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1'''As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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4[[index]]
5* ''Headscratchers/FridayThe13th1980''
6* ''Headscratchers/FridayThe13thPart2''
7* ''Headscratchers/FridayThe13thPartIII''
8* ''Headscratchers/FridayThe13thTheFinalChapter''
9* ''Headscratchers/FridayThe13thPartVANewBeginning''
10* ''Headscratchers/FridayThe13thPartVIJasonLives''
11* ''Headscratchers/FridayThe13thPartVIITheNewBlood''
12* ''Headscratchers/FridayThe13thPartVIIIJasonTakesManhattan''
13* ''Headscratchers/JasonGoesToHellTheFinalFriday''
14* ''Headscratchers/JasonX''
15* ''Headscratchers/FreddyVsJason''
16* ''Headscratchers/FridayThe13th2009''
17* ''Headscratchers/FreddyVsJasonVsAsh''
18* ''Headscratchers/FridayThe13thTheGame''
19[[/index]]
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21* Why does Jason bother to cover his face at all? He used a potato sack (or whatever it was) in the first couple of films, so it clearly was not for RuleOfCool (not that a maybe undead, psychopathic murderer would/should care about that anyway). His sole purpose in life seems to be to terrorize and/or kill anyone 13 or older that he comes across-- his hideous mug would be great for doing the former (as seen in "Jason Takes Manhattan"). There's no chance he's THAT sensitive about his physical deformities, is there?
22** Looking for anything resembling genuine characterization in the series is a mostly lost cause, but there are occasional signs throughout the series that at the end of the day, Jason Voorhees is an angry, cruel ten-year-old boy in the body of a seven-foot-tall immortal serial killer. He's actually reasonably sensitive about his disfigurement, to the point where he may wear the mask so he doesn't have to look at ''himself''.
23*** And "Jason Takes Manhattan" has him show he knows how ugly his disfigured face is, considering he lifts his mask to scare away some guys bothering him because he didn't have the time to kill them.
24** Yes he is that insecure about his looks. It's a hold over from when he was alive and whatever caused his mental handicaps also left him deformed as a human and children can be cruel. In addition everything we've seen about his origins are at all true the camp counselors were typical teenage pricks and probably gave him more than his fair share of shit.
25* From "Jason Lives" onward, why doesn't Jason act like the average zombie after being resurrected?
26** There are many different kinds of zombies in fiction. [[OurZombiesAreDifferent This site even has a whole trope on it]].
27** Jason never acted like a zombie. Zombies are normally emotionless creatures who seek human flesh. Jason is a revenant zombie. Revenant zombies retain their souls.
28* Where does Jason keep getting new outfits? In many of the movies (especially the first few) Jason has a completely different set of clothes to the last one. Does he go shopping or something?
29** Out of Verse because keeping realistic clothing damage between multiple films would be nearly impossible, it's probably supposed to be the same outfit and the props department didn't give a shit. It's hard enough to keep things consistent in one movie. Inverse Jason is larger than your average male but not monstrous. It's not difficult to believe that he's able to scavenge enough clothing from the two parks (Crystal Lake and Higgins Haven) and the surrounding city. It's not entirely clear how far Jason's territory extends and he only seems to change between flicks which other than the first few films are implied to be years apart, usually long enough for the notoriety of Jason to die down some. A few years is more than long enough to grab one or two outfits and Jason is shown to be clever enough when he needs to be.
30** Also, out of verse, the films were made on a rather limited budget, so they probably had to go with what they could find.
31** In Part 3 he actively steals clothing on a clothesline from the couple who own the little store. The wife actively complains "Take your stuff and leave the rest to me." Of course they end up being the first two of Jason's victims in the film.
32** In Part 3, Jason shaved his hair and stole new clothing. He also got his trademark hockey mask. In part 6, his flesh is extremely rotten due to being dead for so long. And in Part 9, Jason was mutated by toxic waste. In part 10, Jason was reanimated by Freddy.
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34* When and how does Jason age? He goes from a skinny teen in the original to a hulking adult in the sequel almost literally over night.
