Your Voice: I’ve Ben Behind the Curtain All Along
Submitted by Ben Fraley
Visit him at benfraley.com
Locke once told Ben that he was "The Man Behind the Curtain" and that there was no Jacob. Locke was half right.
Ben used to talk to Jacob and was on his good side. At some point, they had a falling out, and Jacob tried to remove Ben from the leadership of the Others. Ben, however, imprisoned Jacob using the black powder we see around his shack. Imprisoning him, however, caused Jacob to stop providing for the Others. So Ben had to make it seem that Jacob was still behind him in order to keep his hold on the leadership of the Others. He had to start pulling the levers and pushing the buttons "behind the curtain."
First thing he did was to look to provide for the Others’ basic needs: food, clothing, shelter. He did this by moving them into the post-purged barracks. He figured that he could get food by tapping into the Swan station and causing a food drop. So, major problems out of the way.
Then, sometime later, all the pregnant women start dying. Over and over, pregnant women on the island die sometime during their 2nd trimester. Now Ben has a major problem; soon there will be no more Others. So he’s got to pull another lever. He finds a brilliant scientist (and my favorite character) named Juliet Burke who has figured out how to impregnate a male lab mouse. He gets her to come to the island by nefarious means. Juliet does some research on the island, but to no avail. And now they’re running out of mothers. Ben needs to find more mothers.
At the same time, Ben learns that he has a tumor on his spine that will eventually kill him. He needs a spinal surgeon. Now Ben has to pull a BIG lever.
Isn’t it a big coincidence that a 9-month pregnant woman, a married couple trying to get pregnant, an older married couple, and many other viable mothers crash landed on the island? Ben must have been so happy. Plenty of lab rats to study. And not to mention a spinal surgeon to remove his tumor. How handy. "Jacob" sure helped them.
Not really. Ben had gotten off the island, and using his network of contacts (Mr. Paik, Claire’s psychologist, Michael’s wife and/or Michael’s wife’s new husband, Christian Shepard, and many others) he gets all the people that he needs on to a plane. Now he just needs it to crash.
Another one of his operatives on the island, Kelvin Inman, has been babysitting Mr. Widmore’s daughter’s boyfriend at the Swan Station for a very long time. With them pushing the button, all has been well. No one can see the island. But in order for the plane to crash, the button needs to not be pushed for a bit. However, Ben needs it to seem like an accident. No one can suspect that it wasn’t Jacob who sent the plane to them. So he has Kelvin lure Desmond out of the hatch. The button doesn’t get pushed. The plane crashes. Ben is still in control.
Just like he planned. No one pays attention to the "Man Behind the Curtain."
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"Your Voice" is a new TTS series in which average Tail Section fans submit their articles, theories or reviews to be published on The Tail Section for all their fellow fans to read. Have you spent far too much time pondering the origins of the DHARMA Initiative? Have you alienated your co-workers by rambling about Daniel Faraday’s wacky time anomaly experiment? If so, we want to hear from you. Send your own Lost theories, reviews, or general thoughts to Editor(at)TheTailSection.com. Please keep all submissions between 300 and 1,000 words. We will read through all submissions and contact you if we publish your entry. You will also receive byline credit on our site.
You know…I really like that. It takes a lot of the mysteries and wraps them up into one explanation. Nicely done.
Comment by Rich Handley — February 28, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
I’m sorry but i don’t agree with some of the things you wrote. I don’t think Ben knew about his tumor until the day the plane crashed on the island. If you watched any of the missing pieces on abc.com then you would have seen the one called “the envelope”. In this, Juliet is talking to another “other”. This is right before the book club when she burns the muffins and her hand. Right before the book club, she tells this woman that she has something to show her which is not good. We don’t see it, but inside the envelope is the x-ray of Bens spine. Right after the book club, the plane crashes. So Ben didn’t know about his spinal tumor.
Comment by blf622 — February 28, 2008 @ 1:35 pm
interesting…although i have a few thoughts
a) why all the complication? if ben can get off the island, and has a lot of money (we know he does since miles demanded $3.2 million and he knew ben had it), why wouldn’t he just go get surgery elsewhere?
actually, now that i think of it, that’s probably exactly what he would have done if jack hadn’t arrived
b) if kelvin was supposed to get desmond out of the swan, why wouldn’t he just tell him he could come out with him, and fake some task? desmond always wanted to go anyway. maybe because he’d see that there is no real task, but luring him out to follow kelvin also let desmond see that. plus, wouldn’t kelvin have known he was going to befollowed and been better prepared to protect himself? after all, desmond killed him.
Comment by Devin — February 28, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
I think Ben probably knew about his tumor, but at the same time knew that someone on the island would find out (maybe they have regular physicals, who knows). So, in order to keep up appearance, he gets a spinal surgeon on the plane to do the surgery for him. Also, if he has surgery off-island he’s got to spend a lot of time off-island in recovery. Having the surgery on-island allows him to stay there, heal up quicker as well, and keep up the appearance that Jacob is still wanting Ben to lead the others.
As for Desmond killing Kelvin, I don’t think Kelvin saw that one coming. He probably thought that they’d leave the island on the boat for a spell, but then the ’snowglobe’ effect would keep them there.
Thanks!
Comment by Ben Fraley — February 28, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
fantastic theory, but theres just some of it that is too contrived
Comment by IamHenryGale — February 28, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
I’m sorry…
Your “theory” makes too many assumptions and takes too much creative license (an example is that it’s never been explained why the “black powder” encircled Jacob’s shack. It didn’t keep him imprisoned as you claim — in fact, just the opposite — Hurley found the shack in another location, and Locke couldn’t find it again inside of the ring of black powder/ash/kitty litter). It’s almost like you made stuff up just to make it fit your “theory”.
