He lied.

The topic before him had no bearing on his words: he deceived in matters large, in details small.  The consequences of dishonesty figured into his thoughts only to the extent of laying the groundwork for the next deception, which in turn would provide the foundation for subsequent misdirection.  He manipulated facts and fabricated stories to suit his purpose, to frame conditions to his liking, to cause those he controlled to believe he was advancing their agenda so that he could nefariously implement his own well-engineered plans.

He manipulated, coerced, forced those under him to commit the worst offences.  When lying was insufficient to his ends, he murdered.  He killed with his bare hands or with weapons, with guns, gas, or rope.  He actively participated in mass murder.  A reasonable jury of his peers would be obliged to find him guilty on all charges and pass down the severest of sentences.

Benjamin Linus was arguably the most villainous, hateful character on the Island.  But we found ourselves liking him.  Ilana, who knew his crimes, was never taken in my his tricks, pardoned him.  The man who was his opposite, who endeavoured never to fabricate an untruth, took him on as advisor.   At Ben’s own death he was found worthy to make the voyage to the Church of the Holy Lamp Post, having served well as Hurley’s faithful consigliere.

It is appropriate to ask what might reasonably be considered the greatest unanswered question in the six years of LOST:  Who was Benjamin Linus?

Original Innocence

The circumstances of his youth were most similar to those of his future nemesis, John Locke.  Both men were born several months premature to a woman named Emily.  Both endured a tortured childhood of neglect and abuse without the care of a mother.   Each of them later in life would methodically engineer his own father’s death.

At some point their paths diverged.  Locke never seemed to grow up.  He insisted that the world around him conform to his understanding, that those in charge allow him to be the person he believed himself to be.  Locke’s innocence was so integral to his being that he could not conceive of the notion of deception.  Even after fifty years of navigating the real world, he never figured out that at every turn people had been taking advantage of his trust in them.  His gullibility would be his undoing.  He lost his money, lost a kidney, lost the use of his legs, and finally lost his life.  Every bit of suffering in his sad life was the bitter outcome of his own innocent trust in the good will of others.

We don’t know which events in Ben’s early years led to his adoption of deceit and manipulation as a default modus operandi.  The example of John Locke indicates we cannot blame a motherless childhood or the capricious vagaries of life that placed more than a boy’s fair share of suffering in their paths.  Apparently neither of these conditions was sufficient to induce either life-long innocence or habitual deceit.  Every generation provides examples of children neglected and abused who become sterling examples of trustworthy industry and responsibility in their adult years.  We must look to some other cause of Ben’s manipulative lifestyle.

Both men came to hate their fathers, but at different times, and for different reasons.  It is in the Darltonian expression of malignant fatherhood that we see the most vivid contrast between Ben and Locke.

Anthony Cooper, like Ben and James Ford after him, earned his livelihood from a keen facility with manipulation.  But a lifetime of seducing women and conniving to take their husbands’ savings made him too busy to check in on young John Locke, even once.

Sins of the Fathers

Roger Linus was a very different kind of father.

Roger might have left his son, if he’d had the opportunity to do so.  But on a janitor’s wages, and with most of his meagre income dedicated to nightly rounds of liquid amnesia, he would never get off the Island.  So he took the time-honoured path of many men in the same situation:  he ignored his son.  Child neglect was not a punishable offence in the Dharma Initiative, and besides, these were the disco-drenched 70s; no one was sober enough to figure out what anyone else was doing.

The situation was sad for young Ben, but many boys have grown up under similar situations without becoming psychopathic liars.  But few boys under such conditions were exposed to the species of psychological abuse that Ben suffered on a nightly basis.  Roger planted in his son’s heart an idea of the kind that should never be expressed to a child, even in a fit of anger.  Especially not in a fit of anger.  Roger told his son that he, Ben, was responsible for his own mother’s death.

Perhaps this was the unbearable burden of undeserved guilt that caused Ben’s visions of his dead mother.  He didn’t question her apparition, but others did.  When he entered the deactivation code for the sonic fence and slipped into the Hostiles’ territory, he came upon Richard Alpert.  When Ben explained he was looking for his dead mother, Richard’s interest in the boy increased immediately.

RICHARD: Did she die here, on the Island?
BEN: No. When I was a baby.
RICHARD: Did you see her, out here, Ben, in the jungle?
BEN: She talked to me.
RICHARD: What did she say?
BEN: That I couldn’t come with her. She said it wasn’t time yet.

In hindsight we know that the apparition of someone who had not died on the Island would be taken as unusual by any of the Others, and especially by the one member of the League of Jacob who lived through the ages.  What did the apparition of Emily Linus mean to Ben?  To the Others?  Was Ben possibly among those being groomed by Jacob for Island leadership?  Did Ben’s visions point to some other “special” aspect of his character that would have significance for Jacob’s band?

Roger’s frequent refrain that Ben had caused his own mother’s death was the inexcusable ranting of a man entirely unfit for the care of a child.  I don’t imagine there is any way to accurately calculate the deep psychological damage that must have been inflicted by Roger’s deplorable contempt for his own son’s mental health.  The wounds to Ben’s soul must have been painful beyond anything a human being should have to endure.

