John Carpenter's The Thing - Who Died First?

One of the more irritating questions that keeps coming up about John Carpenter's The Thing surrounds its ending. Namely if any of the characters left alive at the end are even human. However, that isn't the right question to ask. In fact, the scene's major strength hinges upon the fact no one can be sure if anyone there is even the "good guy" anymore. However, so many clickbait pieces or theory videos have focused upon this at the cost of a much better question: Who died first?

This article will naturally be delving deep into spoilers from here on. As such here is your one and only warning to leave and watch the film now. Really, that's not an "If you wish to watch it" warning so much as a "Please go and watch this!" Even as someone who has a love-hate relationship with most horror films, The Thing is easily one of the single best productions I have watched. You owe it to yourself to see it. Because of this fact, this article is also being written with those how know the film in mind. We'll skip the recap here, and just delve headlong into it.

Alright, so, for everyone who is left, let's consider the following - We never see the film just who it was that the alien creature infected first. The entire premise of the film focuses on the idea of a hostile entity being able to perfectly disguise itself as a human being. Because of this, much of the early story leaves many details extremely vague. Even once an effective countermeasure is devised to pick out the creatures and pinpoint who is still human, we are still in the dark. Once you do re-watch the film however, one detail becomes clear: Those initially infected were likely either Blair, Norris or Palmer. So, let's break down how and why.

Blair is the most obvious of the three to comment upon due to his role within the film. After the point where it becomes clear that something is wrong, he behaves erratically, violently destroying equipment and attacking anyone in sight. This reaches the point where he is ultimately isolated within a shed and kept away from the others for much of the film. When we do see him toward the finale, it becomes clear that he has been infected, and he ends up serving as the proverbial final boss.

The main arguments in favour of Blair being the first to be infected boil down to several basic points: His knowledge, his skillset, and the result of his brief rampage. As one of the two primary medical experts on the artic outpost, he was a major threat to the alien and one of the two most capable of possibly devising a countermeasure against it. He was, after all, the one who performed the autopsies of the initial bodies and outlined how the bodies had been twisted entirely out of shape. Equally, he was also the one that came to the conclusion of just how rapidly the alien would spread across the planet, as seen with the computer simulation. Once he was tied up, that forced the remainder of Outpost 31's personnel to effectively restart from square one and go over his notes. This ended up giving the alien time to claim another of their number due to the delay.

The rampage - specifically the damage he deals to the radio - is typically the key point in all of this. Because of his efforts, Blair ends up doing so much damage to the equipment that it becomes effectively inoperable for the rest of the film. This leaves them isolated, and allows for any other nearby outposts to perhaps mistake radio silence from simple interference from the weather. As some have argued, this would leave the alien with the freedom it needs to quietly infect them all and to avoid wider civilization being alerted to its presence. Even if it was found out, as we saw in the film, it would leave more options open for it to succeed. There would be no way to call for help, and no way to alert the next outpost if its efforts there proved to be a repeat of the Norwegian camp.

The primary reason that Blair seems unlikely out of all of them comes down to several key reasons. The first among these is simply how much of a paper trail he leaves in his wake. Fuchs is able to steal a number of notes outlining how the alien infects others and overcomes their cells. This becomes the key focal point in understanding the alien and combatting it over time. If Blair was infected, it and a number of other elements seem like the first things that would have been quickly destroyed. Furthermore, while Blair's behaviour following his discovery is suspect, it is also one other thing: Attention-grabbing.

Blair could have acted in any number of ways to do the damage that he did. He could have convinced Windows to leave the room, or even waited until he was distracted, before sabotaging the equipment. He could have even just infected Windows in a quiet moment. Instead, he picked up a fire axe and decided to switch from calm and quiet to embracing a full-blown berserker rage. By the time that we see him, Blair has inflicted so much damage on the equipment that everyone has been drawn to his location. Then consider his other actions. Killing the remaining dogs? If anything, given how well adapted they were to the local environment, the alien would benefit from infecting more of them. Sabotaging the vehicles? What benefit would that give him besides robbing the alien of an easy means to reach the coastline.

Combined with how quickly Blair pulled a revolver on the others, it seems more likely that he was acting out of terror. Given how many of his methods ultimately ended up undermining the alien's efforts, it's more likely that he was driven half-mad with paranoid fear and trying to prevent it spreading to the rest of the world. Plus, even if you argue that he might have made for a good distraction, that would still require at least one more infected individual to be present at the time. Combined with how Blair was isolated for much of the film, and the chaos that followed later segments, and it seems more likely that he was infected at a later date.

