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The characters are not only believable, but they’re relatable. Oftentimes, when books, movies, and TV shows discuss bullying and suicide, they’re almost too unreal, especially when it comes to the reactions of the parents and neighborhood. (I’m looking at you, Stephen King and William Shakespeare.) But in 13 Reasons Why, Hannah Baker is a very real, relatable person, and so are the people around her. As she explains throughout the story, it wasn’t one person that led her to her suicide, but thirteen – and all thirteen of these people aren’t portrayed as vicious, heartless monsters, but as real teenagers with flaws.
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No matter who you are and where you came from, you’ll get something from it. Liberty High is not any specific high school but is almost every high school across the country. The students are regular students, who take regular classes and do regular activities. Every student, no matter where they went to high school, will most likely be able to see themselves in at least one of the characters, or at least one of the scenarios.
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It not only shows that rape culture is real but comes out and hits you in the face with it. Throughout the whole of the show, the characters express over and over again that Hannah’s story is not real, that she’s “telling lies,” but until almost the end, we don’t know exactly what “lies” she’s telling until it turns out being that she was raped. The other people on the tapes want her story to be silenced, to keep her assault a secret from the rest of the world when in reality it seems to answer all of the questions asked throughout the series. She is blamed for her own rape, then silenced by her classmates – and even when they have the ability and opportunity to tell her story, they do not.
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Hannah’s story is very, very real, and is not romanticized. Hannah Baker is not just a sob story for people to feel bad about, but a very real, common scenario, especially in high school and college settings. People mourn her, people ask why people feel bad and want to take action. Her parents are heartbroken, at war with themselves over the fact that they simply didn’t know she felt that way, which is sometimes just how it is. Many are hurt in the process. Unlike many other outlets, Hannah’s suicide is not romanticized, and when it is, it is immediately shot down by one of the students. Her suicide becomes very real and extremely relatable.
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It’s not only a story about suicide, but about bullying… Jay Asher makes the story encompass a collection of topics, not just suicide. Suicide is not the be-all end-all of the story, and every episode talks about new, important topics beyond that, including bullying. Hannah’s parents are attempting to sue the school because they did nothing about her being bullied. It’s not just Hannah, either, but bullying is rampant throughout the school.
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… rape… Hannah’s story is one about rape, and it is not a topic shied away from throughout the course of the series. Although it isn’t mentioned outright for most of the series, you still know what’s going on. And it’s not just Hannah that gets raped, it’s not portrayed as the one event that led her to the edge to killing herself, but is shown as an event that is somewhat regular at parties like the one Hannah goes to. It’s normalized, not romanticized or shied away from.
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… drugs… While there are very few parts of the story that really focus on alcohol, there are two scenes in particular that I’m thinking of when discussing alcohol. The first is when Clay is peer pressured into drinking outside the general store after he is cornered and threatened by the other boys from the tape. It is their first shot at “silencing” him, making him afraid of them enough to know that he is not going to tell anyone, and while he does down the bottle of alcohol like they told him to, it did not stop him. The second is when Hannah takes Jess home from the winter formal after the boys have made her drunk. As Hannah helps her into the car, she tells her that she “saw the sharks circling, and pulled [her] into the boat” – she was afraid that Jess was going to get assaulted because of her drunken state, and decided to save her before it was too late, even though Jess was on the list of reasons why and had broken their friendship. Hannah saw someone that was in need of help but unable to ask for it, and she did the right thing even though that person had hurt her in the past.
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… rumors… Most of the “reasons why” are either people that have spread rumors about Hannah, like Justin and Courtney, or people that have used her to see if the rumors are true, like Marcus. It all begins with the rumor that Hannah is a slut who put out on her first date with Justin, even though all they did was make out; that rumor quickly escalates when her name is put on a list that goes around school, giving her the “best ass.” People continuously bully her and make fun of her because of it, and people like Marcus even ask her out to see if the rumors are true. A second rumor comes about when she is being stalked and her stalker takes a picture of her making out with another girl, which goes around the school, and even though no one seems to know that it’s her, the “other girl,” Courtney, spreads the rumor that it’s Hannah and a different girl because she is afraid of the repercussions of the students learning it is her. It really is the rumors, above anything else, that lead Hannah down the path to suicide, though they are rumors that came about because of other problems in her life.
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… and homosexuality. The main reason that Courtney spreads the rumor that Hannah is a lesbian is because she is worried how the school would react if they learned that she was one. She tells a story about her gay dads and all of the abuse they went through when people learned about them, and she fears to receive the same abuse. Further, Ryan, a student who writes for the school newspaper, is openly gay, as well, though we never really see the school react to it. Tony, the keeper of the tapes and the person who blames himself the most for Hannah’s suicide because he wasn’t there when she needed him to be, is also gay, which is part of the reason Hannah liked him to begin with: he never treated her like the other boys did.
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People’s actions will get your heart pumping. Clay does a lot of things to get back at the people who hurt Hannah, many of them a little extreme. There are fight scenes, emotional scenes, and scenes that will make you just plain angry. Not an episode will go by without drawing up some kind of emotion, good or bad (mainly bad), and in the end, you’ll most likely be changed, hopefully for the better. (We even get to watch Hannah physically kill herself, a scene which drew myself, and everyone I’ve spoken to/read about it, to tears, and even more.)
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You really start to have feelings for the characters, especially Hannah’s parents and Mr. Porter, the guidance counselor… Many of the characters are relatively alright people, especially the parents. Hannah’s parents make you feel a lot of things, especially once it comes time for the trial: they care(d) enough for their daughter to sue the school over bullying, to continuously go through her things and ask themselves what they did wrong, and what they can do to make it better. They are heartbroken, slowly falling apart by the loss of their daughter, and need to know why. And Mr. Porter, the guidance counselor tries his best to solve what has happened, to talk to the people why may have been involved to try to get to the bottom of it all (maybe because he blames himself??). He seems to be such a good guy, who really cares about the students.
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… and Clay. Oh, Clay. Clay is such a deep, complex character. Is he always doing the right thing? Is he doing what’s best for Hannah? And, further, is he doing it to make himself feel better, or is he really doing it because he loved her? Clay just does so much all the time, and whether you think he does it for himself or for Hannah, he still seems to be the only person that actually wants to do anything instead of just sitting back and trying to keep everything a secret.
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It’s not just about the boys. I saved this one for last because I think it’s the most important: she doesn’t just blame the boys. It’s not just the boy’s faults that she was raped, and that she was bullied, and that she killed herself. And while it is a majority of boys, not all of them are on the tapes specifically related to her assault. She doesn’t just blame her rape but attributes all of the actions that led up to it. The bullies at her school are both male and female: everyone is the bad guy.
13 Reasons Why is not just another show you can binge watch on Netflix, but a class to action – it’s a rollercoaster of emotions that never, ever ends, even when it does. It will leave you crying in a corner, calling up all the people that you may have wronged, because it may have been you. We all see ourselves in the characters, so much so that it hurts sometimes. And maybe that’s why the characters are written so well, yet so able to relate to. We are all one of the characters. Maybe you’re Clay; maybe you’re Tony, Justin, or even Bryce, who sits at a place of privilege and doesn’t think he has done any wrong. Maybe you’re Mr. Porter.
But, please, please, please, if you think you’re Hannah, find help. There are still people that want to make you feel better, that want to read your poetry. People that love you, that care about you.
If you are thinking about suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or the Suicide Crisis Line at 1-800-784-2433.