The Tommyknockers: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"Late last night and the night before,

''Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers, knocking at the door.

''I want to go out, don't know if I can,

''Because I'm so afraid of the Tommyknocker man."'' }}

 

''The Tommyknockers'' is an 1987 novel by [[Stephen King]].

It was adapted into a 1993 miniseries starring Jimmy Smits, Marg Helgenberger, E.G. Marshall, Joanna Cassidy and Traci Lords.

 

* [[The Alcoholic]]: Jim Gardner. Unfortunately, he's a mean drunk.

* [[All Women Are Prudes]]: Well, at least Becka Paulson is. At first, she's actually relieved when she suspects that her husband is having an affair, because this means he doesn't have sex with her anymore. To her, sex was "just [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|as her mother had told her it would be]], nasty, brutish, sometimes painful, always humiliating".

* [[Berserk Button]]: Don't praise nuclear power in front of Gardener.

* [[Better as Friends]]: Gardener and Bobbi used to be lovers, but by the time the book is set, they're just friends {{spoiler|though they end up having sex once more.}}

* [[Body Horror]]: The process of "becoming". For most people, it's just teeth falling out, but a select few's skin becomes transparent, and tentacles appear in the place of their genitals.

* [[Celebrity Paradox]]: Stephen King himself is referenced in the book; the townspeople think that Bobbi writes good stories, "not all full of make-believe monsters and a bunch of dirty words, like the books that fellow who lived up Bangor way wrote". Also, when Gardener wants to get into the shed, he considers grabbing an ax "and make like [[Jack Nicholson]] in ''[[The Shining]]''". However, events in ''[[The Dead Zone]]'', ''[[IT]]'' and ''[[Firestarter]]'' are mentioned as fact or at least hearsay, not as fiction.

* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]: Ev Hillman first appears as a "garrulous-going-on-tiresome" old man. However, he proves to be very brave and heroic, when he [[Papa Wolf|tries to save his grandson]].

* [[Disappearing Box]]: Played with. Hilly Brown made a machine that didn't make things disappear, but sent to Altair IV. However, he uses it with the intent of making things vanish under an ordinary cloth as a magic trick.

* [[Flashback Nightmare]]: Gardener regularly has them about his teenage skiing accident (after which he got the steel plate in his head).

* [[For Want of a Nail]]: All the events are triggered by Bobbie stumbling in a piece of metal. The book actually starts with this sentence: "For want of a nail the kingdom was lost - that's how the catechism goes when you boil it down."

* [[Hair-Trigger Temper]]: The entire race of the Tommyknockers have it.

* [[The Hard Hat]]: Gardener and Ev Hillman are immune to the effects of the spaceship, because they have metal plates in their heads (Gardener bcause of a skiing accident, Ev because of a war wound). Anne Anderson is somewhat protected by extensive metal dental work.

* [[Insufficiently Advanced Alien]]: The Tommyknockers. They don't even begin to understand the technology they somehow managed to figure out how to <s> use</s> ''make''.

* [[Interrupted Suicide]]: Gardener is about to jump into the sea when he has an intuition that Bobbi is in trouble; that's why he doesn't do it, not because he wants to live (though later, he's grateful that he didn't do it).

* [[I Want My Mommy]]: {{spoiler|Leandro}}'s last thought, right before he's killed is "Mama!"

* [[Jerkass]]: Bobbi's sister, complete with introductory [[Kick the Dog]] moment (she reduces an airline stewardess to tears, seemingly for the hell of it). When she was younger, she bullied her own parents. (One such incident involved her habit of grinding her teeth until she had to get dental work done. She tried to force a guilt trip on them for not stopping a habit that she herself refused to give up). When she tells her mother that she called Bobbi to tell her that their father was dead, she said that Bobbi laughed (untrue). Then she goes to Haven and tries to pull this on the locals. BIG mistake. {{spoiler|She ends up as a [[Brain In a Jar]]}}.

* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]

* [[Mercy Kill]]: Gardener does it {{spoiler|to Bobbi, and later to the people (and the dog) in Bobbi's shed}}.

* [[Most Writers Are Writers]]: Bobbi and Gardener.

* [[Mundane Utility]]: Bobbi uses her technical abilities to power up her water heater by creating a small sun in it, making a tractor that can fly, and a typewriter that can read thoughts. Other Havenites create similar things.

* [[My Beloved Smother]]: John Leandro's mother.

* [[Never Live It Down]]: The only thing that anyone can ever remember about Gardener is that he shot his wife. Never mind that it was non-fatal, she didn't press charges, or any other thing he's ever done, all that important is that he shot his wife.

* [[No Periods, Period]]: Averted. Practically all the women in town wind up with theirs at the same time when the Tommyknockers show up, to the point that the stores run out of tampons. Even Ruth winds up with one, despite the fact that she'd hit menopause years ago.

** Also, the energy weapon that Gardener uses to kill several Havenites, which is specifically noted to look like a parasol.

* [[People Jars]]: {{spoiler|The people in Bobbi's shed.}}

* [[Psychic Static]]: Ruth McCausland thinks of tongue-twisters to hide her thoughts, playing them constantly in the back of her mind. Gardener (who has it much easier because of the steel plate in his head) uses "old addresses, bits of poems, snatches of songs", or just repeats the word "shield".

* [[Random Teleportation]]: The Tommyknockers are able to teleport things, but they can't determine where they go, so for traveling, they use spaceships.

* [[Shur Fine Guns]]: When Gardener drops a gun, it goes off, and the bullet breaks his ankle. It might be justified, since it's an old .45 from [[World War II]]. It's especially ironic, because {{spoiler|earlier, when he tried to shoot Bobbi with it, it misfired}}.

* [[Sickly Green Glow]]: The alien power has it.

* [[Stage Magician]]: Hilly Brown, a [[Child Prodigy]], wants to be one; when he gains technical abilities, he builds a machine that sends things to a faraway planet ([[Shout-Out|referred as]] [[Forbidden Planet|Altair IV]]), then brings them back, and uses it for magic tricks. However, when he sends away his little brother, David, he can't bring him back; rescuing him later becomes a major plot thread.

* [[Town with a Dark Secret]]: Haven becomes this.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:The Eighties]]

[[Category:Horror Literature]]