History Literature / Thinner

* FatBastard: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed.]] Billy Halleck is a seemingly nice guy with a good marriage and is a doting father (his daughter in fact [[DaddysGirl prefers Billy to her mother]]). However, he is clearly aware of his firm's tie to TheMafia, and is in fact good friends with a man who may be the head of the local mob family. After the accident, he doesn't deliberately use his connections to get him out of trouble, but he does nothing to dissuade them either. [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped There is blame enough to go around, but no one is willing to accept the consequences for their actions.]]

* InfantImmortality: [[spoiler: Averted. Poor Linda doesn't make it thanks to Billy's pie which was intended for his wife.]]

** The ultimate result of eating a slice of the cursed pie. In the book, Lemke warns Billy that whomever eats it will not only takes on his withering curse, but it will be five-fold ''stronger''. In the film, it is mentioned that the curse will be stronger but we also get a chance to see exactly ''how'' [[spoiler: when Billy gives his [[YourCheatingHeart cheating wife]] a slice... The pie completely desiccates her body and turns her into a bizarre corpse-pie mishmash. Which Billy then [[{{Squick}} kisses]]. And then ''[[ImAHumanitarian eats]]'', nibbling on a bit of crusty lip that Billy espouses as delicious... But then reminds himself that he probably shouldn't have too much of.]]

* BratsWithSlingshots: Gina Lempke, great-granddaugther of Tadzu Lempke, is highly skilled with a slingshot, and even performs with it for money. She uses it to shoot a ball bearing through Billy's hand when he comes to the Gypsy camp to demand the curse is taken off, and it's strongly implied she killed Frank Spurton, the man Richie hired to spy on the Gypsies, with it.

* IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure: After tracking down the gypsy camp, Billy and Richie start targeting Lemke's family to force him to remove the curse. In the book he terrorizes and shoots up the place while making some cold threats against people. In the film Richie kills his granddaughter's husband and threatens to scar her face with acid, Lemke gives in and puts Billy's curse in a pie (although in the book he kills Richie as well).

* {{Narm}}: Discussed trope. In one scene, Ginelli uses packing tape to secure a man to a tree. The narration acknowledges that taping someone to a tree sounds dumb, but goes on to point out how ''strong'' packing tape actually is, and how close to impossible escaping from those bindings would actually be.

* RedShirt: Richie's employee Frank, who is killed quickly without doing anything of importance or real interest.
* ScienceMarchesOn: At the start of the novel, Billy Halleck weighs in at 249 lbs. and is considered massively overweight by nearly everyone he meets with his Doctor in particular chiding him (mentioning his risk for a heart attack). Granted, his height is never given, but in TheNewTens in America his weight wouldn't be commented on quite so drastically. The 1996 film version boosts Billy's weight to an even 300 lbs. to emphasize his mass due to Robert John Burke's height. [[note]] Part of [[Creator/StephenKing Stephen King's]] inspiration for the book was a routine visit to the doctor's office where he was told "I don't know if you've noticed, but you've entered Heart Attack Country" due to his heavy smoking and being slightly overweight. King grudgingly lost the weight and quit smoking, but his Doctor's line made it into the book verbatim.[[/note]]

* WeirdnessCensor: Billy's wife, his physician, and the specialists he goes to see refuse to believe that Billy is cursed, despite finding nothing wrong with him in any of their tests. [[DefiedTrope Defied]] by [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], who believes Billy upon seeing him and hearing his tale. Richie states that he can accept a supernatural cause because his high-stakes criminal lifestyle ''demands'' that he recognize threats when they appear - and refusing to acknowledge a threat as dangerous as Billy's curse would be ''suicidal''.
-->I believe in what I see. That's why I'm a relatively rich man. That's also why I'm a living man. Most people, they don't believe what they see. ...Some guys -- a lot of guys -- don't believe what they are seeing, especially if it gets in the way of what they eat or drink or think or believe. Me, I don't believe in God. But if I saw him, I would. I wouldn't just go around saying, "Jesus, that was a great special effect." The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn't believe what he's seeing. And you can quote me.

-->'''Taduz Lemke:''' Then your friend comes. He poisons dogs, shoots guns in the night, uses his hands on a woman, threatens to throw acid in the faces of children. Take it off he says-take it off and take it off and take it off. And finally I say okay as long as he gets out of here! Not from what he did, but from what he will do-he is crazy, this friend of yours, and he will never stop. Even my 'Gelina says she sees from his eyes he will never stop. "But we will never stop either," she says, and I say, "Yes, we will. Yes, we will stop. Because if we don't, we are crazy like the town man's friend."

* TheGhost: Billy employs private detectives to track down the gypsy camp, and later those same detectives are looking for Billy for his wife, but none of them ever appear in person, we just see their reports and have Billy consider ways to evade them in his head.

%% * SpoiledSweet: Linda is doted on by her father, and is one of the novels most sympathetic characters.

* UsefulNotes/{{Roma|ni}}

* SpoiledSweet: Linda is doted on by her father, and is one of the novels most sympathetic characters.

