Annie Wilkes

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Annie Wilkes is the antagonist of the 1987 novel Misery, by Stephen King.

A nurse by profession, Annie lives in a house in the mountains near Sidewinder, Colorado, a fictional town (although the real town of Silver Creek, in Grand County, is mentioned as nearby). She was married for a short period of time until her husband left her, and she has no friends or family. She retired from working after being tried and acquitted of the murders of several newborns in a Boulder, Colorado hospital, where she was the head maternity nurse.

Wilkes is a serial killer, responsible not only for the deaths of the infants in Boulder, but also over 30 other victims, including the children of her childhood neighbors, her college roommate, a hitchhiker she once slept with, and even her own father. She mainly murders old and sick patients in the hospitals where she works, but occasionally targets other acquaintances if she views them as a threat. While she documents every death meticulously in a scrapbook, she is extremely careful to hide the evidence and has never been convicted or even suspected of most of the murders. She was charged with the murder of only one newborn baby, but she was later acquitted. Despite being acquitted, she was forever branded as the "Dragon Lady" and retreated into total isolation in her cabin.

She has an unhealthy obsession with romance novels, particularly the Misery series written by Paul Sheldon. She often has difficulty in differentiating between these novels and reality.

She abhors profanity, to the point that she will fly into fits of rage if it is used in front of her. She instead expresses anger with childishly strange words like "cockadoodie", "dirty bird" or "dirty birdie." Incurably paranoid and depressed, she thinks everyone is persecuting her and frequently has unexpectedly violent tantrums over insignificant matters; the novel hints that she may suffer from a particularly severe case of paranoid schizophrenia.

Wilkes initially saves Sheldon when he is crippled in a car accident and takes him to her home to convalesce. When she discovers the ending of Sheldon's latest Misery novel, in which the protagonist, her beloved Misery Chastain, dies, she subjects the bedridden novelist to a series of physical and psychological tortures, including forcing him to burn the only copy of a novel he felt would put him back on track as a writer. She holds him captive in her home and forces him to write a new novel according to her wishes. When his broken legs heal, she re-hobbles him so he will not try to escape again.

Knowing Wilkes will kill him eventually, Sheldon writes the new novel as she wants and pretends to go along with her plans, but then overpowers her by throwing a typewriter into her back and choking her with the pages of his book (in the film, he chokes her with pages of the burnt novel. In the novel, he chokes her with blank pages which she believes to be the book- in reality, the real novel was hidden from sight and was later published). Disoriented, she slips and falls onto her mantle, fracturing her skull. Sheldon is then rescued by police.

[edit] In other media

In the 1990 film, Annie Wilkes was portrayed by Kathy Bates, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal.

The American Film Institute included Annie Wilkes in their "100 Heroes and Villains" list, where she ranked 17 out of the 50 villains presented.