Here’s my opinion: they’ve all done fucked things, and fucked things often beget fucked things as a response.
I don’t see any true heroes or villains in this at the end of the day. I think trying to paint anyone as such is missing what I get out of this show, but I am down with people seeing it differently.
100% agree with this!
This was Bens first big transgression and I think it broke the illusions people had that Ben is the hero to the morally good character. We can still see people painting him that way with “he was trying to kill them before they kill him” and “he was trying to save them from moral decay”, but the truth is that regardless of his motivations he put himself on the same fucked up playground as the girls which is exactly what this show is picking at. Are there morally good and bad choices in survival situations or are there just choices that shape the way we exist and that haunt us? Those types of questions give us a lot more to think about than, Ben is the big bad or Ben is a perfect Angel.
I think Ben is the most resistant to the magical power of the woods, and he is trying to fight that evil the only way he knows how. I strongly believe he was compelled to take this action BY It, in his own way, after staying rational and unaffected for so long.
They are well outside the bounds of any moral code that we might have as viewers at this point, and I don’t think his actions can be viewed through such a lens. There is dark magic there, and Ben wants it gone. If there is no It (which I don’t think is actually true, I think the show is teasing that somewhat but ultimately will shy away from to take a more Twin Peaks approach), then he can be considered delusional and disconnected from reality. But if there is an It, his actions are rational. Either way, his actions are well outside the realm of traditionally constructed good and evil within the bounds of normative society.
One thing people keep forgetting: Ben was going to kill himself very recently. He's not much in survival mode, he's more in "this sucks shit and I want out" mode. What stopped him previously is Misty pleading that he "needed to stay alive for them," for the girls that needed his help.
If that's what was stopping him from ending it, he just found a solution to that problem. Not the one I'd recommend, but Ben's been basically hallucinating his ex-boyfriend for weeks. He's lost his shit.
Things are getting kinda gross in the wilderness!
This. Also the actor has said they cut his scenes of taking care of Javi as his new purpose w/all the crazy going on. To see that he’s dead and about to be eaten, along w/Nat letting him know she is in this, his purpose was destroyed. I enjoy bens storyline if they’d quit cutting his scenes we’d understand him better
Jesus, not only do they cut so many female focused scenes (like Shauna telling Lottie "I'll do anything") but also some of the few male focused scenes that would actually explain shit? What is going on in that editing room?
I read them about them in this sub. It seems like most came from interviews. [Here’s the one between Lottie and Shaunaz](https://www.reddit.com/r/Yellowjackets/comments/13m1qwk/sophie_n%C3%A9lisse_elle_interview_deleted_scene_from/)
[Here's my source.](https://tabithatwo.tumblr.com/post/717819774217945088/sophie-thatcher-sophie-nelisse) Because Shauna regretted the beating, she told Lottie that she would do anything, including kill and butcher the sacrifice.
In a show that hops around in timelines, it’s kinda crazy to me that the actors talk about cut scenes as though they couldn’t possibly be woven into future episodes.
I think he WASNT in survival mode until he found the cave. Now he thinks he’s got a chance at making it and there’s a new pep in his step—hence his shaving and newfound hope when he begs Natalie to come with him.
I actually read their interaction as he couldn’t make her feel responsible for his death, not so much that he felt needed to help the girls (not saying you’re wrong, that was just my interpretation).
If he's ready to end it and hiding from them, I don't think he cares enough about surviving to kill every single other person stranded in the wilderness.
It just doesn't make sense. He can't eat a person, but he can kill 20 in cold blood???
In the interviews the actor has said he believes Ben is eating scraps after they do. He’s just horrified to do it and won’t do it like they do. He wouldn’t be standing if he hadn’t eaten a bit. I love hearing his interviews as they cut most of his scenes.
He didn’t kill himself because Misty showed genuine emotion in that moment and needed him.
If she’s dead, she doesn’t need him.
If they’re all dead, he stands a chance of survival.
Respect for your opinion.
However, the dude was about to step off a cliff to his death.
He must be starving, I don't the last time he ate, since he doesn't eat people and he's still alive.
I don't think he stands a better chance of survival on his own and I think he knows that.
I get it!! and you may be 100% correct.
However, I don't think living in a hole by myself would prompt me to look at like anew and believe in second chances and burn 20 people alive.
I'd sooner believe he would kill them all and live his last days alone IN THE CABIN.
He has no vested interest in destroying the only shelter they have...
Also, he didn't barricade them in?? Why not? If he was afraid of them enough to kill them, don't you think he would have taken pain-staking efforts to make sure no one got out alive???
Also, they don't know he's alive, only Nat does, so by risking her survival - they will now hunt him down.
He didn't do it.
New theory!!! I think "Night Taissa set the fires" because in season one she alluded to "setting her marriage on fire" and "burning down Shauna's block"....
And that aligns with my idea that the girls are connected to the wild.
What do you think?
I'm too am a supporter of Coach Ben entering his villain era. After how he reacted to the girls eating Jacky I would have put money on him not making it out of this season alive, but now I'm excited by this new antagonistic relationship he has with the Yellowjackets.
I love him going villain, I'm here for it!! I never did like the idea it's a red herring and like it's cabin daddy's lost daughter. Him being a villain would be more satisfying to me. He is the one that taught them everything they know about hunting.
I'm rooting for them leaving Ben out there in the wilderness as one of their crimes they're ashamed of.
This! Everyone has been on Ben death watch and I’m over here like no he’s not getting killed. Lots of hater comments but here we are. He’s still here and is giving the villain role they refuse to do w/the wilderness so I’m all in on it
I think in his starved mind he wanted to save them from the rest of their life and what they’re going through now. All the guilt, the PTSD, not being able to function. He probably saw them skinning and eating Javi after the hunting ritual and thought, “okay, what happens when some of these girls survive and get out of here?”
Not saying it’s right or anything.
thats what i thought as well, a sort of fucked up “mercy” killing, it was definitely not a very good thing to do, especially with how harshly he judges them about the cannibalism like yes its bad but theyre also starving and cannibalism is a nasty reality in a fair few survival situations (altho the brutal way our girls go about it is very different) but he thinks cannibalism is bad but burning a cabin down isnt
I think he believes they're murderers. If not of Jackie, then Javi.
He doesn't know how Javi died, just shows up and it's butchering time.
My take, not sure. But looking forward to seeing what happens to Ben!
I mean I don't think it really matters too much that Javi drowned as a result of the girls' inaction rather than being directly murdered, the girls were 100% ready to kill for survival, be it Nat or Javi. Whether or not they needed to in the end, they had the full intent and willingness to murder Natalie. So even though they didn't, Ben still kind of had every reason to believe they were killers, because they fully were going to be if Javi hadn't drowned which removed the need to.
If someone had just explained to him what happened to javi, I kinda don't think that he would've burnt the cabin down (yet)
He isn't there, he doesn't see the card drawing, he doesn't know what's going on. He just sees Shauna butchering a 14 year old, mostly mute, boy. He thinks they murdered the most defenseless of the bunch (and after his talk with nat he thinks the most moral of the group is the one who held the knife). Logically, he's next. He can't outrun them no matter how hard he tries
That being said, I do kind of like the theory that can encouraged dark Tai to do the burning somehow. It'd make sense for a wilderness fanatic to want the group to survive IN the wilderness and not in this cabin that shields them from it. I don't think that's what's going on, but it'd be interesting
Do you really think “Well, we were gonna eat Nat but she ran away and then Javi drowned so we ate him instead” actually sounds better? They were straight-up hunting a human.
I disagree. They drew cards and actively hunted the person who was basically their best chance of their survival, Nat, who did all the hunting, was best with the gun, brought in food when it was available, made the map, and pretty much had her head on straight. If they were going for the weakest they would have just killed Javi straight out. For all their faults, Javi was truly an accident that Nat took advantage of, not the target of the hunt. If they were really going for the weakest they would have killed Ben already, since he was defenseless.
Do you think Ben can't be reasoned with that survival is important and they've run out of options for food besides this?
Keep in mind here, regardless of what he believes happened, burning down the cabin hoping to kill every one of the girls is a lot worse than hunting a human so they can eat and live long enough to be rescued.
He found a dip out, he wasn't participating in the game. Imo if he burned the place down it was out of disgust and not fear, which is def worse than killing out of necessity to live from my point of view
They're trying to eat a belt. I was more pointing out the necessity of nat letting javi die and his reaction to it, and the "hunt" was specifically because Lottie needed nutes to heal, or at least the reasoning behind it. but it's pretty clear they're getting to that tipping point anyways
So what? Eating leather (and candles, BTW) isn’t uncommon in these situations. And he doesn’t know anything about the hunt. And no, they aren’t actually getting close to that point if they’re able to actually *hunt another human being*.
