You are absolutely right, Elle.
Anyway...
what do you guys think about Jake feelings? Has he ever missed his parents?
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You are absolutely right, Elle.
Anyway...
what do you guys think about Jake feelings? Has he ever missed his parents?
He missed them only in a very remote way at times I think. Like ".... I'm supposed to miss them, therefore I miss them..."
In reality, even sitting there alone in the desert at the Waystation I think he may have grieved for a lot of things, but not particularly for his parents.
I wouldn't say I loathed them but I have to agree on the rest of your statement. I didn't really like Jake's parents, I just thought they were quite average: a lot of people want to have a career that'll help them take care of those they want to be in charge of (usually their kids) and end up caring so much about being able to care that they forget to care properly (is it clear enough?) and the child feels left out when everything's done for his/her sake, but the bad way, so it all becomes quie awkward as there can be no understanding, the parents being sure they've done the best they could and the child feeling abandoned in a way.
I actually thought that they both were weak people. Jake's father does drugs and takes way too much everytime something's not right and his mother sleeps with everyone because she lacks self confidence and needs to know that she is desired. That's at least how I saw them both.
I never saw Jake's "parents" as his real parents. (Spoiler warning)Spoiler:and in the same way Ka found a way to reincarnate Cuthbert as Eddie, it recreated that child in a different reality. So the Chambers were only surrogate parents (in my opinion) and therefore I was happy when Jake met his real father. 11-23-2008 08:36 PMat_oneJake's parents = <thumbs down> Whenever the house's caretaker knows more about the children of the house then the parents (and the parents openly admit it) there is an issue. They created a young man that was confident in his independence at an early age which in turn made it easier for him to leave them. They must lie in the bed they made. 11-24-2008 06:33 AMLadyHitchhikerI think Jake was more of a status symbol to the parents. 11-26-2008 01:28 PMBriceI think he was no more than a decoration. 11-26-2008 01:33 PMLettiI would be interested in his parents' future without Jake... I am sure they thought their son had escaped (because of the horrible stress and NOT because of the lack of care or love) and their life got ruined. 11-26-2008 02:27 PMJean 11-26-2008 02:41 PMDarkthoughtsI expect the mother got drunk all day and blamed the father, and the father got coked up and blamed the mother...neither one wanting to or able to take the guilt, as they were similarly unable to take responsibility for their son when he was there. 11-26-2008 02:46 PMJeanyes... but how about their son having or not having been run over by a car? 11-26-2008 02:47 PMDarkthoughtsThe same. I can't credit them with any feelings other than self pity disguised as sorrow. 11-26-2008 02:51 PMJeanBut it's not a question of feelings. I think anybody would start losing their mind if they had two conflicting sets of memories. 11-26-2008 02:51 PMBriceBut why would they have two sets of memories? 11-26-2008 02:56 PMDarkthoughtsOhhh, I see what you mean!
I didn't think of anyone but Roland and Jake having those twin memories to contend with. The way I saw it, Jake's death by the car occurred in one version of NY...he then fell into the way station world...he then fell into another version of NY and became his own twinner, posessing and melding into whichever Jake previously existed there - much the same as Jack Sawyer does with his (deceased) twinner, Jason, in The Talisman. 11-26-2008 02:57 PMJeanIt depends on how you look at the time line and the co-ordination of the universes. It seems to me that they must suffer exactly the same thing as Roland in the Waste Land, but I know there are opinions the structure of the whole thing is different.
EDITED: I posted before I saw Lisa's post - I see what you mean, but it raises more questions than it answers, only they are not for this thread. 11-26-2008 02:59 PMBriceI think they wouldn't because the paradox was created by Jake and Roland's knowledge of his death. Jake's parents had no such knowledge of his death and then seeing him and interacting with him afterwards. 11-26-2008 03:01 PMJeaner... I expect after he was run over they were called and had to go through all the nightmare of identification and burial. That's what bothered me most of all. However you treat your son, you can't bury him and then unbury him and remain unscathed (again, if we do not accept Lisa's, and other thinkers', theory) 11-26-2008 03:06 PMBriceI don't know are you talking about when Balazar pushed him in front of the car sending him to the way station and then the space in between his return to his world? 11-26-2008 03:12 PMJeanYes. We don't know what that space could have been. It is possible to presume it was as long as it took for him to travel with Roland till he was dropped; long enough for his parents to go through some unforgettable experience.
(if we keep to same Jake/ same parents theory, of course. If we don't, I anticipate some bigger problems) 11-26-2008 03:15 PMDarkthoughtsFor me it's same Jake (although he becomes an amalgamation of himself and the Jake who's level of the Tower he drops into), different parents. 11-26-2008 03:19 PMJeanWhere's the Jake whom those parents used to have? 11-26-2008 03:22 PMBriceHmm.... I think it might work a bit differently. Jake is pushed in front of the car and appears in Roland's world. If Jake doesn't return to his world he is dead. However when he does return his death is negated. It actually never happened. He was never hit by the car. He never died. He went about his life. But he still had shadows of memories of what didn't happen: him meeting Roland at the way station. Roland also had these memories, but they were lesser memories than the realities that Jake never died in New York for Jake and that Roland never met the boy, but they both still remembered the opposite memories too. His parents wouldn't be involved because they had no intimate knowledge of his death. They had never been called about his death because he never died....until he returned to Roland's world. And then in fact they had been notified of his death at the scene of the accident and they would have probably already begun to move on with their lives. I realize i may not be explaining myself well. I've been up something like 30 hours. 11-26-2008 03:23 PMBriceIt is the same Jake...same Roland...same jake's parents...different realities.