New (almost) baseless theory - The school wasn't a school for troubled youth at all
If it's a boarding school for troubled youth, where parents with out of control kids send said kids to let someone else deal with them, all of the kids would have been too young to be students. The oldest of the kids, Marlon, Louis, Brody, are all around Clem's age, and she was 8 when shit went down. You don't send 8 year old kids to boarding school as "troubled" youth; that's something you do with tweens and teens who are too big for their britches and won't behave.
The school was just a boarding school rich asshole parents send their kids to so they don't have to deal with them. Marlon added the 'troubled youth' bit for whatever reason when he was giving Clem a tour. This explains why all the kids were there, even Willy and Tenn who were both way too young at the onset of the ZA to be considered "troubled" and sent off to a boarding school because of it. However if their parents were rich and just wanted to send their kids to a fancy boarding school so they can continue to jet set and do their rich asshole things, that'd be mostly believable.
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That's actually a pretty interesting theory.
It'd put the fact that the Headmaster and the other adults seemingly up and left in a new light, plus, it could act as some backstory to flesh out at least certain members of the group.
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If it was just a boarding school for rich kids I'm sure they would have a preschool section and I'm sure it cost even more than sending older kids, probably double because smaller kids need even more attention and care. If there's money to be made, it's a thing.
Oooh, wait what if maybe it was a school for gifted students. I know that is it confirmed that Sophie and Minnie were gifted with the arts, so possibly?
That'd fit in pretty well with Louis and Omar, at least.
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True.
Course, we're not entirely sure about what the others could do, but there's enough precedent for some retroactive talent reveals.
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I mean, if we're being honest from a writing standpoint, making it a Boarding School for Troubled Youth is obviously a way of tantalizing these new characters when it probably could've just been an orphanage or something.
I always thought that it was supposed to be Marlon’s cute nickname for the school. Was it supposed to be for troubled youth?
Is there boarding schools for kids who behave badly out there IRL? Enlighten me
Yup. Don’t know any examples but they exist
It’s a more of a school for gifted kids
Marlon is a great marksman
Tenn can draw and also a medic
Louis and Sophie or minnie I forgot which one can sing
Omar is a great chef
Mitch can curve neat stuff
Willy... has a loud voice?
Aasim maybe writing?
I can’t think of anything for brody and ruby
Young kids don’t count as ‘troubled youth’ so this theory fits in well.
What if the Raiders were the original troubled youth, and stuck close by while families and their kids settled into the Boarding School? Could some of the troubled youth been pregnant when they got to the school before the zombies spread everywhere?
While everybody else is obsessing over ships, Hillybilly Dave is out here creating interesting threads and asking good questions. Respect.
...Huhn...?
Like, I actually that'd be a really cool twist if you ignore the possibility that Abel and Lilly are among them, but it's still inherently kind of a "what?".
See, I thought of that in relation to where the hell Tenn came from considering he looks nothing like Sophie and Minerva, but I actually didn't want to go there.
Respect.
The only confirmed raider we know of is Abel, everyone else could be in their 20’s while Abel and Lily lead them?
I guess?
It'd be lumping a number of hypotheses together, for better or worse.
That’s all we can really do, might as well go all out
Darn tootin, brother.
Honestly, kids can be 'troubled' in all sorts of ways. Take it from a guy that ended up in a pre-school for kids with behavioral issues/disabilities, this kind of stuff can manifest at a much younger age than you'd think. Anger issues, difficulty focusing/accomplishing tasks, anxiety issues, physical disabilities, speech impediments, difficulty socializing, and the list goes on.
A place like Ericson existing doesn't seem that far out of the realm of believability to me. Nor does the presumed ages of a majority of the kids living there. Although I will admit there are exceptions in the form of kids like Tenn or Willy, who could not have been older than 3 or 4 when this all started.
Well, episode 2 shot my theory down. While looking for bomb materials in the greenhouse, Mitch talks about how he made his first bomb at 8 and that's why he was a "troubled" youth.