# Lost 4.11: "Cabin Fever" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 8, 2008, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553 "2008-05-08T13:19:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/121 "2008-05-12T04:39:40Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] We had hints of it in season 2, but there was a backstory (I think in Season 3) where we find out for sure. But Claire and Jack don’t know they share a father. [/QUOTE] You know, in a flashforward just after Jack and Kate get married, they are discussing Aaron re: Jack being told not to raise him and Jack says something to Kate like, “You not related to him!” Of course he may just be reminding her that she’s under no family obligation but it really sounded weird at the time. Maybe between now and then, Jack finds out he’s Aaron’s half-uncle. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/122 "2008-05-12T11:46:32Z")
[QUOTE=Saint Cad] You know, in a flashforward just after Jack and Kate get married, they are discussing Aaron re: Jack being told not to raise him and Jack says something to Kate like, “You not related to him!” Of course he may just be reminding her that she’s under no family obligation but it really sounded weird at the time. Maybe between now and then, Jack finds out he’s Aaron’s half-uncle. [/QUOTE] Isn’t every uncle a half-uncle? Except in West Virginia. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/123 "2008-05-12T12:25:32Z")
[QUOTE=Saint Cad] You know, in a flashforward just after Jack and Kate get married [/QUOTE] They didn’t get married. They were engaged. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/124 "2008-05-12T12:49:34Z")
[QUOTE=anamnesis] I really never found Ben scary, but I associate the element of unpredictability with “scary”. Ben is master of manipulation and psychological maneuvering, but he’s never murdered anyone outright with the sort of sadistic, coldblooded ease that Keamy possesses. [/QUOTE] He’s certainly tried to. Locke just wouldn’t die. ---
**Author:** ![NajaNivea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NajaNivea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NajaNivea)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/125 "2008-05-12T12:55:08Z")
[QUOTE=Saint Cad] You know, in a flashforward just after Jack and Kate get married, they are discussing Aaron re: Jack being told not to raise him and Jack says something to Kate like, “You not related to him!” Of course he may just be reminding her that she’s under no family obligation but it really sounded weird at the time. Maybe between now and then, Jack finds out he’s Aaron’s half-uncle. [/QUOTE] I caught that too: “You’re not even related to him [but I am, so shut the fuck up, bitch!]!” ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/126 "2008-05-12T13:24:32Z")
Other than being totally Stephen King Weird, the scene with Horace throws me off a bit. He says he’s been dead twelve years, yet we know that Ben stole Alex as a baby and she’s AT LEAST 16 years old. Horace died in the great purge. I don’t think Ben yet had Alex. What’s the deal? ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/127 "2008-05-12T13:36:06Z")
The Others may have had Alex by that point. One thing I noticed about the scene with Horace was that his nose kept bleeding. Was this just because he died from being gassed, or was it related to the nosebleeds that Minkofski and Desmond were getting while they were time traveling? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/128 "2008-05-12T19:07:07Z")
[QUOTE=Saint Cad] You know, in a flashforward just after Jack and Kate get married, they are discussing Aaron re: Jack being told not to raise him and Jack says something to Kate like, “You not related to him!” Of course he may just be reminding her that she’s under no family obligation but it really sounded weird at the time. Maybe between now and then, Jack finds out he’s Aaron’s half-uncle. [/QUOTE] Yes, I thought the same thing. I’m sure that Ben knows, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he tells Jack at some point. Juliet probably knows, too. Or, given the weird stuff that happened to them on the Island, I wouldn’t be surprised if they all gave themselves DNA tests when they got back. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/129 "2008-05-12T19:33:50Z")
[QUOTE=Loach] Isn’t every uncle a half-uncle? Except in West Virginia. [/QUOTE] No. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_The\_Younger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d9b06d/32.png) [@Paul\_The\_Younger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_The_Younger)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/130 "2008-05-12T20:43:45Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] He’s certainly tried to. Locke just wouldn’t die. [/QUOTE] But Roger did die…just moments after Ben donned a gas mask and with sadistic, coldblooded ease opened a can of nerve gas on his own father. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/131 "2008-05-12T20:54:11Z")
[QUOTE=Paul The Younger] But Roger did die…just moments after Ben donned a gas mask and with sadistic, coldblooded ease opened a can of nerve gas on his own father. [/QUOTE] In this last episode, though, he seemed to be claiming he wasn’t responsible for that. This could be him making excuses, or it could be the writers setting us up for some kind of revelation. Its not clear to me which it is. His denying responsibility seems inconsistent with the way he described the incident to Locke in an earlier episode, but I’m not sure whether to say he was lying then or he’s lying now. -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/132 "2008-05-12T20:56:27Z")
He said he wasn’t in charge when the purge happened. We don’t know whether that’s true or not. We watched him kill his father, though. And he didn’t seem to have any qualms about it. So while someone else may have orchestrated the purge, Ben wasted his own dad. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/133 "2008-05-12T22:52:26Z")
