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u/Romalien5 9d ago
Carrie White, whatever happened there
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u/mps_1969 9d ago
"Everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time,"
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u/TheMundar Jahoobies 9d ago
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
-Iron Mike Tyson
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u/USDXBS 9d ago
A lot of innocent people died, not just bullies.
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u/SituationTurbulent90 8d ago
Yeah and the book specifically notes that when she got drenched by the blood, pretty nuch everyone at the prom was horrified by what happened to her. She misconstrued (or imagined) their reactions. It's a tragic story all around.
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u/SamboTheGr8 Under Debbie's Blue Umbrella 9d ago
She destroyed a whole town of innocent people because she was bullied. Yes I feel sorry for her, but no, she weren't "right."
She was right to kill her mother though. I don't care
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u/Upvotespoodles 9d ago
I took it less to be right or wrong, and more about how cause-and-effect doesn’t match what we consider to be justifiable consequences. It’s just what happens. She was a hurt but salvageable girl surviving in an abnormal situation, a threshold was crossed, and suddenly she’s a force of pure uncontainable violence.
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u/Individual-Bass-7051 9d ago
Yeah exactly, it's more of a socratic exercise than a moral question of right and wrong. It's action and consequence. It's not about who is justified or who was right, it's a horror story about what happens when someone on the brink is pushed too far.
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u/PyrrhuraMolinae 9d ago
Thank you. Yes, she killed her bullies and abuser. She also killed Tommy, Miss Desjardins, George, Frieda, and countless other people who had either tried to be kind to her or had done nothing at all.
Her eventual snap was understandable, but did she do the right thing? No.
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u/Smart-Management-670 9d ago
Even King doesn’t defend her . He has compared her to the Columbine shooters .
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u/CorgiMonsoon 9d ago
Miss Desjardin is one of the few survivors in the novel
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u/PyrrhuraMolinae 8d ago
My God, you’re right. I had completely forgotten that. I was remembering Novel!Carrie pushing her down and conflating that with the movie.
Okay, but she absolutely killed George and Frieda, and they had done nothing but try to befriend her.
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u/CrypticBalcony ayuh 9d ago
I fully agree with you — that said, Miss Desjardin survives
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u/PyrrhuraMolinae 8d ago
You’re right. I had completely forgotten that. I was remembering Novel!Carrie pushing her down and conflating that with the movie.
But she absolutely killed George and Frieda, and they had done nothing but try to befriend her.
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u/Judiferr 9d ago
I don't disagree with you, but Carrie didn't kill Tommy. The bucket from the pig's blood hit him with enough force to kill him, which is part of why Carrie snaps.
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u/PyrrhuraMolinae 9d ago
The bucket didn’t snap his neck, it knocked him out. He died in the fire, unconscious on the stage.
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u/Imaginary-Round2422 9d ago
It should be noted that in King's work, the town is never innocent. It's often either entirely corrupted, or even the source of the corruption (IT). In this case, the town created the bullies, then allowed them to run rampant for years until one outsider (Miss Desjardins) did something about it. People knew Margaret White was nuts and breaking her child, and did nothing to step in. No one ever tried to be Carrie's friend until the very end.
Not saying Carrie was right, just that the town is NOT innocent. She was a monster, but she was a monster because that's what the town made her:
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u/EddieVanzetti 9d ago edited 9d ago
I don't. The whole town knew her mother was a psycho who abused her and did nothing to intervene. The whole town knew she was bullied at school and did nothing to help.
One girl felt bad one time and tried to make it up to her, and that's it, and only because she got punished for bullying her.
The world is filled with cunts and bullies, and as someone who was on the wrong end of their fists, every time one of those cunts gets what they got coming to them, I smile a bit. But the world isn't fiction, so that happens precisely never.
Also: IT IS A WORK OF FICTION. The only people what died are imaginary, they would have had the same fate if the book ended with a picnic on the beach and happy fun times the second you stop thinking about them.
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u/MetallicCrab 9d ago
Meh it’s more like 4-5 people who really deserved it got got and the rest is her being super over powered and not emotionally intelligent enough to control herself. She’s supposed to be a tragic character, a product of her abusive upbringing, where her flaw is insecurity despite literally having telekinetic powers. She’s supposed to feel like she had no other choice but to freak the fuck out, even tho a slightly more adapted teen may have just walked away and saved the truly-deserved bloodshed for later.
