I Feel Like This Book Is Intentionally Deeper Than What Appears *spoilers*

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Eyeshadow

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Jun 14, 2015
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First off, let me say that thoroughly really enjoyed Revival. Not only was it scary to me, it was fun to read Jamie's life even if Jamie's real life was mundane and kind of plain. I related a lot to the rhythm guitarist/heroin addict. I've been there and one of my only problems with the book is that King didn't really give the reader much of a reason to hate heroin. Sure, Jamie was weak and felt like ****, anyone who's messed with dope can relate to that, but he never explored how it makes you a worse person. The addiction felt rushed and forced, in my opinion. He could of written that part better and he should of added a scene where Jamie did something really bad to fix up.

Aside from that, I believe the book is deeper than what appears. It is all through Jamie's eyes, so there are a lot of things that are left to the reader to decide. If you've read other King books, you'll realize at the end that Mother is a demon that probably took Jacobs wife and children. I believe Jacobs healed his wife first with the secret electricity and made a pact with Mother that began to drive him insane and lose his faith and then took his first and most hurtful sacrifice: Patsy and Morrie.

This is apparent because Jamie sees that the leg-claw with the faces has the face of Morrie and Patsy: early victims of Mother.

Jacobs was obsessed with what happened after death to his patients: those he healed with the secret electricity. He wanted to know what happened to those who had faith in him and his power: and he didn't realize how he had been tricked and screwed by Mother until the very end.

Sure, he had his doubts, but he still believed that there was something peaceful on the other side where his wife and child were.

For this theory to be true, would mean that Patsy did kill herself and her child in a way: she crashed into the truck and killed them both. Perhaps she wasn't drunk at all and I believe that was simply a bad reaction to his terrible Sermon, a way for people to excuse his blasphemy. I actually think that whiskey wasn't hers, it was probably Jacobs. Jacobs is shown to drink and use drugs.

This would explain why Patsy wasn't surprised that Con's voice returned and how she explains to Jamie that it wasn't for Con but for Jamie.

In my theory, Mother uses Jacob to gain more souls into her afterlife, forcing them to be her slaves for eternity. Everyone who is "saved" by Jacobs temporarily to live a little longer and test fate is tricked by the demon Mother and is fated to her forever.

This is why Mother gets pissed at Jamie: he's the only one who really knows the truth. Yet even he is ultimately screwed and knows so which is why he clings to his life, sanity and knowledge of the truth.

But even he knows he cannot escape his fate, which is proved when he revisits his brother Terry and his niece begins to cry: she knows Jamie is a dead-man walking.

I want this book to have a sequel and I want someone to fight Mother. I don't know why, but her similarities to Pennywise really interests me and she was a creepy factor in the end. I wanted more, though, just like everyone else. The final scenes felt rushed and I could understand why some people can't visualize Mother: King only used one paragraph to describe her and left the rest to our imaginations.

Overall, though, I think the book was great and it's one of those books I actually want to read again and find more things. I don't think Jacobs was a villain at all: he was obsessed and addicted.

Jacobs was a frog boiling in water and the water was powered by Mother's electricity.
 

bobledrew

Inveterate yammerer
May 13, 2010
2,782
1,924
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Nice thoughts. In a recent episode of my podcast I talked about the Lovecraft influence in Revival, and I think that goes to IT as well. While Pennywise has many forms, it really goes back to the extraterrestrial / interdimensional arrival that Mike and Richie see in their vision in the smokehole. (from 723 in the paperback: "A spaceship! Richie screamed, falling to his knees and covering his eyes. Oh my God it's a spaceship! But believed... that it was not a spaceship, although it might have come through space to get here."

There's a recurrent sense of dimensionality in much of the canon -- from the things that belch out of that Buick 8 to the creatures in "The Mist" to Mother and Perse and even whatever Richie Grenadine is turning into in "Gray Matter."

While I don't think Jacobs is inherently evil, I think you're onto something when you say he's tricked by Mother -- I think he's seduced by what Mother offers him.
 

Eyeshadow

Member
Jun 14, 2015
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Also, subconsciously, this is why he would lie that his wife and son drowned: he always had a fear and was traumatized by his little boy having no face.

That whole scene was absolutely horrifying and I'm sad a lot of people don't agree or point it out.

Seeing his little boy with no face must of been some horrible experience. He lies to his congregations after because he wishes that they are safe and full (a drowned corpse doesn't look as bad as one in a car accident).
 

