Official Spoiler Thread for Dark Tower VII - ye have been warned, say thankya

Cafe Society
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borschevsky: I agree that the death scenes seemed short. It kinda bugged me, until I halfway rationalized it in my own mind - no one really gets the sendoff they deserve, in real life anyway. It always seems most of us check out in a goofy, accidental fashion. That’s just my take on it…
I am STILL laughing over the King Koopa = Crimson King comparison. I can see it in my mind…anyone know someone who mods out old NES games that could make us a Gunslinger version of Super Mario Bros.? I’d pay good money for that one, if only for the amusement value.
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FilmGeek: **I hope you’re right re: different people get pulled each time Roland goes through his loop. The idea that Eddie, Susannah and Jake get yanked along for the ride each time through no fault of their own just really got my goat. I like your interpretation much better.

And now, I’m going to throw out what is (in my mind) the biggest inconsistancy in the Dark Tower series. I kept hoping that King would work it in somehow and explain it, but no. And I really hope I’m not insane, I would double check it but my original version of The Gunslinger has vanished over the years…

When Roland first finds Jake at the way station, he’s blonde.

When Jake re-appears in the story a few books later, he has dark hair. Which remains consistant throughout the rest of the series.

But dammit, he started out blonde. Did no one at all catch that? Was it fixed in the new version of DTI? (I almost refuse to read the revised edition.) I kept hoping King would explain it as a different version of Jake or something…anyway, I hope someone else can verify or disprove me on this. It really has been stuck in my craw for faaaaaaar too long.

The only other inconsistancies I really looked for were in regards to Susannah. How does one kneel when you have no knees? Aren’t you really just balancing on stubs?

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You’re right about Jake’s hair! Look here for further validation on that. That’s a great site, btw. Well, it’s actually a subsite of this place, but the point remains. Excellent site.

As for Susannah, I think “kneeled” just flows better than “balances on her stubs.” There’s also conflict over whether she was amputated above or below the knee.

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I haven’t finished the book yet, but seeing as I just read this whole thread, I don’t really care too much about spoilers :slight_smile: . So can someone explain something to me? What is up with Stephen King? Did he create the characters or didn’t he? I mean, I’ve only read the last book once and some details could have slipped my mind, but it seems like things could of one of two ways: Either he created everyone and the world or he recieves messages from the Path of the Beam that turn themselves into the mental images that he puts on paper. So which one is it? And why does it matter if he dies? I’m so confused :frowning: …

But, the more convoluted a plot is, the more I like it, so I guess I’ve just gotta take what comes with the territory.

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Cockatiel, King did and didn’t create the tet. My take on it is that King’s world and Roland’s world are different levels of the Tower, each real in it’s own way. Roland et al are conceptually real with or without King; they exist on some non-physical level of the Tower that’s different from King’s level or the level we’ve been reading about. The Turtle (or the Tower, or the Beam, or Gan, or whatever) gives this conceptual reality to King, and he writes about it. His writings resonate through the levels of the Tower and draw these conceptual realities into physical reality.

(It’s like that door they pulled Jake through in The Wastelands. On one level, Eddie created that door when he drew that picture in the dirt. On another level, though, it always existed. Without a certain level of pre-existing reality, that picture would have been nothing more than a picture and they would never have succeeded in drawing Jake.)

Anyhoo, since they don’t physically exist and these events don’t physically happen until King writes about them, it’s vital that he write about them stopping the Breakers. Because otherwise, see, the Beams break and the Tower falls.

This is probably all as clear as mud, but I think you’ll understand it better by the end of the book.

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I guess I’m officially a Nitpicker :smiley: It was one (out of many, it would seem) inconsistency that for some reason I fixated on. Not that I’m bashing King, of course - that’s a lot of written history to keep track of.

I agree that “kneeled” is a much more flowing word. Its just whenever I read that she was kneeling, the mental picture was always, well…you know. Ackward.

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Oh, and I have a question for everyone who hopes Eddie, Susannah, and Jake don’t keep being redrawn. Why wouldn’t you want them to be redrawn from the world they originally came from? Can you honestly say any of the three are worse off for having known Roland? That Eddie would have been better off facing Customs and Balazar’s men on his own, or dying of an overdose? That Suze would have been better off living as Odetta Holmes and Detta Walker? That Jake would have been better off in an asylum, or being eaten by the Doorkeeper, or crushed under the wheels of a taxi?

Yes, they were all rudely yanked away from their lives without so much as a by-your-leave, but they all benefited from it. They found healing and acceptance and love, and they were happy. What’s so horrible about that that you would hope it doesn’t happen again?

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For me, its because Roland’s loop through time meant to be a punishment. King uses the phrase “time’s curse”. Roland remembers Cort foreshadowing the loop by saying, “It’ll be your damnation, boy. You’ll wear out a hundred pairs of boots on your walk to hell.” Vort’s quote: “Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Its Roland’s burden, for forsaking all others for the Tower, for denying his own humanity. True, E, S & J are the way to his redemption. And I agree that their excursions into Mid-World eventually straighted out some problems they had. (I don’t lump Jake in that category. His first excursion into Roland’s world came after his death, and he was purposely placed there for the role he would later play. Even with the gift of Roland’s friendship, he ends up dying - three times, all together - twice being hit by cars.)