35** Jason in the original was Alice's hallucination/dream. She never saw him and imagined what she ''assumed'' Jason looked like - a zombie kid in the lake. The sequel [[RetCon reveals]] that he was actually alive all along and had over two decades to mushroom into a hulking man. What's ''really'' weird is that in these years he apparently has never bothered to inform his beloved mom he was, in fact, alive.
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37* Since Freddy and Jason are in the same universe, what happened to Freddy Krueger when earth one was destroyed in ''Jason X''? Does he forever roam around in dream world since there are no earthlings to terrorize and kill?
38** Freddy and Jason are not in the same universe. Freddy vs Jason, like ''Franchise/AlienVsPredator'' takes place in its own continuity. However Freddy has shown in the past to be quite the rules lawyer when he needs to be. The most likely answer is that he either hitched a ride in someone who was descended from the Elm Street kids. Or even though the ships we see in Jason X are named after monsters that could just be that batch and somewhere there's a batch that were named after trees. A nightmare on Elm ship is the exact sort of thing Freddy would find hilarious.
39*** That, or someone had the ''spectacularly'' bad judgment to name a ship after Freddy.
40*** I don't see why ''Freddy vs. Jason'' wouldn't be canon. As for Freddy, he's presumably either stuck where Elm Street used to be, or stuck in the Dream World or Hell, unless he somehow found a way off of Earth.
41*** Or, the Dream World transcends space, and Freddy exists anywhere ''and everywhere'' people are afraid enough of him to dream about him.
42*** He was most likely KilledOffForReal and is simply in Hell forever.
43* In part 2 Jason was strong but not insanely strong, his killings were mostly by element of surprise and in the end struggled to subdue the final girl's boyfriend who survived the fight. Come the next movie that supposedly takes place mere days after, he is suddenly strong enough to not only dispatch everyone with easy, but at one point he squeezes a guy's head so hard ''his eye rockets out of his socket''. On top of that Jason was heavily wounded at the end of Part 2, so, if anything he should be ''weaker'' here. He also somehow grew much bulkier between movies, but that can probably be chalked up to TheOtherDarrin. I wonder specifically if there can be an in-universe explanation for this, since I know [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness the real one]].
44** Adrenaline? Or maybe his rage at being injured supplemented his strength?
45** If you take the HealingFactor element from ''Film/JasonX'' at face value, maybe recovering from his injuries is growing and strengthening his body, so he's harder to kill next time.
46* Even after umpteen movies and umpteen - 1 killing sprees, how do the characters in these movies STILL not know who Jason Voorhees is?
47** You're overstating the movies. Friday the 13th 2-4 take place over what appears to be a single summer with 2 and 3 being directly back to back. Friday the 13th 5 doesn't actually feature Jason, the villain that time is the father of a mentally disabled teen who is killed in the first act. 6 features his revival as a zombie (or whatever he is) and takes place years after the first four movies with an adult Tommy. Much of that movie hinges on the locals do know about Jason. He's a dead serial killer who up until then had shown no magical powers at all. Seven has little excuse, eight is takes Manhattan and features kids on a cruise. They weren't even at Crystal Lake for most of the time and that is where he's supposed to be. Nine (Jason goes to Hell) they know exactly what Jason is and send the FBI and if not for a serious case of NewPowersAsThePlotDemands that would have worked just fine on Jason. Ten (Jason X) takes place centuries into the future and clearly real monsters are sufficiently rare that they didn't really believe he could come back from the dead. Freddy vs Jason involves Jason being where he doesn't belong, in a city that has it's own monster who can only attack in your sleep. It's immediately clear that the police (and probably most of the adults) have concluded that Freddy is back again and dismissed any facts that disagreed with that. In fact they would have been wise to blame the murders on Jason. He's something you can shoot and it would have prevented Freddy from returning. So in closing out of eleven films only 9 feature Jason. Of those 9 four of them take place away from Crystal Lake. 2,3 and 4 are all one long spree that ends with his death. 6 is his revival after more than a decade leaving just part seven as a legit what the hell.
