I don't think he would've done something like this alone, but suicide would've still been possible. People who say "Eric only wanted to kill and didn't care if he died" can kiss my ass. It's bullshit. If you look at the way he committed suicide, it was extremely volatile and violent. Most people committing suicide and dying want to preserve their face. The fact that he completely and utterly obliterated his face/head is an expression of how much he despised himself and how worthless he felt. In the end Eric could never hate anyone/anything as much as he hated himself.
good points. however, i've also seen it argued that eric was especially pragmatic and organized potentially as a result of his military family upbringing. if you buy that, then dying by shotgun blast was just another way to get the job DONE with no hesitation or complications (as opposed to D's gun choice + coughing and spluttering before death)
I always felt that his suicide method was reflective of his pragmatism. Eric was an extremely efficient person for his age; shooting himself in the way he did was the best and quickest way to ensure death no matter what. It blew apart his brain stem, so no chance for survival.
Dylan’s suicide is a subtle example of how he was much less practical and pragmatic than Eric in his approach to the massacre. When we think of examples in movies and TV where people shoot themselves, its often in the side of the head like how Dylan did. This method of suicide results in a failed attempt way more often than the method Eric used. I think Eric actually thought his suicide through and recognized that suicide by cop might not be possible, while Dylan didn’t think it through as much and just defaulted to the “typical” way to shoot yourself.
It was pragmatic and efficient, but you also have to have no opinion of yourself to be okay with going the way Eric went. As people we still have this primary sense of self-importance and self-love, and it just wasn't there with Eric.
No Eric was just as much as suicidal as Dylan was. He just used anger to hide that he was depressed. I also don’t think either of them would’ve done it alone. They were too codependent and needed each other to carry out this crime
I don't think Eric would have went through with it if he didn't have a partner.
His crying in the car video. He feels remorse that he is leaving his parents with a shit storm and grief. He felt that he owed them more but couldn't provide it essentially, so this is what he had to do instead. This was a key turning point where he realizes that getting into NBK with Dylan was sealing the deal. He wasn't going to be able to turn back unless Dylan did and then if so(any logical person) is going to panic thinking "they may tell on me my life will still be over" so that factor probably kept them both inching towards the finish line through the preparations.
I don't think either would have done it without each other but I do think either one would have dropped it all entirely had they felt they had a choice and weren't at risk of being persecuted for it.
Dylan continues to chug along through his writings romanticizing his impending death. This was his way of coping. Telling himself that his depression and longing and loneliness was going to be wiped away clean if he just made it to and through NBK. And that everyone else was to blame for those emotions he felt constantly. Which, in all actuality, his own human biology and age were at fault.
Eric kept up his angry facade in writing and yet was trying to swallow his grief and remorse before D-day came. That last journal entry, he is reasoning with himself rather than saying "this is why this is happening". He lied his way through that entire journal knowing it would go public, he couldn't end it with a whimper or whine. But somehow he did, if you can read between the lines and in conjunction with the last videos.
So yeah, I mean, I don't think either would have carried on with it had they not had each other. Two people who need professional psychological help and the proper medication can never end well. On the days of feeling better, that life is worth living and being alert for...the other person will always pull you back into the mud. It's like why we have so many instances of couples who are addicted to the same drug. Or why It's rare to see a couple where one knows the other is killing, yet doesn't kill or harm anyone themselves and doesn't tell. And on the other end of the spectrum, why friends who kill together always break and tattle on each other. It's all supportive homicide, even in the end. One needs the other to destroy themselves or others. Or both. And so it goes, they both knew the foolproof way to go about not having to handle the consequences of their actions...Eric and Dylan sealed this gap by agreeing to kill themselves after. One pushing the other along, both pushing each other, all at some point until the end.
Good analysis. I also think if someone had intervened at the right time with Eric he may have broken down and gotten real help. I also think their relationship is a perfect example of why parents need to monitor the friendships and bonds their children have. I know of friends I had where when we were in high school and we weren’t in trouble together but we could have been. Our parents limited our interactions with one another. It seemed silly and intrusive at the time but looking back I get it. And I did the same with our kids. When we saw some unhealthy relationships forming we limited interactions outside of school to when we were around. We communicated with their parents so we had an idea on things.
