Who's the Hoax Guy - Ben or Widmore?

[clouised]

OK I'm getting rather confused over all this - who's really behind the cover up?
The way it was relayed to Michael/Kevin initially by Tom was that Widmore (is that how you spell his name?!) set everything up regarding the coverup so that no-one else would find the island.
But on the boat, the grey bearded guy seemed to be suggesting that he talked Widmore round into believing it was all a hoax and on a previous episode we heard ( but I can't remember the source now - sorry) that it was actually Ben that set up the hoax plane with the fake bodies and made it look like everyone on the plane was dead so that no-one would find the island.

So - did Widmore set up the hoax plane or did Ben?
Why would Widmore be so interested anyway? I don't understand where he comes to play in it all and the Desmond/Penny thing.
It would make more sense that Ben would want to keep other people from finding the island, but having said that, again why would Widmore be so interested in finding Ben? Or have I missed the point entirely?!

Now I know I may be blonde, but surely I'm not the only one that none of this makes any sense to?

I don't know about finding out answers with this new season, I seem to have more and more questions!!

[Labyrinth]

Hi there

from what we have gathered in the last few episodes it seems that Widmore is blaming Ben for the fake crash and that Ben is blaming Widmore for the cover up/fake crash - WHO is actually telling the truth only time will tell...

But what we do know is that both are prepared to do just about anything to achieve their means and BOTH have motives for faking the crash. In Ben's case it is so that the island is kept hidden from the world and in Widmore's case also so that the island can be kept hidden from the world so that he can find it and exploit it himeslf. Both are looking guilty BUT this episode we saw Tom give proof that Widmore orchestrated the fake crash and quite clearly he has the means to do so.

I still don't trust Ben, those documents Tom had could well be fake themselves in order to manipulate Michael - and was poor Michael manipulated or what.

I still have an open mind as to who actually faked the crash.

[Lauren [is Lost]]

I agree with Labyrinth...i think it was Ben. We know he is a liar...and he has more of a motive, i think.

Welcome to the forums, by the way!

[monster-eats-pilot]

Ok I posted this in the other thread but shhh

I still think it was Widmore. Ok so the evidence could be a hoax [aswell] and Ben has stronger reasons for people not to find the island but Ben knows people can't see the island, they'd have to know where to look etc... [end of s2, hence Widmore finding it] 'God doesn't know how long we've been here, John. He can't see this island any better than the rest of the world can.' How would Ben fake it though? Yeah he has 'outside men' but seriously I don't think any of the others are willing to go that far for Ben, they don't like him that much.
Whereas Widmore has the money, the evilness. He doesnt want people to find that island either.
As much as I think Ben is willing to do anything to stop people finding the island I just dont see it being him.

[lalaland]

i dont have a clue! theyre both dirty rotters in my eyes

[PaulineMRoss]

Originally Posted by clouised

Now I know I may be blonde, but surely I'm not the only one that none of this makes any sense to?

Of course it doesn't make sense. No one in their right mind would try to fool the world into believing that a plane which disappeared while crossing the Pacific actually crashed thousands of miles away. There must be plenty of bits of ocean deep enough to deter investigation, why the Sunda Trench? And the timing is an issue too - the plane crashed on Sept 22, and by early December (presumably), someone has found a plane, filled it with dug-up Thai bodies, broken it into three parts and sunk it - and no one noticed a thing? Very fishy.

Here's a thought: if Ben is blaming Widmore, and Widmore is blaming Ben, maybe they both genuinely believe that the other set it up, so maybe neither of them did? Maybe the Sunda Trench plane is real in some way? Maybe when Desmond had his little system failure, something weird happened which duplicated the plane, creating a mirror image plane filled with mirror image passengers, and hurled it into some other time and/or place. Well, this is Lost, right?

Welcome to the group, by the way.

[misspiggy]

Originally Posted by PaulineMRoss

Here's a thought: if Ben is blaming Widmore, and Widmore is blaming Ben, maybe they both genuinely believe that the other set it up, so maybe neither of them did?

What if someone is setting up Widmore and Ben in a battle of wits, hoping that eventually they will both destroy one another. We know that the Darhma Initiative was funded by Alvar Hanso. What if he wants his island back and is using the fake 815 crash to pit Ben against Widmore in a hope he can get rid of both of them and reclaim the island as his own?

[D-Roc]

It does appear more like Widmore after Tom's reveal, but I'm still thinking that it's Ben. I think Tom would have reason to not tell Mike the whole truth.

Although granted, it really could go either way. I'll need to dig through all the claims and counter claims before i add much more to this or my Ben planted the wreckage theory though

[Murgatroyd]

There are too many things about the Widmore version that don't ring true - his leaving an obvious paper trail (buying a Boeing under his own name?!), the fact that the body Frank saw standing in for the pilot looked exactly like the pilot except for the lack of a wedding ring (ie. not a random corpse from a Thailand graveyard), the idea that you could get 300-odd bodies from the same graveyard all decayed to a similar extent .... But that could just be shoddy writing. For the sake of the show, though, I kind of hope Tom's story about Widmore is a ruse, because for it to be real is kind of hard to believe.

