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View Full Version : Ok so we know Roland's world has moved on....



Allie
01-06-2008, 01:27 AM
When did it start to move on? How did they now it was moving on?

Letti
01-06-2008, 03:37 AM
Good questions. I am sure it didn't start to move one day to the other... and I am sure it had been moving on for a long while when they could notice it.

alinda
01-06-2008, 05:34 AM
I am thinking there were small seemingly unimportant changes,
something subtle. Like lately my husband has said that on perfectly clear
mornings here before the sun rise that there is a significant amount of
water dripping from the trees in our yard as if it were raining ( he says he can hear it falling) my point is not everyone notices something but, little by little
the changes are piling up. Time ( a concept I do NOT believe in) distance
things of this nature began to stretch, or bend somehow, and the next ting you know BAM! the world has moved on.:ninja:

ZoNeSeeK
01-06-2008, 08:04 PM
Wouldn't it have been as soon as the first beam was damaged enough to be broken? Or had the world been moving on for longer than that?

Letti
01-06-2008, 10:24 PM
Wouldn't it have been as soon as the first beam was damaged enough to be broken? Or had the world been moving on for longer than that?

Yes, I think it had.
The beam didn't break because everything was already, it broke because the world was moving on.

Allie
01-06-2008, 10:28 PM
Interesting. I have just been thinking about this quite a bit whilst re reading. Could it be that something the old ones did triggered the moving on? From what I have read it seems that they did a lot of damage, like causing mutants.

jayson
01-07-2008, 04:15 AM
Given my views that...

Roland's loop is never-ending

I think the world[s] start to "move on" each time the cycle starts over again. It's a constant mythological cycle of creation/destruction. Once it gets back to the starting point it starts moving on until the destruction/rebuilding completes. It's like saying we start dying as soon as we are born. It's not a particularly pleasant way of looking at it, but it's no less true because of it. With each second our individual worlds "move on" just a bit, not just when something major happens to us.

Brice
01-07-2008, 04:31 AM
Time ( a concept I do NOT believe in)

patient: Could someone please help me. I'm hurting. I've been waiting for seven hours here.
linda: time does not exist
*patient jumps out window*
*ambulance drives around and brings patient back around to the er with concussion and several broken bones*
patient: This is unbearable. Will it ever end?
linda: time does not exist. :)
patient: Is anyone gonna get around to helping me?
linda: It is time for my lunch break.
patient: Wait, I thought you said time does not exist. When will you be back?
linda: time does not exist.

:P :P :P

I always got the impression that the "old ones" tinkering with technology led in part to the world moving on. Kinda' like they disturbed the natural order of things.

jayson
01-07-2008, 04:38 AM
I always got the impression that the "old ones" tinkering with technology led in part to the world moving on. Kinda' like they disturbed the natural order of things.

I believe they sped it up by replacing the magic with technology, but the magic was receding, so things were still "moving on." The Old Ones just made it happen a lot faster.

obscurejude
01-07-2008, 10:52 PM
R of G. Whats the difference between Roland's world and New York? New York is described as a world that hasn't moved on several times, most notably when Roland first encounters it along the beach in DT 2. Is it somehow at the beginning of the cycle you described and if so, how?

Letti
01-08-2008, 12:43 AM
You know what?
I think the world is always moving on.
All the time.
That's how everything works.
But sometimes it's moving to the bad way... sometimes it seems to stop but it's still moving and sometimes it's moving to a nice direction.

jayson
01-08-2008, 03:54 AM
R of G. Whats the difference between Roland's world and New York? New York is described as a world that hasn't moved on several times, most notably when Roland first encounters it along the beach in DT 2. Is it somehow at the beginning of the cycle you described and if so, how?

My thoughts are that it is moving on, perhaps much less rapidly than Roland's is so he may not recognize it as such. In my view of it, all worlds are always moving on, though not at the same pace. I'm not sure I want to take a further guess as to how the metaphysics work because that's all it would be.

TerribleT
01-08-2008, 04:23 AM
You know what?
I think the world is always moving on.
All the time.
That's how everything works.
But sometimes it's moving to the bad way... sometimes it seems to stop but it's still moving and sometimes it's moving to a nice direction.

I've always had the philosophy that our lives are never static. That we are always moving in one direction or the other. My way of putting it is that I'm either moving forward, or backward. Sometimes I'm moving forward in some ways, and backward in others, and sometimes it's all full on reverse. There are rare times when EVERYTHING is moving forward. Do you suppose that King's concept of "the world moving on" is a metaphore for our own lives?

TerribleT
01-08-2008, 04:25 AM
And if you take that out one step further and ponder the whole aspect of size, and hundreds of worlds all moving in different directions inside the tip of a pencil the way it's described in Roland's palaver with Walter, maybe even more so?

Jean
01-08-2008, 04:32 AM
I am not sure it works that way. It seems that now we are looking at the phrase as a separate entity, outside the context. In this case there's nothing wrong about "moving on", and everything is surely moving on, and it becomes a mere synonym for "developing", while in the book it isn't. "Moving on" is always used as something ominous, loss of ability to coordinate and relate things, obliteration of consistency and relations, breach of ties and connections; "moving on", as I see it, is, within the context, always moving on towards chaos - the Random, - away from order - the Purpose.

