History Characters / TheShining

* WritersBlock: He struggles with this in the film, being unable to come up with a single good idea to make a story out of. He does seem to start getting work done, typing away for hours and being enraged by any interruption. Howevewr, it's revealed his entire manuscript consists entirely of [[MadnessMantra endless repetitions of "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."]]
* YouHaveFailedMe: [[spoiler:At the climax of the original novel, Jack snaps out of the Overlook's control and begs Danny tor un. The Overlook responds by forcing Jack to bash his face in with a roque mallet, destroying what's left of his soul, and fully possesses his corpse so it can murder Danny, Wendy, and Halloran itself.]]

* AdaptationalAngstDowngrade: In the novels, Jack was raised by an abusive father who regularyl beat his wife and children. He also struggles against the Overlook's influence and [[FightingFromTheInside repeatedly tries to fight it.]] In the film, his backstory is excised and most of his inner turmoil is downplayed so he comes off as a willing accomplice to the Overlook rather than a tragic victim.

* NobleBigot: He's hard-working and nice enough for the most part, but doesn't think much of homosexuals, which admittedly is not exactly a rare opinion to have in 1980.

* Hypocrite: For all his perfectionism and coming down hard on anyone who doesn't meet his standards, all supposedly for the greater good of the Overlook, he doesn't have a problem cutting costs across the hotel out of sheer cheapness, even refusing to fix the boiler despite it being a serious hazard.

* EvilCannotComprehendGood: Rose is so seated in her ways and hooked on her pseudo-immortality that she can't comprehend why Abra & Dan would have a problem with torturing Shining children to death to extend their own lives. In the film, she assumes Abra is simply too young to understand fearing death, and is completely oblivious that most people don't record to child murder to avoid it.

* TheJeeves: He starts off as this, being a polite and obsequious butler to Jack and quite professional. Then his identity is revealed.

* AbuseMistake: After Danny is strangled by Mrs. Massey, Wendy initially believes Jack did it. Although she quickly realizes he mistake, this winds up driving Jack further under the Overlook's influence and cements its hold on him.

* ParentsAsPeople: In the novel and miniseries. Jack is a violent alcoholic, but he does love his son and feels intense regret for his behaviour. He sincerely wants to be a good father but his alcoholism, violent temper and trauma from his own abusive childhood undermine his good intentions and that's even before the Overlook gets it's hooks into him.

* PaedoHunt: In the book, she goes to The Overlook to cheat on her husband with a 17 year old boy, and is implied to have done this several other times with younger men. It's also implied that she's done [[FridgeHorror much worse]] to Danny other than strangling him, which is evident in the miniseries when Danny leaves Room 237 with a lipstick mark on his face.

* SecretlyWealthy: They're stated to be extremely wealthy as a result of accruing money over decades but aren't really able to spend much of it due to their lifestyle forcing them to always be on the move.

* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: To the Overlook Hotel. The Overlook was a building that couldn't move beyond it's grounds while Rose is a human being who has to move regularly due to her lifestyle. The Overlook had a reputation as a high-class resort for the wealthy, even having Presidents stay there, while Rose has deliberately stayed under the radar and avoids anything that could be used to trace her. The Overlook acted alone and had no connections beyond it's guests who were trapped in it's confines while Rose has a family she cares for deeply.

* SpoiledBrat: Jack views him as such, believing George being rejected from the debate club is the first time he's been told no and he's simply lashing out. It's ambiguous if this is really true or just Jack projecting.

* WeakButSkilled: A {{Downplayed}} example. Halloran's "shining" is described as actually being fairly "bright" by world standards, yet compared to [[StrongButUnskilled Danny's untapped potential]] it's compared to a ''flashlight''. That being said, Halloran is able to wield his with much efficiency (using the metaphor of a focused, ''powerful'' flashlight) from experience, and because of his skill, he's able to resist the overwhelming psychological influence of the Hotel at the end like nobody else.

* AnimalMotif: In the novel, wasps. The Overlook Hotel starts attacking Danny by resurrecting dead wasps,Jack's first time at being influenced by the hotel seems to be when he daydreams about an old wasp's nest he found under the hotel's roof, when Danny tries to read into the ghosts' minds he compares the experience to placing his hand in a mass of stinging wasps, and during the climax one of the ghosts sent by the Overlook to scare away Danny has wasps crawling over her face. In fact, the way the hotel works, by assimilating the spirits of all those that died or lived in it in a gigantic ghostly HiveMind, evokes a wasp's community, of which the Overlook's malevolent Eldritch Being mind would be the queen. This is subtly alluded to in the films through the hexagonal floor pattern seen in the hallway carpeting, evoking the image of a wasp or bee hive.

