Lost Discussion Group: What's Up with Walt?

The husband and I are rewatching all of Lost and are nearing the end of Season 1. We both just looked at each other tonight while watching Born to Run. Walt was talking to Locke and said "Don't open it." He was talking about the hatch which had just been revealed to Jack and Sayid. Neither of us remembered this from the first viewing, obviously not understanding what would happen. Still not sure if he was right or not.

A question: If Walt knew so much, why'd he get on the raft?

Because his dad did a lot of bad things to get him back and he realizes his father would never be allowed to stay with the group?

I think we will see them again and they were caught by the non-island others. Perhaps the folks at one of those facilities.

Ben told Michael to drive the boat in a specific direction and when Desmond was trying to sail off the island he kept saying he couldn't get out. I don't know if that was a Mental Block or a Physical one though.

Walt is a seriously fascinating subject. First, he (along with Locke and Rose) is one of the few Losties who WANTED to stay on the island, basically because the island reignited and reconnected him with his father - for Walt, the island was safety, security, and having his parents nearby at all times, whereas the outside world represented long distances from dad, a stepfather who didn't want him, and his dead mother. And just as the Others thought Locke was one of the "good guys", so too did they think of Walt as "special", hence his kidnapping.

Second, unlike any other Lostie, the monster/island/Jacob can manifest itself as Walt (think dripping Walt, talking backwards). No other Lostie has been manifested as an illusion/mirage like Walt has. He obviously has some deeper connection to the island.

Third, he was kidnapped by the Others, but we still have no idea what they did with him. Why were they interested? What "tests" did they do on him? Was kidnapping Walt just an elaborate ruse by Ben to separate Michael from the Losties, and force Michael to help Ben kidnap Jack, Kate, and Sawyer (or, more accurately, Jack, so that the spinal surgery could be done)? Or did it have an independent "meaning"?

Fourth (and related to the third reason), Walt seems to have some type of precognitive ability. (His warning to Locke of "don't open it", etc.) What does that mean? Is he connected to Desmond somehow? One theory - he had precognitive abilities on the island, but once he left, BOOM, they were transferred to Desmond?

I think Walt plays a big role in season 4. I think that Walt and Michael somehow returned to the real world, and their doing so alerted the "wrong" people (aka, Naomi's boat) to the existence of the island. Their efforts to help have ultimately hurt the Losties. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Walt and Michael were ON Naomi's boat - once Walt was back NEAR the island, he is able to send a "vision" of himself to Locke that it's not a good idea to call the boat (because Walt knows what evil lurks off-shore).

In fact, that's my official theory (going back a couple weeks) as to how season 4 starts. We see the phone call to the captain, he alerts his strike team to take out anyone on the island, and then he goes to a prison cell/brig and we see Michael and Walt, as the captain warns them that he's found the island, and that all of the Losties will soon be dead.

1) We don't know that it was Smokey imitating Walt. Klugh specifically asks if Walt has been seen in places where he shouldn't be. Given that Walt has already been hinted at having paranormal powers before he ever got near the island (the bird incident back home in Australia), it is not unreasonable to assume Walt is capable of Astral Projection or something similar.

Aside: Yes, I hate the concept and will be severely grumpy if parapsychology falls under the "everything can be explained scientifically" the showrunners have promised us. However, parapsychology was mentioned in the Swan Orientation Video, so it is part of Lost's reality. Then there is the whole little matter of the whispers, whose unconfirmed transcripts you can look at here:
http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Whisper_transcripts

2) The impression I got was that the Others were happy to get Walt off their hands. If I was Ben, and I had a troublesome, bordering on dangerous, person to get rid of, who would I send him to bother? Why, that would be Dharma. In my view, Walt and Michael sailed right through the Island's barrier - and then got immediately picked up by a Hanso/Dharma boat Ben knew to be in the area. (In my version of events, the boat is part of Dharma's intentionally crashed 815 plot.) The Walt we saw talk to John in the season finale was the "real" Walt projecting from the boat, after learning that the people on the boat were up to no good.

3) So if Walt had his powers before the island, where'd he get them from? In my mind, he simply had them from birth, and Hanso has quietly been testing the children that come through its medical centers (perhaps it thinks that mindreaders can defuse the tensions that will lead to the fiery end of humanity the Valenzetti Equation predicts). Or maybe Dharma/Hanso has been providing a little something extra in their vaccination shots (not a new idea, used in Snow Crash and Saturn's Race, off the top of my head), hoping to develop paranormals. Lost certainly pointed out that Michael and his wife did not come from money, the kind of people that might go to a free clinic (sponsored by Hanso) with their new child - and when they detected a hit, there goes the job offer, to get Walt in Amsterdam - which just happens to be the headquarters of Hanso.

4) So where does Walt go from here? As already mentioned, his noticeable "growth spurt" is required if he shows up in "the future". I am thinking he will be in some exclusive boarding school for "gifted youngsters" (he can't be living at home if Perrineau doesn't rejoin the cast, after all) sponsored by Dharma, and gets sucked back into Jack's plot to get back to the island.

Chad, one minor correction: the Others grabbed all the children, not just Walt because he was special. In my mind, the Others assume that all children are naturally good and automatically get put onto their "rescue" list. That's also why they send Walt and his father off on the boat, rather than just capping them, because they can't harm children. You'll also note that they had to stop and forcibly grab Walt before they destroyed the Lostie raft - because they couldn't let a child get hurt.

This leads to Aaron, and the likely conclusion that, despite the ominous camera angles, the Others would have treated Aaron well - and also note that they couldn't just grab Aaron, they had to get Claire to sign him away. Clearly, regardless of how amoral the Others are to the treatment of adults, the rules are different for children.

