still Ben Linus and he wasn't leaving this Island.
And then at the end of all things Hurley, the new Jacob, the better Jacob, asks Ben to stay and help him. Because he needs Ben.
Because Ben is special. And finally someone else has noticed that.
Oh, Ben.
Digressing slightly, it saddens me that Michael Emerson isn't from the UK and so will almost certainly never get to play the Master. What I wouldn't give to have him opposite Matt Smith's Doctor.
I want fic. I want Ben to wake up Alex and hear that she also forgives him. I want to read about Ben meeting Londo Mollari and discussing redemption and regret and the desperate, poisonous desire to be noticed. I want Mr. Morden to arrive on the Island (yet another Man In Black) and try to ask Ben what he wants. I want Hurley to teach Ben to golf and for them to have awkward dinners with Rose and Bernard.
Has there been a more fully realized redemption story than the one Lost told about Benjamin Linus? I would say Londo Mollari, but we didn't meet Londo as a villain. Whereas Londo fell before out eyes Ben started out black, the leader of a group of kidnappers and murderers. Who could have guessed back then that seasons later we would see that same man would risk his life to save Hurley's? Ben is exactly why I'm glad everything about Lost wasn't written in stone; this is a character that was only supposed to last three episodes. Looking back now, can anyone even imagine Lost without Ben Linus? I'll happily sacrificed learning, say, exactly what was up with that statue if it means I get to watch Ben claw his way back to the light by his fingernails.
"Well, for what it's worth, I forgive you." How long had Ben waited to hear that? And as awful as it was that he killed Locke, in a way it saved him. If he hadn't done it, he would never been put on the path to kill Jacob, and if he hadn't done that he never would have realized just how profoundly wrong he had been about everything. The process had started when Alex died but he could still tell himself that he was doing the will of the Island, that it was all for the best. Killing Jacob and finding out that the man he thought was Locke resurrected was actually a thing wearing his face shook him down to his core. What was he now? Who was he?
Ben spent his entire life being unwanted. His father abused him. He took control of the Others by trickery and murder. His daughter resented him. And Jacob, the being he'd devoted his life to serving, barely acknowledged his existence. No wonder the Man In Black liked him so much; he must have seen so much of himself in Ben's frustrated ambition.
"Because no one else would have me." Ilana said she would have him, but she didn't want him. He was still an outsider, a penance she hung around her neck like a millstone. And you could tell Ben knew it; the plotting and scheming was replaced by despair. And through all that, despite everything the Island had done to him, Ben wanted to stay behind to protect it. Ben knew he wasn't a candidate, wasn't one of the special people like Jack and Hurley and Desmond but dammit, he was still Ben Linus and he wasn't leaving this Island.
And then at the end of all things Hurley, the new Jacob, the better Jacob, asks Ben to stay and help him. Because he needs Ben.
Because Ben is special. And finally someone else has noticed that.
Oh, Ben.
Digressing slightly, it saddens me that Michael Emerson isn't from the UK and so will almost certainly never get to play the Master. What I wouldn't give to have him opposite Matt Smith's Doctor.