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Survival is a contingent fact over which there is choice, and that choice is exercised in favor of survival (rather than the creation of a ‘suicide club.’ The basic contingencies of life furnish ‘a common element in the law and convential morality of all societies.’ HLA Hart

— retroactiveman

4.9 has spawned quite a few posts focusing on games and rules. Of these posts some have chosen to cast the show in the mold of game, white v black, Ben v Widmore, Widmore v Ben, some going so far as to take an instrumental view of characters in the show (Locke a bishop; I posted a piece referring to pawn sacrifices analogizing Alex to a pawn).

This totalizing approach is obviously wrong. Its not all about a game, as its equally not all about time travel, Wayne Rooney, quantum physics, religion, philosophy, valéry giscard d’estaing….

However, the importance of games and game theory should not be discounted.

Thinking along these lines might lead to surprising results.

Realizing that Ben’s character is game theorist suggests a) Penelope Widmore’s contemplated death is not the product of revenge, and b) considering Ben’s character as game theorist means necessarily that Penny must be an obstacle.

Game theory is the study of the ways in which strategic interactions among rational players produce outcomes with respect to the preferences of those players, none of which might have been intended by any of them. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/#Mot.

Are Ben and Widmore playing a game? I think that it’s safe to say that Ben and Widmore are playing games—they both want some kind of payoff that appears to be un-sharable, but I’m not sure that they are playing the same game. Playing the same game would require all participants to have a set of all possible moves from which all participants could possibly make. Ben and Widmore may be playing by the same rules, or they might not be.

What we know is that Ben characterizes Keamy’s behavior as rule changing; Widmore imputes Ben as responsible for Alex’s death. This disagreement would suggest that they are not playing by the same rules (or might not be talking about the same death).

Widmore is raw, ugly capitalism. Ben is the game theorist. He is the actor trading on people’s preferences, and basing his future action in line with his perfect information of their preferences (he knew Keamy was a killer, Keamy killed, would anybody especially Ben be surprised by this result.

Why would Ben, in unilaterally claiming that Widmore has changed a rule, impose a rule framework when that imposition would seem to impose additional constraints on his behavior?

Because through a framework of rules he procures both justification in seeking the death of Penelope as well as authority among the coalition he his assembling to mount this attack.

As Hobbes pointed out, the fundamental justification for coercive authority is peoples’ own need to protect themselves from social dilemmas, as a world devoid of authority consistently offers only bad choices, less than optimal utility. Id. The offer of protection plays out as an offer of a logical choice between two options. People, for various individual reasons will choose the option that will bring them the greatest utility (whether or not this utility actually plays out).

Here, both options are monstrous, but the human monster is of the daughter slaughtering variety. Ben also demonstrates that he also can distribute justice through the smoke monster; which would help people realize the benefit of cooperation or risk punishment by the Leviathan.

With Sayid, Ben is able to promise the possibility of justice for his wife’s death which is the preference of Sayid’s tortured soul. Widmore’s agents have violated the same rule with respect to both of them.

The rules Ben plays by, the good guys rules, give Ben his new coalition on the island, his target (Penelope, stylized as retributive justice for the rule changing crime), and his agent to take the shot Sayid. In waging war against the epitome of capitalism, maybe war must be waged this way.

In short, Ben is given authority through scrupulous game playing.

Given that Ben is a game theorist, it would make absolutely no sense to have Penelope’s murder be mere blood lust. Ben’s target is the island. Ben’s and Widmore’s exchange (you’ll never find the island, nor will you) suggest that the island is still what they are after. Because the island is Ben’s problem this problem needs a rational solution.

Penelope then must be crucial to acquisition of the island, and her death must be necessary to Ben getting it. Who knows, Penelope herself may be now “running” the island. (Imagine Ben repels Keamy, but meanwhile Penny tracks down Gault’s boat with her own crew with her own force, this force overtakes the island, and Ben pushed to the orchid, using it as a last ditch escape hatch, after battling Marvin Candle in hand to hand combat, cutting off his harm and then stealing his jacket, before teleporting to Tunisia (this will happen, I’m sure of it)). Regardless, her role with respect to the island will become critical, which will necessitate her death. (Just as a side note, it would make sense to have Desmond Hume the philosopher fall in love with ‘the economist’ of a free market economy.)

Lost is not a game. But Ben plays games. The overwhelming gamey taste this episode had paints his character, tells us who he is, who he is supposed to be, and who he will be in the future. (See Jazprof’s excellent Group 1 posts which respects the individual character of episodes critically, which focus on the ideas latent behind characters by putting them in their larger social contexts, and which in general provide something to think about opposed to the empirical dribble that permeates certain overviews regularly appearing on this site). While this game is a big game, it is the game of one small man’s life, living it so.

Key characters

Short Name	Full Name	Episodes	Theories
Ben	Benjamin Linus	3.20, 4.9, & 3” href=”/episodes/theres-no-place-home-parts-2-3/”>4.13	1726

Key episodes

#	Title	Aired	Central character	Theories
4.9	The Shape of Things to Come	4-24-2008	Ben	259

Key events

Theme	Relevant Episodes	Theories
Four Toed Statue		204

Key locations

Theme	Relevant Episodes	Theories
Barracks	3.19, 4.8, 3.1, 2.21, 3.20, 4.6, 3.16, 3.12, 3.13, 3.15, 4.3, 4.4	97

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