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The Institute

429 statements
83 feature instances
12 referencing feature instances

The Institute	type	TVTItem
The Institute	label	The Institute
The Institute	page	TheInstitute
The Institute	comment	The Institute is a 2019 novel written by Stephen King.Tim Jamieson leaves Florida and travels to the fictional small town of DuPray, South Carolina. A decorated former cop, Jamieson takes a job working for the local police department as a "night knocker".In suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder twelve-year-old Luke Ellis' parents and kidnap him. He wakes up in a room identical to his own at the Institute, a facility located deep in the woods of Maine.At the Institute are other kidnapped kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who live in rooms of their own. Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon are all in Front Half while others graduated to Back Half. Mrs. Sigsby, the institute's director, and her staff are dedicated to extracting the special talents from the children. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help before the same fate befalls him.
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The Institute	processingComment	Dropped link to TheDarkTower: Not a Feature - ITEM
The Institute	processingComment	Dropped link to WouldHarmAChild: Not a Feature - UNKNOWN
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The Institute / int_1439161f	type	Heroic BSoD
The Institute / int_1439161f	comment	Heroic BSoD: Luke undergoes one after finding out his parents were murdered. He remains in a daze for several weeks, not making many attempts to further his escape plans. Only after the incident with Harry and Greta (see Accidental Murder above) that ends with both of them dead does he snap out of it.
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The Institute / int_1ba09c9d	type	Human Resources
The Institute / int_1ba09c9d	comment	Human Resources: For decades the Institute's goal is to use a small group of precogs to foresee individuals who will help cause events of global devastation (though their accuracy is later pointed out to be debatable), then kidnapping and experimenting on children to boost and pool their TK and TP abilities, allowing the disposing of said individuals. Ultimately, this all results in the children's mental faculties deteriorating, until they are empty husks with severe dementia or Alzheimer's disease, who get sent to the nightmarish "Gorky Park" until their health ultimately fades. The bodies then get sent to the crematorium, and so more children are needed...
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The Institute / int_203b5242	type	Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
The Institute / int_203b5242	comment	Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Brought up by Tim in his discussion with "Mr. Smith", as he points out how statistics can be used to prove everything you want.
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The Institute / int_27c4f8f6	type	Dream Reality Check
The Institute / int_27c4f8f6	comment	Dream Reality Check: When Luke first wakes up in the Institute and realizes he is not in his room, he comes close to pinching himself to make sure he's not dreaming, but concludes that would be a clichÃ©. He pops his fingers against his cheeks instead.
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The Institute / int_2ae29c0d	type	The Dreaded
The Institute / int_2ae29c0d	comment	The Dreaded: "Mr. Smith", the man whom Mrs. Sigsby and Stackhouse answer to. When Luke has escaped, they try to put off calling him as long as possible, even though he could easily provide them with much better resources for tracking Luke down, out of fear of what he might do to them for this slip-up. Later lampshaded by Tim during his talk with "Mr. Smith", when he thinks to himself how Sigsby allowed the situation to get so out of control because she was afraid to inform "Smith" of what had happened.
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The Institute / int_34dcfc96	type	Kick the Dog
The Institute / int_34dcfc96	comment	Kick the Dog: Almost the entire staff of the Institute get moments of this with the children, with Maureen being the notable exception.
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The Institute / int_38ac6c7d	type	Former Regime Personnel
The Institute / int_38ac6c7d	comment	Former Regime Personnel: Nearly all staff members of the Institute have a history with the military; one of the cleaners toured in the Middle East.
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The Institute / int_3ac2a3e3	type	Deadly Gas
The Institute / int_3ac2a3e3	comment	Deadly Gas: Stackhouse's plan to get rid of the kids at the Institute is to have Gladys mix bleach and drain cleaner to produce chlorine gas and vent it into the building's HVAC system. It fails when Avery and the Ward A kids use their powers to demolish the Institute building, dying in the process, and the rest of the former Front Half kids escape.
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The Institute / int_4023b8c8	type	First-Name Basis
The Institute / int_4023b8c8	comment	First-Name Basis: In conversation, Mrs. Sigsby and Stackhouse call each other "Julia" and "Trevor" respectively. Mrs. Sigsby notes that Stackhouse is the only one in the Institute who is allowed to use her first name.
