History LIterature / Firestarter

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: While "mundane" is certainly a stretch here, one of the scientists analyzing Charlie's second test notes that despite producing an estimated 30,000 degrees of spot heat and disintegrating a cinderblock wall, Charlie exerted almost no physical effort doing so. This raise the question of whether her pyrokinesis is coming ''from'' her or ''through'' her, and if it's coming through her, where is it coming from? This is also touched on with Andy's mental domination powers, when he makes a cab driver think that a $1 bill is in fact a $500 bill to convince him to drive all the way to Albany from New York City. When the Shop gets a hold of the bill, several agents report briefly hallucinating that the dollar bill is a $500 bill. Cap and Steinowitz also hallucinate the $500 bill but are knowledgeable enough to realize that the bill resembles what Andy's imagination believed a $500 bill would look like, as it has the wrong president on it.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: Rainbird goes barefoot when he's alone. He's fascinated with shoes and has a whole collection of them; he just doesn't like ''wearing'' them. In the book, the reason given is linked to how his father, a full-blooded Native American, was buried barefoot due to his burial moccasins being stolen.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: Rainbird goes barefoot when he's alone. He's fascinated with shoes and has a whole collection of them; he just doesn't like ''wearing'' them.

--> In the "sequel", he's played by Creator/MalcolmMcDowell (who seemingly made zero effort to hide his distinctly non-Native American accent.)

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Dr. Pynchot [[spoiler: in the middle of the ricochet set off by Andy's MindRape, puts on his wife's lingerie and masturbates over the garbage disposal]].

* Retcon: In the "sequel", it is revealed that Rainbird is still alive.

* PowerIncontinence: Charlie finds it very hard to control her power at first. Even at the end, she still has trouble getting it to stop working, it seems to "want" to keep going, burning up everything.

* ParentalSubstitute: After [[spoiler:the death of Andy and the big showdown that leads to the destruction of the Shop, Charlie ends up returning to the Manders farm where they nurse her back to health and spend almost a year taking care of her. Both Irv and Norma truly do love Charlie as though she were their own daughter but they also acknowledge that they not only can't replace her parents, the isolation would be painful for all three of them. Charlie reluctantly ends up leaving them to go to New York City so that she can tell her story to ''Rolling Stone''.]]

Also made into a movie of the same name in 1984, directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Creator/DrewBarrymore as Charlie, Creator/DavidKeith as Andy, Creator/GeorgeCScott as Rainbird, Creator/MartinSheen as Hollister, and Creator/HeatherLocklear as Vicky. This was the first of several Stephen King adaptations produced by the Dino De Laurentiis Company. A ({{contested|sequel}}) {{sequel series}}, ''Firestarter 2: Rekindled'', aired on the Creator/SciFiChannel in 2002. A second adaptation of the novel, by Creator/BlumhouseProductions and starring Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Charlie and Creator/ZacEfron as Andy, was released May 13, 2022 in theaters and on Creator/{{Peacock}}.

* CantStopTheSignal: Throughout the book, Andy is desperate to make his way to a national media outlet with no government ties so that he can tell the story of the Shop and what they did to his family. [[spoiler: In the final scene, Charlie is seen entering the offices of ''Magazine/RollingStone'' magazine. This makes far more sense than the movie's ending, which has her heading to the ''New York Times'' instead.]]

* MagicalNativeAmerican: A rare example of subversion. Rainbird's death-oriented mysticism makes him terrifying and dangerous rather than understanding and helpful.

Also made into a movie of the same name in 1984, directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Creator/DrewBarrymore as Charlie, Creator/DavidKeith as Andy, Creator/GeorgeCScott as Rainbird, Creator/MartinSheen as Hollister, and Creator/HeatherLocklear as Vicky. This was the first of several Stephen King adaptations produced by the Dino De Laurentiis Company. A ({{contested|sequel}}) {{sequel series}}, ''Firestarter 2: Rekindled'', aired on the Creator/SciFiChannel in 2002. [A second adaptation of the novel, by Creator/BlumhouseProductions and starring Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Charlie and Creator/ZacEfron as Andy, was released May 13, 2022 in theaters and on Creator/{{Peacock}}.

