The Golden Statue

[Whidden]

:cowboy:

Dark Tower 3, The Wastelands

The 60 foot Golden Statue in the Cradle of Lud...

This scene made me tear up a little when I read it the first time.

1. Do you think it was Roland?

2. Who constructed it?


Eddie touched her shoulder and pointed higher. Susannah looked . . . and felt her breath come to a stop in her throat. Standing astride the peak of the roof, far above The Totems of the Beam and the dragonish gargoyles, as if given dominion over them, was a golden warrior at least sixty feet high. A battered cowboy hat was shoved back to reveal his lined and careworn brow; a bandanna hung askew on his upper chest, as if it had just been pulled down after serving long, hard duty as a dust-muffle. In one upraised fist he held a revolver; in the other, what appeared to be an olive branch.
Roland of Gilead stood atop the Cradle of Lud, dressed in gold.
No, she thought, at last remembering to breathe again. It's not him . . . but in another way, it is. That man was a gunslinger, and the resemblance between him, who's probably been dead a thousand years or more, and Roland is all the truth of ka-tet you'll ever need to know.

[The King of Kings]

Well it wasn't Roland. They said that pretty explicitly. It was probably Arthur or some other Royal family of the gunslingers. It was probably constructed during the rise of eld/gunslingers by the Ludians (?)

[EdwardDean1999]

I agree with King of Kings. Definitely not Roland. It would have just been some other gunslinger of the line of Eld. The resemblance may be chalked up to familial resemblance and matching profession (gunslinger). I know I've seen the oldest family fotergrafs and I often look like great grandparents and distant relatives. Eerily so.

[Whidden]

I tend to think it's Roland. Maybe just because I want it to be. :rock:

Susannah thinks it is, then she thinks it isn't.

So it didn't look like him 100%

But, it could still be Roland, just the artist who did the statue is like the artists who draw Roland in the Dark Tower books, he comes out looking very different according to who drew him.

If it was him though, I don't understand the Olive Branch in one hand and the gun in the other. Roland seems to me to use the way of the gun way more than the olive branch...

I don't know who made it...

maybe

the foundation that got set up, to keep the Rose safe, I had the idea maybe over time they grew into something and they or remnants made the statue. But, I get confused about the keystone world vs. the universe Roland is in, I don't know if the foundation existed in the version of Lud Susannah was in.

[Whidden]

Sorry, I'm having trouble making the spoiler code work, I trying to edit the post...

Have mercy on a newbie... :)

[Jean]

I tend to think it's Roland. Maybe just because I want it to be. :rock:
I tend to think the same, for no reason I could put into words right now. Maybe just because when Susannah thought it was him, I thought, "Of course, who else?"

[BROWNINGS CHILDE]

I felt that it was Arthur, for no other reason than I felt like Roland would not be carrying an olive branch........only more bullets.

[BROWNINGS CHILDE]

Also, Roland is not a household name to most people throughout the series, whereas Arthur of Eld is. It seems much more likely that a huge, gold statue would have been erected in his honor.

[pinkymcfatfat]

I really don't think the statue was Roland. It would be equivalent to stautes on couthouses in the U.S.A. of 'Justice'. Since gunslingers were the recognized givers of law and order in Roland's world, this would be appropriate.

Blaine would have very much known that and recognized gunslingers on sight. To paraphrase him, "Hated gunslinger out of a past which should have stayed dead."

[Sam]

I agree that it isn't Roland. Roland would have never held an olive branch. The gunslinger statue is likely modeled after someone from the line of Eld.

[Brice]

I agree that it isn't Roland. Roland would have never held an olive branch. The gunslinger statue is likely modeled after someone from the line of Eld.

He might have held one briefly if he was hungry.

I agree it wasn't Roland, just generic gunslinger.

[pinkymcfatfat]

The holding of an olive branch and a gun would have been artistic allegory, much like the statue of Justice I mentioned before with her blindfold and scales.

I think it possibly stood for "Peace and Law" or "Keeper of the Peace".

[Sam]

It reminds me more of the eagle holding the arrows and olive branch myself. That may have been the inspiration behind the image when you think of it.

