Locke and Ben: Ender and Ender's Shadow

I promise I'm going somewhere with the following few paragraphs. See if you can spot the vague similarities to Lost.

In the terrific book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, an alien race has already attacked Earth twice and has been just barely fended off. With the threat of a third attack imminent, an international organization called the I.F. (International Fleet) begins taking very young, exceptionally "special" children from their homes to attend Battle School, a space station where they train the innocent young minds at war. The hope is that they'll grow up to be future mastermind generals who can save the world safe from the aliens. (There was a theory down the road that the true purpose of Battle School was to remove every potential revolutionary from Earth so that they wouldn't upset the delicate balance of peace that had been established since the alien attacks, but that doesn't concern us at the moment.)

The main character in the book is Ender Wiggin - a very young, very small boy who eventually proves himself to be the best tactical mind at battle school, and indeed ends up leading the world in the final fight against the aliens. It turns out that the I.F. has been tracking him very closely since birth, knowing that he'd be the best chance to save the world.

However, in Ender's Shadow - a companion book that took place during the same time period - we find out that another young boy at Battle School, Bean, was being groomed as the I.F.'s contingency plan. If for some reason Ender didn't work out - if he was killed, injured, or just plain refused his destiny - then Bean was the second choice. Always almost as good as Ender, but never quite.

Here are where things tie into Lost:

Locke is Ender, and Ben is Bean. Ben has always been the second choice. He was never meant to be the leader of the Others - it was always supposed to be Locke. Except that unlike Ender, Locke always refused his destiny.

Jeff Jensen, in his recap of "Cabin Fever," makes this point and explains how the timeline lines up perfectly, if you accept that Ben is about five years younger than Locke:

Locke is born early. At age 5, he takes a test that most likely would have taken him to the Island if he had passed. He didn't. That same year, Benjamin Linus is born [and two minutes after his birth, Horace and Olivia of the Dharma Initiative just happen to stumble across upon him]. At age 16, Locke is invited to go to a science camp that again would have taken him to the Island. He refused. About that same time, Benjamin Linus and his father joined the Dharma Initiative. The implication, it seems, is that Ben has been walking the path that was originally meant for Locke. Ben was the contingency plan — the course correction — for Locke's altered destiny.

I love this theory. Not because it's a huge game-changing twist - it isn't - but simply because it makes perfect sense, it further enlightens us about two of Lost's best characters in a cool way, and it revises the history we've come to believe without cheating.

At first, Ben didn't want to accept that he wasn't the natural leader of the Others - heck, he shot Locke to stop him. But after Alex's murder, there's been a shift in motivations for Ben. Shattered by that event he didn't think would happen, he's turned to revenge against Widmore - leaving Locke in charge of saving the island, and maybe, the world.

TAGS: Ben, Cabin Fever, Enders Game, Locke
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