Also made into a movie of the same name in 1984, directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Creator/DrewBarrymore as Charlie, Creator/DavidKeith as Andy, Creator/GeorgeCScott as Rainbird, Creator/MartinSheen as Hollister, and Creator/HeatherLocklear as Vicky. This was the first of several Stephen King adaptations produced by the Dino De Laurentiis Company. A ({{contested|sequel}}) {{sequel series}}, ''Firestarter 2: Rekindled'', aired on the Creator/SciFiChannel in 2002. [[Film/Firestarter2022 A second adaptation of the novel]], by Creator/BlumhouseProductions and starring Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Charlie and Creator/ZacEfron as Andy, is set for release sometime May 13, 2022 in theaters and on Creator/{{Peacock}}.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Dr. Pynchot [[spoiler: in the middle of the ricochet set off by Andy's MindRape, puts on his wife's lingerie and masturbates over the garbage disposal]].

Also made into a movie of the same name in 1984, directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Creator/DrewBarrymore as Charlie, Creator/DavidKeith as Andy, Creator/GeorgeCScott as Rainbird, Creator/MartinSheen as Hollister, and Creator/HeatherLocklear as Vicky. This was the first of several Stephen King adaptations produced by the Dino De Laurentiis Company. A ({{contested|sequel}}) {{sequel series}}, ''Firestarter 2: Rekindled'', aired on the Creator/SciFiChannel in 2002. [[Film/Firestarter2022 A second adaptation of the novel]], by Creator/BlumhouseProductions and starring Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Charlie and Creator/ZacEfron as Andy, is set for release sometime in 2022.

Also made into a movie of the same name in 1984, directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Creator/DrewBarrymore as Charlie, Creator/DavidKeith as Andy, Creator/GeorgeCScott as Rainbird, Creator/MartinSheen as Hollister, and Creator/HeatherLocklear as Vicky. This was the first of several Stephen King adaptations produced by the Dino De Laurentiis Company. A ({{contested|sequel}}) {{sequel series}}, ''Firestarter 2: Rekindled'', aired on the Creator/SciFiChannel in 2002. A second adaptation of the novel, by Creator/BlumhouseProductions and starring Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Charlie and Creator/ZacEfron as Andy, is set for release sometime in 2022.

* BecomingTheMask: Rainbird takes his assumed role as a janitor very seriously. He stays in character even if Charlie is not around, exchanges his luxurious car for a more humble one, and always uses the employee changeroom to get into his work uniform. His motivation for doing so is that he wants to fool not just Charlie, but also all Shop employees working directly with her, because he fears that otherwise rumors that he is not who he claims to be will eventually reach Charlie.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Rainbird plays that role for Charlie: he pretends that he has a paralyzing fear of the dark, because the Vietcong imprisoned him in a dark cave. (He really is a Vietnam War vet, and he saw plenty of disturbing things, but they don't seem to affect him much and he was never captured).

* CompositeCharacter: The two psychologists, Dr. Hockstetter (who was the main one in charge of getting results from Charlie) and Dr. Pynchot (his subordinate who was in charge of monitoring Andy's Push and getting him hooked on Thorazine before [[spoiler:being DrivenToSuicide]], are combined into one person in the movie.

* StuffedIntoTheFridge: Andy finds Vicky's body in an ironing closet after the Shop agents killed her.

* PapaWolf: Andy is this the Charlie for most of the movie, [[BadassAdorable not that she needs much protection.]] [[spoiler: It ends up getting inverted at the end, when Rainbird [[YouKilledMyFather murders Andy right in front of Charlie,]] and she is [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge mighty pissed off about it.]]

Also made into a movie of the same name in 1984, directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Creator/DrewBarrymore as Charlie, Creator/DavidKeith as Andy, Creator/GeorgeCScott as Rainbird, Creator/MartinSheen as Hollister, and Creator/HeatherLocklear as Vicky. This was the first of several Stephen King adaptations produced by the Dino De Laurentiis Company. A ({{contested|sequel}}) {{sequel series}}, ''Firestarter 2: Rekindled'', aired on the Creator/SciFiChannel in 2002. A second adaptation of the novel, by Creator/BlumhouseProductions and starring Creator/ZacEfron as Andy, is set for release sometime in 2022.

* AdaptationDyeJob : Vicky is a redhead in the book, played by the blonde Creator/HeatherLocklear in the film. There's a scene in the book where during the Lot Six experiment Andy thinks that her hair is like copper set on fire and Vicky "hears" it due to the effects of the drug. Oddy, this was adapted to the film unchanged.
* AffablyEvil: The Shop assassin Rainbird gains Charlie's trust by posing as a friendly janitor.
** Cap Hollister often comes across as a kind, elderly gentleman who genuinely loves his wife and is a grandfather (it's noted at one point that more than one of his grandchildren are very close to Charlie's age).

