What is the general consensus on Dylan and Eric around here?

So this is the first Columbine site/forum I have ever joined. I've always opted to research this thing on my own. I have long been drawn to the mysterious aura surrounding this shooting for reasons I am unable to fully explain.

As such, I was wondering what the general conensus on the shooters' motives were around here, how they were in life, their personalities, etc.

I do hope that this forum does not believe that the main motive of the shooting was as black and white as "O DEY WER BULIED LOL XD" and that there was something deeper happening, and that there won't be a million people responding to this praising them mindlessly. I've read a few threads here, and I have high hopes that you guys are more intelligent than alot of other Columbiners(not to try to be a pompous giant asshole or an egotistical jerkwad or anything of course. I just hate seeing people go "O YA IT WAS JUT BULYIN LOL" without a second thought)


Now then - personally, having read Eric and Dylan's journals, and read some statistics on just how many shots the two of them had fired during the shooting, I came to the conclusion that Eric was the more aggressive of the duo.

I'm not saying he was the ring leader, or that Dylan was innocent, just that Eric was more aggressive. Perhaps Dylan was teeming with hatred underneath his feelings of sorrow. It would explain why he was so destructive in the library.

I have always thought of it like this: Eric was the one who instigated everything, and Dylan just came along for the ride - he was extremely depressed, and had tried suicide before/wanted to die, but he couldn't gather the will to do it.

No, Dylan needed something to push him over the edge - push him to the point of no return. Something where the only way out was to kill himself. Columbine was his point of no return.


Now then, I'm curious - what is the consensus around here?

Is the consensus that Eric was a psychopath and Dylan was a depressive, or Dylan was the psychopath and Eric was the depressive, or both of them were psychopaths? I hate using the word "psychopath". It's so damn black and white.

anonacc489 wrote:

So this is the first Columbine site/forum I have ever joined. I've always opted to research this thing on my own. I have long been drawn to the mysterious aura surrounding this shooting for reasons I am unable to fully explain.

As such, I was wondering what the general conensus on the shooters' motives were around here, how they were in life, their personalities, etc.

I do hope that this forum does not believe that the main motive of the shooting was as black and white as "O DEY WER BULIED LOL XD" and that there was something deeper happening, and that there won't be a million people responding to this praising them mindlessly. I've read a few threads here, and I have high hopes that you guys are more intelligent than alot of other Columbiners(not to try to be a pompous giant asshole or an egotistical jerkwad or anything of course. I just hate seeing people go "O YA IT WAS JUT BULYIN LOL" without a second thought)


Now then - personally, having read Eric and Dylan's journals, and read some statistics on just how many shots the two of them had fired during the shooting, I came to the conclusion that Eric was the more aggressive of the duo.

I'm not saying he was the ring leader, or that Dylan was innocent, just that Eric was more aggressive. Perhaps Dylan was teeming with hatred underneath his feelings of sorrow. It would explain why he was so destructive in the library.

I have always thought of it like this: Eric was the one who instigated everything, and Dylan just came along for the ride - he was extremely depressed, and had tried suicide before/wanted to die, but he couldn't gather the will to do it.

No, Dylan needed something to push him over the edge - push him to the point of no return. Something where the only way out was to kill himself. Columbine was his point of no return.


Now then, I'm curious - what is the consensus around here?

Is the consensus that Eric was a psychopath and Dylan was a depressive, or Dylan was the psychopath and Eric was the depressive, or both of them were psychopaths? I hate using the word "psychopath". It's so damn black and white.

There are tons of threads answering your questions, and even more on the topic of who was the aggressor, were they psychopaths, depressives, etc, especially after Sue's book just came out.
I'd check out the search feature and see what you can find, as there are alot of older topics that are rich with information from people who really did their homework when it comes to Columbine.

slippy123 wrote:

anonacc489 wrote:

So this is the first Columbine site/forum I have ever joined. I've always opted to research this thing on my own. I have long been drawn to the mysterious aura surrounding this shooting for reasons I am unable to fully explain.

