if you lived on little tall island..

[Pucker]

One?

Hell . . . take 'em all.

[citi biskit]

I couldn't give a child to Lingone, but if I had to save millions I still would be confussed on who should live, cuz i would not want to die and anyone hands

[king family fan]

I could not imagion giving him one of my children. Not even on their best days. LOL

[CaptainClaudius]

The entire dilemma in SOTC, which is what made is such a great story, was the moral choice that Linoge offered: sacrifice for comfort or suffer and die for standing firm. Obviously the citizens wanted comfort so they gave in to Linoge's wishes and there was there did seem to be reward of group cohesion and maybe a type of ignorance: Ralphie was just another who was lost in the storm and we can't really remember much else.

It's a great thread that I've found again and again in King's empire and what's interesting is that both choices carry a reward and consequence. I thought Mike's reward was closure: he got to see Ralphie again and didn't have to live a lie. I guess it was a Pyrrhic victory but a victory nonetheless.

If I was put in the situation I would have chosen the same as Mike as peace and comfort are nice as I get older the truth becomes more important and more valuable to me and I want to remember things as they happened so I can continue to learn from them. Comfort is nice, yes, but every time I've tried to live with a lie it has eaten away at me until I confronted it and replaced it with the truth. Peace and comfort in a lie? No thanks, I'll take the pain of the truth as it may end up being all that I have that's worth anything.

[mojomofo]

It occurs to me that sacrificing some children to save others is a recurring theme for SK. I wonder if this is something that he personally has spent time debating with himself about.

That out of the way, there is no way I could give up my child to save others. And if I am going to be totally honest, it may not make me a very nice person, and certainly makes me a selfish one, but I could allow someone else to give up their child to save mine. I would bear that guilt.

[GNTLGNT]

Sure, he can have him!

[Amphiaraus]

The entire dilemma in SOTC... was the moral choice that Linoge offered: sacrifice for comfort or suffer and die for standing firm.

That's about as neat a summary of the situation on Little Tall as anyone is likely to provide, and you're also bang on in pointing out that this is a moral dilemma that involves a kind of double bind: No matter what folks choose, the consequences of that choice are undesirable even if they're not immediately understood.

Linoge, crafty menace that he is, is able to play on the fears of the islanders and, consequently, it's almost a given that they'll make a cowardly compromise rather than take a stand. In a way, the plot of 'Storm of the Century' is an echo of the situation that King sets up and examines in 'Needful Things'. Generally, bad things happen when a demon comes to town and makes a pitch; the question is, what is the good person to do?


Temptation appeals to human fraility though the immediate gratification of desires; fear plays on the human frailities associated with mortality and ignorance. Once a person realizes that immediate gratifications are hollow and that death is inevitable, evil loses almost all of its influence. The rest is simply about not becoming evil. Really, what's the worse Linoge could've done if the islanders had banded together and said no? Well, we can imagine another Roanoke-like event where everyone is magically whisked away or killed (the actual Roanoke event is much less mysterious and a great deal less dramatic), but given King's cosmology, chances are the forces of goodness would've intervened at the last moment in some way, if only to frustrate Linoge.

If I was put in the situation I would have chosen the same as Mike... [as] the truth becomes more important and more valuable to me... Peace and comfort in a lie? No thanks, I'll take the pain of the truth as it may end up being all that I have that's worth anything.

Another observation that I couldn't agree more with. If the basis of moral action demands a freedom of choice, the basis of goodness demands unbridled honesty.

[Ebdim9th]

The folks of Little Tall were completely unwilling to take the risks of standing up to Linoge, no invitation of "the coming of The White" to help them beat him and save their children. It was even Mike's spiritual short-sightedness that kept him from seeing this great community-wide problem before it was too late, belatedly and only partially coming to the conclusions he needed to about how to deal with the spirit that had attached itself to the community's sins. Like his deputy, but for different reasons, Mike was a good, but weak, man. His loss was different but no less devastating, and just as self-wrought. He had some self-respect left, but not enough, because he knew that he too had dropped the ball at some point along the way and paid the price for it.

[Seb Shaw]

Hrmm. Have no kids as of yet, but I'd be willing to offer up my brother on one of his more 'annoying' days