10 Stephen King Universe Theories You Just Can’t Ignore!
Stephen King has been a household name for readers for almost half a century now.
Back in 1967, King published his first short story The Glass Floor.
But it wasn’t until 1973, that he gained fame with his first published novel, Carrie.
The novel was soon made into a movie in 1976 and became a significant piece of literature in the horror genre.
Now, Stephen King is the master of horror. He has the capacity to bring to life one’s worst fears, and we still can’t put down his books.
His stories and his storytelling has been keeping us hooked on to them for years now, and we love him for it.
Even if we feel like something might pop out of these books and kill us!
King has published 61 novels and more than 300 short stories, and numerous of them have been made into movies, short films, and TV shows.
Today we are going to look at some of the wildest theories King’s fans have come up with about his stories, that are honestly, too hard to ignore.
- The Shining and It are connected by Dick Hallorann.
We all know Dick Hallorann as the caretaker of The Overlook Hotel.
And he is the one who discovered little Danny’s gift of the shining. But what you might have missed is that he is also mentioned in It.
The Losers Club’s Mike Hanlon once mentions that his father served in the army with a man named Dick Hallorann.
King’s clever use of his characters like this in multiple novels is like little Easter egg for his fans.
- The Shining’s Jack Torrance went mad writing Apt Pupil.
Jack Torrance in The Shining was writing a book about his time as a high school teacher, and how he dealt with a cruel headmaster.
He went mad writing it, but that’s not the point of focus here.
Did the plot of his book seem familiar? That’s coz it is! The book Jack was writing is the plotline for none other than King’s novel Apt Pupil.
- Carrie’s mother predicted The Stand.
For decades now, many fans have theorized that Carrie got her gift of telepathy from her mother.
Although the relationship shared by the mother-daughter duo was quite tense, they might have shared similar powers.
Carrie’s mother had visions of a man in black starting the apocalypse, which is more or less what Randall Flag from The Stand does.
She could see the future, and maybe that is why she thought she was speaking to god.
- The Stand’s Mother Abigail has the Shining.
Danny Torrance might not be the only one with the power of the shining.
This has been speculated over and over by many fans in various novels by Stephen King. But probably none come as close to Mother Abigail from The Stand.
“My own grandmother used to call it the shining lamp of God, sometimes just the shine,” she said once, referring to her otherworldly mystical gift.
- Shawshank Redemption’s Dufresne knew Apt Pupil’s Denker.
How many Andy Dufresne is running around in the city of Maine?
Not many, we hope. In Apt Pupil, Denker says that once a banker named Dufresne helped him buy stocks under a fake name, who later killed his wife and was sent to prison.
This is quite a safe bet unless King himself comes up and denies it outright, to say that this is the same Andy Dufresne from Shawshank Redemption.
- The Dark Tower is a part of many of King’s works.
The Dark Tower is one of King’s most elaborate piece of work, ranging to eight volumes. It can also be counted as one of Stephen King’s best work.
But the tower he speaks of has been mentioned in quite o few other novels. Similarly, many references have been made of King’s other novels in this series.
The places and people he mentions in The Dark Tower series, range from It to Salem’s Lot to The Stand to Dreamcatcher and Hearts in Atlantis, to name a few.
- Eddie’s mom from It knows Paul from Misery.
Losers Club’s Eddie Kaspbrak’s mom, who loves her son a little too much at times, made quite a brag about a Paul Sheldon once.
Paul Sheldon, the author of the Misery Chastain novel series, of course!
Before Misery’s Paul is kidnapped by his self proclaimed number one fan, Annie Wilkes, It makes a reference to the famous author.
Eddie’s mother mentions that she lived next door to Sheldon when he was a young boy.
- King loves Derry and Castle Rock.
Most, if not all of Stephen Kings’s novels are set in small towns in Maine. But the two towns of Derry and Castle Rock keep coming back over and over again in many of his novels.
Castle Rock, on one hand, is part of The Dead Zone, Cujo, Needful Things and The Dark Half amongst others. Whereas It, Bag of Bones, Insomnia and even parts of 11.22.63 are a set in the small town of Derry.
- The Shawshank prison is a part of many of King’s novels.
Besides Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, the Shawshank prison is a part of many of King’s novels. The correctional facility if mentioned in Bag of Bones, It, and Apt Pupil.
In The Dark Tower, John mentions he worked in the Maine State prison, which is the same as Shawshank prison. The prison also gets mentioned in 11.22.63.
- Pennywise connects King’s universe.
The character of Pennywise is probably one of Stephen King’s best and most popular creations. It has been mentioned in numerous of King’s novels, and is probably one of the most common topic for fan theories from the Stephen King Universe.
This interdimensional entity maybe the cause of terror among many, but even It fears something. And that something is the shine. Some fans also theorize that it was Pennywise that led to Jack Torrance becoming crazy.
Jack from 11.22.63 talks about his experience when he visited Derry during his adventure and mentions hearing something calling to him. “Come in and see… Time doesn’t matter in here; in here, time just floats away.”
Even in Dreamcatcher, the words “Pennywise Lives” can be seen in graffiti on a standpipe in Derry. And Tommy from The Tommyknockers also mentions seeing a ‘clown with silver dollar eyes’ lurking in the sewers while he was passing through Derry.
