SPOILERS: Dark Tower Discussion Thread

[PoolMan]

Oh, man.

Well, my two month oddysey is over. I reached the end of the Dark Tower series last week on a business trip, and man, was I ever surprised.

I'd like to open up some discussion about the series in general (and I guess the final book in particular) for anybody who's interested.

A final warning: this will be a SPOILER thread! Big big.

I guess the obvious question is: what did you think of the ending? Roland's realization that the end of the quest ties back into the beginning of it was horrifying. I finished the book and went back to reread that passage about four times.

I had actually suspected it was coming (it's heavily hinted at in the revised The Gunslinger), but even still, what a blow.

Once you get over that reaction though, it's sure an anticlimactic end. I just couldn't shake the feeling that the only time any of the ka-tet are in genuine danger was waaaaaaay back in Drawing of the Three. And that includes when Eddie, Jake, and Oy all die.

I loved the series as a whole, but I really got to wishing that the party would be more seriously threatened, like in DotT.

[Magill]

I just finished it last week, too (I had to wait for my reservation at the library to become available).

I like that Roland gets punished for the single-mindedness of his quest. He didn't just want to save the Tower, he wanted to climb up to the top.

I thought it a bit odd that he "restarted" back in the desert. I felt King did that only so he could start and end his series with the same line.

I thought Pere Callahan's redemption was awesome. Eddie's death scene with Susannah had me tearing up a bit. I wasn't really affected much with Jake--I've already seen him die once, and he just never resonated with me. I was sad when Oy went (though I was expecting it after the vision Roland has in the Wizard's Glass in book IV).

[PoolMan]

The toughest part of the whole series for me to read was Eddie's decline and death. That was a long, drawn out blow to the stomach, that was. I couldn't believe how much it affected me (and I agree, the deaths of Jake and Oy were lessened by various factors).

I actually like the first line/last line thing, but I happen to agree with King; it's a clean line. Of course, I guess as the reader we are supposed to take a grain of hope in the form of the Horn of Eld being present at the quest's beginning at the end of the book. Will things be different now that Roland has the horn? Will it make a difference?

I hadn't thought of it as punishment, but that's an interesting way to look at it. I saw it as more of an indifferent shrug... ka seemingly allowing Roland's self fulfilling quest to endlessly repeat may be what nourishes the Tower in the end.

What'd you think of Mordred?

[Magill]

I read somewhere that someone interpreted the poem "Childe Roland" as Roland's last journey to the Dark Tower. Maybe he just blows his "slug-horn" at the base of the Tower and goes on to live the rest of his life? Or maybe he dies completely happy and fulfilled?

I wonder if we're supposed to assume that all of the events happen again, or if Roland draws new people into his ka-tet, or if he goes alone. In book I, Marten makes some comment that Roland "never remembers" so does that mean Marten/Flagg is aware of all these cycles?

As for Mordred, King actually had me feeling sorry for the little bugger (pun very much intended). He had no ka-tet; he had no parents. I don't know how it could happen, but if shortly after his birth he had been put in the hands of good people, he could've had a better future. I wonder if Mia hadn't been so, well, crazy, if he would've been more normal. I imagine that some of her craziness passed into him when she first started to breastfeed him (before he decided to feed a different way).

[PoolMan]

Oh, I totally agree with Mordred being a tragic figure and all. No doubt. The kid's all alone, literally starving half to death in almost every scene he's in, and simultaneously parentless and suffering from an abundance of parents who all want different things of him. His Red father wants to twist him to his own ends, his White father wants him dead, Mia just wants to baby him until the end of time in her insanity... Susannah was the only one who even approached the thought of ever really treating the child in a way that was even half way normal.

But the part of Mordred that really did nothing for me was his use as a threat to the quest. When he's born, it's a terrifying scene, and he's dangerous. But once you read your twentieth passage with him wrestling with cold and malnourishment, you realize full well he's never going to be a true danger. He's too weak to overwhelm Roland, a point repeatedly hammered home.

Which, once again, brings me back to the tragic flaw I found throughout the series. Only in the first two books did I ever fear for the characters. Like, biting my nails, "will they survive" kind of fear. Roland dying of infection while Eddie starves for heroin while Detta tries to kill them while the lobstrosities want to have them all for lunch... it's almost too much to bear! You spend most of that book wondering if they're going to make it out alive. Even the fact that King chose to so grievously injure Roland in the early pages (the loss of his fingers) makes you wonder who's really permanent.

