Randall Flagg
Randall Flagg | |
---|---|
Stephen King character | |
First appearance | The Stand (1978) |
Created by | Stephen King |
Portrayed by | Jamey Sheridan (1994) Matthew McConaughey (2017) Jasper Pääkkönen (2019) Alexander Skarsgård (2020–21) |
In-universe information | |
Alias | Walter Padick[1] Walter o'Dim[2] Marten Broadcloak[2] [1] Bill Hinch Russell Faraday[3] Richard Fannin Richard Freemantle Rudin Filaro Raymond Fiegler The Covenant Man Richard Fry[3] Robert Franq[3] Ramsey Forrest[3] |
Nickname | The Walkin' Dude[3] The Dark Man[3] The Hardcase[3] Ageless Stranger[2] The Man in Black[2] |
Species | Quasi-immortal human[1] |
Family | Sam Padick (father) |
Nationality | Delain |
Randall Flagg is a fictional character created by American author Stephen King, who has appeared in at least nine of his novels. Described as "an accomplished sorcerer and a devoted servant of the Outer Dark",[1] he has supernatural abilities involving necromancy, prophecy, and influence over animal and human behavior. His goals typically center on bringing down civilizations through destruction and conflict.[4] He has a variety of names, usually with the initial letters "R. F." but with occasional exceptions, such as Walter o'Dim and Marten Broadcloak in The Dark Tower series.[1]
Flagg first appeared in King's 1978 novel
King initially cited Donald DeFreeze, primary kidnapper of Patty Hearst, as his inspiration for Flagg.[11] Later, he attributed Flagg to an image of a man walking the roads in cowboy boots, denim jeans and a jacket, a notion which "came out of nowhere" when he was in college.[12] Flagg's character and the nature of his evil have been the subject of considerable critical attention.
Appearances
Poem
"The Dark Man"
King first wrote the poem "The Dark Man" in college, about an unnamed man who rides the rails and confesses to murder and rape. The one-page poem was published in Ubris in 1969. According to King, the poem served as the genesis for Flagg.[12]
Novels
The Stand
There was a dark hilarity in his face, and perhaps in his heart, too, you would think—and you would be right. It was the face of a hatefully happy man, a face that radiated a horrible handsome warmth, a face to make water glasses shatter in the hands of tired truck-stop waitresses, to make small children crash their trikes into board fences and then run wailing to their mommies with stake-shaped splinters sticking out of their knees. It was a face guaranteed to make barroom arguments over batting averages turn bloody.
— Stephen King, The Stand[3]
Randall Flagg makes his first named appearance in King's 1978
After two of Flagg's followers fail to kill the leaders of the Free Zone, the Boulder community sends a group of men to Las Vegas to stop him. The three who reach the city are taken prisoner, and Flagg orders one of them executed for his defiance. As the other two are being prepared for a public execution, one of Flagg's most loyal followers, the Trashcan Man, arrives with a
An expanded edition of The Stand was published in 1990, restoring text that had been cut from the original edition. It includes an epilogue in which Flagg appears on a beach and finds a primitive tribe ready to fall under his influence.[3]
The Eyes of the Dragon
Flagg later appears in
The Dark Tower series
Flagg makes several appearances in King's
When Roland was young, Marten had an affair with Roland's mother, Gabrielle, using the affair to provoke Roland to take the gunslinger test early. He hoped Roland would fail so he would be exiled but Roland passed the test. Eventually, Roland catches Walter; they have a long discussion about Roland's destiny and the Tower which causes him to slip into delirium. He awakens to find a pile of bones in Walter's place.[14] In the original edition, Walter and Marten are separate characters, with Walter dying at the end of the novel. When King published an expanded edition of the novel,and Walter and Marten are portrayed as identical, and Walter fakes his own death.[2]
Flagg appears briefly in a flashback in the second installment of the Dark Tower series, The Drawing of the Three. Roland recalls seeing two men named Thomas and Dennis pursuing a man named Flagg, who was almost certainly a demon. These are implied to be the same characters from The Eyes of the Dragon. This is the first example of the Dark Tower series crossing over with one of King's other novels.[15]
Flagg makes his next full appearance in the series' third installment,
