Wednesday, June 25, 2008

"Ben's Lament"




Take a moment to play the video above and think again about Ben's life as we know it.
This is the somber Rachmaninov piece that Ben thoughtfully played while the "Hardy Boys" got the auto-call from the sonic fence that the mercs were on their way. TPTB picked a very good tune to use while Ben was probably mentally preparing for the "things to come," and which contingency plan of action he would pull from his bag of tricks. I played this piece as I was re-reading Ben's bio on Lostpedia, and it seemed very poignant. Not that Ben doesn't have plenty of comeuppances headed his way after the Machiavellian life that he led, and I'm sure he had many sweet cushy moments living in his Pottery Barn furnished Otherton cottage as King Of The Others, among the lonely moments of leadership. But once upon a time, he started out as just a kid...a blank slate like the rest of us, with all of life ahead of him. And then his mom died, and his knucklehead dad made a bad job decision, and decided to blame his lot in life on his kid. I can't give Ben any slack for his sociopathic behavior on many occasions (and especially his stalker attitude towards Juliet), but it still makes you think. It's another example of how TPTB have told a story of not only the need for redemption, but the need for looking into a person's past to learn why they act the way that they do.

Anyway, in lieu of having anything else pertinent to theorize about right now, I thought that this piece of music might set the mood for thinking about what to expect when we next see Mr. Linus on the prowl. And thanks to TPTB, I will not think about only "The Seven Year Itch" when I hear Rachmaninov from now on. :-)

See you in 2009 Ben! (And Mr. Emerson!)

11 comments:

maven said...

Great musings on what has formed Ben to be the way he is today. Of course, very few of us (if not none of us) has been though what he has and been put in the position he has. We know that Daddy Issues play a big role in the LOST mythology, so Roger Linus had a lot to do with Ben's formative years.

It's interesting that he played that thoughtful piece will everything he knows is basically falling down around him...the quiet before the storm.

Capcom said...

Well put Maven.

I really don't know a thing about this composition and haven't found anything written on it yet, but I'm still searching. I'm wondering if it has any meaning intended by the composer, and if TPTB picked it for any reason other than that it sounds so ominous.

pgtbeauregard said...

All the best cowboys have daddy issues, right!! Remember in The Other Woman, when Tom says Harper will make you start to cry about your daddy.

I actually feel sorry for Ben a lot. Then he does something so evil I really dislike him. TPTB have done a great job writing his character.

Great post, and as always, I love to see yor image of the day.

pgtbeauregard said...

Capcom,

I met a fellow Lost fan who is on my tennis team. She was not aware of Dark Ufo, or TLC, so I gave her both, and also yours and Memphish' blog sites. Hope she enjoys them as much as I do!!

Capcom said...

Hey PGT! Wow, I wonder if Harper made Ben cry about his Dad. She may be the person on the island who knows the most about Ben...i.e., all his inner secrets and demons, if she was his island shrink as well. TPTB kind of hinted at that, the way she worried about how she knew that Ben would hurt Goodwin. Not that his crooked M.O. isn't overtly evident in his actions, but her understanding seemed deeper.

Hey thanks! We LOST fans are so lucky to have a couple places to go for the great screen caps, so that we can put such awesome images on the blogs. Not to mention, to ruminate over the imagery necessary to uncovering the mysteries. If only back in the X-Files days we had this kind of internet set-up, 'Usenet' just didn't cut it back then. Ah well.

You're right, your tennis friend needs to follow the blogs over the hiatus, especially if there's an ARG! Thanks for passing on my blog too. :-) The more the merrier!

allegedmayhem said...

I found your blog looking up " march has 32 days" from the global recruiting email. Your blog has great info and theories. I didn't know that this whole "world" existed. Thanks for sharing.

BTW, capcom, I read that you were waiting for a shipment of super, multi vitamins. You might be interested in some that I found at www.maximallife.com. Hope it helps.

Capcom said...

Hey Mayhem, welcome to the world of LOST blogs! :-D And thanks!

Thanks also for the link, that looks very interesting, and I plan to investigate it further. What I was waiting for was my order of "FRS", which is a vitamin/anti-ox/immunity supplement (also a drink) that I just discovered. It was in an ad on Yahoo, endorsed by Lance Armstrong, and it was initially made for cancer patients going through treatment, so that piqued my interest since I am a former treatment patient myself. So far, taking the chewables seems to keep my immune system more towards normal again, and when I ran out I got a cold! :-( So it must be doing something for me.

FYI the FRS site: http://www.healthyenergy.com/?cid=748000336

So far I just order it from Amazon, because of the free S&H from there. I havne't seen it in a healthfood store as yet.

Be sure to check out the other LOST blogs that are listed in the sidebar, they are all great too!

lost2010 said...

Did you ever find out what the name of this particular piece is?

Capcom said...

The full name is "Prelude in C# minor op.3 #2", but I've seen that many times it's just referred to as the "Prelude in C# Minor".

Here's a Wiki with a reference to the sheet music PDF page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_in_C-sharp_minor_%28Rachmaninoff%29

lost2010 said...

Interesting that one of the alternate names for it given on Wiki is "The Day of Judgement".

Capcom said...

Yes, isn't it? I'm wondering if that's the connection that TPTB were going for, unless it was just someone's favorite dolefull piece to play.