But by about book four, it's evident that the ka-tet is meant to survive until the last book. Every single encounter they have they're either vastly superiour to the opposing force or there's another Deus Ex Machina to bail them out.

For example, in Wolves of the Calla, you spend the entire book waiting, waiting, waiting for these damned Wolves to show up, only to have them killed at a casualty rate of 30:1. And even then, young Benny only dies due to outside circumstances. And how many times are they saved by someone knowing something to be true, without knowing how or why? King bails his characters out without explanation so many times it borders on ridiculous.

What's worse, when someone finally DOES die, it's unsatisfying. Callahan was meant to die from his introduction as part of the ka-tet. You knew it was coming. And as unexpected as Eddie admittedly was, he wasn't lost in battle, he was lost at the hands of a fluke from the dying warden.

Thoughts? I'm surprised Justin hasn't checked in yet...

[Al]

My computer crashes for one day and I miss all the fun...well, maybe not all, but you guys definitely already touched on a lot of my feelings.

I totally agree about the missing danger, although I never noticed how much it persisted until after I put the books down. I can see where you are coming from, Pooly, in Wolves of the Calla, but I think I was so excited to see the ka-tet back in action after the 7-year gap between books 4 and 5 that I was more than happy to watch them tear it up Magnificent 7-style.

The only time I was really conscious of the lack of a threat began in the middle of book 7, when Eddie dies, and it popped up here and there throughout. Like everyone else I know, his death left me completely dumbstruck. Going into the battle, you know someone is going to bite it, so you don't feel danger (the tet seemed to have the entire fight well in hand) insomuch as you feel foreboding. "A blow to the stomach" is as apt a phrase as I would be able to come up with, but I really liked the way Eddie died, as far as it is possible to like that sort of thing. I found a terribly sad irony in Eddie, who had overcome so much interal struggle and become as a magnificent a gunslinger as Gilead ever produced, killed essentially by a shot in the back.

Jake I took a bit of an issue with, although, like you said, Magill, he never quite resonated with me. I think it has something to do with the picture I had in my head. Not to go off on too great a tangent, but I first began The Gunslinger the same week Star Trek: Deep Space Nine premiered. When Roland encounters Jake Chambers, I saw in my head Jake Sisko, the son of Captain Sisko, who bears little or no resemblance to Jake Chambers. Despite the knowledge that my image was completely wrong, it has persisted through all seven books and every time Jake is described I become painfully aware of that fact. So Jake never quite gelled in my head. I did, however, *love* the premise of him dying while Roland was busy with King. In actual execution (no pun intended), I was underwhelmed. His burial and everything afterwards was handled beautifully, I thought, but the act itself was disappointing.

I also entirely agree about Mordred. As much as I enjoyed (again a relative term) reading about his pathetic little existence, it defanged him pretty completely and left me wondering how he could possibly be this humongous threat that they've been talking up for so long. Then, when he finally makes his move, it's a pretty shallow showing. Again, I appreciate the idea of the sacrifice, but Oy deserved better.

Along with the skulking presence of Mordred, we get thrown wonky little things like Susannah's boil on her lip that just felt, to me, like red herrings. Artificial suspense that King shouldn't have to provide.

Lastly (whew, this is taking way longer than I meant it to), is the ending. Anticlimactic is probably the best word for it. I had an active dislike for the entire "Patrick" thing from the moment I saw the drawing pad and the missing erasers. I felt like the author wrote himself into a corner so he stuck in a magical character to get himself out. He shouldn't have been at the Tower, he hadn't earned it the way everyone else did--even Father Callahan deserved it more than Patrick. Roland said it himself, Patrick wasn't ka-tet. Bad form.

For such a heavily-hyped moment, the battle at the Tower didn't seem to involve Roland *doing* much of anything. Sure, he had to shoot sneetches out of the sky, but Roland was denied a undisputed 'win' by simply erasing the Red King. I was really, really confused to turn the page and see the epilogue, I had simply assumed that round two would begin once he opened the door. The whole "call of the Tower" aside, Roland trudged through so much only to seemingly walk right into where he had been trying to get.

As for the very end, I was floored and heartbroken. I didn't know what to think at first, but I realized King was right in his preface: it was the only way it could have ended. It's not the ending I want, but it's the ending that fits. I, too, saw this as pennance. No group of people is more deserving than that ka-tet to be together drinking hot chocolate in New York. Roland could have gone with Susannah through that door, but his pigheaded determination kept him walking towards the Tower. Hopefully one of these days, he'll get it right and earn his rest.