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The Institute / int_4061b99	type	Water Torture
The Institute / int_4061b99	comment	Water Torture: The immersion tank, which is used on pinks to enhance their powers, since near-death experiences can greatly boost their abilities. Luke is tortured in here to see if he really didn't develop any TP powers due to Dr. Hendricks' experiments. Later, Avery also gets the treatment as punishment for lying to Mrs. Sigsby about where Luke went after he escaped.
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The Institute / int_40bb59d0	type	Blatant Lies
The Institute / int_40bb59d0	comment	Blatant Lies: The children are told that their stay will only last a few weeks and that they will be eventually returned to the parents with their minds wiped. In truth, their parents are dead and they are never getting out.
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The Institute / int_40cc0c7e	type	Bittersweet Ending
The Institute / int_40cc0c7e	comment	Bittersweet Ending: Luke, Kalisha, Nick, and some of the other kids have escaped, and the Institute has been destroyed. However, the people behind it, though not planning to come after those specific kids, are still at large, and planning to rebuild, though Tim notes that getting such an operation up and running in the modern day, instead of coasting along from an earlier time, will be difficult. Also, even though the accuracy of the precogs is in doubt, they only need to be correct (long-range) one time when nothing is done due to the destruction of the Institute, and The End of the World as We Know It could occur.
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The Institute / int_416a2a0d	type	Torture Always Works
The Institute / int_416a2a0d	comment	Torture Always Works: Downplayed; after Mrs. Sigsby realizes Avery was in on Luke's plan and knows where he is, she has the boy tortured with the zap sticks until he spills his guts. But while Avery tells her the truth about most of Luke's escape plan, he still lies about the final part where Luke has run off to, and since everything else checks out, Mrs. Sigsby sees no reason to believe Avery has lied to her, until Frieda tells her the truth about Luke's location.
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The Institute / int_4370c341	type	Mock Surprise Reaction
The Institute / int_4370c341	comment	Mock Surprise Reaction: Basically Tim's reaction when "Mr. Smith" tells him that the first institute was in Nazi Germany.
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The Institute / int_4508b16b	type	The Guards Must Be Crazy
The Institute / int_4508b16b	comment	The Guards Must Be Crazy: Security at the Institute is quite sloppy at times, and Luke happily exploits this for planning his escape. Among other things, they don't maintain the security camera's near the kids' rooms and playground, and while the cameras on the lower levels of front half are maintained, it's obvious hardly anyone ever monitors them (Luke visits these floors a few times unsupervised, and nobody stops him). Luke finds a misplaced elevator card that allows him to use the elevator for every floor in Front Half except the lowest two. The ground on both sides of the fence of the playground is unpaved, allowing Luke to tunnel underneath it. The Foundation don't monitor Luke's laptop enough to notice he has found a way to go around their blocks to visit forbidden websites. Justified, in that the prisoners in the Institute are kids who, any TP or TK powers aside, are still very much children and thus not expected to come up with complex escape plans. Luke however is a Child Prodigy. Also, Mrs. Sigsby realizes, eventually, things have gone smoothly for so long everybody, herself included, simply got lax. She vows to make some changes after Maureen killed herself.
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The Institute / int_4cca4ac7	type	Trapped by Gambling Debts
The Institute / int_4cca4ac7	comment	Trapped by Gambling Debts: Discussed; the Institute has a policy for its staff to be able to get loans at practically no interest to pay off debts, since people in debt can easily be tempted to sell secrets and thus expose the Institute.
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The Institute / int_500ecfb7	type	The Big Guy
The Institute / int_500ecfb7	comment	The Big Guy: Harry Cross, a 16 year old who easily towers over the other kids and is quite strong for his age.
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The Institute / int_50d71a78	type	Dual Wielding
The Institute / int_50d71a78	comment	Dual Wielding: Orphan Annie wields two guns simultaneously during the shoot-out at the DuPray police station.
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The Institute / int_57e4d517	type	Pillow Silencer
The Institute / int_57e4d517	comment	Pillow Silencer: Played with; the agents send to kidnap Luke and kill his parents already have guns with silencers, but Robin, the agent who kills Luke's dad Herb, still covers his head with a pillow first. Not as an extra precaution, but so she doesn't have to see the end result.
