But Harold believed his choices were righteous. "This is Harold Emery Lauder speaking. I do this of my own free will." Harold in Boulder, Trashy in Vegas, almost the same result, both places. What a big chunk of story The Stand is! Heh! And it reads like a much shorter work, once a reader gets into it, everything move along. I like the metaphor of the magnets and the slugs, the slugs compared to one of those Mexican jumping beans, "which actually have a live worm inside." If Harold and Trashy, and all of the other characters have a live worm inside, what part does free will play? If a character knows a flaw they possess brings on their own misery, what part does free will play in the matter?
King uses the word jitter and variations on the word, jittering, jittery. If Harold knows anything, or if Harold believes he knows anything, it is that he is aware of a force or forces that work in their world. Harold could have used a gun before he used his phone. "He had been able to let go of the gun...How, he would never know..." With Trashy in Vegas, the reader isn't provided insights into Trashy's mindset, other than my life for you! Maybe, if anything, one could interpret the phrase, he thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghost(s?), is a kind of recognition of the magnet, the force that works a will in the universe. Correction, force(s)...as they exist good and evil.
And reading The Stand, one can't but wonder and question the nature of God, as the same word is applied to the Hand of God in Vegas, jittering toward Trashcan Man, giving off sparks like hair. Almost as if even the Hand of God has a force working like a magnet on it.
So yeah, while one can lay the blame entirely at Harold's feet, one can claim Harold is entirely at fault, that it was his choice, that he knew what he was doing, the story-line suggests another reading. Harold knew what he was doing, but he also believed he was doing the bidding of a greater force. Was that the force behind Flagg, is there only one force, one magnet in the world? Or a number of them, a number of forces?