History YMMV / Carrie

* MisaimedFandom: Downplayed. Many people will describe Carrie as the hero of the book and completely morally pure, and it can be easy to root for her revenge due to the sheer level of abuse in her life, despite her rampage being portrayed in-universe as a tragedy. This was at least partly intentional as Stephen King stated that he saw her revenge as justified and that the society around her is the real evil in the story, while the films portray her as being TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth until she's pushed too far. That said, she's still a dark character as the book shows her to have had violent revenge fantasies for years, and she enjoys killing her classmates and most of her town over a prank that only a few people pulled (with Sue implying that even the bullies were still kids who didn't necessarily deserve their fates), with [[http://greatandpowerfulblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/stephen-king-re-read-part-one-carrie.html this review]] noting that her rampage seems meant to be just as horrifying as it is cathartic.

* MisaimedFandom: Many people will describe Carrie as the hero of the book and completely morally pure, and it can be easy to root for her revenge due to the sheer level of abuse in her life, despite her rampage being portrayed in-universe as a tragedy. This is helped by Stephen King saying that he never saw her as evil, and in the films, Carrie does come across as being TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth until she's pushed too far. That said, the book shows her to have had hate-filled revenge fantasies for years, and she enjoys killing her classmates and destroying her town over a prank that only a few people pulled, with Sue implying that even the bullies were still kids who didn't necessarily deserve their fates. As [[http://greatandpowerfulblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/stephen-king-re-read-part-one-carrie.html this review]] puts it:
-->"What the book understands that none of the movies or stage depictions ever have, is that we're not supposed to root for Carrie White in the end. Pity her, yes, but not cheer. ''Carrie'' isn't supposed to be some spatterfest revenge fantasy where those evil bullies get what they deserve. It's a tragedy, where adolescent cruelty based in thoughtlessness shapes a person into a time bomb, that goes off in the saddest and most horrific way imaginable."

** While Carrie is meant to be sympathetic, the book also treats her as a danger to society and acts like being bullied turned her into a monster, as it's shown that she had violent revenge fantasies long before the prom, with Stephen King dubiously comparing her to the Columbine shooters (who were in fact bullies themselves). As bullying is taken much more seriously these days, portraying her as a budding mass murderer would not fly as well and would likely be seen as gaslighting real-life abuse victims. The films treat her more sensitively and downplay how premeditated her rampage was.

* MisaimedFandom: Many people will describe Carrie as the hero of the book and completely morally pure, and root for her due to the sheer level of abuse in her life, despite her rampage being portrayed in-universe as a tragedy. This is helped by Stephen King saying that he never saw her as evil, and in the films, Carrie does come across as being TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth until she's pushed too far. That said, the book shows her to have had hate-filled revenge fantasies for years, and she enjoys killing her classmates and destroying her town over a prank that only a few people pulled, with Sue stating that even the bullies were still kids who didn't deserve to be horribly murdered. As [[http://greatandpowerfulblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/stephen-king-re-read-part-one-carrie.html this review]] puts it:

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Sue has an inner narration that refers to her future as "keeping the n***s out of Kleen Korners". This refers to the integration and Fair Housing act of 1968 and the resulting "white flight" (ie, white people moving out of neighborhoods which were becoming more integrated) which continued into the early 1970s. From a more meta perspective, the way the school bullying and Carrie's abusive home life are handled in the story also counts as this. If it were set closer to the present day, Carrie would have been taken away from her abusive mother by social services, and the teachers wouldn't have turned nearly as much of a blind eye towards the rampant bullying.

** Seeing as Carrie has been bullied and mocked by her classmates since grade school, it's not particularly surprising that she has "violent revenge fantasies."

* DracoInLeatherPants: Carrie gets this a lot. While she is the victim of abuse that would make anyone snap, the fact is that she happily murdered most of her class over a prank that two people pulled. She then sought to destroy her entire town, tactically even rigging things so that the fire hydrants would first go dry and prevent her fire from being put out. Carrie is a TragicVillain with sympathetic motives, but she is first and foremost the VillainProtagonist and is meant to cross the MoralEventHorizon by the end. It helps that the film adaptations make her even more sympathetic, omitting her internal violent revenge fantasies and portraying her as a good girl who's desperate to fit in while implying that she's snapped and lost control of her powers. The 2013 film, which depicts Carrie's revenge as premeditated, is closest to how it was in the book.

