FAQ: THE DEATH OF FUCHS - MURDER OR SUICIDE?
Here's another sticky topic I'm surprised no one has fished about. Fuchs could bring answers to many other questions on this board. How did Fuchs burn himself with a single flair? If he was in fact murdered, why would an imitation burn him? Or was it a human? The main culprit for this crime is Blair, whom knew Fuchs was working on another -*test*-('") and studying the organism in his absense. There is still the possibility of Palmer. However, Norris was probably supposed to be keeping watch of Copper, Clark, and Gary. Many could argue that Norris was not infected yet at this point, which would explain why these men aren't infected. I can't see much incentive for a human to kill Fuchs, everyone pretty much left him alone.

I Can't say he suicided himself. You guys remember the moment when some shadow or silhouette passed by? I think that that guy killed Fuchs. So i think it might be Palmer. When Mac asked to go find Fuchs, Palmer started talking like a *uhm* kid. Whining that he doesn't want to go with Windows. Why? Maybe because he didn't trust Windows? Or Maybe he was afraid to find Fuchs burned body? So in short I'll say Murder.

But why would a Palmer-imitation burn him instead of assimilating him?

That he couldn't find a way to find out who's who maybe?

Maybe imitation decided that there was too little time for assimilating so it killed Fuchs instead. Less risky and time-consuming while decreasing number of humans by one.

i think.....
Fuchs was murdered by either norris or palmer...because they both had the flamethrowers.....one of them could've torched him...a single flare didnt kill him... or its possible that blair killed him.... since we know later that blair was able to leave the toolshed undetected he could've lure fuchs out from the lab and somehow knocked him out unconcious and then dumped one of those chevron fuel containers on him and then use the flare to incinerate him... we seen mac do that to bennings earlier in the movie.. fuchs was murdered because the man is a big big threat to the thing's survival...

I wrote a detailed post...then my boss came and I had to delete fast! :lol: In a nutshell, I think this was an oversight/rush job. Carpenter had to improvise since they threw out the Fuchs-On-The-Door scene. I agree he sure seemed a LOT more burnt than one would be if they just set their parka on fire with a flare. Flamethrower would seem to be involved. But surely someone would have seen such a bright fiery blast RIGHT outside the main building like that. This one remains a mystery for me. It at least gives Fuchs some honor if he took himself out though...

I just cannot imagine how it's possible that 'the lights went out for an hour'..... That means that people didn't move out in groups, but alone....what a horror. Very likely that Fuchs was killed by an assimilation. Blair or Palmer. The body was flamed after his quick death.....making it look more 'humanlike'. I say Blair and Palmer.

Here's an alternate theory; Fuchs was murdered but it wasn't planned. Let's say that the Thing had Mac's jacket in hand and was on its way to put it in Mac's shack. The fuse happens to blow out in the lab (completely plausible), and Fuchs happens to be by the door as the Thing shuffles by. In a panicked response, Fuchs follows the Thing outside, and the Thing is aware of this, though it causes a problem. Upon going outside, the Thing drops the jacket to distract Fuchs for a few moments while it finds some means for which to dispose of him. The reason the Thing needs to do this is because if Fuchs sees who it is and goes back inside, the Thing's cover is blown. He doesn't have enough time to assimilate him, because there is the possibility of someone coming outside, and it could just be too long of a process in general. Not only that, it needs to get up to Mac's shack and back in a furious storm. That will take long enough. So while Fuchs inspects the jacket, the Thing gets ready to kill him. Fuchs gets up, looks around, and is then attacked. The jacket is saved and the Thing goes up to Mac's shack and places it where it wants and turns the lights on, then goes back inside to the main complex, hopefully in a short enough time frame to have not been noticed as missing. The only problem is what Nauls says later, that the jacket was discovered only after the wind dislodging it from the furnace. Is it then not by chance that the jacket was discovered? Hard to say. I'm not really sure what happened, but I definitely think he was murdered.

I've been giving this question alot of thought and came up with a very elaborate theory. I agree Fuchs was not supposed to be killed that night, although I think he was supposed to find the jacket that incriminates MacReady. I think one of the Things inside the camp (Palmer or Norris) snuck away when the lights went out. They walked past the room Fuchs was in to lure him outside to find the jacket. Fuchs was then supposed to bring this evidence to the others and they would end up overthrowing MacReady as their leader. MacReady was the real threat. If Fuchs was a threat, the Thing could have killed him in the room. Instead of bringing the jacket to the others, Fuchs must have done something unexpected. Maybe he went to talk to his mentor, Blair, about what he should do. He still trusted Blair to some extent, and as we have seen, Fuchs doesn't think for himself much. The problem is, Blair isn't in the tool shed though, he is outside gathering supplies for the project he is working on underneath the shed. Blair runs into Fuchs and since Fuchs has discovered Blair, Blair has no choice but to assimulate him. Realizing that the others are going to go looking for Fuchs, Blair burns another body (possibly the Norweigan's?) and plants Fuchs's glasses. Normally I would think that Blair would have just killed Fuchs, but in this theory Fuchs is now a Thing who is helping Blair with the spacecraft. This scenerio would not only answer how Blair built the spacecraft so fast, but also explain why Childs thought he saw Blair running around outside the camp when Blair was actually inside destroying the generator. Childs saw someone outside, and the only remote possibility was Fuchs. All the other characters are complete accounted for. Besides, just because a badly burnt body has glasses, doesn't mean it is Fuchs. It could have been anyone.

SNR, I'd say you do bring up some good points about how it wasn't supposed to happen. However, I don't find it plausible that the Thing would kill him because of time constraints. After all, the lights were out, and it could have dragged Fuchs to a dark location, like it did to Garry and Nauls at the end. I don't think the Thing has the proper motivation to kill someone rather than to just assimilate him. It's hard to say. Burnt Biologist, that certainly is a different take on what happened, after all, does the body really look like Fuchs? Maybe one of us can save a screenshot of it. And speaking to Blair does make sense, however, not when the lights are going out. Mac was, after all, just down the hall when this happened. I don't think he would get scared and go to Blair. But, I do think Blair is the prime candidate for who was present during the incident. I still would like to know about the second piece of torn clothing.

I do think Fuchs would have originally gone to MacReady, but once he found the jacket implicating MacReady he couldn't go talk to MacReady about it. In regards to the second shirt, I orginally thought there was only one shirt. After Fuchs was incapacitated, either killed or assimulated, one of the other Things had to move the jacket to a new location to be found, namely MacReady's Shack. Now that I realize there were indeed two seperate articles of clothing pointing to MacReady I have to rethink how it happened, although this new evidence brings up a very important issue. Now that I realize there were two of MacReady's ripped jackets, I know MacReady had to be human. If MacReady had been assimulated there would only be one ripped jacket. Since there are two we know that the Things were trying to frame him, and the Things would never frame one of their own as far as we can tell. MacReady must be human.