I don’t believe, though, that Roger’s thoughtlessness and his unsuitability for parenting were sufficient to have caused Ben’s manipulative temperament and his comfort in deception.  I believe going to the root of Ben’s character requires that we spend time contemplating a concrete object in Richard’s possession at the time of his meeting with Ben.  If we understand this object, we will understand Ben.

The Compass

We saw this compass for the first time in Lost 4.11 (“Cabin Fever”).  It was one of the six items Richard showed to young John Locke in 1961, asking the boy, “Which of these things belong to you already?”  The compass was one of the items Locke identified as belonging to him.

The boy was correct.  The adult John Locke gave the compass to Richard in 1954 during the period of erratic time travels as a proof that he was from the future.  Richard kept the compass for the next 53 years.  He surrendered the compass to the wounded, time-traveling John Locke in 2007, instructing Locke to give the compass back to him the next time Locke saw him.  That next meeting turned out to be their short conversation in 1954, since that was Locke’s next stop on his time-travel tour.  Richard accepted the compass, showed it to young Locke in 1961, and returned it to Locke in 2007, who transported it back to 1954, gave it to Richard, who…

With most of the human players in Jacob’s two-thousand-year-old game of backgammon, the compass was caught in an endless time loop.  The compass existed in concrete form, but it was never created.  The compass had no possible entry point into the loop.  It had no beginning, it would never have an end.  It just was.

The Man in Black, posing as John Locke just before the real Locke’s time-travel appearance in 2007, asked Richard about the compass Locke had given him in 1956.  “A little rusty,” Richard said, “but she can still find north.”  Perhaps it was a manifestation of the MIB’s sense of humour, perhaps it was a deeper intention to control people, events, and time itself, but it was the Smoke Monster who told Richard to give the compass back to Locke during that critical rendez-vous in 2007.  By instructing Richard to return the compass to Locke, Smokey was ensuring the perpetuation of an endless time loop.  If nothing else, the endless circularity through time of people, events, and objects supported the MIB’s understanding of human behaviour.  ” They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.”

If all the important events on the Island were captured in endless loops, the Smoke Monster would always turn out to be correct.  If every occurrence of any importance was relegated to a time loop, Jacob’s vision of human progress finally ending the loops would never come to pass.  Perhaps by controlling all the defining events in this manner he could gain the upper hand over Jacob and make the final move that would end their perpetual game of senet to his advantage.

Destroying the Loop

We were witness to the end of all time loops.  The selfless heroism of Boone, Charlie, Locke, Sayid, Kate, and the greatest hero, Jack Shephard, ended for all time the eternal, circular game of senet.  The destruction of time loops was the final grand objective of Lost.  By accepting Jacob’s gauntlet, these men and women not only showed their mettle and proved their valour, but demonstrated for all the stuff of which humans are truly made.

Those who were “special” were the immortal heroes, the women and men who did not shirk the call of destiny, even when the Island called them to self-sacrifice.  “You were special, John,” Ben told Locke outside the Church of the Holy Lamp Post.  Indeed.  Locke’s heroism was the most magnificent demonstration of the divinity of his soul, for he knew his mission had to end in his own death.

Jack’s mission was the single most important calling anyone had received since Biblical times.  Everything else had to be put on hold, even the reconciliation of Jack with his own father.  How fitting it was, then, that the Island summoned not Kate, not Sarah, not his sister, Claire, but Christian Shephard, to bring his son back to consciousness after the crash.  “I need you to go find my son,” Christian told the yellow Labrador Retriever, Vincent.  “He’s over there in that bamboo forest, unconscious.  I need you to go wake him up…. He has work to do.”

Ray Shephard never had faith in his son, Christian.  Christian never had faith in his son, Jack.  Jack ended the cruel, circular Shephard heritage of father-son enmity by raising a fine son, David, and connecting with him.  Jack was allowed this final resolution not in his life on earth, but in the life after his heroic act.

Ben’s Loop

Ben was a tragic figure.  For many years he thought himself “special”.  Perhaps Richard, knowing of Ben’s visions of his mother, considered him “special”, too.  Perhaps most or all of the Others considered their leader somehow different from themselves.  He had inherited the Island from Charles Widmore, after all.  But Jacob didn’t grant him even a perfunctory audience, not a word of gratitude for his long service.  Ben never was special.  Finally grasping the truth of that fact must have hurt Ben to the very depths of his being.

I believe the tragedy of Ben, the endless, almost unbearably monotonous quality of his grand deceptions and fabrications, and the genesis of his flawed character were all wrapped into a single momentous event in 1977 that captured him forever into a great time loop.

In Season Five, Sayid gave us his understanding of Benjamin Linus:

“He’s a liar, a manipulator…a man who allowed his own daughter to be murdered to save himself…A monster responsible for nothing short of genocide.”

In Sayid Jarrah’s mind, Ben Linus was of the same ilk as Adolf Hitler.   Sayid brought young Ben into his confidence, allowing Ben to believe he was one of the hallowed “Hostiles”.  The adolescent Ben trusted Sayid so much he engineered an elaborate jail break for the man.  Alone with Ben far away from the Dharma barracks, Sayid saw the chance he had been waiting for.  He aimed the gun directly at the boy’s heart and fired.  Ben fell to the ground, apparently dead.

