History Literature / JeffTheKiller

* AdaptationExpansion: ''My Version'' continues on from the BolivianArmyEnding of the original, showing Andy's attempt to kill Jeff as an adult with the help of Detective Price, Stephen, and Josh.
* AdaptationNameChange: In ''Jeff the Killer (My Version)'', Liu is called Andy. Randy, Keith, and Troy become Michael, Stephen, and Greg respectively.

* BookEnds: ''My Version'' invokes this, with the four protagonists attempting to cure Jeff's passion for killing by restaging the events of the birthday party where it all began. For an added bonus, [[spoiler: Jeff ultimately burns to death in a similar fashion to his ''birth''.]]

* DeadGuyJunior: In ''My Version'''s epilogue, it's revealed that Andy named his son Jeff.

* HeelFaceTurn: Stephen in ''My Version'' turns to the side of good after seeing the horrific results of Jeff's insanity first hand.
* HeroicSacrifice: Josh pulls one of these to kill Jeff once and for all in ''My Version''.

* SparedByTheAdaptation: ''My Version'' spares Andy, the equivalent of Liu, and Stephen, the equivalent to Keith.

It eventually become almost synonymous with Creepypasta itself, mostly known thanks to the ridiculous amount of spinoffs, as well as its infamously {{Narm}}y and unrealistic origin story, both of which have turned something originally [[RuleOfScary totally off-the-rails frightening]] into something...[[NightmareRetardant well, not so much]]. Over the years, the other well-written Creepypastas have resulted in this ''Jeff the Killer'' becoming increasingly derided and disliked, so much so that it got removed off the ''Creepypasta'' Wiki and placed on its sister site, the Wiki/TrollpastaWiki, dedicated to non-serious and poorly-written Creepypastas (referred to at one point on the Wiki as [[JustForPun crappypastas]]). A [[WebOriginal/JeffTheKiller2015 remake]] was posted in 2015, but was also criticized for the fact that while it managed to fix the broken grammar and plot holes, it still wasn't that great overall.

It eventually become almost synonymous with Creepypasta itself, mostly known thanks to the ridiculous amount of spinoffs, as well as its infamously {{Narm}}y and unrealistic origin story, both of which have turned something originally [[RuleOfScary totally off-the-rails frightening]] into something...[[NightmareRetardant well, not so much]]. Over the years, the other well-written Creepypastas have resulted in this ''Jeff the Killer'' becoming increasingly derided and disliked, so much so that it got removed off the ''Creepypasta'' Wiki and placed on its sister site, the Wiki/TrollpastaWiki, dedicated to non-serious and poorly-written Creepypastas (referred to at one point on the Wiki as [[JustForPun crappypastas]]). A [[https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/Jeff_the_Killer_2015 remake]] was posted in 2015, but was also criticized for the fact that while it managed to fix the broken grammar and plot holes, it still wasn't that great overall.

* BeigeProse:
** One of the story's many problems. See BuffySpeak below.
** The remake on the other hand completely avoids this. [[PurpleProse Let's just say it overcorrected]].

** The Remake forgoes his Joker-esque appearance for a more ComicBook/TwoFace style look, with one half of Jeff's face being perfectly normal looking while the other is horribly disfigured

* InformedAttribute: Jeff doesn't really become "the killer" by the end of the remake; he only kills his parents, who he obviously murdered for personal reasons as opposed to "losing his sanity". There's also no indication that he'll continue his killing spree.

* KarmaHoudini:
** In the remake, Randy, Keith and Troy get off scot-free by lying their way out of it. And somehow making them think Jeff ''shot himself with a flare gun.''
** Jeff himself is this. the original has him kill his whole family and go on to become a serial killer, [[WouldHurtAChild with no qualms against murdering children]]. The story offers no indication that he will be brought to justice anytime soon. The remake lessens this, as he only murders his parents, with no clear indication that he plans to continue killing. His parents are [[AssholeVictim asshole victims]] in this version, and while murder is still murder, he does end up having to say goodbye to his brother (who he truly cares for) and leave his house, forcing him to become a homeless loner.

* SparedByTheAdaptation:
** The spin-off, Homicidal Liu starts with the premise that Liu survived Jeff's brutal murder of his family and became a killer himself.
** In the Remake, Liu is spared by Jeff after he kills their parents, simply stating that Liu is now "free".
** The remake also spares all of the bullies, as opposed to the original killing Randy and leaving Keith and Troy to suffer from UncertainDoom. Now, all three are victims of ChuckCunninghamSyndrome.
** ''My Version'' spares Andy, the equivalent of Liu, and Stephen, the equivalent to Keith.

