# The Dark Tower and It **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 30, 2004, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293 "2004-11-30T06:05:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/41 "2004-12-03T14:03:18Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > Then fuck King and his series with a splintered broomstick, because I’m quoting him verbatim from his **afterword** … Emphasis mine. King wrote that afterword when The Gunslinger was published in 1982, having only a vague idea what was going to occur in the remainder of the series. The Wastelands was published in 1991. The man’s vision for the story changed slightly in the nine years between the two novels, and you’re fucking him with a splintered broomstick over it? Could you be taking this just a little more seriously than is warranted? I think this sentence from the afterword is the one you should be paying attention to: > [@](#): > > All of which is just a way of saying that I’m never completely sure where this is going, and in this story that is even more true than usual. He had a vague idea of what could happen later in the story. When he got there, and it crystallized for him, one minor detail changed. Give it a rest. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/42 "2004-12-03T14:10:10Z")
Note: Bev Vincent didn’t write the concordance, he wrote _The Road to the Dark Tower_. The concordance (and soon, corcordance **s** ) was written by Robin Furth (RF?). > [@Evil Death](#): > > Then fuck King and his series with a splintered broomstick, because I’m quoting him verbatim from his afterword to _The Gunslinger_: As has been mentioned several times now, _The Gunslinger_ has been revised - that chapter especially. I understand your position on revising his works - it’s not unreasonable. But you’re arguing from an entirely different framework (especially since you haven’t been able to incorporate the last three books into your reference frame, which substantially draw upon those revisions). **Warning, the following paragraph contains some extremely minor spoilers. I’ll try to be brief.** However, with that said, I think the King quote you provided can be applied (with one slight change). The revisions, ultimately, change the words “exists within a single molecule” to “hinge upon the existence”. And of course, he changed the "weed’ to a “rose”. Books 5 and 6 contain major efforts by Roland et al. to protect that rose. I think it’s important that you not think of the rose (and its importance to various worlds) as that tired, cliched thought that each universe is but a single molecule in another universe (and so on, and so on). I think it can be argued that the rose contains all worlds, and additionally \*exists \* on all worlds (in some form or another). I hope that helps. ---
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/43 "2004-12-03T14:51:14Z")
…and a light goes on inside my dim little head. It was copyrighted (I’m not sure that’s actually a word) in 1986, predating not only The Wastelands (1991), but also The Drawing of the Three (1987). I think this makes it less possible that the rose, the Turtle, and the beam were intentional references to the Dark Tower books. That doesn’t mean that they don’t connect, but it’s possible that those concepts, instead of being moved from the Dark Tower books to It, were moved from It to the Dark Tower. There’s still a connection; it just goes the other way. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/44 "2004-12-03T15:08:39Z")
I don’t think that would be a safe assumption, **lj**. There’s a very good chance that King had been working on DT:II and DT:III well before writing **It** , especially considering the proximity of the publications of **It** and **The Drawing of the Three**. At the very least, I would suspect him of writing them concurrently. But good catch. The concept was certainly in his mind at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/45 "2004-12-03T15:34:28Z")
In **The Road to the Dark Tower** Bev Vincent includes a timeline that not only lists dates of things that happened in the books, but events in King’s life. (This really is a great reference.) Here are a couple of interesting ones: November 18, 1984: King comes up with the notion of the world resting on a turtle’s back to solve a plotting problem in _It_. June 10, 1986: King starts to think about returning to the _Dark Tower_ story. This was funny: Summer 1997: King knows story of _Wolves of the Calla_ but it seems like too much work; starts on _Hearts in Atlantis_ instead. King started \*The Drawing of the Three[/i} in 1986, _The Waste Lands_ in 1989 and _Wizard and Glass_ in 1995. Also in 1995 he saw _The Seven Samurai_ for the first time and got his inspiration for _Wolves of the Calla_. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/46 "2004-12-03T18:42:19Z")
> [@look!ninjas](#): > > Emphasis mine. King wrote that afterword when The Gunslinger was published in 1982, having only a vague idea what was going to occur in the remainder of the series. 1. King was already writing The Drawing of the Three when he wrote that afterword. 2. The world in a molecule King described as one of the very few things he _was_ certain about. > [@](#): > > He had a vague idea of what could happen later in the story. When he got there, and it crystallized for him, one minor detail changed. Said “one minor detail” being the most important thing in the story, by all accounts. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/47 "2004-12-03T20:07:12Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > 1. King was already writing The Drawing of the Three when he wrote that afterword. Not according to Bev Vincent’s book. I don’t have a dog in this fight. Heck, I can barely remember the main characters in most of King’s books, let alone the minor details. But if anyone’s interested in really exploring the connections, get Bev’s book. It’s a lot easier than re-reading all of King’s books and taking notes. Heck, the Calvins only did that with one book – Insomnia. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/48 "2004-12-03T20:19:45Z")
