The ABC’s Of Stephen King : Randall Flagg

Randall Flagg. Richard Fannin. The walkin’ dude. The man in black.

For as much as the Crimson King gets the credit and notoriety as one of the most central characters in the Stephen King universe, I actually put Flagg on an even higher rung on the ladder. He was my first experience with how inner-connected many of King’s books are and how some characters seem to have the privilege of sliding gracefully from one book to the next.

I don’t know if Eyes Of The Dragon was the first Stephen King book I ever read but it was definitely one of the first. I would like to think that it was first because while, at the time I was definitely feeling the allure and the attraction from the covers of various Stephen King books, they also scared the crap out of me. Eyes Of The Dragon appealed to me because it seemed like it was targeted more at kids, the content seemed much safer than some of his other books that were floating around.

I was immediately attracted to the character of Flagg, the court sorcerer who attempts to overthrow the kingdom by assassinating the King and framing his older son and first heir with the crime. When the weaker, younger brother takes the throne, Flagg is right there with him, whispering in his ear and controlling him in a way he would have been unable to do with the older son. Flagg was simply the perfect villain for the story. He was powerful and scary and you wanted every force in the story to work against him and for him to lose out in the end.

Many years later, I came across the revised version of The Stand and who would I come across? Old Randall Flagg. I thought it was an interesting coincidence at first, as Flagg is such a unique name, I was surprised that King would repeat the use of it. Then, I realized the possibility that maybe, just maybe they were the same person. But that would be absurd. Eyes Of The Dragon was set in an entirely fictional universe while The Stand was placed in the modern era in a fictionalized version of America. It didn’t make any sense. They couldn’t possibly be the same person.

Could they?

Flagg is one of those enigmas that exists within the King universe. You never really know that much about him, where he comes from or ultimately how powerful he really is. I was always drawn to his dark sense of humor and just the sense of foreboding around him, like he was privy to the darkest secrets of all the worlds, and is just watching it all unfold around him like a big cosmic joke.

As with the Crimson King, I would love it if King wrote another book with Flagg as more of a central character. Honestly, he is one of a handful of characters in the King universe that I probably can’t get enough of. He is a darkly magical character but also with a hint of King’s rock ‘n roll attitude. He brings color and texture to any book he appears in and I hope that one day we get to see an encore performance from him.

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