I debated on the spoiler alert, since the last book in the series was published 11 years ago at this point, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. If you plan to read this series and haven’t yet, or if you’re in the midst of reading it for the first time, you probably don’t want to continue reading this thread.
Okay, for the rest of us: I’m not interested in debating whether the ending was a big raspberry to the fans of the series, or if it was one of the most brilliant codas to a multi-volume work in the history of mankind. But I AM curious … assuming Roland chases the man in black across the desert again, and reaches the way station (and later on the beach of the Western Sea) – will he encounter Jake, Eddie and Susannah again?
I think it’s clear he’ll draw three from the world(s) again, but do you think it would necessarily be THOSE three? Or will it be three different people (since “his” Susannah is still alive on another level of the Tower, and Jake is dead in the Keystone World)?
Roland is obviously doomed to repeat his quest until he gets it “right.” Does this mean the others (including Oy!) are doomed to do the same? Or will it be a different ka-tet he draws?
I think there is no answer to what is happening. I felt that he was looping back around to the beginning of the story, that the loop would repeat as it had before and as it always would. Roland was not capable of making the decisions that would lead him away from the path that ends with him opening the door in the Tower.
It is possible that each loop is a new, and that a new three will be drawn and the three we saw are moving on. But haven’t they anyways? Part of their lives are part of the loop of Roland’s life, but then they move past that.
At any rate, I was satisfied with the ending of the series. What else could have been in the Tower? What thing could have occupied it that would have been epic enough to end the story? It was the boss battle of all boss battles. The only way to win was to abandon the quest and not open the door, but it was the quest that was helping to hold up the Tower and protect reality. Roland’s story was consistent with the universe in the books.
Sure, some of the actual writing in the final books left something to be desired. But that is what you get with King, some good some bad.
obviously there is no way to know for sure…my feeling is that his next go-round will be very similar to the last one, and he will indeed encounter the same ka-tet. Since this is time travel, Susannah hasn’t gone to the other level, and Jake isn’t dead yet. The fact that he has Cuthbert’s horn indicates that there is some possibility for him to make better decisions in each successive lifetime, but I think it is going to take quite a few more trips before he finally manages to get off the wheel entirely, which I would think would mean that he learns to value human relationships more than the quest for the Tower. Of course, then who is going to save the Universe?
I think howye has a great take on the series and how it wraps up.
Personally, I have always thought that Roland repeats, and gets the same doors – the Prisoner, the Lady of the Shadows, and the Pusher – but the people who result from those doors aren’t necessarily the same Eddie, Susannah and Jake that we know, but they are probably characters that fill those roles in an archetypal way.
This, to me, is what puts that note of uncertainty into the mix. At one point in the series, Roland talks about the Horn and how he wishes he’d been able to grab it during the final battle of Jericho Hill. In the coda, he has the Horn, which means things may (will?) be different this time around. And if that’s different, what else will be different?
My personal ‘take’ (and I realize I have little to support it) was that the quest was never about saving the universe - it was about saving Roland. This is, in effect, something akin to the afterlife, and Roland is in a sort of hell that he can only escape by becomming a better person - one who truly cares for others. He’s almost there …
The argument against that interpretation is the way the Rose (and the Tower) acted on Jake / Eddie / Susannah. They all felt the same pull, devotion, and sense of duty and protection to the Rose / Tower, which wouldn’t make sense if the point of the whole thing was to save Roland. You’d think they would feel that devotion toward him instead. Jake did, to a large extent, but at times both Eddie and Susannah actively hated Roland.
Unless you’re positing that the entire series was some sort of hallucination or fever-dream of Roland’s. That’s certainly possible, and would explain why some of the story just plain doesn’t make any sense.
More like his personal purgatory, than a dream. It’s happening all right, but he’s the focus. The attraction to the rose sets up the motivation - it outwardly appears to be ‘about’ good vs. evil, whereas that whole scenario is really just driving the true conflict within Roland himself - duty vs. humanity. The message Roland is (painfully) learning, is to temper his duty with humanity.
So, in this scenario, none of the other characters are “real” in the same sense that Roland is? They are just illusions created by whatever is in charge of this purgatory? Interesting…
The analogy I think of is akin to a video game. You fire it up and start adventuring. Along the way, you end up getting defeated. So you do it again until you finally succeed.
Along the path, you (Roland) are using the same companions that you meet along the way every time you play. But the companions in the game don’t realize that they’re caught in an endless loop. Only you are (in a very meta kind of way).
Eddie and company aren’t caught in Hell or purgatory or anything like that. Because they don’t know they’re being used over and over. If they were aware of their fate - that they are stuck in this loop until Roland finally gets it right - then I’d say they were in Hell.
Anyway, I don’t know if I ever really thought about what happened to the rest of the ka-tet. Thinking about it now, I think I agree with the rest of the thread, though with perhaps a slight tweak. There are other worlds than these, after all. I think it’s quite possible that each time Roland goes through, he gets Eddie, Jake and Susannah–but not the same Eddie, Jake and Susannah. He’s probably on Eddies, Jakes and Susannahs 348 when we join him.
(Sorry Oy, you’re probably stuck in an eternal loop.)
Perhaps they have their own purgatories to work out, in which Roland is just an incidental character. The difference is that we are not following their POV, but Roland’s.
If they were just ‘illusions’, presumably eventually Roland would figure this out - what meaning does humanity have, if everyone else is just an illusion?
And as long as we have a Dark Tower thread going, I just have to point out the resemblance between the end of the series and the end of Bob Dylan’s "Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ (1974!):
Mama, put my guns on the ground
I can’t shoot them anymore
That long black cloud is comin’ down
I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Just like so many times before! :eek:
AFAICT nobody on the interwebs has ever pointed out this resonance before, although I do note that Stephen King’s band has covered the song.
IMHO, Roland is a pawn of the Tower. He’s an anti-body. He will never ‘get it right’.
I suppose there are probably some constants, but he wouldn’t nessecerily draw the same three. But not because some are dead or anything. Because it’s a new cycle of the universe.
The difference is that we are not following their POV, but Roland’s.