YMMV / There Will Come Soft Rains

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is the house just going through the motions of its daily routine, unaware of the family's fate? Or is it sapient and in denial about their deaths? The story makes no indication one way or the other.
  • At least one literary analysis site suggests that the house is evil and malicious, symbolic of technology's uncaring nature, consumption of natural resources, lack of empathy, etc.
• Funny Moments: Although it leads to the downfall of the house, a bird in the animated Soviet adaption flies in and the robot demands the password like it would from a human. Being a bird, it is unable to respond and the Robot prepares to deliver a nasty beatdown. In the story, the house demands the password of any passing animal, and when not given a satisfactory answer, it shutters and locks its doors in a panic.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The family was vaporized by a nuclear strike while playing in the garden, and all that is left of them is their silhouettes against the wall. That actually happened in Hiroshima.
  • The animated adaptation takes a different turn. The family, having been reduced to ashes by nuclear radiation, is poured out of their beds by the house going through its morning routine. This is especially creepy in the children's room, where the little girl's doll is buried by the growing pile of her ashes.
  • The destruction of the house is portrayed in a disturbing amount of detail and manages to be quite... unsettling, to say the least. Especially considering the computer still believes its humans to be alive and tells them to run.
  • The stove frantically makes food one last time, which gets fed to the flames, which gives it energy, allowing it to make even more food. Bradbury's wording calling it "psychopathic" and "hysterical" rams the madness of the house's continued existence up to eleven.
• Tear Jerker:
  • There are no humans left. The children, mothers, fathers, and every human are gone because of a nuclear bomb. All that's left is the house and the dog. The dog is covered in sores and is reduced to nothing but rotting flesh, but is still barely alive as it tries frantically, one final time, to locate its family. When it fails, it lies down and dies. And then it goes into the incinerator.
  • The house itself burns down at the end of the story, with only a single wall with its owners burned onto it and a single computer remaining, constantly telling no one what the day is. If you do subscribe to the idea that the house is sentient, it somehow becomes even more depressing.
  • At the end of the animated short, the bird is desperately trying to fly through the fake window. The only other place it could go is the cold snowy landscape.
• The Woobie: Though it's debatable if it's sentient, it's pretty hard not to feel sorry for the house. It does all this crap and is simply incapable of realizing that it no longer has to do its duties. The house was already performing a thankless job and now is incapable of stopping that job to preserve itself. Shows you how well the story is written that the destruction of what's basically a house-wide Roomba will move you to tears. If you subscribe to the "the house is evil because technology and machines are incapable of caring" interpretation, it becomes Alas, Poor Villain very quickly.

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