* EmbodimentOfVice: The Overlook Hotel isn't just MadeOfEvil, it is specifically made of all the worst the United States have to offer. Its backstory contains all sorts of tragedies and horrors reflecting historical problems in American society (the tyrannical abuse of the rich and wealthy, prostitution, financial corruption, criminal organizations) and the hotel picked on some of the most negative traits of its famous and infamous guests (for example its blatant racism and its use of outdated racist terms when talking about Afro-Americans). The hotel is a {{Deconstruction}} of 20th century America, as it presents itself as a rich, luxurious and glamorous place for the wealthy and the elite that welcomed the greatest American dignitaries - only to be revealed as a wretched, soiled and corrupt place animated by a murderous, racist and manipulative mind, and whose history is filled with tragedies, abuses and crimes. The parallel becomes clearer when one notices that the hotel's AnimalMotif is evil, harmful wasps, and that all of the clients and owners of the Overlook were precisely WASPs - White Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

* AdaptationalVillainy: In the movie, Andi is not shown to have been sexually abused by her pedophile father. This makes her far less sympathetic than her book counterpart, and makes her acts against men who try to "date" her seem like the cruel vendetta of a teenage runaway without a cause. Then again, her "dates" are still [[AssholeVictim pedophiles who wanted to sleep with a girl who's fifteen]].
** The Director's Cut does add a line during the conversation where Rose invites her to the True Knot that does imply that ''someone'' molested her, though it's not explicitly stated to be her father.
* AdaptationalSexuality: The film leaves out her sexual encounter with Rose and her relationship with Sarey, giving no indication she's interested in women beyond calling Rose "the most beautiful woman she's ever seen".
* AgeLift: She's already an adult when introduced in the novel, but is only a teenager in the film. Of course, she's chronologically 23 once the film jumps to 2019.

** Was raped and abused by her father as a child, something that traumatized her to the point where [[spoiler:during her death]] she called Dan "Daddy". Yet as soon as she joined the True Knot, she has no qualms against torturing and eating children.

* MoreThanMindControl: The Overlook can corrupt people, but only by drawing on their pre-existing resentment and amplifying it by a thousand fold. It's able to get such a strong hold on Jack because he already was prone to violence, and it's able to use Dick's own resentment over his own suffering to nearly brainwash him into another one of its' puppets.

* RagnarokProofing: Despite being closed down for forty years, it's still in pristine condition as if it's still in use when Dan returns in ''Doctor Sleep'' with its electricity and boilers working perfectly and areas like the ballroom not having changed in decades. Justified by its supernatural nature.

* SatanicArchetype: The Overlook is an EldritchAbomination that corrupts otherwise decent people through manipulation and false promises of [[DealWithTheDevil promoting them to "management"]]. It's also associated primarily with red in the films, and cultivates its own army of damned souls - both of the people it corrupted or people who were already evil to begin with.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:The hotel is still up by the end of Stanley Kubrick's movie and the film version of ''Doctor Sleep''. [[KarmaHoudiniWarranty Well, until Dan burns it down.]]]]

** [[spoiler: It repossesses Dan as a feeble attempt of saving itself from destruction towards the end of ''Doctor Sleep'', and is [[OhCrap visibly freaking out]] when Dan starts FightingFromTheInside and eventually succeeds in burning to the ground]].
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: In a sense. It's smart enough not to have any supernatural activity happen when it has many guests and only seems to prey on caretakers during winter. As far as the world is concerned, it's nothing more than a fancy hotel in a beautiful, scenic location.

* KarmicDeath: They survived for so long by consuming children who could not fight back. [[spoiler:So it’s only appropriate when they contract the measles from one of their meals and are then picked off by a child and her family who they severely underestimated.]]

* NoBodyLeftBehind: Their bodies dissolve into steam and only leave behind EmptyPilesOfClothing, which is very convenient when you've got to kill them.

* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: To the ghosts of the Overlook from the previous film. The spirits of the hotel belonged to people who had passed away decades prior while the True Knot are alive and immortal. The spirits are bound to the hotel and unable to leave while the True Knot must endlessly travel to avoid being found out, never putting down roots. The spirits belonged to people who in life were very wealthy and refined and remain so in death while the True Knot are working-class and live a very rustic, nomadic existence. The spirits of the hotel expess racist and sexist views, partially due to being from past time periods where such attitudes were far more common, while the True Knot are at least somewhat diverse and are led by a woman. The spirits of the hotel were mostly people who didn't know each other and express little affection for one another while the True Knot are a family of choice who genuinely care very deeply for each other.

* FatalFlaw: Vanity; In the film, she is so overconfident from her memories and pseudo immortality, that Abra and Dan are able to lure her into the Overlook Hotel. It doesn't occur to her that the duo have suckered her into a supernatural trap, despite the warning signs she perceives walking through the hotel. [[spoiler:She is also fatally blind-sided by Dan's ability to lock-up Steam-hungry ghosts to use against her, having no idea what Dan has hidden when she finds the lock boxes in Dan's mental world.]]

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: He's described in the novel as having been a jerk from the start while the film has Ullman claim he was, by all accounts, a perfectly normal man who had good references. If he was evil before he came to the hotel, he did a much better job of hiding it.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Her little sister died in a car accident while they were still children, and Wendy's mother was extremely emotionally abusive. Her father also died while she was still young, leaving her alone with her mother - who hated Wendy for being closer to her father than she ever was.