Randall Flagg
Randall Flagg is a fictional character created by Stephen King. Considered by many to be King's "supervillain", Flagg is a recurring archetype of personified evil that appeared in a number of King's novels. Flagg made his first appearance in the 1978 novel The Stand as the main antagonist. This was followed by significant roles in The Eyes of the Dragon and The Dark Tower.
His goals typically center around spreading destruction and causing conflict, and he often prefers to work behind the scenes. He goes by many names, from the "Dark Man" to the "Walkin' Dude." He is also a magician, is said to come from the "outside", and has lived for at least 15 centuries, but cannot remember every life he has had. Template:Spoilerabout
Names, appearance and role
Flagg goes by many names, ranging from the mythical such as Nyarlathotep (a Lovecraft character that he may have been based upon) to the common. However, many of the names he goes by make use of the initials R.F., so the appearance of a character whose initials are R.F. sometimes serves to clue in readers to Flagg's presence. He also draws on the archetype of the "plague-bearer", particularly in The Stand, and of Ahasuerus, the legendary Wandering Jew. He carries pamphlets for the Ku Klux Klan and other such radical groups, presumably to stir up trouble where none exists.
However, Flagg's appearance is not described as threatening in itself. He is said to just be an average-looking man, taking on the physical appearance of whatever the local people tend to look like. However, his attire frequently fits into the Americana style. He dresses in typical American clothing, such as blue jeans, a hooded jacket or a faded denim jacket, and cowboy boots with worn-down heels. Particularly noteworthy are the buttons he collects and attaches to his clothing over the course of his appearances. Amongst these are a peace symbol, a smiley face with a bullet hole in the head , and a "CK" button, the last of which most likely stands for Crimson King, though it is also similar to the logo for Calvin Klein. In the Dark Tower series he wore a button with a yellow smile-face, one with a dead pig wearing a police cap asking "How's your pork?", and a button with an eye on it.
Flagg was revealed to be a guise of the Man in Black from his Dark Tower series. So, although the name "Randall Flagg" is more popular among King's fans and has been used more, the name Walter o'Dim is how he normally thinks of himself.[1]
Origins
Throughout most of King's novels, Flagg's origins and true nature are left to the reader's imagination. In The Stand, it is suggested that Flagg cannot remember his life before each "era" of his history (possibly because this variation of him never really had a childhood, and just at some point "became"), and that he has vague memories of having been a Marine, a Klansman, and of being involved in the kidnapping of Patty Hearst. He is shown to be able to detect and find extremists as well as rally them together for malevolent causes.
In Eyes of the Dragon, he is described as an aged wizard that eventually reveals itself to be demonic in nature, and in The Gunslinger, he describes himself, under his true name of Walter o'Dim, as an "Ageless Stranger".
In his final appearance (The Dark Tower VII), it is revealed that Flagg is in fact a human being, born around 1500 years earlier as Walter Padick in a land called Delain (the setting of Eyes of the Dragon).[2] He ran away from home at the age of 13 and set out for a life on the road — where he was raped by a fellow wanderer a year later. He resisted the temptation to slink back home and instead went on further to find his destiny and devote his life to darkness. He became determined to exact revenge on Delain, the place of his suffering. Becoming a powerful wizard, Flagg began to sow discord and strife through Delain and neighboring lands. He seldom acted directly, preferring to act behind the scenes and patiently set events into motion over years, decades, or even centuries. At some point after fleeing Delain, he attracts the attention of the Crimson King and becomes his emissary.
Appearances
The Dark Man
In the 1969 issue of Ubris published a poem by Stephen King called The Dark Man. The poem tells of a man who wanders the country, riding the rails and observing everything around him. The poem turns sinister when the narrator confesses to rape and murder. "I forced a girl in a field of wheat/and left her sprawled with the virgin bread/a savage sacrifice/and a sign to those who creep in/fixed ways:/I am a dark man."[3]
Says King, "[T]hat idea of the guy never left my mind. The thing about him that really attracted me was the idea of the villain as somebody who was always on the outside looking in and hated people who had good fellowship and good conversation and friends".[4]
This "Dark Man" would later become Randall Flagg.