(all of the above makes sense only if my memory serves me well, though)

jayson
01-08-2008, 04:34 AM
i think your memory is intact Jean because what you said made sense to me.:thumbsup:

TerribleT
01-08-2008, 04:37 AM
It makes sense to me as well, but the same is true of all life. We're all "moving on" in the sense that we begin to die the moment we are born. The second start to tick away at that very moment. No matter anyway, it was just a random thought that I basically blurted out :)

jayson
01-08-2008, 04:40 AM
We're all "moving on" in the sense that we begin to die the moment we are born. The second start to tick away at that very moment.

Precisely T. I said more or less the same earlier in the thread. Nothing is static. It's always in motion.

TerribleT
01-08-2008, 05:03 AM
We're all "moving on" in the sense that we begin to die the moment we are born. The second start to tick away at that very moment.

Precisely T. I said more or less the same earlier in the thread. Nothing is static. It's always in motion.

Dude, you and I agree on a LOT, and most of the places where we disagree, whether it be in Roland's world or our own, are mostly a matter of degrees, not concept. I did notice that you'd said the same earlier, and it's something I've always believed too.

Jean does it help if we toss in chaos theory? The idea that all complex systems are moving towards their collapse?

jayson
01-08-2008, 05:07 AM
Dude, you and I agree on a LOT, and most of the places where we disagree, whether it be in Roland's world or our own, are mostly a matter of degrees, not concept.

I'd say that's true from our recent conversations. Our disagreements are in perception not concept.

Jean
01-08-2008, 05:17 AM
Terrible: I think ageing, death, collapse, even degeneration may be all natural and part of the Purpose if they happen in accordance with laws, whether we are aware of these laws or not. It's when "things fall apart, the center doesn't hold" that the world starts really moving on; it might be birth of something twisted, or un-death, or ageing backwards, but it must be deterioration of consistence - which natural, law-abiding moving towards collapse, in my opinion, is not.

Letti
01-08-2008, 06:21 AM
I am not sure it works that way. It seems that now we are looking at the phrase as a separate entity, outside the context. In this case there's nothing wrong about "moving on", and everything is surely moving on, and it becomes a mere synonym for "developing", while in the book it isn't. "Moving on" is always used as something ominous, loss of ability to coordinate and relate things, obliteration of consistency and relations, breach of ties and connections; "moving on", as I see it, is, within the context, always moving on towards chaos - the Random, - away from order - the Purpose.

(all of the above makes sense only if my memory serves me well, though)

Yesyes.
That's what I am thinking right now. I might change my mind I don't really know it yet.
Our world is moving all all the time to chaos (so is Roland's) that's why we humans always have to fight and give up and can't have a heaven-like life.

It doesn't make sense now. I will try to write about it more after work. :)

Brice
01-08-2008, 06:39 AM
Our world is moving all all the time to chaos (so is Roland's) that's why we humans always have to fight and give up and can't have a heaven-like life.



Wow, I hope you're wrong about that dear. :scared:

Letti
01-08-2008, 06:40 AM
Our world is moving all all the time to chaos (so is Roland's) that's why we humans always have to fight and give up and can't have a heaven-like life.



Wow, I hope you're wrong about that dear. :scared:

About what? :D

jayson
01-08-2008, 06:48 AM
It doesn't make sense now. I will try to write about it more after work. :)

It makes more sense than you think it does. At least I think I understand what you are trying to say.

Brice
01-08-2008, 06:51 AM
Our world is moving all all the time to chaos (so is Roland's) that's why we humans always have to fight and give up and can't have a heaven-like life.



Wow, I hope you're wrong about that dear. :scared:

About what? :D



we humans always have to fight and give up and can't have a heaven-like life.


Ummm....that




Also, I do not think we are always moving towards chaos precisely. Well, we are but, we also are not at the same time.

alinda
01-08-2008, 09:59 AM
Brice,
I read this in our local library, and LAUGHED so hard, and so out loud
I may have likely been asked to "shhhhh" . Thank you for that, I
really needed it. Its funny also that for the past few years, the best
belly buster laughs I've had, were for the most part over something
said on TDT.sites. You are most definately wonderful for my health!!

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: PS The fact that I work in a hospital
made way for another entire perception to this joke! phew! funny stuff!



Time ( a concept I do NOT believe in)

patient: Could someone please help me. I'm hurting. I've been waiting for seven hours here.
linda: time does not exist
*patient jumps out window*
*ambulance drives around and brings patient back around to the er with concussion and several broken bones*
patient: This is unbearable. Will it ever end?
linda: time does not exist. :)
patient: Is anyone gonna get around to helping me?
linda: It is time for my lunch break.
patient: Wait, I thought you said time does not exist. When will you be back?
linda: time does not exist.

:P :P :P

I always got the impression that the "old ones" tinkering with technology led in part to the world moving on. Kinda' like they disturbed the natural order of things.

Allie
01-09-2008, 12:17 AM
Wow, thank you all for your awesome responses, its an interesting topic, so many meanings available to interpret.

What I always found an interesting paradox was that although everyone in Rolands world seemed to be aware the world was moving on, the animals seemed to be healing what hurts had been done to them, the threaded stock etc. So even if the world was moving on, it was also healing in ways, so what was it 'moving on' to?

Letti
01-09-2008, 12:39 AM
Our world is moving all all the time to chaos (so is Roland's) that's why we humans always have to fight and give up and can't have a heaven-like life.



Wow, I hope you're wrong about that dear. :scared:

About what? :D



we humans always have to fight and give up and can't have a heaven-like life.


Ummm....that




Also, I do not think we are always moving towards chaos precisely. Well, we are but, we also are not at the same time.

