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View Full Version : Roland and Eddie *end of series spoilers*



sarah
06-25-2008, 11:47 AM
So Turtlesong and Arthur Heath were chatting it up in another thread about the relationship between Eddie and Roland.

Are they friends? Could they be friends?

I tend to lean towards Turtlesongs point of view as mentor/mentee, teacher/student.

But I would also like to add that towards the middle and end of The Wastelands, I see Roland respecting Eddie. And in the very end they were more like father/son, imo.

I really love Eddie's role in Rolands life. I think they both were teachers to eachother but never really equals like a true friendship would be.

fernandito
06-25-2008, 11:48 AM
I swear to Gan, I knew you were going to start this thread Sarah! :lol:

sarah
06-25-2008, 11:50 AM
;)

you know me so well. :couple:

fernandito
06-25-2008, 11:56 AM
:D


And in answer to your question(s) - I think that their relationship can be seen as strictly mentor/student for a better part of the series. After all, Eddie does put a knife to Rolands throat, and if I remember correctly, Roland doesn't exactly deny that he would choose the Tower over his ka-tet.

Jean
06-25-2008, 12:03 PM
to me, they are friends, and have been since very soon after their first meet

The Lady of Shadows
06-25-2008, 12:04 PM
in the beginning, i think they were adversaries - without question. then they were mentor/mentee, teacher/student. then i really think they were father/son.

eddie even calls him father as he dies.

i never really thought of them as friends. i never really thought of them as equals. i never thought of roland as equals with anyone in either of his tets. he has always seemed apart to me. separate, alone. that's part of what makes him such a tragic figure imo.

jayson
06-25-2008, 12:04 PM
Good points Feev, but Roland would choose the Tower over his first ka-tet as well but Alain and Bert were still his friends, no?

fernandito
06-25-2008, 12:04 PM
I'm rethinking my position, and I have to say that I wouldn't consider them friends until the latter portion of the journey.

fernandito
06-25-2008, 12:05 PM
Good points Feev, but Roland would choose the Tower over his first ka-tet as well but Alain and Bert were still his friends, no?

I think it's a little different with those two, simply because he's known them from childhood , and their fathers are friends with his father.

Jean
06-25-2008, 12:11 PM
in the beginning, i think they were adversaries - without question. then they were mentor/mentee, teacher/student. then i really think they were father/son.

eddie even calls him father as he dies.


I see no contradiction. Friendship, like love, has many faces. Adversaries are closer to being friends than strangers on the street or any people indifferent to each other; teacher/student is an aspect almost every friendship has. I can't see how being friends would prevent one of them to consider the other his dinh - or metaphysical father; but, of course, I don't really believe in equality.

MonteGss
06-25-2008, 12:43 PM
Jean, I agree with everything you've written in this thread.
Roland and Eddie were friends. :)

Unfound One
06-25-2008, 12:53 PM
My perspective: yes, they were friends.
I wonder from each of their perspectives what they would consider eachother though...?
I think among the many things Eddie would consider Roland in his life - mentor, teacher, father - friend would definitely be included. I don't think he could have ever seen himself as Roland's equal though.
Roland on the other hand, I honestly think he may have started to view Eddie as more of an equal toward the end of their journey. Not from the aspect of what he had to accomplish, but talent-wise, possibly. And yes, I do believe Roland considered Eddie his friend.

jayson
06-25-2008, 01:10 PM
I agree with everything Jean and SJ said. Their relationship was complex and evolved throughout the time they knew one another, but I would definitely consider it a "friendship."

Girlystevedave
06-25-2008, 01:23 PM
I definitely think their relationship was more than teacher/student, but I don't know if I would describe it as simple as friends.
Roland and Eddie sort of went through all the relationships with each other: They were partners, enemies, teacher/student, friends, and a lot between.I can't just call Roland a teacher and Eddie a student though, because I believe that Eddie taught Roland just as much about himself as Roland taught the ka-tet about being gunslingers.
By the end of the story, the closest 'label' I could put on Roland and Eddie would be: Brothers.

Arthur Heath
06-25-2008, 01:31 PM
I agree with Feev about them NOT being friends, at the beginning that is. Eddie was kidnapped after all and non too happy about it. But I see love developing through time and how can you have love without friendship. I believe that Roland was everything to Eddie, mentor, teacher, father, friend.

mia/susannah
06-25-2008, 02:12 PM
in the beginning, i think they were adversaries - without question. then they were mentor/mentee, teacher/student. then i really think they were father/son.

eddie even calls him father as he dies.

i never really thought of them as friends. i never really thought of them as equals. i never thought of roland as equals with anyone in either of his tets. he has always seemed apart to me. separate, alone. that's part of what makes him such a tragic figure imo.

what she said.

obscurejude
06-25-2008, 06:30 PM
I'm going to think about this some more before going into detail. I lean toward the mentor/mentee relationship but they're are times when Roland seems to come down a little to Eddie's level and Eddie a little up to Roland's and its close to equal. I suppose this is what successful mentor/mentee relationships are supposed to produce- an Aristotelian notion of completed friendship- where the two wills are the same based on a common goal (telos).

Wuducynn
06-26-2008, 05:51 AM
Friends, but in a "father/son" way.