[Hordriss]

Originally Posted by Murgatroyd

There are too many things about the Widmore version that don't ring true - his leaving an obvious paper trail (buying a Boeing under his own name?!), the fact that the body Frank saw standing in for the pilot looked exactly like the pilot except for the lack of a wedding ring (ie. not a random corpse from a Thailand graveyard), the idea that you could get 300-odd bodies from the same graveyard all decayed to a similar extent .... But that could just be shoddy writing. For the sake of the show, though, I kind of hope Tom's story about Widmore is a ruse, because for it to be real is kind of hard to believe.

Added to all of this, the fact that as yet the worst we can accuse Widmore of is being an appalling snob rather than a James Bond supervillain (which description, in all fairness, even Ben's best friends could hardly deny is far better suited to dear Mr. Linus...). The evidence Tom showed Michael would, in any case, be easier for Ben to fabricate than to obtain at presumably incredible risk, if Widmore is really as dangerous as they claim. We know Ben is not above "adjusting" the facts to suit his purposes.

As for the guns that caught Michael's attention on the freighter, they are easily explained by the primary "get Ben Linus" mission, though that does not rule out the possibility of "kill all witnesses". The main point of evidence for Widmore's deeper involvement was Naomi's apparent knowledge of Desmond: was he a specific target? But if Widmore wanted Desmond dead, why not have had him killed before instead of just trying to bribe him to stay away from Penelope? (That is another reason to doubt Widmore's potential as a supervillain) Or possibly Penny herself has somehow managed to infiltrate the freighties and influence their mission, although she made no indication of that when Desmond phoned her.

[Hordriss]

Also, given the incredible / downright implausible difficulty of faking the plane crash, I am still holding out hopes that both sides are baselessly accusing each other, and in fact the plane slipped through from another time dimension Donnie Darko-wise (which I still consider a more elegant solution than towing an old Boeing to the mid-Pacific and stuffing it with stolen cadavers). One thing that does suggest a more obscure solution is the fact, as Murgatroyd points out, that the pilot corpse did appear to be the pilot, save for his lack of a ring (but please, please, don't let it be clones. That would be too cheesily SF...).

[Murgatroyd]

Originally Posted by Hordriss

Added to all of this, the fact that as yet the worst we can accuse Widmore of is being an appalling snob rather than a James Bond supervillain (which description, in all fairness, even Ben's best friends could hardly deny is far better suited to dear Mr. Linus...).

They can, you know. I've encountered Ben's best friends before. But yes, I agree with you - the plot's so massively perforated that for that reason alone I hope Tom's story is false.

But I'm kind of keeping an open mind about it. I think there's a conflict between the believability (or total lack thereof) of the Widmore plot and the general sense of mystery and surprise that one can't help thinking the Powers That Be are constantly trying to brew - it seems unlikely that they'd set up this secondary line of thinking purely in order to create a brief sense of extra mystery preparatory to undoing it completely a few episodes down the line by saying 'Actually, yeah, the first idea about Ben was right all along'. That'd be a massive step backwards. Which is why a sort of hybrid answer would seem the best of the bunch. The Widmore route will never do as it stands, because it's too full of holes, but it has to have some relevance if Michael's flashback and all the 'don't trust the captain' stuff isn't to seem a total waste of time. I'm mostly favouring a mixture of the two culprits.

[Hordriss]

Originally Posted by Murgatroyd

They can, you know. I've encountered Ben's best friends before. But yes, I agree with you - the plot's so massively perforated that for that reason alone I hope Tom's story is false.

But I'm kind of keeping an open mind about it. I think there's a conflict between the believability (or total lack thereof) of the Widmore plot and the general sense of mystery and surprise that one can't help thinking the Powers That Be are constantly trying to brew - it seems unlikely that they'd set up this secondary line of thinking purely in order to create a brief sense of extra mystery preparatory to undoing it completely a few episodes down the line by saying 'Actually, yeah, the first idea about Ben was right all along'. That'd be a massive step backwards. Which is why a sort of hybrid answer would seem the best of the bunch. The Widmore route will never do as it stands, because it's too full of holes, but it has to have some relevance if Michael's flashback and all the 'don't trust the captain' stuff isn't to seem a total waste of time. I'm mostly favouring a mixture of the two culprits.

I don't doubt Widmore's deeper involvement, given his interest in the Black Rock especially, but I think Ben would be quite prepared to slander his name to high heaven in order to sabotage his efforts to find the Island. My preferred resolution would be that neither of them were responsible for the wreckage, and some supernatural explanation will later be offered, though I shan't be holding my breath... Alternatively, I don't think we can write off the remnants of the Dharma Initiative as suspects (Abaddon? Future-Sayid's targets?). They may have lost control of the Island, but they clearly still exist and have kept at least enough of their resources to make food-drops for the Swan. I do hope the writers haven't forgotten that little anomaly from S2, though I wonder how we shall ever get back to that subject, given the current state of the Swan.