Hello, Book Nerds. Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.
You know what day it is! It’s the best day of the year! It’s Halloween, baby!
And since it’s Halloween, it’s time for a Death Match. Back at ya today with another Death Match to end all Death Matches. Today my friends and I decide who would win in a fight: Carrie White or Annie Wilkes.
Please give a warm welcome back to my friends Amanda, Katie, and Frankie. You know them, you love them, I love them, and it’s time for a wacky conversation about two fictional characters to find out who the baddest bitch is.
Like always, my friends have been provided with a handy-dandy list of strengths and weaknesses both characters possess. Everyone knows this is a death match. Everyone’s prepared. Everyone’s ready. My friends know who will win between these two badass women.
The rules are simple. Our two characters are in a Battle Royale style fight. Around the colosseum, yeah we’ve rented out the colosseum this year, are a few small, helpful objects that may aid our two competitors. The items could also be a hinderance; who knows. Fans of both fighters have spent good money to come watch this battle. Two famous horror characters enter, only one may exit. This is the fight to the death. Each competitor has strengths and weaknesses that can help or hurt them in this competition. But who will win? Well…you’re about to find out!
Hannah: Welcome to the 3rd Annual Horror Death Match. This year’s battle is between two badass ladies. One supernatural. One as human as they come. This is the battle between Carrie White and Annie Wilkes. We welcome our first ever ladies to the Death Match ring.
Katie: It doesn’t matter if Carrie is a teenager, she’s going to win, she has laser, murder, psychic, pyromaniac powers.
Amanda: She’s emotionally unstable.
Katie: That’s even worse. A super-powered teenager who is emotionally unstable. She can catch this woman [Annie Wilkes] on fire with a thought.
Frankie: I’m on team Carrie.
Amanda: Why? Is it cause she reaches her hand through the grave? Cause that’s not in the book.
Frankie: No, that’s not why. It’s zero percent why. Amanda, you arguments against Carrie are that she gets too emotional and she won’t be able to use her powers…
Amanda: No, I never said that. My thing is, Annie Wilkes is a manipulator. She can wrap Carrie around her finger to the point of Carrie becoming a pawn of hers.
Frankie: But, but, at the end of the book, at the end of Carrie, Carrie literally just stops her mom’s heart and kills her just like that. After being stabbed by her mother.
Katie: Yeah she might be pretty emotionally unstable after that, but she can still use her powers.
Frankie: And! And after her mom says, “I should have killed myself when I got pregnant with you.”
Katie: Yeah, that’s a pretty fucked up thing to say to someone.
Amanda: Yeah but Annie could manipulate Carrie into believing they’re friends and then use her as a pawn.
Katie: They know they’re here to fight!
Amanda: Do they know that?
Hannah: Yes.
Amanda: Damnit.
Hannah: But I do feel like Annie could do some mind games on Carrie.
Frankie: I do too, but I think Carrie using any of her abilities would be able to warp Annie’s sense of reality.
Katie: Plus she [Carrie] was bullied so she’s used to taking shit from people and not wanting to believe them. The last time she believed someone she got a bucket of blood dumped on her head. She wouldn’t believe anything Annie had to say to her. She’d just believe that she’s being lied to again.
Frankie: I think Carrie could be easily manipulated to a point. But how trusting is she going to be? (Pause) How is Annie Wilkes described in Misery?
Amanda: Kathy Bates is a pretty spot on casting.
Hannah: Annie Wilkes looks like a farmer. She’s got that farm strength, she’s not going to take any shit, she was born to survive the winter.
Frankie: So you could say she’s fairly large.
Hannah: Yes, Annie is going to tower over Carrie.
Frankie: Then I don’t think her [Annie’s] manipulations are going to work that well cause she’s going to physically resemble Carrie’s mom.
Amanda: See that’s why I think her manipulations are going to work well. If Annie looks like her mother, and is acting genuinely caring towards Carrie, someone who is acting like the mother she could have had, it might make it more difficult for Carrie to go after Annie; especially considering Annie is a master manipulator. Take Paul Sheldon. When Annie took him in, she made it seem like she was this sweet, caring lady. She was very sweet, very caring, very nurturing towards him. Carrie would eat that shit up.
Katie: Would Annie even want to do that? The only reason she does that to the author dude is cause she likes him and wants his book ending changed.
Amanda: She likes him and wants him to write a book. The only reason she gets meaner is cause she doesn’t like the book’s ending.
Katie: Yeah, so why would she even pretend to be nice to Carrie anyway?
Amanda: Cause she’s not stupid! Carrie has telekinesis.
Katie: Does she know that?
Hannah: When I’m pitching this fight to these two fictional characters, I’m going to say to Annie Wilkes, “hey, your opponent has supernatural abilities.” But I’m not saying exactly what.
Amanda: So, if I’m Annie, and I’m basically going up against an X-Men, I’m going to be master manipulating. Plus, she’s also super smart. She’s a nurse! She has the nurturing thing down with the caring, bed-side manner.
Frankie: I think Carrie is going to associate someone who looks like her mom, who is around the same age of her mom, with her mom who is emotionally, physically, and verbally abusive.