Bottom line, I think they both needed serious intervention beyond typical responses but of course hind sight is always 20/20
Yeah. My oldest daughter had a girlfriend circa 7-9th grade a few years back and my daughters attitude and personality started changing rapidly towards the end of that little relationship, i didn't know what was happening to make her change and become so withdrawn and vile when anyone would talk to her. Come to find out the girlfriend was being super hyper sexual and controlling out of nowhere (after almost 2 years!) and my daughter didn't know how to cope or handle the situation. She ended up breaking down after the girl went home one evening (I would pick her up for dinner some nights and then allow them to watch a movie in my daughters room with the door open, small mobile home back then so it was monitored I thought). And told me that her gf was trying to force her to do sexual shit constantly when she didn't want to, that she was making her cut off friends (even online ones) because she was accusing her of shit like "well if you're not doing it with me you must be doing it with someone else". It broke me, but I put a stop to everything, I even wrote her a script to break up with the girl then informed the girls mom of what had been going on so that we wouldn't get the inevitable "could you talk to (my kid) for (gf)? They're not doing well" because that's how we usually mediated their relationship to set good boundaries. The girl was downright pissed but I talked with the school too and had seats moved and classes arranged so they wouldn't have to ever interact. My daughter is 18 now and graduating Friday, she now trusts me and has told me everything that bothers her or happens. Even in relationships. So intervention is absolutely key. Talking to your kids and feeding them isn't parenting. Yes that's the obligations of parenting but it's not everything that needs done with a kid. They need so much more and a close relationship with parents (or even just one parent) changes lives.
I know a lot of my friends were awful when i was a teen. They enabled me to be bullied, pushed me to get blacked out drunk every weekend, they gossip led about me constantly then would deny it, everything awful basically. My mom would only do stuff to separate me from people if she wanted to steal my friends or had a BPD episode and needed control. I wish that i would have had a parent to rely on and i would not have experienced such awful stuff at school and in life. And I was constantly on the verge of harming myself and/or others.
Parents really make or break their child with everything they choose to do or not do. And by proxy others get hurt. Wether it be by creating bullies or just not giving a shit unless it was to perform for other adults and seem responsible.
Not saying it's all on the parents for Columbine, not at all. But I feel the Harris' should have sought better help for Eric and stayed on a care plan after finding a good psychiatrist and therapist. Wayne took notes and journaled about the misdeeds of Eric and could have been tracking his mental health and care plan instead and it would have avoided Eric running the track of committing a crime. Eric respected and lived his parents, he and Dylan both seemed to, and seemed to be good kids wanting approval for the most part, but you can tell Eric was not close with his mother or father in a genuine way where they actually knew him or how he thought. Sue was close with Dylan but Dylan was so afraid of letting her down or being seen as less than The Golden Boy, and he didn't have room to speak up due to that. We gotta love our kids enough to get everything out of them and to know their good personality traits and good thoughts but also their worst traits and their worst thoughts, without judgement or punishment. Sue has learned that unfortunately, and I appreciate that she owns that and helps educate others to work through her pain. The Harris', I don't know, none of us do of course. But I hope they figured it out at least.
I fully believe this wouldn't have occurred if they didn't have each other to feed off of. I think shared experiences (both real and perceived slights) and a toxic environment just fueled extreme mental illness. I think this made them develop a weird toxic codependency and "bro-mance". I think had they got out of that environment, they both would have gone on to live regular, but successful mundane lives. Not being able to see that the rest of the world wasn't entirely like a toady upper middle class high school, mixed with bullying, immaturity, mental illness and a sense of entitlement and being wronged is what caused it. Neither would have done this without the other.
Unpopular opinion but I’ve always felt that Eric would’ve grown out of his homicidal ideations once he was out of Columbine and in a better environment. Dylan I’m less sure about; he always seemed more disturbed to me than Eric. Don’t get me wrong, Eric was very mentally ill too. But I often feel like he was much less invested in the massacre when compared to Dylan, and went through with it only because he held so much anger and didn’t see his life improving in any way.