One trip around ka’s wheel is enough for anyone. But to be sent through again and again - enduring great horrors as well as joys - especially when its due to some wandering cowboy-knight in another world who can’t get his mind off his day job…well, it doesn’t really jibe by the story’s logic, as I see it. That’s what I mean by “unfair”.

That’s just me, though. :smiley:

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I guess I look at it not so much as them being Roland’s redemption as them all being each other’s redemption. And I kind of see hints that they all had their own lessons to learn, that maybe ol’ Long Tall and Ugly ain’t the only slow learner in this particular class. You remember Eddie and Odetta first falling in love and talking about how they felt like they’d known each other for ages? Those premonitions Eddie kept having about it all ending badly between them? You remember how eerily quickly Oy took up with Jake, how long it had been since anyone had seen a bumbler that remembered men? How he seemed to be struggling to remember things he already knew?

They all had their own struggles, and I think on previous trips through the cycle they failed in those struggles. In particular, I think things ended very, very badly between Suze and Eddie, quite possibly with her or Mia killing him over the chap.

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I agree that repeated loops for the trio (plus bumbler) in question would explain a lot of how they all meshed together as ka-tet. Doesn’t mean the idea appeals to me personally - sounds like a really involved version of Purgatory.

I guess the root of my discontent lies in the fact that E, S & J + O didn’t know or care about the Tower and yet their reoccuring fate is tied with Roland’s. And the reason for that, I suppose, is that Ka is a bitch.

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I think I need to go rent Groundhog Day and watch it for clues.

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My take is that only Roland is re-experiencing the loop - everyone else is Memorex, if it do ya. Someone on thedarktower.net forums pointed out that at the end of the story, at least Susannah continues forward - she has a continuing history that occurs “while” Roland is beginning again. Therefore, she is not going to be redrawn. And Eddie, Jake, and Oy are dead, not just mostly dead. The point is made that if you die in Roland’s world or Keystone America side, you can’t get recycled. (The Eddie and Jake Susannah meets are different versions of them, not reincarnations.)

After thinking about it, I guess I can rationalize the end to some degree. In fact, I think King was making a point, even if the details don’t quite mesh perfectly.

Let’s say The White wants Roland to save the Beams - that’s his destiny.

But Roland learns about his quest from the Wizard’s Glass, which is malevolent. And while it can’t lie, can show misleading things. So it inspires his sick obsession with the Tower itself, thus distracting him from his real mission, while also planting the seeds of his damnation (i.e., his willingness to sacrifice those he loves for the Tower).

The reason for Roland’s samsara is that he has done so much evil, not even in the cause of good, but in the cause of his own selfish desire. But maybe each time around, he can make different choices. Somehow the horn symbolizes the possibility of release from the loop.* In any case, I think the change he undergoes from the first book to the later ones, where he is once again capable of love, indicates he may have made some serious progress in previous loops.

I really love these books. I don’t think they hold together perfectly, and I think there are some major missteps (like King using the books as catharsis for his accident), but I’m only critical because the quality of the story set the bar pretty high for me.

One thing I’ve been thinking about. I kind of view the original Gunslinger as two books at once. It is an awesome stand-alone novel. It is spare, mysterious, and original as hell. It is unlike anything else King has done. On the other hand, it is the first book in a series that comes to be very much in King’s usual style. Still a compelling story, but much more analogous to *It * or *The Stand * in plot, characterization, and voice. In many ways, I prefer to think of it as a story unto itself. And if I can’t find my original copy (I think I lent it to some irresponsible party - O Discordia!), I’m going to have to get a used copy of the original version.

*here’s where I think the details don’t really add up if examined closely - why the horn? How does it matter, if he didn’t go back and pick it up, but merely magically had it when he started over. Wouldn’t it make more sense to show a crucial decision like killing his mother, or letting Jake drop, change?

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That was my first thought when I finished the book at 1 am today.

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I gotta say, I’m getting more out of Wolves of the Calla, and I suspect the same’ll be true for Susanna, knowing how the story “ends”. :slight_smile:

I don’t know that it’d hang together over all seven books though. It’s hard to believe that when King knew where he was going with the story when he wrote The Gunslinger.

Maybe I need to get Bev Vincent’s book, The Road to the Dark Tower. He’s been close to King’s work for more years than most of us. It’d be nice to know when the story really started to take shape in King’s head.

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What happened to the subplot that it was man’s tinkering with things that brought about the decay of the beams and the inevitable fall of the tower? And that the breakers were just accelerating the inevitable? I really thought that much more work was needed to restore things than just stopping the breakers, and I thought I remembered such being stated explicitly a few volumes ago.

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I’m not sure how I feel about the ending as a whole. My first thought is “This was a kewl ending when I saw it in the “Land Of The Lost” TV show when I was a kid, but now? Not so much.” However, after a bit, I’m starting to think King was right that it had to end that way. I want to think about it some more.

