Jim Jones, Hitler—they're all basically the same guy". Although Flagg does not explicitly represent Satan, this does not detract from what King sees as his ultimate goal. He notes that no matter who sees him or how he is seen as Flagg appears differently to different individuals, his message is the same: "I know all the things that you want and I can give them to you and all you have to do is give me your soul". Critics also note Flagg's penchant for evil. Tony Magistrale, author of Stephen King: The Second Decade, Danse Macabre to The Dark Half sees Flagg as a Shakespearean villain, comparing him to Iago, Edmund and Richard III, contending that Flagg is an antihero. Magistrale believes that Flagg's evil is based on his ability to replace peace with conflict and unity with destruction; although he seeks power, it is merely a resource to achieve a greater level of destruction. Author and journalist Heidi Stringell finds Flagg "an embodiment of pure evil", contending that King sees good and evil as "real forces"; Flagg's embodiment of evil is confirmed by the fact that "he is a killer, a maker of mischief, a liar, and a tempter". To Stringell, Flagg's disappearance at the end of The Stand shows that "evil ultimately leads nowhere". The author calls Flagg a "generic hybrid" of the archetypical "Dark Man and the Trickster". To her, the combination of these two characteristics found in different cultural realms forces people to face their "flawed humanity" with the "amorality" Flagg represents. Jenifer Paquette, author of Respecting The Stand: A Critical Analysis of Stephen King's Apocalyptic Novel, writes that "Flagg's horror is that he looks like an ordinary man, and his behavior is a mockery of humanity - a terrible insight into the human psyche. King suggests that the thing to fear the most is inside ourselves". Douglas Winter, author of Fear Itself: The Horror Fiction of Stephen King, believes that Flagg epitomizes the Gothic villain—an "atavistic embodiment of evil"—since his appearance is indistinct, malleable and a "collection of masks". Flagg symbolizes "the inexplicable fear of the return of bygone powers—both technological and, as his last name intimates, sociopolitical". Like other Gothic villains, Flagg's plans seem to fail at every turn as he seems to need to convince others of his importance. Winter asserts that Flagg is a Miltonic superman who receives his strength from a