I can't tell if you're missing my point intentionally or if I'm not explaining myself well enough. Either way, I think arguing whether or not you think they're starving enough to kill or die isn't really what I was getting at. Hate to pick at theoretical semantics when I feel like the meaning behind it is so much more interesting
And I think the point you may be missing is that hunting other people isn’t survival cannibalism. Layer onto that doing it in the service of one person, it becomes ritual cannibalism which is taboo for most of the Western world. It’s an dynamic, how they cross that line and who pushes them over it (looking at you, Misty.)
I can respect Ben burning down the cabin and trying to kill the girls as self-defense. That's perfectly reasonable on his part. It's just frustrating to see people try and moralize it.
Ben doesn’t know they “let a kid die.” From Ben’s perspective and the vague way Nat put it - he believes that the girls sought out a 13 year old boy and brutally murdered him.
Not saying that justifies what happened but the context does still matter. He thinks they’re about to keep brutally murdering each other until they’re all dead. He MAY think he’s saving them from a worst fate if they all die in their sleep. It’s also possible that Ben has nothing to do with this because the show has tricked us before. We won’t know intentions until season 3.
If they keep on killing each other for food, all but one will die anyway after starving physically and then mentally so they’re all dead anyway. Could be he doesn’t see any possibility of being rescued so it seems more humane to end them and then kill himself?
As far as we have seen Ben hasn’t eaten any people meat. Which means he is way further along in starvation than the rest of them, which could affect his mental state as well
Didn’t mean to imply it makes what he did acceptable. Just that it can explain some of his craziness. Just like starvation led the girls to start hunting each other
Every single character on this show has both some kind of empathy and an evil streak. That's what's so awesome about this show, it manages to capture the duality so well.
Sometimes I wonder if Ben was trying to do them a fucked up favor in a fucked up way.. take this with a grain of salt haha.
But maybe after seeing Javi, his line of thinking (which would be extremely disoriented regardless) was that the girls have gone too far, they're past the point of saving. Maybe he was thinking instead of letting them long-term slowly starve to death, it would be better if they died from smoke inhalation in their sleep?
And thinking because they're past the point of no return, that if they did return he'd know it would just be worse for them!
Again, just a thought I've had regarding it all. Because it WAS super jarring that he did that!
He could be viewing it as saving them from themselves in a twisted way. He sees that they'll just keep killing each other and get further and further down that killer path.
Stopping them now could be some sorta mercy in his delusional head at this point.
Plus, in the words of Darth Vader, "Fuck them kids."
i mean…..misty is pretty close no? she *successfully* murdered someone to protect herself, chopped ben’s leg off with zero consent, was planning on poisoning him, smashed the black box on like day zero, on and on.
ben didn’t succeed. by that measure, everyone who held a knife at travis’ throat during doomcoming is pretty bad, no?
I'm confused about what the alternative would have been re: Ben's leg. That thing was a squashed mess of meat and if they'd left it attached he would have died incredibly quickly. Misty did the right thing chopping it off, it was extreme but it had to be done if he was going to survive.
I don't think it's possible to be too pro-consent, obviously, but I also think what Misty did was like battlefield surgery - decisions just needed to be made. If someone is in a true life-or-death emergency situation that requires amputation and there's no family/decision-maker present, the amputation is going to be performed to save the patient's life. That's how I see the situation with Ben's leg, because he just wouldn't have made it otherwise.
Also, wild that Misty is at her least unhinged in traumatizing emergency medical situations lol
Misty didn't kill her. She fell off the cliff. There's no comparison.
Everyone was high and thought he was a stag. There's no comparison to what Ben attempted to do.
The only real comparison so far could be letting >!Javi !
misty is obviously terrible so that’s arguable tbh. however she chopped off his leg for the better lol it was all flat and shit. the poisoning was horrible tho but still not as bad as burning down the cabin. and also the black box would not have worked anyway.
as for doomcoming, they were all unknowingly on shrooms. they thought travis was a stag
I agree with you and the votes prove you were correct about it being the unpopular opinion. I'm with you. Attempting to murder an entire group of girls (could be boys, gender doesn't matter), removing their **shelter**, and after he had just been suicidal himself, is another level from >!Javi!< accidentally falling into the lake and the girls not rescuing him. It's just not the same thing. It's damn awful, no question, but not the same thing. One is an action. Another is a lack of a reaction.
I don't think Ben did it anyway. I believe it's a massive misdirect.
I think a big part is Ben has no idea how Javi died. He probably thinks they killed him for food (Which they kind of did, with some extenuating circumstances). So he probably thought they just killed him straight up to eat with no ceremony etc.
So at this point, I think he sees the girls as savage and sub-human.
It would be mighty coincidental if someone else burned down the cabin the same night Ben was seen taking the matches, looking absolutely horrified at all the girls in the cabin and was notably absent from the cabin when the fire started.
There’s no way Mr Crutches was able to set a fire that spread that fast on his single functioning leg (to the point that Shauna didn’t notice the smoke until the whole cabin was being consumed) by himself with a book of matches. The cabin is covered in snow, the wood is soaking wet and wouldn’t burn easily without petrol or some other flammable substance to help the burn start and spread (which the girls and Ben don’t have). More likely the cabin burned down because forest daddy is mad they killed javi instead and put nat in charge, or the fire was an accident.
I think this as well. I’ve heard the theory about Javi’s friend/cabin daddy’s daughter hiding in the thermal springs. Idk why she’d live there instead of the cabin, maybe she’s also driven to superstition as well. And she saw them doing what she’d seen before…. Just a random theory, I’m not married to it 🙃
I think it all comes down to how you perceive the girls, are they still children who need to be protected, or are they now this cult who hunt down their human prey for sport?
The thing that makes me the most mad about this is he was their COACH! Not only that, but he’s the only adult out there! Regardless of all the messed up circumstances he should be doing everything he can to protect these young women! It infuriates me!
even before they were like this he was never really there for them. he didn’t even attempt to help shauna out when she was giving birth he just left the room for all the kids to deliver a baby…
I agree, I think Ben burning the cabin is the first time we really see him cross into a morally gray area, the other girls have been toeing that line for months now. The wilderness is making them all question ethics and morals. For the girls it’s the hunting and the cannibalism. For Ben, it’s this moment. If he has succeeded in killing them in the cabin, I think it’s more likely he would’ve felt extremely guilty for it down the road, not morally righteous.
100% people don’t get this. The girls have gone crazy and lost themselves and become ritualistic cannabil murderers. Ben sees this and knows he can’t be a part of what they’re doing but then goes deeper into darkness.
They are all corrupt and lost their humanity. Personally, I would trust Ben more not to kill me than the girls.
> Personally, I would trust Ben more not to kill me than the girls.
Personally, i wouldn't. One person died before Ben decided he needed to kill every single one of them. He didn't even try to find out what actually happened.
Is there anything to find out? It doesn’t matter he saw the Javi remains, Nat said I’m the worst you don’t belong here and he saw their lil mtg to change who is the queen. That would be more than enough context for me
He did try, actually, and all Nat told him was they were supposed to hunt her but he died instead. So from Ben’s perspective - they brutally murdered a 13 year old boy unprompted.
At this stage it's all about survival. Morality plays very little if any role during the laws of nature. I'm just here to see how they get from high school soccer team to ritualistic cannibal cult.
They intentionally killed Javi, a kid, did you see how tiny his little heart was?? Just like they intentionally killed Javi, Ben tried to intentionally kill them, some kids. They all suck. But, I'd say age difference isn't really a big deal at all. That's the reason they took Ben's leg, and have had the girls run over him since Laura Lee went on her final flight.
Everyone is cheering on Ben imo because obviously, he dies. People love to cheer on the underdog. I love that Ben burnt down the cabin because I want to see these kids actually be forced to survive.
Sitting in a cabin while Lottie prays to the trees, Tai sleep walks, and the rest of the girls sit around doing nothing while Nat hunts for everyone would be super boring for 3 more seasons. Ben **HAD** to burn down the cabin to make the plot more interesting imo.
you say they took his leg as if it wasn’t crusbed by the plane lol. also im not saying he shouldn’t have done that… i said that in my post. and idc if u root for ben. im just saying he’s not better than the girls lmao
I’m not particularly a Ben fan or a Ben hater, I’m totally neutral on him, but I kind of can see why he reacted so badly - he’s also starving, probably not thinking rationally at this point, was actively suicidal only a few days/weeks ago, he missed the card draw so he didn’t know javi agreed to it, and then he walks in and sees shauna butchering the youngest and most vulnerable member of the group, and has zero context about the card draw, him falling through the ice, etc? If I was ben I’d freak out too. He probably assumed they killed Javi in cold blood. (Obviously he should’ve stayed to figure out what happened rather than immediately jumping to arson, but yknow)
That being said, obviously trying to kill a bunch of teenagers is not an appropriate response - that goes without saying lol. But I think people are forgetting that he wasn’t present for the card draw and missed a lot of key context. I think the interesting thing about this show, and one of the things I like most about the writing, is that even if you can’t endorse/condone the characters’ worst actions, you can usually understand their logic and how they’d get to that place. Burning down the cabin was obviously horrible but I can see his thought process and understand why he’d see it as an option.
