Author of existence *probable spoilers*

I notice that a lot of people are shy of religious discussion. I guess that is because some people can't talk about what they believe without trying to make everyone else believe the same. Please don't do that. I'd like to talk about how ka acts in TDT, about destiny and metafiction: when coincidence moves according to the needs of the plot, how much of that is Gan and how much is just Stephen King? Feel free to treat this as a hypothetical discussion if you don't really believe in God; I’d still like to know if you think that it makes sense, in the context of this fiction, that a God could have a plot in mind for people, in the way that writers may have for their characters. I've heard people say that if there were a God, He would have bigger concerns than typical believers' prayers. That's valid as a question, IMO, drained of all accompanying hostility. Maybe I'm naive and we're not capable of discussing this reasonably, but let's face it: TDT is not plain science fiction; things don't happen in the story from natural causes alone. For example, I’m thinking at this point that Jake’s compulsion to return to Mid-World in DT3 was probably on him because the integrity of what needed to happen later on in the story required it, rather than it being a direct result of past events, like pressure from the timestream needing to be repaired. We should consider the existential questions, theological and metaphysical musings, in these books if we want to really get the meaning of them. Does anyone believe that God will intervene in life, sometimes not like another of the world’s characters but like an author, invisibly influencing the course of events? Is there a story to everything? Did King mean to imply that there is?

Quote:

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"We can phone him from Bridgton. But in a story, Roland, a minor character like John Cullum would never come in off the bench to save the day. It wouldn't be considered realistic."
"In life," Roland said, "I'm sure it happens all the time."

~ DT7

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I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like SK is replying through Roland to criticism of supernatural fiction from a secular culture.