48** I would argue there's one hell of a difference between not knowing "Jason Voorhees: Unkillable Murder Zombie" and "Jason Voorhees: Insane Serial Killer." The latter is like a bunch of Seattle prostitutes having no idea who [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ridgway Gary Ridgeway]] was, if Ridgeway had escaped jail and gone on another killing spree. Twice.
49** Even for ''VII'', there's implied to have been a passage of time during which Jason was dormant at the bottom of the lake, allowing him to be quietly forgotten about. Plus, his resurrection in ''VI'' wasn't exactly common knowledge. . . most everyone who learned of died very shortly thereafter.
50** As stated, ''Parts 2'', ''3'', and ''4'' take place over the course of just a few days. And really, the only people in any of those incidents who realized Jason's identity and survived to tell were Ginny Field and the Jarvis siblings. Chris Higgins survived, yes, but she wasn't actually from Crystal Lake and wasn't familiar with the legend, thus never knew who Jason was. However, supplementary material shows that after those movies, the police refused to believe that Jason was the killer due to the sheer impossibility of him being alive despite having drowned as a child. Instead, they blamed the murders on some anonymous John Doe and tried disposing of Jason's body without even trying to identify it, and they worked to cover up the murders as much as possible. The accounts of the survivors meant nothing. No one believed Tommy's claims and all thought he was crazy. Trish moved on and accepted the idea that the killer was some random psycho, and Ginny's fate after ''Part 2'' has yet to even be revealed. It seems that in ''Part V'' the legend still persists to an extant, but by the events of ''Part VI'', the police have managed to help cover Jason's actions up completely. His resurrection and subsequent killing sprees in the following movies (his zombie years) ruin that, and it seems that by the events of the later movies that the frequency of both the murders and claims of Jason being the killer cause people to actually start taking the legend seriously until, as seen in ''Jason Goes to Hell'', they finally believe it enough to launch an FBI stint.
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52* It’s said that before the hockey mask, Jason was supposed to wear a baseball umpire’s mask. Since an umpire’s mask doesn’t really cover one’s face, wouldn’t this make it pointless?
53** Yes
54* Why was Jason given a different mask before his trademark hockey mask?
55** Well, it wasn't trademark until it first appeared. Before that, I guess they just figured, "This sack'll be scary enough" before someone decided he needed something more iconic.
56* Since a machete was used to kill his beloved mother, why does Jason nearly always use such a weapon?
57** Jason uses whatever weapon he can get his hands on. Though the machete is considered his signature weapon, it is not the only weapon he's used throughout the films. He's used a spear gun, he's used axes, he's even used the same fence pole that brought him back to light after being struck by lightning. Hell, he's used his bare hands to crush a guy's head. If he comes across a machete, he's not going to pass it up to use as a weapon. Besides, the machetes he's used were not the one that killed his mother. He left that at his hidden shack (and was used on him at the end of Part 2).
58* In the second film, Paul says that Jason would kill anyone who entered the Camp Crystal Lake area, so I understand why he killed the police officer. But why kill the counsellor trainees when they were on their own turf? Same in Part 3, Jason was the one trespassing on a farmhouse, so what gave him the right to kill the people there?
59** For ''Part II'', the lodge is very close to Jason's turf, and two kids do wander into that area which starts the killing (triggering old horror cliché of "went where you weren't supposed to and attracted the wrong kind of attention"). For ''Part III'' and ''IV'', the implication is Jason is just passing through on his way home, but sees a bunch of teens in serious need of killing.
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61* We've glossed over this one for decades, and it's even briefly mentioned on this page. How is it that Jason survived drowning and grew to adulthood to become the killer in Part II, without his mother or ''anyone'' having any knowledge of him still being alive? Or is he already supernaturally preserved/undead in some fashion by the time of Part II? If the latter, how'd that happen?
62** As frustrating as it is, this actually isn't known. ''Jason Goes to Hell'' provides a tiny hint in the form of a cameo from the ''Necronomicon'' from ''Franchise/EvilDead'', which is found in the Voorhees family home. This led to many suggesting the possibility of Pamela attempting to bring Jason back to life using arcane arts and having ultimately succeeded. As to why his mother didn't seem to have any idea of him being alive, a possibility is that she ''did''; after he was resurrected, she could have been keeping him in isolation just as she did before his drowning, and they could have even been working together during Mrs. Voorhees' killing spree in the original. Of course, this is all purely speculation, and there is ultimately nothing that actually confirms what happened.