The waters of the Temple eventually saved Ben.  Richard claimed Ben would not remember anything that happened before the immersion in the waters, but he would be changed forever.  He would no longer have the innocence of youth.

I believe it was not Jacob’s healing waters that robbed young Ben of his innocence.  I believe it was Sayid’s betrayal of Ben’s trust that forever removed any possibility of trust from the boy’s range of conceivable dispositions.  After he had placed complete faith in a man he believed a “Hostile”, one of the “good guys” in the boy’s mind, only to become the object of the man’s unjustified but complete hatred, how could he ever again trust anyone?  How could he tell anyone the truth ever again?  If the only person he ever found worthy of his trust could shoot him in the chest, fully intending to murder him with a single shot, how could he ever place even a modicum of faith in anyone’s professed intentions?

In spite of what Richard claimed, I believe Ben could never have forgotten this event.  Perhaps he didn’t remember Sayid, but how could he have forgotten a bullet to the chest?  A wound that very nearly killed him?  No amnesia-inducing waters would carry a force sufficient to overcome a reality that strong and dark and full of corruption.  Ben remembered.  Those memories made him into the man he became.  And what he became was another tragic loop, just another example the Smoke Monster could point out as proof of his thesis regarding the most enduring and contemptible qualities of the corrupt and rotten human soul.

Redemption of a Soul Lost

Charles Widmore’s instructions to Ben in 1988 could not have been any clearer:  Ben was to find Danielle Rousseau’s camp, murder the woman, and kill her child.  The young man had wanted to join the Others since his arrival on the Island fifteen years before.  He must have been a constant pain in Widmore’s side, this young man who thought himself “special”.  A young man who even then must have been using every waking moment of his life trying to discover the means by which he might wrest control of the group from Widmore’s hands.  Did Widmore send young Ethan Rom on the mission to ensure Ben’s faithful execution of the gruesome task?

I don’t believe Ben refused Widmore’s orders in an attempt to amass political power.  I don’t think he saved Danielle and baby Alex to spite Widmore or usurp his authority.  I think his decision to spare baby Alex’s life was the only response Ben could have made in the situation.  Just as life experience had turned him into a psychopathic liar, I believe the earlier and even more painful events of life–beginning with separation from his own mother–instilled in Ben Linus a natural affinity for children and an unquenchable desire to ensure the fulfillment of their needs.  Roger Linus was the worst father one could imagine.  Ben must have had such a deep desire to correct the evils his father had wrought that the prospect of raising a girl with the full intensity of a father’s love must have driven him more than any consequences Widmore might have chosen to mete out for Ben’s insubordination.  Baby Alex’s life must have meant as much to him as his own life.  When he looked into the little baby’s eyes, he must have seen only one possible outcome.

The Final Blow

Perhaps raising a child to adulthood could have made up for Ben’s earlier genocide.  In the Richard Attenborough film, “Gandhi”, one of the most moving scenes occurs near the end of the movie.  A Hindu man, Nahari, rushes up to the Great Mahatma, who is weak from the nearly month-long food fast he began in response to Muslim/Hindu bloodshed.  The man’s eyes are wide in sheer terror.

Nahari:  I’m going to Hell! I killed a child! I smashed his head against a wall.
Gandhi:  Why?
Nahari:  Because they killed my son! The Muslims killed my son!
Gandhi:  I know a way out of Hell. Find a child, a child whose mother and father have been killed and raise him as your own.  Only be sure that he is a Muslim and that you raise him as one.

Ben almost fulfilled the self-imposed assignment.  Sixteen-year-old Alex had grown into a beautiful young woman, capable in many ways, but still a child, still in need of a father’s care.  Ben took a gamble when Widmore’s thug, Keamy, held a gun to Alex’s head.  The gamble was almost sure to succeed.  Ben and Widmore both knew the rules, and those rules prevented either of them from assassinating family members.

“I stole her as a baby from an insane woman,” Ben said.  ”She’s a pawn, nothing more. She means nothing to me. I’m not coming out of this house. So if you want to kill her, go ahead and–”

Ben didn’t get to finish his statement.  Keamy put a bullet in the girl’s brain and her lifeless body dropped to the ground.

Final Reckoning

He was a sad and lonely figure seated on the marble bench outside Our Lady of the Foucault Pendulum.

Perhaps he could have entered the church, Alex or Danielle accompanying him as his Constant.  He had served admirably as Number Two to the Protector of the Island, Hurley.  He was a sad man because he realised the enormity of his crimes.  But more than anything, he continued to suffer the devastation of Alex’s death.   Sadness and devastation kept him outside, alone, spiritually unable to cross the threshold to the final antechamber before… moving on.

But he was there.  Charles never made it anywhere near the church.   Keamy died in a place where everyone was already dead–his soul forever expunged from the rolls of those who could call themselves human beings.

Ben was there.

Ben, despite a life of lies, tortures, and murders, mass murder, the cold-blooded execution of his own father–in spite of everything, Ben sat outside the church.

We might think of it as an instance of undeserved grace.  I find myself believing something else entirely.  Possibly none of us, other than the great heroes–the Jack Shephards and Kate Austens and John Lockes–could be said to deserve the grace that allows us admittance to the final antechamber.  Perhaps that grace is extended even to those among us, undeserving as we are, who nevertheless think ourselves somehow a cut above, that in spite of our foibles we somehow deserve redemption.  Perhaps even arrogant fools such as these are extended an undeserved and unappreciated grace.

