The Eyes of the Dragon

“What your father does is right, for he is the King, and what you do when you are King will always be right.”

In one of her lessons to Peter, Sasha explains that Roland can do whatever he wants because he is king. Kings can do whatever they want and get away with it, and that is why it is “right,” but that does not mean what Roland does is good or just or kind. That is why it is important for a king to be good, just, and kind, so those things become what is “right” in a kingdom.

“Time only passes faster in histories, and what is a history except a grand sort of tale where passing centuries are substituted for passing years?”

The narrator of the novel is telling a kind of history, so the narrator must decide what scenes to describe and what scenes to skip over to hurry the story along. The narrator here is suggesting that Delain is a real place where things are happening even when narrators and historians are not describing events. It is a comment on fictionality and narrative more generally and that all histories are tales too.

“It was possible to make oneself…dim. Yes, dim—that was really the best word for it, although others sometimes came to mind: ghostly, transparent, unobtrusive.”

Flagg cannot make himself invisible, but he can make himself seem so utterly uninteresting and unremarkable that he isn’t noticed, even when he would otherwise be visible. The word “unobtrusive” is especially interesting because it does not seem to fit the other adjectives. This is a case where there is slippage between magic in the high fantasy sense and simple psychology.

“He felt as if someone had reached into his chest and cut off a tiny piece of his heart and made him eat it. His heart tasted very bitter to him, and he hated Peter more than ever, although part of him still loved his hand older brother and always would. And although the taste had been bitter, he had liked it. Because it was his heart.”

In a moment of jealousy toward his brother, Thomas imagines eating his own heart, finding it bitter, and liking it. The lines very closely mirror the famous poem “In the Desert” by Stephen Crane (1895). The speaker of Crane’s poem finds a creature eating its own heart and asks whether the creature likes it. The creature responds:

It is bitter—bitter […]

But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart (Crane, Stephen. “In the Desert.” Poetry Foundation. Lines 7-10).

In addition to the echo of Roland eating Niner’s heart, here King blends canonical literature with genre fiction.

“Flagg knew something else; he knew that people have a deep and instinctive distrust of all Kings and princes, for these are people who may order their deaths with a single nod, and for crimes as petty as dropping a handkerchief in their presence.”

King (as Flagg) psychoanalyzes the people living under medieval monarchies. Whereas in a fairytale a beloved prince or princess remains as such, but here the love of a people for their ruler is revealed to be a much more complicated relationship. Monarchies are fragile things, for they exist despite the unjust and outsized power that single people have over the many, and for their own self-preservation the people will always be quick to think the worst of royals.

“Tears looked like an expression of guilt coming from a boy old enough to commit murder but not hold enough to hide what he had done.”

When Peyna first explains to Peter that he is being accused of poisoning Roland, Peter’s fate hinges on Peyna’s flash judgment of his reaction. When Peter cries, Peyna does not see a boy who loved his father but a boy who has been caught when he didn’t think he would be. It is a judgment based on intuition—antithetical to the law and Peyna’s character.

“They wanted a good King they could love. But they also wanted to know they had been saved by only a hair’s breadth from a bad one. They wanted blackness and secrets; they wanted their fearful tale of rotten royalty.”

Like Flagg, Peter begins to realize just how fickle the people are regarding the monarchy, but Peter also senses that the people want only to scapegoat some of the royal family for the crimes of the rest. That way, they can express distrust without having to worry about who is actually in charge.

“Sometimes stories tell more than histories, and more quickly, too.”

In response to an earlier quote about the economy of histories, here the narrator suggests that not only are histories tales themselves, but sometimes smaller tales can do the work of histories. In other words, human nature is universal, and explaining the nature of humanity in one moment can be extrapolated to whole peoples and governmental systems.

“An injustice had been done. He discovered a strange thing—the fact that the injustice had been done to him didn’t seem half so important as the fact that it had been done at all. It ought to be righted.”

Peter’s goodness is punctuated in the moment when he decides to escape and fight back against Flagg. He realizes that he wants to escape and confront Flagg not for his own vengeance but on principle; it was wrong, and wrongs need to be righted by those who have the power and moral authority to do so.

“There came a sudden feeling of exultation in Peyna’s heart: he felt as one might feel in a dark cave when a light suddenly shines out.”

Peyna realizes that Flagg has grown more powerful, and Delain is falling into tyranny. Things are looking grim, so when Arlen mentions that Peter has sent him a note from prison, despite Peyna ostensibly still believing Peter is guilty, Peyna suddenly feels hope. That hope influences his actions before he even realizes he is on Peter’s side.

“[Peyna] had forgotten that the logic of all the wise old men in the world cannot often stand against the logic of a boy’s heart, if the boy’s heart is large and kind and loyal.”

Peyna is impressed by Ben’s loyalty to Peter and Ben’s ability to resist the pressure to give up on saving Peter. This is also a major theme in King’s books generally; it is children who still have enough innocence to stand up against evil when the adults are too bitter or disillusioned to still believe in the role of goodness in the world.

“It was the dollhouse about which Flagg had had vague misgivings so long ago which was now Peter’s only real hope of escape.”

