I’ve always thought the murders really happened. I think people miss the point of the final scene. It’s not that Bateman isn’t a murderer, he is, but It. Doesn’t. Matter.

Due to the vapid, superficial world he lives in No. One. Cares. No one cares if he’s Paul or Patrick or Whomever, everyone is interchangeable. No one cares if he’s a psychopath, he’s young and attractive and rich, so they don’t care. He’s literally been saying psychopathic shit for the entire novel, no one cares. His own lawyer laughs off his murder confession. The realtor covers for him for her own gain. The police are never going to arrest him, not even if he murders someone right in front of them. So there really is No Exit for him, he’s stuck, as a terrible person surrounded by terrible people. He’s in hell.

That’s how I always read it anyways.

The Animorphs! It had a stupid title, but shit got real in the Animorphs. Those kids fucking murdered innocent people and got PTSD and shit.

Yeah, Harry Potter might have “hooked a generation on reading” or whatever. But did Harry ever have to weigh the ethics of enlisting disabled kids as cannon fodder in a desperate war? Did Ron ever murder a former friend in cold blood because he knew he’d be a liability down the road? Did Hermione ever transform herself into a worm, forever, just to try to prove to herself that she hadn’t lost the moral high ground that she felt slipping through her increasingly-desensitized fingers? Nah man, and that’s why Animorphs were the best.

I can’t believe it’s a true dystopia because of the ending. I mean, how dystopian can a society be if their punishment for stepping out of line is… getting sent to the bohemian island of free thinkers?