Ben is not among these delusional fools.  The pain in his soul is real.  He is lonely, devastated, aching in the deepest recesses of his spirit.  He stays on in his purgatory because to do otherwise would be to deprive himself of the single honest objective of his life:  Raising a helpless girl he was supposed to have murdered, teaching her everything that is good and noble and true in the hearts of women and men, and seeing his helpless baby turn into a capable and beautiful and trusting young woman.

Benjamin Linus was allowed this grace, not because he begged for it or deserved it or thought himself worthy.  He was allowed this final grace precisely because he knew himself unworthy, and because the death of Alex forever marked him a sad and lonely and pained man.

In Ben’s pain and humility he found pardon and redemption.  And someday, someday soon, taking Alex’s hand or Danielle’s hand in his own, he will cross the threshold, sit with his beloved Constant in a pew, surrounded by the Rousseau family friends and relatives and those cherished and adored, those Ben trusted, and experience the bright light that will carry them to a happier and eternal destiny.

PM

Related posts:

1. White Rabbit: The Cultural and Symbolic Significance of Christian Shephard in LOST by Pearson Moore
2. Principal Purpose: Culture and Meaning in LOST 6.07 “Dr. Linus” by Pearson Moore
3. So You Could Find One Another: Cultural Perfections in LOST 6.17-6.18 “The End” by Pearson Moore

If you are a fan of NBC’s “The Office” then you are likely aware of Steve Carell’s departure next year. Michael Emerson’s name has been mentioned on quite a few lists of possible replacements for Steve Carell. Here’s Emerson’s response, extracted from a recent interview with USA TODAY:

I’ve seen it mentioned online, but I don’t take it very seriously. No industry person has talked to me. And plus, who wants to follow Steve Carell in that part? The opportunity for failure or embarrassment is so high that even if we lived in an insane universe where I actually got offered such a thing, I don’t know if you’d say yes to that.

Michael also talked about his new project with Terry O’Quinn:

There’s ongoing buzz that you and Terry O’Quinn would like to do a project together. Is there any update on that? Is Terry the cast member you’ve kept in touch with the most?

I sure do stay in touch with Terry. There are some ideas being batted around in Hollywood where things move slowly and eccentrically, so I don’t know if anything will come from it, but I do know that some serious writers are playing around with ideas.

Whether it will ever see the light of day or not, I’m not sure. It would be a ways off in the future, but I would jump at the chance to do another show with Terry. We get along famously, and he’s about as good a scene partner as an actor will ever have.

What’s your next project?

The next time the public sees me is probably in a PBS series in October called God in America. I play a Puritan. It’s a three-or four-night series. It’s a documentary, but it also has period dramatizations.

Click here to read the full interview.

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3. New Q&A With Michael Emerson

[Via AP LIVE]

Related posts:

1. Another Video Interview with Michael Emerson
2. New Michael Emerson Video Interview
3. ABC 13 Interview with Michael Emerson

[Via AccessHollywood]

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3. LOST Season 5 DVD Sneak Peek: Jacob

Pre-order LOST: The Complete Sixth and Final Season on Blu-ray & DVD and save up to 40%!

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Check out more scans after the jump.

[Via MichaelEmerson.net]

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Thanks to ONTD_LOST for this scan from this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly!

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Terry O’Quinn:

It’s always great to be recognized for one’s work, and when friends are included in the recognition, it’s even better. With all the ‘LOST’ nominations, it’s almost as though the winning (or not winning) will be anti-climactic. I’m happy as can be for Matthew, and the only thing I can imagine that would be better than being nominated in the same category as Michael Emerson would be if the Emmy voters would be so kind as to let us win together, thank you very much……..but in truth, I feel as though they already have.

Elizabeth Mitchell:

I’m shocked. And so happy. I loved Juliet so much. The nomination is a wonderful way to say goodbye.

Michael Emerson:

I’m delighted at the broad recognition that “Lost” has received this year and am thrilled to be able to share the excitement with my cast mates. I’m also ecstatic that my wife Carrie’s show, “True Blood,” received a nomination–we’re both looking forward to the party in August.

[Via Yahoo News & E!Online]

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Her politicians are unknown outside her borders.  Her history is subdued; even the most jarring social movement of the last two hundred years is called the “Quiet” Revolution.  But her culture?

Hockey.  Mounties.  Maple Syrup.  Molson Dry.  We know her culture.

If we know her culture, we must know her citizens.  Constable Benton Fraser, Dudley Do-Right, Sergeant Bruce, and Sam Steele taught us.  Canadians are decent, polite, trustworthy.   When Australian farmer Ray Mullen found a vagabond woman sleeping in his sheep barn he was understandably suspicious.  “You’re an American.”  Not a question, but a statement.  Only Americans could be so disrespectful.  The woman shook her head.  “Canadian,” she said, correcting him.  “I graduated from college and figured I’d see the world.”  Her declaration of Canadian citizenship changed everything.  Now she was a good neighbour, fellow citizen of a Commonwealth country.  She was Canadian.  She was decent, polite, trustworthy.  He believed her immediately.  How could he not?  Annie was a fine young woman from a fine country.  Ray knew he could trust her with his money, with his farm, with his very life.  What could possibly go wrong?

