In return for the immortal souls he needs to fuel his carnival, he offers his victims their hearts’ desires. Like Satan, whom Dark could be but probably isn’t, he deals in temptation. Roll up, roll up … Jonathan Pryce as Mr Dark with Shawn Carson, Vidal Peterson and Bruce M Fischer in the Disney adaptation of the novel. Why else the cheap theatre of the ringmaster’s costume, the body carved with hypnotically moving tattoos acting out temptations and passion plays? Dark – we never learn his full name, merely his initials, “GM”, and the name “Jed”, which he uses when magically transformed into a sinister boy, or his alter-ego The Illustrated Man – embraces his role of villain, and is all the more frightening for it. But he is not simply giving in to his natural urges and surviving: the dark heart of Dark’s villainy is that he knows his deeds are evil, and he plays up to this – relishes it. Mr Dark of Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has an intent as old and simple as his melodramatic black-hat appearance: he wants souls to power the furnace of his infernal travelling carnival, and individuals to populate the shadowy, freak-haunted tents that line the midway of wherever the carny fetches up.ĭark is one of those villains who does what he does because he has to, and what he does is heinous and horrible. He wants souls to power the furnace of his infernal travelling carnival
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