About the Flagg/Mordred thing, I noted in the OP that it didn’t make much sense even by the standards of this story. However, I will say that it worked for me in the sense that when Mordred initially killed Flagg (which I thought was a great scene), I thought that this was meant to establish that Mordred was an incredibly powerful magical being who would be the most fearsome opponent the ka-tet had faced yet. Later, when Mordred died, my reaction was half “Yay! We got the bad guy! Go Tet!” and half “Oh noooo! Oy!!” Only later, when thinking it over, did I notice this inconsistency. In general, I thought Mordred was a very good character, in that he was clearly horribly evil, yet you couldn’t help feeling sorry for him when he was in his freezing little boy form.
The whole showdown with the Crimson King turned out to be pretty anticlimactic, but I took it as a sign of how the world had moved on for both the good and bad guys; when Roland fought the King’s spiritual predecessor, John Farson, they led great armies against each other. Now, it’s down to two old guys throwing grenades and insults. I also thought the anticlimax resonated well with the end of the first book, when it seemed clear that Roland would rescue Jake and then go on to some huge climactic battle with Walter…nope.
As an aside, has that ever happened before in the history of popular adventure literature? The “villain forces hero to choose between catching villain and saving youthful sidekick” trope has to have been used hundreds of times in* Doctor Who* alone, and thousands in Batman, and every other time I can think of the hero chooses to save the kid. Even Dexter Morgan was able to figure out the right thing to do in that situation!
I completed the series last month including the newish “The Wind Through the Keyhole.” I read them all together in order; although I skipped part of Wizard and Glass dealing with Roland’s past. Some day I will read it.
I liked the ending for those few seconds when Roland realizes he must do it all over again and that possibly he has done it many times before. For me the ending was Roland being punished for his obsession. Roland was not worthy of the loyalty he received. I grew to extremely dislike Roland and that did not even start until well after he allowed Jake to die the first time.
The deaths of Eddie, Jake and Oy bothered me so much I did not mind that in “some world” Susannah was reunited with two of them.
Until Eddie died I thought Roland would be killed and the rest of them would continue on to the Dark Tower, vanquish the Crimson King and then live happily ever after.
Up to the release of DT 1 I had read all of King’s books. I refused to begin the series until completed. I can not tolerate a cliff hanger.
Parts of these books were so good it made up for the parts that sucked. I think.
Well, I didn’t expect to hate the last three books or I wouldn’t have read them. 5 sucked, but why would that stop me from reading 6? Every series has to have a least-favorite. And 6 sucked, but there was only one more to go and maybe 7 was going to pull together and 5 & 6 were just a weak middle act. It didn’t.
I mean, how was I know to reading the first page of book 5 that I would hate the rest of it?
I’ve considered re-reading it in case I judged it too harshly in the moment out of disappointment. I really like The Wind through the Keyhole, so obviously the whole World of it didn’t sour on me. Should I not have read that since I hated 5-7?
Well, I probably wouldn’t have if I were you, but I’m glad it did ya well. Again, I haven’t read that yet, so no spoilers, please, but I understand it is set between books 4 and 5, so it makes sense that someone who liked the first part of the series best might enjoy it.
CT Damsel, it’s interesting that you are the first to mention disliking Roland. Obviously I can see lots of reasons to do that, but I found him to be such an archetypal warrior, with so little individual personality, that liking or disliking were almost beside the point. With just a few exceptions, there didn’t seem to be anything more to him than “He really wants to reach the Tower, and he is remarkably good at killing people”. I think that is why the first book was my least favorite, because it had proportionally more Roland and less other characters; seeing how other people related to Roland was interesting, Roland on his own not so much. He did seem much more human as a youth during the extended flashback in Wizard and Glass, so you might find you enjoy that part if you ever go back to read it.