Stephen King's "The Stand"

[Xpistis sopheiaX]

My dad is re-reading this, and it got me thinking about the story again...

When I read it a long time ago I felt like it was just a modern retelling of the crucifixion, but the more I think about it, I'm thinking it was actually a depiction of Revelation.

I.E. Randall Flagg might be the anti-christ, Trashcan Man might be the beast? The plague would obviously be the rapture.

I was thinking the crucifixion at the end might be the death of the two prophets?

Has anyone read this recently that might know? I was trying to find something that outlines the parallels between The Stand and Revelation online, but I can only find a few reviews saying it was connected to Revelation, but not giving many specifics.

 

[Ripheus27]

Technically, the story is set within King's overarching Dark Tower setting. Randall Flagg is the second-in-command to Ram Aballah, the Crimson King, which is the transcendent form of the monster from It (not the miniseries but the novel). That is, the Crimson King is the source of the dead-lights (hopefully you've read everything I'm talking about and it doesn't sound like I'm puking gibberish ).

If we thought of the Dragon from Revelation paralleling Ram Aballah, then Randall Flagg would be the Antichrist as the especial servant of the Dragon, maybe. When King wrote The Stand I don't know if he'd already decided that Flagg would have a role in the Dark Tower storyline (or whether King had even started work on that storyline; the first Dark Tower book didn't come out until 1982, I think). Even if he did, I don't know how much (clearly to some extent, but what?) King draws on traditional Christianity to craft his plots.

Sorry if that's not any help .

 

[Xpistis sopheiaX]

I only made it up to Song of Susannah so I'm embarrassingly far behind on the Dark Tower (I blame college for robbing my love of reading).

It's interesting that It is the Crimson King, I always felt like It was King's most sinister villain.

I ran across something saying King said The Stand came straight out of revelation on an Amazon review of the mini-series, so not exactly 100% confirmation.

It's been almost 20 years since I've read the book myself so I'm a bit fuzzy. Isn't there some business where the Crimson King has to get a virgin pregant so "Hawk" isn't allowed to sleep with one of the women in particular? I suppose that would be the harlot of Babylon and the Dragon wouldn't it?

I also saw this " One of the key characters Harold is overcome by bitterness and lust, both of which are mentioned in Revelations--Wormwood and Babylon"

Edit: I just found this. Pretty illuminating!!!

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/02/the-gospel-of-stephen-king/

 

[Ripheus27]

I was browsing the Dark Tower wiki an hour or so ago, and it turns out instead, it seems, that It was just of the same species or something as the Crimson King: were-spiders. There's also all this weird Arthurian mythos stuff worked into the background for the characters...

As for the article: very nice. If I remembered King's work more (I moved away from my parents and lost access to his books in that way), I might be able to come up with more examples of King's Christian symbolism.