* MisaimedFandom: Many people will describe Carrie as the hero of the book and completely morally pure. This is helped by Stephen King saying that he never saw her as evil, and in the films, Carrie does come across as being TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth until she's pushed too far. That said, it's clear that the book at least intends her rampage to be morally ambiguous, as she's shown to have had hate-filled revenge fantasies for years, and enjoys killing her classmates and destroying her town over a prank that only a few people pulled, with Sue stating that even the bullies were still kids who didn't deserve to be horribly murdered, though it's not clear if the reader is meant to agree with her. However, most readers find it easy to root for Carrie due to the sheer level of abuse in her life, despite her rampage being portrayed in-universe as a tragedy.

* DracoInLeatherPants: Carrie gets this a lot. While she is the victim of abuse that would make anyone snap, the fact is that she happily murdered most of her class over a prank that two people pulled. She then sought to destroy her entire town, tactically even rigging things so that the fire hydrants would first go dry and prevent her fire from being put out. Carrie is a TragicVillain with sympathetic motives, but she is first and foremost the VillainProtagonist. It helps that the film adaptations make her even more sympathetic, omitting her internal violent revenge fantasies and portraying her as a good girl who's desperate to fit in while implying that she's snapped and lost control of her powers. The 2013 film, which depicts Carrie's revenge as premeditated, is closest to how it was in the book.

* HollywoodHomely: The book averts this describing Carrie as looking the part of the loser being chunky and covered in acne. She's said to have been a cute child by a former neighbor who - when seeing a picture of her as a teenager - remarks "what did that woman ''do'' to her?" But then again Carrie herself notes that if she stopped eating as much chocolate and took a little better care of herself, she would look prettier. Tommy also finds her pretty in an unusual sort of way, suggesting she isn't as ugly as you'd expect. The De Palma film avoids this as never once is Carrie suggested as ugly just incredibly socially inept and shy. The TV film goes out of its way to make Bettis's Carrie looking freakish thereby avoiding this trope. The 2013 film plays this trope dead straight however.
* ItWasHisSled:
** The climax of the story is known to everyone at this point. It should be noted that it's not really a spoiler in the book - which has a non-linear structure and the reader knows from the start that something bad happened at the prom.

** Sue spends most of her inner thoughts grappling with fears of what her future will be like - terrified of turning into a StepfordSmiler and having an empty life, in addition to the remorse she feels for having bullied Carrie. She tries to do something nice, and it blows up in her face. Then there's the MindRape Carrie performs on her at the end (although Sue allows this to make sure Carrie knows there was no malicious intent) and the implication she miscarried Tommy's baby. The 1976 film shows her being haunted by nightmares after the incident, and ''Film/TheRageCarrie2'' states that she spent some time in an asylum.
** Tommy was a NiceGuy who loved Sue sincerely (Sue even states in her autobiography she believes it to be true) and showed Carrie the only good night of her life - only to end up humiliated in public thanks to petty bullying he had no part in (in the book, he's splashed with blood too) and dies carelessly when the bucket falls. If it hadn't, it's implied he would have told everyone off for laughing at Carrie again. To add insult to injury, he's then vilified.

** Carrie becomes a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds, and the fact that she murders all her classmates and levels her entire town prevents her from being 100% sympathetic - but the sheer level of bullying and abuse she's had to put up with at school and home makes her such a tragic figure. It doesn't help that she makes an effort to fit in and no matter what she does, her classmates won't accept her. They can't even show sympathy when she's pranked ''again''.

** Miss Desjardin by the end. She's so guilt-stricken by not being able to help Carrie that she resigns from Ewen High School in disgrace. In the 2002 film, she gets an interview with the police where she talks about the losses - "half of them were kids I saw every day" while tearing up a donut they offered her; it doesn't help that Carrie left her hanging from a vent as the floor was electrified, and only sheer adrenaline kept Miss Desjardin hanging on until help arrived. And in the 2013 film, we see her in tears after she makes it out of the gym.
* {{Wangst}}: Sue's inner monologue in the book makes it clear she's terrified of having an empty, meaningless life after high school and how utterly awful it will be.... which in her mind apparently means marrying her high school sweetheart and settling down to have a stable, normal, middle-class life. The shock! The horror! It comes off especially dissonant in comparison to Carrie's life which is shown to be a living hell ''every day'' and the bleak life spent living with her mother she imagines will happen after she graduates. Sue finally wises up at the end of the book and realizes all her worries about being a good little sheep living a bland life as "Suzie Cupcake, Head Cupcake of the Cupcake Brigade" is pretty meaningless in the face of her boyfriend and classmates being massacred while more people die as the town burns around her.

** If this was set in the MarvelUniverse, either ComicBook/{{Magneto}} would find out about Carrie White and approach her as a prime candidate for The Brotherhood, or Professor Xavier would detect her burgeoning telekinetic power as she goes berserk at the prom and scramble The Comicbook/XMen to get her under control before things get out of hand.

