Question: Why did Will lie about having twelve brothers? What did he think it would achieve? And why would someone as smart as Skylar believe it?
KeyZOid
9th Mar 2015
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Answer: The judge pointed out that Will "went through several foster homes." Whether the foster parents had their own biological children and/or other foster kids, Will could have easily had twelve "brothers" who were the functional equivalent of biological brothers. Using his own operational definition of "brother", Will had twelve, so was not lying. However, using a more common definition of "brother", Will was not exactly telling the truth. Will can be said to have told her a "white lie" - only telling her what he wanted to and omitting the details. This can be a type of defense mechanism, giving her the impression that he - like almost everyone else - grew up in a family with his siblings. In a way, he was protecting himself by hiding the way in which he was raised. Because it wasn't typical for Will to become attached to whatever girl he was seeing, he saw no need to reveal his past (although, unknown to him at the time, this relationship would turn out differently than previous ones).
Why would she think that he was making up something like how many brothers he has? Not only did Will go through the names of his twelve "brothers", he was able to convincingly repeat the twelve names after she asked him to. IF he had not been able to quickly repeat a sequence of twelve boys' names, it would have been a giveaway that he was lying. Common sense was more significant than intelligence in discerning whether or not Will was telling the truth. (But common sense often does not match reality).
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Chosen answer: It's just part of his personality. He had become used to keeping people at a distance and made up stories so they didn't know what he was actually like. There's no reason for Skylar not to believe him at first. Large families with ten or more children are not unheard of, particularly if the parents have been married more than once.
raywest ★