So, one of my favorite horror critics on Youtube revisted 1408: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9LWCTtqxZ0

And he reminded me of an obsession I have with this story, specifically "Why the fuck didn't anyone ever try to TALK to this obviously sapient, responsible, and above all, EMOTIONAL entity?!?"

So I wound up on the Wiki page for the original King story, and found this summary that I think is both very telling and utterly gobsmacking:

Mike Enslin concludes, "There are no ghosts in 1408, because ghosts were once merely humans, while the entity he encountered was horrifically inhuman."

WHAT.

The story supports that, too. The direct quote is, "It was never human... Ghost... at least ghosts were once human. The thing in the wall, though... that thing..."

This makes zero sense to me. The entity in 1408 spoke to Mike. It understood his emotions well enough to exploit them. It understood cause and effect. It understood irony. Hell, one could argue it was _therapeutic_ for him, at least in the adaptations where he survives!

There is nothing at all "inhuman" about 1408 except for its power. It's so obvious, at least to me, that there was a MIND there. And yet everybody from critics to KIng himself insists it was fundamentally inhuman.

Because it was cruel and vindictive?! That sure sounds human to me.