History YMMV / Misery

* HilariousInHindsight: Paul's ''Misery'' series is focused on a pretty but flighty young woman who is the focus of two guys who do all the cool stuff. The series is obscenely popular. Fans, but especially middle-aged women, adore it. Critics everywhere skewer it. [[Literature/{{Twilight}} Almost twenty years later...]]
** Even more hilarious what with Stephen's [[{{TakeThat}} reaction]] to [[Literature/{{Twilight}} said novel]]...

* NauseaFuel: At one point Annie crushes a rat to death with her bare hand, poking her fingers into its body in the process. And then she licks her fingers. Paul wasn't the only one that felt ill.

* TheWoobie: Paul. The whole story is basically about him stuck in ''Hell!''

* FridgeLogic: In the movie, they changed the book Annie forces Paul to burn being his unpublished script of the book in which he kills Misery off, as opposed to a different book he wanted to write about racing, called "Fast Cars". But seeing as Annie made him burn that hated Misery script of hers before it was even published, why would it be necessary of him to write the "next" book in which Misery comes back to life?

* CompleteMonster - Annie comes across this way in the movie, as we are not given much backstory or motivation for her horrific actions, and she just seems like an evil psycho. She's actually '''not''' a CompleteMonster in the book though. For example, when she sees that Paul injured his hand by writing too much, she becomes genuinely upset. Paul thinks that "the occasional moments like this were the most ghastly of all, because in them he saw the woman she might have been if her [[FreudianExcuse upbringing had been right]] or the drugs squirted out by all the funny little glands inside her had been less wrong. Or both."

* NightmareFuel - The only scene most people will remember is the one where Annie [[spoiler: breaks Paul's legs.]]
** This is toned down a good deal from the book [[spoiler:in which Annie chops off Paul's foot, to punish him for an escape attempt, and later his thumb, after an argument over problems with the typewriter she supplied him]].
*** [[spoiler:Only to be cranked back up when she brings him a cake. With a "special" candle.]]
** In the book, [[spoiler:Annie takes a rat she trapped in her cellar and brings it in front of Paul. She proceeds to squeeze the rat until blood gushes from its mouth. Then, she licks the blood from her fingertips.]] Gross.
** [[spoiler:Also in the book, Annie attacks a young cop and runs over his head with a lawnmower. ''Ick''.]]
** This moment:
--->The key rattled in the lock. Annie was looking in at him, her eyes burned black holes in her face. Her right cheek was swelling up, and it looked like she was going to have a hell of a shiner in the morning. There was red stuff around her mouth and on her chin. For a moment Paul thought it was more blood from her torn lip and then he saw the seeds in it. It was raspberry jam or raspberry filling, not blood. She looked at him. Paul looked back. Neither said anything for a time. Outside, the first drops of rain splatted against the window.
--->"If you can get into that chair all by yourself, Paul," she said at last, "then I think you can fill in your own fucking n's." She then closed the door and locked it again. Paul sat looking at it for a long time, almost as if there were something to see. He was too flabbergasted to do anything else.
** In the movie, the scene with a depressed Annie talking to Paul about her fear of being abandoned by him starts out as a TearJerker, but soon evolves into this.

* HilariousInHindsight: Paul's ''Misery'' series is focused on a pretty but flighty young woman who is the focus of two guys who do all the cool stuff. The series is obscenely popular. Fans, but especially middle-aged women, adore it. Critics everywhere skewer it. [[Literature/{{Twilight}} Almost twenty years later...]]
** Even more hilarious what with Stephen's [[{{TakeThat}} reaction]] to [[Literature/{{Twilight}} said novel]]...
** Two decades after Kathy Bates played Annie, she appeared in MidnightInParis as Gertrude Stein, and the protagonist desperately ''wanting'' her to read his writing and hear her opinion is a plot point.
* HollywoodHomely: Annie played by Kathy Bates is a plump woman of average appearance, clean and carefully groomed. The character in the book has been described as very unattractive, a shapeless fat body, reeking of dirt and poor-quality cosmetics.
* NauseaFuel: At one point Annie crushes a rat to death with her bare hand, poking her fingers into its body in the process. And then she licks her fingers. Paul wasn't the only one that felt ill.
** Two words: "[[{{Fingore}} Special candle.]]"
** Five words: "And now I must cauterize."
** Annie leaves Paul alone and locked in his room for over two days. Paul resorts to drinking his own urine because he's so thirsty.

* Two decades after Kathy Bates played Annie, she appeared in MidnightInParis as Gertrude Stein, and the protagonist desperately ''wanting'' her to read his writing and hear her opinion is a plot point.

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel - The only scene most people will remember is the one where Annie [[spoiler: breaks Paul's legs.]]