So,
yes sometimes life is heaven-like - but not all the time. I don't mind I don't complain but I think it's a fact.

Aha... "We are but, we also are not at the same time" I see, okay, aham. :D

Brice
01-09-2008, 11:31 AM
Brice,
I read this in our local library, and LAUGHED so hard, and so out loud
I may have likely been asked to "shhhhh" . Thank you for that, I
really needed it. Its funny also that for the past few years, the best
belly buster laughs I've had, were for the most part over something
said on TDT.sites. You are most definately wonderful for my health!!

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: PS The fact that I work in a hospital
made way for another entire perception to this joke! phew! funny stuff!



Ha ha! I knew you worked in a hospital. :lol: That fact kind of led me to this joke a little. A few nights prior to that post I was stuck in the ER over night for a severe toothache, and ended up waiting for like seven hours before even being seen at all. The ER was empty that night...like barren and desolate empty. I saw tumbleweeds roll by between the waiting room chairs. :arg: There were no other emergencies and no ambulances came in, thus making my toothache one. When they finally took me to the back it wasn't ten minutes before I was being let go with scrips. I later found out they close half of the ER at night and on this night they had only one doctor in the ER, but apparently one patient was too many for him. :lol: Anyhow, your comment regarding there being no time just got me to thinking (while high on percs) and that's how one led to the other. I'm glad I could make you laugh. :huglove:







Our world is moving all all the time to chaos (so is Roland's) that's why we humans always have to fight and give up and can't have a heaven-like life.



Wow, I hope you're wrong about that dear. :scared:

About what? :D



we humans always have to fight and give up and can't have a heaven-like life.


Ummm....that




Also, I do not think we are always moving towards chaos precisely. Well, we are but, we also are not at the same time.

So,
yes sometimes life is heaven-like - but not all the time. I don't mind I don't complain but I think it's a fact.

Aha... "We are but, we also are not at the same time" I see, okay, aham. :D


:D I think the natural order of things is a deepy intertwined random and purpose which can't be separated. Both are dependent on each other. Chaos and order need each other. They're like this: :couple:

Jean
01-10-2008, 01:59 AM
that's what I think, too. It's the breach of this balance (which I am not sure is 50/50, but rather some ratio that enables this balance to exist) that I see as "moving on". In the book it was shifting towards the Chaos pole; I wonder what it all would look like if shifting towards the Order pole - not less abominable, I believe, but very different. Like, everything becomes predictable and you can more and more easily calculate consequences of any action... and the number of options (for anything) is decreasing... and such like

Wuducynn
01-10-2008, 06:37 AM
Chaos and order need each other. They're like this: :couple:

ACK!! http://planetsmilies.net/vomit-smiley-9532.gif

Letti
01-15-2008, 05:18 AM
I guess it means you disagree, AllHail. Am I right? :D

Wuducynn
01-15-2008, 09:12 AM
I guess it means you disagree, AllHail. Am I right? :D

Whatever gave you THAT impression? :rolleyes:

To The Dark Tower Came
01-24-2008, 03:44 PM
I personally think that the "moving on" was more important to the first, older print of The Gunslinger. The whole book is about the reasons, culminating in the palaver between Roland and Walter. Walter tells Roland to imagine a blade of grass that is dying and what if the world were just a speck withing that curling, browning blade? It's nature.

The "moving on" became somewhat less important, I think, as the series developed, because there was a deepening of the cosmology, it became about the beams and Tower, etc.

One can also use the "moving on" in a world within a world metaphor for the whole series. Roland's world has certainly moves on, with the sweeping away of Gilead and the fall of all In-World's structure. But in contrast, when the tet arrives in the Calla, the world there seems to be going on quite nicely.

True there are mutie problems, and the Wolves, but as far as farming, building, raising children, food, water, celebrations, civil order seems to be maintaining itself. So "the world moving on" is a relative term in the books. The mighty swept away while the regular people go on as they always have.

LadyHitchhiker
01-25-2008, 09:42 PM
Should we worry about the when? Maybe it's a particular multiverse that deserves our attention, and not the time.

ATG
01-25-2008, 10:45 PM
I personally think that the "moving on" was more important to the first, older print of The Gunslinger. The whole book is about the reasons, culminating in the palaver between Roland and Walter. Walter tells Roland to imagine a blade of grass that is dying and what if the world were just a speck withing that curling, browning blade? It's nature.

The "moving on" became somewhat less important, I think, as the series developed, because there was a deepening of the cosmology, it became about the beams and Tower, etc.

One can also use the "moving on" in a world within a world metaphor for the whole series. Roland's world has certainly moves on, with the sweeping away of Gilead and the fall of all In-World's structure. But in contrast, when the tet arrives in the Calla, the world there seems to be going on quite nicely.

True there are mutie problems, and the Wolves, but as far as farming, building, raising children, food, water, celebrations, civil order seems to be maintaining itself. So "the world moving on" is a relative term in the books. The mighty swept away while the regular people go on as they always have.


But, in my understanding, them allowing their kids to be ruint was a form of their world moving on.

Letti
01-26-2008, 12:13 AM
Hmmm... I don't know. I felt the fact "the world has moved on" thing was quite in the cetral all the time in the series.

