I am leaning towards BK, IF guilty, acting in a rage, a long simmering rage based upon anger and resentment from a life full of rejection.
It is not at all like what you described above, however. It is not about him asking one of the girls to coffee and being 'rejected.' It is based upon an entire lifetime of loneliness, rejection and being ignored and/or bullied.
The girls in the King Street house were the perfect example of what he could never have in adolescence. They were the hot, popular girls who decided if ANY girls would bother to hang out with you. The mean girls, that run the social circles and can be so petty and cruel.
This is my theory:
He was fat and awkward as a child , his dad was the school maintenance man and his parents filed for bankruptcy-twice. All that places him on the bottom of the social totem pole. Then he had the vision problems which made him unable to do many activities that other kids take for granted.
He worked extremely hard to lose 100 pounds by his senior year but even that wasn't enough to gain the social acceptance and popularity he so strongly desired. But he did learn to box so he himself became a bully according to somme of his friends. He was angry and aggressive. And he began zoning out on heroin and pills to mask the inner emotional struggles.
By the time he was in college, he probably was reading and aligning himself with some of the most misogynistic online groups, who developed elaborate, sexist theories to blame others for their plight, based upon the belief that women are shallow, stupid and cruel — exclusively choosing only a handful of the most attractive men to be with and disdaining the rest. All men should deserve a chance with women, but some men [ like Ethan] have all the luck, while they get left out.
[obviously I don't agree with any to that^^^]
So these 'lucky' men are also objects of his hate and will receive the rage that has been building up.
No, to the ^^^ above because you are using 'women' as a broad term.He didn't hate all women---just the ones who bullied him./ignored/rejected him
Yes, he had friends who were women. But not the women who were popular and gorgeous, like he thinks he deserves. His friends you discussed were heroin buddies who would sometimes wallow in pity like he was doing. Or others who were also feeling like outcasts, most likely.
Yes, but it is important to look at specifically 'who' was bullying him. In my theory, based upon my years working in the school system, it was the 'popular' kids that were being aggressive towards him and humiliating him. Males and females.
That kind of treatment, for years on end ,creates a tremendous amount of emotional and psychological damage.
But this small group of friends might have been reenforcing his anger and resentment, by also feeling like losers and outcasts. NOT ALL KIDS FALL INTO THAT TRAP. Many find their own niche and become talented in their own right, and have strong support groups which help them overcome the inner struggles.
But from what I can make out of BK's early history, that didn't really happen. He turned to heroin, instead of sports, or band, or drama club, or ROTC...so he did not find a solid group of stable friends.
I think in the PHD years he was still a loner and still a bit of an outcast but an angry rebellious one, imo.
He did dislike and resent people , in general, imo. But he still saw women, specifically beautiful, popular women, as the trigger for his inner anger and turmoil.
EXACTLY--- to stab that many people so brutally and so quickly, translates into a lot of anger.
You are right---had nothing to do with anyone saying 'no' to a coffee date. It was way past that time.
In some ways, this was a kind of road rage. He had soooooooo much anger and resentment inside that it finally boiled over.
The King Street Party House was the perfect trigger.
It is not about being rejected for a date. It is about a deep inner rage based upon the belief that he will NEVER ever have the experience of a beautiful, popular woman desiring him and loving him and will never have other males respecting him , etc. And he was going to get vengeance for that travesty. That is my basic theory of what he was feeling when he flipped out and went for it.