Do you think they died disappointed?

I get this nagging feeling that the boys died very disappointed.
Yes, they technically got their revenge by killing people, but the bombs didn't detonate, and Dylan stated he hoped to kill 250 people in total, far more than the 13 who lost their lives.

A part of me wonders if in their final moments, they thought they would go down in history as the kids who failed to bomb their school.
I also wonder if they ever thought of how Columbine would be a world wide term, still used 20 years later.

They never got their Tarantino directed feature film, but most definitely became infamous.

What is your opinion on the matter, would you say they were probably satisfied with the outcome, or would you say that Columbine was more of a failure in the end, and they probably died disappointed?

Yes, I do. They both thought they were going to kill hundred of people. They didn't even kill a quarter of that. As you stated, the bombs never went off. Their entire idea was pretty much a big flop. The last final desperate moments to set of the bombs never worked either. I can't imagine them being anything but disappointed. Maybe they realized they had made a mistake if only for the fact it didn't go as planned.

I agree it was a disappointment to them as well. hvernon hit the nail on the head. They failed at everything they wanted to accomplish except for it being the day they died. I doubt they even discussed their failure. I would imagine Eric did the hand signal for suicide and that was the end.

I wonder if there is video of them real time committing suicide? I know the recording would be too graphic to see, but just to see what their last words were.

You can tell by Dylan's body language in the last moments of the cafeteria footage that he is totally drained

bradt93 wrote:

I wonder if there is video of them real time committing suicide? I know the recording would be too graphic to see, but just to see what their last words were.

There were no cameras in the library. The cafeteria video is the last footage of the boys we'll ever see. When you consider footage of school shooters inside their schools almost never gets released, what we have is pretty awesome.

On top of those thoughts I often do wonder if they realized they didn't like killing. It sure isn't how it goes in the movies. The sights and smells... I wonder if they were affected by any of it. Not in the heat of the moment but afterward, when they were just walking around. Did they think of what they had done fully? Or push it out of their minds.

I wish we could know their last (esp Eric) thoughts.

If one believes that Dylan primarily wanted to die and didn’t care all that Much about the bombs then he’s the only one that got what he wanted.

Lizpuff, I’ve thought that too. I do think killing wasn’t as thrilling as they imagined.

I think that’s another reason he told Val to shut up. I think Dylan once write about how he wanted to hear screams (I think in Eric’s yearbook) but actually being up close it wasn’t as”fun”

Good points!
I get the sense that the actual shooting was nowhere near as exciting as they hyped it up to be.
I feel that at the start they had a huge adrenaline rush, but as soon as the bombs failed, the morale dropped big time.

From the standpoint of planning, Columbine was a giant flop, as 90% of what they planned didn't go as expected.

It's hard to imagine that they died satisfied.

I still wonder why many don’t look at Eric’s death as a suicide or talk about his thoughts on dying etc..

It’s always “sad Dylan was sad, then angry. His death was a suicide”

Eric, at least, probably died disapointed. He was the bomb-maker, he worked for year on it, and his bombs fizzled. I doubt Dylan was nearly as invested in the bombs as Eric. And of course, when Eric died, he did not know that people would still be talking about it 20 years later, that the word "Columbine" would become synonymous with the attack, and that he would become the de facto leader of a whole new crop of shooters (unfortunately!)

Screamingophelia wrote:

I still wonder why many don’t look at Eric’s death as a suicide or talk about his thoughts on dying etc..  

It’s always “sad Dylan was sad, then angry. His death was a suicide”

Some of that may be due to his "psychopath" label. I wonder if people throw that word around as a way of calling him "evil" without invoking theology. A "scientific evil" so to speak. Then they can  just write him off, and don't have to consider that he was a real human who had issues - just as much as Dylan. And of course, the mantra "Eric wanted to kill, Dylan wanted to die" that gets repeated overlooks Eric's suicide completely.

They did get what they wanted... followers, women even now wishing they could have been with them, movies/plays/books/music all about them...copycats

It certainly resonates past their own generation.

So true. I always found it sad that Eric wasn’t considered a suicide (even though it was). The one person who claims she has submersed herself in suicide awareness and prevention (Sue) never once brought to light that Eric committed suicide. She still points the Cullen finger at Eric.

mamaStardust wrote:

Eric, at least, probably died disapointed. He was the bomb-maker, he worked for year on it, and his bombs fizzled. I doubt Dylan was nearly as invested in the bombs as Eric. And of course, when Eric died, he did not know that people would still be talking about it 20 years later, that the word "Columbine" would become synonymous with the attack, and that he would become the de facto leader of a whole new crop of shooters (unfortunately!)

Screamingophelia wrote:

I still wonder why many don’t look at Eric’s death as a suicide or talk about his thoughts on dying etc..  
+
It’s always “sad Dylan was sad, then angry. His death was a suicide”

Some of that may be due to his "psychopath" label. I wonder if people throw that word around as a way of calling him "evil" without invoking theology. A "scientific evil" so to speak. Then they can  just write him off, and don't have to consider that he was a real human who had issues - just as much as Dylan. And of course, the mantra "Eric wanted to kill, Dylan wanted to die" that gets repeated overlooks Eric's suicide completely.

