UPDATE: I’ve updated this post since watching Episode 5.12, “Dead is Dead”. I think it reveals a lot about Ben and gives us insight into why he does what he does. All changes are marked in this color Red. Thank you @sarahsamudre for suggesting I do this!

Over the past month, I’ve noticed a lot of people throwing hate at Ben Linus. It used to seem like everyone found him the coolest, most complex character of Lost. But now I get this sense that most just consider Ben an ego driven scum bag; a dude defined by selfish acts of deception, manipulation, murder, torture…

So let’s say Ben Linus falls into the category of evil. That would suggest he has a disproportionately high number of evil acts to his name… right?

Well that got me wondering what his ratio of good to evil might be.

Ben does seem to have a motive, a need, a desire. We just don’t really know what it is yet. One could say, “all of his Good acts are really just motivated by selfishness and greed,” just as easily as, “all of his Evil acts are motivated by a need to save as many lives as possible.” The truth is, most of what we see Ben do is a total mystery and so we’re viewing it out of context. I think @manostorgo said it well:

The end justifies the means.We just keep seeing the means but not his goal.

Hopefully, by the end we will understand Ben’s goal. But until then, we’ve just gotta go with our gut. Which is why I thought it might be helpful for us to keep track of the Bad and the Good in Ben Linus.

First a list of Evil acts. Stuff Ben has done that would prompt the average NON-Lost viewer (with very little bias) to say, “Damn, who is that guy?! He’s a real douche!”

Then a similarly selected list for the good.

On Monday I sent a tweet out asking for help on this. I got a lot of amazing answers and I’ve listed many of them here. I’d planned to link everyone’s tweets to the respective answers, but there were just too many duplicates. If you see one of your answers here, you know who you are, and you know I appreciate the help.

EVIL:

  1. Gases the Dharma Initiative.
  2. Leaves his father to die in the gassing.
  3. Sends Goodwin into a death trap.
  4. Controls and psychologically imprisons Juliette.
  5. Orders the kidnapping of Walt. - Now it seems he wants to save children from  a childhood similar to his… this may be misguided, but there’s some good in there… and it’s certainly not evil.
  6. Lies about his identity by pretending to be Henry Gale.
  7. Manipulates Michael into deceiving and killing some of the 815 survivors.
  8. Tortures Karl.
  9. Imprisons Jack, Kate, and Sawyer.
  10. Orders Kate’s torture at the Hydra Station.
  11. Slams the door on Jack and Juliette as the Hydra is filling with water.
  12. Manipulates Michael into a suicide mission on the Freighter.
  13. Imprisons Locke‘s father and urges Locke to kill him.
  14. Shoots Locke and leaves him for dead in the pit.
  15. Orders Charlie’s death.
  16. Orders his men at the beach to kill Sayid, Jin, and Bernard.
  17. Shoots Charlotte point blank.
  18. Goes ninja on those Tunisian guys in the desert just after he teleports from the wheel.
  19. Vows to kill Penny.
  20. Manipulates Sayid into killing for him.
  21. Proceeds to strangle and kill Locke. - This one isn’t evil to me anymore. I know it seemed evil at the time, and it’s certainly not Good… but I don’t think it’s anything really. Locke wanted to go back to the Island. Locke needed to go back to the Island. He could only go back dead. Ben needed info to get him there. He got that info from him, then forced a death that needed to happen anyway.
  22. Sends lawyers on Kate and Aaron. – If it hadn’t been for this act Kate wouldn’t be on the Island looking for Claire… and Aaron wouldn’t be with his Grandmother.
  23. Shoots at Desmond to get to Penny. Intention to kill both.
  24. Lies to Ceasar about who John Locke is… actually we could just call this one “has an ugly lying habit.”
  25. Shoots Ceasar point bl-iz-ank!

Damn! That’s a lot!

Okay, let’s TRY to forget that gruesome image when Locke dies, and now let’s go for a little GOOD:

  1. Brings Juliette to the Island to help keep the women from dying during pregnancy
  2. Tries his hardest to charm/court Juliette by cooking her a nice dinner.
  3. Has “Jacob” cure Juliette’s sister’s cancer.
  4. Allows her to see video of her sister.
  5. Punches in the numbers in the Swan Station, and instead of escaping, helps an injured Locke.
  6. Allows Michael and (more importantly) Walt to leave the Island.
  7. Tries to prevent Alex from getting pregnant on the Island (which would kill her) by separating her from Karl.
  8. <del>Intends to keep his promise of letting Jack leave if he does the surgery.</del> Wouldn’t matter, since the island would have say over that anyway.
  9. Welcomes Locke into The Others.
  10. Tries to talk Jack out of calling the Freighter to prevent a mass extermination.
  11. Sends Alex and Rousseau to The Temple for safety.
  12. Sics the Smoke Monster on Keamy‘s men so that Locke and the others can escape.
  13. Morns the loss of his daughter.
  14. Agrees to help Locke move the Island despite a clear desire not to.
  15. <del>Talks Locke out of killing himself.</del> Neither good nor bad. Locke dying had to happen for them to get back.
  16. Throws Jack’s drugs away.
  17. Tells Jack and Sun that he is trying his hardest to help them despite what it seems.
  18. Goes back to the Island to be judged for the death of his daughter.
  19. Spares Rousseau’s life.
  20. Saves Alex’s life as a baby.
  21. Asks Sun to relay what appears to be a sincire apology to Desmond.
  22. Raises Alex with what appears to be clear love.

So if we just look at the means, the bad does seem to be outweighing the good right now we are now totally even. Have I forgotten anything? I’m gonna continue adding to this list as the series progresses. And I’d love your help in doing that.

Cool?

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