History Headscratchers / Carrie

*** The same reason such things happen in RealLife - they "[[BystanderSyndrome don't want to get involved]]" because it [[NotMyProblem doesn't directly affect them]].

** She's not religious, she's crazy. Her warped view on Christianity is just an outlet for her AmbiguousDisorder. Seriously, her "religion" has all the hallmarks of a psychotic delusion: It's internally consistent, persecutory (she believes God is out to punish everyone and she has to pray for forgiveness), and rationally explains irrational behavior (if God is angry at women for Original Sin, then if I don't let my daughter become a woman, God won't be angry with her.) Even her misquoting/making up Bible verses could be a sign of a thought disorder, where the words on the page and what she reads are two entirely different things. Margaret White is nothing more than a walking psychosis wrapped in the shell of Christianity.

** It's noteworthy that, at one point mid-book, she prays to either [[CthulhuMythos Nyarlathotep or Azathoth ]] (depending on who "sendeth the Three-Lobed Burning Eye") so she has taken A Turn from even the most fundamentalist form of Christianity--and depending on how you interpret the book's universe, may have made contact with Something that she interprets as God/Jesus and is actually anything but. (Carrie's time in the church mid-rampage mentions POWERS and an ABYSS but does not, creepily, elaborate.)

** There is a fan theory out there that Carrie suffered from PolyCystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), given her belly fat and acne as described in the book. This disorder can sometimes bring on late periods, which Margaret would have chalked up to "purity" and "God's will."

* In the 1976 version, why does Margaret have like 100 candles lit when Carrie comes home? Is it some kind of weird religious ritual or something?

** VillainByProxyFallacy. Ms Desjardin was in a position of power to Chris and Carrie (seemingly) wasn’t. So it was far easier for Chris to project her resentment onto her instead, especially once she saw Carrie looking at prom dresses for a prom Chris couldn’t attend.

* Margaret's character doesn't make sense to me. To elaborate, she's such an over-the-top psycho with all the latent horror associated with every religious fanatic stereotype that would make members of WBC cringe! First of all, she's quoting things that ''[[CriticalResearchFailure aren't even in the Bible]]'' [[hottip:*: which Carrie herself lampshades in the 2013 version]], and believes that the normal things in female biology (ie: menstrual cycles, developing breasts) are either punishments or proof that you've sinned. How the hell does a grown woman believe that having breasts is a sign that you 'weren't raised right'? Second, contrary to popular [[ReligiousStereotype "common knowledge"]], Christians don't preach that SexIsEvil.[[note]]Many people, including devotees who ought to know better, really do think the "first sin was intercourse". Not only is that untrue (the first sin was disobedience) but God asked Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply". Sex was not a sin in Eden.[[/note]] Granted, I'll let that slide a bit since ''that'' tenet of hers seems more from a FreudianExcuse than doctrine, but how does she expect the human race to perpetuate itself?! She seems to be more a case of RuleOfScary applied to TheFundamentalist than TheFundamentalist up to eleven [[hottip:*: Okay, really she's [[TakeAThirdOption a bit of both]]. Plus, she seems, for the most part, to be trying to do [[WellIntentionedExtremist what's best for Carrie]], but she [[spoiler: pulls a friggin' knife on the girl and tries to murder her!]] I guess it wouldn't bug me so much if it weren't for the occasional HollywoodAtheist pointing to Margaret White as a "perfect example" of why ReligionIsWrong.

** Yes. Chris repeatedly blames Carrie for all the trouble she's got herself into, because she's such a narcissist that she can't see the reality. And really, what happens in the book and latter two adaptations is first Chris does try to get revenge on Miss Desjardin - she tries to get her father to threaten a lawsuit if she isn't allowed to go to prom and Miss Desjardin isn't fired immediately. That blows up in her face because the principal threatens to counter sue on behalf of all the other students Chris has bullied. It possibly wasn't just about Carrie at this point, but rather Chris herself. Her ego had been damaged massively and she had to have the last word, so she likely thought that Carrie would be easier to get back and possibly less likely to get revenge on her.

** EvenEvilHasStandards. Chris was an opportunistic bully but she had no interest in targeting Carrie until Carrie gave her an opening. Chris only ever escalates her behaviour in retaliation for (perceived) wrongs. Carrie gets period blood on her, so she films a humiliating video of her. Carrie’s video gets her banned from prom, so she pranks her with pig’s blood on prom night. Carries’s ensuing rampage kills her friends, so she tries to run down Carrie. In a way, this is what makes Chris more fascinating than your standard bully who torments victims for fun. Her ugly side only comes out when opportunity strikes, after which she doubles down with progressively worse acts until she’s a complete sadist.

* Why does Chris want revenge on Carrie if Ms.Collins/Desjardin was the one who banned her from the prom (indeed, Carrie didn't even tell on her or anything)? Is she just '''that''' petty?

