Stephen King Fans discussion

Nick wrote: "Mark wrote: "John wrote: "Mark wrote: "I found a fatal flaw that renders the entire premise of the book ridiculous.



OK, let me get this straight.

The Institute exists to protect the world from..."

(view spoiler)[Yes, understood, but the 1000s of innocent deaths of families and the deaths of the psychic kids would have been totally unnecessary if they just used the assassin teams to kill the targets instead of killing the parents and siblings of the psychic kids. If they eliminated the middleman, they would have operated far more efficiently. (hide spoiler)]

But they would have been unable to do so undetected, and detection would mean political reprisal. Like Nick said, the kids are stealth.

Kandice wrote: "But they would have been unable to do so undetected, and detection would mean political reprisal. Like Nick said, the kids are stealth."

(view spoiler)[


The precognitives could have solved those problems. They could have indicated times and circumstances where the targets would have been vulnerable. And many of the targets were not yet prominent and would not have been significant at the time they were killed. The precogs identified them years in advance.

The Institute's assassins murdered tens of thousands of innocent people to get those kids in thousands of raids on homes over the years, and they never were detected in any one of those cases. THOUSANDS of psychic kids taken, each from a home with at least one parent and usually two parents plus siblings that had to be killed. That's a LOT of murders for 500 threats to world safety.

The kids' disappearances should have been handled with simple kidnapping without the family massacres; explained off as runaways or 'regular' child abductions.

King could even have just had the children be the precognitives themselves, identifying the targets for the physical hit teams. It seemed very inefficient and unnecessary to be operating the way they did in the book, using regular assassins to kidnap psychic assassins.

(hide spoiler)]

Nick wrote: "Mark wrote: "John wrote: "Mark wrote: "I found a fatal flaw that renders the entire premise of the book ridiculous.



OK, let me get this straight.

The Institute exists to protect the world from..."

(view spoiler)[The thing is, if they had just used the assassins to kill the targets, instead of sending them to kill the parents and abduct the psychic children, they would have never caused the thousands of innocent deaths and just carried out the 500 justifiable assassinations of threats! (hide spoiler)]

Mark wrote: "Nick wrote: "Mark wrote: "John wrote: "Mark wrote: "I found a fatal flaw that renders the entire premise of the book ridiculous.



OK, let me get this straight.

The Institute exists to protect t..."

I don't think standard procedure is killing parents, unless they accidentally get in the way during abduction (like Luke's). SK's opening quote lists 800,000 children are reported missing each year with thousands never found. I see where you're coming from and you're not wrong, but I also think this is the kind of rabbit hole one can dive in with most fantasy fiction. If you're looking for laser-sharp logic, then a fun book about telepathic/telekinetic kids might be a bad place to start.

Mark wrote: "Nick wrote: "Mark wrote: "John wrote: "Mark wrote: "I found a fatal flaw that renders the entire premise of the book ridiculous.



OK, let me get this straight.

The Institute exists to protect t..."

I repeat (view spoiler)[ Using assassins would leave traces which would result in repercussions,. Using TKs kills with no trace. (hide spoiler)]

Kandice wrote: "Mark wrote: "Nick wrote: "Mark wrote: "John wrote: "Mark wrote: "I found a fatal flaw that renders the entire premise of the book ridiculous.



OK, let me get this straight.

The Institute exists..."

(view spoiler)[So the assassins can murder thousands of families and abduct thousands of kids without leaving the slightest trace, but when it comes to assassinating some guy who will become a threat to world safety ten years down the line, they leave clues all over that would point straight to The Institute... Is that the situation? (hide spoiler)]

Mark wrote: "Kandice wrote: "Mark wrote: "Nick wrote: "Mark wrote: "John wrote: "Mark wrote: "I found a fatal flaw that renders the entire premise of the book ridiculous.



OK, let me get this straight.

The ..."

(view spoiler)[ First, I don't think they murdered thousands of people/families. Like someone mentioned, that was a last resort. For the most part, they kidnapped children who then were listed as runaways or were simply never found. Murdering their families was a last resort.

Besides, that kind of crime gets much less scrutiny than the death of someone political or widely in the public eye. Especially someone controversial.

I think you are crediting them with more murder than they actually committed. I am not excusing them, simply explaining their self-justification, as they must have seen it. (hide spoiler)]

They certainly meant to kill the parents. The only reason the mother wasn't murdered in her sleep is because she got up to go to the bathroom. If they only meant to take the boy she have someone disable the alarm and three more to enter the house. I'm pretty sure if my facts unless I read an entirely different book.

I was always of the belief that (view spoiler)[some members of the institute were not just in this to save the world. (that was their story of course). but they had other goals too, like learning the true nature of these extraordinary powers, and maybe even learning how to gain them for themselves. That isn't spelled out in the dialogue, but I think it's implied. (hide spoiler)]

Linda wrote: "They certainly meant to kill the parents. The only reason the mother wasn't murdered in her sleep is because she got up to go to the bathroom. If they only meant to take the boy she have someone di..."

