 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to my first ever Stephen King spoiler discussion. Today we're going to be talking about his first published novel, Carrie. It was published by Doubleday in 1974 and he has yet to look back or stop or even so much as slowed down. Many of you, I asked in the last video, which was the spoiler-free review for this book, who wanted to see a spoiler discussion video for this book and it was overwhelmingly yes. Nobody said no. I wasn't expecting anybody to say no, but almost all of you expressed the want for these spoiler discussions. So I am going to go ahead from here on out and do one for every single one of Stephen King's books as I reread them. Again, this will be the last time I reread his entire catalog. It won't be the last time I reread his books, but it'll be the last time I reread his entire catalog in chronological order. The only deviation we're doing this time is I will be reading The Shining and Doctor Sleep back to back. I am starting The Shining next week, so next Monday I will be restarting The Shining for any of those, any of you guys who want to follow along with me. I just got through rereading Salem's Lot with my good friend Isaac. If you are a fan of the live chat, so we do on the weekend, Isaac is always there. Great kid. It was fun reading the book with him. I will be doing a spoiler-free review next Thursday. And then I will be, sorry, no I won't. I'll be doing Black House Thursday theorist next Thursday, and then after that I'll be doing the review and the spoiler discussions for Salem's Lot. Let's go ahead and jump into this. I'm going to go tick by tick on what happens in the book. Won't be discussing the movies because none of the movies have gotten the book right, I think, yet even though I am more of a fan of the recent 2013 version with Chloe Grace Moretz and whatever his name is that plays Tommy, I am a bigger fan of their chemistry and that movie than I am the original Brian De Palma, and I've never actually seen the sci-fi remake. So in Carrie, the book opens up with Carrie being shamed in the shower. She has her period for the very first time in the shower, in the girls' locker room of her high school, and all of the girls present see it. They start throwing tampons at her yelling plug it up, plug it up, plug it up, and that's where the thematic element of the book begins. The element of blood, the theme of blood that we will be returning to at least two more times before the end of the book. The book is broken up into three different sections. There is the first part, I'll always remember the first, the second part, but I can never remember what part one, actually I remember part one, part one is blood sport, and is in part two prom night, I'm going to go ahead and blow through here, yeah prom night, and there is a part three, oddly enough this book is built exactly like my own book, The Sound of Broken Ribs, it has a part one, part two, and part three, but part three is substantially less. There's only like a couple pages in both my book and his book, but the part three is called wreckage. Now, after the period segment in the shower, we move on to finding out more about Carrie White's mother, the religious upbringing, and we are interspersed through all of this. We know that there have been other books written after the occurrence of this book. One of those is a book about a telekinetic phenomenon, and one of them is by Sue Snell, who is one of the main characters of the book. Sue does partake in the shaming of Carrie in the shower room, as everybody does. When Ms. Jardin comes in, she ends up slapping Carrie, she has no idea that the child doesn't know about a period. The reason why she doesn't know about her menstruation cycle is because her mother is super ultra religious, and she never told Carrie about it, never told her what to expect. So Ms. Jardin has a discussion with Carrie. Carrie goes home and talks to her mother about it. There's a scene where, why didn't you tell me, mama, and they're all going to laugh at you, and all that stuff occurs. Other things of note here is Ms. Jardin, Ms. Jardin, her talking to the girls after it happens. She's talking to Chris and to Sue and to the whole rest of the crew out there after, I think it's the suspension or the detention scene, and they're out in the field and they're all talking, and she's telling them what you guys did a shitty thing. I really appreciate that scene, because even though you see her slap Carrie in the shower and you kind of get a feel for Ms. Jardin as kind of like a take no shit teacher, she really has a lot of heart and a lot of compassion for Carrie. It's just hidden behind this wall that her expectations for a child, for a regular child, I guess a normal child with normal life kind of deal. I use normal here, but that's not actually what I mean. Carrie has had a very strange upbringing because of her mother's religious fanaticism. Now going from there, we end up meeting Chris and her boyfriend. I can never remember the boyfriend's name, my apologies, but Sue also has a boyfriend, and his name is Tommy, and Tommy becomes very important to the story later on in the book. Prom night is coming, it is coming quickly, and Chris is supposed to be working, it's supposed to be going to the prom, but she is not allowed to go to the prom because of what she did to Carrie. I'm paraphrasing a lot of this book, but I'm going to go ahead and hit the big scenes from here on out just so we can discuss these things down there in the doobly doo. I don't suspect you need to say spoiler alert for a spoiler video, but maybe do it anyways if you guys want to talk about specific elements of this book. The reason this book means a lot to me nowadays is because I have a transgender daughter who I now call my son. Just to give you the only reason I bring that up is because she of course started her menstrual cycle and now she's started to transition to a man, so she's a transgender man, trans man, however you want to put it. So when you hear me talking about my oldest son that is actually used to be my daughter, probably the last time I ever referred to her as him as my daughter, and only for the purposes that I understood more of this story and how traumatizing certain things were just by watching my daughter have to go through. Now my wife prepared him for these things. She did prepare him, but it was still interesting to see the difference between him and his mother. It's