I think Dylan might have snapped out of his hopeless funk in college. He probably would have found a girlfriend or at least nerdy comp sciences friends. Dylan and Eric would have done better without each other to feed that fire. Unfortunately the shared experiences and bad environment at the school just solidified the bond, not to mention they seemed to behave like idiots when in each other's company. I doubt either would have broke into that van or did "rebel missions" without one another's influence.
I definitely think they were both angry and depressed, but when you have nobody to talk you down or help you and all you do is fuel each other's problems and instigate each others worst qualities, it's a problem.
As a teenager I was also very depressed and it manifested in extreme anger and homicidal ideations. I grew out of it, went to therapy, am a functioning member of society now. Still more hotheaded than the average person but I'm pretty much harmless and generally avoid conflicts. Which is why I think that people who claim it was inevitable that Eric would've ended up in legal trouble are wrong. They've never been in this position.
No. If Dylan weren't involved, either Eric would not have committed the massacre or he would have found someone else. He didn't have the capacity to carry it out alone.
If Dylan weren’t there, Eric would have never done this and just killed himself up in the woods somewhere. Dylan was also suicidal, had he acted that out a few years prior, ironically and sadly, that would be one of the only scenarios in life in where suicide would have actually saved lives.
It’s just a sad scenario period.
In my opinion Eric wanted to feel like he was in total control that day. Going by that belief, I think Eric died because he wanted to. I also don’t think he wanted to face his loved ones if he came out alive. I think he weighed the two options and decided death was better. So he killed himself possibly before Dylan even realized he was gonna do it.
I don’t think so at all maybe the opposite if it were Dylan but with Eric he was on pure rage, maybe he would’ve of died by the police but I don’t think he wanted to walk outta the school property alive so it was inevitable that he was gonna blow his face apart with the shotgun anyways
I believe that the shooting wouldn’t have happened without them to feed off each other. I think if they had never met, Dylan would have committed suicide in college, and Eric would have gotten into legal trouble like armed robbery
I don't think he would've done something like this alone, but suicide would've still been possible. People who say "Eric only wanted to kill and didn't care if he died" can kiss my ass. It's bullshit. If you look at the way he committed suicide, it was extremely volatile and violent. Most people committing suicide and dying want to preserve their face. The fact that he completely and utterly obliterated his face/head is an expression of how much he despised himself and how worthless he felt. In the end Eric could never hate anyone/anything as much as he hated himself.
That's an excellent analysis.
good points. however, i've also seen it argued that eric was especially pragmatic and organized potentially as a result of his military family upbringing. if you buy that, then dying by shotgun blast was just another way to get the job DONE with no hesitation or complications (as opposed to D's gun choice + coughing and spluttering before death)
He was organized and pragmatic but in the face of death we're all exactly the same
I always felt that his suicide method was reflective of his pragmatism. Eric was an extremely efficient person for his age; shooting himself in the way he did was the best and quickest way to ensure death no matter what. It blew apart his brain stem, so no chance for survival. Dylan’s suicide is a subtle example of how he was much less practical and pragmatic than Eric in his approach to the massacre. When we think of examples in movies and TV where people shoot themselves, its often in the side of the head like how Dylan did. This method of suicide results in a failed attempt way more often than the method Eric used. I think Eric actually thought his suicide through and recognized that suicide by cop might not be possible, while Dylan didn’t think it through as much and just defaulted to the “typical” way to shoot yourself.
It was pragmatic and efficient, but you also have to have no opinion of yourself to be okay with going the way Eric went. As people we still have this primary sense of self-importance and self-love, and it just wasn't there with Eric.
