Everyone who has died after the initial plane crash represents an aspect of the typical moral compass which guides us.
Laura Lee is arguably the most obvious representation of this. She's a Christian, the most popular faith in the United States. However, what's interesting about Laura Lee is that she is pious like most stereotypical Christians in media, she undermines this trope via a devotion to Jesus Christ's main message: love. Her faith is a major source of comfort, and it becomes such for Lottie as she begins having hallucinations and visions. She is a warm, comforting, and encourage force in the camp. She is determined, but also naive, represented in her teddy bear. This is why she is the one to attempt to fly the plane--she is the only one determined enough to try while being naive enough to not fully weigh the risks.
Laura Lee is the antithesis to the wilderness. It calls for violence and betrayals. It encourages the girls to give in to their inner darkness. Laura Lee's teddy bear catching fire serves as a visual representation for the girl's remaining shred of childhood. Laura Lee's death results in Lottie losing hope in Christianity, which she only clung to because of Lottie. It forces the girls to accept their reality; they are stuck in the wilderness, and they may never be found.
Jackie rejects the budding hive mind mentality. While the others get high on mushrooms, Jackie remains sober and recognizes the camp's descent into madness. From the very beginning, Jackie had no interest in being a team player. She looks after her needs first, from choosing to save her best friend Shauna over Van to sleeping with Travis so she's no longer a virgin. The group sees Jackie as self-centered, but she is the one who pushes back against the rest of the group when they sexually assault Travis. They lock the sole voice of reason in the closet, and when she continues to push back, the team allows her to sleep inside while knowing winter is approaching.
Lottie makes an important observation in Season 2. While tending to her bees, she notes that in the winter, the bees all keep their queen warm, because they won't survive without her. The camp's Queen Bee was abandoned. She froze, and though they always saw her as self-centered, they tell themselves that Jackie would want them to eat her, the ultimate selfless act. The team needs a new leader to rally behind, resulting in Lottie and then ultimately Natalie stepping into leadership roles. Jackie is the death of the social hierarchy they lived in before the crash. Coach Ben ultimately gave up on fighting for any scrap of control or leadership, but Jackie didn't. Whether as a supernatural act or to move the plot along, Jackie's death means living the rules of civilization behind.
Meanwhile, Javi flees and hides in the underground tunnels, whether by his own discovery or through the help of his friend. He not only escapes the descension of madness at the party, but the savage and brutal act of eating Jackie's body to survive the winter. When he returns, he is quiet and reserved, which leads us to wonder if it was because of his experiences in the cave or if he learned what had been happening above ground through his alleged friend. His most notable instances of speaking are about this friend, and when he decides to help Natalie as the rest of the camp hunts her.
Kristen/Crystal's death is all about honesty and justice. When Misty confesses that she broke the distress signal, Crystal's first reaction is to confess to the group. The group would surely kill Misty and eat her after learning what she'd done, and after the many lives lost because of what Misty had done, it would be justifiable. But abiding by honesty and justice means that Misty risks losing her life. It's all she has, and she's determined to keep it.
Misty didn't mean to kill Crystal. She was desperate and frantic. But she does. She accidentally kills a completely innocent person because she didn't want to face the consequences of her actions. No matter how accidental Crystal's death was, it led to Justice being avoided. In the most unfair outcome possible, the honest one dies and the liar goes free.
Lies have been a big part of the wilderness, whether by omission or outright. Shauna lies to Jackie about the baby to avoid losing her best friend. Natalie lies about finding Javi's bloody clothes. Misty lies about what happened to Crystal. Van and Tai hide Other Tai's existence as much as possible. Natalie lies about Coach's whereabouts, and Mari tries to do the same but crumbles when pushed too hard. These lies and secrets are treated as necessities, whether to protect someone or a dynamic with someone. Honesty is a threat to the stability of the camp.
Javi resisted the ritual and the desire to succumb to the wilderness. We can speculate that he did so because of how much Natalie matters to Travis, but I think that if another girl were in her shoes, Javi would still help her. He's always been a character who feels very deeply, all the way back to when he refused to spit out his gum because it was the last thing his father gave him. Rather than giving into violence or anger, Javi takes to drawing and journaling to cope. He could have tried to rationalize the situation and justify it as the others have when assaulting Travis and eating Jackie's body, yet he thinks with his heart instead. He tries to commit a selfless act and protect someone. Natalie tries to pull him up, but Misty forces her to think rationally--it's either him or her. This connection is further supported by the scene in which Travis picks up Javi's raw heart and bites into it. This is what the writer's want us to remember about Javi, that he thought with his heart over his head and it led to his demise.
To me, the deaths of Crystal and Javi make it clear that Ben is not going to come out of this alive. Based off Ben's reaction to Mari mentioning the cabin burning down, he didn't do it. Moreover, burning the cabin would have been wildly out of character for him. Ben has consistently refused to use violence. He does not partake in the cult rituals, but also does not play an active role in stopping them. He does not eat Jackie's body, but he knows he's powerless to stop the rest of the camp. When everything weighs down on him, he would rather kill himself than hurt someone else. Before he travels to the cliff, he shaves. It's reflective of him confronting reality, now unable to hide in his delusions of a better life. Moreover, it could arguably be a demonstration of Ben taking back control over his life. After losing his leg and his influence over the girls, he's lacked any ounce of control. Ben would rather die than become like the girls.
Now that Ben knows where Javi has been hiding, he has a chance to completely remove himself from the cult. But he doesn't want to just save himself. He tries to take Natalie with him, and he genuinely believes that she still has the opportunity to reject the group's cult mentality.
Like Javi, Ben survives in the wilderness alone. It almost seems like he's being rewarded for distancing himself from the camp after he stumbles upon buried crates of emergency supplies. However, when he accidentally traps Mari instead of a deer, he's presented with a dilemma--will he kill her so he won't be found, or will he let her go? In the end, Ben frees her. His selflessness ultimately leads to his hiding spot being discovered.
While the camp may believe that Ben burned the cabin down, he expresses disbelief when Mari tells him about the cabin. Based off their conversation, he lived in the tunnels through the rest of the winter and never even saw the smoke.
Even if Mari testifies that he didn't know about the fire, we have established that honesty is not a core value of the camp's philosophy.
Ben's resistance to giving in to the divine interpretation of the wilderness even as he starves and witnesses utter horrors is truly the hallmark of a strong character, even if he is not the traditional image of strength. Yet despite this strength, he is too soft for the wilderness. Like those who died before him, he opposes the lawlessness of the wild.
The wilderness is not fair. It is not just. It does not reward the good, nor does it punish the bad. You can let a girl sleep outside or let a boy drown in icy waters, but as long as you eat something--truly, anything to keep you going--you will survive. You can be selfless. You can be kind. You can stand up for what's right. It doesn't matter to nature, because nature is utterly amoral. Nature can be brutal one moment and comforting the next, and the side you experience comes down to good timing.
I believe that Ben did not burn down the cabin, but that the camp will believe that he did. I believe that they'll kill him and eat him, and this will be the true point of no return for them. Eating Jackie and Javi could be rationalized in their heads; it was winter, and they were all going to starve without nourishment. Killing Ben can even be justified if they sincerely believe he set the cabin on fire and view him as a threat.
But to eat him in the middle of the summer, when they have an abundance of food and water? There is no need. It's purely gluttonous, purely savage and animalistic. To me, that's the point of no return.
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