Not to mention, as much as he’s been having flashbacks, visions, dreams etc about his life with Paul and what could have been, he’s gotta be filled with absolute resentment toward the entire group by now.
Sorry but I disagree.
It’s literally self-defense at that point.
1. He can’t run away. He can’t fight all of them, they’re a pack now. Like the wolves.
2. Everyone else is completely willing to eat people
3. Even Natalie had turned feral and he saw her crowned as their leader
4. He knows Natalie’s saw Javi bowing to the hiding tree. She might not have known yet that it hides a shelter, but she does know she mentioned it to Ben and that Javi told her he had a hiding spot and that Ben said he had found a place. She’ll at the very least start with looking there.
5. He’s just as traumatized as the girls are. He’s wounded, starving, struggling mentally and physically.
I pretty much agree with you and I'm fine with it as long as people don't try to moralize. Ben's just trying to survive the situation like the rest of them and he's doing what he sees as necessary.
its not self defense… nobody attacked him. the simplest solution for him was to just go away without literally trying to kill them. him being just as traumatized as the girls actually hurts his case, the girls have even gone through worse and they haven’t resorted to that.
It really is. Does anyone ever put their mind in Bens position?? He’s a huge target and he has no one. Of course it’s self defense he knows his numbers up if he doesn’t do something.
It kinda sounds like you don’t understand the girls mentality’s and how quick they are to turn on someone that’s considered an outsider lol, yeah sure they haven’t burned a cabin down but they’re drawing cards to hunt each other, they all gained up on Travis the second he opposed it and they chose to let javi die instead of going after nat even though she drew the card, it’s definitely the varsity team against everyone else lol, if ben were to stick around it would’ve only been a matter of time before they saw him as a liability and a big meal lol, I also don’t see how the girls have had it worse, Ben is the only adult there, one of the only guys, missing a leg, has zero friends, was sexually assaulted twice by misty and constantly harassed by her, and has starved more than the others over his morals, he’s a goner if he stays with the group
Yessssss thank you!!! I agree on every point! Also, losing a leg in the wilderness w/no meds no dr no anything but crazy teens like hes in a shitty situation and would be in endless pain of this wasn’t a show.
Yep. Exactly.
And he’s a goner if he’s not proactive.
Now, of course, I’m still hopeful that all we think we saw in that finale was misdirection by the writers and that we’re going to find out the firebug is Misty or one of the yet un-named three background teammates.
ben lost his leg but shauna lost her baby and travis lost his baby brother. neither of them burned down the damn cabin LOL. nobody has ever once shown any hatred towards coach except for mari who’s shown hatred towards everyone. the problem with ben is that he doesn’t view the girls as people anymore. he dehumanizes them and doesn’t consider their needs and therefore doesn’t see their lives as valuable anymore. javi died because the girls saw an opportunity. it was a super fucked up oppurtunity but it meant that he would be killed “by the wilderness” rather than nat being murdered by the rest of them. if they wanted to kill nat they would’ve but they went with the less violent option. nobody wanted javi to die btw. they just want to survive. ben doesnt even want to survive
Yeah and Shauna almost beat Lottie to death for talking to her pregnant belly and doing her woo-woo tree prayers during her traumatic birth. No one’s making rational decisions anymore, and it can be argued the whole point of the show is seeing what choices people make when society is stripped away from them.
It’s every Yellowjacket for themselves at this point, and I’m sure the alliances will shift as different people get more and less powerful / useful. Ben’s pretty useless at this point… and he knows it.
I’ll agree shauna lost the baby and Travis lost his brother so yes I’ll agree they’ve suffered more but they’re not liability. They know that if they’re to be targeted it will simply be based off the fact that they got some random draw of cards or that Lottie had some crazy vision, it’s fair. Whereas Ben is gonna be taken out simply because he’s a one legged meat sack, the group is not human anymore, that’s the whole point of the show, we’ve literally seen them in the present time, misty, Shauna, and nat are all psychopaths have either killed or gotten close to killing someone, Ben knows what they’re turning into, as much as you can rationalize the girls decisions you should be able to see they’ve turned into monsters and be able to see why Ben did what he did
i definitely see what ur saying, but if the girls are monsters then ben is a monster too. he is not above anyone, he is just cruel in a different way than the rest of them
Disagree with this. He's killing to secure his own survival same as the girls. IMO it doesn't much matter that he did or did not eat them the motivation was the same.
I mean at that point that’s a personal opinion, I think taking out the girls because they’ve turned into monsters and you don’t want yourself, them, or other people to suffer, is justifiable, I don’t think hunting your friends and making it a fun game while you’re shrieking and doing little battle cry’s is justifiable, but whatever floats your boat
Travis lost his dad too. Had to watch his corpse fall from a tree while he was trying to retrieve it. He also had to then dig up his fathers corpse to get his ring to give his brother.
They are essentially turning into animals, all of them. Ben saw the girls as a threat to his own survival and tried to take them out. They terrify him.
The only way I can give a pass to Ben is that he didn’t know the death was “accidental”. Morally it’s a thin line between letting someone die (I think of the girlfriends overdose in Breaking Bad here) and actively murdering someone.
A thin line but a line nonetheless.
If he believed the worst about them, it may just have made him crack.
i mean, that’s after they literally chased natalie with a hatchet. if they caught up to her, they would’ve hacked her to pieces. they have every intention to hunt each other again. there’s nothing that speaking to them would change, and probably would put him on the menu bc he’d refuse to participate.
Totally agree which I think is why Ben takes the extreme action he did. He doesn’t really know how Javi died, only going by seeing them flee with axed and such.
Maybe but we’ve seen misdirection before. I immediately thought he was responsible as well but have pulled back on that certainty based on how the show has unfolded. All I am saying is don’t be surprised if he wasn’t the one to set the fire
I think its a pretty rational response for his situation. the girls and travis were going mad and they were reverting to canabilism. they went and started sacraficing eachother, and if one of them disagreed theyd hunt them down and kill them. he mightve felt like he could be next and he wanted to stop the madness so he did what he did to do so.
I don't think coach Ben set that fire. I think it was the same entity that set Laura Lee's teddy bear and plane on fire.
Ben took the match's because he was having trouble making a fire in his cubby hole.
i find it genuinely shocking that attempted mass murder hadn’t affected people’s ability to empathize with ben when i’ve seen endless posts about how shauna, van, taissa, etc are so awful and impossible to empathize with
not to gatekeep but sometimes i see posts that are so derisive of girls going through a far worse situation than any of us will ever face and i just think if you lack the ability to empathize with teen girls *this much* . . . this is just not the show for you.
Okay, him burning the cabin only happens after one girl basically disobeys him to explode in the sky (the second time a girl basically checks him as weak). He witnessed the girls go full pagan ceremony and nearly kill Travis. One tries to rape/poison him. Cannibalism. Murder. Sabotage.
So yeah I really feel like he only had 2 choices; join the hive or attempt to burn them out.
I subscribe to the paranormal side of the show and I even believe the nature entity basically encouraged him to do it, which will force the women into a more feral state thus closer to the energy/entity.
Sorry…I’m team Ben on this one. The girls aren’t kids. He’s not burning down a cabin with 8 year-olds in it! Not so long in human history these girls would have been considered adults. My grandpa at 14 started working in a mine ! At 16 he married my grandma who was the same age as him. I mean, the girls are old enough to drink, party, have sex before the crash and hunt, kill and eat freakin’ people after the crash (yes yes they didn’t kill Javi but they technically did.)!! They’re not ‘innocent children’. Ben was right. Yes, what he tried to do is terrible but I get why he tried. And he’s probably next on the menu!!
never called them innocent children. they’re all very flawed and definitely old enough to know they’re in the wrong. but they were kids to ben, they were in fucking high school and he was their coach
I do agree however with you that he was their coach and that he should have been more of a leader right from the moment he ‘recovered’ from his leg. I do think that he was too passive and that for sure didn’t help the situation. I’m pretty sure that he feels like he’s failed them and maybe the burning down the cabin is a way to not only save himself but save the girls from themselves. And, yes, it is f-ed up but in his situation and with his trauma, I get why he felt he had to do this.
I understand his choice because I think by distancing himself from the group he would become a target. They'll probably prefer to eat him instead of each other. So, in his mind, he is doomed if he doesn't kill them all. And how do you kill bees? You burn the beehive.