Ethan Rom – from Ontario

Hurley called him “Lance,” until the soft-spoken man corrected him.  “I’m Ethan–Ethan Rom.  From Ontario.”  Hurley’s response was in line with our own thoughts, and in keeping with Ethan’s hope:  “Right on, love Canada, great.”  Who could not love Canada?  Therefore, who could not love Ethan Rom?

Anthony Cooper also said he was from Ontario.  Ben traveled with a Canadian passport identifying him as Dean Moriarty.  When some of the Others asked about Greta and Bonnie, Ben told them they were “on assignment in Canada”.  Charles Widmore gave John Locke a new identity as Jeremy Bentham and new citizenship–in Canada.   Sawyer told the woman he was trying to con that he had a business partner “in Toronto”.  Kate, just before she stole Ray Mullen’s money and nearly killed him, said she was Annie, from Canada.

Canada was referenced ten times in the span of 121 episodes.  Not a single character–even a minor character among the otherwise international dramatis personae–was actually Canadian.  So notorious were Ethan and Kate’s fabricated citizenship that by the time Nathan claimed in “The Other 48 Days” to be from Canada, we were immediately suspicious.  Even in Season Two we knew a claim of Canadian citizenship meant the character was almost certainly lying.  When Ben told everyone that Greta and Bonnie were “on assignment in Canada”, we knew this meant they were anywhere but Canada, and they would be found in a location Ben wished to keep secret.  This turned out to be precisely the case:  Greta and Bonnie were in the semi-secret Looking Glass Station, awaiting Ben’s confidential command.

The deception was effective.  But why?

I blame Sam Steele, and with him, the entire tradition of the NWMP and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP

His name is Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, played by Alberta-born actor Paul Gross.  Fraser was a Mountie very much in the tradition of Sam Steele and a sympathetic but over-the-top caricature of the polite, trustworthy, and self-sacrificing Canadian.  The dog’s name is Diefenbaker, though I don’t know why.  I imagine some residents of Saskatoon may attribute the name to the dog’s faithfulness.  I think maybe the dog got the name because he’s deaf.  But Friday, February 20, 1959 (“Black Friday”) was a long time ago.  If Fraser could forgive and forget, we can, too (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow and also http://www.amazon.ca/Arrow-Dan-Aykroyd/dp/B000065ILG/).

Fraser came into our living rooms every Thursday evening from 1994 to 1998 on CBS in the series Due South.  Stationed at the Canadian Consulate in Chicago, Fraser and sidekick Chicago cop Ray Vecchio solved the most difficult of the Windy City’s crimes.  In four years on U.S. television, Constable Fraser fired a weapon only once–when the Great Lakes freighter he boarded sailed into Canadian waters, meaning his sidearm was (finally!) legal and he could disable the bad guy’s equipment with a perfectly-aimed shot.

Always-polite Constable Fraser is not the only reason for the success of the LOST deception.    If a confidence man has his way with us, it is not because of some independently verifiable fact of life in Canada, but due rather to something internal, something askew in our understanding of the world.  The confidence artist plays to that incorrect understanding, exploits it, and achieves her nefarious ends.

Appearances and Underlying Truth

The mysterious man at Jin and Sun’s wedding should not have been able to speak Korean, but here he was, not only wishing them well in their marriage, but doing it in flawless, perfectly fluent Korean.  Jin and Sun were amazed.  They thought they understood the world and the way it worked.  A man of European ancestry–a man who should have had no understanding of Korean–broke through the bonds of appearance and gave them a glimpse into the underlying truth of his mission.

We need to break through to that underlying truth if we are to understand the con artist’s game.  It is not enough to laugh and say, “I know Constable Fraser is a caricature; Canadians are not always polite.”  True enough.  But as I said above, the problem does not derive of some independently verifiable fact of Canadian culture–it derives of a deficit in our understanding of the world.  It’s internal, not external.

I served in the Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa, for two years.  The culture of West Africa, the way people speak, understand, and carry themselves is very different from what I experienced growing up in the Midwestern United States.  One day toward the end of my service I was in a crowd of people in Lomé.  Everyone was walking with me in the same direction, and I saw only the backs of people’s heads.  One man stood out from the crowd.  He was wearing African clothes, wore his hair close to the scalp as the other black men around him.  He was of average height and build.  I could not see his face.  But something in the way he carried himself, in the way he held his head high, shoulders back, moved arms and legs with purpose–gave me confidence, inner knowledge, that he was not Togolese.  He was American, maybe European.  When he and his friends stopped to purchase some Ghanaian chocolate from a little girl, my curiosity forced me to quicken my stride.  “Cent francs,” the girl informed him.  Twenty-five cents.  I looked at the man.  “It’s the going rate for Ghanaian chocolate,” I told him.  “You live here?” he asked with a heavy British accent.  I tried not to smile.  He was from Charlie’s city, Manchester.   Two years in West Africa had given me the ability to understand mannerisms, even to the point of pulling a black man from the UK out of a sea of black men from Togo.

I knew the man was from England, but did I know anything else?  His motivations?  His ideals?

