In April 2007, I wrote a theory about LOST: Why The Others Are Desperate To Get Women Pregnant.
Here’s a revised version of the theory. (This might be a repost, but I can’t find the original, so I’m posting this anyway).
The island has powers that The Others don’t want the outside world to exploit. The problem they have is that they can’t get pregnant, and therefore have to go “off island” and recruit people to the island to replenish their numbers. The big problem with this is that every time the recruit, they risk exposing the island to the outside world. The Dharma Initiative, whatever their original intentions, did expose the island to the outside world. Ben helped The Other purge the island of The Dharma Initiative.
Since then he’s been on two missions. One, get rid of anyone in the “real world” who knows anything about the island. Two, figure out a way to get women on the island pregnant so that no one every has to leave the island.
As for what Ben and The Others are protecting…. No idea. But it’s something they don’t want people like Widmore exploiting, so it must be pretty important.
Unlikely as it might seem, Ben might actually be one of the good guys.
Update – What are they protecting? Duh! I should remember my own theories – They’re protecting their knowledge of time travel. I should know better than post when I’m not feeling well…
Sorry, I don’t buy it. Call me old fashioned, but his actions specify whether he’s good or not. Helping kill everyone in Dharma, kidnapping clueless tailies…and that’s just to start. No…I don’t think he’s good.
There is a great deal of moral ambiguity on the show – we would probably consider both Kate and Sayid as part of the “good guys”, but going on past (and present, in Sayid’s case) , we’d have to call them bad.
In a way, that ambiguity is the driving force of the show – you can never be entirely sure what is real, what “when” is reality, and how things work together. The one constant is that you cannot really rely on anything to be absolutely true.
Maybe, the island was originally the garden of eden. Previous time travelers used the island to found the lost island of atlandtis, and then who knows? Ben could beleive all of this and is trying to hold the place for himself. Ben could be trying to play god in the garden of eden, or beleives the invisable man in the shack is/was god.