Hannah: I have a question cause I didn’t look this up. Does Annie Wilkes look like Carrie’s mom? Cause I’ve always seen Carrie’s mom depicted as frail and kinda like a beanpole.
Frankie: In the films yes. In the book it’s said she’s “an overweight, unattractive, Christian woman who dresses in shapeless clothing.”
Hannah: Ok, thank you.
Amanda: Annie Wilkes is not an unattractive woman; fuck you. And she doesn’t wear shapeless clothing; fuck you.
Frankie: The point is, she’s [Annie Wilkes] a heavy set woman who, at least in the film, wears a gold cross around her neck. Carrie is not going to fuck with that.
Katie: Carrie is immediately going to see her mother in Annie and is immediately going to set her on fire or stop her heart. Then it’s game over.
Frankie: Even if she [Carrie] falls for the manipulations, the minute she senses any sort of harm coming towards her, she going to freak. In the book when she goes to her mother, she says, “mom, I’ve come here to kill you but maybe I shouldn’t.” It’s at that moment her mom stabs her in the shoulder and Carrie goes, “fuck it. I’m stopping your heart.”
Katie: Yeah.
Amanda: See, with me, this woman [Annie] is also super skilled with drugs. She kept Paul Sheldon paralyzed. Therefore, she’s very good with drugs and I can see her using drugs on Carrie. She’s also got knowledge of anatomy. One needle poke to an artery and it’s lights out.
Hannah: How is Annie getting close to Carrie?
Amanda: Through manipulation.
Katie: This is what I imagine happening if drugs are involved. Let’s say Annie gets close enough to inject Carrie with something. Any drug, any drug, takes a hot second to work; even if it’s a knockout drug. Carrie’s going to be like, “you did something to me?!” and then kill her. Carrie still wins cause Annie dies first.
Amanda: No, I could see Annie still winning. She’s vindictive. She’d do her research before coming into this fight. If we take the drugs out of this scenario, she still knows where the good arteries are to make Carrie bleed out.
Katie: It still takes a second for that to happen. A second is all Carrie needs.
Frankie: I think your drug argument is good, Amanda, but I have a question. It says in Hannah’s expert notes here: “mentally unstable; has issues with differentiating fiction from reality.” In Carrie, she sends out, for a several mile radius, her name and what she looks like. How is Annie going to react when Carrie shows her 50 Carries and is constantly screaming inside her head?
Katie: Facts. There’s a reason Charles Xavier is so hard to fight in the X-Men universe. Listen, both of them walk into the arena when BOOM! Annie’s on fire.
Hannah: So you’re telling me, the people who have paid me thousands of dollars to watch these two fictional characters fight to the death, get five seconds of Death Match?
Katie: Carrie doesn’t care about them.
Amanda: Well I imagine, and this is going back to Frankie’s argument, Annie, when depressed, self-harms.
Hannah: Please don’t self-harm.
Amanda: This has been a PSA.
If you or someone you know self-harms, please know that there are other means of coping and getting through distressing situations or events. The following resources offer 24/7 crisis support. Click here to find a crisis support hotline or text number for your country.
Amanda: I can imagine, if I’m Annie and I see a bunch of Carries, I’m just gonna go “fuck.”
Hannah: Fuck this shit I’m out?
Amanda: Fuck this shit I’m out, I’m probably going to harm myself and almost die. And I think that will play on Carrie’s sympathy.
Katie: I don’t think she’d care.
Amanda: I think she would!
Katie: If she sees a woman who looks like her mother try to kill herself? She’d probably be excited.
Amanda: Underneath it all Carrie is a sweet person.
Hannah: “Carrie is only the villain cause the world is against her. She finally had enough and snapped.” Quoting my notes here.
Katie: Yeah, and now this lady is against her. Carrie knows they’re there to fight.
Amanda: Yeah and I could see Annie telling Carrie, “hey, I don’t want to do this.”
Katie: Again, if Carrie saw a woman who looked sorta like her mother who was self-harming, she would be pretty stoked about that.
Hannah: Is Carrie still gaslit and emotionally manipulated enough by her mother to see Annie Wilkes self-harming and go, “that’s my mom, I need to save my mom?”
Katie: She would remember that her mother stabbed her and abused her so she’d go, “oh, that’s my mom and I don’t even have to kill her this time.”
Amanda: Why are we automatically assuming that Carrie would see Annie and see her as her mom. There are similar characteristics but they’re not the same.
Katie: You were the one trying to bring up the point that Carrie wouldn’t harm her mother.
Amanda: Cause someone brought it up as a defense first!
Frankie: I’d also like to say that Annie Wilkes is a bit of an underachiever. Over her entire lifetime she only killed 70 people. That’s over her lifetime. Carrie? Carrie killed over 400 people in one night.
Amanda: To be fair, 70 over a lifetime for a single human being with no powers is pretty good. Carrie is fucking superhuman! It’s not fair to compare body counts!
Katie: This isn’t about fair, it’s about who did it better.