But the Others didn't get Rousseau's permission to take Alex.

Chaddogg, I'm intrigued by your Walt scenario and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

There are also a lot of flat out inconsistencies between Rousseau's testimony and what we believe to be the history of the island - and on top of that, Rousseau's recorded message we heard in the finale doesn't match up with her previous testimony either.

Heck, in Rousseau's own words, she killed her own husband - maybe the Others just concluded she wasn't competent to sign over custody.

Although you post does remind me that Alex was also treated well (as far as we can tell), and that even after betraying the Others, Ben doesn't kill Alex, but instead banishes her to the protection of her mother.

Gerry - I wish I had one. Have James get me a part-time job at Time....

Tom - I'm intrigued by your theory that the Others wanted to get Walt off their hands. Why do you have that impression (not attacking you, just curious)?

I also like your thought that they grabbed Walt before they destroyed the raft as a "protect children" mantra, but for a different reason - the Others KNEW that the raft would never sail away (there's evidently only 1 path off the island), so they destroyed it to save the Losties from killing themselves trying to sail away. Taking Walt, then, was an added bonus - a chance to lure Michael to them and turn him in order to eventually get Jack to help Ben (or, alternatively, because they're focused on testing children for research purposes). Still, unlike the tail section of the plane, the Others NEVER made an attempt to kidnap Walt (the only kid with the Losties) until that boat trip - there's gotta be something to that.

I think Walt comes back for sure (but what's this about Harold Perrineau not rejoining the cast? Is that confirmed?) next season, possibly being with the Naomi's boat crew as an (unwitting) accomplice in helping them find the island (hence his mirage-vision warning to Locke to stop Jack from making the phone call).

But that creates a different problem - is it the Island that creates visions, or people (like Walt)? Or is it just that certain people can tap in to the island's vision-making powers? But then how to explain Kate's horse, or Jack and his dad? Is it just that for Walt he's tapped in to the island and can make visions happen at will, but with the "adults" they need powerful emotions to create the visions? Is that why the Others are fascinated with children - because they can see the visions (like Ben seeing his dead mother) and they cannot? And is that why Locke is a threat to Ben, because he's the only other adult who can see visions, or hear Jacob?

The rabbit hole just gets deeper and deeper....

That's it? 8 (now 9) comments?

Wow, we're slipping....I guess it loses some of its urgency when you're still about 7 months away from new episodes. But with ComicCon coming up (and the evident disclosures that Abrams and Cuse have promised about the direction of the show to be revealed there), I'm surprised we can't get to at least double digits in comments.

Well at least we've broken double digits now. (If we used Flight of the Conchords logic we broke triple digits at comment three).

I just went back to "Three Minutes" from season 1 where we see what really happened when Michael was captured by the others. Walt says they made him take tests. Could there be some kind of 'proof of innocence' for children, like we saw for Locke, and Ben claimed everyone went through, that is (hopefully) less intense than killing your father?

I have the same impression as Tom Shaw that the Others were looking to get rid of Walt. I think Walt's powers were more than the Others bargained for. I think, in the orientation process, Jacob spoke to Walt and Ben freaked, like he did with Locke. He couldn't kill Walt, so he had to let him go. Michael forced him to leave on the small boat but they were both picked up by Naomi's ship. Walt has been looking to get back to the island to help Jacob and finally accomplished this around the time that Locke was shot and left for dead. This would explain Walt's telling Locke "there's work to do". Walt could have learned of Naomi's intentions, and warned Locke who then saw the need to kill her and stop Jack from making the phone call. Maybe Walt and Locke will go on to work together and help Jacob, whatever that might come to mean.

Mrs. Klugh also threatened to put Walt "back in the room". Could we assume she's referring to the Clockwork Orange brainwashing room where we first saw Carl? Maybe they were attempting to force Walt to join their community, which would have been nice since it's not a very diverse group.

This was mentioned but I believe is worth repeating - Walt's psychic powers started off the island. He drew a picture of the kamakazi bird before it crashed into the window, the first of many 'strange' occurences that caused the rift between him and his step father.

It's also worth noting that since day one, Walt was the only person the normally enigmatic Locke was upfront and honest with. Locke told him about his miraculous recovery, played backgammon with him, taught him to throw a knife and hunt - it would seem Locke was slowly preparing him for something as well.

I used to think that Walt would be revealed to be (somehow) the reason that they were all on the island--like maybe The Others made the plane crash just to study Walt. After he left, I wasn't so sure. I had the opposite feeling as some of you. Instead of thinking the others wanted to get rid of Walt--I wondered how they could let him go--if they knew the abilities that he had. But maybe you guys are right--they just could not control him so they had to let him go. Seems dangerous still.

I definitely thought that the comraderie between Locke and Walt was noteworthy - Locke definitely seemed to sense something in the boy, which I chalk up to Locke's intrinsic connection/communion with the island. Walt's alienation from his (real) father and the abandonment by his stepfather fit right in with Locke's personal history too - neither of them trust or can count on the father figures in their lives.

I hold with Justin D.'s theory that Walk was just too much for the Others to handle, and that he was probably able to commune with the island or talk to Jacob in a way that really blew them away. Interesting that Walt is the only alive person that the island can project images of. . .

Good correlation of Locke and Walt both lacking father figures. Not that that is an unheard of theme on the show (Jack, Kate, Hurley, Desmond in a way) but Walt's and Locke's are very similar. The island as surrogate father? At least to them it would seem.

When Locke put the stuff on Boone in Season 1 and he saw Shannon get killed by the monster, does that count as an 'island projection'? If so, then the island can show living people, since Boone saw Shannon and that was before she was killed.