* Margaret's character doesn't make sense to me. To elaborate, she's such an over-the-top psycho with all the latent horror associated with every religious fanatic stereotype that would make members of WBC cringe! First of all, she's quoting things that ''[[CriticalResearchFailure aren't even in the Bible]]'' [[hottip:*: which Carrie herself lampshades in the 2013 version]], and believes that the normal things in female biology (ie: menstrual cycles, developing breasts) are either punishments or proof that you've sinned. How the hell does a grown woman believe that having breasts is a sign that you 'weren't raised right'? Second, contrary to popular [[ReligiousStereotype "common knowledge"]], Christians don't preach that SexIsEvil.[[note]]Many people, including devotees who ought to know better, really do think the "first sin was intercourse". Not only is that untrue (the first sin was disobedience) but God asked Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply". Sex was not a sin in Eden.[[/note]] Granted, I'll let that slide a bit since ''that'' tenet of hers seems more from a FreudianExcuse than doctrine, but how does she expect the human race to perpetuate itself?! She seems to be more a case of RuleOfScary applied to TheFundamentalist than TheFundamentalist UpToEleven [[hottip:*: Okay, really she's [[TakeAThirdOption a bit of both]]. Plus, she seems, for the most part, to be trying to do [[WellIntentionedExtremist what's best for Carrie]], but she [[spoiler: pulls a friggin' knife on the girl and tries to murder her!]] I guess it wouldn't bug me so much if it weren't for the occasional HollywoodAtheist pointing to Margaret White as a "perfect example" of why ReligionIsWrong.

** The book says it was the kind of laughing that comes from shock. A lot of people do laugh when they're nervous (we even have [[{{Corpsing}} a trope]] for that) so it was probably a mixture of that and the mean kids who did find it funny (Chris mentions she "set it up" with her friends, suggesting some of them knew it was going to happen).

* In the 2002 film, would Tommy's parents have grounds to sue Mr. Hargensen in civil court considering his daughter killed their son? Unlike in the books where it takes a while for the investigation to put together the timeline of events and confirm Chris was the instigator, Jackie Talbot and the boys involved with the pig slaughtering immediately confess when it turns out a security camera caught them. Not helping their case is the detectives make it clear that their initial lies saying that they didn't know a punk named Billy wouldn't look good to a judge. They point fingers at Chris and Billy while clearing Sue's name, saying Sue wasn't involved. Given the survivors recount that they saw Tommy collapse when the bucket hit him, and that Chris was responsible, that sounds like a civil lawsuit for manslaughter. Would a judge agree to hear the case?

* In the 2013 version Carrie is visibly terrified when the Principal mentions they will have to tell her mother about the shower incident. Why do neither he nor Ms.Desjardin (who are portrayed as the [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure reasonable authority figures]] in all the different versions) do anything? It makes some sense in the original book/movie (made during TheSeventies), but in 2013 most states (including Maine) have mandatory reporting laws if teachers think a child is being abused, so it's kind of hard to swallow.

** That school may well not have had "Senior Presentations" to begin with. I attended a small high school in the mid-80s and there was no such thing there. Hardly universal.

** Carrie was dead at the time and it's not the kind of story that includes vengeful spirits etc. So the nightmare was probably caused by Sue's trauma. Most of her classmates, teachers and, of course, her own boyfriend died that night.

*** One of the neighbors in TheRemake ''did'' make an aborted attempt to help in the flashback. You can see one of the men run to the front door when young Carrie starts screaming, but he's driven back when fire starts raining from the sky. After fireballs falling from the sky, they were probably too afraid to try again.
*** The same reason such things happen in RealLife - they "[[BystanderSyndrome don't want to get involved]]" because it [[NotMyProblem doesn't directly effect them]].

** Also, the sensibility towards that sort of thing has dramatically increased over the last few decades. Some forms of domestic violence were probably much more common back when the film was made (in the 70s, I believe?). Were I to start telling you about what we did to each other at my school, you'd have to basically arrest every last one of us.

** Even in later remakes, it's quite possible for child abuse to go unreported. People either don't want to get involved, think that's what the authorities are for and if they haven't stepped in there must not be anything too bad going on, or the high-functioning sociopaths are masking the troubles well enough no one notices them. Now, Margaret White is pretty definitely not a ''high-functioning'' sociopath, but she seems to mask the troubles well enough that people think she's just weird, not actually abusive. The 2013 film {{Lampshades}} this by stating that Carrie is in the public school system because her mother is no longer allowed to home school her, but that could be less due to allegations of abuse and more due to the fact that Margaret wasn't actually educating Carrie to the government's satisfaction.

** Look to real life - how many times are there headlines about some poor kid who kills themselves because of bullying and abuse that either nobody knew about, or nobody cared enough to do anything about? In fact the central message of Carrie could be considered to be a warning about exactly how such cruelty can go unnoticed or ignored by both individuals and systems.

* In one of the in-universe books, they mention that they would have to isolate or even kill those with the TK gene. Um...''why''? Carrie snapped because of years of torment, it's not as though telekinetics will inherently up and kill everyone.

