Or at least that’s my hypothesis. We’ve got plenty of reason to believe that the Walkin’ Dude is Nyarlathotep, and it seems, though I can’t find any direct quotes, that King, as a Lovecraft fan, always meant Flagg to be N.
Let’s go with the assumption that Flagg is an avatar of Nyarlathotep, which, with him/it as the lead antagonist of The Stand (apart from, I suppose, Captain Trips), makes The Stand a Cthulhu Mythos story. What would be needed to make this the “greatest Cthulhu Mythos story ever” then?
Definition of “greatest” then is:
greatest
-
adj. not to be surpassed.
-
adj. largest in size of those under consideration.
I’m sure there are Mythos stories where the world gets destroyed, or large populations go mad and self-destruct, but I’m at a loss to identify other stories by mainstream writers where an avatar of N is used so prominently to wage a war in such a long and detailed story.
Let me clarify one point first: Flagg (Nyarlathotep) does not cause Captain Trips, nor is he responsible for the downfall of civilization. That’s a key part of this investigation that I want to call out. We, meaning humans (and more specifically the military scientists that are part of Project Blue), are responsible for Captain Trips, which is responsible for ending civilization. Flagg then enters with the specific goal of leading the remaining humans into a world of authoritarian rule and selfish enterprise.
But with Flagg at the front of the “bad guys” (insomuch as The Stand is a tale of good versus evil), he/It becomes the main antagonist responsible for gathering and encouraging the antagonists in the story. He leads the efforts, initially in grim and dark nightmares, to antagonize and terrorize the protagonists, and as civilization attempts to rebuild itself, he works specifically to tear down the good guys’ efforts with violence and terror.
So, yeah, the story is Flagg’s to tell, at least after Captain Trips does its work and takes care of 99% of humanity. If The Stand is an epic tale of Good and Evil, and if humanity’s hubris, fear, and greed are a stand-in for Evil in the first part of the book, then at the end of Part I it’s Good-0, Evil-1.
Now, it’s Flagg’s turn to pick up the ball and finish us off. I’ll report more as I get further into the book, but for now, I think I’m onto something.
Note: I’m reading and reporting on Stephen King’s the Stand, Complete and Uncut, for the Miskatonic University Podcast, and you can catch my episodes over at our Patreon. Drop me a line in the comments!