The Dark Tower's Predecessor Also Deserves a Spinoff Limited Series

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Summary

Eyes of the Dragon is a powerful fantasy story set in the world of The Dark Tower, featuring betrayal and epic battles.
The connection between Eyes of the Dragon and The Dark Tower offers a rich cross-over potential for adaptation.
Modern fantasy fans would appreciate Eyes of the Dragon’s mix of medieval setting, family drama, and evolving villains.

Needless to say, there has been a lot of anticipation for Mike Flanagan’s upcoming adaption of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. The epic fantasy-meets-Western-horror series follows Roland, the last of the Gunslingers, as he fulfills his mission to find the infamous Dark Tower and stop the forces of evil from destroying all reality. Filled with epic fights, memorable villains, and a band of heroes that have become beloved by Stephen King’s loyal fanbase, getting this series right has been something everyone has been waiting for. Yet, as fans wait for this adaption, another Stephen King epic fantasy novel would be the perfect limited series event to connect to The Dark Tower. That tale is Eyes of the Dragon.

A fairy tale in an epic fantasy setting, Eyes of the Dragon takes place in the same world as The Dark Tower, exploring a story of treason, betrayal, and the battle of good versus evil. The story’s central villain also has significant ties to The Dark Tower. As the recent popularity of other major fantasy series shows, there is a market for a story of this caliber to be told. The Dark Tower’s predecessor, Eyes of the Dragon, deserves its own spinoff limited series.

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Eyes of the Dragon, Explained

The story is set in the mythical kingdom of Delain, located within In-World, one of the realms tied to The Dark Tower. A powerful wizard scheming the kingdom’s downfall serves each king who has come into power. The story follows Roland the Good, a noble ruler who marries a strong, independent woman named Sasha. The Queen encourages the good deeds that make her and the King beloved by the kingdom. The wizard, Flagg, determines these good deeds to be a threat to his plans to overthrow the kingdom into chaos. After the birth of the Queen’s two sons, Peter and Thomas, Flagg arranges for Sasha to be murdered during Thomas’s birth.

Years later, when King Roland is becoming weaker, and Peter is next in line to become King, Flagg recognizes that Peter is too much like his mother and conspires to frame the Prince for his father’s murder. Soon, the King dies, and Peter is sentenced to be imprisoned in the kingdom’s highest tower. Years go by as Thomas, then a child, becomes king and delegates power to Flagg, sending the kingdom into despair.

Years later, Peter finally escapes imprisonment, joining a growing rebellion and leading the charge against Flagg. Thomas has grown disillusioned by Flagg’s actions, and witnessed Flagg take his father’s life years ago. In the final confrontation, Thomas uses his father’s fabled bow to shoot an arrow into the wizard’s eye. The villain disappears, and Thomas turns power over to his brother, leaving Delain to find Flagg and redeem himself for allowing Flagg’s treachery to continue for so long.

Adapting Eyes of the Dragon and Its Connection to The Dark Tower

This particular story has so much potential and power that the author wrote so many years ago. Delain’s location within In-World, so near to where Roland’s home of Gilead once stood, puts it perfectly within the crosshairs of an epic crossover with Flanagan’s Dark Tower adaption. This connection is confirmed in various books the Dark Tower stories, such as The Little Sisters of Eluria. Roland once saw Thomas chasing Flagg during his journey, but their final confrontation was not confirmed.

The story has been attempted to be adapted before, once as an animated series and more recently as a series on Hulu. The network had tapped director Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride, Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter fame) to produce the project. Still, due to changes in leadership at the network and budgetary concerns, the project was canceled. However, with the success of shows like Game of Thrones, The Rings of Power, and The Witcher, the potential for a strong, fantasy-driven show like this is limitless.

Eyes of the Dragon features several aspects that modern fantasy fans will identify with. With different family houses, sibling drama, scheming advisors, and a secret, budding evil threatening to topple an entire kingdom, the novel flawlessly blends a medieval setting with lots of action and drama. The strong connection the story has to the events of The Dark Tower would allow the show to not only shine on its own, but would also add to the depth of history and mythos that drives the Dark Tower story forward, especially where Roland hails from and how he became the last of his people. Fleshing out Flagg as a villain and showing how he evolves and becomes the man in black from the Dark Tower franchise would also give this series more gravitas and his connection to other stories like The Stand.