Lower Decks

I last wrote about ‘The Stand’ by Stephen King in the twentieth column (before I “renamed” it), and as I recall, I was probably better than a hundred pages in at the time. Well, I’ve been done the novel for more than a week now, so it’s time to revisit (incidentally, the second issue of the second mini-series adaptation being put out by Marvel was released last week, introducing Trashcan Man, which for me is old hat, but for the record, Mike Perkins’ version looks nothing like Matt Frewer, which might come as some relief for those still fussing over the TV movie). I’m going to take the opportunity to write about similar stories, ‘Lost’ and Harry Potter, as well.

To label ‘The Stand’ an epic might belabor the point. Though it’s only technically one book to The Dark Tower’s seven, it’s also eleven hundred pages long. Split into three sections (“Captain Trips,” “On the Boarder,” and “The Stand”), it can even be broken into more manageable chunks for those looking at the page count and swallowing hard, but the fact is, it’s an epic of biblical proportions, and King seems to relish that idea, making no bones of fashioning the figures of Randall Flagg and Mother Abagail to be avatars of the Christian devil and god, whom survivors of a terrible plague gravitate toward for one last battle between good and evil. Though everything’s presented in an entirely relatable, human perspective, ‘The Stand’ is grand storytelling, and you only have to read the final chapter to know that although he’s written about specific characters in a specific scenario, King’s ambition is to encompass the whole experience: “Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long. And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again.”

At its core, ‘The Stand’ is about a disaster that transforms the modern world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, which in 1975, when King originally wrote it, was a fairly unique scenario, though today is among the more familiar genres being explored by writers. But it is also a hero narrative, and in its complexity and reach has found parallels today in other stories, some that seem a little too familiar, others that couldn’t seem more distant. The last time I wrote about it, I drew the ‘Lost’ comparisons right away, but it’s worth exploring the connections with the saga of Harry Potter as well.

All three begin on the same note: the narrative finds the characters in a state of costly innocence. The superflu in ‘The Stand’ is comparable to the plane crash of ‘Lost’ and the sudden invitation to the world of magic by Harry Potter. On their own, each event couldn’t suggest the complexity of the situations these characters would find themselves in, or the journeys they would be thrust on. Stu Redman couldn’t have imagined when he went to hang out at his friend’s gas station like he did every day that someone would crash into the pumps and expose him to terrible devastation, or that his apparent immunity would so baffle authorities he’d end up in the perfect situation to intersect with the lives of Frannie Goldsmith and Harold Lauder, and countless others, including Larry Underwood, who grew to confuse Stu’s leadership with Harold’s ingenuity. Jack Shepherd went to Australia to find his father, but couldn’t anticipate finding him dead, much less the flight he fought to make landing him on an island with strangers and compelling mysteries that tested his faith. Harry’s whole life before Hogwarts was completely inverted when he learned the circumstances surrounding his parents’ death involved the rampage of a dark wizard who was only stopped by his mother’s sacrifice, making his very existence a miracle, and him an instant celebrity in this new world.

Each story spends an extended period of time as their characters adapt to the new rules of their existence. Eventually, they reach a turning point, a moment where they realize they have to stop reacting and find a way to take charge. In ‘The Stand,’ Stu, Fran, and Larry form a council amidst the growing chaos of residents in the safe haven growing around Mother Abagail, a chance to make some sense of the situation. Jack does the impossible in ‘Lost;’ he learns to trust one of the dreaded Others, Juliet, who became a friend during his captivity among them, whose defection makes it safe to return home to his camp of crash survivors, whose continuous plans to return home finally start to take shape. Harry realizes that the return of the dark wizard, Voldemort, which no one seems to be taking seriously, means he will have to learn to fight back on his own.

But resolution doesn’t mean conclusion. The council in ‘The Stand’ is vulnerable as long as it refuses to take direct action against those gathering around Flagg, and so when Mother Abagail beckons Stu and Larry to make the journey to Flagg’s camp, they go, even though they know it means almost certain death. Jack does make it home, but it becomes clear that he has to go back to the island; the old argument John Locke had been making all along, that there was a purpose to be found there, had finally sunk in. Harry discovers that he will have to complete his journey without the many comforting forces that have been helping him, that he will, in the end, have to confront Voldemort alone (just as Luke Skywalker does in Star Wars against Darth Vader, Neo against Smith in The Matrix). It’s not about destiny, but about the forces of good and evil finally having a reckoning. Well, a stand.

These are all excruciating, emotional journeys, and they all come with terrible prices to pay. As the trailblazer, ‘The Stand’ sets a terrific tone. While I was reading the Potter books, I was constantly amazed that J.K. Rowling could build such thrilling momentum for the conclusions to each story. The more familiar I’d become with the story of ‘The Stand,’ the more I was pleasantly surprised to learn King had done it himself. “On the Boarder” concludes with the momentous decision by Harold to blow up the council while it’s in session, while “The Stand” lets us linger on the fate of Larry in Flagg’s realm, and Stu’s shot at returning home. ‘Lost’ has used the standard season finale tradition of the cliffhanger to brilliant effect every year, notably at the end of the first season with the abduction of Walt and the fourth, when we discover the circumstances of Jack and the rest of the Oceanic Six’s departure from the island. Each journey is unique from one another, but are so close in nature that it’s worth thinking of them together as some of the finest writing done in the modern era, tapping into the common experience that binds us together, in such a piercing, authentic (though fantastical) way that they force us to examine our own weaknesses, and strengths, and come out the better for experiencing them.

As the easiest of them to get through, relatively speaking, ‘The Stand’ will always be a natural starting point, a gateway into a journey that enriches us for taking it, by whatever name it passes (tellingly, names are a favorite game in all three stories).