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The rare ''in-universe'' example. At the very end of the book, after his hallucination at the restaurant, Paul sees a small child going by with a skunk in a shopping cart, The oddness of the entire image inspires him to write a novel speculating on what the heck was going on with the kid.

* GrowingTheBeard - An in-universe example with ''Misery's Return''. Paul goes as far as to consider that it might be the best book he's ever written.

* SavedByTheFans: Misery herself.

* DarthWiki/{{Narm}}: In the movie, during the big fight scene, just as Annie Wilkes (played by Kathy Bates) falls to the floor and hits her head on the typewriter, the actress is replaced by a [[SpecialEffectsFailure really bad looking Kathy Bates dummy]].
** Some Stephen King fans have found the scene where Annie Wilkes [[spoiler:smashes up Paul's feet with a sledgehammer]] to be [[DarthWiki/{{Narm}} unintentionally hilarious]], especially if they read the book before watching the movie and were therefore expecting for Annie Wilkes to [[spoiler:[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin go literally]] AxCrazy [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel and chop off Paul's foot and then burn the stump to cauterize the resulting wound, as she does in the book]]]]

* CompleteMonster - Annie comes across this way in the movie, as we are not given much backstory or motivation for her horrific actions, and she just seems like an evil psycho. She's not a CompleteMonster in the book though. For example, when she sees that Paul injured his hand by writing too much, she becomes genuinely upset. Paul thinks that "the occasional moments like this were the most ghastly of all, because in them he saw the woman she might have been if her [[FreudianExcuse upbringing had been right]] or the drugs squirted out by all the funny little glands inside her had been less wrong. Or both."

* {{Narm}}: In the movie, during the big fight scene, just as Annie Wilkes (played by Kathy Bates) falls to the floor and hits her head on the typewriter, the actress is replaced by a [[SpecialEffectsFailure really bad looking Kathy Bates dummy]].
** Some Stephen King fans have found the scene where Annie Wilkes [[spoiler:smashes up Paul's feet with a sledgehammer]] to be [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DarthWiki/Narm unintentionally hilarious]], especially if they read the book before watching the movie and were therefore expecting for Annie Wilkes to [[spoiler:[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin go literally]] AxCrazy [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel and chop off Paul's foot and then burn the stump to cauterize the resulting wound, as she does in the book]]]]

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: Paul [[spoiler: burning the manuscript in front of Annie while taunting her about how good it is.]] Of course, [[spoiler: he was bluffing, but after spending the entire book at her mercy, the poor guy deserved to defeat the goddess.]]
** [[spoiler: To say nothing of the ensuing struggle, after getting beat on the head with a typewriter twice over, her arm set alight, her nose broken and eyes almost gouged out and choked with the charred remains of her dream novel, it's safe to say Annie got a good idea of the horror she'd put Paul through.]]
** [[spoiler:'''Paul:''': ''*taunts burnt pages in front of her*'' "You want this? Then EAT IT! ''*shoves the paper down her throat*'' Eat it till you choke you sick, twisted fuck!"]]
* CrowningMomentOfFunny: *'''DING!'''*
--> '''Paul's first written lines of his new novel''': ''[[ClusterFBomb fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck]]''
** COCKADOODIE!
* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: Paul [[spoiler:starting a new story after all the shit he went through]].

* HilariousInHindsight: Paul's ''Misery'' series is focused on a pretty but flighty young woman who is the focus of two guys who do all the cool stuff. The series is obscenely popular. Fans, but especially middle-aged women, adore it. Critics everywhere skewer it. [[{{Twilight}} Almost twenty years later...]]
** Even more hilarious what with Stephen's [[{{TakeThat}} reaction]] to [[{{Twilight}} said novel]]...

* FanDumb - Annie actually forces Paul to find a way to properly RetCon a character's death. She's unhappy with simply undoing the ending; he has to come up with a canonical explanation of how she could have survived without actually contradicting the events of the death. His eventual solution, exceedingly stupid, is accepted solely because it fits the facts, not because it makes a lick of sense.
** She was also extremely pissed when she found out about the new book Paul was writing, which was (in short) about a guy who stole cars. Essentially she was saying, "How ''dare'' you write anything but what I want you to write!!!"
*** Emphasized more later on [[spoiler: as she tries to save the burning script she screams: ''My'' Misery!]]

* SavedByTheFans: Misery herself, quite enough the MostTriumphantExample in fiction.

* CompleteMonster - Anne comes across this way in the movie, as we are not given much backstory or motivation for her horrific actions, and she just seems like an evil psycho. She's not a CompleteMonster in the book though. For example, when she sees that Paul injured his hand by writing too much, she becomes genuinely upset. Paul thinks that "the occasional moments like this were the most ghastly of all, because in them he saw the woman she might have been if her [[FreudianExcuse upbringing had been right]] or the drugs squirted out by all the funny little glands inside her had been less wrong. Or both."