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The Institute / int_5890b975	type	One Person, One Power
The Institute / int_5890b975	comment	One Person, One Power: As a rule, the gifted children are either TP or TK, but never both. Dr. Hendricks is convinced that he can wake up latent TP powers in a TK, and tries this with Luke. It seemingly fails, and he is told afterwards to quit these experiments since they've failed to yield results, and cost the Institute several children before they could go to Back Half. Averted when it's revealed that the experiment actually worked on Luke, and he's now a TP as well as a TK.
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The Institute / int_5a8f3057	type	Hand Signals
The Institute / int_5a8f3057	comment	Hand Signals: During the climactic confrontation at the Institute, Stackhouse gives a hand signal as the cue for the remaining staff to start shooting at the vehicle Tim, Luke, and Mrs. Sigsby are in. It also serves, in a roundabout way, as Gladys' signal to gas the kids in Back Half, as the shooting is her cue to mix the chemicals.
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The Institute / int_5b8c285b	type	The Conspiracy
The Institute / int_5b8c285b	comment	The Conspiracy: Deconstructed, in that it is shown just how difficult it is to run a secret government project that commits atrocities. The Institute has a small staff, with a counter-productive proportion of unbalanced sadists, because it is difficult to recruit people who would go along with the torture of children. The Institute's physical and digital infrastructure are outdated and degrading, because it's next to impossible to hire contractors with the necessary skills to renovate/upgrade the place, and still keep the project secret.
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The Institute / int_5c446b43	type	Aliens in Cardiff
The Institute / int_5c446b43	comment	Aliens in Cardiff: Par for the course for King, the Institute is located in a more remote part of Maine. Justified, as the Institute wants to avoid attracting attention from the outside.
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The Institute / int_5fcb9ad1	type	Time Skip
The Institute / int_5fcb9ad1	comment	Time Skip: A three month time skip happens near the end of the story, between the destruction of the Institute and "Mr. Smith" seeking Tim out.
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The Institute / int_615fdb1f	type	Dream Sequence
The Institute / int_615fdb1f	comment	Dream Sequence: After their attempted mutiny ends with the kids from Back Half trapped in the tunnel between Back Half and Front Half, all of them share a dream in which they come across a series of ringing telephones, each one bigger than the previous, and when they answer them, all they hear is a boy or girl asking "Hello, do you hear me" in various languages. This is how they contact the children in the other Institutes worldwide.
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The Institute / int_617f0563	type	Heelâ€“Face Turn
The Institute / int_617f0563	comment	Heelâ€“Face Turn: Maureen, after Luke helps her find a way to get rid of the high debts her ex-husband left her with, and because she is terminally ill, so she doesn't have much to lose.
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The Institute / int_61c683d2	type	We Have Reserves
The Institute / int_61c683d2	comment	We Have Reserves: Pinks, like Luke, are considered expendable by the Institute since they are the most common form of TKs. Thus, they are reserved for extra experiments rather than just the ones necessary to prepare them for Back Half.
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The Institute / int_63f492d1	type	Bluff the Eavesdropper
The Institute / int_63f492d1	comment	Bluff the Eavesdropper: The rooms in Front Half are filled with hidden microphones. There are some supposed dead zones, but most of these are false, and even the one that might be genuine (near the ice machine) is not considered entirely safe. Thus, when Maureen needs to give Luke his instructions on how to escape, the two of them, and Avery, go to such a dead zone and hold a conversation about what happened with Harry and Greta, see Accidental Murder above, but while they talk Maureen mentally gives Avery the instructions, and he passes them on to Luke.
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The Institute / int_6439de78	type	Heroic Sacrifice
The Institute / int_6439de78	comment	Heroic Sacrifice: Avery and the Ward A kids are killed when they stay behind to unite their mental powers with those of the kids in the other Institutes all over the world, and bring the whole building down.
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The Institute / int_658f7193	type	Lack of Empathy
The Institute / int_658f7193	comment	Lack of Empathy: Most of the Institute staff are largely desensitized to the horrors that they inflict on the children, with some occasional combination of outright sociopathy and/or genuine belief that they are saving the world. Mrs. Sigsby particularly calls Luke and the other kids during the recapture mission nothing but "property", which makes it immensely satisfying when she starts panicking when taken by Tim on the return trip, as she knows that Stackhouse views her as ultimately expendable.