** As wrong as it seems, some parents WILL just chalk up something like that to "youthful high spirits" and see nothing really wrong with it.

** Ah, it was just a mistake. She didn't intend to hurt anyone, she thought it would be a harmless prank. We'll talk to her, make sure she understands the consequences. I promise, nothing like that will ever happen again. Now, Chris, you could have blown that girl's toes off. You shouldn't do that. Okay? Okay.

*** Carrie lost it. She resented the whole school for ignoring or actively bullying her (I'm sure many a troper can sympathize with that). The bullying she had is worse than shoujo manga, and far less optimistic.

** In that kind of blind rage, there's really no logical thought. You can't sort out the difference between "this person was really mean and needs to die," "this person was kinda mean and should be maimed," and "this person was okay, they'll get off with just being psychologically scarred for life." And as pointed out, Carrie's RoaringRampageOfRevenge isn't really meant to be seen as heroic, even though it's understandable why some viewers might want to see it that way (and just adds to the moral complexity of the story.) She's an abused child who's lashing out a world she perceives as, at best, completely uncaring, at worst intentionally cruel. No one is safe.
** First, Carrie has been bullied not by one but by many students since she started attending school, King has her recall several incidents in school and in summer camp. By then she would have a very general view on the meanness of other teenagers. Second, ''everyone'' who was present at the scene laughed -even the sympathetic teachers, so Carrie was humiliated to the point of snapping. In her overstressed mind, those who laughed were complicit in the prank.
** In the book, Carrie's rampage doesn't start out as wanting to kill or hurt anyone - just to humiliate them the way she was. She turns the sprinklers on to get them wet and mess up their outfits, and she only locks the doors to stop them from avoiding this. Then she gets carried away on a power high and starts everything else. Carrie is also much less of TheWoobie in the book than she is in the films - where she's portrayed as just a good girl who wants to be accepted. While she is that too, the book's Carrie is full of hate-filled thoughts and desires to use her powers to hurt people (she at one point wants to smash the windows of a neighbour because she doesn't like Margaret, and is about to use her powers to hurt George Dawson when she thinks he's attacking Tommy). So her snapping to kill everyone in the book isn't that much of a stretch from her usual persona.

** In the 1976 version, she's been DrivenToMadness after all she's suffered, as evidenced by her hearing voices and how her [[InterfaceScrew vision is all messed up.]] She also thinks everyone in the room is laughing at her (which De palma confirmed is mostly in her head), so she may think they were ''all'' in on the plot. This doesn't make much sense, but it's crazy person "logic", so it doesn't have to.

** Do you mean while it's in the bucket above the stage? It's probably too far up to be detected, and IIRC it was partially frozen (I might be sketchy on that last detail). Do you mean after it's dumped on Carrie? Probably because a fire starts soon after and the smell of burning wood, paper, cloth and flesh is a little more immediate.

*** Pregnancy can also increases your sense of smell. So a combination of all three is possible.
*** Nope, the blood was definitely put up after Sue was on the ladder decorating. One night - dead pig. Next day - Sue pukes. That night, Carrie works on her dress. Chris and Co. sneak in the bucket o' blood. Probably everyone was just too busy to be around that specific area for long.
** In the script for the 2013 film, the other popular girls Heather, Tina, Nicki and Lizzy were definitely in on the prank. In the film, it's only clear that Tina is. Heather was helping Sue decorate and is the one who's in the area as a DJ - so if she smelled it, she'd know what it was.
** And think that this is a room full of teenagers dressed up - so the smells of perfume, cologne, deodorant, hairspray, hair gel etc will be very overpowering. And once they've been dancing for a while, the smell of sweat would be quite strong too. So there would be lots of powerful smells to overpower the blood if it was starting to stink.

* Why in all the movies Carrie start her murdering rampage while IN the school building? The book is clear that Carrie first LEFT the school, fell on the grass, thought how her mother was right and then snapped. Both in 1976, the 2002 and (assuming by the trailer) 2013 film version Carrie snapped seconds after getting covered in pig's blood and left the school only after most of the students were dead.

** They may not have been aware of the full extent of Margaret's abuse. If Carrie is like [[TruthInTelevision most abused children]], she may have feared Margaret's retaliation if she spoke up. Abused children also don't speak up as a way of protecting parents (they're still your folks, you don't want them to go to jail). With no physical signs (the abuse appeared mostly emotional and verbal) and no testimony from the child, it would be very difficult to prove that any abuse had occurred. Even if the prayer closet did exist, Margaret could have easily explained it away as a shrine for religious practice. Again, unless Carrie admitted that she'd been thrown into it, CPS wouldn't have any proof. And all of that is assuming that CPS was even involved; the school district could have easily revoked Margaret's homeschooling privileges without involving CPS, since homeschooling has to meet district standards of education.
** The 2013 version makes it clearer than the other two adaptations that Margaret did love her daughter in her own twisted way. Margaret seems to alternate between self harm, being cruel to Carrie and actual affection. So when the authorities came calling, Margaret would seem slightly odd but not overtly abusive. And what with her being a sympathetic single mother raising her daughter after her husband's sudden death, they might not have looked into it too much.