I didn't imply they didn't mean to kill Luke's parents. I am saying that they do not ALWAYS kill the parents. I would venture to say that is the exception to the rule. Otherwise he wouldn't have bothered to mention how many children simply go missing each year. We very seldom read about families being murdered and one child being on the lose!

Nick wrote: "I was always of the belief that [spoilers removed]"

Yes, this too. There are scientific minds that simply want to explore and learn and they can excuse a lot of what seems wrong to the rest of us to do so.

Nick wrote: "I was always of the belief that [spoilers removed]"

I think (view spoiler)[Dr. Hendricks was allowed to experiment on the children for his own personal research. (hide spoiler)]

Kandice wrote: "Linda wrote: "They certainly meant to kill the parents. The only reason the mother wasn't murdered in her sleep is because she got up to go to the bathroom. If they only meant to take the boy she h..."

(view spoiler)[All of the children Tim rescued had to go live with other relatives because The Institute had murdered their parents. None of the kids whose story was told to any length had just been abducted without the massacre of their family. I think killing the families was Standard Order of Procedure. (hide spoiler)]

Mark wrote: "Kandice wrote: "Linda wrote: "They certainly meant to kill the parents. The only reason the mother wasn't murdered in her sleep is because she got up to go to the bathroom. If they only meant to ta..."

This is exactly why we read books individually and don't just rely on others to tell us the tale. We all take different things away from them and see things differently depending on who we are. I disagree with you wholeheartedly, but that does not make either of us wrong.

I assumed that some kids (maybe not many) were just abducted. I also inferred this from the statistics at the beginning and was rather surprised that (view spoiler)[none of the kids at the end had families to go back to, but they were a pretty small sample of the whole. I also think that they were really in a loop of justifying all this to themselves, because they really wanted to do it, for the most part. They were fascinated with the abilities, and loved having the power to USE them, even though the abilities weren't their own. Believing that this was the best way to take out potential problems with the smallest "ripple effect" overall allowed them to do what they wanted with a mostly clear conscience. (hide spoiler)]

Angel wrote: "I assumed that some kids (maybe not many) were just abducted. I also inferred this from the statistics at the beginning and was rather surprised that none of the kids at the end had families to go ..."

(view spoiler)[It seemed so unbelievable at the end when Agent Smith announced that with the loss of the children, that was it. The world was now on suicide watch. Like they never even would consider neutralizing the threats with conventional methods, even with the future of humanity at stake and basically on a ticking countdown to destruction. That's what got me wondering about all this, right there. (hide spoiler)]

I think the hubris you're seeing was part of the point, Mark. (view spoiler)[The people who worked at the Institutes were drunk on their own power and were largely ignored by the higher ups, so they kept doing what they were doing even though it was inefficient and ill-advised. I think King was trying to highlight how ridiculous and pointless decaying bureaucracies can be, even while they continue to present a danger (hide spoiler)].

Summer wrote: "I think the hubris you're seeing was part of the point, Mark. [spoilers removed]."

Summer, that is the best explanation for my questions yet. If this is the case, it was presented rather more subtly than I would have expected from a mass-market King novel, where you would expect a character to articulate their opinions on the topic at some point for clarification; perhaps Tim musing on it after Smith leaves. Without this exposition, it was easy to see The Institute's actions as simply illogical and nonsensical lack of plotting.

Summer wrote: "I think the hubris you're seeing was part of the point, Mark. [spoilers removed]."

Great point Summer/ I totally agree. If you look at Dreamcatcher you'll see that King repeatedly (view spoiler)[casts the bad guys as ineffective, over the hill, in the last days of their success, etc. It's actually one of his themes. (hide spoiler)]

Nick wrote: "If you look at Dreamcatcher..."

Nailed it, Nick! And fair points, Mark. I don't think King is particularly known for his subtlety.

I just finished this one. Overrall I enjoyed it. I do think it's one of King's more disturbing novels just based on what happens to the kids.

Kandace wrote: "This felt like a revisit to The Shop from Firestarter and a few of his other works. I've always wished he would revisit the idea and was thrilled he did so here."

I just started and am only a little over 100 pages in. But so far I am really liking it. And I agree, I immediately felt like I was at an updated version of The Shop.

I just finished last night. Like a lot of you, I thought it was a very enjoyable read. It wasn't on my favorites list, but I was never bored and always wanted to keep reading. I read all of H.G. Wells' work when I was younger, and this novel reminded me of that old sci-fi horror feel.

I got a Little stranger things vibe reading this on top of The firestarter.

My review for The Institute below:


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...