"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" also known as Josiah Nock or Gabriel is the main antagonist of Stephen King's Children of the Corn franchise.
He is a demonic spirit posing as a twisted fertility deity, who corrupted the children of the remote town of Gatlin into a murderous cult bent of sacrificing every adult around. In the movies, after the original cult's disbanding, He Who Walks Behinds the Rows would continuously try to revive his influence over Gatlin.
Characteristics[]
"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is never seen in the story, but his influence is felt throughout. No one really knows where he comes from or when he appeared, and he can be defined as an evil force rather than a corporeal entity, whose true nature, name and aspect remains unknown throughout the series (although other stories hint that he is yet another incarnation of Randall Flagg, the main antagonist of author Stephen King's works). He influences the world through the cornfields surrounding the towns, in which the ones sacrificed to him must venture and never to return. It is stated that nighttime is when he is most active, though he can act at any other time.
"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is a shapeless evil spirit who controls the cornfields and every crop in it as a sort of extension of himself. In the short story, he appears as a red-eyed monster that comes out of the field, though whether it is the real demon, or a manifestation remains unclear. In the first movie, he manifests himself both as a menacing presence tunneling his way underground and ominous reddish clouds that fill the sky, and in other Children of the Corn films, he appears as a giant, tentacled demon, or manifests himself through a silo filled with supernatural fire.
In every movie, he is seemingly destroyed (or at least severely weakened) when the cornfields or his other vessels are destroyed but returns when his followers establish his cult somewhere else. The end of the short story implies that burning the cornfields to the ground might destroy him, but whether it is or not remains open to interpretation.
He influences the place where his cult is set, being seemingly able to see and hear everywhere around them, even in people's minds. He can also corrupt children: turning normal, innocent youths into hateful and murderous fanatics who slaughter anyone with an almost feral glee, in a twisted form of religious faith. However, the story and movies show that his influence can wane and that some of the children's personality remains or can return upon dying.
In the movies, he can possess his disciples and act through them, and is able to grant them demonic powers, such as agelessness and invulnerability, telekinesis, mind-control, superhuman strength, the ability to hurl fireballs, and more. He has many other powers, being able to command over wind, lightning and insects, to raise sentient undead beings, to animate things, and to cause dreams and visions to people around him.
"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" seeks to create a community of worshipers who would follow his will. While in the short story, he seems content in controlling Gatlin, Nebraska, likely due to the abundance of corns in which he thrives, the movie series show him trying to extend his cult over the entire United States of America, if not the world. To that end, he took control of several gangs of children over the years, through a child-preacher under his complete control serving as his "high priest", who commands his followers and enforces his rules, the first and foremost being Isaac from the original short story. He has them slaughter every adult in their towns to take it over, and has all passers-by and cultists reaching the age of twenty sacrificed to him. Whenever his followers fail him or displease him, the maximum age is lowered. When the story takes place, it has already been lowered to nineteen.
He first manifested in the fictional town of Gatlin in Nebraska within the United States and remained there or in the nearby agglomerations. In the movies, he searched to produce an heir, by possessing one of his followers and having him impregnate a woman.
"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" has his followers worship him as a twisted parody of Jesus Christ, through ugly crucifixes made of corn crops. His cult mixes aspects of pagan cults and the Bible's Old Testament though hideously twisted. All his children followers relinquish their birth name to take biblical ones and start dressing in Amish-fashion and living like farmers from the XVIII century. He forbids any kind of modern technology and leisure activity, separates boys and girls with the boys doing the work and the girls doing the chores, and decides breeding time in which all his followers in age must publicly mate in hideous parodies of a bacchanalia.