* ActionPrologue: The opening to the story starts with a child retelling his account of nearly being stabbed by Jeff. The remake, on the other hand, starts with [[SlowPacedBeginning a description of the weather.]]
* AdaptationalHeroism:
** In the official remake, Jeff spares Liu, and his reasons for killing his parents are more understandable since they were not particularly nice to him or Liu. The opening with him trying to kill a child is cut, and it's not even clear if he plans on continuing to kill people.
** In a downplayed example, the bullies, while still huge jerks, never try to kill anyone in the remake. There is also no mention of them mugging other kids at knifepoint. They simply mess with Jeff and Liu's bikes and get into a fistfight with them. When they try to get revenge on Jeff later, they do it away from anyone else, and only try to beat him up, whereas in the original, they attacked him at a birthday party with the intent to brutally murder him and threatened all those present.

* AintTooProudToBeg: Jeff's mom in the official remake begs for her life and in a last ditch tries to manipulate Jeff into sparing her.

* PurpleProse: The remake uses this in ''spades.''
* SaidBookism: The remake's author seems almost incapable of having anyone simply "say" anything. They blurt, reply, announce, invite, and suggest, but they hardly ever say.

* TrophyChild: This is how Jeff and Liu's parents treat them in the 2015 remake. When he and his brother get in trouble for standing up to the local bullies, their parents take the side of the cops, refuse to listen to their children about what happened even when in private, and even send Liu away as punishment. This is all because the bully, Randy, is the son of their father's new boss, and they'd rather look good to their new neighbors than support their children. After Jeff is in the hospital for being hit with a flare gun, his mother is more concerned with how he'll look than if he'll be okay mentally or physically. All of this makes it no wonder they die in this version of the story.
* TwoFaced: In the remake, half of Jeff's face gets hideously disfigured by a flare gun.

* ViewersAreGoldfish: The remake spends the majority of its opening telling us over and over again that Jeff and Liu miss home. It later recaps Jeff's first encounter with the bullies ''in the same scene.''
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Troy and Keith, despite being major antagonists, just kinda awkwardly leave the story after Jeff is burned. They ''might'' have been killed during the fire or when they were whacked on the head with a towel rack but it's not made very clear. Though it's implied Kieth dies with it being explicitly stated, "As he lay there bleeding to death," implying Kieth did die.

** In "JTK", this is played mostly straight with Randy, Troy, and Keith. They only attack Jeff once, but it was in the heat of the moment and because he was making them feel nervous. And on the flipside, this leads to ...
* AdaptationalVillainy: In the above-mentioned "JTK", Jeff is stripped of his qualities that were intended to make him sympathetic, where he is actively antisocial and hostile towards almost everyone, idolizes school shooters and identifies with villains, and [[spoiler:plans a school massacre months in advance that ends in the death of dozens of victims in addition to his parents and his brother]].

** Deconstructed, subverted, ''and'' played straight in "JTK". Jeff was the subject of mockery and gossip in school, but precisely because of his creepy, unsettling aura and antisocial behavior. Nothing ever suggests that he any of his victims treated him badly enough to deserve death, with the only ones who ever physically hurt him not only getting away with it, but otherwise being seemingly nice guys who only attacked him in a heated confrontation and came to feel bad about it later. Played straight with [[spoiler:Jeff himself, who is killed after claiming numerous lives]].

** Despite only being a child, Jeff is [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower ridiculously strong]], being able to break bones like twigs, and tear a towel rack off a wall effortlessly - cement, tiles, grout and metal joints be damned!

* CharlesAtlasSuperpower:
** Jeff is fucking strong for his age. He's able to rip a towel rack off the wall with little effort, and break another kid's wrist with even less.
** Also Troy and Randy for being able to throw Jeff through a sliding glass door, and the latter breaking a bottle of vodka over his head.
** Don't forget Jeff killing Randy with ONE PUNCH.

* {{MST}}: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNPPpfHclyA BAD]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKOwDHMjKpM CREEPY]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZcf7Iij5PA PASTA]] has done an MST'd reading of the story in a very lemony, snarky way.

* HateSink: Randy, Keith and Troy, who were a group of bullies, they were made to be hated given by the fact they bully Jeff for fun and shows no remorse on doing so, while they get killed in the original, but in the remake they get off [[KarmaHoudini scot-free]] which makes them even more hated.

** Jeff and Liu's parents are this in the official remake.

* TeensAreMonsters: Jeff in the end.

* CrapsackWorld: You know the neighbourhood where young children are stabbed (and shot) to death by other young children on a regular basis and where police have the authority to act as JudgeJuryAndExecutioner? That neighbourhood is considered to be one of the ''nicer'' places!

* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler:Keith presumably ''tries'' to do this with Jeff by tossing his lighter at the latter, who has been coated in vodka and bleach.]]

** Jeff claims cutting his eyelids off would allow him to never sleep again. In reality, people can sleep with their eyes open in a condition called nocturnal lagopthalmos. In addition, it is impossible to completely stop sleeping without dying (see fatal familial insomnia); the longest time someone has spent without sleeping and survived is 11 days, and long before that point, the brain will force any but the most resilient (or the most drugged up) individuals to fall asleep.

