I actually liked Ben
Yeah I know, shocking isn't it? In fact he's one of my favourite character he's also the most realistic imo. I thought all the stuff he did wasn't great, but at least understandable.
What did you think of Ben? Also don't play that "he killed everyone" card because by now it's plainly obvious he didn't.
What did you think of Ben? Also don't play that "he killed everyone" card because by now it's plainly obvious he didn't.
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No he really did...
But a lot of people, including me, can relate to him. As occasional fuck ups, just like him. Probably not that big, though.
I could find him sympathetic, and I still tried to save him despite everything, but the moments of selfish cowardice and increasingly asinine choices made him harder and harder to stomach.
That's the point, probably all of us are occasional fuck ups, c'mon let's be honest. BUT, they made him a total fuck up, so much that it wasn't even realistic.
Okay you said "imo", fine that's your opinion, but I must disagree there.
He is unrealistically dumb to such an excent, where it is nothing but ridiculous, seriously, if he is so stupid, that he took the axe from the doorhandle, I wonder why the hell he goes to college. C'mon it's the door, through which they entered so it could've only been one of them, his group who put the axe there. Hell he even gave it to Lee in the first place.
He was trying to help, maybe if someone in the group actually cared for him and trained him to fight he wouldn't be 'f*cking up' nearly as much.
So basically he's still a fuck up in need of common sense being bashed into his skull. Now no one else gets special treatment. And when I say special, I mean special in a "I ain't gonna call this boy a retard in public" kinda way.
So sure, he could have been made better by other people, but he was also the only one drastically in need of it, unlike the other characters. Even a little girl caught on quicker to survival and relationships than him. And he's old enough to have learned something by then. Not about fighting zeds, that wasn't even his problem, but about life in general.
He was a college kid, he never was on his own, most likely never lived on his own, he hasn't learned shit, he's practically still a kid, just older. Only thing he knows is school so far. He is probably that average guy, who's only hanging around with friends and not doing much besides that. He never got to do anything that might've been useful.
But common sense is to be expected at that age, can't argue there.
Exactly the same here. I didn't like Ben's attitude at times, but other than that i didn't have a problem with him.
Maybe I'd be more accepting if he had just shown any concern for Clementine when I had asked him to watch her. Maybe if he could figure out that telling Kenny traumatic information about his family's deaths during a critical moment wouldn't be ideal. Maybe if he had told someone about the bandits before we took the bag out of the grate. But he didn't.
It didn't help Ben that throughout his time in Lee's group, hardly anyone seemed to give a damn about him. I would talk to him whenever I could, try to let him know that I was somebody who cared. Clementine is naturally nice to him, but the only adult he felt even remotely connected with was Lee. When his guilt was eating away at him, he went to Lee to talk to.
I kept trying to keep his spirits up by sternly encouraging rather than berating him during the events of Episode 4. I always appreciated that he always had that desire to help, despite his heavy shortcomings. That moment in the bell tower was when he had completely given up on himself and Lee was put in that position to decide whether he would give up on him too. Given how he had grown on me so much, I couldn't bring myself to do that.
So to HarjKS, I'm with ya. He was my friend. If Kenny can forgive Ben, then so can we.
I agree, that the group could have taught him a few things here and there, but there is a difference between "fucking up" and being dagerously stupid.
With the shit he pulled off, I'd recommend him to wear a straitjacket for his own sake, not to speak for the whole group's good.
I can sympathise with him being uncertain of himself, and being unable to talk to most of the group, but even still some of his mistakes are inexcusable (hatchet in the door). It can't be avoided that even once you take his age into his account he is clearly very, very stupid.
Ben though never helped himself. A few people have mentioned his isolation, but the two people who are seen standing up for him (Carley/Clem), his efforts at returning the favour are meek if not totally absent and that is not on at all. For a group to function it's members need to be prepared to protect one another. Whatever your excuse, cowards get people killed. I was friendly to him in episode 2 & most of 3. It then became clear his behaviour had been and was going to be a threat to Clem (Too late for Carley, Kat, Duck and Chuck). The final straw was him ignoring my advice and telling Kenny what he did at the worst possible time (getting someone else killed).
