Chris Hargensen

**Christine Hargensen**, best known as **Chris Hargensen** is a supporting antagonist of Stephen King’s first horror novel, Carrie.

She is the beautiful and wealthy 17-year-old daughter of John Hargensen a successful lawyer and a student at the local public Ewen High School in the town of Chamberlain, Maine. She is the archenemy of Carrie White.

## Novel

All that is known about Chris is that she is the beautiful and popular leader of a well known group at Ewen High School called The Mortimer Snerds. Apparently she had a long history of bullying unpopular or outcast fellow classmates especially Carrie White and has been sent to detention 73 times in 4 years.

Chris had also been known to slip a firecracker into the shoe of a girl with a harelip and blew her two front toes off. Also Chris was more vulgar. For example, Chris called Mr. Grayle a "co\*\*sucker" and stood up to Miss Desjardin before getting slammed into a group of lockers. As a result she was banned from the prom. Later after setting the prom night prank into motion, Chris and Billy Nolan attempted to make love inside of a roadhouse until they were interrupted by a fellow classmate named Jackie Talbot who warned them that their school and their town were burning to the ground.

Some time afterward just as Carrie arrived at the roadhouse's parking lot Chris and Billy hurried to his car started it up and made their way towards the bloodied and weakened Carrie thinking that they were going to run her over and put the finishing touch on their plans. Being telekinetic Carrie took control of the car with her mind and sent it and its passengers into the roadhouse. The car exploded and set the building on fire killing them both.

## 1976 Film

    Chris Hargensen is portrayed by Nancy Allen in the the 1976 film. She is very rebellious, unfazed by authority figures and manipulative. Still she is even more dangerous because she is in every way the driving force behind the evil prank.

She initiated the shower incident with Carrie White and when she and the other girls in her class were forced to serve a special kind of detention with Miss Collins she refused to cooperate on all fronts and was banned from the prom. Afterwards it was almost second nature in Chris's eyes to blame Carrie for her new troubles and looked for any way to destroy her and turned to her boyfriend, Billy Nolan who is more of a follower than a leader. The pair went out driving one night and Chris used this as the perfect opportunity to spin her noodle headed beau around her finger once more and get him to do something for her. Billy was virtually clueless until he heard Chris say "Billy, I hate Carrie White”. A couple of nights later Chris, Billy and 2 of his friends crept into a pig farm with the intent on pulling a "prank" and that prank turned out to be one of them killing a helpless pig, draining it’s blood and pouring it into a bucket. But there was more to it. Billy and Chris later broke into the Bates High School gym where they climbed a ladder up towards the rafters placed the bucket on one of them and poured the pig´s blood into it. Chris was getting impatient and wanted to go home. Billy told her that if she kept cool she would get to pull the rope on the bucket when everything was ready. Chris all too happily obliged. Chris was seen the next day with a friend of Billy's, Freddy DeLois talking to the prom committee leader, Ernest Peterson Freddy convinced Ernest to allow him to collect the ballots for the prom king and queen and Ernest agreed. But when he was asked to be at school at 6:30 p.m. Freddy did not want any of that and blurted out that he would arrive at 8:00 p.m. Ernest was a bit discouraged but consented nonetheless. Later during the prom Chris and Billy spent most of their time hiding under the stage, looking for Carrie and her date, Tommy Ross. The 2 were also looking around for Freddy and Norma Watson to see if they were collecting the ballots for prom king and queen. They were until Norma and Freddy retired to the other side of the stage where Norma kicked the real ballots behind her and pulled another set of "ballots" from Freddy's coat. She gave these to the small king and queen committee who were counting the votes and then headed over to the stage's stairwell and gave it a small tap. Chris and Billy peeked their heads out to acknowledge the "signal". Chris continued tugging restlessly at the rope all while Carrie and Tommy were heading to the stage to be crowned king and queen. Later she watched as Sue Snell was dragged from out of the prom by Miss Collins. As soon as the doors were closed again Chris pulled the rope tied to the bucket of blood. The applause and cheers were silenced and soon many of the kids and teachers began laughing at what they had seen. As their "work" was done Billy and Chris quickly and happily found the nearest exit and fled out of it. Of course they had a window side view through which to see the results of the actions and Carrie had suddenly gone into a trance-like state and began destroying the prom and everyone inside much to the shock of Chris and Billy. Chris also saw Miss Collins die and looked horrified. The pair then ran off feeling as though their plan had backfired. Later, Chris and Billy chanced after Carrie as she was apparently walking home. Chris was horrified about what happened at the prom and devastated about the death of her best friend, Norma and planned to avenge her. Chris revved up the car and footed the gas pedal heading straight towards Carrie.

It seemed as though she would finally strike down her "enemy" and have avenge everyone but it was Carrie who struck the final blow with her telekinesis. She took control of the car away from Chris and sent it rolling into a clearing for a few yards. After a while the vehicle exploded undoubtedly killing Chris and Billy.

## Trivia

* Despite Chris being the secondary antagonist she was more of an enemy to Carrie White but Margaret White the main antagonist needed to be revealed after Chris' death.

* Chris was the main antagonist for the majority of the films but was ultimately killed off to make way for the true main villain to take over.

* She is the polar opposite of Carrie, Chris is a spoiled brat and unlike Carrie possesses only a faint moral or ethical centre and is generally considered strikingly attractive.

* She is one of the most cruel and sadistic villains in Stephen King's books. As well as one of the most hated by fans.

* Some fans consider Chris to be even worse than Margaret as Chris wanted to torment Carrie relentlessly despite the fact she knew what the consequences would be while Margaret suffered from a mental illness which caused her to be deluded into thinking that her abuse towards Carrie was justified. Even worse Chris is technically the one who started The Black Prom as she drove Carrie insane who was happy and cheerful before the event after dumping pig's blood on her. It is highly likely that she didn't know or even care that her friends were killed as a result of her cruel actions as she was too focused on taking down Carrie completely even to the point of murder.