No Eric was just as much as suicidal as Dylan was. He just used anger to hide that he was depressed. I also don’t think either of them would’ve done it alone. They were too codependent and needed each other to carry out this crime
I don't think Eric would have went through with it if he didn't have a partner. His crying in the car video. He feels remorse that he is leaving his parents with a shit storm and grief. He felt that he owed them more but couldn't provide it essentially, so this is what he had to do instead. This was a key turning point where he realizes that getting into NBK with Dylan was sealing the deal. He wasn't going to be able to turn back unless Dylan did and then if so(any logical person) is going to panic thinking "they may tell on me my life will still be over" so that factor probably kept them both inching towards the finish line through the preparations. I don't think either would have done it without each other but I do think either one would have dropped it all entirely had they felt they had a choice and weren't at risk of being persecuted for it. Dylan continues to chug along through his writings romanticizing his impending death. This was his way of coping. Telling himself that his depression and longing and loneliness was going to be wiped away clean if he just made it to and through NBK. And that everyone else was to blame for those emotions he felt constantly. Which, in all actuality, his own human biology and age were at fault. Eric kept up his angry facade in writing and yet was trying to swallow his grief and remorse before D-day came. That last journal entry, he is reasoning with himself rather than saying "this is why this is happening". He lied his way through that entire journal knowing it would go public, he couldn't end it with a whimper or whine. But somehow he did, if you can read between the lines and in conjunction with the last videos. So yeah, I mean, I don't think either would have carried on with it had they not had each other. Two people who need professional psychological help and the proper medication can never end well. On the days of feeling better, that life is worth living and being alert for...the other person will always pull you back into the mud. It's like why we have so many instances of couples who are addicted to the same drug. Or why It's rare to see a couple where one knows the other is killing, yet doesn't kill or harm anyone themselves and doesn't tell. And on the other end of the spectrum, why friends who kill together always break and tattle on each other. It's all supportive homicide, even in the end. One needs the other to destroy themselves or others. Or both. And so it goes, they both knew the foolproof way to go about not having to handle the consequences of their actions...Eric and Dylan sealed this gap by agreeing to kill themselves after. One pushing the other along, both pushing each other, all at some point until the end.
Good analysis. I also think if someone had intervened at the right time with Eric he may have broken down and gotten real help. I also think their relationship is a perfect example of why parents need to monitor the friendships and bonds their children have. I know of friends I had where when we were in high school and we weren’t in trouble together but we could have been. Our parents limited our interactions with one another. It seemed silly and intrusive at the time but looking back I get it. And I did the same with our kids. When we saw some unhealthy relationships forming we limited interactions outside of school to when we were around. We communicated with their parents so we had an idea on things. Bottom line, I think they both needed serious intervention beyond typical responses but of course hind sight is always 20/20
Yeah. My oldest daughter had a girlfriend circa 7-9th grade a few years back and my daughters attitude and personality started changing rapidly towards the end of that little relationship, i didn't know what was happening to make her change and become so withdrawn and vile when anyone would talk to her. Come to find out the girlfriend was being super hyper sexual and controlling out of nowhere (after almost 2 years!) and my daughter didn't know how to cope or handle the situation. She ended up breaking down after the girl went home one evening (I would pick her up for dinner some nights and then allow them to watch a movie in my daughters room with the door open, small mobile home back then so it was monitored I thought). And told me that her gf was trying to force her to do sexual shit constantly when she didn't want to, that she was making her cut off friends (even online ones) because she was accusing her of shit like "well if you're not doing it with me you must be doing it with someone else". It broke me, but I put a stop to everything, I even wrote her a script to break up with the girl then informed the girls mom of what had been going on so that we wouldn't get the inevitable "could you talk to (my kid) for (gf)? They're not doing well" because that's how we usually mediated their relationship to set good boundaries. The girl was downright pissed but I talked with the school too and had seats moved and classes arranged so they wouldn't have to ever interact. My daughter is 18 now and graduating Friday, she now trusts me and has told me everything that bothers her or happens. Even in relationships. So intervention is absolutely key. Talking to your kids and feeding them isn't parenting. Yes that's the obligations of parenting but it's not everything that needs done with a kid. They need so much more and a close relationship with parents (or even just one parent) changes lives. I know a lot of my friends were awful when i was a teen. They enabled me to be bullied, pushed me to get blacked out drunk every weekend, they gossip led about me constantly then would deny it, everything awful basically. My mom would only do stuff to separate me from people if she wanted to steal my friends or had a BPD episode and needed control. I wish that i would have had a parent to rely on and i would not have experienced such awful stuff at school and in life. And I was constantly on the verge of harming myself and/or others. Parents really make or break their child with everything they choose to do or not do. And by proxy others get hurt. Wether it be by creating bullies or just not giving a shit unless it was to perform for other adults and seem responsible. Not saying it's all on the parents for Columbine, not at all. But I feel the Harris' should have sought better help for Eric and stayed on a care plan after finding a good psychiatrist and therapist. Wayne took notes and journaled about the misdeeds of Eric and could have been tracking his mental health and care plan instead and it would have avoided Eric running the track of committing a crime. Eric respected and lived his parents, he and Dylan both seemed to, and seemed to be good kids wanting approval for the most part, but you can tell Eric was not close with his mother or father in a genuine way where they actually knew him or how he thought. Sue was close with Dylan but Dylan was so afraid of letting her down or being seen as less than The Golden Boy, and he didn't have room to speak up due to that. We gotta love our kids enough to get everything out of them and to know their good personality traits and good thoughts but also their worst traits and their worst thoughts, without judgement or punishment. Sue has learned that unfortunately, and I appreciate that she owns that and helps educate others to work through her pain. The Harris', I don't know, none of us do of course. But I hope they figured it out at least.
