All sto­ries need con­flict, and the trick­ster ar­che­type is one of the most com­mon an­tag­o­nists to stir things up, pre­sent through­out myth and mod­ern me­dia alike.

Yet what hap­pens when you in­flate the power of a trick­ster, un­til they lose what makes them a com­pelling char­ac­ter? 2017’s The Dark Tower film stretches Stephen King’s clas­sic vil­lain, the Man in Black, to his most pow­er­ful, but in do­ing so, it misses what made him such a stand­out an­tag­o­nist. In an ef­fort to make him more men­ac­ing and sin­is­ter, the movie turns him far more generic, los­ing what makes the trick­ster ar­che­type so pop­u­lar and suc­cess­ful.

In the first book in the Dark Tower se­ries, 1982’s The Gun­slinger, the Man in Black can be­guile peo­ple, but his meth­ods are left am­bigu­ous, and his con­fronta­tions with the gun­sling­ing pro­tag­o­nist Roland fo­cus on his cap­ti­vat­ing per­son­al­ity. The film, how­ever, grants the Man in Black an over­pow­er­ing abil­ity to con­trol minds with his voice. When he dis­poses of his failed hench­men by calmly stat­ing “Kill each other,” they do just that, falling vic­tim to his magic.

As a re­sult, he does not have to be clever or strate­gic with his ma­nip­u­la­tions; he can sim­ply com­mand. His plots sub­se­quently be­come far less in­ter­est­ing since he no longer re­lies on his charisma. Whereas in the book, the Man in Black ma­nip­u­lates Roland’s foes into hunt­ing him down, the film ver­sion shows no such cun­ning, com­fort­able in his god­like power and less en­ter­tain­ing while he is at it.

This om­nipo­tent power also makes the Man in Black ridicu­lously ex­ag­ger­ated as a threat, mean­ing that the hero Roland’s only de­fense against him is an un­ex­plained im­mu­nity to his mind con­trol. The Dark Tower books al­ways thrived on mys­tery, with the Man in Black even ad­mit­ting to Roland that “it’s not your bul­lets I fear, Roland. It’s your idea of an­swers that scares me” (The Gun­slinger, 196).

How­ever, these mys­ter­ies usu­ally served to fore­shadow later re­veals, with the Tarot Card scene herald­ing sev­eral char­ac­ters that Roland later en­coun­tered. The film never ex­plains why Roland alone can re­sist the Man in Black’s mind con­trol, which dis­tracts from the film’s ten­sion and leaves the au­di­ence won­der­ing why he has this abil­ity.

Fi­nally, the Man in Black’s power and lack of be­liev­able ten­sion could be for­giv­able if the char­ac­ter’s per­son­al­ity was kept in­tact. But un­like most trick­sters, 2017’s The Dark Tower de­picts an an­tag­o­nist who spends more time on lengthy vil­lain ex­po­si­tion and threats rather than the snarky, bit­ing sar­casm of the book char­ac­ter. De­spite be­ing played by the tal­ented Matthew Mc­Conaughey, the Man in Black lacks charm; he rarely jokes and only tends to smile when mak­ing his rather generic threats. 

In the book, his taunts are hu­mor­ous and ca­sual, his re­sponse when Roland threat­ens him a par­tic­u­larly strong ex­am­ple, “Now-now. Oh, now-now-now. We make great magic to­gether, you and I. You kill me no more than you kill your­self” (The Gun­slinger, 268). In the film, he de­liv­ers bland threats such as “Death al­ways wins,” a line you could give to al­most any vil­lain­ous char­ac­ter. 

Over­all, the film ver­sion of the Man in Black shows the ne­ces­sity of weak­ness in a trick­ster char­ac­ter, forc­ing them to rely on wit and charisma rather than over­whelm­ing power.

Sources

Ar­cel, N. 2017. The Dark Tower. Sony Pic­tures.

King, S. The Gun­slinger.