Ben's Superego Nightmare

[zartan]

Ben's mother died in childbirth. The incident has haunted him his entire life, and shaped him into a despicable sociopath. Now he is on an island where pregnancy is an automatic death sentence. It's his worst nightmare come true. Now we see why fertility is so important to Ben. It's his primary motivation- the obstacle he must overcome to feel complete.

The superego according to wiki: The super-ego acts as the conscience, maintaining our sense of morality and the prohibition of taboos. Its formation takes place during the dissolution of the Oedipus complex and is formed by an identification with and internalization of the father figure after the little boy cannot successfully hold the mother as a love-object out of fear of castration.

[sawyerhasbestlines]

I was thinking that Ben is at the root of the pregnancy problems. Kind of like he's imposing his drama/personal story onto others.

Don't ask me how, though.

[marshall2u]

Interesting...I like it.

[Crandyman]

I was thinking that Ben is at the root of the pregnancy problems. Kind of like he's imposing his drama/personal story onto others.

Don't ask me how, though.

So would killing Ben stop this phenomena from happening? I guess the only way to find out is to wait until he's dead to get pregnant.

[zartan]

I think the reason that Ben took Danielle as his daughter was to trick everyone into thinking that he had the ability to father a child, and thus that he was special.

He's been trying ever since to keep proving it, but the girls keep dying. I don't think it's Ben's problem mapped onto everybody. I think it's Ben's curse that drives him. He feels that once he fathers a child, he can replace the sin of killing his Mom. But everytime he only furthers his self-fulfilling prophecy by being the harbinger of a mother's death over and over again. It's driving him further into insanity.

[sawyerhasbestlines]

I don't know, it just seems like a manifestation of him. I don't know if he's consciously creating the manifestation or it's now like personality of it's own. Maybe Ben was born that way. Maybe Roger was right. Ben, the daemon child.

[OliveDog]

Ben is actually reliving the Oedipal drama. He kills his father so he can be with his mother (but in a non-sexual way). This would create some serious psychological damage - whereas the child is supposed to identify with the father in order to move on in life and have normal relationships with others, Ben does the opposite. He kills the father, thereby feeling he has some super powers over his father. This does NOT lead to healthy relationships (duh) and could be the reason he has a "god complex" or feels "special or chosen" by Jacob - and why he would feel very threatened by Locke.

[Enoch Root]

It definitely sounds like, at least, Smokey, and of course the Pregnancy issues are the subconcsious manifestation and curse of Ben. Here we are again with parallels to Forbidden Planet, Dr. Morbius, and the "ID"..

[djsunyc]

ben may have similar powers to walt. and subconciously, like others have said, is killing all pregnant women on the island.

[zartan]

He does seem to place high value on patricide. My confusion is why everyone else would respect something so hideous. Ben tells Locke not to return until his dead father is on his back, and everyone seems hunky dory with that ultimatum. Ben clearly knew that it would be impossible for Locke to kill his father, and that it would get Locke out of his hair for a while. But why would everyone else turn a blind eye to such a thing.

Or maybe they didn't, which is why they are starting to turn on Ben. I don't know.

[zartan]

The rabbit that he follows is also symbolic of his connection between his mother and fertility. Rabbits have been used to represent fertility many times in the past.

[randum76]

These are very interesting posts and got me thinking.

Remember the chamber where Juliette took Sun to check the baby, and how mysterious it was that the pregnant women were hidden away behind secret room and big door and then ultimately died?

I think the 3x20 episode, in showing Ben's history of his Mom dying at childbirth leads me to think the following:

Ben is killing the women who become pregnant for perverse reasons, unknown. Power trip, bigger plan? He may be doing it accidentally in trying a bigger experiment like giving the pregnant women a drug to give the baby a power like no aging process, and it continues to fail. Actually, this could explain the bringing of Juliette to the island to help develop this drug. Further, maybe the incident was when this previously known drug was lost/destroyed and each new baby since hasn't had the long life ability and the population has been dwindling. Richard's age seems to show there is something with long life. And there is some big mystery with children.

This leads me too: DONT TRUST JULIETTE

That's my stream of thoughts... Let me know what you think!

[zartan]

We did see Ben killing a rabbit in a box (or at least pretending to). Put aside how sick and twisted this action was, you can really see some major symbolism in this action. There is a connection between his hateful shaking of the rabbit box, and his feelings about the death of his mother.

[snakey]

Ben's mother died in childbirth. The incident has haunted him his entire life, and shaped him into a despicable sociopath. Now he is on an island where pregnancy is an automatic death sentence. It's his worst nightmare come true. Now we see why fertility is so important to Ben. It's his primary motivation- the obstacle he must overcome to feel complete.

The superego according to wiki: The super-ego acts as the conscience, maintaining our sense of morality and the prohibition of taboos. Its formation takes place during the dissolution of the Oedipus complex and is formed by an identification with and internalization of the father figure after the little boy cannot successfully hold the mother as a love-object out of fear of castration.

Hate to repeat myself but Forbidden Planet is based on this theme.

[Hodgepodge]

Moving to the Michael Emerson - Benjamin forum for continued discussion.