Why didn't the boiler blow when.... *SPOILERS*

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count chocula

Member
Oct 6, 2015
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The ending is easy to understand-Jack Torrance gets infested with house demons and in the mad rush to kill his son, he forgets about the boiler and well, it boils over (I hate to say it like that but since puns require less wit than sarcasm, they're right up my alley).

Okay, so what's the deal with Grady? He has my IQ level (not good), kills his family and is found frozen to death later on. So why didn't the boiler boil over? I don't think he would have been smart enough to plan it out (mainly because I know myself too well)- you know, like shut it down then butcher the dear wife and kids.

So what happened?
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
The ending is easy to understand-Jack Torrance gets infested with house demons and in the mad rush to kill his son, he forgets about the boiler and well, it boils over (I hate to say it like that but since puns require less wit than sarcasm, they're right up my alley).

Okay, so what's the deal with Grady? He has my IQ level (not good), kills his family and is found frozen to death later on. So why didn't the boiler boil over? I don't think he would have been smart enough to plan it out (mainly because I know myself too well)- you know, like shut it down then butcher the dear wife and kids.

So what happened?
im-not-saying-its-aliens-but-its-aliens.jpg
 

Sundrop

Sunny the Great & Wonderful
Jun 12, 2008
28,520
156,619
The ending is easy to understand-Jack Torrance gets infested with house demons and in the mad rush to kill his son, he forgets about the boiler and well, it boils over (I hate to say it like that but since puns require less wit than sarcasm, they're right up my alley).

Okay, so what's the deal with Grady? He has my IQ level (not good), kills his family and is found frozen to death later on. So why didn't the boiler boil over? I don't think he would have been smart enough to plan it out (mainly because I know myself too well)- you know, like shut it down then butcher the dear wife and kids.

So what happened?
I always just assumed that the boiler wasn't as old when Grady killed his family. By the time Jack showed up, the boiler was ancient, and had to be handled more carefully........

.....OR.......aliens.
 

RichardX

Well-Known Member
Sep 26, 2006
1,737
4,434
The boiler has always been a weak link in this otherwise great book. The notion that someone would run a hotel like this on a ticking time bomb that relies on a single individual to attend to it is absurd. The lawyers would freak. But it is just one of those plot elements you have to take with a grain of salt. Like when the Three Stooges are smacking and poking each other in the eye and the other actors are standing around ignoring them as though that is a normal thing to witness.
 

Dynamo

Well-Known Member
May 12, 2017
90
302
43
Denton, TX
The ending is easy to understand-Jack Torrance gets infested with house demons and in the mad rush to kill his son, he forgets about the boiler and well, it boils over (I hate to say it like that but since puns require less wit than sarcasm, they're right up my alley).

Okay, so what's the deal with Grady? He has my IQ level (not good), kills his family and is found frozen to death later on. So why didn't the boiler boil over? I don't think he would have been smart enough to plan it out (mainly because I know myself too well)- you know, like shut it down then butcher the dear wife and kids.

So what happened?

What happened is a mystery and we don't know what state of mind Grady was in at the time. Was he just a crazy/drunken idiot or had the hotel taken him over, maybe making him the intelligent guy Jack met? And who turned off the boiler before committing suicide to join the hotel forever. Even if he were just an insane man with a low IQ, turning off the boiler wouldn't take all that much planning. He could have done it, for any number of reasons, between whenever he killed his family and whenever he killed himself.
 
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Blake

Deleted User
Feb 18, 2013
4,191
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I read the book about a year ago and I think it might have said the Grady shut the boiler off before killing his wife and two girls. I like the fact that there's the boiler which is the Hotel's weakness.
 
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Grannie CeeCee

Well-Known Member
Sep 7, 2017
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The Drained Swamp, Ohio, USA
Thoughts on boiler, Grady and Jack:

regarding Grady and that boiler, the story seemed to imply that Jack was a bit more of a challenge for the house haints. Grady (as I recall - it's been awhile since I read the book) was more easily manipulated, so he wouldn't have gone off-script - from the Hotel's pov - like Jack tended to.

And, like someone else mentioned, older boiler.
 
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Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
53,634
236,697
The High Seas
I don’t have an issue with the boiler but Grady’s existence bothers me especially when he insists that jack was always the caretaker . So was jack actually Grady incarnated Or was he a twinner? Was the overlook hotel situated on the border of this world and another?
Welcome to the board! I just want to say, delicately, that if you are David Quick's widow, I am very sorry for your loss. But, that would make a great title for a story.