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The Institute / int_68da6712	type	Canon Welding
The Institute / int_68da6712	comment	Canon Welding: Orphan Annie mentions the mysterious disappearance of the population of Jerusalemâ€™s Lot and blames it on the government.
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The Institute / int_6b2b3b59	type	The Reveal
The Institute / int_6b2b3b59	comment	The Reveal: In the climax, it is revealed there are Institutes like the one in Maine all over the world, including Italy, Germany, Bosnia, The Netherlands, and South Korea.
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The Institute / int_6d871385	type	Villainous BSoD
The Institute / int_6d871385	comment	Villainous BSoD: Stackhouse gets hit with one after he sees the Institute being destroyed, and realizes just how powerful the kids truly were. He no longer bothers to try and stop Tim and Luke, or demand the flashdrive with the incriminating evidence Maureen had given Luke. He is also unable to answer when Tim asks Stackhouse where he will go now.
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The Institute / int_768ae1c9	type	Les Collaborateurs
The Institute / int_768ae1c9	comment	Les Collaborateurs: Frieda, a girl at the institute who came from an abusive home (her mom is a drug addict and has one bad boyfriend after another). After Luke's escape, and learning from Avery where Luke has gone, she sells this information to Mrs. Sigsby and Stackhouse in return for not being tested on anymore, and being allowed to stay at the Institute in front half and, in time, become a caretaker there.
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The Institute / int_77ed6b7d	type	Troubling Unchildlike Behavior
The Institute / int_77ed6b7d	comment	Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Along with snacks and beverages, the Institute provides the children in Front Half with booze (albeit in small amounts) and cigarettes, with the mindset that considering what eventually happens to them, allowing them such vices isn't so bad.
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The Institute / int_7b6e47a5	type	Armor-Piercing Question
The Institute / int_7b6e47a5	comment	Armor-Piercing Question: Occurs when Luke calls out "Mr. Smith" on the reliability of the precogs' predictions and whether or not the Institute is actually saving the world in using up the lives of thousands of children. "Mr. Smith" leaves flustered and unsure of himself.
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The Institute / int_7bd44eb9	type	Smart People Play Chess
The Institute / int_7bd44eb9	comment	Smart People Play Chess: On his first day in the Institute, Luke is challenged to a chess game by Nick Wilholm, who claims none of the other kids were able to give him a challenge. Luke beats him with a scholar's mate (4 moves), even though he isn't fully focused on the game. He plays chess with other kids as well and always beats them until he gets bored with it and starts playing to lose, which is more of a challenge for him. Later, Stackhouse actually calls Luke a chess player because he is sneaky. In the climax, Luke himself also compares the situation he and Tim are in as part of a chess game he is playing against Stackhouse.
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The Institute / int_7fbb2a3	type	Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!
The Institute / int_7fbb2a3	comment	Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The day after Luke's escape, Avery attempts to cover the hole under the fence Luke escaped through, but is caught in the act, and as such the Institute's staff is alerted to the escape. Mrs. Sigsby even tells Avery that, had he left the hole alone, it would have taken them much longer to realize there has been an escape.
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The Institute / int_85c7446b	type	Collateral Damage
The Institute / int_85c7446b	comment	Collateral Damage: Tim was forced to resign from his previous police job when, during a confrontation with an armed and intoxicated teen, he fired a warning shot, but the bullet ended up knocking down a lamp from the ceiling, which then fell on top of a bystander, seriously injuring the guy.
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The Institute / int_868afe72	type	Covert Group with Mundane Front
The Institute / int_868afe72	comment	Covert Group with Mundane Front: To the general public, the Institute covers as a company called "Maine Paper Industries". Played with, in that the characters note that locals would be smart enough to realise that there is some kind of military base at the Institute, but they would never believe what it does.
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The Institute / int_86a5c427	type	Kiddie Kid
The Institute / int_86a5c427	comment	Kiddie Kid: Avery Dixon. He's ten, but he both looks and acts at least several years below that age (in his first scene he throws a tantrum like a toddler, his room has posters of Tommy Pickles and Zuko, and he wears a Star Wars pyjama. Lampshaded by the other kids, with Kalisha theorizing that it's because Avery is a very powerful telepath, meaning he could live a pretty sheltered life and never had to learn social skills needed to pick up cues (like judging what people say by their expression and tone of voice).
