Wilt

[Vampyre]

I don't know I mean... This is TWICE that Bloo has appeared as elderly in this season... (I have no idea if Say It Isn't Sew has aired on television yet so I'm shoving this in spolier tags)

Spoiler Below

When Bloo is dreaming about being stuck in the fabric straw for the rest of his life, he appears as an elderly friend, hobbiling a long with a walking stick or something, and I doubt that if Bloo wasn't going to grow old someday, that he would imagine himself as old... I dunno, I'm not to good a figuring out how people (or IFs in this case) work, just working out what causes certain people's nightmares....

[Cassini90125]

Uh, people, I think this discussion might be better held in the Something Old, Something Bloo thread? We're getting reather off-topic here.

[antgirl1]

Maybe imaginaries have longer life-spans than humans (Uncle Pockets) and will, at a range of certain ages, age, like people say. It's almost like I can see SOMETHING in Wilt's past that made him look YOUNGER, but I have no clue what it is, and it's NOT the fact that he's "broken" that made him look "older". The answer is there, but I don't know what it is.

[Vampyre]

Yeah I can see that too. He DOES look a LOT younger in the flashbacks and the only thing that's different is just the absence of his arm and the wonky-ness of his eye...

[x_dummkoff_x]

maybe it's cuz he seems so happy and....
not troubled in the flashbacks.

[FailedShapeshifter]

It's not just that, maybe it's that he aged in a subtle way.....I don't know... To me he just looked brighter....and more youthful. And Wilt's never actually looked all that troubled to me except in Good Wilt Hunting, oh, and Cheese a Go-Go. Maybe it's just the past haunting him like you said.....

[pitbulllady]

Wilt DEFINATELY looks younger in those flashbacks, and it's not just because of the arm and eye thing, like y'all said. It's subtle, but the change is there, and even if you compare a happy "NOW" pic of him to the flashbacks, EVEN if it was one of the flashback scenes where he looks worried, he still looks older now than he did then. I'm sure that all the emotional and physical trauma he's been through has contributed to that, too.

pitbulllady

[scary_dream]

Thank you for mentioning that! Whenever I saw GWH and Wilt with two arms and two eyes, I thought SOMETHING about him was very different, and it wasn't the arm or the eye. I'm glad you mentioned it was that he looked considerably younger, because it was going to drive me crazy.

To me, in GWH flashbacks, he looked... I don't know, bubblier? As in, his lines were more curvy and his facial shape was fuller and just, for lack of a better word, "bubblier".

[pitbulllady]

Originally Posted by scary_dream

Thank you for mentioning that! Whenever I saw GWH and Wilt with two arms and two eyes, I thought SOMETHING about him was very different, and it wasn't the arm or the eye. I'm glad you mentioned it was that he looked considerably younger, because it was going to drive me crazy.

To me, in GWH flashbacks, he looked... I don't know, bubblier? As in, his lines were more curvy and his facial shape was fuller and just, for lack of a better word, "bubblier".

He looked a lot more confident and carefree, and just plain HAPPIER. I realize now that a lot of Wilt's "happiness" has been forced; it's been a front, probably to avoid bringing others around him down. Wilt has often done a very good job of pretending to be completely happy so he doesn't worry or bother anyone else or make them feel bad. In the flashbacks, his feelings are real. He just has that "top of the world" look about that you'd expect from someone who is young and feels like they've got it all, before they've had a chance to experience real heartache and set-back after set-back, and found out that the world out there isn't always a very nice place. I guess that some of Wilt's world-weariness, for lack of a better term, can also be attributed to him having been created to be more like a surrogate adult in the first place, whereas a lot of Imaginary Friends are more like perpetually young children, in terms of their emotions and thoughts. Most young kids don't really spend a lot of time thinking about the more unpleasant aspects of existance, like paying bills, wars, energy crises, crime, environmental issues, and such, because THEY are pretty much the center of their own universe, but as they get older, they become more and more aware of things going on around them and in the world at large, and how some of these things can have a pretty negative effect on everyone. Adults just plain worry more, because most of them can see "the big picture". Since Wilt is more like an adult, he's surely aware of some of the awful things that go on day to day, in various parts of the globe, and while he doesn't go on and on about them, due to his tendency to internalize emotions, that awareness is surely adding to to his countenance.

pitbulllady

[Chaos Wielder]

Originally Posted by pitbulllady

He looked a lot more confident and carefree, and just plain HAPPIER. I realize now that a lot of Wilt's "happiness" has been forced; it's been a front, probably to avoid bringing others around him down. Wilt has often done a very good job of pretending to be completely happy so he doesn't worry or bother anyone else or make them feel bad. In the flashbacks, his feelings are real. He just has that "top of the world" look about that you'd expect from someone who is young and feels like they've got it all, before they've had a chance to experience real heartache and set-back after set-back, and found out that the world out there isn't always a very nice place. I guess that some of Wilt's world-weariness, for lack of a better term, can also be attributed to him having been created to be more like a surrogate adult in the first place, whereas a lot of Imaginary Friends are more like perpetually young children, in terms of their emotions and thoughts. Most young kids don't really spend a lot of time thinking about the more unpleasant aspects of existance, like paying bills, wars, energy crises, crime, environmental issues, and such, because THEY are pretty much the center of their own universe, but as they get older, they become more and more aware of things going on around them and in the world at large, and how some of these things can have a pretty negative effect on everyone. Adults just plain worry more, because most of them can see "the big picture". Since Wilt is more like an adult, he's surely aware of some of the awful things that go on day to day, in various parts of the globe, and while he doesn't go on and on about them, due to his tendency to internalize emotions, that awareness is surely adding to to his countenance.

pitbulllady

Well said, pitbulllady. I couldn't have said it better myself. Basically, the way I see it, Wilt looks younger in the flashbacks because he...well...really HAD no worries or troubles at that point. He was at his peak-he had (and still DOES have, in my opinion) amazing basketball skills, he still had Jordan hanging around with him and it seemed as if NOBODY could top him. He was just...on top of the world! He hadn't really had to face any dilemmas at that point, so it would be quite obvious that his happiness is genuine there. THAT is what Wilt was like when he was "truly" happy.

But as we all already know, once he lost that all-important game along with his arm and eye is where the guilt immediately started to build. Not to mention it's hard to tell what ELSE he went through after that (between then and the time he arrived at Foster's). That endless guilt that had built up over the years along with the other troubles he was bound to have seen and went through would definitely make Wilt "grow up", so to speak (even though I'm tempted to say that he was already quite mature to begin with since he was always on the lookout for Jordan almost as if he were his older brother). At that point, he had went through all of those experiences that he more than likely never even thought about before. He knew what it was like to lose something important to him, so NOW he knows what it's like to truly go through tough times in life. His experiences have made him the adult that he is now, basically.