[firebreathingfishies]

Originally Posted by D-Roc

Interesting FB, and I do understand what you're saying. However why is it that when Ben is 'following orders' everyone comes down on him like a ton of Hugo's, yet Keamy executes a young woman and he gets a slap on the wrist, cos that's what this feels like

Because no one really knows what Jacob is yet And I wouldn't say people are giving Keamy a 'slap on the wrist', this episode made me like Ben

It is interesting to try to understand the mind of someone like Keamy though - you raise an interesting point that someone like Keamy probably think's he's neutral and conditions himself to think this way. He's almost like a very skewed version of Ben - the Ben that many people thought really was Ben, especially back in the day before TPTB began showing his ethics and strong moral code (again apparent in this episode). In fact Keamy probably represents another mindset on this show - the type of mindset which isn't about 'greater good' or even 'good'..it's purely about politics. He gets paid to carry out a job that he does at all costs..economics and politics. A new rival to the 'greater good' mindset. Makes the likes of Sawyer's 'self preservation' seem so small cheese.

Yeah I agree, it's why I sometimes nab my dad's books. It's a very interesting, if not extremely morbid, topic. To be a good solider sometimes you have to make yourself neutral because, at the end of the day, you're going to have to kill people. If you get hung up on every single death, then you'll have problems. Keamy has obviously killed a lot of people, so one more isn't going to bother him, whether it's a 16 year old girl or not. Yeah, that's exactly what Widmore is bringing to the table; politics. It's a good contrast to Ben's apparent simple protection for the island.

Good point - he's a soldier..albeit a cowboy soldier (mercenary) - they are often taught to displace themselves from the situation. But even a soldier must know the difference between what is acceptable and what is not. I mean look at Rambo - sure he killed, but he had a freakin heart. He had a moral code. What's a soldier without morals? Keamy is the type of soldier who is more dangerous than anyone, cos he has no cause..no great objective, apart from getting paid. How can he push himself beyond the boundaries of killing a 16 year old without any moral hangup? A soldier sees some of the sickest things possible, but even solders should have rules. And this really brings home Ben's point about "innocents" - Alex was one of those "innocents" - yet Widmore's people killed her without another thought. This stark comparison in Widmore and Ben's codes of conduct really tell us alot about why Ben is the 'good guy'.

I imagine he knows fine well killing people is wrong, but it was his orders. He strikes me as a man of unquestioning loyalty. Widmore will have ordered for everyone who gets in the way to be killed to get to Ben. Keamy doesn't know any of them and doesn't care; it's probably the mindframe he has put himself in to do his job. I agree completely about that kind of soldier being the worst. It's like the soldiers who went off and did their own thing during the Vietnam war - murdering whole villiages and the like because they saw everyone as the enemy. This episode has definately turned around for Ben, but I'm not going to 100% agree that he's the good guy just get. There's too much history between him and Widmore.

Interesting Vietnam comparison, it certainly deserves some consideration - although at this juncture I would suggest that unlike those in that expample, Keamy wasn't without orders and he wasn't knew exactly what he was doing. his moral threshold must be extremely high to be able to kill a young woman like that. The thing is, what if he didn't just kill her - someone like him could easily have tortured her or physically abused her..infact, i think that's the impression they wanted us to have - that Keamy is that type of person, the person who would do that to a hostage. I'm not saying that he did do that to her, but i think we're supposed to believe that he could have.

Exactly, everyone on that freighter is under orders. They knew exactly what was going on with Desmond when he arrived and had probably prepared for that. And like I said above, Keamy probably put himself in the frame of mind to be able to kill someone like that. It's amazing what some people are capable off without remorse, however I've always beleived you must have some degree of insanity to be able to do it. Yeah, the writers wanted to show that Keamy is that kind of person by having him shoot Alex so unexpectedly (however I don't think he did anything else to her, it was too buisnessy). Throughout the whole show there has been an ascept of reasoning, on the Losties side and the Others' side, but this is the first time reasoning has been completely chucked out of the window.

I just don't understand how Keamy can come out of this relatively smelling of roses, when people still hammer Ben from pillar to post about the hanging of Scott..which one of his people 'may' or may 'not' have done.

Keamy executed Alex (and God knows what else he could've done to the poor girl)..this we know.

I don't think he's come out smelling of roses at all There's still too much of Ben's backstory that needs to be explained before he can be fully accepted as good/bad. We have all the evidence to lynch Keamy after this episode, so discussion on him will just be 'b*****d! * whereas Ben is still open to bashing because not everyone has made their minds up yet.