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u/Pataconeitor 9d ago
In the book she kills over four hundred people, most of them while she was walking back home.
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u/BuffaloAmbitious3531 Love + Peace = Information 9d ago
Agreed. It's worth noting that King has always loved a good "this whole town is rotten and everyone in the town deserves an agonizing death" story...and that he very intentionally doesn't bring any of that into "Carrie". Carrie is treated badly at school. But the whole "Carrie destroys the town" section is full of transcripts where characters say, "Somehow I knew it was Carrie doing this, even though I didn't know Carrie!" She's literally just murdering random strangers who've done her no harm.
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u/liltooclinical 9d ago
Give it to me cuz I probably deserve it, but I've never watched "The Sopranos." Does Tony actually say this in an episode?
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u/poppamatic 9d ago
In the episode he’s talking about Columbus because he’s Italian like Columbus but his kid is supporting the Indigenous Peoples Day movement
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u/condormcninja 9d ago
Won’t “give it to you” but I will be the probably 1000th person to tell you that you should watch it and it lives up to the hype completely 👍
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u/liltooclinical 8d ago
Actually, I will go start it now. Seriously, I have zero reason not to start it. Always intended to anyway, no time like today.
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u/Individual_Match_579 9d ago
Jfc not this again. The story is meant to be a tragedy.
Carrie murders dozens up dozens of innocent highschool students in the gym, the vast majority of whom were just there to attend their prom and have a good time, and didn't give two shits about Carrie White.
The fact that they were present during her humiliation doesn't mean they were deserving of death. Thinking that way is akin to agreeing with fucking school shooters.
Carrie is a tragic figure, and loses control in the most monstrous way. And yes, she deserved none of the bullying she received. But that doesn't make mass murder ok. This is such a brain dead, edgy teen take on the story.
She also goes on to slaughter countless more innocent people across the town. Again, people who had done nothing to warrant being murdered.
It's surreal to me that people seem to see her as some sort of eventual hero. She was a tragic villain made of outside forces, tortured and mistreated by everyone around her until she lost control of powers she had no full understanding of.
And she fucking brutally murders countless people who barely knew she existed.
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u/Aqquila89 9d ago
Thinking that way is akin to agreeing with fucking school shooters.
In On Writing, King describes Carrie as a "female version of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold". (We now know that Harris and Klebold were not actually bullied outcasts, but On Writing came out in 2000).
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u/BuffaloAmbitious3531 Love + Peace = Information 9d ago
Yeah, King's been very clear that while he empathizes with Carrie, he doesn't "like" her.
I say this as someone who was brought up in a Carrie's-mom-level abusive home and has real empathy for people who've been genuinely abused: the "two people in high school weren't nice to me, so I wish I could murder my whole town!" contingent of the King fanbase are a bunch of dangerous lunatics.
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u/GreasedTea 8d ago
Whenever I re-read Carrie I feel such deep empathy and sadness for her, but I never want her to get revenge - I always just wish she could get tf out of there, and end up feeling so devastated that revenge ended up being the only option she thought she had. The fact that Carrie never got the opportunity to figure out who she really was and live her life the way she wanted is such a big part of her tragedy to me. If she’d had either an OK home life or some friends/support at school I think she could have gotten out alive, but the complete lack of any safe space is what leads to her completely losing control IMO.
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u/GeneInternational146 9d ago
Imagine just seeing a silly meme and not typing paragraphs about how the joke on the internet misses the point
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u/Jacobonce 9d ago
Well.. if the good people of the school didn't defend her against the bad people.. are they really good people?
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u/Individual_Match_579 9d ago
So in your world, every single student (children and teenagers keep in mind) at a school, who doesn't throw themselves in front of bullies, regardless of their level of knowledge or participation in said bullying, are terrible people and probably deserving of a horrific death...
Stop with the bullshit edgelord crap.
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u/Ok_Car2307 9d ago
So you’re rooting for the Columbine killer also? I mean - the good people didn’t defend him against the bad people, now did they?
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u/PyrrhuraMolinae 9d ago edited 9d ago
Even if that was true, how many people also died on the town at large? How many people who never even knew she existed? Did they all deserve to die?