so confusing, my apologies, but because Shell, my wife, had more of like an excitement, yay I am of age, whereas Dan had more of a shell shock kind of deal and still every single time that time comes around there's that shell shock. Sorry my wife's name Shell, I'm shuckling about that, but it meant more to me this time because I had been through that with a teenager. So I understand more and it hits home more directly when I read it this time whereas the last time I read this book Dan had not come of age. But going from there we have the scene with the pig. I'm fast forwarding here, there's a lot of stuff that I am completely just skimming over. But the scene with the pig, once again the murder of the pig, we get a lot of character development, a lot of awesome character development in that scene with the asshole, I wish I could remember his name, and Chris. It's who is going to kill the pig, who is going to do the deed, who is going to drain the blood from the pig. Now when the first time you're reading this you have no idea what is about to happen, you have no idea what is going on and that's the beauty of this scene. But this book has become so ingrained in our society, has become you know this thing, this just this element, like kind of like Star Wars, even if you've never seen Star Wars you know what happens in Star Wars, and Carrie has hit that level of pop culture where even though you don't, people might not have read Carrie or seen the movies they know what Carrie is about. But I remember the first time that I read this book, even though I had seen the movie I had no idea what was going on. And it's one of the only king stories that I saw as a movie first, it was Carrie and Pet Cemetery. I saw before I read the books, all the rest of them I have waited until after I have read the books. But this one, they kill the pig, they drain the pig and once again you have the acceptance, you have not the acceptance, but the holding on of blood. You have the theme comes around again back to blood and it all has to do with that opening sequence. Now before we get into the final section I want to tackle something that my friend Patrick said. I was going to tackle this in my spoiler free review but I felt that I would have to go into spoilers. There's also comments on my Thursday theorist episode of Carrie that say this also, which is that this book is a revenge fantasy. If you've been picked on in school of course this is a book, getting back at your bullies. That's not what this book is about. Sorry Patrick and anybody else who thinks that this book is not about being a revenge fantasy. In fact I'm almost positive that if that was brought up to Stephen King he'd probably look at you funny and think badly of you because the book is about the perpetuation of violence. Violence begets violence begets violence begets violence and there's never a good ending to this. Now once you get to the prom which is in part two prom night the first part ends blood sport ends with the killing of the pig and then prom night section begins and in the prom night section you have Chris and her asshole setting up, sorry there's a bug flying around, Chris and her asshole boyfriend setting up the the bucket of blood up above the stage with help of her friend she was able to get in and then you have the setup with Sue asking Tommy to take Carrie to the prom to make her night special for her and that's where you start to have better feelings towards Sue. Sue is a terrific character, she's a tragic character just like Carrie is. She tries her best to make something out of the terrible terrible circumstance that her and the other girls pulled on Carrie she's trying her best to make up for that in a very very teenage way by saying okay let my boyfriend the the the guy that I love and I've had sex with and I've given myself to let him take Carrie to the prom um when we're younger in our younger years we tend to see people as almost objects you know my girlfriend that even extends to like marriage and unlike this is my wife you know she is mine she's my property and that's kind of that's the kind of interchangeability of a teenage relationship also there's not much forethought put into hey you know this person is just someone that you know I'm going to be with you know right now there's not too much thought about that so you know it's it's more of a forever thing so of course there's no there's no reason not to let Carrie go to the prom with Tommy um now Tommy asked her and of course Carrie automatically assumes because Carrie's a smart a smart young woman she automatically assumes that there's some that's some kind of bait that he doesn't actually want to go with her he's a jock he's popular all these things um so she knows right off that that something is up um it is not the bad thing that she thinks it is but it is you know Sue trying to set them up um so that she can have a nice time now one of the things that I loved actually loved about the uh the newest version of the movie I know I said I wasn't going to talk about the movie we're going to talk about it anyways is they got the chemistry between Tommy and Carrie right in in the newest 2013 when Chloe Grace from Moretz and the reason I feel they got it right is because in the book there's this briefest there is the briefest showing of hope you think everything is going to go right you see Tommy's you know falling for for Carrie he's like hey she's not this this oddity off to the side she has feelings she's funny she's this she's that all these things that Tommy's you know Tommy's think you can you can feel that Tommy is finally understanding that Carrie White is a human being and that's what makes what comes after that so horribly tragic is that we were on course to do the right thing we were on that we were on that pipeline we were going down that slide and all of a sudden here comes a strong wind and just blue blows our asses off you know into the trees and that wind is of course uh Chris up in the rafters above when Carrie and Tommy win uh prom king and queen they go up on the stage and Chris drops a bucket of blood for the third time blood has popped up a bucket of blood down on top of them knocking Tommy out with the actual galvanized steel bucket and leaving Carrie covered in gore um the what the catalyst is not the blood though the the catalyst for what Carrie does next is the reaction of the crowd them laughing about it her automatically thinking that they everyone was