I visited Munich in the summer of 2006.  It was a time when Americans were becoming less welcome around the world and some travel experts were advocating a bit of deception:  try to make people believe you’re Canadian.  As I returned from my one-week stay I gave up my seat on the subway to a woman just boarding.  The man in the seat in front  of me asked where I was from.  “North America,” I said.  It was not deception–it was the way I was thinking.  But my response could mean only one thing to the German fellow:  I was Canadian.  Americans simply don’t identify themselves as being from “North America”.  He turned to his girlfriend and said something to the effect that he didn’t like Canadians, but liked Americans even less.

What were my motivations for saying “North America”?  I was born and raised in Minnesota, I carry an American passport.  But I speak and write using Canadian rhythms and norms.  I did this for many years before my visit to Germany, and I will be doing it for the remainder of my life.  Can anyone say they understand the rationale for my adoption of Canadian sensibilities?  Does it even matter that I have U.S. citizenship?  Does it matter that I might be able to write my name as Pearson Moore, U.E. (United Empire Loyalist;  my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Daniel Smith (Smith #1 in the New Brunswick Provincial Archives), was a resident of Connecticut, fighting for King and Country in 1775 when hostilities broke out.)?  We need to look deeper if we are to understand the Canada deception invented by Damon and Carlton.

I’m Henry Gale, from Minnesota

He said the words with a wondrous combination of conviction and fear:  “I’m Henry Gale, from Minnesota.”  Henry Gale, probably much better known as uncle and legal guardian to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  But we’re not in Kansas anymore, Vincent.  This Henry Gale was from Wayzata, western suburb of Minneapolis.  Wayzata’s only claim to fame, as far as I know, is that it is the city in which Greg Lemond, three-time winner of the Tour de France, decided to raise his family.

If Sayid hadn’t found that Minnesota driver’s licence, the deception might have worked longer than it did.  The discovery of this first of many lies was the beginning of what must have been five dozen or more beatings of the Dharmaville master of manipulation.

Why Minnesota?  The original Henry Gale was doing just fine from his home in Kansas.  Why did Darlton make the conscious decision to change his domicile to a location in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes?

The state sport in Minnesota is hockey.  The state bird is the loon.  The first Europeans to visit its shores were French fur traders in the 17th century.  If you replace the word “Minnesota” with “Canada” and “state” with “national”, the truth of the first three sentences of this paragraph remains unaffected.  Canada and Minnesota share history, languages, culture, and social institutions.

The ties between Minnesota and Canada are commonly recognised.  Rick Mercer, maybe the best-known comedian in Canada, a few years ago gave his humorous take on the placement of professional hockey teams in southern U.S. cities.  “Now teams from cold places, like Québec, Winnipeg, and Minnesota, are moving to warm places, like Carolina, Tampa Bay, and Nashville.  These are places where hockey is about as popular as bull riding, or women’s bowling.  People who live in the desert don’t like hockey.  They’d rather shoot rats at the dump.”  The video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcj7dH2rSHA) is hilarious.

Darlton recognised, with Rick Mercer, that Minnesota and the provinces north of its border share more than five-month-long winters.  There are deep cultural connections affecting the way people in these places think, behave, and interact with one another.  Kansas wasn’t going to cut it on the Island of Mittelos.  The Island’s most notorious deception artist would have to hail from a location indicating decency, politeness, and trustworthiness, but it would have to be a location not as blatantly obvious as Ethan Rom’s Ontario.  It had to be Minnesota.  And the way Michael Emerson said it–I could almost smell the air.

Knowledge, Truth, and Understanding

The Smoke Monster knew even the master manipulator could be made to act on incomplete knowledge, that he could plant in Ben’s mind the idea that Jacob was not sympathetic friend but ruthless and uncaring enemy.  Cerberus’ plan worked perfectly, and Ben ended Jacob’s life with very little prodding in their first and only confrontation.

The Canada deceptions share much in common with the MIB’s fabrications about Jacob.  Smokey told Ben the truth, but only those truths that would support his goal of building Ben into the willing and eager assassin of the MIB’s arch enemy.  The last two sentence pose a juxtaposition of thought you may not have anticipated.  After less than a few seconds of reflection the careful reader will take exception with the first statement in this paragraph.  Kate was from Iowa, not from Canada.  John Locke was not “Jeremy Bentham”, and he was from California, not from Vancouver.  So how could the Canada deceptions in LOST be anything other than the most blatant of lies?  How can I say any truth is contained in these deceptions?

If we consider only the obvious aspects of the deception, we will see only the lie.  But every good deception contains solid truth, or the deception would not hold its own weight.

We must endeavour to think about the deception in new terms to grasp the reason for its success.

Is Pearson Moore citizen of the U.S. or is he Canadian?  I submit we need not make a choice.  He is U.S. citizen, but he thinks, moves, and breathes as Canadian.  What is Canada, anyway?  What is the essential stuff of the country where you make your home?  In high school I was told repeatedly that the United States is an idea.  So too, I think, Canada is an idea.  It is an idea much different from ideas I have come to know in my life, and certainly quite different from the idea that claims its birth 234 years ago this day.  The truth of any person’s allegiance is not found in cursory knowledge but in deepest understanding.