Some minor quibbles though: I thought the little bit of politics thrown in at the very end (the Hart/Reagan thing) was WAAAAAY jarring–there was a mythic feel to it up 'till then and this clashed. Anyway, frankly while Odetta was very involved in politics, she (and Susannah) don’t seem like the sort of obsessive sicko who’s first reaction to being reunited with her lost love is “Yeah–great to see ya and all, but who’s president?” (even if it had been a running joke between them). (And can we not turn this into Reagan sux!/Reagan rulez?–my point is that while regardless of one’s opinion of the politics of it, I found it jarring and intrusive)

Susannah (and Roland) seemed out of character after they met the artist.

One thing I’m really getting sick of is King’s repeated idiot luddite-isms. Hey Stephen: it was science that put you back together after you were hit by that truck, it was science that kept your kids free of polio and it’s science that made that nifty new Mac computer you typed all this stuff up on. Th’ “Science and rationality SUX!” thing is not only old and tired, but it makes you look like a moron.

All that aside, it was a great read, and I’ll want to digest it before I make more than these quick “surface” comments

Fenris

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One other problem with the “Reboot Roland” ending is that it means nothing we’ve seen matters at all. The beams? Been saved countless times before. Eddie beating Blaine? Happened afore an’ it’ll happen agin. Jake’s sacrifice for Stephen King? Been there, done that. Pere Callahan’s last stand? It’s only his last stand until he does it again tomorrow night, same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel. It undermines every sacrifice, every heroic action we’ve seen. What would have made it matter is if it was 100% clear that this was Roland’s last (or even second-to-last) trip round. Granted, there were a few minor hints, but we don’t know what he did wrong before, we don’t know what parts he got more correct this time 'round and we don’t know what he’ll need to do next time to end it.

And if the Reboot Roland thing is a cosmic “do it over until you get it right” situation, shouldn’t it have rebooted him to his first “mistake”, not saving Susan? When the Orb offered him the choice between The Tower and Susan, the correct answer, if not “Both, damn you!” apparently should have been “Susan”. If it’s rebooting him to after that moment, it’s like making a backup of your hard-drive after you’ve gotten a virus. Doesn’t matter how many times you restore your system, you’re restoring from a flawed back-up.

And anyway, what did Roland do that was so bad as to deserve this? Choose the Tower over Susan? if he had chosen Susan, all of reality would have collapsed. Be obsessed with the Tower and let people die in his quest to get there? Um…but he had to let them die to save the Tower from the Beam Breakers. He was required by Ka to do whatever it took to save all of creation, right? And since the obsession with the Tower and the Quest to save the Beams were 100% parallel, what could he have done differently? It’s not like he did anything particularly damning after he saved the Tower and King. What evil did he do? (Note that making hard choices that result in saving all of reality aren’t evil, IMO)

I know how negative I’m coming across and I apologize: I’m not trying to be a downer, but at the same time, I’ve got a ton of questions and King really has me thinking (which is one of the sign, I suppose, of a good book :slight_smile: ).

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Completely agree, except for the first sentence. Roland only realizes what’s going on as he goes into the top room of the Tower, but forgets the moment he hits the desert. Look back at his palaver with Walter in DTI - tons of foreshadowing, none of which registers with Roland.

Also, when I went back last night to check out the above-mentioned, I saw that the “R” word that preceeds The Gunslinger is “Resumption”. Wow.

I disagree. It’s obvious that each pass through things can change - otherwise he wouldn’t have grabbed the horn this time around. As such, each decision is Roland’s to freely make, each and every time. The Tower needs saving, each and every time. The fate of Roland is extremely minor compared to the necessity of his journey.

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Ah, I used imprecise language there.

I don’t mean to say that Roland experiences it, as in, realizes and remembers. But (since we’re debating ridiculous fictional paranormal events anyway), my theory is that his soul is actually sent back through the loop, while the souls of E, S. J, & O only go through the events once.

My theory is kind of like time travel. If I went back in time on a hundred different occasions, and each time watched you eat breakfast this morning, you would still only have gone through it once.

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I hate to be the guy who just goes around poking holes in people’s hypos, but don’t forget that the Crimson King had 6 (?) of the wizard balls and destroyed them before heading off for the Tower. And I really like the idea of all these low men going to 9/11 to sightsee are actually witnessing the destruction of one of their most powerful objects of evil.

I’m not sure if King’s done writing or not, but I would love to see some follow up on the adventures of John Cullum and Co. (the ka-tet of the Rose?) as they create the Tet Corporation and afterwards.

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Hmmmmm…you make an exellent point, Jedi Master. This humble padwan stands (kneels?) in awe. :slight_smile:

Oops. Wrong milieu! :wink:

However, one or two more questions: was there foreshadowing prior to book 7, about the importance of the horn? Also, why didn’t the Tower dump him back to when he had the opportunity to make the choice to grab the horn? ('cause King wanted the last line to be the first…:wink: but still.)