***This post contains spoilers for both the book AND the TV show. TRIGGER WARNING: Contains content that deal with suicide and depression***
First off, 13 Reasons Why is one of my top five favorite books. I have never read anything like it and I doubt I will ever read anything similar ever again.
When the book came out, a set of YouTube videos came out with it where you can hear the tapes. It was so neat and I loved the crossing of media. I really wanted more and I was so hyped when I found out they were making a TV show about it.
I think the TV show is great, especially if you've never read the book (WHICH YOU SHOULD). I do have quite a few problems with it. From little things like the fact that they changed a name of a character (Why? What does that do to enhance the story?) to changing the order of who gets the tapes (YOU CAN'T JUST DO THAT).
But my biggest problem with the TV show is one that no one really seems to be talking about with as much anger as, say, Clay not getting through the tapes quickly.
In the TV show, they change the way Hannah kills herself. I feel like no one is talking about how MAJOR this is. In the book, Hannah commits suicide by swallowing a bunch of pills. In the TV show, she does it by slitting her writs. It was a very graphic scene to watch (one of many) and I was both shocked and disgusted.
Hannah explains in the book why she chose pills to kill herself. She explains why she didn't choose to use a gun or hang herself. She didn't want her parents to find her like that.
It physically pains me to think of writers and producers sitting in a room and deciding that a teenage suicide wasn't enough. That the suicide had to be gruesome for viewers to watch, to get better ratings, to get people to talk, etc. Whatever their reason, it hurt.
It goes against everything the book and TV show is supposed to be about. It's supposed to teach lessons about how we treat each other matters. That our words and our actions have an affect, whether they are positive or negative. Throughout the TV show, various characters say that Hannah killed herself for attention and that she's a liar. For the writers to then just turn around and be like, "The way Hannah kills herself isn't flashy enough," is a slap in the face to Hannah as a character, and to the thousands of teenagers who think about killing themselves everyday.
By changing the way Hannah commits suicide in the TV show the writers are showing that Hannah doesn't matter in life, or in death. I just feel like they took the character's words and decided they didn't care how she wanted to die. It's just another event in Hannah's life that she didn't have a choice over.
I know this may seem silly. That I'm talking so seriously about a piece of fiction. But this isn't a piece of fiction for the hundreds of thousands of teenagers who suffer from depression and think about killing themselves daily. 13 Reasons Why, the book as well as the TV show, is a chance to make those kids feel like they aren't alone. It has the rare ability to show how someone's suicide affects others. It gives them a chance to look at life differently, to try and give life one more chance. And like Mr. Porter, the writers ruined it.