What I don’t understand is where all this vehemence and anger at King is coming from. Ever written a novel? The ideas do not come in a linear fashion; they come in bursts, they connect like webs, they bend and move. The Dark Tower was in King’s mind for a long, long time, so much so that, consciously or unconsciously, many of his books are connected to it. Trying to figure out which reference came first is a chicken or the egg argument and doomed to failure. That’s not how the creative mind works. I am utterly convinced of a connection between Dark Tower and IT; the rose and the Turtle are enough for me, but I believe Derry has an overall significance too. As for the “world in a molecule” bit, I don’t think it’s strictly wrong either. There are many, many worlds in the Dark Tower multiverse, perhaps a near-infinite number. Roland’s quest spans several of them and in the end, arrives at the heart of them, but the size of creation is far more vast than can be imagined. So you can rescind that broken broomstick sodomy, **Evil Death**. It’s as unnecessary as it is disturbingly hyperbolic. look!ninjas: The beams each have two ends; the beam to which you refer had Turtle Maturin on one end, Shardik the Bear on the other, but it’s the same beam. Both the rose and King had to be protected not to protect the beam, but to protect the Tower. That is the beam’s purpose, after all-- to hold up the Tower. Both the rose and King were in Keystone Earth, where time only goes in one direction, and King was writing the Dark Tower story, so if he went, Roland & Co. went, and the Tower would be won by The Crimson King. The rose is the remnant of the Creator’s magic, the magic of The White, in Keystone Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/49 "2004-12-03T23:51:16Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > Not according to Bev Vincent’s book. Call me old fashioned if you like, but I’m inclined to trust what the author himself said at the time over what an independent chronicler is saying some 20 years later. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2004, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/50 "2004-12-04T01:20:20Z")
Well, now I’m confused. Are you saying that King was also working on The Drawing of the Three when he wrote The Gunslinger? Six years passed between publication of these books. Like **Rubystreak** said, King was probably thinking about it – the story never left him, even while he was working on other projects. When Bev says King didn’t start **working** on Drawing until 1986, I believe him. It doesn’t hurt your argument. Bev Vincent is indeed an independent chronicler, but his book was written with King’s full cooperation. He’s an insider, not just a fan with time on his hands. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2004, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/51 "2004-12-04T01:27:27Z")
Have you visited [www.thedarktower.net](http://www.thedarktower.net)? Here’s the url with speculation on the connections, and there’s a brief discussion of an It connection – [http://thedarktower.net/connections/index.php](http://thedarktower.net/connections/index.php) Thought it might help. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2004, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/52 "2004-12-04T09:46:59Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > Well, now I’m confused. Are you saying that King was also working on The Drawing of the Three when he wrote The Gunslinger? Six years passed between publication of these books. Yes. And? From the final page of IT: \*This book was begun in Bangor, Main, on September 9th, 1981, and completed in Bangor, Maine, on December 28th, 1985. Books take time to write, you know, and the first two Dark Tower novels took him longer than any other. ---
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2004, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/53 "2004-12-04T14:00:16Z")
For the sake of being anal retentive (is there a hyphen in that?), King had written “segments” of The Drawing of the Three by the time of The Gunslinger’s publication. He hadn’t written the whole thing, and there’s no indication that he’d gotten around to writing any of The Wastelands at all; and The Wastelands, IIRC, contains the first references to the rose. Basically, King’s notes in the afterword to The Gunslinger are his ideas for what _could_ happen in later books. Those are the ideas that he had at the time, but ideas change. And really, it is kind of a minor detail. The major idea was that a plant somewhere in a vacant lot would contain Roland’s entire universe. At first, he thought a lowly weed might be nice. Then the idea of the singing rose came to him, and for whatever reason, he used that instead. It doesn’t significantly alter the plot. There’s still a plant in a vacant lot that contains the universe. It’s just a little prettier now. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/54 "2004-12-05T21:27:12Z")