Eyeshadow

Member
Jun 14, 2015
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Nice thoughts. In a recent episode of my podcast I talked about the Lovecraft influence in Revival, and I think that goes to IT as well. While Pennywise has many forms, it really goes back to the extraterrestrial / interdimensional arrival that Mike and Richie see in their vision in the smokehole. (from 723 in the paperback: "A spaceship! Richie screamed, falling to his knees and covering his eyes. Oh my God it's a spaceship! But believed... that it was not a spaceship, although it might have come through space to get here."

There's a recurrent sense of dimensionality in much of the canon -- from the things that belch out of that Buick 8 to the creatures in "The Mist" to Mother and Perse and even whatever Richie Grenadine is turning into in "Gray Matter."

While I don't think Jacobs is inherently evil, I think you're onto something when you say he's tricked by Mother -- I think he's seduced by what Mother offers him.

Thanks for the quick reply, I've actually been dying for anyone to talk about theories on this book. lol It was good and it's fairly new so there isn't much online and I don't know anyone who's read it personally.

I think Jacobs was messing with Mother as early as the Peaceable Lake, perhaps even when he met Jamie, the shadow Charles casts on a young Jamie is symbolic to Mother already tying Jacobs and Jamie's fate together. I really want to read the book again because I want to analyze the early moments with Jamie and Charles. That part of the book was well-written and from an early point you feel close to Jacobs and Jamie.

I loved Jacobs character. I think he ultimately had good intentions but was guided and tricked by a demon/devil that happens to be female (like Pennywise's true form).

My theory even relaxes me a bit because if it's true, then Jamie's afterlife truly is an evil illusion and not the real afterlife but one created by Jacob's desire to help people he loved or pitied. I truly do think he fell in love with a sick Patsy and cured her of something which is why I don't think Patsy was the one who drank whiskey.

Or perhaps she did, perhaps she had visions of mother and the ants and couldn't cope with them. Who knows? That whole part of the book is really vague and I love it for some reason. I'm not pissed at King's story, but I would be interested in another one from Jacobs perspective. I want to know what happened to him after he dies, too. I'm curious to know if he goes to Mother's afterlife or another.
 

Eyeshadow

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Jun 14, 2015
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I think the line of "causality "is a really interesting one in Revival. How much of what happens is random, how much pre-ordained, and if it is preordained... then by WHO?!

I don't think the story is random at all except for the events in Jamie's life that had nothing to do with Charles Jacobs. I think from the jump Mother was present and haunting all of them. Jacobs was Mother's conduit from the very beginning.

Even some events in Jamie's life seem to have been necessary for Mother to continue her work through Jamie, like Astrid and his own heroin addiction.
 

Eyeshadow

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Jun 14, 2015
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For me, as a guitar player, this book is overpacked in awsomeness ! :)

Likewise. To be honest, the back of the book is the reason I picked up the book in the first place. I loved the fact it was about a rocker addict. Hit very close to home.

However, the addiction that drew me into the book ended up being replaced by a desire to see what was inside Pandora's box with the main characters. I really love this book.
 

Maskins

Well-Known Member
Jun 16, 2015
640
3,700
I must say, Revival deeply shook me in a way I was not expecting and probably greater than almost any any I have read previously (except for Pickman's Model by Lovecraft that I read as a kid and then had nightmares about for many weeks). I was shocked. What I find interesting on this thread is that I took away something different. I thought that whatever the Rev opened at the end of the novel was the afterlife for everyone, not necessarily victims or sacrifices for Mother. Not only that but Mother was vindictive and spiteful, spiking everyone healed by the secret electricity. I think I may have imprinted my own fears about death - as in what if what comes after is worse then what came before. Truly truly terrifying and the predicament of Jamie at the end, knowing that you will die and what awaits is horrific.

I also thought that the story about Jamie, addiction and his life was beautifully told and as engrossing as the 'mystery' of the Rev.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
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Cambridge, Ohio
In the afterlife there are gum cookies.
200_s.gif
 

CroftonKing

New Member
Jan 29, 2016
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Nice thoughts. In a recent episode of my podcast I talked about the Lovecraft influence in Revival, and I think that goes to IT as well. While Pennywise has many forms, it really goes back to the extraterrestrial / interdimensional arrival that Mike and Richie see in their vision in the smokehole. (from 723 in the paperback: "A spaceship! Richie screamed, falling to his knees and covering his eyes. Oh my God it's a spaceship! But believed... that it was not a spaceship, although it might have come through space to get here."

There's a recurrent sense of dimensionality in much of the canon -- from the things that belch out of that Buick 8 to the creatures in "The Mist" to Mother and Perse and even whatever Richie Grenadine is turning into in "Gray Matter."

While I don't think Jacobs is inherently evil, I think you're onto something when you say he's tricked by Mother -- I think he's seduced by what Mother offers him.

I think "Mother" and "It" might actually be one and the same?