Carrie tells the story of a teenage girl with destructive superpowers, but how and why did she get her powers? Stephen King has rightfully earned the title of “King of Horror” thanks to his novels and short stories from this genre, which explore different places, creatures, and fears. King’s reign in the world of horror began in 1974 with the publishing of Carrie, which was actually his fourth novel but the first to be published, and which has been adapted to different media, including movies and even a Broadway musical.

Carrie introduced readers to Carrie White, a high school girl who is constantly bullied at school and abused at home by her extremely religious mother, Margaret White. After a traumatic situation at school that went too far, and tired of her abusive mother, Carrie used her telekinetic powers to unleash her revenge against those who did her wrong, but she caused mass destruction in the process. Carrie White is one of Stephen King’s most popular characters but also one of the most mysterious ones, and her backstory, family, and powers have made way for a variety of theories but have also raised a lot of questions.

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As mentioned above, Carrie had telekinetic powers that were strong and chaotic enough to unleash a rain of stones without much effort and even destroy a whole town, as happened at the end of the novel. However, the origin of these powers isn’t entirely clear, making way for different theories (such as Carrie having “The Shine”) and for each adaptation of the story to give Carrie a different backstory – so, how and why did Carrie White get her powers in Stephen King’s novel?

How Carrie Got Her Powers In Stephen King's Story

A still from the 1976 adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie.

Although Carrie didn’t consciously use her powers until prom night, these had been in her since she was little. In the novel, a past incident is described in which an almost-three-year-old Carrie approached her young neighbor, Estelle Horan, who was sunbathing topless and asked her about her “dirty pillows”, after which she was caught by Margaret. Carrie’s mother grabbed, dragged, and violently shoved the young Carrie and locked her into the house, but then a shower of hail hit their home, followed by a rain of stones that caused severe damage to their house. However, these powers were brought to full force when she had her first period, which to her bad luck, happened while she was in school, and she was laughed at and bullied for it.

The novel doesn’t offer much explanation on how and why Carrie White has these powers, but it’s mentioned that they are genetically transmitted, though they only manifest in women, and that both her parents were carriers. There are hints throughout the novel that Margaret White has some level of powers, too, as she had visions that she attributed to God. In the 2013 remake, starring Chloë Grace Moretz as Carrie, she mentioned she inherited her telekinetic power from either her father or her great-grandmother Sadie Cochran, who died of heart failure possibly as a consequence of straining herself with her own power. The mystery around the origin of Carrie White’s powers has made way for different theories, most of them based on other King works, with the most notable ones suggesting that Carrie’s father is actually Randal Flagg, thus why she got such destructive powers.

What Powers Carrie Has

Chloe Grace Moretz in Carrie 2013

Carrie White is best known for her telekinetic powers, which allow her to control, rearrange, assemble, manipulate, throw, and move multiple objects and people at once, and in some adaptations, her telekinesis also granted her the ability to levitate. Carrie also had telepathy, meaning she could read minds, project thoughts, and manipulate minds, she had geokinesis (due to the rain of stones), and electrokinesis, as she could roll a car down the street without the wheels turning. The movie adaptations of Carrie have added to these already interesting but dangerous powers, as she also has pyrokinesis (in the 2013 version, she could ignite objects), hydrokinesis (in the 2002 movie, where she could push water away from herself before electrocuting others), and she might have had the ability of dream projection as well, as Sue experienced nightmares involving Carrie, though these could have been the result of her traumatic experience.

Related: Carrie: The Real Women Who Inspired The Stephen King Book Character

How Powerful Carrie Really Is

Carrie standing with pig's blood on her head.

As mentioned above, Carrie has had her powers since she was born, as the novel mentions that Margaret became aware of them when she saw Carrie’s baby bottle floating over her, and then there was the incident of the rain of stones. Carrie’s powers were fully awakened after her first period, and as she was driven by pain, anger, and revenge, she was able to unleash their full potential. Following the incident with the pig blood at prom, Carrie left the building but returned after remembering her powers and choosing to use them for revenge, so she hermetically sealed the gym, activated the sprinkler system (thus electrocuting many people), and started a fire that ignited the school’s fuel tanks, causing massive destruction, and all this without moving a finger.

One of Carrie’s strongest powers, and one that is often overlooked, is her telepathy. Through it, she was able to get into Tommy’s mind, blanking his other thoughts out, to the point where he was freaked out by her. Carrie later broadcasted her name to anyone within a certain radius in order to instill fear all over town, and at the end of the novel, before she died, she had a telepathic conversation with Sue (which also implies Sue might have had some level of telepathy). The way she used these powers changed in each adaptation – for example, in the novel and in Brian de Palma’s 1976 movie, Carrie had to see what she manipulated, while in the 2013 version she used her hands to manipulate her telekinetic strength. Also in the 2013 movie, Carrie was able to manipulate electrical appliances, as she did when she animated electrical cords to attack Tina. Carrie in the novel was extremely powerful, and what made her so dangerous was that she was driven by anger, and each adaptation of the character made her even more powerful with those small additions.

What Carrie's Powers Really Mean

Carrie 1976 Stephen King liked ending better book

Carrie is mostly a story of trauma, as Carrie White was incessantly abused by her mother since she was very little, and this only continued during her school years and more. Carrie’s powers can be interpreted as the result of all that bottled up trauma and emotions that she could never let out, as well as the disappointment of learning that nobody genuinely cared about her (which she discovered thanks to her telepathy), and all of this had to explode at some point. Carrie’s powers being unleashed once she got her first period is a twisted way of symbolizing Carrie’s transformation from girl to woman, and King even explained in his book Danse Macabre that Carrie is about “how women find their own channels of power”, though in this case, it took a dark and tragic turn. Carrie White is one of the most tragic characters in Stephen King’s universe, and while she got her revenge, she never got what she truly wanted and needed, which was love and acceptance.

Next: Carrie: The Biggest Differences Between The Stephen King Book & Movie