The Stand
Flagg made his first (named) appearance in the 1978 apocalyptic novel The Stand. In it, he was an antichrist-like being who was trying to rebuild civilization in the United States in his image after a devastating plague. Flagg is portrayed as the personification of evil set against Mother Abagail, the personification of good, and attracts many drawn to law and order and fascist culture around him in Las Vegas, Nevada. Flagg is described in the book by the character Tom Cullen:
- "He looks like anybody you see on the street. But when he grins, birds fall dead off telephone lines. When he looks at you a certain way, your prostate goes bad and your urine burns. The grass yellows up and dies where he spits. He's always outside. He came out of time. He doesn't know himself. He has the name of a thousand demons. Jesus knocked him into a herd of pigs once. His name is Legion. He's afraid of us. We're inside. He knows magic. He can call the wolves and live in the crows. He's the king of nowhere. But he's afraid of us. He's afraid of . . . inside."[5]
Flagg planned to attack and destroy the other emerging civilization in Boulder, Colorado, leaving his civilization as the only survivors. His plans were foiled when the hand of God is turned upon him causing a nuclear bomb to detonate in front of his assembled followers.
Flagg himself was not killed in the explosion. In the original version King implies that Flagg may have had an out-of-body experience in the instant of the explosion that allowed him to spiritually (possibly magically, as later books suggest) escape unharmed. While the original version of the novel does not tell of Flagg's fate afterwards, the 1990 expanded re-release of the novel, The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition, explains that Flagg reappeared somewhere on a beach with complete amnesia, where it is suggested that he continued to wreak havoc upon the human race in his new form.
The only time Flagg has been depicted in film was by Jamey Sheridan in the TV miniseries version of The Stand.[6] These miniseries were based on the original edition of the novel.
The Eyes of the Dragon
In the 1984 novel The Eyes of the Dragon, the villain is a wizard called Flagg. While it is not explicitly stated that this is Randall Flagg, hints are made when a connection between this novel and The Dark Tower series indirectly connects The Eyes of the Dragon to The Stand. The two characters are even further connected by an event in Hearts in Atlantis (see below) and the use of the alias "the Dark Man".
Flagg acts and looks slightly different in The Eyes of the Dragon than from how he did in The Stand. This is most likely because The Eyes of the Dragon features a medieval setting while The Stand took place in modern times. Some have argued that the two are different versions of him from two different dimensions, given the presence of parallel dimensions in the Dark Tower series. However, King strongly implies that the two are indeed one and the same in the final Dark Tower novel, in which we find out Flagg was born in Delain, the setting of The Eyes of the Dragon.
We are told that in the medieval country of Delain, he has a white corpse's face, and is described in an uneasy way as "well preserved", a "thin and stern faced man of about 50":
- "He had, in fact, come to Delain often. He came under a different name each time, but always with the same load of woe and misery and death. This time he was Flagg. The time before he had been known as Bill Hinch, and he had been the King's Lord High Executioner [and] had made an end to hundreds — thousands, some said — of prisoners with his heavy axe. The time before that ... he came as a singer named Browson, who became a close adviser to the King and a Queen. Browson disappeared like smoke after drumming up a great and bloody war between Delain and Andua.
- "Flagg always showed up with a different face and a different bag of tricks, but two things about him were always the same. He always came hooded, a man who seemed almost to have no face, and he never came as a King himself, but always as the whisperer in the shadows, the man who poured poison into the porches of Kings' ears.
- "He wanted what evil men always want: to have power and use that power to make mischief. Being a King did not interest him because the heads of Kings all too often found their way to spikes on castle walls when things went wrong. But the advisors to Kings . . . the spinners in the shadows . . . such people usually melted away like evening shadows at dawning as soon as the headsman's axe started to fall. Flagg was a sickness, a fever looking for a cool brow to heat up. He hooded his actions just as he hooded his face. And when the great trouble came – as it always did after a span of years – Flagg always disappeared like shadows at dawn. Later, when the carnage was over and the fever had passed, when the rebuilding was complete and there was again something worth destroying, Flagg would appear once more."[7]
Though Flagg is never killed in the course of the novel, he is wounded badly by an arrow to his eye, and vanishes, perhaps to escape mortal death. The book ends with the cryptic comment that "Thomas and Dennis ... did see Flagg again, and confronted him," but no details are given. Many fans expected the continuation of the story to be in The Dark Tower (King has even said that Eyes is a Tower story when asked if there would be a sequel) but they did not appear.