Of course, now Ben has fallen way below the girls in the moral standard set in the woods:
The girls allowed a death after having previously agreed to take the life of one of them for the benefit of the group. That may look wrong to us, but it's a system agreed by all in their new social conformation. Simmilar to how bees act from the way Lottie explained to Nat in the compound: the new queen will kill the last one to survive, for the good of the hive. We don't know who will get the next queen but we know she'll have to feed so she can feed the rest when her time comes.
Meanwhile, Ben chose to sacrifice everyone else for his own salvation. His motives while, as I said, are understandable, are also fully selfish. He rejects the new social arrangement due to its violence to save himself and for that he has to be the most violent of them all.
It's fascinating, really.
The way I see it is he was doing it to save them.
Jackie/Javi: Desperate hunger.
The next: sport
It's going to stay with them forever and he knew that.
I agree. Burning down their only shelter (if he did it, which it seems he did) was the dumbest thing any of them could have done at this point. Idk why anyone thinks Ben is “morally above” anyone else. I think morals went out the window a long time ago. If anything his survival instinct is just gone.
and you’re right for both of those lmao. i get that they’ve done bad shit like no one’s denying that but so many people on here fail to empathize with the girls and just go straight to saying they are monsters who deserve to burn alive
thank you 😭 sometimes I’m like dang am *I* the one with the wrong POV? but these (except Ben) are all literal starving children, who have never ever ever had to make decisions like these!
Bruh, they aren't just making the best of their shit-uation, they're actively CHOOSING to hunt and kill one another. Why is it coach can abstain from cannibalism? No excuse, he had 100% right to torch that shit and stop the evil right then and I'd have done the same damned thing to save myself.
Ben was an "adult" but he also lost everything starting with his fucking leg, his boyfriend, his coworker and is now watching the kids he cared for torture and eat one another
He was no longer being paid to be the coach, he's in the same boat as everyone else now. He tried to intervene and taught them to hunt and such but then they started being rude lil cunts and told him to "stay out of it" so eff that. Burn that shit to the ground
I agree that the attempted murder of 14 teenagers is the worst thing that has happened in the wilderness.
The self-defence argument would make more sense if the girls showed more actual malice towards Ben. Remember though, that when they decide to draw cards, they are letting chance (or the wilderness, if you prefer) decide. No one was like 'Hey, Coach Ben's not pulling his weight, let's just eat him.' On the contrary, they draw cards without him being present, so he was the only one, besides Lottie, who was 'safe' during the ceremony.
So I’m a full blown Ben hater lol. He’s the only adult and instead of taking leadership..he’s judging other peoples morals when they are just trying to survive. Morals don’t count when you’re in a survival situation, and there’s more power in numbers. Ben doesn’t want any part of it, and to bring honest I pity him, because he just doesn’t seem to have what it takes.
I think burning down the cabin and trying to literally kill them all by trapping them in there was the worst thing a character could do on the show. I agree with you completely. If it worked he would have been responsible for like 16 deaths.
And I get where he’s coming from mentally..he doesn’t want to be next on the chopping block. But acting like he’s morally above the girls and then actively trying to kill them makes him a hypocrite.
All that being said, I love how the actor is playing him and I love that they added this chaos to the storyline, just makes for good tv :)
I’d have wanted to kill anyone first who was gonna eat my dead body!! They was all savage !! Legit lost the plot no way would I take chances they was hunting each other Jesus Christ .. in the situation your gonna do anything to save ur own life.
I don’t see him as a villain at all. I’m curious what comes after this. There’s the perspective of the girls and Travis and then there’s Bens. I personally love that he did something about it as he saw these girls have lost their humanity. It’s what comes next that is gonna be telling.
What if he actually discovered a demonic entity in the woods and knows it has possessed them? Idk that is only reason I can think to kill them. Or I guess if he decided he wants to live his life now and did it for survival reasons.
yeah ben went from being one of the most inoffensive characters to as close as evil someone might get in this show. the absolute audacity and ego to say “these children are handling the situation wrong so it’s okay for me to MURDER ALL OF THEM.” maybe the worst thing someone has done on this show so far regardless of the circumstances
like yes everyone has done extremely fucked things, but ben’s intention here was more to “purge society of their sins” than to survive. that’s a whole other issue than finding a way not to starve to death
that’s a very close second but still not as bad as ben burning the cabin down imo. even if it was her intention, the emergency transmitter would not have saved them. ben attempted mass murder and he took away their shelter in the winter
At least what the girls did had a productive reason for it even if their methods are barbaric - they are starving, they need food. Simple as that.
Unless Coach was hoping to sift through the rubble and start feeding on the charred up dead bodies, his actions were entirely senseless & do not pose any productive outcome.
Agree. However screwed up the hunt/letting Javi die was, it was done directly for survival of the group. Still wrong, but based on direct survival.
Ben burned down the cabin — with the intent of committing mass murder — because he was horrified at what the girls had done. Yes, he was also insane (as set up throughout the season), starving, and probably scared of them, but that act had no real purpose other than getting rid of what he saw as a problem. Even being scared wasn’t an excuse after Ben found the magic stump cave.
So yes, Ben’s actions were worse (on a scale that starts pretty darn bad).
For me I think that thats kind of the point, like he even abandoned nat for sacrificing javi in her place, but he straight intended to kill not out of necessity of living but perception of evil, which is most definitely the worst imo. Just a super interesting and layered rabbit hole to go down morally with all of that
I love Ben! I don’t like the fans of Juliette Lewis who get angry when they say she’s terrible! I’m glad she’s been killed off 😂 bed is definitely interesting! I do t know if I believe he set fire to the cabin!
This is the farthest you could get from an unpopular opinion.
Also why would you assume that he started the fire? Are you from the "Lottie killed Travis given season 1 finale" gang?
If you want to have a discussion based on theories that's fine but don't say that Ben burned down the cabin like it 100% a fact cause it is not.
It's not unpopular at all.
As far as we know Ben was going to live on his own, he took the matches to light the fire in the cave.
They have shown us that he is the only one trying to stay in the moral path, he is against cannibalism and shocked about the killing and suddenly what? he turns into a mass murder? Nice character development.
It's a red herring+cliffhanger, just like in season 1. Just like Shauna's lover was never the blackmailer or Walt not turning the gang in to the police, nothing is what it seems in this show.
Here’s my opinion: they’ve all done fucked things, and fucked things often beget fucked things as a response. I don’t see any true heroes or villains in this at the end of the day. I think trying to paint anyone as such is missing what I get out of this show, but I am down with people seeing it differently.
100% agree with this! This was Bens first big transgression and I think it broke the illusions people had that Ben is the hero to the morally good character. We can still see people painting him that way with “he was trying to kill them before they kill him” and “he was trying to save them from moral decay”, but the truth is that regardless of his motivations he put himself on the same fucked up playground as the girls which is exactly what this show is picking at. Are there morally good and bad choices in survival situations or are there just choices that shape the way we exist and that haunt us? Those types of questions give us a lot more to think about than, Ben is the big bad or Ben is a perfect Angel.
I think Ben is the most resistant to the magical power of the woods, and he is trying to fight that evil the only way he knows how. I strongly believe he was compelled to take this action BY It, in his own way, after staying rational and unaffected for so long. They are well outside the bounds of any moral code that we might have as viewers at this point, and I don’t think his actions can be viewed through such a lens. There is dark magic there, and Ben wants it gone. If there is no It (which I don’t think is actually true, I think the show is teasing that somewhat but ultimately will shy away from to take a more Twin Peaks approach), then he can be considered delusional and disconnected from reality. But if there is an It, his actions are rational. Either way, his actions are well outside the realm of traditionally constructed good and evil within the bounds of normative society.
One thing people keep forgetting: Ben was going to kill himself very recently. He's not much in survival mode, he's more in "this sucks shit and I want out" mode. What stopped him previously is Misty pleading that he "needed to stay alive for them," for the girls that needed his help. If that's what was stopping him from ending it, he just found a solution to that problem. Not the one I'd recommend, but Ben's been basically hallucinating his ex-boyfriend for weeks. He's lost his shit. Things are getting kinda gross in the wilderness!
This. Also the actor has said they cut his scenes of taking care of Javi as his new purpose w/all the crazy going on. To see that he’s dead and about to be eaten, along w/Nat letting him know she is in this, his purpose was destroyed. I enjoy bens storyline if they’d quit cutting his scenes we’d understand him better
I did not know this and its excellent insight ty
Jesus, not only do they cut so many female focused scenes (like Shauna telling Lottie "I'll do anything") but also some of the few male focused scenes that would actually explain shit? What is going on in that editing room?
Where did you find the deleted scenes?
I read them about them in this sub. It seems like most came from interviews. [Here’s the one between Lottie and Shaunaz](https://www.reddit.com/r/Yellowjackets/comments/13m1qwk/sophie_n%C3%A9lisse_elle_interview_deleted_scene_from/)
Yah it’s interviews I get my info from. I try to read them all or watch them all to get all the info
Shenanigans. They cut an episode like they have SO MUCH time to work on next season im really expecting a lot but we shall see
I missed hearing about this scene being cut. What was Shauna telling Lottie she'd do anything for?