Anyway right now I think the world is always moving on. All the time, noone can stop it and it's natural. Everything is moving on all the time, stars... planets... dust... you... everything.
Moreover I say if the Tower fell the things the universes would stop moving on and that would mean the end of life... or all the lives it's hard to say which.
But
"moving on" and "moved on" are not the same (at least for me).
If we say the world has moved on it means that it left something that was important in the past. But it must happen... we can't help.
Roland world has moved on.
And I say our world has moved on, too.
That's how I feel.

To The Dark Tower Came
01-26-2008, 09:02 AM
But, in my understanding, them allowing their kids to be ruint was a form of their world moving on.

I can understand thet, but I don't agree. While the wolves came and took 1/2 of each set of twins that were of a certain age, it didn't really change the over-all way of living. It mayhap made for a very sad occasion when Andy announced the coming, but basically the daily living (when we join the Calla folken at the beginning of Wolves) is the same. Farming goes on, the town leadership goes on, Callahan preaches, the Sisters throw their plates. And as we've seen, the Wolves had been taking children for generations, evidently the town was still having babies and sustaining the Wolves. So I didn't see much of the "moving on" as-it-were.

Just a horrible relationship of the Wolves preying on the Callas as they lived their lives.

Letti
01-26-2008, 01:04 PM
But, in my understanding, them allowing their kids to be ruint was a form of their world moving on.

While the wolves came and took 1/2 of each set of twins that were of a certain age, it didn't really change the over-all way of living. It mayhap made for a very sad occasion when Andy announced the coming, but basically the daily living (when we join the Calla folken at the beginning of Wolves) is the same. Farming goes on, the town leadership goes on, Callahan preaches, the Sisters throw their plates.

But they had to live and look after their own ruint children. Don't you think that it was killing their mind and soul?

To The Dark Tower Came
01-27-2008, 09:12 AM
But they had to live and look after their own ruint children. Don't you think that it was killing their mind and soul?

Do you think that's true of people who have mentally handicapped children? That they have their souls and minds killed slowly? Why would this ruin anything...having to care for person who is "ruined". While it may seem crude and something we wouldn't do, we saw that at least some ruint people were useful in their state.

By the time we join the Callas, this has already been going on for over a hundred years. Since Grandpere was young. Don't you think that after over a century, it would have either driven out the Calla folken, or broken them long before?

Letti
01-27-2008, 09:29 AM
I don't think it's the same. I mean if you have a child you love him or her as she is - she can be a genious normal or stupid.
But if you have a beautiful clever child and she gets kidnapped and when you get her back she can't think or talk anymore and her own body stops her having a normal life and you have no idea what pains and tortures she had to bear while she was away... to see that, yeah I think it can kill a mother heart day by day.
It does change the over-all way of living.

So for me the two things are absolutely different.

LadyHitchhiker
01-29-2008, 12:47 AM
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

jmhpfan
01-29-2008, 09:31 AM
I have always viewed the multiverse as a glass ball. At some time in the ancient past that ball was broken and magic (the Prim) began to seep out. Within this ball worlds were constantly moving on and dieing only to be reborn in the primordial soup of the Prim. When the ball was broken and the Prim began to recede worlds that once could have died only to be rebuilt and renewed only died. These worlds’ dead and rotting corpses spread cancers and diseases to the other worlds they touched.

End of the series spoiler:
The only reason that all worlds have not come to an end is that there is a world that is stuck in the crack like a piece of bubble gum keeping the last of the Prim from disappearing entirely. This is Roland’s world. His constant sacrifice to the Tower and his working to strengthen that Tower allows the world that he lives in to keep performing its duty as the stopgap solution. His quest will be over only when a better solution is found. I believe that this may be the goal that Eddie, Susanna and Jake pursue for the Tet Corporation.

Jean
01-30-2008, 01:11 AM
dear friends,

please mark your spoilers

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/thank_you-1.gif

overhoser
11-09-2009, 08:42 PM
When I think of the phrase "moved on", I think of how something is left behind. You look in a shop window and then move on. So, to think about how Roland's world has moved on (since moving on and moved on are two different things as someone else mentioned), is to think about what has been left behind.

Thinking about it in that way makes me think about the movie Soylent Green. The tagline for that movie is something to the effect of "The people are the same. But what they need has changed." In the world of Soylent Green, paper is rare and expensive as is beef. All of the machinery (at least that owned by the common folk) is broken. But, as the tagline says, the people haven't changed. The world has moved on, but the people have not.

I think it's the same for Roland's world. The world itself has moved on, but the people haven't changed. They've been left behind. As one person said before, the world is always moving on, either for the good or the bad. The question is once it has moved, which direction has it gone.

For further thought, here's a quote for how Jake thinks about how the world has moved on:

"here things were in a spiral, not a circle. For the ka-tet of nineteen things were tightening up even as the world around them grew old, grew loose, shut down, shed pieces of itself" (Wolves, p. 567).

Letti
11-09-2009, 10:36 PM
I think people do change. Of course the basics stay the same... we need to love and to be loved and stuff like that still people can be horribly different. Just think of Lud. Or the slow mutants under the mountain.

overhoser
11-10-2009, 07:26 AM
That's true, Lud is an example of the people moving on along with the world. They degenerated along with the technology of their city. It definitely puts a hole in my thinking about the phrase.

But there are more examples where that's not the case...Tull seemed to be carrying on. The red headed guy in the desert that was also in Mejis. River Crossing. The outer arc. All of these people have been left behind. Remnants of an earlier time, trying to maintain even as the world itself crumbled.

