Theory of the Day: Reports of a Ben/Widmore War Are Greatly Exaggerated

I'm afraid I don't have much evidence to back this one up - just a nagging gut feeling.

In the past few episodes, there has been a sudden heavy reliance on supposedly foolproof "evidence" - in the form of documents and files and photographs and videos - to convince us that there's a war brewing between Benjamin Linus and Charles Widmore. First, Ben gave Locke his file on Widmore and showed him a video of Widmore beating up an unknown member of the Others. Then, on the other side of the war, the captain of the freighter pulled out the fake black box of the fake Oceanic 815 and claimed Ben staged the entire wreckage. Finally, in New York City, Tom showed Michael photographs of the cemetery abroad - where Widmore supposedly stole the bodies, and then subsequently staged the wreckage.

Obviously someone's lying. But when you have two untrustworthy factions that are at odds against one another, the sensible thing to do is trust neither. (If anybody else has ever played through to the end of Myst, you know what I mean.) So what's the solution?

The conspiracy theory side of me says that every single piece of evidence we've seen is a boldfaced lie. I could be overthinking this, but both sides seem to be trying very hard to convince the castaways that some epic war is brewing between Ben and Widmore, which makes me believe it isn't. In "The Constant," great lengths were taken to conceal the identity of who Ben and Sayid are hunting down - and then one episode later, Ben tells Locke it's Widmore. A sudden decision by the writers that there's no need in keeping it a secret? Perhaps. Or maybe...

Ben and Widmore are actually working together. To dupe the castaways? And their real enemy is the still-alive Dharma Initiative? Or the island itself? Or I'm full of crap?

Widmore isn't actually the guy behind the freighter. So the freighter really is looking for Ben, and Ben really does think the freighter poses a threat. But Widmore doesn't actually have anything to do with it, and is being set up by both sides! Still no evidence for this, though.

The freighter's not actually there for Ben. Ben legitimately does seem to want Alex to stay safe; if we trust that, we have to trust that he really does think the freighter folks are coming to the island to kill everybody. Ben's just setting up the story of a war with Widmore to get the castaways to side with him against the freighter.

Something fishy is going on, but none of these suggestions are even close. The most likely scenario.

TAGS: Ben, Charles Widmore, Theories
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