Thread by @Delafina777

Just saw Doctor Sleep and largely liked it, but from Haunting of Hill House to it and some other horror movies and TV, I feel like I'm noticing a trend about trauma that kind of bothers me. (Spoilers, obviously.)

So in Doctor Sleep, people who Shine can opt to eat the life energy of other people who Shine, becoming vampiric creatures who live for a long time, but have to keep killing and eating others to do so. Usually children, since the Shining becomes "polluted" in adulthood.

We get a character who goes from being a normal human to a vampire in Snakebite Andi, a 15-year-old girl who uses her powers to hunt pedophiles, giving them a "snakebite" scar on their cheek and hypnotizing them into not being able to prey on children.

Hero, right?

Not quite. She gets chased down by Rose the Hat and her vampiric kindred (coded, uncomfortably, as Traveler/Roma-ish) and recruited.

Not once does she object to the fact that they also prey on children.

And then there's Danny Torrance--and here we're going straight to end-of-the-movie spoilers, so f'real, tune out if you don't want to be spoiled.

Much of the movie is about him being haunted by the events of the Shining.

At the end, partially possessed by the evil of the Overlook, he sends Abra, the young girl who Shines brighter than everyone else, out to safety while he remains inside and burns the place down.

As he dies, his mother's ghost embraces him.

I leaned over and said to the friend I was seeing it with, "So.... this movie just became the Haunting of Hill House."

They're evoking a persistent trope here: the battered, weary soldier for whom death is a relief.

We got a lot of it in The Haunting of Hill House--ALL those traumatized people, at last getting to rest and be reunited with their loved ones.

And there are times I find this a moving trope--generally with the Old Soldier character.

It feels like it starts to have pernicious undertones when the character is a not-particularly-old adult returning to deal with childhood trauma and dying wearily and with a level of relief as they resolve--or at least destroy the source of--that trauma.

The message starts to be that if you've suffered intense childhood trauma, you're too damaged to be a hero that survives to happy old age. You destroy the thing that traumatized you, and your life is done. It never has a chance to be about more than trauma.

And, from the bottom of my heart, fuck this trope.

People who suffered intense trauma as children might have to trudge through hell again in healing from it, but they don't deserve to have healing be the *end* of their story.

Danny Torrance deserved to dance at Abra's wedding

Like, how dare you, horror narratives, tell people dealing with PTSD that they should view death as a *relief* from suffering? That their entire life should be limited to battling that trauma, and as soon as they've made any peace with it, that's the end? FUCK THAT.

Maybe it's a lifelong battle, sure, but it's also one that doesn't have to consume the entirety of your life. There is joy and color and peace and love and rest out there for you in *life*, and you deserve a happy, peaceful old age surrounded by loved ones. It's not out of reach.

And while it's noble and bless you if it's something you try to do, it's NOT the case that once you've suffered intense trauma, your only worth is in trying to prevent others from being harmed the same way.

YOU matter. For yourself.

It's deeply unfortunate that this movie's subtext is basically an energy vampire itself.