He's Got the Shine

One of the most interesting character's to me throughout this film was Danny. While it is clear from the beginning of the that he no ordinary boy, the nature of his mysterious powers of foresight, his imaginary friend "Tony", and the hotel spirits' interest in killing him, are never fully explained. The closest the audience gets to an explanation of these phenomena is when Scatman Crothers explains to Danny that both of them possess an ability to do something called "shining", which allowed Crothers to speak to his grandmother without opening his mouth. It is unknown whether "Tony" has any connection to Danny's telepathic ability. Another thing that intrigued me was the nature of Tony's writing and speaking of the words "Red rum", which is "murder" spelled backwards. It is possible that Tony spoke and wrote that words as a kind of an omen of death towards both himself and his mother, however it is also possible that he did so in an attempt to warn her of the impending danger the two of them were in. There is genuine evidence for both sides of this debate. If Tony had been doing this in order to warn Wendy, why would did he not just warn her directly, instead of writing and speaking in a coded backwards messages? However, if he intended it to be an evil omen, and not as a warning, why did he write the words on a door so that she could see them in a mirror, which would allow her to read them forwards, and realize the danger she was in? This ambiguity of Danny's character and his powers allows the audience to reach conclusions on their own, which is one of the aspects of this film that makes it truly great.