Amanda: Fine, when it comes to kills Carrie has a little bit of an edge.
Frankie: And this is a fight to the death!
Katie: You gotta put it all out there!
Amanda: Well isn’t Annie super good with weapons?
Hannah: She’ll use whatever.
Amanda: So she’s crafty.
Katie: Carrie is an archer though. She’s got range. She doesn’t have to touch you.
Amanda: How big is this arena?
Hannah: I’ve always pictured the colosseum.
Frankie: The colosseum?! All them rocks and people! That’s more weapons for Carrie.
Amanda: Ok, I think there should be a rule that you can’t mess with the people sitting in the colosseum who have paid to watch.
Hannah: No cause that rule has already been broken. In the first Death Match, Frankenstein’s Monster burned the arena to the ground with everyone still inside while he waxed poetry the entire time.
Amanda: What is Carrie’s range then?
Frankie: She’s got a several mile radius.
Hannah: Yeah.
Katie: I’m sure Annie would do well against a normal human, but Carrie has too much going for her.
Amanda: One more thing, so Carrie can send out messages for a couple miles radius, but can she throw things and pick things up from that same radius?
Hannah: I feel like she always has to see the item she’s trying to move. Like she knows the pyramids of Egypt exist, but she’s not flinging one of those around. I think it’s time we head into final remarks. Amanda, we’ll start with you. You are team Annie, how is she winning?
Amanda: Annie Wilkes wins by being her badass self. I imagine she plays the manipulation game and hits one of Carrie’s arteries. Or she’s like, “you poor sweet child, let me tend to your wounds. I’ll give you this drug to help you feel better.” But the drug actually paralyzes her and Annie cuts Carrie’s throat. Something like that.
Hannah: Bloody.
Amanda: Misery is a bloody movie and book. Also, Kathy Bates, phenomenal actress, phenomenal woman, I would love to meet her one day.
Hannah: Katie, you’re up.
Katie: Carrie and Annie show up. They know this is a fight to the death. Carrie sees Annie. She sees this big woman who kinda looks a little bit like her mom. Carrie goes, “I’m not fucking around. I’ve killed 440 people.” Thus she instantly sets Annie on fire or instantly stops her heart.
Amanda: Pick one.
Katie: Stops her heart.
Hannah: Classic. Frankie, your closing remarks please.
Frankie: They both enter the arena, they know what’s going on, but Carrie is only a teenager so she’s a little panicked. Annie tries to take advantage of this. She’s going to be comforting and nice. She’ll walk over towards Carrie. Carrie accepts this as Annie is walking over. She’s going to fall for the mind games just a little bit. But as Annie walks over, Carrie spies the small gold cross around Annie’s neck. Carrie is going to panic. Annie, realizing she doesn’t have much of an opportunity, draws her weapon but Carrie pushes her away. Carrie will walk closer, feeling a little upset about the violence, giving Annie enough time to draw another weapon. This time it’s a bladed weapon. As Carrie sees this, she gets flashbacks to her mother and what she did to her. That’s it. Carrie stops Annie’s heart and then sets her body on fire.
Amanda: That’s a little much.
Katie: No it’s not. It’s perfect.
Hannah: Thank you, all. The judges, meaning me and my dogs, are going to go deliberate.
Hannah: We’ve reached our decision. In this battle, our first ever ladies of our Halloween Death Match are going to walk into the colosseum. We’ve rented out the colosseum cause why the hell not. On one side, Carrie White, scared teenager who randomly has super powers, she should probably go to the X-Men school. On the other side, Annie Wilkes AKA Kathy Bates.
Amanda: A bomb ass woman. Kathy Bates, rock on. And when that woman dies, I’m going to mourn.
Hannah: Kathy Bates, you’re a badass bitch and we love you. Anyway, this is Annie Wilkes though. She just looks like Kathy Bates but she’s not Kathy Bates. Annie Wilkes is a psychopath. Murdered babies. This fight is that of a psychopath versus an X-Men teenager. Now, Annie Wilkes knows she’s facing someone with superpowers. She doesn’t know what those powers are but she can manipulate the heck out of this teenaged girl whose frontal lobe is not fully formed. So she pretends to be friendly, even though they know they’re fighting to the death; this could still be an enjoyable experience for them both before one of them must die. She begins to play her mind games on poor, young Carrie. But Carrie did raze a school to the ground, and she did stop her own mother’s heart, and eventually she’s stops the heart of Annie Wilkes before Annie Wilkes can raise a knife or a chainsaw or an axe or an electric knife to her. So here lies Annie Wilkes, killed by Carrie White.
Thank you for joining me today for our 3rd Annual Halloween Death Match. I do hope you enjoyed your time here today. You never know what you’re going to get when you sign on for a Death Match. I had a wildly good time with this post and I hope you all did too.
Once again, a huge thank you to my friends Amanda, Katie, and Frankie for helping me with this post. Please give them some love cause without them these Death Matches wouldn’t exist.
With that, I must bid you all adieu. I shall see you tomorrow, yes tomorrow, with a new review. Hint, it’s about a heist novel!
Until then, stay spooky, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.
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