Okay, I'm glad I got that out of my system. I'm sure there are typos galore up there, and I apologize, but this quick little response has turned into an essay and it's time for me to get some sleep.

Al
-despite this tremendously long list of complaints (again--sorry), I really did love this book

[PoolMan]

Al said:

I had an active dislike for the entire "Patrick" thing from the moment I saw the drawing pad and the missing erasers. I felt like the author wrote himself into a corner so he stuck in a magical character to get himself out. He shouldn't have been at the Tower, he hadn't earned it the way everyone else did--even Father Callahan deserved it more than Patrick. Roland said it himself, Patrick wasn't ka-tet. Bad form.

Although my initial reaction is to agree, I thought of something. Perhaps Patrick is the sign to Roland that he should stop. The entire rest of the ka-tet was either dead or departed, and Roland finds himself alone with Patrick (and Oy, at the time Susannah goes through the door). Perhaps he's meant to gather his wits enough to know to go through the door with her instead of abandoning her for the Tower.

[DARTHMADLER]

Thanks to PoolMan for lending me the books. I just finished reading it.

First and foremost I'd like to say that I don't think this was how it was supposed to originally end, especially if King had to go back and "revise" earlier novels for it to make sense. I think the story veared off it's original course after Wastelands. In an interview here:

www.stephenking.com/DarkTower/flash_index.html

The Castle Rock interview if the link doesn't work. He talks about having an outline done of everything around the time he had written the second book. He mentions, as his character in Song of Susanna that he lost the outline, which I guess must have happenned in real life. I also recall reading somewhere in an interview with King that according to his outline he wasn't going to live long enough to complete the story. That was when I stopped reading the series figuring there'd be no point in getting into a story that may never finish.

I think then with his accident he desperately wanted to finish the story and managed to work it into a plot device to shortcut the series. Anyways, enough speculation.

I agree that Mordred and the Crimson King were both a letdown. I was expecting some sort of face-off at the top of the tower. Susannah's departure was a let down, as Roland had warned "temptation comes before victory" or something. I thought the door was a trap and she'd either die as well or Roland would pull her back just in time. But, like Patrick, it was a plot device to shortcut the story.

As for the end, it didn't make much sense to me. Perhaps I didn't understand it. He had to repeat the quest because he didn't learn his lesson? What lesson did he need to learn? Not to be so serious and determined? If he wasn't the beams wouldn't have been saved and neither would the tower. That he had to stop being single-minded about the quest? What else was he supposed to do? He sure wasn't the same person who started out at the desert. For crying out loud he tried to sacrifice himself instead of Jake in order to save Stephen King's life and the Tower. This being a complete flip from his actions in the first book regarding Jake. If that's not enough of a change then he's really hooped.

I would have hoped that the series would have continued on like the first four, filling in more back-story as the moved foward. I was particularly let-down with the explanations of Cuthbert and Alain's deaths. I would have thought their endings would have been worth another book.

The whole ending has the feel of trying to finish it quickly.

[Magill]

DARTHMADLER said:

As for the end, it didn't make much sense to me. Perhaps I didn't understand it. He had to repeat the quest because he didn't learn his lesson? What lesson did he need to learn? Not to be so serious and determined? If he wasn't the beams wouldn't have been saved and neither would the tower. That he had to stop being single-minded about the quest? What else was he supposed to do? He sure wasn't the same person who started out at the desert. For crying out loud he tried to sacrifice himself instead of Jake in order to save Stephen King's life and the Tower. This being a complete flip from his actions in the first book regarding Jake. If that's not enough of a change then he's really hooped.

In my opinion, I think Roland first doomed himself back in W&G when he first gets a vision of the Tower. Remember, he doesn't say "I'll save you" or "I'll see you", he shouts rather defiantly "I will climb to the top!". His quest didn't start out as a way to save the Tower--it started because he wanted to gain entrance and climb to the top. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he didn't even realize the Tower was ailing until he and Marten had their palaver by the Western Sea in The Gunslinger. It was more about conquering rather than saving. They had saved the Beams before Roland even saw the Tower. They could've gone back to the Callas after Algul Siento and the world would've been saved. That's why Susannah got her happy ending--she knew they had saved the Beams and her part in the quest was done. She didn't arrogantly try to go beyond her reach or destiny. If Roland had gone with her, he could've had that happiness. Instead, he's doomed to repeat his quest.

