The Eyes of the Dragon

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Title The Eyes of the Dragon

Author	Stephen King
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Fantasy novel
Publisher	Philtrim Press, Signet
Released	1986 (limited edition), 1987 (trade hardback)
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	384 pp
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.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Characters 3 Trivia 4 Animated movie

[edit] Plot summary

The Eyes of the Dragon takes place entirely within the realm of Delain. 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 and royal adviser, Flagg (see Characters, below). Flagg has been covertly attempting to assassinate Queen Sasha (who is more intelligent than her husband, well loved by the people of Delain, 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 into almost entirely opposite people. Peter is smart, honest, handsome, and in spite of his youth, has already gained the respect and admiration of many people. Thomas is chunky, clumsy, and just intelligent enough to hate himself for his shortcomings. The narrator describes Thomas as often sad and confused, "not a bad boy". Possibly to contrast their personalities, the story-teller describes 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 sees how little Roland cares about the gift he hobbles out of the castle and has a fit of vomiting and weeping. He then sees a mangy, sick dog, which he stones to death in a fit of rage.

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 even Sasha was. It would be too dangerous to simply leave him to become King — yet Roland loved him so dearly that if Flagg tried to kill the Prince 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 in three days, Roland's youngest son watches in horror as he drank the poison. 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 crowned 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.

Peter takes 5 threads from each napkin and with the help of a working loom from the dollhouse weaves them into a rope. The rope breaks when Peter tries to climb down, but he is rescued by Ben and Naomi. The three rush to get the bow and arrow Roland used to slay the dragon but Flagg catches up with them and is about to kill them when Thomas reveals himself and the fact that he watched Flagg poison Roland. Flagg is shot and gets away.

[edit] Characters

• King Roland- The King of Delain. While renowned for slaying a dragon in his younger, more virile days, he has now become somewhat infirm and addled. He trusts Flagg, his advisor, but little does he realize that Flagg intends ill will toward Roland.
• Flagg- 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. As he gets older Flagg becomes 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. Roland chose her since she seemed the least likely to frighten him. However, she revealed herself to be a strong, independent woman, who truly loved (and was loved in return) 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 Staads' luck around.
• Dennis - Thomas' butler. Dennis' 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 (a developing resistance group), her favorite dog is Frisky.
• Peyna- The Kingdom's High Judge. The people are far more afraid of Peyna (though he isn't a bad man) than they are of the King. It is Peyna who condemns Peter to his sentence but later rethinks his decision and soon believes in the prince's innocence. Along with Dennis and Ben Staad, he helps 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 afterword 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.
• Delain is scathingly mentioned in another King short story, The Little Sisters of Eluria, as a country of liars.
• King wrote the book for his daughter Naomi, who disliked her father's ghosts and ghoulie stories with the excessive blood and bad language. The character Naomi is named after his daughter.

[edit] Animated movie

The Eyes of the Dragon was going to be made into an animated movie but the film rights options collapsed.