“There are thirteen sides to every story”
Thirteen Reasons Why“There are thirteen sides to every story” is Hannah Baker’s explanation for the shape and rules of her recorded account. The phrase turns the tapes’ thirteen sides into a claim about perspective: no single telling is the whole story, and listening carries an obligation to pass the account onward.
Meaning and Use
Hannah introduces the phrase while instructing listeners what to do after they have heard all thirteen sides. They are to rewind the tapes, return them to the box, and pass them to whoever comes next. The wording links interpretation to procedure: the listener must complete the sequence rather than treat one side as a self-contained account.
The phrase also places the listener inside a chain. Each recipient is both an audience for Hannah’s version and a person responsible for delivering it to the next. The number thirteen is therefore not merely a count of recordings; it defines the required scope of listening and the order in which the story travels.
The Tape Chain and Its Stakes
Hannah warns that she has made a copy of the tapes. If the package fails to pass through everyone in the chain, those copies will be released publicly. This contingency gives the listening rules force: the tapes’ continued circulation depends on each recipient, while the prospect of public disclosure hangs over any attempt to break the sequence.
Her closing remark that the decision was not made on a spur of the moment further presents the recordings and their rules as deliberate. In that context, the phrase is both a guide to hearing a story from multiple sides and a principle governing its transmission. The account reaches its intended audience only if listeners hear the full set, rewind it, and pass it on.