[QUOTE=Gfactor] He said he wasn’t in charge when the purge happened. We don’t know whether that’s true or not. We watched him kill his father, though. And he didn’t seem to have any qualms about it. So while someone else may have orchestrated the purge, Ben wasted his own dad. [/QUOTE] And he had no qualms ordering the murder of quite a few other people, even if they weren’t actually murdered (Kate and Sawyer come immediately to mind). ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/134 "2008-05-13T03:14:04Z")
[QUOTE=Gfactor] He said he wasn’t in charge when the purge happened. We don’t know whether that’s true or not. [/QUOTE] Given that Ben was still in DHARMA at this point, I can’t imagine that he was the leader of the Others. I expect that it was probably Richard who orchestrated the purge. As for Rousseau, I strongly suspect that we haven’t gotten the straight story on her. I think she’s Annie, the girl from Ben’s flashback, and she and Ben were married back in the day. DHARMA did something to Annie that caused her to go crazy (more specifically, it put her into a fugue state) and she ran off into the jungle. This is why Ben was so willing to betray the DHARMA guys. Hating your father just doesn’t explain why you’d be willing to help gas 40 people. They must have done something really bad to drive Ben to help with the purge. As for Rousseau’s story, at this point I’m not sure that there ever was a French expedition. We’ve never seen their bodies, or found the boat they supposedly arrived on. If there were such people on the island 16 years ago, she probably stumbled across them, and they took her in out of pity. (Think about it: what sort of scientific expedition would bring along a pregnant woman who was only a few months away from giving birth?) After she killed the rest of “her team,” the Others took Alex away, probably for fear that she’d toss the baby into the ocean or something. They might have used Ben’s daughter as leverage to get him to go along with the purge, although if my theory is right, I doubt Ben would need much convincing at this point. BTW, I noticed a discrepancy regarding the mass grave. Ben told Locke that “over 40 people” died the day of the purge, but Locke told Hurley that there had to be 100 bodies in the pit. I wonder if, after gassing the people in the barracks, the Others went around and killed everyone at the different stations. They must have hit the Tempest first, to get the poison gas. I noticed that one of the skeletons on the top of the pile had been shot in the head. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/135 "2008-05-13T03:29:34Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] And he had no qualms ordering the murder of quite a few other people, even if they weren’t actually murdered (Kate and Sawyer come immediately to mind). [/QUOTE] If they get in your way, kill em. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/136 "2008-05-13T06:15:45Z")
[QUOTE=Gfactor] He said he wasn’t in charge when the purge happened. . [/QUOTE] Ben claims that “Jacob” is in charge, remember? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/137 "2008-05-13T06:31:27Z")
[QUOTE=Gfactor] He said he wasn’t in charge when the purge happened. We don’t know whether that’s true or not. We watched him kill his father, though. And he didn’t seem to have any qualms about it. So while someone else may have orchestrated the purge, Ben wasted his own dad. [/QUOTE] What if he was ordered to do that, in the same way he ordered Locke to kill his own dad? Locke did it, too. He used Sawyer like a gun and pulled the trigger. Both of them may have answered some compulsion they didn’t understand and couldn’t control. ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/138 "2008-05-13T14:13:22Z")
Actually, didn’t Ben say something like “I didn’t kill them, their leaders did.”? I took that to mean that DHARMA was doing something that Ben/Alpert/Jacob/somebody didn’t like and wouldn’t stop, leading them (with Ben’s assistance) to kill everyone. So he is essentially using the “they left me no choice” excuse. Same thing as when Locke killed Naomi; he had to do it to “protect the Island”. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/139 "2008-05-13T14:24:14Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] What if he was ordered to do that, in the same way he ordered Locke to kill his own dad? Locke did it, too. He used Sawyer like a gun and pulled the trigger. Both of them may have answered some compulsion they didn’t understand and couldn’t control. [/QUOTE] If he was ordered to do it, he did it himself, and seemed to have little difficulty doing it. Locke had to get Sawyer to do it for him while he waited outside the door–that’s hardly the same thing. Also, Ben has ordered some deaths on his own initiative, both on the island (“kill em”) and in the flashforwards. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553/140 "2008-05-13T14:32:25Z")
[QUOTE=tanstaafl] Actually, didn’t Ben say something like “I didn’t kill them, their leaders did.”? I took that to mean that DHARMA was doing something that Ben/Alpert/Jacob/somebody didn’t like and wouldn’t stop, leading them (with Ben’s assistance) to kill everyone. So he is essentially using the “they left me no choice” excuse. Same thing as when Locke killed Naomi; he had to do it to “protect the Island”. [/QUOTE] Here’s what they said: > [@](#): > > HURLEY: So… This is where you shot Locke and left him for dead, huh? > > BEN: Yes, Hugo, I was standing right where you are now when I pulled the trigger. Should have realized at the time that it was pointless, but… I really wasn’t thinking clearly. > > (Hurley steps back a little) > > HURLEY: Is that why you killed all these people, too? > > BEN: I didn’t kill them. > > HURLEY: Well, if the Others didn’t wipe out the DHARMA Initiative– > > BEN: They did wipe them out, Hugo, but it wasn’t my decision. > > HURLEY: Then whose was it? > > BEN: Their leader’s. > > HURLEY:But I thought you were their leader. > > BEN: Not always. [http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Cabin\_Fever\_transcript](http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Cabin_Fever_transcript) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-4-11-cabin-fever/448553.md?page=8)