As such, I was wondering what the general conensus on the shooters' motives were around here, how they were in life, their personalities, etc.

I do hope that this forum does not believe that the main motive of the shooting was as black and white as "O DEY WER BULIED LOL XD" and that there was something deeper happening, and that there won't be a million people responding to this praising them mindlessly. I've read a few threads here, and I have high hopes that you guys are more intelligent than alot of other Columbiners(not to try to be a pompous giant asshole or an egotistical jerkwad or anything of course. I just hate seeing people go "O YA IT WAS JUT BULYIN LOL" without a second thought)


Now then - personally, having read Eric and Dylan's journals, and read some statistics on just how many shots the two of them had fired during the shooting, I came to the conclusion that Eric was the more aggressive of the duo.

I'm not saying he was the ring leader, or that Dylan was innocent, just that Eric was more aggressive. Perhaps Dylan was teeming with hatred underneath his feelings of sorrow. It would explain why he was so destructive in the library.

I have always thought of it like this: Eric was the one who instigated everything, and Dylan just came along for the ride - he was extremely depressed, and had tried suicide before/wanted to die, but he couldn't gather the will to do it.

No, Dylan needed something to push him over the edge - push him to the point of no return. Something where the only way out was to kill himself. Columbine was his point of no return.


Now then, I'm curious - what is the consensus around here?

Is the consensus that Eric was a psychopath and Dylan was a depressive, or Dylan was the psychopath and Eric was the depressive, or both of them were psychopaths? I hate using the word "psychopath". It's so damn black and white.

There are tons of threads answering your questions, and even more on the topic of who was the aggressor, especially after Sue's book just came out.
I'd check out the search feature and see what you can find, as there are alot of older topics that are rich with information from people who really did their homework when it comes to Columbine.

Hello Slippy,
Yeah I've been spending the past hour reading through some posts here, and I've started to notice that the majority of people here think Dylan was the psychopath who used Eric as a means to an end. That's definitely interesting and plausible.

Thanks for the post.

anonacc489 wrote:

slippy123 wrote:

anonacc489 wrote:

So this is the first Columbine site/forum I have ever joined. I've always opted to research this thing on my own. I have long been drawn to the mysterious aura surrounding this shooting for reasons I am unable to fully explain.

As such, I was wondering what the general conensus on the shooters' motives were around here, how they were in life, their personalities, etc.

I do hope that this forum does not believe that the main motive of the shooting was as black and white as "O DEY WER BULIED LOL XD" and that there was something deeper happening, and that there won't be a million people responding to this praising them mindlessly. I've read a few threads here, and I have high hopes that you guys are more intelligent than alot of other Columbiners(not to try to be a pompous giant asshole or an egotistical jerkwad or anything of course. I just hate seeing people go "O YA IT WAS JUT BULYIN LOL" without a second thought)


Now then - personally, having read Eric and Dylan's journals, and read some statistics on just how many shots the two of them had fired during the shooting, I came to the conclusion that Eric was the more aggressive of the duo.

I'm not saying he was the ring leader, or that Dylan was innocent, just that Eric was more aggressive. Perhaps Dylan was teeming with hatred underneath his feelings of sorrow. It would explain why he was so destructive in the library.

I have always thought of it like this: Eric was the one who instigated everything, and Dylan just came along for the ride - he was extremely depressed, and had tried suicide before/wanted to die, but he couldn't gather the will to do it.

No, Dylan needed something to push him over the edge - push him to the point of no return. Something where the only way out was to kill himself. Columbine was his point of no return.


Now then, I'm curious - what is the consensus around here?

Is the consensus that Eric was a psychopath and Dylan was a depressive, or Dylan was the psychopath and Eric was the depressive, or both of them were psychopaths? I hate using the word "psychopath". It's so damn black and white.