* Margaret's character doesn't make sense to me. To elaborate, she's such an over-the-top psycho with all the latent horror associated with every religious fanatic stereotype that would make members of WBC cringe! First of all, she's quoting things that ''[[CriticalResearchFailure aren't even in the Bible]]'' [[hottip:*: which Carrie herself lampshades in the 2013 version]], and believes that the normal things in female biology (ie: menstrual cycles, developing breasts) are either punishments or proof that you've committed sin. How the hell does a grown woman believe that having breasts is a sign that you 'weren't raised right'? Second, contrary to popular [[ReligiousStereotype "common knowledge"]], Christians don't preach that SexIsEvil.[[note]]Many people, including devotees who ought to know better, really do think the "first sin was intercourse". Not only is that untrue (the first sin was disobedience) but God actually asked Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply". Sex was not sin in Eden.[[/note]] Granted, I'll let that slide a bit since ''that'' tenet of hers seems more from a FreudianExcuse than doctrine, but how does she expect the human race to perpetuate itself?! She seems to be more a case of RuleOfScary applied to TheFundamentalist than TheFundamentalist UpToEleven [[hottip:*: Okay, really she's [[TakeAThirdOption a bit of both]]. Plus, she seems for the most part to be trying to do [[WellIntentionedExtremist what's best for Carrie]], but she [[spoiler: pulls a friggin' knife on the girl and tries to murder her!]] I guess it wouldn't bug me so much if it weren't for the occasional HollywoodAtheist pointing to Margaret White as a "perfect example" of why ReligionIsWrong.
** As weak as it sounds she was seriously nuts even by TheFundamentalist standards. It's implied in some version Margaret's father and mother (and especially her ''grandmother'', whose behavior when she was doing TK was right out of a horror movie) hosed her up just as bad as she did to Carrie.
** Well, as for how she expected the human race to perpetuate itself, there's two answers there. One is that she probably felt the end times were upon us and that the human race wasn't meant to spread much further. However, and this is specifically addressed in the book, she did say that she and her husband would remain chaste and that "If there is issue, let it be divine." In other words, she thought that virgin birth, a miracle that happened literally only once in the Bible, was the only way a pure follower of God would ever have children. See below about Margaret being crazy, and her religious fervor just being an outlet for her insanity.
** Did you even read the book? Margaret is considerably ''tamer'' in the films (yes ''even'' the 1976 film) than in the novel. You know that when she was pregnant with Carrie, she originally thought it was "cancer affecting her womanly parts"? She wasn't even following Christianity right; Ralph and she used to be Baptists until they left the church because they were convinced "they [the church] was doing the Anti Christ's work". I don't even know what you're trying to say on that last part. Seriously ''what'' are you getting at here?
*** I'm no expert but last I checked and have seen a lot of religious fanatics/fundamentalists, Christian or otherwise, have been known to do or quote things that aren't even in their religious texts or teachings or, if not not quoting things that aren't in it, then they are usually twisting the meanings, so I'm pretty sure Margaret is like the most I have seen.
** Margaret was going on a seriously Flanderized version of a couple of things that fed into her general obsession: The first is that the pain of childbirth is a punishment for Eve's sin and part of being cast out of the Garden of Eden. The other is the attitude a few lines in the Bible seem to take toward menstruation (women aren't allowed in the temple during menstruation, and men have to pray and cleanse themselves if they lie with a woman who's menstruating).

** Margaret is crazy indeed: Notice that her parents and stepfather in the book are rather normal people who aren't even described as extremely religious. She gets along very poorly with them and she even antagonizes them with her ways by writing them awful letters and refusing to see them when she has a miscarriage. Her religious views seem to be her very own without subscribing to a particular denomination; notice that unlike fundamentalist protestants, she uses a lot of conspicuous iconography. But unlike conservative Catholics she worships at home with herself (a woman) as celebrant.
*** What really drove her insane was terror. She'd witnessed her grandmother, already "senile to the point of idiocy", lighting the fireplace or doing TK stunts at the dinner table with an [[LaughingMad Insane Laugh]] while drooling and panting like a dog, making the Evil Eye gesture[[note]]this is a ward ''against'' evil, but maybe Margaret didn't know this[[/note]] and even seeming to have GlowingEyesOfDoom which Margaret described as a "witch's light". It must have seemed like Gram had sold herself to Satan. Margaret knows this runs in the family. Her parents' reaction to Gram's antics is never described, but Margaret's intense devotion and her insanity seem to have started there.

* What was the point of the teen pregnancy plot line in the '13 version? Seem unnecessary.