He meant well, but was beyond help and didn't have the attitude to change so i dropped him ( + i was angry for what he had already done, so part of me wanted to kill him just for that)
Not going to judge the people who like Ben though, everyone relates and connects differently (though i've yet to see a Larry fan...). I personally can't stand him. It's maybe a bit of self-loathing since i fear i'd end up a bit like him (only less stupid).
All that said, Ben is really the type of person who's just incompetent and a selfish coward no matter what. And yes, people like that do exist. When I was in basic training, there was one kid who was just a complete mess. No matter how much the drill instructors train him (and I know they used a combination of both berating and encouraging him) and how much the rest of us tried to help him, he just sucked at everything. He would panic in field exercises and become overly reliant on others and not contribute. The idiot even lost his rifle once, and then later lost the bolt for his rifle. People like this are the exception for the most part in my experience, but Ben really reminded me of this guy, which is one reason I really dislike Ben. So anyway, the point is no matter how much support others are willing to give--and I think basic training in the army is quite supportive despite all the yelling and screaming because it's pretty damn hard to fail--some people just suck at life. Ben is one of those.
If it wasn't for Ben, the story would have been bland and uninteresting.
There are many more ways the story could have gone that didn't involve Ben or a Ben-like character, and still be interesting. We'll probably be seeing some examples of this in Season 2...
Things are looking up for the second protagonist's survival already.
Yeah, but I'm sure telltale finds a way to give him/her a hard time surviving.
He has more than one death scene, and boy we could have done so much in the other one!
I figure there's atleast one guy like that in every course of basic; we had a couple in our platoon at Benning.
In Ben's case, it's not even that he's a reverse King Midas that turns everything he touches to crap, or that can he be pants on head stupid, he's just not a particularly good person when the chips are down. He had no problem stealing medical supplies from the group that had just taken in him and intentionally left a little girl to get eaten alive.
I don't think he threw Carley under the bus, yes what he did to Clem actually made me mad and considered killing him but I did remember that I still quite liked him and honestly reading through these posts- I'm not sure as to why. I guess he reminds me, of myself even though I'm much younger.
In an apocalypse I would be screwing up as well and I'd be scared if I was in the situations he was in, I still think Telltale should of sticked with the original Ben persona (whatever it was). I guess liking Ben and in fact characters in media in general really does determine from personal experiences.
But there's one relationship with Ben that I'm really not sure of. His relationship with Carley, now at first I thought they had formed a dating relationship between Episode 2 and 3 but that's clearly not the case since someone like Lee is a much better option than Ben. I think.
But if you cast your mind back to Episode 2, when Andy St. John asks how many are in your group and you say 'Nine', Carley says 'Ten' and is the first to actually say that Ben is now part of the group.
During Episode 3, Carley does also some-what support Ben and Ben even says she's a "stand up-gal". Now what from I've heard a 'stand-up gal' normally refers to a woman with whom a man associate with and has developed a solid friendship with them.
Also during Episode 2's climax, Ben and Carley are seen together and Carley helps lead Ben on to find and help Kenny. In fact this same relationship is also with Doug and Ben, but there are more hints that they're friends since neither of them were both fighters and the fact Doug saved Ben's life.
Honestly, I'm starting to think Ben got 'some' gun training off-screen (which would also explain the couple of walkers he killed when they were invading Fevel's house).
What do you guys think?
Ben threw Carley under the bus. Here's why:
Lilly was making serious accusations against Carley. Lilly also seemed intent on making Carley the traitor. Lilly made it clear there will very severe consequences by threatening to exile the traitor. Instead of owning up to his actions, Ben decided to allow his friend be accused and potentially suffer the consequences. As we know, the consequences went way beyond exile.
