So other than Benry, we have at least three survivors of the Purge, all of whom would have been children or young teenagers at the time.
Per Benry, the Purge killed at least 40 people in a single day. Of course we don’t have any real indication as to the number of active personnel in the Dharma Initiative at any given time, but it seems like the number would have to be significantly higher than that. I mean, when Benry was a kid, they had a classroom full of kids. And non-essential personnel like Benry’s dad spent at least 15 years on staff. Point is, there could have been a significant number of Dharma’s people who defected to the Hostiles before the Purge. The Purge was the end result of ever-increasing hostilities, not a murderous impulse of Benry’s. Heck, it might not necessarily have been Benry’s plan – maybe the extent of his involvement was taking an active role in his father’s death.
This doesn’t make Benry any less evil, but it would indicate that there was a definite movement already at work. Some of the Others we’ve seen all along might have been fellow defectors. Tom, Goodwin, Mikhail, Miss Klugh, Colleen and Danny, Bonnie and Greta – they might have all been Dharma at one time. I tend to think of the Purge as an event that killed the entire Dharma Initiative, and in fact, that’s not the case. I also tend to think of it as being Benry’s brainchild, and it would seem that wasn’t the case either. Sure, Widmore had the Fantastic Foursome believing that Benry personally killed every last man, woman, and child on the Island, but I’ve reached the conclusion that while you should rarely believe Benry, you should never, ever believe Widmore.
As for Sun, this still has me perplexed. I don’t see a reason for the Island to reject her. Benry and Locke, they make sense at least. They both left the Island when they turned the wheel underneath the Orchid. Clearly, there are rules regarding that sort of thing. Heck, Benry said that once you turned the wheel, you couldn’t return at all. Right now, I have two theories. First off, maybe the Island rejected her because she left Ji Yeon behind. She was pregnant when she left the Island, maybe she has to bring that baby back with her. Considering that childbirth is extremely rare on the Island, you can see why it might want people to bring the kids around.
My other theory is that it’s not really a “rejection” at all. I mean, the Island still let her get there, it just didn’t pull her through time. These might not be arbitrary guidelines imposed by some impersonal force that surrounds a patch of land. An actual intelligence (Jacob?) might be making decisions and acting on them. Perhaps Jacob put the people when they need to be in order to win the battle or make sure that events turn out the way they’re supposed to. Maybe it’s important to have Sun and Jin in their respective time periods striving to fix things rather than settling down and finding happiness. Let’s hope we get some answers on that soon, because this is a head scratcher.
And speaking of Benry’s statement that he wouldn’t be able to return to the Island after moving it, here’s something that spunkybuddy Kelli asked: Does the Hydra Island have the same properties as the main Island? It’s been traveling through time and space with the main Island, but the travel radius was wide enough to include floating Jin, who was a heck of a lot farther away. That might just be a simple issue of proximity. We don’t know whether the Hydra Island heals people, or if that’s a quality that’s limited to the main Island. Sure, Benry threw off his sling there, but I think that was more because he had stuff to do and the sling was getting in his way. So the healing question does not have a conclusive answer that I’m aware of. (And of course, the healing properties are by no means all-encompassing. Ask Boone how well he healed, for example.)
It will be interesting to see if Locke and Benry will be able to set foot on the main Island again. I mean, we’re really just taking Benry’s word for it that they wouldn’t be able to return, and that’s never a good idea. Still, they are just hanging around on Hydra…
OK, now I’m going to blow your minds with a theory from loyal spunkybuddy Evonne. By the way, she also pointed out that Dr. Marvin Candle’s real name is actually “Pierre Chang”, not “Peter”. I’m going to keep calling him Dr. Marvin Candle, regardless. Anyway, Evonne points out that Juliet bears at least a small resemblance to Benry’s mother. And from what we’ve seen in his flashback, little Benry had an Oedipal complex that just wouldn’t quit. Heck, he went pretty literal with it by actually killing his father. Anyway, it’s not a stretch to imagine that Young Benry would take a liking to Juliet.
In fact, I’m going to go a little farther than Evonne did. Last season, when we met Harper Stanhope, she mentioned Benry’s crush on Juliet and said “You look just like her”. At the time, we all thought she meant “Annie”, but Evonne thinks she might have been referring to Benry’s mother. But I think she could have been referring to Juliet herself. By which I mean, “You look just like that pretty blonde woman that he had a crush on when we were kids”. And since Juliet was that woman, well, of course she looks like her. Evonne also suggests that the woman in the painting in Benry’s house is Juliet in 1977, and not a grown-up Annie at all.
And I can see Juliet trying to avert future events by treating young Benry with love and respect, hoping she can stop him from turning into the guy he’s going to be. Of course, if we believe Faraday, she can’t possibly prevent it and her presence in his life just contributed to the end result. That’s pretty great, though. Bravo, Evonne!
Just for fun, if that’s all true, do you think Benry knew this when he brought Juliet to the Island? Is he interested in her because she reminds him of his boyhood crush or because he knows she was his boyhood crush and he thought he finally had a shot after passing through puberty? If this theory is right, and I really hope it is, Benry’s psyche is an even stranger place to be than anybody could have anticipated.
You know, I intended to get into the Gilgamesh parallels in Lost, but I got derailed by Benry’s own personal performance of Oedipus Rex. Somebody remind me to get to that next week, OK?