It's very possible that Eric was more invested in the bomb making, but seeing as Dylan was throwing out big numbers about how many he hoped to kill, he might of been just as invested as Eric, it was a team effort after all!
Not directing this at you, but to this day people still seem to downplay Dylan's involvement, making it seem like he participated in the massacre just for a reason to kill himself, but he was seemingly having the time of his life during the shooting.
This is backed up by some survivors saying Dylan was hooting and hollering more than Eric seemed to be.

I think it all goes back to the whole facade of Dylan being this poor depressive kid who just followed Eric's lead because he just wanted a reason to die, and nothing more.
Dylan had access to guns well before the shooting, and he could of easy put one of those to his head and ended it, yet he chose to stick around a bit longer and murder his innocent classmates.
Before I knew much about Columbine, I thought Eric was the "leader", but then we learned that Dylan wrote about NBK apparently long before Eric did.

Some speculate that Dylan was the one who brought up the idea to Eric, and while I guess we can never know for sure who really brought it up first, it wouldn't shock me if it was indeed Dylan.

slippy123 wrote:

mamaStardust wrote:

Eric, at least, probably died disapointed. He was the bomb-maker, he worked for year on it, and his bombs fizzled. I doubt Dylan was nearly as invested in the bombs as Eric. And of course, when Eric died, he did not know that people would still be talking about it 20 years later, that the word "Columbine" would become synonymous with the attack, and that he would become the de facto leader of a whole new crop of shooters (unfortunately!)

Screamingophelia wrote:

I still wonder why many don’t look at Eric’s death as a suicide or talk about his thoughts on dying etc..  
+
It’s always “sad Dylan was sad, then angry. His death was a suicide”

Some of that may be due to his "psychopath" label. I wonder if people throw that word around as a way of calling him "evil" without invoking theology. A "scientific evil" so to speak. Then they can  just write him off, and don't have to consider that he was a real human who had issues - just as much as Dylan. And of course, the mantra "Eric wanted to kill, Dylan wanted to die" that gets repeated overlooks Eric's suicide completely.

It's very possible that Eric was more invested in the bomb making, but seeing as Dylan was throwing out big numbers about how many he hoped to kill, he might of been just as invested as Eric, it was a team effort after all!
Not directing this at you, but to this day people still seem to downplay Dylan's involvement, making it seem like he participated in the massacre just to die, but he was seemingly having the time of his life during the shooting.
This is backed up by some survivors saying Dylan was hooting and hollering more than Eric seemed to be.

I think it all goes back to the whole facade of Dylan being this poor depressive kid who just followed Eric's lead because he just wanted to die, and nothing more.
Before I knew much about Columbine, I thought Eric was the "leader", but then we learned that Dylan wrote about NBK apparently long before Eric did.

Some even say that Dylan was the one who brought up the idea to Eric, and while I guess we can never know for sure who really brought it up first, it wouldn't shock me if it was indeed Dylan.

I definately agree that Dylan was a 50/50 partner, and probably the originator of the idea. It just seems to me that Eric was the pyrotechnics guy. His bombs were his babies. He took great pride in them. Thats why I thought Eric would be more disapointed.

SenSpiritedAway: Good point about Sue. She seems concerened about suicide, except in Eric's case. I hadn't thought about it like that!

Lizpuff wrote:

On top of those thoughts I often do wonder if they realized they didn't like killing.  It sure isn't how it goes in the movies.  The sights and smells... I wonder if they were affected by any of it.  Not in the heat of the moment but afterward, when they were just walking around.  Did they think of what they had done fully?  Or push it out of their minds.

I wish we could know their last (esp Eric) thoughts.

This is something I've talked about quite a bit before on this forum. I fully believe that once the "high" of killing and the adrenaline wore off, Dylan and Eric realized shooting up your school isn't all it's chalked up to be. It was nothing like Doom or the Natural Born Killers movie. They wondered around aimlessly afterwards for a reason. They could have tried to get into any of the classrooms in the hall that had students in them, but neither of them bothered. Dylan and Eric realized that it just wasn't really that fun, that bombs weren't gonna go off, and they had essentially failed.

hvernon wrote:

Lizpuff wrote:

On top of those thoughts I often do wonder if they realized they didn't like killing.  It sure isn't how it goes in the movies.  The sights and smells... I wonder if they were affected by any of it.  Not in the heat of the moment but afterward, when they were just walking around.  Did they think of what they had done fully?  Or push it out of their minds.

I wish we could know their last (esp Eric) thoughts.

This is something I've talked about quite a bit before on this forum. I fully believe that once the "high" of killing and the adrenaline wore off, Dylan and Eric realized shooting up your school isn't all it's chalked up to be. It was nothing like Doom or the Natural Born Killers movie. They wondered around aimlessly afterwards for a reason. They could have tried to get into any of the classrooms in the hall that had students in them, but neither of them bothered. Dylan and Eric realized that it just wasn't really that fun, that bombs weren't gonna go off, and they had essentially failed.

I agree. They passed many classrooms where they knew people were inside and as far as we know they never once tried to shoot open the locks and get inside, which could of been easily done.
It totally seems like they were just bored, and decided to at least see if they could try and get the bombs to detonate before ending it for good.

I think they over-hyped themselves big time. From Eric's writing he pictured this giant spectacle, with the school burning down and students running out on fire as he mowed them down.
In reality there was nothing of the sort, and he shot easy targets sitting under tables.

It seems to me they let their imagination get the best of them, but as we all know, real life is nothing like the movies.