The big IF thread (spoilers all around)

[Darkthoughts]

That's exactly what I think. I didn't see the need for the note, which is why I asked the question.

[Storyslinger]

I believe she still would have saved Roland, it just would have taken longer to do it.

[Jean]

That's exactly what I think. I didn't see the need for the note, which is why I asked the question.

I think it was needed to emphasize that the author's interference was not a sign of his helplessness, but the part of the way the universe is organize, intrinsic to the nature of things as they are represented in that network of universes with the Dark Tower as their axis and Stephen King writing the story of the worlds as it happens, and the story happening as he is writing it, - as I tried to argue here.

[Letti]

What would have happened IF Susan hadn't died so young?
How long would their love have taken?
Would they have had children and a happy life?
- thank you for the question Lisa

[Jean]

the quotation below is long, but I think it contains the answer:

"Susan's been taken prisoner," Roland told the others as they rode west toward Hanging Rock. "That's the first thing I saw in the glass."
He spoke with such an air of absence that Cuthbert almost reined up. This wasn't the ardent lover of the last few months. It was as if Roland had found a dream to ride through the pink air within the ball, and part of him rode it still. Or is it riding him? Cuthbert wondered.
"What?" Alain asked. "Susan taken? How? By whom? Is she all right?'"
"Taken by Jonas. He hurt her some, but not too badly. She'll heal . . . and she'll live. I'd turn around in a second if I thought her life was in any real danger."
(...)
"If we survive what's ahead," Cuthbert said, watching the gunslinger closely, "she'll meet us on the road. Won't she, Roland?"
(...)
"I don't know," Roland said. "I almost hope not, because we can never be as we were."
"What? " This time Cuthbert did rein up.
Roland looked at him calmly enough, but now there were tears in his eyes.
"We are fools of ka" the gunslinger said. "Ka like a wind, Susan calls it." He looked first at Cuthbert on his left, then at Alain on his right. "The Tower is our ka; mine especially. But it isn't hers, nor she mine. No more is John Farson our ka. We're not going toward his men to defeat him, but only because they're in our way." He raised his hands, then dropped them again, as if to say, What more do you need me to tell you?
(...)
"You saw all that in the glass?" Alain asked in an awe-hushed voice.
"I saw much."
"But not Susan Delgado," Cuthbert said.
"No. When we finish with yonder men and she finishes with Mejis, her part in our ka-tet ends. Inside the ball, I was given a choice: Susan, and my life as her husband and father of the child she now carries ... or the Tower." Roland wiped his face with a shaking hand. "I would choose Susan in an instant, if not for one thing: the Tower is crumbling, and if it falls, everything we know will be swept away. There will be chaos beyond our imagining. We must go ... and we will go." Above his young and unlined cheeks, below his young and unlined brow, were the ancient killer's eyes that Eddie Dean would first glimpse in the mirror of an air*liner's bathroom. But now they swam with childish tears.
There was nothing childish in his voice, however.
"I choose the Tower. I must. Let her live a good life and long with someone else -- she will, in time. As for me, I choose the Tower."

[Letti]

And how would Susan have continued her life?

[Jean]

She would have become one of the casualties of Farson Revolution. You see, the main point of the quotation is, for me, the fact that Roland lost interest in her, not that he was about to leave her. I think they might even get married, and she would have had that grand Gilead wedding, - after which he would have ridden off, and she would have stayed to die along with the rest of the court when the rebels came. And - the most important - Roland would have either known, or deduced it, and suffered the same remorse. To immeasurably lesser extent was she his love than the biggest remorse of his life.

[LadyHitchhiker]

"I would choose Susan in an instant, if not for one thing: the Tower is crumbling, and if it falls, everything we know will be swept away. There will be chaos beyond our imagining. We must go ... and we will go."

That sounds to me like he felt he didn't HAVE a choice. He felt he had to save the world, and he sacrificed his love because of it.... Hmmm... But I shall think more about this.

[Jean]

Come on. That's why you had to stop and think - because you know what love is. Would you sacrifice someone your love for the sake of the world? To hell with the world.

[LadyHitchhiker]

Weeeelll me, I wouldn't think there was a chance I could save the world, so yes, to hell with the world and I would save my love... Why would Roland think that he would have a chance to save the world, let alone all worlds?