*** It could also be interpreted as a way to tie the theme of menstrual blood to both girls. Carrie gets her period and thinks she's dying, Sue knows more about biology but her period is late. The book begins and ends with a girl getting her period. It's a unifying theme. Remember, it's a first-time novel by a guy with an English degree, which was too short to begin with, so it had to have some stuff added to make it a novel instead of a novella. The movie just added a dimension by making Sue pregnant, which then raises fears: how is she going to raise a kid and NOT screw her up the way Carrie was screwed up?
** It's a small cruel twist in the book but this is the first adaptation to leave it in. It was pretty subtle and I missed it on my first few readings (I was fourteen and really dumb). Sue worries about being late for her period on the night of the prom. After she witnesses Carrie dying, she gets her period - and it's left open whether or not she was just late or she'd miscarried a baby. It's cruel because she knew Tommy was dead and for a moment probably thought she'd have some part left of him.

*** Carrie identifies the unborn child as a girl. Those who have telekinesis are always girls. It could foreshadow that Sue's child has the same power and that is why Carrie is able to "connect" with her, even though the fetus cannot be that far developed.

* Is it it just me or is the 2013 version of Sue Snell a little unsettling? She has very little personal interaction with Carrie which makes her obsession with Carrie seem... well more obsessional than empathetic. Then there was her ordering Tommy to ask Carrie out ''again'' after Carrie said no, which implied she was more interested in turning Carrie into an ersatz version of herself than the girl's actual desires ("I want to go to prom so ''of course'' Carrie should go to prom"). Not that Sue's intentions aren't good but she does come across as a little creepy.
** At that point, Sue giving Carrie a happy night at the prom was equal parts assuaging her guilt and having the last word over Chris, who accused her of accepting their detention to preserve her own prom night rather than punishing herself for hurting Carrie.
** That motivation seems plausible... but it doesn't account for her strangely emotionally detached, manipulative actions. Again this version of Sue has very little personal contact with Carrie and seems happy to pull strings from a distance (and force her boyfriend to warm up to Carrie.) It does seem kind of creepy.
*** WordOfGod (in On Writing, IIRC) says that even Stephen King didn't entirely trust Sue's motives in getting Tommy to take Carrie to the prom. Was Sue really trying to atone for what she'd done, or was it, deep down, a means of trying to humiliate Carrie further? He also notes that the Carrie character is based on the most "reviled" girls he knew in high school, both as a student and a teacher, and that when one of them tried to feel better about herself, the pack mentality kicked her back down to where she belonged.
** The 2013 film does change around the order of things. Sue suggests Tommy take Carrie a little earlier in the book - the same way she does in the other two films. This one has her consider it after Chris calls her out. The film changes things so that Sue considers the detention her 'atonement' initially but then gives up her prom ticket so Carrie can have a good night instead. I think Sue had good intentions but being essentially a quasi-AlphaBitch beforehand, she had no idea how to exactly do a good thing like this. Most kids at that age are still grasping the concept of right and wrong - so atoning for big mistakes is very much a learning process or trial and error.
** There's also the idea that she believed (probably rightly) that anything she tried to do for Carrie in person would be misinterpreted. She couldn't just walk up to Carrie in the lunchroom and say "Hey, sorry about the shower thing, that was out of line. We cool?" because there'd be no way to really demonstrate sincerity, and Carrie was meek enough to accept the apology whether she believed it genuine or not. Really trying to get to know Carrie and be friends with her would have been seen as just another manipulation. And even so, her roundabout plot to have her boyfriend give Carrie that one perfect high school moment was still seen as manipulative by Miss Dejardin, right up to the point where Sue crashes the prom to try and stop Chris' prank. Any number of ideas were probably considered and rejected by the character, because she believed the only act of contrition that would matter was the one that involved her the least. As well, the film makes it pretty clear that she considers giving up her perfect prom night with her perfect boyfriend to be her real atonement, sacrificing something that matters a great deal to her. It is still a bit manipulative, since she believes that Tommy will come right back to her after the prom, and they'll live out whatever post-high-school fantasy they already had. The story is practically a study in moral ambiguity, this version of Sue just adds another twist to it (doing a potentially good thing for potentially bad reasons.)

** I think in the book it's said that Carrie sews most of her own clothes - she's working on a new dress at one point. So she must either have money given to her to buy fabric anyway, or else there is a kitty or something they used to buy fabric.

** She was REALLY that sheltered. In the movie a point is made that until very recently she was homeschooled by her mother, and it's shown that she had problems doing something as normal to any teen as browsing the internet and watching videos on Youtube.
*** RuleOfDrama. And there's a slight lack of continuity, because one of the girls mentions knowing Carrie at least since "the sixth grade," so she wasn't home-schooled into high school. Agreed, this lack of awareness and ignorance of biology is much more believable in the early 1970s in the novel. It ''might'' be believable if Margaret had grown up in/escaped from some kind of crazy "Quiverfull" type cult where she'd had no access to the outside world, but the movie doesn't explore Margaret's character enough.
** Maybe it was just how I read it but in the original novel I got more of the impression that Carrie had just repressed all knowledge of menstruation rather then just flat out had never even encountered the concept, which as noted was pushing it a bit in mid-70s and pretty close to flat out impossible today.

