The Stand: Ending Explained
Stephen King’s The Stand (1978) 5/5 stars
Contains Spoilers
This is part two of my three-part series on Stephen King’s The Stand. In my first article, I give a general review and recommendation. In this review, I’ll discuss all things spoilers, including my analysis of The Stand’s ending. In part three, I will do an in-depth character review, and reflect on how to learn and grow from each character.
Since this book was written over 40 years ago without smartphones or the internet, there was no discussion of the falling away of social media. One character said he tried to make a “change booth” and phone kiosk (payphone) call, dialed from memory, but couldn’t call long distance to talk to anyone outside of the town. It was interesting to put myself in this era, when the only place you got your information was the television, newspapers, or other people.
Part one for me was disturbing. I did not enjoy many of the graphic scenes, children dying, and overall melancholy. As I was tempted to stop reading, I decided to put my hope in Stephen King, that he would not leave this world or my heart a disappointed hellhole. After all the strife he put me through, yanking my heart out of my chest, I swore to myself I would never read another Stephen King book if he didn’t fix what he broke.
In part two, I enjoyed the imaginative discussion on fourth-dimensional free will (end of Chapter 46). After Glen, the sociology professor was introduced, the conversations about mysticism were so interesting, especially when King referred to a study about how airplanes that crash have less passengers, indicating that people have a psychic awareness and intuition about future disaster, and the ability to avoid it.
I also got lost in Harold’s dark journey of discovering and embracing his own madness. It’s much more fun to put myself in the mind of a villain, to understand how such a person would think.
Even in book two where I anticipated myself trudging through, I flew through it because King managed to continually build anticipation. Even during the lesser interesting parts of committee meetings, King didn’t dwell too long.
When Trash finally reached Cicero, King built anticipation by capturing a snapshot of Trash’s thoughts — “He thought about The Kid,” repeating, over and over, as the ball went around and around the roulette table. This is an example how King would often perseverate on some mundane thing, like a ball going around and around, but this is what adds so much impact to his writing. Then he would leave cliffhangers, quickly switching to a new character. I thought this was a crafty way to keep the brain hooked.
Then there was Nadine, a character more complex than I could ever imagine.
“NADINE. NADINE. OH HOW I LOVE TO LOVE MY PET, MY PRETTY.”
Nadine was supernaturally entranced by Flagg since childhood. He visited her in dreams, visions, and Ouiji seances. She has never told anybody. She has saved her virginity for her dark prince. Nadine has a dark black heart….the black widow builds her web.
Or does she? Was she just naively lured into the dark man’s trap as a young innocent child? Her heartless cruelty will make you hate her, but also makes you wonder, like the pharaoh of Egypt, was her heart just hardened? Was any of this of her own free will? Nadine’s desires for her man make you ponder the blinding effects of love and acceptance, and what a person would sacrifice for it. What makes her love the dark man so much? Is it fate?
Nadine’s end was tragic and laced with emotional and sexual trauma. After the disturbing rape scene with Flagg, she lost all sense of herself, completely disassociating. I believe from the moment she met Flagg she died inside, and her ending was inevitable. Everything she had believed in was false. From a Christian perspective, I think this demonstrates the danger of being deceived and giving yourself to the wrong side. Nadine had many opportunities and free will to change her mind but in the end, she just didn’t.
In part three I kept writing “favorite part” in the margin. I’ve decided, though, that my favorite part of this book is the tragic death of Dayna. I pictured Dayna as a modern Rhonda Rousey, a strong, clever, fearless woman.
I’m not sure why King made the wittiest, grittiest, most heroic and memorable character the one who barely had a role. The scene of her death was the most suspenseful part of the book. Dayna was pulled into Flagg’s office after he discovered she was a spy, but was surprisingly calm and amiable, even offering to let her go home.
Dayna caught on to Flagg’s deception and maintained the strength to resist his manipulation. And then just when you think she’s going to use her wit to find a way out of his office, King writes:
“She killed herself by simply whipping her head around to the right.”
And just like that, she’s a martyr. Her eye through the sharded glass. Her power over Randall Flagg was shocking and her death triumphant. I have never felt so happy when a character has died, and at the same time so infuriated.
This is contrasted with the death of Rita, a central character on which survival hinges. King writes:
“But in the end, she simply died.”
After much thought, I saw the religious allegory in her seemingly meaningless death. The Free Zone expected Rita to lead as prophet and counselor, just like Jesus Christ’s followers expected him to be their king, and in the end nobody at the time expected either to die, leaving everyone to ponder — what is the point of all this?
Finally, there was the annihilation of Las Vegas, the most unanswered part of The Stand’s conclusion in Chapter 73. The ball of electricity Flagg flicked grew in the sky and looked like a hand. Flagg yelled “Nooo!” and vanished. Then the big finisher:
“the righteous and unrighteous alike were consumed in that holy fire.”
In the Old Testament, God is sometimes referred to as a “consuming fire” in the context of God not tolerating the worship of other gods. He also was a consuming fire when he would destroy Israel’s enemies. The idea is that of a wildfire that would destroy those who opposed God’s people.
The only other issue then is why were the righteous and unrighteous consumed? Why didn’t Larry and Ralph escape? In the Old Testament, God’s fire also came down to consume animal sacrifices, so maybe King considered Larry and Ralph to be sacrifices so the rest of civilization could be free from the evil. The ultimate Christian allegory then would appear to be the sacrifice of Jesus Christ so the rest of humanity could be saved.
After the ending of The Stand, I was surprised and deeply satisfied. What surprised me most was the way this book stirred up a sense of hope, optimism, and an almost joyful sense of peace and contentment. The Lord of the Rings journey back to Boulder brought a touch of whimsical wanderlust to the previously bleak world of misery. It was as if the entire world was redeemed after the consuming fire destroyed the evil.
The greatest satisfaction I had was when Kojak ran back to Stu and brought him the wood for the fire. After thinking Stu would be the one to die, per Rita’s prophecy, this was a pleasant surprise. The rest of the book was so hard to put down because I was so excited to see how Stu would make it back to Boulder.
The major theme of this story is rebirth. On a micro-level, several characters experienced a rebirth of themselves. Trash spoke of redemption and atonement, and in the end, was reborn in the truth of his purpose. Larry experienced a rebirth throughout the story as he slowly became the person he wanted to be. The most obvious was Harold, who spoke directly of his rebirth before he died. He finally resolved his identity crisis, agreeing to accept his new name Hawk, given to him in Boulder. On a macro-level, society is being reborn. The evil has been demolished, and humanity has a second chance.
Get The Stand book here: https://amzn.to/2JVoqLz
Others book’s mentioned in Stephen King’s The Stand:
Watership Down: https://amzn.to/3qzDxeu
Lord of The Rings: https://amzn.to/2JIbysx
Flowers of Algernon: https://amzn.to/3mQpajR
See my YouTube Review of The Stand Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZfoYXk1wAo