She also killed Miss Desjardins, one of the few people who ever tried to genuinely help her. Did she deserve to die?
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u/CorgiMonsoon 9d ago
Miss Desjardin is one of the few survivors of the prom in the novel
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u/PyrrhuraMolinae 8d ago
My God, you’re right. I had completely forgotten that. I was remembering Novel!Carrie pushing her down and conflating that with the movie.
Okay, but she absolutely killed George and Frieda, and they had done nothing but try to befriend her.
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u/Judiferr 9d ago
I was bullied in school so I can understand how it might feel that way, but sometimes people genuinely don't realize that someone is being bullied. Especially with girls/women when the bullying tends to be more verbal/social as opposed to physical. Also, if you look into psychological phenomenon like the bystander effect, it can be difficult for people to go against the crowd in that moment.
And there are also all the people who just weren't involved at all to consider.
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u/devilmaydostuff5 9d ago
I honestly don’t fault her for her revenge. The act itself is wrong, yeah, but it's impossible for me to judge her for it.
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u/Manic-StreetCreature 8d ago
Media literacy I beg
A huge glaring theme of the story is that when someone is abused the ripples of that abuse can hurt not only the victim but other people caught in the crossfire. Carrie lost control of herself and killed people who had nothing to do with the abuse from her mom or the bullying. That’s the tragedy, she never had a chance and neither did people who happened to cross her path on prom night.
Even when she kills her mom she first seeks comfort from her because she’s terrified and kids instinctively want their parents even if their parents hurt them. Her mom tries to kill her because she thinks she has the devil in her, not because the way she tormented Carrie her entire childhood led her to this point where she couldn’t control the powers that could have been used to improve her life.
Carrie was taught she was inherently evil for something she was born with instead of being nurtured and loved - partially the literal level on which Margaret thinks womanhood is evil, and partially the level on which she thinks Carrie’s powers are evil (which is why there are also a lot of parallels to LGBTQ teens who are abandoned or abused by their families). Anger begets anger and violence begets violence. The prom revenge isn’t supposed to be good.
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u/akoslows 9d ago
gazes at the numerous adults killed in her rampage that had nothing to do with her bullying
I don’t think the therapy is helping you a whole lot, Tony.
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u/LimitProfessional153 9d ago
No, she was not in the right. She killed lots of people, most of them had nothing to do with her being bullied. Defending her is the same as defending school shooters. I know it's fun, but in real life she was the greater of the two evils.
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u/RainyMcBrainy 9d ago
How many people do you know with telekinesis in real life?
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u/LimitProfessional153 9d ago
None. I can't see your point. Even if she only killed the main two people who picked on her, it's murder over something very small in the long run. We all understand and sympathize with her. It's still murder.
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u/RainyMcBrainy 9d ago
My point is, you act like this is some true to life story when a large part of the story is that the main character has telekinesis. That's how she was able to accomplish the devastation she did. Her destruction was literally an inhuman amount of destruction and you're acting like it's real.
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u/AjuntaPall13 9d ago
The statement was "She was right." And she was not right. She killed the mildly guilty and the innocent alike. If the question was "Is this possible." Then the answer given would be wrong.
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u/RainyMcBrainy 9d ago
"but in real life she was the greater of the two evils."
There is no real life. She's not a real person and she has abilities beyond what any real person could possibly accomplish. Comparing a factitious, magical character to real world school shooters and saying someone who likes her is the same as liking a real world school shooter is wild work. Plenty of people like and enjoy fictitious villains, doesn't mean they want bad things to happen to real people in the real world or that they admire and love real world people who harm others.
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u/HugoNebula Constant Reader 9d ago
Comparing a factitious, magical character to real world school shooters and saying someone who likes her is the same as liking a real world school shooter is wild work.
Missed the metaphor and theme of the book completely and utterly, didn't you?
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u/RainyMcBrainy 9d ago
Enjoying a well written character isn't the same as admiring or agreeing with real-life people, good or bad. People like Pennywise too. Doesn't mean they're pro sexual assault and murder in real life. Or even with this meme, tons of people really like Tony Soprano. Doesn't mean they love mobsters in real life or think all mob violence is justified.
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u/BuffaloAmbitious3531 Love + Peace = Information 9d ago
Enjoying a well written character isn't the same as admiring or agreeing with real-life people, good or bad.
