Ben

[Lou]

pffft.. what's wrong with you people? Seriously.. what was so bad about the character of Ben?

Did you WATCH S5?

He was okay as soothing hospital guy helping Buffy.

It was about the time he starts talking with the minions, finds out Dawn's the Key but does NOTHING WHAT SO EVER to help Buffy or Dawn or anyone else....just rolls along like an idiot.
Why not LEAVE TOWN? Or run to Buffy and tell her the WHOLE STORY? Or throw himself off a roof?
No, it's MUCH more fun to act shifty, speak in riddles so we don't know more than we're supposed to at any given moment and insure an impending apocalypse. Play doctor while at the same time turning into some woman who's making everyone crazy so you have to summon some weird demon from mars to eat the crazy people.

He's a ponce and NOT good at logical thinking!

 

[T.I.P]

As i said before, i actually liked him, despite his foolishness, right up until Spiral. I dont even really mind that he wanted to save himself instead of Dawn(who wouldnt) but what annoys me is he messed up once, then twice, then the Spiral incident, and i was like ''come on Ben, pull your socks up''

 

[Skanky Vamp]

finds out Dawn's the Key but does NOTHING WHAT SO EVER to help Buffy or Dawn or anyone else....

But why SHOULD he help Buffy or Dawn or anyone else? Why should he leave town, kill himself etc etc He did nothing wrong! except for...

is he messed up once

I do agree that if you are gunna gut someone you dont pussyfoot around, you gut 'em good and proper. I still dont see the other incidents as being a mistake.

if ya'll dont vote me off the island I might could dig this place.. i like to play devils advocate

 

[T.I.P]

But why SHOULD he help Buffy or Dawn or anyone else? Why should he leave town, kill himself etc etc He did nothing wrong! except for.]

If he SHOULDNT help Dawn or Buffy maybe he should have just left instead of choosing to hang around(hang around them specificly)

 

[Lou]

He did NOTHING WRONG?

Okay, how about playing, "I'm All Good and Pure and wouldn't hurt a fly" while KNOWING FULL WELL that Glory wanted to get the key (which would mean killing Dawn, assumably the sister of a girl he's interested in dating) to open a portal to a giant hell dimension and kill EVERYONE, including him?
That's not somewhat of a BAD THING?

So, if I know one of my multiple personalities plans to kill most of the planet for selfish reasons....I should just go on with my life and not warn anyone or put myself in a padded cell?

That's some LOVELY, but rather selfish logic there!

 

[Skanky Vamp]

If he SHOULDNT help Dawn or Buffy maybe he should have just left instead of choosing to hang around(hang around them specificly)

What good would leaving do when Glory would head right back there? He was only in control part of the time. He couldnt just pack up her minions and palatial estate and wander off somewhere.
[br][/br]
Edit:
[br][/br]

Hopen a portal to a giant hell dimension and kill EVERYONE, including him?

Actually Glory told him that HE could live. 🙂 As I said, that is all he cared about. Living his life as normal as he could.

 

[Lou]

DUH! It takes a while to get from Sweden to Sunnydale!
[br][/br]
Edit:
[br][/br]

Actually Glory told him that HE could live. As I said, that is all he cared about. Living his life as normal as he could.

Yeah, cuz it's fun to live and flourish at your job when EVERYONE ELSE IS DEAD!

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

DUH! It takes a while to get from Sweden to Sunnydale!

Not for a Goddess. Just sayin'. Travel wasn't really an option.

 

[Lou]

It doesn't really SHOW her traveling at the speed of light. She seems to move about the same speed as everyone else. I'd bet, she'd have to fly in a plane! I mean, she had to buy the snake stuff at the magic box like everyone else!

 

[Blondie Bear]

^ She doesn't go at the speed of light, but she does get blurry. BUT we never see her teleport or anything. It's implied that she CAN'T. So it would take her awhile to get back, especially if every time Ben took control again he moved them further away.

 

[fly on the wall]

I just wanted to add something else that bothered me about Ben. Well, more the actor than Ben himself. I hate how he delivered his lines, with all the words strung together.
"HereDawnhere'ssomehotchocolateImadeitforyouI'msorryIforgotmarshmallowsmaybenexttime."
"BuffyI'msorryaboutyourmombutdon'tworryhe'sagooddoctorhe'lltakecareofeverythingyoushouldrest."
Gahhh. 😡

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

^ She doesn't go at the speed of light, but she does get blurry. BUT we never see her teleport or anything. It's implied that she CAN'T. So it would take her awhile to get back, especially if every time Ben took control again he moved them further away.

She wasn't exactly exerting herself though. That was only as fast as she had to go to easily catch up with Buffy. She didn't even break a sweat. If she had to get back to Sunnydale, I'm sure she could.

 

[Washburne]

I guess I would like to think that most people in a situation like that would choose to give up their own life to save the lives of many, but in reality I am sure most people would choose to save themselves.