> [@look!ninjas](#): > > There’s still a plant in a vacant lot that contains the universe. It’s just a little prettier now. Again, to reiterate (and to continue the anal retentiveness), the rose does not “contain” Roland’s universe (despite the first version of King’s _Gunslinger_ notes). It is just a keystone to it, and necessary to its (and all universes’) survival. ---
**Author:** ![cryptic\_j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@cryptic\_j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cryptic_j)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/55 "2004-12-06T13:46:17Z")
I read “It” and “Insomnia” before I read any of The Dark Tower books… and then I read them in the order (IV, I, II, III, V, VI, VII)… so here are my thoughts… after reading Insomnia and seeing the part at the end about Roland (for me the CK was introduced in this book - having not read any previous DT book ) - obviously I saw the links between Insomnia and It - (being set in Derry) - - then in DTIV (Wizard And Glass) as soon as the Turtle was mentioned as being a guardian of the beam I immediately saw it as a connection to It ( and this was before I found out that Kings books themselves would make an appearance )… I don’t even remember the part about the Rose in It … but I bet if I had read it again before reading this thread I would have thought… “Wow… he was sewing the seeds for the Rose thing back then” regardless of what he actually thought he was doing… I think **Evil Death** should read the rest before getting deeper into this argument… and let King off a bit - - it would be nice if all authors or other creators of fiction could know exactly what everything in their books would develop into years in advance ---
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/56 "2004-12-06T23:51:42Z")
Maybe the reason that the connections are so nebulous is that they weren’t necessarily planned. If we go by the publication dates, King was writing It at the same time as The Drawing of the Three. I don’t think it’s likely that he could wall the stories off from one another; to me, it makes more sense to think that the stories influenced each other, maybe without King planning it or even being aware of it. In a way, It is kind of a rough draft for some of the ideas that would come up later in the Dark Tower books. There’s the rose, the Turtle, and the beam, of course. It, while probably not the Crimson King, is certainly similar to him. The ritual of Chüd bears a certain resemblance to the battle against Blaine the Mono (won by Eddie’s peculiar sense of humor), and you can’t deny that Richie Tozier and Eddie Dean have a few things in common. The kids even form kind of a ka-tet, with Stuttering Bill as their ka-mai. I mean, the similarities are definitely there. But at the same time, it’s not really obvious, like Nozz-A-La or Takuro Spirits or the wholesale lifting of a character (it comes up in a later book, so I won’t say who it is). I have to wonder if any of it was deliberate, or if it came about from having two stories jostling against each other for space in his brain. This would make a great English Lit class, wouldn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/57 "2004-12-07T10:12:45Z")
> [@look!ninjas](#): > > In a way, It is kind of a rough draft for some of the ideas that would come up later in the Dark Tower books. I’d think of it as being the other way around. IT feels finished and polished. TDot3 reads like King had difficulty writing it - which he did. > [@](#): > > But at the same time, it’s not really obvious, like Nozz-A-La or Takuro Spirits or the wholesale lifting of a character (it comes up in a later book, so I won’t say who it is). If you’re referring to Father Callahan, I already know. (If there’s another one, obfuscate.) > [@](#): > > This would make a great English Lit class, wouldn’t it? No. I’m not full of shit, and to make it a good Eng Lit class _everyone_ has to be full of shit. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/58 "2004-12-07T23:52:14Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > I’d think of it as being the other way around. IT feels finished and polished. TDot3 reads like King had difficulty writing it - which he did. Well, I’m not speaking of The Wastelands in particular but of the Dark Tower series as a whole. It is complete in itself; The Wastelands is in the middle of a very large series. > [@Evil Death](#): > > If you’re referring to Father Callahan, I already know. (If there’s another one, obfuscate.) No obfuscating necessary then. I was trying not to spoil it, but I guess someone already did. [quote=Evil DeathNo. I’m not full of shit, and to make it a good Eng Lit class _everyone_ has to be full of shit. :D[/QUOTE] No, only the teacher. ---
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/59 "2004-12-08T00:55:26Z")
How did I mangle the coding that badly? It ought to have looked more like this: > [@Evil Death](#): > > No. I’m not full of shit, and to make it a good Eng Lit class everyone has to be full of shit. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293/60 "2004-12-08T01:33:15Z")
> [@look!ninjas](#): > > Well, I’m not speaking of The Wastelands in particular but of the Dark Tower series as a whole. It is complete in itself; The Wastelands is in the middle of a very large series. That wasn’t “TDT3”, it was “TD_o_t3” - the second book. > [@](#): > > No, only the teacher. Ah, then that’s all right. I’m not full of shit, but I’m not the one taking the teacher role. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-tower-and-it/277293.md?page=2)