Jean
11-10-2009, 11:48 PM
People in River Crossing didn't strike me as left behind. I think of them rather as of those who remained to preserve the basic values while everyone else rushed on along with the world.

Sickrose
11-11-2009, 05:13 AM
I alwys thought it was a comment about technology and how the Old People tried to undersand everything, how the universe works, magic ETC and in the end meddled and emulate it or improve it fully i.e the doors made by the Old People which don't workd as well as the ones made my magic. Furthermore they are falable and that's why the world seems to be dying.

If they had just not tried to know everything and meddle then Roland's world wouldnt be dying which is what it seems like to me. For example the sounds of machinery wearing down.

The move is away from magic towads technology. I always thought it ws a metaphor for saying technology is good but we have to except universal laws which we cannot understand and shouldnt meddle in.

I agree about the people in River Crossing - I always like reading the bit where Roland meets them. There are different examples of how people have dealt with the world moving on.

Roland and his tet are hope like the threaded stock - it could be that three will be reversal because most of the inventions of the Old People cannot be used anymore.

overhoser
11-11-2009, 07:21 AM
People in River Crossing didn't strike me as left behind. I think of them rather as of those who remained to preserve the basic values while everyone else rushed on along with the world.

Isn't staying to preserve values while everyone else rushed on along the very definition of being left behind? And don't forget, they're all going to die off. They have no young people to carry on...their younger citizens all left. Moved on without them. I think the people of River Crossing are probably my favorite people in the series. They seem so sad and so real.


Roland and his tet are hope like the threaded stock - it could be that three will be reversal because most of the inventions of the Old People cannot be used anymore.

I think I would agree with this idea. Although I'm not sure reversal is the right word. It has been long enough that things have started to heal (someone else mentioned that earlier in this thread) and the moving on has slowed. The machines can no longer meddle. And as the moving on slows, the people can start to make the new world their own and move along with it. The only question is, how many people are left (at least in mid-world itself, not including the outer arc) that are capable of that? Or even capable of recognizing it?

Sickrose
11-11-2009, 08:09 AM
Hmm I think your right - reversal isnt quite right. But yeah that beiong the case of that there is a potential for the world to heal - maybe Roland is on his last loop ?

Jean
11-11-2009, 08:14 AM
Isn't staying to preserve values while everyone else rushed on along the very definition of being left behind?
No, not really: I mainly wanted to emphasize the difference between "staying" and "being left"; active vs. passive.

overhoser
11-11-2009, 08:30 AM
Since I'm not sure how to properly handle responding to spoilers, I'll just put it all in spoiler tags:

I'm not sure if it's his last loop, but it might be close. I think the return of the horn is a big clue that some bit (maybe a large bit) of redemption was earned in the loop we witnessed. The only problem with that is we don't really know how the loops work. Things change for Roland, sure. But when he's back at the beginning of the desert, has time passed? Or has the world been sort of reset to that point in time? Does the world continue to move on during and between loops or is it in the same state for each new loop? We'd need to witness another loop to learn that for sure, I think. Maybe that's a discussion for another thread.


I mainly wanted to emphasize the difference between "staying" and "being left"; active vs. passive.

You are correct. There is definitely a difference between staying and being left. But in the end, the difference is only semantic. The result is the same. The people try stay the same while everything around them degenerates. Whether they choose to remain or not doesn't affect the outcome, at least not in the case of River Crossing. I'm still trying to work out my thoughts about the residents of Lud.

Jean
11-11-2009, 08:58 AM
overhoser: for me freedom of choice and ensuing ability to keep one's dignity (and dignity is what River Crossing is all about) makes all the difference, both in the beginning, the middle, and the end, and it is existential rather than semantic. I do not agree with the main premise, the one about the people not having changed. I think in a world that is moving on it takes a lot more than just being left behind to be able to still preserve one's humanity, dignity, and common sense - and both the River Crossing and the Lud community prove it, in their opposite ways.

overhoser
11-11-2009, 09:55 AM
If there has been some sort of fundamental change in the people of River Crossing, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on what that change is. It seems to me that they have preserved their humanity and dignity by NOT changing. It's part of what makes them my favorite people in the whole series.

The citizens of Lud are different. As I have acknowledged, they do not fit my claim. They HAVE changed - they moved on with the world. And by moving on they have lost much of their humanity and dignity (and in cases like Gasher, all of it).

By the way, I am finding this discussion very engaging (to the detriment of my work), so please continue!

Jean
11-11-2009, 10:24 AM
If there has been some sort of fundamental change in the people of River Crossing, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on what that change is. It seems to me that they have preserved their humanity and dignity by NOT changing. It's part of what makes them my favorite people in the whole series.
Sorry if I didn't make myself clear enough; no, my main point was that though the people in River Crossing have not changed (I think that much is obvious) this very act of not changing and keeping the old values in a world that is moving on is an act of free choice and an act of will, that requires fortitude and perseverance, and doesn't happen by itself - thus I endeavoured to emphasize once again the not merely semantic difference between "stay" and "be left". What does happen by itself, however, is what happened to the rest of the population of the world, which has changed (and that is best proved by Lud, but can, to my mind, be seen everywhere else).

overhoser
11-11-2009, 10:37 AM
Ah, that makes more sense. And I would agree. It doesn't happen by itself, it takes a conscious effort. River Crossing has to work to remain. Perhaps "left behind" isn't the best way to describe them, it's just a phrase that I think demonstrates that they haven't changed while the world itself has. My main point has more to do with the difference between the people and the "world." The difference itself rather than exactly how that difference came about. Because I'm with you that it was a result of free will that left them behind. But being left or choosing to stay is still to be behind.