Ben may not have accused Carley, but he did not confess and allowed Carley to take the heat to save his own skin. This is the same as a selfish/twisted criminal showing up to watch a trial of an innocent person being falsely accused and being sentenced to death. Understandable? Yeah, but it isn't right especially when the accused is supposed to be your friend. This is throwing someone else under the bus in order to avoid suffering the consequences.
While it's pretty established that Carley treated Ben as a friend, I've argued before that all relationships is a two-way street. Just because Carley treated Ben as a friend doesn't mean Ben did. And what happened outside the RV shows Ben isn't a true friend but instead a selfish coward. Ben is the type who would attach himself to any kind person because he's not capable of standing on his own.
It's funny you initially thought Carley and Ben had something romantic going on considering Carley is an NPR reporter who, I'd guess, is probably late 20s/early 30s. On the other hand, Ben was clearly a high school student. :eek:
Ben did stand up for Carley in the bust by saying "Look Carley is a stand-up gal." Yes he could have admitted what he did but you have to remember Ben is what 17 and 18, and in some medical studies it has been shown that teens feel more stress than adults do so the amount of stress and pressure on Ben was probably huge at the time. As well as you said it seems Lilly was intent upon convicting Carley even to the point of not waiting for everyone's opinion. Which is the main reason I can't blame Ben for Carley's death or say he was throwing her under the bus. Rather than Lilly waiting for Kenny to give his two cents she just took out her gun and shot. That would be like in court if the judge shot defendant before the verdict had even been given by the jury. As well who knows what Ben would have said if Lilly hadn't taken derangement into his own hands. It even seems he was about to admit what he did in the RV before Kenny hit the walker, and then Lilly went into crazy mode making everything tense beyond all belief.
(For Gods sake, I just spent an hour explaining this but my laptop ran out of battery -_-)
Right, Ben could have confessed if Lilly calmed down and just shut up. I just blame Kenny for being an idiot and killing off Larry- To be honest I probably wouldn't confess in a case like that when a crazy woman is shouting and causing distress.
For what it's worth, it seems like the rest of the group treated Ben as a child instead of an adult, much to his dismay.
"So you're just gonna leave me on the bench here?"
"Hey, I'm doing the best I can here!"
"Maybe you're fine with having someone's blood on your hands but that's not me!"
It's like holy fuck dude.
The first one I laughed at.
The second one, I snickered and rolled my eyes.
The third one... my eyes burned with fury and I wished I had dropped the kid!
I agree with you, but that doesn't really detract from the fact that he should have manned up. If he didn't want to be treated like a child, he shouldn't have acted like one. And the "It wasn't me" attitude every time Lee speaks to him played to me like he wanted Lee to coddle him or be softer with him like Lee was with the children, and Lee just wasn't doing it. I saw Ben as an adult, so I treated him like one, and honestly I think Ben thought I was too hard on him.
That being said, I will say that I didn't think he was actually the thief during my first play through, and defended him tooth and nail. I thought he was wussy, but I didn't think he would betray us (honestly, I thought it was one of the kids taking stuff - not in a malicious way, but in a childish way). So I guess that says something about the investment I had in the characters - I wasn't one to immediately judge him or dismiss him, I tried to protect him and give him a chance. But when he admitted it was his fault to me on the train, and STILL got all upset when I told him off about it, I was done with him.
Agreed. His actions in episodes 3 and 4 really angered me as well. He not only lied but screamed at Lee's face when i asked him point blank if he did it. Along with his attitude about not watching Clem and telling Kenny, i probably would have dropped him if i had those thoughts in mind at the time.
Don't forget his death count, including himself. Also, he would have gotten Clem killed, but Chuck, who died to save her, kept her from getting eaten, while a CERTAIN LITTLE KID would have just left.
He lied to pretty much everyone.
Also, he was asked to watch Clem twice, and failed both times. And he still yelled in your face when you told him point blank to watch her.
Doesn't mean he isn't fuggin annoying :P