The survival instinct is an amzing thing. Yes, I hate Ben for certain things, but they are understandable. Do I hate Ben in general? No, he´s just human. No love, no hate but I do care about him. So I guess that makes me voteless.

I'd like to think that I would give up my life to save others, but who knows if I could actually do it.

Sitting here in front of the computer I can easly say that I would sacrifice my life for others. Humankind as a whole (like that option ever would appear? Duh!), or for people that are "special" to me. Random person? Probably not. But if the option ever would come up for real I´d probably do a "Ben" and be majorly selfish. Talk is easy, action not so much.


Totally off topic:

Spoiler

Language lesson of today. Ben in swedish means leg or bone. Somebody please stop me...

 

[Fake Shemp]

personally i saw that each others essence of being was bleeding into each other... thats why he was willing to kill dawn.

 

[Senior Watcher]

Ben's whole character was built around his wanting to live. Just to have a normal life. In the end, once the key was discovered, it didnt matter if Glory or the Key won- as long as he could have a normal life as a result. That is why he "hid" who he was, because he knew it would be his death if anyone found out.

arent you forgetting that ben was in a losing battle with his other half (glory)? it was said numerous times that glory is becoming more dominant over the body than ben. there was one scene where ben got fired from the hospital because he was gone for 2 weeks and didnt know it. the point being that ben was going to die/fade out whether he wanted it or not.

With that reasoning Dawn should have killed herself as well.

that is a good point, however, its not dawn who should commit suicide. since dawn was created by mystical forces AND the fact that her being alive put the whole world at risk, buffy should have killed her. its buffys job to protect the world from mystical demons and gods. i was very upset with her decision to not kill dawn, however, it did make for good drama between her and giles.

One could argue that Ben had more of a right to live as he was human, whereas Dawn was not. She was just energy made flesh.

i stand behind what i said previously, ben should have killed himself; he knew what he was; he could have sacrificed himself to save the entire planet; not too many people can say that.

lastly, was ben more human than dawn? think about that long and hard scobro. i think that you will find that both are half fleshy human and both are half mystical. both couldnt help the circumstance they were in, but only one (ben) knew how to save the world.

so, no, i dont like ben. he is scum.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

it was said numerous times that glory is becoming more dominant over the body than ben.

Right, but as long as Glory did not have the key when the time passed Glory would fade away also. That is why the key needed to remain hidden.

buffy should have killed her (dawn). its buffys job to protect the world from mystical demons and gods.

I agree

lastly, was ben more human than dawn? think about that long and hard scobro. i think that you will find that both are half fleshy human and both are half mystical.

That is correct, yet only one (Ben) was born human. As the story was told a human male was born that would be the gods prison. Ben was born human, Dawn was made human.. that is way I said Ben was more human. But yes, now (or then) both were only half human.

 

[caritas08]

I voted "Loved Him" but that is because I thought he was a brilliant character, not a good person. I liked Ben because he was initially a good person who wanted to help people and be a doctor. However, when his character was tested he didn't meet the bar. He allowed Glory to suck people's brains, he summoned the Queller Demon to cover up her actions, and he was willing to sacrifice Dawn (and millions of other people's lives) to save his own. I think he is an interesting character however because Buffy and Angel include so many examples of normal people who unselfishly rise above overwhelming odds for the greater good. Ben is a normal person who has to face overwhelming odds and he makes a very selfish and cruel (but understandable) choice.

 

[Lou]

I just gotta say, I'd be happier with Ben if I had seen any active role in trying to STOP Glory.
I'm all for self preservation and maybe he shouldn't have thrown himself off a building. HOWEVER, there's not much "self preservation" to I'm the only person alive, either.

He basically KILLS all the crazy people by bringing the crazy person eater from space.
Then he finds out Dawn is the key and what does he do? Goes to a party and asks Buffy out? That's RIDICULOUS!

All we ever really got to see was what happened when Glory emerged at times it was HELPFUL for her to emerge. It would have been nice to see Ben do something like, mail a letter to Dawn and Buffy saying anything he knew about Glory. Or doing something proactive other than just not help the minions.
Even when he KNEW they wanted him to get Buffy's address and were actively looking for her, he goes and wants to SPEND MORE TIME WITH HER knowing Glory could emerge at any given moment?
Surely he knows more about her than Buffy did or even we do. Why not try staying AWAY from Dawn and her family? Even if she can move fast, Sweden still seems like a nice place to try. It would take SOME time for her to make her way back and maybe he could emerge again in that time frame.

Sipping cocoa and going to parties hardly looks to me like a man who's concerned about the general well being of ANYONE knowing what he knows.

 

[Crazy Flakes]

I think, as the season progressed, it became increasingly obvious that Ben didn't really care about humanity at all...he just wanted to prove that it was his life, not Glory's. He seemed to do that by trying to stick it to her in any way possible, whether that meant becoming a doctor or hiding the key from her. And yeah, as everyone else has said, I think he's scum.

 

[JenniferAlice]

I HATE Ben, he was an idiot, I'm glad Giles finished him off, what a tosser.