Maybe "behind" is even a problematic word...but I can't think of another that evokes the sense of moving on.

Also, it's not entirely clear what "the world" means. I think sickrose's point about magic and technology might be a good place to start figuring that out.

Sickrose
11-12-2009, 12:15 AM
I think there is the wrold Roland remembers full of magic and gunslingers but then the Old People started experimenting with technology. Who are they and where did they come from ?

overhoser
11-12-2009, 09:14 AM
The world Roland remembers is one of magic, but also of technology. The great hall of Gilead had spark lights. So maybe there was move away from magic to technology and, upon finding that technology aged and failed, a return to magic?

And I may be mis-remembering, but weren't there two sets of Old People? The ones that created the beams and the ones that built technology to support the beams? That may be wrong, but I seem to remember that from the Shardik encounter.

Sickrose
11-12-2009, 10:33 AM
Thats true the Great hall did have lights - maybe the balance between magic and technology was lost thus causing the negative aspects of the world moving on.

Not sure about there being 2 sets of old people - could be i cant remember :)

overhoser
11-12-2009, 08:28 PM
I found the passage that made me think there were two sets of old people, and it's more of an inference than anything concrete. So it's somwhere between mis-remembered and accurate.

Nonetheless, here are some passages from The Waste Lands (signet mass market edition for page numbers) that I think might be of some interest to this thread. I think this whole section (57-114, with some diversions mixed in) is very important to the concept of the world having moved on.

"Sometimes I heard that these portals were natural things. ... But other people ... said they were not[I] natural, that they had been created by the Great Old Ones themselves, in the days before they hanged themselves with pride like a noose and disappeared from the earth. Hax used to say that the creation of the Twelve Guardians was the last act of the Great Old Ones, their attempt to atone for the great wrongs they had done to each other and to the earth itself" (p. 57).

the first sentence of this next passage was the one I was remembering that made me think there were people before the Old Ones. You can probably see why I thought it in my memory, but reading it now, I'm not so sure my memory was serving me well:
"The Great Old Ones didn't make the world, but they did [I]re-make it. Some tale-tellers say the beams saved it; others say they are the seeds of the world's destruction. The Great Old Ones created the beams" (p. 108).

"the forces which interlock and give the world its coherence -- in time and size as well in space -- are weakening. ... We had no idea what the end would be like. ... Yet now I am living in those times. ... The Beams are breaking down. I don't if that's a cause or only another symptom, but I know its true" (p. 111).

So, hopefully those quotes offer some food for thought. There are more if you check out the whole section, but I won't post them here. I used to be member on a forum for another book and one member would post nothing but cryptic and obscure passages from the book with no other explanation. We all loved him, but I don't want to be him.

pathoftheturtle
11-13-2009, 12:20 PM
Hm. Also worth looking at, then, would be the passage early in Wizard and Glass where Eddie is convinced that people before the Great Old Ones had built the Hounds of the Falls.

That's true, Lud is an example of the people moving on along with the world. They degenerated along with the technology of their city. It definitely puts a hole in my thinking about the phrase.

But there are more examples where that's not the case...Tull seemed to be carrying on. The red headed guy in the desert that was also in Mejis. River Crossing. The outer arc. All of these people have been left behind. Remnants of an earlier time, trying to maintain even as the world itself crumbled.If "moving on" means leaving behind, then it's presumably good to be an example where that's not the case. The question is, who or what exactly has left behind the old world, and would it really make any sense to infer that the changes in culture of the people of Lud places them in that category?

I sometimes wonder whether "moving on" is a fitting term for other worlds like those of The Stand and Cell. I also wonder if the term might be meant to imply that a given world could have been somehow forgotten by God.

Jean
11-13-2009, 12:58 PM
I am not sure. I always thought that moving on comes from within, with loss of consistency, of connections, of cultural and axiological correlations; ultimately, with falling out of all cultural contexts and, thus, loss of history, which isn't a result but one of the reasons of the moving on - much as what we're experiencing now. To my mind, The Stand shows just the opposite - how the world could survive its own end without moving on - because they persevered in preserving their cultural continuity.

pathoftheturtle
11-13-2009, 02:11 PM
I am not sure, either. But "moving on" perhaps does require survival of some kind.

All pretty complicated. :orely:

overhoser
11-13-2009, 05:04 PM
I think the people of Lud are an example of moving along with the world, not those that have been "left." I'll start putting that word in quotes given the trouble it caused earlier.

If "moving on" (however it happens) is a degeneration, as the quotes from TWL (and the longer section they come from) would indicate, then moving along with it would lead to the degeneration of the people. So, those in Lud have moved on while those in River Crossing have not (whether by choice or necessity).

I'm with Jean on The Stand. The people made a move to prevent the world from moving on before it could get too far away from them.

I do like the idea of the world being forgotten by God or some other force. Like in the phrase "the ___ that time forgot." Maybe that's it....time just forgot.

side note: that's a great AC/DC quote from one of their best songs.

Sickrose
11-13-2009, 10:44 PM
Thanks Overhoser for taking time to find the pasages - i see where you are coming from.

Thos conversation has made me think a lot about the uni course I am doing at the moment. A lot ofthe Enlightenement thinkers were trying to apply enlightenemtn thinking to religion and one of the ideas they came up with - to explain the problem of evil - was that God created the word and then left us to our own devics sort of like a clockmaker.

