Originally Posted by
Jean
I don't know about "more" or "less" real, or how it applies to a piece of fiction... I think that, for example, claming that it is "based on a true story" only subtracts from its qualities as work of literature... but here I believe we have to do with entirely different kind of shit.
The Dark Tower is what holds all universes together; it is both the product and the source of Sai King's inspiration; if there are all universes, there must, logically, be the one where the Dark Tower saga is written, as well. In some way, it makes the saga kind of meta-fiction, literature comprising and justifying all literature, and describing its source (the source of all existence as well, but it's irrelevant now) as eternally reflected in indefinite number or novels, stories, songs, even movies. If we disregard that, we'll be as dissatisfied with, to name just one instance, the Seven Samurai motif in Wolves. One may like or dislike it, but it's intrinsic to the very nature of the Dark Tower, both the phenomenon and the books. The inner logic of its development brought us to the storyteller, because he, like everything else, exists in one the worlds generated and held together by the Tower, like it brought us to Roland himself, who is, after all, Childe Roland who to the dark tower came. Dismissing King as a character, we dismiss most everything that holds the book together and makes it unique.