** Jeff somehow has perfect vision despite burning his eyelids off. Without eyelids in real life, a person would very quickly turn blind because of infections, their eyes drying out, or simply getting damaged by dust or foreign objects.

** The fact that apparently bleach makes skin turn pure white. In reality, bleach can irritate the skin, making it turn red and inflamed.

** Not only is bleach not flammable (something fixed in some retellings of the story, where he was drenched in alcohol as well as bleach), but bleach is a base chemical. While it does cause clothes to become washed out if bleach was left on a person's hand long-term it would cause the skin to become irritated, similar to how an acid dissolves the skin, so if Jeff weren't turned black from being burned alive he would be a lighter-than-normal pink due to the majority of his epidermis sloughing off. The only correct thing about him being drenched in bleach is his skin feeling "tight," a result of said effect of it being a base.

** Household bleach is fairly dilute so it doesn't really affect human skin unless it's left on there for a long time. Presumably washing off the bleach before it did any damage was one of the first things they'd have done at the hospital, so there's really no reason why it should have affected Jeff's face at all.

This is a combination of [[http://www.dailydot.com/lol/4chan-x-origins-jeff-the-killer/ original research]] and memories of former ED editors, whose words must be taken at face value because in 2011 most of the relevant image discussion pages and user profiles for ED [[MissingEpisode were deleted in their entirety]]. However, like everything else on the Internet, [[MultipleChoicePast one person's guess is as good as anyone else's]].

* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: Jeff's mother hugs Jeff

->''"I really like this one. [[NarmCharm it's like an 80s horror film.]]"''

* PoliceBrutality: The Police pull out their guns and aim them at Liu just because he decided to show proof that it was him who attacked the trio.

** Also, the ''doctor'', no less, claims that Jeff's insane laughter is a result of the Anesthetics they use. While this is a possible symptom of coming out of anesthesia, anesthetized patients are far more likely to babble and say unusual things. Watch some videos of dental patients waking up and talking for the first time after surgery for proof.

** In ''JTK'', this is played mostly straight with Randy, Troy, and Keith. They only attack Jeff once, but it was in the heat of the moment and because he was making them feel nervous. And on the flipside, this leads to ...
* AdaptationalVillainy: In the above-mentioned ''JTK'', Jeff is stripped of his qualities that were intended to make him sympathetic, where he is actively antisocial and hostile towards almost everyone, idolizes school shooters and identifies with villains, and [[spoiler:plans a school massacre months in advance that ends in the death of dozens of victims in addition to his parents and his brother]].

** The Remake forgoes his Joker-esque appearance for a more Two-Face style look, with one half of Jeff's face being perfectly normal looking while the other is horribly disfigured

** Also Troy and Keith for being able to throw Jeff through a sliding glass door, and the latter breaking a bottle of vodka over his head.

* FauxAffablyEvil: Randy becomes this in the official remake.

** Three days after having one of his wrists broken by Jeff, Randy is able to use his wrists just fine. Despite this, he still has a bruise on his nose from where Jeff punched him, which you think would have healed first. This is more likely a PlotHole than anything else.

It eventually become almost synonymous with Creepypasta itself, mostly known thanks to the ridiculous amount of spinoffs, as well as its infamously {{Narm}}y and unrealistic origin story, both of which have turned something originally [[RuleOfScary totally off-the-rails frightening]] into something...[[NightmareRetardant well, not so much]]. Over the years, the other well-written Creepypastas have resulted in this ''Jeff the Killer'' becoming increasingly derided and disliked, so much so that it got removed off the ''Creepypasta'' Wiki and placed on its sister site, the Wiki/TrollpastaWiki, dedicated to non-serious and poorly-written Creepypastas (referred to at one point on the Wiki as [[JustForPun crappypastas]]). A [[https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/Jeff_the_Killer_2015 remake]] was posted in 2015, but was equally criticized for the fact that while it attempted to fix the broken grammar and plot holes, it also made a large number of these itself.

* WouldHurtAChild:
** The story opens with a report detailing Jeff's attempted murder of a child.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-UN8T6jQow Bridgette Near's take on Jane the Killer]], on the other hand....

* TheUnpronounceable: A very mild case revolving around Jeff's brother Liu's name. While the name itself isn't hard to say in theory, just exactly ''how'' you're supposed to say it is where the confusion starts. People are divided between whether or not it's supposed to be said "Lee-oo" or just "Lou". A very small fraction of people think it's supposed to be pronounced like "Louie", and at least one person as evident by the WMG page has theorized that "Liu" is actually just short for his real name which is an older version of the name "Leopold" which is "''Liu''pold." Needless to say the author never clarified, and the name is just one of the many [[SnarkBait Snark Baits]] in the story.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Troy and Keith, despite being major antagonists, just kinda awkwardly leave the story after Jeff is burned. They ''might'' have been killed during the fire (or Troy by being whacked on the head with a towel rack) but it's not made very clear.