** Carrie is ostensibly a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds, and the fact that she murders all her classmates and levels her entire town prevents her from being 100% sympathetic - but the sheer level of bullying and abuse she's had to put up with at school and home makes her such a tragic figure. It doesn't help that she makes an effort to fit in and no matter what she does, her classmates won't accept her. They can't even show sympathy when she's pranked ''again''.

* RealismInducedHorror: While the telekinesis aspects of Carrie are firmly grounded in fantasy, the school bullying aspects are very much not, and people like Chris Hargensen exist in real life. If anything, with the attention on bullying in recent years, this aspect of the story has become scarier as time goes on.

* AdaptationDisplacement: Most people have only heard of the book as a result of the De Palma film despite Creator/StephenKing being one of the most popular and prolific authors in modern pop culture. The other adaptations have taken a few cues from the first one - such as Carrie wearing a pink dress to the prom (it's actually red in the book), causing her destruction from the stage (she runs out of the gym first in the book), Chris having a BetaBitch who rigs the prom ballots (Tommy and Carrie legitimately win in a tie-breaker), and [[spoiler:Margaret being killed after Billy and Chris.]] Many fans also mistake adaptation changes the film made for actual book canon - such as Carrie only imagining the students laughing at her, and the gym teacher slapping Chris. King himself doesn't seem to mind, having stated that he regards the book as one of his lesser works and De Palma's film as an all-around improvement on it.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Chris's death seems to be aiming for AlasPoorVillain when her last thoughts are that she didn't want Carrie dead, but after everything she did to torture Carrie, it's doubtful that the reader will have any sympathy for her.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic:
** The story tries to portray Carrie as a TragicVillain who snapped due to her life of abuse, but some readers feel she goes beyond sympathy in the book by murdering hundreds of people, most of whom had nothing to do with her bullying. The book also shows that she was fully aware of her actions and had violent fantasies about murdering her classmates even before she snapped.
** On the flip side, Sue claims in her memoir that Carrie's bullies were just kids who made bad choices, but the bullies are so horrible that very few readers see it that way. In particular, Chris's death seems to be aiming for AlasPoorVillain when her last thoughts are that she didn't want Carrie dead, but after everything she did to torture Carrie, it's doubtful that the reader will have any sympathy for her.
** Margaret seems to be intended as a TragicVillain, as the book describes her DarkAndTroubledPast in great detail. However, she is ''such'' an [[AbusiveParents abusive]] [[AxCrazy psychotic]] bitch that she instead tends to evoke a deep sense of loathing in most readers.

** While the story tries to portray Carrie as a TragicVillain who snapped due to her life of abuse, some readers feel she goes beyond sympathy in the book by murdering hundreds of people, most of whom had nothing to do with her bullying. The book also shows that she was fully aware of her actions and had violent fantasies about murdering her classmates even before she snapped.

** Sue claims in her memoir that Carrie's bullies were just kids who made bad choices, but the bullies are so horrible that very few readers see it that way. In particular, Chris's death seems to be aiming for AlasPoorVillain when her last thoughts are that she didn't want Carrie dead, but after everything she did to torture Carrie, it's doubtful that the reader will have any sympathy for her.

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: Carrie's rampage, while somewhat understandable, is not justifiable, since innocent people also die during it. Yet most people rooted for Carrie.

** Likewise, the 2013 film states that social services stepped in to stop Margaret from home-schooling Carrie. ''Film/TheRageCarrie2'', released in 1999, went a step further and had social services outright take Rachel away and have her mother institutionalized.

** Both Margaret and Chris stating in the book that they enjoyed being raped is ''definitely'' something that wouldn't fly now. Although it's worth noting that this is used to show that both of them are insane - in fact Chris loves Billy ''because'' he's abusive to her.
** Chris is described as having a "negroid" bruise after being hit by Billy.
* ValuesResonance:
** Possibly the reason why it was remade in 2013. School bullying (particularly cyber-bullying) is now seen as a far greater issue than it was in TheSeventies, something that director Kimberly Peirce has repeatedly brought up in interviews.
** Margaret's self-serving and utterly deranged fundamentalism is eerily reminiscent of many other "good Christians" who have used scripture to justify the persecution of others.

* CargoShip: Billy seems more attached to his car than anything else. Given who the author is, it can easily bring {{Literature/Christine}} to mind.

** Carrie crosses it in the book by murdering her classmates and burning down the whole town with her powers. While killing Chris and Billy was justified since Billy tried to run her down, many of her victims who had nothing to do with the prank either died, got permanently maimed, or lost their children. This may have been unintentional, as King stated that he saw the town as corrupt and that Carrie wasn't in full control of her actions, but the book doesn't fully convey this.