The narrator points to a dramatic irony that this minor thing in Peter’s childhood would end up playing a major role in Peter’s escape and Flagg’s defeat. While Flagg did not like the dollhouse, he considered it an insignificant matter and allowed Roland to disagree with him regarding its removal. It was the one matter Roland stood up to Flagg about, which was odd in the moment but also seems important in hindsight.

“Breaking strain is a good thing for a prince to know about, Peter. Chains break if you put on enough of a tug, and people do, too. Keep it in mind.”

Yosef explains “breaking strain” to Peter, which is how he learns to make a rope strong enough to support his weight. In that explanation, Yosef gives Peter a little bit of wisdom—but Peter never uses this wisdom in the context of ruling. He only watches as Thomas breaks, and then as the people of Delain break under the weight of tyranny. It is wisdom that another prince, Thomas, could have used.

“He’s done it all before! He’s done it all before, and in exactly the same way, but he did it over four centuries ago!”

Peter realizes Flagg is hundreds of years old and has done the same thing to Delain before. Importantly, Peter realizes Flagg has doled out his evil plans in “exactly the same way,” which reveals something about the nature of Flagg and evil generally: it is cyclical, and it is uncreative.

“A little reflection convinced him that while that might happen in a storybook, it would not happen in real life.”

Peter decides not to tell Peyna about Leven Valera because he thinks it is more likely Peyna would be endangered by the news than able to do anything about it. It is not like Peter, who had previously decided the only thing worse would be not trying, to give up so easily. Here, it seems like the narrator uses metacommentary about fairytales to distract the reader from a possible path not taken; Peter is not aware he is in a storybook where such things do work out.

“Guilt is like a sore, endlessly fascinating, and the guilty party feels compelled to examine it and pick at it, so that it never really heals.”

The narrator describes guilt like a drug addiction. It compels self-harm that only perpetuates the problem. Thomas has such an addiction. He cannot escape his guilt, and he physically has an addiction to sleeping powders and wine.

“Worlds sometimes shudder and turn inside their axes, and this was such a time. Flagg felt it, but did not grasp it. The salvation of all that is good is only this—at times of great import, evil beings sometimes fall strangely blind.”

There is a sense in the novel that larger forces in the universe are influencing the course of events in the story. That larger force might be the prerogative of the narrator, but Delain exists in a reality with magic, so perhaps in this case worlds do shift based on the actions of people. If so, that force seems to ally with the side of good because it sabotages evil. If not, then maybe it is only the nature of evil that “blinds” itself on the eve of its triumph.

“Oh, I suppose all men of intelligence know how fragile such things as Law and Justice and Civilization really are, but it’s not a thing they think of willingly, because it disturbs one’s rest and plays hob with one’s appetite.”

All people, from the lowliest commoners to the great philosophers, are judicious regarding the lines of thought they engage in. Everyone prefers to live in blissful ignorance than think about the fragility of their lives. This is how Peyna failed to see tyranny coming—tyranny thrives when good and capable people fail to act because they are afraid of disturbing their lives.

“[Peyna] knew as well as we in our own world do that the road to hell is paved with good intentions—but he also know that, for human beings, good intentions are sometimes all there are.”

Peyna has a grim view of the world. In his view, good intentions are either misguided, leading to bad outcomes, or empty of any real capacity to do anything. He does not allow that good intentions might also lead to good outcomes.

“He was sometimes a cruel boy, often a sad boy, this pretend King, and he had almost always been a weak boy…but even now I must tell you that I do not believe he was every really a bad boy. If you hate him because of the things he did—and the things he allowed to be done—I will understand; but if you do not pity him a little as well, I will be surprised.”

For the final time in the novel, the narrator repeats the refrain that Thomas is not a “bad boy.” This time the effect is different because Thomas is no longer a child, and he has stood idly by for five years of atrocities in his name. He no longer has any innocence. The narrator reframes Thomas as a boy to garner sympathy for him as someone who has suffered and to set up his possible redemption.

“Here I come, dear Peter, to chop off your head!”

Flagg screams this and variations of this as he runs up the stairs carrying the battle axe. The pairing of an irrational man with an axe and this phrasing might remind readers of the film The Shining, which is based on another of King’s novels. In that film, the character Jack chases his wife with an axe and yells “Here’s Johnny!” The Eyes of the Dragon shifts to the horror genre in these scenes, drawing on King’s experience.

“For better or worse his life now depended on the napkins.”

When Peter first lowers his full weight onto the tiny rope of napkin strands, the narrator is coyly hinting that Peter’s life will also be saved by the pile of napkins that Ben, Naomi, and Dennis are building (though the reader doesn’t know about them yet). Arguably, the way he lives his life has always depended on napkins.

“Did they all live happily ever after? They did not. No one ever does, in spite of what the stories may say.”

The final chapter echoes the first chapter, which begins “Once…” The narrator invokes the fairytale genre again. This time, the narrator more overtly rejects the trope. Like all the narrator’s rejections of fairytale tropes, however, this one seems to be only half true. The chapter goes on to describe some endings that are similar to many fairytale happily-ever-afters.