Of course, one more thing to consider is also the production side of things when it comes to this detail. The scene in which the infected sleigh dog finds someone isolated and takes them over was only filmed from outside of the room. It was also left as an extremely ambiguous scene due to the angle that Carpenter chose, and also the shadow left by the person in the room. The room itself was intended to show Norris' shadow on the wall, but this was switched at the last minute, only for it to be switched over to what looks like Palmer's quarters in the final cut. As a result, this further diminishes the possibility of Blair being the suspect.

So, of the last two, who is the more likely to be infected first? The dog had plenty of time to walk about the station, judge each one and then find the person it needed most when it came down to it. These two seem like the most obvious ones as they were both quiet, kept to themselves quite often, and unlike with MacReady or someone else, it did not need to leave the base to get them.

Palmer seems like the obvious one due to his behaviour. Throughout the film he does many things which can easily throw suspicion off of him, such as his outlandish conspiracy theories and habit of smoking weed in his spare time. These elements give a reason for the others to just ignore him unless it is absolutely necessary. This is also further compounded by the fact that he also retained skills that would benefit the alien itself. He was a mechanic within the base, after all, and he had easy access to most of the machines. Furthermore, when it comes down to it, he could very easily invent any number of reasons just to walk around the base or head off at odd times without question. Perhaps he could claim that something needed to be repaired, or even that he was checking for supplies. This is given further credence by the abrupt nature of the blackout.

However, there are multiple circumstances which offer strong implications that he was not the first person to be taken. The strongest point in favour of this was how he shared a room with Childs much of the time. This left few points in which the alien could get Palmer alone for just long enough - at least during the quieter periods - to assimilate him and move on. Furthermore, the knowledge that he retained should have been enough to help him offset Blair's damage. If he was taken very early on, it seems likely that he could have found extremely easy excuses to begin repairing the various vehicles. This is to say nothing of the fact that - while Palmer might have had the know-how to sabotage the generator - its location was hardly a secret on the base. Everyone and anyone seems to know exactly where it is.

Perhaps a final point which seems to cement it more than anything else is how there were definite points where Palmer could have easily exited the film. Were he infected, the point in which they visited the UFO could have easily allowed for him to just take the helicopter and leave. Even if he returned to the base it would have left both Norris and MacReady stranded in the middle of nowhere, and unable to return to the base. This scene, in particular, is also a reason why I personally feel that both were not infected at this time. They could have easily killed and/or overpowered MacReady and then flown off together with no one being any the wiser. Even if you discount that, if Palmer was infected first, the alien could have easily used his mechanical knowledge to sabotage the flamethrowers which were used against it.

So, that just leaves Norris. However, there is more than merely a simple removal of possible alternatives to back up this point. Norris was quiet, was isolated and did keep to himself quite often. However, in addition to that fact, he also had weaknesses that the alien would find a hindrance. He was a geologist, which did not help the alien in any way beyond perhaps understanding the Earth somewhat more, and he suffered from a heart condition. With Blair and Palmer, there were at least skills it could absorb and then utilise in order to carry out its plans. With Norris it had no such luck, and the addition of a physical weakness it likely could not have detected before then only further limited its options.

If you think about it logically, the idea that it made a tactically poor choice early on only helps to justify its initially slow progress. It needed more time to consider its options, and to also single out people to help infect without its heart giving out in a physical struggle. Sure, that likely would not have killed the alien, but it would have been a weakness which could be used to turn the tables against it. It's for this reason that it seems unlikely that it would try to take MacReady even when they were alone at the UFO, or when it was alone against both MacReady and Palmer.

Finally, then consider Norris' responses to certain scenes. When Garry steps down, Norris is instantly offered up for a promotion to the leader of the group. He reacts with almost total surprise, and then outright refuses to take the position, claiming that his heart could not handle the stress. Keep in mind, this is someone who had just earlier climbed up and down a towering ice wall on a rope, raided a UFO and taken multiple helicopter rides. Sure, there might be some science to this, but it strains belief that this could be a justifiable reason.

Between all of this, Norris is the one who seems most logical. It would give the alien reason to keep infecting others to find a means to escape, and also to keep playing the long game as we saw in the film. Combined with the difficulty it faced in trying to overwhelm the Norwegian camp, it only further justifies a more cautious approach when it was in a more precarious form.

So, those are just my thoughts overall, and my verdict. This is admittedly a fan theory rather than a set-in-stone idea, so if you have a few issues with this logic or your own ideas, please feel free to list them in the comments. As always, I'm interested to read what others say in such subjective matters.