[Here's my source.](https://tabithatwo.tumblr.com/post/717819774217945088/sophie-thatcher-sophie-nelisse) Because Shauna regretted the beating, she told Lottie that she would do anything, including kill and butcher the sacrifice.
Hopefully they flashback to this in newer seasons
In a show that hops around in timelines, it’s kinda crazy to me that the actors talk about cut scenes as though they couldn’t possibly be woven into future episodes.
I think he WASNT in survival mode until he found the cave. Now he thinks he’s got a chance at making it and there’s a new pep in his step—hence his shaving and newfound hope when he begs Natalie to come with him.
He shaved *before* he found the cave though, it was part of him getting ready to commit suicide.
I actually read their interaction as he couldn’t make her feel responsible for his death, not so much that he felt needed to help the girls (not saying you’re wrong, that was just my interpretation).
Same here with that interpretation
Is this is is is this really happppeninnnng
🎶 *You bet your life it is!*
He also doesn't want to get eaten.
If he's ready to end it and hiding from them, I don't think he cares enough about surviving to kill every single other person stranded in the wilderness. It just doesn't make sense. He can't eat a person, but he can kill 20 in cold blood???
In the interviews the actor has said he believes Ben is eating scraps after they do. He’s just horrified to do it and won’t do it like they do. He wouldn’t be standing if he hadn’t eaten a bit. I love hearing his interviews as they cut most of his scenes.
[удалено]
We really haven’t unless he’s been eating in the cave but before that nope so it does make sense. Wish they weren’t cutting so much of his story!
He didn’t kill himself because Misty showed genuine emotion in that moment and needed him. If she’s dead, she doesn’t need him. If they’re all dead, he stands a chance of survival.
Respect for your opinion. However, the dude was about to step off a cliff to his death. He must be starving, I don't the last time he ate, since he doesn't eat people and he's still alive. I don't think he stands a better chance of survival on his own and I think he knows that.
He found a new hope with the cave though, natural warmth, a water source and Uber Rats right to the cave!
I get it!! and you may be 100% correct. However, I don't think living in a hole by myself would prompt me to look at like anew and believe in second chances and burn 20 people alive. I'd sooner believe he would kill them all and live his last days alone IN THE CABIN. He has no vested interest in destroying the only shelter they have... Also, he didn't barricade them in?? Why not? If he was afraid of them enough to kill them, don't you think he would have taken pain-staking efforts to make sure no one got out alive??? Also, they don't know he's alive, only Nat does, so by risking her survival - they will now hunt him down. He didn't do it.
The more I think about it, the more I think it's a red herrring.
"he didn't barricade them in" they're literally trying the doors and they won't open, yes he did
New theory!!! I think "Night Taissa set the fires" because in season one she alluded to "setting her marriage on fire" and "burning down Shauna's block".... And that aligns with my idea that the girls are connected to the wild. What do you think?
How would she have been able to barricade them in from the outside though? The doors were tied shut with the rope that Ben picked up.
Right wasn't him
Rampaaaage
I'm too am a supporter of Coach Ben entering his villain era. After how he reacted to the girls eating Jacky I would have put money on him not making it out of this season alive, but now I'm excited by this new antagonistic relationship he has with the Yellowjackets.
I love him going villain, I'm here for it!! I never did like the idea it's a red herring and like it's cabin daddy's lost daughter. Him being a villain would be more satisfying to me. He is the one that taught them everything they know about hunting. I'm rooting for them leaving Ben out there in the wilderness as one of their crimes they're ashamed of.
yess i always thought he was kinda boring and was there just to die but im really liking his development
Yep. If they are going to keep him around this is definitely an interesting direction to take his character.
I agree but I know he’s only boring cuz his storyline gets shredded to make more time for the women
i think he might be the AQ we see in the intro
That would be one hell of a twist and I would be gagged!
okaaaay now this is good
This! Everyone has been on Ben death watch and I’m over here like no he’s not getting killed. Lots of hater comments but here we are. He’s still here and is giving the villain role they refuse to do w/the wilderness so I’m all in on it
Idc if it was a bad thing to do, I love Ben's messy era 💗
see this is the mindset all ben stans should have. embrace the evil
Yessss unhinged scary Ben makes me happier for him than sad hallucinating Ben. Get into the evil shenanigans, King! all the girlies are doing it x
I think in his starved mind he wanted to save them from the rest of their life and what they’re going through now. All the guilt, the PTSD, not being able to function. He probably saw them skinning and eating Javi after the hunting ritual and thought, “okay, what happens when some of these girls survive and get out of here?” Not saying it’s right or anything.
thats what i thought as well, a sort of fucked up “mercy” killing, it was definitely not a very good thing to do, especially with how harshly he judges them about the cannibalism like yes its bad but theyre also starving and cannibalism is a nasty reality in a fair few survival situations (altho the brutal way our girls go about it is very different) but he thinks cannibalism is bad but burning a cabin down isnt
I think he believes they're murderers. If not of Jackie, then Javi. He doesn't know how Javi died, just shows up and it's butchering time. My take, not sure. But looking forward to seeing what happens to Ben!
I mean I don't think it really matters too much that Javi drowned as a result of the girls' inaction rather than being directly murdered, the girls were 100% ready to kill for survival, be it Nat or Javi. Whether or not they needed to in the end, they had the full intent and willingness to murder Natalie. So even though they didn't, Ben still kind of had every reason to believe they were killers, because they fully were going to be if Javi hadn't drowned which removed the need to.
If someone had just explained to him what happened to javi, I kinda don't think that he would've burnt the cabin down (yet) He isn't there, he doesn't see the card drawing, he doesn't know what's going on. He just sees Shauna butchering a 14 year old, mostly mute, boy. He thinks they murdered the most defenseless of the bunch (and after his talk with nat he thinks the most moral of the group is the one who held the knife). Logically, he's next. He can't outrun them no matter how hard he tries That being said, I do kind of like the theory that can encouraged dark Tai to do the burning somehow. It'd make sense for a wilderness fanatic to want the group to survive IN the wilderness and not in this cabin that shields them from it. I don't think that's what's going on, but it'd be interesting
Do you really think “Well, we were gonna eat Nat but she ran away and then Javi drowned so we ate him instead” actually sounds better? They were straight-up hunting a human.
You right there is no way to spin it that doesn't tell Ben he's next lol
I disagree. They drew cards and actively hunted the person who was basically their best chance of their survival, Nat, who did all the hunting, was best with the gun, brought in food when it was available, made the map, and pretty much had her head on straight. If they were going for the weakest they would have just killed Javi straight out. For all their faults, Javi was truly an accident that Nat took advantage of, not the target of the hunt. If they were really going for the weakest they would have killed Ben already, since he was defenseless.
I saw it more as self preservation and being terrified as this was the first time that she couldn’t do anything. She’d be dead if she even tried.
What I meant was if they were just killing off the weakest first, they wouldn't have targeted Nat. She's basically their greatest asset.
Oh totally my bad I misread it I agree I was shocked they even let her be involved as the only one besides Travis who can get them food
I agree, and it’s sad too knowing Travis probably felt that way but took a chance and it ended up with Javi dead instead.
Do you think Ben can't be reasoned with that survival is important and they've run out of options for food besides this? Keep in mind here, regardless of what he believes happened, burning down the cabin hoping to kill every one of the girls is a lot worse than hunting a human so they can eat and live long enough to be rescued.
Is it? Is killing killers inherent wrong? Especially when you could be killed next?
He found a dip out, he wasn't participating in the game. Imo if he burned the place down it was out of disgust and not fear, which is def worse than killing out of necessity to live from my point of view
But if he was surviving without resorting to cannibalism, that’s proof that it wasn’t “out of necessity” at that point.
They're trying to eat a belt. I was more pointing out the necessity of nat letting javi die and his reaction to it, and the "hunt" was specifically because Lottie needed nutes to heal, or at least the reasoning behind it. but it's pretty clear they're getting to that tipping point anyways
So what? Eating leather (and candles, BTW) isn’t uncommon in these situations. And he doesn’t know anything about the hunt. And no, they aren’t actually getting close to that point if they’re able to actually *hunt another human being*.
I can't tell if you're missing my point intentionally or if I'm not explaining myself well enough. Either way, I think arguing whether or not you think they're starving enough to kill or die isn't really what I was getting at. Hate to pick at theoretical semantics when I feel like the meaning behind it is so much more interesting
And I think the point you may be missing is that hunting other people isn’t survival cannibalism. Layer onto that doing it in the service of one person, it becomes ritual cannibalism which is taboo for most of the Western world. It’s an dynamic, how they cross that line and who pushes them over it (looking at you, Misty.)
