Thread:LucidPigeons/@comment-24859393-20160607203817/@comment-2175012-20160611010809

Ooookay, I had finished watching the film afaptation of the book, and I am somewhat unsure about him. Essentially, Mr. Dark is the leader of the Autumn People and owner of the carnival whom I'll just dub Satan. The Autumn People are demonic creatures that feed on the pain and nightmares of their victims, but he stands out as being needlessly sadistic. He makes deals with people who want their greatest wishes to be realized; however, those wishes come with a cost. For example, Miss Fowley, Jim and Will's seventh grade teacher, wanted to be young again; she gets her wish, but at the cost of her eyesight. The souls of those who Mr. Dark tempted are bound to the carnival, where they work as mindless slaves. Mr. Dark has tatoos on his arms which symbolize each person who had fallen to his temptation.

Now, for the sadism part; Dark kidnaps and straps Tom Fury, a lightning rod salesman, to an electric chair, and electrocutes him in order to seek an answer about when the next storm would occur. This is bad, because in his words, "Lightning reveals their darkest corners, and rain washes away dust," basically meaning that lightning = death. He later goes to the library in order to hunt down and murder the two boys, because they had seen too much. He confronts Mr. Halloway, Will's father, and attempts to coax Halloway into giving him the boys, claiming that his youth would be returned. When that fails, he takes hold of Halloway, and he burns his hand, causing him to pass out. Later on, he appointed the Dust Witch (there's nothing really mitigating about their relationship, BTW) into finishing him off; when that fails, he attempts to psychologically break him. Yes, he feeds on nightmares and the like, I can understand that. However, taking sadistic pleasure at torturing a depressed man, and stating full interest in gruesomely murdering two kids pushes him way over the point of necessity.

However, a few mitigating factors lies in him wanting to make Jim a co-founder of the carnival, and referring to him as his son. While this seems to be mitigating, keep in mind, that he had no qualms about murdering Jim earlier, so there might not be much to this.