And yes, he did change. Think of how many times he must've repeated this journey. Perhaps in other loops he's alone, or he leaves Susannah, Eddie, Jake, and Oy (or whatever their counterparts may be) to their doom without trying to help them. He's changed enough in this go-round that he has the Horn of Eld with him for the next (and perhaps final?) one. I don't know if ka or whatever gave it to him this go-round, or perhaps he relives his life (is that what he's doing when he's climbing the tower?) and chooses to pick up the Horn (we know he regrets not picking it up). The Horn represents a choice not to be so singleminded--he didn't pick it up because he felt it had nothing to do with the Tower. But later he realized that it represented honor--Arthur Eld's Horn should not have been left on a battlefield like a used candywraper.

[Head Mutant]

It was a solid ending, but not a great one. It's a high-falootin' shame that the whole ka didn't make it to the tower with him -- I suppose it continues the whole "Roland uses companions up like tissue paper" theme, but it does seem pointless.

I think the pall that is cast over the last three books is King's own sense of mortality after his accident, and his suddenly urgent need to finish the series. The DT books bear the burden of being the culmination of his writings, and King seems to be much better at building up to, hinting at, and foreshadowing great events than making good (at least in the last few books). The threat, while viable, is never that extreme, and Flagg, Mordred and The Crimson King all crap out in much wimpier ways than expected.

That said, I think he worked himself into the books very well, considering how much everyone expected that to blow up in his face. Some of the action was downright awesome, and there were still quite a few heebie-jeebie bits. It's just that it felt like toward the end, they weren't so much on a quest any more than trying to cross off an entire checklist of To Do items before the final bit.

The epilogue was quite effective, and I almost did put the book down when he suggested. But you know, I'm glad I didn't. It connected the series nicely. And it's a much different kind of fantasy than most of the dragon-slaying, bodice-ripping stuff out there.

[DARTHMADLER]

I'm sorry but the more I think about it, the more I hate the ending. I suppose being a horror writer, he can't really make an all around happy ending but Roland's fate seems just a bit too cruel. What else does he have left in life but to go to the top of the tower and see what's there?

[PoolMan]

Here's my extended thought on the ending.

The whole time, through all the books, we're told over and over again two main things: ka is a wheel, and the Dark Tower is the lynchpin of existence. Well, obviously the circular nature of time and Roland's return to the desert reflects the wheel, but I got to thinking about the Tower being the end all and be all.

See, the Tower ends up being not so important at all. Or, at the very least, it's NOT the center of the universe. Roland is. What's IN the tower? Roland's entire life. What lies at it's base? The end of Roland's quest. What lies at the top? The start of Roland's quest.

Roland constantly functions under the belief that his world revolves around the tower. But when you start to realize the crossing of worlds implied with the "real" world and Roland's, you realize the world is all about him. The tower may be the manifestation of this, being the shrine to his life that it is, but ultimately the Dark Tower series isn't about the tower. It's about the gunslinger.

As such, the ending fits really, really well for me. It ties back into the beginning as if to say "and the next time you read this, you're putting the gunslinger back in danger". We as the reader decide to put Roland's story in motion by glancing at the page. In a sense, we do to him exactly what the tower does; we start him on his quest of hardship, and we do it as many times as we want.

Anyways, just a little something that's been flitting in and out of my mind. Don't know if it makes sense or not.

Thoughts?

[JOhnny]

4500 pages and there is no sense of closure for me.

I got very disheartened when King put himself in the series, it kept me from being able to totally abandon myself to the story and live in that world while I read it.

I love his writing, but I hated the ending. After rereading the series he does hint at it a bit, but I wanted Roland to finish his quest. It feels like King couldn't come up with a satisfactory ending, so he made it loop. My mind was screaming "Cop-out, cop-out!" while I read the end. Losing Jake didn't make me feel anything, but losing Eddie made me cry. I thought the "Erasing the Crimson King" thing was lameeeeee. Roland didn't BEAT the king, he just avoided him....sigh.

[Much2Phat]

You guys have completely left out how Randall Flagg, Marten, The Man in Black, is totally bitched down by SK. I mean the freakin first and last line includes him, and he is so useless to the story. SK actually makes him out to be a second rate hack. I mean he, and the Crimson King are bad asses in other stories like Rose Madder, and the freakin STAND!!

Needless to say, The last 2 books were straight copouts. SK just wanted to get out from under the story. Truth is, since his accident, the quality of his stories has suffered badly.

Insomnia, I think, is by far his best book.

[PoolMan]

I've not read The Stand (I've seen the movie, but that's it). I think I may just have to put it on my To Read list.