Distractions: Antagonists

In Lost there are always "Others". "They" are either coming, or they're already here, or they've already got guns pointed at your head. The Others themselves of course have "Them" too, and by this point you have no idea who's fighting who. There are other Others too, and you're not sure how in contact these Others are with the first group of Others who you met previously and had book clubs and baked muffins and got a satellite feed of the World Series, before everything went to hell.

In the first season there was only one antagonist, and it was the island by proxy of an unseen monster. At some point the writers thought that, while creepy, there was only so many times you could have someone get chased by something that ripped up trees Jurassic Park style and have it be compelling. Thus came the first face of the antagonism of the island-- the first Other. In one of Lost's first great reversals, the benign and quiet Ethan, sporting khakis and a Hawaiian shirt,  was revealed as having never been on the plane. Instantly all of the menace and mystery of the island was condensed into Ethan's inscrutable stare. His eyes spoke of all of the otherness, the unknown, the black forests that surrounded the survivors' beach. They were blank and predatory, and every time he had a close up I couldn't help but think of Quint's speech in Jaws:

Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living...

There was something of the forces of nature and the island in the way that Ethan coolly beat Jack bloody. His actions were inexorable, he couldn't be questioned or challenged. His was the face of everything dangerous-- but only for a little while. Charlie took care of him with a clip of bullets.

The next Other meets a great deal more suspicion when he tries to insinuate himself, and hence gets both beaten and locked up. Unlike Ethan, he doesn't look evil. We're left for a few episodes wondering if Jack and the rest of the muscle crew is overreacting. He's weak limbed, and has big, buggy eyes that look good with a bloom of black eye behind them. He's cringing, but clever, and spent the time between interrogations reading. He lacked the physical threat that Ethan presented, but Jack was correct in that there was something off about him. When Sayid determined that the man that their prisoner claimed to be was in fact dead, we met the next face of the Other, Benjamin Linus.

Ben is a different beast than Ethan. For seasons, his motives were hidden, but his means were clear: lie, cheat, manipulate, and murder. With a sociopath's skill he lead his Others in both raids and book clubs. He made uneasy alliances and promptly betrayed them, occasionally he kept his word, but would sooner shoot someone in the back. Unlike Ethan, he was a more rounded villain, someone who was always a threat but delightfully so. In TV tropes speak, he's the consummate Magnificient Bastard. His unlikely looks belied some truly badass villainry.

But slowly, very slowly, Ben was made to be gradually more and more sympathetic. His life quickly spiralled into disaster-- he lost his leadership to a man who had been even more infirm, his only family (albeit gotten in a Ben Linus manner), and finally his only home, mostly of his own doing. So as Ben's status as a villain slipped, who was to take his place?

As Richard said to Locke when the latter was shot by Ethan, "Well, what comes around goes around," and it is the Monster's turn again, now that he has the face of a hero.