History WMG / TheThing

* Strangely wholesome. The Thing indeed never made a move against Clark, the other prevailing theory is that it wanted the others to suspect him but that seems much more complex than necessary.

A related theory is that during the ending both of them are Things, but they still think they are humans. The infection mechanism has no reason to alter their natural behavior, so they just sit there sipping rum (or whatever) until they simply fail to die. And then they know.

* It is possible that Childs isn't human and that Mac is, if only because Childs WASN'T BREATHING. Other things to support this is that Childs is wearing a different colored parka than before; runs out into a blizzard alone (which is out of character for him); and when offered a swig of rum, he takes it even though Mac could very well be infected.

It just grows its appendages in the most convenient direction, like a tree's limbs and roots grow toward light and water. Hence, it has no inherent understanding of "left" and "right", not being bilaterally symmetrical. That's why the Carter-thing messes up when challenged about its earring: it may have assimilated the ''words'' "left" and "right", but it just doesn't "get" the words' actual ''meanings''.

Which is why it has NoBiochemicalBarriers.

In comes Clarke with a gentle voice, and calms the "dog" down, displaying the complete opposite of hostility or suspicion. Even though its instincts tell it to imitate and spread its infection, it refuses to do so to Clarke, since he was the only genuinely non-hostile human it had come across so far (it was still suspicious of the rest of the crew, even if none of them were outwardly hostile). Clarke didn't even lock the dog up with the others at first, opting to let it wander the camp, or simply staying with it like any loving dog-owner would (giving it ''plenty'' of opportunities to infect him). And it was this kindness that had the Thing deciding that it wouldn't assimilate Clarke under any circumstances apart from self-defense. Even the Palmer/Norris/Blair Things never sought to infect Clarke (who clearly is kind of a loner preferring to spend time alone with the dogs than anyone else, and would make an easy target), since they were made from the Dog-Thing's cells and had part of its psyche. Even as Clarke became just as suspicious of the Things as the rest of the humans, it never tried to infect him out of respect for the kindness he had shown it.