Re: 4th Season Lost - Meet Kevin Johnson - 5 star poll - SPOILERS

"Steven L." <sdlitvin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
>And please don't tell me you think Ben just made up that story.  We 
>can't just pick and choose those parts of the Lost mythology we want to 
>believe in, and dismiss the other parts as "long cons" or lies, just 
>because they don't fit our theories.

Oh yes we can! Nothing can be considered fact until we've seen it in 3rd
person. There is absolutely no reason to believe a word out of Ben's
mouth,
if you don't have secondary proof that it's true. If there is anything
that's been completely established on Lost, it's that. That's the entire
structure of the show! The flashbacks are there by design to illustrate
backstory in a definite way. Most if not everyone on the show has lied
about their past, but the flashbacks establish the truth so we *know*
they're lying. If you don't understand this, you fundamentally don't
understand how Lost tells its story.

That said, he could have been thinking that sis could come for a visit,
which probably *would* cure her cancer. Or maybe he had hopes that Juliet
and his team could identify and bottle up what the island does. It's not
necessarily a lie. It might "have not been exactly priority one" though...

A lot of fans misuse the word "canon". Nothing can ever be considered
canonical if it's only based on a character's words. It is at most
provisionally true until contradicted, at which point some splainin'
has to happen.

"Ben is a big fat liar who will say anything to get people to do
what he wants" is plenty nuff splainin' if that statement turns out to be
false later. In fact, that's exactly what I think is the case here - Ben
had no ability at the time to cure anybody's anything. He just suspected
it
was possible, and knew it was the thing that would rope Juliet into his
project. *
-- 
* PV   something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
       like corkscrews.