Subject: Re: RS: Ben Horne
From: keb3@po.CWRU.Edu (Keith E. Bitely)
Date: 1991-05-01, 12:01
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

In a previous article, fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis) says:
> > Ben, to the camera and for our benefit, has remarked that
> >it is very hard to do right. Not the most illuminating moral statement,
> >but it indicates that the issue perplexes him. Now, even with the
> >murder of Laura Palmer, we were not faced with characters struggling
> >with good & evil. All the good guys did good; all the bad guys did
> >bad. We were involved in Beat The Clock melodrama. Now, Ben Horne
> >has been deflated to comic status. He is a hairball. But, by
> >trying to do the right thing, he SHOULD engage our sympathies. He
> >didn't make the comment about Good's difficulty to anyone but us.
> >The Drama isn't great, but it's a break from the auto-pilot
> >status of everyone else.

This made me think of something.  I'm not sure if it has been mentioned before
or not.  

Anyway, Ben says how it's hard to be good.  He's been doing bad things, but
he wants to be good.  Laura, most evident in the diary, says it's hard to
be good.  She did 'bad' things (according to society...drugs, promiscuity,
etc.).  She wants to be good.  I remember one P.S. statement from her diary
that said something to the effect that she really, really wants to be good.

BOB was plagueing (sp?) Laura, tormenting her until her death.  BOB, in 
essence, was a great deal of the reason why Laura was bad.  She had to die
to escape from being bad.  BOB was in Leland, but never got to Laura, never
got to inhabit Laura, even though that's what, I think, he was trying to do.
BOB appeared to Laura many times by first being outside of her window.

Remember in the last episode how Ben turned around, startled, and looked at
the (was it a window or a door?)?.  Maybe he saw BOB.  Maybe BOB is trying
to get to Ben.  And, while Ben has done bad things in the past, he's going
through one of his try-to-be-good phases.  But, BOB still torments him like
BOB tormented Laura. 

One last thing...I mentioned above how Laura was promiscuous.  As we all know,
so is Ben.  He's slept with his wife (obviously), and he's also slept with
Laura (I'm assuming...he did say once that he loved her...furthering the
Ben/Laura connection), he's slept with Eileen (if he is truly Donna's 
father), he's slept with Catherine, he's probably slept with many a prostitute
from one-eyed Jack's, including Blackie.  And, some have even speculated
that Ben is Laura's father too, furthering the Ben/Laura connection and
adding yet one more person to the list of people that Ben has had sexual
relations with.

I just thought of this...something to play around with  :)

Keith
-- "I sat very still...so that the rat couldn't get to my foot. I couldn't stop thinking of how awful it was going to feel when it closed its jaws around my ankle and bit down...And so...because I knew all he wanted was my foot, _I bit my foot off myself_." From _The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer_ (Jennifer Lynch)