After last week’s episode, several commenters wondered about how Sayid and young Ben Linus were going to be interacting. I suppose I never really considered that Ben might be in danger from Sayid. I mean, we know where he will be and what he will be doing 30 years in the future, so I don’t think he will be killed. The idea has intrigued me, however.
Sayid certainly has reason to be angry at Ben. At this point, who doesn’t? I still think that Ben was behind Nadia’s death, not Charles Widmore. We’ve seen the lengths that Ben will go to in order to manipulate people and get what he wants. It just fits together a little too well, with Nadia’s death leading to Sayid doing Ben’s will. That aside, we saw that Sayid was pissed at Ben the last time they met, fed up with his lies and deceptions.
What does this all mean for little Ben back in 1977? I don’t necessarily believe that Sayid is going to hurt the boy, but I do think that he is going to use him to his advantage. Let’s face it, Sayid really got the poop end of the stick in this whole “going back to the island” gig. Everyone else is living the cushy Dharma life and he’s stuck in a jail cell, pegged as a hostile. Life’s just not fair.
As to how Sayid will use Ben, I’m not quite sure. Will he tell him the truth, letting him in on the time travel secret? I don’t know if it would convince little Ben to help him, or if he would even believe Sayid. I think, however, that Ben is very much like Locke, and anyone who tells him that he’s “special” will have his ear. If it’s not Sayid, I think that someone will clue Ben in to his future, and that should make for some interesting TV. We saw during Ben’s flashback that he was obsessed with the hostiles, so I think he will listen to just about anything Sayid has to say. Hopefully Sayid will realize this too.
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Mar 23, 2009 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
Here is how I see things going down. (personal speculation entirely)
1. Little Ben (who has already met Richard) frees (or helps in some way) Sayid because he thinks he is a hostile and it will benefit Richard.
2. Sayid will use the advantage to try to kill young Ben to save EVERYONE pain in the future (no purge, no tormenting the 815ers, no using Sayid off island) The preview lends itself to this thinking.
3. Sayid will shoot but not kill Ben (the island wont fully allow it)
4. Jack will be given a chance to save injured young Ben but will not do so.
5. Juliet will step up and do so thus closing the circle of “you look just like her” as she is quoted as being earlier. (Ben has a Florence Nightingale effect with the Doc who saves his life)
*POST AUTHOR*
I had totally forgotten about the “she looks just like her” quote. Great call on that, Akbar.
That one never went away from me. For the longest time we always assumed it was Ben’s mom that she looked like.
Now that we are seeing even more sync ups in the story it just syncs up to me.
Think also about Ethan being honored to meet her. It would make sense since she is the one who delivered him on the island.
Faraday claims that you can’t change the past, but really, the Dharma “processing” house was kept (unused and dustily) intact, with old photos on the wall and everything, through the purge, and then years of the Others residing there, and then Locke’s group moving in??
I doubt it – someone will either befriend or kill lil’ Ben and change the future. There’s no way that New Otherton that Sun and Frank met Christian in is the one that had been abandoned three years ago after Keamy’s raid.
There are two theories on that.
1. The processing house is near the ferry but is not in the village. The Others had no use for that place and let it go into dis-repair.
2. Farady is WRONG on him claiming you cant change the past and the 815ers being in the past have now created a paradox with the timeline that Sun is in is a separate 2008. (Think Back to the Future II)
*POST AUTHOR*
I think there might be an option 3…. I think that the inside of the processing house was under the control of Jacob and his mumbo-jumbo wonkiness that made it appear as we saw it. After all, between the door blowing open and Claire hidden in the background, there were clearly some spooky things going on in there.
I have to believe that Daniel was right, or at least I really hope he was, or else I’ll be disappointed in the writers. We have to trust what we hear for the most part, or we can’t trust anything.
I’ve only watched the episode once and I’m pulling from not-so-great memory here, but I think the main hole in theory #1 is that the sub arrived and Sawyer drove them TO the processing house in the van – so assuming (always a problem) the sub lands at the ferry dock, there’d be no reason no drive from there to processing if it was nearby… so I’m sticking with theory #2. Plus, I love back to the future.
Near enough that Sun and Frank could walk to it, but far enough away that a van ride from the dock would be easiest in Dharma times.
However, I am enjoying the thoughts of an alternate future greatly.
A second bit of evidence for my alternate time line theory:
When Frank is crash landing the plane…we hear the numbers again. If this is 2008 3 years after Jack and group left, why would the numbers be back on?
Did the others return the transmission to its original source? If so, why?
Alternate timeline logic dictates that things on the island are alot different now.