Wuducynn
07-04-2008, 09:30 PM
I thought that somewhere before the end SK was going to throw in some actual relationship between Eddie and Roland. Like they were really brothers or father and son.
Would have been interesting.

Lovers?

Jean
07-04-2008, 09:35 PM
I thought that somewhere before the end SK was going to throw in some actual relationship between Eddie and Roland. Like they were really brothers or father and son.
Would have been interesting.
Why should blood relationship be more interesting, important or attractive than kinship in spirit? I sincerely could never understand that, neither in the so-called real life nor in books

John_and_Yoko
07-04-2008, 09:37 PM
I thought that somewhere before the end SK was going to throw in some actual relationship between Eddie and Roland. Like they were really brothers or father and son.
Would have been interesting.
Why should blood relationship be more interesting, important or attractive than kinship in spirit? I sincerely could never understand that, neither in the so-called real life nor in books

The adage that "blood is thicker than water" was invented by...undeserving relatives?


:blush:

I think that's a quote from "Camelot"....

Jean
07-04-2008, 09:42 PM
well, anything based on blood or soil, in addition to being archaic, has always struck me as obscure and irrational

Letti
07-05-2008, 12:02 AM
I think first they were enemies (not just to each other but to themselves as well) but with by the time being they got teacher/student and they were really good friends, too. And when Eddie was dying they got father/son. (As people - and the world around them - are changing their relationships are changing with them.)

If two people are really close to each other their relationship gets really deep and complex so one view is not enough to describe it. Usually words are not enough at all.
I have a friend who used to be my English teacher, now we are colleagues at the same school and sometimes I am at a higher position than her at this school but I still feel that she is the teacher and I am the student. And when we just hang around I feel we are sisters because I feel her so close.

My love (you know my Moon) is my best friend. He is my teacher many times and it might sound horrible to some but I must admit that time to time he is my father.. my whole family.

So I can't say that Roland and Eddie were just friends... one thing is sure for me. They learned to love and respect each other with all their heart and it opened the gates to an honest and respectful relationship.

MonteGss
07-05-2008, 07:21 AM
Awesome Letti!
I love your description. I don't understand how anyone can say they were not friends. :)

MonteGss
07-05-2008, 08:42 AM
Wow, I never got the impression that "nobody seemed to like him very much." Do you have any specific quotes or passages you can point to that may help us to understand your point of view? I for one, cannot think of any instances. They were very clearly ka-tet and the way you describe the relationships, they weren't. *shrugs*
I'm just really confused and want to understand better.

Jean
07-05-2008, 10:42 AM
interesting indeed... I always had an impression that Mr King not only loved Eddie, but intended him to become everyone's favorite (like Richie Tozier, or Larry Underwood, who are both very similar to him) - and, to my taste, overdid it a little, but that's quite another story

jayson
07-05-2008, 10:51 AM
interesting indeed... I always had an impression that Mr King not only loved Eddie, but intended him to become everyone's favorite (like Richie Tozier, or Larry Underwood, who are both very similar to him) - and, to my taste, overdid it a little, but that's quite another story

I got the same impression, that King loved Eddie and loved writing for and about Eddie. For one thing, King has a great sense of humor and I always feel this comes out best in characters like Eddie or Larry or Dinky Earnshaw [basically, wise-asses].

Also, I don't think the timing of Eddie's death signals anything about King's feelings for Eddie. If anything I think he killed Eddie first because of how difficult a blow that would be for us to take. It shouldn't have surprised anyone that their would be deaths in the ka-tet before the end, and had I been asked to bet on who would be first, I'd have gone with Eddie all the way. I think Eddie knew that too. :shoot:

Jean
07-05-2008, 10:54 AM
If anything I think he killed Eddie first because of how difficult a blow that would be for us to take.
precisely

Letti
07-05-2008, 09:26 PM
As if you were talking about another book... really. It's not bad that's why we are here to meet new views but I am.. shocked. If anyone was in the background (and nit disliked just a bit in the background) I would say it was Susannah but it's not true either because in fact book 6 is so much about her... all of them were the heroes of this book so... wow Cloud.

MonteGss
07-06-2008, 01:20 AM
Well I guess without any specifics from the books, I'm still not understanding how Eddie was ignored and not liked. I'm glad you're a DT Junkie Relevant, but I feel really bad for you that you saw Eddie as you did. Truly.
:grouphug:

sarah
07-06-2008, 06:56 AM
RelevantCloud9, I disagree with every word of your post. I've never heard anyone describe Eddie that way. I personally never thought that. To me, Eddie was born a Gunslinger and needed a bit of nudging to get it out but out it came, imo.

For me, Eddie is one of my top five favorite characters ever written in all the books I've read.

I love that we have this site so we can all see everyones opinions and thoughts and ideas. Thank you for posting :couple:

Wuducynn
07-06-2008, 07:00 AM
I thought that somewhere before the end SK was going to throw in some actual relationship between Eddie and Roland. Like they were really brothers or father and son.
Would have been interesting.

Lovers?


Sorry I said in anything.
It was just a feeling I had while reading the books.
I never got the impression that they were friends.
Sometimes I wondered why SK even created Eddie, he didn't seem to like him very much.
Nobody seemed to like him very much, even Susannah.
They treated him like an outsider and a idiot.
And SK even killed him first.

Sorry.

Ah Jesus Christ Relevant I was just messing around. Don't get all sensitive on me.