* AnimalMotifs : Horses are a recurring motif. Andy describes the thudding headaches he gets as a "riderless horse," and this comes up again in later scenes and dream sequences, after Charlie starts riding the horses on the Shop's grounds.
* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: After the conflagration at the Manders' farm, a government agent shows up at the hospital where Irv is recovering. He offers them a $35,000 check (equivalent to over $100,000 in 2017) and tells them not to talk about what happened—leafing through files with their names on them. The files contain information (some of it potentially damaging) on relatives of theirs both immediate and distant, and the agent implicitly threatens to make a lot of trouble for those people if Irv and Norma don't keep their mouths shut.

* BlatantLies: The Shop claimed that they were using the double blind method in the Lot Six experiment, in which only half of the volunteers will get Lot 6 and the other half will just get distilled water. They also said that Lot Six is a harmless hallucinogenic. Actually, all the volunteers got Lot Six (which is a dangerous PsychoSerum) and they reacted in different, but drug trip-like ways. Special mention going to the [[EyeScream eye clawer]], Andy and his future wife.
** Rainbird's story of his time in the POW hole, which is completely fabricated.
* BlessedWithSuck: Andy's powers give him pain and minor brain hemorrhages when he uses them; Charlie's does not, but she has a hard time controlling them (and, of course, they are chased because of them).
* BloodierAndGorier: Charlie's escape from the Shop in the film compared to the book, where she massacres quite a few more Shop agents and personnel. At one point, she even blows up a helicopter in mid-flight.
* BullyingADragon: The government ''knows'' how powerful Charlie and Andy are, or have the potential to be, so what do they do? Give them all sorts of reasons to hate the government!
** Mostly averted with the Shop people. They do everything possible to keep Charlie happy, including using Rainbird as TheMole, and give her a chance to exercise her power in safe confines. However, the one thing they ''cannot'' do is let her see her father, and after a while, that's all she wants to do...

* CantStopTheSignal: Throughout the book, Andy is desperate to make his way to a national media outlet with no government ties so that he can tell the story of the Shop and what they did to his family. [[spoiler: In the book's final scene, Charlie is seen entering the offices of ''Magazine/RollingStone'' magazine.]]
** Which makes far more sense than the movie's ending, which has her heading to the office of The New York Times...
* CementShoes: The subjects for the Lot Six experiment were chosen from people with no living relatives, so there would be fewer problems if they die. The Shop still had to kill the godfather of one of the victims, who had been determined to find out the truth of what had happened to his godson. Rather than getting to the bottom of what happened, the only place he wound up getting to was "the bottom of the Baltimore Trench, where he presumably still was, with two cement blocks tied around whatever remained of his legs."
* CreepyCrossdresser: Dr. Pynchot who has secretly enjoyed dressing up in women's underwear since his college days. [[spoiler:His crossdressing eventually becomes, literally, the ''death'' of him, after a "push" from Andy goes horribly wrong and causes him to [[ItMakesSenseInContext stick his arm in a garbage disposal while crossdressing.]]]]
* CurbStompBattle: Right before he dies, Andy tells Charlie to take the gloves off and kill anyone who gets in her way, because he knows they'll kill her if they get the chance. Charlie, pissed off over the death of her father and completely out of fucks, proceeds to burn ''everything and everyone.'' Grown men are pissing themselves while trying to get away.
* DaddysGirl: Charlie (though it's just because her mother was killed).
* DeathSeeker: Rainbird pretty much. The root of his obsession with Charlie.

* DramaticWind: TheFilmOfTheBook features this. Charlie's hair starts to blow around, then straight out, when she uses her powers.
* TheDreaded: John Rainbird, within the Shop. Even Cap Hollister is afraid of him.
* DrivenToSuicide: Several participants of the Lot Six experiment. Also, [[spoiler: Dr. Pynchot (in the book) who commits suicide by shoving his arm into the garbage disposal while it's running, after Andy triggered an 'echo' in his mind.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}} : A very early mention of ''Magazine/RollingStone'' foreshadows Charlie approaching them to tell her story in the epilogue.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: After the woodchips scene if you look hard enough, you can see Charlie walking out of the room while the Shop agents discuss what to do about her and Andy. Rainbird was the first to notice when she leaves.

* GovernmentAgencyOfFiction: Department of Scientific Intelligence (the Shop).