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The Institute / int_8e20ae0d	type	Child Prodigy
The Institute / int_8e20ae0d	comment	Overall, the Institute kidnapping Luke merely for his small TK (which he can't even control consciously), while disregarding the fact he is a Child Prodigy. "Mr. Smith" actually points out to Tim in the climax how everybody involved with the Institutes now wishes they had left him alone.
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The Institute / int_8f00b02a	type	Always Identical Twins
The Institute / int_8f00b02a	comment	Always Identical Twins: Gerda and Greta Wilcox are identical in every way.
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The Institute / int_8fe78cef	type	Enhanced Interrogation Techniques
The Institute / int_8fe78cef	comment	Enhanced Interrogation Techniques: In the phone video left on the flash drive given to Luke, Maureen says that she was ex-military and worked in enhanced interrogation, eventually transitioning to working as the "good cop" role who could get reticent captives to talk by being nice to them.
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The Institute / int_904f86a7	type	Enigmatic Institute
The Institute / int_904f86a7	comment	Enigmatic Institute: Said institute is a secretive organization in Maine that kidnaps children who are telepathic and/or telekinetic. The children are experimented on by the staff to draw out and enhance their abilities so that they can be used to assassinate political and military enemies. It turns out that there are Institutes all over the world kidnapping and using children as weapons.
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The Institute / int_970c790a	type	Big Bad
The Institute / int_970c790a	comment	Big Bad: Mrs Julia Sigsby, the woman in charge of the Institute who is responsible for their kidnappings and views them all as her property.
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The Institute / int_97d97c28	type	Revenge Before Reason
The Institute / int_97d97c28	comment	Revenge Before Reason: Discussed. Luke correctly guesses that Stackhouse has an escape plan for himself in case the Institute is ever discovered, but counts on it that he won't use it yet (despite knowing that Luke has found allies whom he informed about the Institute, and who are now on their way there with him), since Stackhouse wants revenge on Luke for all the trouble the boy has caused. Tim agrees with this theory:
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The Institute / int_98591d23	type	Speech Impediment
The Institute / int_98591d23	comment	Speech Impediment: The person Mrs. Sigsby reports to has a lisp. In his conversation with Tim and Luke, he mentions being in speech therapy, and the lisp is transcribed in dialogue only when he slips up. This is most noticeable when he grows more agitated and emotional as the conversation progresses.
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The Institute / int_99298c71	type	Better to Die than Be Killed
The Institute / int_99298c71	comment	Better to Die than Be Killed: Maureen hangs herself so that the Institute canâ€™t torture Lukeâ€™s location out of her. Plus, she was already terminally ill and probably didn't have much longer to live, so dying this way was most likely preferable. And while it is not explicitly stated, she may have done it to buy Luke more time, since the staff would be too busy handling the aftermath of her suicide to notice a child had escaped.
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The Institute / int_9b06e314	type	Greater-Scope Villain
The Institute / int_9b06e314	comment	Greater-Scope Villain: â€œWilliam Smith,â€� the person whom Sigsby and Stackhouse answer to and who is also in charge of other Institutes throughout the world who wants to use people with precognitive abilities to influence world events.
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The Institute / int_9d61fd2c	type	Traumatic Superpower Awakening
The Institute / int_9d61fd2c	comment	Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Dunks in a water tank to the point of drowning increase children's powers. The sadism of the Institute staff ends up being their undoing, as dunking Avery as a punishment while disregarding this effect boosts his powers to the level that Avery can launch a breakout.
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The Institute / int_9dab0a6e	type	Continuity Nod
The Institute / int_9dab0a6e	comment	Continuity Nod: The sixth and seventh installments of The Dark Tower have a subplot about rescuing a group of kidnapped psychic kids from a building. Orphan Annie talks about how her psychic aunt didn't allow her sons to go to a marijuana party because she predicted something bad would happen there, thus saving them from a fire that killed 20 people. This is a nod to Vern's death in Different Seasons.
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The Institute / int_9ebca7d9	type	Mr. Smith
The Institute / int_9ebca7d9	comment	Mr. Smith: The man with the lisp introduces himself to Tim as "William Smith".
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The Institute / int_a51c5daf	type	The Kindness of Strangers
The Institute / int_a51c5daf	comment	The Kindness of Strangers: Ms. Kellerman, the librarian whom Tim hitches a ride with. Actually lampshaded by Tim himself when she offers him some cash. Mattie, the train worker who doesn't rat out Luke and provides him with some much needed food and water.