Sir Sam Steele, Superintendant, Northwest Mounted Police

What is the truth of any single person’s allegiance?

I wrote at the beginning of this essay that I blamed Sam Steele for the effectiveness of Darlton’s Canada deception.  Unlike the other Mounties I have invoked, however, Sam Steele–Superintendant Sir Samuel Steele–is not a fictional creation.  He was, for fifty years, the flesh-and-blood leader of the Canadian Mounties.  In order to understand why the Canada deception worked, you need to understand Sam Steele, his attitude about police work, and the tradition that flowed from his example.  The most striking truth–possibly outside of the realm of belief, even for Canadians, was this simple fact:  In his fifty years of police work, Sam Steele did not draw his service revolver.  Not once.  I trust historian Pierre Berton (Canada’s most widely-read authority on Canadian history, frequent television personality, and author of roughly three dozen tomes in my personal library) to have researched the facts surrounding this most famous of Mounties.  Steele believed police work was accomplished by force of character.  Modern-day RCMP officers who go about tazering people–literally to death sometimes–could learn deep truths from this man.  He faced greater challenges (e.g., the Klondike gold rush) to peace, order, and good government than any of his successors.

Sir Sam Steele is real.  His life is stranger than fiction, beyond even the over-the-top perfection of Constable Benton Fraser.

We have to move beyond caricatures to truth.  Sam Steele is real, stands for something real, something that has endured even longer than the 143 years and three days that have passed since Sir John A. MacDonald became the first Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada.  Benjamin Linus and Ethan Rom and “Jeremy Bentham” stood for something, too.  They did not make deception their goal.  It was a means to an end.  Occasionally even Ben would speak the truth.  “Everything I did, I did for the Island,” Ben said into his walkie-talkie.  Ben and Ethan and Locke served something greater than themselves, something real, something that has endured even longer than the 143 years of Richard Alpert’s immortality (that one’s for Nikki).  They served the Island.

Service to King and Country

Even those we considered for many years to be human refuse, the putrid vessels of all that is and can be corrupted, turned out instead to be fighting for the existence of the one thing above all others on this planet that must be protected.   The fought for the idea inscribed on the cork stone, that human civilisation, the work of human hands and joy of human hearts, labouring for the good of all humankind, shall not perish from the earth.  Peace, order, and good Island government.  It’s a new idea, born in the land of hockey, Mounties, Molson Dry, and Bombardier.  But it’s as old as Samuel de Champlain’s handshake with Grand Sagamo Anadabijou in 1603, as old as the hieroglyphs at the time wheel, as old as Jacob and the Man in Black.

The illustration opening this essay has no artistic merit (Dammit, Jim, I’m a scientist, not an artist.  Or was it “bricklayer”?), but it does express the thoughts I had after a particular July First on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.  We heard them before we saw them, the Canadian Forces 431 Air Demonstration Squadron, better known as the Snowbirds, roaring over the Peace Tower and then instantly veering into the signature “Maple Split” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBsl0g7qXck&feature=related).   The never-ending contrails of the precision jets, reaching out toward infinity, signify something unbreakable.  The Maple Leaf Forever, as it were.  It was the best way I could imagine to begin an article on the Canada Deception, an article that would end with the thought that just as all of us carry a bit of the Source’s Light in our hearts, so too, all of us carry a bit of the Maple Leaf in our hearts–even Benjamin Linus and Ethan Rom.  And I knew it would make a fitting and heart-felt tribute to the land I love on the weekend of her birth.

PM
Canada Day Weekend, 2010

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3. Principal Purpose: Culture and Meaning in LOST 6.07 “Dr. Linus” by Pearson Moore

Michael Emerson visited his hometown in Iowa and met with his old classmates and some fans. I was able to record much of this meet-and-greet and asked a few questions, one of them being about the “New Man in Charge” featurette. This was his response.

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The NY Post has revealed that the LOST Epilogue featuring Hurley and Ben in their new roles as the Island’s Number #1 and Number #2 is titled “The New Man in Charge” and runs 11 minutes long. Here’s the official description of this Epilogue, which will be available on LOST: The Complete Collection and the Season 6 DVD/Blu-ray sets:

Go deeper into the world of LOST with a much-anticipated new chapter of the island’s story from Executive Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse… and starring some very familiar faces.

Which “familiar faces” would you like to see?

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Via Kristin Dos Santos:

“For those people that want to pony up and buy the complete Lost series, there is a bonus feature,” Michael just told our Kevin Pereira of Attack of the Show!, which airs tonight at 7 on E!’s brother network G4. “Which is um, you could call it an epilogue. A lost scene. It’s a lot; it’s 12 or 14 minutes that opens a window onto that gap of unknown time between Hurley (Jorge Garcia) becoming number one and the end of the series.”

Michael says this extra footage is not the premise for a spinoff. “It’s self-contained. Although, it’s a rich period in the show’s mythology that ‘s never been explored, so who knows what will come of it.”

That said, as I reported earlier, we’ll find out what happens to Walt on the DVD as well. And so for the last time ever (sniff!), I think I get to say, Lost spoiler alert! Whatcha wanna bet that during Hurley and Ben’s adventures on the island, they run into Walt a few years into the future, when he’s oh, 18 and looking just as Malcolm David Kelley looks now?

