History Literature / DifferentSeasons

[[folder:General]]

* MohsScaleOfViolenceHardness:
** ''Rita Hayorth and Shawshank Redemtion'' is a 4.
** ''Apt Pupil'' is an 8.
** ''The Body'' is a 6.
** ''The Breathing Method'' is a 9.[[note]] If not for [[spoiler: Sandra's CruelAndUnusualDeath]], this story would've been a 1 or even a 0.[[/note]]

[[/folder]]

--> It was that last fact that militated more against Andy than any of the others. The DA with the political aspirations made a great deal of it in his opening statement and his closing summation. Andrew Dufresne, he said, was not a wronged husband seeking a hot-blooded revenge against his cheating wife; that, the DA said, could be understood, if not condoned. But this revenge had been of a much colder type. Consider! the DA thundered at the jury. Four and four! Not six shots, but eight! He had fired the gun empty . . . and then stopped to reload so he could shoot each of them again! FOUR FOR HIM AND FOUR FOR HER, the Portland Sun blared. The Boston Register dubbed him the “Even-Steven Killer.”

* FromBadToWorse: The last thirty pages detail the the systematic unraveling of both [[spoiler:Todd's web of lies and his sanity. First, Rubber Ed finds out about Todd's earlier deception where Dussander posed as his grandfather and the doctored report cards. Then, Dussander gets identified and reported by one of his former victims, leading to him committing suicide, which wears on Todd's nerves even more with the fear of their connection being revealed. After the police finds the remains of Dussander's murders, they start to suspect Todd of associating with Dussander, while the Israeli agent suspects him of the bum murders. This culminates with Rubber Ed seeing that the man who posed as Todd's grandfather was a Nazi war criminal; and a bum fingering Todd on his murders after witnessing him walk off with a victim and later seeing his picture in the paper. Todd is confronted by Rubber Ed and ends up murdering him, then loses whatever was left of his sanity and goes on a killing spree, during which he is finally shot dead by the police.]]

--> It was that last fact that militated more against Andy than any of the others. The DA with the political aspirations made a great deal of it in his opening statement and his closing summation. Andrew Dufresne, he said, was not a wronged husband seeking a hot-blooded revenge against his cheating wife; that, the DA said, could be understood, if not condoned. But this revenge had been of a much colder type. Consider! the DA thundered at the jury. Four and four! Not six
shots, but eight! He had fired the gun empty . . . and then stopped to reload so he could shoot each of them again! FOUR FOR HIM AND FOUR FOR HER, the Portland Sun blared. The Boston Register dubbed him the “Even-Steven Killer.”

* NoKillLikeOverkill: The fact that Andy Dufresne's wife and lover were murdered in this way is what ultimately gets him such a hefty sentence, although the circumstances in themselves might have made him a SympatheticMurderer in the eyes of the jury:

** "Denker" is the name of the sadistic teacher in [[Literature/TheShining Jack Torrance's]] play, ''The Little School''.

* TheSociopath: Todd in the book. Extremely AxCrazy, no empathy whatsoever, has a history of murdering animals for kicks, and is very manipulative, coaxing Kurt into telling him Holocaust stories for his own amusement.

* BoringReturnJourney: Barely a chapter of the narrative devoted to the uneventful return home.

* InsuranceFraud: This version of Red is a little more evil than the movie's (which never revealed his crime, though he described it as "terrible", probably to be sympathetic with audiences). He took out insurance on his wife and then cut the brakes to her car.
* TheOldCon: Brooks, who spends nearly thirty years in jail and is crying when he has to leave. In prison, he was considered an educated man because he had a college degree (in animal husbandry) and was made prison librarian. Outside, he was a nobody. He dies in a home for indigent old folks after only being out a year, and Red is surprised he made it that long.

** Kurt Dussander, who used to be a commander of a Nazi concentration camp, frequently has nightmares about it. [[spoiler: He eventually commits suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills, and he ends up dreaming those dreams -- forever.]]