There are tons of threads answering your questions, and even more on the topic of who was the aggressor, especially after Sue's book just came out.
I'd check out the search feature and see what you can find, as there are alot of older topics that are rich with information from people who really did their homework when it comes to Columbine.

Hello Slippy,
Yeah I've been spending the past hour reading through some posts here, and I've started to notice that the majority of people here think Dylan was the psychopath who used Eric as a means to an end. That's definitely interesting and plausible.

Thanks for the post.

People have all different opinions here. Some think Eric was this ringleader, and Dylan was the follower.
Some think Eric was having the time of his life while Dylan really wasn't into it, based on his low shot and kill count,
and some think both were psychopaths, or just Eric, while Dylan was a depressive.

Unfortunately, you can't properly diagnose a dead person. So a definitive answer isn't possible, its complete speculation.
As a matter of fact, ALOT of questions are all speculation, since none of us were there or knew them.

I think that critiquing a lot of Columbiners as unintelligent is way too sweeping a judgement.
Many are very intelligent and there are great artists, writers, musicians among them.

Basically, you are extolling the Cullen version of events. While there are a few true believers in his theories here, Cullen and his work are very unpopular around here and for good reason.

PaintItBlack wrote:

I think that critiquing a lot of Columbiners as unintelligent is way too sweeping a judgement.
Many are very intelligent and there are great artists, writers, musicians among them.

Basically, you are extolling the Cullen version of events. While there are a few true believers in his theories here, Cullen and his work are very unpopular around here and for good reason.

Looking at it now, I don't really think they're actually even Columbiners.
They don't really do alot of researching at all - they just immediately jump to "well a google search said bullying was/could have been a cause so lol they must have been bullied lol."

I apologize to anyone offended by the OP. I wouldn't want to do any mass generalization. :#

I wasn't offended.It is just a common misconception that I feel needs to be corrected.

I haven't researched D&E for as long as a lot of users here. But personally and so far, I think there was a lot of problems going on in that school. And it's not a far fetched reasoning as to why it gave birth to D&E. I believe they started as good guys. They just want happiness, love, and acceptance like most people. But they were low on the social scale which doesn't bring lots of good things. Especially Dylan. I think he is a highly sensitive and emotional person. (Although I haven't dug deeper with Eric yet, because I think there is something with Dylan that I can relate to more) not to mention the anti depressants they were put on (I need to do more research on this) but sometimes they can do more harm than good. Especially mixed with alcohol etc. Anyway they both were clearly unsatisfied and hated life and felt it couldn't offer nothing with substance to them. And hated how society works overall. They saw all the flaws and those out weighed the good tremendously. So D&E I believe was fate they both felt the same and both wanted to do what they did nearly equally. And yes Dylan first contemplated suicide before doing the school shooting so people think Eric got him into the idea. But I bet Dylan thought about suicide everyday same with Eric. It's just that they both decided they wanted to send a message while committing suicide. This is were they are a little different although they probably agreed on both of there messages but more so to there own. In basic reasoning here to keep it short, Dylans message was wrath meaning he is angry with humans and wants his revenge. He wanted the world to feel his wrath and the people that caused it. Eric message was natural selection I'm not completely sure yet but yea I think he sees the people high on the social ladder as scum of the earth and he needs to "cleanse", take out these negative people who are negative on society. Or just who can run faster than his gun I don't know yet.

P.S. I forgot to add. Ok so instead of having a quiet normal suicide they both wanted to send a message to what they felt had caused there emotional pain. Wrath and natural selection. This could be researched deeper but I want to add gun control was definitely not there message they wanted people to know. Not at all. But the media made it out to be all about gun control which is a shame.

I don't think that Eric was the psychopath who drew Dylan into his web, or vice versa. Both boys had a magnetic attraction to one another. Both wanted to kill and both wanted to die.