in on this joke that it was a joke to set everything you know they rig the the the the balances all the stuff going through her head they rigged it so that she would be up there so that they could pour the blood onto her it was all some huge terrible terrible prank and then she runs away the and everybody's like okay well that just happened you know you see this jar didn't get I think tossed at that point um that could have came after but um there somebody gets hurt right out the bat and Carrie leaves but then Carrie comes back and when Carrie comes back she just wrecks the entire place another thing that the original uh Brian de Palma version of the movie didn't do right I don't think is the destruction of the town it's very glossed over they do a better job of it in the uh in the 2013 version but in in the book the book has my favorite ending the town is completely destroyed um in fact in the epilogue it discusses however even after the whole you know they were trying to rebuild they couldn't rebuild because everybody either moved away or the the places the businesses didn't have enough people to run so they all closed down it completely destroys the place and it's funny because for the first three Stephen King books he follows that I mean even into you can even say into the stand he follows this destruction um where everything is destroyed and can't be saved and I appreciated that um aspect in his early career is is odd seeing you know the it's like the more famous he became the better off the books ended kind of well we'll talk about that more in later books but in this one Carrie walks through town uh destroying everything she's blowing the uh the the tops off fire hydrants all that she gets to the uh she gets home and she kills her mother it's not it's not the the cool you know knife scene that we get in the movies which is a I think partially better way to take care of the mother aspect of it but with the uh but that's not where it ends because Carrie leaves again after being stabbed by her mother um she is she's dying she ends up leaving her house and going to the parking lot of the Cavalier which I think is either a bar or some kind of establishment in the town Chamberlain Chamberlain is also a fictional town that Stephen King created for the book it's there is no Chamberlain main um and we'll be discussing more uh I'm I'm going to be working with Patrick Costin on uh chronicling the uh the different all all of the fictional towns that Stephen King has created in all of his works that should be interesting also um so plenty Stephen King content to come plenty plenty and I'll try to always upload it on Thursday um but the the the best part of the book for me and the thing that they completely leave out of the movies so they can get that shitty hand out of the grave scare is Carrie's last moments with Sue Snow that that scene is perfect in my opinion in fact the last time I read this I was actually rather upset that I had to read the epilogue because that scene is so perfect now when when Sue finds Carrie she she jumps a Carrie jumps into Sue's mind and she starts going through and trying to find you know whether or not she was in on the prank come to find out you know she wasn't in on the prank so there at the end you cut you have another glimmer not of hope really but maybe that Carrie has a happy ending in that she sees that there was no conspiracy against her there at the end um I appreciated that but that that scene is so emotional and the whole time Carrie is like mommy mommy where are you mommy where and then she dies I guess a fantastic ending to this book and one of the best ending Stephen King has ever written and it's been completely left out of the movies blows my mind why that could be um my favorite parts in this book are the message that violence begets violence um because no matter how much I fought back in school I was challenged more and more the more that I fought back my my dad always told me just stick up for yourself I stuck up for myself I would get in more fights because violence begets violence so no I do not think this is a revenge fantasy um if you do that that's your own prerogative but I I would much rather people see the message that violence perpetuates itself than than I would to think that this is some kind of silly revenge fantasy because it dumps down the work I feel and it makes it less than what it actually is also the theme of blood I think is used brilliantly there's always a discussion on whether or not that Stephen King is literary or Stephen King is just a genre hack that got lucky um but Stephen King is writing real literature he is using theme he is using you know character development he's using these upper I guess upper tier literary skills to write the kind of you know stuff that he loved as a kid which was horror and sci-fi and all that stuff and that's one of the reasons why I love his work so much is because he has been working his entire career to elevate the genre him Peter Straub, Clive Barker, even Robert McKimmon to to some point they have all tried to raise the bar of what horror is and I appreciate them for for nothing else for that um Carrie these days I'm giving Carrie around a 4.5 stars um it gets better every single time I read it um but the main thing the main thing I wanted to do with this video if you've lasted this long is I want you to down there in the comments below in the doobly-doo let me know what your favorite scenes are and the and the scenes that stuck with you the most I want to hear from the community especially on why you like this book and of course spoiler warnings for the for the for the chat down there or the doobly-doo whatever you want to call it um I want people to go into detail about what they like and what they they didn't like I may not respond to every single one because not every single comment is going to need me to respond to it but I will I promise you I read every single comment yes even the ugly nasty ones just to see if they have a point kind of deal um but I read every single comment because this is a community I want to build a community of people who love the same things that I do and the my strongest literary love is Stephen King he is my favorite band as it were so what did you think about Carrie please let me know your favorite scenes in the book down there in the doobly-doo but until next time I have been a you have been you it's been a spoiler discussion video I'll talk to you guys later bye bye