History Heartwarming / TheShining

* The last chapter of the book reveals that [[spoiler: Al Shockley gets Wendy a job so she can care for herself and Danny. This is in spite of the hotel he had a huge share in burning down, and Wendy not really liking him due to his encouraging Jack's alcoholism (though she never tells anyone that).]]

* Mr. Hallorann in the book. He storms back from Florida to Colorado, risking his life several times, braving threats both natural (like a terrible snowstorm) and supernatural (like an extremely pissed-off and malevolent entity trying its best to keep him away) to help a little boy in danger. What makes this even more heartwarming is that Danny's not a relative of Hallorann, nor a long time acquaintance. But Hallorann comes anyway, as he promised, because he feels he can't abandon Danny.

* Meta example: During the filming of the movie, Creator/StanleyKubrick and the rest of the crew had gone to great lengths to ensure that Danny Lloyd (the child actor who played Danny Torrance and who was only around 5 or 6 when his parts for the movie were filmed) wasn't disturbed by the movie's grisly content in any way--apparently, Lloyd was led to believe that he was just acting in a drama about a family that happens to live in a hotel. Since Kubrick doesn't exactly have a reputation of being gentle to his adult actors (hell, he was downright abusive to Shelley Duvall, the actress who played Danny's mom, on ''that same set''), knowing that he was so protective of a child actor is surprisingly sweet. To go into greater detail:
** During scenes where Danny had to look scared, Kubrick would tell him to go through a wide range of facial expressions, including ones of terror--but what Kubrick ''didn't'' tell Lloyd was that his expressions of terror were the only ones that would end up in the movie.
** In other scenes, like the one where Jack's chasing Danny through the hedge maze, Kubrick would outright lie about why Danny was supposed to be running, telling him something like, "Danny and his father are playing hide-and-seek!"
** Lloyd never saw the actual finished product until he was like 16 (about ten or eleven years after starring in the movie), and it would seem that Kubrick and the crew had done such a good job that Lloyd didn't even realize that ''The Shining'' was a horror movie until then (or at least didn't realize the extent of the horror).
* In the book, Jack momentarily overcomes the influence of the hotel [[PlatonicDeclarationOfLove to tell Danny that he loves him]], but ends up being possessed by the ghosts of the hotel, and dies when the boiler explodes. In the miniseries however, Jack manages to overcome the hotel's influence and [[HeroicSacrifice deliberately set off the boiler]], destroying the Overlook, defeating the ghosts, and [[RedemptionEqualsDeath redeeming himself]]. Despite the miniseries' frankly suspect quality overall, it sells this changed ending perfectly through Jack's last words:

** Add to the end of the miniseries that a now adult Danny sees his father one last time, saying [[SoProudOfYou he's proud of him]].

* In the book, Jack momentarily overcomes the influence of the hotel [[PlatonicDeclarationOfLove to tell Danny that he loves him]], but ends up being possessed by the ghosts of the hotel, and dies when the boiler explodes. In the miniseries however, Jack manages to overcome the hotel's influence and [[HeroicSacrifice deliberately set off the boiler]], destroying the Overlook, defeating the ghosts, and [[RedemptionEqualsDeath redeeming himself]]. Despite the miniseries' frankly suspect quality overall, it sells this changed ending perfectly through Jack's FamousLastWords:

** Lloyd apparently didn't see the finished product until he was around 16 (about ten or eleven years after starring the movie), and it would seem that Kubrick and the crew had done such a good job that Lloyd didn't even realize that ''The Shining'' was a horror movie until then (or at least didn't realize the extent of the horror).

* Meta example: During the filming of the movie, Creator/StanleyKubrick and the rest of the crew had gone to great lengths to ensure that Danny Lloyd (the child actor who played Danny Torrance and who was only around 5 or 6 when his parts for the movie were filmed) wasn't disturbed by the movie's grisly content in any way (for example, Lloyd was led to believe that he was just acting in a drama film about a family that happens to live in a hotel). Considering that Kubrick doesn't exactly have a reputation of being gentle to his adult actors (hell, he was downright abusive to Shelley Duvall on ''that same set''), knowing that he was so protective of a child actor is very sweet. To go into greater detail:
** During scenes where Danny had to look scared, Kubrick would tell him to go through a wide range of facial expressions, including ones of terror--what Kubrick ''didn't'' tell Lloyd was that his expressions of terror were the only ones that would end up in the movie.

** In the end, Kubrick and the rest of the crew did such a good job that Lloyd didn't even realize that ''The Shining'' was a horror until he finally the finished the product when he was 16 (about ten or eleven years after starring in the movie).

** Lloyd didn't even see the actual film until he was 16 (about ten or eleven years after starring in the movie)--and it turns out that Kubrick and the rest of the crew had done such a good job of hiding the movie's grisly content from him that he didn't even realize that ''The Shining'' was a horror movie until then.