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Fancast.com: The May 23 series finale has been expanded by 30 minutes and will now run two-and-a-half-hours. Why do you think that is?
Michael Emerson: It’s surprising… and yet in a way I’m not surprised at all. The finale script was so thick and so dense with action…. When we were shooting it, we went so far overtime, I thought, “How are they ever going to squeeze all this into two hours?!” If ‘Lost’ has any flaws, it’s that occasionally we suffer from trying to cut too big a show [for the given time slot], so I’m happy to hear they thought there was enough great stuff that they had to let it breathe. It’s a really great sign.

What is there so much of – action? Verbal exposition?
It’s everything. There’s so much in it. There are tremendous action sequences in it, and to give them the full scope and breadth, sometimes you have to let it be a little bit longer.

Might the finale present too much information to download? Could even the most passionate ‘Lost’ fan come away a bit dizzy?
There’s a lot going on in it, I’ll give you that! The show is definitely going to be a wild ride from here on to the end.

What are your own plans for finale night?
Some cast members and I have a thing to shoot for the ‘Jimmy Kimmel’ LOST special in the afternoon, and then I’m doing a personal appearance [at the Los Angeles Orpheum], where they’re showing the finale on a giant screen. But I’m done there when the show starts, so I’ll probably come home and watch it. [Wife] Carrie [Preston] and I may have some friends over.

There has been talk that we could see you and Terry O’Quinn work together again, perhaps playing bounty hunters in one proposed series.
Yeah, that was an idea that we kicked around a bit, and he’s spoken to some producers about it. If it has legs it would be a long way off. But of it’s a fun idea, I would leap at the chance to work with Terry on anything – whether it’s singing on a street corner or doing a play in Baltimore. Why not, it’s what we do! We were good together, let’s take our show somewhere else!

You can read the full interview here. (Warning: the article contains spoilers).

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Like many other episodes this season, it’s … it’s just a good reveal. The door creaks open a little bit further. Something in the mechanics of the narrative is going to make itself … we’re going to think about things differently — certainly about Desmond.

Read full interview @ NYMag.com (contains minor spoilers).

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[Via Bamtan]

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2. Mirror, Mirror (Part II): Cultural Reflections on LOST 6.05 “Lighthouse” by Pearson Moore
3. In Preparation for Season 5, Episode 5: “Lovers” – Votation Results

[Via ABC.com]

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Via E!Online:

Michael Emerson gets beat up a lot playing Ben Linus on Lost.

So much so that when friends recently saw the Emmy winner sporting a major bruise in Hawaii, they thought it was fake and possibly just some leftover makeup from a day of shooting.

But, no, it was real. What happened? Read on for the painful details.

“He has a huge shiner on his right eye!” a source reports. “Apparently, he has a fight scene and the choreography when slightly awry. One of his costars actually connected with Michael’s face and gave him a huge black eye.”

You’d think the real-life injury would be incorporated into the Lost storyline, but our source said, “Michael joked that the makeup department now has to hide his black eye every day instead of creating one.”

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Spoiler Alert: this interview contains minor spoilers.

So there are limits to what Ben will do to get what he wants, at least in the Sideways?
Yes, Ben was presented with a parallel choice — a smaller one, but an echo of a bad choice he made in the island world — and he made a different call, a softer call that we’re happy about.

Was it nice to play Ben’s softer side?
I’ll tell you what was fun: When Ben tries to play his card with the principal but he hasn’t the confidence that his alter ego has. He trembles a little when he makes his big play because he knows he’s out of his depth. It was fun to find that shakiness because that’s a color they’ve never asked of me on the show before. It’s almost like I’m playing a different character this season.

Now that Widmore’s back, will Ben’s battle with him resume?
You’d think. [The producers] went to such pains to establish it. But there are three episodes still to film and that’s something that hasn’t been shot yet. I suppose it’s possible that the characters’ [conflict] can be resolved without facing off against one another, maybe through the agency of some third party.

Would that be disappointing?
I’m just a passenger on this ride. But I am anxious for answers that don’t seem to be coming in a rush. I think it’s partly my own personal misunderstanding of the narrative of the show and an over-expectation of climactic answering.

Some fans feel a similar frustration.
I think the answering is coming in a subtler way than many of us expected. But the writers’ agenda may not yet be clear to us.

When will you get the finale script?
Two days before we shoot it. If I get a complete one. You know with the finale of all finales, there are gonna be blank scenes in it that only the actors involved are privy to. I hope I’m on the show long enough that I’m in one of those secret scenes.

Wait — could Ben really not make it to the end?
There have been some casualties. Pretty soon, there’s only gonna be a few standing.

Head over to People.com to read the rest of the interview.

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This is my video recap of season 6 episode 7 of LOST, “Dr. Linus,” which aired March 9, 2010 on ABC. This episode focused on Ben Linus both on the island and off it in the flash sideways. I summarize the key events of the episode and include my live reactions to them as they happened on screen.

My favorite moments were meeting Ben’s favorite student in the flash sideways and the classic LOST slow motion beach ending.

So what the heck do YOU think is going on?!

Leave your theories in the comments and share your thoughts with me at http://twitter.com/adamrucker

Thanks for watching! Please rate and subscribe for more!

-Adam

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