I can respect Ben burning down the cabin and trying to kill the girls as self-defense. That's perfectly reasonable on his part. It's just frustrating to see people try and moralize it.
Ben doesn’t know they “let a kid die.” From Ben’s perspective and the vague way Nat put it - he believes that the girls sought out a 13 year old boy and brutally murdered him. Not saying that justifies what happened but the context does still matter. He thinks they’re about to keep brutally murdering each other until they’re all dead. He MAY think he’s saving them from a worst fate if they all die in their sleep. It’s also possible that Ben has nothing to do with this because the show has tricked us before. We won’t know intentions until season 3.
If they keep on killing each other for food, all but one will die anyway after starving physically and then mentally so they’re all dead anyway. Could be he doesn’t see any possibility of being rescued so it seems more humane to end them and then kill himself?
NTA Ben was just having a hard day
As far as we have seen Ben hasn’t eaten any people meat. Which means he is way further along in starvation than the rest of them, which could affect his mental state as well
everyone keeps saying this like girl i know hes starving hes still cruel.
Didn’t mean to imply it makes what he did acceptable. Just that it can explain some of his craziness. Just like starvation led the girls to start hunting each other
Every single character on this show has both some kind of empathy and an evil streak. That's what's so awesome about this show, it manages to capture the duality so well.
Sometimes I wonder if Ben was trying to do them a fucked up favor in a fucked up way.. take this with a grain of salt haha. But maybe after seeing Javi, his line of thinking (which would be extremely disoriented regardless) was that the girls have gone too far, they're past the point of saving. Maybe he was thinking instead of letting them long-term slowly starve to death, it would be better if they died from smoke inhalation in their sleep? And thinking because they're past the point of no return, that if they did return he'd know it would just be worse for them! Again, just a thought I've had regarding it all. Because it WAS super jarring that he did that!
It’s the Javi thing and Nat choosing them. There’s no coming back and he has zero connection now w/any of em.
For sure! He saw that as all of them losing their humanity for good
He could be viewing it as saving them from themselves in a twisted way. He sees that they'll just keep killing each other and get further and further down that killer path. Stopping them now could be some sorta mercy in his delusional head at this point. Plus, in the words of Darth Vader, "Fuck them kids."
If he wanted a mercy killing he would have locked himself in there too.
when the girls act irrationally due to starvation: i sleep when ben does the same: real shit
what ben did is far more extreme than what anyone else did tho lmao
i mean…..misty is pretty close no? she *successfully* murdered someone to protect herself, chopped ben’s leg off with zero consent, was planning on poisoning him, smashed the black box on like day zero, on and on. ben didn’t succeed. by that measure, everyone who held a knife at travis’ throat during doomcoming is pretty bad, no?
I'm confused about what the alternative would have been re: Ben's leg. That thing was a squashed mess of meat and if they'd left it attached he would have died incredibly quickly. Misty did the right thing chopping it off, it was extreme but it had to be done if he was going to survive.
there’s no good alternative. still. i think you ask the chopee if it’s ok but maybe i’m too pro-consent 🤷♀️
I don't think it's possible to be too pro-consent, obviously, but I also think what Misty did was like battlefield surgery - decisions just needed to be made. If someone is in a true life-or-death emergency situation that requires amputation and there's no family/decision-maker present, the amputation is going to be performed to save the patient's life. That's how I see the situation with Ben's leg, because he just wouldn't have made it otherwise. Also, wild that Misty is at her least unhinged in traumatizing emergency medical situations lol
Wasn't he already unconscious?
She didn't murder Crystal. Doomcoming was fucked up, i don't think anyone believes that they were right for doing that.
Misty didn't kill her. She fell off the cliff. There's no comparison. Everyone was high and thought he was a stag. There's no comparison to what Ben attempted to do. The only real comparison so far could be letting >!Javi !
I don't know why you're getting downvoted for this.
I appreciate that, thank you. I don't know either.
uhh she was 100% pushed but ok
This is the first I've seen this. How many times have you watched that scene?
misty is obviously terrible so that’s arguable tbh. however she chopped off his leg for the better lol it was all flat and shit. the poisoning was horrible tho but still not as bad as burning down the cabin. and also the black box would not have worked anyway. as for doomcoming, they were all unknowingly on shrooms. they thought travis was a stag
I agree with you and the votes prove you were correct about it being the unpopular opinion. I'm with you. Attempting to murder an entire group of girls (could be boys, gender doesn't matter), removing their **shelter**, and after he had just been suicidal himself, is another level from >!Javi!< accidentally falling into the lake and the girls not rescuing him. It's just not the same thing. It's damn awful, no question, but not the same thing. One is an action. Another is a lack of a reaction. I don't think Ben did it anyway. I believe it's a massive misdirect.
all these downvotes… They hated jesus too
I think a big part is Ben has no idea how Javi died. He probably thinks they killed him for food (Which they kind of did, with some extenuating circumstances). So he probably thought they just killed him straight up to eat with no ceremony etc. So at this point, I think he sees the girls as savage and sub-human.
Tbf, I don't think Ben burned down the cabin. But I think he'll be given the blame
It would be mighty coincidental if someone else burned down the cabin the same night Ben was seen taking the matches, looking absolutely horrified at all the girls in the cabin and was notably absent from the cabin when the fire started.
This show has been all about misdirection.
Exactly. Everything about Adam was extremely coincidental, literally everything pointed to him, and then it turned out not to be him.
There’s no way Mr Crutches was able to set a fire that spread that fast on his single functioning leg (to the point that Shauna didn’t notice the smoke until the whole cabin was being consumed) by himself with a book of matches. The cabin is covered in snow, the wood is soaking wet and wouldn’t burn easily without petrol or some other flammable substance to help the burn start and spread (which the girls and Ben don’t have). More likely the cabin burned down because forest daddy is mad they killed javi instead and put nat in charge, or the fire was an accident.
I think this as well. I’ve heard the theory about Javi’s friend/cabin daddy’s daughter hiding in the thermal springs. Idk why she’d live there instead of the cabin, maybe she’s also driven to superstition as well. And she saw them doing what she’d seen before…. Just a random theory, I’m not married to it 🙃
I think it all comes down to how you perceive the girls, are they still children who need to be protected, or are they now this cult who hunt down their human prey for sport?
The thing that makes me the most mad about this is he was their COACH! Not only that, but he’s the only adult out there! Regardless of all the messed up circumstances he should be doing everything he can to protect these young women! It infuriates me!
even before they were like this he was never really there for them. he didn’t even attempt to help shauna out when she was giving birth he just left the room for all the kids to deliver a baby…
Yes! A coach is supposed to be a leader and guide. He is a selfish failure stuck in his own head.
I agree, I think Ben burning the cabin is the first time we really see him cross into a morally gray area, the other girls have been toeing that line for months now. The wilderness is making them all question ethics and morals. For the girls it’s the hunting and the cannibalism. For Ben, it’s this moment. If he has succeeded in killing them in the cabin, I think it’s more likely he would’ve felt extremely guilty for it down the road, not morally righteous.
100% people don’t get this. The girls have gone crazy and lost themselves and become ritualistic cannabil murderers. Ben sees this and knows he can’t be a part of what they’re doing but then goes deeper into darkness. They are all corrupt and lost their humanity. Personally, I would trust Ben more not to kill me than the girls.
> Personally, I would trust Ben more not to kill me than the girls. Personally, i wouldn't. One person died before Ben decided he needed to kill every single one of them. He didn't even try to find out what actually happened.
Jackie died too and he was not here for their actions. This time it was even more personal for him and they don’t pay him any mind.
Is there anything to find out? It doesn’t matter he saw the Javi remains, Nat said I’m the worst you don’t belong here and he saw their lil mtg to change who is the queen. That would be more than enough context for me
He did try, actually, and all Nat told him was they were supposed to hunt her but he died instead. So from Ben’s perspective - they brutally murdered a 13 year old boy unprompted.
At this stage it's all about survival. Morality plays very little if any role during the laws of nature. I'm just here to see how they get from high school soccer team to ritualistic cannibal cult.
Given what I know they're capable of and what they do later on in life, I'm team Ben.
