If you want to know about how the psychic power Danny Torrance has in The Shining contributed
to bringing together the seven members of the Losers Club, then stick around to the
end of this video.
Twenty-nineteen has been a very Stephen Kingful year for movie fans.
There was a Pet Sematary movie, there’s an It sequel, and there’s a Dr. Sleep movie,
as well as an adaptation for In The Tall Grass.
When Pet Sematary was coming out I made this video where I talked about how Ellie Creed
has the Shine, the psychic clairvoyance that Dick Halloran tells Danny Torrance about in
The Shining.
“She called it ‘Shining’ and for a long time I thought it was just the two of us that
had ‘the shine’ to us.”
It wasn’t.
In fact, I’d go so far to say that all Stephen King characters have a little bit of shine
to them, it’s just that some have a stronger case than others.
It seems to be especially prominent in children.
So what about the kids from King’s 1986 novel, It?
Let’s look at some of the evidence.
[EVIDENCE]
When Halloran explains the properties of The Shine to Danny Torrance, the first thing he
talks about is the psychic connection.
“I can remember when I was a little boy,
my grandmother and I could hold conversations entirely without ever opening our mouths.
She called it Shining.”
The members of the Losers Club seem to have this ability without explicitly knowing it,
like just before Stan’s encounter with It when he has the idea that The Standpipe seems
like it’s floating.
“That was an odd thought.
He supposed it must have come from his own head -- where else could a thought come from?
-- but it somehow did not seem like his own thought at all.
Another example is when Eddie breaks his arm.
Eddie falls asleep and dreams that his friends came to see him at the hospital, and his Mom
tries to tell them off in the waiting room.
A similar encounter did occur in real life, but on the lawn of the Derry Home Hospital,
not the waiting room.
When Eddie wakes up he somehow knows that what his Mom said to his friends was real
and he’s upset with her for it.
“It’s like I go to sleep and he shows me things, but when I wake up, I can’t remember
everything.”
Another property of The Shine is the ability to see past and future events.
In The Shining, Tony shows Danny the dangers that await him at The Overlook Hotel.
“Just like they can see things that haven’t happened yet, well, sometimes they can see
things that happened a long time ago.”
In It, Bill senses that something bad is going to happen before the rock fight against The
Bowers Gang, and before they open the fortune cookies as adults.
There are a couple of other examples where they are able to anticipate future events,
as well as one notable example of seeing into the past.
Just like Danny is able to see the murders that took place in the Overlook Hotel, Richie
and Mike are able to see an event that took place in The Barrens millions of years ago
during the smoke hole ritual.
Another ability that is implied about the shine is the ability to sense someone else’s
feelings.
“What about Room 237?
You’re scared of Room 237 aintcha?”
This one might be a little bit harder to prove, because as humans we are able to read each
other’s emotions to some degree based on how someone acts, but there are a couple of
instances where Bill is able to sense what It is feeling without even being in the same
room as It.
For example after the incident with the photo album, Bill first gets the idea that It is
scared of them, and he has this feeling again after finding the death threat left on the
fridge in the junkyard.
“Ih-It’s scuh-scuh-hared of u-u-us, you know,” he said.
“I can fuh-feel th-that.
I swear to Guh-God I c-c-can.”
On that note, the fact that It is even afraid of these kids at all, when It’s been alive
for millions of years and killed hundreds of people, could speak to the fact that It
knows that the shine is strong with them and realizes the danger that this poses it It
-- which brings me to my next point.
The final battle that the Losers have with It, as both kids and adults is a telekinetic
showdown known as the Ritual of Chud.
As a kid, Bill is knocked outside of his physical body into a void known as the Macroverse,
where he must take hold of It’s metaphysical tongue in order to hurt it.
As adults, Bill tries to do this again, but misses his shot, so Richie joins in and mentally
grabs onto It, causing it immense pain to the point where It begs Richie to let go.
“(let me go! let me go and you can have everything you’ve ever wanted—money, fame,
fortune, power—I can give you these things)”
So the Losers can use this telekinetic energy as a weapon; this power can cause physical
damage to a person.
And we see the same thing happen in The Shining.
In Chapter 11, Halloran is trying to gauge how powerful Danny’s shine is, and asks
him to give a blast of thought as hard as he can.
King describes it as coming in like a Nolan Ryan fastball.
!!! HI, DICK !!!
“Hallorann winced and jerked backward on the seat.
His teeth came together with a hard click, drawing blood from his lower lip in a thin
trickle.
His hands flew up involuntarily from his lap to the level of his chest and then settled
back again.
For a moment his eyelids fluttered limply, with no conscious control, and Danny was frightened.
“Mr. Hallorann?
Dick?
Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” Hallorann said, and laughed weakly.
“I honest to God don’t.
The same thing happens later in the book, when Danny is in trouble and tries to call
out to Dick, who is in Florida, using the shine.
The reason Danny is in trouble is because he and his father, Jack, are strong shiners,
so they are able to see the evil in the hotel; they can see all the ghosts of the Overlook’s
past.
But most people come to the Overlook and never have an issue -- in the movie there hasn’t
been an incident in the last 10 years.
“I don’t suppose they told you anything in Denver about the tragedy we had up here
during the Winter of 1970?”
I mentioned before that most people who shine tend to be kids, and in Derry, kids are the
biggest targets of It.
“People die or disappear 6 times the national average.”
“And that’s just grown-ups.
Kids are worse.
Way, way worse.”
Then there’s the fact that it seems to be mostly kids who can see It or the effects
of It, like the blood that comes out of the drain that Beverly’s parents can’t see,
but the rest of the Losers Club can, or the blood that comes out of Georgie’s photo
album that his parents can’t see but he and Richie can.
There are a few adults who are able to see It, but for the most part, it’s something
that kids have to deal with on their own, as exemplified by the skateboard kid that
Bill meets, who is surprised that Bill believes the story about Tommy Vicananza seeing a shark
fin in the canal.
Like I said, I think everyone has some degree of shine to them.
Halloran says he tried shining to Mrs. Torrance and she just jumped the tiniest bit.
But maybe the reason that the seven members of the Losers Club are so drawn to one another,
is not just that they are all bullied by Henry Bowers, but rather that they all have a strong
shine to them, and whether they know it or not, that’s the reason they all become close.
At one point in the novel there was another kid they hung out with called Bradley Donovan,
but he ended up getting in an argument with Ben after accusing Beverly of cheating at
the game they were playing.
He never comes back around after that.
Maybe he was partially ashamed about what happened, but I think that he just didn’t
fit in with the others because he didn’t have a strong shine like they did.
There’s even a moment where Beverly almost seems to make this conclusion in her thoughts.
“But after a moment’s hesitation, Beverly did tell.
Because somehow Stanley was different from Bradley—he was there in a way Bradley had
not been.”
Before I throw it to the end cards, let me leave you with one more thought.
The Shining and It share one common character, and that is Dick Halloran, who is located
in Derry in the year 1930 as a cook at The Black Spot nightclub, but eventually leaves
to become the head chef at the Overlook Hotel in Colorado -- far away from Derry, Maine.
Could it be that because of It, Derry is just about the scariest place in the world to live,
because those who shine, like Dick, can see the atrocities that occurred there on a daily
basis?
Let me know your thoughts on all that in the comments.
There’s more you have to know about the shine, so watch my theory on how another Stephen
King character, Ellie Creed, also has a strong case of it by hitting the video on the left.
Remember to subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every week, ring that deathbell for
notifications and I’ll see you in the next one.
Assuming we both survive.