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The Institute / int_a70223	type	Karma Houdini
The Institute / int_a70223	comment	Karma Houdini: "Mr. Smith". Sure, his organization's operation of the Institutes is destroyed and he gets told off by Luke and the others during their meeting at the end of the novel. But he still walks away from it unscathed (except for his pride, probably), threatens the children to keep their silence and openly proclaims his intention to rebuild the Institutes. Annie does suggest killing him, but Luke notes that he's ultimately just a pointman for other Institute higher-ups, so it wouldn't accomplish a great deal. Luke predicts that the Institutes will have a considerably more difficult time restarting, and possibly fail. Stackhouse, possibly. We last see him despondent but unhurt after the Institute's destruction. Stackhouse in his POV chapters expects that "Smith" will have him killed for such a failure, though.
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The Institute / int_a761b580	type	Useless Security Camera
The Institute / int_a761b580	comment	Useless Security Camera: Luke notices that the security cameras in Front Half (especially in the rarely-used east wing) are so dirty they can, at best, only provide a blurry image, and none of the staff feels the need to clean them. Eventually, Mrs. Sigsby berates Stackhouse for the lack of maintenance, and he promises to instruct the janitor, but even then both know that their cameras, like many things in the Institute, are hopelessly outdated and in desperate need for repairs.
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The Institute / int_abd29ad8	type	No-Sell
The Institute / int_abd29ad8	comment	No-Sell: During their revolt, the children try to use their collective powers to influence the staff of the Institute. It fails since they can only influence unprepared minds: the staff knows about them and what to expect.
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The Institute / int_ac448cdc	type	Van in Black
The Institute / int_ac448cdc	comment	Van in Black: Discussed, and averted during the scenes set in DuPray. Orphan Annie, a follower of conspiracy theories and one of the first to believe Luke, warns Tim that the people looking for Luke will come in black vans. However, the team send to retrieve Luke actually uses far more unobtrusive vans that are blue, green and gray. The narrative even lampshades that Annie would be disappointed if she saw this. Later played straight with the van Tim, Luke, and Sigsby use to drive to the Institute, which is both black and has tinted windows. The narrative mentions that Orphan Annie would love it.
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The Institute / int_acf33d00	type	Nice Job Fixing It, Villain
The Institute / int_acf33d00	comment	Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Institute puts tracking chips in the kids' earlobes so they can find them if they run or hide. They don't anticipate one of the kids (Luke) having the guts to cut their earlobe off to get rid of the tracker, however. And when Luke is discovered on the train by one of the workers, the worker decides not to reveal his presence, even though he's been told to be on the lookout for a runaway kid, because the bloody ear allows Luke to tell him a story about escaping from an abusive guardian, with the injury making the story look really convincing. As a punishment for his part in Luke's escape, Avery is send to the immersion tank (which is normally only for pinks) and then straight to Back Half. Dr. Hendricks disapproves since Avery is a rare, very strong TP, but Stackhouse and Sigsby insist. However, the experience even further enhances Avery's powers, and this helps him and the other kids in Back Half to start a mutiny. Overall, the Institute kidnapping Luke merely for his small TK (which he can't even control consciously), while disregarding the fact he is a Child Prodigy. "Mr. Smith" actually points out to Tim in the climax how everybody involved with the Institutes now wishes they had left him alone.
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The Institute / int_b17f6a27	type	I Did What I Had to Do
The Institute / int_b17f6a27	comment	I Did What I Had to Do: Deconstructed: Luke calls out that for all of Smith's claimed certainty on the Institute stopping global disasters like nuclear war many times, the organization has known for years that there's no way to confirm if they were actually successful. They've killed thousands of children for "maybe", the deaths themselves being as much the impetus for continuing so that they weren't all for nothing. While shaken, Smith argues in turn that would all that sacrifice be worth it for a few successes, even one, rather than the end of the world?
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The Institute / int_b43dfc8d	type	Your Days Are Numbered
The Institute / int_b43dfc8d	comment	Your Days Are Numbered: The kids in Front Half know that the transition to Back Half is coming when they go for multiple days without any tests.
