Sue Snell

Susan “Sue” D. Snell is a fictional character created by Stephen King. She was one of the main characters in his first published novel entitled "Carrie".

In every adaptation and portrayal of Sue, she is shown as a popular teenage girl dating Tommy Ross. After tormenting Carrie White in the locker room, Sue begins to feel remorse for her actions. She asks Tommy to take Carrie to the prom, in an attempt to make Carrie feel accepted, and to ease her own conscience. In this she has been described as the "godmother" in King's "dark modernization of "Cinderella"." [cite book
last = Badley
first = Linda
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Writing Horror and the Body: The Fiction of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice
publisher = Greenwood Publishing Group
date = 1996
location =
pages =
url =
doi =
id =
isbn = 0313297169] The disaster that takes place at the high school prom is set in place when Tommy accepts.

Novel

In the novel, Sue is a popular student who feels guilty after participating in a prank on Carrie. She had been dating Tommy Ross for six months, and had become his lover two weeks prior.

While preparing for the prom, buying a gown and accepting Tommy’s invite, Sue begins to plan for Carrie to go to the prom in her place.

Staying home on prom night, she begins to doubt her own motives, and worry about her late period and the possibility of Tommy falling for Carrie. When the town whistle begins blowing, Sue looks out her window and notices the fire at the school and rushes to her mother’s car. Speeding towards the school, Sue is horrified when the school exploded. She slams on the brakes, and the car screeches to a stop, throwing her against the steering wheel. She gets out of the car, and witnessed the explosion of a gas station nearby. She later flags down a police sheriff, who interrogates her.

Three hours later, Sue finds Carrie lying by a wrecked car driven by Billy Nolan and Christine Hargensen. She realizes that Carrie is dying; in order to save her, she has to perform a ritual of her own. Carrie, wanting Sue to leave her alone, is then invited into Sue’s mind; Carrie sees for herself that Sue doesn't want to hurt her, and that Sue wasn’t in on the prom prank. Carrie finally dies two long hours later. Just then, Sue finally gets her period, implied to have been a miscarriage.

She later goes on to write a book called "My Name Is Susan Snell", which records the events of the Carrie White incident from Sue’s point of view.

1976 film

In the original film adaptation by Brian De Palma, Sue is portrayed by Amy Irving.

As in the novel, Sue participates in Carrie's locker room humiliation, and begins feeling guilty because of it. She eventually asks her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, to take Carrie to the prom. Unlike the novel, Sue doesn’t seem to feel worried over the possibilities of Tommy falling in love with Carrie. She instead heads over to the school and sneaks into the prom to check on them, and is happy to see Carrie smiling and being elected prom queen. Sue then notices the cord running along the stage, leading up to the bucket of pig blood above Carrie. Sue rushes up to Miss Collins and tries to get her to stop the inevitable prank, only to be forced out of the doors, seconds before Carrie is splattered with the blood. Before Sue can get back in, Carrie mentally closes all of the doors, locking Sue out while the chaos begins inside.

Following the death of all of her classmates, Sue is seen in her bedroom after seeming to have had some sort of mental breakdown. She is having a dream in which she lays flowers on the burnt down lot of Carrie’s house, only to have Carrie reach her bloody arm through the rubble to grab Sue. She wakes up from her apparent "nightmare" in hysterics.

equel

In the 1999 film "", set 20 years later, Snell (again portrayed by Irving) recovers from her temporary insanity and becomes the high school counselor for the new school. She begins to notice a telekinetic spark in an awkward student named Rachel Lang, following the suicide of Rachel’s best friend Lisa. While asking Rachel about her powers in her office, Sue stresses her out, causing Rachel to shatter Sue's globe, scaring the both of them before Sue realized that she was right; Rachel has the same powers as Carrie White did.

Sue tries to first get Rachel to admit to her abilities before trying to help her in an attempt to prevent another meltdown, even bringing Rachel to the old, burnt down school that was destroyed by Carrie White in the first film. However, this only stresses out Rachel further. She rejects Sue’s help, and Sue becomes desperate to prevent another chaotic experience similar to Carrie White's prom night.

Sue sneaks Rachel’s institutionalized mother, Barbara, out of an asylum after discovering that Rachel shared a father with Carrie (the father being Ralph White). Sue rushes to an after-game party at Mark Bing’s mansion, but Rachel has already been humiliated and is in a rage. She closes off the mansion doors. As Sue and Barbra attempt to enter the mansion, Rachel launches a fire poker, which tears through the front door and through Snell's head, killing her.

Musical

In 1988, the property was adapted for a musical. Sue was portrayed by Sally Ann Triplett in both the London and the Broadway productions. As in other adaptations, she is dating Tommy and does not attend the prom. Sue is shown as being much more sorrowful for Carrie than in the other versions. She has one solo song, "It Hurts to be Strong," which she sings when challenged by her friends as to why she is being kind to Carrie. The musical closes as the book does, with Sue comforting the dying Carrie.

2002 television movie

In the television movie, Sue is portrayed by South African actress Kandyse McClure.

Like the novel and 1976 movie, Sue had participated in shouting obscenities at Carrie when she had her first period in the locker room. Following Chris and Tina's prank of shoving tampons in Carrie's locker, Sue feels guilty, and asked her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, to take Carrie to the prom instead of her.

Once Carrie accepts, Sue helps her get ready for the prom, something she didn’t do in any portrayal before. She assists Carrie with her make-up, helping her choose a good shade of lipstick.

Following the destruction at the prom and the death of Carrie's religious fanatic mother Margaret, Sue eventually finds Carrie, unconscious in a bathtub full of blood red water. Sue pulls her out and successfully revives her, but later testfies that she had found Carrie dead and had left her. Later, she and Carrie visit Margaret's grave and leave for Florida.

References

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