After hearing about Richard's "school for special children" I got to thinking and this is probably totally wrong. I can infer from Richard's talk about a school for special children and the talk of Mitelos, which was used to recruit Juliet that he may have been in the habit of recruiting other children. I got to thinking that perhaps Charlotte spent time on the island at some point in her childhood? Perhaps she was approached as a child and brought to the island. That smile on her face when she found the polar bear collar was nostalgic and happy. And think about her namesake, C.S. Lewis who wrote the Narnia books in which children go to a magical place where time runs slower, but I could be reaching. Horace did say he had been dead for 12 years which would put the purge at about 1992 and because Richard was off island in the fifties and sixties it is conceivable Charlotte could have come to the island during her childhood. Unfortunately, the writers strike robbed us of the freighties flashbacks and I'm certain they wouldn't have given it away in her first flashback but would have given a hint. Like I said I may be totally wrong but I immediately flashed to the Charlotte Tunisia scene when Richard brought up the school for special children and the science camp.

After hearing about Richard's "school for special children" I got to thinking and this is probably totally wrong. I can infer from Richard's talk about a school for special children and the talk of Mitelos, which was used to recruit Juliet that he may have been in the habit of recruiting other children. I got to thinking that perhaps Charlotte spent time on the island at some point in her childhood? Perhaps she was approached as a child and brought to the island. That smile on her face when she found the polar bear collar was nostalgic and happy. And think about her namesake, C.S. Lewis who wrote the Narnia books in which children go to a magical place where time runs slower, but I could be reaching. Horace did say he had been dead for 12 years which would put the purge at about 1992 and because Richard was off island in the fifties and sixties it is conceivable Charlotte could have come to the island during her childhood. Unfortunately, the writers strike robbed us of the freighties flashbacks and I'm certain they wouldn't have given it away in her first flashback but would have given a hint. Like I said I may be totally wrong but I immediately flashed to the Charlotte Tunisia scene when Richard brought up the school for special children and the science camp.

Good point! In the CS Lewis series, Chronicles of Narnia, in "The Silver Chair" there is reference to a school called "Experiment House." Lewis says "It was a mixed school [meaning boys and girls together], but not half so mixed as the minds of the people who ran it." Jill and Eustace have the great misfortune to be stuck in Experiment House, until they go through a garden gate into Narnia (being pursued by Experiment House thugs, btw.)

Mittelos is a kind of "experiment house" too, especially in its manipulation of children (i.e. their obsession with pregnancy; Emily's claim of a miraculous conception; kidnapping the children of the 815 castaways, etc.)