So as one of my New Year's Resolutions, which I wrote down and thus can't forget, I began the plan to reread old books I read ages ago. It's an experiment to see how much I've changed or if the book looks different or anything along those lines. It started with me just wanting to reread The Lord of the Rings, but then it expanded beyond that once I realised The Hobbit would have to be included, and then everything else followed on from there.
One of my other New Year's Resolutions was to use this blog for more than just posting whenever I get published, so I decided to check off two resolutions with one stone, in a metaphor that made less sense the more I typed it out.
I'll get to Tolkien pretty soon, but I started off with The Eyes of the Dragon, Stephen King's medieval fantasy novel. I read this in either 2013 or 2014 (in those days I could be found in the library reading either a Stephen King novel or a Garfield comic compilation...so it was hardcore horror or Stephen King), and I remember enjoying it...although the only story element I could recall was that the main antagonist seriously gave me the creeps...by the standards of fantasy villains, this one stood out just that little bit more in terms of a chill factor. I hadn't read A Song of Ice and Fire in those days, so my baseline was lower than it is now, but I did remember this villain for standing out in the otherwise tame novel for how evil he was.
I didn't know, of course, that Flagg the magician was actually Randall Flagg, the big bad guy of King's mythos overall, and who had appeared in other stories of his, and that his depravity in The Eyes of the Dragon was relatively tame compared to his actions in The Stand and The Dark Tower. Flagg has a claim to being one of my favourite villains in literature, potentially even taking the #1 spot for me, and that alone will get a blog post at some point in the future.
But I digress. When I reread it for 2025 to kick off the resolution, I had seen The Stand miniseries (I haven't read the novel yet), I had read some of The Dark Tower (although that was in high school too and I remember little), and I was fully aware of Randall Flagg's status in Stephen King's mythos. Not to mention I wasn't in high school this time.
And my thoughts rereading it? I liked it! "Generic" has a bad connotation, to be sure, but it plays out like a typical medieval fantasy story, with all the expected tropes in their place. You've got the good prince Peter, his resentful younger brother Thomas -- who I appreciated a lot more than I remember as a character and is probably the second most memorable -- the good King Roland who reminded me of a much nicer Robert Baratheon from ASOIAF, and the evil advisor masterminding a plot to usurp the crown. The novel isn't exactly a groundbreaking story, but it's an enjoyable read.
Flagg, though, stood out just as much now as he did back then. The man's vivid creepiness comes from just how much he differs from the relatively pleasant "King Arthur" vibes of the rest of the novel...while Peter is learning how to relate to the common people as a prince, Flagg is consulting a grimoire made of human skin! (I'm pretty sure said grimoire is heavily implied to be the Necronomicon itself also...) His manipulation of the other characters works very well, also. At times I wondered "how does nobody suspect the clearly sinister magician who wears a black cloak all the time and knows a lot about evil?" but as it progressed, I was able to buy that Flagg was just that entrenched in the kingdom's politics that so many people saw him as basically untouchable, and he was careful enough to hide behind his puppets.
To sum it up, rereading The Eyes of the Dragon...I enjoyed it once again! I think having read a lot more since reading it the first time, I'm a lot more familiar with the tropes of fantasy and how straight they're played here, so the story does feel generic (for want of a word with better connotations), but it's still enjoyable and Flagg is just an effective bad guy.
Next 2025 reread post is The Hobbit!
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