King Sorrow

Gwen Underfoot is one of the novel’s protagonists, as well as the romantic interest of Arthur Oakes. Her role is established through the novel’s structure: Each interlude is narrated from Gwen’s perspective and frames her as a character with agency and complex motivations.

Gwen, the daughter of Colin’s housekeeper, comes from a working-class background, which distances her from the rest of their friend group and aligns her with Arthur. However, there is a gulf between her and Arthur as well, centered on education: While Arthur wants her to enroll at Rackham College, Gwen argues that she doesn’t have to attend Rackham to do good in the world, instead training as an emergency medical technician.

Arthur and Gwen’s tentative romance ends when Gwen loses the riddling contest with King Sorrow. Although for Arthur’s safety, Gwen is driven to push him away, when Arthur and Gwen interact as friends, their continuing emotional bond is clear. In the second interlude, they find a moment of peace together after their arrest—a moment of respite from King Sorrow’s threat that offers a glimpse at an alternative world where they were free to take their connection to the next level.

The destruction of the Black Cricket prison motivates Gwen to reconsider her complicity in the suffering King Sorrow causes. Gwen tries to atone by using the annual sacrifices for people choosing assisted suicide. However, this does little to absolve the sense of guilt she feels over failing those who die in more horrific ways, like Wendy Arthur. During the final parts of the novel, Gwen wrestles with self-doubt. Believing herself morally corrupt, she decides to die fighting King Sorrow. When her friends affirm her, however, they give her the moral strength to slay King Sorrow and go on living.

King Sorrow is the novel’s primary antagonist. He is a spiritual entity who takes the form of a dragon, emerging from a parallel dimension called the Long Dark to feed on the suffering of human beings throughout the world. King Sorrow has made deals with many real-life historical figures who caused widespread death, like Genghis Khan and King Herod. This sets a moral precedent for the protagonists, who live under the threat of King Sorrow’s coercion and risk becoming despotic figures, inflicting suffering.

King Sorrow is a one-dimensional force of evil. There is no way to redeem or reason with King Sorrow; the only way to overcome his influence is to slay him. King Sorrow offers both destruction on a global scale and misery to individual characters, whose fear he exploits for amusement. For example, when Gwen challenges him to a riddling contest, King Sorrow uses his win for petty gain: He forbids Gwen from being sexually involved with Arthur and reveals that Arthur and Tana had sex. Later, King Sorrow tricks Allie into boarding British Airways Flight 238, making her mistakenly believe that he won’t attack the flight if she does so.

King Sorrow’s self-indulgence becomes his downfall. Gwen defeats him by tricking him into swallowing his own tail, which he cannot stop eating because of how good it tastes, even though this means eating himself to death.

Colin Wren is a secondary antagonist. He is a new member of Arthur’s friend group, joining them when Van and Donna’s psychic potential appeals to his interest in paranormal esoterica.

Colin is defined by his affinity for technology. He exploits the rapid development of computer science between the 1990s and the 2010s to gain power and influence over industry and the United States government. Most significantly, he uses his mastery of surveillance to develop ulterior, self-benefiting motives for the list of candidates he assembles for the sacrifice to King Sorrow every year. Gwen eventually realizes that Colin is using the sacrifice to advance his personal interests, such as the growth of his business.

Colin’s true nature is fully exposed in Part 4 when he kills Arthur with the Sword of Strange Hangings, is revealed to have caused the destruction of the Crane journal, and is uncovered as a longtime client of the security firm that abducted the McBride twins.

Colin’s conviction that his grasp on power is permanent is his fatal flaw. He thinks that by summoning the malevolent ghost of Elwood Hondo, he can reassert control over his friend group. Instead, Hondo kills Colin, proving that all power is transitory.

The McBride twins are major supporting characters. They are central to Part 3, which probes into their relationship during their abduction by Thermopylae. Donna also undergoes a complex character arc that helps to resolve the novel’s overarching conflict with King Sorrow.

Van and Donna are characterized as polar opposites. Van is a progressive whose crass sense of humor externalizes his attraction to their mutual friend, Allie Shiner. Donna, on the other hand, is a fierce conservative whose anger masks her fear of emotional attachment. This fear stems from a formative trauma in Donna’s childhood: She blames herself for the abduction of her best friend, Cady Lewis, fearing the world around her.

Because of Donna’s belligerent tendencies, Van has always intervened and mollified those affected by her anger. His desire to shield her culminates in his choice to die by suicide at Cherokee Island, protecting Donna from Joe Valentine’s nefarious plans. Van’s death is framed as a redemptive act, atoning for marrying Allie despite knowing that she is a lesbian and thus enabling the repression of her sexuality. Van’s death cements Donna’s anger and distrust; more eager than ever to exact vengeance for Cady, Donna catalyzes King Sorrow’s destruction of the Black Cricket prison to get at one of its inmates, without concern for collateral casualties.

However, after briefly functioning as Colin’s sidekick, providing obstacles for Gwen and her allies in their quest to slay King Sorrow, Donna defects to Gwen’s side after a vision of Van convinces her that she has the capacity to redeem herself. Donna fulfills this promise by sacrificing herself to distract King Sorrow in the final confrontation, a heroic act that gives Gwen enough time to draw Arthur’s sword.