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The Institute / int_b4fddee	type	McGuffin
The Institute / int_b4fddee	comment	McGuffin: The flashdrive Maureen gave Luke just before his escape, which contains a video of Maureen confessing her part in the Institute, and footage of Ward A and the children kept there.
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The Institute / int_b51128fa	type	Gilded Cage
The Institute / int_b51128fa	comment	Gilded Cage: The front half of The Institute is really quite pleasant: each child gets their own room, made up to look like their actual bedroom back home, and the cafeteria has a very impressive menu. There's a playground open 24 hours a day and a full range of vending machines stocked with any kind of junk food a child might want (also alcohol and cigarettes, for an added creepiness factor). The back half is decidedly less pleasant, and Gorky Town (the back half of the back half, where kids go once their minds have been totally destroyed) is basically Bedlam.
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The Institute / int_b8198b96	type	Dead Man's Switch
The Institute / int_b8198b96	comment	Dead Man's Switch: When Tim and Luke are about to return to the Institute with Mrs. Sigsby and Dr. Evans as their prisoners, they leave Wendy (the only other police officer who knows about the Institute and survived the gunfight at the DuPray police office) in a motel, with a list of the names and home locations of all the children currently kept in the Institute. If Luke and Tim fail to contact her, she has to pass these names on to the state police and FBI so hopefully they will start an investigation that will uncover the Institute. At the end of the story, when the rescued kids are send off to live with other relatives, they each take with them a key to a bank deposit box that contains the flashdrive (see McGuffin below). If anything happens to one of them, the others will unlock the box and reveal the contents of the flashdrive.
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The Institute / int_c3bc970f	type	Seers
The Institute / int_c3bc970f	comment	Seers: According to "Mr. Smith", there is a group of six precognitive people in a different kind of Institute somewhere in the world, who can see into the future to determine which people to eliminate to keep the world from nuclear destruction. Their effectiveness is called into question by Luke, who actually researched the topic and uses math to point out how the chance of a precognition actually coming true significantly decreases the further into the future the foreseen event will take place, similar to how statisticians' predictions can decrease in accuracy. The seers are only tested with events that happen mere hours to mere days from now, but are then asked to predict things that will happen years to even decades away.
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The Institute / int_c45c9fcd	type	Ass Shove
The Institute / int_c45c9fcd	comment	Ass Shove: One of the "treatments" at the Institute is a mandatory rectal thermometer exam, used to humiliate the children and show them how powerless they are.
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The Institute / int_c6d11745	type	Telepathy
The Institute / int_c6d11745	comment	Telepathy: One of the two possible powers of the children in the institute. They are called "TPs" by the Institute.
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The Institute / int_c75df49a	type	Shout-Out
The Institute / int_c75df49a	comment	Shout-Out: Gerda and Greta remind Luke of the twins in some old horror movie.
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The Institute / int_c83f40d8	type	Bystander Syndrome
The Institute / int_c83f40d8	comment	Bystander Syndrome: Sheriff John has little sympathy for the bystander that got injured due to Tim's warning shot (see Collateral Damage below), since he correctly deduces the guy was staying around to film the altercation instead of doing the sensible thing and run. Notably averted during the gunfight between the DuPray police and the soldiers of the Institute. First Orphan Annie spots them, and ropes in Drummer Denton, who has several guns, to help fight them off, and soon they are joined by other citizens with their firearms. It is because of this intervention that the protagonists eventually come out on top, even though five police officers are killed in the fight.
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The Institute / int_cf92fea8	type	Cassandra Truth
The Institute / int_cf92fea8	comment	Cassandra Truth: Luke has a lot of trouble convincing Tim and his fellow officers that the Institute is real. He expected as much, since it does sound farfetched, but it still annoys him that he gets treated like he's insane because of it.
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The Institute / int_d2b59903	type	Cool Old Lady
The Institute / int_d2b59903	comment	Cool Old Lady: A villainous example: Rosalind Dawson, Mrs. Sigsby's assistant. She's 81, yet good enough with a gun to have earned the equivalent of a Distinguished Marksman badge. She volunteers to help defend the Institute and rescue Mrs. Sigsby from Tim and Luke.