Pathof the turtle's comment brought this to mind.

Sorry dont mean to send the conversation off on tangents.

overhoser
11-16-2009, 09:44 AM
I don't think enlightenment thought is necessarily a tangent.

You mention evil, and it reminds me of Kant. I'll admit I am not a Kant expert. Given that disclaimer, Kant believes that "radical evil" comes from human choices gone wrong. It is an "inversion of maxims", a distortion or misdirection of our human will. The only way to overcome radical evil, for Kant, is a "change of heart" or a reordering of our principles. Since evil comes from human choice, it can only be overcome by human choice.

So, if we think about the theory that the world moved on based on the Old Ones' use/abuse of technology, it was a choice they made. They brought radical evil into the world. Perhaps this happened by opening the portals? They used technology to open the portals and radical evil was able to move into and destroy their world. Flagg and Walter are able to easily move between worlds....maybe that didn't start until the Old Ones started messing with technology.

But what needs to happen to overcome it? Does Roland represent the whole world's principles and choices? Does only Roland have to reorder his principles in order to overcome evil?

Sickrose
11-16-2009, 10:21 AM
I am also no expert on Kant but what you say is interesting and does seem to have resonance.

I think the portals already existed but only to people like the Manni who maybe could be 'trusted' with this kind of thing. However, I see your point about the choices they made bringing evil inbto the world.

I think Roland does represent the old ways but his is a personal quest. Maybe his loop will stop when the world is ready and reordered its prinicples. Which, I think, is to maintain a balance between technology and magic and not assuming that everything needs to be understood and can be i.e the portals etc. Now i am thinking of Rouseau who felt that we should return to nature and simpler ways ( a really condensed idea of his philosophy) and I think in this case it is magic and the ways of the Old People.

Thats said the fact i am studying it could cause me to be seeing things !

Also I wonder what part John Farson had in the moving on ? What happended isnt described in detail but maybe in the Comics i havent read!

overhoser
11-16-2009, 11:12 AM
the fact i am studying it could cause me to be seeing things !

Ha! Welcome to the world of academia.


Maybe his loop will stop when the world is ready and reordered its prinicples.

This is an interesting thought. If that's the case, though, his personal quest is dependent upon the choices of others, which I don't think is right. So, instead, maybe his quest isn't necessarily to find and then save the tower, but rather save the tower by having an impact on the world. By first redeeming himself, he can then know how to redeem others and, by extension, the world. Saving the tower an individual at a time. Maybe he draws a new three every time, giving them the chance at redemption. And once the right people have been redeemed, the tower begins to recover. Although, I think this line of thinking probably belongs in another thread.

When it comes to the world having moved on...

I think the portals already existed but only to people like the Manni who maybe could be 'trusted' with this kind of thing.
You're probably right on that. Because in the passage I quoted a few posts ago, the Old Ones put the guardians there to atone for the wrongs they had done.

oh, oh, I just thought of something. The very name of the Guardians...Guards are there to keep things out (or in). I think the injection of evil into the world had to have come from the portals and the guardians were set by the Oldies to keep it at bay. But they didn't work.

Some said the guardians were the last act of the Oldies before they hanged themselves with pride in attempt to atone for wrongs they had done to each other and the earth. What were those wrongs? If the portals were always there, but only known of by people like the Manni, maybe the Oldies let the secret out.

As far as John Farson goes, he may be a disciple or a symptom of whatever was let in. He was trying to bring a new order to the world (democracy). He was most likely a symptom....like the final seal being broken or something.

Isn't Rousseau opposed to Kant? Aren't they usually opposites? So, if Kant's idea of choices and radical evil started the moving on process, perhaps Rousseau's belief in a return to nature is reordering of principles the world needs. That might be an odd/incorrect juxtaposition, but there it is nonetheless.

Sickrose
11-21-2009, 12:33 PM
the fact i am studying it could cause me to be seeing things !

Ha! Welcome to the world of academia.


Maybe his loop will stop when the world is ready and reordered its prinicples.

This is an interesting thought. If that's the case, though, his personal quest is dependent upon the choices of others, which I don't think is right. So, instead, maybe his quest isn't necessarily to find and then save the tower, but rather save the tower by having an impact on the world. By first redeeming himself, he can then know how to redeem others and, by extension, the world. Saving the tower an individual at a time. Maybe he draws a new three every time, giving them the chance at redemption. And once the right people have been redeemed, the tower begins to recover. Although, I think this line of thinking probably belongs in another thread.

When it comes to the world having moved on...

I think the portals already existed but only to people like the Manni who maybe could be 'trusted' with this kind of thing.
You're probably right on that. Because in the passage I quoted a few posts ago, the Old Ones put the guardians there to atone for the wrongs they had done.


oh, oh, I just thought of something. The very name of the Guardians...Guards are there to keep things out (or in). I think the injection of evil into the world had to have come from the portals and the guardians were set by the Oldies to keep it at bay. But they didn't work. Ahh yes of course good point.


Some said the guardians were the last act of the Oldies before they hanged themselves with pride in attempt to atone for wrongs they had done to each other and the earth. What were those wrongs? If the portals were always there, but only known of by people like the Manni, maybe the Oldies let the secret out. It could be something to do with ther war machines that FArson is trying to use against th Afffliation in W &G?

As far as John Farson goes, he may be a disciple or a symptom of whatever was let in. He was trying to bring a new order to the world (democracy). He was most likely a symptom....like the final seal being broken or something. I agree.