63** The filmmakers outright admit it doesn't make any kind of sense, [[MST3KMantra and you should just roll with it]].
64** If one were to take the comics as canon, then yes, Pamela did bring him back with the Necromonicon.
65* Here's a thought. After listening to the Pamela tapes from the video game, it seems a bit odd that no one put two and two together and deduced that Pamela was the one who killed Barry and Claudette in the prologue of the first movie. Her interactions with the police in the tapes clearly show how unhinged and hateful she had become towards the councilors, and made several implied threats to them. So, when she killed Barry and Claudette, you would think that the police would root her out as a prime suspect at least. Especially since the murders only took place a year after Jason drowned.
66** The police in Crystal Lake are ''deeply'' stupid.
67** Perhaps there wasn't enough non-circumstantial evidence to charge her on.
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69* That sound associated with Jason (the ch-ch-ha-ha sound). Is Jason himself making the noise or is it just for the audience to hear?
70** It's the soundtrack for us, the audience, intended to be a reflection of what Pamela and Jason hear in their minds, "'''ki'''ll her, '''mo'''mmy" and "'''ki'''ll for '''mo'''mmy." And it's "ki-ki-ki ma-ma-ma."
71*** Why did they change to sound like "JJJAAASSSON" in part 8? why would he be constantly saying his own name in his mind?
72* Why the hell don't people [[JustEatGilligan just stop going to Crystal Lake and close the camp down?]] Even if most people don't believe Jason is real you would think it would have enough bad publicity due to all the murders no one would want to go to a camp there.
73** As for Part 1, the killer was identified and confirmed dead and the camp was left for decay. Part 2 takes place in a different site few miles away, and at that time, no one knows Jason is alive. Parts 3, 4 and 5 also do not take place at the camp, and in Part 6 the killer is also dead and buried for years. There was no rational point not to reopen the camp.
74*** A plot point in Part 6 was Crystal Lake getting renamed to Forest Green because of the association with Jason Voorhees and his murders. The lake itself is supposed to be huge enough that the camp itself, the training facility in 2, Higgin's Haven in 3, the Jarvis house in 4 and Tina's house in 7 (unless that's supposed to be the Jarvis house) all border it.
75** Lake Mead is a fairly popular real-life camping and boating destination in real life, but it's also been the site of a lot of deaths (usually boating accidents- or ARE THEY?). Remember, sometimes a lot of time is passing between films (so people forget), sometimes only a couple days are passing in between films (so word isn't getting out), and a lot of the visitors aren't locals (a rash of deaths in a small town might not make national headlines, so they might not even know about it). Plus, anyone trying to develop the land might try to downplay the murders.
76** And even then, Part 2 is taking place five years after Part 1. And the site is just being used as a training facility for counsellors rather than a camp itself.
77* It's generally accepted that the dream sequences in Parts 1 and 3 were just that. Dreams. However, that sequence in Part 2 where the unmasked Jason jumps through the window and grabs Ginny gives away no hint that it's a dream. So, did that actually happen or did Ginny imagine it?
78** I'm guessing dream or total mental breakdown, because I can think of no explanation otherwise for how she survived it.
79* Why does Jason's appearance change so dramatically between films? It kind of makes sense after he's undead (as he would keep rotting and looking more hideous with each film), but why, in movies 2-4 does he looks so different between movies? Particularly considering they are only meant to be a few days apart.
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81* Something I mentioned on the ContinuitySnarl page but am wondering if there's any WordOfGod about: In part V, when Tommy is worried Jason is back, the Mayor tells him that Jason was cremated and is "nothing but a handful of ash". Obviously, this would be disproved in Part VI. So, did the Mayor just lie to make Tommy feel better? If so, how did he learn Jason was really buried and where is grave was? And if it's just a {{Retcon}}, does that mean all of Part V is non-canon?
82** To be fair, even in Part V itself one character is all 'Did you SEE him get cremated? How can you be so sure?', effectively leaving the back door open.

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