Quote:
Originally Posted by Devlonir
I actually debated before that Lilly is actually to blame for Ben not coming clean on the deal with the bandits.
If Lilly had been the kind of leader that inspires trust in people, instead of the kind of person she was, than Ben would have come to her with the offer the bandits made instead of keep it to himself. Now, he felt he could not share it with her so did it all behind her back. Which caused the paranoia and, through that, the deaths of Doug/Carley, Katjaa and Duck.
Him feeling guilty for those deaths comes from his own sense of guilt, but in the same debate.. his entire guilt and the deaths coming from that (Brie and Kenny) are then also on Lilly's shoulder.
If you follow that through, than Ben was nothing but a victim of circumstances created by an untrusting Lilly who did not inspire the group of survivors to be open and honest to each other.
Not saying it's the best way to see it, just that it is very much not black and white here. Just because he feels he is to blame, doesn't mean he is.
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Except originally the bandits didn't make any kind of offer; Ben himself says as much. The bandits claimed to be keeping one of his friends hostage; leaving aside that he was stupid enough to both believe them and give them supplies, his motives weren't exactly good here - he was basically screwing the group to potentially help one of his people. Ultimately, it's no different than Vernon stealing the boat.
Hell, even leaving everything else aside, by Lee and Kenny's account, they both could've died on any of the supply runs they made to Macon, and the theft of those supplies meant more time risking their asses outside of camp to replace them.
Personal responsibility. What Ben chose to do and not do is entirely his fault, nobody else's. Real-life Leadership isn't some perk or statistic where if it's high enough people just automagically fall in line. If a guy doesn't like you and/or is atleast just dead set on ignoring you and doing his own thing (as Ben clearly was), it wouldn't matter if you had all the leadership power of every great leader in history... odds are good that guy ain't gonna do what you want unless you have mind control beams.