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Crimson King
The Crimson King is the main villain of Stephen King's
Dark Tower series. In the first book of the Dark Tower series, he
is briefly mentioned and it is insinuated that he will be the last
opponent faced by the hero in his quest for the Dark Tower. The Crimson
King first appeared as an actual character in King's novel Insomnia
and reappeared in Black House, which was co-written with Peter Straub.
His goal is apparently to bring down the Dark Tower, the lynchpin
that holds King's multiverse together.
The Crimson King's nature seems contradicted by the
various books. In Insomnia and Black House he is portrayed as an omnipotent,
omnipresent, god-like force of evil, and seems to be the Satan-like
controlling figure over the evil in King's multiverse. He is also
revealed to be the true power behind such major evil beings as Atropos
and Randall Flagg.
However, when the Crimson King is finally confronted
at the very end of the Dark Tower series, he is nothing more than
an insane old man locked out on a balcony at the top of the Dark Tower
- limited to flinging crude, hand-held seeking grenades (called 'sneetches'
here - these are linked in the novel to the 'Golden Snitches' in the
Harry Potter stories) at the Gunslinger and his companion Patrick
Danville in the series' final battle. There have been some speculation
as to why there is such a radical change; one theory suggests that
after the events of Black House he lost most of his power. Another
theory suggests that the Crimson King is, in fact, the archetype which
many of King's other villains, such as It, Randall Flagg, and Mordred
Deschain are iterations of in different worlds connected to the Dark
Tower. This would mean that several events, such as the endings of
Black House, IT, and The Stand, served to weaken the Crimson King
by disrupting several of his different incarnations simultaneously.
A "unified" fanon theory exists, suggesting
that the Crimson King is a representative (or possibly an avatar)
of IT on certain levels of the Tower. Therefore, when IT was defeated
the King lost most of his power, resulting in his necessity to act
through others (i.e. Atropos in Insomnia, Lord Malshun in Black House,
and Flagg). This theory gathers most of its evidence from the King's
nature as a were-spider, as well as his mastery of illusions and description
of himself as "the Kingfish" (which IT called Itself on
occasion).
Another possibility is that the King's weakness in the
Dark Tower may represent King's judgement on the nature of evil. Rather
than being a seductive or mysterious force, such as it appears in
King's other works, evil is finally revealed as being ultimately pathetic.
He was partially erased from existence by Patrick Danville,
a character from Insomnia who was foretold to defeat the King, leaving
only his floating red eyes behind.
The character's name may have been influenced by the
band King Crimson, particularly their first album, In the Court of
the Crimson King. It may also have been inspired by the 1895 collection
of short horror stories The King in Yellow.
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