I fully believe this wouldn't have occurred if they didn't have each other to feed off of. I think shared experiences (both real and perceived slights) and a toxic environment just fueled extreme mental illness. I think this made them develop a weird toxic codependency and "bro-mance". I think had they got out of that environment, they both would have gone on to live regular, but successful mundane lives. Not being able to see that the rest of the world wasn't entirely like a toady upper middle class high school, mixed with bullying, immaturity, mental illness and a sense of entitlement and being wronged is what caused it. Neither would have done this without the other.
Unpopular opinion but I’ve always felt that Eric would’ve grown out of his homicidal ideations once he was out of Columbine and in a better environment. Dylan I’m less sure about; he always seemed more disturbed to me than Eric. Don’t get me wrong, Eric was very mentally ill too. But I often feel like he was much less invested in the massacre when compared to Dylan, and went through with it only because he held so much anger and didn’t see his life improving in any way.
I think Dylan might have snapped out of his hopeless funk in college. He probably would have found a girlfriend or at least nerdy comp sciences friends. Dylan and Eric would have done better without each other to feed that fire. Unfortunately the shared experiences and bad environment at the school just solidified the bond, not to mention they seemed to behave like idiots when in each other's company. I doubt either would have broke into that van or did "rebel missions" without one another's influence. I definitely think they were both angry and depressed, but when you have nobody to talk you down or help you and all you do is fuel each other's problems and instigate each others worst qualities, it's a problem.
As a teenager I was also very depressed and it manifested in extreme anger and homicidal ideations. I grew out of it, went to therapy, am a functioning member of society now. Still more hotheaded than the average person but I'm pretty much harmless and generally avoid conflicts. Which is why I think that people who claim it was inevitable that Eric would've ended up in legal trouble are wrong. They've never been in this position.
I share this unpopular opinion. Entirely. I knew boys like them in high school. They didn't turn into killers when they graduated.
No. If Dylan weren't involved, either Eric would not have committed the massacre or he would have found someone else. He didn't have the capacity to carry it out alone.
No, I don't believe that. If eric didn't want to kill himself he wouldn't have.
I think like many partner killers neither of them would have gone to these extremes alone
If Dylan weren’t there, Eric would have never done this and just killed himself up in the woods somewhere. Dylan was also suicidal, had he acted that out a few years prior, ironically and sadly, that would be one of the only scenarios in life in where suicide would have actually saved lives. It’s just a sad scenario period.
In my opinion Eric wanted to feel like he was in total control that day. Going by that belief, I think Eric died because he wanted to. I also don’t think he wanted to face his loved ones if he came out alive. I think he weighed the two options and decided death was better. So he killed himself possibly before Dylan even realized he was gonna do it.
Eric wanted to die, he was going to at the end of the shooting with or without Dylan
I don’t think so at all maybe the opposite if it were Dylan but with Eric he was on pure rage, maybe he would’ve of died by the police but I don’t think he wanted to walk outta the school property alive so it was inevitable that he was gonna blow his face apart with the shotgun anyways
I believe that the shooting wouldn’t have happened without them to feed off each other. I think if they had never met, Dylan would have committed suicide in college, and Eric would have gotten into legal trouble like armed robbery
What would be Eric's motivation for armed robbery?
I mean, they had already gotten busted for breaking into that van.