Stephen King has created countless terrifying villains and it’s unfortunate that Storm of the Century’s Andre Linoge is a force of evil that’s routinely overlooked. Along with Storm, King is responsible for some of the biggest horror novels of all time and many Stephen King adaptations have been made of his most popular works have been for television and film, where they've often become even more successful. Stephen King adaptations haven’t slowed down and more recent projects have found more ambitious ways to bring King’s stories and iconic characters to life.
One of the most beloved elements from King’s writing is that he’s created villains that feel refreshing and prey upon aspects of fear that haven’t been explored before. It’s not uncommon for the villains in King’s stories to be the biggest and most exciting aspects about them. King has found ways to turn commonplace things, like the car named Christine, into subjects of terror. Even ordinary pets, like Stephen King's Cujo, become nightmarish in his hands. However, out of all of King’s evil entities, it’s Storm of the Century’s Andre Linoge who’s actually the most dangerous. Storm of the Century centers around a giant storm that strands a small Maine community, but it also brings with it the mysterious and murderous force, Andre Linoge. Linoge plagues the community with death and confronts them with a wicked ultimatum.
King’s most well-known villains, like Pennywise and Randall Flagg, have the ability to warp reality and manipulate their prey’s thoughts and fears. Andre Linoge's supernatural abilities go even further. Linoge enters into peoples' minds and controls them to carry out murders and suicides. Most impressively, Linoge causes hundreds of people to share the same prophetic vision of doom. This power is later linked to previous genocides, and Linoge claims to be responsible for the disaster at Roanoke and possibly even Atlantis. It’s a level of psychic mastery that’s far beyond any other King villain, who have usually focused on individuals. Linoge has other powerful supernatural and psychic abilities, as do other Stephen King book characters. He can catch bullets, make people levitate, and blow the door off of his prison cell, all of which are far beyond anything that even Carrie’s Carrie White had demonstrated.
Storm of the Century is also one of the rare stories where the villain wins; Linoge succeeds in his plan and gets what he wants, Linoge's cyclical nature is another disturbing element to consider: He claims Ralphie as his protégé, who will go on to perpetuate his evil. It’s framed as an eternal process that never ends, indicating the demonic force of Linoge has been up to this since the dawn of creation. Even Pennywise, Randall Flagg, Dandelo and the other more powerful Dark Tower inhabitants had some limitations in place regarding their survival and longevity. Linoge is shown to be weaker when he’s thousands of years old, but an exact expiration date is never provided. Part of his longevity is likely due to the fact he doesn't flaunt his existence in the same way other King villains have, nor does he invite conflict like Randall Flagg.
It’s also a small factor to consider, but the fact that Storm of the Century was a three-part miniseries King wrote for television with no book counterpart meant that audiences had no idea what Linoge was up to or where his story was headed. Of course, Stephen King novels have this same perk, but it helped Andre Linoge stand out over the cinematic representations of his other villains. The mystery around Andre Linoge continues as his story is only available through this somewhat more obscure miniseries. Yet, he was truly destructive and intimidating, and, considering King’s love for Storm of the Century, it’d be nice if Linoge could finally get his due in a fresh Stephen King movie or a return in another King book.
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