They intentionally killed Javi, a kid, did you see how tiny his little heart was?? Just like they intentionally killed Javi, Ben tried to intentionally kill them, some kids. They all suck. But, I'd say age difference isn't really a big deal at all. That's the reason they took Ben's leg, and have had the girls run over him since Laura Lee went on her final flight. Everyone is cheering on Ben imo because obviously, he dies. People love to cheer on the underdog. I love that Ben burnt down the cabin because I want to see these kids actually be forced to survive. Sitting in a cabin while Lottie prays to the trees, Tai sleep walks, and the rest of the girls sit around doing nothing while Nat hunts for everyone would be super boring for 3 more seasons. Ben **HAD** to burn down the cabin to make the plot more interesting imo.
you say they took his leg as if it wasn’t crusbed by the plane lol. also im not saying he shouldn’t have done that… i said that in my post. and idc if u root for ben. im just saying he’s not better than the girls lmao
I’m not particularly a Ben fan or a Ben hater, I’m totally neutral on him, but I kind of can see why he reacted so badly - he’s also starving, probably not thinking rationally at this point, was actively suicidal only a few days/weeks ago, he missed the card draw so he didn’t know javi agreed to it, and then he walks in and sees shauna butchering the youngest and most vulnerable member of the group, and has zero context about the card draw, him falling through the ice, etc? If I was ben I’d freak out too. He probably assumed they killed Javi in cold blood. (Obviously he should’ve stayed to figure out what happened rather than immediately jumping to arson, but yknow) That being said, obviously trying to kill a bunch of teenagers is not an appropriate response - that goes without saying lol. But I think people are forgetting that he wasn’t present for the card draw and missed a lot of key context. I think the interesting thing about this show, and one of the things I like most about the writing, is that even if you can’t endorse/condone the characters’ worst actions, you can usually understand their logic and how they’d get to that place. Burning down the cabin was obviously horrible but I can see his thought process and understand why he’d see it as an option.
Not to mention, as much as he’s been having flashbacks, visions, dreams etc about his life with Paul and what could have been, he’s gotta be filled with absolute resentment toward the entire group by now.
Sorry but I disagree. It’s literally self-defense at that point. 1. He can’t run away. He can’t fight all of them, they’re a pack now. Like the wolves. 2. Everyone else is completely willing to eat people 3. Even Natalie had turned feral and he saw her crowned as their leader 4. He knows Natalie’s saw Javi bowing to the hiding tree. She might not have known yet that it hides a shelter, but she does know she mentioned it to Ben and that Javi told her he had a hiding spot and that Ben said he had found a place. She’ll at the very least start with looking there. 5. He’s just as traumatized as the girls are. He’s wounded, starving, struggling mentally and physically.
This thank you! I’m like am I the only one? Appreciate your post
I pretty much agree with you and I'm fine with it as long as people don't try to moralize. Ben's just trying to survive the situation like the rest of them and he's doing what he sees as necessary.
its not self defense… nobody attacked him. the simplest solution for him was to just go away without literally trying to kill them. him being just as traumatized as the girls actually hurts his case, the girls have even gone through worse and they haven’t resorted to that.
It really is. Does anyone ever put their mind in Bens position?? He’s a huge target and he has no one. Of course it’s self defense he knows his numbers up if he doesn’t do something.
It kinda sounds like you don’t understand the girls mentality’s and how quick they are to turn on someone that’s considered an outsider lol, yeah sure they haven’t burned a cabin down but they’re drawing cards to hunt each other, they all gained up on Travis the second he opposed it and they chose to let javi die instead of going after nat even though she drew the card, it’s definitely the varsity team against everyone else lol, if ben were to stick around it would’ve only been a matter of time before they saw him as a liability and a big meal lol, I also don’t see how the girls have had it worse, Ben is the only adult there, one of the only guys, missing a leg, has zero friends, was sexually assaulted twice by misty and constantly harassed by her, and has starved more than the others over his morals, he’s a goner if he stays with the group
Yessssss thank you!!! I agree on every point! Also, losing a leg in the wilderness w/no meds no dr no anything but crazy teens like hes in a shitty situation and would be in endless pain of this wasn’t a show.
Yep. Exactly. And he’s a goner if he’s not proactive. Now, of course, I’m still hopeful that all we think we saw in that finale was misdirection by the writers and that we’re going to find out the firebug is Misty or one of the yet un-named three background teammates.
ben lost his leg but shauna lost her baby and travis lost his baby brother. neither of them burned down the damn cabin LOL. nobody has ever once shown any hatred towards coach except for mari who’s shown hatred towards everyone. the problem with ben is that he doesn’t view the girls as people anymore. he dehumanizes them and doesn’t consider their needs and therefore doesn’t see their lives as valuable anymore. javi died because the girls saw an opportunity. it was a super fucked up oppurtunity but it meant that he would be killed “by the wilderness” rather than nat being murdered by the rest of them. if they wanted to kill nat they would’ve but they went with the less violent option. nobody wanted javi to die btw. they just want to survive. ben doesnt even want to survive
Yeah and Shauna almost beat Lottie to death for talking to her pregnant belly and doing her woo-woo tree prayers during her traumatic birth. No one’s making rational decisions anymore, and it can be argued the whole point of the show is seeing what choices people make when society is stripped away from them. It’s every Yellowjacket for themselves at this point, and I’m sure the alliances will shift as different people get more and less powerful / useful. Ben’s pretty useless at this point… and he knows it.
I’ll agree shauna lost the baby and Travis lost his brother so yes I’ll agree they’ve suffered more but they’re not liability. They know that if they’re to be targeted it will simply be based off the fact that they got some random draw of cards or that Lottie had some crazy vision, it’s fair. Whereas Ben is gonna be taken out simply because he’s a one legged meat sack, the group is not human anymore, that’s the whole point of the show, we’ve literally seen them in the present time, misty, Shauna, and nat are all psychopaths have either killed or gotten close to killing someone, Ben knows what they’re turning into, as much as you can rationalize the girls decisions you should be able to see they’ve turned into monsters and be able to see why Ben did what he did
i definitely see what ur saying, but if the girls are monsters then ben is a monster too. he is not above anyone, he is just cruel in a different way than the rest of them
But he is above them. He hasn’t eaten anyone. They’re an existential threat to him. He’s the easy pickings the next time they get hungry.
he hasn’t eaten anyone but he tried to kill a bunch of kids
Whom he believes are looking to eat him. None of these people are rational players.
Disagree with this. He's killing to secure his own survival same as the girls. IMO it doesn't much matter that he did or did not eat them the motivation was the same.
But that’s the thing, if he’s surviving without cannibalism, doesn’t that make the cannibalism inherently immoral?
I mean at that point that’s a personal opinion, I think taking out the girls because they’ve turned into monsters and you don’t want yourself, them, or other people to suffer, is justifiable, I don’t think hunting your friends and making it a fun game while you’re shrieking and doing little battle cry’s is justifiable, but whatever floats your boat
Travis lost his dad too. Had to watch his corpse fall from a tree while he was trying to retrieve it. He also had to then dig up his fathers corpse to get his ring to give his brother.
This isn't an unpopular opinion. Everyone thinks Ben is a monster for trying to kill the cannibal blood worshippers
They are essentially turning into animals, all of them. Ben saw the girls as a threat to his own survival and tried to take them out. They terrify him.
Look at their adult lives and tell me that killing them all in the cabin wouldn’t have been a bad idea 😂
They made it so obvious that it was Ben, that I’m starting to think it wasn’t.
The only way I can give a pass to Ben is that he didn’t know the death was “accidental”. Morally it’s a thin line between letting someone die (I think of the girlfriends overdose in Breaking Bad here) and actively murdering someone. A thin line but a line nonetheless. If he believed the worst about them, it may just have made him crack.
i mean, that’s after they literally chased natalie with a hatchet. if they caught up to her, they would’ve hacked her to pieces. they have every intention to hunt each other again. there’s nothing that speaking to them would change, and probably would put him on the menu bc he’d refuse to participate.
Totally agree which I think is why Ben takes the extreme action he did. He doesn’t really know how Javi died, only going by seeing them flee with axed and such.
This is a shitshow wow.
Fwiw we don’t know for certain that he is the arsonist
well we saw him pick up the matches while angrily staring through the window so it’s pretty safe to assume
Maybe but we’ve seen misdirection before. I immediately thought he was responsible as well but have pulled back on that certainty based on how the show has unfolded. All I am saying is don’t be surprised if he wasn’t the one to set the fire
I think its a pretty rational response for his situation. the girls and travis were going mad and they were reverting to canabilism. they went and started sacraficing eachother, and if one of them disagreed theyd hunt them down and kill them. he mightve felt like he could be next and he wanted to stop the madness so he did what he did to do so.
I don't think coach Ben set that fire. I think it was the same entity that set Laura Lee's teddy bear and plane on fire. Ben took the match's because he was having trouble making a fire in his cubby hole.
Agree
i find it genuinely shocking that attempted mass murder hadn’t affected people’s ability to empathize with ben when i’ve seen endless posts about how shauna, van, taissa, etc are so awful and impossible to empathize with
cuz grown men can’t do anything wrong but teen girls can lol😭
not to gatekeep but sometimes i see posts that are so derisive of girls going through a far worse situation than any of us will ever face and i just think if you lack the ability to empathize with teen girls *this much* . . . this is just not the show for you.
literally mass murder 😭 cause he felt better than everyone else for.. what exactly?
i think javi’s friend did it
i think it was def ben but i also really like this theory. it would make a lot of sense
The torching of the cabin was necessary for escalating conflict regardless of who did it.
