r/AskScienceFiction • u/PassengerCultural421 • 22h ago
[Carrie] Are there other people with abilities like Carrie, that share the same world as her?
•
u/OkDentist4059 22h ago edited 21h ago
Carrie has “the shine,” same as Danny Torrance from The Shining and Brady Hartsfeld from the Mr Mercedes series. Manifests in different ways but often involves telepathy / telekinesis / precognition.
Most of King’s works take place in the same fictional universe - many of them reference each other - and more often than not at least one character in every story displays some level of “shine” at some point, even if it’s a simple as having hazy vision of the future or getting a “bad feeling” right before something bad happens.
Now obviously none of that later stuff was planned out when he wrote Carrie, but iirc there’s a bit at the end of the book that implies there’s another girl with similar powers, so he at least planted the idea that more people like Carrie are out there
•
u/Deweymaverick 21h ago
Not just at the end of the book- the book has a running narrative of including world commentary from all kinds of authors (police reports, crank authors, academics, mass
Media interviews) that imply that there have been other people with powers out there.The new show does this more directly (and kinda states as fact) that “witches” were (mostly) real and that there have been women with “shine” like powers that were burnt at the stake, imprisoned, etc, for their powers.
The book does it too…. To a lesser degree, and with (varying degrees) of less reliable sources (for the info).
•
u/Villag3Idiot 22h ago
Yes, Carrie 2. Carrie's half sister has her powers.
And most of Stephen King's series are in the same multiverse.
•
•
u/Pegussu 21h ago
Speaking strictly in terms of the book, absolutely. Others have already mentioned that there's an epilogue where a little girl is shown to have Carrie's powers, but that girl's mother mentions that she'd heard stories about other women in their family having abilities as well. Margaret herself says Carrie's grandmother had abilities which is why she's dismayed but not shocked when Carrie demonstrates them.
In broader terms, the book is not a situation where "the Black Prom" was covered up. Carrie's slaughter at the high school and rampage across town - during which everyone in town telepathically knew exactly who was doing it - made international news. It was proof of the "TK gene." It's said that progress is being made towards isolating the gene responsible and that the scientific community widely agrees that when they do, children will be routinely tested for it.
One other thing I'll note because of some other comments here: Stephen King novels often have a shared multiverse based around The Dark Tower series, but this does not mean every story is set in the same universe. To my knowledge, there's not been another book set in Carrie's particular level of the Tower.
•
u/kkfosonroblox 21h ago
This is true, in fact quite a few of kings books show up later as works of fiction, signifying that those characters are on another world/level
•
u/Top-Community-9600 21h ago
In The Dark Tower VII, Dinky Earnshaw compared his shitty life before becoming a breaker to "feeling like Carrie at the fucking prom." Carrie was clearly fiction in his level of the Tower.
•
u/Correct_Doctor_1502 20h ago
The beam breakers also mentioned they wish they got her before her death, wouldn't that imply she was in the keystone universe because it's the only world where time goes one way?
•
u/Top-Community-9600 19h ago
I don't recall that happening, but if it did, it must be because Sombra can only travel to different worlds and years through the North Central Positronics doors, which they cannot build. Most likely, there wasn't a door leading to Carrie's world before her death.
•
u/Firm-Advertising6872 15h ago
what do you mean by time goes one way?
•
u/Top-Community-9600 10h ago
He means that in Keystone Earth, the timeline cannot be changed. In other earths, it can be changed as long as there's a door to the past, but in Keystone Earth, any alteration to the past you could make has already been made. For example, in Keystone Earth in 1999, Tetcorp had already been founded by Roland and Eddie in 1977, but they hadn't done so yet within the storyline.
•
u/Correct_Doctor_1502 20h ago
The Beam Breakers mentioned Carrie in Dark Tower, saying how they wish they got her before her death
This implies she exist in the Keystone Universe, the only world where time only flows one way otherwise they'd be able to get her regardless of her death
•
u/OmegaX123 17h ago
Isn't the Keystone the universe where sai King, snd by extension, we, reside? I may be misremembering, but that feels right to me. Or is it more like a Marvel/DC situation where Earth-616 on the Marvel side is the 'most important' Earth in the multiverse but we're just Earth-1218?
•
u/thepeoplessgt 19h ago
A little off topic:
Ray Brower, the kid who went missing in “The Body/Stand By Me was from Carrie’s hometown of Chamberlain. The town is supposed to be forty miles east of Castle Rock.
The events in The Body takes place in 1960, 19 years before Carrie in 1979(SK wrote the book in 1974 but set it in 1979).
Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank in 1975 (in the novel), the same year Salem’s Lot suffered a Vampire invasion.
•
u/Ridtom 14h ago
I’ll break this up into 4 Layers: Carrie (the book), Other Books, the Dark Tower, and Miscellaneous
- Carrie: Yes, Carrie is not the only one with psychic powers. Her family has had psychics in the past, there are mentions of other people with powers, and her rampage causes the scientific community in her world to try and isolate the TK gene
- Other Books: What Carrie has is called The Shine, named after the book The Shining where psychic abilities play a key part in dealing with a haunted hotel. Other books such as Doctor Sleep, It, Dreamcatcher, Firestarter, the Institute, the Dead Zone and even Cujo have the Shine be prominent in the stories. Generally agreed that if Carrie is not the strongest Shine user, she is up there in the Top 5 with the protagonist of Firestarter, Abra from Doctor Sleep, or one of the side characters from the Institute
- The Dark Tower: The plot of the Dark Tower is that not only is there a multiverse, there are layers of multiverse where all settings are equally real and fictional. The Dead Zone has the main character with the Shine explicitly compare himself to the book Carrie that he read. There are bad guys who use other Shine users from across all layers of the multiverse to try and destroy the Dark Tower, and they craved having Carrie before she died
- Miscellaneous: There are many monsters out there that also have psychic powers, but are not Shine users. Vampires for example. Pennywise and lesser creatures of his ilk such as Library Police, Dandelo, and Outsiders (usually grouped up as creatures of the Prim, though some theorize they are all Pennywise surviving eggs… theory for another time) also have psychic powers but do not use the Shine.
•
u/SouthernAd2853 22h ago
I'm pretty sure it's set in the same general verse as most of Stephan King' works, so yes there are other supernatural creatures out there, many on Earth.
So far as I know no one with the exact same powerset appears but I am not aware of any specific statement she's unique.
•
u/Correct_Doctor_1502 20h ago
Yes. Lots
The book has letters implying she has family with the same ability. Steven King books take place in a shared multiverse and the ability has a bunch of names and verity, some people can hypnotize, some can start fires, some can teleport and some can strike you dead. It gets called "shining" "the touch" or just "telepathy"
•
u/Trick_Pool_2537 10h ago
You really should read the book as the adaptations give the wrong impression about this. Anyway it definitely ran in her family and, after the events, the cat was out of the bag so to speak regarding psychic/telekinetic abilities
•
u/RickRussellTX 20h ago
Rachel Lang, Carrie's half sister by her biological father also carries the "TK gene" and was the protagonist of the movie, Carrie 2: the Rage.
•
•
u/AutoModerator 22h ago
Reminders for Commenters:
All responses must be A) sincere, B) polite, and C) strictly watsonian in nature. If "watsonian" or "doylist" is new to you, please review the full rules here.
No edition wars or gripings about creators/owners of works. Doylist griping about Star Wars in particular is subject to permanent ban on first offense.
We are not here to discuss or complain about the real world.
Questions about who would prevail in a conflict/competition (not just combat) fit better on r/whowouldwin. Questions about very open-ended hypotheticals fit better on r/whatiffiction.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.