Headscratchers / The Long Walk

• Isn't there a pretty big loophole in the Long Walk? Namely, the fact that The Prize is whatever the winner wants it to be? So theoretically, the winner could request that no more Long Walks ever be held, so that no one else will ever have to suffer what he did. And even if he died of exhaustion minutes later, the government would have no choice but to end the Long Walk forever. Because that's the rule—the winner gets what he wants.
  • There's no one to hold them to it. The Prize is advertised as anything the winner wants, but the fascist government isn't going to hold themselves any rule or promise that hurts or seriously inconveniences them. That's part of what makes them a fascist government.
    • Maybe so, but a fascist government also needs to make sure it citizens are satisfied so they don't feel betrayed and rebel. And if that means always delivering on the promises regarding The Prize, so be it. That's what Bread and Circuses are for, after all.
    • The Walk seems to be so emotionally and physically taxing, it's possible, at the end of it, no one is thinking straight. You might enter thinking, "I'll ask for the position of Major," but by the time you are done, all you can think is, "Let me rest."
  • Have you ever entered a competition that didn't have a list of terms and conditions? The fine print likely specifies that prizes that would be detrimental to the government cannot be chosen.
• A minor one, but: Roger Fenum is number 13. Ray Garraty is number 47. Does that mean that there were over 30 boys in the Walk whose last names began with F?
  • Towards the end of the book, a broadcast is described where the Major draws the 100 walkers one-by-one from a group of names, the remaining 100 being the back-ups. I assume that the numbers were assigned in the order the names were drawn, not in alphabetical order.
    • That ignores the fact that ALL the names/numbers shown in the text are in alphabetical order.
    • Also, Abraham flat-out says that he was fifteenth out of the drum. He's number 2. With Aaronson at 1 and Zuck at 100, I think it's pretty clear the numbers are supposed to be alphabetical.
    • It's not exactly likely, but it's possible. In a dystopian setting where people get Released to Elsewhere all the time and a brutal conflict like WWII went on for several years after it ended in real life and pruned back most family trees, it could be that one or several surnames beginning with F are just that much more common. If you expand some of the implications about the in-universe cultural climate as of WWII and assume there's a following delay of the Civil Rights movement, and assuming that the major historical figures still existed in their right times, it wouldn't be all that strange for those thirty boys to all be named Freeman.
    • In line with the above, Charlie Field and George Fielder are presumably No. 14 and No. 15 after Roger Fenum, while Gallant is presumably No. 46, right behind No. 47 Ray Garraty. That would leave exactly 30 boys — Nos. 16 to 45 — presumably named Freeman.
  • Real-World Explanation: It's a typo, which has somehow gone unnoticed or uncorrected because it is such a minor detail. Roger Fenum is Number 43, not 13.
    • Doubtful, because the 13 Is Unlucky trope is lampshaded upon his death.
    • Most likely, King assigned most of the names to be alphabetical, made Fenum 13 to lampshade 13 Is Unlucky, and didn't notice the odd implication.
• How could the Major have planned Stebbins turning into a borderline superhuman Walker by telling him he does not care that Stebbins is his son for his "white rabbit" plan?
  • Stebbins Sanity was slipping at that point, he possibly made that up or was imagining it.
  • The other characters point out to each other frequently that none of them really know what inspired them to agree to a suicidal thing like the Long Walk: was it a whim? Do they really want the Prize? Do they just want to die? Stebbins is the only one there who really knows why he's walking, and it's enough to keep him going for a very long time. I took it as him having known all along that he wasn't the Major's only son, but being able to delude himself that the Major would still have to take him in, up until the end, when the Walk finally gets to him the way it already did everyone else.
• What happens if the two final boys buy their ticket simultaneously? Do the soldiers choose one to live? Do they shoot them both and the Walk just doesn't have a winner that year? Do they shoot them both and give the Prize to their families? Do they stop giving Warnings when there are only two boys, so that there has to be a winner? Or, given how unlikely that event is, has nobody bothered to figure out what should be done in that situation?
  • I would imagine the soldiers wait until one of the boys makes the smallest movement forward. I think there was one instance where several boys get three tickets, but none are killed. The watermelon scene, maybe? Or they measure who made it slightly further forward. By the end, the Walkers are so exhausted and singularly focused on winning, they might figure the boys will struggle to just make that smallest movement, and if their heart immediately goes out, who cares?
  • It probably doesn't matter if there's no living winner. This isn't like the Hunger Games where the regime needs a victor for a subsequent event.
• Why in the world should a Walker avoid wearing sneakers, as advised by the rulebook? Surely shoes made for sporting that are already broken in are the best choice of durable footwear, not the worst. What type of shoe should they be wearing?
  • I guess the author equates sneakers with fashionable flat-soled shoes like Ewing's PF Flyers, which are terrible for sports. Actual running shoes would indeed be the best choice.