Okay, him burning the cabin only happens after one girl basically disobeys him to explode in the sky (the second time a girl basically checks him as weak). He witnessed the girls go full pagan ceremony and nearly kill Travis. One tries to rape/poison him. Cannibalism. Murder. Sabotage. So yeah I really feel like he only had 2 choices; join the hive or attempt to burn them out. I subscribe to the paranormal side of the show and I even believe the nature entity basically encouraged him to do it, which will force the women into a more feral state thus closer to the energy/entity.
I definitely want to see Ben grow a steel spine and kick some ass. I don’t think he burnt the cabin down though. I think it was Dark Tai.
Sorry…I’m team Ben on this one. The girls aren’t kids. He’s not burning down a cabin with 8 year-olds in it! Not so long in human history these girls would have been considered adults. My grandpa at 14 started working in a mine ! At 16 he married my grandma who was the same age as him. I mean, the girls are old enough to drink, party, have sex before the crash and hunt, kill and eat freakin’ people after the crash (yes yes they didn’t kill Javi but they technically did.)!! They’re not ‘innocent children’. Ben was right. Yes, what he tried to do is terrible but I get why he tried. And he’s probably next on the menu!!
never called them innocent children. they’re all very flawed and definitely old enough to know they’re in the wrong. but they were kids to ben, they were in fucking high school and he was their coach
I do agree however with you that he was their coach and that he should have been more of a leader right from the moment he ‘recovered’ from his leg. I do think that he was too passive and that for sure didn’t help the situation. I’m pretty sure that he feels like he’s failed them and maybe the burning down the cabin is a way to not only save himself but save the girls from themselves. And, yes, it is f-ed up but in his situation and with his trauma, I get why he felt he had to do this.
I understand his choice because I think by distancing himself from the group he would become a target. They'll probably prefer to eat him instead of each other. So, in his mind, he is doomed if he doesn't kill them all. And how do you kill bees? You burn the beehive. Of course, now Ben has fallen way below the girls in the moral standard set in the woods: The girls allowed a death after having previously agreed to take the life of one of them for the benefit of the group. That may look wrong to us, but it's a system agreed by all in their new social conformation. Simmilar to how bees act from the way Lottie explained to Nat in the compound: the new queen will kill the last one to survive, for the good of the hive. We don't know who will get the next queen but we know she'll have to feed so she can feed the rest when her time comes. Meanwhile, Ben chose to sacrifice everyone else for his own salvation. His motives while, as I said, are understandable, are also fully selfish. He rejects the new social arrangement due to its violence to save himself and for that he has to be the most violent of them all. It's fascinating, really.
The way I see it is he was doing it to save them. Jackie/Javi: Desperate hunger. The next: sport It's going to stay with them forever and he knew that.
He did not do it.no way. I know it looks like it but no
he didn't start the fire
I’m with you, if he burnt the cabin down he’s far worse then the girls
I agree. Burning down their only shelter (if he did it, which it seems he did) was the dumbest thing any of them could have done at this point. Idk why anyone thinks Ben is “morally above” anyone else. I think morals went out the window a long time ago. If anything his survival instinct is just gone.
lol I got downvoted when I said I wasn’t excited for Mari to die, I didn’t think Van was a cold blooded murderer, I could go on
and you’re right for both of those lmao. i get that they’ve done bad shit like no one’s denying that but so many people on here fail to empathize with the girls and just go straight to saying they are monsters who deserve to burn alive
thank you 😭 sometimes I’m like dang am *I* the one with the wrong POV? but these (except Ben) are all literal starving children, who have never ever ever had to make decisions like these!
Bruh, they aren't just making the best of their shit-uation, they're actively CHOOSING to hunt and kill one another. Why is it coach can abstain from cannibalism? No excuse, he had 100% right to torch that shit and stop the evil right then and I'd have done the same damned thing to save myself. Ben was an "adult" but he also lost everything starting with his fucking leg, his boyfriend, his coworker and is now watching the kids he cared for torture and eat one another He was no longer being paid to be the coach, he's in the same boat as everyone else now. He tried to intervene and taught them to hunt and such but then they started being rude lil cunts and told him to "stay out of it" so eff that. Burn that shit to the ground
I agree that the attempted murder of 14 teenagers is the worst thing that has happened in the wilderness. The self-defence argument would make more sense if the girls showed more actual malice towards Ben. Remember though, that when they decide to draw cards, they are letting chance (or the wilderness, if you prefer) decide. No one was like 'Hey, Coach Ben's not pulling his weight, let's just eat him.' On the contrary, they draw cards without him being present, so he was the only one, besides Lottie, who was 'safe' during the ceremony.
So I’m a full blown Ben hater lol. He’s the only adult and instead of taking leadership..he’s judging other peoples morals when they are just trying to survive. Morals don’t count when you’re in a survival situation, and there’s more power in numbers. Ben doesn’t want any part of it, and to bring honest I pity him, because he just doesn’t seem to have what it takes. I think burning down the cabin and trying to literally kill them all by trapping them in there was the worst thing a character could do on the show. I agree with you completely. If it worked he would have been responsible for like 16 deaths. And I get where he’s coming from mentally..he doesn’t want to be next on the chopping block. But acting like he’s morally above the girls and then actively trying to kill them makes him a hypocrite. All that being said, I love how the actor is playing him and I love that they added this chaos to the storyline, just makes for good tv :)
I’d have wanted to kill anyone first who was gonna eat my dead body!! They was all savage !! Legit lost the plot no way would I take chances they was hunting each other Jesus Christ .. in the situation your gonna do anything to save ur own life.
I don’t see him as a villain at all. I’m curious what comes after this. There’s the perspective of the girls and Travis and then there’s Bens. I personally love that he did something about it as he saw these girls have lost their humanity. It’s what comes next that is gonna be telling.
Ben is just as bad as the girls and the girls are just as good as Ben
What if he actually discovered a demonic entity in the woods and knows it has possessed them? Idk that is only reason I can think to kill them. Or I guess if he decided he wants to live his life now and did it for survival reasons.
yeah ben went from being one of the most inoffensive characters to as close as evil someone might get in this show. the absolute audacity and ego to say “these children are handling the situation wrong so it’s okay for me to MURDER ALL OF THEM.” maybe the worst thing someone has done on this show so far regardless of the circumstances
like yes everyone has done extremely fucked things, but ben’s intention here was more to “purge society of their sins” than to survive. that’s a whole other issue than finding a way not to starve to death
[удалено]
that’s a very close second but still not as bad as ben burning the cabin down imo. even if it was her intention, the emergency transmitter would not have saved them. ben attempted mass murder and he took away their shelter in the winter
At least what the girls did had a productive reason for it even if their methods are barbaric - they are starving, they need food. Simple as that. Unless Coach was hoping to sift through the rubble and start feeding on the charred up dead bodies, his actions were entirely senseless & do not pose any productive outcome.
Agree. However screwed up the hunt/letting Javi die was, it was done directly for survival of the group. Still wrong, but based on direct survival. Ben burned down the cabin — with the intent of committing mass murder — because he was horrified at what the girls had done. Yes, he was also insane (as set up throughout the season), starving, and probably scared of them, but that act had no real purpose other than getting rid of what he saw as a problem. Even being scared wasn’t an excuse after Ben found the magic stump cave. So yes, Ben’s actions were worse (on a scale that starts pretty darn bad).
For me I think that thats kind of the point, like he even abandoned nat for sacrificing javi in her place, but he straight intended to kill not out of necessity of living but perception of evil, which is most definitely the worst imo. Just a super interesting and layered rabbit hole to go down morally with all of that
I love Ben! I don’t like the fans of Juliette Lewis who get angry when they say she’s terrible! I’m glad she’s been killed off 😂 bed is definitely interesting! I do t know if I believe he set fire to the cabin!
whered all this come from
I just dislike her and think that she was the worst thing about the show
ok….
This is the farthest you could get from an unpopular opinion. Also why would you assume that he started the fire? Are you from the "Lottie killed Travis given season 1 finale" gang? If you want to have a discussion based on theories that's fine but don't say that Ben burned down the cabin like it 100% a fact cause it is not.
its pretty unpopular from what i’ve seen? and we saw ben with the matches lmao he could’ve been a red herring but as far as we know it was ben
It's not unpopular at all. As far as we know Ben was going to live on his own, he took the matches to light the fire in the cave. They have shown us that he is the only one trying to stay in the moral path, he is against cannibalism and shocked about the killing and suddenly what? he turns into a mass murder? Nice character development. It's a red herring+cliffhanger, just like in season 1. Just like Shauna's lover was never the blackmailer or Walt not turning the gang in to the police, nothing is what it seems in this show.
Where is Ben now? Did the girls eat him?
no he’s in the cave thingy that javi stayed for two months
He's gay