* FauxAffablyEvil: Dussander comes off as unfailingly polite and courteous in proper company, such as when he warmly chats with a young nurse about her engagement and says to tell him everything, and omit nothing. [[spoiler:His fellow convalescent recognizes to his horror that the words and tone Dussander uses are the exact same as those of the concentration camp commander who interrogated him long ago.]] One of the nurses is devastated when he kills himself (she's a Catholic), not realizing what a monster he really was.
* FromBadToWorse: The last thirty pages detail the the systematic unraveling of both [[spoiler:Todd's web of lies and his sanity. First, Rubber Ed finds out about Todd's earlier deception where Dussander posed as his grandfather and the doctored report cards. Then, Dussander gets identified and reported by one of his former victims, leading to him commiting suicide, which wears on Todd's nerves even more with the fear of their connection being revealed. After the police finds the remains of Dussander's murders, they start to suspect Todd of associating with Dussander, while the Israeli agent suspects him of the bum murders. This culminates with Rubber Ed seeing that the man who posed as Todd's grandfather was a Nazi war criminal; and a bum fingering Todd on his murders after witnessing him walk off with a victim and later seeing his picture in the paper. Todd is confronted by Rubber Ed and ends up murdering him, then loses whatever was left of his sanity and goes on a killing spree, during which he is finally shot dead by the police.]]

* KarmaHoudini: Todd in the film version, which removes [[spoiler: his final killing spree]]. It's left ambiguous whether he does manage to beat the rap for his involvement with Dussander, with the [[NoEnding film ending]] after he states his intention to blackmail Ed into keeping quiet, by claiming he's made inappropriate gestures towards him in exchange for good grades.

* MeaningfulName:
** At one point Todd muses on the fact that Dussander never calls him by his name. According to Stephen King, this is because because "tod" is German for death.

* NaziGrandpa: Arthur Denker -- real name Kurt Dussander. He pretends to be a German emigrant who fought in the army during the war; he was actually the commander of a minor concentration camp.
* NaziProtagonist: The two main characters are an ex-Nazi (Dussander) and a young boy (Todd) who wants to learn everything about Dussander's time in Germany.

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: The original ending was pure NightmareFuel, with [[spoiler:Todd murdering his guidance counselor and going on a 5-hour shooting spree in a populated area before getting shot to death by the police.]] In the film, [[spoiler:Todd just blackmails the guidance counselor to keep his connections to [[NaziGrandpa Kurt Dussander]] secret and goes off to college.]]

* BadDreams: Kurt Dussander, who used to be a commander of a Nazi concentration camp, frequently has nightmares about it. [[spoiler: He eventually commits suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills, and he ends up dreaming those dreams -- forever.]]

* EvilIsNotAToy: Pretty much the whole point of the novella.

* FromBadToWorse: The whole last thirty pages or so is the systematic unraveling of both [[spoiler:Todd's web of lies and his sanity. First, Rubber Ed finds out about Todd's earlier deception where Dussander posed as his grandfather. Then, he finds out about the doctored report cards. Then, Dussander gets identified and reported by one of his former victims. Then, Dussander commits suicide, wearing on Todd's nerves even more with the fear of his non-existent document. Then, the police find the remains of Dussander's murders. Then, they start to suspect Todd of associating with Dussander, while the Israeli agent suspects him of the bum murders. Then, Rubber Ed sees that the man who posed as Todd's grandfather was a Nazi war criminal. Then, a bum fingers Todd on his murders, having seen him walk off with a victim and then seen his picture in the paper. Then, Rubber Ed confronts Todd and is killed for his troubles. And THEN, Todd goes completely insane and dies while going on a killing spree.]]
* HeyYou: Dussander never uses Todd's name; instead, he always calls him "boy." Even when he impersonates Todd's grandfather (which is noticed by Rubber Ed, the guidance counselor). Todd is annoyed by this:

** Dussander does use Todd's name a few times over the course of the story, just not in the context of addressing Todd personally.
*** The reason he doesn't do so may have something to do with the fact that 'Tod' is the German word for 'death'.

