2am Racoon Party

It’s not as present in the first movie because Marta gets herself into a lot of danger on her own, but Blanc consistently:

1. Actively encourages people towards dramatic actions that frequently put their health and safety at risk

2. Doesn’t *not* care for human life, but often prioritizes other things in situations where human life is at risk

We see this several times in Glass Onion with his interactions with Helen. Blanc is the person to bring up imitating her sister and coming to the island, and though he does also bring up the danger inherent in that idea, one could argue that it is his responsibility in that moment to dissuade Helen, rather than just tell her about the danger.

In fact I find his interactions with Helen in that scene to be potentially manipulative— designed to convince her to come to the island with him in a way that leaves her believing it was her choice.

He also implicitly encourages her to the rebellion we see at the end of the movie and *hands her the piece of Klear she needs to follow through on it*. As an audience it is a cathartic, if pyrrhic, victory for Helen, but she has once again been pushed into a course of action that is actively dangerous to her by Blanc. She could get hurt or killed by using the Klear, and she will most certainly be burdened with years and years of court cases at minimum about the events of that day. Even if she survives it, she could end up in prison!

And Benoit himself is always so insulated from the consequences by virtue of framing himself as an outsider. Helen bears by far the majority of the danger by coming to Bron’s island in the first place— Blanc is a world renowned detective who does not so obviously pose a threat, and at the end of the movie he leaves the compound right after encouraging Helen to blow it up.

It’s also notable that for this example, he didn’t say anything to her explicitly about what she should do. He leaves himself legally clean for what is about to happen.

In Wake Up Dead Man, Blanc admits that he “regrets his stalling” as he tries to get to Dr. Nat’s house and hopes that the two “aren’t too late”. In this we see that Blanc *does* care about human life, but it is not the most important consideration at any given moment. He also later reveals that he knew Martha had poisoned herself before giving her confession and withheld that information.

He claims he “knew it was too late”, but Benoit Blanc is not a doctor. Instead, he valued the truth coming out more than he valued potentially saving Martha’s life.

Over and over again we watch Blanc push and prod people in dangerous ways, withhold potentially lifesaving information, and risk tragedy in service of finding the truth, all the while positioning himself as a neutral party.