** In my experience, Biology doesn't actually cover menstruation. That's covered in Sex Ed, which parents sometimes have to give permission for. That actually happens in the 2002 TV version, I believe.

** Sex Education in American schools is a huge hot-button issue. Some people (mostly religious groups) are dead-set against anyone even mentioning sex to anyone else, especially kids. Others think that sex ed should start in kindergarten. While the majority opinion is somewhere in the middle (let kids know what's happening to their bodies, and educate them so they can make good decisions), it's still a rough topic, and there are still many public schools that have substandard or nonexistent sex ed programs because the public opinion is just that contentious. It's certainly possible, however unlikely, that Carrie's school in 2013 either didn't have a sex ed program, or made it optional/require parental permission, which Margaret obviously wouldn't have given. And even if the school has a sex ed program, a class is only as good as its teacher. Imagine if the principal (the same one who got queasy whenever someone said "tampon") was the only staff member deemed qualified to teach the class. He may well have completely glossed over certain aspects because he just wasn't comfortable talking about them (something which, ironically, would have been prevented if his school had a decent sex ed program. . .) There was also a time not long ago (and it may still be, I haven't really done the research) where sexual knowledge among teens was at an all-time low, because parents weren't comfortable talking to their kids about it, assuming they'd learn about it in school. But schools weren't comfortable teaching kids about sex, assuming they'd learn about it from their parents, creating a situation where no one was talking to anyone about anything.

** Or maybe in the modern adaptations, she had some kind of anxiety disorder brought on by years of bullying at school and abuse at home? So when she starts bleeding for the first time ever in the middle of the school shower room, she freaks out not because she doesn't know what's happening but because it's just that shocking for her.

* Not that it wasn't [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments really sweet]], because it was, but isn't Sue setting up Carrie on a date with Tommy a strange thing to do, even under these circumstances? There are less extreme ways to make amends with someone you've victimized, so this can't be the only idea that occurred to Sue. A simple apology and an offer of friendship probably would have been more than sufficient (especially since Carrie [[NiceGirl is the type to wholeheartedly accept both]]), not to mention that Sue's idea won't necessarily solve anything: One date isn't going to make the other students accept Carrie or stop Chris from having it out for her, especially not if that date is with someone else's boyfriend (whether the someone else in question gave it the green light or not). Sue being friends with her probably wouldn't stop anything either, but it would at least ensure that there was someone there to have her back in future bullying situations. I guess the question here is, how did Sue go from "I need to make this right" to "I should set Carrie up with my boyfriend" without considering any other options?
** I think she cares more about making herself feel better than to help Carrie, when she started feeling regret for her actions Chris told her she was only acting that way to gain her Prom privileges back so most likely she decided to give that experience to Carrie instead as a Take That. Also she wasn't really setting her up with her boyfriend, she just wanted to give Carrie her place, she didn't really think it through
** In addition, keep in mind that Sue's been friends with [[AlphaBitch Chris]] for most of her life and probably wouldn't know the best and most appropriate way to handle the situation. She just figured an apology wouldn't cut it and wanted to give Carrie the best night of her life to make up for all her shitty years in school. Additionally since it's Prom and very close to the ''end'' of high school, this plan was to let her go out on a high note rather than win her friends with the other students.
** Well Sue's not pimping her boyfriend out for Carrie. She's just become aware of how awful Carrie's high school life has been - being excluded and constantly mocked etc. Her intention is to atone for her bullying by giving Carrie the opposite - a chance to be accepted by everyone. She's sort of working with what she's got. No boy would have asked Carrie so Tommy is the only guy she can get to take her. And by giving up her own date, she views this as adequate punishment or what she did.
** Sue also probably believed (not without reason) that a simple apology and offer of friendship wouldn't have been sufficient, since Carrie was meek enough to accept both whether she believed they were genuine or not, and Sue would have had no real way to demonstrate sincerity. Sure, if she wanted to make a meaningful act of contrition it might have been better to talk to Carrie with Tommy, explain that she felt horrible about what happened, and wanted to make it up to her by having Tommy take Carrie to prom, show her a good time, and let her have one nice memory of high school. But let's face it, Sue's an eighteen year old. . . they're not exactly known for carefully weighing and thinking through all their options (especially in horror movies.)
** First, in the book, Sue seems to be half-expecting that Tommy won't lend himself to her plan and even if he says yes that Carrie will possibly say no to Tommy's invitation. Later Sue writes that they were 17-18 yr old teenagers, so their decisions and plans, although perhaps well meaning, weren't so well thought. And as for the results of Tommy taking Carrie to the prom, Sue doesn't need to have the students accept Carrie, since after that night, they will all soon graduate and stop seeing each other regularly, making any acceptance scenario moot.
** In the 2002 film, Sue wants Carrie to have one good high school moment. When she tells Tommy to ask her, she says "take her and hold her hand" and some other stuff. A big part of Sue's conflict in the book is the fear of how her life will turn out after high school. She has actually loved high school and is afraid that it'll be the best years of her life, and she'll end up a lonely Stepford Wife who hasn't experienced anything. This fear is mitigated by Tommy and her friends Jessica, Helen, Frieda and a few others who she plans to keep in contact with - and later in life Sue becomes an author. But she realises that for Carrie, such an existence is much more of a possibility. And Carrie won't have the nostalgic memories of high school - and Sue suddenly realises that for fourteen years, this girl has had no friends and no good memories. So she just wants her to have one good memory. If Carrie goes with Tommy - who's something of a big man on campus - she won't get taunted by bullies, so she's bound to have a better time.

