"s0183616" <s0183616@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:XNOUj.16304$2g1.14452@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Ben passed the test that John failed.
>
> Obviously (well, speculatively obviously), the test was flawed.
Not necessarily.
Ben may well have passed the test Alpert wanted him to pass:
proving himself amenable to being part of a game and following
its rules, even when the rules require killing innocents. Alpert may have
expected Locke to pass that test because, like Ben, he'd been
bullied and trod upon all his young life, and should be amenable to
suggestion when it might release the anger that was building
from that abuse - that he could fit in somewhere else. Locke's
choosing of the knife suggests that his answer to what life
has given him is, as somebody suggested in another thread,
to choose his own destiny rather than be guided by others.
Ben *was* willing to let his anger be channeled by others.
Ben *thinks* himself to be resourceful and self-sufficient,
but instead is fate's *****, to re-work one of his own
excuses for his behavior. Locke, on the other hand, is
or is on his way to becoming, truly resourceful and
self-sufficient. I suspect that the interest in games
they both share is an im****tant key to their personalities,
that of an arrested adolescent (Ben) and one who was
such formerly, but is learning to do better. I suspect that
Locke used to cheat at games a lot - based on his ability
to quickly beat the chess game - and that the only time
he did NOT cheat at a game was when playing Walt,
leading to Walt beating him at a game he was arguably
an expert at by then - but only by cheating. It's a leap
based on a supposition about one scene, but it might
fit with his appearing to mature, to learn to solve the
game problems of life by actually solving them, rather
than by cheating. The island is, perhaps, where
Locke finally grows up - and the place where Ben
never could.
Mike
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