LOST-Theories.com

If they have to be so careful to make sure they take Ben alive, then why the scorched earth policy?

— kselvog

Sawyer is the first to comment: he can’t believe that they just come in and start shooting without telling them what they want. Ben calls it “Shock and Awe.” Then, they firebomb “Claire’s house” and seem to be just randomly killing anyone who happens to be walking around outside. They tell Hurley to get away from the window, as if they’d just see an outline of a person and shoot.

If they have to be so careful to make sure they take Ben alive, then why the scorched earth policy?

Sure, I guess they could figure out through Alex which house is Ben’s, but she could have lied to them. Also, regardless of whether they could have known it was his house, he could have easily been hiding out at someone else’s house to throw them off. They could not have known for sure where Ben was when they attacked the others’ compound. Any ideas? When I watched this episode a second time, it was almost like they were making a very big point of how ruthless of an attack this was, while at the same time having Ben point out that Locke should stay close to him so he would survive.

Key characters

Short Name Full Name Episodes Theories
Aaron Aaron Littleton 378
Ben Benjamin Linus 3.20, 4.9, & 3” href=”/episodes/theres-no-place-home-parts-2-3/”>4.13 1819
Hurley Hugo “Hurley” Reyes 2.18, 2.4, 1.18, 4.1, 4.12 580
John John Locke 3.3, 2.17, 1.4, 1.19, 3.13, 3.19, 4.11, & 3” href=”/episodes/theres-no-place-home-parts-2-3/”>4.13 1292
Sawyer James “Sawyer” Ford 3.4, 2.3, 2.6, 2.13, 1.16, 3.10 472

Comments

  1. chrisleerooks Apr 28, 2008 2:12 p.m. Comment: 1

    Interesting thought but I wouldn’t worry about it much. Perhaps Ben, knowing that they might go for the Shock and Awe, knew that they wouldn’t attack his house, and thus he knew that would be the safe place to be. In other words, if he just hid randomly he ran the risk of getting hit by a stray bullet, when he knew for sure they wouldn’t run the risk of attacking his house.

  2. X Apr 28, 2008 2:21 p.m. Comment: 2

    Lojozz I challenge you to a debate club arguement, a +10 post off, for the monarchy. I’m having trouble seeing if you accept or not, so just post it in a recent theory and if I see it we can get to buisness. I’ll explain what I’m challenging you on and what side i (hope) to take in the argument when you respond to this message.

  3. TheHolyStickman Apr 28, 2008 2:23 p.m. Comment: 3

    Yeah ChrisLee pretty much took the words out of my mouth.

  4. abstractarzt Apr 28, 2008 2:44 p.m. Comment: 4

    Remember when Ben found out they were coming he said they need to go to the other house. They could have been in the jungle watching and saw Ben and company run to the other house. Then lay waste to the everything else. Hopefully the house they ended up in was better fortified. Anybody notice how Claire’s house burnt like it was made of paper?

    Side note: If they had so much intel on the island and where the houses were, why didn’t they get dropped off inside the fence?

  5. Pearl Apr 28, 2008 8:30 p.m. Comment: 5

    The ‘shock and awe’ was aimed at us, the viewers. I was pretty shocked that they executed Alex. The Smoke monster was quite awesome. Think about it though, Ben is the one character who understands mind games. I found it interesting that he made that comment.