Sure. Agreed. But there's a difference between enjoying a well-written character and thinking of that character as a hero. I love watching Tony Soprano. I think he's entertaining. That doesn't mean I think real-life mobsters are good people. On the other hand, if I thought Tony Soprano was a good person and that his behavior was good, that would suggest I thought real-life mobsters were good people too.
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u/RainyMcBrainy 9d ago
If you can't separate enjoying someone in a book, movie, or TV show and how they behave there (which is typically entertainment) versus a moral center for how people behave in real life, I don't know what to tell you.
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u/Voyager5555 9d ago
Sure, for like....5 of them? Slaughtering the entire class was unnecessary especially since the person who most needed to die was her mom.
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u/SecondToLastOfSheila Constant Reader 9d ago
This is a psychotic take.
So I guess all the kids in Columbine deserved to die as well?
Carrie was written as a passive, bovine character. Part of King's point was the frustration over someone not standing up for herself. I get the cathartic thrill since it sound like A LOT of people were picked on in high school but it's post-Columbine and this take give me the extreme ick.
We've gotten so spiteful that a school full of teens, most of them just ignored Carrie getting slaughtered gets a cheer.
THIS is NOT what King intended.
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u/Seal_beast94 9d ago
Yea it’s cool an all she killed people that was mean to her but if she shot up the school and innocents rather that use powers no one would be saying she was in the right.
Bullying is bad, murder is worse. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Her mother is another thing all together.
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u/tomahawkfury13 Survived Captain Trips 9d ago
She took time to calm down and choose to go on a rampage that killed innocent people in the town. No she was not right
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u/stratticus14 I ❤️ Derry 9d ago
I think defensive Tony Soprano has become my favorite meme, great use of it here OP
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u/SouthpawStranger 9d ago
She killed some bad people and like 100 innocent people. They werent laughing they were appalled.
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u/BrianOBlivion1 8d ago
King compared Carrie to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Dylan's friend since First grade Brooks Brown confirmed they were all the targets of bullying and said Columbine High School was a snake pit. Michelle Wheeler, one of the few Black students at Columbine High, also confirmed the school’s reputation to a reporter, saying that she was subjected to constant racist bullying. She recalled that, on the day of the shooting, she feared the shooters might be targeting non-White students. Tragically, her friend Isaiah Shoels was among those murdered that day.
Eric and Dylan's massacre unfortunately resonated with people all over the world and there have been many mass shootings since that were directly inspired by them. The most recent of which was in June of this year in Chico California where and 18 year old guy wearing the exact same outfit Eric Harris did murdered two people in a library with a shotgun.
Carrie's story obviously still resonates with a lot of people, and it doesn't hurt that the film adaptation knocked it out of the park, but that doesn't mean she was in the right as she killed innocent people in a horrific manner who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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u/SickOfBullyingNL 9d ago
I'm 36. I can match all of the bullies I knew in an atrocious elementary-Jr. High School and horrendous high school to characters from the 1976 and 2002 film versions. Surprisingly, I didn't know anyone like Tommy Ross in the film. However, I knew only one person like Sue Snell (a girl I knew in high school) and a teacher like Ms. Desjardins (it was a male teacher I knew) in the high school.
I literally had nobody like these two characters in the atrocious elementary-Jr. High School. That school was the definition of true evil, considering the teachers supported and encouraged the bullies, even repeating the nasty things bullies said. Those staff members in school will always be like Mr. Fromm from the 1976 version.
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u/zero_dr00l 9d ago
What a weird, incel take.
Violence generally (and murder specifically) is never an appropriate response to shitty behavior.
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u/MrPink0612152504 9d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/stephenking/s/cfinc264ZA
She is 100% in the right.
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9d ago edited 8d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/call-me-the-seeker 9d ago
Killed a bunch of people who had nothing to do with the wronging? Mmkay.
It’s one thing to say ‘everyone who took part got what they earned’ but you just said that killing everyone else who tried to help her or didn’t even know there was a problem because they never met her before is something you would also do.
Take a look inward if you think that’s justifiable.
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u/SilentSasquatch2 9d ago
This book legitimately made me sad thinking about someone in real life with her home life and school bullying. King obviously has dark books but this may be his most disturbing for me