Stephen King Wiki

Hello Stephen King fan! We at the Stephen King Wiki are incredibly happy you've decided to visit, please feel free to check out our Discusions and/or start editing articles.
If you're visiting anonymously you'll need to make an account.
Before you start editing or posting, you'll want to read our simple ruleset, just so you don't accidentally break any rules. If you see anyone breaking any of these rules, please report it to the message wall of an Administrator.

READ MORE

Stephen King Wiki
Register
Advertisement

Leland Gaunt is a major antagonist of the Stephen King multiverse.

Serving as the main antagonist of the novel Needful Things, a unseen antagonist of the novella The Body and The Dark Tower series, and a mentioned antagonist of Castle Rock TV Series.

When he first appears in Castle Rock, Maine, Gaunt opens a shop called Needful Things. He seems like a charming man in his 50's or 60's. His eyes change color, depending on who is looking into them. His hands have no lines, and his index fingers are as long as his middle fingers. Gaunt seems to have an unnatural awareness of the various relationships and rivalries throughout Caslte Rock, and his knowledge extends into knowing the most intimate material (and, in some cases, immaterial) desires of his customers. Throughout the course of the novel, Leland Gaunt is revealed to be a long-lived demon, bent on acquiring the souls of his unwitting customers. After being driven out of Castle Rock, he opens another shop, called Answered Prayers, in Junction City, Iowa. Alan Pangborn remembers a shop in the hometown of his youth called Just The Ticket; whether Gaunt ran this shop or not is left unknown.

Biography[]

When Leland Gaunt first appeared in Castle Rock, Maine, he seemed like a charming man in his 50's or 60's. His eyes changed color, depending on who saw them. His hands have no lines, and his index fingers are as long as his middle fingers. It has been hinted that, in Stephen King's literary multiverse, Gaunt might be an avatar of Nyarlathotep (unlike the film, in which he is The Devil in disguise.). He opened a shop called Needful Things. After he was driven out of Castle Rock, he opened a shop, called Answered Prayers, in Junction City, Iowa. Alan Pangborn remembers a shop in the hometown of his youth called Just The Ticket; whether Gaunt ran this shop or not is left unknown.

Needful Things[]

The shop "Needful Things" opens in the town of Castle Rock, Maine, sparking the curiosity of its citizens. The proprietor, Leland Gaunt, is a charming elderly gentleman who always seems to have an item in stock that is perfectly suited to any customer who comes through his door.

The prices are surprisingly low, considering the merchandise - such as a rare Sandy Koufax baseball card, a carnival glass lampshade, and a fragment of wood believed to be from Noah's Ark - but he expects each customer to also play a little prank on someone else in Castle Rock.

Gaunt knows about the long-standing private grudges, arguments, and feuds between the various townspeople, and the pranks are his means of forcing them to escalate until the whole town is eventually caught up in madness and violence.

Polly Chalmers buys an ancient charm that relieves the arthritis pain in her hands. Gaunt eventually hires the petty criminal John "Ace" Merrill as his assistant, providing him with high-quality cocaine and hinting at buried treasure that could relieve the debt he owes to a pair of drug dealers. Ace's first assignment is to retrieve crates of pistols, ammunition, and blasting caps from a garage in Boston; Gaunt soon begins to sell the pistols to his customers so they can protect their property.  

He has traveled the world for centuries, selling useless junk that appears to be whatever the customers desire most.  

They become so paranoid about keeping their items safe that they eagerly buy up the weapons that he inevitably offers and trade away their souls. Ace begins to suspect the supernatural background of his new employer, but Gaunt keeps him in line through intimidation and promises of revenge against Alan and the town.

Eventually, Needful Things causes so much violence in the town that a riot breaks out, resulting in much of the town being destroyed, including Needful Things itself. Before Gaunt can get away with the customers' souls however, Alan confronts his new nemesis and uses a bunch of magical goods from Needful Things to force Gaunt back and grabs his valise, which contains the souls of his customers. Nevertheless, Gaunt escapes and flees the scene (not before destroying most of the remaining main street), his car turning into a horse-drawn wagon as he becomes a hunchbacked dwarf. With the town completely destroyed and many deaths, the survivors are left to ponder an uncertain future.

The novel ends as it begins, with a first-person narrative indicating that a new and mysterious shop is about to open in a small Iowa town - an implication that Gaunt is ready to begin his business cycle all over again.

Appearances[]

Trivia[]

  • Leland Guant's other quote "Kill them all! Let God sort it out!" is based on a quote from Arnaud Amalric. In the movie Doom which is based on the popular videogame series of the same name, Sarge's other similar quote "We kill them all. Let God sort them." was mentioned.
  • Leland Gaunt is parodied in an episode of the adult cartoon Rick and Morty as Lucius Needful, who is also The Devil in human guise and runs a shop called Needful Things that sells cursed items.
  • Although Gaunt is hinted to be the Devil himself in the movie, the possibility that he's Nyarlathotep might still be valid there, as Nyarlathotep himself is basically the equivalent of the Devil in the Cthulhu Mythos.
Advertisement