Complicated characters.

[Checkman]

We all love to talk about the nature of good and evil as portrayed in The Stand. You know there is an interesting character that shows up at the end of the novel. Hugh Petrella who takes Stu's place at Free Zone Marshall. He is described as a hard, puritanical sort and a big believer in law and order. What I find interesting is that Petrella joins the Free Zone.

The Free Zone is something of a laid back liberal place. It seems that all the folks who value order and structure in the modern sense of the word are drawn to Flagg. Get the trains running on time etc. But Petrella goes to Boulder. Which means he dreamed of Mother Abigaile and was drawn to her. I find that to be very interesting. It's just a small thing but an interesting observation on how complicated we Humans can be.

Also I think Major Len Creighton was immune to the Flu. I think he choose to be neutral and when it was all over he quietly slipped into Boulder. He'd had enough of wars and perhaps he felt like he needed to stay out of this one anyway. I don't see him having much trouble avoiding Flagg's patrols. And Flagg wouldn't have been bothered with just one man - at least not at the beginning. I don't think he was an evil man. I think he joined the Army because he believed in the United States and what the U.S. represents ideally. But he would be committed to a lifetime of silence and lies about his background understandably.

[aeroplane]

Good to hear from you in the other thread I started......

To this day, I've never really understood why Len Creighton just quietly disappears from the book. I wouldn't call your immune theory far fetched either, since he never appears to be sick even when we last see him in the book.

I get the impression we're supposed to believe Roland Gibbs stormed into the base and killed Creighton, because Gibbs goes into his Brother Zeno speech just one paragraph after we last see Len mentioned. But it seems really dicey at the same time. So yeah, I don't have a hard time seeing Len as a survivor.

For that matter, I feel the same way about Dick Deitz, who we can safely assume is dead. We see the scene where he is talking into the tape recorder about his visit with Stu. He seems to have a fair amount of respect for Stu, on some level.

Then we never see him again, with his disappearance only being implied in paragraphs featuring Patty Greer getting sick and Starkey thinking to himself how the Atlanta Center staff all caught Captain Trips.

Personally I'd have found it quite interesting to have a few paragraphs in which Deitz and Denninger learn they have the flu and how they are handling it. Remember these are men working round the clock during the book testing sick people and trying to cook up some sort of vaccine.

Going back to Len Creighton, I appreciated the effort that was made by Stephen to show the closeness of his relationship to Starkey. Which of course we see evidence of on a few occasions early in the book, the salute and a few other little things. Very well done.

As for Starkey, his recollection about the poker game conversation (regarding handling a military crisis) and how he'd never heard anything before that made so much sense.......it was some great insight into his character.

Creighton, Starkey, Deitz and even Denninger all deserved just a little more space.

[Checkman]

I agree. You know the interesting thing about SK is while he does have cops and military men who are jerks (Rose Madder, Dream Catcher) he has more of those characters who are sympathetic and sometimes downright heroic. Go figure. Guess SK is complicated as well.

[LauraJo]

Just going back to the point about Petrella joining the Free Zone, I think Tom Cullen makes an interesting point when he talks about how he met good people in Vegas, good but scared.

[ShootDaSquirrells]

I think that by the end, Mother Abigail wasn't drawing people in anymore. People were going to Boulder because of human nature to be around other people. At the end I think Stephen King makes the point that the initial threat of evil has been overcome but remember Flagg shows up at the very end somewhere else. Also I think Stephen King tries to show that Boulder is drifting away from its original purpose. The Free Zone is obsolete so to speak. Now people are together and human nature will take its course. That is what the martial was there to prove. In the end, nothing changed about human nature. They just saved the world and allowed humans to continue living the way they always did. There will be crime and there will be law and order and the world will return to how it was before.

Basically, humans didn't learn their lesson.

[Checkman]

Maybe there is no lesson to be learned. The lesson is we do the best that we can and we strive to do right, but the world is what it is. Ultimately by defeating Flagg (that time) they just ensure that the world will continue on and people will continue to have the freedom to make choices. In many of SK's other stories I get the impression that free will is a major player. Flagg would have upset the balance so to speak. That was unacceptable.

Or like Glen Bateman said perhaps Captain Trips is also a massive super enema. Time to clean out the excess and get back to basics. Not change everything but just erase the chalkboard. Make more room. But Flagg was a problem there as well.

All about balance.