Isn't Rousseau opposed to Kant? Aren't they usually opposites? I think in the sense that he might be an Enlightenment Philosopher? So, if Kant's idea of choices and radical evil started the moving on process, perhaps Rousseau's belief in a return to nature is reordering of principles the world needs. That might be an odd/incorrect juxtaposition, but there it is nonetheless. This is exactly what I had in mind when I posted the last comment. :)

Off topic but just in case you were wondering I am studying From Enlightenment to Romanticism with the Open university which I am really enjoying and it really started to resonant with the DT stuff we have been discussing in this thread.

This might explain my references!

overhoser
11-23-2009, 06:27 AM
Off topic but just in case you were wondering I am studying From Enlightenment to Romanticism with the Open university which I am really enjoying and it really started to resonant with the DT stuff we have been discussing in this thread.

I don't think this is off topic at all. TDT is clearly heavily influenced by philosophy, dealing with many of the kind of existential themes that people have been dealing with for years. I think referring to philosophy as a way to understand/think about what's going on is a smart approach.

Yesterday I encountered a passage from Song of Susannah that gives some more information about the world moving on. From Mia and Susannah at the castle. I hope to post it as more food for thought maybe tonight if i get the time, it's kind of long.

Sickrose
11-23-2009, 01:09 PM
[quote]Off topic but just in case you were wondering I am studying From Enlightenment to Romanticism with the Open university which I am really enjoying and it really started to resonant with the DT stuff we have been discussing in this thread.


I don't think this is off topic at all. TDT is clearly heavily influenced by philosophy, dealing with many of the kind of existential themes that people have been dealing with for years. I think referring to philosophy as a way to understand/think about what's going on is a smart approach. :)


Yesterday I encountered a passage from Song of Susannah that gives some more information about the world moving on. From Mia and Susannah at the castle. I hope to post it as more food for thought maybe tonight if i get the time, it's kind of long. I look forward to seeing your post. It's been a while since I read SOS.

overhoser
11-24-2009, 08:31 AM
It's been a while since I read SOS.

Given your thoughts on the end of magic and the world moving on and this passage, I would bet it hasn't been that long...

This comes from pp. 108-110. Mia is explaining that the beams "rose from the Prim on the airs of magic" and then men made machines. "When the age of magic passed, the age of machines came."

They were great machines, but they were mortal machines. They replaced the magic with machines and now the machines are failing. ... The machines are going mad. You've seen this for yourself. The men believed there would always be more men like them to make more machines. None of them foresaw what's happened. This universal exhaustion.

The world has moved on.

It has. And left no one to replace the machines which hold up the last magic in creation, for the prim has receded long since. The magic is gone and the machines are failing.

I think this section really sums up the theory of the world moving due to the turn away from magic, or from faith, toward rationality. More and more I'm starting to believe your theory. It's also interesting how this intersects directly with another project I'm working on about the debate between science/rationality and faith in our own world. So, see, talking about philosophers is totally on topic.

Sickrose
11-24-2009, 10:05 AM
:) The above passage must have been what I was thinking about! I am looking forward to re-reading some of the later books.

I guess you are right Overhoser maybe King was a big fan of Enlightenment philosophy. Your project sounds interesting.

arrawyn
05-11-2010, 06:51 PM
Okay, so i'm new, and i've only just started reading WotC...so this might not be my place to comment on this thread yet (as it might be explained later on in the books) but here's what i've been thinking about Roland's world 'moving on' so far...

I think Mid-World used to be just like our world (with all its technologies, cars, planes, gas stations (i.e. Texaco!) etc). but I think that man/civilization, given the opportunity, will eventually destroy itself (through technology or whatever), and then it has to start from scratch again and build itself up. I think our world has had to do that throughout the history of man as well (think of all the lost/dead civilizations like the Aztecs or Egyptians - highly advanced at that time, but they didn't last and destroyed themselves and civilizations coming after (i.e. us eventually) had to rebuild itself).

It's like our planet after something like a natural disaster - like a volcano say - lava and ash destroys and kills all plant and animal life making the area barren. but eventually life comes back and starts to grow again and start over. so i think rolands world was like ours but then destroyed itself (though leaving bits and pieces - like oil tankers and computers and cars etc) though the people that live now don't know/remember what these things are for and do, and had to start from scratch, and evolved a different, more 'primitive' (i.e. feudal society-like)with different customs etc (but with magic!).

that's my thoughts (so far anyways)... i'll comment again (hopefully) once i've finished the series :)

Jean
10-11-2012, 10:03 AM
I apologise, but, in my opinion, you are not right. Write to me in PM, we will communicate.
Bubrourne: if you are not a spammer, please post something sensible. If you are, you will be bearmauled. You have 48 hours.

arrawyn: good luck with finishing the series, bears would love to see more of your posts!

Merlin1958
10-11-2012, 11:24 AM
I apologise, but, in my opinion, you are not right. Write to me in PM, we will communicate.
Bubrourne: if you are not a spammer, please post something sensible. If you are, you will be bearmauled. You have 48 hours.

arrawyn: good luck with finishing the series, bears would love to see more of your posts!

Gotta appreciate your dedication and diligence, Bears!!!


Many thanks!!! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

Jean
10-12-2012, 10:10 AM
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gif

ETA: Bubrourne has totally revealed himself as a spammer in another thread.

Goodbye, Bubrourne.