Who was your favorite or most memorable character?
My favorite was Stu, followed closely by Nick and then Tom.
Harold was certainly the most complex character in the book, and Julie Lawry was the least sympathetic (after Flagg). She had almost no redeeming qualities whatever.
Fran was whiny but I didn't think she was a bad person.
I identified most with Nick. When he died, I shifted over to Larry as my on-screen surrogate.
shareIn a way, I identified with Nick as well due to my hearing impairment, but King's propensity to make his disabled characters larger than life, is unrealistic, to put it mildly. Disabled people are rarely accepted as leaders, and to give King credit, Nick knew this. He felt that making him (a deaf-mute) a leader was a bad joke; that his place was 'spear-carrier, third from the left'.
I wish that King wouldn't do that, as it tends to foster unrealistic expectations among the non-disabled.
[deleted]
I've said this before on here, but it's been a while and so I think I'm entitled to repeat myself -- Harold and Larry strike me as opposite sides of the same coin. Pre-plague, both were real shits, Larry even more so than Harold. Harold was just an obnoxious, insecure, bitter adolescent. Larry went on drug binges, racked up bad debts, left his messes for others to clean up, etc.
The difference is that Larry gets a fresh start and Harold doesn't. More than once in Boulder, Fran whispered tales about Harold behind his back when it was absolutely unnecessary for her to do so. Suppose one of Larry's old acquaintances had been in the Free Zone, doing the same with him? Would the other committee members have had second thoughts about trusting him?
OTOH, suppose Harold hadn't had Fran as an albatross around his neck. And suppose the first person he met after Ogunquit was an older man who saw some potential in him and became a sort of father figure, treating him in a "tough love" kind of way but with dignity and respect. "Figuring out how to siphon gas, checking the Stovington plague center, and putting up signs were all good thinking, even if the plague center didn't work out. There's a good man inside you waiting to get out, but you've *gotta* kick that high school shit the hell out of the way and move on first. For what it's worth, my high school sucked ass too. *Let it go.*" Harold might have turned out much differently.
Clearly I dislike Fran, which lowers my opinion of Stu for pairing up with her. I still think he's a good guy, but I don't think I'd invite them (as a couple) over for dinner too often. And I have to wonder if he ever told her about (mentioned in the book but not in the miniseries) his pre-plague dalliances with hookers?
[deleted]
One of Larry's traits is that he can at times be brutally honest when he considers himself. Judge Farris pointed his out to him, saying that while a lot of self-righteousness is a bad thing, he needed to develop a little just to keep his head on straight. So regarding Larry, I'll take Larry's word for it ...
His repeated refrain that "I ain't no nice guy" in the beginning is somewhat of an excuse to be an ass, but also reflects his own opinion that he'll never be any better. The cross-country trip and his unexpected leadership of his little band changed him somewhat, but not that much; he accepted the Committee position as much out of boredom as anything else. Much later in the story (IIRC, when Nadine made her last play for him), he reflects that it would only take one or two more failures as a man to ruin him for good. And it's not until his very last day in life that he feels that whatever is broken inside him is finally whole.
I don't think Larry developed the sort of maturity you're ascribing to him until later on, whereas Harold never got the chance to develop that sort of maturity. Consider if this had happened ...
Suppose Wayne Stukey had been in Boulder early on, had seen Larry's name on the proposed committee member list, and had gone to the others on that list and told them everything he knew about Larry. The month long drug binge. The debts left behind. His general irresponsibility. Etc. Not to be mean or vindictive, but just to warn them that in his opinion Larry was not the sort of guy who should be one of the community's guiding hands. And they had correctly concluded that before trusting Larry with any important responsibility, they'd better take a second look at him and ask him some tough questions. And they did, refusing to settle for easy answers, not backing down when it got unpleasant. Not a brutal interrogation, but a determined effort to get at the truth and find out who Larry really was.
(continued below)
I don't think it would take much pressure for Larry to react as he did to others earlier. Blow his stack and walk away. Something like, "hey, being on your committee wasn't even my idea. *You* came to me and asked *me* to do it. And I said OK. But if you're going to be such assholes about it, then screw the whole thing!" And after that, would he have rebounded and become the person he was later on in the actual story? Or would he have stuck to that same pattern, walking away when anything got a little tough to handle?
Well, Larry got the chance to toughen up and mature, because nothing like that happened. Harold didn't get that chance. And it wasn't as if Fran "turned up" (your words) in Boulder; he was burdened with her from day one. If *she* had any real maturity at all, she should have said to him "whatever happened in Maine stays in Maine" very early on, and stuck to it. Instead she knocked Harold behind his back ("in Ogunquit he was the most insufferable kid you can imagine," etc)
> Fran probably was a little harder on Harold than need be, but he had no business prying into her private journal
And she had absolutely no business **breaking and entering** into Harold's home, no matter what. Look folks, the Free Zone's first felony!
Did Harold have any real chance of straightening up? I don't know. It's easy to dismiss him as such a horribly tortured soul that real change was impossible. But there are some signs to the contrary. His reaction when he realized that the nickname "Hawk" wasn't given to him as a joke, but out of affection and respect, and his musings afterward. But having Fran around made it much more difficult, and perhaps impossible. Not to blame her entirely; once Nadine got her hooks into him, it was certainly impossible.
(continued below)
Ah, Nadine. I have a curious reaction to her. In age and appearance (as described in the book), she happens to be a pretty good match for one of my college professors, a stunningly gorgeous woman with a killer body. When I was her student, I desperately wanted to bang her. And -- like Nadine -- she was also a denizen of the dark side. She was a Communist. I don't mean that metaphorically, as a disparaging term for someone who's merely an extreme liberal. I mean it literally. She was an actual Communist Party member, dedicated to destroying the conventional institutions, mainstream culture, traditions, and so on of the USA and installing the Communist Party as the new ruling class.
Now, thirty-odd years later, I look back as ask myself, if she had done to me what Nadine did to Harold, would I have followed her down the dark path? And the answer is obvious. Of course I would have; and I'd probably have pictures of Lenin and Marx hanging in places of honor in my home today. I was an adolescent boy, and of course I would have. Well, I'm glad as hell that never happened. But when I read The Stand and get to that part, I find myself cheering Harold on; what the hell, at the end of the day he's just a fictional character, but at least he got to live out some of my teenage fantasies. ;)
Well, I've blabbed enough now. lol
My favorite was Julie Lawry played by actress Shawnee Smith. She is cartoonishly evil and so over the top I love it! She first tells Rob Lowe "The Retard doesn't need help because they don't feel things like we do". She just wants him to take her right there in the pharmacy with Tom laid up with the belly ache. When Rob Lowe tries to give Tom the Pepto Bismal knowing Rob Lowe is deaf tells Tom the medicine is actually poison.
While I don't appreciate violence on women Rob Lowe slaps her across the face and it's freaking hilarious. She runs away screaming like crazy Bugs Bunny. Only to reaapear in the window with a shotgun trying to kill the guys.
The role is incredibly stupid and if taken by a lesser actress would have been giga cringe but she crushes the performance selling the character as just a genuinely terrible human being.
This show has such incredible casting their is probably a dozen similar roles I just as easily could have picked but hers had my laughing so hard it's incredibly memorable.