Due to the fact that the story takes place in the same world as The Dark Tower, it could be assumed that, if he did in fact die, then he had reincarnated once again in this same world, much like in the case of the extended version of The Stand. This may also explain the Stand-like variation of him that appears in the Dark Tower series.
Hearts in Atlantis
In the 1999 book Hearts in Atlantis, Randall Flagg makes a brief appearance towards the end of the book. While little is said to show that it is him, the disturbing nature of his presence along with the use of the name "Raymond Fiegler" (which follows Flagg's "RF" theme in his aliases) clue readers into the character's true identity. Also worthy of note is the connections made to previous books with Flagg as a character. For instance, Carol Gerber mentions that she was taught by someone how to turn "dim" (a reference to Flagg's ability in Eyes of the Dragon). She also says that she and Fiegler were the only survivors of an act of arson on a small house in Los Angeles. This is quite similar to an event in Flagg's life that he brings to mind in The Stand.
The Dark Tower
Flagg has made the majority of his appearances in The Dark Tower series. He is hinted at early on in the series, but his role in the story does not become evident until near the end of the third book, The Waste Lands. Though he is referred to as a wizard in this series, he appears to be the Flagg of The Stand.
Flagg appears in the first line of The Gunslinger as "The Man in Black", going by his true name Walter o'Dim (though the character is not identified as Flagg at this time) and practicing the art of necromancy. After leading Roland Deschain, the series' main hero, on a lengthy pursuit across the Mohaine Desert, he gives Roland a tarot reading which predicts events to occur in several of the following novels. He also, oddly enough, warns Roland about himself, telling him that he must be defeated before Roland can enter the Tower and, paraphrasing the Bible, identifies himself as Legion (Mark 5:9: "And Jesus asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.") He then gives Roland a vision of the Tower that sends him into a deep delirium. When Roland awakes, Flagg is gone, having left behind a skeleton that convinces Roland, for only a moment, that Walter is dead.
There is a brief reference to him in The Drawing of the Three, in which, near the fall of Gilead, Roland witnesses Dennis and Thomas, the two boys from Eyes of the Dragon, pursuing the wizard.
He next appears near the end of the third novel, The Waste Lands, in the city of Lud to save the Tick-Tock Man, who becomes Flagg's devoted servant afterwards (similar in the way that the Trashcan Man became Flagg's servant in The Stand). He appears for just a short time in this book, so there is little else of him until the fourth book, Wizard and Glass. In this, Roland reveals Flagg to be Marten Broadcloak, the wizard who had corrupted Roland's homeland, betrayed his father Steven, seduced his mother Gabrielle, killed Roland's best friend Cuthbert, and conspired along with the Crimson King to cause the fall of the Dark Tower. Flagg manages to escape from Roland in this book before Roland gets a chance to kill him.
Flagg also appears in the lengthy flashback that comprises the middle part of Wizard and Glass. Once again in the role of Walter o'Dim, he acts as an emissary for the rebel leader John Farson. (There has been contradictory accounts concerning Farson's identity; the Revised makes reference to him being another alias of Walter, yet later in the series Walter himself refers to the revolutionary as a separate entity.) Walter entrusts the Pink Grapefruit of the Wizard's Rainbow to Eldred Jonas, Farson's agent in Mejis. Jonas in turn entrusts the crystal to the witch Rhea of the Coos.
Walter o'Dim has cameos in Wolves of the Calla and Song of Susannah. In Wolves, after committing suicide, Father Callahan runs into Walter at the Way Station (where Jake and Roland were only moments before). Walter gives Callahan Black 13 in hopes of it killing Roland later in his journey. Later, Walter taunts Callahan to which the priest responds that he is cruel. Surprisingly, Walter looks hurt.
- "Walter's eyes widen, and for a moment he looks deeply hurt. This may be absurd, but Callahan is looking into the man's deep eyes and feels sure that the emotion is nonetheless genuine. And the surety robs him of any last hope that all this might be a dream, or a final brilliant interval before true death. In dreams — his, at least — the bad guys, the scary guys, never have complex emotions."[8]
Walter later shows up in Song in a flashback. He appears to the succubus Mia and makes a deal with her that culminates in her giving birth to the son of Roland and the Crimson King. This later leads to his tragic downfall.