The "Argument", a summary of the series thus far, beginning
In The Dark Tower, Flagg indicates that he is not John Farson, but served under him until the latter's downfall. Flagg reveals his plans to climb the Dark Tower, see the room at the top and become the god of all. Flagg believes that he can only achieve this by killing Mordred and taking his birthmark-stained foot. Although he tries to befriend Mordred and pledge allegiance to him, Mordred telepathically senses Flagg's true motives and eats him, forcing him to rip out his eyes and tongue first.[18]
The Dark Tower reveals more of Flagg's background, relating that he was born Walter Padick in Delain to Sam the Miller of Eastar'd Barony. At age 13, Walter set out for a life on the road, but was raped by a fellow wanderer; author Bev Vincent hypothesized in The Road to the Dark Tower that Flagg's later actions toward Delain in The Eyes of the Dragon may have been revenge for the abuse he suffered as a child.[19] Resisting the temptation to crawl back home, Padick instead moves toward his destiny; he learns various forms of magic, achieving a quasi-immortality. After centuries of wreaking havoc, Flagg attracts the attention of the Crimson King, who adopts him as his emissary.
In 2012, King published a new story from The Dark Tower entitled The Wind Through the Keyhole. Here Flagg is depicted as the Covenant Man: central villain of the book's story within a story, "The Wind Through the Keyhole", a legend from Mid-World set years before the series' beginning. He is the Barony's "tax collector" from Gilead, attempting to collect taxes from residents of the small town of Tree. The Covenant Man sends the story's protagonist, a young boy named Tim, on a perilous quest through the Endless Forest to save his mother; unbeknownst to Tim, the Covenant Man is supplying him with false prophecies and misinformation as part of a cruel practical joke. However, Tim succeeds in his journey; he saves his mother after encountering the wizard Maerlyn, who has been imprisoned in the form of a "tyger".[20] While the Covenant Man is not explicitly identified as Flagg, with only the initials "RF/MB" in his signature as identification and at one point being referred to as 'the man in the black cloak', Stephen King confirmed in an interview with Bev Vincent for his book The Dark Tower Companion that the two are one and the same.[21]
Hearts in Atlantis
In
Gwendy's Button Box trilogy
Stephen King's novel Gwendy's Button Box, which he co-wrote with Richard Chizmar, features a mysterious man in black named Richard Farris. Farris gives a young girl, Gwendy Peterson, a "button box" which, depending on the buttons or levers that are used, can dispense magical treats or cause death and destruction. Farris reappeared in Gwendy's Magic Feather (written solely by Chizmar) and Gwendy's Final Task (co-written by both King and Chizmar).
Chizmar was asked whether or not Richard Farris's initials signified that he was another manifestation of Randall Flagg; his response was "Maayyybee... He's definitely mysterious, and it's really obvious there's more to him than meets the eye."[24] Chizmar later revealed during a Reddit AMA session that the initials were indeed indicative of Farris being Flagg.[25] In 2022, King stated while the character started off as Flagg that was no longer the case: "I saw him as a force of evil when I first started to write about the box. By the time I realized he was a force of the White, it was too late to change the initials."[26]
In other media
Film and TV
King was influential in deciding who would play Flagg in the 1994 television adaptation of The Stand. He felt Flagg was the best villain he had ever created, and wanted the actor playing him to be right for the part. Director Mick Garris and the studios wanted to give the role to an established star such as Christopher Walken, James Woods, Willem Dafoe or Jeff Goldblum. King himself had suggested Robert Duvall in his introduction to the novel.[27] Miguel Ferrer, who played Flagg's henchman in the film, was interested in playing the villain.[6]
King's idea for the role was someone who "would make the ladies' hearts go pitty pat, that looked like the type of guy you would see on the cover of one of those sweet, savage love paperback romances". He eventually persuaded Garris to cast a lesser-known actor as Flagg; Garris ultimately chose Jamey Sheridan for the role.[6]
Sheridan's performance was generally well received.
