Regarding Lil’ Benry

Though I suppose you can’t call him “Benry” as he never – at least to our knowledge – pretended to be Henry Gale from Minnesota as Big Ben did in Season 2. In any case, I’m reading lots of theories about the (gasp!) shooting of a 12 year old on the latest episode of Lost and pretty much all of them sound interesting. At least all of those that have Lil’ Ben still alive.

‘Cause face it people, Ben didn’t die. I’ve already gone over my reasoning for believing this so I won’t waste time on here doing so. Just accept it. He ain’t dead. There’s no way a character as great as Ben would go out that way. Storytelling  101.

So what happens to Lil’ Ben now? Assuming that he in fact is not dead, Lil’ Ben is still critically wounded and lying on a deserted dirt road with an unconscious Jin. These are the two prevailing theories on the boards I’ve been reading:

• Ben is taken back to Dharmaville and Juliet saves his life, thus endearing her to Ben for the next 30 years and explaining why Juliet specifically was recruited to the island (on top of her successful delivery of Ethan of course).
• Ben is taken back to Dharmaville and Jack reluctantly saves his life. Ben goes throughout the next 30 years knowing this doctor posing as a janitor saved his life and is an excellent surgeon on the island which is why he insists that Jack cut out his tumor in Season 3. I need to rewatch those episodes but I believe someone quoted Ben as saying to Jack “I want you to want to save me” or something like that.

I like both of these and in the end, I think it will be a combination of the two. Juliet and Jack are gonna save the little guy’s life because a) he’s still an innocent kid and Jack can’t make the distinction between that and what Ben will later become and b) Juliet’s gonna help because she knows they can’t (as in unable, not as in not allowed to) change the future like that and she knows Ben grows up. But neither are going to be happy about doing it.

As for Lil’ Ben, I think we’ve seen Anakin Skywalker turn into Darth Vadar or at least begin to. Sayid, in trying to nullify the monstrous person he believes older Ben is, has triggered the very qualities in the young fella that he was trying to nip in the bud. I mean, this kid gets shot by the guy he just helped to escape from the barracks. That is going to leave an emotional mark on a kid who is already pushed to the brink by his abusive father and dismal environment (Ben really does hate it in Dharmaville, as if he subconciously knows that’s not where he is meant to be). I don’t think Sayid made Ben into a cold, calculating person but he triggered that innate characteristic in the little guy to become that. Just as Sayid has always had the capacity for killing and has varying degrees of success at supressing/controlling that, Ben has always been a cold manipulator. Sayid just brought it out in him.

So the title of that episode, “He’s Our You”, I think that means more than just that Oldham guy being the Torturer Sayid Dharma equivalent. I think it is also a tie between Sayid and Ben, a chicken and egg argument. ETA: GOT IT! Big Ben is our Lil’ Ben. Sayid saying it to Lil’ Ben “He (Big Ben) is our You (Lil’ Ben”) meaning in Sayid’s mind, the two are not different. Sweet!

That idea “you could go back in time and kill Hitler as a child would you” is really a question of the greater good. You can’t deny the horrific reality of Sayid shooting a 12 year old who hasn’t done anything more than be a little creepy. But Sayid thought he was doing right by a lot more people, thus outweighing the injustice.

Unfortunately for Sayid, I don’t think that’s how mystery island works. I wonder how long it will take him to realize he didn’t kill Lil’ Ben.