Subject: just putting in our four cents before the BIG show
From: pouncy@campus.swarthmore.edu
Date: 1990-11-10, 13:00
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

Ben Horne did it.  Here's the scoop.

1.  Ben rests at the center of all the evil networks in
    town:  prostitution, murder, fraud, arson, adultery,
    drugs, etc.  Ben obviously takes great pleasure from
    his many vices.  BOB feeds on pleasure or fear.  

2.  Fire walks with Ben.  In the last episode (11/3)
    he drinks a toast to his office fire and there were
    a number of extreme closeups of Ben lighting his cigar.
    Not to forget the burning of the ledger scene with brother
    Jerry:  "We have to burn something! - Where are those 
    hickory sticks."  Also, Ben was instrumental in having
    the mill burn down.  If we look at the show as (at some level) a
    struggle between wood and fire, then Ben is on the side
    of fire - and therefore evil.  

3.  Our hypothesis is that the Great Northern Hotel is built
    on an ancient and sacred Indian site (we are way out on a
    limb here and we know it).  The hotel's decorations 
    are littered with totem poles, Northwest Indian paintings
    and a statue of an Indian chief in Coop's room.  Also,
    remember in the first season that Ben's mad son wore an
    Indian headdress.  Ben's desk sits in front of an Indian
    painting of an evil looking owl.  

    Originally, the Hotel's construction plus Ben's future plans for 
    the Ghostwood Estate has aroused and continues to arouse 
    an epic struggle among good and evil spirits
    from the Indian world.  Was the Great Northern Hotel built 
    forty years ago?

    The giant and the dwarf are good spirits.
    And BOB is no angel.  In Northwest Indian culture, in fact,
    BOB is the bad spirit (read fire) that threatens the woods, 
    who is called the BOOKWUS (see our previous posting on Northwest 
    Indian culture).  The BOOKWUS in Northwest Indian tradition 
    looks like an evil owl - the one in Ben's office at the Great Northern.
    BTW the BOOKHOUSE boys' main job is to fight the BOOKWUS
    ("There is evil in the woods" sayeth the Judge).  (It is 
    ironic that Anglo culture takes on the name of an Indian
    entity, but transforms its mission from evil to good.)

4.  The struggle among contending spirits, as in Greek Drama,
    has led mere mortals to commit acts that are both good and bad.
    Laura Palmer's murder was but one of these evil acts.
    BOB tried to take over Laura's body and soul, but Laura tried
    to break free.  He decided to kill her using his host from the
    Great Northern, Ben Horne.  

5.  This leaves the most delicious suspect, Leland Palmer, her dad,
    off the hook.  He himself is evil.  He has committed incest 
    with Laura.  He, too, has hosted BOB.  He, too, walks with fire
    (he can flick matches with the best of them).  But, he is ordinary
    evil, not THE evil.  Like other previous hosts - one-armed man,
    Harold Smith, etc., he is a spent force.  Ben Horne remains a
    vital force for evil in Twin Peaks.  

6.  The rest of the season will be dominated by various trials, 
    mainly that of Ben Horne.  This will give Lynch a priceless
    opportunity to put the log lady, Andy, One-Armed Man and
    Major Briggs on the witness stand in that frontier-like 
    courtroom.  Can you imagine some of the arguments - 
    "an evil spirit made me do it!@."

Diarmuid Maguire      Hillard Pouncy