Randall Flagg
“He's not the Devil”
“Oh? I never would have guessed.”
“Like many Gothic villains, Flagg is ultimately inept in that his plans go awry at every turn.”
“Really? I just thought he was a dick.”
dickass
Randall Flagg, also known as Walter O'Dim, Nyarlathotep, Legion, Old Creeping Judas, Lord Voldemort, Astaroth, Anubis, the Dark Man, the Boogeyman, the Dark Lord, The Man in Black, James Sheridan, the the Denim Demon and various other ridiculous names which only Stephen King knows the meaning of, is a wannabe evil villain who wants to rule the world but is sadly incapable of actually killing anyone except minor and/or annoying characters who have been included in the plot so that he can kill them.
Early life[edit | edit source]
Randall had a bad start in life. His name was Walter Padick for one thing, and it is rumored he was born in Delain to Sam the Miller of Easter'd Barony. At the age of thirteen he decided to go out and make a life on the road. After leaving home, Walter was subsequently raped. Rather than seeking psychiatric help he decided to become the Dark Lord of Evil and enslave all living things in revenge, learning various forms of dark magic and attaining an odd form of immortality.
After centuries of causing choas, he made a pact with the Crimson King (who found him and took him as his emmisary), a Palpatine wannabe and Santa's evil twin: his soul in exchange for omnipotent powers of darkness. Walter rather thought he was getting the better end of the deal but it later turned out that he wasn't very powerful at all and he couldn't even kill a spider (Mordred Deschain).
Reasoning that he couldn't very well be taken seriously with a name like Walter Padick, he changed his name to Randall Flagg ... which unfortunately made him sound like the teacher's pet off Recess, but never mind.
Career[edit | edit source]
Employing his supposedly legendary Dark Powers, Randall walked the Earth wreaking chaos and destruction, performing such heinous crimes as ringing people's doorbells then running away, making prank calls and somehow seducing people in serving the forces of darkness. How he managed to seduce anyone is quite beyond me given the fact that if the film adaptation of The Stand is anything to go by he was the most unattractive man on the face of the Earth and he had a tendency to turn into a snarling demon whenever anyone got on his nerves.
At some point during his prestigious career of scaring people, giving them wedgies and generally annoying people, Flagg managed to get himself a biographer in the form of American sicko and fellow desparado, Stephen King who had also written biographies for lowlife evil demons such as Pennywise the Clown.
World domination[edit | edit source]
Flagg's big break came when a horribly inconventient plague wiped out most of the population of the Planet Earth and reduced the surviving remnants of humanity to colonies who surprisingly retain the use of oracles, hot water, prisons, cars, office buildings, houses and a police. Somehow Flagg managed to take over half the Planet. Using his ability to turn into a crow and read people's minds, he frightened a significant number of idiots into thinking he was the most powerful villain ever and by effect got a quite a fan club. Despite allegedly being omnipotent however, Flagg was utterly incapable of reaching out his hand and smiting the good people of the Boulder Free Zone, an incredibly dull version of Zion. He would prefer it if they came to him. Flagg however was utterly lazy, as evidenced by his apparent incapability to cut his hair. Rather than sending vast armies of Orcs and monsters to destroy his enemies and do the whole "Raze Minas Tirith the the ground" thing, he hid away in his oh-so evil lair and left the hard work to his idiotic henchmen who failed at every task he gave them. They soon realised that Flagg had no power whatsoever and so did just about everyone else. Flagg met his doom when Stephen King got bored of writing the story and had the Hand of God reach out of the sky and smite Flagg, putting him out of his misery. Flagg however survived and teleported to a beach where he immediately began rounding up tourists to help him with his most diabolical plan yet : building an evil amusement park!
Trying to conquer the universe (presumably)[edit | edit source]
Flagg later journeyed to the Dark Tower at the centre of the Universe in what was presumably an attempt to capture it and by effect enslave the universe. Again however he wasted time stopping to read people their fortune before incapacitating them along the way. Eventually the bastard met his demise when he was eaten by a little baby who transformed into a big-ass spider.
Film[edit | edit source]
To honour the demise of Randall Flagg, a devestatingly long TV miniseries was released in which nothing actually happened and everyone talked in really, really quiet voices. There was quite a lot of moping around cockroach infested prison cells and mysterious prophecies and lots of walking around but Flagg himself actually had very little screen-time and spent what few scenes he had, bungling things up.
Literary analysis[edit | edit source]
Flagg is presumably a rip-off of Sauron were it not for the various media surrounding the film and the books we probably wouldn't even catch on that he was a fantasy villain if we saw him on television. We would naturally assume he was just a bit of a smug git. With his ridiculous hairstyle and habit of dressing like a cowboy, along with the fact that he never actually does anything particularly evil it's really quite hard to take him seriously. This, in addition to his somewhat hippie-like appearence, creates the impression that he is in fact a pacifist which can make being an a successful Evil Overlord a tad difficult. Most people don't even notice he's trying to kill them. Ultimately he is a serial inept who is made out to be something terribly threatening and evil but is inevitably defeated by his own incompetance. Stephen King's idea of a beautiful story no doubt.
To Sum all of this Up...[edit | edit source]
Randall Flagg is a demon rapist. He's a demon who rapes chicks, not a chick who rapes demons.
I'm not making this up.