-->'''Taduz Lemke:''' Then your friend comes. He poisons dogs, shoots guns in the night, uses his hands on a woman, threatens to throw acid in the faces of children. Take it off he says-take it off and take it off and take it off. And finally I say okay as long as he gets out of here! Not from what he did, but from what he will do-he is crazy, this friend of yours, and he will never stop. Even my 'Gelina says she sees from his eyes he will never stop. "But we will never stop either," she says, and I say, "Yes we will. Yes we will stop. Because if we don't, we are crazy like the town man's friend."

* AFriendInNeed: When his wife fails to believe he is cursed (and in fact conspires with a local doctor to commit him to a Mental Institution should he return home), Billy turns to [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], a Mafioso who he is acquainted with. Richie sends Billy a doctor, then shows up himself to wreak havoc on the Gypsies until the they agree to lift the curse. [[spoiler: He dies for his troubles, but accepted that fact beforehand.]]

** ''Unknown'' - Sheriff Hopley's curse. The name of the curse was not given, but it give him horrendous acne. And by "horrendous", I don't mean "looks like chicken pox" - I mean... well...

* NeverMyFault: Billy Halleck blames everybody but himself for his having run Susanna Lemke over, including Susanna herself. Taduz Lemke even tells Billy that he feels a bit sorry for him when they meet for the last time, because he can't take responsibility; "You tell yourself you can't be asked to pay for it - there is no blame, you say. It slides off you because your shoulders are broken." Also applies to Lemke who seems to forget that his daughter was jaywalking in the middle of the night.

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler:Billy Halleck finally takes responsibility for his actions when he discovers that his daughter, who was in no way responsible for Susanna Lemke's death, has eaten a slice of the Gypsy pie and is doomed to die of the curse that Billy Halleck brought upon himself and passed on to his wife for jerking him off. He decides to eat a slice of the Gypsy pie himself, choosing to join his wife and child in death.]]

* SparedByTheAdaptation: Richie isn't killed by the gypsys in the film.

* IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure: After tracking down the gypsy camp, Billy and Richie start targeting Lemke's family to force him to remove the curse. After Richie kills his granddaughter's husband and scars her face with acid, Lemke gives in and puts Billy's curse in a pie, but later kills Richie as well.

** The film also makes it more explicit that [[spoiler: his daughter ate a piece of pie nd was presumably infected with the curse to if it didn't stop with one victim]]. while in the book he only suspects it, albeit with good reason, after seeing two plates in the sink.

*** It could be seen that he helped both the Judge and Halleck ''save face'', but could not save his own face.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Downplayed. Billy Halleck is still a mob lawyer and corrupt slimeball in the film who uses his connections to get away with manslaughter, but his wife's marital infidelity is original to the film. [[spoiler:He kills her with the cursed pie in the book as well, but because he simply hated her, not out of revenge for any betrayal.]]

-->'''Tadzu Lemke:''' Then your friend comes. He poisons dogs, shoots guns in the night, uses his hands on a woman, threatens to throw acid in the faces of children. Take it off he says-take it off and take it off and take it off. And finally I say okay as long as he gets out of here! Not from what he did, but from what he will do-he is crazy, this friend of yours, and he will never stop. Even my 'Gelina says she sees from his eyes he will never stop. "But we will never stop either," she says, and I say, "Yes we will. Yes we will stop. Because if we don't, we are crazy like the town man's friend."

* {{Narm}}: Discussed trope. In one scene, Billy uses packing tape to secure a man to a tree. The narration acknowledges that taping someone to a tree sounds dumb, but goes on to point out how ''strong'' packing tape actually is, and how close to impossible escaping from those bindings would actually be.

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: In both the book and the film, [[VillainProtagonist Billy Halleck]] manages to get the GypsyCurse on himself lifted by forcing the sorcerer to place it inside a pie. [[spoiler:Billy feeds it to his wife (whom he hates), before his daughter (whom he dotes on) eats a piece of it by mistake. Wracked with guilt, [[DrivenToSuicide Billy then eats the pie himself]]. The movie added a subplot of a man that Billy suspects his wife is cheating on him with, who rings the door right at that moment. [[KillEmAll Billy invites him in so he can have a slice of pie as well]].]]

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: In both the book and film versions [[VillainProtagonist Billy Halleck]] manages to get the GypsyCurse on himself lifted by forcing the sorcerer to place it inside a pie. [[spoiler:Billy feeds it to his wife (whom he hates), before his daughter (whom he dotes on) eats a piece of it by mistake. Wracked with guilt, [[DrivenToSuicide Billy then eats the pie himself]]. The movie added a subplot of a man that Billy suspects his wife is cheating on him with, who rings the door right at that moment. [[KillEmAll Billy invites him in so he can have a slice of pie as well]].]]

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* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler: Averted, but Lemke suggests this to Halleck when giving him the pie. The pie would lift the curse from him if someone else ate it (since it now contained the curse), unless he ate the pie himself. Which he suggests. "Die clean, white man from town. Die clean."]]