In February 2011, Warner Bros. announced plans to produce a new feature film adaptation of The Stand. King commented that he would like to see Dutch actor Rutger Hauer in the role of Flagg, but conceded that he was perhaps too old for the part.[30] In August 2014, it was reported that Warner Bros. wanted actor Matthew McConaughey for the role.[31]
McConaughey was confirmed to be playing Walter, Flagg's alter-ego, in the
The 2016 miniseries 11.22.63, based on King's 2011 novel 11/22/63, incorporates numerous references to other King stories, including an appearance by Randall Flagg, who is seen cycling through the Dallas throngs just before the assassination of John F. Kennedy in the final episode.[33]
In 2019, Finnish actor
Comics
Beginning in 2007, Marvel Comics released a series of comics which were a prequel to the Dark Tower novels.[9] Randall Flagg, appearing as Marten Broadcloak and Walter o'Dim, plays a significant role in the series.[36]
In April 2009, Marvel released a single-issue comic written by
The comic also reveals that Marten had poisoned Roland's infant brother. Furth introduced the idea that the
According to the comic, Marten's romantic feelings for Roland's mother trigger jealousy in the Grapefruit who influences Roland to unwittingly kill his mother; in Wizard and Glass, the witch known as
On the character of Marten, Furth noted that "[he] is one of the scariest characters that Stephen King has ever created. He moves from book to book, bringing chaos and anarchy with him... He is quite a demonic figure, and as such he is one of the great anti-heroes of contemporary popular fiction" and that "journeying into Walter's mind is a pretty wild experience and at times a little frightening. You have to travel to very dark places."[41] To find Walter's voice, Furth went to John Milton's Paradise Lost, William Blake's Proverbs of Hell, the Biblical Song of Solomon and the writings of Aleister Crowley for inspiration.[42]
In his interview with Bev Vincent, Isanove opined that Walter was his favorite character to draw; "Jae [Lee, the original artist for the series] established him as almost androgynous. He's always got this bare chest, and he's very feminine in the way he moves, with his hands raised. He's always moving his hands around. He's got this weird face, with a broken nose and greasy hair. He's starting to bald, but he's always got a very white separation in the middle of it. He's just so greasy, he's great to draw. And he still has to be seductive at the same time, so you can't make him repulsive... He's such a great character."[43]
Marvel later released a comic book adaptation of The Stand, which began in September 2008 and ran for thirty issues.[10] Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa described Flagg as "The man of nightmares. Or, put another way, our nightmares given human (more or less) form. The dark side of the American Dream... King's 'Walkin' Dude' may not be the Devil, himself, as Mother Abagail says, but he comes pretty damn close..."[44] Initially, artist Mike Perkins said he felt "Flagg needed to be designed less as a man—more as a force of nature. His hair will obscure his features, his face will be almost always in heavy shadow. This is the creature lurking under your bed, in your wardrobe, in your nightmares. Slightly familiar but wholly terrifying."[44] Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa later commented on the original idea of hiding Flagg's face: "...the further into the book and the adaptation you go, the less feasible that becomes. Stephen spends so much time describing [Flagg]'s features and smiles, you need to show those things."[45]
Concept and creation
King initially named Donald DeFreeze, lead kidnapper in the Patty Hearst case, as his inspiration for Randall Flagg. According to King, he remembered the Patty Hearst case when he began to write a description of DeFreeze: "Donald DeFreeze is a dark man". He remembered that in photographs of the bank robbery in which Patty Hearst participated that DeFreeze was only partially visible, hidden under a large hat. What he looked like was based on guesses made by people who only saw a portion of him. This inspired King, who then wrote "A dark man with no face". After reading "Once in every generation the plague will fall among them", King began writing The Stand and developing the character of Randall Flagg.[11]
In 2004, King said that Flagg had been a presence in his writing since the beginning of his career, with the idea coming to him in college. He first wrote a poem, "The Dark Man", about a man who rides the rails and confesses to murder and rape; written on the back of a placemat in a college restaurant, the one-page poem was published in 1969, but the character never left King's mind. To the author, what made Flagg interesting 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".[12]
Characterization and critical reception
When Stephen King created the character of Flagg, he based him around what he believed evil represented. To King, Flagg is "somebody who's very charismatic, laughs a lot, [is] tremendously attractive to men and women both, and [is] somebody who just appeals to the worst in all of us".