[Letti]

But if that world contains your love?

If she is somewhere out there but when the tower falls she and everyone else get lost in todash.

[Jean]

Precisely. But thinking that way when she is in immediate danger is hardly possible for the one who loves. The best he can do is to lull thimself into thinking that she is in no immediate danger... and when she dies, do you think he will ever be able to consolate himself with the thought he was out there saving worlds? It's another of those situations where rational thinking doesn't count.

[Letti]

Precisely. But thinking that way when she is in immediate danger is hardly possible for the one who loves. The best he can do is to lull thimself into thinking that she is in no immediate danger... and when she dies, do you think he will ever be able to consolate himself with the thought he was out there saving worlds? It's another of those situations where rational thinking doesn't count.

I don't know Jean.
For my part if I were in the same shoes
- I know the world can explode and fall anytime BUT there is some hope that I can do something to save it -
I am sure that if I didn't try it and I saw that the sky begins to tear itself apart and I looked at my love... for those moments I am still alive I wouldn't be able to forgive myself that I hadn't tried to save him.
But
If I were somewhere out there far far away from my love on the way to save the world (the big beautiful world whose beauty comes from HIS (my loves existence) contains him and I saw the same - that I am late and everything gets lost in some minutes - I am sure I would mind that I can't be next to him and I cannot gold his gand BUT I would have some peace some kind of relief in my heart that I had given it a try and I wasn't selfish. I didn't choose the moment.
I chose the chance.

*is reading it back*
I hope it makes some sense.

[Darkthoughts]

To immeasurably lesser extent was she his love than the biggest remorse of his life.

Perfect! You changed any arguments I had to the contrary with that statement

[Jean]

[Storyslinger]

I thought that if she had lived through the events in Mejis, her a Roland would have left Gilead after their return. He wouldn't have stayed to defend the white city, fore the fear of lossing her, and that would have ended the DT series

[Letti]

I can't imagine that Roland would have settled down with Susan forever.
Maybe he would have been able to spend some years with her. To give her children and love.
But one day - I think - he would have got up with the thought of the Tower and he would have said goodbye to his family very quickly. He might have had some farewell tears but that's all.

[Storyslinger]

If that were the case, there would be no tears. Roland only cried over one loss, and that was Jake, and even then it was hard for him. Tears just never seem to find a way to pass through his tough outer shell

[Letti]

I remmeber Eddie saw him crying not once... I can check it back when I get home but I do remember two times when he cried... (before book 7)

[Storyslinger]

Really......that is quite interesting, I would like to read this when you find this. Egg on my face

[Storyslinger]

Cool, Thanks

[Letti]

Really......that is quite interesting, I would like to read this when you find this. Egg on my face

I think I will be able to find them quite easily because it always shocked me when Roland strated to cry... I will type them when I find them.

If anyone can help I will be thankful.

[Storyslinger]

*waits for response*

[Jean]

as early as in TDOTT:

"I love you both." The gunslinger looked at Eddie, and Eddie saw that Roland's cheeks glistened red in what remained of the campfire's embered dying glow. He was weeping.
"That doesn't answer the question. You'll go on, won't you?"
"Yes."
"To the very end."
"Yes. To the very end."
"No matter what." Eddie looked at him with love and hate and all the aching dearness of one man's dying hopeless helpless reach for another man's mind and will and need.
The wind made the trees moan.
"You sound like Henry, man." Eddie had begun to cry himself. He didn't want to. He hated to cry. "He had a tower, too, only it wasn't dark. Remember me telling you about Henry's tower? We were brothers, and I guess we were gunslingers. We had this White Tower, and he asked me to go after it with him the only way he could ask, so I saddled up, because he was my brother, you dig it? We got there, too. Found the White Tower. But it was poison. It killed him. It would have killed me. You saw me. You saved more than my life. You saved my fuckin soul."
Eddie held Roland and kissed his cheek. Tasted his tears.

I am sure if we look attentively, we'll see even more examples than Nikolett and I can think of right away - although, much like her, I never imagined Roland as one of those never-crying macho-men.

[Storyslinger]

Thanks Jean, but I wasn't implying that he was a macho never cry man, but that he didn't know how, if that makes any sense