The Eyes of the Dragon
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| Author | Stephen King |
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| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy |
| Publisher | Signet |
| Released | 1987 |
| Pages | 384 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-451-16658-2 |
The Eyes of the Dragon is a book by Stephen King published in 1987. At the time it was a surprising deviation from the norm for King, who is best known for his horror fiction. This book is a work of classic fantasy, with a clearly established battle between good and evil and magic playing a lead role.
King wrote the book for his daughter Naomi, who disliked her father's ghosts and ghoulie stories with the excessive blood and bad language. One of the characters in the story is named Naomi, who proves to be an important ally of the good prince.
Contents |
[edit] Storyline
The Eyes of the Dragon takes place entirely within the realm of Delain, a country which is scathingly mentioned in another King short story, The Little Sisters of Eluria, as a country of liars. It is told from the perspective of an unnamed story-teller, who speaks casually and frankly to the reader, frequently adding his own commentary on character's motivations and the like.
The opening concerns itself with establishing five characters: King Roland, Queen Sasha, Prince Peter, Prince Thomas, and the wizard Flagg (see Characters, below). Royal advisor Flagg has been covertly attempting to assassinate Queen Sasha (who is more intelligent than her husband, and therefore more of a threat) for some time; he finally succeeds by bribing the Queen's midwife to slit an unidentified vein open while Sasha gives birth to Thomas. Outwardly, it appears that the force of giving birth to Thomas caused Sasha to bleed to death.
Peter and Thomas develop entirely opposite personalities. Peter is smart, honest, handsome, and in spite of his youth, has already gained the respect and admiration of many people. Thomas is clumsy, prone to bouts of anger, and is dying for his father to pay attention to him. To contrast their personalities, the story-teller describes to the reader how Peter once rescued a horse with a broken leg from being killed, carefully nursed it back to health, and kept it as his personal steed. A bit later, the story-teller describes how Thomas once carved a small boat as a present for his father. Roland ignores the gift almost entirely, in favor of lecturing Thomas on how well Peter had done at archery that day. When Thomas, on leaving, hears Roland disparage the gift even further, he hobbles out of the castle and has a fit of vomiting and weeping. He then sees a mangy, sick dog, which he beats to death with rocks. Surprisingly, the narrator goes to great pains to explain that Thomas was sad and confused, "but he was not a bad boy".
As time passed, and Peter grew older, it became more obvious to Flagg that the crown Prince was a far greater threat to his position as royal wizard than Sasha ever was. It would be too dangerous to simply leave him to become King — yet Roland loved him so dearly that it was likely the King would find out who would be responsible for assassinating Peter. Flagg then hits upon an even more devious plan: assassinate Roland, and frame Peter for the murder.
The scheme succeeds entirely. Roland's wine is poisoned, Roland drinks it and dies a few days later, Peter is blamed for it, and is locked up in the enormous tower, called the Needle, in the center of the city. Thomas is then made King, although he is only twelve years old; due to his youth and his fearful inexperience, he allows Flagg enormous amounts of power, as his chief advisor. However, Flagg has overlooked two flaws in his plans. Someone saw Flagg pass on the glass of poisoned wine to Roland. And Peter has made two requests for things he wants in his cell: his mother's dollhouse, and a napkin with every meal.
The rest of the story explores why Peter made those odd requests, the disastrous results of Thomas's kingship, and the actions of Peter's few friends left in Delain as they try to work for his freedom.
[edit] Characters
- King Roland- The King of Delain. He is a rather plain, overweight man who is unsure around women but is fairly popular within the Kingdom, as his subjects see him as a man of the people. He enjoys beer and, though he wishes it wasn't so, favors his older son, Peter, over his younger son, Thomas.
- Flagg (Atsushi)- The Advisor to the King. Flagg is a powerful magician and has been around for centuries. In his incarnation in Eyes of the Dragon, he has served as an advisor to four successive monarchs: Roland's grandparents and parents, Roland himself, and Thomas. Though he has lived in Delain for roughly seventy years, he has only appeared to age ten. Later in the story, it is revealed that he has appeared in Delain multiple times, under multiple guises, the oldest of which that is mentioned in the book took place over five hundred years in the past. His ultimate goal is to cause Delain to overthrow the monarchy and be plunged into "a thousand years of bloody anarchy".
- Peter- Roland's older son and the heir to the throne. Peter is a tall, lithe, handsome young man who inherited his mother's good looks and his father's love of the common man. He is the clear favorite among the people to be the next King, and they eagerly anticipate the day he'll step up to the throne.
- Thomas- Roland's younger son. Thomas takes after Roland in that he's on the slower side and is a heavy boy even in youth. He (rightfully) feels overshadowed by Peter and resents his brother in the knowledge that Roland clearly loves Peter more. He feels Flagg is his only friend and sole source of comfort.