Death
Flagg finally died in the final book of the Dark Tower series. Before this, it is revealed that his goal all along has been the same as Roland's, to climb The Dark Tower and see the room at its top. To unlock the tower, Flagg believes he needs the red-marked foot of Mordred Deschain, the son of Roland and the Crimson King.
Flagg meets up with the infant, pledging allegiance to his cause, but Mordred senses Flagg's ulterior motives telepathically and seizes control of his mind, completely immobilizing him. Mordred transforms into his true form, that of a giant spider, and devours Flagg. Before dying, Flagg realizes that the sigul he would have needed is not Mordred's red heel, but the red hour-glass shape on the bottom of Mordred's spider form.
Flagg's death was met with much controversy by the fans. Supporters claimed that it was fitting that Flagg would be ultimately undone by his arrogance and that it suited King's general opinion that all evil people are ultimately 'bumhugs'. It also shows that he is not invincible, that he is only a man who has been overcome with his own quest for The Dark Tower. They believed that Flagg's quest could be related his to Roland's.
On the other side of the argument, fans were disappointed that one of King's greatest villains only appeared briefly in the final book and was summarily dispatched by a new character. Fans were also disappointed that Flagg never battled Roland. Flagg's death was also criticized as a ploy on King's part to give Mordred extra credibility, especially as the mind control powers were not used again to any great extent in the book.
Motivations
There is no clear answer as to why Randall Flagg does what he does. He seems to just enjoy inflicting chaos for the sake of doing so. But it may not be that simple.
His final appearance did give some new insight, however. His birthplace is in Delain, the same place in which he wrought havoc. He was raped there, so it could be possible his lashing out in Delain is for the pain it had caused him earlier. Dark Tower scholar Bev Vincent's The Road to the Dark Tower supports this theory.
In his final monologue with Mordred, Flagg claims the reason for his hatred of Roland Deschain is his involvement in the death of Gabrielle Deschain, the woman he loved ('or at least coveted' as he admits). He states that no matter what role that he or Rhea of the Coos played in it, it was Roland who had done the deed.
Although Flagg has been causing trouble for Roland before Gabrielle's demise, it is possible that he only saw him as a nuisance in his grand scheme and this just solidified that hatred.
Trivia
In the mini-series adaptation of The Stand by Stephen King, Randall Flagg introduces himself to a character with the phrase "Pleased to meet you, Lloyd, hope you guess my name." Upon receiving a befuddled response, Flagg responds "Never mind. Classical reference." The phrase is a lyric from The Rolling Stones' "Sympathy For the Devil"
References
- ^ Vincent, Bev. The Road to the Dark Tower. New York: New American Library (September 2004). Page 256. ISBN 0-451-21304-1
- ^ King, Stephen. The Dark Tower. Donald M.Grant/Scribner (September 2004). Page 186. ISBN 1-880418-62-2
- ^ King, Stephen. The Dark Man. Ubris Spring 1969. The Devil's Wine, Cemetery Dance publications. (April 2004)
- ^ Walden Book Report (July 2003)
- ^ King, Stephen. The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition. New York: Doubleday, 1990. Pages 817-818. ISBN 0-385-19957-0.
- ^ Garris, M., Laurel Entertainment Inc., Greengrass Productions (1994). Stephen King's The Stand. American Broadcasting Company, Republic Pictures Corporation.
- ^ King, Stephen. The Eyes of the Dragon. New York: Viking, 1987. pages 48-50. ISBN 0-670-81458-X
- ^ King, Stephen. Wolves of the Calla. Donald M. Grant/Scribner (November 2003). Page 463 ISBN 1-880418-56-8
- King, Stephen. The Stand. New York: Signet, 1980.
- King, Stephen. The Wastelands: The Dark Tower III. New York: Signet, 1991. ISBN 0-451-17331-7
- King, Stephen. Wizard and Glass: The Dark Tower IV. New York: Signet, 1997. ISBN 0-451-19486-1