Critics also note Flagg's penchant for evil. Tony Magistrale, author of Stephen King: The Second Decade, Danse Macabre to The Dark Half sees Flagg as a Shakespearean villain, comparing him to Iago, Edmund and Richard III, contending that Flagg is an antihero. Magistrale believes that Flagg's evil is based on his ability to replace peace with conflict and unity with destruction; although he seeks power, it is merely a resource to achieve a greater level of destruction.[50]
Author and journalist Heidi Stringell finds Flagg "an embodiment of pure evil", contending that King sees good and evil as "real forces"; Flagg's embodiment of evil is confirmed by the fact that "he is a killer, a maker of mischief, a liar, and a tempter". To Stringell, Flagg's disappearance at the end of The Stand shows that "evil ultimately leads nowhere".[51] The author calls Flagg a "generic hybrid" of the archetypical "Dark Man and the Trickster". To her, the combination of these two characteristics found in different cultural realms forces people to face their "flawed humanity" with the "amorality" Flagg represents.[52] Jenifer Paquette, author of Respecting The Stand: A Critical Analysis of Stephen King's Apocalyptic Novel, writes that "Flagg's horror is that he looks like an ordinary man, and his behavior is a mockery of humanity - a terrible insight into the human psyche. King suggests that the thing to fear the most is inside ourselves".[53]
Douglas Winter, author of Fear Itself: The Horror Fiction of Stephen King, believes that Flagg epitomizes the
Journalist Alissa Stickler describes Flagg as a "contemporary medievalist interpretation on the themes of evil, magic and the (d)evil figure". She likens Flagg to
Flagg's character has its detractors. In his essay "The Glass-Eyed Dragon", author L. Sprague de Camp criticizes Flagg in Eyes of the Dragon, saying that he is one of the least-believable characters in the book and too evil to be credible. According to de Camp, absolute evil is hard to envision; whereas Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin believed they were improving the world, Flagg only enjoys causing destruction and chaos. De Camp notes that Flagg fails to see that there is no advantage to his actions.[55]
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.
Stephen King, Wolves of the Calla[17]
Flagg's embodiment of evil is not the only characteristic seen by critics. Author Joseph Reino commented that the character's presence in The Stand was "Stephen King's version of a pestilential Big Brother".[56] Tony Magistrale revisits the character in a second book, this time comparing him to Norman Mailer. Here, Magistrale states that in The Stand Flagg gives the reader an "illustration of King's jaundiced perspective of modern America" as he presents the consequences of technology—worship and the sacrifice of "moral integrity to the quest for synthetic productivity".[57]
Flagg's background as a rape victim and its impact on his character have also been explored. Patrick McAleer, author of Inside the Dark Tower Series: Art, Evil and Intertextuality in the Stephen King Novels, argues that Flagg's situation is the most sympathetic of all of King's characters, and his evil may be retribution: "[I]n suspending any disbelief in the possibility that reprisal is a reaction to rape, the life of Flagg becomes one that looks to strike a balance for the sexual crime committed against him. And although Flagg's possible search for justice and balance is that which becomes imbalanced and even prejudiced, the mitigating factor here is that Flagg is not an originator of evil - he is just caught up in its web as another wronged individual seeking justice". McAleer compares Flagg to Satan in Paradise Lost, suggesting that he may be another "fallen angel who has a valid case supporting his devilry". While agreeing that Flagg can be seen "relishing in evil deeds at almost every juncture", he contends that no judgement can be made without the full story and context for his actions.[58]
References
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External links