Video of James Holmes emerges (ABC)

[JHB]

4. It is... and isn't

We're going to have to see what was going through his mind as he started taking his nosedive, but focusing too quickly on the fantasy vs reality part can lead you in the wrong direction.

I recall quite clearly from my teenage years how some people seemed to think I and my friends would commit mass suicide or go on some rampage because we played Dungeons & Dragons. I was especially galled at religious fundamentalists who don't believe magic is fictional ("I'm having my grip on reality questioned by someone who really believes in evil spirits?", and people took them seriously because they were "concerned parents" and we were teenagers doing something "weird".

Today my friends are engineers, college faculty, salesmen, and assorted other middle-class careers.

Also recall that at this stage after Coumbine all the talk was of trenchcoats and bullying, when the full story seems to be that one had some severe personality problems and the other a willing enabler.

Don't make too much of the early dribs and drabs.