Squid wrote:

I haven't researched D&E for as long as a lot of users here. But personally and so far, I think there was a lot of problems going on in that school. And it's not a far fetched reasoning as to why it gave birth to D&E. I believe they started as good guys. They just want happiness, love, and acceptance like most people. But they were low on the social scale which doesn't bring lots of good things. Especially Dylan. I think he is a highly sensitive and emotional person. (Although I haven't dug deeper with Eric yet, because I think there is something with Dylan that I can relate to more) not to mention the anti depressants they were put on (I need to do more research on this) but sometimes they can do more harm than good. Especially mixed with alcohol etc. Anyway they both were clearly unsatisfied and hated life and felt it couldn't offer nothing with substance to them. And hated how society works overall. They saw all the flaws and those out weighed the good tremendously. So D&E I believe was fate they both felt the same and both wanted to do what they did nearly equally. And yes Dylan first contemplated suicide before doing the school shooting so people think Eric got him into the idea. But I bet Dylan thought about suicide everyday same with Eric. It's just that they both decided they wanted to send a message while committing suicide. This is were they are a little different although they probably agreed on both of there messages but more so to there own. In basic reasoning here to keep it short, Dylans message was wrath meaning he is angry with humans and wants his revenge. He wanted the world to feel his wrath and the people that caused it. Eric message was natural selection I'm not completely sure yet but yea I think he sees the people high on the social ladder as scum of the earth and he needs to "cleanse", take out these negative people who are negative on society. Or just who can run faster than his gun I don't know yet.

You're on the money with most things you wrote.

I don't really blame one more than the other, but I don't think either of them would have gone through with the massacre without the other.  They were the perfect combo of apathy and misanthropy.

anonacc489 wrote:

Now then - personally, having read Eric and Dylan's journals, and read some statistics on just how many shots the two of them had fired during the shooting, I came to the conclusion that Eric was the more aggressive of the duo.

I'm not saying he was the ring leader, or that Dylan was innocent, just that Eric was more aggressive. Perhaps Dylan was teeming with hatred underneath his feelings of sorrow. It would explain why he was so destructive in the library.

I have always thought of it like this: Eric was the one who instigated everything, and Dylan just came along for the ride - he was extremely depressed, and had tried suicide before/wanted to die, but he couldn't gather the will to do it.

No, Dylan needed something to push him over the edge - push him to the point of no return. Something where the only way out was to kill himself. Columbine was his point of no return.


Now then, I'm curious - what is the consensus around here?

Is the consensus that Eric was a psychopath and Dylan was a depressive, or Dylan was the psychopath and Eric was the depressive, or both of them were psychopaths? I hate using the word "psychopath". It's so damn black and white.

Your interpretation is the same as that of most professional experts who have looked into the case, but it is not the consensus on this board.

There are many on the board who claim bullying was the primary cause of the shooting.

Quote :

Your interpretation is the same as that of most professional experts who have looked into the case, but it is not the consensus on this board.

There are many on the board who claim bullying was the primary cause of the shooting.

I have never said that bullying was the primary cause, but I do believe that it was one of the causes.

Columbine was a "perfect storm" - a toxic soup made up of many ingredients.

Eric and Dylan were at or near the bottom of the social totem pole at Columbine High School. They resented their lack of status. They felt a profound sense of alienation from the other kids at CHS.

But there are lots of kids who are left out of the social whirl. There are lots of kids who are bullied, sometimes to the point of being beaten to a bloody pulp. There are very few kids who go on shooting sprees.

Cullen would have you believe that Eric was a swaggering, pussy-pounding ladies' man who "got lots and lots of girls" and "outscored the football team." That is patently absurd - he was a short, scrawny, geeky little guy with anger-management issues. Dylan may or may not have been a depressive, but he was most assuredly not a cowering little emo who shat his pants every time Eric disagreed with him. Dylan was not afraid of Eric.

I've always conceded that, at some level, mental illness played a role in what they did. I might even be willing to concede that both boys were "broken," in some way. But if Eric was broken, then Dylan was, as well.