• goldteeth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    Hey now, let’s be clear. Stephen King did not have the clown defeated by a bunch of outcast youths gangbanging in a sewer. That’s just patently incorrect. Every single part. No, he had the ancient terror disguised as a clown temporarily banished by summoning an ancient turtle from the dawn of time and engaging It in a battle of wills. Completely different and, in fact, perfectly reasonable. Anyone that’s actually read the book knows the outcast youth sewer gangbang happens after that and actually has no bearing on the plot whatsoever. Stephen King’s not some freak writing a book where the entire plot hinges on a bunch of traumatized kids screwing each other to save the world, no; he’s a perfectly normal guy writing about a bunch of traumatized kids screwing each other for no reason at all. Bet you feel real silly now, huh?

  • paranoia@feddit.dk
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    2 days ago

    I went in knowing nothing about the book other than there was a supernatural clown in it. When I read that scene I had to stop, then go online to find an explanation of what the fuck I just read (to be fair, I was also pretty confused by the denouement in general) and how it is related to the plot. I was absolutely baffled by the amount of people saying they thought it was fine to have, some people even said it was a good allegory for leaving childhood.

    • imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      some people even said it was a good allegory for leaving childhood.

      It is an allegory. But that is a certainly not a good one and should be not a choice to be used as one.

  • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    I am fairly certain that Stephen King was molested as a child, it’s a recurring theme in his work in a way that seems less like an attempt to depict a general/universal fear and way more like he’s just working through his own trauma. IT isn’t even the best example, he’s got a short story called The Library Policeman that is not subtle about it at all. Incedentally, I first read that short story in elementary school, worked better as a stranger danger warning than anything else.

  • Nangijala@feddit.dk
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    2 days ago

    I went into IT with an open mind and was prepared for that scene. Kept thinking that it probably made a lot of sense since many King fans had said it had a very beautiful reason behind it.

    Then I get to it. And it’s just stupid. Genuinely stupid.

    The kids are scared of forgetting each other, because that is the power of IT. It makes people forget as they grow up.

    So they want to do something meaningful to remember each other. And Bev is like: y’all can fuck me.

    And I am over here like: how are the boys supposed to remember each other if they only fuck you? If that scene was supposed to make a lick of sense, the kids would have an orgy with each other and not just the boys lining up to have sex with one girl.

    I can go along with weird and uncomfortable ideas in books if they make sense. In this case, it made no sense. But people either seem to defend it because they just go along with the premise or they defend King because he was high or some shit.

    I’m not defending bad storytelling. IT has a lot of cool concepts in it and no one can write about small communities like King can, but I’m not gonna pretend like the kids having sex is some clever narrative device. It’s very, very stupid.

    I also think the Turtle is goofy af.

    • TheSlad@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Tbh if my first time was a train of my bros all with the same chick, i’d probably remember them for a very long time even without a proper orgy. Though i’d probably remember them all for helping to defeat an eldritch sewer fiend anyways.

      Still sounds like a stupid thing to put in a horror story about teenagers though…

    • wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      Oddly enough, I put that BS down far before the halfway point back in the day, and never picked it up again.

      Thankfully, the only knowledge I have of this King-style WTF Deluxe?

      Vicariously. Phew. 😬

      • wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        Fuck, that’s nasty.

        Which flavor? Napalm Mint™? Yellow Horse Breath? Amethyst Apocalypse?

        edit: Now I’ve got a 3pc band in my head of straightedge Mr. Cleans w/ scrubby-bubble brushstaches in Ned Flanders fit, called The Listerines.

    • ComfortableRaspberry@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      There is a scene in the book “It” where the only girl in the friend group decides to have sex with all the others to bring them back together. Down in the sewers.

    • kibblebits@quokk.au
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      2 days ago

      The book has child porn in it. A group fuck where they all fuck the girl.

      Not joking.

      • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Describing it as porn is wildly inaccurate, it’s not particularly detailed or explicit and it’s not written in a way that even comes close to being erotic

      • Zetta@mander.xyz
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        2 days ago

        Today I learned everyone with a copy of the book ‘It’ is in possession of CSAM, and amazon and Barnes and noble are actively and criminally distributing the same material.

        Words have meaning.

        • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          At least in the US, I’m not sure if purely textual would ever be illegal. You could likely get away with a visual depiction of the scence with current law.

          • Log in | Sign up@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            The Pedophile-in-Chief is ok with it, even though he personally prefers them to be teenaged, he’ll gladly start a war and crash the global economy to defend him and his pedo pals from too much scrutiny in the Epstein files.

        • kibblebits@quokk.au
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          2 days ago

          I think a lot of people never saw it coming. He was on a lot of drugs at the time.

          That said, in every single book he wrote, he has very elaborate scenes where a person urinates themselves. Every. Single. Book.

            • kibblebits@quokk.au
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              2 days ago

              I’m certain someone did. At least he came on himself and not in a middle school child.

            • slickgoat@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              His early work was exceptionally good. Tommy knockers, Needful Things, Salem’s Lot, Misery, Stand By Me, were all pretty good. Not a fan of some of his latest stuff.

            • ikt@aussie.zone
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              2 days ago

              read the book and tell us if it’s any good? if you’re morally opposed to reading some book because of a fictional scene that disgusts you then stick to childrens books

            • kibblebits@quokk.au
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              2 days ago

              I don’t know. His books aren’t that great. His movie adaptations are just okay.

              He has some early work that was good and got a lot of attention. It was back in the prime days of horror novels. Right place right time. That’s all.

              With the right amount of cocaine I think you or I could probably give him a run for his money

              • moopet@sh.itjust.works
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                2 days ago

                His books are variable, but they usually have like 300 pages of genuinely good character development and scene setting, an inciting horrible incident and then another 100 pages of suspension-of-disbelief. All of the film adaptations I’ve seen are pretty bad though.

                • massacre@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  Shawshank? Shining? Mist? Green Mile? Misery? Maybe not everything is a winner, but these are pretty classic movies and some like Pet Sematary, Thinner, Carrie, Dream Catcher and many others are not bad movies. The Running Man wasn’t super well made (old one) but a decent movie for it’s time. I haven’t even seen half of his adapted works and I just rattled off 10 movies that pretty universally are not seen as “pretty bad”:

                • kibblebits@quokk.au
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                  2 days ago

                  I think, in his case, the more he did the more he produced.

                  However, he’s very public about having no recollection or writing many of his books.

                  I wish I could say “damn, I don’t ever remember making that app. It made a million you say? Wow”

              • zipkag@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                I latent agree with that for all of his books, except for the Dark Tower series. I actually think the Dark Tower series is pretty good. It’s very different from his other books though.

            • kibblebits@quokk.au
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              2 days ago

              You get the logic… of… peeing or the middle school gang bang to defeat a monster?

              • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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                2 days ago

                The second one. It preys on innocent childish fears, so kill that part of you. Haha, so clever, makes sense in universe I guess. But like, why would you make your universe that way?

                • edwardbear@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  Cause when you use drugs, you are in the deepest, darkest corners of your psyche. You usually start taking drugs because you either want to silence that part of yourself, or because you feel like a piece of shit because of the thoughts you have in your head. Ultimately, healing comes from realising that everyone experiences thoughts like that, they just decide to not live out the thoughts.

                • kibblebits@quokk.au
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                  2 days ago

                  I guess. I mean, he’s a pervert who wants to watch kids fuck. You know he jerked off after writing it.

                • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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                  2 days ago

                  Because Stephen King has sexual trauma from his childhood and has been working through it with his writing the entire time

        • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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          It’s a weird and completely unnecessary scene narratively speaking but it’s not even close to porn. It’s one of many similar examples in King’s writing, seems like the guy was molested as a kid and tried working through it with his writing

        • wuffah@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Let’s put it this way, enough people read IT that IT got three movies and a TV series.