I think that there should be a separate section on TTS for “guest writers”. Keep the main page for the pros!
Comment by justbriman — February 28, 2008 @ 4:21 pm
going with that theory a bit more, that same physcic lured claire and eko onto that flight somehow.
Comment by jon — February 28, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
justbriman: For someone who takes someone else to task for making “too many assumptions,” you’re doing the same thing. In saying to keep the guest writers separate and let the main page be for the pros, you’re assuming the guest writers aren’t pros. You don’t know that to be true.
Comment by Rich Handley — February 28, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
ben did not cause the plane to crash. the creators have said that desmond did it. kelvin knew to the day ( in a 3 year period…) when desmond would follow him?? i think not. kelvin went out all the time and eventually desmond decided to go out… kelvin was working on the boat!
yeah, I buy some aspects of the theory, but not overall… but it seems like you want to make ben the bad guy… and at this point i don’t see him as the bad guy at all anymore… there is something bigger is going on than ben just trying to maintain control so he can control people. You can’t possibly think at this point that there isn’t something bigger going on than “surprise ben’s the bad guy!”, thanks to the plane on the bottom of the ocean, abbadon, the people sayid has been killing, the freighter, widmore, dharma etc… dharma weren’t just hippies trying to do good on the island. bad people name big bad corporations after nice peaceful sounding things like “dharma”… but yeah… not a bad theory at and you did try to tie a bunch of things together… but nothing that recent…
Comment by hurleybird — February 28, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
Nice theory, but why would Ben put all of those people that he needed on a plane that was going to crash? The women could have died along with the spinal surgeon. With all of the money, Ben should be kidnapping women from around the world to study on.
I think Ben fell out of favor with Jacob because he’s not living in nature as Locke mentioned. He’s living in a house, with technology instead of being one with the island. I think Jacob mustered up whatever power he has and made all of those coincidences of people with things in common surviving the same plane crash happen with the power of The Numbers
Comment by SuperAlex — February 28, 2008 @ 6:01 pm
@justbriman: Yeah, I do have to make some assumptions, b/c, like all of us, I don’t have all the answers
Jacob needs help for something. I think it’s fair to say the black powder is imprisoning him somehow. I think he has some ability outside of it, but can’t say to what extent (a whole other theory about him being the black smoke monster 
) Assumptions are what makes this fun!
@hurleybird: Ben didn’t blow up the submarine either, but he wanted it to happen, and I think he knew Locke would do it. I don’t think Ben is the bad guy either. Like all things on Lost, everyone has their reasons for the things they do. Ben is actually trying to help his people, albeit in somewhat sinister ways. Just like Michael killing two people to save his son.
LOST IS ON! Time to jet! Enjoy the next episode!
Comment by Ben Fraley — February 28, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
Most of this is quite plausible, from a writer’s standpoint - the only thing I’d take issue with is the Swan/food drop thing. Although a nice idea (and totally fitting), Darlton have stated before that Ben (and the Others) were unaware of the Swan’s existence (or location and exact function, at least) until Locke uncovered it. But still, good job!
Comment by Giovanni — February 29, 2008 @ 12:38 am
Darlton have also said there’d be a scientific explanation to what’s happening on the island. Does last night’s episode support that? It’s pseudo-science at BEST
Maybe the Other’s didn’t know about it, but I think Ben and Juliet did, seeing as they were looking in on them from the Pearl hatch in the Pikki episode.
Cheers!
Comment by Ben Fraley — February 29, 2008 @ 6:31 am
I think Ben is God!!!!!! or at least something to that effect.Ahhhh,see,none of you saw that comin did ya!:-p
Comment by TIMDOG — February 29, 2008 @ 3:49 pm
I think Ben is a god too sometimes… and Ben Linus is pretty impressive as well.
Comment by Ben Fraley — February 29, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
If you guys don’t think that Ben is the ‘Man Behind the Curtain’ after watching ‘The Other Woman’, you’re crazy! He knew the plane would crash so that he could send Goodwin out to his death, thus leaving Juliet all to himself! Everything works out in Ben’s favor! I’M RIGHT!
Comment by Ben Fraley — March 6, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
Ben wouldn’t have had to know the plane would crash to be able to deftly deal with an opportunity. Perhaps this ‘magic box’, along with the actual actions of Desmond of course, provided the plane crash and thus his much needed spinal surgeon, but Ben didn’t necessarily know exactly how his most wanted object would get to the island. When the plane crashed, Ben may have used his amazingly quick mind to decide that this was an opportunity given to him (by jacob? the magic box?) and he may not have even known for certain the spinal surgeon he needed was on the plane, but he realized that he could send Goodwyn away to die. It most likely was not a surprise to him that this opportunity arose because all things on this island seem to happen for a reason.
I was also previously thinking that the woman Juliet resembles, as mentioned by Harper, was his mother, but is it possible that the woman she reminds him of is Annie? I liked the idea I read somewhere that Annie might have been the first person to die from being pregnant (with Ben’s child?) because that would definitely give him reasons to be angry at Jacob if Jacob has some sort of control over these island properties, would explain why solving the pregnancy issue is important to him and also why Juliet, who works with fertility, is just the woman who he would want, given that she reminds him of someone very important to him (Another fate issue?).
Thoughts?
Comment by Melissa — March 13, 2008 @ 1:39 pm