- Queen Sasha- Roland's wife and the mother of Peter and Thomas. Sasha was chosen for Roland because she was an innocent girl from a lesser noble family and seemed to be the shyest of the lot that Flagg had selected for Roland. However, she revealed herself to be a strong, independent woman, and was truly loved by both Roland and the kingdom. She was murdered under Flagg's orders while giving birth to Thomas.
- Ben Staad- Peter's best friend. The Staad family is described as the most unlucky family within Delain, but Ben and Peter strike up a close friendship. Ben is strong, handsome and might be the only hope to turn the Staad's luck around.
- Dennis - Thomas' butler. Dennis's family has been butlers to the royals of Delain for centuries, and Dennis takes great pride in his work.
- Naomi- A peasant girl who is with the exiles, her favorite dog is Frisky.
- Penya- the judge of the court who condemns Peter to his sentence but later rethinks his decision and soon believes in the prince's innocence. He helps Dennis and Ben Staad help Peter escape from the Needle.
[edit] Trivia
- Flagg (Randall Flagg), the villain of this story, is directly involved with the Dark Tower series, appearing as one of Roland of Gilead's main antagonists. He is also the main antagonist in The Stand. King hinted, in the afterward to Wizard and Glass, that the "wandering youths from Eyes of the Dragon" (presumably Thomas and Dennis, who had gone on a quest to find and destroy Flagg at the end of the novel) would make an appearance in the Dark Tower series, but ultimately, they didn't.
- King references Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos when he mentions that Flagg's spellbook was "written on the high, distant Plains of Leng by a madman named Alhazred", is bound in human flesh, and can cause madness after too much exposure.
- In one passage, the narrator of the story discusses a witch by the name of Rhiannon. It is possible, due to the similarity of their names, that "Rhiannon" is another title for Rhea of the Coos.
- In the Dark Tower book Song of Susannah Roland says that his grandfather Alaric went to Garlen, the land next to Delain, to slay a dragon but got there too late because the last dragon in that part of the world had already been killed by another king who was later murdered.
- One of King's possible titles for the book was "The Napkins" as these rather mundane items play a significant role in the plot on more than one occasion.
[edit] Literary references
In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, the king of Rohan is under the debilitating influence of Saruman through his evil counselor. In Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, the Galaxy is going into a multiple-thousand years period of chaos, but following psychohistorian Hari Seldon's plan, the chaos is expected to be reduced to a thousand years of time.
[edit] Animated movie
The Eyes of the Dragon was going to be made into an animated movie but the film rights options collapsed.
| Stephen King |
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| Bibliography |
| Novels: Carrie (1974) • ’Salem's Lot (1975) • Rage (as Richard Bachman) (1977) • The Shining (1977) • Night Shift (stories) (1978) • The Stand (1978) • The Dead Zone (1979) • The Long Walk (as Richard Bachman) (1979) • Firestarter (1980) • Cujo (1981) • Roadwork (as Richard Bachman) (1981) • The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (1982) • Different Seasons (novellas) (1982) • The Running Man (as Richard Bachman) (1982) • Christine (1983) • Pet Sematary (1983) • Cycle of the Werewolf (1983) • The Talisman (written with Peter Straub) (1984) • Thinner (as Richard Bachman) (1984) • Skeleton Crew (stories) (1985) • The Bachman Books (novel collection) (1985) • It (1986) • The Eyes of the Dragon (1987) • Misery (1987) • The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (1987) • The Tommyknockers (1988) • Dark Visions (cowritten with George R. R. Martin and Dan Simmons) (1988) • The Dark Half (1989) • Dolan's Cadillac (1989) • My Pretty Pony (1989) • The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition (1990) • Four Past Midnight (stories) (1990) • Needful Things (1990) • The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991) • Gerald's Game (1992) • Dolores Claiborne (1993) • Nightmares & Dreamscapes (stories) (1993) • Insomnia (1994) • Rose Madder (1995) • Umney's Last Case (1995) • The Green Mile (1996) • Desperation (1996) • The Regulators (as Richard Bachman) (1996) • Six Stories (stories) (1997) • The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997) • Bag of Bones (1998) • The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999) • The New Lieutenant's Rap (1999) • Hearts in Atlantis (1999) • Dreamcatcher (2001) • Black House (sequel to The Talisman; written with Peter Straub) (2001) • From a Buick 8 (2002) • Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales (stories) (2002) • The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (revised edition) (2003) • The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (2003) • The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (2004) • The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (2004) • The Colorado Kid (2005) Cell (2006) • Lisey's Story (2006) |
| Non-fiction: • Danse Macabre (1981) • 1988 Nightmares in the Sky (1988) • 2000 On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000) • 2005 Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season (cowritten with Stewart O'Nan) (2005) |
| Original ebooks: Riding the Bullet (2000) • The Plant: Book 1-Zenith Rising (2000) |
| Audio Recordings |
| Audiobooks: L.T.'s Theory of Pets • Blood and Smoke (2000) • Stationary Bike (2006) |