** Old query but: Sue might have just figured Carrie would tell her to fuck off if she offered to be her friend after what she did. In the 1976 version, she never talks to Carrie face to face about what happened, and, when Carrie asks Tommy why he took her to the prom, he gives really vague answers rather than just saying Sue wanted him to go.

** She may have not wanted them to worry. When Chris texts her, she probably assumes that the girl is just planning to storm in and say some mean things or whatever. Her plan seemed to be to go there, find out if Chris is about to do anything and stop it before Tommy or Carrie find out and have their night ruined.

* What do people think happened to Chris' dad, Mr. Hargensen? He, like any of the parents who survived, had to bury his child, and in at least one version of the film it comes out that Chris was the instigator of the DeadlyPrank. This was after he was in denial that she was a bully. Does anyone think he lived with the guilt of outliving his daughter, or worked to keep her memory pristine?
** It's implied that Carrie was seen as a monster in the years after the tragedy. Sue in her book has to go out of her way to point out what a victim Carrie actually was. No one knew Carrie really, or knew how awful her home life was. So it would have been very easy for propaganda to turn Carrie into the villain of the story, and Chris into another tragic victim. I could honestly see people claiming Chris just wanted to have her prom night and Carrie 'overreacted' to the prank. Whether Mr Hargensen bought into that or realised just how rotten his daughter was is completely up in the air.
** It might have actually been a while before they really worked out that Chris was behind the prank. With such a wide scale incident that involved the whole town burning up, there was bound to be several weeks of making sure people were accounted for (Chris and Billy were at a motel for the evening, and both had said they were planning to leave town). Then once they know who's alive or not, they can get into the hows and whys. So Mr Hargensen may have only known that his daughter was suspended from the prom and chose to go out with her boyfriend that night instead. Remember that unlike in the films, Chris and Billy acted completely on their own (except for Billy's friends who helped kill the pigs, not knowing what it was for). No plants in the gym, no forged ballots, just themselves and they're both dead by the time the investigation starts. They have to interview Jackie Talbot to find out about the murdered pigs, Tina Blake to find out that Chris asked to see the king and queen nominations (and that's easily a question they might not have asked), Miss Desjardin and the other teachers to form a character sketch of Chris and other little things that take time. So maybe Mr Hargensen left town like so many others and wasn't even aware of the stories about Chris, or chose to ignore them. Or maybe he had a HeelRealization and tried to make amends whatever way he could?

** Carrie's powers didn't awaken until she was seventeen. The incident with the stones raining on the house happened when she was three, and there was nothing to connect it with her. All the neighbors know is that Margaret was disciplining her daughter, and a freak shower of rocks happened. It could have been a force of nature or something else, and nothing to do with Carrie. They only investigate into that when the prom incident has already happened, and at this point they know Carrie had powers - so retroactively realise that the stones were caused by her. Until the prom, Carrie's uses of her powers were subtle and low-key, so no one could pick up on them. She dies only a couple of hours after the prom, so they wouldn't have time to figure out it was her or track her down quickly. Especially with late 70s technology.
** It's actually Estelle Horan's testimony well after Carrie's death that confirms she caused the stones. Estelle gives them the story that when Margaret dragged Carrie inside the house, bits of furniture suddenly started smashing - and a table flew through the window into the garden. Now they know that was Carrie's powers going overboard, but they had no way to connect the incidents back when it happened.

* For the 2013 film, why does the wiki's page refer to Chris being portrayed more sympathetically? In what way is she sympathetic in that version? She's clearly the more evil of her and Billy - even demanding Billy run Carrie down when they come across her after the prom - and is obviously as psychotic as she is in the book. In the 2002 film you could argue she's a little more sympathetic (Billy threatens to kill her, she tries to make him stop when he tries to run Carrie over). And why are they saying Mr Hargenson is implied to be abusive? Because he raises his voice slightly when Chris is refusing to hand over her phone and thus dispute vital evidence they'll need if he's going to sue the school? Honestly he seems to be perfectly reasonable - considering Chris lied to him that she didn't take part in the shower incident and he didn't know she'd filmed a video and uploaded it to [=YouTube=]. Looks more like perfectly reasonable anger to realising she's just wasted his time. Chris doesn't even seem to be afraid of him at all (she just got up and walked out of the room instead of handing over the phone).