* IntergenerationalFriendship: One of the most twisted imaginable.

* LighterAndSofter: The film is by far less explicit and violent than the book.

* MeaningfulName / BilingualBonus: At one point Todd muses on the fact that Dussander never calls him by his name. It's not stated outright in the text, but it may be because "tod" is German for death.

* YouAreWhatYouHate: Todd is repulsed by one of his girlfriends, thinking that she is Jewish (due to the influence Dussander has had on him). He himself is 1/8 Jewish.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Although he is still a youth obsessed with Nazi crimes in both versions, Todd is a lot less nasty in the film version than he is in the novella. In the book he is a budding sociopath who fantasizes about raping a captive woman in a concentration camp and, together with Dussander, becomes a serial killer of hobos before he kills his guidance counselor and finally goes on a killing spree [[spoiler:that ends in his death.]] In the film Todd comes across as more disturbed and immature than AxCrazy and sadistic, doesn't have anything as explicit as a rape fantasy during his dreams about the camps (imagining himself as an inmate instead), he and Dussander only kill one homeless person who found out that Dussander was a former Nazi, and Todd simply blackmails his guidance counselor and [[spoiler:goes to college after Dussander dies.]]

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: The original ending was pure NightmareFuel, with [[spoiler:Todd murdering his guidance counselor and going on a 5-hour shooting spree in a populated area before getting shot to death by the police.]] In the film [[spoiler:he just blackmails the guy to keep the secret about Todd's connections to [[NaziGrandpa Kurt Dussander]] and goes off to college.]]

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: The original ending was pure NightmareFuel, with [[spoiler:Todd murdering his guidance counsellor and going on a 5-hour shooting spree in a populated area before getting shot to death by the police.]] In the film [[spoiler:he just blackmails the guy to keep the secret about Todd's connections to [[NaziGrandpa Kurt Dussander]] and goes off to college.]]

* CriticalResearchFailure: InUniverse, Gordie mentions writing a story as a boy involving Americans retaking a French town from the Nazis, and setting it in 1942, only finding out later that the U.S. Army didn't land in France until 1944.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Although he is still a youth obsessed with Nazi crimes in both versions, Todd is a lot less nasty in the film version than he is in the novella. In the book he is a budding sociopath who fantasizes about raping a captive woman in a concentration camp and, together with Dussander, becomes a serial killer of hobos before he kills his guidance counselor and finally goes on a killing spree [[spoiler:that ends in his death.]] In the film Todd comes across as more disturbed and immature than AxCrazy and sadistic, doesn't have anything as explicit as a rape fantasy during his dreams about the camps, he and Dussander only kill one homeless person who found out that Dussander was a former Nazi, and Todd simply blackmails his guidance counselor and [[spoiler:goes to college after Dussander dies.]]

* AdaptationalHeroism: Although a youth obsessed with Nazi crimes in both versions, Todd is a lot less nasty in the film version than he is in the novella. In the book he is a budding sociopath who fantasizes about raping a captive woman in a concentration camp and, together with Dussander, becomes a serial killer of hobos before he kills his guidance counselor and finally goes on a killing spree [[spoiler:that ends in his death.]] In the film Todd comes across as more disturbed and immature than AxCrazy and sadistic, doesn't have anything as explicit as a rape fantasy during his dreams about the camps, he and Dussander only kill one homeless person who found out that Dussander was a former Nazi, and Todd simply blackmails his guidance counselor and [[spoiler:goes to college after Dussander dies.]]

* YearX: In the framing story, David Adley first starts attending The Club in 196-, and Emlyn [=McCarron=] tells the Breathing Method story in 197-. Throughout the entire novella, no last numbers are given for any dates.

* TheOldCon: Brooks, who spends nearly thirty years in jail and is crying when he has to leave. He dies in a home for indigent old folks after only being out a year, and Red is surprised he made it that long.

* TheSociopath: Todd. Extremely AxCrazy, no empathy whatsoever, has a history of murdering animals for kicks, and is very manipulative, coaxing Kurt into telling him Holocaust stories for his own amusement.