Tak (Stephen King)

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Tak is an extradimensional entity existing within the Stephen King Universe. Its activities are limited to the Stephen King and Richard Bachman Novels Desperation and The Regulators, respectively (two books which are, in fact, parallel worlds of one other).

The word "tak" itself appears to mean, simply, "big" and/or "powerful."

Unlike most forces of evil in the Stephen King Universe, Tak is discorporate and seems to be completely unable to form a body on its own; in Desperation, it possesses the bodies of living things (which quickly wear out due to the stresses Tak's energies apparently place on living tissue). In the parallel world Earth of The Regulators, it partially takes over the mind of an autistic boy named Seth (the boy's consciousness remains within the host body, unlike the minds of those possessed by Tak in "Desperation").

In both cases, the creature manifests itself in Earth's dimension via an entry point (called an ini) in the bottom of a very deep well in a once abandoned but recently re-opened mine shaft in Nevada. In "Desperation," its physical body is actually located in another dimension, but in "The Regulators," the entirety of Tak's form consists of an intangible mist with bright red specks throughout; in both cases, it seems unable to move around in this dimension as a free-roaming, disembodied spirit for very long without a corporeal host.

1 Powers and Abilities
2 Connections to the Dark Tower and other King Books
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Powers and Abilities

Tak's powers vary within the context of the individual Books in which it is featured.

In Desperation, Tak's abilities include mental control of animals and insects (it used these animals to cause most of the deaths in the town) and the transmission of its essence into any host body in range that it chooses (although the less physically robust the victim, the less time that the host body will last; Tak's energies seemingly took days to wear down the body of the already physically massive sheriff, Collie Entragian, while a somewhat smaller human female, Ellen Carver, lasted only a few hours, and a bald eagle that Tak inhabited "burned out" in a matter of minutes). The body of the host/victim physically grows in size and strength; even the relatively frail Ellen Carver's body was grown to a size nearly as large as that of her husband's after being infused by Tak. The souls of those beings, sentient or otherwise, who are invaded by Tak are seemingly forever displaced; the moment that Tak leaves a host body, it falls lifeless to the ground regardless of the damage that may or may not have been done to it.

Tak also has the ability to mystically "infect" over time inanimate objects that lay in the vicinity of Tak's portal to Earth; these artifacts quickly drive to murderous insanity any human beings that pick them up.

In The Regulators, Tak's abilities are even more powerful. While in the mind of an autistic boy named Seth, Tak had the ability to alter reality itself. The nearby landscape (though, inexplicably, not the humans trapped in the area) began to take on the cartoonish aspects of the boy's childhood fantasies – albeit with Tak's murderous proclivities and appetite for chaos. Unlike its alter-Earth counterpart, this Tak seemingly cannot inhabit anyone's body but Seth's, apparently due to the boy's nascent mental powers (and, it is implied, the reason that Tak grows powerful enough to warp reality in the first place). On the one occasion that it tried to change hosts, Tak overloaded and blew up a human's head from the inside mere moments after entering the new body.

[edit] Connections to the Dark Tower and other King Books

Tak is believed by some Stephen King fans to be either an aspect of or an actual part of the Crimson King himself, in part due to the various descriptions of the ini (a dimensional portal through which the Desperation Tak reaches into the world) as resembling a glowing red eye, although there are numerous arguments to the contrary as well.

Although some phrases used by Tak in these two books make their way into various Stephen King books and short stories regarding the Dark Tower, (e.g. can toi and mi him en tow), Tak is never mentioned by name in any other Stephen King book. Unlike many other forces of evil in the Stephen King Universe, Tak seemingly does not answer to anyone or anything else, including the Crimson King (nor does it make any reference to him). The Tak of the "Desperation" setting was aware of the existence of God in Earth's dimension, but only because it could "feel" the Deity's presence within the boy, David Carver.