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The Institute / int_d6b5863	type	Driven to Madness
The Institute / int_d6b5863	comment	Driven to Madness: It's heavily implied, and later outright stated, that Dr. Everett Hallas and Dr. Joanne James's work in Back Half has driven them insane. When Dr. Hallas is in the crematorium and further away from the psychic children, he loses some of his tics: he stands upright, he stops holding his finger to his mouth, and he makes fewer jokes.
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The Institute / int_dae24d7a	type	Recruit the Muggles
The Institute / int_dae24d7a	comment	Recruit the Muggles: As the sheriffâ€™s department gets shot up by black ops thugs, just about every local (or the parents of younger ones) who the main character befriended earlier show up to provide some lethal assistance.
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The Institute / int_db2f3581	type	All Girls Want Bad Boys
The Institute / int_db2f3581	comment	All Girls Want Bad Boys: All girls in the Institute at the time Luke arrives there have eyes for Nick Wilholm, by far the most rebellious kid at the Institute (described as a latter-day James Dean), particularly Kalisha.
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The Institute / int_e0d0fb13	type	Please Put Some Clothes On
The Institute / int_e0d0fb13	comment	Please Put Some Clothes On: Luke always sleeps in his undies. When he wakes up one morning and finds that Avery (who sleeps with him almost every night) is gone, he runs to Avery's room to check if the boy is still in Front Half, but forgets to dress first. Winona, one of the housekeepers, catches him in the act and orders him to get dressed.
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The Institute / int_e70127	type	The Mole
The Institute / int_e70127	comment	The Mole: The Institute has stringers planted all across the US to inform them of kids who could make for potential subjects and people who are asking too many questions and need to be eliminated. One such plant, the manager of the hotel Tim is staying at in DuPray, helps the Institute track down Luke.
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The Institute / int_eaf5a1ac	type	Groin Attack
The Institute / int_eaf5a1ac	comment	Groin Attack: When Avery is being tortured by being shocked with a "zap stick" for Luke's actual whereabouts, the last thing he's threatened with is a full-charge shock to his scrotum. Fear of this causes him to break, although he doesn't completely tell the truth and the deception isn't discovered until later.
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The Institute / int_f1492605	type	Redemption Equals Death
The Institute / int_f1492605	comment	Redemption Equals Death: Maureen, though she was dying of cancer anyway.
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The Institute / int_f1e837cc	type	Mind over Matter
The Institute / int_f1e837cc	comment	Mind over Matter: One of the two possible powers of the children in the institute. They are called "TKs" by the Institute, and are further divided into those that can use their powers on purpose (TK-positive) and those that can only use it involuntarily (pinks). TKs' powers are unimpressive at a baseline: George is the strongest, and he can knock over chess pieces or move bugs. Greater feats of TK are possible when the Institute children pool their powers as a Hive Mind. Under Avery's leadership they manage to lift the entirety of Back Half and drop it on Front Half.
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The Institute / int_f91985b2	type	School for Scheming
The Institute / int_f91985b2	comment	School for Scheming: The titular institute.
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The Institute / int_fd497706	type	Accidental Murder
The Institute / int_fd497706	comment	Accidental Murder: Harry Cross accidentally kills Greta Wilcox when the last test he received sends him into a seizure, and he knocks her against a wall, breaking her neck.
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The Institute / int_fe64d5a1	type	Evil Is Petty
The Institute / int_fe64d5a1	comment	Evil Is Petty: Frieda, who sells out Luke and Avery's plan, has a laundry list of demands- including 50 vending tokens. That's about 12 candy bars. And Mrs. Sigsby, not to be outdone, whittles it down to 40 tokens.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Institute	hasFeature	American Literature (E to I) / int_3fed3331
The Institute	hasFeature	Can't Get Away with Nuthin' / int_3fed3331
The Institute	hasFeature	Collateral Damage / int_3fed3331
The Institute	hasFeature	Enigmatic Institute / int_3fed3331
The Institute	hasFeature	Former Regime Personnel / int_3fed3331
The Institute	hasFeature	Friendless Background / int_3fed3331
The Institute	hasFeature	Kiddie Kid / int_3fed3331
The Institute	hasFeature	Please Put Some Clothes On / int_3fed3331
The Institute	hasFeature	Psychic Children / int_3fed3331
The Institute	hasFeature	Psychic Stories / int_3fed3331
The Institute	hasFeature	Recruit the Muggles / int_3fed3331
The Institute	hasFeature	Social Media Before Reason / int_3fed3331

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