[pinkymcfatfat]

This type of artistic allegory goes all the way back to Roman times...the American use of such symbolism is because of the re-newed taste for neo-classicism several times within the past two centuries.

Yeah, it could well have been based off the arrows and olive branch.

[Kronz]

This is one of the odd continuity issues I have with the series, or maybe not an issue, but something I find curious. The way we're explained things later on, the order of Gunslingers rose up after the Great Old Ones had destroyed much of the world. A city like Lud seems more in line with GOO's than with Barony people from the age of the Gunslingers. It may be that Lud was still a thriving modern city after the destruction and the rebuilding of the Beams mechanically, and was one of the places the Gunslingers thrived, for some long time. I won't even begin to speculate how the line of Eld supposedly predates the Great Old Ones, yet simultaneously arose only after their demise.

The history of Lud is very much unclear in several ways, like, why is a NYC twinner in the middle of the plains, so far from any ocean? It doesn't matter I'm sure, but it feels like King couldn't always keep logic and continuity working as well as the more exciting parts of his imagination.

[Savvy]

I agree that it isn't Roland. Roland would have never held an olive branch. The gunslinger statue is likely modeled after someone from the line of Eld.

He might have held one briefly if he was hungry.

I agree it wasn't Roland, just generic gunslinger.

:D
I too agree the statue was from the line of eld

[Myrtok]

This is one of the odd continuity issues I have with the series, or maybe not an issue, but something I find curious. The way we're explained things later on, the order of Gunslingers rose up after the Great Old Ones had destroyed much of the world. A city like Lud seems more in line with GOO's than with Barony people from the age of the Gunslingers. It may be that Lud was still a thriving modern city after the destruction and the rebuilding of the Beams mechanically, and was one of the places the Gunslingers thrived, for some long time. I won't even begin to speculate how the line of Eld supposedly predates the Great Old Ones, yet simultaneously arose only after their demise.
You know, that question about continuity finally drove home the real world "twinner" of the whole GOO / Line of Eld thing for me. I mean, the Arthurian Legends in our own world arose during the Dark Ages after the fall of "the great old ones" of the Roman Empire, and King Arthur is, at least in folklore, the sire of the European royal lines which followed the Dark Ages and resotred at least a semblance of rational society up until the Renaissance. So, I guess having a gunslinger statue on the cradle of Lud would be kind of like Finding a statue of a medieval knight on top of ancient Roman ruins. It really doesn't make sense, does it?


The history of Lud is very much unclear in several ways, like, why is a NYC twinner in the middle of the plains, so far from any ocean? It doesn't matter I'm sure, but it feels like King couldn't always keep logic and continuity working as well as the more exciting parts of his imagination.
Lud is in the plains and on the banks of a Great River. Blain takes the ka-tet from there to the Topeka, Kansas of another world. Charlie the Choo Choo made the St. Louis to Topeka, Kansas run. I always figured Lud was more like a twinner of St. Louis, MO.

[Kronz]

Every time I read The Waste Lands I rationalize that Lud is about where St Louis is but it seems pretty obvious by the end of the series that NYC and Lud are more similar than Lud and St Louis would be. I just don't think there's any logical correlation to geography in the DT books. The meticulous explanation of twinning in The Talisman just doesn't jibe with the Tower books.

Also, I really like your comparison to finding a suit of armour in Roman ruins, that pretty much nails this situation. But it's nothing I lose any sleep over, considering how much of King's works are about what we can't or don't know anyways. Things just can't be forced into place like in some fantasy worlds (at least not yet).

[tipp-ed off]

The statue is of a Gunslinger but not Roland. I see no issues of continuity in the story. When the history of Lud was being explained by the albino twins Bill and Till in River Crossing they state that four to five generations ago, long after the GOOS were gone, the city was still heavily populated by "artisans and manufactories". This is before the conflict with the pubes and grays. I don't see any problems with these semi civilized people paying tribute to Gunslingers by constructing a bronze statue.

[Cixelsyd]

It's someone from the Line of Eld, but its definitely not Roland. Roland had never been to Mid-World before crossing into it with the Ka Tet.