* Why didn’t Sue go to the prom in the 2013 film? I don’t know how high school worked in the 70s (in the first film I recall Miss Collins tells Sue she can’t go without a date) or early 2000s but in 2013 it makes no sense. Yeah she can’t go with her boyfriend, but there’s no reason she can’t go with her friends right? Her giving up her entire prom (which Chris says in the same film she’s been DREAMING ABOUT FOR YEARS) just because Tommy isn’t taking her in the modern age didn’t age well. I’ve never heard of a high school in 2013+ that won’t allow you to go without a date.

* Why would people's first response be to laugh when Carrie gets covered in blood to begin with? You'd think most people would be scared or disgusted if something like that occured.

** Everyone hates Carrie because they think she's weird. Stephen King took this directly from a girl he knew in his own school who was bullied simply because she wore the same outfit all the time - and when she showed up wearing a new one, they bullied her even more. People also have no idea just how awful her home life is, since Margaret and Carrie are basically recluses. The reader and the viewer feel sorry for Carrie because we know what she's been through, whereas the teens and faculty don't know or don't care.

* In the 1976 version why didn't Sue just yell "Carrie, look out!" or something when she noticed the bucket? There's several minutes between her noticing and Chris acutally pulling the cord, and even though Sue didn't know the bucket was full of pig blood, you'd think if she saw a bucket right above Carrie with a string attached, she'd realize ''something'' bad was going to happen.
** Well possibly she might have thought it was a bucket of glitter and confetti to be pulled showering the winners. It's only until she checks that Billy and Chris are hiding under the stage that she realises something bad is about to happen - and at that point, Miss Collins is already pulling her away and thinking she's causing trouble. Sue can be seen protesting and trying to explain, but Miss Collins doesn't want to listen to her, and is already throwing her out (she's also a hardy adult who teaches PE versus a dainty teenager who isn't particularly fit, so a struggle is harder for Sue to win). And in that situation, there's a whole gym full of people either clapping or speaking, so it might have been hard for Sue to make herself heard. Sue was also caught off guard and flustered, so she might not have been able to think on her feet in the shock of the moment.

* Right after the prom scene in the 1976 version we see a firetruck drive past Carrie (who's still covered in blood) without [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight even slowing down.]] Why? They don't know exactly what happened yet, so for all they know she could be badly hurt and it's her own blood shes covered in.
** That would be a judgment call on the part of the driver. They're dispatched to put out a fire in a high school gym at a prom, with potentially hundreds of kids burning to death. If they stop for one girl walking apparently fine on her own, that could be another dozen lives lost (it only takes three minutes for fire to spread through a small room). Or in the darkness of the night, they might not have seen the blood.
** There are two remnants from what happens in the book as well - the first is that Carrie drained all the water from every fire hydrant in the town, so if she did so here then that truck is from another town and therefore it's even more urgent. The second is that when Carrie's powers activate at the prom, everyone suddenly knows she's behind it. Everyone in town has a psychic link with her of some kind. So the driver may well have known Carrie was responsible. It's possible this applies in this version too, since Chris and Billy seem to know that Carrie is behind it.

** Out of universe, it's a way to keep Sue involved in the third act since the town's destruction is AdaptedOut. In-universe, she possibly wanted to see Carrie have her moment. She goes out at 8 I think because the prom starts at 7 and the king and queen voting would happen after an hour or so.

* Minor question, but in the book, it mentions that Margaret [[PokeThePoodle won't let Carrie have a pillow, so she has to just sleep with her head on the bed.]] What exactly is the point of this detail? Is it just another reminder that Margaret is an abusive nutjob.
** Yep pretty much. Margaret thinks menstruation only happens to bad girls, so she's cherry picking her religious instructions. Perhaps a pillow is seen as an unnecessary luxury or comfort.

* In the 2013 version of the shower scene, why does Chris intially [[PetTheDog helpfully give Carrie a tampon]] and helpfully tell her it's just her period, and only get mean when Carrie accidently gets blood on her hand. Considering Chris is a [[{{Jerkass}} complete asshole]] throughout the rest of the film. this seems really out of character.

* Given ''Carrie'' takes place prior to Memorial Day (the last Monday of May), I have a lot of questions about the versions where English is the class being featured in the medium. Since ''Carrie'' is set on the last weeks of Senior year, wouldn't the English classes be on Senior Presentations? Knowing my experiences as a Senior, the 12th grade English classes spend the last semester working on a research project which is required for Graduation. Plus, since the book and movies are set on the last weeks of May, wouldn't some of the students be presenting their topics on the day and time of their choice?
** That school may well not have had "Senior Presentations" to begin with. I attended a small high school in the mid-80s and there was no such thing there. Hardly a universal.

* Given ''Carrie'' takes place prior to Memorial Day (the last Monday of May), I have a lot of questions about the versions where English is the class being featured in the medium. Since ''Carrie'' is set on the last weeks of Senior year, wouldn't the English classes be on Senior Presentations? Knowing my experiences as a Senior, the 12th grade English classes spend the last semester working on a research project which is required for Graduation. Plus, since the book and movies are set on the last weeks of May, wouldn't some of the students be presenting their topics on the day and time of their choice?